Parents and homones to correct dysphoria

[LaRell]

Hey all!  So I am about to go in this week for my very first appointment with the endocrinologist to get started on MTF HRT.  Well........I am almost 37 years old, but my family is having a conniption.  My mother calls me up crying and saying "I just don't understand why if taking female hormones will make you feel better and make you feel like a woman, then wouldn't regulating your male hormones make you feel more like a man?"  She is convinced that it is my screwed up hormone levels that are making me convinced that I "am not happy being a man" and "want to change to a woman."  She wants me to instead of going to this appointment to get on MTF HRT, she instead wants me to first try to have them give me more male hormones in an effort to make me more comfortable in my body.

  What are all of your thoughts on this theory?  I tried to explain to her that it does not work that way.  That if I were to take more male hormones, the likely result would be an even more exaggerated dysphoria because now my body would be even MORE manly, and would cause me even more psychological issues as I look down at myself.  When I told her that I had researched it, and that that does not work, and only causes things to be worse, she did not want to hear that and said "You could find anything in support of anything on the internet."  She just refuses to believe it. 

  Are there any studies out there where they have tried to give more male hormones to a transgender female to attempt to "fix" her and make her happy being a man?  I can't see this going well at all!  And my parents were going to travel to where I live to try talking me out of doing this, and were desperately trying to get here before I start on HRT this coming week so they could hopefully talk me out of it.  And I'm not having any of that, so I told them not to come.  But I'm just curious what science there might really be out there regarding attempting to correct a transgendered persons dysphoria by administering the hormones that correlate to the genitalia at birth.

[Hannah.Emma]

How low is your T without blockers?  I thought of this to with my first lab work came back as an extremely low T with no reasoning behind it.  My T was a mere 70 without any blockers.  I have no idea how long it's been that way and I started to think that it might be the reason why I had increased dysphoria. And then I thought back to my childhood and realized that I knew something was wrong even before testosterone or estrogen had any effect.

Think back to your childhood. Did you have similar issues with gender at a very young age?  Was your testosterone levels high as a teenager yet you still feel dysphoric?  Unfortunately I think you are right in assuming that if you increase your testosterone you will only increase your dysphoria. If it were that easy to make us feel right in our own bodies then I think we would have rather gone that route to live our lives as transgender.  I would give anything just to be cis on either side but since that is not possible for me I'd rather be just a happy trans woman.

[Dena]

I don't know how much research is out there but many of us figure it out when we enter puberty and our dysphoria goes through the roof. Looking back I can see that there were signs before puberty but social pressure was sufficient to keep me from questioning myself. Another data point is for me, the dysphoria went away post surgically, the first time in my life that I was free of T. Others on the forum respond well to blockers, sometimes to the point that they think they are over it. They then go off the blockers only to have the dysphoria return. In the case of the MTF, the enemy is T and in the case of a FTM it's E.

[LaRell]

I just had my blood drawn yesterday to check my hormone levels and I don't have the results back so I don't know yet where I'm at.  But.......I was a very late bloomer when it comes to puberty as it was.  I did not hit puberty til my mid 20's.  I had large breasts, and a tiny little penis, and no body hair, very little facial hair, and my voice did not lower til I was in my mid 20's. Also I went bald at that time.  So when all of that happened, my dysphoria went through the roof! 

  But yes, as for my childhood......I most definitely knew something was not right and that I felt way more like a girl ever since I was very young.  I just never told anyone that.  But had anyone been paying attention to the signs, they would have noticed that I was always drawn to girly things, and that I had a collection of girls clothes I would wear any time I had the chance.  I just hate it now that since I kept all of this such a closely guarded secret, now my family is thrown for a loop and thinks that since it is new to them, that it is also some new thing that I just suddenly decided to do.  And my mom is going about it all wrong and trying to use her Mormon religion to convince me this can't be real, and that I was born a boy, and will always be a boy, and I need to regulate my hormones so I am happy being a boy, not regulate them to match how I already feel on the inside.   It's very very sad!

How low is your T without blockers?  I thought of this to with my first lab work came back as an extremely low T with no reasoning behind it.  My T was a mere 70 without any blockers.  I have no idea how long it's been that way and I started to think that it might be the reason why I had increased dysphoria. And then I thought back to my childhood and realized that I knew something was wrong even before testosterone or estrogen had any effect.

Think back to your childhood. Did you have similar issues with gender at a very young age?  Was your testosterone levels high as a teenager yet you still feel dysphoric?  Unfortunately I think you are right in assuming that if you increase your testosterone you will only increase your dysphoria. If it were that easy to make us feel right in our own bodies then I think we would have rather gone that route to live our lives as transgender.  I would give anything just to be cis on either side but since that is not possible for me I'd rather be just a happy trans woman.

[Gertrude]

Her logic is faulty


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[LaRell]

Okay, I got my hormone results back yesterday.
Testosterone is 836 ng/dl standard range is 241 - 827 so my testosterone is actually high.  Here my mom is trying to tell me that maybe it's because I have low testosterone that I feel like a woman.  That kind of throws that idea out the window.

Estradiol is 43 pg/ml when normal for a man is 15 - 60.

Prolactin is 7.2 ng/ml when normal for a man is 3 - 15.

So looks like I am in the normal ranges, with the exception of my testosterone being higher than normal.  So I shared those test results with my mother.   Besides, if it was a hormone imbalance issue that was making me feel like a girl my whole life, that doesn't make a lot of sense since it has been going on ever since I was a kid, before the hormones would have even come into play.  So yes.....her logic is absolutely flawed.

[Deborah]

I don't know about any studies but before HRT my testosterone level was was above average and at the same time my dysphoria was really bad.  So, at least in my case more testosterone did not fix the dysphoria.


Conform and be dull. —James Frank Dobie, The Voice of the Coyote

[Deborah]

Okay, I got my hormone results back yesterday.
Testosterone is 836 ng/dl standard range is 241 - 827 so my testosterone is actually high.

Estradiol is 43 pg/ml when normal for a man is 15 - 60.

Your hormone levels are nearly identical to mine before HRT.   That's at least one data point for you.



Conform and be dull. —James Frank Dobie, The Voice of the Coyote

[Elis]

You could tell your mum that if trans people could just be given their own sex hormones to rid dysphoria; then why aren't doctors doing that instead of giving cross sex hormones? That would stump her.

Also once the fetus's brain is flooded with hormones in the womb the gender is set and unchangeable.

How did your mum react to the blood test results?

[LaRell]

How did your mum react to the blood test results?

   She didn't react much.  Ha ha.  I think she didn't know what to say to that.  Because she was convinced that surely my hormone levels must be way off.  So when I shared with her that they are actually normal, and testosterone actually high, she just didn't really say anything to that.   I'm really struggling with it, because I love my family, and they have always been really good to me over the years, and have helped me tremendously in life, and I have many good memories of spending time with them.  Yet now, they are so freaked out by this whole thing, that they are allowing it to cause them to treat me poorly as if I am the ass hole for distancing myself from them.  When I am only doing so, for my own protection.  I can't go around people who want to make me out to have some sort of mental illness, and who are continually trying to talk me out of starting HRT.  I get that they don't understand it, and I am trying to educate them with love.  But they just are not open to the idea that this could be a real thing.  And since it absolutely very much IS a real thing, I have to do the best thing for myself, and keep my distance from them, and surround myself with people who make me feel good about myself and don't make me feel like some sort of freak that is making a decision to destroy their lives.    How sad is that that their response is to get all pissed off at me for "destroying their lives" rather than standing back and looking at the bigger picture and recognizing that this is not easy for me either! 

[Dan]

I wonder how much your parents really know about what it means to be transgender.

If they don't fully understand, and it seems to me that they don't or else they wouldn't have suggested that you take more T to make you feel more manly, then they really need to be educated.

You are not the only transgender person on this earth, and yet they seem to think that you are the only one, and that freaks them out.

Have you suggested some authoritative educational materials to them that would help them to understand what it means to be transgender?

[LaRell]

I wonder how much your parents really know about what it means to be transgender.

  Yes you are very right, that they just plain don't understand what being transgender really means.  So I typed them out a really long email really explaining it and explaining that it is not just a choice or mindset, and I attached the Gender Revolution documentary to the email and asked for them to please watch it so they can understand what it really is.  Their problem is, their church, which is the church I was also part of my entire life, teaches that the most important thing in the world is family, and that there is only male and female and that your external genitalia determines your sex and gender and there is no changing that.  So to them, they just cannot comprehend the possibility that someone could be a different gender than their body.  If a person feels they are a different gender, it's got to only be a mental condition that needs to be corrected.  So it's very dangerous.  A very dangerous mindset that sets one up to be very judgmental toward trans people.   I don't blame them for being a little weirded out by it, but if they understood that my internal gender most definitely can indeed be different than my external gender, and that there's nothing I can do about that, then they would be way more accepting.  They have told me that I will ALWAYS be their son, and that I will be a man in the afterlife, so why change now?   AHHHHHHHHH!

[Cheaney]

Yeah I'm not trying to offend you in any way. But if that was my family and they said THAT to me, I would have told them to stick it and walked out. But that's also my pride and feelings talking too. My family is very spiritual and religious so I might actually have my chance at saying that to them.

Of course, time and situations have a chance of changing minds. Sometimes they don't. I realize that losing everyone in my life because I'm trans is likely possible. Wife is somewhat on board right now but we'll see when it's go time. Family is pretty similar to yours. So I'm preparing for losing them which breaks my heart but I can't live like this anymore. I'm depressed, angry, sad, lonely, confused when from the outside I'm doing the best I've ever done as a male.

Give them the facts and how you feel and let them choose to be in your life or not. It sucks esp if they choose not but you have to live your life. Not theirs. If I got this much pushback from my family on the spiritual side, I would say that God doesn't make mistakes. And make them see my side of that statement and not theirs. And I'm a Christian so I'd make sure to tell them that God and Jesus are about love and that love is more important than rules. That's stated in the New Testament. And I'd add that I think we all will be surprised to see who made it into heaven and who didn't when the time comes.

[jules968]

Give your mom and your family time to digest this new you.  Since she is talking to you about it, it seems to me that she at least loves you and wants the best for you.  If you are resolved to see this through, I'm sure she will come around.

[LaRell]

Well, I had my first appointment with the endocrinologist yesterday afternoon.  She is a very nice, doctor, and everything went great, and she prescribed me the Spironolactone and Estradiol.  So I took my very first doses of it last night, and this morning.   So here we go!! 

[Hannah.Emma]

So happy for you!! I remember the day I took my first dose.  It was so liberating.  Buckle up for a wild but slow ride.

[Cheaney]

That's awesome! Congrats!