(This is a throwaway alt for my main lemmy account because I don't want to doxx myself. I'm an ally, and my daughter is transfem, but I understand I am not. If I need to remove this post, please let me know.)
Hey all
Early this year I came out as enby. The day I came out, I decided to do something with my mid-back length long hair to feel more femme. As I combed it and actually looked in the mirror for the first time in years, I saw I had thinning hair, looked with an additional mirror/my phone, and sadly came to the realization I had the first few steps of male pattern baldness. I can still 'hide' it by combing my hair back, using a small-tooth comb, etc, but soon I won't be able to hide it.
To my surprise this caused me a massive amount of dysphoria, and I realised that I had only ever been 'clocked' as feminine due to my hair, so I had made the connection between the two. I can't use the hair foams because they are toxic to cats and I would rather die than hurt my cat. I tend to react negatively to a fair number of medicines so the pill options are pretty scary, particularly with 'permanent E.D.' being out there. My doctor said I was a good candidate for microneedling/hair transplants, but those are far, far too expensive for me.
My male friends just told me to buzz it off and be done with it. My female/enby friends told me to keep it long for now and go back to my hairdresser when it becomes harder to hide.
I wanted to reach out to my transfem sisters and siblings to see:
Do if any of you had any advice for someone who feels at least part feminine, but doesn't know what to do to be more femme when shaved headed, or like when to shave their head, etc? Should I just work on my makeup/earring/accessory skills?
Thank you so much <3
Forgot to say I am from Canada if that helps any.
I dunno where you are, but you might be able to get finasteride (to stop hairloss) and minoxidil (to regain hair) from your GP or from a specialist that your GP refers you to. Another thing I've heard that might help is a dermaroller, but apparently that takes a long time to have any effect, and it probably works best with finasteride.
The only real way to stop hairloss is to deal with the cause which is DHT, a specific hormone. Finasteride/dutasteride are DHT blockers.
I haven't used any of these things myself, but I've done some light research on behalf of my brother, and I've seen people discus these things before elsewhere.
Best of luck ๐ ๐ค ๐ ๐ค
Thanks for your response :)
My doctor and I discussed finasteride/minoxidil and one of the issues is that I have had (extremely) poor responses to a whole bunch of medications. The worry is that I will get one of the more severe ones given my past experience, sadly :(
Thanks for your response though, I'll try to get another doctor appointment and discuss those drugs as soon as I can.