One estrogen pill and you have the power to make men cower. Kudos! The worst thing in the world to most men, is being a woman. They pretend to themselves that they "love" women, but they actually hate them most of the time. In fact, men insult each other by calling each other "she" or other female pronouns. It's the worst put down they can think of. Men don't "love" women, they just want a fleshy hole to stick their penis into.
Anyway it's no surprise to me at all that this is how men would react - i could have predicted it.
Now that is an explosively misandrist and hateful take. These men that you deem misogynistic bastards are friends with an out trans woman. The more likely explanation for their reaction is that of sympathy -- they fear gender dysphoria as much as their trans friend does. If a trans woman was offered a shot of testosterone, they would also be repulsed by it. How is that any different?
I'm sorry you've been hurt in the past by men, but you're projecting your own traumatic experiences at innocent people. Try to aim it where it's deserved.
Never let it be said I'm not a rabid misandrist, and have good reason to be. Who is this out trans woman you claim the men I know are friends of? And what kind of jerkoff idiot is afraid of gender dysphoria anyway? It's so typical - the fear of something that may make you even feel the SLIGHTEST bit less masculine!!
I happen to think Trans people need no justification for being who they are, and that in many ways their more in touch with their real selves mentally and otherwise. If you want to "aim" something where it belongs, try aiming yourself toward a more intelligent way of responding.
Tbh, I’d be tempted to say “go for it!” if it weren’t for the medical liability. A doc would want to check your hormone levels before prescribing estradiol just to ensure that there aren’t any risk factors present.
The odds of one dose fucking you up are very, very low but not zero.
There’s a reason E is normally prescribed with a testosterone blocker. Small doses of Estradiol will do next to nothing if there’s still a natural level of T flowing through your system.
I’ve still got my “normal” levels of testostetone, but I’m taking finasteride to keep it from affecting my hair follicles while the estradiol does its work softening my skin and plumping up my chest.
I probably could be a lot more feminine by this point if I had a full-spectrum anti-androgen like spironolactone or cyproterone acetate, but that’s not my transition goal. I’m actively seeking an androgynous appearance and itty bitty titties, so estradiol monotherapy with finasteride is working just fine for me.
Yeah, you won’t get any sort of externally visible changes from a single dose, but for some trans people that first dose can still be a life-changing experience.
They don’t warn you about it in the informed consent documentation, but for me that first day on HRT brought on an almost overwhelming feeling of gender euphoria. It was like a part of myself that had been missing since puberty finally fell into place. The weight of 25 years of repressed dysphoria fell from my shoulders and I couldn’t stop smiling, couldn’t even walk across a room without breaking into a little dance.
It took the better part of a week to start seeing some physical changes, and that was mostly in skin texture.
It does! But I should mention that this experience isn’t universal.
Some trans folks don’t get the day-1 giddiness at all, instead finding that their baseline mood improves steadilly over the first few days or weeks of treatment without a period of euphoria.
Another common experience is a period of mild depression around 6-8 months in. For me, this was similar to the teenage moodiness of my first puberty, though much milder and less “wrong”-feeling.
You absolutely can get some emotional benefits from the first dose before the physical ones start. I felt much more calm and less heightened emotions after my first dose of T. A welcome change having dealt with PMDD for years.
that’s definitely part of it, but sex hormones interact with* neurotransmitters and the mental/emotional stuff tends to hit first, before any physical effects take place.
I think that part of it, for me at least, was that it felt like everything shifted and all of a sudden my brain was finally running right for the first time in my life. It’s like it was already wired to run on estrogen and I was finally giving it what it needed.
Not countering what you experienced, but sex hormones are not neurotransmitters. There may be some interactions with the neurotransmitter system but it they are not themselves.
I mean… Recoiling in horror sounds a little bit like Woman Bad ^tm^ had something to do with it.
Being gender curious (or having Gender Imposter Syndrome) is a sign you’re not entirely 100% SuperCis, but people’s emotional reactions be complicated yo
Edit: As others said, there’s also the “take unverifiable drugs from someone (friend or not) in a bar setting”. And the “the post uses hyperbole for effect because memes”.
Yeah there’s more to it. I’m just a random cis guy who came across this post on his feed. I’m definitely not an egg, but no way I’d react like that. I’d probably be bewildered that someone would offer me their medicine, but a severe reaction like that sounds very weird.
It’s possible, but cis men who are totally comfortable may have never even considered it what so ever. So the recoiling can also be from the very prospect of questioning something that they’ve never had an inkling to question. Introspection on a deep existential level is a little scary, after all, so tapping a new vein regardless of what comes out can be off-putting.
Well yeah fair enough. I posted this because I read it as hyperbole but I could be wrong. I just felt like this kind of represented the idea that the act of questioning your identity isn’t an indicator of your “actual” identity. It just shows that you’re open to understanding yourself better.
If I were better with words I could explain my thought process better but the best I can do is communicate in memes.
True. I’m not trans, I feel ambivalent about my gender but I certainly don’t think I’d recoil in horror. Probably just say no thanks. I don’t take anything that isn’t prescribed for me or won’t actively interfere with the cocktail of meds I need to take for a chronic illness.
I’m a pretty laid-back person, but I’d likely recoil. It’s the idea of someone threatening me with a pill at a pub that might be kinda triggering. Nearly any other reasonable approach in any other situation, I’d be willing to have a conversation and consider the options.
No one was threatened though. It was a group of friends and I presume the person with the tablets told them what it was and offered them to try it. For someone who says they’re laid back you used quite an emotive word (threatened) to misconstrue the described situation.
You take that back! I’m the most laid back person ever!
But yup, you’re probably right. A) I definitely chose the wrong word with “threatened” and should have been more deliberate in my choice with something like “tried to prove a point to me by offering me prescription drugs” and B) For the life of me, I don’t remember typing “I’m a pretty laid-back person,” I meant to say “I’m often told I’m a pretty laid-back person” but must have slipped my mind while I was getting dressed to go to the park. (Joke’s on you, VaultBoyNewVegas, I was Pooh Bearing it when I wrote my comment!)
Anyway, short reply long: I read your comment and was like, “what’s this person talking about? I know I’m not laid back.” You’re right and I mistyped. I’m often told I’m a pretty laid back person, but I don’t agree with it one bit. I’ve got too many suicide attempts in my past and too many mind-altering prescriptions for me to label myself as “laid-back.” Sorry for the confusion and semi-sorry for making you read this long-ass comment, if you made it this far.
I think you’re reading into it a bit much. If you offered your mates an antidepressant in the pub (that they didn’t need) there’s a good chance they would react the same way right? There’s nothing wrong with antidepressants but taking strong medication when you don’t need it won’t do you any good.
To me, it sounds plausible in a way that’s more than just “woman” bad.
Using myself as illustration, I’m a cis woman working in stem who has a heckton of trans friends such that it’s probably more accurate to describe my gender as cis+ because I had a big identity crisis thing when it clicked to me that you’re not stuck with your assigned gender at birth. Inexplicably, I seem to be pretty attached to my assigned gender, and the rare instances I have been misgendered causes me deep distress.
Part of this gender evaluation was that in the abstract, I have wished for more masculine traits. When weightlifting, I am envious of how quickly most men pack on muscle compared to me. In my career, I often find myself wishing I was a man, and then feeling a sinking discomfort because I don’t actually want to be a man, I just wish my field wasn’t so misogynistic. I’m about as sure as one can be in one’s gender. And because of that, when I was given the option of trying T, my internal reaction certainly was one of horror.
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