Yesterday I had an endo appointment, and at the clinic I was consistently gendered correctly, even if they did struggle with pronouncing my name. Heh, they didn't do well with my birthname either, so meh. That's what I get for choosing to replace an unfamiliar Welsh name with another unfamiliar Welsh name, LOL. So I walked out of there feeling awesome - not quite gender euphoria, but feeling really good about myself. and went to Target to shop for more clothes. My winter guy wardrobe is a bit lacking. I lost a lot of weight and had to give up almost all my clothes just over a year ago and I'm going to freeze if I don't get more warm stuff.
And commence the "lady" and "ma'am" comments. Thankfully I'm not too dysphoric about being misgendered. This was the first time it ever stung a bit, but more disappointment than dysphoria. I'm bi-gender but my female side is currently totally dormant and I'm all guy. It's not like they were even unsure, and I don't think it even registered in their minds that I might be trans. I could have handled it if the tone of their voice was even just a little bit doubtful as to my gender, or even if it had that hard edge of intentionally misgendering someone. No, they had the tone of casual certainty they had it right, and it drove home that I still come off as unmistakably female, DESPITE being tall, having no hips, no boobs (post-top), wide shoulders, was dressed entirely in clearly men's clothing, and was shopping in the mens' section (clearly for myself, because I took them into the fitting rooms).
It didn't help that I was seeing the endo because after 1.5 YEARS on T, you'd never guess I'd ever taken T. In fact, the gains I had in my first four months (facial, muscles, etc, were actually pretty impressive, and my boobs shrunk) actually REVERSED and I'm not only getting more feminine in appearance, my boobs (post top!) are starting to grow again, my body hair is actually thinner/finer than before T, but my speaking voice *never changed.* I lost a tiny bit of range on my singing voice at the top, and got a little more singing range at the bottom (I already had an impressively large range, even if my voice sucks). So the endo is trying to figure out why. My T ranges are all in a good place (700-800 range), very low estradiol (so it's not aromatase issues). The doc thinks that it's because I'm older (49) I am one of the unlucky ones who simply has a "blunted" response to HRT, everything is "hardened" in place because of age/genetics. His answer it to raise my dose (I was already on a full transition dose) and see if that forces my body into a stronger response.
If I still don't get any kind of response from my body in the next 6 months, I don't see the point of continuing with the expense and effort I'm putting into HRT.
