I've been seriously considering estrogen/anti-T HRT, and reading other people's experiences the mental effects seem the most appealing to me as opposed to the physical side (not that those seem unappealing tho). I'd love to hear people's experiences here of how HRT has affected their emotions/cognition/sensory perception/connection to the cosmos/etc.
I'm not sure I really noticed any mental/emotional effects from hrt, aside from the general relief of not looking like a dude anymore. Like I'm a much calmer, happier person than I was before I started hrt, more social and physically fit, and way more into men than I was before, but I feel like that was mostly the physical transition and the effects that has had on my environment and self-perception. It also killed my sex drive until I switched to injections, but then oh boy!
I also started ages ago (12+ years) so maybe I just don't remember how things were before.
Just my experience, your mileage may vary. I've been on a relatively low dose of estradiol (2mg / day) with no anti-androgens for about 6 months. Getting my levels checked in a few days so that might change. Some of these could also just be psychologically unrelated to the medication and more to do with being invested in my life
Mental effects
- I feel like my emotions have a little more depth; previously I had a hard time digging down into the root causes of emotions, nowadays it's more like 'Sure, I'm feeling this emotion, but its probably because of XYZ reasons, theres some nuance here'
- Due to having better observation of my emotions and feeling more in tune with myself, a lot of the dumb shit I used to do to 'act out' has slowed down. Just taking better care of myself in general cause I feel more invested in my future rather than living in a way where if I die by accident it's not that big of a deal
- Less horny in a physical way, but more horny in an emotional narrative way. Sort of hard to explain :volcel-judge:
Tbh my advice to anyone who has given serious thought / research into HRT is 'fuck around and find out' - its not like the doctor flips the bimbofication switch and there's no going back. Everything's slow, I specifically decided to do estrogen monotherapy at a low dose since it would be a slower process. For myself I decided I'd give it a shot for 3 months and now I can't really imagine stopping unless there's a drastic change in bodily function or health that requires it
Haven't done HRT myself but I've heard from multiple people irl that did feminizing HRT that they found themselves more comfortable with and likely to cry. Like stereotypical stuff, at romantic movies or horrible world events. Also because we live in toxic societies, I should mention that neither them nor me saw this as a bad thing (nor should we). Obviously I can't tell you the reasons why this might happen, but it's often-reported!
To seperate out the effects of HRT with other things going on at the same period is difficult but generally I do believe seeing my body feminize and feel more "me" helped a lot with confidence when dealing with others (although dealing with men now comes with extra fear, but that's cause dudes suck too often) and in general care about my body. Before I struggled with taking showers or brushing my teeth even once a week and now I can do on a daily basis because I actually have some care about what I see.
My body's sex drive basically died but that's also because I am asexual and I believe my sexuality was mostly just an outlet for dysphoria and gender expression when I didn't have one before rather than anything else so YMMV a lot for that.
I've been on spiro since January and E for about a month and so far the only thing that's changed is that my boobs are sore as fuck like when cis girls go through puberty, lol. Spiro made me pee all the time for a bit and gave me a little bit of orthostatic hypotension (also light headed but that was only the first day), spiro is a dieuretic so I wasn't surprised. Facial hair growth has slowed a lot.
As for emotional stuff, not really anything for me. I still feel basically the same as I always have only with more femme stuff happening. Maybe it kicks in after a few months, I dunno.
Oh yeah, and I've been taking estradiol sublingual and I'm pretty disciplined with it. My E is probably pretty level through the day. Might be different depending on route or if you miss doses or can't stick to a schedule for whatever reason.
Definitely this. Just ambient happiness for seemingly no reason that replaced a fundamental apathy and detachment.
Hips would be great, though. My friends are convinced I did get some bone growth starting at 29 strangely, since my hip bones go right up to my sides now.
I just want to say thanks so much already to everyone sharing such helpful insights. I have come to recently realize I have such an internalized fear of embracing my transness. and it's honestly so encouraging and legit inspiring to read people's experiences, even with the heterogeneity in experiences it's so telling that the most common thing I read is how unimaginable it would be to go back before HRT and transitioning.
I've felt so depersonalized from my body as a whole and other people for so long, which I chocked up to sadness and anxiety under capitalism (which i still think it is) but recently realizing that dysphoria could play such a huge role in that mysterious soup of sources of ennui is a big epiphany for me who at 30 years old thought was mostly done with epiphanies.
My experience has been moreso feeling less like wanting to be a woman in the traditional sense and moreso wanting to grow into the fully realized version of myself, which feels much more femme and nonbinary (or vice versa). But overwhelmingly since puberty being included in the social grouping of men has felt nauseating. I think I just feel so hesitant and scared to center my own feelings that thinking of myself as trans and the implications of embracing that has seemed terrifying. but reading these experiences has made me realize how transformative that could be.
a few follow up questions for anyone still reading:
what was your experience of dysphoria like? did you experiment with presenting femme in public before hrt? did you worry about not feeling "trans enough" before starting hrt?
I haven't experimented with presenting femme in public really at all, even after being on HRT for a month. I mean, I wear women's clothes in public, but basically mom jeans and a shirt, still styled pretty masc (I actually had thigh-highs on under the jeans as kind of a reminder that only I could feel lmao). The most I've done is wear nail polish outside. Until my body changes more, really going all-out to present as femme as I want to in public is really intimidating. And for what it's worth, there are people who do HRT for like a year before they ever start presenting as their real gender, it's really common these days- and one of the reasons that the standard of care in America were so bad before the big change in 2011 is that those standards required people to present as their true gender full time for a year before starting hormones, which is a fucking nightmare if you ask me (there was also a bunch of other bullshit, like transitioning had to be "making you straight" and not presenting as the most exaggerated version of your true gender could get you cut off from hormones, e.g. trans women going to the doctor in anything other than a dress would lose their hormones for it).
Before I realized I was trans, I did try buying and wearing a dress in my room. I think I expected that I would get some kind of clarity from it, but the truth it it was just a piece of cloth lmao. Femme clothing feels affirming now that I'm out, but it aint magic. The story you always hear about people who knew they were trans since they were 4 years old and wearing dresses was an immediate lightning-bolt-clarity moment, those people exist but they're not the majority.
Not feeling trans enough is an extremely common thing. In some trans spaces I'm in, we joke that wondering if maybe you're not trans is just further proof that you're trans lmao. On that subject, there's a book called Yes, You Are Trans Enough- I haven't read it, but I've had it recommended highly to me. Could be worth a shot.
Nobody has mentioned the cuddle bug, but its real, especially on progesterone.
In some ways its not fair to ask. Starting HRT usually coincides with a lot more than just the hormones, including social changes. I started hrt over a year ago in secret and did not announce my transgender status to those I lived with for almost 8 months, Some senses do change - smell, touch, sight - mostly getting more vivid or detailed. I felt baseline happy but felt more empathy, but that may just be because more and more people were starting to know me, not just the facade I wore my entire life. I was out to my friends from the start and even went on vacation with them under my real name while leaving and returning as my deadname.
Its also hard to approximate hormonal implications when I never got to cis E levels until 10 months when I switched to injections, and it wasn't until the one year mark that I started progesterone, and both of those had substantial physical and mental effects too.
Its weird. I'm still me, and I see continuity, but if I sample my mental state or perceptual experience in context from years ago at random to what I am now experiencing or feeling it seems totally alien. It probably just relates back to how bodies are built to go through puberty.
I definitely remember, and do not piss, the ambient anger and aggression that came with being on T. If that was the hormone itself or just my frustration of being a closed trans woman for 15+ years I have no idea.
well it was mostly a relief, so that's about as much as I can say with certainty. general better mood and emotional responses from the improved state of mind and self-understanding. It is easier to cry and less to anger, though a lot of that I feel comfortable attributing to being out and honest in my life. Really for me, the biggest type of change in the internal sense that's most clearly due to hormones is sexual sensation. It shifts to what I assume is a similar experience to cis women rather than how it is on t (more immediate and harder to control). It's odd for a while tho, before you and your brain figure out how it all feels and stimulates that way now
The most significant purely emotional effect it had on me was making it much easier to cry. I definitely like having that as an outlet, and it's a major reason why I'm hesitant to take a break from E.
I've been on a low dose of E (2mg) with no anti-T for about 2 months. A big thing I noticed that I don't hear about is that when I started I felt smaller, which I loved bc height is my biggest source of dysphoria and that dysphoria basically disappeared overnight. I'm a little more emotional but honestly not that much, one thing I've found is that I'm more sensitive to criticism, although in retrospect I think I was sensitive to it before but it manifested more as defensiveness. I had a shift psychologically that was kinda a kick in the pants, but it's a little hard to say how much of that is caused by the pills vs making the decision. I think the hormones have less of a psychological effect than social relations, like I would rather not have E but have everyone respect my identity than the reverse. Having said that, it substantially reduced my dysphoria and I can't imagine wanting to stop.
Also, sexuality changes a lot. Basically, the genitals just process the signal that says, "Get turned on," but what determines when that signal is sent is all in the brain and influenced by hormones. The horniness graph on T looks like a bunch of random spikes up and down, whereas the graph on E is more like gradual up and down curves. Also, on E, sensitivity is distributed more throughout your body, and the environment, things like cleanliness and mood lighting, make a bigger difference.
So: Reduced dysphoria, changes how you get turned on, and a bit of an anti-depressant.
I haven't had that smallness experience, though I wish I did. I'm 5'11 / 181cm though so just being taller than like 90% of people makes it hard to feel small.
I'm 6' so I know the feeling, but I'm sorry you haven't had the same experience. :trans-sad:
How long have you been on HRT? Because HRT loosens up the ligaments and kinda folds your pelvis in, a lot of people report that, after a while, they lose 1-3 inches of height
A year and a half, and having lost no height whatsoever it doesn't look like it will happen for me.
Cuz I already did shrink like 2 shoe sizes.
I've been on HRT for just short of a month, and already I'm feeling my depersonalization and derealization lifting. I don't have frame of reference to say if it's entirely gone, but I can definitely feel way more emotion than I could before. That's not always good- my long-term partner and I split up during that period, right in time for it to make me sadder than I've ever been in my life. But even that was kind of a relief in a weird way- being that sad is still better than being numb.
estrogen/anti-T HRT
From his phrasing, it sounds like you might be considering trying T blockers without estrogen? I wouldn't recommend that- not having an androgen or an estrogen supposedly creates really bad mental health effects.
