Susan's Place Transgender Resources

It's official: I have started HRT, as of March 12, 2026!

It's crazy to type it out. It's been twenty years of denial and running from it all. I've finally decided to stop running and face this, and I'm so proud of myself for finally getting the courage. I nearly left the line at the pharmacy, but I just turned up the radio and made myself commit. Unfortunately, they had a mix-up and spiro was not ready yet. But still, I took the first little blue pill today.

For the sake of posterity, the quick summary of my situation is that transitioning will come at a big cost to both myself and the people I love. But my dysphoria has, despite my efforts, never gone away. I look back on my past and realize I've hidden behind bitterness - "I couldn't transition because my parents," "my social circle would've cast me out," "no company would hire me," and on and on. But it's all just excuses and bitterness that I've always been, when it comes to this, a coward. And so, I'm going to face it and take full ownership of my life. If I transition, or if I don't, it is because I actively chose it. I picked the path that, with all the knowledge possible, I felt was best. No more bitterness or misplaced anger.

The plan is to go on HRT for 2-3 months and see how I feel. If it's like the clouds parted as the dysphoria fades away, and I cannot imagine going back to living as I have, then I will continue to transition. I will come out. And, more than likely, will go through the painful disassembly of much of my social and familial life. If I feel anything less than this "cannot live without it" - even if it feels slightly better for me, selfishly - I will stop before any (major) permanent physical changes set in.

I'm making this to help both myself and others with a similar story. I'm going to document my journey over these next months to help me understand at the end of my "trial" just how far (or not so far) I've come.

Typing this, it's been 3 hours since taking my first 2mg estradiol pill. If you're researching transition enough to read this, you know there is nowhere close to any physical things until much later. As someone very sensitive to medicine/illness/changes to my body's general vibe, I always wondered if you could *feel* something different. It's tough to separate the emotional rush/high of finally doing this from anything else. I've also not taken spiro yet, so it's chemically a bit muted to boot.

1 day down, 89 to go!

Katie,


I hope everything works out the way you want it to be.

HRT is a big step, something that should only be started (and continued) after giving its consequences (desired and undesired) much deliberation. 

It certainly has made a big impact on my life. 


Best wishes,


Chrissy

  @katiebee
Dear Katie:
Congratulations on taking  your first BIG step in your transition journey.
Keep us all updated as you feel comfortable sharing.
HUGS, Danielle [Northern Star Girl]

Quote from: katiebee on March 12, 2026, 09:30:53 PMI'm going to face it and take full ownership of my life. If I transition, or if I don't, it is because I actively chose it. I picked the path that, with all the knowledge possible, I felt was best.

Congratulations and welcome to the club!

This is exactly the mindset I had, and it has served me well. I realized that if this is who I am, then so be it. I refuse to live my life at the whims of others. No one gets to live your life for you, so it is only right that you be in charge of it.

Yes, it takes a great deal of bravery not just to "fit in" or "go with the flow". Yes, some people do not understand and choose not to be a part of my life. That is their decision, not mine. But I also found that a few true friends who love me for who I am have accepted me and any changes I decide to make in my life. They don't always understand, but they recognize that I am living for me, not for them.

I am very proud of you for taking that first step and getting the prescription. I hope it brings you everything you hope for. But even if you decide it is not for you, that is still your decision. No one here will judge you for it.

Thanks for keeping us informed and sharing your experience with everyone.
 

Thanks everybody for the congrats and well wishes! It's wild getting to post from this side of the fence after looking longingly at the grass for so long. Time will tell if it's truly greener but so far, I am very proud of myself.

I'm so glad to hear that you have done what feels right for you and taken this step with HRT. Wow you've waited such a long time too, so this must feel very special. I love that you're doing this your way and setting a goal to trial how you feel for a limited period, then ensure you're totally happy with where you're going. However this turns out I hope you find what you're looking for and some clarity within all the feelings. It can be very confusing or very easy depending on you really, buy there is no right or wrong. And if you need more time you can always be in control.

The main thing is I'd love to see you happy and find exactly the person you want and need to be, in whatever of the many variations of gender variations there are. They are all unique to just us, but we also have many similarities.

Charlotte 😻

I'm so happy for you Katie. You're in for an exciting time of changes.

Your excuses really resonate with me as I am battling with those exact ones. I started HRT a number of years ago now and I know I cannot go back, I know it's right for me. I will transition in the future but I'm not ready to loose my parents over it, I love them dearly.

For what it's worth, I have managed, so far, to balance HRT with my male life. People just think I'm chunky and have moobs or if they do realise, they don't care and treat me like normal. I haven't given up much yet and I'm leading a far happier existence. You don't always have to fully transition, there are other ways.

Whilst one pill will have no physical effects on you, particularly without T blockers, it is nonetheless freeing for the mind and it was a profound moment for me when I started too. It will take many months and years for changes to fully appear so settle in and enjoy the ride!

Quote from: Stottie Girl on March 13, 2026, 02:27:48 AMI'm so happy for you Katie. You're in for an exciting time of changes.

Your excuses really resonate with me as I am battling with those exact ones. I started HRT a number of years ago now and I know I cannot go back, I know it's right for me. I will transition in the future but I'm not ready to loose my parents over it, I love them dearly.

For what it's worth, I have managed, so far, to balance HRT with my male life. People just think I'm chunky and have moobs or if they do realise, they don't care and treat me like normal. I haven't given up much yet and I'm leading a far happier existence. You don't always have to fully transition, there are other ways.

I wonder how possible that would be for me. I am fairly sure my wife would not support it. But...I'll only know until I ask. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, "one step at a time" is my mantra throughout this journey!

Day 1.5 morning update: I did have a very surprising thing to report from last night. While laying face down in bed, I felt a kind of faint, but noticeable, warm "buzz," if that makes sense, in my chest. It felt sort of like someone rubbed Vicks/Bengay/tiger balm on either side of my chest. Very faint, and broad, but noticeable when laying face down (but not on my side or back). Obviously HRT is not magic so I don't suddenly have boobs or anything. Nothing whatsoever has changed physically, not in the slightest. But it was a noticeable tingly/buzzy warmth that I was shocked to get so soon (about 5, 6 hours in?). I know it's just increased blood flow and the like, nothing more at this point, and I'm guessing I could only feel it when laying on my chest because of the pressure making that increase more noticeable? And it makes logical sense that the body just responds to the chemical signals as they come, rather than wait around on a delay for basic stuff like circulation. But it was 100% noticeable. And believe me, I know how it sounds, I've lurked around trans spaces for 15, 20 years - I promise, I'm not trying to say I got growth or anything. I do not, full stop. But, I could feel that my body is doing something differently, which I figured wouldn't happen for at least a week or so. Taking the emotions out of this (which I'm going to try and do this whole time to be as fair as possible to myself and this decision), it's just fascinating from a biology/scientific curiosity perspective.

When I woke up, it was gone. I took my 2nd dose this morning and about 4 hours later, it's there again. A bit more faint, but noticeable.

Mentally, I have a kind of weird analogy but you know when you go to the eye doctor and do the "better...worse?" game with two practically identical settings? But after really thinking about it, one is slightly clearer/sharper/crisper than the other? That's kind of how I feel. Crisper? If that makes sense? But only just. I still don't have spiro so the T pretty quickly overwhelms the E, but because of that, I have got to experience that eye doctor "better/worse" test and it IS better. It seems to ramp up to about 4, 5 hours in and then fades back. Slight, but again, noticeable! I know I already said it but again, purely on a biological/scientific curiosity level, this is really crazy to see how much of a difference such a little blue pill can cause!

You will likely have a number of sensations in the chest area during your transition journey.

Quote from: katiebee on March 13, 2026, 10:54:44 AMI wonder how possible that would be for me. I am fairly sure my wife would not support it. But...I'll only know until I ask. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, "one step at a time" is my mantra throughout this journey!

Well I'm single and don't have a wife so I can appreciate it would be harder with a partner who doesn't know. I wasn't thinking there.

Day 3:

I still don't have spiro (won't until Monday), so the estradiol is pretty quickly overpowered. I've always been low T, though, so I get a good 5-7 hours of feeling better.

It's wild. I feel joy during those windows. Not the kind of muted happiness from before, but a deeper, more...visceral, I guess, happiness. I almost cried when one of my kids did something cute. I just feel things so much more acutely and intensely in that E-dominant window. And then, usually around mid-afternoon, I can kind of feel the fog roll back in.

It feels like testosterone is like an emotional weighted vest. It takes a great deal of effort to move freely with the vest on, but once you take off the weights, you feel like you're floating. That's what it feels like, I think - a lightness.

It's incredible seeing how much my state of mind changes from it. Just incredible.

The "downside," if you would even call this that, is that I'm apparently a noticeably more enjoyable person to be around. My wife made a lot of very loving comments in passing yesterday, in a way she hasn't done since we were dating. She said I've been really present the last few days, and appreciates all I do for the family. It amps up the guilt aspect on my end quite a bit, but also, it kind of goes to show that I've not been imagining things all my life. This is real, E does help me, and I'm able to be a better spouse/parent. But...will that understanding stick once the reason I'm being more present/engaged comes out? I'm not so sure.

Day 4 - My steak is too juicy; my lobster, too buttery.

Things are progressing weirdly fast. I will take some blame as I've been doing 4mg (one morning, one night) instead of the prescribed 2 mg. My thinking was to offset the lack of spiro. But...whoa.

First thing is my skin. In the last day, everything started feeling so much more...tactile. It's like my sense of touch got dialed up a notch or three. I guess it's from some slight softening? I can't visually see any difference, but I can absolutely feel it.

The second is my chest. I actually got a bit spooked because I assumed at my age and doses, I'd have at bare minimum a few weeks before any changes there even started thinking about happening. Instead (and maybe the warm buzzing/tingling from literally hours in should've been a sign), I've already got puffy nipples. It's not super dramatic, but it's enough to see in a lighter t-shirt. It looks sorta like I cut half, maybe a third off the end of an acorn and put it in my shirt on my right nipple. The left isn't all that different, just kind swollen, but the right is visibly bigger. I don't think I had gyno but I also have tons of chest hair so...maybe I'm not really starting from scratch after all?

This does worry me because my whole plan was to try this and judge how I feel in that interim before it's terribly obvious. In an ironic twist of fate, my body craves estrogen so much that it's making it intimidating to continue. On one hand...it's incredible affirming. I spent a good 30 minutes in the shower looking down in awe. On the other, it's speeding up my time table a lot.

There's also something a bit more spicy to report. Keeping as PG as possible, the deed was done last night and when my arm was being grabbed, it sent a shiver down my spine. And for the "finale," it was different. It was...rounder? And I felt it the back of my legs, and a little even in my calves. Still that kind of electric burst, but spread out. And I had a warm glowy feeling in those spots on my legs for a good 10 minutes after. It was slight, but undeniably different. In a recurring theme of this post, I knew this was coming (heh) but everything I've seen says this is typically something people only notice months in. I have been on 4mg oral with no blockers for 4 days and already notice something changing. But as I mentioned in my first post, I am pretty hyperaware of my body - I can feel when I'm on aspirin, or can just know when there's a tick biting me somewhere based solely on the slightly "off" sensation. Maybe this is an effect that's always there and maybe I'm a bit early noticing it?

I have been on finasteride for a few years, and have had low T for awhile. I wonder if that, or the 4 mg instead of 2, or some combination thereof is why I'm speedrunning things. But I don't want to speed this up - I want to slow it down a tad. So I'm going back to 2 mg. I might even cut to 1 if this keeps going so fast.

I wonder if I've got some kind of intersex condition or something. I've been googling for awhile and couldn't find too many other people who've had a similar lightspeed experience. It's validating just how much it's working, but I'm really needing it to slow down so I have more time to properly make a decision! But as we always say, YMMV...so here I am, whining that my body is taking to E like a duck to water! What a funny thing life can be...

We are differ on how we react to medicine, although there are a lot of common experiences.
In the HRT section, there are many topics. Some share "what to expect at various time intervals" but again, people react differently.

So today is day 5. I picked up my spiro, but I'm not sure I'm going to take it yet. I'm getting so much from the estradiol alone that I don't think I need it for now.

A lot of the other stuff has faded; I think 4 mg was just a bit much. 2 mg seems to overpower the T for longer now. I wonder if it's slowly building up in my system? Not sure but if I take it at 7, I can make it to 2 or 3 and still feel the difference.

I've got a lot of puffiness in kind of a flat oval around my nipples, and I'm "pokey" pretty much around the clock...which makes hiding things hard.

I absolutely love the way I feel in that peak surge about 2, 3 hours in. I just feel so full of energy, and even after that peak, the usual post-work exhaustion was just gone. I feel fantastic - so clear, so present, so full of life. I haven't felt this full of energy and spark since being a teenager.

BUT.

I am feeling really guilty. It feels like this is a selfish fantasy, and I'm abandoning my proper job as the stoic husband/father/provider. I knew going in that was a strong factor pushing against deciding to transition and in a weird way, it's gotten stronger about as equally as I've felt so much better.

I'm starting to think I'll need to stop. I keep having these flashes of thoughts - "are you really going to do this to your kids?" and the like. Especially when my kids say "dad" or "daddy." And I know I'm not the first trans woman to have this problem. Still, the knowledge that my kids will almost certainly be okay and I don't have to live a lie to give them a good life doesn't make it any easier.

I really wish life had a "save" button and you could re-try things. I really, really want to tell my wife. But I also know there's a good 80, 90% chance she would take it absolutely terribly. But what if I'm wrong? What if she's actually totally supportive? What if I could have my cake and eat it too?

So many tough decisions and so little time to make them.

I don't think there is an easy,  painless answer to your difficult situation, unless of course the universe was being super kind. There's always the chance you'd tell your wife and she takes it fine along with the kids. But that's just a chance...there are many probable in between versions of this story as you know.

I don't have the family life you have so would struggle to understand how this is for you. But it's also not wrong for you to be yourself and life to proceed normally after. This is just a potential change and how it manifests will be a long process of experimentation and compromises I expect. But you're asking yourself the right questions which is good to see.

Is your HRT bring handled by a provider? I ask as jumping between 2-4mg without careful consideration sounds risky. I'm assuming oral? These early stages can be critical to breast growth and ensuring correct T suppression along with a stable E is important.

Charlotte 😻

It is. I just had a delay getting spiro so I figured I could do one in the morning and a second at night to make up the difference, since lots of people have that as their schedule anyway. Lesson learned...

Not much to report for day 6. I think my body's finally adjusting? The visible stuff has actually gone away now. I think 2 mg with no blocker is more manageable for the short term. It's actually what was prescribed at first until I asked about a blocker, so I'm not doing too much experimentation here.

I'm still shocked at the difference I feel. It's like some Jekyll and Hyde stuff. What's more odd is when the E is peaking, I feel great but get the "you've got to hit pause on this, your family comes first" feeling and when T takes back over, the general flatness/muted feeling hits and those doubts/fears fade away. It's a weird analogy but I wonder if it's like being hungry, but you're drowning in the ocean. The drowning kind of overwhelms everything, but once you're in the boat and that concern is handled, you suddenly notice you're absolutely starving. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it.

It is absolutely wild that I'm about to hit my first mini-milestone of 1 week. Have to keep pinching myself!

So I missed day 7 but the report is basically that I've decided that now I'm a week in, I'm going to go on a brief hiatus off HRT to compare.

Today is day 1 of no HRT, and my energy level is back to where it was before - super low. After work while on HRT, I was still pretty energetic. Before, I would drag all through the day and be totally spent when I got home. I'm back to that low energy. I also feel muted again, emotionally. I'm definitely more extroverted/less socially uncomfortable when taking E.

In short, I feel not great. Ironically, if this was how I felt on HRT, it would be obvious to stop taking it. Which...obviously, this makes sense given that I am trans. But it is kind of funny to realize that if my "normal" was the side effect of any medication ever, I would immediately stop taking it.

I always planned to do a brief hiatus test but thought I'd do it after a month. I just got too much chest activity even just 1 week in to fully commit to that. As euphoric as it was, and as much as I want it, it scared me a bit because it's not hideable and I'm still not sure I want to come out and explode my family. In a weird way, HRT gave me the answers I was looking for: I am absolutely trans, and I absolutely feel better, think clearer, and generally enjoy life more with HRT. I want to transition. But...that then brings into focus the final question of what matters most to me: my happiness, or the happiness of my family? Or, more accurately, is my happiness so greater that it justifies the pain I'd cause them by transitioning?

I'm conflicted.

If we were DINKs, I think I know enough now to confidently come out to my wife. But we aren't. Having young kids really makes it hard to justify taking away their father so I can be happier. Will that really give them a better life?

I definitely think that once my children are older, I will be on HRT. Whether it will be new (again) or a long-running reality is still in the air. But I do think I need this, eventually, when all is said and done.

Happy to hear anyone else's thoughts. Balancing the duty to my kids is so, so hard.

Quote from: katiebee on March 19, 2026, 01:46:34 PMSo I missed day 7 but the report is basically that I've decided that now I'm a week in, I'm going to go on a brief hiatus off HRT to compare.

Today is day 1 of no HRT, and my energy level is back to where it was before - super low. After work while on HRT, I was still pretty energetic. Before, I would drag all through the day and be totally spent when I got home. I'm back to that low energy. I also feel muted again, emotionally. I'm definitely more extroverted/less socially uncomfortable when taking E.

In short, I feel not great. Ironically, if this was how I felt on HRT, it would be obvious to stop taking it. Which...obviously, this makes sense given that I am trans. But it is kind of funny to realize that if my "normal" was the side effect of any medication ever, I would immediately stop taking it.

I always planned to do a brief hiatus test but thought I'd do it after a month. I just got too much chest activity even just 1 week in to fully commit to that. As euphoric as it was, and as much as I want it, it scared me a bit because it's not hideable and I'm still not sure I want to come out and explode my family. In a weird way, HRT gave me the answers I was looking for: I am absolutely trans, and I absolutely feel better, think clearer, and generally enjoy life more with HRT. I want to transition. But...that then brings into focus the final question of what matters most to me: my happiness, or the happiness of my family? Or, more accurately, is my happiness so greater that it justifies the pain I'd cause them by transitioning?

I'm conflicted.

If we were DINKs, I think I know enough now to confidently come out to my wife. But we aren't. Having young kids really makes it hard to justify taking away their father so I can be happier. Will that really give them a better life?

I definitely think that once my children are older, I will be on HRT. Whether it will be new (again) or a long-running reality is still in the air. But I do think I need this, eventually, when all is said and done.

Happy to hear anyone else's thoughts. Balancing the duty to my kids is so, so hard.

That's perfectly normal. You are weighing possible circumstances, but do not automatically assume you will explode your family. Children, especially younger children, are very accepting and resilient. They know you are their dad, but that is not how they see you. They love the person who has been there for them their entire lives. Telling them is not as big an issue as you think.

That said, you and your wife must have that talk first. The two of you must be united in when and how they will be told. They are her kids, too, and she definitely has a say in the matter. If she is not on board, find out why not. Yes, it is a shock, but what part of it is she opposed to? For many, it is because they thought they were marrying a man. But you took your vows thinking the same thing.

Life changes and humans adapt. We don't like change, so when we have to make it, it can be difficult. Give her time to adjust.  Then, when she is on board, or you can reach some kind of compromise, the two of you can discuss talking to the children about it.

Perhaps some of the stories in our Significant Others Forum can shed some light and help you figure things out. https://www.susans.org/index.php?board=26.0

We hope all goes well for you.