For what it's worth, I don't think ZombieDog was talking about BMI in his OP, just BF%.
On that topic, it's worth mentioning that BF% along with BMI tends to be a good combo - either on their own is kinda meh. For example, two people can have a BF% of 10% who are both the same height and similar bone structure, but one may have a BMI of only 17 and the other could have a BMI of 27. So the two together give a much better picture of a person's physique than either of them alone.
That said, BF% is really tricky to measure with good accuracey. I won't get into the different ways used and their accuracies, I'm no expert and there are plenty of sites that cover the details. But for people who are on cross-hrt, I have no idea. Unless you're lucky enough to have a DEXA scan, of course. The issue is that how fat is (generally) placed in the body is different between E and T-based systems. So at what point is your body fat mostly in a "male" type pattern? It's going to differ a lot between people, of course. I'd love to know more about that, I couldn't find anything when I was looking into it.
But try it out, input the same numbers in the calculator, only switching the "M" or "F". Completely different result. So for that, I have no idea. Skin fold test is a little precarious to begin with, this just adds another variable that could really skew things. Using images helps to compare yourself to, like you mentioned. Maybe it's better for your body structure, but for mine, it's tricky to tell. Though it could just be because I'm skrawny with low bf and bleh muscle development xD But I do think you're on the right track with doing things that way. Ultimately, you'll be comparing yourself to you - if ya look and feel great, that's where it's at. What your body fat % is may be even more of an educated guess than it is for most cis-people, though. Again, I'd love to learn more about that!
Anywho~ about the 10-12%. This is another really good question for your pcp or endo. But as far as I can tell, I see no real reason why that would be an unrealistic goal for you. From what I've understood, the essential body fat differences between "males" and "females" has more to do with females needing the higher body fat for reproductive systems to work properly, and has a lot to do with hormones. Seeing how the body of an AFAB person on T no longer sees the need to do... the things a female needs to reproduce... (x_x´) it makes sense that the what the body sees it needs for a higher body fat are no longer relevant... or something like that. I don't actually know what I'm talking about or if that made any sense. I can ask my nurse next week when I see her and report back, but yeah.
And there I go again, the Great Wall of Text. All basically summed up in the tl;dr: "I have no clue, ask yo' doc."
I know there were some people around these forums with a medical background, perhaps one of them might pop by and help us out a little xD
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