Advice for MtF hrt plan ?
Hello. I'm going by the name Alphea and I want to try she/her pronouns. Anyway, that isn't the reason I'm here. The reason is that I want to start mtf hrt. It's just that I have doubt. I'm not sure I'm trans, agender or non-binary (need more experience) but i'm absolutely sure i'm not cis. But even then, since a few week (when I learned about mtf hrt) I just can't get it off my head. I want to do it. My only doubt about hrt itself is how my family would react to me wanting to "try" mtf hrt. Meaning the change in our relationship dynamics.
I would like to say that I have doubt about ending up regretting it, but no. I won't exclude the possibility of ending up regretting but I think that possibly regretting not doing it is worse than possibly regretting doing it.
Ah yeah. The only other doubt I have is the size of breast. While i'm sure I want to start mtf hrt, I don't want breast as big as my mom's or sister's. They are either really big, or it's just bias from a family member.
I want to add that I'm 15 and that I never heard my family express an opinion about lgbt things, but knowing them, there is high odds they are neutral about and so would react depending mostly on the "quality" of my coming out. Meaning my confidence about it, my work about how you can get mtf hrt, cost and every other information, whether I can answer all of their questions etc...
Anyway, I wanted advice to know if my plan to "first experiment a bit more", at most until february holidays, planned initially to wait until I'm 16 in october but each day I'm shortening the time cuz i want to do it sooner, "and then try to get mtf hrt no matter what" is a viable plan or if I should modify it.
Thanks for reading me.
- @alphea
A few notes:
1) I have read that most minors (about 90%), without treatment, who identified as transgender, no longer did by age 18. This means it may be valuable to give it time.
2) Doing a change now may result in undersirable consequences even if you end up still identifying as non-cis. This is because some parts of your body, such as your glans, need stimulation of your male hormones to properly develop its sensitivity. The penis also needs it to grow. If the penis is too small, it can't be made into a deep vagina.
3) It's okay not to be cis and still not to transition. If gender is actually a construct, nothing says you can't be anything you identify with and still keep the body that you have.
4) If you aren't comfortable with the body that you have (which is very common in teenagers), and thus want to change it, the difficulty may also be addressed by learning why you feel like this. You may need special help for that
5) It is also absolutely valid to be a gender-nonconforming person. If the problem is that people in your society think that a man is a human being that likes cars and engineering, that doesn't cry, and that likes blue, but you like pink, like the emotional world, care a lot about living being and people and cry, and therefore you feel less of a man or of a boy because of that, let me tell you that that society is wrong. There are boys who have stereotypically feminine traits and vice versa. It doesn't mean that they are trans, or non-binary, or that they are actually girls. It just means that people are quite diverse, and that closed minded people have too tight categories about how people can and can't be. There are more people like you out there. I am also largely gender-nonconforming. I also at some point wondered whether maybe I was a boy because of that society thing. I was told that girls were not the way I was. At some point boys misgendered me, despite me being clearly physically female! But they were all wrong. Your tastes, thoughts, feelings and behaviors don't make you a boy or a girl.
6) You don't need to make a choice today. Any choice that you make to your body may be irreversible, and you don't want to turn 30 and be sorry about some permanent side effect of a choice you made for your body when you were 15 and unsure about your identity. There's no hurry. Don't let people pressure you to make a choice.
7) Schizophrenia, which can't be diagnosed in teens, can very often lead people to experience gender confusion and cross gender identification. You would probably want to have that checked out as an adult before you do anything, especially if you have a family history of schizophrenia or of marijuana usage (I know you said you don't smoke, I'm just listing a couple of known risk factors).
8) Sometimes harsh situations at home make boys feel unconsciously that they have to hide their maleness or masculinity to survive, particularly if they have a narcissistic abusive parent or family member. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the boys in that situation experience feelings like you. For the same reason, I would think it might be best to wait until you move out of home and settle a bit to make such choices.
I hope you become a happy person.
@DragonView2 I may also want to add that you may want to explore the concept of being autosexual. Seems common in the trans community according to research.
I didn't know about point 1. But I think it can enter in what I was referring when I wrote that I think regretting doing it is better than regretting not doing it. I see the point of waiting though. Even then I heard the changes are more or less reversible, depending on the amount of time you stayed on hrt. The only real irreversible thing being breast growth, except with surgery. It may be is different during teenage years but I don't know about it.
For point 2, it comes to the same point of point 1 that it might change later in life, I have absolutely no desire to have neither a sexual or romantic relationship. Or just any sexual activity. I don't care about my genitals. And honestly I heard that there was a possible decrease in libido which I kinda want.
For point 3, I agree that medical transition isn't necessary to be what you identify as. But as far as gender identity goes, I'm still experimenting but I'm currently toward "I don't care". I just want the female look but unless it changes later during experimentation, I don't care if people use female, neutral, or male pronouns.
For point 4, I tried to ask myself why i want to transition, I know that alone it isn't accurate, but the most reasons I have are aesthetic. Which I think is enough. Honestly I've wanted to have a female body since a kind of long time, before I even knew about transgender and lgbt. And at that times it also was because of aesthetic.
For point 5, I don't want to take mtf hrt due to being feminine or something. The only times people thought i was feminine was only during childhood because i had long hair.
For point 6, the only 2 pressure I have/am aware of is the fact that hrt would be less (but still very) effective a few years later. And my current want to have hrt.
Point 7, I am not aware of any case of schizophrenia or any mental illness whether it is in my father's or mother's family side. Though it may be due to not knowing much about it. From the family I know (2 cousin, 2 grandma, 1 uncle, and other people I'm not sure where they are on the family tree), none have mental illness except 1 grandma who has problems remembering some things but it must be due to old age.
For point 8, apart from a poor relationship due to not spending much time with them, they aren't narcissist nor abusive.
For whether I'm autosexual, it's possible. Though I don't think so but I would need more research to really have an opinion whether or not I am.
I tried to offer a counter exemple to each point to the best of my current knowledge but I don't really have good social skills and I often think that my message may end up offending (seemingly good people) due to not enough reflexion or poor choice of words, but I passed too much time writing this answer.
But thanks for your answer, I will try to see in what way I can change my "plan" (can't really call it a plan, can I ?) to accommodate your notes.
I hope you too become a happy person.
@alphea
I read your whole message too.
I read that you have always wanted a female body because you like the way it looks. I think you are actually not transsexual. I think you are a boy who likes women's bodies a whole lot and would like to look like one because women look good. This, I think, has less to do with gender and more to do with aesthetic sense.
I read some things about your relationship with your sexuality. You say that you would like to have a lower sex drive (so you experience it as too much for your taste). That tells me that you feel the desire for sexual stimulation but have a conflict with that feeling: you want less to none of it. This isn't unheard of (I assure you you are not the only one I know), but it is unusual. I wonder why. You say that you don't care for your genitalia. This is unusual. You say don't wish to ever have sex. Well, neither do I want to. Yet again, this is unusual, unless you are asexual. If you are asexual your libido may seem to serve no purpose (you feel attracted to nobody sexually, so it is just there bothering you for no apparent reason), and you may not want to have sex with anyone. Note how your relationship with your whole sexuality (body, desire, genitalia) is unusual, and of overall rejection. It's as if you didn't want to have an existence that has anything to do with your sex or with sex at all. Have you ever wondered why? You know, this doesn't ring to me like "transexual", or "non-binary". This sounds to me like "uncomfortable with sexuality, particularly my own sexual self". It doesn't seem to me like a problem of gender identity. It's as if you had not had a role model for masculinity or femininity that you had enough connection with that you would develop an identity that is aligned with either. Never feeling as "one of the boys" or "one of the girls". Never quite feeling like you belong, maybe you didn't get to feel even that you belonged to your own family. This happened to me. I wanted to tell you, if you feel like this, that you are still a valid human being. Fitting in can be hard. It can get better over time.
Do you love yourself? Look at yourself in the mirror. Do you see somebody who you love? Do you see someone who you consider lovable? Have others outside the trans community made you feel like an acceptable human being? Like you belong?
About whether the changes are reversible, have you researched on people who de-transition, to see what is actually meant by "reversible"? Know that in many places the trans community can be quite unforgiving to de-transitioners. But if it ever happens to you know that there's a community of de-transitioners that may help support you.
About the abuse:
- The fact that you have a poor to nonexistent relationship with your parents is to me a red flag about emotional neglect, which is a form of abuse which parents often unknowingly inflict. Because it's "the way it has always been" you may not see it as abusive. But it is harmful.
- Emotional issues can lead people to want to make and to actually make drastic changes to their bodies. The change doesn't address the emotional issue, which can also impact other areas of your life.
Hugs. I care about you. You are not alone. If you ever feel like dying or consider suicide, please, know that there are free online chat hotlines and phone hotlines you can reach out to. Suicidality is very common among trans people. If you need to hear this, know, I don't want you to harm yourself! I care!
The last thing is that satisfying your aesthetic taste may not be worth the increased risk of cardiovascular disease, thrombosis, fat gain and obesity, mood swings, depression, suicidal ideation, gonad atrophy, acne, bone density loss, muscle mass loss, and other things that come with consuming female hormones. Your male brain and male gene expression patterns isn't made for high levels of female hormones. You may find other safer outlets for it such as painting or drawing beautiful women's bodies, becoming a plastic surgeon that gives deformed, traumatized women, or obese women the beauty and health you know they can have. That way instead of having one feminine body (which may not even be pretty without tons of surgeries: it's a lotto), you would have a collection of memories of female bodies that you can say "I did that. I made that female body look as it was meant to: gorgeous and healthy". After all, it's a matter of aesthetics.
@alphea or maybe, rather than aesthetics, is your experience more like autogynephylia? (Experience of sexual arousal at the thought of being female?)
Autogynephilia is a long-debunked diagnosis invented to explain why not all trans women are attracted to men. The “information” you are sharing here is incorrect and harmful. It repeats gatekeeping “concerns” that doctors and therapists used for decades to deny treatment to and further marginalize trans people.
