#take finasteride

[localwarlockunion]

I never really had long hair before but I've been growing it ever since I came out, and it's finally long enough that it gets caught in the corners of my mouth when I do things like lean, turn fast, windy, etc

[lokh]

i thought with my period coming back i would be able to stop using E cream but it looks like thats not the case

[exeggcute]

Why didn't you just go on T for fat redistribution?

fair question! a few reasons, among them that I know fat distribution is both one of the slowest changes to happen on T and one of the fastest to reverse itself if you ever stop, whereas getting fat cells sucked out of you with a straw is fast and fairly fucking permanent. and with my (former) waist-to-hip ratio I was doubtful anything short of a miracle would do much tbh. so given how impatient I was to tackle my biggest source of body dysphoria and how unlikely it seemed gradual measures would help I was super down to nuke that shit from orbit

[yaoi-hate-machine]

Kink Guess. Hair Pulling

i used to be more into this but now i think i would be like 1. Owwie, bad stim and 2. DO NOT FUCKING MAKE ME LOSE MORE HAIR THAN I ALREADY AM

[helianthus-hellion]

modern-day house m.d. episode where the patient is transmasc and on T, and after house reads his file he goes in and is reading off prescriptions like "estradiol cream, finasteride, prescription face wash, prescription deodorant... god, it's like you don't even want to be a man!" and the patient says "just because i wanna be a man doesn't mean i have to suffer all the shitty side effects" and house goes "it's all shitty side effects! being a man sucks!" before tossing the file down on the little tray table thing and leaving.

chase and cameron exchange A Look in the room and then while they're walking down the hall cameron's like "we should talk to him about it - maybe he'd be... happier? if he transitioned?" and chase rolls his eyes and is like "just because he thinks being a man sucks doesn't mean he's trans, every guy hates being a man at least some of the time" and then cameron gives him Another, Slightly Alarmed Look

we cut to house and wilson and wilson's looking at him like he's insane, going "so you... told the patient that being a man sucks?" and house laughs and says "sure did! i wanna know which will take longer - cameron coming to me concerned about my gender, or chase realizing he should be concerned about his gender. her gender? eh, probably easier to just stick with 'his' for now." wilson accuses him of being a sociopath and house looks fake-wounded and says "you know, if i am a sociopath, you're being ableist by attributing my cruel actions to my sociopathy, and if i'm not a sociopath then it's even worse that you're accusing me of being one just because i'm mean."

cuddy approaches house later and tells him that she heard about what he told the patient, and she is required both to make him take sensitivity training and also to provide him resources on transitioning if he wants to pursue that. house asks if him being a woman would make cuddy bisexual, and she raises and eyebrow and says "that ship sailed long ago" and doesn't elaborate on whether she means she isn't into house anymore so it doesn't matter or that she already is bi. house starts cyberstalking her to try to figure out if she slept with any of the women she's friends with on facebook. the team comes in to tell him about a new symptom and he shows them a photo of cuddy from college with a hot girl at a halloween party and is like "do you think they ever fucked? i think they fucked. even if they didn't, i'm gonna imagine they did." foreman tries to get them back on track but chase leans in to get a better look at the photo and it turns out to be wilson in a costume. there's an awkward beat of silence before cameron goes "SO, back to the patient!" and house makes a sort of dismissive "huh? oh, yeah, go test him for [whatever]" while staring intently at the photo.

he confronts wilson about the photo, wilson admits it's him, house starts by going "oh, yeah, but i'm the one having a gender crisis" but accidentally says "sexuality crisis" instead and wilson is like "house do you... do you think i'm hot in that photo?" and then we cut to chase asking cameron if she thinks he could pull off an outfit like that and they discuss it a little while doing a blood draw or LP or whatever. the patient gives them both A Look and is like "you know, you can get wigs and breast forms pretty cheap these days..." and chase is like "hm? oh, yeah i guess one of those costume supply sites would probably have stuff like that huh," and the patient raises his eyebrows at cameron who just shakes her head a tiny bit.

house accuses cuddy of sleeping with his best friend in the clinic lobby and she drags him into her office to ask what the hell he's talking about and he shows her the photo. she's like "yeah, we were at a halloween party together in college, so what?" and house says that wilson makes a really hot chick and asks if that's what awakened cuddy's "bi side," and cuddy just rolls her eyes and tells him to stop projecting his sexuality crisis onto her just because he thinks his best friend is hot. house asks if wilson was at least a good lay and cuddy says "find out for yourself!" before kicking him out of her office again.

house goes back to his office and cameron is pacing outside the door, and she looks nervous when he walks up to her. she follows him into his office and she has clearly prepared A Speech about how if he doesn't like being a man he doesn't have to be, and he doesn't even have to be a woman either, there's options, and it's never too late to transition no matter what people say, and he cuts her off like "yes yes you're very supportive, you clearly aced sensitivity training" and then he has the episode's Epiphany and it turns out that the patient transitioned too early and there was some (largely made-up and not actually backed by irl medical science) complication from starting his transition as a teenager, and the patient is like "oh so you're saying i did this to myself?" and house says "well legally at least, either your parents or the governor of new jersey did it to you - depends on who approved the hormones."

wilson comes up to him at the end and is like "you know, it's okay if you think i'm hot. and it's also okay if you're a woman. if you... ever need any tips on passing as one, i'm happy to help."

the ending is left ambiguous as to house's actual gender identity and, much like the autism episode, it kinda feels like the writers' room was full of heavy debate about whether house should be trans or not. we also never actually circle back to the fact that chase is definitely trans, it never comes up again, and this move pisses off both trans people and allies who wanted it to become A Story Arc and anti-trans people who are mad it even came up in a single episode, absolutely nobody is happy about how they handled that subplot.

[pangur-and-grim]

I do wonder if going back on T is going to help my autoimmune stuff. I felt pretty good last year when I was weight-lifting and doing weekly shots, and then I stopped T (due to hair loss) and everything fell to shit again.

speaking of hair loss, it took a lot of going back and forth with my doctor before she would prescribe finasteride. she wanted very badly to prescribe minoxidil (less effective) instead, because finasteride can cause birth defects if you're pregnant. please note that I am not pregnant, and if I find out I am pregnant, it will not take much time before I am not pregnant again. my doctor finally gave in, on the condition that I talk to a pharmacist and have them explain all the risks to me.

anyway, so the pharmacist said you're a great candidate for finasteride, let's do that. and then the pharmacist said please don't take minoxidil, you already have low blood pressure and that med would lower it further.

SO I'M A LITTLE ANNOYED that my health was placed at a lower priority than the health of a hypothetical fetus by my primary care physician. but hey, that's what having a uterus is all about!

[transmechanicus]

Pisses me off that i’ve seen so much marketing for “Hims” which are anti-hair loss pills which contain finasteride, minoxidil, etc, while prescribing the same chemicals as regular HRT is getting choked off for anybody under 26 in the US. “Yeah you can take this chemical but your insurance will only pay for it if you promise you’re not a tranny” fuck offffffff!!!!

[cicidraws]

Biotin vitamins are a big help for hair thinness in my experience, after having covid my hair got very very thin, like balding 48 year old man who thinks he's got a full head of hair cause he can put it up in a ponytail, it took some time but those really did make a big difference in how my hair is

ive been having balding/thinning for a long time since like 2015 just about, thats when i noticed it started but i definitely been taking biotin and other vitamins and all, it doesnt change it. covid did bother it somewhat aswell but not much more than already dealing with. but yeah it uh. didnt change anything unfortunately ;m;

i most likely have some form of pcos mainly hormone related, but i cant stand the thought of taking estrogen lmao.

[skullamity]

PSA for trans men and trans mascs on T who are afraid of/concerned about or experiencing male pattern baldness: Talk to your endocrinologist who monitors your T about hair loss before you talk to anyone else, you have options!

When the hair in the top of my head started to thin, I talked to my regular GP. She told me it should be fine to use Rogaine topically. There were no other options, either because she was somehow not aware OR was under the impression that alternatives might interfere with HRT. If this was the case, she did not relay this info to me, and if she had, I would have made an early appointment with my endocrinologist, who specialises in HRT for trans people specifically, and asked her about my options.

But, since I only have appointments once a year with my endo now because my levels are generally super consistent, I decided to try Rogaine. I lasted about a month, because it basically meant I had to wear a lined hat at all times to make sure I wasn't getting any on my pillow/cats/child. You need to apply it two to three times a day and leave it on your scalp for a couple of hours for the best results, every day, forever, and if you stop using it, your hair goes back to whatever it was up to before that made you concerned in the first place. I quit after a month and resigned myself to eventually going bald.

I finally had a phone appointment with my endo last week (was supposed to be in person but she had an emergency and was working remotely for the day), and when I brought this up and that I had tried Rogaine but couldn't deal with all of the above + my scalp was not reacting well to the alcohol in the foam so I quit, she was like ????? what? why didn't your GP just prescribe you finasteride???

I am now on finasteride! It is a dirt cheap, tiny ass pill. I only need to take a quarter of a pill once a day (my endo also helpfully explained to me that pill cutters exist and are also dirt cheap, so perfectly cutting a pill into quarters takes about 5 seconds and I got it for a whopping $8). Just like Rogaine, I WILL need to take it every day, forever, but it's not going to get all over my pillow and make my cats sick or cause my kid to grow a beard or whatever. It isn't going to dry my scalp out, and it also the cost comparison is a joke. I take it every morning at the same time I take my adhd meds, so it's easy to remember.

I have seen so, so many trans men and mascs online lately worried about this, probably because I've seen so many conservatives and the kind of detrans people that conservatives like to parade around put a lot of emphasis about how T will make you UGLY and make all of your hair fall out. I do feel sorry for any detrans women who are dealing with wonky hairlines or male pattern baldness, but also it sure is convenient that none of them see fit to mention that if you are experiencing those things, you can literally just talk to your endocrinologist about what your options are and then take a quarter of a pill every day to fix it. Almost like making you aware of that might move you away from their end goal, which is getting you to detransition.

[so-i-did-this-thing]

Heya! Apologies if you've gotten this question before

I'm a trans guy whos been on T for around 2-ish years but so far, the facial hair is very scraggly and honestly, barely there. Obviously I don't expect this to happen overnight (sobs) but, how long would you say it took for you to get that dense of a beard?

Beard growth is a marathon for some of us. It really depends on your genetics. I look a *lot* like my dad, and seemed to have inherited his facial hair. But it has taken a while to come in. Also, remember I started T at 33, so that is probably also a factor. I am 47 now.

It took me at least 5 years to get out of chinstrap mode, and a little bit longer to get a decent moustache. Since going on finasteride for my hairline a bit over a year ago, my beard has thinned a tad, but I still have good coverage.

It really takes some time. Here is where I was at ~3years. Nothing connected, under my lip was bare, and my moustache couldn't get very thick. I was barely out of chinstrap phase.

Year 4 and my moustache was still lagging behind, plus the color was light. I am actually a (very dark now) blonde, and my facial hair is lighter than what is on my head, but my beard started off especially light.

Still barely anything under the lip at year 5 & 6 and the moustache doesn't quite connect yet.

Year 7 is when my beard starts looking put together, provided it had a little length:

And years 10 & 11 is when the full coverage is there, even at a short length:

And of course now, 14 years in:

[anndromedea]

nevermind :))))))))) I did one (1) google search on 'spironolactone and hemochromatosis' and immediately found a published science article showing that hepicidin, the liver enzyme used to break down plasma serum ferritin and bind to iron for waste processing, is suppressed by spironolactone (and a few other drugs).

one google search. I have had five doctor visits and almost five liters of blood removed over the last four months and my ferritin went from three times the top of the 'healthy' range to four times, now almost to five times, while my hematologist insisted that 'the data shows it's decreasing despite this little bump :)', and my primary doctor just said 'treatment takes time :)' and not ONE person involved in my care was like 'huh. She's reporting taking this drug. I wonder if it could have an effect.'

so anyway I don't think there's an anti-androgen that works for me. My liver almost died from bicalutamide, my whole body is wracked with tremendous levels of inflammation and my heart, liver, and thyroid are all at risk from spironolactone... I guess I can try finasteride before I throw in the towel, but at this point, like.... I know there's no cosmic punishment system. probably. but it sure feels like my body was not made for transition.

hey neighbours, any advice on what to do when you have a chronic condition that isn't getting better and your doctors are gaslighting you saying the treatment is effective, when it's clear from the test results that it's getting worse month over month? cause my body is fuckin breaking down, I'm in constant pain and deteriorating when I do anything past laying in bed and sitting at my computer, and it's fuckin miserable :)))

[kn-1013]

the ONLY "modern au" for sally face i'm accepting is where they just age like normal so they're all like 47 in 2024.

sal looks like a shorter version of his dad and he's still got long hair. he's on finasteride because he'd rather suppository a baseball in front of a live studio audience than lose his hair. he works at a grocery store part time and he's on social security.

larry has been a mechanic for 15 years. maybe he eventually cut his hair, maybe he's balding but it's still long, who knows. he's the guy that'll change your oil for $20 if you buy the stuff because he's nice.

ash works at a bank, sells art as a side gig, maybe she has a kid or two but she's definitely divorced and never going back. she hates her job but she's got fantastic benefits and she likes her coworkers so she stays anyway, and she prioritizes chilling on the weekends with sal, larry, and the others.

todd became rich off of his job as an engineer and he and neil live very comfortably with like 7 dogs and sal goes over there to get piled in them at least once a week. everyone loves to chill at their place and watch movies.

maple and chug take great care of each other. chug has high blood pressure and maple is diabetic and they still go dancing once a week. they got empty nest syndrome when soda moved out so they have a cat now.

soda has a complex relationship with her name, having trouble with it in her youth, but as an adult she becomes a bassist or something and owns it. her love of music is something she attributes to uncle sal.

maybe travis got the balls to cut off his dad and live his life, and when his dad died he got to piss on his grave. at least one of his sisters probably remains very religious, but they still visit each other frequently and have deliberately tried their hardest understand each other, and he has a much better relationship with them as an adult, especially after their father died, than they did growing up, and as far as they're all concerned, that's a win.

they've been listening to the same albums and making the same jokes for the past 25 years. they've both grown incredibly over the years and have also not changed one bit. the way they see it, they're living their lives to the fullest like this.

smart TVs make todd's skin crawl, larry still listens to tapes, chug is still the undefeated nockfell hotdog eating competition champion, and gizmo will never die through the power of love and believing it really hard.

the wold can be so beautiful. think about it.

[3liza]

Really curious about your experience taking and deciding to take finasteride. I’m transmasc and I’ve got diffuse thinning from autoimmune/ autoimmune meds/ low dose testosterone, and would actually really love to have less body hair. I wonder how you balanced the possible side effects given that there’s a huge contingent saying anything from “I took it for 2 weeks and now have debilitating brain fog” to “I took it for a year and my dick shriveled up but I kept taking it and now my dick is stuck like this” etc.

long post

i'm not on T at the moment, the only hormone im taking is 5mg progestin/day for menstrual suppression, so idk how helpful my information will be. but here it is anyway

im taking 1mg a day finasteride, sometimes forgetting to take it, and i got mine from AllDayChemist. tthe effects i've noticed are first, that my nails are now growing annoyingly fast, but unfortunately they dont seem very strong so i have to cut or file them every couple days. this seems promising because as recently as a couple years ago i was still growing genetically long, strong nails just like my mom and my nail decline over the past couple years seems to suggest some sort of problem with them.

as for hair, i already have very long hair, and it's properly spiral curly, so determining exactly how much longer it has gotten in a period of time can be tricky, but i THINK it is also growing faster. when it's wet in the shower is when i can see where it is reaching relative to my back/hips, and it seems like it has grown back down to my tailbone very quickly since the last trim. I also see a lot of baby hairs around the observable areas on my hairline, and my widow's peak (which has always been very defined even when i was a kid, it's not a pattern baldness widow's peak) has a handful of what look like new hairs that are the appropriate length to have started growing since i started finasteride. also, and this is the biggest relief, when i brush my hair i am shedding a LOT less. like maybe 20-30% of the hair that i used to lose in my hairbrush is there now. i initially started this finasteride experiment because my shedding was getting so bad and i was noticing significant volume loss, so only seeing a fraction of the hairball size in my hairbrush as i used to is really great

naturally i neglected to take any "before" photos because im just not that organized, so my data sucks.

as for other effects.....i really havent noticed any at all. my brain fog is bad all day everyday at my baseline, so it's possible that anything finasteride is contributing is just being lost in the background noise. however, on the other hand, the obsessive self-monitoring of the sick person may also mean im in a good position to notice that kind of thing. i dont know.

i think my eyelashes are being affected positively. i forgot to take finasteride for about three days last week and noticed that i lost about six eyelashes that day, so i think they were finasteride lashes but who knows.

as for feminizing effects, like i said, i usually pluck my beard hairs (im fem-presenting rn) on about a monthly basis, and i have about four or five of them on my chin, and a peach fuzz mustache with five or six darker hairs that i shave or pluck sometimes too. since starting finasteride most of the beard hairs just havent grown in. i haven't noticed any breast tenderness or body feminization, i think i look about the same naked as i always do, so i dont think im getting any body fat redistribution either. i havent noticed any sexual effects either but i'm in a semi-asexual period at the moment anyway so im not sure how much i would notice finasteride changing that stuff anyway.

i think the online drug effects anecdotes are a valuable source of data, but that the data is generally low quality. the people reporting on what they think are side effects are extremely impressionable and also suck at noticing confounding factors, and stuff that's very personal and very psychological like erectile dysfunction are basically impossible to get good data for outside of a lab. it's one of the most vulnerable factors to placebo/nocebo effects, and erectile function declines with age anyway at about the same time people start taking finasteride, so i just dont think reddit posts are trustworthy on this topic. someone could easily have turned 35, started taking finasteride because they were losing enough hair for it to bother them (normal at that age), and then also started experiencing age-related erection decline at the same time for reasons unrelated to finasteride, and just done the human thing of associating the two unrelated events. on the other hand hormones are weird and theres every reason to expect an exogenous drug thats doing stuff to your "masculine" endogenous hormones could affect your penits. its not unrealistic at all.

drug companies bend over backwards to hide side effects that only come to light many years after a large general population is exposed to a drug. so i dont think you can discount this stuff either. i just tend to assume most of the reddit side effects are partially bad data and partially exaggerated, even as i take them seriously.

in conclusion hormones are truly weird and have unpredictable effects. i think it's probably not the case that trialing a low dose of finasteride for a few months would permanently damage you, but i cant state that with certainty because idk,. shit happens and there are edge cases for everything.

edit: i just remembered i used an epilator on my legs around the same time i started taking it. i dont have a lot of body hair normally so idk how good this data is, but i THINK my leg hair has been growing back less, and thinner, than it was before i yanked em all out. kind of hard to tell since epilators usually cause really bad ingrowns on me, i dont really have the right hair texture to be using one in the frist place. but this epilation growback SEEMS less hairy than it usually is.

[mellodyevangeline]

I think my Endo put me on a low dose of HRT. What do I do?

Recently I *finally* began HRT after nearly FOUR years of waiting (yaaaayyyy!!!!!!!). After all of the confetti hit the floor and the lights died down, however, I got curious about the dosages I was given.

I was prescribed .05 mg patches to be applied once a week, and 25 mg Spiro to be taken once a day. I don't know a ton about HRT, but this doesn't seem effective. Is this a low dose? And if so, what would yall consider to be a better dose?

I have a friend who once was exactly where I am, and she was taking one .1 mg patch a week and 2 spiros a day. I'm guessing that this is closer to the norm, right?

Also, I am on the patches because I have fears surrounding blood clots. Are those fears valid, or based on outdated info? If they are outdated, what's a better form of E that isn't scary? (I'm a very anxious person)

And is there a better T blocker than Spiro that a doctor could realistically prescribe me? I requested finasteride but my endo said "no that's too hard on your liver". But maybe it's not that bad?

So let's say I'm on a terribly low dose and I need to step it up with my doctor, how do I approach that conversation? I'm autistic and very bad with people. If I don't have a script I usually end up saying the absolute worst thing possible. It feels like I always roll a 1 on every charisma check. But anyway. How do I get my doctor to take me off of the baby dose and put me on the grown woman dose? What's the strat for that?

Any advice would be appreciated, but I'd love to try to get as many of these questions answered as possible.

Thank yall so much!!!!

[baeddel]

my 1st year of hrt

i don't post here much now, but as i have shared so much of my journey with you, for so much of which i wasn't able to transition at all, i wanted to make a post about my first year on hormones.

this post will be nsfw because of frank discussion about genitals, sexual functions and sexuality. it's also long, sorry.

ORAL, INJECTIONS

i have the entire time merely done what the diy wiki told me. between the time that i first looked into it, with the sort of long and helpful advices i received from friends, up to now, the whole thing has become much more well-understood and by that measure much easier to transmit and there are more plentiful resources. so it is really easy to diy. it's also much easier to get hormones and blockers and many more kinds are available.

i started off on 50mg bica and 6mg oral estradiol. i knew i wanted to use bica becuase it's supposed to keep your horny. a major hesitation for me was losing my libido, since being an extremely high libido person has been such a core part of my identity for pretty much my entire life. it turns out i had no reason to be afriad for reasons i'll explain later, but in the end i'm not sure how much of a role the bica played in that.

the chepaest place was actually from Lillian at the time we bought it. this regimen worked out to an amount per year that i don't really have and my first year was paid for entirely by my incredible and wonderful and amazing girlfriend @shimakaze-revivalism which i am so thankful for. it worked out the best to go for oral at that time but i had no preference for it over injections; gel seemed annoying to me.

to be honest i don't really recommend all that because it's basically ten times as expensive as monotherapy with injections. good golly! i didn't realize injections were so cheap until another girlfriend pointed it out to me around the time that i was due to refill. plus, not only am i used to injecting because of diabetes, but i like needles. since starting i have fallen in love with this method; i look forward to injection day and delight and savour in the entire process. i inject intramuscularly in my thighs with a 1" needle. the needle presses my skin into a deep valley before finally piercing through at which point my thigh snaps level and swallows the needle. i salivate a little bit when i do it. it hurts for a few days wherever the needle went, sweetly. if i'm too rough it bruises. my girlfriend is frightened of neeldes and i make her watch. i take 0.1ml at 10ml/400mg which according to Transfem Science (click) is equivalent to 8mg per day of estradiol orally, a little more than i took before. i stopped taking bica so i am on estradiol monotherapy.

because Lillian had issues right around the time of my order it was delayed by a bit and i went without hormones for a little while. this was utterly miserable and felt physically awful. i'll talk about it a bit more later. then my wonderful girlfriend lent me hers after we worked some things out so that she wouldn't also be left short. so for about a week or two i was taking 4mg estradiol and some amount of finasteride; this regimen felt bad and i struggled to stay hard or cum until i changed to something else. the phenomenally sweet and kind @hypnosister was bringing some estradiol gel for me to tide me over the rest of the way (—the second time she has given me hormones to cover for my errors), but my estradiol miraculously arrived the exact same day she did, so i never used any gel.

as you can tell, the principle ingredient in my hrt regimen has been the milk of human kindness. i owe an unpayable debt of gratitude. hopefully i can be more competent and independent in the future.

BLOOD TESTS

my plan was to get tested every 4~ months and monitor my blood.

there is a private blood test service you can get here in NI. they send out a little kit and you make a sample and send it back. supposedly. so far i have not known anyone to succeed. strangely, they don't allow refunds until you've tried it three times. for me i quickly realized my problem was that i have to use a lancet to draw blood several times a day to monitor my blood sugars, which means my fingers are scarred and calloused around there already and i'd never be able to draw enough blood as the test wanted. the last test i simply sent back undisturbed; they gave me my refund.

you can instead book an appointment with private clinics they work with and they will draw blood intravenously. however, at the time, agoraphobia would have made this a profoundly difficult journey, and i started off transitioning in secret and couldn't ask anyone for help getting there. so in the end i haven't been getting blood tested at all and don't really know what my hormones are and don't know how my liver is doing. this isn't ideal, but things are starting to change for me; i am now out at home, and what's more, i have started to beat my agoraphobia (!) and can get about now on public transport on my own. so i will go in a few months to monitor how my injections are doing.

SIDE EFFECTS

when i first started i was extremely nauseous. this went away after a month or so. after that there were simply no negative side-effects.

going off of hormones felt bad, but it was as bad as i felt before going on hormones. being on hormones simply feels much better; i'll talk more about that later.

LIBIDO, BONERS AND CUM

as i mentioned this was my biggest hesitation before starting. my libido had always been so high as to be debilitatingly intense. i would masturbate several times a day. if i hadn't masturbated recently i would be unable to concentrate; i would be so horny i'd get dizzy, feel faint... something in me had to be ceaselessly arrested, cooled, soothed and put away, shortly to lift its hatch and claw at me again. in a lot of ways it was really a big problem in my life and looking back it wasn't a good thing. but it was who i was and i was scared of losing it. it also seemed like an important component of maintaining a lot of sexual relationships. or was it the special solvent that held all my work together? a manic energy. without which i would become slovely and pointless.

erections are also of course an important part of performing in the way i was used to; and i could cum a lot. like, a lot. thick, goopy, white cum. which girls like. because i am not attractive in any other measure, giving up this source of puissance felt like giving up everything. so it was really frightening to me to be honest. these are all ways that the idea of a loss of libido or sexual function felt like the end of myself as a person.

this is i understand probably a distorted source of self-worth, but, in any case, hormones did not in fact oblige me to give it up, and i worried for nothing. hormones drastically improved my sexuality in every single respect. first of all, it did hurt my libido, but only so much as to take the edge off. it let me master it; and having mastered it, i was able to do things i could never do before in my life, like chastity games, and everyday life wasn't so painful, and i had more freedom about how i spent my time, since i didn't have to masturbate before anything that took concentration. but i'm still a very high libido person; what's more it made me much more engaged with sex with partners rather than masturbating.

there was a brief period of time close to the beginning where it did affect my erections, i believe, but this passed and i now have erections like normal. neither my penis or scrotum changed size or appearance. and thankfully my loads did not diminish at all; though on bica it was a little more translucent and less goopy white, it seems to be back to normal on monotherapy. it takes several minutes to clean up after.

but here's the thing; on hrt, my sexuality improved in ways i didn't even anticipate. these are: 1. every sensation feels so much better, to such an extent that sensations seem to take on a profound meaning. it is especially lovely to use the soft parts of a girl's thighs. 2. orgasms are completely different. not just a quantitative but a qualitative difference. they make me shiver, they last forever, my toes curl as i gasp and perspire. afterwards i am submerged in bliss; wheezing asthmatically, sticky or soaking wet. 3. when not having sex, i mostly cum handsfree, neither using my hands nor any implement, or any special technique but to look at something or think of something or talk to someone. either naked or under my clothes. i could do this before but it took more effort. 4. when having sex, i cum much, much faster, which is a really good change for me, because performing was always a source of anxiety, and now i have no problem with that, unless i'm having blood sugar problems which can't be helped.

i understand that most people don't have my experiences when they start hrt. although for most people sex feels better and orgasms feel better, most people cum less and have more problems performing after hrt rather than the opposite.

in the few weeks that i went off hrt i went pretty much back to normal, and it felt awful. i went back to masturbating several times a day, became less interested in having sex, and derived much less enjoyment from masturbation which was little more than habitual. i could still cum handsfree but mostly i didn't. by comparison it all simply felt bad. at this point i would take estrogen merely as an aphrodisiac.

BOOBS

i have little boobs. if it really is accurate to talk about transfem bodies this way, then i think i am in Tanner Stage 3. i don't really care about having boobs so i don't really think about it. mainly i felt A LOT BETTER about my body after i started removing my chest hair, no matter what my chest looks like.

early on in transition i asked you all if my boobs would stop being sore. some of you said no. well listen up fuckers, you were dead wrong! after three or four months they stopped hurting entirely. but then afer i started injections they began to hurt again, and now they still hurt. maybe they'll just hurt every August, no matter what i do.

WEIGHT GAIN, FAT DISTRIBUTION

i literally weigh 50 pounds more than at the start of 2023. however, 30 of those pounds i put on before even starting hrt. so i think it's a coincidence; regression to the mean. in the past i constnatly lost weight mysteriously, now i am quickly gaining it. i'm a little worried about it really, but i feel a little better about myself with chubbier cheeks as well.

i have definitely gained more of an hourglass shape now that i didn't have before. but i still think my body is very ugly and i'm ashamed of it. looking more feminine doesn't mean looking or feeling any more attractive necessarily and you have more body image issues than gender dysphoria. it's necessary to consider them a little separately. to be honest, i have no idea what i wanted hrt to do to my body. no matter what outward physical change i consider i will say 'that's some accidental change and is not the reason i'm on hormones, so i don't really care about it.' then why transition?

HRT AS WILL

this is to me the most fascinating change and the one i could anticipate the least; hrt completely changes my fundmanetal first-person experience of reality. i have no idea how to describe it; surely any words are inaccurate metaphors which cannot possibly denote anything to you if you haven't felt it. i simply feel that, before hrt, i was out of alignment, and that when i am on hrt, my alignment has been restored, and i have achieved some kind of invisible perfection. every waking moment feels so much better, and stopping hrt made me feel awful for that reason only. i knew what it was like to be on it. Tiresias.

this is the biggest thing for me; even if hrt did absolutely nothing else i would take it for this reason alone. not only that, but i would still regard it as deeply important, fulfilling some deep need. i would pay a high price for it.

do you know what i mean? what is this?

oh god... have you felt this? it's rather... rapturous... ah haha...

it means that i'm chosen...

maybe i have eyes on the inside. if you kill me you'll get a Caryll Rune: Clockwise Metamorphosis.

when i think about other things to add to my transition progress, such as progesterone, this is the primary lens that i look at it through. how would this change my inner experience? what effect would it have on me at the level of pure feeling? i don't really care what it would do to my body. what new chamber of the soul is unlocked thereby?

PERIODS

i was promised that i would get periods when i started hrt. this seems to have been a myth. if i want periods i suppose i would have to actually vary my own hormones throughout the month. in the past i actually had a pretty intense dysphoria about not getting periods, and the idea that i'd get them one day was very relieving to me. thankfully i don't really care about that anymore; all of my desires orient themselves with reference to transfems, so not having periods doesn't create any kind of distance between myself and my peers.

CONCLUSION

anyway, transition is going extremely well in my estimation. there are other aspects of transition than just hrt; gender-affirming clothes, laser (cheap here), optionally voice training and such. i think for some people a year is kind of a long time, but i tend to have a long-term view. it's something healthy but it also makes me slow to act. in any case i still see myself as just starting, and i will get to other things soon enough. i like changing. i like doing things that change me. you have to resist the temptation to see every possible avenue of transition as a form of assimilation to cisnormativity. we have a culture; we do certain things that change us, sometimes forever and sometimes for now.

thanks for reading.

[syntheticsylvie]

Overview of My First Year of HRT (2021-2022)

Hi, my name is Sylvie, and I'm transfemme! I started hormone replacement therapy on September 25th, 2021 and I've been through quite a lot on my journey to a year of HRT so I'm making two separate posts: this one focusing on the medical side and physical changes, and another that will focus on the social side of transitioning. So, here we go!

I realized I was trans the last week of August 2021, then September 9th I came out publicly, September 15th I had my first appointment with Plume, and I received my first Estradiol script September 24th, but consider my official "first day" of HRT the 25th.

I started HRT on sublingual Estradiol pills, 2mg twice a day (morning and night). Psychologically, taking the first pill hit me like a psychosomatic lightning bolt, and the first meaningful change estrogen granted me was an opening of my feelings- I could suddenly experience a "true range" of emotion, I experienced ambivalence for the first time. Physically, within the first week, I was experiencing tingling in my chest/nipples and by three weeks they actively ached, and after about two months my nipples looked different (darker, larger), and my chest started to stick out (36" to 37")

At 2 months my Estradiol was increased to three times a day and Progesterone 100mg (at night) added. By two months, my body's sensitivity had reached astronomical levels, particularly in areas that weren't sensitive before: for me, this was my nipples, armpits, and butt. My skin overall became more sensitive, slight touches made me quiver and my pain tolerance dropped sharply. During my second month my body's smell changed too and my sweat production cut back.

At 3 months, Spironolactone 50mg once a day (morning) was added and during this month my nipples had noticeably expanded and become dark enough to see through shirts, and my chest had grown enough to be noticeable small mounds in a tight shirt (38"). Also by 3 months, random erections completely stopped happening, whether asleep or awake.

Between months 3 and 5 a lot of things happened in my life; the stress and inactivity caused me to lose 50 lbs. As a result, I lost a ton of muscle mass. My thighs, upper arms, and butt became soft and jiggly, I could not lift things I could before, even with great effort.

3 month bloodwork results: E @ 133 and T @ 320

At 4 months, I asked my doctor for Finasteride, which is a DHT blocker- DHT is an androgen created by testosterone and an excess of DHT is related to hair loss, as well as some research I read back then relating to DHT and thicker/darker body hair. Since starting Finasteride, I have only shaved and used Nair on my body itself and I have experienced 75%-80% body hair loss, and much of what hair remains is now vellus hair (light, short, soft).

Between months 4 and 5, I started experiencing sexual dysfunction. Even if aroused, it was a 50/50 shot of whether I could get hard or not. Likewise, I began producing much less semen. This was when I started experimenting with different forms of masturbating too (i.e. using a vibrator).

Between months 5 and 6 I started gaining weight again, and this was when my breast growth was the greatest, going from 38" to almost 41". However, in the growth it seems I lost the sensitivity I had in the early months- my nipples and armpits are still erogenous zones, but not as potent. Additionally, I noticed fat redistribution caused my hips and waist to take a more stereotypically feminine, almost hourglass appearance (and increased from 32" and 34" respectively to 35" and 38" by 10 months).

6 month bloodwork results: E @ 258 and T @ 22

Months 7, 8, and 9 saw only slight breast growth (41 1/2") due to losing weight again from stress, but at this point I have very little body hair left, and even areas which were full before (armpits, groin) thinned out significantly over time- the most astounding of all being my butt, which the cheek hair just disappeared without me doing anything, like the hair just fell off.

Somewhere during months 8 and 9, I completely lost the ability to become erect without medication (doctor prescribed me Sildenafil, aka viagra) and no more ejaculating. Reaching orgasm became a concentrated effort instead of something that came easily, and very little clear liquid would come out during.

9 month bloodwork results: E @ 57 and T @ 28

For some reason my levels dropped between 6 and 9 months, and during that time I became very mentally and emotionally unwell due to the hormone imbalances. My doctor suggested a few things: me not waiting/letting the pill dissolve long enough in my mouth or the pill just not having the same potency on me anymore. So...

At month 10 I started injections and almost immediately started feeling much better. There is a hormonal low day for me every week, the day before I do my injection again, but it's not hard to deal with. I feel like myself!

Now months 11 and 12, nothing really noteworthy to update except I'm desperately trying to eat more so I can gain weight to grow my boobs. Just stopped taking Spiro though, but I use Tgel to maintain my girldick because I'm a Switch.

Lastly, I'd like to say I'm open to any questions anyone might have, and I'll do my best to answer them. You can DM me, email me secretly from a fake account (bellatrixnovus@gmail.com is my email), whatever! I just hope this information is of some value to someone out there!