So...I've been re-thinking the issue of hormones lately. I have known for some time that I wanted rid of the breasts, but hormones I was not sure about. Partially because I needed time to see what my body would work like not being on estrogen containing pills for the PCOS. Because, I have testosterone that is higher than what is considered "normal" for a cis woman by a good shot anyways, but I also have "average" levels of estrogen and progesterone.
Also, can I just say here how tired I am of this myth that estrogen and progesterone don't really shape the body all that much and that testosterone is so powerful and overwhelming? Not all FAAB trans people have naturally "boyish" figures. No one in the history of my life has considered my figure boyish. It takes quite a bit of baggy clothes and binding to reshape the lines of my body to get taken as not a woman on a few occaions (which means getting taken as a man, which also doesn't really reflect reality, what makes me happiest is when I get "ma'am" at one place, cross the street and get "sir"). I went from tiny and delicate as a small child to curvy and broad hipped and big breasted, and then to curvy and broad hipped and big breasted and fat. "Normal" levels of estrogen and progesterone are more than enough to shape a body in huge ways even with testosterone levels in between what would be expected for a cis male and a cis female.
I've been watching my body during this time, experiencing being an adult and watching and feeling my hormones shift. I've purposefully tried to focus on keeping my speaking voice in the lower range, but now I feel like I have the voice of a thirteen year old cis boy. Did you know when I'm not on hormones and my voice slips into certain modes, I can sing low enough to go along with a tenor and then slip back into soprano as falsetto or on other days soprano as just my base tone? My voice even cracks sometimes. I've never left puberty.
I can watch my face shape change and shift.
I know whether my testosterone or estrogen or both are high with a pretty good estimate at this point from observing my body.
I've had six months in a row without periods before, that's what got me in for a PCOS diagnosis. Now, if I don't get a period every three or four months or so, I medically induce one. I don't really have bottom dysphoria (I mean, I am one of those people who doesn't find the idea of having other genitals upsetting, but also doesn't feel upset by them as they are) and menstruation is not dysphoria inducing for me. That certainly doesn't apply to all genderqueer people, it's just the way I feel. It doesn't particularly bother me. I don't have too many physical symptoms around menstruation like some people, so that might be part of it (I don't get anemia at times like my older sister does, I don't have bad cramping like my little sister). If anything, the break in hormonal wildness that it usually takes to produce a period without pills means that I feel rather good and calm. And, now that I get my body better, I'm much better at estimating when they are coming, so it doesn't have the panic inducing randomness factor that used to bother me as a kid.
Anyways, I wonder sometimes if I should consider going on blockers and hormones. I wonder if they would make my thighs a bit less...well...but I had very wide hips even when thinner, they aren't really going to get small, and I wear long enough shorts that it's less of a big deal in public anyways. It might help with the voice stuff. But, when I start wondering, a lot of times I will shut myself down thinking "I don't need to want them anyways, I don't want to want them anyways. You can't have top surgery realistically for years yet, and you've wanted that way longer and way harder. Why even want hormones if you just know you can't have them? Wouldn't that just upset you? Just don't think about it."
And, I'm not sure that I want hormones anyways, but I want to get over that hump. I want to be able to think about and explore that idea like I have other stuff, regardless of what the end decision might be. Stinking medical gatekeeping, it's even interfering with my brain's ability to let me figure out what I want.
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