PCOS in transmen?

[Sevan]

Hey all,
I'm not sure if this belongs here or in the "transgender" section...so I'll apologize in advance if I put this in the wrong place.
K. My mate and I were trying to get pregnant. We found I had no cycle. None. So...there was no way we were gonna get pregnant. The doctor diagnosed me with PCOS (poly cystic overy syndrome) which...women with the disorder have unusually high T. They grow facial hair, have a difficult time losing weight, have cysts on their overies and don't cycle naturally or normally.
Since the diagnosis much has come to light about my gender identity. I'm wondering what corilation (if any) there is between PCOS and FtM.
Thoughts?
Thanks in advance

[Silver]

So. . . you had no menstrual cycle and you thought you were fertile?

Anyway, supposedly it's more common in transmen but I don't really know much about that.

[Nero]

What Silver Fang said. A lot of ftms have it but so do a lot of ciswomen. Not sure of the correlation.

[Quicksand]

No correlation, technically.  I have a particularly bad case of PCOS, and my parents dragged me to every gender specialist to figure out if it was causing my GID.  Eventually I ended up at Johns' Hopkins, where twelve doctors and authorities on GID sat on a panel, evaluated me, and told my parents that there is absolutely no correlation.

This is how I think of it: hormones aren't really a big issue until you hit puberty.  PCOS doesn't become a problem until then, since it's not like you had excess testosterone before you hit puberty.  But, did you identify with the male gender before puberty?  I know I did, and thus it was before I had PCOS, so no correlation.

However, as someone pursuing a medical career, I've done some other research.  PCOS isn't understood quite as well as it could be, but it has been speculated that it is hereditary.  So let's say your mom has excess testosterone.  She becomes pregnant with you (somehow despite having PCOS) and is unaware that she has PCOS, therefore you, a developing female fetus, receive a hefty dose of testosterone while in utero.  This affects your brain development in such a way that it becomes more congruous with the brain of the male gender.  Voila!  A transman in the making.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, yes, there could be a correlation, but it is irreversible.  Luckily, it makes passing ten times easier before starting testosterone...as in, I have a beard in my before AND after pictures.  Good stuff!

[Sevan]

So. . . you had no menstrual cycle and you thought you were fertile?

No. I definitly know enough about the female cycle, complete with each hormone that it requires to think I was fertile without ovulating. It's just that we WANTED to be fertile so we could concieve. Hasn't happened. My PCOS isn't that bad...all things considered. Which I guess...makes me lucky? Not sure. Haven't decided.
I think getting a baseline of my T could help shed some light on the topic though.
As to Quicksand's comments...I was a very dissosiated child. I always knew I was different. Considered myself a "tomboy" but never really questioned gender. Didn't know you could! I guess... then as an adult I found out about transexualism/transgender issues and have sense started to very seriously wonder about myself and my own identity. (I'm in therapy already.)

[Teknoir]

I've heard it's unrelated, but there is a slightly higher prevelence of PCOS in the FTM population (well, those that they've studied) than in the cisfemale population.

It could be that they just find it more often because pretty much all of us at one stage or another have to go chat to an endo (and have hormonal bloodwork / repo system exams, etc).

If we are how we are because of some hormonal glitch, then it'd make sense to be looking at what happened in utero rather than around puberty.

[notyouraverageguy]

Glad you brought up this topic.

Actually my sister has PCOS, my mother says its from my fathers side. Weird thing is she has two kids, and another on the way. Guess she's lucky. Idk if I have it. Itd be odd if I did, maybe help prove the theory of relationship right? Well idk yet because I haven't tried to have a baby, and I haven't had any female exams. Which is bad, I know. But I don't have money nor insurance to do so.

Hmmm... makes me wonder.

[jmaxley]

Can you have PCOS with low testosterone levels?  I had a blood panel done and my T levels are depressingly low (even for a cis-woman) but the doctor still thinks I have cysts on the ovaries (which is why I'm having to go to the exam of doom). 

[Joseph]

Can you have PCOS with low testosterone levels? 

I don't know about "low" testosterone levels, but I apparently have PCOS in addition to a pretty average T level (for a female) -- which is surprising since I am much stronger than the average female.     but whatever.  I'm about the furthest thing from a doctor that you can find so I can't be expected to understand these things. 

Also just to add on to what everyone else has said, some published papers have noted a higher prevalence of PCOS in FTMs than in the general female population.  I say "papers" because I hesitate to say "studies."  I'm not certain that anyone has intentionally studied this.  As I recall, all the papers I've read on this subject were the result of observations that the authors didn't necessarily set out to make.  These seem to be based on surveys that are taken in populations of FTMs who go to a gender clinic or a conference, where PCOS is one of the questions. There is a paper that has noted as high as a 50% incidence of PCOS in FTMs who visited a gender clinic in Japan over a 3-year period.  There is also a paper that noted no statistically significant difference between surveyed FTMs who attended a trans conference and the general female population.  As I understand it, no one really knows what the actual incidence of PCOS is in FTMs, though no one would be surprised if it turns out that there is indeed a higher incidence in FTMs than in the rest of the bio-female population.