Hey trans fems!! I’ve had my doses for ages, but I’ve been too consumed with life to worry about trying them. I just got news that my chapter of life is going to be changing soon, and I really wanted to try them during my current stride. So I’ve decided that just for one day I’m going to give it a shot to see how it makes my brain feel, and I’m going to do a proper two week test run another time. What can I expect from the first day? Any things to be concerned about? Is it possible that this derails my productivity or something strange for the first day?
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I started HRT about a year ago, so the experience is somewhat fresh in the mind. The main thing I would say is don’t expect to feel much in just two weeks. The effects are cumulative, and take time to do much of anything.
It doesn’t really feel different to be on estrogen. You can’t actively feel your own hormone levels. The HRT made my brain feel much happier, but normal. Things just continued to feel normal, but a better normal. Even a new and good normal still feels like normal in the moment.
Since you’re doing a short trial to see how your brain feels, take notes. Write a journal/diary, and have a close friend you talk to about how you’re feeling. That perspective will help track mental changes.
Also have warm clothes close by. Women carry body heat in their cores at the expense of the extremities. HRT causes this in trans women too! You will probably feel colder than you expect, especially this time a year. Keep warm gloves, and cozy socks nearby.
Enjoy the estrogen! I love to hear you report back with your experience.
As others have said, you’re not going to notice anything right away. Why not start taking it regularly and let it cook while you focus on other things? A month or so down the road you’ll probably realize you feel better than you ever have and don’t want to stop.
I wanted to freeze my sperm before starting properly:/ I know it’s not 100% likely but I really worry about infertility because I want to have kids someday
Yes, get on that!
I wouldn’t expect anything, tbh - that’s far too little time to feel much (other than placebo). It should also be mentioned that a lot of people don’t feel anything at all, even after weeks or months.
When I injected estrogen for the first time it took a few hours before I was certain I was feeling anything different at all; that night (many hours after my injection) I remember sitting on the couch and I felt a difference in my body - a kind of buzzing awareness around my breasts and hips, which didn’t feel obviously pleasant or good, it was just there; it took three days for my estrogen to rise to the point that my brain shut down testosterone production, and it was then that I finally experienced literal euphoria (it was like taking opiates, I wanted to lie in my bed and just bask in the high), and that’s when I knew it was “right” for me, or at least whether I was trans or not, I would want to continue taking estrogen just based on how happy it made me feel. I’m not even sure half of the trans girls I know IRL report these kinds of experiences, though it’s not uncommon it’s also not guaranteed.
That first injection was 0.25 mL of estradiol valerate (EV) in oil, and the concentration was 20 mg / mL, so I had injected 5 mg. EV has a half-life of around 3.5 days when injected subcutaneously (subq) or intramuscularly (IM).
But I assume you have pills from the way you’re talking about taking them for a single day, and in that case I wouldn’t expect much at all - your body won’t have a chance to switch from testosterone dominance to estrogen dominance. As an aside, pills in general are not great, >80% of the estrogen is filtered by your liver, and your blood estrogen levels spike and then go back down quickly in a matter of hours so there is no stable or sustained blood estrogen levels.
Gel, patches, and injections are preferable alternatives (without anti-androgens, injections are the best for doses high enough to suppress testosterone with just the estrogen, what is called “monotherapy”; monotherapy is harder to achieve with gel and patches). Sublingual can be better than oral, but in practice it has similar problems (particularly with spikey metabolism).
Recommended reading: https://transfemscience.org/articles/transfem-intro/
what about feelings in the first 2 weeks? i’m worried about being a little bit distracted, or fatigued, or something like that while trying to do my work
Your mileage may vary, but in my personal experience, estrogen gave me better mental clarity, more energy, and lifted depression and anxiety to an extent I didn’t realize I had been suffering with my whole life (or more accurately since the start of puberty); that was happening within the first few months with depression lifting the fastest and anxiety lifting much later … so based on my experience and the research that has confirmed the immense clinical benefits of medical transition, I highly recommended anyone who thinks they might be a trans woman to try injecting estrogen and seeing if it helps them as much as it helped me.
Transitioning is rough and stressful, and hormone fluctuations and figuring out the right dose is part of that stress, but overall transitioning made me a healthier, more balanced, and more productive person … I’m not sure those changes will happen within two weeks, especially not with oral estrogen.
I don’t know that your experiences with oral estrogen will be, as I mentioned they don’t result in consistently elevated or stable estrogen blood levels, and I have never personally taken oral estrogen to compare.
Girls I know IRL who take oral estrogen have a variety of experiences, but anecdotally most of them have slower feminization and worse mood than girls I know who inject or use patches. I know one girl who does sublingual and had decent feminization. All of this is anecdotal and not generalizable, but what we know about oral estrogen was enough for me to avoid it, though I obviously would take it if there were no alternative. Taking 3 - 5 doses evenly spread out through the day might help achieve somewhat more consistent levels, but this is logistically challenging and needless when there are other options.
It should be mentioned I overcame severe needle phobia to inject estrogen, that’s how significantly better that route of administration is. Also, injecting with very small and short needles (think insulin needles) into fat was the only way it was feasible for me, I am not sure I would have been able to inject IM with a longer or thicker needle.
To be honest, something about trying to take HRT for just a day, or just two weeks feels off to me - it takes time for the body and brain to adjust from testosterone dominance to estrogen dominance. You can’t really squeeze that into tight timelines. Even after 3 months major changes are happening and I saw significant mood improvements at 4 - 6 months that weren’t present before then (namely a dramatic reduction in intrusive generalized anxiety).
It’s fine to try HRT on a trial basis, but I would just take it for 2 - 3 months and see how you feel. If it’s working well for you, just continue; otherwise, that’s when you would want to stop to avoid permanent breast growth that won’t go away.
Trying to glean something out of a single day of HRT, or squeezing it into a two week period (which plausibly might give you some sense of whether it’s right for you) just feels a bit misguided … It takes a while to figure out a dose that works; to be honest I never figured the perfect dose, my biochemical dysphoria didn’t go away until I was post-op a whole year later.
My advice is to start HRT and take it as long as you can up to the point of permanent changes, then make a judgement call on whether to continue or revert back. Usually it’s clear for most people whether they want to continue early on, within a week or two.
This is made more complicated by the fact that spironolactone can cause depression and can be a bad time, so opting for anti-androgens and oral estrogen makes it less likely you will feel great. Others have a great time on oral estrogen and spiro (thinking of Mia Violet in particular), though that is unusual. Still, maybe you will get the information you need anyway. (Though, being real - cis men wouldn’t usually consider taking estrogen voluntarily, which is probably part of why regret rates are so low - cis people just don’t tend to think transitioning seems like a good idea. Estrogen only made clear that I liked being on estrogen, it didn’t cure my denial or imposter syndrome.)
Wow thanks for such a detailed answer! Yes you’re right its an oral pill, but I have T blockers as well. Everything else you’ve said is totally applicable so thank you again!
