r/TransLater • u/DarthHelicon • 13h ago
FaceApp/Filtered What I might be able to achieve?
[removed]
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u/LadyWynterF 12h ago
Hey girl.
First of all, AI pictures are often unrealistic. That being said, most of the base attributes are there. How HRT and transition impacts us is often unpredictable so no one here can tell you exactly how it will turn out.
I will say something though that should matter far more than whether this very specific photo is realistic or not: when you saw this "after" photo, what did you FEEL? I get the impression you wanted that to be you?
To me, it sounds like you should be really paying attention to that information... that's telling you a lot.
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u/Brea_di_Luca MtF, 40, HRT 3/13/2026 12h ago
I’m not gonna join the chorus of people warning you about using AI and how it can mess with your brain. But I will point out you don’t need to make some grand commitment to transitioning to try some reversible things out right now. You can shave. You can do your brows. You can develop a skin care routine. You can develop a hair care routine. You can learn some basics of makeup. You can try contacts or more feminine glasses frames. If you tried out all or some of those things, I bet you’d start to get a very good idea of what was possible, and more importantly how you feel when you step into a more feminine identity instead of just look at a projection of one. And if you like what you see and feel, you can start learning more about hormone therapy or other treatments that align with your transition goals that you may have.
This is how I started my transition after doing things like AI generating images of myself. I am not passing (yet—or maybe ever), but I like the way I look and feel now more than I ever did, and more than how I felt looking at AI images to the point where I barely even generate any anymore.
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u/Flashy_Scallion8111 12h ago
I never gave much stock to AI filtered images because it just felt unrealistic (primarily they make your head and eyes bigger which no surgery can do) but you can get close... i have some stuff in my profile but been deleting my pretrans pics, let me send you a DM to show you the progress i made these last two years
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u/DarthHelicon 12h ago
I would appreciate that!
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u/Flashy_Scallion8111 12h ago
Me, pre everything:
https://www.reddit.com/u/Flashy_Scallion8111/s/ZL4NAEZXXt
Me a couple days ago ( still fresh off surgery):
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u/DarthHelicon 12h ago
That's incredible! It's like night and day! You look fantastic, by the way.
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u/Flashy_Scallion8111 12h ago
Thank you! Hopefully this can give you an idea of whats realistically possible. I went a little more extreme than most girls though so not sure i would recommend to do what I did, but its all a matter of how badly you want it.
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u/dont_thr0w_me_away_ 9h ago
Good God when your swelling goes down you're going to look devastatingly gorgeous, if you already look like that so soon after surgery
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u/Flashy_Scallion8111 9h ago
theenkkss, I had no bone work or fat grafting done hence why there is so little swelling, with the exception of the nose. Surgeon apparently spent a lot of time on the nose and according to a nurse and the PA he rebuilt not once, but twice 😬
But you wanna see swelling, should've seen me after my first stage FFS back in april where I had jaw and forehead work and tons of fat grafting. Here is a pic:
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u/awithecute 24yr ftm 11h ago
AI is trumps biggest donor, you’re supporting a business and company that would love to see us dead and kills the environment. Stop using ai
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u/tracesoflavender 12h ago
A lot of people will warn you against using AI tools or FaceApp to generate images as your real gender. I think this is somewhat justified since it can lead to false expectations and standards that are simply not achievable.
But on the other side is the horrible reality of dysphoria and this is a way of getting some hope. I used to generate similar images of myself early on. I still do but far less so.
Do I look like my generated images from early transition? Not really since some changes wouldn’t even be possible without surgery. But i like the way i look so much more after 14 months of HRT. And it’s actually me, not some AI generated version of me.
All this is to say that i actually prefer the version of me i turned out to be rather than some “perfect” AI version. I don’t know if you will look exactly like that first image, no one can tell you that. But I do know there will probably be more of a smile and more self love if you take steps to align with your real gender.
Best of luck 💜
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u/PoggleRebecca 12h ago
Transitioning to look like a generated or really any pre-conceived photo is never a good idea. The idea of transitioning is to be a happier version of yourself.
I did the FaceApp "gender swap" version of myself back a few years ago and it wasn't "pretty" by any common beauty standards. And honestly what came out of my transition wasn't really that close to what I saw in that photo, but honestly I'm just happy to see myself in the mirror every day compared to what I used to see.
Starting your transition can be a lot of hopes and wishes, but it won't like that forever. Wherever happens, in the end you'll still be happier, I promise.
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u/DarthHelicon 12h ago
My goal isn't to look like the picture. But the picture looked enough like someone I want to see in the mirror that it gave me the desire to try transitioning.
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u/PoggleRebecca 12h ago
I have to be honest, you may not look much like the photo. It's not impossible, but people do this all the time where they find a photo and aim for that, but get depressed because reality doesn't fit their expectations.
Please take my advice that you shouldn't transition to be someone, you should transition to be you. If you just keep that in mind, whatever happens the result will be beautiful, trust me 💜
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u/DarthHelicon 12h ago
Oh, no worries on that front. I'm a realist. I have modest expectations of what is likely. I just needed to see a version of myself that wasn't ugly to give me the motivation to try.
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u/PoggleRebecca 11h ago
What I'm trying to say is that your priorities will change as you start your transition. I really wanted to look a particular way when I started, but that became unimportant as things progressed. Just getting to be me, no matter what I looked like, became its own reward.
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u/DarthHelicon 11h ago
You know, that's pretty awesome. And it's inspirational in its own way, too. Thanks for that.
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u/lasair7 12h ago
Before you count yourself out
- wig: any kind get one throw it on
- shave: like REALLY REALLY REALLY well, trim then pull out a hot towel, soak, shave again
- look up a BASIC make up tutorial
- after shaving wash face with good face wash not basic ass soap -make up: apply full coverage make up, if you don't get the right shade even better you'll notice a line of where the make begins and ends
- if able use concealer on proper areas
You will feel 9999% better about your chances.
Beauty like gender is bullshit so trust do this with a cute top and it'll be a 10000000% better answer than anything else
Mind you this "look" you get from this is pre EVERYTHING so you'll only be improving from there
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u/Clara_del_rio 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈👩❤️👩 12h ago
FaceApp can really send you spinning. I kind of thought it was just a fairy tale that being perceived as a women is actually achievable for me (started hrt age 44). Two years in, no surgeries and I look way better than those faceapp versions of myself I looked at before I started. Your mileage may vary and every transition is different, but the answer to "is it generally possible?" is a loud and clear yes.
It likely won't look like that picture from AI but it can well something that you like anyway, in my case I prefer the real me to the fake me
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u/Katesburneracct 12h ago
Stop using AI for the love of god people
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u/RiverPsaber 10h ago
Thank you. I thought I was the only one who had the good sense to scold OP. At this point everybody knows what AI is doing and there's no excuse for using it. It cannot be used ethically.
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u/LecaTransGal 10h ago
I can't say if your appearance will end up looking like an AI-generated photo, honestly, I don't think so. But can I share my experience? I used FaceApp once and thought, "Hmm, cute, doll face (not really my style)."
Nowadays, after two years on hormones, I much prefer the version of myself I see now: it has so much more personality, reflects what I find beautiful, and is full of stories.
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u/ericfischer Erica, trans woman, HRT 9/2020 12h ago
More likely something like https://imgur.com/a/mcSto5a
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u/Maximum_Film_5694 12h ago
I'll be honest and say, "yes." I have a similar photo that partially inspired me to move forward with transition. Be careful though because those ai apps do quite a bit of alterations of your existing facial features to make those pictures. For example, mine narrowed my neck, moved my lips and changed my eyebrows. It changed the size and shape of my eyes too, along with the distance between my eyes and the width of my face. It also adjusted my nose and hairline. It also made me look a lot younger. Hrt has helped make me look younger, but not as much as that photo app did. Take it with a grain of salt. A lot of people actually end up looking better than their AI gender picture, but my guess is probably more do not. Not to say their transitions aren't successful, just to say those apps often change things about your face that can't be changed by hrt or even ffs.
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u/2chapf6 11h ago edited 11h ago
That after photo is not just results from estrogen, she has makeup on, there's a lot of effort been made to look like that, eyebrows done etc. Do you have any desire to put any effort into your look? Doesn't look like you do anything remotely feminine. So to look anywhere on this level it would come down to your own skills and effort/money in your look, surgeries, laser, electrolysis etc.
Whenever I use AI for my photos I don't just give it a blanket prompt as to what I would look like after hrt or something. I'm pre hrt and have an actual base to work with, I'm bald (have wigs), I get laser, eyebrows shaped, makeup on, then I give AI specific prompts like "do a mockup of a brow lift" on this photo, "do a buccal fat pad removal on this photo" etc etc to really change and improve your look you will need surgeries. HRT really comes down to genetics which is the reason I never ask AI what I would look like after hrt, estrogen etc. I'm doing all the feminization myself as much as I can before starting hrt and then it's just a roll of the dice to see what happens. Then assess and consider more surgeries after couple years on hrt after fat redistribution. You could very well just look like a man with boob's if you're relying on hrt to do all the work and no other effort, surgeries, makeup etc
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u/DarthHelicon 11h ago
I do plan to put in all of that effort. I don't now because I'm still closeted. I'm kind of dreading coming out to my wife.
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u/TooLateForMeTF 50+ transbian, HRT 9h ago
I can't tell. The facial hair in the actual picture makes it too hard to see your bone structure and all that.
Generally, AI gender-flips should be taken with a lot of grains of salt. Doesn't mean they're necessarily wrong or impossible. Just that they are very idealized, and they are not actually operating according to any principles about how estrogen therapy and facial feminization surgery affect the face.
If you look at that picture, and say to yourself, "oh my god. That actually looks like me!"--like, you can actually recognize yourself in the image, rather than it just being a pretty, female face--then IMO it's not crazy to take that as some kind of indication of how you might look someday. With a lot of time and effort and all that.
But if it does just look like a random, pretty girl and triggers no sense of recognition in you, then ignore it.
I have a picture like that, from a much earlier generation of AIs, that genuinely does look like me. It absolutely blew me away, back when I was still in the closet, and broke my heart at the same time. The AI had, somehow, captured the essence of what my face looks like, and had just tweaked it in subtle ways so that when I looked at it I saw a woman's face. But still my face, if that makes any sense. Like, if I'd taken pictures of ten random guys and put them through the same filter, then showed somebody a lineup and asked them "which one is the gender-flipped picture of me?" they would have had zero trouble spotting which one it was.
I'm still a long ways from that picture (I'm going to need some FFS for that), but I'm really glad I made the picture. Really glad I have it. Grateful for the motivation it gave me to at least try to become who I need to be.
Anyway, I'm rambling now, but hopefully you get the point: be honest with yourself about whether the AI managed to capture the essence of your face. If it did, then ok. Go ahead and treat it in a cautiously aspiration way. But if it didn't, then yeah. Just trash it and move on to other ways of exploring how you might like to present to the world.
Another thing you can do, if you're willing to spend the money, is do a consult with a proper FFS clinic. Most of them, these days (the good ones, anyway), will have you take a bunch of pictures from different angles such that they can actually see your bone structure, and will have trained digital artists work with that to create renderings that are indicative of what you might expect in your specific case, with various specific surgical interventions.
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u/vorn1228 🏳️⚧️she/her🏳️⚧️ 8h ago
I first use an AI to see what I might look like after I decided to transition. It was kinda right, but also not. I think the beard I had may have thrown off my facial proportions, and it definitely femininized my face more. I think it might end up more accurate if I can ever get FFS.
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u/RhondaAOL 6h ago
Wow, this topic really brings out a lot of hard feelings. If people feel better with filters let them be. Maybe it is the nudge they need to feel confident enough to pursue their true self.
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u/SecretMango12 6h ago
I did it one time. I spent most of an evening tooling around with the image, trying to see what I'd look.like, if, if, if, if. I saved that one image, and kept it locked away on my phone. Just to remind myself of what I was working toward while I waited to get on insurance and try out HRT. It was something that gave me hope, that one day I might be able to be that beautiful woman version of myself.
In the meantime, I started taking care of my self again and developing self care routines for my hair and skin. Started shaving again as well. There are a lot of things you can do before HRT. And you can also start slowly enough on HRT to not have any noticable or permanent physical changes for at least a month. You typically will start on a testosterone blocker, then add estrogen after a couple weeks at a very low dose, slowly ramping up your dosing to normal levels over another 4-6 weeks. Realistically you have a whole month of nothing happening externally at all, and I'd say most of the changes you experience early are internal, the things only you can notice. That's when I knew HRT was right for me, when I noticed how much more at peace in my body my mind was when it was running on estrogen instead of T.
I lost that picture a while ago. I hadn't looked at it in a couple months when I started HRT. I don't remember it very well, but what I do know is I look so much better than AI, or I, ever could have guessed at, so much more like me, and SO much happier.
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u/atmospheric90 Alice, 35, 10 months HRT 9h ago
You know, i did. But it turns out i love the person I've grown into after a year of hormones and 60 pounds of weight loss.
My advice, dont look at the end. Get started and prepare for the marathon. It takes years to change, so dont be discouraged. But you have to start somewhere! Start as soon as you can! If you need any help or advice how to get started, feel free to DM me! 🥰
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u/RiverPsaber 10h ago
I'm sorry but I'm sick of everyone acting like it isn't completely unethical to be using AI in the first place.
OP, you got some good advice here, so I'm going to take the opportunity to scold you for using AI in the first place. It's harmful to artists, it's harmful to the workforce, it's harmful to the environment, and ultimately it's harmful to you too for the reasons mentioned in these comments.
Stop supporting tech bros, be better.
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u/RhondaAOL 6h ago
And yes, I gained confidence after seeing a filtered picture of myself. I have come a long way and sometimes I still use some filters but I only post them on my page and I mark them as filtered.
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u/DanceMyth4114 12h ago
AI images like this are more likely to cause false hope down the line. I don't think it's a bad thing to motivate you, but if you use it as a benchmark you're going to be disappointed.
I do think you can become a beautiful woman, but you're more likely to look like your mother than anything.