Question about trans women cycles

[Borris]

I have a genuine question

I have a new ish work colleague who I get on well with and enjoy her company. She's a lesbian. Except that her girlfriend is a trans women. That's fine. I'm happy to refer to her by her chosen name and pronouns.

But what confused me is my friend saying more than once that their cycles had synched up and so they had one week a month when they were both super emotional.

Can this be a thing? Do trans women take different hormones at different times of the month? Genuine question, not being goady

Obviously only asking out of sheer nosiness. The first time she mentioned their cycles I didn't know that the partner was a trans woman and so now feel it's too late to ask!

Lol, count me as another who expected this to be a thread about:

Emily Bridges
www.skysports.com/amp/more-sports/cycling/news/15264/12621919/emily-bridges-transgender-cyclist-insists-she-has-no-advantage-over-female-competitors

or

Rachel McKinnon/Veronica Ivy

www.outsports.com/platform/amp/trans/2022/4/8/23002365/dr-veronica-ivy-cycling-uci-ncaa-trans-inclusion-canada-lia-thomas-activism-media

Incidentally, OP, if your colleague’s conversation is making you feel uncomfortable, you should tell her.

Don't become an unwilling, albeit distant, audience for this man’s role play.

There is no cycle. Only women with a uterus, ovaries and a cervix can experience a menstrual cycle. We have four stages actually. Follicular, ovulation, luteal and menstrual.

Our ovaries produce a great deal of these hormones. Other parts of the body such as the adrenal glands also produce these but think of the ovaries as holding the reigns calling the shots! None of this happens without these two organs.

In the follicular phase we have just finished our last period. Our body is gradually increasing estrogen and FSH to grow an egg follicle. The estrogen gives us energy and slowly raises our sex drive, then we ovulate causing a burst of testosterone! Yes women produce this too.

Actually did you know that ovulation is the only time women produce this hormone? If you are taking hormonal birth control then you never produce this (assuming the birth control is doing its job correctly) and you completely miss out on it. There are actually growing theories that this is why many women on hormonal birth control experience depression, low sex drive and fatigue.

Ovulation is the shortest stage. The egg is typically only available for 24-48 hours tops but the boost in hormones last for quite awhile as this tells the body “GET READY TO MAKE A BABY! GO GO GO!” and your body begins to produce a lot of progesterone telling your uterus to make a nice comfy thick lining of blood if that baby sticks they have a nice soft lining full of nutrients to make its home. After about a week and a half roughly depending on the lady the uterus will take no that no baby is happening and your progesterone will take a nose dive. This nose dive in your hormones is what causes PMS and moodiness.

So unless your friend’s trans lady is getting a very sophisticated and personalized round of hormones I highly doubt they are feeling anything like this. Typically they are just taking a flat dose of estrogen and completely missing out on these other complicated factors. They are certainly not experiencing cramps. That requires a uterus.

Did you know you can actually watch your cycle happen before you witness the symptoms? I do something called natural family planning and I can know 24 hours before a mood swing hits and predict my periods before they happen!

Here I’m happy to over share. 😂😂😂 I take my basal body temperature every morning with a special thermometer. When my estrogen is high my temp is low because estrogen lowers your body temp at night! When progesterone is high your body temp spikes. This usually happens around ovulation. As you can see the counting temps with numbers gain after I ovulate.

I usually experience what my husband calls “mini PMS” when I ovulate. I also have ovulation pain for about 12 hours.

In this chart which is my current cycle I actually had a HUGE mood swing when I ovulated for a few days because I cut back on breastfeeding. You can see why as my temperature spiked a lot. I know that my luteal phase is almost always 10-11 days long so I told my husband to make sure we’ve got tampons and chocolate ready for Jan 28th. lol

Sounds like they deserve each other. Barmy!

Anyone else now want to know about trans womens bikes? I just assumed you were going to ask if in cycle races they have different seats to.

Now I've obviously gotten to used to all this crap because I couldn't work out why posters kept mentioning bicycles! It was obviously going to be about periods!!I

I'm in too deep.

Help me

I thought you were talking about bicycles
Me too!

I was reminded of a recurring sketch in the vintage series Alexei Sayle's Stuff, where they opened an all-woman bicycle repair shop called 'Menstrual Cycles' "Because weeeeee're les-biaaaaaans!"

Men do not have periods or menstrual cycles. They are men.

I would not engage as pp have said in anything further than light, polite civil work chat with colleague. I would be extremely worried about inadvertently saying something that the colleague or her partner would take umbridge too and this affecting my career.

"She just says things like dating women is so much less complicated"

Oh dear. And now she finds herself with a male who identifies as a woman and claims to have a menstrual cycle despite that being impossible...

😂
So did I!

😂😂

Women cannot 'sync' their cycles. That was dismissed as a theory. IIRC it was based on a hilariously shoddy piece based on 12 nuns living together. Anyway... utter bollocks and one that drives me mad when people say it.

See also: people who say Gin makes them cry so they drink vodka. 🤦🏽‍♀️

@MeanCanadianLady
Thanks, that was fascinating! How effective is that method of birth control? (Apologies for the derail, @Borris )

Just to clarify, the "fascinating" stuff was the description of the hormone cycle. My periods were by and large a breeze plus I never even considered hormonal birth control so I never looked into the detail of cycles.

I was just curious about the natural family planning as well.

This is getting absolutely ridiculous now. The worst part is that if you had said anything, you would have been accused of being a TERF or transphobic simply for pointing out basic scientific fact.

I do believe some Endocrinologists have these males on a mix of estrogen and progesterone. Which they do fluctuate throughout the month.

Still not a period!!!!

“I would probably stick to being polite and professional with this colleague and leaving it at that.“

^This.
Before you get pulled into the “pregnancy test” and “pillow up the jumper” role play storylines.

MeanCanadianLady has it absolutely right.

Pop over to the conception boards and see the discussions there about luteinising hormone, basal body temperature etc.

Taking a bit of oestrogen bears no resemblance to what happens when a woman goes through her monthly cycle.

And as PPs have pointed out, the whole 'periods in sync' thing has been totally debunked.

The idea that mtf transitioners have cycles that can sync is (a) bollocks and (b) a little bit offensive, when you consider the complexity of women's bodies.

No.

@BellaAmorosa If I’m being honest there have not been any horribly sophisticated studies on its accuracy both because the women that practice it for the purpose of birth control are a very small and niche group of people but also because of the nature of the method.

For example you can change your mind anytime you want. Different couples are comfortable with different levels of risk taking. For example my method recommends that for the best level of effectiveness to avoid sex altogether during the fertile period. But we do it anyways with condoms. But if the condom were to tear or fall off (which has happened to me before! 😨) then we would be very likely to have an unintended pregnancy.

That and the last “study” mixed different methods together (including the 1950’s rhythm method) and appeared to be politically motivated.

But it’s effectiveness seems to be somewhere between 92-98% effective depending on how well you follow the rules and any health conditions you might have. Certain illnesses that affect your hormones and cycles can make the method not appropriate for the use of avoiding pregnancy.

However we have been practicing for 7 years and I have not experienced an unplanned pregnancy. But I’m also using it because hormonal birth control makes me vomit for some reason. 😅 So it’s not something I would have sought out in normal circumstances.

The thing that most winds me up about the so-called 'period cycles' that trans people claim to have is that bleeding is literally the only symptom that defines a period as a period.

If your GP asks 'what was the date of your last period?' they mean the date on which bleeding started, not the date on which you started having abdominal cramps or backache or mood swings or whatever. If you have all the other pre-menstrual/menstrual symptoms but don't bleed, then you are considered to have missed a period.

It's such nonsense - no bleeding = no period. By definition.

Isn’t this based off the Billings method?

@Helleofabore I use taking charge of your fertility method. A lot of my friends use sensiplan which is very similar but just rounds decimal points differently I believe.

I know very little about the billing’s method myself so can’t chime in on that.

If your curious I recommend reading taking charge of your fertility by Toni Weschler.