Two years on testosterone

This past Saturday was my two year mark on T-injections, 40ml / week (this was just recently lowered, from 60 – my initial dose was 50).  I still very much look forward to every injection (not the act itself, but the being-on-T part), and I still regularly think about the ways hormones have improved my life; I don’t tend to take it for granted.

My original plan was for this to be a short-term thing.  But I kind of love it.  I think my dose will vary over time, but I don’t anticipate stopping really, probably ever.  (Of course that’s subject to change!)  Not having a menstrual cycle is huge.  Being seen as male 100% of the time is… well, there’s some ambivalence there, but it’s definitely an improvement.   Now instead of getting confused for female, I am regularly getting confused for being very young.  Which can be awkward but mostly is fine.

I’m able to engage socially in ways I really never could have dreamed of.  I look people in the eyes way more.  My anxiety is almost zero, where previously, I was operating regularly with an underlying sense of fear and dread.  Some of these mental health changes can be attributed to finding a medication that actually works well for me, but a lot of it is the disappearance of gender dysphoria.

I’m still legally female, which is on purpose, and I still almost always go into women’s bathrooms and dressing rooms.  I’ve never been stopped or questioned.

I don’t love all of it.  I still daily pluck hairs out of my face because I don’t like them and I don’t want to shave.  I’m pretty concerned about my receding hairline.  And if I were really being honest, I liked the way my face looked before being on injections, more-so than now.  It just so happens that the way it is now reads as “male,” and that works out way better for me.  Oh well…

So here are the face comparisons:

two years

One year

Before injections