Will one pill by itself do anything? I thought it was more of a prolonged course of treatment.
It depends.
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.
I tried to stay away from hrt but oof you’re making it hard… That sounds amazing.
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.
Fascinating! I can’t wait to see what it’ll be for me…
Congrats with your HRT and may it serve you well!
Go read through my posts if you want some more early days experiences.
Sounds like the euphoria could also be from feeling relief that you finally have access to it?
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.
yep, that’s more accurate ty!
That aspect of it was most definitely present, indeed.
there’s a little voice in my head telling me to try one just to fuck around
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.
A single Estradiol prolly won’t do anything.
But testosterone blockers like Spironolactone is also a heart medication, so be careful.
I took one pill and my dick propelled off. It just flew off got damnit. I still miss it.
This is exactly why you are supposed to take the first pill under doctor supervision.
Noone told me, I got it offered in a pub
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”.
Complicated indeed…
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.
I agree though, it certainly is complicated.
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.
Whaaa…
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.
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.
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.
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.
