I've been having lots of fun posting recipes and ranting about dipshits who talk about paleo without understanding it, but I feel like I'm somewhat neglecting the whole "transgender" aspect of this blog, so I'm going to talk about my physical and emotional transition so far, starting with some basic social stuff and then getting into some more physical changes. The last category is health issues.
The Social Transition
I came out in late 2003. By the time I began hormones, I was mostly socially transitioned already. What this means is I was out to my friends and family, most of them were calling me male pronouns and my new-ish name (my new name is extremely similar to my birth name and so this should not have been a challenge; family members still struggle with pronouns), I was working as a man, and I'd even already gotten my driver's license changed (which in the state of Wisconsin only requires a note from a therapist). So I was already in a good place socially when I began hormones on December 22, 2011.
Part I: Obvious Physical Changes
The picture below is my "timeline," or a line of images from various points in my transition where I tried to keep the same facial expression and such. I lost my glasses so I didn't wear them last time. It's still a good depiction of the rate these changes went at.
The most rapid, obvious change was face shape and texture. My skin lost a lot of its "softness" in the first few months, and within the first two weeks I got what I called "wax face." My face would get ridiculously shiny, and washing would not help it. It didn't feel oily, it just looked oily. It was oddly enough not accompanied by an increase in facial acne. Oh, and a few days after I started shots I got this horrid rash on my face. I remember it was Christmas Day because the only thing open was Walgreens and I did manage to get something to help it a bit. It went away in a couple days.
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| This was probably 1 month or so on T. |
I occasionally still get oiliness, but--surprise--this has been helped a lot with diet.
As you can see from the timeline picture, between Pre-T and 7 months my jawline appears to change (this is likely due to the change in musculature testosterone will grant you). Basically my face squares up and fills out a bit.
Next came facial and body hair. You can see that I do have visible facial hair on my chin at 7 months. Technically I already had a little pre-T, which I called my "vampire bites." Just a little patch on each side. I believe it got to the point where I could keep some there without it looking weird after about four or five months, although it would take around a year and a half for it to get to a point where it looked like an adult man's goatee.
Within the past couple months, my cheeks are finally starting to grow hair, too. I am kind of curious about whether or not it would actually look like a full beard and not a small goatee with a bunch of patchy shit around it, but there are social complications (by which I mean I may or may not want to be able to continue having sex with somebody who may or may not dislike beards).
Body hair I didn't even notice at first, because even before testosterone I had a lot of it. Basically, several months into the meds, I looked down one day and realized I'd turned into a goddamn bear in the meantime.
Finally, there's a lot of veinage in my hands, and... I'm a full two inches taller. This shocked me, because I'd always been told "your long bone grown ends in your early twenties, if you go on T at 27 you're not going to grow anymore." So it's not growth of long bones, it's other factors. I lost the tendency to slouch long before testosterone (although I still do it when I'm in public and not binding). Some have told me it's due to an increase in cartilage density. I don't know. I just know that it happened.
Within the past couple months, my cheeks are finally starting to grow hair, too. I am kind of curious about whether or not it would actually look like a full beard and not a small goatee with a bunch of patchy shit around it, but there are social complications (by which I mean I may or may not want to be able to continue having sex with somebody who may or may not dislike beards).
Body hair I didn't even notice at first, because even before testosterone I had a lot of it. Basically, several months into the meds, I looked down one day and realized I'd turned into a goddamn bear in the meantime.
Finally, there's a lot of veinage in my hands, and... I'm a full two inches taller. This shocked me, because I'd always been told "your long bone grown ends in your early twenties, if you go on T at 27 you're not going to grow anymore." So it's not growth of long bones, it's other factors. I lost the tendency to slouch long before testosterone (although I still do it when I'm in public and not binding). Some have told me it's due to an increase in cartilage density. I don't know. I just know that it happened.
Part II: Vocal Changes
Here's the weird part about vocal changes: I didn't really notice them that much. Everyone else noticed them, but I was pretty oblivious, and it took well over a year for me to actually be confident that my voice is easily distinguishable as a man's voice. My personal theory about this is that since I live with myself 100% of the time the vocal changes.
Around two or three weeks I "sensed" my voice changing, and my videos do confirm it... barely. My voice was just a little scratchy. So who knows?
Starting around a month and a half things started rapidly changing. This was when my voice started really cracking up a storm and people started acting like things were changing.
Three months was all it took for me to be read as male over the phone. This was also about the time I started "passing" full-time and kind of lost interest in documenting my voice (I apologize). I am aware that from that point until maybe a year in my voice gradually got deeper, but I didn't really notice.
Part III: Health Issues
I had some really standard health problems that people go over whenever they put a trans man on testosterone. My blood pressure raised by about ten points on each end after the first year... within the past four months it's been an unacceptable level and I've been gradually working on getting it down through paleo diet and exercise. This made perfect sense, because I was unemployed between January and May, and the stress of going through that made me gain some weight. I also had prediabetic-looking blood glucose, but I've tailored my diet specifically to deal with that.
I gained weight on testosterone, but I haven't reached the peak I was at when I finally left vegetarianism, which was just shy of 270 pounds. I currently weigh 234 (meaning I finally, just today, got back down to the weight I was at before my business trip).
My HDL and LDL? Pretty much exactly the same. I have iron lipoproteins. It seems like no matter what I eat or what drugs I go on they're at a level accepted by any conventional doctor.
The one really concerning health problem brought on most obviously by testosterone supplementation--and probably kicked further by the paleo diet--was that I did get secondary polycythemia. This means that the ratio of red blood cells to other blood components is shifted, with too many red blood cells. This is potentially dangerous if left untreated, but the treatment is really simple: Just get some blood out of there periodically. This is usually achieved by regular blood donation (in a lot of contexts, if you're not eligible to give blood, they will still take the blood out if you have this condition).
Interestingly, when I was just looking into paleo, I read somewhere that people on the diet were donating blood under the assumption that our ancestors would have had more traumatic injuries. I don't think this makes any sense at all, but I do know that I know more than average paleo eaters who have high iron and would benefit from blood donation (plus you benefit the world by it).
Anyway, that's it for now. I'll have to come up with some more relevant trans health things in the future. But in the meanwhile, expect more recipes.
Here's the weird part about vocal changes: I didn't really notice them that much. Everyone else noticed them, but I was pretty oblivious, and it took well over a year for me to actually be confident that my voice is easily distinguishable as a man's voice. My personal theory about this is that since I live with myself 100% of the time the vocal changes.
Around two or three weeks I "sensed" my voice changing, and my videos do confirm it... barely. My voice was just a little scratchy. So who knows?
Starting around a month and a half things started rapidly changing. This was when my voice started really cracking up a storm and people started acting like things were changing.
Three months was all it took for me to be read as male over the phone. This was also about the time I started "passing" full-time and kind of lost interest in documenting my voice (I apologize). I am aware that from that point until maybe a year in my voice gradually got deeper, but I didn't really notice.
Part III: Health Issues
I had some really standard health problems that people go over whenever they put a trans man on testosterone. My blood pressure raised by about ten points on each end after the first year... within the past four months it's been an unacceptable level and I've been gradually working on getting it down through paleo diet and exercise. This made perfect sense, because I was unemployed between January and May, and the stress of going through that made me gain some weight. I also had prediabetic-looking blood glucose, but I've tailored my diet specifically to deal with that.
I gained weight on testosterone, but I haven't reached the peak I was at when I finally left vegetarianism, which was just shy of 270 pounds. I currently weigh 234 (meaning I finally, just today, got back down to the weight I was at before my business trip).
My HDL and LDL? Pretty much exactly the same. I have iron lipoproteins. It seems like no matter what I eat or what drugs I go on they're at a level accepted by any conventional doctor.
The one really concerning health problem brought on most obviously by testosterone supplementation--and probably kicked further by the paleo diet--was that I did get secondary polycythemia. This means that the ratio of red blood cells to other blood components is shifted, with too many red blood cells. This is potentially dangerous if left untreated, but the treatment is really simple: Just get some blood out of there periodically. This is usually achieved by regular blood donation (in a lot of contexts, if you're not eligible to give blood, they will still take the blood out if you have this condition).
Interestingly, when I was just looking into paleo, I read somewhere that people on the diet were donating blood under the assumption that our ancestors would have had more traumatic injuries. I don't think this makes any sense at all, but I do know that I know more than average paleo eaters who have high iron and would benefit from blood donation (plus you benefit the world by it).
Anyway, that's it for now. I'll have to come up with some more relevant trans health things in the future. But in the meanwhile, expect more recipes.
