Monday, July 7, 2014

Natural Transitioning for Trans Men is a Crock, and Here's Why

I've already written about the subject of Natural Transitioning for Trans Men (NT), but this was a long time ago, and since then... well, my opinions on it have changed, slightly.  When I say "slightly" I mean I went from "this is crap" to "this is crap and I'm really, intensely offended by it."  This was driven partially by the fact that it is now only available as a $20 book, rather than for free as it was originally presented... but mostly by the feelings that come from watching friend after friend wind up sorely disappointed.

Anyway, what is NT?  It's a program designed for trans men to increase the amount of testosterone the body makes in order to masculinize a person's appearance.  It involves taking over-the-counter supplements, a rigid exercise program, and dietary changes.  And although I don't see it around so much anymore, every so often a friend or acquaintance of mine will decide to try it for some reason or another.

The top reasons?
  1. Inability to get hormones due to lack of access to local prescribing doctors.
  2. Desire to not be actually diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
  3. Lack of interest in going to therapy and lack of access to informed consent programs.
  4. Wants to avoid "shocking" their bodies.
  5. Are non-binary and/or only want some of the effects of higher testosterone.
  6. Contraindicated from using testosterone injections.
  7. Attracted to the concept of "naturalness."
  8. A few were trying it because they are vegans and wanted to avoid animal-tested and animal-ingredient-including pharmaceuticals.
I'm not judging the reasons people choose to use it.  I am also not questioning that in people who have barriers in place preventing hormone therapy, there may be a psychological reward in doing something until they can attain that.  So this essay is in no way intended to disparage people who have tried or are intending to try NT.  It's also not meant to be a cut on the other, extremely important projects Tristan Skye has founded and maintained.

But I think it's really important that trans men who are considering it are aware of the issues surrounding it.  And it really is your choice, but I'm not going to sit here and say I don't think it's a crock, because I absolutely believe it is.  Here's why.

1. Honorable Mention: Attempting to trademark "Natural Transitioning" when that was already a well-known term for something else.

First off, I don't think I've ever actually found reference to NT while looking for it in a trademark search, so I have a feeling he didn't actually trademark it and is just using the TM mark because... I don't know.  Maybe he doesn't know what it means?  There's also the chance I'm just not looking hard enough.  Anyway, it doesn't matter.

Long before people were peddling programs promising FTM transition with herbs and vitamins, "Natural Transitioning" was a term used for black people--usually black women--who were going back to their natural hair texture after having straightened or permed it.  It's worth a major eye-roll to me that this person has decided to try trademarking a term without even so much as a Google to make sure it's not already used by a marginalized group to refer to something personal and important.  Just a thought.  I mean, even when I create a new blog I always at least do a cursory search of the title just to make sure I'm not accidentally stealing a name.  And while that's not always a perfect solution, this was something that would have shown up in even a cursory search.

But even if you totally don't give a shit about that, there's still a lot of other stuff to discuss.

2. The person who invented this had a metric fuckton of help from good old biology as well as training.

When you see a picture of a bearded dude with a reasonably deep voice hawking an herbal/nutritional regimen to people as an alternative to pharmaceutical transition, it gives the illusion that NT is practically as good as intramuscular injections or other methods of taking testosterone through conventional medicine.  If you read more of this person's work, though, you learn that his voice is largely due to vocal training lessons.  Even more importantly, he already had facial hair before he decided to transition, and used minoxidil (Rogaine) as well.

Now, NT will if done properly cause changes in things like body fat and muscle, which can be extremely masculinizing.  But if you think you're going to come out of it looking like Tristan Skye, you're probably going to be sorely disappointed.  It wasn't just pills, exercise, and diet that made him look the way he does.

3. The effects of Natural Transitioning are usually miniscule and not worth the costs for most people.
 
YouTube is culturally extremely important to trans men, and loads of us have posted videos there talking about our struggles and displaying the changes we go through while transitioning, whether hormonal or not.  So of course there are people on there who are attempting NT.

Watch them.  Seriously.  The last time I did this, what I saw were a lot of guys talking about how many changes they were going through, who swore up and down that their voices were changing and their peach fuzz was slightly fuzzier.  Most of them wind up giving up very quickly once they realize just how little the regimen is actually helping, especially when doing a cost/benefit analysis between it and conventional testosterone.

NT doesn't just make your transition more gradual so your body has time to adjust or whatever other woo you choose to use to justify it... it does practically nothing you won't get from just taking care of yourself.  But I'll get to that later.

There are two main costs that make NT a poor choice for most trans men.  They are...


4. Natural Transitioning is ridiculously expensive in comparison to testosterone.

All of the supplements required on this program are very, very expensive.  Testosterone isn't that expensive, and it would be much more cost-effective to use the money you would be using to buy this crap to go to a therapist and a doctor instead (which is where the real costs of T come in; a bottle of testosterone for me costs around $60 and lasts six months, it's the bloodwork and therapy that is expensive).

But this more literal cost isn't even the worst part...


5. Natural Transitioning is a hell of a lot of effort to get a little of what cis men need basically no effort to achieve.

There's a pseudo-moralistic reasoning among quite a few trans men who attempt NT, as if they'll value transition significantly more because they worked so hard for it.  This is ludicrous, though:  Trans men shouldn't feel obligated to work hard to change our hormone ratios to those more similar to cis men's.  A cis man who has a serious hormone deficiency doesn't need to feel like bodybuilding and paying GNC worker salaries is a more worthwhile option than a weekly shot, why should we?

And this takes a lot of effort and time.  This is supplementation morning, noon, and night, as well as more exercise than most average people have the ability to do.  And they aren't even that effective.

6. Most of these supplements are useless.

To do the whole NT program you will need to buy and consume over a dozen different supplements, mostly supplements that are advertised to bodybuilders with a few extras for general health.  DebGod from Skepchick has a nice article in which a natural bodybuilder is queried and explains that most of these supplements are not necessary with good diet and exercise.  She also explains that cis women who do natural bodybuilding, while they may gain more "stereotypically masculine" muscle structures, do not typically get deeper voices or facial hair.  These are things you see when they use steroids; they don't just happen from bodybuilding.  But for this sort of thing, and much more, you should really just read that article, which has more information on this particular subject than I have.

Basically, you're taking these supplements just to piss them out.  You can achieve most of the real, tangible effects of NT just by going on a diet and exercise program... and you don't need this book for that.

7. Testosterone isn't that bad.

Testosterone has side effects.  So does NT.  Testosterone requires a doctor.  Ideally, so does NT.  Testosterone has contraindications that make it inaccessible for people with certain medical conditions.  Most of them also make the supplements on NT more dangerous.  We don't really have that much information about the risks of long-term testosterone use in trans men.  But it's been studied a lot more than NT.  Testosterone shocks your system.  So does... you know... puberty.  And most importantly, testosterone works for what trans men typically need.