As a trans woman online, it would be hard to miss that many other trans people really seem to enjoy before and after photos.

On the left, they'll share an older pre-transition photo of themselves and how they moved about in the world and then on the right, a photo of themselves as they are now.

When I see these posts, it's compliments about and often a chorus of "wow!" and "what a glow up!" and "there's no way that's the same person!"

Especially when dysphoric feelings are high (and they are for me right now), it seems like a nice thing to participate in.

I never have, however, and unless things change, I don't see it happening.

Self-Dealing in Psychic Damage

After a recent wave of before-and-after on Bluesky, I began to rummage through some old digital photos from before transition. I don't have many of them: in addition to a longstanding habit of running away from cameras, when I last organized old digital photos, I deleted most of what did include me.

Still, among the few that remain, when met with that bearded (literal and figurative), ruddy (too much salt, too much beer: another figurative beard), and moony face (too much salt, fat, and beer: another figurative beard) looking back at me, I didn't feel good. At all.

While everyone else around me can see a massive difference in my appearance between then and now, I have a hard time seeing major differences that can't otherwise be explained by the the weight I've lost in the time since, clothes, and hair dye.

My upper brain knows that this is just dysphoric thinking, but my lower brain doesn't, and it's my lower brain that likes to determine how I feel at a given moment. I know that I'm not actually good at intellectualizing my feelings away - even if therapists around the land know it's the only real tactic I have.

To make matters worse, since I have clearly discounted or priced in the effects of my HRT already (to say nothing of things usually taking longer at my age), in my current "struggles with food", I find myself absolutely paranoid that gaining some weight back will also effectively detransition me by settling new weight in all of the wrong places.

This fear isn't entirely without some basis in reality and while maintaining consumption at too low a level just makes my body even more stubborn at holding on to what it has, when all of this is combined, it just means that when the meeting the threat comes down to fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, I'm frozen stiff.

I suppose this is just when it's like when in your mind your body is betraying you in two ways that overlap in some ways and in other ways have their own unique processes.

While I know that the healthier choices must win out in the end, the road getting there isn't exactly a comfortable one.

I will likely have to let one of these betrayals happen - at least temporarily - and deal with the fallout than try to keep avoiding it.

Update (2026/05/29): This evening, I was collecting older "not in Ottawa" photos for editing/sharing (when the mood strikes) and came across a few more Charlotte-and-Kathleen on vacation selfies.

Nope. Painful. Deleted.

May 29, 2026 May 28, 2026