Or, who knew I could feel like this?
One year after I realized I was trans, I began hormone replacement therapy. It was May 4, 2021. (Yes, coincidentally that is Star Wars Day, which makes it easy to remember!) Getting there was a chore involving three failed attempts to find a therapist, and is a story for a different post.
This post is about what estrogen did for me, and I hope it serves to help people considering HRT. Please know that your transition will be different, for any number of reasons, but mostly because I started in my fifties, my body well set in its ways. Starting HRT younger has the potential for stronger effects, especially physically.
Whenever I talk about my transition, this is always the part cis people like the most. And it’s clear why, the effect hormones have on us is incredible. In (first) puberty, yes, but also ongoing every day. Of course, cis women of a certain age understand this very well, as their bodies naturally begin to change how much estrogen they produce. I can’t speak to that experience, but I acknowledge that, as a person socialized male, I had no idea, and did not appreciate it. Please forgive me, friends.
A resource I found that really helped was the page on Estrogenic Second Puberty 101 at the Gender Dysphoria Bible. I’m going to use that as a template for the rest of this post, talking about the effects I have experienced.
But first, fucking testosterone
But before we get to estrogen, let’s talk about testosterone. Trans men who are friends of mine have talked about how amazing it is to take T, how much energy they have (“the fountain of youth!”), how much the physical effects affirm their identity.
For me, testosterone was the source of everything wrong about me. Some trans women characterize it as a poison that wrecked their bodies. I’m not far behind them in that opinion.
The first step in HRT for me was to stop the effects of testosterone. I began by taking Spironolactone, a cis blood pressure medicine with the antiandrogenic side effect of suppressing the effects of testosterone on the body. Unfortunately, it also crashed my blood pressure (I was increasingly lethargic), so we switched to Finasteride, a cis hair loss medicine better known as Propecia. It reduces hair loss in men because it is an antiandrogen. My body was much happier about this, and I stayed on Finasteride until my vulvoplasty.
The first change: Chocolate
On the page for Estrogenic Second Puberty, the first effect I noticed is way down near the bottom. I’d spent fifty years on this earth disliking dark chocolate. I was pretty vocal about it, because it was smalltalk gold and made me an interesting person at parties. Who actively dislikes chocolate? In reality, I was fine with milk chocolate, but the more sugar and milk the better. The bitterness of a dark chocolate? I honestly did not like. That dislike of bitterness also translated to coffee, red wine, and hoppy beer.
A month or two after starting HRT, I had the opportunity to taste some dark chocolate. I did it to be kind, someone had gone out of their way to get some. I popped the smallest piece I could snag into my mouth and paused. It was… good. Like, really good. I’d read about the possibility that estrogen might bring about changes in the perception of taste, but disliking dark chocolate was such an integral part of me, I never really considered that it might happen.
I didn’t eat any more, that day. But I kept thinking about it, and finally went to the store and bought an 80% dark chocolate bar. It was good, too. So I poured a glass of red wine. Yum. A cup of coffee. OMG. An IPA? Yep, even an IPA (though I still appreciate a beer with a low IBU, too).
Despite feeling like I didn’t know myself anymore (a joke), I embraced this change. It felt, symbolic. Women love chocolate! Now so did I! Honestly, this may have been the best effect of HRT for me.
I cry more!
Emotional expansion is a common effect of estrogen, and wow, yeah. Before my transition began, I could count on one hand the number of times I had cried since I was thirteen. Literally. I counted them off for my therapist: where, when, why. Repressed much? Yep.
The reasons people on estrogen cry more are not clear. In the case of trans women, it could simply be that alleviating dysphoria opens them up to a fuller emotional experience. Whatever it is, this may be the part of my transition for which I am most grateful.
I remember the first time I cried after starting HRT. It was while I was watching Modern Love, season two, episode one, where Minnie Driver is dealing with her grief over losing her husband. At one point she’s driving his convertible across the moors, and his ghost is with her in the passenger seat and I just started bawling like a baby. I had sought out the show for episode 5, the wlw one, but found myself crying freely over a het ghost story. WTF? It was glorious.
Since then, I have cried a lot. A lot a lot. Sometimes I have not wanted to, but it has overcome me. Sometimes I have welcomed it as cathartic and meaningful. Once, I cried happy tears. Once, I cried because someone else was sad.
I would never go back. (I wrote an earlier post about crying, you might want to read it.)
I can trust my anger
Another emotional effect often described is the lessening of anger. Conversely, people taking T often report an increase in anger. For me, this was transformative. I used to get angry all the time. I’m pretty sure it was related to internal frustration as a result of my ADHD (dealing with this in therapy). I’d get suddenly angry, punching pillows and walls. I once shoved the dog (something I am still incredibly unhappy about having done). It would come over me, unreasonable and frightening. It felt like I was out of control, and for someone who relies on being in control, it scared me.
Now, I feel like I can trust my anger. It happens infrequently, and when it does, I can trace it to a cause, and deal with that. You can’t understand how comforting this is. I couldn’t trust myself before. I was afraid of myself. I was afraid for people I loved. That’s gone.
Sex
The second almost immediate effect of HRT for me was that it knocked my libido off a cliff. I went from someone obsessed with sex to someone who barely thought about it at all. I’d already been primed for this by a year of knowing myself as trans and recognizing my real dislike of anything having to do with a penis (including mine). But HRT really crashed my sex drive.
Which was welcome. I have a lot of issues around dominance and the predatory nature of the alpha male archetype (yeah, it’s all bullshit, but tell that to my subconscious), and this felt so, so right. Turns out I’m a soft bottom and a service top, and trying to be anything else was incredibly dysphoric (though I did not understand it as such, I was just unhappy).
My sex drive is starting to come back (I’ve been on estrogen for not quite three years as of this writing, and progesterone for about four months), and I welcome it because it’s nothing like it was before, and I’m much more comfortable with who I am and what I want.
I haven’t noticed much change in erogenous zones or attraction (still attracted to women, still unable to countenance the presence of a penis any which way), but maybe there are some changes happening to my orgasms? I may need more data. (Yes, that was cheeky innuendo.)
Physical changes
As I noted above, physical changes are not something I really expected much of. I started feminizing HRT at 50 years old. My body was well set by testosterone. I am tall, my face has male structural features that get me “sir”-ed all the time, I have significant male pattern hair loss, I have had significant beards over the years.
There’s only so much estrogen can do for me here.
That said, I’ve seen a few changes. I’ve had some breast growth, though not noticeable to the world unless I’m wearing a tight shirt, and maybe not even then. (Me and boobs is a topic for another day, I’ve got issues.) My hair stopped falling out (see: hair transplant post). I’ve always been slim, but some places (wrists, hands) may be slimmer now? While I’ve had laser hair removal over all of my body, I do think I’m seeing less overall body hair, or at least that hair is lighter and softer.
I’m definitely less strong. I don’t do strength training, but I may have to start, just to maintain my ability to do what I’ve always been able to do.
I’m definitely a colder person, especially in my hands. I used to be the furnace in bed, always making people too hot. My hands were always plump and warm. Now, my hands are almost always cold, and I’m almost always cold. I could do without this change, frankly, but I’ll take it.
Feminizing HRT is also known to have an effect on fat distribution. Rather than depositing fat in the belly, as it does with T on board, the body deposits fat in the hips, butt, and thighs. When transitioning, this effect can be seen, but slowly, and not in everyone. I’m not sure if I’m seeing that, exactly, though I did notice about a year ago that my thighs were starting to rub together. It was a moment of euphoria like you cannot understand unless you’ve been there.
One side effect of fat redepositing lower in the body, coupled with loss of muscle mass in the upper body, is that your center of gravity lowers, which causes your hips to swing more than your shoulders when you walk. I’ve noticed this, for sure. It’s kind of cool.
Other reported changes, like skin softening, weaker nails, sweating patterns, reduction of body odor, and facial changes are all effects I may be seeing, but are subtle and hard to notice ongoing. This is why trans people take so many selfies, so we can compare across years.
Cyclical symptoms?
Honestly, I’ve begun thinking I should be tracking some of this. Though I couldn’t say I’ve had any physical symptoms (bloating, tenderness, aches, etc.) I have noticed mood shifts, for sure, but not mapped them across a lunar cycle.
And… that’s it so far
Again, I won’t get some of the changes others experience, especially physical changes. One of the most dysphoric characteristics for many trans women is the deepness (resonance) of their voice, especially since once it arrives during puberty, there are no great ways to get rid of it. It’s one of the reasons puberty blockers are so important for trans and questioning kids. I’m not really distressed about my voice, but I also rarely hear myself speak.
In any case, my three year anniversary is coming up, and I may check in to see if anything else has changed, but this really is a gradual process, especially at my age.
Leave a Reply