My Facial Feminisation Thesis
Part 8:
How Feminine is Feminine Enough?
Let's imagine a “gender scale” to help describe how masculine or feminine a face or facial feature is:
M5 – M4 – M3 – M2 – M1 – GN – F1 – F2 – F3 – F4 – F5
In this scale, M5 is the most masculine, F5 is the most feminine and GN is “Gender Neutral”. The “average” man would be an M3 and the “average” woman an F3.
The most important thing to know is that an F5 is exceptional and is not generally a reasonable goal for an FFS patient. There are very few genetic women who are F5 and only a tiny number of trans women will achieve that degree of facial femininity no matter what surgery they have. Of those trans women that do, most will have transitioned in their teens as well as being exceptionally lucky genetically.
This is not something to worry about – it is completely unnecessary to achieve an F5 face in order to have a face that is both feminine and attractive. Remember, F3 is the average female face and even an F1 is a very normal female face.
You don't even need to get as far as F1 to be able to comfortably pass for female facially – GN is actually a good and very effective result. The thing to remember about a GN face is that it is “neutral” and that means it can be made to look male or female depending on how you style it. For example, a little beard stubble, short hair and no make-up will make a GN face look male but get rid of the beard, add a female hairstyle and some light make-up and it's suddenly a very normal female face.
In the following example I have created a gender neutral face by blending together my male and female prototypes:
I have then added masculine styling to one version of this face (beard shadow and male hairstyle) and female styling to the other (make-up, plucked eyebrows and a female hairstyle). Remember that both pictures show exactly the same actual face - it is only the superficial details that have changed.
Even an M1 face can be styled to look fairly normally female. So for most trans women my advice is this: forget F5 or even F3 - if you can get as far as GN or even M1 you will have a face you can work with. Does a true M5 or F5 exist? It's surprisingly hard to find a face that is totally masculine or feminine in every single aspect.
Please use the links below to navigate around the thesis:
Part 2: The Established Research
Part 4: Sexual Dimorphism of the Face Feature by Feature
Part 6: Female Neoteny and Feminisation as a Subtractive Process
Part 7: Objective and Subjective Femininity
Part 8: How Feminine is Feminine Enough?
Part 10: The Man in the Mirror/Self Perception