(Author’s note: So I wrote this post 6 months ago and decided to have a think before posting it, at which point is forgot it existed. Having just found it, I’m just gonna hit post so people can read it, but be aware that some of this info is out of date now.)
I started transitioning in January 2014, I say that date because that’s when I started going by my new name and living full time as female. Medically I started on the NHS track in April 2014, when I first spoke to my GP. I was referred to the Charing Cross Gender Identity Clinic (confusingly no where near charing cross tube station…) and promptly left to bumble about my new life for 12 months.
Yeah, 12months. Thats how long it took from referral to first appointment, crazy right? That wasn’t even when I got to start treatment, that was just the awkward first appointment where I got to talk about all the wonderful embarrassing stories of my past to convince the Doctor that I was actually trans.
6 months later (October 2015) I had a second appointment, this was the one I was looking forward to because we would be discussing my hormone treatments. The appointment was smooth, we went over some background stuff because we needed a second opinion, and then got to the details. As a transwoman, I need two kinds of hormone treatments, the first to fill me up with lovely lovely Estrogen. The second is a blocker for the nasty nasty testosterone. The blocker is needed because T is a much more powerful hormone than estrogen and does a lot of bad stuff to a ladies body, mostly the growing a penis thing, thanks testosterone.
So thanks to many many years of experience, the clinic had the program all worked out. They want to mimic natural puberty in a way, mostly because it stops you getting conical shaped boobs and permanently looking like 80’s Madonna. I started on 2mg daily of Estradiol Valerate to ease me into things, after 4 months I was upped to 4mg. Another 3 or so months after that I was put on 6mg, because my levels were just refusing to go up.
Those first 9 or so months on just the Estrogen pills were pretty great, my skin cleared up and softened, my facial hair thinned and lightened (though that was assisted with high-powered lasers…) and my hair become quite luscious and voluminous. Oh and the boobs too, growing boobs is painful work but damn is it worth it. You have no idea how much I giggled the first time I put on a top and looked down to see actual legit cleavage.
I’ve also found myself feeling much more emotional, I was crying at films (Zootopia got me like, 4 times the first time I watched it, that damn adorable bunny), crying over lost friends, crying over work, crying over a puppy that just really wanted to be cuddled… I was crying a lot. I kind of expected the crying, but what really caught me by surprise was the laughing. I’m a big lover of comedy, always have been, but I don’t think I have laughed as hard as I have at anything in the past 6 months than the rest of my life. Overall there just seems to be this whole extra spectrum of emotion that I never really experience before starting Estrogen.
So the E is one side of the coin, but on the other side is the testosterone blockers. I had my first injection in August/September 2015 and alongside that I also took pills for 2 weeks. The injections the NHS prescribe actually cause a short term spike in testosterone the first time you get them and so you also get prescribed an additional blocker that works quickly to counteract that.
The first thing to say about those injections is “WOW OH THATS A HUGE NEEDLE OH GOD THAT’S GOING IN MY BUTT!?”. Seriously it’s like a 2 inch needle, not what I call a fun time. Once it’s over and done with however you can get on with your life with falling testosterone levels. Which means tiredness, and crankiness, and being constantly distracted for 3 weeks. That first month or so was kind of gross, just fatigue and lack of motivation all around. After that though, things picked up again and most things have been pretty great.
My biggest issues with the T-blockers have been sex related, the first 6 weeks utterly trashed my sex drive and I just couldn’t get into a good headspace for sex, which left me very frustrated. Luckily that seems to have fixed itself in the past few weeks, which is great, yay sex! I won’t go too much into the sticky details (feel free to message me privately if you want), but sex is just really different now, everything has changed.
So thats me then, I’m a year on hormones now, I’m love life and finally starting to love my body.
AshleyNova 