Female bodies have smaller heads/hands than male ones. I fear that even after taking testosterone these features would 'give it away' and I could never just live a normal(ish) male life. Am I making too big a deal out of this or will it always be a give away to people? Also, would taking testosterone at age 16-18 give a chance of your head/hands getting bigger, or you growing taller? Thanks.
I'm a small guy, and I've got small hands and a small head, but that's never stopped me from passing. Granted I generally pass as 12-14 right now, but once I have been on T a long time and look older, I'm sure that I'll still look like a guy despite the small head and hands. I don't think anyone really pays much mind to those things, you may get comments like "you've got small hands dude" from other guys but there's plenty of cisguys with small hands too so they won't think you're not a man because of it. It's just teasing, nothing more. Definitely doesn't 'give it away' or anything like that.
As for growth, that totally depends on you and whether you are done growing. I'm 18 and just started T, and chances are, as much as I'd like it to happen, I probably won't grow. I was done growing when I was like 13 or 14, My feet have grown since then, but no height change. (I've got man feet, something I'm pretty proud of.) If you're still noticing growth then you've got much more of a chance of growing than if you haven't been growing. There's always exceptions to this, but don't get your hopes up if you haven't grown in a while.
I believe your hands will 'roughen' up when you start testosterone.
Also, I dont think the size of your head will give anything away.
I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Judging from some threads on bodybuilding forums, many cis men fear they have "delicate"/"girly" hands due to smaller bone structure. Aside from the predictable friendly ribbing the other guys always tell the guys with small hands to not worry about it. Human bodies are quite varied.
Something else to keep in mind. Due in part to media invisibility, many folks are still entirely unaware of trans men. Therefore it would never occur to them to think a guy with small hands could be a trans man. Factor in that folks are not going to be only seeing your hands or head circumference, they are parts of a whole. Adequate time on T brings many male cues, visual and otherwise, some that people pick up on without even knowing. If someone is perceptive enough to notice in the first place they'll probably just think, "That dude has small hands."
I don't know re: small head. I don't think my head is very small. OTOH, my hands are. I don't find that after you are read consistently as male that your hands make much of a difference. I think they have more early transition. But now that I am read more male otherwise, they don't.
--Jay
My hands are only very slightly smaller than a cis guys at work. We discussed it and decided that mine were acceptable because they're in proportion to the rest of me, his aren't.
No one's noticed my head yet, and it's kind of obvious in our helmets.
my hands, feet, and height are exactly the same size as my ex boyfriend's (cis, probably).
his second girlfriend is the same too, but with smaller hands.
do you think having average hands will stop me from passing as a woman, or him having small hands will stop him from passing as male?
the only times he didn't pass as male was when he was wearing my female clothing (pants, not skirts).
People have questioned my small hands, but no one has ever been like "wow, you must be a chick." lol. I had one drunk girl grab my hands and caress them and tell me how pretty they were. And she goes on about how small and soft they are. Then another time, this was a girl who was totally stoned, and she grabs my hands and laughs and goes "they're so f* small! They're as small as mine! Haha!"
I feel like if someone were to "clock" a person the basis of their hands, it would mean that they were looking for a reason to peg someone as trans before they saw the hands. And even if someone has small hands it doesn't mean they are born female.
Nope. I wasn't even transitioned/attempting to pass as male at all and still going by my female name ect. and was just taken for a male by other students in one of my bio lab classes in college. I didn't argue. I think some people at my table would have assumed I was female, but this one guy I befriended constantly referred to me as male. The rest of them just went with it. The other guy seemed oblivious if my teacher ever happened to refer to my gender. I can't recall.. I wasn't really fussed either way.
Anyway. In this bio lab class we actually did a lab measuring our heads! Essentially to map male/female head size to "disprove" the already far disproven head size to intelligence correlation. I think I put mine up on the board in blue marker (for boys) but I can't recall... Anywho this other boy was a small kid too, I think him and I were about matched for height and head size (at 5'4 I think I may have been an inch or so taller). Neither he or anyone else in the class made any notice.
I think if the subject of scientifically measuring head size takes place while someone is pre-T and with a female name and a regular cis dude can still think you're a guy it pretty much proves that that sort of stuff really does not matter as far as passing goes.
No one's ever said anything about the size of my hands and it's never even been brought up and I still pass.
On the other side of the fence, in the move "Trans the Movie", Christine McGinn (yeah that one, the surgeon) was talkign about her life. Her wife says how she met her, talking about how drop dead gorgeous she was. She said, well I had no idea, I mean I think I thought her hands were a little large in retrospect, but I didn't think anything about it. I guess a good idea how someone might process this.
--Jay
Seeing i was born in a female body i have huge hands. No one has ever pulled me on it (i was born to be gay is the joke my friends make) also i have a lot of guy mates that have smaller hands than me. The most that would happen is someone ribs you for not having over sized hands.
It will be cool.
And i dont think anyone ever takes note of the size of peoples heads, so you're cool bro
I was in the restroom the other day and this boy asked his father if I was a girl. It made me heart melt but I don't remember what the father said because I hightailed it to a stall. To date that is the only thing I can think of where someone questioned me.