Hey pals, how are you doing?
I am recovering from a cold so my voice is raspy AF.
Today I want to just have a sit-down and chat to you about the things
I wish I knew before starting testosterone.
*Phone Rings* Oh I'm being rung. Hello? Alright cool, thanks. Bye.
Anyways... Five years ago I was a very
different person with a different mindset and I feel like I've learnt
quite a lot both through life in general and being on testosterone so I feel like
some things that I have learnt and experienced might be beneficial to those
who're either on testosterone already or wanting to begin in the future.
First thing I learned is that changes that won't happen overnight.
Some changes that you see with other people might not even happen to you and you're just waiting
for years and you kind of have to come to a realization that everyone's
experience is different, everyone's going to change at different times,
experience different changes. Some people's voices don't break as much as others,
some people don't get the fat redistribution as much as others, it really is just a
individual experience that you kind of have to be patient with and understand
that not everyone is going to go through the same thing.
The changes that you experience with testosterone might help but the hormone itself doesn't cure it.
It takes a lot of discipline and rewiring of your brain to be able to
feel confident and it takes a lot of like pushing yourself out of your
comfort zone and trying new things and just working really hard to get your confidence back.
I feel like most of my confidence has come from understanding society and toxic masculinity
and kind of challenging the way I used to think about that,
and kind of existing in a way that empowers me as a trans person
rather than existing to fit in with cis culture if that makes sense.
Confidence is just one of those things that can take a lot of patience and hard work
so you've got to be kind to yourself while you're going through that kind of journey.
Third thing on my list is that complications can and sometimes do happen.
Some doctors are better than others, obviously, but they don't all know what's right for your body
and they can mess up sometimes. I talk about this quite a lot but I had a couple of years
where testosterone was getting converted into oestrogen in my body and so no
changes were happening from testosterone and a lot of them kind of reversed,
and stopped happening and that was going on for two years and the doctors didn't
really do much about it at all until I was really pushing and fighting to get it changed.
So, it's just important that you listen to your body and talk to your
doctors and endocrinologists and gender therapists
to make sure everything's going as smoothly as it can be.
I see so many comparison pictures and videos of
people going from fairly curvy bodies to very rectangular and angled shaped bodies,
and I feel like because those people are confident enough to show them,
we don't see much about the people who don't receive many changes
body fat redistribution wise.
Of course it happens to a lot of people but for some it just
doesn't happen and you still have wide hips and wide thighs and arms
and just fat in places that you might not feel comfortable having it.
Because there's so much pressure to kind of be as cis looking as possible,
it's really difficult for those who don't receive those changes to put themselves out
there so we don't see it and then we don't think that it happens
and then we feel like we're the only ones going through that.
My hips are still probably the widest part of me, something I feel really insecure about,
and I've been on T for five years now so I think that that change is going to
happen with exercise and fitness and stuff if I really want it to happen,
but I'm kind of giving up on the idea that my hips are going to disappear anytime soon.
Not to mention that T doesn't change your bone structure
so if you have wide bones in some areas T's not going to
kind of erode them and get rid of them,
it's just the fat that changes the appearance from the outside really.
My next point is that it's just as easy to put on fat
as it is to put on muscle for some people.
A lot of people go on to testosterone thinking that it's gonna
magically change their muscle growth and make them lose loads of weight.
I know quite a few people who have been on testosterone and noticed that because it
sometimes increases your appetite, or just based on the way their body is,
they put on a lot of weight (I was one of them)
and it just goes against this whole idea of trans guys
becoming these buff, ripped bodybuilders in no time.
It takes a lot of work for some people to lose weight and build up muscle -
a lot of dedication and gym hours - so don't be too hard on yourself
if you're not losing weight drastically or putting on muscle. Everybody's bodies
are different and it just depends on a whole range of different things,
so be kind to yourself.
Five years ago when I was researching testosterone and what it
does and the changes that people experience, I saw a lot of people talking
about how angry it makes them, how their temper is a lot shorter
and the videos that I saw were of very aggressive people
and I was terrified of becoming a really aggressive, angry person.
Whether or not these people struggle with being aggressive
or if it's a societal thing, overcompensating for masculinity
or whatever it is, testosterone does not change who you are
personality-wise and it should not be an excuse for abusive or aggressive behaviour.
If you genuinely feel like you cannot control how you're expressing
your anger, and if you're taking it out on other people or the things around you
or even yourself, then you need to find support with that. Be it a counsellor or a
doctor or your endocrinologist. Regardless of what testosterone is doing to you,
you need to have responsibility for how you choose to express what it's
doing to you, so any amount of abusive or aggressive behaviour is just not
acceptable and you cannot blame testosterone for it and if you feel like
it's uncontrollable then that's when you need to find support.
When I looked a bit younger and was going into shops I noticed that
the shopkeepers felt threatened by my presence.
They would keep an eye on me much more than they used to,
thinking that maybe I was going to take something and be nasty to them.
One the other hand though, I gained more respect by older men.
They would treat me differently and be less patronising to me
even when I looked younger than I did before starting
testosterone or transitioning. It's very weird being in the stage where you're
noticing people change their behavior and attitude towards you when you're the
same person just with a few physical differences happening slowly over time.
But yeah it's just one of those things that you just have to deal with I guess.
I said before that it doesn't cure your lack of confidence but this is one thing
that helps a lot with feeling confident about using typically feminine items or
partaking in typically feminine activities. While I was going through my
initial social transition and the beginnings of my medical transition
I fought really hard to try and present as masculine as possible and act to kind of
impress the men around me. I was really like pushing away pink, and wanting to
watch action movies, and feeling really invested and interested in cars and
vehicles and things that I have no interest in really. As time's gone on and
I feel more comfortable with the way I look and the way I'm treated in society
and respected as my gender I feel okay playing with gender stereotypes and
kind of doing things that I enjoy doing because I feel like my gender is not at risk
by doing those things. So I can have a bubble bath with lush products,
and I can paint my nails, and I can wear pink, and I can act a little bit flamboyant at times,
and listen to feminine music, and just carry myself in a different way
and still feel somewhat safe to do that. I feel more confident now to challenge
people who want to disrespect my gender based on the way I'm carrying myself and
if I'm being a little bit more feminine than usual. That is something that I
wouldn't have been able to do beforehand, before medically transitioning
and before when I was just very insecure about the way I
looked and being misgendered really often,
so that is something that I was really surprised at and happy about
because I felt like transitioning would mean sacrificing all the things
I enjoy doing in order to be respected when that's not the case at all.
That is it really, those are the main things that I wish I knew before starting testosterone.
I hope that helped in some way. I apologise again for being so full of cold,
I'm coming out the end of it now so next video will be better hopefully.
I hope everyone's doing well! I hope you're having a great day and a great week and
a great month and a great everything, and I will speak to you soon.
Goodbye!