My lazy hack for debugging any program is running the main executable from the command line. That usually streams the logs into the terminal and helps me debug from there.

There’s a scene in Walker Texas Ranger that I happened to catch when I was ~10 years old. Walker, the Texas Ranger, is surrounded by a dozen gangsters. Each gangster has either a pistol or a light sub-machine gun. They are seconds away from turning him into swiss cheese when he speaks up and says something like: “be a man, take me on mano y mano”. The gangsters all look at each other and proceed to silently agree. Then proceeds 5 minutes of - one by one - each gangster getting their proverbial ass handed to them. As each gangster tossed aside their gun, it got more and more absurd that they wouldn’t realize he had a black belt and simply shoot him; ala Indiana Jones in the sword fight.

The very fact that sexual abuse of a minor is being conflated with immigration shows how far we’ve fallen. This document from the National Institute of Justice shows that the data indicates illegal immigrants have a much lower crime rate than citizens. The issue isn’t that they are immigrants, it’s that they’re criminals. They were presumably committing similar crimes (or at least capable of doing so in Mexico). I’m not any happier knowing that a pedophile is now in Mexico/El Salvador. I want justice and reform. We should always strive for justice and reform. These illegal immigrants aren’t the only ones committing these crimes. As I said earlier: largely, it’s legal citizens committing these crimes. We need to create a system of justice and reform. We need to be able to handle citizens and illegal immigrants.

Obviously this administration would prefer to take every criminal and push them outside of our borders. Like I said, I don’t care if a crime is committed in or out of my borders. I want justice and reform. I want to live in a world where crimes like this are basically non-existent. And I want to live in a world where people with these issues don’t become repeat offenders.

Conflating immigration with these types of crimes is just making it harder for us to address the real issues with our justice and reformation system (lack thereof). Not to mention, we are basically just wasting money and time focusing on illegal immigrant crime when the bigger issue is crime being committed by citizens. It’s like we cut off our arm, but as the arm fell to the ground one of the fingernails broke. So, this administration is spending all of its efforts on fixing the broken fingernail - and failing to patch the profuse loss of blood coming from its shoulder.

FWIW this was the negative comment I got:

You fucked your wife for fun, and now you’re going to be a dad? For the first time? And you’re dropping this on her and your child(ren)?

It was much longer and had a lot more context but it was pretty rough.

I really appreciate your comment. I edited my post (probably as you were typing this out) to indicate that I’m not exactly opposed to transitioning at this point. I’m more opposed to HRT. And it’s almost entirely rooted in my fertility. I just want to be able to have more kids. Everything I’ve read online indicates that - if I want kids - I should assume HRT will cause infertility. I think I’m ready to start taking smaller steps to transitioning, but I fully acknowledge that they will likely not be enough in the long term. I just don’t know what to do since my wife and I have been planning on having 2-3 kids by the time we were done.

That’s mostly why I’m going to go to therapy. I don’t want to go to “conversion therapy” or anything like that. I’m not trying to stop this process. I’m just trying to find a way to have my cake and eat it too. I want to be able to have kids and a wife and transition. My wife indicates that she’s fine with me transitioning but she still wants more kids. Obviously, that has a lot of things wrapped up in it. But generally speaking, it seems like - if HRT didn’t cause infertility - I’d be able to start as soon as possible. I’m hoping therapy can clarify what my goals are. I might find out that I want to go on HRT quite quickly. But I might also find out I’m comfortable with waiting. Right now, I feel this strong urge to just start. I feel like I’m losing time to be who I want to be. But I also feel compelled to have a bigger family because I, personally, benefited from having siblings who have been a source of strength and comfort when I needed it most. I want my daughter to have that too.

So, I guess I’m just waiting to see how therapy goes. In the meantime, I’m going to start all the other things I can do to reach my goals. Diet, exercise, hair care, skin care, etc. I had no idea that HRT was considered - essentially - the only effective treatment for dysphoria. That definitely changes my perspective on it, but I just feel stuck due to those fertility issues! Even as I’m typing this out I feel like I’m bouncing back and forth. HRT, wife, kids. The constant mental cycle just feels unclear. I just think a qualified therapist will get me some clarity before I make any choices.

I edited my post because I was incorrectly using “transition” as a stand-in for HRT, which is way off.

I figured that would be the general consensus, but I received some pretty negative comments about having a family and then coming out trans. As someone in their 30’s, internet hate shouldn’t bum me out, but when it comes to my family it definitely hit me.

I don’t really see myself as entirely hiding from my child. I plan on telling them my personal experiences, choices, etc. I might even start using she/her pronouns by the time she learns to talk. But I don’t want to lose my fertility by going on HRT just yet. Plus, I’m going to therapy which might change my personal goals for transitioning. Frankly, I don’t think it will. I think I will ultimately go on HRT, but I’m open to changing.

Will do. I don’t really know the meta stuff about instances so hopefully .world isn’t considered toxic. I joined 2 years ago and I have a bit of a history with the account that I don’t want to lose.

Wow that’s close to my timeline. Any advice?

I’m happy you’re able to start the journey! If you’re comfortable, I’d love to hear about your updates in this community.

Sorry you’re feeling unsafe in the south. I understand what that’s like. The US is just such a mess these days.

You did it! 🎉

I’m just to here to let you know that, generally speaking, I relate to your experiences. I live in a very conservative neighborhood. My neighbors all wave Trump flags and follow typical conservative-y patterns. It makes it difficult for my lefty wife and I to feel comfortable in those spaces. We are doing our best to ingratiate ourselves with the community, but I fear there is a strong barrier to fully entering it. Despite that we are trying to join volunteer organizations within our small town. If we are lucky, maybe we can find a couple liberal minded people. I find that volunteering usually means you’ll end up with (at least) someone who is open minded and interested in improving their community. I miss Meetups. It used to be much bigger and I had some success many years ago.

I know it’s probably hard to understand or believe me, but on the other side of things I cannot believe I didn’t do this decades ago, there is so much grief at how much of my life I lost.

Oh I totally get it. I’ve been lamenting not transitioning for quite a few years now. The only thing keeping me from committing is really not believing it would work, which I’m beginning to realize is pretty foolish. There are obviously a lot of social reasons that make those excuses easy. I think, ironically, I went to therapy and it cracked my egg, but I started taking Sertraline and it fixed my mood. In a sad way, I think it kind of masked the underlying dysphoria that was causing my to feel depressed in the first place.

Congratulations!

I think of that allllll the time. In Star Trek, they can do surgery to turn you into a Klingon. Surely they can make me a woman lol

Right now, the biggest blocker for me is fertility. My wife and I have a child already but we are planning on more. I don’t want to risk losing fertility for now.

I have read the Gender Dysphoria Bible but not the intro to HRT for Transfem people. Your anecdotal evidence gives me a lot of hope and courage for sure. Thank you so much for all of that feedback.

I’m hoping I can get lucky with my genetics. I definitely don’t have it in the face lol but maybe if I lose some weight it’ll help.

Woah I thought that was going to be the biggest factor. I had no idea it was so cost effective.

Are the hormones pretty expensive?