shortfatbalduglyman wrote:
Ravenitrius
2004, san diego, 21. at that time, in order to get testosterone, i had to get 6 months of "gender therapy" (talk therapy only) first. only a couple psychologists in san diego county were allowed, based on the Harry Benjamin Standards, to provide that therapy. those psychologists had wait lists, six months long. i had to go on the wait list. after getting off the wait list, i had to go to one of those psychologists. i did not have a car. san diego public transportation inconvenient. ten miles away. had to take two buses, each way. each bus scheduled once every thirty minutes. gender therapy costs: sliding scale. the gender therapist then had the nerve to tell me "you are already living 'as a man' ", whatever that means (not specific enough, semantics and pragmatics). so he insisted on talking about other things, such as structural engineering, which i later flunked out of.
but that was 2004 san diego. it is now 2025, laws and social norms drastically changed. and et cetera.
"I think the hassle is worth it if it makes you feel better then when you were at originally."
even obtaining testosterone takes a lot of time, $$ and energy. all things equal (which they are not), right now, i feel better than i did @ 24 before testosterone. however, there is no way to measure "how" you feel. and plenty of factors, besides testosterone, influence well how you feel.
having said that: here are the changes from testosterone
24-26 and 36-42 testosterone. started on 50mL/2 weeks prescribed. later increased a couple times. current dosage:
150mg/2 weeks. been taking 150mg/4 weeks. past two shots, took after 6 weeks. just did not feel like taking shots.
menopause: took a long time to get there, and menstrual cycle came just last week
over the phone, been getting called "ma'am" until two years ago.
a couple facial hairs. nothing remotely close to beard or mustache. a couple body hairs. (cisgender chinese males often are short and skinny, high pitch voice, little facial hair).
metabolism: used to eat five servings of bread a day. now, 12 servings of bread a day. everything else about diet, the same.
hardly ever got hungry before testosterone. don't get hungry that often now, either. (interoception)
appearance otherwise zero substantial change
It's easier now in the 20s, as more views on improving the lives of LGBT people, we have way less restrictions on obtaining Gender Affirming Care. I live in northern california and yeah it's really easy now. It was harder back in the 2000s and I hope it continues to change that way. I don't need to see any psychologists to get hormone therapy at all and most of my support network has been online with other fellow trans people. Times are changing but right now it's likely to become unsafe again and I might as well bunker down. As long as you feel good about yourself and no one can tell you otherwise, just ignore them and focus on yourself. We're the stronger person. We don't need anyone's approval to be ourselves.
21 Oct 2025, 2:53 am
