Read on Twitter
so many trans guys are like "will I lose my sense of compassion on T and become an unrecognizable person" and it just makes me so sad that this myth is so pervasive https://twitter.com/cedarsystem/status/1295547480889864193
society as a whole really needs to cool it with the obfuscation and mythologization around so-called sex hormones
They get instilled with this aura of being powerful, irrevocable, magical elixirs
They get instilled with this aura of being powerful, irrevocable, magical elixirs
I hear this from transphobes (esp TERFs who talk about trans men "poisoning" our bodies with testosterone), but some trans people can also contribute to this mythologizing in ways that I think are unhelpful (see, e.g., Valerio's Testosterone Files)
The mythologization of these hormones is rooted in their very discovery and naming, which are a case study in how science and medicine are absolutely not neutral, objective practices
Sexologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries went looking for THE thing that would distinguish male bodies from female ones. They wanted to find the one anatomical/biological marker of True Manhood or True Womanhood
they were looking for this in large part to solve the problem of people who WEREN'T doing true manhood or true womanhood right: people who challenged gender norms, people with intersex conditions, people who weren't being heterosexual
(it's often theorized that this was a sort of institutional backlash to the movement for women's suffrage and the new visibility of homosexuals in this era)
Scientists went looking for the biological essence of manhood and womanhood, and lo! they found it: testosterone was manhood; estrogens were womanhood
EXCEPT!
EXCEPT!
turns out we ALL produce *both* testosterone *and* estrogens! whoops, so much for the idea that T=man, E=woman
these hormones aren't a binary. medical researchers thought they would find that only men have T and only women have E. instead they found that we all have them in levels that can vary widely
none of this is to say that testosterone and estrogens aren't important, that they don't do anything, that trans people shouldn't have access to them. Au contraire! no one's a bigger fan of synthetic hormones than me
but I think the ideological production of testosterone and estrogens as "sex" hormones should be much more widely known. And I think we should be realistic about what they do and how they work
they're not a videogame instant gender change potion. they cause specific physical changes, many of which are reversible. they can have incredible effects on your mood and emotions, as anyone who's been through any kind of puberty can attest
the cool thing about synthetic hormones is – it's not necessarily a lifelong commitment! you can start them, decide they don't work for you, stop forever, stop for a little bit, go back on, etc
our institutions are invested in the stability of binary sex/gender, so we tend to get a picture of hormones as Male or Female, one or the other, if you start HRT then you're committed forever and ever amen
but the reality is, TONS of trans and nonbinary people are already using hormones in different, nonlinear, and/or experimental ways!
and I think we could ALL benefit from more clarity and less fearmongering about what hormones actually do and what possibilities there are
when I was nervous to start T, it occurred to me that if I didn't like it, I could just... stop
Turns out I did like it, I've been on it 7.5 years and will be for the rest of my life, but realizing I had (and still have! every week!) the *choice* was a revelation
Turns out I did like it, I've been on it 7.5 years and will be for the rest of my life, but realizing I had (and still have! every week!) the *choice* was a revelation
