24/7

Ok so I'm sure people have asked this before but I was crious about a specific topic in CDing. Has anyone done it 24/7. Now I know TG ladies do, they take hormones and go through all that good stuff to make it a permanent change however I'm curious if anyone does or thinks its viable to go through a differnt set of steps and make a permanent change (without hormones). I know that you can have hair removed and plastic surgery to change oneself however I haven't found any serious resources on that lifestyle. Everywhere I go with permanence in it involves hormones and such.

Now I don't want to step on anyones toes with this question so I'll try and give some backround as to why I'm asking this. My fiance has been helping me through the process of becoming more feminine. We shop together, do our makeup together... heck we do all that great stuff together. We talked about the possability of Rachel being around for the long haul and after a few months of talking about the topic (and a few decades for me to think about it lol) she told me with complete confidence that she wanted me to pass 100% and that she wouldn't mind a life with her Rayray.

However, the reason I can't consider hormones is every resource I've found on the topic states that you will not be able to have children after using them (which is totaly obvious hehe). Kids are an important part of what we see in the future so with that said hormones are a no-no.

I'm not 100% sure what my question is, but I was just crious if anyone does live CDed 100% of the time or if its possible... I'm sure anything is possible if you put your mind to it. :o

Anything is possible if you put your mind to it and with the support of a GG who is okay with this your odds are even better.

I have aspired to live 7/24 and do live a large percentage of my life femme so I know that it is possible. The being 100% passable without surgery and hormones I feel may be harder to achieve, however, if you are okay with doing a decent job of looking like a female and do not mind that people realize that you are a male then it is highly possible. I have found that if I do my best to look my best and do my best to blend in that even if people do realize and often they do, that they do not mind and I am bale to get on with all of my normal business without problem.

I am sure that there will always be challenging situations and I do have some cases where I dress in a sort of male mode (I have no male clothes and my male look still looks pretty femme) but they are rare.

Good luck on your journey.

Melissa

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Originally Posted by Rachel_Red

I'm sure anything is possible if you put your mind to it. :o

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Quote for truth, I guess you answered yourself already ;)

I can't say from own experience, but I don't see why it shouldn't be possible. If you want to go all the way, then yes you'd sacrifice the possibility for children. But you can still do that later, never say never.

It's not easy, but take your time when making choices. It's about your life, what would you feel most comfortable doing?

Trying to make sense of all of our wonderful and confusing acronyms (TG, CD, TV, TS, etc.) is not easy. I try to simplify them to be able to make sense of that small but very broad spectrum of life. I see a CD as someone who likes to dress in the opposite gender, but is also content living in the original gender. However, when you say living full time 24/7 dressed in the opposite gender, I see that moving well beyond the CD part of the spectrum. I would call that TG and even TS. I believe that a TG is someone who is more interested in actually being a a person of the oppsite gender up to and including full time. A then TS is someone who believes and is mentally and emotionally a person of the opposite physical gender to which they were born. Being a TS does not mean that one really needs to transition, if they decide that they can live in the opposite birth gender and only dress the part, or not. Internally, they know who and what they are.

So, in answer to your question I could see a CD living 24/7 occasionally for fun, or maybe to decide if they may be more than a CD. However, I do not think they would want to live 24/7 forever. I see that as someone who has progressed beyond the CD definition.

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Originally Posted by AllieSF

Trying to make sense of all of our wonderful and confusing acronyms (TG, CD, TV, TS, etc.) is not easy. I try to simplify them to be able to make sense of that small but very broad spectrum of life. I see a CD as someone who likes to dress in the opposite gender, but is also content living in the original gender. However, when you say living full time 24/7 dressed in the opposite gender, I see that moving well beyond the CD part of the spectrum. I would call that TG and even TS. I believe that a TG is someone who is more interested in actually being a a person of the oppsite gender up to and including full time. A then TS is someone who believes and is mentally and emotionally a person of the opposite physical gender to which they were born. Being a TS does not mean that one really needs to transition, if they decide that they can live in the opposite birth gender and only dress the part, or not. Internally, they know who and what they are.

So, in answer to your question I could see a CD living 24/7 occasionally for fun, or maybe to decide if they may be more than a CD. However, I do not think they would want to live 24/7 forever. I see that as someone who has progressed beyond the CD definition.

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Ahh I see, thats a very interesting and indepth look at it. So then getting the acronym right realy helps to show your intent. With that said then I could say CDing for me is a path to a TS/TG lifestyle (jumping in blind can be a dangerous affair), that helps a lot... at least with definition and being able to communicate my goals. Thanks for clearing up the terms... I remember in psych class back in college they defined sex as what is between your legs :heehee: and gender was what role you played in life... or I'm confused hehe.

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Originally Posted by Rachel_Red

Has anyone done it 24/7. Now I know TG ladies do, they take hormones and go through all that good stuff to make it a permanent change however I'm curious if anyone does or thinks its viable to go through a differnt set of steps and make a permanent change (without hormones). I know that you can have hair removed and plastic surgery to change oneself however I haven't found any serious resources on that lifestyle. Everywhere I go with permanence in it involves hormones and such.

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Hormones (I speak from personal experience) soften the skin texture and redistribute body fat, giving you a bit more subcutaneous fat all around. Some males have naturally "fatty" or softer faces, some are very chiseled and rugged looking. If you're the latter, it's going to be tough to pass facially. Some have naturally smooth skin with small pores, without hormones. So I'd say it's not absolutely necessary, but hormones help if you aren't blessed with fine-pored skin and femme features.

Certainly you'd need to get laser/electro to zap the beard -- shadow and large-pored beard skin is not particularly passable. And if you got some facial feminization surgery (if you have a brutally male chin, nose or forehead) that would help a lot.

There's no reason you couldn't pass without hormones -- if you had decent skin texture and fat distribution, some femme facial features, and a small body frame format. (not too tall and heavily boned).

If I were fulltime, I'd get my whole body lasered -- it's a real pain to shave and fight the stubble battle. I'm en femme not quite full time -- 2 to 4 days a week. I've had my face mostly cleared for years -- that's huge.

Hormones do make you sterile. However you could always make use of a sperm bank.

Do I ever understand what you are saying! My goal is to be able to slide back and forth from masculine to feminine without batting an eyelash, and I have no intention of losing my male functions :).

There is so much available to reshape the male body without hormones, and that's the route I plan to go, that is whatever I might need to be comfortable passing. Maybe nothing will be required, and that would be ok. However, there is facial surgery available (even a yahoo website associated with it) and certainly laser hair removal. Beyond that there is taking care about your body weight and which muscles you strengthen.

Basically there is a lot you can do to rearrange and remold yourself short of hormones. Once you've done that, you may have gotten far enough down the road that the sterility issue is a past tense in your thinking (i.e. you have all the children you want) and you might then take another step.

I hope for all the best in your goals, and I think so much of your SO!

tina

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Originally Posted by Christina66

Hormones do make you sterile. However you could always make use of a sperm bank.

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That's cheating, that's what I was thinking.:D

I actually think about that alot. I have been wondering about, and even seriously considering hormones. I've been doing tons of reading and for now I'm taking it slow. I have already started on laser hair removal though and it is WONDERFUL! I've only undergone 1 treatment so far, but I've gone from almost yeti to having some spots where there just isn't any hair at all, particularly on my face.

Hormones would be great except for one thing. In my case it's not kids; I love them, but don't want any of my own. It's family and some friends. None of them know about Helen, only Robert, so living as a CD and being able to change back to Robert with a slightly feminine twist (hair, mannerism, etc) could be doable I think. My parents are well into their 70s, almost 80, so that may not be as much of an issue for much longer, not that I'm wishing that they'd die or anything like that. I'd still have the rest of my family to deal with, but with the exception of really confusing my 12 year nephew and really scaring the hell out of my dad's side of the family in rural GA I don't think that they would mind if I lived as a CD 24/7, which I gues if you're living as a CD 24/7 that would by default make you a TG. I do sometmes hate labels, but humans need them. My dog just says woof or howls!:D

I'm absolutely fascinated by your initial post and look forward to hearing more. I'm in the very fortunate position to have an SO that would be supportive as well. It sounds like you're on a journey and I wish you the best of luck on it.

Thank you for your support. I wanted to ask... does laser hurt much (I've heard that any permanent hair removal does, which sounds logical). Regardless of if or if it dosn't I'm still going to go for it I just want to know what I have to look forward to lol. :Pullhair:

I have heard from TS friends,that laser hair removal can hurt,but I've never heard any of them say they weren't going to go through with it to achieve their aim of Transition.Think the term no pain,no gain applies here

lasor treatment does not hut that much and it soon goes.
As to hormones i have had them awhile and things still work. just not as frequant.

I keep intending to start a thread on here with pictures of me at various stages, but I haven't. Right now I'm doing the face, chest, abdomen, back, upper and lower arms and underarms. It's a 3 day thing. They could do it all in one day, but they told me that the laser needs to rest periodically, which makes sense, so I'd have to sit and wait and then go back in. For me it's much easier to do it over 3 days. Especially since the place that I'm going to is only 1.5 miles from me and takes all of 5 minutes to get there, which is really cool considering how many places I looked at.

So back to your original question. It is painful, but only in spots. Different people seem to find it more painful in different areas. I've been told told that the underarms are normally painful, but for me they weren't. Oddly enough the chest from nipple to nipple across the sternum was extremely painful, along with the center of what would be a moustache (what we called the "snot canal" when I was a kid, right under the nose) was majorly painful. The chin wasn't as bad as I had thought that it would be, especially since the tech told me "this is going to hurt." All in all it's definitely worth it, but it is pricey.

Since my first session I haven't shaved my underarms at all and can't find any hair there, but then I'm not looking at it with a magnifying mirror or anything, just a glance. My lower arms are almost hairless. The hair on my chest, back and abdomen are much less dense. Now the funny part is that I MUST shave every day since I now get odd splotches of hair here and there and it doesn't just look unseemly, but positively odd. Of course hair grows in cycles and it's only been 3 weeks, so my next cycle of hair should be coming in soon. I have my treatments spread 7 weeks apart; they said that 6-8 weeks was optimal, so 7 works for me.

There is a gel that you can put on your skin that's suppose to reduce the pain, but the laser techs have all said that they almost never use it as it reduces the effectiveness of the laser.

One thing to look into is what laser they're using. I went to a lecture at SCC this past year and the people that put it on were all about the Candela Gentlase. When I did some looking around here I found a place that used that same laser. I have also spoken to a number of people on here and elsewhere that have had laser hair removal and some of them had poor results at other places that used other lasers and then later went to a place that used this laser and I do not know of anyone that has had it done with this laser that has had bad results. Just make sure that they're not trying to sell you on something that you don't want. The initial counsultation that I had was with one of the laser techs and she kept asking me, "are you sure that you want to do this," and "you know that this is going to be expensive." They didn't try to sell me on anything.

My legs and nether regions will come later. I'll probably start that part of it late this year. I asked the P.A. about doing the nether regions and if they had any issues with that and she said that it was no problem. All 3 of the laser techs at this place are also R.N.s and there are doctors on staff there as well, 3 plastic surgeons that primarily work the other side doing cutting stuff, but at least one of them is always there.

One thing that you need to know is that light hair, such as blonde hair, or gray hair will not do well at all with laser hair removal. After the first treatment on my face, and after a few weeks when the dead hair follicles had all come out, I didn't shave for a few days and I could find every gray hair that I had in my beard and moustache. It'll have to come out later by way of electrolysis. I don't know for sure, but it's more expensive, likely more painful, and much more time consuming.

There are some home lasers on the market, but don't waste your money. If you could really get the results that you want with a $700 ebay laser why would a doctor pay upwards or $25,000 for a laser? And if you could do it yourself then why would techs go through so much training and certification?

One last thing. I should have warned you that I can get long winded.:D Hope you don't mind.

One thing that I forgot. You will get a decent bit of swelling and redness right after a treatment, but it goes away in less than an hour and there is no residual pain. Though when they did my face I would swear that I spent most of the day smelling burnt hair!

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Originally Posted by Rachel_Red

Thank you for your support. I wanted to ask... does laser hurt much (I've heard that any permanent hair removal does, which sounds logical). Regardless of if or if it dosn't I'm still going to go for it I just want to know what I have to look forward to lol. :Pullhair:

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I am just finishing laser for the beard. Does it hurt? Yes. How Much? it depends on how dense the hair is and your pain tolerance. The pain lessens as more hairs die. I compare the pain to pulling the hairs out. Try pulling out two or three nose hairs, If you can tolerate that, you can do laser.

I hope you have a great time living your new life.

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Originally Posted by Kim_Bitzflick

I am just finishing laser for the beard. Does it hurt? Yes. How Much? it depends on how dense the hair is and your pain tolerance. The pain lessens as more hairs die. I compare the pain to pulling the hairs out. Try pulling out two or three nose hairs, If you can tolerate that, you can do laser.

I hope you have a great time living your new life.

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Hehe thanks! Yah I've done that a few times and my fiance is helping me pluck my eyebrows so if its anything like that then I can totally handle it! :D

If you want to go 24/7 and your Gf wants you to do just that, then you have a head start on others. Between the two of you if you can pass you can live the life of a woman. You will have to do all of the things a woman does all of the time as you will be trying to survive as a woman. It will be harder on you than on your Gf. You may want to get married before you take that leap

I have a close CD friend who has been living and working as a woman 24/7 for about 15 years. My friend has had electrolysis to remove her facial hair and has had breast implants. However, she has never had any other surgery and has never taken hormones. Although she has not had a female partner since the nasty divorce that occurred before she decided to live as a woman full time, she remains heterosexual and could still father children. So, the answer to your question is yes, it is possible.

Ok, I do think it's possible, but for 99.999% of people you're going to have to do a lot of surgery to counteract all of that testosterone constantly making your body mannish. And, you'll have to do upkeep (routine further surgeries) diet extremely to keep your musculature down, etc, since your body will never stop trying to be mannish. It's just what male hormones do to any person who is human.

That being said, I have come across one girl who did absolutely no surgery and hormones and passed. Granted, I can't see her figure, so I can't say it completely, but I said i'd admit it when I crossed it, so here ya go:

http://www.youtube.com/user/glennygi.../1/sHZLpGNkyEA

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Originally Posted by sherri52

If you want to go 24/7 and your Gf wants you to do just that, then you have a head start on others. Between the two of you if you can pass you can live the life of a woman. You will have to do all of the things a woman does all of the time as you will be trying to survive as a woman. It will be harder on you than on your Gf. You may want to get married before you take that leap

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I agree with your statement which is why I'm glad we're engaged :daydreaming:. I also agree that having a solid relationship before starting such a change is indeed the best path to take. When confronting such daunting challenges its always nice to have someone walk the path with you.

Im a fulltime TG and currently finishing my transition and taking hormones and had laser treatment and had support from my GG friends and there was pain along the way but it was worth it.

not quite 265/24/7, but I'm living pretty much full time CD when at home. Since I work from home, that comes close. But out in the larger world, I'm still en drab.

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Originally Posted by suchacutie

Do I ever understand what you are saying! My goal is to be able to slide back and forth from masculine to feminine without batting an eyelash, and I have no intention of losing my male functions :).

tina

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I feel the same way too. Problem is that even hair removal is outside my financial ability right now. And my wife even tells me she wishes I would go all the way with my transformation. I just don't know what to do to make it happen.

I'd think FFS might be a good step if you can afford it. In most cases it won't really detract from your "mannish" appearance should you decide it isn't for you but it definitely makes a huge difference when passing as a woman. Voice, FFS, hair removal and retraining your body to distinquish between flaming and feminine are the keys in my eyes.