Blackbirds
What got me thinking about synthetic cross-hormones was a series of fascinating comments by a former trans-woman, now redefined as a man (yes, they do detransition, but keep very quiet about it because of the aggression they can face from the active transgender community) about his experiences taking synthetic estrogen.
He said that taking estrogen gave the world a kind of "dreamy feeling". He found it very disorientating and strange, to the extent that it convinced him to stop taking the hormones and was the initial step to his detransition. When he stopped, he reported that he went back to his "normal" experience of the world, ie. his previous biological male experience, where the world was sharper, keener and more in focus.
This intrigued me because I wondered whether I, as a biological woman with high levels of estrogen (I have a large fibroid to prove it) experienced this "dreamy world" as a matter of course, and I just didn't know it. And if that was true, what did it mean? For me? For other biological women?
As an aside, if taking synthetic estrogen as a biological male gives you a distinctly different experience of the world, then how can you argue you previously had a "female brain" prior to the hormone medication? A female brain, by default, is the "estrogen-brain", ifswim.
So I started looking into the subject, trying to find other biological male reports of "estrogen-brain", and found some rather disturbing accounts from the opposite side: transmen (FtM) talking about synthetic testosterone.
The most alarming was from a trans-man who had taken synthetic testosterone for twelve months yep, only twelve months. Upon stopping, this individual found he had developed acute health problems (constant urinary tract infections due to a lack of bioflora that relies on estrogen support) that are almost always the preserve of post-menopausal women. The testosterone had suppressed his natural estrogen levels to such an extent, it had sent him into a menopausal state aged 23, hot flushes and all -- and there was nothing to suggest the situation would reverse over his lifetime, unless he took synthetic estrogen for the duration, which he was, obviously, loathe to do.
I also came across the stories about former East German female athletes and clandestine hormone treatments, which were pure testosterone, that damaged their health, causing involuntary changes in sexual characteristics, birth defects, heart attacks, cancers, infertility, kidney problems ... this is all documented and known. Cases were being launched against a German pharmaceutical company about this ten years ago.
I also found a number of under-the-radar references about some of the first trans-women to take synthetic estrogen, suggesting that they are now in extremely poor health.
It was then that I started asking just why synthetic cross-hormone therapy was a tool in the gender dysphora toolkit. Why was it being supported by gender identity specialists? By medical professionals? By trans-activists?
Indeed, why is any debate about the risks of synthetic cross-hormones in gender identity cases so virulently shut down by activists? Why is it being supported by positive puff pieces in the fucking Daily Mail, for God's sake?
There is something really not right here. My spider senses aren't just tingling, they are doing the goddamn mambo.