July 18th, 2024 is my first Boythday

July 18th, 2024 is my first Boythday. That means I’ll have been on testosterone for a whole year. I remember, vividly, the trepidation, curiosity, anxiety, and relief that came with that first shot. I also remember being So Sure that I would do quarterly updates on how things moved along. I think I get what happened to the other guys that just didn’t update either when I was trying to understand what was going to happen. First of all, I’m sorry that I got frustrated with y’all. It really is just a lot of very slow gradual changes that don’t feel all that noteworthy. You were super right.

A lot has happened this year in my household, more good than bad. For anyone here looking for a less personal update that’s trying to reference transition timelines I’ll start there. I’m on a 0.5 mg dose weekly on something like a 1/1000? I’m still not honestly sure how to read the prescription. I opted for a dose on the lower end, but not a microdose. Since then I have had exactly 2 migraines compared to my 10+ monthly since age 2. I don’t know if there’s any data out there yet, but anecdotally it seems like a good portion of other trans folks I’ve met suffered chronic migraines. 

At this time I have a very small amount of patchy facial hair, so I’ve been on the slower side of that trait, but it is definitely thickening more over time. I have earned a single chest hair. My arm hair, particularly around the wrists, seems to be thickening and the foot and toe hair are in full swing. One thing that I was unprepared for was the butt hair. The number of cis men that I’ve had to ask what they do with their butt hair is plain silliness. This year my favorite comment about it was my friend that referred to his situation as “trying to poop through a screen door.”

My voice has deepened, but since I had a particularly high voice before I have still never been gendered correctly by a caller on the phone. Overall, I’m still very pleased about the situation and it’s eased a lot of the dysphoria that I have had around speaking for decades. Just having the sound in my ears when I speak a couple notes lower has made conversing surprisingly pleasant. I never would have thought that I’d say that growing up. I’ve also noticed a definite increase in muscle mass, mood, and energy in my day to day. As far as “passing” that’s been hilariously bad, but I was pretty androgynous before starting testosterone and being on the lower end of the dosages my changes will probably be on a slower dial. 

The last time my doctor and I spoke I was at the low end of normal range for a post-pubescent cis man. For my part it took about 11 months for my periods to stop, but even before they did they were eased back tremendously and I now have very few symptoms of endo flare up during my normal hormone cycle. The quality of life upgrade I have experienced from that alone can not be overstated. 

I had and still have an uptick in acne, but it has lessened from the start of my HRT and seems to happen worst right before I get body hair in that area. Right now, it’s really bad on my jawline, but the pimple patches are really really helpful. I also am still adjusting to my “man-stink”. Learning that I need to change my whole outfit when I get sweaty has certainly made me need to tighten up on my laundry habits.  My eating habits have also more or less returned to the portion sizes I was eating before I started T. Thank goodness. 

Now, onto some of the more mental changes. First and foremost I can actually tell how I’m feeling most of the time now. As a person who always said that they had “a delayed emotional response” to things, it’s been really great to be able to note that I’m happy or sad or upset by something in the moment, or just a couple minutes after, rather than trying to parse why I feel away 5-7 business days later. It has done wonders to be able to walk away from something if I’m frustrated and take a break and get it done so much faster than just continuing to work at something without realizing that it will throw me into a mood a week later. 

Now, on the flip side, I’ve found that my PTSD flare-ups feel more symptomatic than they used to, but I also have been able to actively identify and work on some of these triggers for the first time in over 20 years. For example, now I can gauge if a piece of media is getting too heavy for me for the day and walk away to resume on a later day or walk away altogether. 

For a while at the six-month to eight-month mark, I was really feeling aimless and a bit daunted. Some of my old hobbies felt…tacked on? I’m not sure how to describe it exactly, but there was a period of shedding. Certain items that I thought I was attached to that I found I wasn’t. My sense of style has shifted, and I like bright colours now. The thought of someone perceiving me “in the wild” doesn’t make me just shut down and stay home. 

As far as my family is concerned, it probably appears that I went through a bit of a regression. I had a bit of just drawing pokemon like I did when I was a kid. (I once drew all 150 of the originals on notecards to have versions that I didn’t worry about damaging when I was a child.) There has also been a pull back to the outdoors in general. Finding bugs to put on iNaturalist and raising stray wooly bears that wind up in weird places around my yard has come back into swing after years and years of shutting myself up inside with the baggiest clothes i could find.

It’s been such a joy to learn how to reconnect with my friends and family. I’m still not great at it, but I have certainly found that I have the focus and energy to be more consistent with my check-ins and general presence. It’s still not quite where I’d like, but nothing changes in a day. I’ve found I don’t slouch as much and I talk more. Even though most people still hear a very feminine voice it is still so much stronger than it was before now that I’ve had some thickening in the vocal cords. 

It hasn’t been perfectly smooth by any stretch, but for any one that has had trepidation it took a while, but even my Mom has commented that I’ve seemed “happier than (she) has seen me since I was a kid.” I’m grateful to my health team and my friends and family for all of the love and support they have shown, even when they didn’t get it or didn’t really agree with it, and I hope that this year has been worth the growing pains for them even half as much as it has been for me. After making my first suicide plan at 12 and never really expecting to keep going I think I can finally say that I’m enjoying my life quite a lot and hope to see where it goes for years to come.