Third Sex Unifying the dejected other within self.
 

Hormone Replacement Therapy and Being a Woman

I have been on Hormone Replacement Therapy for 8.5 months. This process has radically altered my perspective on life, and given me a new one. In 8.5 months on HRT my body has changed a lot.

Most notably:

1. My acne vanished, replacing a cystic oily face with a smooth, clear, pale complexion. My skin itself is thinner, lighter, and fuller. Its as though life itself has entered me.

2. My face changed shape. I mentioned above that my face became fuller…it did, because fat has developed in it and reshaped the way my face looks. My cheeks are full now, and it is a HUGE change - it makes the difference between male/female appearance for me. My nose has seemed to change. There is a male phenomenon largely unmentioned by MTF transsexuals in transition that significantly affects one’s appearance as either male or female. That is the “muscle mustache”, and though it has a silly and embarrassing name, it is significant. Its that ring of muscle around the mouth that is most notable and developed in males. It makes a face very masculine. Anyway, mine was prominent but by 8.5 months that muscle has dwindled.

3. My chest muscles have diminished. Around 5-6 months I noticed that my collar bone area was hollowing out in a way it hadn’t been in many years. My chest muscles have always been well developed, and I have been anxiously waiting for them to diminish in transition. They did, and they started around the top near the collar bone, probably because they were least developed up there. That made a HUGE difference in my feminization. Low cut tops look attractive on me today, before it was not so easy. I am still waiting for them to diminish more on the sides, as that area where my chest connects to my arm is still too muscular in my opinion.

4. Body hair has diminished/turned white/vanished.

5. Body Shape! My measurements when I began HRT were:

Bust: 35 Waist: 28 Hips: 33 Bicep: 12 Thigh: 19

or 

35/28/33/12/19

Today they are:

Bust: 36.5 Waist: 27-28 Hips: 35 Bicep: 11 Thigh: 20

or

36.5/28/35/11/20

I don’t know if these numbers look High or Low to you…All I know is that my body would never have changed like that without HRT. Also, though sometimes the changes are slight - an inch or two drastically affects my appearance, and I am very pleased with these results. My arms are slight in many ways but when flexed my bicep is big! I hate it…but c’est la vie. I expect them to continue to diminish.

6. Breast development. My breasts started growing early, as is common, and were slow to develop. By 1 month my nipples had awoken from their dormant state, and began to change. At 2-3 months a small nodule developed behind the nipple. They stayed like that for a while. Between 5-6 months I noticed a collection of fat beginning around my nipple, and of course was elated at this sign of breast growth. SInce then my breasts have continued to grow steadily each month. They are still very small, budding into AA/A territory, and lacking any clear shape. They are developing though, and they are very cute…breast development takes a long time and its hard to be patient! But none the less, I am delighted with these results and will eagerly anticipate more.

7. Skin smoothness…my HANDS look more female now…the veins are less prominent and they are super smooth and soft…its weird, but they simply look more female…

8. My legs have changed shape in some significant ways. I have always had nice long legs, but HRT gave them the body they needed. As mentioned above, my thigh has grown an inch since I started HRT. That is a welcome change, as I want shape in my body obviously. I have been getting a lot of positive response about my legs! My butt has grown a lot too, as I mentioned…and I just want to state that these lower changes make a huge difference in clothing. Around 5 months I noticed I was filling out my skin tight jeans in a new Female way, and it is a huge deal even though it is subtle…like most of these changes.

I think that covers most of the physical alterations…I didn’t really discuss sexual function or constant urination or mood swings…haha Ok I guess I should. Its kind of awkward because my family/friends read this blog, and boys I like read this blog I think (Hi ;p) so its kind of ridiculous to write this blog and expect to have any secrets…which kind of sucks. But maybe I am overestimating my reader base.

Whatever.

I no longer produce semen but I still function normally. This is of no great joy or importance to me, as I do not appreciate this part of myself any longer and am simply waiting for a sex change operation to reconfigure my genitalia into something legible to myself. However, when I started out I really was concerned about loss of function, as I did not know where this journey would take me. I wasn’t fully aware of myself yet, and did not understand who I was or what I would become. So, it is important to me to provide this sort of testament in order for other transitioners to have documented experience that might serve as guidance in their own decision making process. All of us are different, some girls can’t get it up and others can - whether you want to or not is another story.

Being on Spironolactone means peeing every 30 minutes. It fucking sucks! Yet another wonderful reason to get a sex change operation ASAP.

This is the Highest Drama Level of HRT: Mood Swings/Emotions…

I have always been a sensitive person but HRT has made my feelings hyper-physical in that I experience them in a full body immediate way today. This did not make me more emotional per say, but enabled me to experience my emotions as they came to me and to feel them in a physical way, rather than have them all in my head as things to sort out or ignore etc. It is intense, but it is amazing and far much more “rational” than a testosterone fueled body/mind. In my opinion. At 6 months my dosage of E rose to the maximum (8mg/day) and that incited some outrageous mood drama. But, I have been dating too and so its hard to say which caused me more wild moments…I guess they fed each other. The moods have balanced out but are still intense. A girlfriend of mine told me that life in general as a woman is more emotional but that its nothing like the first year on HRT…I needed to hear that. My low moments have been SCARY! And I know that this has a lot to do with the kind of person I am, and not just HRT, that many girls do not have these kinds of reactions…but it is important to share this with you, please know that others are dealing with the feelings…I would not trade any of this for the world though…I love feeling life this way, it is intense but it is ME - and I have never felt more aware of myself, through myself, and part of myself as I have in this way. I know how to manage my life as this person with these feelings, its complicated but rewarding.

I had the fortune of starting to pass at 4 months, and having continued to do so consistently since then. I can not explain fully how this has affected me, but I know that it is responsible for a change in me that far exceeds any body measurement.

I want to live today in a way that I never wanted to live before. I feel REAL on this planet. Do you know what I mean by that? Do you know what it means to feel unreal in your body and your life? If so, this might make sense to you. I know that dysphoria is real for people trans and otherwise. It is not easy finding one’s self here and understanding it. I can not explain why I have been born this way, became this way, or am this way. I like to theorize on transgender reality. I enjoy expounding upon transcendental realities within a communal discourse. But please know that I do not think I understand or know my nature in any concrete way. I believe there is a reason I had to do this. I believe that I am only really Me in and after transition. I can not explain why that is, or account for my reality in an entirely sociological/psychological/or even spiritual way. I think those things all contribute to what a transsexual woman is in this world, but I know there is something less tangible in my being than that.

It is hard to believe what has happened to me. Even though I talk about it so much, live it entirely, and simply am these changes. It is hard to really understand that this is my life. And it is overwhelming going through it. I feel it overwhelms others that I am going through it. That I choose to talk about it so much. That I document it so much. Transition has absorbed me. Yet this is wholly true. Transition has absorbed me.  I have been absorbed into transition, and that is because transition is a transformative chamber that encases and transmits my “true” self.

I don’t really like the language of “true self” or the suggestion that I really am a woman “inside” or my “soul” needs to be reflected here. I don’t like those ideas because they divorce me between my body, and I think they work, in many ways, to reify societal notions about corporal identity. I am both my body and my consciousness. Is that consciousness within my body, or is it my body? Is it as my body? I doubt that I am within this body, but that any version of myself must be understood as this body, not some transferrable soul that has been dumped into the wrong shell. And though this language is problematic, I still identify with the notion of being a woman trapped in a man’s body. I need to medically transition. Body Modification. This is about my body!

I look forward to the day that my transition is something I have done and not something I am doing. Until then, however, I will willfully appreciate and document every moment of my passage from male to female. I will remember it, and be proud of it. As a gender normative woman who has little interest in challenging personal gender norms through her own life, there is a huge persuasion to abandon this discourse in favor of the privilege offered those who do not challenge commonplace gender norms. I do not write this blog because I want to advocate for LGBT issues. I write it to demolish the LGBT as a discrete identifier of tender people. I detest the movement of the LGBT as a way to embrace difference. I do not see transsexualism or sexual orientation as different to a standard, rather I see a broken cipher telling us that who we are is reducible to our relative position to an idyllic set. My point here is not to admonish the LGBT, as I know this department serves a population that this world would gladly strangle in the dark. I simply want to provide witness to a life that would not be found there.

 I don’t need answers from god anymore. I won’t scrounge in the muck for a telling symbol, something to explain what I really might be. I accept my reality, and the problematic relation of this world to my reality. I have stopped being receptive to blame. And have made the willful decision to turn my guilt and my shame over to those who gave it to me. At 8.5 months on Hormone Replacement Therapy, and 1 year into my transition…It is with great and sounding joy that I enter this world for the first time reborn. I refuse to be reduced again within small perspective, or to allow the looming fear of other people swallow me up. I am hungry, and I know how to feed myself today. This is about gratitude, honesty, and acceptance. It is the only way I have been able to live well, and it is the only way I will choose to live.