Inspirations

 While I'm back now on T for safety reasons, I still would like to give a try to stopping it in the future, once things are more stable on my part. Maybe in a couple years - lets hope I still have hair by then.

    When thinking of stopping T, I aim to have a muscular body that'll aid me with looking masculine. To be able to get a picture of what'd be actually possible to aechive without T, I looked for pictures of cis women who were natural body builders, swimmers and other kinds of athletes.

    There are things you simply can't aechive without T. You won't look like goku. But you may look like a cisfem bodybuilder - which, honestly, can be androgynous or masc if paired with the correct presentation and a masc sounding voice/hair (or lack thereof).

    When getting inspiration, its imporant to find people who haven't used hormones to aechive their current looks, otherwise you'll give yourself an impossible goal. Its also good to consider your own body shape: If your hips are very large they'll always be that, but you can train your back and shoulders enough so that they'll not be the main thing in your sillouette.

    Heres some pictures of muscular cis women that inspired me.:

 

Ye chiwen - Swimmer

 

 

Siobhan Haughey - Swimmer

Katie Ledecky - Swimmer
 

 

Chanelle Smith - Bodybuilder

 ps: Its impossible to mantain a show body 24/7! Bodybuilders will cut off a lot of weight before shows. The way they look in show pictures isn't how they look in their daily lives. This can, however, show you how muscular someone can get without testosterone as their main hormone :)

 

Rhea Ripley - Wrestler

Ps: It might be good to observe how having some body fat actually helps with having a stronger, builkier sillouette when in comparision to bodybuilders :) 

    So, you might notice that you can't really get some puffy cloud arms without T. But you can get muscular enough to build yourself androgynous with the right presentation. This would take a really, really long time without T - getting muscle on E is a slow process. But its certainly not impossible and it might be an alternative to using a medication for the rest of your life, if you're content with what will happen to you once you stop using T.

•  Final thoughts - My experience 17 days without testosterone
•  What happens if you stop taking testosterone - Info I've gathered as a Nonbinary person wanting to use it temporarely

 

    Cheers!

No goku arms without T. But he can still inspire you into becoming stronger, and leaving your son with a green alien. Or maybe not.

 

Final thoughts - My experience 17 days without testosterone

     I tried staying out of testosterone for 17 days in April 2023. I ended up needing to go back on T as changes were happening too fast and I was dealing with too much with my life. Heres the things I've found out during that time:

 PHYSICAL CHANGES

1. You'll have erection problems

    This is by far, the most annoying thing of it. I feel like I could deal with everything else but this. You still can feel pleasure, but your dick will be limp and it'll only harden when you're close to climaxing.

    Even at the climax, boners aren't as hard as they are during T. Navigation might get difficult.

2. Vaginal atrophy indeed goes away

    Penetration becomes easier. Takes some time for it to fully disappear. The sensation of being penetrated changes - its a stronger pleasure than when on T. Moaning becomes a more common thing, in the case T gave you the dead silent performance.

3. Genital smells and fluids change back

    Your genitals will smell like pussy instead of dick. Discharge comes back.

4. Menstraul cycle symptoms start as soon as T is low

    Your uterus, if its still there, won't lose any time in doing all the work it delayed during all those years.

5. Boobs swell back to its original size withnin a few weeks

    I imagine if you have bigger boobs it'd take a while. But for me, that has small boobs, they went back to what they were before withnin two weeks, maybe even less. This might be related to the fact that I put up a lot of weight during the time I quit T. (unrelated to quitting:  I was overseas)

6. Butt grows back before thighs

     You might look like olives on a toothpic for a while. My butt doubled size in two weeks.

7. Hair folicles that have not died yet will grow back

    You might see some light yellow hairs growing in your bald spot. What isn't dead yet will no longer have DHT suffocating it, therefore it'll slowly get back on shape. Meaning your hairline and baldspots might grow back a bit, but it most likely won't be completely.

8. Skin quickly becomes softer & fat deposits change

    You'll get a "baby face"/ be "doe eyed" again with time. Fat deposits quickly go on hands making them more smooth/soft looking (though to fully become feminine hands again it'd take longer than a couple weeks). Waist starts to thin down even if your belly size doesn't change.

9. You might lose energy mid working outs you're used to

    Take it easy until you're accostomed to E again. After you're used to it, you can get back to working out as usual just fine.

10. Your shoulders get softer/rounder

    Even if you're muscular, some fat deposit magic starts happening there that covers up most of the sharp angles. My back is jacked, but my shoulders looking like a smooth lady from a painting. 

11. You'll quickly get fat on your pubic mound back

    T dries up your pubic mound. Stop it and it'll get fat there again. This fat might cover up some of your dick. This one is very quick - less than a week for me.

12. The physical response to arousal becomes getting wet instead of getting hard

    Self explanatory! You'll feel wet instead of hard. If theres a hardon, expect some minimal performance.

13. Expect an acne outbreak

    Happens. Also, acne will change locations to where you had it before T.

14. Sore boobs for days

    Your boobs will be sore as they swell back. If you get back on T, they'll be sore as they unswell too. Ow.

15. Male refractory period disappears

    This might mean that getting multiple orgasms will be possible once again. I'm unsure if I mananged to do this or not.

16. Orgasms get longer and pleasure type changes to what it was before T

    You'll have pleasure feelings on your whole body rather than concentrated in the genital area once again.

17. You might get weird discharge/ genital smells

    Weird colour, funky odour, etc. Hormonal fluctuations do that. Mine was vinegar-ish for a couple days, then it didn't do that anymore.

18. Pee smells different

    I know. Weird.

19. Liquid retention swoleness takes forever to go away

    While I felt like I was less swollen, I still had liquid retention as well as 17 days after stopping T. It could be that the hormonal fluctuation from changing those hormones are also a swoleness indulcer.

   

MENTAL CHANGES

1. You'll feel like you're "slowing down" and get tired all the time

    Get ready to take multiple naps a day. The napping and tiredness goes away once hormonal levels get stable again.

    The "slowing down" feeling is hard to describe. Its like if your blood pressure went down, if existence was calmer or slower. Maybe your brain gets more framerates on E.

2. Expect some weird paranoia and dissociation in the first few days

    Feeling like you're losing yourself, worrying about everything, fearing changes. It passes after the first week or the second.

3. Libido and hornyness might not change

    While I was too tired to be horny, I didn't feel much of an impact in that aspect. What I felt, however, is that at some point my body was too feminine for me to comfortably present it to someone else, what made me kinda want to avoid sex.

4. You might get more cautelous

    This is something I noticed after getting my T shot. T is a dumb indulcing hormone that makes it easier for you to care less about things and act on impulse more often, or at least with less thought than usual. This might be a personal experience though, someone out there might get more cautious with T.

5. Appetite might be affected for a couple days

    This is temporary. I ate less for a couple days. After around a week and a half, I was eating normally. (Unsure if I should classify this as physical or mental). 

6. Tears might flow with more ease

    I haven't had much crying experience that felt like inappropiate or unusual for the kind of situation I was at. But this is something people talk about over and over - you cry more on E. Unsure how much this affected me.

7. You're still you

    This won't ever change.

 

 HERES WHAT I RECCOMEND IF YOU WANT TO TRY THIS

    First of all, talk with your endocrinologist about your plans. Be sure you're in a safe spot, somewhere you can look feminine without much worry - if you live somewhere where you experience cold winters, it might be good to do this by the end of autumn, so most of your body will be covered during the harsh changes. 

    Start working out before you quit T, so you'll have an easier start. I know, its cheating! But you're not going for a competition, you're doing something to help yourself feel better, and any easier ways to this are welcome. After some time on E, you body will only mantain the kind of muscle that a body on E could sustain, so its not like you'll be "cheating" forever.

    If you don't have any left, get sports bra for the gym (don't bind while working out). Also get ready to see your boobs come back really, really fast. I also reccomend to have menstrual products handy and take at least one pad everywhere you go as it might happen any time.

    Talk with people you can trust about those plans, and possibly have the aid of a therapist during those times. You'll go through some weird brain stuff. 

    Don't do this if you're in the middle of life changing events or crisis. If you fear it might not be the time for this, don't do it! (I know, I did it in a bad time. Thats why I'm reccomending you to not do the same mistake as me... its because of that I had to stop and go back on T)

    Maybe don't shave your head before doing this 😂 A little personal experience advice for ya'll. Face changes are more noticeable without hair to cover it.

    Good luck!

3 Weeks without T log

 18 April 2023

    Trying to jerk off without T should be classified as some sorts of torture. I can now remember how it was hard for me to do so before I started T, and now I'm facing this limp reality once again.

    Sure orgasms are longer now, which is neat, but having to fight against formless slime for it for 30 minutes or so isn't neat. Wasn't neat before either.

    My boobs, which are both my beloved and my behated, are giving me trouble. I consider joining the boob removal queue at public healthcare. I think this might be neat actually. I'll have 5 bountyful and boobyfull years, and after that I'll be boobless but I'll gain a whole new world of freedoms I don't have nowdays.

    Mentally I'm ok. Going back to T is a hassle, staying out of T is a different kind of hassle. Guess I'll have to pick my poison eventually.

    I felt a bit dizzy in the gym today. Wearing a sports bra affects my performance. 

    I'm noticing my arms and shoulders are kinda thinner, my hips larger, and my waist smaller.

Two weeks without T log

 14 April 2023

    I'm exhausted, swollen, and smooth. My naturals look fantastic though. Cisnormative views of what a male body should be be damned, boobs feel amazing. Let here be known that I love boobs. I heavily dislike how they're associated with womanhood though. Can't a guy have fat milkers in peace and still be respected? The time at which my juggly jonkers may intervine with my passability and therefore with my safety has come. They were manboob shaped on T, but now they're just boob boob. I don't think I can pull a "this is gynecomastia" one confortably anymore. 

    Everyday I look more feminine which is honestly odd. Its like I look like a 15 year old. No one calls me ma'am on the streets - I'm still a bearded person with early signs of male pattern baldness. 

    My plan with the temporary use of T deal was to retain the permanent changes from T and then go off it to obtain an androgynous body. I guess this is androgynous indeed! I got so used to looking like a cis guy that androgyny feels odd. Like yeah, I might be losing my cis guy pass now - but its not like I look like a cis woman either. If by next month or so I'm just straight up looking like a cis woman with a beard, then I might have to come back to my T roots. And buy a shaver while at it too.

    Genital wise, I feel like what can best describe the impotency situation its that its hard to mantain a boner rather than boners are gone forever. You know those air pumps games where you have to keep pumping it or the slide goes down and you lose, or, I don't know, flappy bird? The moment you stop touching the bird it goes down? Its kinda like that. Flappy bird dick mechanics.

    Discharge is becoming more constant. I think i'm entering fertile period which makes sense. I spotted some brown in it, maybe its menses? I guess thats for tomorrow me to know.

    The venus mound is getting fatter which isn't something I'm enjoying to see. It covers up the size of my already nerfed dick. So I guess i'll put it to the negatives in the final concerns. 

    I'm losing muscle mass. I've been three months away from the gym, so it makes some sense. Maybe this one isn't exactly on E, but its not like E is helping any of this. Maybe I'll join the gym today.

    Theres a warmth feeling on my mouth and in some parts of my body like one would get with a fever, though I recognise this feeling from after I get a T shot. This is some hormonal spike warmth thing.

    I feel like those things are all so big, but when I look in the mirror, it doesn't look like so much has changed. Its weird, Maybe I'm unlocking a new kind of dysphoria. If this whole deal ends up making me more dysphoric than balding does, I'll go back to T. 

    I wrote all that stuff  👆 in the morning. Its now 9pm. I decided to go, exhausted as I am, to the gym. I did a softer version of my usual set and I felt energised and alive. Going to gym is an essential item to this alternative masculinisation process and without it this feels pointless. I can say that now because at the gym it truly felt like I was doing something for a reason. 

    I've been around 3 months without working out, but my workout plan didn't feel so hard. I took it easy since I knew I was exhausted, but it was good to go there and do a little bit progress. Its also neat cuz the gym has a thousand mirrors, and there I can see that I truly didn't change much. I'm still me. I've been having some issues with dissociating through this, and this kinda stuff pulls me back.

    My appetite is affected. I often lose appetite in tough times, so maybe thats why.

1 Week without T log

Summed up:

    I was supposed to take my shot on the 4th of april. Today is the 13th, so i'm somewhare 9 days without T. On the shot before my last shot, I accidentaly delayed it for 12 or so days, as I had an international flight followed by a week of sickness and I forgot T existed. So while technically 9 days isn't the longest time I've been without T, I'm noticing changes that simply did not happen on those 12 days before.

    Maybe the fact that I had a delayed shot followed by an on time shot followed by No Shots influenced the speed at which I got those changes - My T levels were probably already really low and in those 12 days my E mananged to quietly rebuild some things. Who knows. 

    There are two main changes so far: First, is that my dick no longer works. Its dead and died, which confirms my previous suspicions that maybe we transmasc people too go through impotency without T. While I can still feel pleasure with it, the current response to hornyness seems to be wetness instead of a hardon. During stimulation it gets a minimun amount of hardness, a semi at best. Pleasure type seem to be slowly switching back to what it was before T, and penetration is no longer uncomfortable. I'm also seeing some minimun amounts of discharge.

    The second change is that my breasts are probably as big as they were before T. Seriously. They got double the size at very least. My theory is that since I spent a good 77 days overseas indulging in all sorts of food, I put up some weight, and since estrogen quickly took over T it was in charge of deciding where all this new fat deposits would be. This isn't a dysphoric experience and its not interfering with my passability, though I'll have to get a sports bra to comfortably wear certain clothes without marking my tiddies so much, or to go to the gym.

    I'm not feeling pain on my breasts so I think this change is legit just fat storage (well, combined with incoming menses, probably). I also don't feel many cramps, however I did spend a couple days feeling my uterus throbbing. Its like I could feel the veins and arteries that cover my uterus in details. I can mentalise a sillouette of its shape now due to it.

    I forgot to mention this earlier so I'll edit this one here now. I noticed myself "slowing down". Maybe its a lower heartbeat, maybe its lower metabolism. Maybe its my braincells being flushed away. Though honestly, I feel like that if there is a thing that removes your braincells it is testosterone.  In HRT change graphs, you might find notes saying that testosterone makes you have more gray matter in your brain. Well honestly I believe that you could change all that extra gray matter with a styrofoam filling and obtain the same results. Its like your brain creates a whole new department entirely dedicated to being stupid and looking at other people's butts. Never in my life have I took as many careless decisions as I did on T. Like, nothing off my personality limits - its  just that risk taking gets increased, I guess. Often I crossed streets like a pigeon would. With time I got used to those new impulse reactions and got a better hold of it. Kinda.

    Another thing is that my skin quickly became smooth. I feel like smooth adam sandler now.

 

A little stache and a beard and this will be me.

    Passability isn't inferfered so far but I'm definitely looking more feminine. Not as a cis girl through. I don't think anyone in their right minds would look at me and say "look, a woman". I mostly look androgynous as hell. But then again its been only 9 days. 

    I'm still as swollen as before. I guess liquid retention takes a long time to leave you.

    Some fat is being deposited on my hand, mostly noticeably between thumb and the first finger (whatever this is named in english). The fingers are also getting rounder. My hands were bony and veiny on T and I guess it makes sense for them to be getting softer again now. 

    Another new fat deposit is on the face. If its the girly babyfat or just the obvious consequence of eating schnitzels with fries for 3 months I dont know yet. I'll know for sure after a couple months in the gym.

    Mentally, I'm honestly mostly fine. I went through some anxiety, worried about losing this "me on T" self, because I sure had a wonderful time being on T. After being on an airport and going insane at the amount of pretty people around me, I feel like I can safely say that T did permanent damage to my brain and my libido is no longer what it was before T, which was non-existent. 

    My energy is kinda leaving me though. I can't say for sure if its because I don't have so much T on me anymore, or if I'm just straight up tired. I noticed I got tired in the middle of a walk I easily did on T a couple days ago, and I spent some days napping a lot. 

    So, my current thoughts on being without T are:

 Good:

• Libido is still high - I've become a hornier person once I've got more comfortable with who I am. Its not just T'!
  
• Free

Neutral:

• Boobs 
• Being tired more easily

Bad:

• My dick wont work (this one legit makes me consider being on T again.... but lets see how it develops)

Continuing without T? Once I noticed my dick was limp I legit thought about going back to T when I returned to my country. However it seems I forgot my last T vial overseas, so this will have to wait.

What happens if you stop taking testosterone - Info I've gathered as a Nonbinary person wanting to use it temporarely

    Doctors often sell HRT as something you'll need to do forever, but that is not the case. Many people, cis or trans, go on and off HRT for a multitude of reasons. As long as you still have your gonads to produce your birth hormones, you can stop T and your body will readjust. (Please talk with your endocrinologist before doing so though.)

    Personally I only started HRT once I knew I could do it temporarely. Using testosterone for a couple years, maturing the permanent changes of it, then stopping and trying to live with those permanent changes and the gym as a sort of masculinisation process has always been my transitioning plan. So, in order to start T, I researched everything I could about detransitioning - which isn't what I was going to do, but it was the closest information to what would happen to me I could get at the time.

    In this post I'll write what I can remember of it, in order to help nonbinary people willing to go through the same process. This text is nonbinary oriented and many things are based on personal relates from other trans people I've read online. I don't reccomend taking this as an academic text, however if you're nonbinary and want some orientation on where to start looking for information and what kind of information is out there for you to know what to look for, this might help.

    So, there are permanent and non permanent things on T. This means that if you stop taking testosterone the non-permanent things will slowly change to what it was before T, and the permanent things will stay. In a nonbinary POV, this means you can look very feminine with a deep voice, or with extra body hair. The permanent and non permanent things, from the top of my head, are:

Permanent

• Hair loss
• Deep voice
  
• Clitoral growth
• Body and facial hair (might get thinner/lighter without T but doesn't go away)
  

Not permanent

• Body fat distribuition
  
• Vaginal/uterine atrophy
  
• Hairloss stops progressing, but doesn't grow back
• Menopause / supression of ovulation and its side effects (dryness, no menses, no discharge, etc)
  
• Rougher, oilier skin (Related to pores becoming bigger while on T)
  
• Mental changes (libido, anger, impulsiveness, etc)
• Random erections
• The way you smell (sweat, body fluids, genitals etc. smell different on T)
  
• Type of orgasm/pleasure 
• Higher blood pressure & other health things associated to having T as a dominant hormone (check health issues cis men are more likely to have in comparision to cis women)
• Type of muscle growth and shape (check relates of muscle loss in transwomen, muscle loss in cis men doing HRT for an idea of what happens)
  

 No relates found to know if its permanent or not (Edited 04/2025 when I stopped T and found those out)

• Multiple orgasms being gone due to the male refractory period (The hability to have multiple orgasms comes back after stopping T.)
• Proastate tissue growth, which may or may not influence in pleasure
• Change of colour in genitals (if you got melanin on your body, they might get darker. something similar happens to cis women on menopause) (It gets lighter)
• Unknown if erectile dysfunction might be a problem, though from relates it seems like not as no one mentioned it  (Your tdick will not get hard much like what goes with transwomen on E. It gets to a semi at max during stimulation.)

Important sidenote: Testosterone is NOT a birth control method. Infertility from testosterone is NOT a guaranteed change like it is with transwomen who go on estrogen. Testosterone is a temporary supressor of ovulation, and you might be ovulating while on T without the bleeding part if your T goes low - I know for sure I did as I was on low T and I had ovulating pains now and then.  If your T is kept over a certain level, you might not ovulate which means theres nothing to be fertilised that month. Though delaying shot days, changes in medication, stress, hormonal fluctuations because god knows what, all those can intervine in this supression and make an egg be released. Don't rely on this.

 
    There are two main sources to know what happens to your body once you stop T: Relates from people who detransitioned, and relates from trans people who stopped T in order to get pregnant. In all the time I spent researching, I only found one single video of a nonbinary person who stopped T and not for detransitioning or pregnancy purposes. The interesting points from their relate were:

•  They stopped due to getting too much acne from T, and once they stopped, they dealt with "the worst acne they had in their life", which eventually dissiped into an acne-free skin as the hormones settled.
• They report not being able to pass as a guy anymore.
• They say their facial features didn't change at all after 2 years without T, so maybe the "baby fat" you have on E might not always be guaranteed to return when off T.
• Another reason they mentioned was looking too old, and stopping T seems to have solved it. As a sidenote, T doesn't make you "old faster", but rather you'll look like a cisman of your age rather than a ciswoman of your age, and that includes things such as beard and receding hairlines.
  

     Relates from people who detransition may be reliable, but may be a minefield to walk through. In the end, we do go through the same hormonal change process, so you can use those know what will most likely happen with your body. Though those are often focused on how "passable as a woman" they can be after T, and certain points that are important to trans men and nonbinary people might be missed. On a brighter note, the vast majority of detransition relates I've found were very respectful of trans people, and often those people say they find HRT important but it wasn't for them. So its not like you'll toss yourself into a terf apocalypse if you research the subject, but be aware the possiblity exists.

    From the relates of people who detransitioned, I've gathered this kind of info:

• Your facial and body hair might become lighter and thinner. It'll take longer to grow. This is similar to what trans people who use estrogen relate.
• You can pass as a woman if you want to. As said, thats often the main concern of those videos.
  
• Voice doesn't change, and many people choose to stick with their deep voice rather than train a high pitched voice.
• After some months your hormonal levels will be as they were by factory settings. 
• You'll age like whats expected of a cis woman.
  

    Relates from binary or nonbinary people who stopped T to get pregnant tend to focus around fertility and dysphoria subjects. Also the preferred nursing methods - sometimes people don't have their breast tissue anymore, sometimes they still have their breasts and don't feel comfortable nursing (which may not be a trans exclusive problem, but those relates have valuable trans oriented advice on how to deal with it). Heres some interesting points I've gathered:

• A trans man said pregnancy changed things in him he thought would be impossible to "revert", and going back on T made everything normal again. He didn't specify what the things were.
• There was the relate of a trans man who used testosterone for 10 years or over, stopped to get pregnant, carried on with the pregnancy with no issues and had a healthy child.
• I haven't found relates of a past use of testosterone being an issue to pregnancy, other than you have to stop it for a couple months (often 8) to have your body readjust the hormones and then be able to safely have a baby. Scientific studies on the other hand say that a past use of T might affect your milk production and chances of conceiving, which are issues you might have without T as well. 
  
• There are relates of people being pregnant while on T and, once aware they were pregnant, stopping it to continue the pregnancy. You can get pregnant on T, but its harmful to the embryo so stopping HRT is needed to proceed with the gestation.
  

    As a fun trans fertility anecdote, I once went to a transmen gathering in Rio de Janeiro where the trans fertility topic was presented by a transmale doctor (Its been some years and there were multiple doctors on the presentation so I can't recall his specific field. Maybe nutritionist or endocrinologist). He presented pictures and relates of  successful pregnancies from all sorts of trans couples and trans/cis couple combinations you can imagine, including trans women stopping HRT to have a child with a trans man.

    Another source of knowledge is the scientific part. Putting this last because this is often what everyone already has seen. This kind of infograph can be helpful:

 

http://transcaremoncton.craigchisholm.me/index.php/ftm/

 

http://transcaremoncton.craigchisholm.me/index.php/mtf/

 

    Its important to know what goes on both HRTs to know what will happen to you after stopping T. You'll go to a process similar to what people who take E go through. 

 Heres some of the ways to deal with the permanent changes of T (in the context of stopping it after temporary use) I've found, in case you'd want them gone:

• Voice depth: The same voice training trans women do will work just fine. Personally I can reach a voice very similar to my pre-T one when faking an anime girl voice for fun. Its not exactly the same but its girl passing. Fun on group calls.
  
• Body/facial hair: Shaving, waxing, laser removal. Bleaching. Nothing new on this one.
  
• Balding: Stop before it gets too far. If its already too far: shave all off and wear a wig, or do hair implants which cost an arm and a leg but the results seem good. Finasteride and/or minoxidil are an efficient way to combat hairloss with continuous use, though best results come if you have just started losing hair. This site has some result pics. If you haven't T started yet, using minoxidil since your first day will almost certainly keep you free from balding or a receding hairline. If you're still on T and its not too bad, those meds can also help, and if you stop T you'll no longer have DHT eating up your hair folicles so what minoxidil protected might not suddenly die off. (unfortunately I got fed up from wasting money with minoxidil before quitting T so I cant give my 2 cents regarding if this would actually work or not)
  
• Clitoral growth: This one is irreversible. There are relates of finasteride getting on the way of bottom growth so maybe that can be something to use while you mature other permanent changes. It might not stop it from growing, but it might slow down the process. Bottom growth is often one of the first and fastest changes of testosterone, so this is something you'll have to plan ahead before starting. You can also stop T and once your hormonal levels are reset it'll not grow more than what you already have, which can be a way to grow it a little but not too much.
  

    I haven't listed many sources here as I wrote most of this from memory and I don't want to spend hours going up and forth linking them, though I linked the ones I thought might be worth giving a deeper look. I encourage you to research the topics that were of your interest in this text, so you can have more information on them rather than just this lose post. 

    Its good and important to know about the scientific side of HRT, though often personal relates offer info you'd never find in an academic paper, which are useful to us as users of a medication rather than useful to a doctor. Reddit, youtube videos, blog posts, tumblr, etc. all offer personal relates from trans people telling other trans people whats important to them. Facebook groups can be a great way to find questions and answers, and also see what kinds of weird misconceptions are out there - I once saw some posts about how you should not eat grapefruit or dark leaf greens while on HRT, which I confirmed with my endrocrinologist weren't things one should actually worry about. A way around misconceptions is asking yourself it the same thing makes sense if told to a cis person undergoing the same thing as you. Does it makes sense for a doctor to tell a cis woman on menopause that her uterus is a dead organ and she should remove it? Does it makes sense for a doctor to tell a cis man undergoing HRT that hes going against nature? That those people should not eat kale? It goes on.

    Good luck on your journey! Remeber that if it turns out being on or off HRT isn't for you, you can always go back - with the help of an endocrinologist of course. please don't do anything by yourself without medical supervision; I'm writing this to let other nonbinary people know this is a possiblity and thats all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

T Hiatus

 

    I think i’ll stop T for a while. A year or so.

    I’ve always planned to use T temporarely and I’m on it for longer than I thought I’d be. Nothing wrong going with it, I’m healthier than before if anything. Though I’m also going bald and if I were to stop now it’d not get any worse than a somewhat thinned hair on top and a tiny bald spot.

    Before taking this decision I tried shaving my whole hair off, to see what is it that I’m scared of. Maybe turns out being bald is very swag and I love it. Well turns out I didn’t quite like it, but I did find out a lot of cool things on the way, such as that its infinitely better to be bald than balding (really, no hair is better than loose lumps of hair), and that at a ~5cm lenght my hair looks absolutely adorable and all my balding is unnoticeable. Also the feeling of a shaved head is amazing, from shaving it to showering and touching it around after. Its also very practical. I like the practicality but I quite dislike the looks.

    Trading all benefits of T for hair seems a bit silly but theres more to it than hair. The costs of T in my country have became quite something. I’d spent 40R$ on 2.5 months worth of T, now the same thing costs 200R$. So 2.5 months of T now cost what was a year supply. On top of that, there are also endrocrinologist and blood exam costs, and having to spend my time into going to hospitals to get my shot done. 

    T has some unpleasant side effects other than balding. A thing that has always bothered me is how swollen I always seem to be. Liquid retention as far as I've seen seems to be a common side effect of any HRT. I didn't deal with it much for the small period I used T gel though. Theres also vaginal atrophy which is entirely reversible with topical estrogen, but then there'd be yet another medication on top of my list. Balding by itself can be prevented by the constant use of minoxidil, which I gave up after my second year as it was yet another extra cost. It is a very efficient medication when used as preventive though, as stopping it made me speedrun baldness. Finasteride can be used to stop balding from progressing, which is a hormone with possible unpleasant side effects. Finasteride to stop balding and minoxidil to grow what isn't dead yet is a powerful, and costly, combo.

    Basically almost all negatives of T can be counterbalanced by spending even more money and taking even more medication: Topical E gels, finasteride, minoxidil. Minoxidil is around 40-60R$ and lasts a month. A quick search on topical E shows it being around 40R$.  Finasteride seems to be 30-40R$ a month. So with an extra 120-150R$ and three extra meds one can mitigate the bad side of T. Another option is stopping T for free and have one less medication on your shelf while at it.

    Stopping HRT isn't for everyone though. On my personal experience, T isn't a medication I require to stay alive. My asthma inhaler, on the other hand, is something I'll carry to my grave and very thankfully will postpone it. For some people however HRT isn't optional - its what keeps them safe and sane, and without it they might even be suicidal. Stopping it isn't an easy choice either - I'll have some months of emotional imbalance and acne explosions ahead. And menopause effects. Which is something that happens when you start T, and its why you have no menses, dryness and atrophy while at it (no, your uterus doesnt die or rot inside you. if it doesn't make sense for this to be said about a 60yo cis woman on menopause, it doesn't make sense to say this about a trans man on the same process). Remove T and you remove the menopause, and the process as far as I've heard from others might be equally combusting.

    Making a list of pros and cons of staying on T or quitting it, i'd have that:

Staying on T:

• ✅ Passing easily
• ✅ Horny all the time
• ✅ Better mental space
• ❌ Balding
• ❌ Pussy dry af
• ❌ Money and time costs
• ❌ Longterm med which means higher chances of unwanted side effects with the years
• ❌ On this for the rest of existence
  

Stopping T:

• ✅ WAP comes back
• ✅ Won't lose any more hair than what I already lost, might even have a bit "grow back" if the follicules didn't die yet
• ✅ Free
• ✅ No longer swollen all the time
  
• ✅ Easier on the liver?
• ❌ Fat redistribuition which means all fat on my belly will migrate entirely to my ass (dysphoric, bad)
• ❌ My face might get round and cute again which I dislike. Might not too.
• ❌ Probably will no longer pass
• ❌ Mental changes might take my hornyness out of me but I'll fight for my right to remain penisally insane
• ❌ Crying a lot?

    Not listing menstruation as a bad side effect because I honestly never felt dysphoric over it nor really care about it.

    So, in order to survive going out of T, i'd need a plan. I'd need a way to keep myself busy and to make me as passable as I possibly can be. My original idea was to stop T and use working out as a way to remain androgynous in case passability is impossible. I think I'll stick to this idea, effectively changing my HRT from hormones to the gym, which isn't an HRT but its also a lifetime commitment to masculinisation, and one with way less side effects on the long run than T.

    Will it work? Will I feel horrible and eventually decide that no, I can't live like this, T is the only way and a bald egg head is a relief in comparision to being on E? Only way to know is , unfortunately, by fucking around and finding out.

    This is something quite ass about anything HRT related. You can only find out if it'll work out or not by trying it, and all changes come as slow as possible with a load of mental garbage. I'm making this blog here to keep track of this and see where it goes, and also provide information for other nonbinary people that might be willing to go through the same.

    I was unsure when I started T, and I'm unsure about stopping it. Back then what made me do it was wanting to give it a try, knowing I could just stop if it unfit me. Now I have the same mentality, giving it a try, knowing I can just come back if it unfits me.