Is That Vaginal Estrogen Cream on Your Face?

I shouldn't be surprised...

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I watched the lovely documentary Will and Harper the other night, starring Will Ferrell and Harper Steele, old friends from their days at Saturday Night Live—where Harper, then Andrew, was head writer and Will was in the cast.

Two years ago, Harper came out as a trans woman; she and Will decided at some point after that to explore their friendship and test the waters of flyover country by taking the kind of road trip Harper used to love to go on before she transitioned. Now, she’s not so sure she’ll be welcomed in the places she used to visit. The friends’ encounters were in turn poignant and—at one Texas steakhouse—frightening. But it’s the relationship between the two people, their compassion for each other and their vulnerability, that fuel the story.

In one scene when the two decide to go out for a fancy dinner in Las Vegas (Will acquires some getup that includes a wig and a Fu Manchu mustache), Harper confesses she’s not sure about her makeup. She says, “Sometimes I feel the better my makeup looks, the worse I feel about my face.” There’s something about the transitioning process, she says, where “the ‘prettier’ I get, the more I see the flaws.” That makes her more aware of her “unfortunately” masculine features. “I look in the mirror and I’m like, this is getting closer. But then I’m like, I got more to do…”

Sound familiar? Struggling, like so many of us, to get to a place where we feel happy with our reflection, where there’s finally no more to do, when we look into the mirror and ask ourselves not “Do I like what I see?” but rather “Do I like who I see?”

Now for a closer look at a trendy multitasking idea…

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