The rationalist community has been discussing whether ‘AGP males’ should try hormones or not. Eneaz Brodsky says Transitioning Is Harmful To Most AGP Males. Ozy has a thoughtful, but paywalled, reply. Regardless of the benefits of transitioning you would think the main downside would be the costs incurred if you decide to detransition1. Given that I have actually detransitioned, and didn’t find it very difficult or costly, I feel like I should share my experiences. Trying hormones, even for years, wasn’t very scary for me. Given the subject matter I am not going to try to avoid TMI and in fact will be very candid even if the subject is more than a bit embarrassing.

I spent about three years on estrogen, during most of that period I identified as female and used she/her pronouns. I stopped estrogen for a few reason. Unlike hormones bottom surgery does feel quite risky to me. Even if they are fully committed to living as a woman, transgirls definitely commonly have problems with orgasms and maintaining vagina depth post surgery. Since I didn’t want bottom surgery it was a serious problem that my dick eventually stopped functioning very well. Even masturbation stopped being as fun. I tried using topical testosterone but it didn’t help enough in doses consistent with transfemme HRT goals.

Estrogen also sadly made my Borderline Personality Disorder and anxiety worse. Estrogen had a lot of advantages. I was much more in tune with emotions and more interested in other people. It was very nice to have an easier time connecting. I was able to cry. But I am hoping I can keep some of the gains despite stopping estrogen. For example I have been off estrogen for awhile but am still able to cry.

Of course I could still identify as a girl and use she/her despite being off estrogen. But when I think of my personal gender I think about what I want to express and which gender mythos appeal to me. There is definitely a heroic beauty to being a boy or a man; bravery and strength in service of those who need help. It feels inspiring to cultivate those virtues. So I am trying out being a boy again.

People seem quite worried about long term costs to their body so lets see how I look these days:

Here is a link to some uhhh sluttier pics of me if you want to see my body in more detail. In one of these I am fully naked.

Here is a picture of me right before starting estrogen:

Here is an older pic of normal cisboy me:

I think I look great. Im 32 years old and look really cute. Obviously pre-E I was a lot more muscular but that is fixable if I want to get my muscles back. I strongly prefer how my face looks these days, in fact I’d prefer an even more femme face despite presenting male. I like how femme guys look and its not exactly unusual for women to love femme dudes. Here is an especially beautiful anime boy for flavor.

Now it is true that most men don’t really want to look like cute anime characters. Though I am actually unsure about the percentages given the distribution of avatars chosen by male gamers. But I cannot imagine many men who considered transitioning would mind looking a little fruity. Eneaz certainly doesn’t present himself like a lumberjack.

The elephant in the room is that I have a pair of breasts. They definitely show through a t-shirt. My experience if that, if you are presenting masc and not in a very queer space, people mostly don’t even notice. Brain’s do a lot of work to make things seem coherent. But even if people notice I don’t care. I certainly don’t mind if someone thinks im a transgirl boy-modding or a transman who hasn’t had top surgery. If I want to get rid of my breasts I can always get top surgery. Top surgery scars are kind of cool. And I really cannot think of much less masculine than being afraid of a scar.

An underappreciated long term risk of HRT is permanently losing penis size. My understanding is that the penis atrophies when it is no longer getting enough full erection. You can definitely see this coming and as far as I know it takes at least a year to start happening. But once your dick is no longer working well you do kind of need to make your choices. As I said I tried to get my dick working with topical testosterone but it didn’t work well enough. My Dick function has recovered fully. There was a brief period when it hurt a bit to get hard but that has passed. If you look at the NSFW link you can see my dick was never very big. But I didn’t lose any size permanently, its still a little under 5 inches hard and uhhhh ‘not big’ soft. Of course I am not exactly deathless afraid of having a smaller penis. Lots of people manage just fine with dicks smaller than mine. Gorilla’s have tiny dicks you know.

When eventually the new-drug high wears off it'll be 2+ years later, and now the physical changes combined with the integration into a social group where your membership is implicitly predicated on continuing treatment will make exiting the treatment very costly.

Eneaz in Ozy’s comments

All I can say is this hasn’t been my experience. Many of my friends are transgirls. No on has de-friended me or treated me badly because I am off estrogen. It is well known that many people who de-transition later re-transition. And I am still queer. Regardless majority transgirl spaces are usually accepting of cis people as long as the cis people are actually into the local transgirl dominated culture.

True Rejection

Aella wrote a very interesting series of articles teaching men how to get mind-blowingly good at sex with (a subset of) women. I am not sure it is easy to give a brief summary. But a big part of the series is about having a really strong sense of how you want the sex to go. And then getting the girl to enter your frame. In part five Aella talks about how this extends outside the bedroom. Obviously this kind of attitude can be toxic but I am definitely emotionally pre-disposed towards people holding to their truth even under pressure. I admire people who will fight for their dreams even when its scary. Even if things don’t work out you can hold your head high. Why would you want to live the rest of your life constantly wondering if you should have transitioned earlier?

I don’t want to make things sound too rosy. There was definitely some social conflicts surrounding my transition. A few very old friendships didn’t survive it. I cried my tears. But I survived just fine. I can move forward with clarity. Odin hung for nine days for knowledge. He gave up his eye. When I think of positive masculinity the first thing that comes to mind is courage. Sometimes we have to follow Odin’s example. (Incidentally Masculine Ideal Odin was fond of crossdressing).

Eneaz is explicitly addressing and audience of straight men who ‘deeply wish they were gay women’. I am not going to tell anyone else how to live their life. Certainly not Eneaz who has a different point of view from me. I can’t really relate to his experience of ‘being desired by an attractive woman as the best thing in the world’. But if that is his truth I hope he lives it out with courage and honor. But in general I recommend fighting for your deepest wishes. Even if you primarily care what women think plenty of them will appreciate the bravery.

1. Note: I do not really like the term de-transition. Many people re-transition. It centers ‘returning to being cis’ instead of approaching your uhhh ‘original gender’ with a new perspective. And a subset of very public. de-transitioners have been consistently used as a cudgel by anti-trans groups. But I am using it in this article for clarity given the audience.