I hope you don’t mind me asking, and I don’t want to cause any upset with my ignorance, but what is it that you’re looking for from hormones? Feel free to ignore the question if you don’t like it or can’t be bothered with it.
Hormones do the heavy lifting of a medical gender transition. They change the fundamental machinery of your biology at a cellular level. The difference between the sexes is a lot less than most people realize, and the vast majority of differences are due to hormones, not genetics. Really all the Y chromosome does is tell the proto-ovaries to develop into testes. From there, male/female differentiation is all hormonal.
Changing your hormones changes so much. It’s honestly incredible how much they can do.
They change muscle structure, fat distribution, skin texture and thickness. Testosterone causes trans men’s voices to deepen and trans women to grow breasts. Estrogen gives you hips and curves. But it even changes things like where your body stores fat. A middle age trans woman will store some fat on her arms, just like cis women. Hormones change your sense of smell and your own body odor. The list goes on and on.
This is why I always push hard against the language that trans women are “biologically male.” Because it simply isn’t true. Hormones change cellular expression from one sex’s form to the other. They even change how your body metabolizes medications. This is actually a big problem in treatment of trans people for non-transition related things. Some medications need to be dosed differently for men and women. An ignorant but well meaning doctor might say, “well, trans women are biologically male, so I’ll give this trans woman a male dose.” And they could kill her by doing that.
HRT doesn’t change some things. It can affect the size and shape of the skeleton if taken early enough. But even among adults, slight skeletal changes due occur over a long enough period of time. HRT won’t change the macrostructure of entire organs. It won’t change a penis to a vulva or vice versa. And while testosterone will cause facial hair growth in trans men, estrogen won’t reverse facial hair that has already grown in for trans women.
The truth is that the vast majority of the population is a hormone prescription and maybe a bit of voice training/facial hair removal from passing as the opposite sex. The differences between male and female are a lot less than most people would like to believe. Ultimately, humans are not angler fish. We have a very low level of sexual dimorphism as a species. This low level of sexual dimorphism is what makes gender transition possible. Have some sympathy for the trans angler fish.
I want to have a more feminine body and appearance. There are many other changes too. I’m largely okay with most of them, just not growing breasts, I don’t really want that. Which is why I’m researching methods and combinations that reduce breast growth but still have all the other changes.
Thanks, it’s very understanding of you to be so open. Only keep answering if you’re happy to, but I’m wondering if the breast growth thing just a personal preference or are there external factors, like is it about how other people see you?
It makes the user look and feel more “feminine”, if I understand correctly. Different kinds of hair growth, smoother skin, this sort of stuff. Depending on the age you start it changes the way your face and body develops, as well
Curious to see what kind of answers you get. I haven’t ever considered becoming trans, and don’t feel like I have identified in anyway other than a guy, but I’ve heard research shows testosterone blockers slow or can stop male pattern baldness from occuring/progressing. Being that out society has shifted from being extremely have to be fit all the time, I wonder if there are people who prefer to have their hair from youth and want to try it.
There’s Finasteride which is used for this. It inhibits DHT specifically and not testosterone.
Testosterone blockers like Spironolactone would be problematic longterm because having low levels of both testosterone and estrogen comes with health risks like osteoporosis. And you can still get feminising effects like breast growth even if you don’t take estrogen. And it seems like most men would like to avoid that.
It does work though. Trans women on hormone replacement therapy usually don’t get male pattern baldness. I’ve had a bit before I started HRT and some of my hair has even grown back (that’s not guaranteed though).
I hope you don’t mind me asking, and I don’t want to cause any upset with my ignorance, but what is it that you’re looking for from hormones? Feel free to ignore the question if you don’t like it or can’t be bothered with it.
Hormones do the heavy lifting of a medical gender transition. They change the fundamental machinery of your biology at a cellular level. The difference between the sexes is a lot less than most people realize, and the vast majority of differences are due to hormones, not genetics. Really all the Y chromosome does is tell the proto-ovaries to develop into testes. From there, male/female differentiation is all hormonal.
Changing your hormones changes so much. It’s honestly incredible how much they can do.
https://www.gendergp.com/hrt-timelines-hormones-effects/
They change muscle structure, fat distribution, skin texture and thickness. Testosterone causes trans men’s voices to deepen and trans women to grow breasts. Estrogen gives you hips and curves. But it even changes things like where your body stores fat. A middle age trans woman will store some fat on her arms, just like cis women. Hormones change your sense of smell and your own body odor. The list goes on and on.
This is why I always push hard against the language that trans women are “biologically male.” Because it simply isn’t true. Hormones change cellular expression from one sex’s form to the other. They even change how your body metabolizes medications. This is actually a big problem in treatment of trans people for non-transition related things. Some medications need to be dosed differently for men and women. An ignorant but well meaning doctor might say, “well, trans women are biologically male, so I’ll give this trans woman a male dose.” And they could kill her by doing that.
HRT doesn’t change some things. It can affect the size and shape of the skeleton if taken early enough. But even among adults, slight skeletal changes due occur over a long enough period of time. HRT won’t change the macrostructure of entire organs. It won’t change a penis to a vulva or vice versa. And while testosterone will cause facial hair growth in trans men, estrogen won’t reverse facial hair that has already grown in for trans women.
The truth is that the vast majority of the population is a hormone prescription and maybe a bit of voice training/facial hair removal from passing as the opposite sex. The differences between male and female are a lot less than most people would like to believe. Ultimately, humans are not angler fish. We have a very low level of sexual dimorphism as a species. This low level of sexual dimorphism is what makes gender transition possible. Have some sympathy for the trans angler fish.
Thank you, that’s very informative indeed.
I want to have a more feminine body and appearance. There are many other changes too. I’m largely okay with most of them, just not growing breasts, I don’t really want that. Which is why I’m researching methods and combinations that reduce breast growth but still have all the other changes.
Thanks, it’s very understanding of you to be so open. Only keep answering if you’re happy to, but I’m wondering if the breast growth thing just a personal preference or are there external factors, like is it about how other people see you?
It makes the user look and feel more “feminine”, if I understand correctly. Different kinds of hair growth, smoother skin, this sort of stuff. Depending on the age you start it changes the way your face and body develops, as well
Thanks.
Curious to see what kind of answers you get. I haven’t ever considered becoming trans, and don’t feel like I have identified in anyway other than a guy, but I’ve heard research shows testosterone blockers slow or can stop male pattern baldness from occuring/progressing. Being that out society has shifted from being extremely have to be fit all the time, I wonder if there are people who prefer to have their hair from youth and want to try it.
There’s Finasteride which is used for this. It inhibits DHT specifically and not testosterone.
Testosterone blockers like Spironolactone would be problematic longterm because having low levels of both testosterone and estrogen comes with health risks like osteoporosis. And you can still get feminising effects like breast growth even if you don’t take estrogen. And it seems like most men would like to avoid that.
It does work though. Trans women on hormone replacement therapy usually don’t get male pattern baldness. I’ve had a bit before I started HRT and some of my hair has even grown back (that’s not guaranteed though).