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.