DIY Packing boxers

If you’re like me, there’s no way you’re buying a fancy packer strap. So here’s a super simple tutorial on how I sewed some of my boxers to fit my packer!

Pls excuse my shitty illustrations I drew them with a sharpie and I’m sleepy rn.

Step 1. Get a pair of boxers with an open fly. The open fly is important because it gives you two layers of fabric to sew a pocket.

Step 2. Sew a little pocket for your packer to sit in. Make sure you position/plan it correctly before sewing so your packer sits in a natural place in your pants.

Step 3. (Inside view yolo) Cut a little hole on the top through the first layer of cloth on the inside only. This is so you can slip your packer inside the little pocket you have just sewn.

That’s it! Im no professional seamstress but I’m a punk, and DIY till I die. Packing is for everyone!!

I guess I’m posting twice this morning

Are you an NHS GP?

Did a young person tell you they're doing DIY HRT?

No the fuck they didn't.

If you want them to live, keep it to your fucking self.

So I've been on DIY hormones (pure E for right now, hoping to get on Bica soon), and am experiencing negative side effects with regards to my sexuality. Most notably: m'dick don't work right. Obviously, this is part of the package, but... like... I'd really prefer if it wasn't? There are cute boys I need to creampie!

Does anyone have any advice on how to fix this situation? I'm gonna ask my doctor about boner pills, but like... I wanna be horny and slutty and my gock being a flopsy noodle is making that difficult.

For the past few months I've been experimenting with using black cohosh to enable healthily having 0 estrogen and 0 testosterone (i.e. eunuch or castrate levels) and I wanna share the results! It was pretty promising so I think this could be cool as a new biological sex that people could transition to

Permanent removal of hair (experiment)

Alrighty. So, you want to permanently remove hair on your face (or elsewhere I guess) but can't afford/otherwise can't do electrolysis? Well, here's my experiment with this. If anyone wants to attempt it with me, I'd be very happy, but note that there are risks and it also may not work quite as well as you want.

First: If you have a needle, a battery (or better yet, a variable power supply), you can literally just do electrolysis on yourself just like they do commercially. You take the power source (ideally 4.5 volts, but absolutely no higher than 5 and 3 works okay) put the negative side or a wire attached to that side (the anode) somewhere around 3 inches away from where you're planning on doing the electrolysis. You then take the positive side, attach it to a (obviously it needs to be metal) needle. The thinner the better so that it can fit in the follicles better with less stabbing through skin. You carefully put the needle into the follicle and avoid stabbing yourself. If working with 3 volts, leave the needle in for 5-10 seconds or until the pain gets bad. If working with 5 volts, no more than 5 seconds. You just do this to all the hair follicles and then pluck them out. I'd say it barely hurts but I have a relatively high pain tolerance. Having done this to myself, I can guarantee that this works for permanent hair removal but you'll need to do it multiple times for complete success.

Second: (the possibly new method) You'll need baking soda (I used the cheap cleaning grade), boric acid, a power supply (either variable power supply or two 9 volt batteries), a small piece of cloth, two wires, a jar, and tweezers. I'm not positive that the boric acid or baking soda are necessary, you may be able to just use salt or baking soda on their own (but I can't vouch for them as I have not tried). Basically, you dissolve the boric acid and baking soda in water such that the baking soda is saturated (there is still some at the bottom which can't dissolve), then you soak the small cloth in it, wipe the area with the problem hairs with the cloth, re-soak the cloth, lightly squeeze the cloth so that it isn't dripping, wrap the cloth around a section of one of the wires, attach the cloth wire to the positive and the normal wire to the negative, hold the negative in 1 hand and with the other you carefully move the electrified cloth over the hairs. This should preferentially kill the hair follicles as the sodium hydroxide formed at the cathode will attack both the skin and the hair, but if the solution is placed on the face before the electrolysis, the solution will fill up the follicles, allowing for electricity to pass through them. And since the follicles allow for easier transport of electrons than through the skin, most of the electrolysis should be occurring in the follicles. Now, naturally electrolyzing a sodium salt on your face (especially at the 18-21 volts that seems to work best with this) has risks, like chemical burns and dehydrating the skin. In my case at least, I did not notice any negative effects other than dry skin. As of a week after attempting this, there's no regrowth, but that's also kinda expected since plucked hairs don't usually regrow that fast. One very good sign, however, is that the hairs that got electrolyzed were extremely easy to pluck out relative to the ones that weren't. So, even if this process is not a permanent removal technique, it makes plucking hair way easier and less painful. In 8-10 weeks I'll be able to say definitively how well this works. In case it's not obvious, don't do this if you have a pacemaker just in case. Also, a warning: I attempted this while having a septum piercing. Accidentally touching that metal ring with 20 volts was kinda crazy. My vision flashed white and I was left with a headache for the next 8 hours. I'm honestly still mildly concerned about it, but we're probably okay now.

Cheap (kinda) DIY hormone testing

Hormone level testing is something that came became an issue during my transition; I am going through my doctor for HRT, and my health insurance bit me in the ass. Since my doc is a small practice, they ship my samples out to get tested, and insurance only covers hormone tests if they take place AT my GP's practice. Like, in the physical building the sample was collected int. A weird cutout, but I assume it's something meant to fuck me over intentionally, and I can't make them budge on it.

So, I switched to an at-home, mail-in hormone test. I'm putting my two cents out there, just in case it helps anyone, I assume the DIY-ers out there are already aware of stuff like this. The test I ordered is from ZRT Lab:

Specifically, I ordered the "Hormone Trio" blood spot sample. There is a saliva sample method available (spit in a cup vs wipe blood on a sample paper), but their own research papers indicate the saliva sample isn't as accurate for testosterone, so I went with the blood spot method. It's not CHEAP by any means, at $130, but it's certainly cheaper than the $500 I WAS CHARGED by the local university hospital to do the SAME TESTS!

There is a caveat in the fine print that you should be aware of: California residents still need a doctor's note for ZRT Lab to process their samples. I don't know why, it's stupid, but it's a clear line that they draw.

This is the cheapest test I was able to find for these hormones, everything else either left out progesterone, or cost close to (or over) $200. I don't know if transmasc people need any other hormones tested, but for me, a transfemme, the three in the Hormone Trio test (Estradiol, Progesterone, and Testosterone) were the exact 3 my doctor was looking for.

As far as how easy it is to use, I found it very straightforward: it includes a lancet to poke a hole in one of your fingertips (the instructions said to go into the side of the finger at a weird angle, but I couldn't get enough blood to take samples, so I gave up and went right in the middle of my fingerprint, that worked much better), then drip blood onto the indicated spots on the sample card. Let the samples dry overnight, then pack it up and ship as directed (it comes with a prepaid shipping label).

On top of that, I was surprised at how little information they require to process a sample. there is a form sent with the kit, and I only included my name (chosen, not legal), age, gender, email, and a list of current medications. I also had to fill out at least one "symptom" (since they didn't have "is trans" in there, I just chose "mild anxiety", literally just pick anything), I know this because I DIDN'T choose a symptom at first, and they actually called me after they received it, telling me they need at least one symptom in order to process the sample. The nice lady on the phone actually started reading out all 50+ possible symptoms, I took pity on her and stopped her pretty quick ("oh you said anxiety? yeah, sure, that one".)

All in all, it took about 10 days from when I shipped the sample, to the results being posted in their online portal.

All in all, I'm happy with how easy and cheap (compared to the alternative) this test was, and I'll probably be using them for the foreseeable future, unless of course my insurance gets it's head screwed on straight and actually starts helping me instead of just charging me to do nothing, but we all know they'd light themselves on fire before actually helping anyone 😊

Oh, yeah, and this isn't an ad or anything, I did my own research and paid for the test in full, it's just a regular old review.

Thinking i might try DIY HRT pretty soon

I don't have enough cash to see an Endo but as long as I don't overdose I'll be fine

I've been taking different meds my whole life so I'm not too worried about overdosing

It'll still be something like 160 a month so it's not cheap. Starting to think asking for forgiveness from a GP will do better than getting on the waiting list. Might be able to get a prescription so it'll be cheaper but we'll find out I guess

I used bleach to not only tie dye bur also to lighten this crop top I Was given. Beforehand the colours where an oddly dark almost Murky blue and pink and using a diluted bleach solution I was able to brighten them up nicely after the initial tie dye. Really happy with how this one worked out!

Meet yourself where you're at

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the nice part of my bf's tgel bottle lasting more than a month each time is that the extra gets to go on my thighs <3

[ID in alt text] 16/25+ of my LGBTQIA+ boots series! transgender flag themed 🏳️‍⚧️ stickers or prints of this series here

Doctor Phlox says DIY!!

Hey, remember how just a few weeks ago trans folks were sounding the alarm about how The Gaurdian was seeking interviews for a story about DIY HRT?

And remember how there were a few folks on here who were saying that was misinformation cause some folks at the Gaurdian said it was false on twitter?

Lo and behold, turns out you should trust your own community more than the fucking journalists with a heavy anti-trans reputation! Use common sense next time and don't be so naive!

Week 6! Now with added Bicalutamide!

Given the Cass report, it looks like DIY is the only real option left for trans people in the UK. There's been a lot of good posts going around about DIYing via online pharmacies (i.e. https://diyhrt.wiki/) but I wanna share some resources for doing transfem DIY from pharmaceutical raws, which is orders of magnitude cheaper than the alternatives over the long term (a lifetime supply of estradiol set me back USD $150).

Here's my guide, focused on sublingual: https://pi.alla.loan/estrojunkie/

Here's a longer and more thorough google doc, with somewhat more details on the process of ordering raws: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rK91wadC4c3Zh2CNfKAVuIsTYZsQagA0F_iMDVM7Wr4/edit?usp=drivesdk

Here's a subreddit focused on using raw estradiol to make DIY estrogel (good for monotherapy, all the info you need is in their FAQ and wiki): https://old.reddit.com/r/estrogel/

Here's a guide on making buccal "stickies" for those who dislike gel and sublingual: https://stickies.neocities.org/stickies

and I always gotta rec https://transfemscience.org/articles/transfem-intro/ and every other article on that site for if you want to really understand HRT on a deeper level (not necessary for DIY though)