Officially applied for college again today…

Now I have a reason to go out in public dressed like an utter loon

7 months on low dose androgel timeline

I already posted a 5 month timeline going over my changes then, how I put on the gel, and just general tips for testosterone gel, a lot of which is going to be missing from this post. I’ll link that post in the reblogs (I’ve has issues of posts with links not showing up in tags when posted)

On December 8th my dose was upped to 2 pumps of androgel daily (each pump having 12.5mg of testosterone), which is really when everything took off.

The first month when I was on 1 pump of gel, the change that happened first was a mental change. I just felt so much better, I never thought that a lot of my mental health issues were made worse by dysphoria, but they totally were. I felt then, and have continued to feel, a lot more emotionally stable and just like *normal*, and right, It’s been really great. That first month I also had a bit of hair growth, mainly hair on my stomach.

2nd month I had a lot of peach fuzz on my face, really thin but definitely more then i had pre-t, not enough for anyone else to notice anything. Bottom growth happened and continues to happen.

The rest of the months kind of blend together to be honest, but I said in my 5 month post that my hair growth continued to happen everywhere, I have thigh hair which was never a thing i had before. And it’s definitely noticeable and thick hair too, and it has been for months. Gaining muscle has been so easy, I do like 5 pushups a day and have so much more definition then i did pre-t. I have a lot of acne on my back, which kinda sucks. My hair gets greasy quicker, which is a bit of a sensory issue for me, but its not too bad.

In my 5 month post i said my voice hadn't changed, but I was wrong. Someone who hadn't seen me in a couple of months said i sounded different around the 5 month mark hen they heard me again. It was just a very slow subtle change so the people around me didn't notice it.

Now that my dose has been upped to 2 pumps, gone are the days of slow and subtle voice changes.

In the past month my voice has reallllly gotten lower, not in the masculine range yet, but I’m starting from a really high voice so the change is pretty big in the last month but not passing as male yet. I went from a low of 176hz-213hz, to now a low around the range of 126hz-150hz. What’s really fun about that is that i can feel my voice actively changing, I can feel the vibration in my chest. It’s really cool to experience. And I’m in the middle of a voice drop right now.

I still don't pass as male, probably wont for a while, im 5′1 and have long hair simply because i like it. and that's fine with me really. i see the changes and i feel the changes and that's really what matters to me. I am happy. Life is good.

Here’s to my 7 months on testosterone, may the rest be just as joyous as these have been,

I've always found other peoples' experiences with being trans and transition in general to be unrelatable. That sentence has no hidden value judgment; I just experience things (or maybe explain them) in a different way than a lot of the people I know. This can end up being quite troubling, though, because of how isolating it is to only read unrelatable posts online and only see unrelatable media, etc, etc. That's one of the reasons I'm writing this right now — maybe someone will be happy to see it, years down the line.

Since the time I was 12-ish years old, I've been trying to attain the same eventuality RE: androgyny, so my self-image has never changed. I spent 13 years with a life-threatening ED that never went into remission until I explored transition, particularly binding my chest. The combination of that sensory experience being lifted when I move around, and finally getting to explore the androgyny ED treatment told me wasn't allowed, helped me to make a full recovery. As of writing this, I've been totally recovered for over 3 years. I also switched from binding to taping (cannot recommend that enough; I literally don't think about it or feel it at all, and I am not restricted).

The rest of my life (not related to my body or my 'gender') kinda exploded and my career took off at the same time that my personal life fell into shambles. So, despite finding recovery, I didn't finally find actual stability until much later — maybe the end of the summer of 2023. Which is about the time I decided I wanted to try supplementing testosterone.

I wanted some things and didn't want others, didn't care about a few either way. I'd had a goatee since I was 13 years old because of a hormonal intersex condition (not the same as one from birth) and have always been tall and narrow as well, so I kind of started from a blank slate. I was mostly hoping to masculinize my body shape and some of the more imperceptible features. As a musician editing their own voice, I always loathed hearing mine. I loved editing lower voices, always, and found myself intentionally shifting mine (in real life, and in post-production) to compensate. I also wanted to have the option to have more facial hair, particularly on my cheeks where it was missing.

My concerns were valid and well thought-out. I was worried about changes to my genitals until I realized I'll probably only be sleeping with other queer people, like my partner, forever. I was worried about getting acne because I have a really bad skin-picking habit. I was worried about gaining weight because I'm in recovery from an ED and my safety-zone of comfort and ease was effortlessly maintained with literally zero thought about food or weight or dieting or anything like that.

Basically, I was in homeostasis, emotionally speaking, but looking to optimize. So I started T in September of 2023, saying (frequently aloud, to my partner) "I am feeling really stable and don't wanna jeopardize that, but I wanna give this a shot."

I started 0.20 200/ml every other week for the first 3 months. Then my doctor upped my dose to 0.25 weekly. I immediately sensed this was too high for my body, but thought I would adjust. I liked having less of a rise and fall, dosing weekly rather than biweekly.

Around 2 months of the new dose, I didn't end up feeling well-adjusted and lowered my dose a bit, down to 0.20 per week, which felt better.

I'm 6 months on T now. Some things have been very exciting and made me very happy! I have muscle on my body for the first time ever, but not in a way that's super masculine — maybe in a way I should have had all along, lol. I am in way, way, way less pain because of the extra muscle my body built just from, like, holding my head up. My spine feels supported. My arms and legs and glutes are all feeling less like they're ripping and falling off whenever I move them. My body feels good. I feel healthy on a day to day basis. Some days I literally have abs. I get fewer migraines too. I also feel less emotionally intense on a regular basis, though I have a full range of emotion and do still feel things more intensely when something is super upsetting etc.

Some things have been unremarkable. Genital stuff was super mundane and didn't actually bother me at all. Like nothing hurt or was uncomfortable the way some people seem to experience. I gained like 3-5lbs total, likely muscle and water. In the grand scheme of things, these are very minor changes.

I did get a lot of zits and clogged pores and I am constantly picking at my face in a way that isn't good for my skin, or my mental health. Changing my hormones also thinned my hair a bit, which gave me something else to fixate on. I have become pretty anxious about my voice changing and being unable to change it back, despite wanting it to change to begin with. I am also feeling anxious about something happening "inside me" (I don't know what I mean by this) that could be bad, without my knowing — like atrophy of my ovaries or my uterus etc. There is no evidence of this, I am just worried. Sometimes it consumes me. "Should I be doing this?" I find it hard to believe myself about what I want with so much noise. I also am concerned about giving myself so many things to worry about.

So, while those things aren't 'bad' necessarily, they're giving me a lot of stress. They're making me behave in really obsessive compulsive ways. It's eating a lot of my time and energy because they're literally triggering obsessive compulsive behaviors. But I've had obsessive compulsive behaviors my whole life — incredibly persistent ruminating, magical thinking and rituals, 'finding it,' intrusive thoughts, etc — so it's not like they're going to stop if I stop T.

I don't know. I need to do some research on where the endocrine deadzone is to make sure I don't end up in it. Like, you have to have enough hormones to live and function properly, and if I think I might lower my dose a little more, I don't wanna end up in it. My doctor and my therapist have been very supportive and informative, though, and my levels are getting checked every 3 months! So I don't mean an actual deadzone, just a feeling-dead-zone.

That's where I'm at. A super underwhelming 6 months on T update from a nonbinary person who was somewhat androgynous organically in the first place. I'm happy but I'm also panicking that I'm not actually happy. It's an experience I'm sure other autistic people know very well.

Help!is Melanotan 2 Unlawful In The Uk As Well As Is It Lawful In Tenerife To Import From Uk? In The Answerbank.

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Injectable prep work consisting of 30 mg/ml of steroid in oil were formerly marketed. It is used in farming in the kind of a dental implant for cattle to promote growth. There are no recognized legit human preparations offered for this medicine, in any kind of type.

Clomiphene citrate is FDA authorized for the therapy of women with ovulatory dysfunction stopping maternity. Clomiphene citrate is ananti-oestrogenicdrug that is prescribed to ladies to treat anovulatory infertility. In medical medicine it is particularly described as a nonsteroidal ovulatory stimulant.

Ephedrine can be found in numerous over-the-counter fat loss products, generally in small quantities. Clenbuterol is a very effective medication and ought to be treated with caution. It has also been commonly reported by steroid customers that use of clomiphene has actually resulted in state of mind changes such as anxiety. This can often be fairly serious, such that some users have completely ceased use this medicine.

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Trenboloneacetateis available in pick veterinary medication markets. It typically is available in the type of dental implant pellets containing 20 mg of trenbolone acetate each.

If injecting tools is shared a threat of transmitting blood borne infections is presented whilst infusing in an un-sterile way can trigger infections and difficulties. This phase generally lasts for days or till the preferred colour is achieved. An intra-nasal remedy has actually recently been established for those who do not wish to inject. Although for many people this approach of management may be more desirable, it is also much more costly.

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melanotan Switzerland Melanotan online free trial is also suggested to rotate subcutaneous injection sites regularly to stay clear of the localized accumulation of subcutaneous fat because of thelipogenicproperties of this hormone. The primary biological function of insulin is to promote the intracellular use utilisation and also storage ofamino acids, glucose, fats, whilst concurrently inhibiting the breakdown ofglycogen, proteinandfat. It is most notably understood the control of blood sugar level degrees and insulin medicines are normally prescribed to individuals with diabetes mellitus, a metabolic disorder qualified by hyperglycaemia. While insulin targets several organs in the body, this hormonal agent is bothanabolicandanti-catabolicto skeletal muscle mass cells, a reality that clarifies the incorporation of pharmaceutical insulin in the worlds of athletics as well as body building. The long-term results of Melanotan are at this point unclear. There are threats connected with injecting any medicine, Melanotan is no various.

Speaking of "safe-sleep", I make use of f.lux on all my computers and also on my mobile phone. I also keep my room pitchest of pitch black while resting utilizing black-out drapes. Lots of drapes claim to be "light-blocking" but aren't even close, so review testimonials and also return the drapes if you can put them over your head as well as still see light coming through the material - as evaluated throughout the daytime. My other half is mortified when I do it throughout material buying journeys, as she occasionally makes personalized curtains. Next off, Melanotan Italy buy cheap utilize thefree "Light Alarm Clock" application produced by "sssprog" on Android.

When used, it is usually made use of as an additional medicine throughout unusable breast cancer when other treatments have actually stopped working to create a desirable impact andsuppressionof ovarian feature is required. Testosterone cypionate is not suggested for ladies for physique-or performance-enhancing functions because of its strongandrogenicnature, tendency to producevirilisingside impacts, as well as slow-acting features. Both Testosterone Cypionate and also Testosterone Enanthate are longestered, or slow-acting forms of injectable testosterone. Nandrolone is not c-17 alpha alkylated, as well as not recognized to have hepatotoxic results in healthy topics.

Melanotan is a peptide that is mostly responsible for replicating the amino acids in the stimulating hormone called alpha melanocytic whose function is to turn melanocytes on in order to make pigment in the skin.

" I do not want tanning shots on the NHS, I don't want any person to take these drugs, it's the most awful thing you can do. Toss them in the bin."

Invite to Tan Junkie, we have most certainly the most effective sun tanning items offered online.

Babo likewise works exceptional for me and also they make a hassle-free spray. If you're like me and also denying that lots of chemicals in standard items are "great" or "appropriate", read on.

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It is this residential property of dinitrophenol that stays of interest to some bodybuilders today. Sibutramine hydrochloride is a selective serotonin and noradrenalin re-uptake prevention used for the medical management of excessive weight. This pharmaceutical is meant to be an accessory to a minimized calorie diet regimen, which will certainly aid increase weight reduction compared to that attained with changing food consumption alone. Sibutramine hydrochloride is not advertised as a quick acting medicine, however instead one that fosters sluggish, risk-free, and also stable losses in fat mass which are preserved long-term.

In the morning, it gradually obtains lighter, before making noise, and then the application permits you to select an audio track to gently begin. The song I use is "Dirait-on" by Morten Lauridsen, not that anyone cares.

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The medicine works by connecting withoestrogenreceptors, commonly in an antagonistic way, in numerous tissues of the body consisting of the hypothalamus, pituitary, ovary, endometrium, vaginal area, and also cervix. One major emphasis is that the medication will certainly oppose the unfavorable comments of oestrogens on the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis, enhancing the release of gonadotropins. This rise ingonadotropinsmay cause egg launch, ideally resulting in perception. Clomiphene citrate is chemically an artificial oestrogen with both agonist/antagonist homes, as well as hereof is really comparable in structure as well as action to Nolvadex ®. The main usage for tamoxifen citrate is as a breast cancer treatment.

This is because MT1 is a weak stimulator of melanin in humans. Therefore, a greater dosage of MT1 is supposedly required to attain comparable outcomes. Dosages for MT2 are reported to variety between 0.3 mg each day to 1mg each day butcaution is called for as people may respond in a different way and there is no way of knowing the precise stamina of the item as it has actually been produced illegally. The most typical means for Melanotan to be supplied as a white lyophilised powder, in multi dosage vials, which call for dilution at home. The diluents ought to be sterile 'water for shot' or 'bacteriostatic water' and also the liquified remedy saved in a fridge. Melanotan I is a directly, complete length peptide, whilst Melanotan II is a reduced version. Both Melanotan and also Melanotan II advertise a tanning impact; nevertheless there seem to be extra negative effects reported by users of MT II, particularly the raised sex drive and also spontaneous erections.

web based buy Melanotan Poland is used therapeutically in female-to-male sex reassignment andhormone substitute therapyfor males. The advantage for the client hinges on much less frequent shots (generally when every 3-4 weeks). There are no well-known existing restorative uses in humans for this medication. Boldenone undecylenate is an injectableveterinarysteroid that shows stronganabolicand moderatelyandrogenicproperties. The undecylenateesterextends the task of the medicine substantially, so that shots require to be duplicated only once every 3 or 4 weeks. An effective dose for physique-or performance-enhancing purposes generally falls in the variety of mg each week, considered 6 to 8 weeks. Due to the short-acting nature ofacetateesters, the total week's dosage is subdivided into 2-3 smaller sized applications.

Oh yes - finally - I recommend experimenting with blue-blocking glasses in the evening if you have sleep concerns. With economical "blue blocker" glasses, I can still see that blue shade. The Swannies I haveactually obstruct the blue light, which is amazing at nights after the sun has decreased. If you desire the best-of-the-best in blue and also thumbs-up blocking with a similar rate indicate Swannies, I recommend opting for "Safety Blue". Pura has an entire schedule of wonderful products for babies and also kids that are plastic-free with different nipple area flow options and also silicone straws. Warmth materials in a pyrex glass gauging mug with great deals of blending and also finger-testing. he Badger Anti-Bug Balm Sticks are additionally superb for that occasionalsocial celebration when you and also your youngsters can't be seen completely bug SWAT gear.

It does have focused citronella, which is estrogenic, so do not utilize it too often. Splashing clothes is something but be cautious concerning splashing synthetic chemicals on your skin. In spite of the spitting, I'm convinced people still ingest excessive fluoride with typical tooth paste. Also, the inflammatory compound "carrageenan" is present in many and carrageenan can irritate your gums much like SLS, so I prevent this as well as recommend you do as well. My book, Estrogeneration, has actually helped affect lawmakers to outlawconventional sunscreens in various locations having reef.

I have actually filtered via the research as well as analyzed the ingredients so you can save yourself the frustration. Also, in an effort to continue to be unbiased, I don't have any kind of particular business sponsorships, although I just recently added amazon associate web links. In summary, I advise these items due to the fact that they are good, healthy, and as budget friendly as I can locate. Infusing brings a number of dangers, both from the procedure and also from the medicines themselves. It is very important to be knowledgeable about these dangers prior to attempting to inject any compound.

It obstructs the activity of oestrogen that may make sure kinds of bust cancer cells even worse. Those experimenting with insulin would, as a result, be smart to always stay awake for the duration of the medicine's effect, as well as likewise prevent using insulin in the early evening to ensure the medication will certainly not be unintentionally active when retiring for the night. Intermediate-acting, long-acting, and biphasic insulins are made for subcutaneous shot.

Intramuscular injection will certainly cause the medicine to be launched as well rapidly, potentially causing hypoglycaemia. Adhering to subcutaneous shot, the injection website should be left alone and not massaged, to avoid the drug from releasing right into blood circulation also promptly.

Can you freeze Melanotan 2?

Tip 1 - Upon receiving the Melanotan 2 in powder form those vials which you don't mix with bacteriostatic water should be immediately placed in a freezer. The reason for this is the frozen powder last for several months before it begins to degrade.

DNP is just one of the most debatable medicines being used by bodybuilders. This representative is not sold for human use throughout the world currently, yet is readily available as an industrial chemical. To name a few things, it is made use of as an intermediary for the manufacturing of specific dyes, for photographic advancement, as a fungicide, in timber pressure-treatment to stop decaying, and also as an insecticide. Although rather incongruous with this checklist of solid industrial/chemical uses, this chemical was marketed throughout the age of patent medicine as a diet regimen medication for people.

How To Make Use Of Melanotan 2.

Early suggesting guidelines for testosterone propionate required a number of therapeutic uses. It was primarily put on cases of male androgen deficiency, and also those concerns typically bordering low testosterone degrees such as lowered libido and impotence in adults, and cryptorchidism in teens and also young adults. Throughout the years these broad guidelines were narrowed by the UNITED STATE Food & Drug Management, nevertheless, and by the 1980's, testosterone propionate was being mostly applied only to male individuals. Testosterone cypionate is hardly ever made use of with women in scientific medicine.

They have fertility-destroyingchemicals like oxybenzone (aka "benzophenone-3"). And also did you see the 2019 research they lastly did on sunscreen? " Plasma concentrations reached the [FDA's own restriction] limit within 2 hrs after a single application and exceeded 20 ng/mL on day 7 [the limitation is 0.5 ng/mL]" Alternatives !? Oddly, nevertheless, despite having +20% zinc, I have located that some major brands with amazing ingredient checklists just did not benefit me - despite thirty minutes reapplications. I've evaluated regarding 10 brand names, one on each arm, during fishing expedition. Numerous gave me bad burns, especially when I included swimming. Cute Baby functions exceptional for me and does not make me look like a white-skinned ghost.

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Prohormones were developed prior to the exploration as well as advancement of SARMs and after steroids. were already being utilized in the body building neighborhood. Prohormones resemble anabolic-androgenic steroids, yet with milder effects on the body compared to steroids.

It's revealed to enhance bone density and also boost the high quality of the bone's design. The body's bone upkeep cycle is reliant upon the tasks of hormones, and also the hormones that sustain bone health and wellness have a tendency to decrease with age. SARMs may suppress this for older individuals in jeopardy for weakening of bones and bone crack.

Prohormones cause an anabolic effect by converting to testosterone in the blood stream. The disadvantage of this conversion, which takes place in the liver, has an unfavorable impact on the liver in time, which can increase the danger for liver diseases. Our SARMs items consist of insightful summaries about the different kinds of discerning androgen receptor modulators that are currently readily available. You can use these scientific research based summaries to discover the different SARMs to buy. Discerning androgen receptor modulators are anabolic compounds that bind to androgen receptors.

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A feasible factor for the lack of more powerful effects on muscle mass fiber dimension in today study might be the family member short-term administration of OS and LG. Similar to the BW, the weight of the GM was higher in all OVX rats than in Non-OVX in both experiments. Just the OVX+LG 4 therapy group showed a greater GM's weight than in the OVX and also OVX+LG 0.4 groups, which remains in line with the monitoring of enhanced intramuscular fat in the OVX+LG 4 team. OS has actually been shown to enhance lean body mass as well as decrease overall fat mass. However, as a higher intramuscular fat content after treatment with LG has not been reported to the best of our understanding until now, this impact of a SARM application needs to be thought about as a possible adverse effects. Since the evaluation of intramuscular fat content is very complicated and was not the major emphasis of the research study, just the groups Non-OVX, OVX as well as OVX+LG 4 were picked.

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It's this targeting of certain androgen receptors that avoids the harmful poisonous side effects, making them a risk-free, efficient as well as legal choice. The drugs, known as Sarms, are banned by the World Anti-Doping Company but are extensively available online, including via Google, Facebook, Amazon and eBay. They are implied to resemble the impacts of anabolic steroids in building muscle mass without the major side-effects. SARMs are an option to anabolic-androgenic steroids, checking out of which has possibly crossed the mind of many muscle building specialists. Among their numerous benefits is the virtually outright lack of side effects, which include mood damage, sex drive decline, or, as in situation of androgen prep work-- conversion to estrogens, which disrupt the male body photo. " I sent the supplements off and really did not listen to anything for a long while, and then USADA rang me a fortnight ago and also stated that the fresh, closed items I had sent had actually evaluated positive for ostarine. USADA claimed that they would contrast the ostarine ratio in the items to the ostarine ratio from my examinations.

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Particularly application to body building, there have actually been many logs of customers on various forums using Ostarine as a help to enhance lean body mass as well as strength levels. To date Ostarine has been assessed in eight professional tests including around 600 topics including three efficiency studies. A 4 month Stage IIb professional test enlisted 159 clients with the research study meeting its main goal of an absolute boost in overall lean body mass compared to placebo and the additional objective of muscle mass function. Careful androgen receptor modulators bind to the androgen receptor and also show osteo and also myo anabolic activity. There is a factor for making use of much shorter cycles, and this is to allow your body to acclimatise to the steroids, your body does not like change so might rebel against making use of steroids, what are the benefits of sarms. Until now we can state that it is the very first generation of Sarms and the offered results are extremely comparable to results generated by conventional steroids.

Unfortunately, the human body attempts to be creative and also when testosterone is on the surge, it has a tendency to increase estrogen also. Sometimes even at a quicker rate, due to this throughout PCT it is important to block estrogen from aromatizing to make sure that adverse effects such as Gyno and even muscular tissue loss don't occur. RAD-140 is most generally made use of at 5-20mg each day, with 10mg daily being the most common for 6-12 weeks. During this time people have actually reported huge increases in strength along with 10-15lbs of muscular tissue from the initial cycle. The normal dose for efficiency enhancement is 2-10mg daily for 4-8 weeks. The average results from this are 7-10lbs of LBM, excellent increases in toughness and little to no fat loss.

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The primary causes for bone and joint conditions are sarcopenia and also osteoporosis. Both, sarcopenia and osteoporosis are under continuous research as well as meanings remain in modification. In ladies, hormonal changes such as the decline in estrogen in the postmenopausal metabolic process might sustain the development of both sarcopenia and also weakening of bones.

The first week changeover was immense, without any uncertainty a recurring effect of the creatine as well as beta alanine, and also the option I made to front lots the research for ostarine for 2 days only. Generally, a drug with a 24 hour half would take a week to get to stable state I assume so an option I employ is 2 days of two caps at the beginning rather than the normal one a day really obtains that study approximately level quickly. I acquired around 2 kg overall in 8 weeks while noticeably loosing fat. Overall I assume I navigated 4-5 Kilos of lean muscular tissues and shed 3 kilos of fat without any diet regimen restriction. my diete was 2200 calorie each day for obtain shreds as well as i take strenght as well as keep the muscle i assume its not fake ostarine. As Ostarine has anabolic results, the dieter can cut calories without having to worry about muscle or strength loss.

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Discover moreSARMs UK supplements are an exciting course of supplements which operate as options to prohormones for those trying to find something more powerful than a natural testosterone booster. These "Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators" work by intensifying androgen degrees in the body which leads to huge rises in efficiency and also recovery. Here's where to get SARMS muscle building supplements in our online shop. Over the past 5 years, online searches for SARMs (or "discerning androgen receptor modulators", including andarine and ostarine) have actually been rising gradually. Utilized this to maintain strength on cut, however really enabled me to boost weight on all workouts at maintenance calories, this functions like a mild PH, it is a terrific alternative anabolic.

Across the board, SARMs are considered safer than steroids consequently. Additionally, they're considered relatively risk-free just because scientists haven't discover red flags that raise alarm system regarding these compounds for human consumption. Men and women young and old have participated in various professional studies, taking different SARMs at various dosages for study purposes recorded in clinical journals. The muscle growth promoted by SARMs is what makes them interesting bodybuilders, professional athletes, as well as guys or females wishing to reduce weight. Nevertheless, research study recommends SARMs can additionally assist protect against osteoporosis and also help people who have it.

Unlike prohormones and also steroids, which bodybuilders have generally utilized, SARMs don't aromatize. The elevated estrogen that follows the increase in testosterone from steroids is what triggers their harmful side effects. SARMS increase testosterone differently that does not boost estrogen and lead to estrogen-related problems.

Albeit, just the highest dosage of LG was examined, it seems to be crucial searching for and needs to be explored in the future studies. Alternatively, testosterone supplementation has actually been shown to increase muscle mass toughness in men and also to avoid muscle mass degeneration in orchidectomized male mice (14-- 17). Although valuable effects on sex-related function, individual distress, and also blood lipids were observed in postmenopausal women, management of testosterone in females is questionable considering that lasting studies are doing not have to prove safety and security. In guys, testosterone supplements is associated with a boosted threat of breathing, cardiac, and also dermatologic negative effects. Bone and joint disorders account for about one-third of illness as well as health problem of the senior in industrial nations and also continue to reveal an upward pattern. Subsequently, the threat of falls has increased, and also cracks are ending up being an extra common injury.

It appears that there is evidence that ostarine is progressively showing up in supplements. There are currently 60 products on USADA's High Danger Checklist that contain ostarine. Preclinical researches have actually shown the capacity of SARMs to increase levator ani muscle mass in the castrated rat as well as to increase bone mass and stamina. Effectiveness tests of a number of SARMs in human beings are in onset and have usually shown modest increments in fat-free mass.

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Ligandrol is often referred to as the "very osta" or the "king of sarms" because of it being very discerning like Ostarine yet applying its impacts a lot more forcefully, leading to greater muscular tissue gains. LGD is a strong agonist for the AR in skeletal muscle as well as bone yet very weak in contrast in the prostate. An Androgen is a class of hormonal agents that work as ligands that bind to cellular androgen receptors. All anabolic steroids or prohormones construct muscle with binding to androgen receptors.

The very first generation SARMs do not undergo aromatization or 5-alpha decrease; it is unidentified whether this might present long-term threats. The efficacy and the security of SARMs as function advertising treatment is just beginning to be examined. GSK, the research drug, belongs to a new course of drugs called non-steroidal, selective androgen receptor modulators, which can imitate a few of the valuable impacts of testosterone whilst staying clear of several of the undesirable side effects. The term 'SARMs' mean Careful Androgen Receptor Modulators. Androgen is an all-natural item of the body that allows us to construct skeletal muscle mass. In turn, this can assist to produce muscle mass, boost bone thickness, and motivate fat loss. The purpose of PCT is to return your testosterone back to regular degrees, whilst combating any type of negative effects that try to show up throughout this time around.

The information gotten utilizing SANS was complemented by transmission electron microscopy as well as atomic force microscopy information, as well as by molecular simulation.

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On YouTube, it is tough to divide the serpent oil sales people from real user testimonials, however the basic consensus appears to be that ostarine works for individuals seeking to develop muscular tissue as well as bone stamina. This would appear to fit with the clinical conditions ostarine was established to deal with in the first place. It also fits with what UFC boxers would be looking for in a supplement.

They have actually been made use of in lots of medical and also pharmaceutical research studies across the study neighborhood. At Ligand Chem we guarantee that our products satisfy the industry criteria. One of the most substantial being boosted sports performance, fat decrease and muscle growth. SARMS which stands for Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators, have actually especially designed molecules that uniquely target the androgen receptors in certain cells.

Hello, just came across your blog. I've been on testosterone for over a year and a half, and I'm considering stopping eventually to preserve my health, even though it's helped my with my dysphoria, and I feel a lot more comfortable with my body as it is now compared to pre-transition. Any advice, since you've gone through something similar according to your bio? From your experience, what changes revert back? Thanks for your time!

Hey! This is going to be long, bear with me.

Great to hear your dysphoria is better and you’re doing well. Honestly, this course has been very good for me personally. For brief background, I always expected to stop HRT after getting permanent changes from it, because the health risks like cancer and heart disease sounded like a bad tradeoff for essentially nothing in the long run, but it did surprise me that I had to stop early due to the health problems HRT was giving me, both mental and physical.

So in total, I’ve been on HRT for four years: I took two years off it in the middle because of the effect on my mental health, and then went back on when I was more stable, switched from gel to injections and stuck to it for another two years before I started losing hair, at which point I made the decision to quit permanently. I’ve now been off for some three years total.

For changes, I was pretty far into masculinization at that point. I had increased hair growth everywhere, although by genetics I was never set to become very hairy. Also by genetics I was doomed to have shitty facial hair growth, so I only ever managed to grow a couple dozen beard hairs under my chin. My voice dropped very low quite fast, and my friends say it’s lower than most men they know, although I’m personally deaf to how it sounds as it’s always just been “my voice” to me. My body fat had completely redistributed, I was thick in the middle and my face was angular, and within my own demographic I was usually read as male. And as said, I was losing hair, particularly from the top of my head, which was most unwelcome to me personally, lol. So I made the decision to stop there.

In terms of mental wellbeing, testosterone always had a shitty effect on my anxiety and paranoia; it masculinized my depression and made it more active instead of passive, leading to anger and anxiety rather than sadness. Other than that I felt very good about myself and overall had a positive experience with T, even though it (combined with binding) caused me various unexplained health issues like trouble swallowing, muscle tension and such, which, like mentioned above, were high on the list of reasons I quit and have to be mentioned as “effects” of the treatment.

Backstory over, so, I quit T.

What happened first was my hair literally just fell off all at once. Yay? This is apparently normal, based on my extensive research on male-pattern baldness prevention online; when you start taking DHT blockers (or cease injecting testosterone into your muscles), the damaged hair on your head just dies off and gets replaced by new, healthy hair. I shed like shit, I’m not going to lie, I had short hair but when I went to take a shower my palms would be covered in hair when I ran them through my head. So I shaved it all off, problem solved(?). Like promised by the Internet, my hair did grow back more healthy, and I was no longer losing any afterwards. At three years in I have a normal head of hair.

Second, my periods came back. Based on my previous experience on stopping T, periods coming back is shit, not because nobody likes them but because your body’s fucked up from the treatment. First time around I had horrible cramps for a couple months - pretty much non-stop through the entire period, debilitating and just awful, way worse than I had in my teens. Second time around no cramping but I literally just bled buckets. I had a large-sized mooncup, but I had to empty it hourly instead of every 8 hours like recommended, and I would still bleed through it. Like there was just so much fucking blood everywhere. I had to leave work for it, it was that bad. So be prepared for your periods to be fucked up afterwards. I was warned repeatedly by gynos that they’ll probably not come back after stopping T, but they always did, and after a couple months they went back to being regular and normal again. Three years after T I have a normal cycle, pretty much the same it was pre-T, with less cramping due to my age compared to when they stopped the first time when I was still pretty young.

Third, my body hair calmed down. I lost the hair on my chest entirely, my neckbeard had slowed down to the point where I don’t bother shaving it more than once in three months or so, my unibrow vanished, and my whiskers grew lighter. My arm hair has gone back to being relatively invisible. My leg hair and thigh hair is still thick, which I like. Brows still thick, which I like.

Fourth, body fat redistribution. You have to lose and gain weight for this to happen, so it may be faster or slower depending on your lifestyle, but essentially your new body fat distributes in a female pattern whereas your old fat burns from the male pattern. My waist is back and my hips are wide. Breasts are way fuller, even though nobody needed that. Face is round. I still retain some angularity to my jaw but essentially back to babyface for me at three years in.

Fifth, voice. My voice is still low range masculine,

but reaching higher pitches is much easier, and my voice overall has softened and regained range in general. Nobody else has picked up on it, but I’ve noticed, especially within the past year, my voice becoming much more versatile and in general higher and more feminine. Obviously, as imaged, this doesn’t affect the average range of my voice, but it is noticeable.

I’ve done plenty of voice training for my safety (sometimes I get questioned in female bathrooms, for example) so this is not just the effects of T alone, but here’s an example of the ease in which I can reach a passable female voice three years off T:

Sixth, TMI and sad, but I no longer have a dick. It’s gone. I’m back to square one in that field. Luckily I don’t suffer penis envy, I just really liked the growth both aesthetically and in terms of it being on my body. I really, really liked it. Safe to say I never had much to begin with, but it was quite significant in comparison to what I have now. Bye, dick. You are dearly missed.

Health-wise, I’m doing much better! I no longer experience issues with swallowing, my muscles are feeling much better especially with regular exercise, and I don’t have unexplainable physical symptoms that leave my doctors shrugging in confusion. My mental health is also excellent, but it’s worth noting this has a lot to do with external factors as well, such as escaping abuse for a major contributing factor. However, it’s also due to active practice in merging together my fractured self in terms of embracing my female reality instead of trying to live as a male in whole. Finding that balance has been a big help in alleviating the dysphoria I dealt with upon quitting T. I feel really good in my skin now, with the permanent changes T has provided me together with my healthier body, so I can safely say this has been a good choice for me overall.

Tl;dr: Post-T Edition

Things that changed for me: body hair lessened, balding stopped and hair grew back, voice became more versatile, physical and mental health improved, beard growth slowed down to fuck all, regained a round face and hourglass figure, boobs filled up, bottom growth went back to 0

Things that didn’t change: normal speaking voice is still deep as shit, leg hair growing strong, brow game bushy, still have whiskers, people keep questioning my presence in female bathrooms and nobody tries to sell me makeup, dysphoria doing good.

Overall: I’m in a good place, yo.

SO! i have been asked to give advice a couple times by a couple different writers in fandom who are cis and want to know how to/if it’s okay to write trans characters, so here’s my take and a few pieces of advice. it’s gonna be a little long lol

to answer the question “can cis writers write trans characters?”

Y E S 

i would personally love it, and i know other trans people who would also love it, if more cis writers wrote trans characters. the only limitation that i’d ever put on this is to say that i wouldn’t want to see a cis writer writing about trans self-discovery or a Trans Journey bc... i mean... those are our stories to tell, y’know?

generally most of the trans people i know feel the same way. we want to see ourselves in stories, even if we’re not the main characters. we want to know that you see us and think us worth writing about. representation matters. 

but if you’re writing a story about female friendship and you wanna make one of those women trans? please do bc we need more normalized representation. seeing these really intense Trans Journey stories is great, it is, but it feels one-note when it’s like.... practically the only thing we ever see.

wanna write a story about brotherhood and the bonds of found family and male friendship? make a dude trans! he’s a dude! who’s trans! 

quick advice for writing trans men:

not all trans men bind. i don’t. i have a triple D chest, so yeah it’s kind of obvious that i have tits. with the full beard it can be a confusing look lmao. your trans male character doesn’t have to bind, and it doesn’t have to be bc he’s had top surgery, or because he’s flat chested. some of us just don’t want to have the damage done to our bodies that binding can and will do if done consistently enough for long enough.

not all trans men use packers, which are prosthetics made to give a bulge where trans guys don’t have one. 

trans men can top lol. it isn’t just skinny cis women using strap-ons, and a guy can cum using a harness bc of where it sits. also, emotionally, that shit is fantastic (speaking from personal experience). 

if you’re writing erotica, then be aware that some trans guys are okay with the word clit, some aren’t. this is more of a stylistic choice on the part of the writer, but if you’re using AFAB language for trans male genitals then make a note bc for some men that’s legitimately triggering. personally, i’m fine w/ my vagina, he’s a chill dude.

testosterone doesn’t make you taller, and it won’t make your character taller either lol. physical changes from T are increased muscle mass, changes in fat distribution on the body, voice drop, hairline receding around the temples, facial and body hair growth for some (takes 6+ months usually), clitoral growth, some men experience vaginal dryness some don’t, in the beginning there’s an increased sex drive which tends to even out once T levels are stable, since it’s basically a second puberty a lot of trans guys do get acne, hair can become coarser over time texture wise, and tends to thin

testosterone is administered via injection or with androgel which is topical, generally. if you want to write about a guy giving himself his T, then he’s probably on a weekly or bi-weekly injection schedule at home, or he’s using androgel which is daily and gets rubbed into the skin and has to dry fully. there’s no option right now to take testosterone orally that i know of. there’s also the option for a 3-month dose of testosterone to be given via injection, but it’s always done by a nurse and every trans guy i’ve talked to who’s had it has said they can’t even sit down for an hour afterward bc it’s injected into the ass and it hurts like a motherfucker. however it’s also only once every 3 months. personally i don’t mind my wee thigh shot lol. 

if anyone has more specific questions for writing trans male characters send me an ask and i’ll be glad to help

full disclaimer that i’m not a trans woman, but here’s some advice for writing trans women based on what i’ve heard from them:

unlike with T, where trans men can basically just start T and begin the process of a testosterone-based puberty, trans women first have to go on T blockers so that their T levels drop to where they should be for a woman, then they go on estrogen, which is usually??? a pill (not dissimilar to birth control)

when trans women have been on estrogen for long enough they can have multiple orgasms like any other woman, which is a pretty nifty perk

loss of muscle mass is common

breast growth happens differently for everyone, but breasts become more sensitive and as they grow a lot of women can experience some tenderness, and if the chest is struck/prodded that tenderness can be painful. (as someone who naturally developed breasts as a teen, i remember fucking crying when someone hit me in chest once bc everything was so sensitive)

trans women have natural hormone cycles and can experience period-like symptoms! so yeah! a trans woman can wake up and be >:( and have mood swings!

the penis and balls will shrink over time on estrogen, some trans women stop getting hard, some don’t

some trans women tuck their penises, some don’t

trans women have to make the choice to raise their voices, as most of the effects of testosterone-based puberty cannot be reversed. T thickens the vocal chords, which is what makes a trans guy’s voice drop, but if a trans woman is transitioning after she’s experienced a full T-based puberty, her voice isn’t going to raise. a lot of trans women do vocal training to get used to talking in their head voice versus their chest voice. some even pick out like a celebrity or a character to emulate bc it’s a lot easier when you’ve got a goal to aim for.

facial hair generally doesn’t stop growing. the follicles being active doesn’t change when testosterone levels drop. hair growth can slow, but it’s probably not going to stop entirely without laser hair removal or electrolysis. same with body hair. 

hair texture can change, though, and become softer over time

if any trans women followers want to add to this feel free :D

your character might not have IDs that match up w/ their identity. having your government docs changed can be a pain in the ass depending on where you live, and a lot of places require some kind of surgery as “proof” which is bullshit but... y’know, it happens. 

big thing to remember: not all trans people want surgery. not all trans people fall into the gender binary. the way i define being trans is that your gender doesn’t match what you were assigned at birth. that’s it. i consider non-binary people transgender bc. y’know. they fucking are. not all of them want to ID that way or feel like they can, but if they do then i fully welcome them bc they’re my people. 

i think cis writers can feel like it’s a taboo or a no-go to write trans characters bc “well what if i do it wrong” and i think it comes down to being really caught up in the fact that the character is trans, rather than them just being a trans character. like. here’s my day as an out, transitioning trans man:

i wake up between 6am and 7am, i dick around on my phone, i let my dogs out, feed them, have breakfast, go to work, eat lunch, work more, come home, eat dinner, dick around on my phone more, go to bed. repeat. my weekends consist of writing, primarily, and watching stuff on netflix. and every other sunday i give myself an injection of testosterone into my thigh. every couple months i see my endocrinologist and maybe have a blood test.

diabetics have a more rigorous schedule than i do, health-wise. 

me being trans is part of who i am, a defining part even, but it’s not all i am. if someone were to write a story about my life and make it all about me being trans, they’d first be ignoring like... the first 25 years of my life, but also everything that happens to me in between these big transition milestones. 

not everything with trans people is about being trans. sometimes it’s about being bored. or wanting to play video games.

on another personal note, some of the signs that i was trans weren’t very obvious. they make a lot of sense in hind sight (like when i was 4 and told my mom i was going to wear a suit to prom, or when i was 5 and told my dad that my husband was taking my last name bc that just seemed how shit should work to me) but at the time they were just these small, weird little quirks that no one saw as anything more.

in fandom a lot of our stories tend to veer toward the romantic or erotic, so let me just say that you don’t need to write about dysphoria or remark on the topic within the story. i know this is a sticking point for a lot of cis writers bc most of them haven’t experienced dysphoria so they don’t know how to write it. good news is you don’t have to, a trans person can be happy with their body, especially if they’re far enough along in their transition, and it can just be a smutty, smutty story about people fucking lol.

this is a really loose guide w/ very loose bits of advice and seriously if anyone ever wants to ask more specific questions or my opinion you can DM me or send an ask on or off anon and i’ll be glad to offer any help i can

Dysphoria

I’m going to talk about some things that I need to get out there a bit more than I generally do. So today, I’m going to discuss my gender identity, gender dysphoria, and what it’s doing to me emotionally and mentally. Before I end up falling into a repeat of March.

People on both sides of the fence in regards to gender and sexuality (meaning both the LGBTQ+ community and the “straights”/”cis” world) aren’t going to like everything I’m about to say here. But the past few days and weeks, I’ve been feeling the same kind of horrible pressure I had largely freed myself from a year ago, some of it is almost as oppressive as when I was a teenager.

It’s not just going to be anecdotal information, not just “feels” - I involve science in everything.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand why the LGBTQ+ community can get upset about the use of science with gender identity and sexuality. A lot of really bad science has been done in an attempt at erasure and vilification. But that shouldn’t lead to discounting the good science that is starting to make its way into the fore.

All that out of the way, let’s get started.

Taking a trip in the Way Back Machine, when I was in utero, mum wasn’t keen on getting ultrasounds. It wasn’t something that was well covered by her insurance, and she had issues with the gel they use for them. So the doctors were more heavily relying on other methods to determine gender, and the few ultrasounds mum could afford weren’t very conclusive due to positioning. This was back in the late 70s/early 80s, and the tech wasn’t as good as it is now.

The vast majority of markers pointed towards the concept that I was a baby boy. The pregnancy and much of the social stuff surrounding it were treated like I was going to be a boy. There was a stupid amount of pastel blue involved.

As it turned out, not only were their predicted due dates off dramatically (an entirely separate story there), but physically, I was a female baby; it was so expected that I’d be male, they had no female names handy, so they used the name of the type of piano they bought for me (spoilers: I’ve always hated my birth name because of this).

Essentially, I’ve had gender issues since birth. One of my doctors expects that I’ve had PCOS nearly my entire life, possibly even before puberty, since my testosterone levels even in utero were higher than they should be.

While I personally had almost 0 concepts of gender and the societal bullshit around till around puberty, it still affected me all the damn time.

I was almost immediately labelled a tomboy, because I was physically active - climbing trees, playing sports, wanting to do martial arts, and I also liked things like GI Joe and He-man while having an obsession with dinosaurs and science. However, people who viewed me as a tomboy would get confused by the fact that I also liked dance, music, My Little Pony (this was before bronies), and dolls like Jem and Barbie.

Back at the dawn of the 80s, things were rather black and white when it came to gender norms.

Despite the people around me having issues with my “gender weirdness”, I was perfectly fine till around 11, when puberty started.

Much to my distress, my body became extremely feminine. Before I was even 12, I was more than an A cup, and I started getting curvy hips and rear. For some reason, I really just did not like the way my body was starting to look, yet I had tonnes of people telling me how “lucky” I was, and how I should dress to compliment my form.

I also was absofuckinglutely not okay with menstruation. It was beyond the typical uneasiness about this new thing, about learning how to manage it - there was visceral hate I didn’t understand. It didn’t help that having my period made me ill, something that only got worse and worse as I got older. Between the dysphoria related anxiety/depression and the actual physical problems, I wanted nothing to do with menstruation and decided I wanted a hysterectomy even before I had my first procreation systems problems. I also realised before I was out of high school that I really wanted a breast reduction; increasing back and shoulder problems were what I thought the root of it was, but I realise now I actually just wanted a more androgynous body, even back then.

Throughout part of junior high, and all of high school, my friends who were female were always being pushy about making me dress like a girl, and to weaponise the body I was “so lucky to have”. At the start of junior high, I dressed like a goth skater boy - in part because I was slowly building a gothic wardrobe, and in part cus men's clothes were just super comfortable. And cheaper - most of the stuff I was buying with saved lunch money, so buying boy’s/men’s clothes was also something of a financial strategy.

Despite often feeling awkward about my body, by the time high school landed, I had just given in to the pressure. I dressed like a little goth princess, I wore push-up bras (even though I was already a D cup at that point), most everything I wore either accentuated my breasts by being tight or super low cut. On one level, fashion was always fun for me, I nearly became a fashion designer before realising how horrid that industry is, so the putting together outfits and such was fun - it was when I was actually wearing them that I could feel super awkward.

Once I moved from Salt Lake to San Diego, I was able to ditch a lot of that. No one knew who I was, I didn’t know anyone else, and SoCal was a lot more chill about things than Utah could ever hope to be. I still would sometimes dress the goth princess, but my default style swerved back towards skater/raver in cuts. I wore rave pants and tank tops with men’s graphic button downs.

While I was in San Diego, I met a transman and transwoman who were both chill with explaining gender transitions to me. I suspected someone I knew in SLC was along those lines (I was wrong, they were intersexed, and parents made terrible decisions for them). While I was aware that I didn’t want to transition entirely to being male, I knew there was something along those lines that I needed. Sadly, I didn’t meet any non-binary people, and no one really ever brought up the concept to me while I was in SoCal.

About ten years ago, after I had gotten sick and had to move back in with my mum, on the Eastern Seaboard, I met an incredibly knowledgeable transwoman who pointed out to me that androgyny isn’t just an art style but also was gender. She was the first to explain to me what being non-binary was the full spectrum of non-binary - from being gender fluid to androgyne to flat non-binary.

For once in my life, I felt normal as far as gender was concerned. I wasn’t some weird tomboy, I didn’t have to conform to what I’d been told to while growing up, I wasn’t weird for having certain previously odd dreams. It all made sense.

At this point, I’d already done a lot of research on what all transgender, the emerging science behind it, the process of transitioning, chest binding. But at that point, I did a lot more research into non-binary aspects of gender; there’s not nearly as much as there is on MtF/FtM transgenders, but there was a fair bit.

Since I was having problems with depoprovera actually helping with the PCOS and nixing menstruation, I decided that I wanted to do low dose HRT. It took a lot to get to a facility to do so, but I managed to start that in 2015. I was also hoping that if I was right about my hunch, that a number of other medical issues I have could be affected for the better. There’s a lot of emerging science pointing to the fact that transfolk have chemical imbalances - their chemical make up doesn’t really match that of their birth gender; about how HRT helps move their different hormonal chemicals to the range their body actually needs; how many times transfolk feel better physically once their HRT reaches stable levels, and how often times being on HRT reduces or eliminates different chronic medical issues.

Locally, there was no facility that could manage HRT. Even with the hard science in my hand, local doctors couldn’t wrap their heads around it, so I couldn’t even “cheat” and have a mainstream endocrinologist manage it for me. Most didn’t even want to look at the science. I still have to go to Philadelphia for HRT, and half the science I take with me is still relatively new to the Mazzoni Centre.

Getting HRT was the lesser struggle. Although I had started addressing the need for a breast reduction clear back in 2012, insurance coverage in general on reductions is trash. A certain amount of mass has to be removed for them to cover it, which often times cannot be accurately gauged before the surgery; much of the time, a person needing a reduction would go under, get mass removed, only for it to be too little for insurance coverage, leaving them with a $7,000 bill.

The only surefire way to have them cover it entirely for almost the entire decade I was working on this was a full mastectomy, whether or not it was related to cancer. For a while, I was very on the fence about a full mastectomy, because I didn’t want to transition to being male - I wanted a body that was just a hell of a lot more boyish than mine’s been since puberty.

Eventually, I came to be at peace with the idea of this, thanks to people like the fabulous Elliott Alexzander, who promote non-binary fashion and are also male-bodied. Seeing someone who had absolutely no breasts rock women’s fashion helped immensely.

I did finally luck out, however. By the time I was okay with the concept of having to have a full mastectomy to get insurance to cover the surgery, a WPATH certified surgeon had moved into the area. With his help, I was able to get what he termed a hybrid top surgery, 100% covered by my insurance, due to gender dysphoria.

While recovery was rough, as it became painfully apparent that the boyfriend who lived with me at the time had massive issues with all of it, despite having been warned back in 2013 that I was going to be doing all of this. He’d always been lowkey abusive, often in ways that evaded mum seeing him be so, but that escalated rapidly after the surgery, to the point where even mum could see it; I had an HRT check up not long after the surgery, and the nurse who roomed me asked if I was okay, or if I needed help - the abuse had become that apparent, and constant. (Yes, the relationship was terminated, though it took 3 or 4 more months for him to find a place and move out.)

For most of the time since the top surgery, I’ve not had my dysphoria trigger all that much; at most, I have a lowkey fear of some crazy, conservative, Christian redneck here is going to decide they don’t like how I look, and try beating me up - or worse. This has already happened once since the surgery: some loon was sitting on his porch at like 2 AM, and I was out on a walk; I had my headphones in, and music on, so I couldn’t hear everything he said, but caught something about how I was a vile dyke, and he started coming down off his porch at me - I ended up just looking at him as if he were less than a gnat, while continuing to walk, and he backed off. The power of looking like you don’t give any fucks.

Recently, I’ve been having more and more dysphoria, due to people just not getting that I as a person am non-binary. I have pronoun preferences. Ignoring them isn’t okay. I actually have to have my characters all have small breasts still because I get the same sense of dysphoria I’ve had for my entire life when they’re much past an A cup. I’m not going to wear a dress when I don’t want to, and I’m not going to wear an a-shirt/muscle shirt when I don’t want to. I’m not going to forgo mixing and matching men and women’s clothes for someone else’s comfort.

Generally, I’m not one to get aggressive about this stuff, because I don’t believe that aggression helps the LGBTQ+ community (or any community) considering its aggression that creates the situations we find ourselves in right now. I’m more about educating someone politely, giving them time to adjust, to remember that for me as a person, it’s They (or Xe) and not She. Let those who know me offline adjust to the fact that no, you can’t use my birth name, you have to use the name that I go by (even though that’s about as variable as David Bowie during his early musical career). You can prefer people with more curves, but you can’t tell me that I can’t be okay when you want me to be curvier, in a game or out.

Initial microaggressions are fine. Persistent ones after the fact aren’t.

If I ask you to stop doing something because it’s causing dysphoria, you don’t get to shrug it off, and just continue to do it. You don’t get to ignore the fact that what you’re doing is harmful to me, just because opening your eyes to who I actually am is inconvenient to your current world order. You don’t get to invalidate me as a person because you think your religious doctrine is against who and what I am (spoilers: nearly every religion on the planet preaches love as its highest law - and doing any of this shit to anyone violates that tenant of your faith).

You don’t have to entirely understand the why of all this. You don’t have to be savvy on all the different points on the gender spectrum. You don’t have to know the science behind it.

What you have to understand is that your actions are harmful and that if you want to be a better person, you have to stop those harmful actions. Not just because they’re harmful to me, not just because you care about me, but to just be a better person overall - to avoid doing this to anyone and everyone.

If that’s asking too much, well:

EDIT: It occurs to me that I should probably mention that it doesn’t bother me when people refer to my characters by their gendered pronouns. Ashe, Claire, Fia, and Vaylin can be referenced by she/her while Rel, Saber, and Kym’a can be referenced as he/him. Vieno will probably lean more towards they/them. The only one it’s a hard must be they/them with is Dwynd, because when I made her, it was an outlet for being completely out of the non-binary closet when I couldn’t yet be RL.

Face my fragmentation

“The distinction between performance and reality, always caught up entangled Not knowing if what I know is truth, or beliefs carefully mangled Did my past deception ring true at the end or am I just reconciling with what I cannot bend? In the sanctuary of my own home, do I wear my true face? As it changed with time and testosterone, its nuances shifted out of place With my senses hightened outside, I'm unaware of what I hide Yet I call for no reduction of what I became; I remain yet the same I thrifted pieces of my shame, to once again be restored into pride I'm perpetually misjudged by my appearance, but I let it slide for the sake of my privacy, when the need to know basis is none but it still twists my gut, telling me that my womanhood is gone Have I sought to become what I already am, or am I trying to be what is beyond my reach; a pipedream of tricks and tragedy Wearing stage makeup for casual pursuits, the tedium I'm trying to exhale but I cannot differentiate freedom from what's cheaply on sale And I begin to wonder, if what's chasing me is my destination if I should turn around to further face my fragmentation My bits of male and female; chafing together, comforting apart each belonging to different pieces of my shattered heart” Ah, the perpetual confusion continues! I still feel as though I've some amount of conflict between what I consider my male traits and female parts. That I like them all but can't quite put them together. And I'm thinking that has something to do with my traumatised mind still being very fragmented, despite having integrated with my alter. Like that integration didnt exactly make all of my dissociative symptoms go away. And being in a constant dissociative fog surely makes it hard to figure out what is me being true to myself or accidentally creating yet another persona. Especially considering much of my dysphoria was caused by the traumas that also caused my dissociative issues. So how I perceive my body both genderly and in general are very linked together. There's no clear distinction yet every aspect of me is so far apart. Like two similar things placed in two different rooms, and the time it takes to walk from one thing to the other makes you forget how different or similar they actually are. I dont think my body or my mind being androgynous makes me any less female or not a woman, its not that. But I'm not blind to how the rest of the world sees me and I'm also not immune to its effects on how I perceive myself as a consequence. I have thought, although only in sheer desperation, about if it would be easier to "just" live as a feminine trans man. But I dont want to cause it goes against everything I feel about myself as a woman. It would be like admitting defeat. Like saying it actually was "too late" into transition for me to detrans. And I'm not the kind of person who gives up about what matters to me really a lot. Not that I dont give up easily, but that I simply DON'T give up. Like no matter how hard it is. I keep trying until I manage, and only sometimes temporarily retreat. And I know that my fight/right to be a woman is something that I cannot and wont give up on. No matter how much I'll stumble and fall. But how do I conquer these obsticles? And how do I learn to live as an ambiguous woman who's constantly perceived as male? How do I handle this consatant feeling of having been robbed of my womanhood? How difficult it is to feel welcome in any lesbian community or women only space in general, when looking like a man (i.e a threat). Worrying about being tossed out of bathrooms cause I'm too scared of walking into the mens room to put on makeup, while wearing a dress and fake boobs. Worrying about locker rooms for when I'll start practicing karate again, as I highly doubt there will be a gender neutral option for that. Cause im terrified of showering naked with a bunch of naked men, cause open showers is standard in my country, and I'm sure that other women in their locker room would freak out if I walked in there, cause that's happened before. I know I'll have to have a conversation with the instructors at that karate club about my locker room issue, but still.

That is why I still hold off on starting practicing at my island's only karate club, but it's a dream that I cannot hold off on forever. I'm thinking it might be easier to "prove my case" when I'm legally female again, and for other practical reasons it would be more convenient to wait until after my breast reconstruction surgery has been done and healed properly as well. But how I'm perceived by others based solely on my looks (and voice) will continue to be ambiguous at best, as I'm keeping and cherishing my traits from testosterone. It's not that I care about random people's opinions of me, cause I don't. It's that it makes those kinds of social situations difficult to deal with and solve. And I feel like I'm stuck in a tight web about it. The ways in which my dysphoria slithers around in me is confusing and exhausting to try to figure out and get a grasp of. But I've come to understand now that basically: as a trans man I was happy with what testosterone did for me and I for the first started finally liking parts of my body. It was an over all positive experience for me. But I hated living as a man and forcing myself to be masculine. It felt like a burden that alienated me, as I couldn't connect to either men or other women anymore, and I felt that more and more over the years, like some abstract force that became mysteriously heavier over time. Until I understood that I was going against my nature. It felt good at first, but then felt increasingly heavier and like a burden, that social role and the lie that I tried to become. Top surgery (about 5 years into my social transition) made it worse cause it was such a jarring experience. Sadly, I hated my breasts until the day they were gone... then I missed them. It only traded one kind of suffering for another, and I had no idea that would happen. That made me even more confused, but I was afraid of my feelings so I bottled them and shoved them away. For 4 years.

Then when I started healing from my traumas and I began to fall in love with my body and my personality, detransition was just around the corner and it happened so fast. It was literally like I woke up that morning feeling like I was a man like always, and when I went to bed that night I knew I was a woman and regretted it all. As well as instantly ditching the masculinity I had forced myself into, for my long lost femininity. That strong contrast was a tad overwhelming!

However, now reflecting back on it, I don't think most of that instant regret I felt was really that, but rather that it was an expression of my inner conflict between the liberation of finally connecting with my womanhood for the first time ever, and my love for my male physical traits that clashed with the idea of womanhood that had been imprinted into my brain by society. Or to put it more simply: my love for my androgynous body clashed with my false view of myself as a traditionally feminine woman. I felt stuck with my androgyny when in fact there was never anything wrong with either me or my androgyny, but I couldn't put it together with being a woman. Cause I felt suddenly threatened by it. I felt like I was somehow newly a woman, and my old-fashioned, conservative view of what I thought women "should" look like made me attack the one thing I had finally come to love, which was what had brought me to see myself as a woman to begin with: my body. Eventually, as I became more stable over time in my detransition, I started to find my way back to that love I always had for my male traits, and tried to basically integrate them into my newfound womanhood, but that was and still is a struggle. Even just getting myself to walk outside with a beard visible on my face and with any amount of confidence to do so, since detransing, has taken me around 6 months so far, and it's still a work in progress. I keep fighting it, viewing my facial hair as a threat to my womanhood while still loving it. Is it right, is it wrong, that I still love my beard? I know that does not matter, but my emotions don't give a fuck about that. They won't listen to reason. But I see that I am beautiful with strikingly intense looks, self-love and pride showing through behind a hesitant smile, when I allow myself to wear my beard like the part of my body that it now is. I do not want to get rid of it, but I definitely want to get rid of the social stigma around bearded women with deep voices. But that ain't gonna happen anytime soon. So I'm gonna have to live with that stigma, reluctantly.

And even during that time, I sometimes, or even most of the time, directed my frustration with being misgendered towards my beloved male traits, as if they were the enemy and not society. Cause I'm just as much forced to live in this society as I am forced to live with my own body... it takes much work to not let either of those two drive me crazy. Having and keeping my male features literally does me no harm at all. Especially not considering I'm no longer taking the testosterone, only keeping its permanent effects. Actually I think trying to reverse those effects would be more harmful than keeping them. I know I'd always rather listen to my heart than society when it comes to making any kinds of permanent changes to my body. But I'll still hear society, regardless of how much I don't listen to it. And sometimes what it says just fucks me up and makes me sad. I know I would be dysphoric again if I got rid of my male traits. I know because for everytime I've considered it and used any sort of words like "removing" or "lasering off" or "getting rid of" those traits, it has made my stomach turn in a mentally painful twist. And I know because I'd regret it if I got rid of them. That I would grieve their loss, just like I grieved the loss of my breasts. And I don't wanna go through that with any more parts of my body. Even just thinking about it makes me wanna protect myself.

Truth is I don't wanna look either completely female or completely male, as for my physical appearance. But I'm fine with simply being biologically female regardless of how I want to appear. It's a fact I've no issue with anymore, and I'm no longer dysphoric about any of my remaining female parts, like I used to be. But I do not want to again look like I never transitioned to begin with. I do not miss my voice being higher pitched at all, or having a smooth face, a less hairy body or a smaller clit. My style is mostly feminine, but my body is a mix of male and female traits.

(Just to clarify, I use the word "male" instead of "masculine" when it comes to my transitioned physical traits because masculinity is a social construct, but such physical traits (like beards, deep voices, etc) are much more closely associated with male biology than any social construct. And vice versa for my female traits.) Am I less female for having some additional male traits? No, I'm still 100% female, but now with some additional male traits. I'm a woman who went through both female and male puberty, hormonally. And I like it that way, but I never liked to regularly dress masculine, and I've also never liked having a totally female-appearing body and face either. I've wanted a deep voice and facial hair ever since I was 12 years old. Whatever it means, it's not a new or sudden wish. I've had it for most of my life, which is probably why I'm so happy to have those traits now. But I also don't and can't think of myself as a feminine man, no matter how much I look like one on the surface. It's just an illusion, a consequence of my transition+style. It was a choice, and I really don't know if I regret that choice or not. Transitioning, as a whole, didn't quite turn out as I had intended. I guess that's all I really know for sure. My chest is now my only source of dysphoria. Cause I guess I can regret top surgery without also regretting testosterone. Or maybe I just want new boobs regardless of if I have chest dysphoria or not, and consider the risks of getting new boobs worth it to connect better with my body as a beautiful (not necessarily in a sexual way) and comforting meatsuit to carry around my soul (or brain, if you don't believe in souls) in. I kinda intend for my detransition to take me "halfway back" in a sense. Like two steps forward and one step back. I see myself as a woman now only cause I made peace with my body being female, but I don't really think I have an actual gender per se. I don't identify AS a woman, although in a sense I do identify WITH womanhood; as in female biology, actually natural femininity and being a lesbian.

My androgynous looks are intentional now, and I intend to rock it as well as I can. My body is solely for myself, but of course I can't and shouldn't hide completely from others just because they're not my target audience. My body is my only true home and I don't like it too plain and undecorated. I'm not a minimalist by far, I feel comforted and up-lifted by some colours, tinsel and patterns in my near presense to brighten up the gloom in my tortured mind. Looking fancy for no particular occasion, for my mental health, is a good and quite harmless type of self-care. Although perhaps not ideal, it's still far better than self-harm. Ultimately, how I perceive myself is just as a woman, and neither my transition to male nor my detransition to physically nonbinary quite reflect that, but they don't need to. But what my detransition does need is work the fuck together with my self-perception. I'm scavenging for a strategy to achieve that kind of inner team work. I know this text became really long, but I wanted to still include all that reflecting on my transition and detransition so far. Cause I wouldn't have ended up here without all those experiences. (And no I won’t make this post a “read more” thing cause I know you guys are too lazy to click on such things.)

Winstrol Steroids For Sale

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How Having a Small Penis Messes With Men’s Minds     

I noticed my penis was one of the smaller in the bunch as a kid, when I used the communal showers after swimming, track and basketball practices. So for a long time public washing was strictly off limits—I'd rather drive home from the gym in my sweaty clothes and shower in the privacy of my own apartment.

My insecurities about his 3.3-inch erection affect more than just my hygiene habits. Condoms didn't stay on well, and that made sex more of an anxiety trip than it already was. In a recent bout of obsession, I gathered a "database" of scientific papers on penises and measured myself multiple times a day for several weeks to see how I sized up. Growing up, it shaped me socially, even when my pants were on. Because of teasing from my brothers and some team mates at school I became quite insecure.  I had an ongoing fear that I would never grow up, never become a man.  I feel that my low self-esteem, due to my size, was a main driver for this.  I did an interview with Michelle Malia, freelance reporter on November 3 2017 that was published in Tonic. 

I am reprinting the article here.

I suspect that lots of guys can relate to my story. It is part of why I started this website.

THE TONIC ARTICLE

Almost one in five American men are unhappy with the length of their erection, according to a recent study of more than 4,000 men, and another 15 percent have a problem with their girth. You won't be surprised to learn that the guys who thought their penises fell short had less sex than the penis-proud group. "Being small can be the heaviest of burdens. I'm genuinely afraid of everything and everybody alike," says David, 30. "I feel I just can't be truly sexually desirable to women with my size."

There's a lot of dick-shaming that perpetuates this idea. When Marco Rubio exposed Donald Trump's small hands, Trump felt the need to tell the whole country that his penis was perfectly fine, thanks. (On national television. During a presidential debate.) In a Fat Shack ad, a seductive blonde—lips parted, a trail of mustard dripping out of her mouth á la cum—holds a sandwich. "Four inches has never been so satisfying," the caption reads.

It goes beyond mainstream news and marketing and weasels its way into casual conversation. "A lot of the jokes we make in everyday life are often sexually related in one way or another," says Abraham Morgentaler, a urologist and the director of Men's Health Boston, whose practice focuses on the health effects of testosterone deficiency. "It's sort of standard humor for guys to josh each other about masculinity type stuff, including penis size."

Movies and television frequent take jabs at villains and characters by assaulting their masculinity.  No one would consider making fun of a man with one arm, or a blind individual.  When asked in a recent Bloomberg poll what bothered them most about Donald Trump voters picked one action above all others: when he mocked a reporter with a disability in November 2015.   But no one winces when someone makes fun of a man’s small penis.  Interesting!

Morgentaler calls men with dick fixations "peno-centric." The idea that the size of your junk validates you as a man might start as early as boyhood. "When we're younger and coming of age sexually, when there's a lack of sophistication about what it means, number one, to be a man, and number two to be a good lover, the thing that men can see and point to and certainly think about is really the penis," he says.

Boyhood is synonymous with inexperience, and sadly, we don't magically figure everything out as adults. Some guys may think they're small even when they're not, but for the ones who do fall left of the bell curve, the best way to get over it is by being realistic about what your penis "should" look like and how important it really is in the long term”, Morgentaler says.

Lots of people never have the chance to see other people having healthy, real-life sex, so they might base their expectations on the sex they do see, usually in porn. But—shocker—porn is not real life. Those macho men are more than well endowed and that can give off the wrong idea, that you need to sport an eight- or nine-inch shaft (also, ow—but we'll get to that later) to satisfy your sex partners.

"If a guy watches 50 or 100 of these video clips, he's going to feel inadequate because he may be smaller than every one of those," Morgentaler says. "But those men are extremely unusual." When researchers sifted through data on more than 15,000 men, they found that the average penis is 3.6 inches soft and 5.2 inches erect. Nothing like many of the massive dicks we see on our laptops.

On a purely biological level, it's also irrational to think size has anything to do with your baby-making skills. "If it matters from an evolutionary standpoint, the best question would be, does it increase fertility?" says Robert Martin, an evolutionary biologist and adjunct professor at the University of Chicago. "The testes size indicates the potential of producing sperm, but I don't see any connection between penis size and anything that would be important in evolutionary terms." There's no evidence that primates have ever used their penises as a power display, he adds, and it may even have little to no effect on how physically desirable you are as a man.

Australian researchers generated 343 life-size male figures that ranged in body shape, body height, and penis size. They projected these "men" on a screen and asked 105 heterosexual women to rate how sexually attractive they were. The women cared most about body shape, which was responsible for 79.6 percent of attractiveness. (They preferred a triangular torso with wide shoulders and narrow hips.) Height came next with 6.1 percent, and penis size fell by the wayside, accounting for only 5.1 percent of attractiveness. "It seems to be a male preoccupation," Martin says.

It's a preoccupation that can be debilitating. Andy, 24, has never heard complaints from sex partners about his 4.7-inch erection, but he still can't shake the feeling that he's coming up a half-inch short. "It lingers in my mind throughout the day on a regular basis," he says. "It causes great anxiety and depression most of the time." Andy started to notice he was smaller than average when he was 19. Like Jase, he also measures a lot. "There [have] been days when I find myself spending a huge amount of time with a ruler next to my penis."

When he's naked in front of sex partners, he often tries to cut through the awkwardness of the initial reveal by being self-deprecating—"It's small, huh?"—but nobody has ever complained or agreed.

It's not crazy that Andy's partners aren't throwing him shade. When it's part of the equation, the penis is an important part of sex—whether it's the real thing or the dildo equivalent. But it's not everything. "How we talk and behave in bed, how we touch, these are all important parts of what makes for good sex," Morgentaler says. "The hands and the mouth and the lips are all part of that. The penis is just one part of the repertoire."

Bigger is not always better, and that goes for anal, too. Research in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that 72 percent of women and 15 percent of men feel pain during anal sex. In another study, 76 percent of bottoms reported pain during anal, and for 23 percent of those guys, it was worse than mild.

Not to mention more than a third of women need clitoral stimulation, not penetration, to reach orgasm.

Jace told us that he wonders if he was born bisexual, or if his life experiences led him to exploring sexuality with men, specifically because of his fear of intimacy with women after bad experiences.  In his relationships with women he told us that he had used large strap-ons, penis extenders, and sex toys of all kinds before he finally figured out all women need is need is clitoral stimulation to reach her oh-my-god moments. Now I helps her plateau using the basics: his mouth and, sometimes, a vibrator.  In his relations with men Jace told us that he is exclusively a bottom, and has come to prefer orgasms through prostate stimulation. 

Jace has three decades of life in the books, he's been married and in a long term dom/sub relationship with another man—that's a lot of time to figure out what is and isn't important in your relationships and sex life. Younger guys might need to live a little more before they figure that out. "Every time I hear stories about guys my age hooking up and having one-night stands and even being in relationships, it gets to me because I know I can't ever do any of those [things] because of my size," Andy says.

The peno-centric approach can keep you from engaging with others in all sorts of ways, whether fully clothed or bare-ass naked. Morgentaler recently saw a patient who was worried that he wasn't "developed" down there—despite his junk being "completely normal," Morgentaler says—and because of that, he was still a virgin.

Jace doesn't get regular checkups anymore, because at his last visit the doctor brought in several interns including a young woman to check him for a hernia. "I really thought that I was going to die of embarrassment right in the doctor's office," he says.

David doesn't like swimming or going to the beach because he feels exposed. "I can say with all my heart, I'd be way more happy and have a better life if I had a normal penis," he says.

It might seem like a huge deal when it comes to first-time hookups or one-night stands, but in the longer term, your penis does not take top priority. Most aspects of a relationship have nothing to do with what's in your pants—compatibility, mutual respect, and sense of humor, to name a few. Good sex is also high up there in importance, but using your penis is just one way to satisfy your partner, and it's naive to prioritize size over everything else.

"I would emphasize that this problem often goes away when a guy ends up in a stable relationship, because the couple figures out what they do that works, and penis size is usually not an impediment," Morgentaler says. "The quality of the man is not dependent on the size of his penis."

Ok, so i’m not sure if I have any Norwegian followers here, but this is some info for all the Norwegian Trans people out there. (I realize this might also be interesting for other trans people too). I’m sorry this is so long XD 

Disclaimer: This is only stuff I know from my own experience, feel free to add stuff. As a trans man I don’t really know much about what happens for trans women, but I imagine that steps 1-3 are the same. At the bottom there’s some tips for all.

So, In Norway we have this system where you have to go to the national hospital, which is in Oslo, to get your treatment. The whole prossess to get hormones and surgeries is quite long so I kinda made a step by step list here:

1. You have to talk to a therapist about getting a referral to the national hospital. If you don’t have a therapist already, talk to your doctor and get them to refer you to one. You should tell your doctor why you want that referral, so the therapist knows what to prepare for. 

When the therapist decide that you are mentally stable, i.e. no depression or anxiety, which you unfortunately have to get treated for before you get a referral (This is not them being mean, this is just them making sure that you are in the right state of mind to make this huge decision). When they decide you’re fit, they will send a referral. This might take some time, it took three months for me to get my first appointment. 

2. The second part of the process will at least take a year. About each other month you will have to go to the national hospital (more tips on transport later) to talk to a therapist. These people are trained in their field and work to figure out if you actually are trans or if there is something else that needs to be addressed. They want to figure out if you are totally sure that this is what you want, the hormone treatment we use in Norway have a quick effect and many of the changes are irreversible. 

During this year you should also do a thing called a “real life test”. This is when you live like the gender you feel like for a year to be sure that it is correct. During your first appointment, they will recommend that you change your legal name and pronouns and this is to have a proper real life test. I’m sorry for y’all who have disapproving parents and/or friends, but at this stage it will not be possible to stay fully in the closet if you really want hormones.

To change your name you have to be 18 or need a legal guardian to sign the form. You can do it here: 

https://www.skatteetaten.no/person/folkeregister/endre-navn/?gclid=CjwKCAjwiN_mBRBBEiwA9N-e_nGnR8v0ckBsWTaVYSq8WQ9noxgH4cvKSi_h5CPs_YAa3vBhAxbM1BoCTUUQAvD_BwE 

P.S: You can only change your name once every ten years, so you have to be sure of your new name. You can, however, change it back to your old name any time. 

Here is the link for changing your legal gender, I think the same rules apply:

https://www.skatteetaten.no/person/folkeregister/endre-kjonn/?gclid=CjwKCAjwiN_mBRBBEiwA9N-e_ncJ-WqFQhdkciimMagIMzLosdlX8-ah54nOrIAml8kodAqVpteDpxoCN9AQAvD_BwE

(if the links don’t work, they show up when you google changing your name)

3. When they have decided that yes, you are trans, you get a diagnosis and they put you on the waiting list for hormones. This can take about 6 months, as there are few doctors and high demand (not only trans people, cis people have problems with their hormone balance too) 

You will get an appointment with the hormone doctor and they will take a general look at your body, how much hair you have, amount of pimples, take your blood pressure etc. Then they will tell you what changes you will experience, both the good and the bad. Ex: Men get muscles but can also get a lot of pimples.

About a week later you will have your prescription and you can have your doctor inject it. In Norway (this is for trans men) you get a 4ml shot of testosterone in your buttock. This hurts like a motherf******er but you will be so happy. I promise. The first two will probably be quite close to each other, but normally you take 4 shots a year. Every shot hurts less, but you might have problems sitting the rest of the day. (I spent the day of my first shot sitting on my knees by the dinner table). 

The good thing with 4ml testosterone, is that it’s a lot and it has a quick effect. I started noticing changes in my voice after a month, and now after 1,5 year on it no one doubts that I’m a man. Also, normally you stop getting your period after a month, but be careful because you might still be able to get pregnant. Also, cramps are still a thing.

4. Surgeries. What we all want right? If i remember correctly there is some boring bureaucracy here. You first have to have an information meeting where they tell you all about the different operations. PS: they want you to have a BMI (stupid measurement i know) on under 30 to consider it safe to operate. Then you need another appointment to get referral to the plastic surgeons and the other hospital that takes care of the removal of ovaries.

Waiting time for the removal of your ovaries is about 6 months, while top surgery is about a year after a consultation with the surgeon. Waiting time for bottom surgery is about 2 years after the consultation. 

The reasoning for the waiting time is that you get better results after longer time on hormone treatment, plus there’s high demand. 

When you remove your ovaries it will be on the women’s ward, so it might be triggering but they are really nice over there. Be prepared for it to hurt a bit, I was sure I would be able to go about my life as usual 2 days after, and boy was I wrong. Get ready for laying on your bed for a while. BUT you should be in some activity. Go for a short walk every day when you feel good enough. You will also bleed for a while (don’t be scared if it stops for a few days and then starts again, if you don’t have to change your pad once every hour you’re good), but when you are totally done bleeding you will be free of that struggle for the rest of your life. 

I will have to update when I’m done with the other surgeries, but I’m expecting happiness mixed with pain and discomfort. It will be worth it though, No more binding.

Ok, some other smart tips:

- Traveling to Oslo is expensive, but if you call “Pasientreiser” (find the number on google), they will order plane tickets for you. Make sure to keep your receipts so you can get some refund. This you have to apply for at Helsenorge.no (maybe at minjournal.no if you live on the east coast)  

- Binder: you can get a custom made binder sent to you for free. Ask the people at the hospital. Make sure you take care with selecting the type and doing your measurements, mine didn’t fit as it should. 

- Testosterone: you get a “blue prescription”, which means that you only pay part of the testosterone, which is good cuz that shit be expensive. (You don’t pay for it after getting your freecard)

- Freecard (frikort): In Norway, because we have free healthcare, we only have to pay part of the doctor’s fee. After using about 2500kr in a year, you get a free card, which means that you don’t have to pay the deductible for doctor’s appointments or the hormones. This also applies to appointments with your therapist.

- Under 18: you won’t get a surgery before you turn 18. But if you are a preteen, you might get hormone blockers that will halt your puberty. If you are a parent and you think your kid is trans, take them to a therapist to find out. 

- I overheard someone talking at the waiting room, and I think Trans women can get shampoo that make their hair grow faster. Trans women also have a right to get laser treatment or waxing of their body hairs. Talk to the doctors about this.

I know this seems like a lot of waiting time, and yes it is. But keep in mind that this is for the best, as we both make sure that this is the right choice and the hormones get to be in our system long enough for the surgeries to get good results. You would be surprised to know how fast time passes. Just try to keep yourself occupied with activities. I also recommend working out, if you go online you can find exercises that help your body look more feminine/masculine 

Making the Most Out Of Modest Character Profiles

Part One: Henry Page

(quick tw for transphobia)

Basic Stats:

Name: Henry Gabriel Page

Sex: AFAB

Gender: Trans male, a bit effeminate

Age: 25

Race/Ethnicity: White, American

Height: 5’3”

Body Type: In between wiry and stocky. He has a large chest that tends to throw off his proportions a little whenever he wears a binder.

Appearance: Messy, longish bubblegum pink hair. Always falling in his eyes. Never lies flat. It’s naturally a very dark brown, but he frequently dyes it. It’s always frizzy and a bit damaged as a result of the frequent bleaching and dyeing. He eyes are a very dark brown, very big and wide. He wears old-fashioned glasses with brown frames that look very 1950s-ish. They always fall off his face. His skin is tan, and it naturally gets tanner in the sun. However, it pales just as quickly if he starts to hermit. He has ear piercings, and typically wears silver earrings. His face, even with testosterone, is very soft and round. His nose is short and round, but a bit crooked from a few too many breaks. Lips are full, soft. He has a scar on his right cheek by his nose that extends from the top of the nostril to the end, as well as a thin scar running along his chin. If he gets hyper-fixated on something and forgets to leave his room, he grows a scruffy brown beard. He typically shaves it, however. He uses a cane that he’s covered in rainbow-colored duct tape. His left leg is messed up from a car accident when he was four.

Where Is He From? Modest, Georgia, a small suburban town a few towns over from Atlanta, not far from the Alabama border. It’s middle-class, mostly white, with some African-American or Hispanic families. He lived in a nice neighborhood composed of white, upper-middle class families who are very conservative Christians. His family was financially stable, and while he did need to scrape a little to go to his college, he never really struggled until he left home.

Relationships:

Family: Henry has two brothers, one older and one younger, Eli and Jasper (“Jazz”), each separated by a year or so. Eli is very protective of Henry since Henry was picked on often as a little kid. When Henry realized he was trans, Eli was the first person he came out to. The two are very close and have similar values, though Eli is a bit better at hiding it and sucking up to their parents. Jazz and Henry originally had a very messy relationship. Jazz frequently wanted attention, and while Eli was patient with Jazz, Henry would easily get overwhelmed and snap at him. However, when Henry came out as trans, Jazz confided in him that he was nonbinary. Jazz is still in the closet, but he and Henry as now much closer. Henry’s parents, Clara and Hank, are a different story. Both are very conservative and Christian, very stereotypical old-fashioned couple. Hank and Henry were very close, and Hank passed down a lot of his passions to Henry. Hank is a bit more understanding of Henry’s being trans, though originally he was deeply against it; he warmed to it when he saw how happy it made Henry, and was deeply honored that Henry named himself after his father. Clara, though, is a bit more stubborn. She was very smothering towards Henry when he was young since he was the only girl she had. When he transitioned, she took it as a betrayal, getting very angry. Even now, she still refuses to use his real name and misgenders him, resulting in Henry rarely visiting the house.

Friends: Henry has a large group of friends that he made through high school and college. His best friend is Bastian Lawe, whom he met in elementary. The two are very close, and Bastian helped him a lot through transitioning. His other close friends are Arthur Valentine and Ozzy Haft, whom he met in middle school, and Clem Barnes and Vi Bardoness, whom he met in high school. Arthur, Ozzy, Henry, and Bastian are all fairly casual friends, and they often go out for drinks without having much of a connection. Henry, Bastian, Clem, and Vi were all overachievers and now work together to help take care of Vi’s kids.

Sexy Stuff:

Sexual Orientation: Demisexual, pansexual

Romantic Orientation: Panromantic, polyamorous

What is he attracted to? He likes nice faces. Soft skin. Muscles on both men and women, but nothing too beefy. He likes men who aren’t very masculine and women who aren’t super girly. As for personality, he likes people who are unique, passionate, and creative. He also values goodness and kindness, and wants someone who shares his values. He doesn’t like to be ignored or underestimated. He wants someone who will be romantic, who wants a family, but also doesn’t want to be traditional -- he’s lived the traditional family life, and it screwed him up.

Sexual Experience: When he was first transitioning, he was very dysphoric and uncomfortable with his body, and didn’t want to have sex. Besides, he wasn't close enough to anyone to want to have sex with them. While he was dating Rory from their senior year of high school on, the two never did anything sexual until junior year of college, once they were close enough and Henry was confident enough. He hasn’t had sex with anyone else, and aside from a few casual make-out sessions with other girls and guys, he’s never done anything other than that.

Romantic Experience: He has been dating Rory Lawe since senior year of high school, eight years ago. Originally a puppy crush, the two became much closer and more committed. They’re very close, best friends, always supporting and confiding in each other. While they’re both polyamorous, neither has had more than a few dates with anyone else. They hope to get married, but are unsure if or when they can tie the knot.

Skills:

Skills: Photography. Loves taking pictures, especially with old-fashioned cameras, darkroom and all, a skill he learned from his dad. He hasn’t been able to since he hasn’t had a darkroom since moving out, but his digital photography is excellent as well. He also writes mostly short stories, poetry, and nonfiction pieces for his blog. He is an active vlogger, something he started with Bastion and Rory in college, and eventually roped everyone into. He is a good editor and loves coming up with interesting video topics and camera setups. Henry is also a huge tinkerer and loves making stuff with his hands, another thing he inherited from his Dad. He is very intelligent.

Education: Went to a small private high school, the only one in the area. The class was very small, and he was valedictorian. Later went to a big college in Atlanta in order to study Engineering like his dad. Eventually moved to Video Production, and graduated as the valedictorian of his class once again.

Occupation: Henry has alternated between smaller, part-time, minimum wage jobs. He doesn't like staying in one job for long. While he has gotten some monetization from his hobbies, he is far from being able to live off it.

Hobbies: Photography, big time. One of his most used phrases is “wait, let me take a picture of this.” Writing is another one. He runs a Tumblr blog (@pagesofpage) and the YouTube channel Making The Most Out Of Modest, a vlog, creative, and educational channel he runs with his friends. He's a bit of a crafter, and often makes stuff with Vicky Parks on her webseries (Handy-Craft). He's a voracious reader, loves podcasts, spends a lot of time on YouTube and Tumblr, and has a huge list of favorite shows and movies. He bikes, preferring that over driving and works out regularly with Arthur and Ozzy. He is a social drinker, and while he doesn't like getting drunk, he's not afraid to get more than a little tipsy with his friends. He's also had a host of other hobbies (painting, web design, chemistry, robotics) that he bounces between.

Personality And Character:

Introvert or Extrovert? Introvert. He doesn't like being out with people for a long time, and struggles with socializing. However, he likes hanging out with a few good friends every so often, and enjoys having the people he loves around him as he works.

Strengths: He's smart and creative. Very loving. Good with kids. Trusting. Quick to forgive and make up. Very fun and bubbly when around his friends. When he finds a passion, he goes all into it and learns all the ins and outs of it. Henry is quick to find new things and introduce them to his friends. He is a good team player and is very good at rallying friends.

Weaknesses: Henry needs constant stimulation or he’ll get bored. He also needs lots of affection. He can be a bit immature at times. His trusting nature can be easily taken advantage of; he is gullible and a bit naive. He is overwhelming and often runs the conversation. He is always busy, and unless he’s stopped he will burn out. His passions overtake his responsibilities and relationships. He isn’t the best leader, so unless someone else takes charge or helps him lead, his projects fall apart.

Goals: He wants to pursue his passions. He would love to be able to earn money through the vlog. His primary goal is to get married and have a family, but he also wants to continue living with his friends. He also wants to reunite with his family, but due to his mother’s beliefs, that may be impossible.

Beliefs: Henry is agnostic. He was raised Christian, but due to the church’s very conservative beliefs, he’s left the faith. He does believe in a god but doesn’t follow any religions. He is a liberal, socialist, and environmentalist. He follows deeply held principles of accepting others. While he is generally trusting, he dislikes authority and is not the type to follow the masses or trust what the government says.

Fears: He is terrified of inadequacy. Being betrayed. He doesn’t want to lose his family or friends. He worries about being hurt because of who he is and his relationships with others and what he believes. He worries about hurting those around him because of his bad habits.

Insecurities: He doesn’t feel comfortable with his masculinity. At times he is very dysphoric and insecure about his body. He worries his work isn’t good enough. He knows he can be unhealthy, and sometimes worries about spinning out.

Month 1 on HRT Round Up Post

It's been one month since D started HRT! There have been some really cool things happening, along with the occasional big and little bumps (lots more on those in other posts). Based on what I've read, her body has responded VERY quickly in comparison to many other people's experiences. For what it's worth, she's in her mid-thirties and had a pre-HRT testosterone level of around 300, and has only been taking estradiol, not an anti-androgen. Additionally, in case it helps clarify things, she and I are polyamorous, I am very sexually and physically expressive with my partners and having a lot of sex and touch in my life is important to me, and I'm about a 2.5 on the Kinsey scale (I can feel sexual attraction to people across the gender spectrum, though I lean a bit more androphilic than gynephilic). Also, my emotional experience of this past month was incredibly heightened, thanks to my anxiety running out of control (so much so that I'm now taking pills for it, phew!), and the stuff that felt like HUUUGE problems for me may be far less of a huge deal for other people.

Month 1 On Estrogen

Week 1

The night she got her prescription was pure joy. The clinic she went to practices informed consent for hormone therapy, and in my partner's case that resulted in her only having to go to two appointments -- one initial consultation so her provider could order lab work to make sure she was healthy (she made sure to fast the morning prior to her appointment, so she could get her blood work done right away!), and then a few days later, an appointment to make a treatment plan and get her prescription. She declined an anti-androgen to start and made a plan with her provider for her to take 2mg of estradiol daily. We walked out of that appointment with her *bouncing* all the way to the car because she was so excited, picked her prescription from the pharmacy the moment it was available, and she took the pill while we were still in the drug store's parking lot. I have never seen her so happy and at peace than after she took that first pill. Seriously -- in the face of such beautiful, sublime JOY, any lingering anxiety I had been feeling over the changes that these pills might cause and what those changes could mean for my relationship with her dissolved faster than that blue tablet under her tongue (at least for the next few days). She was euphoric, and I rose right with her.

After 3-4 days, she would feel warm and tingly and extra cuddly starting about half an hour after she took her pill every morning, and her nipples were feeling more sensitive. She also described feeling like she had more emotional energy and generally just feeling very happy, and characterized it as her brain going "NOM NOM NOM NOM ESTROGEN," as it finally received the hormone that had been missing. It was so exciting and fulfilling for me to get to witness her joy, and we shared some *really* enjoyable touch and sex during this phase. In one I will say, in one encounter, she described her skin as feeling "on fire," and pretty much everywhere I touched or kissed made her gasp and moan. It did not suck, AT ALL. Something else that had started to shift prior to HRT became really significant and noticeable to me at this point (I'm including it because aspects of it may have been impacted by her hormones changing): she became less interested in penis-in-vagina penetrative sex (she uses different terms for her genitals, but I'm using penis here for clarity), and started preferring to orgasm under her own stimulation, or just skip the orgasm entirely (there were lots of "mini orgasms," though, and those were super fun). As someone who gains a lot of pleasure and satisfaction from being an active participant in my partners' orgasms, and who has felt a LOT of anxiety over how HRT was going to impact my sexual connection with my partner, this change was hard for me to sit with, and I struggled to feel sexually connected with her as this became more commonplace over the course of the week (pre-HRT and during this first week, we tended to have sex at least every other day, sometimes a couple of times a day). Additionally, in the back of my mind, I was worried about what things would look like if/when she lost her sex drive, whether it would come back, and how I would feel if penis-in-vagina sex entirely stopped being an option for her and me. It had always been something she and I enjoyed immensely with each other, and I felt SCARED that without that particular flavor of interaction, our connection would suffer. This was quite different from what I observed in her response to the possibility of no longer getting erections -- she stated that while she would prefer to still be able to become and stay erect, she was "along for the ride" wherever the hormones would take her.

Within 7 days, her energy really started to dip, and I noticed that she was no longer waking up with erections the way she had prior to taking HRT. She started splitting her pills in half so she got some estrogen in the morning and some in the middle of the day, which helped with her energy levels somewhat, but she still slumped HARD whenever the estradiol had been fully processed by her body, and she looked and acted absolutely exhausted and out of fuel at night.

Week 2

By 10 days, her sex drive was nil and her energy was super low between estradiol doses. This coincided (unsurprisingly) with her not experiencing any erections and also having zero desire to receive touch in a sexual context. The lack of energy and sexual desire also reduced her interest in giving touch, sexual or otherwise. This hit me hard: between her exhaustion and the inaccessibility of one of our favorite ways to connect, I was hurting and missing my person, a lot. I also really struggling to feel desired in my relationship with her, since she literally wasn't feeling desire, even when she very considerately provided occasional sexual stimulation to me (and expressed her enjoyment at seeing me enjoy that stimulation). It was very challenging for me to attempt to receive from a partner who didn't want anything given back when previously in our relationship sex had always been very much about an exchange of pleasure, and the experience brought up a lot of feelings of shame on my end. This week was HARD to get through, and I credit therapy, friends (including folks on here), and my very lovely other partners as the support that helped me get through without directing all my anxiety her way and/or remaining in a near-constant state of crying (though there was a fair amount of that, too). For her sex drive vanish so soon after starting hormones, and for it to feel so completely gone felt VERY disorienting to me, and it kicked off a fresh wave of fear and feeling like I was losing my partner*. I found out later that she was missing our sexual connection too, and honestly, it felt really, really good to hear that I wasn't alone in feeling frustrated about the absence of her sex drive - I wish I had asked her sooner and hadn't tried to bury my feelings. [* For the record, before someone goes off in the comments about it: I know that I have not lost the person who is my partner, and that she is living more as herself than ever before, and that this is a beautiful, happy thing that is happening in her life. I know, and I am ecstatic for her. HOWEVER, grieving the loss of the male persona I thought was my partner for two years is a feeling that I have been working with, and if there's anything that years of going to lots and lots and LOTS of therapy have taught me (heh, I must be in my 30s!), it's that it's important for me to feel and acknowledge ALL of my emotions without judging myself for having them or attempting to censor them, so that I can actually process stuff and not get stuck. Thanks for coming to my TED talk!]

Somewhere between the 2- and 3-week mark, she reached out to her doctor and asked if she could increase her estradiol dose because her energy was so incredibly low and was impacting her work and her ability to show up for her kids. The doctor agreed and increased her prescription to 4mg a day. She tried just taking two whole pills, one in the morning and one in the middle of the day, instead of continuing to split them, but she found that breaking the estradiol up into 4 doses of 1mg apiece and spreading her doses 3-4 hours apart helped her energy and mood feel the most stable (note: there are 1mg estradiol tablets out there, for those who don't want to mess with splitting their pills). The increase in estrogen did indeed improve her energy levels -- it also made her INCREDIBLY emotionally volatile for a few days after increasing her dose. She described the feeling as wanting to cry and kill everyone at the same time. It reminded me of the hormone drop I experienced in the days after I gave birth, and her other partner compared it to her own cis experience of PMS mood swings. Once my partner's body adjusted to the new level of estrogen, the random crying spells stopped, BUT she has expressed that it's now just generally easier for her to cry, and I've observed that she gets teary more often these days than before she started HRT. Another thing she noticed at this point is her muscle strength starting to lessen, which I understand felt bittersweet for her. Since deciding to start HRT, she's been working to reframe muscle loss as not being something that's going to keep her from doing the stuff that she enjoys (woodworking and blacksmithing, in her case), but instead being something that may ask her to learn a different approach to some of her work. That reframe has seemed to be empowering and reduced the feeling of HRT's effects meaning a choice between transitioning in the way that feels best to her and her being able to pursue her passions. One more thing: somewhere around this point, I noticed a shift in her body's smell. She started to smell sweeter on her skin. Just a subtle note, but definitely a change.

Week 3

Around the beginning of Week 3, her sex drive started to make an appearance again, along with occasional erections. She had been taking Cialis prior to starting HRT, but has since stopped, so it isn't clear how much of the change in the behavior of her erections is due to her antidepressant's side-effects no longer being countered by ED medication, and how much is due to lower testosterone levels. That said, her penis is now less likely to become fully erect, and her erections seem more easily impacted by her emotional state than before; if she's feeling really, really good they tend to happen, but a shift in mood can make her penis flaccid very quickly. Her feeling aroused also doesn't always equate to her getting or sustaining an erection anymore, which is more similar to my experience of how cis clitorises tend to behave. I felt a HUGE sense of relief when her sex drive returned, and my perception is that she was quite happy about it as well. That said, while she has a sex drive again, it's different than it was before - her libido seems to be lower (though of course, this could also be for non-hormonal reasons), and instead of having sex 3-6 times a week, we're having sex 1-2 times a week (if a two-week sample size is enough to judge by, and it might be higher if we saw each other every day, but alas, the perils of polyamory 🤷🏻). While she and I have continued to enjoy penetrative sex sometimes, that way of interacting is making up a smaller portion of our sex life than before. I'm enjoying, and she says she is also enjoying, me approaching her body more like how I approach sexual interactions with cis female partners --- lots more touch and kisses and nibbles all over her body, making sure to emphasize her breasts and nipples with both my hands and mouth, and lots of oral and manual stimulation on her entire pelvic/genital/upper thigh region, anywhere that seems to feel good. Her stomach and neck/back areas started to become more sensitive during this time as well. It's been really exciting to explore and find new spots to touch and play with on her body.

Also by Week 3, it became undeniable: her breasts started to grow!! Just teeny ones, but it became clear that there is more fat there than there was before, and they hang like breasts do when she lays on her side (in their gorgeous teeny tiny way). They also started hurting more; prior to this week her breast tissue been sensitive and a little sore, by this point they felt sore to brush up against or tap on them. Righty started out bigger than Lefty, but Lefty started to hurt too (and spoiler alert: by Week 4 Lefty showed more growth). I've been avoiding putting too much pressure on them, and I'm being extra careful when I handle her breasts and nipples. Another change: one day, I noticed that her skin on her back had become softer to the touch, as well, which was kind of the coolest, most magical thing for me. For whatever reason, I hadn't believed the thing about estrogen making skin softer, but sure as hell, there the proof was right under my fingertips, super soft skin. It was WILD. One more thing that happened this week: her ejaculate tasted sweet. Especially her pre-cum, which was sweet like sugar. Her cum was less tangy than usual, but not really to the point of the candy-sweet that I've heard some people talk about. Still a definite different flavor -- and when she came back into the bedroom after cleaning up post-sex, she said it smelled different as well.

Week 4

This past week (Week 4), she shared that me running my hand over the bottom of her ribs on her stomach was feeling particularly erotic to her, which is something that previously didn't do anything pleasurable for her, and that the physical sensations of touch in her genital area and when she orgasms have changed, becoming more spread out. Orgasms are definitely seeming to be rarer than they were pre-HRT, but she also seems to be feeling more readily sated with sensation without orgasm. I am also adjusting -- honestly, it's so nice to have ANY sex back in our relationship, I am just happy that it's happening when it happens!! She also noted that when she ejaculates, the little globules in her cum that she's used to seeing aren't there. Her breasts have also progressed all the way to SORE now, and she can fill out the cups of a AA bra she bought. I can feel the difference on her chest; there is a distinct dip between her breasts that used to be much smaller, and I love running my hands (LIGHTLY) all over her chest. Finally, at the very end of this week, I realized with absolute delight and surprise (as well as some passing disorientation weirdness, because her face looked different than the face I'm used to seeing) that I could actually see something different about her cheeks. They really are looking fuller and softer, just ever so slightly. And she says it seems like the circles under her eyes have lessened a bit. Maybe it's the increase in nutrient-rich food she eating and the improved sleep she's been getting -- or maybe it's the subcutaneous fat shifting around courtesy of estrogen. Or both! Either way, it felt really cool that when I saw a FaceApp feminized picture of her that she made way back at the beginning of her gender exploration journey last year, I had to do a double-take before I concluded it wasn't just her with a particular make-up look on or something. It's not so much that she looks exactly like that image (though they do have a lot in common); it's more that I see the HER in her face, instead of the HIM I used to see, and judging from HRT's effects so far, I am certain that more and more people will be able to see her too. And I am so very excited to be there for it.

Wings BSes Science for Headcanons, pt 2: Pascale’s and AZ’s ‘Aging’

(Again, I don’t know if this makes any sense out of my head. Please be gentle with me.)

This brings us to part two: why does Pascale not age while AZ does? Also how does this tie into the concept of pregnancy, and why did it start this whole thing?

The tl;dr version is honestly exactly what Pascale tells everyone: she takes care of her body and keeping up her appearance. AZ most likely doesn’t, because he’s spent 3,000 years moping and thinking this is his punishment (which it kinda is, but still).

So, for your consideration:

In an earlier headcanon, I established that the reason everyone who was exposed to the Flower Weapon has lived so long is because the life force of over 3,000 beings was divided between them. Again, in my personal headcanon. And they’ve somehow been very lucky (or unlucky, for AZ) and haven’t actually been mortally wounded in all that time.

Let’s consider life force to be a form of energy. It’s actually kinda canon, given that Sycamore states that Mega Stones might have formed from the energy generated by that weapon 3,000 years ago. The reason that Pascale and AZ have aged differently involves how that energy is used within their body, purposefully or otherwise.

AZ’s height (maybe not all of it) is canonically the result of exposure to the energy of the Weapon. He has also continued to age, leading to his long white hair and saggy skin. The life energy absorbed by AZ basically feeds into his height and keeping him alive via basic body functions.

Pascale, meanwhile, hasn’t grown, and her appearance hasn’t changed too dramatically over 3,000 years. Why is this? Besides the very meta answer of ‘this was the FC that Wings wanted to use for the sake of her having bright red hair but not looking like a child’?

Well, going back to that previous post about immortality, both AZ and Pascale continue to live because their RNA isn’t breaking down. So that’s not (quite) it. That means the less-discussed second point is key here: hormones. And no, not in the half-assed ‘heheh women are so hormonal’ way.

There are actually a lot of external factors that can affect the production of some hormones. Let’s go back to conveniently-mentioned somatotropin as our example. While hGH production varies in different stages in life (you know, when the body is supposed to be growing, like childhood through puberty), its level also changes with factors such as sleep, stress, and exercise. Like I said, I’m not going deep into this, but let’s look at how the two of them act.

AZ isn’t doing too hot. He doesn’t take very good care of himself, and he probably has stress- and guilt-related problems going on. Pascale, meanwhile, has done her best to keep things consistent. Sure she has episodes of stress and possibly PTSD (I’m not going to claim this one), but she carries herself like a queen and takes pretty good care to keep her body healthy.

HGH was my example, and it’s important, but consider there are a lot of other hormones at work here, all needing to maintain a certain degree of balance and likely affected by both internal and external factors. (There’s probably something you can throw in about a feedback loop here, directly tying hormone production to RNA, but that’s knowledge I don’t know and I’m already stretching it.)

In essence, AZ’s hormones probably fluctuate dramatically, while Pascale’s mostly reflect the standard fluctuations of an AFAB individual in their late 20s (not completely stable, but not absurd).

Yes, AZ’s RNA isn’t breaking down, but his hormones (affected by the life of exile he chooses to lead) have caused his body to ‘age’ because they aren’t as consistent. Again, his excess life energy is basically only going into maintaining enough stability to keep him alive.

Where is Pascale’s going? Because she’s doing the maintenance, her body doesn’t use as much life energy to keep her alive, so it goes into secondary factors like her appearance. It provides extra support to keep her ‘young’. If she were to slip up and stop taking care of herself for some time, she might start to throw herself off balance, and it might look like she ‘aged’. She probably even has a little, given she’s hardly lived like a queen the entire 3,000 years of her existence; there were periods where times were tough. But she always worked to return to that queenly feeling, and so it hasn’t affected her to the same extent it has AZ.

If that’s all you wanted to know, you can stop here. I hope that made sense. For those wondering why I keep coming back to the pregnancy thing and how we got that headcanon out of it…

The reason this whole thing started was that, as I was going to bed after a Sexual Sunday, I asked myself if Pascale is still fertile, and therefore does she (from a pregnancy standpoint) have to worry about having condoms available when she does have sex. I can’t say she was sterilized by exposure to the Ultimate Weapon-she had twins later in life, and don’t want to recon that. (On a similar note, the twins were not immortal/ageless.)

My next thought was ‘well, there are a fixed number of eggs produced by the ovaries, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. It’s possible that Pascale’s run out of eggs by now.’

While it’s entirely possible my math was wrong there, I double-checked and…apparently there’s evidence to suggest that ovaries can produce more eggs over a person’s lifetime. Again, I’m not about to say I’m an expert, or that any of this is concrete.

I therefore came to the conclusion that Pascale can, indeed, still get pregnant, and she would feel incredibly uncomfortable about how that works with time and generations.

Which then led into ‘that means she still menstruates…that makes sense given she hasn’t gone through menopause’. And between those two things, I realized it means her hormone levels are still probably similar to what they were 3,000 years ago. I was specifically applying it to hormones like estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, LH, ect., but it only makes sense that the same would have to hold true with other hormones in her body.

Bam. Completely unnecessary and possibly uncomfortable to read headcanon.

So I opened a new pack of Testim today which means I am now one month on T. Yay! Cue the confetti. Let’s talk about the changes I’ve gotten in these 31 days.

(warning: this will be fairly personal and definitely tmi so don’t reblog this please and keep that in mind when clicking ‘read more’)

I’m gonna try split this into sections so it doesn’t get too confusing. I will describe psychological changes, physical changes and also how testosterone affected my health. If you want a reference for my baseline, check my ‘about me’ page.

Psychological:

-I feel much more confident, which allows me to deal with things more easily, including going against my anxieties and doing what I want or need anyway

-actual levels of dysphoria didn’t change much but it has gotten easier to tolerate

-I have much more mental energy; I have a consistent urge to do things, and when bad executive functioning doesn’t ruin it, I am able to accomplish more

-I was afraid that testosterone might make my anxiety worse, but it had no effect on actual anxiety levels, though I noticed I feel less tense and restless now when I am anxious, which is a good thing

-I also don’t feel any more angry or frustrated; if anything, I am more emotionally stable and patient with myself

-my sex drive went through the roof but it didn’t change my preferences (I am still attracted to men and women); however the quality of attraction might have shifted a bit - I think I pay more attention to how people look now, though this didn’t really make me picky (the opposite, probably)

-overall I am more calm and happy than I used to be before T

Physical:

-first thing I noticed (like many transmasc people) was bottom growth; right now I have maybe 2cm of it and idk if that’s typical or not; I definitely can feel it, but it’s not uncomfortable, it’s more... annoying I guess, cause it feels like a mix between an itch and arousal; there’s no pain or anything (and no bad sensitivity) but combined with the increased sex drive this can be... distracting

-I am also quite dry down there, which is a bummer, but it’s not causing me any discomfort

-my period was on time but it was much lighter than usual and most of it was closer to spotting; my next one should start around 21-22 of April and I’m really hoping it won’t actually start 

-my voice has dropped by 10Hz or so (according to voice pitch analyzer app) and is now at the very top of the male range (again, according to the app); it continues to break and I occasionally feel some pulling/tugging in my throat; I also go up and down a lot, including in the middle of a sentence - coughing helps stabilize it

-new body hair is starting to pop up but I doubt you can see anything without a magnifying glass or a really good camera; existing body hair is starting to get a bit darker and more visible; I was quite hairy before so I wasn’t sure I will get any significant changed but I think I will get quite a lot; also I have two new dark hairs on my face and my peach fuzz is more visible, if that makes sense; and my eyebrows might have gotten a bit more bushy

-I am sweaty as hell and need to shower daily now; I think I smell a bit different but it’s not bad (as long as I shower and use ‘old spice’ generously...); my acne has gotten worse, but my hair isn’t more greasy than it used to be

-I have an increased appetite (as in, I have an appetite now! wow) and I have gained a kilo of weight; that’s really good for me but I need to gain like 9 more kilos to get to a BMI of 18.5 (I am... really underweight); I’m not sure if I gained that kilo in fat or in muscle, hopefully in muscle

Changes to my health:

-testosterone makes you retain fluid better which is super good for me; I don’t pee every three hours anymore even though I drink more (mostly because it is warmer now) and my blood pressure has went up by 10 (so it is now around 95/60 - still not normal but better I guess)

-I am hungry more so I eat more, and while I try to maintain my ‘low fat, low fiber’ diet, I am still nauseas a lot; I have a new mode now - hungry and nauseas at the same time, which is... fun

-I don’t think I have more pain tolerance or less pain, but I have already gotten stronger; I can walk longer and faster, I don’t get tired as easily, and I can now do two pull-ups (before T I could not even do one); hopefully as my muscles get bigger and stronger it will be easier for them to support my joints

-if I won’t get my period this month, it will be super good for my anemia; I haven’t had a blood test since early March (I will probably get one at the beginning of June) but judging by the fact that I am less dizzy and tired, my red blood count should have gone up at least a little bit

-I didn’t get any skin reactions to the gel, and apart from giving me pimples (which is probably a general T thing) it has not made my skin any more irritable or anything; if it gets coarser/thicker on T, it might help me with cuts and stuff (but not with bruises, cause fluid retention actually makes bruises worse)

-T did not give me allergic reactions or headaches, thankfully; overall so far I only see positives, no negatives

So to summarize: these are fairly typical results for one month, which means gel is effective, and I’m really glad it is. Obviously there’s not a lot of visible changes so I’m not gonna post any photo or video comparisons just yet. If you have any questions, especially about being on T if you’re autistic and if you have connective tissue problems, feel free to ask.