And in relation to their apparent feminizing effects. I heard soy has something in it that acts as an estrogen. Some people around have claimed that they are doing a "natural" transition by changing their diet, and it always includes a lot of soy.

So I've taken up drinking soy milk. It kinda tastes like a protein shake but without the protein, if you can imagine that. I've noticed that I feel better psychologically after drinking it, but that's probably placebo because there's no way it's soaked into my system that fast.

So... soy, does it work?

I have read that, if anything, it makes HRT less effective because it clogs up estrogen receptors, and doesn't let the real HRT (estradiol) bind to them to do its job

if you're not on hrt, i doubt weak phytoestrogens would do anything. Even with antiandrogens they are too weak to feminize much.

Hi this topic comes up reasonably often. The level of AAs or oestrogens in natural products are minuscule in comparison to the HRT.  You may get a placebo, feel good effect because you feel you are doing something, but hormonally it will have very little, if any effect.

I am ftm and vegetarian, so my diet consists of a lot of soy products. I read a couple of places that soy contains a lot of estrogen and got really paranoid for quite some time; fearful of feminizing effects. However, I also read in a couple of other places that, as the poster above said, the amount of estrogen is minuscule and will do little to nothing =/

Soy milk is good for you and I like it.
It's just not very effective as people have said.
I was vegan for a year and vegetarian for 2 and I just lost a lot of weight. :U

I've been drinking soymilk daily for 17 years, and I eat a lot of flax and other phytoestrogenic foods as well. If it feminizes it doesn't much.

There's no substitution for real drugs, drinking a bean product is only going to give you gas. There is only one true form of natural feminization, birth. 

Soya certainly has feminising effects, but do you know why?   Well plants don't want to die, they don't want to be eaten, and as they can't run away from predators they have developed  other forms of self-defence.     Soya contains two compounds that slowly but surely render their predators sterile.    Soya is also suspected of causing brain lesions and other neurological problems in humans.

While I am on the subject the coffee plant uses caffeine as an insecticide.  Tea is high in fluoride.   Water is the only liquid that man is specifically designed for.  The body can cope with alcohol, soft-drinks, tea and coffee but after a while these poisons wreak physiological problems upon the body.

I'll give you an example from personal experience.  My father drank 6-7 cups of coffee a day.  When he went into hospital for a very minor surgical operation.  They had to cancel the operation because my father was shaking, sweating, and he was very agitated.  He had gone two days without coffee and he was suffering from caffeine withdrawal!    Later towards the end of his life he started experiencing terrible migraines.  His doctor told him that he had to cut way back on the coffee or his migraines would get worse and more frequent.

My wife drinks soya milk all the time and uses soya margarine.

I think it's created by satan himself. But what do I know?

No. Soy doesn't work.

There was a girl on another website who drank a half gallon of Soy a day. At the end of a year, she put on a number of pounds and had spent a fortune.

Save the money and do it the productive and effective way.

  I was on the phytoestrogen herbs for a year before starting HRT.  These contain more phytoestrogens than the soy products have.  It may have feminizing effects in some males such as gynocomastia, but those are few in number.  In my case there was no real change with the phytos than with 2 1/2 weeks on HRT.  I was off of the phytos more than 1 month before starting HRT.  With the amount of phytos needed to do any good, it turned out to be more expensive per month than the HRT regimen I am on now.
  Joelene

Quote from: Annah on February 20, 2012, 08:00:56 AM
No. Soy doesn't work.

There was a girl on another website who drank a half gallon of Soy a day. At the end of a year, she put on a number of pounds and had spent a fortune.

Save the money and do it the productive and effective way.

I'm not saying soy is cheap, but it's much much cheaper than cow milk and cow meat.

We had a case here in Canada some years ago. This guy was vegetarian and only drank Soy Milk.
It doesn't change much short term, but he had been like that for 6 years and yes, his T levels were off and he was borderline sterile.
I'm not sure if he sued the company or something.

(PERSONAL OPINION)
A GALLON A DAY?! No that's too much. Just switch your normal cow milk intake by soy milk.
With time I'm sure it'll make a difference. But don't look for it. If you look every morning for a difference of course you won't see anything.
Just make it your natural routine. It'll make small changes I'm sure but nothing very big.

Personally Soy milk tastes better and feels healthier(whether it is or not.)
Chocolate is my favorite! xD

Although I don't drink much of it anymore. Basically all Mow Milk now.

whenever a product is mentioned as being good for feminising its as well to look at the men in the country the product comes from to see if they all have boobs and withered penisses.   

Obviously they don't so IN THEORY plant estro doesn't work...but then the HBS group and the Dutch researchers say that genuine MtF transseuxals have brains with a bit of female wiring and so it would be logical to think that a genuine HBS may actually respond to plant estrogens while a wannabe who is basically just a CD/TV/TG/Andro will lack the HBS brain wiring and not have anything that can be stimulated by plant estro.

Does anyone know of any research or anecdotal evidence of unexpectedly high feminisation among men who work at factories processing soybeans for food who may nibble beans regularly through the day...or what about workers in the factories who process and pack the Fenugreek, Black Cohosh etc for the health food shops?
Soybean has been made into sausages since WW2 and we have to carefully study fine print on processed foods to see if it contains soy as its a tasteless bulker in lots of things.  Then again cows are fed lots of soya so does any active ingredient get into their milk?

I will second Cindy here, the levels are so low that it is irrelevant. Basically if you want to use them for other reasons, feel free, but they have no feminising effects. 
Personally I find other sorts of product ok,but  Soy milk tastes absolutely vile!

Karen

Quote from: justmeinoz on March 07, 2012, 04:26:09 AM
Basically if you want to use them for other reasons, feel free, but they have no feminising effects.

Not always true.  This falls into the ymmv category depending entirely on what is used, what amounts, over what period of time, and individual physiology.

Conventional wisdom states that phytoestrogens are so amazingly weak compared to HRT that very little can be accomplished with them and that overdoing any herb, regardless of how natural it is, can have real negative health impacts.  This is a solid take on it in my opinion.

And yet, there are quite a few people that have explored pueraria mirifica as an option for breast growth and made mention of other effects it has when taken for a prolonged period of time that mimic low dose HRT.  Reading indicates that that pm roughly equals 25% of what you'd find in a lose dose prescription of E.  Allegedly.  Softer skin, mild fat redistribution in areas other than breasts, and libido/emotional shifts have all been reported, as well as the breast growth.

There is a lot of information around this particular "natural enhancer" and that makes it hard to lump it into the black cohosh/red clover dismiss as ineffective natural herbs category.  Having said that, self-medicating in any fashion, especially one that has the potential to impact physical and emotional states, without the supervision of a medical professional is never, ever a good idea.  Ever.

-Miki

Fwiw I used herbs somewhat effectively to alter my milk flow when I was nursing my kid.

I used to use soy milk on my cereal but hardly ever just drank it. I wanted to avoid drinking cow milk. I've since gone paleo-ish and don't eat any grains including cereal. Turns out I have a sensitivity (lots of people do and don't know it) and a whole host of health problems were related to my eating grains (gluten).

Paleo types seem to have a lot of issues with soy products, maybe putting it just under grains, but I haven't found the arguments nearly as convincing as with gluten and I don't even remember the details. I hardly ever eat soy though. I did have some soy sauce and it screwed me up but that also has gluten in it. I just thought it would be a small enough amount that it wouldn't bother me. I was wrong.