For those #trans folks (#NonBinary, #TransMasc, #TransFemme, #Agender, others I’m definitely forgetting sorry about it please chime in too!) on #HRT, what are some of the fun effects you’ve felt?
I want to hear about your hormonally-induced #TransJoy!
I’m going to add one more, since it just came up again. E really helped me get in touch with my emotions, and that let me express myself much more fully in writing.
This has lead to an absolutely mystifying phenomenon.
At least monthly, someone tells me that a specific thing I said has touched them and offered them a perspective they feel might be helpful to them.
I cannot express enough how gratifying and fulfilling it is to reach people, especially and specifically queer people, in that way.
🩵🩷🤍🩷🩵
@Willow Shoe size change is a fun one for me 😃
Old: Men's Euro46/UK13/US13
New: Women's Euro42/UK9/US11
@Willow I really, really love being physically stronger. I don't work out as often as I'd like, but even from the first year on T, so many things became physically easier. I could finish amounts of work that felt "right." I could open things by myself. It took fewer trips to bring in groceries. Lugging around the box of cat litter was an effort, but not a taxing one.
I could just... do a thing, breathe for a couple of moments, then go about my day.
No more doing a thing and then sitting on the couch because I felt weary and (I now realize) dysphoric.
@erosdiscordia I LOVE this for you! That alignment between what should be possible and what is is so important.
I have totally felt my ability to “just do things” ebb away, which has been bittersweet for me. On the one hand, it was super useful, and now I don’t have it! On the other hand… it felt strange to cling to an ability that shouldn’t really have been mine? Not that women cannot be buff and strong, but that I didn’t connect happily with my capabilities. They were useful, but they weren’t me.
@Willow That makes sense! Of course women can be strong, I think what surprised me was the "thoughtless strength", if that makes sense. I broke a few things by accident. It was weird.
I always wondered what it was like to transition on E, and feel that fade away a bit. It scares me to imagine! But maybe it's the same for things like feeling my skin go from smooth to rougher -- bittersweet like you said, but validating and wryly amusing.
@erosdiscordia Oh yes, I didn’t hear anything in what you said about women not being strong.
That casual, as you say “thoughtless strength,” perhaps “effortless strength.” It was like, I could just flex (I did not work out much until right before transition, so it wasn’t like I was very muscle-y) and pick up a bunch of heavy bags from the car trunk and trundle inside! Doing so had a zero spoon cost.
I feared losing it, until I accepted that it wasn’t mine to have. There were other things that were mine to have, that I would have when I went on E.
Wryly amusing - yes, this.
"Wasn't mine to have"
I'm going to sit with this phrase, I think it could be really healing. Thank you.
@Willow 💙
I've tried to face head-on what I've "lost" from transition, and feel ok to grieve it. But perhaps it could be looked at like, I enjoyed something longer than most guys do, or experienced some things that almost no guys get to. It's really cool. Honestly, I like being trans.
@Willow yes! I never felt comfortable with that strength, because it felt unearned. Whereas now I have to work to attain that same strength-- lift weights and the like-- and I enjoy it, because it feels intentional.
I really have been subconsciously comparing myself to other women all my life, haven't I? 🙃
@erosdiscordia
@Willow I think I should add to this that it isn't just, "Yay, I can lug more bags at a time."
At least once a week I'm struck with this profound gratitude over what my body is able to do now. I'm afraid to use metaphors because I don't want to be offensive, but it was like having been cured of a chronic wasting illness. Pre-T, I didn't judge myself for being weak or anything -- I didn't really know I felt weak, only that exertion hurt emotionally as well as physically. Because I'd hit my limit before I thought it was there, and so I would hit it hard, every time. That hurts! And is taxing and triggered despair.
And I didn't understand any of this. It was before I'd even heard of spoons theory, so I'd just be sitting there, devoid of spoons, wanting to cry, and with a job "unfinished."
I still feel the ghost of those old limit-warnings when I'm doing things now, and that's what triggers the gratitude, I think. I'll look down and realize I was just able to move a 70-pound tub of books, and some thing I wanted to accomplish is finished. I might be breathing heavy but I'm standing up and feeling good about myself, that nice dopamine thing. And I'll want to cry a bit, for different reasons.
@weirdofhermiston @Willow It really does feel like some sort of emotional rush. Pre-T, I thought guys were kinda dumb for trying to get literally every grocery bag in one go. But now I get it.
Why do anything? Because you can.
@erosdiscordia @Willow yeah I definitely think "let me try lifting [heavy object]" often, just because lol
And a lot of times I can actually lift it!?! What in the world
Exactly!
It's like the spree I imagined I'd go on if I woke up with a superpower, except it never actually ended. And everyone thinks it's goofy and amusing. If that's the price of having the strength of a 20-year-old guy, I am so down.
@weirdofhermiston @erosdiscordia That sounds like so much fun!
Okay, confession: I really wanna arm wrestle a trans dude and just get destroyed. I feel like that would be a great time.
@Willow @weirdofhermiston You just made me realize I've never won an arm-wrestling contest. And how pre-T that used to frustrate me so much, I stopped playing them.
Maybe that should go on the bucket list!
Sensory changes. Touch, taste, scent, and visual -- I've had all of them expand and change.
I respond to touch a lot differently, with a number of things that used to be irritating suddenly quite pleasant.
Visually, I seem to have a better eye for color -- picking out shades and differences I couldn't before. My spouse has noted it a few times.
My sense of smell has increased, and I've become MUCH more sensitive to certain smells -- for good and ill.
Taste has been weird -- I'm definitely capable of tasting more complexity than before. I've not encountered any 'favorite foods' that went from good to bad, but I've found SEVERAL foods that went from "bad" to "good" (bananas, for one) and others that went from "meh" to "good" -- coffee, for instance.
I don't know about hearing, but I know those four all got more...nuanced.
@Willow @EmilyGB2023 Estrogenated bodies maintain the eyeballs for a higher ratio of cones to rods, so after a bit of time on HRT, yes, you are absolutely seeing more colours and finer gradations of colours. It's science!
Also your night vision goes to shit. But it's worth it for all the pretty colours!
I've gotten a bit of teasing from my wife because I can differentiate between shades I couldn't have seen two years ago.
"I respond to touch a lot differently, with a number of things that used to be irritating suddenly quite pleasant."
If you felt like it, could you expand a bit on this? I've noticed something similar, but more like some touch or personal-space stuff irritates me more.
My skin is just more alive, I guess? The sensations I get are more complex -- a cool breeze isn't just ""I'm cold and it's windy".
I can feel the feedback from the little hairs moving on my arms, the goosebumps rising, I can trace the contours of where the breeze touches without looking. I can feel the tingle of it, the cool/cold/movement sensation ripple across my skin.
Warmth, like hot water in the shower, went from "the water is warm and running down me" into a warmth I can feel penetrate my skin, working it's way inward. I can feel the tracery of heat running down me with the water, feel tiny little shifts as my muscles relax under it.
My wife running her hand across my arm used to be dull, almost irritating at times. Now? I mean depending on the mood and context, it ranges from a pleasant feel of skin on skin to an electrifying feeling that races across my skin, up and down from the point of contact
It's like putting on glasses for the first time
@EmilyGB2023 @Willow It seems like, to grossly generalize, you went from kinda numb to noticing when things feel pleasant or interesting more. Does annoying or painful/scratchy sensation hurt more too, or is it about the same?
For me, on T, things feel ~about~ as good or sensitive as they did before, but I notice I tune some of it out more if I'm mentally engaged with a thought or project. Like, "yeah-that's-nice", and I have to consciously yank my head out of it and make myself be present and appreciate it. And things that are scratchy or aggravating, like a shitty sweater, are so much worse. But I've been chalking that up to no longer numbing out pain.
One thing I've noticed is if I don't want to be bothered, someone getting in my space has a physical sensation now, and one that can spark actual anger. Obviously I used to feel people's presence on E, but it was more of an emotional wariness rather than a skin sensation.
Physical sensation is potentially overwhelming these days, in a way it never was before.
It's like it's louder and more insistent, more encompassing. Pain and discomfort were always quite demanding. Sex, of course, was demanding in it's own way.
But I never before would have stood there in the shower and just luxuriated in sheer sensory delight from the combination of running water and heat.
@EmilyGB2023 @Willow I know what you mean. I wish everyone could feel it briefly, but I suppose it might not be affirming for everybody. Still, I am so glad this is happening to you.
For real, so many times trans femmes/people on E have shared their perspectives on the changes, and it sounds so much like the description of having first turned into a vampire in Anne Rice's novels. How the emotions are so much fuller and more colorful, and sensation and visual & hearing perception just rockets up in sensitivity. It's so cool. I love reading threads like this.
I've always liked "right fuel for my engine" as a metaphor. Or an analogy. I can never remember which is which.
It's certainly how it felt to me. Like...everything smoothed out, like static clearing from a channel.
T's great for some people. But not me.
But within a week of starting E, I knew that no matter what else happened, I wasn't going back to T dominance.
I couldn't. Not after knowing how I was supposed to feel. It wasn't ever what I was supposed to run on.
@EmilyGB2023 @Willow Yup! And it took my engine a while to clear out the diesel, even after I started putting proper gas in it. It still ran janky for a few months. But damn, once it caught on...
I'm with ya, never going back.
I know some trans people don't need or want hormone changes, but I needed that more than just about anything else.
It really feels akin to finally having your vision corrected. A lot of "oh wait, is this how it is for everyone? Wow"
It's not just more detailed, it's richer and more full.
The skin is thinner, the fat layer different, and estrogen and testosterone are neurotransmitters, so I'd imagine it's a combination of things -- including how my brain processes it.
I'm pretty prone to describing the effects of HRT as "finally getting the right fuel for my engine". Everything just seemed to suddenly be working smoother.
There's also the psychological work I'm putting in on top of all of that, and the slow dissipation of dysphoria.
Still can't believe I suddenly like bananas.
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