@ko @RosethornRanger it’s talked about by people who do it and have experience with it that comes from knowing how their own body reacts and how to manage their own hormonal health.

some authors of the online resources that do also mention as much of masculinizing HRT as they can without that experience, but usually with disclaimers saying as much. they’re not professionals, they figure it out on their own, in their free time, yet they take responsibility for the effects of this information on other people’s lives. they decide to put in that work and take that responsibility because it affects their own lives in the first place.

all those resources exist because we did not wait for anyone else to give us permission to have that autonomy you mention, we took it without asking. that’s kinda the point of autonomy.

I’m kinda active in that effort to spread information. sometimes, I have conversations about DIY HRT with other trans people and sometimes that includes transmasc people. so far, I’ve been consistently confused by their reactions to the topic being much more, uh, apathetic? than I get from transfems, even when I say that the DIY community is very aware of the lack of transmasc-focused information that we need contributions, that we need more of it to publish it along what’s already there about transfem stuff.

I don’t know if that’s a universal thing, but it’s definitely been my own experience. and yes, I know, I’m sure there are some transfem authors of those resources who don’t care about trans guys, fuck them, but also there’s enough of those who do care to give space and reach to stuff written by transmasc people about their HRT.

but y’all first need to do what we did - organize and get people with the lived experience of DIY HRT to put in the work to contribute based on that experience.

and then keep talking about it as much as we do, to make others aware that it’s a possibility and maintain that awareness. it doesn’t happen by itself, it takes work too, as all important community stuff does.

check out diyhrt.info and diyhrt.wiki for sites that do include transmasc-focused resources. let your transmasc friends know about them. tell them to do the same thing. get this going.

@ko @RosethornRanger I’m with you on all the issues you just brought up.

one of the most fascinating, amazing and mutually validating experiences I’ve ever had in my transition was talking with a trans guy about effects of hormones, both in puberty and from HRT, that we personally experienced and describing the exact same ones in a completely different light. it felt good to hear this guy talk about what testosterone did for him and see his joy, it made everything make sense beyond all doubt, and so it felt good for him to hear me express my joy about effects of estradiol - because as much as we respectively hated those effects in our own bodies, this perspective made us feel how real our own and each other’s identities are.

every trans person needs this kind of experience, especially those transfems who “hate testosterone”. and if they still don’t get it, yeah, be mad. it’s warranted.

when I say “do the work”, I don’t mean “go away and do everything yourself”, but there are things you - as the transmasc community - need to do yourself.

you just pointed out that the only data you have is your own and this limits what you can take responsibility for. the reason we have things like estrannai.se and widespread estradiol dosing guides is that a bunch of transfems spent years trawling research papers and reports, gathering data in the community, building statistical models out of that, figuring out unusual reactions and so on. no one but us could do it. no one but you can do it for masculinizing HRT.

similarly, every time I get a question about HRT from a trans guy (I sometimes do), I really fucking wish there was a transmasc equivalent of transfemscience.org - a site that exists because a small team of volunteers spent the last 7 years and counting on finding, analyzing and compiling any and all relevant research and community data into a resource that tackles questions that elude most endocrinologists. but for there to be a transmascscience.org, y’all need to do it.

and let me also point out: the trans community has a huge problem with an unnecessary divide fueled by grudge that’s perpetuating more grudge.

there’s the absolute fucking toxic bullshit some transfems do of seeing all trans guys by default as some kind of enemy because of this entire “transmisogyny affected/exempt” discourse. I refuse to give any validity to it because I see a stance that throws collective responsibility at a group for a failing of some members as fundamentally wrong, fucked up and, when done by another marginalized person, self-destructive too.

but there’s some shared-responsibility-shaped toxic bullshit coming from your side the completely unnecessary fence too, with all the same implications. I’ll stay engaged despite it, but it’s not fucking helping.

let’s maybe do the work to get rid of the stupid fence despite and regardless of toxic bullshit and grudges?

if we wait for everyone to come to their senses and apologize, as nice as that would have been, we’re going to wait forever. we’re all human regardless of gender, or being cis or trans, and with that comes a chance of having toxic assholes among us and using the same labels as us.