Male-to-female (MTF) type transgender hormone therapy, also known as feminising hormone therapy, is a hormone and sex reassignment therapy to change the secondary sexual characteristics of transgender people from masculine (or androgynous) to feminine.
The effects of MTF therapy are reversible for some things, and not for others – just as some of the changes a boy (and girl, of course) experiences at puberty are reversible, and some not. Where the therapy can help is in the development of the secondary sex characteristics of a female, such as breasts and a feminine pattern of hair, fat, and muscle distribution. It cannot reverse many changes that occurred at puberty – surgery and other treatments are available to help with some of those. I suppose I’ll probably post something on those after I find out about them myself 😁.
I’m not going to go into the various hormones used, but will note that they are used for two main purposes; to induce feminisation, and to suppress male hormones (although the hormones used to induce feminisation will also suppress testosterone levels. As will other drugs, such as the spironolactone I take as a diuretic (in fact spironolactone is the most common drug used to suppress testosterone anyway) – and while I’m in these parentheses, I’ll take the opportunity to point out that various medical conditions can either preclude, or increase the dangers of, MTF therapy, one of those being the liver disease for which I take diuretics. Such is life) (and I’m opening some more parentheses here to note that I’d be interested to know how much my decision to transition was affected by the quite marked de-masculinisation I’ve experienced as a result of taking the drugs I’m on) (and now I’ll stop).
The permanent effects of MTF therapy are:
· Development of breasts, and enlargement of nipples and areolae.
· Widening and rounding of the pelvis.
The physical non-sexual reversible effects of MTF therapy are:
· Thinning and slowed growth of facial and body hair.
· Stopping and (some) reversal of male pattern baldness.
· Skin changes – softening, less oiliness etc.
· Fat redistribution.
· Decreased muscle mass.
The physical sexual reversible effects of MTF therapy are:
· Decreased sex drive.
· Erectile dysfunction and decreased ejaculate volume.
· Decreased fertility.
· Decreased testicle size.
Women won’t need to be told this, but one non-physical effect of MTF therapy is changes in mood, emotionality, and behavior (so you got wide hips, boobs, and a head of hair – so what - this is the real stuff). These psychological effects are harder to pin down than the physical changes – as hormone therapy is one of the first things one will do having made the momentous decision to transition, the psychological effect of the repercussions of this decision – which believe me, in and of itself produces unbelievable mood swings and emotional changes (at least it fucking well did and does in me) – are hard to distinguish from the changes induced by the MTF hormone therapy. So get used to being a woman. That’s way harder than just looking like one, I think. I know, really I’ve been a woman all my life, that’s what I’m told, and I’ll believe it, but it doesn’t actually quite feel that way.
And maybe I’m making a huge mistake, but I don’t think so.