T

T

The hardest drug I ever took was testosterone.  I was hammered on it every day from age 8 to 43.  What did it do to me? I don’t really know. I only know what slipped away when the T was gone.  

The first phase of the impact of ADT was physically brutal.  As the androgen blockers start to work, your body tries to compensate by making more.  This results in a short term extreme hormonal imbalance that expressed itself in my case as migraine headaches, profuse weeping, muscle cramps, extremely dry sinuses, sore nipples, skin fissures on my fingertips, painfully dry elbows and profound sadness.  I recognized that I didn’t possess the mental fortitude to withstand this for any length of time.

It took about a year of ADT to start to consider it a trans experience.  As the Lupron took over, my body started to change, mostly gynecomastia and feminine fat distribution.  I recognized what was happening and could feel myself queering. I started thinking about Laurel Lynette and seeking out queer and trans voices to help find language for this experience.

I could relate specifically with trans women who were talking openly about how changing their hormones was changing their bodies and their minds.  I was only going half way, blocking androgens as a cancer treatment but not taking any estrogens to intentionally become more feminine.  

I don’t think of myself as dysphoric.  I never felt entirely comfortable as a man, but I was one.  Looking back at my notes from that time, it’s clear that these changes, while difficult, made sense and felt like an answer to an unasked question.  

In some way, I am coming into the self that I have always been.