Trans Memes

Started at 20, got hormones in under a year after coming out. Been over 10 years, and have had surgery. My regrets are all about not getting to start sooner, that I should have gotten more modern approaches to hrt (reduced spiro and increased estrogen with injections sooner), and how I should've learned to be more feminine earlier.

I'm alive now, truly and fully. I was just barely surviving before

I think a huge factor in this is that outsiders never see all the inner thoughts and ruminating on it. I can't tell you how many of my close friends/family say "This came out of nowhere/we saw no signs", despite there being fairly obvious signs as young as 4, but also an insane amount of repression and masking of those feelings because I saw the attitude my parents had towards queer people, and literally calling my friends slurs behind their back for expressing even the slightest amount of femininity/queerness. Gee, I wonder why you never saw any signs?

They expect over the top displays of "transness" and when they don't see it, they only see the "sudden" change, which usually isn't even that sudden. I grew my hair out for years beforehand, had experimented with women's clothes/fashion for a decade at least, and even had some friends who were very "in the know" on trans people who were not shocked in the slightest when I came out, because I was already not particularly masc presenting by the time I came out. The other friends just couldn't see past the masc persona I had put on, so when that act finally dropped, it was some shocking and sudden revelation to them.

Gender affirming care continues to have one of the lowest patient regret rates in healthcare.

Funny, that.

They don’t see the years of internal turmoil that comes with dysphoria, so it seems “new” to them, I guess.

Every single trans person I’ve known was so much happier and more vibrant once they came out and could live more truly as themselves, though. It’s not a coincidence.

Breast growth and infertility were the two main irreversible changes they warned me about. It took about a month before I got the sore nipples which is the first sign of active construction, and it was about 3 months before the growth was noticeable to anyone else. Stopping the HRT at that point would have zero to minimal permanent effects.

As far as infertility goes, its not guaranteed. It does stop semen and sperm production. Reverting the hormones will restart that, but there is a chance it doesn't. Its wise to take precautions if maintaining fertility is important.

But cis hormones cause irreversible changes too. If your voice drops it cannot be undropped. If your beard follicles activate hormones cannot deactivate them. Irreversible effects can be managed, but not undone. You can voice train, you can get top surgery, you can get electrolosys.

Its very important to teach children about transition, and make sure they have access to medical care early on. Diagnose it early enough and save them from having to suffer through any of the wrong irreversible changes.

Depends on the HRT. T is fairly fast acting, so things like vocal cord growth and activation of hair follicles could happen quickly. The latter can be fixed via laser hair removal though. Voice training can be used to compensate for the vocal cord growth, but voice training 😱

E, you'll get some breast tissue fairly quickly, but unless like you are doing a physical examination with the intentional of finding such, it doesn't really matter. Also, boys getting mastectomies for gynecomastia is an option, albeit I'd say anything requiring surgery to change is "permanent".

The most immediate meaningful irreversible effect is getting peace from not being constantly poisoned by your own body brings. I didn't know if I HRT was right for me (NB), but within a week I was pretty sure I would continue indefinitely and after getting the dosage fixed, I knew for sure I would never give it up easily. Before, I dissociated through life without really realizing it and without really knowing an alternative. Now that I know better is possible it would be hard to take that away.

yeah i think the effects of HRT are partially reversible in the sense that some effects go back to how they were previously when you stop taking the hormones. stuff like skin getting coarse again and body hair growth intensifying when you end m-t-f pills. also fat redistribution. but the reverse is only partial, i.e. it doesn't go back quite as much as you started out with.

like when you edit the shape of foam, and then stop, it partially bounces back, but only partially, it's still visible that some pressure was applied to it. :)