Hi again everyone, im back with I dont even know what. Kind of a vent, kinda looking for advice/support? I just feel kind of lost right now.
I stopped HRT 3-4 weeks ago (after the 3 week trial period I decided to start).
Its hard to judge any definitive effects (time period, dosage, not being able to get my levels checked etc) but i think i felt better during that time. My partner atleast confirms they saw me as more happy/fulfilled/“whole” than they ever had seen me before, atleast during the last half of the trial period. And i can atleast confirm some experiences that felt new to me, an “excitement” or “urge” to go out for once. See what actually exists around were we recently moved to and such. Just more motivation generally but im not sure if i can attribute that to the HRT.
Im back now, a few weeks after stopping HRT and i dont even know where i am. I feel like im kinda back at where i started, empty, hollow and unsure in everything regarding my trans-journey. It feels like Ive fallen down a hole again, where everything just doesnt “fulfill” me.
What scares me about going on HRT long-term is being wrong, not being ready. What if im not trans? What if im wrong? What if my beliefs for thinking I am trans is rooted in the entirely wrong things and im just actually not? I want to figure that out before i commit and I struggle alot with it. What if this is just depression? What if its completely unrelated? The goblins in my head keep screaming at me.
Im not one to read in too much to dreams but i heard someone talk about one of the signs that made them realize they were trans were that they were always a girl in their dreams. Either way, that made me realize im no one in my dreams. Im always someone, as in first-person actually-a-person someone. But never more than so. Not leaning towards any “gender” in that sense. And that kinda gave me a little scare. Like wtf does that even mean?
In the end I try to tell myself. “Do whatever makes you happy”. But i have an incredibly hard time of actually believing in that for some reason. I know im not cis atleast, that is very certain. But i feel like i went out on the self-discovery/identity-discovery journey with a clear direction and now i just sit alone on an open ocean, unsure of what to do. (Note, i do not care too much for labels but im just scared of heading in the wrong direction, very common L for me)
I dont even know what advice or help im looking for but I figured its probably better to post it here than keep it in my head for even longer.
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hey, i did exactly the same thing a bit more than a year ago! i had a lot of the same worries as you’ve described (and still do!), so i’ll try and walk you through how i rationalized my way out of that particular rut.
let’s assume that you do choose to resume taking HRT, and address your concerns under that assumption:What if im not trans?
…so what? who says you have to be trans to take estrogen? there are cis femboys who are on HRT, and they’re not trans. nobody would say that a dude taking testosterone (a hormone) to become more muscular is trans because of that, it’s just a medication he’s taking to help him achieve his desired body shape. you absolutely can be a cis man who wants his body to be a certain way, and takes medication (estrogen) to help achieve that. don’t let silly social things like which adjective you use to describe your relationship with your assigned sex at birth (cis/trans) affect your decisions on how you’d like your body to be!
another way to look at it would be to consider: is a trans woman who doesn’t take estrogen actually a man? is a trans man who doesn’t take testosterone actually a woman? i’m going to assume you’d answer both of those questions with a no. by the same logic, a cis man who does take estrogen doesn’t miraculously become a trans woman.
What if im wrong?
wrong about what, exactly? wrong about not actually wanting the physical and/or mental changes that come with HRT? in a hypothetical world where you have been on HRT for a while and then decide you don’t like some or all of the changes, you can literally just stop! the only changes which aren’t really reversible are maybe fertility (although oftentimes it doesn’t go away permanently), and boob growth once it gets beyond a certain point. the first one has a fairly simple solution: freeze your sperm if you’re concerned about eventually wanting kids. as for boobs: try wearing breast prosthetics. like, proper silicone breast prosthetics (not just foam padding), for longer periods of time, while moving around the house, and think about how you feel about seeing yourself with boobs when you look down or see yourself while passing a mirror or whatever. if you like it, great! if you’re sorta indifferent about it, then it wouldn’t be a problem if you started growing real ones! if you don’t like it, or are unsure how you feel, it doesn’t matter and you should just disregard the results of this test, because you can still start taking HRT and once you really start growing boobs you should be able to determine out if you like them for real long before they get big enough that the changes aren’t reversible without surgery. and if that’s the case, there are ways to do feminizing HRT without boobs :)
What if my beliefs for thinking I am trans is rooted in the entirely wrong things and im just actually not?
again, you need to decouple two questions because they don’t necessarily imply each other. your decision on whether or not you want HRT should not be affected by whether or not you’re trans, and your gender identity is not determined by what kind of sex hormones are in your bloodstream. if you mentally separate the parts, this question has a trivial answer: it literally doesn’t matter! if we assume a hypothetical scenario in which you think you’re trans and go about your merry way as a girl or non-binary creature or whatever, and then years later you (by whatever means) come to the conclusion that you actually aren’t trans and were actually a cis guy the whole time, so what? is that a problem? if so, i don’t see what the problem is, nor do i think that anything would necessarily even have to change in that scenario. maybe you were going by a different name or pronouns - who cares, you can change 'em back, people go by different names all the time, and names/pronouns don’t have to belong to a particular gender anyway; think of a he/him lesbian. maybe you were wearing different clothes - yeah no if you didn’t like the clothes you would’ve stopped wearing them already, also clothes are just genderless pieces of fabric. maybe you let your hair grow out - if you think that affects whether or not you’re a man then you should go look at Steve and then reconsider that.
What if this is just depression? What if it’s completed unrelated?
this is why i decided to resume HRT after ending my trial run despite still not having figured out anything at all about gender. let’s distinguish a few possible cases:
- your depression symptoms are not unrelated, you’re truly are experiencing some form(s) of gender dysphoria, biochemical or otherwise.
HRT will alleviate the biochemical dysphoria symptoms, and any potential experimentation you may decide to do with other forms of social gender presentation will eventually reveal a way for you to resolve other dysphoria symptoms. - you have both gender dysphoria as well as some other form of “regular” depression.
the same logic as in (1.) still applies, however you also still have depression which you need to address anyway. - you aren’t experiencing any form of gender dysphoria, and also aren’t depressed.
okay, you can still experiment with your gender expression and see if anything makes you feel better, even if you were already doing fine. as for HRT: why do you even care about taking HRT in the first place? in my case, i wanted to avoid going bald (which was likely to start happening soon), i wanted less body hair, i wanted a lower body temperature so i wouldn’t be so damn sweaty and smelly all the time, i wanted wider hips and thighs, i wanted to see if it would help me be able to cry again, and i wanted to be able to have (the objectively much better) female orgasms. some of these could be solved by themselves (e.g. minoxidil for baldness), but feminizing HRT covers all of those bases at once and had no side effects i would consider “bad” (i’ve never wanted kids and i was pretty indifferent to the idea of having boobs) and had many effects i would consider “good”, so even if i were perfectly mentally healthy HRT couldn’t possibility make me feel any worse. - you aren’t experiencing any dysphoria, and are suffering from regular depression.
same as (3.), and then go see a therapist.
these are more or less the conclusions i came to which convinced me to just restart HRT and figure out all the gender stuff and potential depression later. please do not take this as me trying to tell you to do the same, although if these answers resonate with you should probably consider it.
next time i decide to write an essay i should get off my ass and use my fuckin computer lmao
- your depression symptoms are not unrelated, you’re truly are experiencing some form(s) of gender dysphoria, biochemical or otherwise.
Don’t tie HRT to being trans. If you enjoy HRT, take HRT, you can figure out your gender later. Is there anything about HRT you’re hesitant about? Because it sounds like you’re unsure about being trans, not about HRT.
It also sounds like you’re more afraid about some abstract idea of being “wrong” rather than concern about how you would feel. If you think you’d be happier taking HRT, that’s a pretty good reason to do it.
I can’t tell you if you are trans or not, but I can share my experience with HRT that started similar to yours.
When I first started HRT I was worried about not being trans enough. What if I was wasn’t trans and I just got attached to the idea of HRT solving my problems. I was also depressed. Years before HRT I tried treating the depression without any mention of possibly being trans. It didn’t work. I decided to try HRT without worrying about the depression. When I went to the informed consent LGBTQ clinic I was afraid they would tell me I couldn’t have HRT. I realized that I would be sad if that happened. I decided I would try DIY HRT if I couldn’t access hrt through the official channels. I was prescribed HRT and started with pills to take twice a day. My depression got better. That lasted for 2 weeks. I started getting treatment for depression and it took a while to notice the effects. At one point I stopped my depression medication and noticed all of the old habbits I slipped back into. On the medication I wasn’t noticeably better, but when I stopped I was obviously worse. I got back on the medication.
Now, after 2 years of HRT, I am starting to taper off of the depression medication at the recommendation of my psychiatrist. Things are going well. I’m happier. I now care about myself and want to improve things. I started skincare and haircare routines. I’m losing weight. I have done several projects to improve my quality of life and have several more planned.
HRT was the right choice for me.
Mia Violet’s memoir is called “Yes, you are trans enough.” I was maybe 4+ months on HRT when I read it, and it really helped me to corroborate my feelings focus on what was most important to me in my transition.
There are other great memoirs out there but that was the one that hit me the most.
The other thing that super helped me figure things out was therapy.
I wish you peace in your journey of self discovery. It can be a very daunting thing to face.
If you think you feel better doing something do that thing until you stop feeling good about it. And HRT doesn’t have to be about gender. After a fair amount of gender affirming care, I realized I’m not a woman but I just feel more comfortable in a body with breasts and no penis. I’m not a man or a woman, I’m me. I’m a dragon (whatever that is, who knows, I don’t care). I don’t think I would have gotten to this point without pursuing HRT even though I felt ambiguous about the potential physical changes when I started.
You can stop taking hormones whenever you want to. It’s not like you take a single injection and suddenly you’re beyond the point of no return.
Of trans people who decide to take HRT, it’s about 1% that end up regretting it. And even if you are in the 1% that ends up regretting it, the worst that happens is that you now have a lovely pair of tits. And doesn’t everyone want a lovely pair of tits?
At the end of the day, most people who get as far as trying hormones probably are trans. But how that looks on people can vary greatly. For example i believe that the reason it took so long for my egg to crack was that i don’t much care for makeup and highly feminine clothes. So it’s pretty easy to get in my own head and tell myself that I’m just a straight man. But, the truth of the matter is that I just see myself as more of a butch (Futch is probably more acurate) lesbian than a harajuku princess.
fwiw this sounds like pretty much exactly the trans experience. ive had almost all the thoughts you shared. dont sweat if you dont have the stereotypical feelings people associate with being trans fem. everyone has a different experience and theres no one right way to be trans. it sounds like you did enjoy being on hormones, and you arent enjoying being off them. id say start them again and just see if you stop enjoying them. you wont get any obvious permanent changes for a while unless you get really lucky with your boob genetics so you can always stop if you change your mind. from what youve said i doubt you will. its ok to want this. you can give yourself permission to do what makes you happy. i know how hard that can be, but you deserve it.
