truth-about-transition

This young, well informed filmmaker (who did a great service by making this video) says, “a lot of guys don’t know about” the major side effects of testosterone. Why is this? Are their doctors not telling them what they need to know? Or are too many of them getting their “T” on the black market?

Some highlights:

Hair loss: “I always wear a hat.”

Takes high blood pressure meds every day: “Now I’m a big dude, but before that I was a big girl. But I never, ever had high blood pressure before—ever, ever. Like, never.”

“A friend of mine…who didn’t have time [to get T levels checked every 3 months] now has cysts and tumors on his liver…that are benign, noncancerous, but now he has to get liver scans on top of his bloodwork. Testosterone rapes and ruins your liver if you do not take it correctly.”

“This is some serious shit you’re injecting.”

**********************************************************************************

The whole thing is well worth watching.

truth-about-transition FTM testosterone testosterone effects testosterone blood pressure testosterone liver
daybeams

daybeams:

words-have-meaning:

evilfeminist:

appropriately-inappropriate:

the-fly-on-fire:

appropriately-inappropriate:

flannelvandal:

plansfornigel:

FTM- The truth about hormones

Really important discussion of some seldom talked about side effects of HRT

really good look at the bits of hormone therapy that aren’t mentioned a lot.

And even so, he’s short-sighted. He’s worried about thirty years down the road—so, fifty. What’s going to happen in sixty years down the road?

It’s a scary, scary thought.

hopefully 50-60 years there will be a better treatment of the side effects if they follow him that long

I really hope so. This scares me. They’re untested hormones being given off-label to young females that mutate their bodies into those of post-menopausal females thirty or fourty years ahead of schedule.

After two years. Say the average FTM takes T at eighteen. By the time they’re 20, their bodies have started to fail. After five years, what then? Fifteen?

I think of trans men like Buck Angel and I cringe, because that’s years and years of hormone therapy there. If two years does so much damage, I can’t imagine twenty.

And the risk of cancers is so so high. And trans men—females—already have some of the shiftiest health-care stats. It’s like playing Russian roulette with your health, and I’m deeply concerned about this community in the future.

My estimate? Cancers, early-onset osteoporosis, the works. It’s gonna be really awful. And I don’t even want to think about the kids who are put on puberty blockers, too. Their bodies will have never known natural hormones, and that’s REALLY not good.

Well hell, look at what happened to Buck Angel

Until I got an infection in my uterus! What happened was that the use of the testosterone over 15 years started to make my cervix and uterus atrophy. The cervix basically closed and so anything inside my uterus could not get out. Who knows how long this was going on for, but one day I just got so sick that I had to be rushed to the emergency room. They had no idea what was wrong and did exploratory laparascopic surgery. They did an emergency appendectomy and they saw the infection in my fallopian tube and uterus and found that my cervix fused closed. I was really, really sick and spent 4 nights in the hospital. I needed tons of antibiotics to get over the infection.

They said I would have to now have a hysterectomy because now that I have had that infection it will always have the ability to come back.

So here I am now going into surgery because of the fact that the doctors basically had no idea what long term use of testosterone does to the reproductive system! DUH!! But I listened to my doctors. Well, that is why I am documenting this procedure for the benefit of others. So they do not have to go through this horrible experience as well.

I always said that there was no reason to get a hysterectomy. Well now I am saying something different. I don’t think you need to do it right away, but if you plan on staying on testosterone longer than 5 years, I would recommend looking into getting this done just to eliminate the chance of this happening to you.

One other thing, they found some lesions on my cervix, so now they have to do a biopsy during the surgery. If the lesions are malignant then they cannot do a laparoscopy to remove the uterus through my Vagina—they would have to do an open procedure.

Trans people like to talk about the “violence” of being misgendered.

What about the violence of having your body chemically mutilated because your concept of gender won’t allow you to simply dress and behave against stereotype?

Be who you want to be but don’t put yourself at risk. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re beautiful/handsome and healthy the way you are. Let people’s concept of gender catch up to you, the way you are; you don’t need to mutilate yourself to keep up with people’s concept of gender!

SO important. People who take hormones and have difficulties and people who choose to detransition are silenced in the trans community, particularly ftm people. We need to listen to their experiences and learn. That’s honestly the least we can do.

daybeams gender critical testosterone effects FTM testosterone
Should transgender hormonal treatments and surgeries be banned in the same way Body Dysmorphic Disorder sufferers aren't allowed to have their body parts removed? • /r/GenderCritical reddit.com

dbrvnk:

4thwavenow:

I’ve been thinking about this lately, I kind of tend to say yes but I’d be willing to compromise if trans women stopped trying to demand entry to…

This is a fascinating thread which touches on several posts I and others have made on the subject of the medicalization of GID/gender dysphoria. Read all the comments if you have time; there is some interesting nuance. The big question that arises for me after reading all the comments is: 

Given how extreme surgery and hormones are as a treatment—a lifelong, highly invasive treatment—why aren’t they seen as the very last resort? 

…


* Actually, the other problem is that hormone therapies aren’t equal. Testosterone is irreversible, period. If your body’s ever been on testosterone, whether natural or artificial, there’s no going back. When MTF kids call testosterone a poison they’re being literal (shortens your lifespan, increases risk of heart disease, etc… to say nothing of reshaping the body). Estrogen really doesn’t do much and can be taken for psychological benefits. Yet everyone treats the two as being Exactly The Same Thing

THIS^

If I had to give ONE reason why I’m writing this blog, it is that testosterone treatment, in only a few weeks, creates permanent changes–if nothing else, to the vocal cords. If a teen girl takes T and decides later that she has changed her mind, she will still have committed herself to a deepened voice and likely ambiguous gender presentation for the rest of her life. It’s huge and irreversible, like dbrvnk said. And the detransitioned women I’ve read about also say the changed voice is a major issue in their lives.

gender critical FTM testosterone testosterone effects gender critical parenting
Men's heart disease risk linked to high testosterone and low estrogen sciencedaily.com
Why men have more heart disease than premenopausal women has been unclear, but a new study shows that the sex hormones testosterone and estrogen alter cardiovascular risk factors in a way that raises a man’s risk of heart disease.

Testosterone increases the risk of heart disease. And since a full hysterectomy reduces estrogen, wouldn’t a transman on “T” who also had the procedure be at even higher risk for heart problems?

testosterone heart disease testosterone effects FTM testosterone gender critical parenting
twentythreetimes-deactivated201

Long-Term Effect of Testosterone

twentythreetimes:

When I went on testosterone, I experienced anger and a lower frustration threshold that everyone insisted was normal and temporary. These changes began suddenly within the first few weeks on testosterone and have remained ever since. This was an intense shift from my normal mood and behavior. Prior to taking testosterone, I had never felt the sort of burning rage/frustration that became everyday on T. People insisted that this was just part of the “puberty” stage of HRT. I remember talking to two friends who went on testosterone a little while before me and one quoted me about 2 - 3 months and another more like 6 months for how long that stage should last. Everyone has a different opinion, but no one has facts.

A year and a half into HRT - after anger management therapy, a 5-times-a-day short meditation routine, self-medication with depressants like weed, alcohol, and benzos, extensive self-reflection, individual therapy, breathing and grounding techniques, daily exercise, various other coping techniques, etc - the anger and frustration were still unbearable.

Since going off of testosterone, my anger and frustration levels have been much improved but they are not how they were before T. Being as I am over two years off of testosterone, I would call this a long-term effect that testosterone has had on my brain. It’s very depressing to feel frustrated at something random and to flash back to being on T, and to know that this feeling originated in that “medication.” 

My anger is something I can control now, but it still feels almost the same inside as it did on T. It feels incredibly scary. I am much better at not expressing** it like I used to, so others aren’t scared any more but I still have to experience this horrible, consuming feeling on a daily basis and hide it at the same time.

**(I’m referring to anger that is entirely inappropriate. Anger that even I can identify as being irrational in the moment, and yet I feel it. Anger that is mean and hurtful and ugly.)

I’ve worked really hard to be where I am now. Staying in this place takes conscious effort every day. I wish I had known that testosterone could do this, and that it could be something that didn’t stop when I stopped taking it. It wouldn’t have been worth it. I am deeply ashamed of how I changed in this aspect of my personality and I really hope this goes away someday. 

twentythreetimes-deactivated201 detransition FTM testosterone gender critical parenting
genderdeceit

Baby pouches & egg bags

genderdeceit:

4thwavenow:

Anon said: re: hysterectomies. If a woman also gets her ovaries removed, she WILL go through menopause. It seems like young FTMs getting this extremely drastic surgery is just another manifestation of how little we are taught about our bodies. A uterus isn’t just an empty baby pouch, ovaries aren’t just egg bags, our reproductive system has a function beyond being a placeholder for a potential fetus
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From what I understand, testosterone treatment for FTMs is so toxic to the female reproductive system, the decision to have a hysterectomy, sometimes leaving the ovaries intact, sometimes not,  is a way to do away with the problem.

It’s one of the reasons why “just trying T”—which some women wanting to transition talk about doing—is a terrible idea; testosterone sets in motion a cascade of effects, including chronic yeast infections, uterine adhesions, and a raft of other problems that I hope some of the detransitioned women (or current FTMs?) reading this blog can tell us about.

The problem with testosterone treatment for females is that it is essentially uncharted territory. There is so little long term research that we can’t say that there’s a 20% risk of X or that you need to do Y within three years. There is really nothing more than vague guidelines (which vary from doctor to doctor) and no one is tracking the long term health of FTMs. Most of what we have to go on is personal anecdotes.

If the prevailing method of informed consent hormone treatment is going to be maintained (which I do not think it should be), then the consent guidelines need to be rewritten to emphasize that any of the expected changes and possible side effects are little more than educated guesswork, especially regarding long term use.

It’s a huge uncontrolled experiment.

genderdeceit FTM testosterone testosterone effects gender critical parenting