I started writing this for another thread but decided to make my own. The topic was how T makes you feel. Sorry it went on so long, but you don't have to read it!
Quote from: YoungSoulRebel on December 14, 2009, 07:38:53 AM
As to "more aggressive"? I think that's a crock. I'm another person to add to the currently-forming list of people who can report a personal notice of decreased anger
I'm often unsure what people mean by "aggressive." YSR, you seem to imply--not state outright--that aggression is a synonym for anger, but it isn't. Angry feelings may be aggressive feelings, but anger and aggression are not the same. Forgive me if I've misunderstood, but I think that the whole "aggressiveness" issue is misstated or missunderstood by a lot of transguys I know personally. When I share my experiences, some tranguys tell me that T did NOT make me more aggressive, no matter what I think. I'm using this thread to state my opinion, but I also speak because I am concerned that younger (younger in transition), pre-T guys will get an incomplete impression of the possibilities they MIGHT face on HRT.
I became more aggressive after I started T. That is, I'm not violent or threatening or physically harmful to people; I'm more assertive, more likely to take a few chances to get what I want, and more competitive. The first two could easily come from a growing confidence about myself. At least part of the competitiveness, I feel, is a direct result of T. Without realizing it, I find myself engaging in highly competitive thinking and actions.
For instance, I got into a discussion with an old friend of mine, and we disagreed. I became more and more adamant that my way was the right way. I began to become agitated because he wasn't seeing it that way. I have never become agitated in our past discussions. At one point, I realized that the conversation was turning into something unpleasant. I took a step back and started thinking more clearly about my motives: I had just wanted to WIN, and the conversation was becoming all about that. I was looking at our talk as if it were a contest, and I wanted the victory. I behave similarly in traffic if I'm not watching myself. I used to be able to play Scrabble without keeping score; the last time I did that about six weeks ago, it was excruciating. I wanted to keep score, and I wanted to freaking win.
I don't know whether T causes aggression or simply rises in response to aggressive situations. I do know that men, on average, are more aggressive than women. Some of it is violent aggression. Some of it is not. I don't think that we can attribute all of this behavior to upbringing, and I don't know what other chemical or physiological components might come into play.
I've seen studies in which women and sometimes men are given testosterone and then asked to participate in various activities. A recent one had something to do with making deals with people; the headline trumpeted, "Testosterone Leads to Fairness." If this was a balanced study, then the results are fairly interesting. Rather than becoming more aggressive in their deals, women on T became fairer. When women were told that they had definitely been given T but were actually on a placebo, they became more aggressive anyway, presumably because they made a mental connection between T and aggression--and then behaved accordingly.
One problem with this study, as far as I am concerned, is that the dosage wasn't stated in the article I read. Another problem is that these women weren't on male levels of T for an extended period of time. I didn't experience instant aggression on T. I had been watching out for it, but it didn't happen. In essence, I was a bit like those women on placebo, except I was on a large dose of T for weeks, was expecting to become more aggressive, and didn't.
The aggression started weeks later, perhaps because it takes time for the T to work such changes in the brain. I can't know for sure.
A lot of guys I know say that they are happier and more even-tempered after T. Before transition, a lot of them say, they had anger issues because they were so unhappy to be read as female all the time and because they didn't feel at home in their bodies. After starting HRT and particularly after they started being read as male, they calmed down. So they came to the conclusion that T does not cause aggression.
There are flaws in this thinking. For one thing, anger and aggression are not equivalent. We might see anger as an aggressive feeling--I'm not sure it always is--but a person can feel angry and not act aggressively. I think it's a different story if a guy has trouble controlling his anger--and some of them did--and behaves aggressively. Another problem is that so many guys ARE so much happier after transition (for obvious reasons) that they see a huge reduction in aggression. What if the reduction is so huge that it completely cancels out any "additional" aggressiveness that T might grant? Of course the guy would be calmer on HRT. Net win.
But I think some of these guys simply have a limited definition of aggression, so they think they aren't aggressive. I was at a transman meeting not long ago, and a young guy at the meeting voiced his concerns about T and aggression. A few of the older guys became VERY vehement and told him, "No! T doesn't make you aggressive. T calms you down!!" Well, it could work differently for different people, but what I noticed that night was the very aggressive delivery and body language of these guys. As I said, they became extremely vehement. Voices were raised--not to shouting levels, but for emphasis. A couple of guys suddenly started leaning forward in a fashion that could be described as aggressive. And they absolutely would NOT let go of the topic and kept saying over and over that T does not make you aggressive. Now, maybe these guys were that aggressive, or more aggressive, before T. Maybe they're less aggressive now. But they didn't seem to recognize that at that very moment, they were engaging in nonviolent aggressive behavior.
My experience with T has been different, but I felt that if I had contributed to that night's discussion, we would have had a real battle on our hands. A verbal battle, but an aggressive one. Funny, that.
Some might say, "Yes, but I used to THINK more aggressively before T. That's aggression, no?" Well, in a way. So maybe we should further distinguish between aggressive feelings and aggressive acts.
So many people perceive aggression as a bad thing, just as many people associate T with aggression. A certain amount of aggressiveness is good. It doesn't have to be obnoxious, bad, or violent. But I see so many women who diss aggression. And I see a lot of transmen who do it, too--sometimes very aggressively.
This is just my two cents' worth...or perhaps three dollars' worth, given my orientation. I would love to hear people's responses--not just from the guys, either. I formulated my perspective mostly from my own experiences and my observations of transguys whom I know personally. It could be that I'm dead wrong. Or just another anomaly. But my experiences are just as valid as someone else's, and I think they should be out there where pre-T guys can read about them and decide for themselves.
