a pallet jack is just an adolescent forklift :3

relevant meme

i'm so sorry Brooke, this sounds like a pretty messed up situation all around. nobody deserves to hear that, least of all you D:

as much as i'd like to come give you a hug that'd be geographically impossible, but i'm around on Matrix/Discord (see profile) and my DMs are always open if you want to chat (or just vent!) :)

wow, what a thoroughly researched comment, thanks so much for digging all that up! even if there doesn't seem to be much existing research wrt. estradiol, i now A) have an understanding of what they were getting at, and B) have quite a few specific things to ask the doctor.

in my experience you are correct, but there's a significant chance they'll react violently rather than just giving up and walking away.

also a surprisingly high percentage will not care and even double down (and occasionally you find these creeps intentionally looking for trans women). this is common enough that we have a slang term for them, "chasers".

thanks for the response :3

honestly the other user's comment freaked me out and i ended up reposting this to a bunch of places (asking both my original question and how reasonable the other response was), and so far all the other responses i've gotten back have been either "that seems totally within the range of normal" or "probably not a problem, maybe consider having it looked at if the bruising gets worse or it starts hurting", alongside a healthy smattering of "wow that person is way overreacting".

that said, i do appreciate y'all's concern and somewhat more critical take, and agree that it'd rather not take any unnecessary risks (even though it's pretty unlikey to be ER-worthy and jumping directly to cardiac tissue necrosis is most definitely an overreaction).

i think i'll go ahead and treat this as "potentially serious, but not urgent": my next step (after i sleep, because it is now 2:45am and i am still winding down from the brief adrenaline shot of "fuck do i have to go to the ER") is gonna be to shoot an email to this one doctor (not mine) a few towns over who i've heard is very actively supportive of DIY, and see if he has anything to say or knows who i should reach out to. and failing that, i have a few other potential local contacts who might be able to help me get in touch with doctors who won't be weird about me injecting myself with graymarket estrogen without medical supervision.

oh wow, same height as me :)

yeah, starting HRT and knowing that any weight i gain would actually go where i wanted it made me finally get serious about putting on weight (despite my best efforts, i'm effectively a full-time jack skellington cosplayer with a BMI of 16). sadly putting on any weight at all has proven to be much more difficult than expected, but i'm steadily working up to my calorie goal, and have a newfound respect for anyone who has managed to pull it off :3

i keep selecting "male" on the form every time i get my blood work done, because the results include a column which shows the "reference value", and it will never stop being funny to me that both my values are approximately an order of magnitude outside of their expected range

holy heck you sound like an awesome person to hang out with, unfortunately i am on the other side of the planet

clearly they're putting something in the linux which turns the friggin kids trans. maybe you'd know something about that, mr. John Tech?

transparent nail polish is nice, also i can say that just plain black nail polish feels very fem compared to nothing at all, but gets read as pretty androgynous. i painted my nails black for like 4 months straight and nobody said a thing; within a day of adding other colors there were multiple people who brought it up (both supportive and not). in other words, black nails are ideal for feeling fem while boymoding :3

yeah exactly
mrrrrrprrrrp meowo meow :3

more small meals through the day rather than one or two large meals helps.

yeah this was a breakthrough realization for me, it doesn't feel like as much food if you spread each meal into a bunch of little snacks

i went from 155 [lbs]

something something one girl's starting point is another girl's goals smh
in all seriousness, congrats on managing to pack on the pounds, 30lbs in 1 year is no joke. if you don't mind me asking, how tall are you?