Irreversible Healing: What Testosterone Has Done For Me
TERFs say T causes ‘irreversible damage,’ but the hormone has dramatically repaired my mental health and relationship to my body.
This piece was originally published to Medium on December 7, 2021.
In the years between realizing I was trans and finally deciding to take testosterone, I read a lot of blogs written by trans-exclusionary (or TERF) detransitioners. I believed I was obligated to read the stories of people who regretted going on hormones and no longer understood themselves as trans. Many TERF detransitioners claimed they’d been socially pressured into transitioning, or had only identified as trans because of trauma or dissociative mental health symptoms. As an Autistic person who wasn’t particularly in tune with my own emotions, I thought I had a responsibility to question my identity and desire to medically transition from every possible angle.
It was self harm disguised as judiciousness.
Most people who detransition remain friendly to the trans community and still identify as part of it in some way. But TERF detransitioners reject the movement for trans liberation, viewing their own transitions as a terrible mistake that should have been prevented through stricter medical, legal, and social gatekeeping. In the UK, TERF detransitioners such as Kiera Bell have impacted public policy in significant ways, restricting trans youth access to hormones blockers. Though the ruling in Bell’s favor has since been overturned, the social impact of her vocal criticism of trans identity remains, the English media and public opinion both turning increasingly transphobic in recent years.
On their blogs and social media pages, TERF detransitioners say society’s misogyny pushed them to identify outside of womanhood. Many former trans men say that they were tomboys and closeted lesbians who were pressured to transition and become “straight.” Many also claim that identifying as trans has become a form of social contagion, and that the trans community is a predatory cult seeking new recruits. They encourage the parents of transgender teens to challenge their kids’ identities, and offer up “alternate treatments” for gender dysphoria that one former member of the movement, Ky Schevers, describes as akin to antigay conversion therapy.
(It bears mentioning that nearly all vocal TERF detransitioners are cis women who once lived as transgender men. Former trans women don’t join their ranks very often, in part because their ideology is so explicitly hostile toward trans feminine people. TERF detransitioners tend to view trans men like me as misguided, pitiable girls who have lost their way. But they see trans women as perverse men who seek to prey on cisgender women — and they are far more violent to trans women as a result.)
TERF detransitioners have a lot of terrible, frightening things to say about hormones. They say T can change your sexual orientation permanently, and make you violent and aggressive. They speak luridly about how it can cause weight gain and body hair growth, depicting these completely neutral (and often sought-after) changes as horrific and disgusting. Some TERF writers, like Abigail Shrier, claim that testosterone causes ‘irreversible damage’ to the body, ruining a person’s attractiveness, wrecking their internal organs, and marking them forever as gender-aberrant in a society that still harshly punishes non-conformity.
Back when I read these blogs obsessively, I knew they were hateful propaganda. Still, their messaging stayed with me. TERF detrans folks think that gay trans men like me are confused straight women who fetishize the idea of becoming a gay man. That thinking made me delay my transition for years, because I was terrified gay men would only ever feel uncomfortable around me. When a prominent voice in the TERF detrans community claimed that gender dysphoria was called by sexual abuse, I poured through all of my memories, trying to pinpoint childhood signs of transness that could not be questioned in light of later life experiences. Their rhetoric made me feel I had to ‘prove’ my transness, and view transition as only a last-resort effort to managing dysphoria that they claimed could be treated in other ways.
Even after starting T and experiencing a lot of beneficial effects, I was terrified of speaking about my transition too positively. I thought it would make me seem like a ‘delusional’ member of the ‘trans cult,’ as these women saw it. They all said they’d been peer pressured into going on hormones, and that far too many trans people rushed into medical transition quickly, without considering the long-term side effects or social costs. I didn’t want to be accused of manipulating anyone into transing before they were ready, or portraying hormones as a solution to life’s problems.
Though going on T has proven to be one of the most meaningful, life-improving decisions of my life, I’ve been so deeply influenced by fear-mongering TERF propaganda that I seldom say anything about hormones at all.
The writer Danny Lavery has a piece on his Substack about how common it is for trans men to minimize our desire to transition. Many of us embark on transition stating that we only want small, subtle changes: a deeper voice, a more cut jaw, things that won’t necessarily divorce us from the feminine beauty standards most of us grew up with. I have heard many trans masculine people say they fear some of the most common effects of T: growing a dick, getting hairy, sweating more, weighing more, eating more, and needing more sex. It can all come across as apologetic, even a bit Puritanical. We’ll gladly take on the changes that jibe with a fatphobic, beauty-worshipping culture, but wanting to become larger, pricklier, or lustier is somehow something to apologize for.
For years I transitioned quietly, loving the changes testosterone had on my body and psychology but not sharing my joy with anyone. I have been through the woods of self-doubt and come out the other side of it loving my hairier, hornier, heavier self. And I want to share that joy with the rest of the world, particularly other trans masculine people who might be delaying their medical transitions out of a misplaced fear of “going too far” or “causing irreversible damage,” as I once did. I’m tired of downplaying the benefits T gave me. Now I want to shout them from the rooftops. So, here are some of my very favorite effects of having taken T the past three and a half years.
Breast Reduction
I have not heard many trans masculine people discuss this openly, but taking testosterone can make your chest much smaller! This has been a very unexpected yet welcome change for me, and if I had known it was a possibility sooner, I would have taken T years before. In the three and a half years since starting testosterone, my cup size has dropped from DDD to C. My old boobs were dense and hefty, very difficult to support with a bra and painful to bind. My current boobs are soft and loose, easy to manipulate and hide with TransTape or a binder. In the right kind of sports bra (Joylabs are my favorite), I have a masculine pectoral contour.
Having smaller breasts has improved my life immeasurably. I used to hate how my chest looked in clothing. The men’s wear I yearned to put on never looked quite right on me, and my chest always felt so curvaceous and prominent I developed a permanent slouch. Today I stand tall, and love the way I look when I get dressed as well as when I’m naked. I recognize my whole self in the mirror rather than finding my eyes forever gravitating to a huge chest that I wish wasn’t there.
I have never wanted top surgery, because most procedures aim for a completely flat look that would not look ‘natural’ on my body type, in my opinion. I also don’t want nipple grafts or scars that would limit my sensation in that area. So for years I thought I’d just have to deal with top dysphoria the rest of my life. But T has all but obliterated it. I still have boobs that can be touched by a partner, or enjoyed sensually on my own, but when I want to read effortlessly as masculine, I can.
Muscle Tone
When I started T, I wasn’t sure I wanted to beef up much at all. I’m a pretty effeminate guy, and for better or worse I’ve always prized my own cuteness. Getting buff was a little scary for me to think about, because I’d had an eating disorder much of my life and was generally not comfortable with body changes. I didn’t want to have to monitor my eating or buy new clothing to accommodate my changing size. And I didn’t want to look like a hyper-masculine meathead in anyone’s eyes; that just wasn’t me.
All these fears have proven to be unfounded. The increased muscle tone that I’ve gained on T has been subtle, yet it alters my overall silhouette and bearing significantly. My shoulders are slightly wider than my hips now, so it’s easier for me to adopt a masculine swagger when I need or want to. I move through the world more comfortably now that I have a stronger core, back, and bigger arms. Last year I installed a window A/C unit on my own for the first time! No doors are too heavy for me to open anymore! My ass has gotten fuller, rounder, and more pert. I used to be a total shrimp, and having some physical might is empowering. I feel more present and in control of my own life, and more desirable, too.
Because T makes it easier to gain muscle, I’ve been more motivated to exercise since starting it. I lift weights every other day consistently, and it’s been a massive boon for my mental health. Before T, I punished myself with aerobic exercise, trying to burn off calories; now I work out because it makes me feel capable and calm. I have a much larger appetite these days, and weight lifting has forced me to be more intentional about getting enough protein and other nutrients. I feel at ease in my own skin, my body is more powerful, and my eating habits are nourishing and shockingly unneurotic, compared to what they’d once been. It may sound dramatic, but taking T has pretty much cured the eating disorder I’d lived with all my life.
Body Hair
I really dreaded getting more body hair, when I first started T. I thought growing hair on my thighs, stomach, and butt would make my body unappealing to other people. I even tried undergoing a few sessions of laser hair removal, once the effects of testosterone started kicking in.
Eventually I moved through that shame, and stopped viewing myself through the eyes of the (mostly) straight men I had been with before my transition. I began allowing myself to appreciate how my body hair felt, how it enveloped my body in a bristly softness that made even my curviest parts look decidedly male. I grew a prominent happy trail on my belly. Growing hair all over my body was like getting a tattoo or wearing a particularly affirming outfit; it coated my body in an expression of self-love.
I adore my body hair. I love how it looks dripping with water in the shower; I love how it snakes across my legs and ass when I lotion them up. Once or twice a year, I shave my legs so I can really exfoliate and moisturize the skin deeply, but increasingly I’ve found I feel naked and dysphoric when I’m not blanketed in a beautiful haze of hair.
A lot of trans masculine people say they want to be twinks, and all power to them, but I’d rather look like the muscular, fuzzy, ottery 30-something that I am. I can’t help but suspect that a lot of trans men’s distaste for body hair is informed by Eurocentric beauty standards and internalized transphobia. Even if you want to become masculine, you may still have negative associations with seeing hair sprouting from a supposedly ‘feminine’ body. Working through those biases has been really valuable for me. It’s permitted me to see my own body as a flawless transmasculine one, rather than a failed feminine one. I love every new, dark follicle that I have grown, from the thick crop hugging my thighs, to the soft whisper of a mustache on my face.
Bottom Growth
If you take testosterone, you will most likely grow a dick. This is an effect of T that many cis people (and baby trans folks) know nothing about. “Bottom growth” is the euphemistic term for it, and it kicks in pretty early into the transition process. After a few weeks on T, it’s quite common for the clitoral tissue to swell up in size, becoming more sensitive, visible, and capable of getting engorged, just like a penis. This change has been revelatory for me, rooting me comfortably into a body I’d long felt divorced from.
Prior to transition, it felt uncomfortable and uncanny to have that part of me touched. During high school, I believed I was asexual because I could not imagine enjoying sex with a partner. It turned out that I was not, and did in fact experience sexual attraction to other people — but during sexual encounters, I’d feel hazy and ill-at-ease, my body reacting but my mind circling the ceiling around me. I especially found receiving oral sex to be disturbing. Too much attention being placed on my genitals made my brain fill up with white noise.
I thought bottom growth would only worsen these issues, making a troublesome part of my body larger and more sensitive. The opposite happened. Very early into taking T, I noticed that I felt grounded and present when my (new, little) dick was stimulated — not dissociative and fuzzy. Sexual pleasure was uncomplicated and never overstimulating. My libido shot through the roof and everything that happened to my genitals felt good. My orgasms even became like stereotypically ‘male’ ones — a rush of pleasure and twitching in between my legs, rather than series of inchoate waves somewhere deep inside me.
I started sitting differently. I carried myself with the cartoonish confidence of someone who had a dick. I liked looked down at myself while I masturbated, and I loved watching myself grow in size and density when I became aroused. Having a penis brought me emotional relief as well as sexual satisfaction; it was like a full body sigh, a settling into myself. My body was no longer a thing I’d been saddled with, and had to negotiate life and sexual encounters around; it was me, the seat of my selfhood and my mode of interfacing with the world.
Increased Sensation and Libido
Not only has T given me anatomy that makes sex feel present and right, it’s also made my nipples, neck, and other erogenous zones more sensitive. I can’t quite explain the mechanism for this one. I don’t think testosterone directly causes someone to experience physical sensations in those body parts more acutely. However, it has fundamentally altered how I experience my body, and make my dysphoria plummet while also taking my libido sky high, so it makes sense I notice and experience more pleasure in my body as a result.
Before T, sensation in my nipples and chest was limited. A lot of the time my brain would “fuzz out” when those parts of me were touched, just like what happened when anyone touched my clit. After T, my nipples became so sensitive I could nearly orgasm from stimulation of them and them alone. I started enjoying almost any kind of attention there, slapping, biting, and clamps, as well as light touch. My left nipple, which used to never get hard, now responds easily and stands at attention. Being lightly (or roughly) touched on the neck, ass, thighs, or even inner wrists makes me tingle with desire. I don’t check out during sensual cuddling or make-out sessions. My attention and desire surge into place.
Many people have already written about the libido boost that comes often with T, so I probably don’t need to belabor that point here. But I will say that some trans guys discuss it as a torment, or a distraction they are powerless against, and that has just not been my experience.Having a really high sex drivemakes me feel alive.I want to have more of an appetite;I want to take a bite of out life while I’m alive. Andsince starting T, my body is equipped to seek out and experience the pleasure that dysphoria denied it before.
Increased Energy
Testerone has a bad reputation for being the angry, intense hormone. A lot of TERF detransitioners feed into this impression, writing that when they were on T, they were perpetually furious and impatient. From these experiences, they’ll often draw worrisome, transmisogynistic conclusions about what having a ‘male’ hormone profile does to a person’s psychology and behavior, either implying or claiming outright that men are innately more violent, aggressive, and dangerous to be around.
I think people misunderstand what T actually does to your body and outlook. It’s a steroid, but that just means it binds to androgen receptors in the brain, encouraging the expression of certain genes. It doesn’t have to give you roid rage. But it might make you feel more energy, which depending on circumstance can be experienced as increased anxiety, anger, confidence, or even mild euphoria.
The psychological experience of emotions is complex. One component of emotion is a person’s physiological arousal level (essentially how “amped up” you are or are not), but how your mind interprets that arousal depends on circumstance and beliefs. If your heart is racing while you’re watching a horror film, you’ll probably assume you are afraid. But if it’s thudding during an overly long, boring meeting (perhaps because you just drank too much coffee), you may experience irritation instead.
Since starting testosterone over three years ago, I have consistently had more energy, but what that energy means to me varies based on my situation. If I exercise regularly, make lots of plans with friends, and keep my mind occupied, I can ride a mild high for days at a time, accomplishing a lot and racking up many new life experiences. If I isolate from other people, stay sedentary, or feel somehow ‘stuck,’ I’m understandably quite anxious and grouchy.
On a crowded bus with music blaring off strangers’ tinny speakerphones, I am a more angry person than I once was. But I’m also a more social person, and a more enthusiastic one, thanks to the energy boost of T. TERFs can demonize testosterone as the hormone of ‘male aggression’ to further their transmisogynistic agenda, but to do so is to imply biology is destiny in ways that run counter to both science and their professed feminism. As is the case with so many of the changes caused by T, the energy boost is completely value neutral, and its impact depends on what you make of it.
…
I wrote this piece because I wish I’d read something like it when I was still wandering through the forest of transphobic self-doubt. TERF detransitioners tried to scare me away from taking T. They gave me every reason to doubt my identity and view medical transition as a last-ditch effort I only deserved if I had no other option. I still routinely encounter trans masculine people who harbor fears about starting T, many of them based on misinformation, fear-mongering, and transphobia. I wish I had spent fewer years debilitated by such forces. I can’t undo the past, but I can help ensure that the future generations of trans people are better informed and empowered than I was.
If you are contemplating T, I can’t guarantee any of the changes I’ve celebrated here will happen for you, or hit the same way they did for me. But I want you to know that those kinds of changes happen, and that some of the changes you might be worried about could end up being your very favorite of all. When I started taking T, I thought that all I wanted was a lower voice and a slightly more boyish face. Instead, I found that I loved basically everything that came with the hormone — especially the changes I’d been the most conditioned to dread and to see as disgusting. I’m a fuzzy, horny, sweaty, high-energy man with a penis and shrinking tits, and I absolutely adore that for me. You might love that for you, too.
I’m no longer afraid of ‘romanticizing transition,’ as the detrans TERFs might accuse me of doing. I know I’m not recruiting people into the ‘trans cult’ just by openly sharing my experience. I’m just issuing a mild corrective for the society-wide transphobia that surrounds each of us, and keeps so many trans people from pursuing the medical changes they actually want.