There are a lot of places, you can try:
transfem.social
sakurajima.moe
mk.absturztau.be

too many to pick from 🥴

Nah, im tryna find places myself. :/

mastodon.art is free (some people hate mastodon, I know, but we're nice I swear!)

i think most invite-only/manual approval are just to prevent spambots (there was fairly huge spam-wave recently), so don't be afraid to just ask for an invite.
i have accounts on fedi.absturztau.be (manual approval) and snug.moe (closed, i think).
also, i don't think you have to worry too much about your first instance, you can always migrate to another after you become more familiar with fedi

All the ones Mana mentioned are good. Also mk.absturztau.be is a decent cute instance. I'm on akko.wtf which is great, though the local peeps skew heavily in the technical type of users (programmers, system admins, etc).

Nothing pops in my mind.. Try an instance physically close to you so you don't have to suffer

transfem.social definitely :3

I've left fedi long enough ago that I can't really make reliable recommendations. Just don't panic about the invite-only stuff, do reach out and try to register, I'm sure you would fit well in there. My account still exists on mk.absturztau.be, I guess the deletion just did not run since it still says "deletion in progress". That was a nice instance anyway.

How about transfem.social? You need to submit a reason to sign up I believe but I doubt they'd really deny you.