**So i’m in a bit of a weird position in my life right now. I’ve known i’m trans for the past 3ish years and recently started college. Most of the people around me seem to be pretty supportive and my parents are also supportive. I already have everyone calling me by my choice name but other then that I havent done anything I really want to actually start to transition so I can stop being depressed and there are some moments where like i really want to buy fem clothes but i go on amazon and its just too big of a mental hurdle to do anything related to transitioning has anyone else experianced something like this where they were in a place where they could transition and nothing was preventing them but they were just too scared to if so how did you deal with it?
Edit: Thanks so much for the advice everyone I think going on hrt is too scary for me but I’ll order some fem clothes tomorrow. I really appreciate the advice and kind words <3
of course it’s your call, and I recommend getting a trans-affirming psychologist who has worked with trans patients to help you work through this as well.
HRT is less of a big deal than it seems, though, and it has huge benefits for mental health, as well as helping prevent the body from further androgenizing. My body became much more male in my 20s, and it gets harder and more expensive to solve later - it’s much better if you can get on the right hormones now.
The changes are slow anyway, you don’t have to tell anyone you are on estrogen, and coming out to your parents is the worst of it anyway - taking estrogen is entirely consistent with being a woman, there should be nothing surprising about it to anyone you have come out to.
EDIT: if your parents care about your health, give them the medical and scientific evidence that shows HRT saves lives and has better outcomes than nearly any other medical treatment: https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-well-being-of-transgender-people/
This isn’t controversial, and if they care about you, they will want you to be alive and healthy - this is a matter of your well-being, both now and for the rest of your life.
EDIT2: regarding politics, coming out and living as a visibly trans person is harder and riskier than taking estrogen and conforming to cis norms by having a body that passes - and you have a better chance of passing if you start HRT now than if you delay. In my perspective, the politics are exactly why you would want to be on HRT, to pass as cis ASAP and avoid the possibility of not passing in a society that makes good on its genocidal promises, and where the violence and targeting is happening primarily to people who appear gender non-conforming (whether they are trans or not). I live as a cis woman now, after only a year or two on HRT - being so young, it will be easier for you than me.
Im ngl I know for a fact my parents arent homophobic because my.sister is lesbian it’s just that I don’t want to deal with explaining to them that I’m on hrt and I feel like I would need bc they’re still paying for my insurance
again, I suggest talking to a therapist about this, but I think if you sit down and consider the life-long consequences of delaying HRT against the known benefits, I don’t think not wanting to tell the parents who are likely accepting (and that you have already come-out to) won’t seem like a great reason to delay later.
Spend some time thinking about this, but do please be aware of the consequences of delaying HRT. The depression can be caused by having the wrong sex hormones. We wouldn’t tell a diabetic to live without insulin, we wouldn’t expect a cis person to live on opposite sex hormones - it’s no different for you.
What exactly are the consequences? Also like there’s still a lot of imposter syndrome because I havent done any social transitioning besides name and gender neutral pronouns which makes me really unsure if I want to do hrt
It varies from person to person, but there are many.
For the body, androgens continue to masculinize the body:
There are also potential the mental side effects:
I also saw more hypervigilance, OCD like behavior, and scrupulousness that all reduced when I started estrogen.
(Edited To Add: Also, in trans populations, risks of drug abuse are much higher, and the empirical evidence shows among other benefits, drug abuse is reduced by medical transition.)
Imposter syndrome is very common, I experience it as well, I think tbh most of us experience it.
I completely understand you have to approach this at your own pace, and HRT probably feels scary and very permanent, but not taking HRT also creates permanent changes. You can even try HRT as a trial and as a diagnostic step, for the first 3 months there are no permanent changes from estrogen, and after that the only permanent change is the forming of breast buds that may not go away fully after (though this technically could be solved with surgery later, and surgery might be more required if you don’t take HRT young anyway).
This video playlist was important to me figuring out I was trans, and also encouraging about HRT - maybe you will find it helpful?
Also helpful:
Thank you for the info. I originally thought that the body changing stuff just ended once you become an adult kind of like puberty and knowing that is really helpful. For the mental stuff I already have the first 3 and some other issues but I really don’t want night terrors if that’s a common issue so I’ll try to do it soon. Also I have already read the dysphoria bible and I reread specific sections when I have imposter syndrome to reassure me but thank you anyway <3
some changes like limb length and bone structure seem to set during puberty, but the body continues to masculinize - I didn’t have the ability to grow a beard until sometime in my 20s and it’s costing me many thousands of dollars to get it removed now - it’s much easier to prevent than to have to later correct with painful and expensive procedures
likewise with the voice - it continues to deepen over a lifetime, actually - men in their 70s have deeper voices than they had in their 40s, androgens continue to impact the vocal folds.
i honestly was misgendered frequently as a teenager and in my early 20s, but I was male passing sometime in my mid 20s due to the deepening of my voice and the presence of a beard shadow.
It’s a nightmare to be stuck in a male body, and even without the body impact, it’s a serious liability with the mental health - rolling the dice on suicide is extremely reckless, it’s ultimately what forced me to transition at all, I was suicidal and my behavior was hurting the people who cared about me.
Night terrors for me were much more common on testosterone, as well as parasomnias in general, and went away on estrogen. I don’t know how common they are for others, but I’ve heard of others having it even though it’s not universal.
Your brain might need estrogen, and you will probably want to not have a man’s body - so while you’re still a boy is the best time to act to prevent that. The next best time is as soon as you can, lol - you can definitely transition later in life, I did it and many do, but it is better to be on estrogen earlier if possible.
I’m sorry to advocate so much for this, I don’t want to cause distress, I just want to make sure you are informed and are able to make responsible choices - but I should be clear, it’s your choice ultimately, and nobody can make this choice for you.
What resources would you recommend specifically for figuring out how to get hrt? I am more willing to take the steps after learning how important it is but I still am unsure especially because as far as I know unless you do diy which is risky you have to go through the medical system which takes really long and also has diagnosis and also that migjt not be a great idea to me bc of current politics
So, a few things: DIY is not as risky as it sounds, it’s a grey market and last time I checked, you can often just buy the stuff you would have been prescribed, i.e. lab-made, pharmaceutical-grade, FDA-regulated estrogen - but a lot of people buy vials that are compounded not by professional labs, which does carry more risk obviously, but those vials are occasionally tested and there haven’t been any major incidents or risks as far as I know - so the consensus seems to be that DIY is safe and effective, and you should absolutely consider it an option.
However, since you’re in the U.S. there is absolutely no need to go DIY when you can get it through a Rx. There are no mandatory wait times for estrogen in the U.S., you don’t usually have to even have a letter from a psychologist. I personally called my primary care physician and told them I have gender dysphoria, and they sent a referral to an endocrinologist I had found that treats trans patients. I did have a three month wait to see the endo, and that is a time I wish I could have gone back and been on DIY while waiting, but when I saw the endo, he prescribed me estrogen that day and I went to a pharmacy and had it filled same-day.
Some IRL friends just go to Planned Parenthood, who have doctors you can see and who operate on an informed consent model, which means you don’t need a letter but you can just consent to taking HRT.
As far as diagnosis, those medical records should be private but I absolutely understand the concern. You will need a proper diagnosis for some procedures to be covered by insurance, so something to consider is the long term there - you may not be able to avoid a diagnosis forever depending on your medical needs, but with the Trump admin trying to force hospitals to turn over records I can understand the concern.
Regardless, this is where I would connect with your local trans community and ask which doctors they see. I used to live in the South where trans healthcare was banned for minors, but if you knew the right people, you could still find doctors who would treat patients. One of the ways this is achieved is by the doctors using a different diagnosis code, for example. I have also heard of doctors offering to delete or scrub references to the diagnosis from the medical chart.
So this is a discussion to have with your local trans community and with the doctors they recommend - you may be surprised at what they can do to help you and what your options are. And if that falls through, DIY is a safe, effective, and reasonable alternative (despite how sus it may seem).
And regardless, I think the politics again shouldn’t drive you away from treatment, but towards it - concerns about diagnosis are wise and worthwhile, but if your fear of a diagnostic record existing means living as a visibly trans person for longer, the real risks of delayed treatment might be greater on the streets than the potential risks of a medical record existing and later implicating you. Realistically, once we are at the level that a gender dysphoria diagnosis in your private medical records are a direct risk to your safety more than not being cis-passing, you should realistically be fleeing the country.
It might also be tempting to think you can avoid persecution by just not transitioning, but the reality is that you can’t choose to be trans, and whether you transition or not won’t change the fact of your gender dysphoria - among your options, living without care is one of the worst ones, and the risks from transitioning are overall still lower.