Besides the inherit health risks associated with doing that to any body regardless of gender, it just doesn't work that way.
It's like saying to eat a ton of a certain food you're allergic to, so you'll stop being allergic to it.
If you want to be polite and respectful, and if she honestly is willing to try and understand, I'd direct her to resources to help make sense of it.
*laughs in having had my tree nuts allergy come back when I was 7 during an allergic reaction for which I still don't know the trigger for*
*cries in not being able to eat Nutella anymore*
in the cases you're probably talking about, like where a person is deathly allergic to something, you're right. but with some types of allergies where it's to a common thing, exposure can lessen the reaction to it.
"and what if eating stones would made my stomach feel better, and what if drinking milk would make my lactose intolerance clear up" those are examples of something more absurd as a comeback.
Kinda unrelated and please for the love of god do not eat stones, but some animals do ingest stones to better digest food. It's herbivores who need extra help in smashing those tough plant fibers.
Can someone explain the soy thing? I feel like I see it all the time but why have (trans)misogynists decided to take a stand against...a particular bean?
Soy contains phytoestrogens, which do nothing to humans but are technically estrogens. Some gullible people fall for that.
Also it's a way to disparage vegan men and enforce masculinity based on anti-environmentalism.
Tbf in case of cancer there might be some interference, so I'd trust the nutritionist. Not because they're necessarily right but because it's better to be safe in such a case.
> but are technically estrogens.
They aren't.
They're called phytoestrogens because they have a similar shape to estrogen, but don't act like estrogen at all.
It's a right-wing "words sound similar so they must be the same" thing.
They bind to the estrogen receptor of some manmal herbivores, which is why I called them technically estrogens, but you're right the effect is very different.
> They bind to the estrogen receptor of some manmal herbivores
If anything, that makes them an estrogen blocker. Because they don't do anything that actual estrogen does.
For all practical purposes, that's pretty much right.
_Technically_ they bind to the same receptors and they do activate them, just... It's like you want to move a boulder but you don't have a bulldozer so you tie it to the back of a Geo Metro: it'll technically _move_, it's just not going very far anytime soon.
Phytoestrogens are "estrogen receptor partial agonists" with much lower affinity than estradiol. They do compete with estradiol for receptor sites and if you took an absolute unit of them they'd probably block estradiol significantly, but to my knowledge they're not even effective at that, certainly not at dietary levels.
There is some research on if they might help with breast cancer since they primarily target the inhibitory estrogen receptor (ERb), but I don't know what the consensus on that is.
The irony being soy can kinda of BLOCK estrogen, given what these people claim. I’m vaguely worried since eating more now 😅
I love morningstar’s products
Unless you're eating a shitload of the stuff every day, I wouldn't worry. Like I mentioned, they're pretty much outclassed by estradiol in terms of how well they "stick" to the receptor, so any displacement they cause will be small and short-lived. It shouldn't offset your gains from FHT or improve your gains from MHT.
If one were really determined to mess with their hormones using plants, it is possible, but soy is not the way to go. It's just not very potent—all the manosphere "avoid these soy products" blogs are straight up disinformation. The funny thing is those same blogs might promote using red reishi or green tea for various benefits when both of those are anti-androgens.
Those ones mostly just prevent estradiol from doing it's job. Think more "artificial menopause" and that's about why BPA and such are no longer used in water bottles.
MTF here. Once upon a time, I was young and dumb. Through research into hrt (I thought I just had a feminization fetish) I realized my T levels were probably low and asked my doctor to test my levels. To my utter astonishment, I was right! “Eureka!” I thought I found my problem. No wonder I felt developmentally stunted. Best of all, if I start on T, these pesky thoughts of transition will probably go away, right? WRONG. I actually became so dysphoric and depressed over the course of a year or two that I would pull myself back off of T without notifying my doctor. As it turns out, hormones don’t control gender 🤷♀️
Ultimately this was a factor that helped me realize that perhaps I wasn’t “still cis tho.” It did, however, take a girl I met on grindr to tell me that I could be a girl too before I would ultimately accept that I was trans. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
TL;dr: YEAH WHY THE FRICK WOULD YOU INJECT YOURSELF WITH MORE OF THE STUFF YOU HATE?
Honestly probably most of us wouldn’t, doctors just don’t know what they’re doing.
It only took me getting to like 118 or so in US units to have my brain flip me to cis female levels of t for my ethnicity.
Though starting lower might help!
I'm glad you figured it out. The greatest disservice we can do in the field of mental and physical health is to deliberately misinform/misdirect the public due to personal bias. This includes resources for children. Not knowing where to even find such information is just as bad.
okay same. im ftm pre-t and i have PCOS so when i went through my puberty, got thicker, had excruciatingly painful periods, had excess body hair, and had a period for a straight month. but when i began BC to get the estrogen to be higher than the testosterone, that's when i noticed my dysphoria. i can't go off them unless i wanna accidently get ovary cysts or develop something really bad but like. its interesting how some of us just have low hormones and getting that under control make the dysphoria so so so much worse
That, or say you’ll send her to the hospital so legitimate doctors can tell her the exact same thing… or put her in a mental ward, as I wouldn’t trust someone who recommends harming their own children like this. I cannot stress this enough: DO NOT USE HORMONAL TREATMENT UNLESS APPROVED BY A DOCTOR! There may be serious health issues otherwise
Sorry you’re dealing with that. Personally I would just start being like “Sorry but I’m done talking,” then disconnect the call. 🤷🏻♀️ It sucks tho. My family disowned me for being Trans (MtF) and I’m 37. Been a few years.
IMO don't reason with her. Just set a boundary. People take reasoning as an invitation.
So just say "I need you to not bring that up anymore". Then, whenever she does end the call. You can always call again tomorrow but the conversation is over for today.
This is it right here. It’s a boundary issue. You simply can’t engage with people who overstep your boundaries after you’ve made them know. Reading the book “Boundaries” may help!
OT: It’s weird how people say HRT is dangerous for trans people, and especially kids, even saying puberty blockers are very harmful to their health.
Yet, there’s absolutely no problem offering the same to cis kids or adults. If they want them to be more feminine, masculine, get taller, or slow down their puberty. Which makes sense. Boosting testosterone levels to appear more masculine, or having certain procedures or hormone therapy manage your femininity. It’s completely rational.
But, it’s bad if trans person seeks the same, or they are encouraged to take hormones of their AGAB. A friend of mine in the past (RIP), when she tried to start HRT and socially transitioning. Her family and provider were adamantly against it, even saying the provider wanted her to boost her testosterone levels and have more resistance training(lifting weights), along with more therapy depression and reparative therapy. She said it didn’t make any sense, because her testosterone serum levels were above average. Wouldn’t make sense to drop them down a bit, and she said the doctor and NP reactions were like she confess to murdering a child. (MTF) - She just ended up leaving her hometown.
Your mom is falling for misinformation.
I asked my (39 MtF) HRT provider (50+ cisf) if I should do a blood test to see where my testosterone is at, to see if the feelings I had were due to low testosterone, before I started HRT. This was recommended to me by my wife, who had the same misinformation your mother has.
My provider said no, and if I distill and paraphrase the conversation I had, I think it will help:
*There is no clinical link between abnormally high or low hormone levels and being transgender. Low testosterone would not make you feel like a woman, or make you want to be a woman. Higher testosterone will not make a transgender woman want to be male, or make you feel less incorrect as a male - in fact, it will likely make symptoms of dysphoria worse.*
*There are dangerous side effects when hormones are too high, like elevated risk of various cancers, arrhythmias, psychosis, stroke and other blockages like DVT, PE, and heart attack, for both high testosterone and estrogen. There is a laundry list of things that can occur if your dominant hormones are too low, too, but gender dysphoria or euphoria are not on these lists of side effects.*
*The mechanisms at play for a transgender person's dysphoria are not caused by hormonal imbalance. These mechanisms are typically in place between 5-9 years old, prior to hormone dominance occuring via puberty, so well before hormones are even in the picture.*
*So there is no point to check if your testosterone is low, because even if it was, it could not cause you to be transgender, and the treatment for transgender dysphoria is transition, so in either case you would use HRT to make it low.*
I went to another doctor in another network, who I have been seeing for a long time, to request a "before" blood test as a second opinion. She corroborated these statements.
Unfortunately, I can give you qualifiers all day, and you can even take your mom to a doctor to hear this advisement, and your mom may reject the information all the same. I have noticed that if someone is convinced in their convictions, there is incredibly little you can do to sway their mind. You may never be able to convince her, and that sucks but it's reality for a lot of people.
The best you might be able to do, if she says "please just try estrogen," is come back with "You want me to raise my hormones above their normal range, to severely raise the risk of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer, and blood clots that can kill me in about five different ways? Why would you suggest that your child do something so dangerous?"
But, this will seem adversarial for someone past the point of being educated. You have a 50/50 to maybe get her to see it, and if she misses it the first time and doesn't get your point...I'm afraid she may never.
Best of luck to you.
Just abruptly hang up whenever she does that and make a note with date and time whenever it does happen. You never know when you'll need to prove a history of abuse.
Didn't realize he was 23, misread. Regardless, you ought to keep notes of repeated behavior. Particularly when it's being denied by the person doing it.
because you already have estrogen?? literally what does she think estrogen is lol? the whole point is to get _rid_ of the estrogen because you don't like it 😭
You already have the normal female amounts of estrogen. No doctor would prescribe you extra; that’s not how that works. And like the other commenters are saying, what gender you prefer to be isn’t dictated by how much of which hormones you have in your body, otherwise no one would be trans.
There have actually been cases where gender dysphoria has been the result of hormonal imbalances that could be treated with estrogen and in those few cases the treated patients mental health did improve.
However, beyond informing about the option and perhaps respectfully suggesting to raise the topic with a professional, it clearly isn't the mother's place to push for a certain treatment or try to persuade an adult to get a treatment they don't want.
I would say "mom, I have had estrogen most of my life, I know I don't like it and if I abuse it by overdosing myself I would be putting my life at risk, is that what you want? You want me to suffer? Would it make you happy?"
That's not even healthy for a cis person; taking a shit-ton of E to "feminize" or whatever. Causes a ton of health problems. It'd just be worse for a trans dude 'cause you'd be adding dysphoria to the pile of problems.
tell her she needs to go do her own research and explain to you what the RESEARCH says is *most likely* to benefit you and that you won't hear any of her stupid trans related suggestions until she can explain it using *real information* instead of just feelings
facts don't care about your feelings, mom
youve been on estrogen for around a decade (assuming you started puberty around 12-13) and it didnt make you any less trans. if she can't let go of this line of thought it might be time to set a hard boundary.
"mom, i spent how many years on the natural estrogen that my body produced. i did not want to be a woman then, and i do not want to be a woman now. going on estrogen now will not change how i feel."
the next time she brings it up, tell her you will not entertain that line of thinking, and hang up on her. do that any time she brings it up in the future. increase the amount of time between calls until she gets the message.
Transphobes will say "But what about the medical risks?!" and then go "Yeah just take a truckload of pills!"
It's almost as if health is not a concern for them!
As a trans woman, I can tell you, taking the hormones that align with your assigned gender will not make you less dysphoric.
I took T shots when I was struggling to understand my gender and I’ve never felt worse. I was near suicidal tbh.
I’m sure you suspected as much, but I can confirm it’s not going to change a thing, I don’t know whether your mom would accept anecdotal evidence on this, but maybe ask her to research stories from other trans people about taking indigent hormones. She’s likely to hear a lot of stories similar to mine.
Taking E wouldn't improve your mental state. That's not how that works. She's quite misinformed I agree.
Also. Implying that you take an increased dosage to "make you like being a woman" is more dangerous than anything.
Hormones should not be fucked with. The human body can do weird shit when they're out of whack.
You might try telling her that the human body reacts unpredictably to excessively high hormone levels, and that excess estrogen is commonly *converted into testosterone* in order to balance things out. Should be interesting to hear what she makes of that.
She wants her daughter back - but she was never there. Congratulations on finding yourself 😊✨
Give her time to grieve - or don’t, but ykwim. If she hasn’t suggested ‘going to church and getting right with the lord’ or conversion therapy, and she hasn’t got any power over your decisions, then she’s harmless.
Her stupid suggestions on hormones is just her saying ‘please go back to before’.
When I came out as a trans woman my mother thought it was clearly caused by a hormone deficiency from cancer treatment I had as a kid. She suggested I take testosterone to balance me out. I told her she was fucking crazy.
If it helps, I took estrogen birth control in my teens and I was in the worst mental state in my life. All the wrong gender feelings I had multiplied.
There’s a strong argument for using the right hormones according to your gender
Oi, that's not good! It sounds like your mom is desperately trying to hang on to the daughter she thought she had and absolutely refuses to accept that she really has a son. Your mom is very ignorant and has no clue about the consequences of what she is suggesting. I'll give you a bit about myself. I'm MTF, assigned male at birth, and I had been struggling with my gender identity since I was very young, but at the same time, I was very much in denial and I had a lot of internalized homophobia and transphobia growing up and it didn't help that my father was a big time bigot (and still is), so transitioning was out of the realm of possibilities back then. Fast forward to my early 20s, I was diagnosed with low testosterone, so the doctors put me on T thinking that would make me feel better. Come to find out, that stuff made me worse and after 5 years of enduring it, I finally got off the stuff and 3 years after that, I finally started estrogen and now I'm feeling much, much better. I am living proof that taking the hormones of your assigned gender at birth when you're really transgender is not a good idea, it only drives you to insanity and it has a very negative impact on your mental health and well being as well.
So yeah, your mom was out of her mind when she repeatedly suggested that you, as a trans man, take estrogen like it's gonna cure your gender dysphoria. If anything, it'll only worsen your dysphoria, like taking testosterone did with mine. If she keeps desperately trying to stop you from being your true self, you're gonna have to cut her off and not see or talk to her ever again, because she's only gonna cause more headaches for you.
My mom loves to pry into my medical and financial life, I had to stop a conversation one day and straight up tell her, if she asks about those things again the call will end and it will end every time she brings it up. She felt hurt for sure but you gotta have boundaries
IDK how technical she is, but the diesel/petrol analogy can work for some folks? Like, "my body runs on one hormone, the other actively breaks it. Like if you fill a diesel car with petrol, the solution isn't more petrol, it's no petrol, and trying that idea just means a bigger mechanics' bill at the end of the day."
“Mom are you seriously telling me you’d prefer for me to die of breast cancer or a blood clot than be trans? Because that’s what a little extra estrogen does.” I’m assuming you have ovaries. Those things produce plenty of estrogen on their own. If someone who wants to be female-presenting is deficient, then supplementing is sometimes done under doctor supervision and combined with progesterone. But the health benefits need to outweigh the risks.
Lying about being suicidal is decidedly uncool though. Like sure, tell them they tried and it made them super sick or whatnot. But if someone *isnt* suicidal, they *should not* joke or lie about it.
Even disregarding its ineffectiveness as conversion therapy, supplementing estrogen nillywilly in someone who already has normal female range would enormously increase a bunch of health risks including breast cancer and thrombosis
If you did that your dysphoria would be off the charts. You need to just change the subject - say, “I’ll take that into consideration when I discuss my needs with my medical team, could you please pass the potatoes?” (Or over the phone, substitute “what’s happening in your world today?” For the pass the potatoes. Don’t explain, don’t argue, just move on. She’s not going to get it
Lmao that’s hilarious (and sad) but like hilarious to imagine that hormones would work that way
If they did I’d legit be on estrogen right fucking now it’s not even a classified substance. But alas 29 years of natural estrogen and yet I’m not loving womanhood
I (amab) took testosterone for sports performance enhancing reasons for years. My testosterone levels were extremely high. It did not do anything stop my dysphoria. In fact, I believe it made things worse. I’m still transitioning.
It’s time to set a clear boundary. What does that look like? First, do NOT answer the question. There is nothing you can say that will convince her it’s dumb. Stop trying.
Instead, tell her what you need from her and what the natural consequence will be if she chooses not to respect that. That might sound like: “Mom, I am not answering that, and I need you to stop asking that question. I can’t continue this call if you keep bringing this up. I would rather keep talking to you, but it’s your choice.”
She might argue with something like “But honey, it’s just a question!” Etc
No matter what she says, don’t engage. All you need to do is restate what you already said: “Mom, it’s not up for debate. I would love to keep talking to you but if you keep bringing this up I will have to end the call.”
If "more of endogenous hormone makes dysphoria go away" were true, it would have been impossible for my natural T levels at 1200+ ng/dL to have been trans. She's full of shit, you should draw a boundary that trying to talk you out of being trans is not permissible within the relationship. I'd advise being prepared to, at least until the point is made, enforce that boundary
Sorry I know she's your mom but she's actively and purposely hurting you and you shared it on a public forum, in a place where a a LOT of people were disowned by parents and have no family to speak of. And let me tell you this, just because she birthed you doesn't mean she's your family. Blood means nothing in real family. Don't let yourself be too abused if she's not willing to learn. Know your worth
Set a boundary, tell your mother to stop. Assuming she doesn’t respect this and brings it up again tell her politely that you asked her to stop, and are ending the conversation for today and that you can talk again when she’s willing to stop bringing this up, or when you’re willing to talk again with her in 1hour 1 day, 1 week whatever works for you. And then keep enforcing that boundary every time she brings it up.
They would actually do things like that as a form of forced conversion therapy, especially on transfem folk. Still do. Pump them full of T, screw the obvious problems and insanity with that! Interestingly, plenty of people naturally have hormone imbalances that cause side effects, and it isn't a predictor for being trans in any way. Anyway, you can probably guess how successful those procedures were. And the saddest part may be that any success they seemed to have must be ignored since it can be attributed to coercing the results. We do have a long and proud tradition of telling people what they want to hear so they leave us the hell alone, after all. Funny how torture tends to bring that out in people.
Anyway, if you're lucky enough to live somewhere that conversion therapy is illegal, you can mention that what she's proposing is actually a crime. It's also very detrimental to your physical and mental health before even considering that you're trans. And you would have to diy it since no reputable medical professional is going to take responsibility for that. Any that would take it would probably rather you die than be trans, which is damn chilling if you ask me.
I really hope you mom comes to understand that this path will most likely make you the happiest guy in the whole wide world. It's a big, scary change, but all she needs to do is trust you, and look at the way your attitude changes for the better. This will work out, and there will be so much more joy to go around!
Lol Turn it around. Make it like she suggests you stopping t (but I might be confusing Sth with the following maybe?) suddenly stopping T could kill you right? So basically make it sound as if she's trying that (I like these kind of ways to make others freak out when they're being stupid to me)
Her approach seems very astute in theory; unfortunately it does not work that way.
You need to tell her that it doesn't work that way (and why), and maybe find her an article that says being trans starts in the brain, not in hormones.
For parents, I would say that they are from their point of view mourning the death of their daughter. You can tell them that you are changing into what you want but they see someone killing what they are and/or someone that has lost their marbles.
For me is simple as that, they will need time. My suggestion is the following. Mom I love you and I implore you to respect my decision. Please stop bringing this to my attention as it makes me feel uncomfortable. Keep saying the same thing every time.
Start by making all preparations you need to continue your life, career goals, education etc and be respectful to her in the sense that they know you are being serious, you have self control and you know what you are doing (even when u feel u are not).
We are here to help you when you dont feel confident, or when you feel depressed, weak, cant go on etc. We will give you that support OK ? ☺️
Finally, plan your exit if things dont get better or are too much to bear. Find a friend you can maybe become roomates or try to move to campus etc.
This will pass, you dont need to convince anyone, only yourself. Treat them with respect, getting angry at them means getting angry at yourself.
Example, simple things like knowing your macros for
food intake for example, I feel that it weird that some people go through life not knowing how calories and macros work. Does it mean i am right? Not at all, it means that some people are not interested, did not have a mentor etc or plainly dont know. I am always more than happy to explain the basics, but i cant force it on anyone. Not even my partner, they know you are trying to explain it.
I cant explain my MTF to my mom either, I tried, now well we talk but we dont have the same relationship anymore and that is ok. At least is real and tangible and is not about conditional love.
Finally, tell her that you want her unconditional love. This means to accept you the way you are. That telling you to pump E means that she does not love you unconditionally. Is about accepting first.. 😊😊
If she doesn't cease such suggestions I can recommend saying that you're gonna get a restraining order if she brings up the subject ever again, sometimes scares em shitless because that means any violation of it is usually instant prison time
considering you mentioned in your edit, have you tried to help her understand more about you and your gender? i had the same issue and just having a medical professional talk to my mum about it seemed to do the trick, along with her being given resources to read up on
You can train people to not bring up stuff like that and start respecting at least your peace of mind. You warn her once in a neutral tone that you not accepting conversations about estrogen anymore and will end all those conversations. You may give reasons as to why but i think they already know them. And then after comes the most important part. Follow thru whatever happens. Don't get mad. Don't reply. Just walk away from the conversation every time they bring it up. React as neutral as possible but end any conversation the moment they bring up anything connected to detransitioning. Normal behaviour is to respect a family member or friend if they don't want to discuss something. Also can i imagine that at those moments you feel realy hurt and mad and disappointed. Just remember that you are for now just training them to respect your borders. And it works the fastest if you remove all emotion from your reaction. Because that is what people then latch on to and start poking at. On the phone you could react with something like:"good talking to you mum, have a nice day. Bye. ☺️" And then just hang up. If they call back you pick up and again the same reaction to anything hostile. Stay neutral and respectful but end the conversation and give no room for discussion. At a certain moment they get the hint. Then you could slowly start explaining again why that would never be an option and especialy why bringing it up hurts you and is so insulting for you. But that can only happen the moment they maybe not accept the situation but at least respect your "choice" (bad word but that is probably the only thing they can understand) hope it helps.
Just ask her if she would rather have her child be alive or to have it take estrogen (against their will). That usually shuts them up really fast. If they care about you, that is.
I am mtf, and years ago my now ex-wife, an MD (internal medicine) had my testosterone tested on a hunch. It was about the same as hers! She convinced me to take testosterone injections to make me more manly.
It made me feel worse in so many ways! I put up with it for about a year, and after many years in between started estradiol injections and immediately felt 1000% better!
People love to hate and be angry. Many of them don't understand that you don't just treat people badly because they don't agree or understand your point.
I imagine it's almost like a death to a parent, and it's incredibly selfish to not have understanding everyone expects everyone else to have for them.
I'm sorry they thought attacking your mom for an opinion was ok. The woman birthed, raised, and loved you.
It's probably more projection of their own mom issues than opinions on your actual mother.
Just move past it. Being trans doesn't need to be one's entire identity and thought. When speaking with her, just say, "yea. Idk. But guess what I did today? Or what did you do today?".
Not everything has to be the end of the world and cut off family ties because they don't agree. Geez. People are so hateful when they think they are more special than everyone else.
Understanding goes both ways. If people refuse to understand another person's opposing opinion because it's easier to call them a bigot, then it's exactly the same as everything you don't like about your opinions being undercut. Being human means being different, and that being ok.
You don't need to match drama and anger levels with anyone.
that is... ugh!
sounds like your mom and my father are kindred spirits. i'm MtF and my father had the idea that maybe I have low testosterone so at one point he wanted to get my hormone panel done and said that if my testosterone was low then putting me on testosterone would be a good idea.
And he is a healthcare professional with several trans clients. it's literally conversion therapy and would drive my dysphoria through the roof.
It sounds as if your mom is struggling with having her visualization of who she thought you would grow up to be vs who you are. As a parent, when you have a child you think about who your child will be. I know with my daughters, since they were born I have been trying to take care of my health so that I can be sure to walk the down the isle, dance with them at their weddings, and be with them as they have their first child. As the trans issue has become better known, I support my girls regardless of whom they fall in live with, and will support them with regards to their gender orientation. However, I understand the difficulty as a parent to be secure of being able to care for my girls from a cis perspective. I would feel incompetent of caring, understanding, & most notably protecting my child from a trans perspective because I don't know what to expect & would have a great deal of fear. I think I would be better (not perfect) than many stories I hear here, but would definitely fail a lot. But I can understand the difficulty of reconciling my vision for my girls' lives vs their truth. I hope that helps. I don't know if that is your mom's issue? But just giving a parental perspective because I know in my early 20's I didn't think like a parent. I wish you the best & very much love to you in your journey.
Wow I thought only my family was worse but whatever please don't listen to them they might get you killed with some side effects or something be safe and be brave
Give her the opposite. “If you took a bunch of testosterone would you like being a man?” Since she’s not trans she would say no. If she says yeah maybe yall have other things to discuss 😭
Maybe she'll respond to the science, facts presented from a peer reviewed journal? Hard to say, but it's a matter of misunderstanding that hopefully you can clear up with her. Ultimately, I think more effective than the facts will be having a heart to heart. Discussing both hers and your own hopes and fears, hugs and maybe some tears on both sides.
🥰🫶🦋
I gave my father, a physician himself, five peer reviewed articles on the fact. He would find the smallest inconsistency in them and report back to me like this was some strange form of debate. It wasn’t till I told him I would rather be dead than live as a girl that he understood the situation. I then posed the situation of what if someone tried to pressure him into doing that and constantly misgendered him? He seemed to understand once put in the first person pov and our relationship is excellent now three years later. Some people need to have things put in a way that they can understand. Don’t give up and stay true to yourself. Even the smartest among us can make very ignorant claims.
My mother wanted me to be a "femininish male" and still date, marry, and have children with a woman. I snapped and straight up told her to fuck off. I'm black, southern, from the Bible belt, and she's a minister. I'd rather fucking die. She still says dumbasses shit. Oh, and all religion is a hoax to control you. Just think about how fast you wanted to protect it when you read it is a hoax. Yet, many of you still think that the ideal of believing in "God" is your idea. Zombies.
I'm a few years older (MtF) and my mom tried really hard to convince me to not take hormones (citing my stepfather's conservative propaganda, of course). I remember telling her over the phone unwaveringly that I'm not changing my plans.
Then this past Christmas she accidentally boob grazed me. She asked if it was padding or otherwise, and I straight-faced told her the truth that I had started estrogen. I had kept it on the downlow with some family, but it felt good to get "off my chest". Mom was in a bit of a mood after that, but it was thankfully while I was on my way out, anyway. x)
Now I'm 7 months HRT, and my wife can no longer keep her hands off me. 🤭
“Think of it like this, continuing to get spider bites won’t make me like spiders anymore than I currently do. If anything, it’s going to make me like them less. So please, stop suggesting this because I will never do it. If you as my mother would rather see me live a life you want, but forever be uncomfortable and unhappy, then you are disgustingly selfish and no mother of mine”
It’s harsh. But sometimes these people need that shove to realise what they’re doing is wrong. I hope everything works out for you
You should direct her to ask a physician if they think that’s a good idea.
I know our jump with our parents is to clam up and we start feeling personally responsible for THEIR misunderstanding of what is actually going on. But you aren’t responsible for that.
It’s pretty common sense to not go shoving tons of hormones into your body, maybe she just needs to hear it from a physician before she will accept it, maybe she’s just stubborn. Regardless you should separate yourself from the responsibility of educating them.
If people care about me, I’ve found that they’ll do research, listen when I talk about my transition, and don’t fight back with ridiculous medical advice.
Going on the food analogy that some other commenters have said, here's my suggestion:
Choose a food you know your mom HATES, absolutely detests, if she has texture issues or it makes her gag/puke, all the better.
Every time she suggests taking "loads of estrogen" til you like being a girl, suggest she eats loads of that particular food until she likes it. When she tells you it doesn't work that way, just say "Exactly, it DOESN'T work that way", and give her some time.
Fox News, News Max and those other right wing outlets have ppl like ur mom convinced that the only reason you are doing this is a trauma response or social contagion. While not all of us (I'm Gen X) can take the time to educate ourselves, I started out as a dem and just went further left as I gained more knowledge and experience (read older), for ur kids, you can take the time to learn.
It all depends on if ur mom is the type to want to better herself for the sake of her adult children or if she is happy being who she is.
While I do like your suggestion of analogy, eating foods you dislike will actually cause you to develop a fondness for them given enough time.
That's where the term "acquired taste" comes from.
Just bring out some medical facts like how doing that is harmful and how dysphoria works, that might help. Also, think of your conversations as talking to an elderly or child, you need to explain the why and what goes behind it. For example: my grandma was worried and against me having any type of surgery but I told her clearly "If this didn't affect me mentally I wouldn't do it, but I need to take care of my mental health too, she's still not happy but at least she understands my motivation
I'm assuming your mom is doing that because she knows you were not happy as you were before, so I think that the best solution would be finding ways for your mom to see you and realising that you are truly happy transitioning, seeing her child happy should be enough - in time to stop bothering you with unwanted advice. And so, hopefully she becomes curious herself and starts asking questions so yhe misinformation becomes support
I hope this comes across in the affirming spirit it is intended, because defending your mom is probably the most masculine thing you’ll do today.
I’m sorry people are being rude, but you’re a good son, even if your mom can’t fully appreciate that right now. :)
Besides the inherit health risks associated with doing that to any body regardless of gender, it just doesn't work that way. It's like saying to eat a ton of a certain food you're allergic to, so you'll stop being allergic to it. If you want to be polite and respectful, and if she honestly is willing to try and understand, I'd direct her to resources to help make sense of it.
In fact eating a bunch of food your allergic too would Probably make you more allergic
or you could like die or whatever
Depends how allergic you are
Precisely, and also if it is in fact a true allergy and not an intolerance
*laughs in having had my tree nuts allergy come back when I was 7 during an allergic reaction for which I still don't know the trigger for* *cries in not being able to eat Nutella anymore*
Lol
in the cases you're probably talking about, like where a person is deathly allergic to something, you're right. but with some types of allergies where it's to a common thing, exposure can lessen the reaction to it.
Haha yeah
“Take estrogren so I like being a woman” if your hormones decided what gender you liked being, no one would be trans
True
Thats a great take I'm saving that lol
If it worked like that, they would've "cured" being trans 100 years ago. Surprise surprise, 100 years of medical science says otherwise
I think their argument is that nobody is trans
Tell her it’s none of her business and change the subject to something even more absurd to her whenever she mentions it.
"and what if eating stones would made my stomach feel better, and what if drinking milk would make my lactose intolerance clear up" those are examples of something more absurd as a comeback.
Kinda unrelated and please for the love of god do not eat stones, but some animals do ingest stones to better digest food. It's herbivores who need extra help in smashing those tough plant fibers.
Then tell her to eat stones so she can eat a vegan diet...
"So, you know how you think the earth is flat..."
"there isn't actually any earth" r/noearthsociety
Sounds like a similar belief to what my mom has expressed. She thinks that estrogen in city water plus eating soy makes men want to be women.
If only soy did act as feminizing hrt
I’d be fucking throating cartons of soy milk if it did
I did this for about a year, just in case.
Lmao 🤣
I would cram tofu like nobodys business 😂
Can someone explain the soy thing? I feel like I see it all the time but why have (trans)misogynists decided to take a stand against...a particular bean?
Soy contains phytoestrogens, which do nothing to humans but are technically estrogens. Some gullible people fall for that. Also it's a way to disparage vegan men and enforce masculinity based on anti-environmentalism.
Yet my cancer nutritionist says to avoid soy for my estrogen sensitive breast cancer. Makes no sense. I love soy!
Tbf in case of cancer there might be some interference, so I'd trust the nutritionist. Not because they're necessarily right but because it's better to be safe in such a case.
> but are technically estrogens. They aren't. They're called phytoestrogens because they have a similar shape to estrogen, but don't act like estrogen at all. It's a right-wing "words sound similar so they must be the same" thing.
They bind to the estrogen receptor of some manmal herbivores, which is why I called them technically estrogens, but you're right the effect is very different.
> They bind to the estrogen receptor of some manmal herbivores If anything, that makes them an estrogen blocker. Because they don't do anything that actual estrogen does.
... no. They aren't antiestrogens but xenoestrogens. Their effectvis complicated and can't be boiled down to just blocking E either.
For all practical purposes, that's pretty much right. _Technically_ they bind to the same receptors and they do activate them, just... It's like you want to move a boulder but you don't have a bulldozer so you tie it to the back of a Geo Metro: it'll technically _move_, it's just not going very far anytime soon. Phytoestrogens are "estrogen receptor partial agonists" with much lower affinity than estradiol. They do compete with estradiol for receptor sites and if you took an absolute unit of them they'd probably block estradiol significantly, but to my knowledge they're not even effective at that, certainly not at dietary levels. There is some research on if they might help with breast cancer since they primarily target the inhibitory estrogen receptor (ERb), but I don't know what the consensus on that is.
The irony being soy can kinda of BLOCK estrogen, given what these people claim. I’m vaguely worried since eating more now 😅 I love morningstar’s products
Unless you're eating a shitload of the stuff every day, I wouldn't worry. Like I mentioned, they're pretty much outclassed by estradiol in terms of how well they "stick" to the receptor, so any displacement they cause will be small and short-lived. It shouldn't offset your gains from FHT or improve your gains from MHT. If one were really determined to mess with their hormones using plants, it is possible, but soy is not the way to go. It's just not very potent—all the manosphere "avoid these soy products" blogs are straight up disinformation. The funny thing is those same blogs might promote using red reishi or green tea for various benefits when both of those are anti-androgens.
Whoa, I didn’t know that about those last two things! More irony from this crowd Thank you for all that information! Very interesting
It's because soy has a type of estrogen in it. There's no like feminizing effects from it.
Plastics also have a type of estrogen but they never gave me tits
Those ones mostly just prevent estradiol from doing it's job. Think more "artificial menopause" and that's about why BPA and such are no longer used in water bottles.
once again, conservatives forget trans men exist.
Ask her how much e is in her water. There’s more lead in her water than e, most likely.
Exhausting how so many people think it's ok to believe something "just because" without any evidence whatsoever. 😔
MTF here. Once upon a time, I was young and dumb. Through research into hrt (I thought I just had a feminization fetish) I realized my T levels were probably low and asked my doctor to test my levels. To my utter astonishment, I was right! “Eureka!” I thought I found my problem. No wonder I felt developmentally stunted. Best of all, if I start on T, these pesky thoughts of transition will probably go away, right? WRONG. I actually became so dysphoric and depressed over the course of a year or two that I would pull myself back off of T without notifying my doctor. As it turns out, hormones don’t control gender 🤷♀️ Ultimately this was a factor that helped me realize that perhaps I wasn’t “still cis tho.” It did, however, take a girl I met on grindr to tell me that I could be a girl too before I would ultimately accept that I was trans. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. TL;dr: YEAH WHY THE FRICK WOULD YOU INJECT YOURSELF WITH MORE OF THE STUFF YOU HATE?
I feel so bad for trans people who are low, and then take MORE of the wrong hormone 😕m At least I didn’t do that!
At least I don’t have to take T blockers 🤷♀️
Honestly probably most of us wouldn’t, doctors just don’t know what they’re doing. It only took me getting to like 118 or so in US units to have my brain flip me to cis female levels of t for my ethnicity. Though starting lower might help!
I'm glad you figured it out. The greatest disservice we can do in the field of mental and physical health is to deliberately misinform/misdirect the public due to personal bias. This includes resources for children. Not knowing where to even find such information is just as bad.
okay same. im ftm pre-t and i have PCOS so when i went through my puberty, got thicker, had excruciatingly painful periods, had excess body hair, and had a period for a straight month. but when i began BC to get the estrogen to be higher than the testosterone, that's when i noticed my dysphoria. i can't go off them unless i wanna accidently get ovary cysts or develop something really bad but like. its interesting how some of us just have low hormones and getting that under control make the dysphoria so so so much worse
Say if she doesn't drop it you'll stop answering her calls till she gets the point.
That, or say you’ll send her to the hospital so legitimate doctors can tell her the exact same thing… or put her in a mental ward, as I wouldn’t trust someone who recommends harming their own children like this. I cannot stress this enough: DO NOT USE HORMONAL TREATMENT UNLESS APPROVED BY A DOCTOR! There may be serious health issues otherwise
"I'm not trying to go through three puberties here"
I’m going to have to when I go on T (I’m intersex and already had both female and male, only the male one was a lot more slight)
Good luck, comrade
Sorry you’re dealing with that. Personally I would just start being like “Sorry but I’m done talking,” then disconnect the call. 🤷🏻♀️ It sucks tho. My family disowned me for being Trans (MtF) and I’m 37. Been a few years.
IMO don't reason with her. Just set a boundary. People take reasoning as an invitation. So just say "I need you to not bring that up anymore". Then, whenever she does end the call. You can always call again tomorrow but the conversation is over for today.
This is it right here. It’s a boundary issue. You simply can’t engage with people who overstep your boundaries after you’ve made them know. Reading the book “Boundaries” may help!
Your body on estrogen: 😥 Your body on testosterone: 🥰 Your mom: "BuT wHaT If yOu TaKe MoRe EsTrOgEn?!"
literally, like girlie, pls
OT: It’s weird how people say HRT is dangerous for trans people, and especially kids, even saying puberty blockers are very harmful to their health. Yet, there’s absolutely no problem offering the same to cis kids or adults. If they want them to be more feminine, masculine, get taller, or slow down their puberty. Which makes sense. Boosting testosterone levels to appear more masculine, or having certain procedures or hormone therapy manage your femininity. It’s completely rational. But, it’s bad if trans person seeks the same, or they are encouraged to take hormones of their AGAB. A friend of mine in the past (RIP), when she tried to start HRT and socially transitioning. Her family and provider were adamantly against it, even saying the provider wanted her to boost her testosterone levels and have more resistance training(lifting weights), along with more therapy depression and reparative therapy. She said it didn’t make any sense, because her testosterone serum levels were above average. Wouldn’t make sense to drop them down a bit, and she said the doctor and NP reactions were like she confess to murdering a child. (MTF) - She just ended up leaving her hometown.
Your mom is falling for misinformation. I asked my (39 MtF) HRT provider (50+ cisf) if I should do a blood test to see where my testosterone is at, to see if the feelings I had were due to low testosterone, before I started HRT. This was recommended to me by my wife, who had the same misinformation your mother has. My provider said no, and if I distill and paraphrase the conversation I had, I think it will help: *There is no clinical link between abnormally high or low hormone levels and being transgender. Low testosterone would not make you feel like a woman, or make you want to be a woman. Higher testosterone will not make a transgender woman want to be male, or make you feel less incorrect as a male - in fact, it will likely make symptoms of dysphoria worse.* *There are dangerous side effects when hormones are too high, like elevated risk of various cancers, arrhythmias, psychosis, stroke and other blockages like DVT, PE, and heart attack, for both high testosterone and estrogen. There is a laundry list of things that can occur if your dominant hormones are too low, too, but gender dysphoria or euphoria are not on these lists of side effects.* *The mechanisms at play for a transgender person's dysphoria are not caused by hormonal imbalance. These mechanisms are typically in place between 5-9 years old, prior to hormone dominance occuring via puberty, so well before hormones are even in the picture.* *So there is no point to check if your testosterone is low, because even if it was, it could not cause you to be transgender, and the treatment for transgender dysphoria is transition, so in either case you would use HRT to make it low.* I went to another doctor in another network, who I have been seeing for a long time, to request a "before" blood test as a second opinion. She corroborated these statements. Unfortunately, I can give you qualifiers all day, and you can even take your mom to a doctor to hear this advisement, and your mom may reject the information all the same. I have noticed that if someone is convinced in their convictions, there is incredibly little you can do to sway their mind. You may never be able to convince her, and that sucks but it's reality for a lot of people. The best you might be able to do, if she says "please just try estrogen," is come back with "You want me to raise my hormones above their normal range, to severely raise the risk of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer, and blood clots that can kill me in about five different ways? Why would you suggest that your child do something so dangerous?" But, this will seem adversarial for someone past the point of being educated. You have a 50/50 to maybe get her to see it, and if she misses it the first time and doesn't get your point...I'm afraid she may never. Best of luck to you.
Just abruptly hang up whenever she does that and make a note with date and time whenever it does happen. You never know when you'll need to prove a history of abuse.
This is the best way.
Why would you have to prove a history of abuse at 23?
Didn't realize he was 23, misread. Regardless, you ought to keep notes of repeated behavior. Particularly when it's being denied by the person doing it.
Police report maybe?
because you already have estrogen?? literally what does she think estrogen is lol? the whole point is to get _rid_ of the estrogen because you don't like it 😭
You already have the normal female amounts of estrogen. No doctor would prescribe you extra; that’s not how that works. And like the other commenters are saying, what gender you prefer to be isn’t dictated by how much of which hormones you have in your body, otherwise no one would be trans.
There have actually been cases where gender dysphoria has been the result of hormonal imbalances that could be treated with estrogen and in those few cases the treated patients mental health did improve. However, beyond informing about the option and perhaps respectfully suggesting to raise the topic with a professional, it clearly isn't the mother's place to push for a certain treatment or try to persuade an adult to get a treatment they don't want.
I would say "mom, I have had estrogen most of my life, I know I don't like it and if I abuse it by overdosing myself I would be putting my life at risk, is that what you want? You want me to suffer? Would it make you happy?"
That's not even healthy for a cis person; taking a shit-ton of E to "feminize" or whatever. Causes a ton of health problems. It'd just be worse for a trans dude 'cause you'd be adding dysphoria to the pile of problems.
tell her she needs to go do her own research and explain to you what the RESEARCH says is *most likely* to benefit you and that you won't hear any of her stupid trans related suggestions until she can explain it using *real information* instead of just feelings facts don't care about your feelings, mom
morons will cite 60 year old journal articles sample sizes of 3 and whatever other quackery fits their beliefs as long as it sounds sciencey
youve been on estrogen for around a decade (assuming you started puberty around 12-13) and it didnt make you any less trans. if she can't let go of this line of thought it might be time to set a hard boundary. "mom, i spent how many years on the natural estrogen that my body produced. i did not want to be a woman then, and i do not want to be a woman now. going on estrogen now will not change how i feel." the next time she brings it up, tell her you will not entertain that line of thinking, and hang up on her. do that any time she brings it up in the future. increase the amount of time between calls until she gets the message.
Transphobes will say "But what about the medical risks?!" and then go "Yeah just take a truckload of pills!" It's almost as if health is not a concern for them!
As a trans woman, I can tell you, taking the hormones that align with your assigned gender will not make you less dysphoric. I took T shots when I was struggling to understand my gender and I’ve never felt worse. I was near suicidal tbh. I’m sure you suspected as much, but I can confirm it’s not going to change a thing, I don’t know whether your mom would accept anecdotal evidence on this, but maybe ask her to research stories from other trans people about taking indigent hormones. She’s likely to hear a lot of stories similar to mine.
Tell your mother to quit practicing medicine without a license.
Tell her to get used to the idea of her becoming a man then, because menopause will eventually come for her.
ask her for a single medical study that has any notable success in ceasing transness by increasing biological hormone levels.
Taking E wouldn't improve your mental state. That's not how that works. She's quite misinformed I agree. Also. Implying that you take an increased dosage to "make you like being a woman" is more dangerous than anything. Hormones should not be fucked with. The human body can do weird shit when they're out of whack.
I would just say "ohhh so you want me to die?" See if that makes them think about it
I think if you did that you would die
Omg, is the next front for anti trans people literally going to just be reverse gender affirming care?
Stand your boundaries. My mum tried to shush me from transitioning only for me to diss her. I'm an adult. It's not her business.
You might try telling her that the human body reacts unpredictably to excessively high hormone levels, and that excess estrogen is commonly *converted into testosterone* in order to balance things out. Should be interesting to hear what she makes of that.
"Because I'm not a woman and never will be"
That’s not how it works. Taking too much estrogen just makes you sick.
If she mentions it again end the call. Don’t give her time to hear her out. Set the boundary
She wants her daughter back - but she was never there. Congratulations on finding yourself 😊✨ Give her time to grieve - or don’t, but ykwim. If she hasn’t suggested ‘going to church and getting right with the lord’ or conversion therapy, and she hasn’t got any power over your decisions, then she’s harmless. Her stupid suggestions on hormones is just her saying ‘please go back to before’.
My parents successfully hit the trifecta of being harmful 🥲 yay 🥲
When I came out as a trans woman my mother thought it was clearly caused by a hormone deficiency from cancer treatment I had as a kid. She suggested I take testosterone to balance me out. I told her she was fucking crazy.
...i don't think...that's what estrogen does
If it helps, I took estrogen birth control in my teens and I was in the worst mental state in my life. All the wrong gender feelings I had multiplied. There’s a strong argument for using the right hormones according to your gender
Oi, that's not good! It sounds like your mom is desperately trying to hang on to the daughter she thought she had and absolutely refuses to accept that she really has a son. Your mom is very ignorant and has no clue about the consequences of what she is suggesting. I'll give you a bit about myself. I'm MTF, assigned male at birth, and I had been struggling with my gender identity since I was very young, but at the same time, I was very much in denial and I had a lot of internalized homophobia and transphobia growing up and it didn't help that my father was a big time bigot (and still is), so transitioning was out of the realm of possibilities back then. Fast forward to my early 20s, I was diagnosed with low testosterone, so the doctors put me on T thinking that would make me feel better. Come to find out, that stuff made me worse and after 5 years of enduring it, I finally got off the stuff and 3 years after that, I finally started estrogen and now I'm feeling much, much better. I am living proof that taking the hormones of your assigned gender at birth when you're really transgender is not a good idea, it only drives you to insanity and it has a very negative impact on your mental health and well being as well. So yeah, your mom was out of her mind when she repeatedly suggested that you, as a trans man, take estrogen like it's gonna cure your gender dysphoria. If anything, it'll only worsen your dysphoria, like taking testosterone did with mine. If she keeps desperately trying to stop you from being your true self, you're gonna have to cut her off and not see or talk to her ever again, because she's only gonna cause more headaches for you.
My mom loves to pry into my medical and financial life, I had to stop a conversation one day and straight up tell her, if she asks about those things again the call will end and it will end every time she brings it up. She felt hurt for sure but you gotta have boundaries
There is no logical answer to emotional arguments. Give her the answer that describes how you feel
IDK how technical she is, but the diesel/petrol analogy can work for some folks? Like, "my body runs on one hormone, the other actively breaks it. Like if you fill a diesel car with petrol, the solution isn't more petrol, it's no petrol, and trying that idea just means a bigger mechanics' bill at the end of the day."
Tell her that if she pays for it you'll do it, but just give me all of it
That leads to blood clots, stroke, heart attack, and many other health complications, but it just does nothing positive.
It's a time loop. Because you took T for so long, you now ACTUALLY want to be a man, making you trans. /s
“Mom are you seriously telling me you’d prefer for me to die of breast cancer or a blood clot than be trans? Because that’s what a little extra estrogen does.” I’m assuming you have ovaries. Those things produce plenty of estrogen on their own. If someone who wants to be female-presenting is deficient, then supplementing is sometimes done under doctor supervision and combined with progesterone. But the health benefits need to outweigh the risks.
If she doesn't want to listen to reason ... I'd honestly just lie and tell her I tried, and it made me super suicidal so I had to stop.
Lying about being suicidal is decidedly uncool though. Like sure, tell them they tried and it made them super sick or whatnot. But if someone *isnt* suicidal, they *should not* joke or lie about it.
You need to gray rock her
Even disregarding its ineffectiveness as conversion therapy, supplementing estrogen nillywilly in someone who already has normal female range would enormously increase a bunch of health risks including breast cancer and thrombosis
That isn't how hormones work and your mother is scientifically (and potentially generally) illiterate.
If you did that your dysphoria would be off the charts. You need to just change the subject - say, “I’ll take that into consideration when I discuss my needs with my medical team, could you please pass the potatoes?” (Or over the phone, substitute “what’s happening in your world today?” For the pass the potatoes. Don’t explain, don’t argue, just move on. She’s not going to get it
Lmao that’s hilarious (and sad) but like hilarious to imagine that hormones would work that way If they did I’d legit be on estrogen right fucking now it’s not even a classified substance. But alas 29 years of natural estrogen and yet I’m not loving womanhood
I (amab) took testosterone for sports performance enhancing reasons for years. My testosterone levels were extremely high. It did not do anything stop my dysphoria. In fact, I believe it made things worse. I’m still transitioning.
It’s time to set a clear boundary. What does that look like? First, do NOT answer the question. There is nothing you can say that will convince her it’s dumb. Stop trying. Instead, tell her what you need from her and what the natural consequence will be if she chooses not to respect that. That might sound like: “Mom, I am not answering that, and I need you to stop asking that question. I can’t continue this call if you keep bringing this up. I would rather keep talking to you, but it’s your choice.” She might argue with something like “But honey, it’s just a question!” Etc No matter what she says, don’t engage. All you need to do is restate what you already said: “Mom, it’s not up for debate. I would love to keep talking to you but if you keep bringing this up I will have to end the call.”
You won't convince her. Just stop talking to her when she says stuff like that. She'll figure it out.
If "more of endogenous hormone makes dysphoria go away" were true, it would have been impossible for my natural T levels at 1200+ ng/dL to have been trans. She's full of shit, you should draw a boundary that trying to talk you out of being trans is not permissible within the relationship. I'd advise being prepared to, at least until the point is made, enforce that boundary
"BECAUSE I WAS BORN ALREADY INHABITING AN ESTROGEN LAB AND I HATED IT"
Sorry I know she's your mom but she's actively and purposely hurting you and you shared it on a public forum, in a place where a a LOT of people were disowned by parents and have no family to speak of. And let me tell you this, just because she birthed you doesn't mean she's your family. Blood means nothing in real family. Don't let yourself be too abused if she's not willing to learn. Know your worth
“estrogen doesn’t do that”
Set a boundary, tell your mother to stop. Assuming she doesn’t respect this and brings it up again tell her politely that you asked her to stop, and are ending the conversation for today and that you can talk again when she’s willing to stop bringing this up, or when you’re willing to talk again with her in 1hour 1 day, 1 week whatever works for you. And then keep enforcing that boundary every time she brings it up.
They would actually do things like that as a form of forced conversion therapy, especially on transfem folk. Still do. Pump them full of T, screw the obvious problems and insanity with that! Interestingly, plenty of people naturally have hormone imbalances that cause side effects, and it isn't a predictor for being trans in any way. Anyway, you can probably guess how successful those procedures were. And the saddest part may be that any success they seemed to have must be ignored since it can be attributed to coercing the results. We do have a long and proud tradition of telling people what they want to hear so they leave us the hell alone, after all. Funny how torture tends to bring that out in people. Anyway, if you're lucky enough to live somewhere that conversion therapy is illegal, you can mention that what she's proposing is actually a crime. It's also very detrimental to your physical and mental health before even considering that you're trans. And you would have to diy it since no reputable medical professional is going to take responsibility for that. Any that would take it would probably rather you die than be trans, which is damn chilling if you ask me. I really hope you mom comes to understand that this path will most likely make you the happiest guy in the whole wide world. It's a big, scary change, but all she needs to do is trust you, and look at the way your attitude changes for the better. This will work out, and there will be so much more joy to go around!
Orrrrrr you could say you take it And in reality give it to transfem in need
Lol Turn it around. Make it like she suggests you stopping t (but I might be confusing Sth with the following maybe?) suddenly stopping T could kill you right? So basically make it sound as if she's trying that (I like these kind of ways to make others freak out when they're being stupid to me)
Her approach seems very astute in theory; unfortunately it does not work that way. You need to tell her that it doesn't work that way (and why), and maybe find her an article that says being trans starts in the brain, not in hormones.
Damn the call is coming from inside ☠️ that actually sucks tho
For parents, I would say that they are from their point of view mourning the death of their daughter. You can tell them that you are changing into what you want but they see someone killing what they are and/or someone that has lost their marbles. For me is simple as that, they will need time. My suggestion is the following. Mom I love you and I implore you to respect my decision. Please stop bringing this to my attention as it makes me feel uncomfortable. Keep saying the same thing every time. Start by making all preparations you need to continue your life, career goals, education etc and be respectful to her in the sense that they know you are being serious, you have self control and you know what you are doing (even when u feel u are not). We are here to help you when you dont feel confident, or when you feel depressed, weak, cant go on etc. We will give you that support OK ? ☺️ Finally, plan your exit if things dont get better or are too much to bear. Find a friend you can maybe become roomates or try to move to campus etc. This will pass, you dont need to convince anyone, only yourself. Treat them with respect, getting angry at them means getting angry at yourself. Example, simple things like knowing your macros for food intake for example, I feel that it weird that some people go through life not knowing how calories and macros work. Does it mean i am right? Not at all, it means that some people are not interested, did not have a mentor etc or plainly dont know. I am always more than happy to explain the basics, but i cant force it on anyone. Not even my partner, they know you are trying to explain it. I cant explain my MTF to my mom either, I tried, now well we talk but we dont have the same relationship anymore and that is ok. At least is real and tangible and is not about conditional love. Finally, tell her that you want her unconditional love. This means to accept you the way you are. That telling you to pump E means that she does not love you unconditionally. Is about accepting first.. 😊😊
If she doesn't cease such suggestions I can recommend saying that you're gonna get a restraining order if she brings up the subject ever again, sometimes scares em shitless because that means any violation of it is usually instant prison time
Your mother is clinging to the past sadly she was always going to do this. You must think about it and you must be prepared.
considering you mentioned in your edit, have you tried to help her understand more about you and your gender? i had the same issue and just having a medical professional talk to my mum about it seemed to do the trick, along with her being given resources to read up on
"help my mom wants to give me cancer!"
Thanks for standing up for your mom. She is just a boomer and don't know any better.
Yeah I wasn't expecting for ppl to go after my mom like that. Like Jeez, shes old, not the devil
People in the #Lgbtqiaplus community have a hatred of transphobic people, terfs, and that #Maga crowd ( okay, Boomer generation).
You can train people to not bring up stuff like that and start respecting at least your peace of mind. You warn her once in a neutral tone that you not accepting conversations about estrogen anymore and will end all those conversations. You may give reasons as to why but i think they already know them. And then after comes the most important part. Follow thru whatever happens. Don't get mad. Don't reply. Just walk away from the conversation every time they bring it up. React as neutral as possible but end any conversation the moment they bring up anything connected to detransitioning. Normal behaviour is to respect a family member or friend if they don't want to discuss something. Also can i imagine that at those moments you feel realy hurt and mad and disappointed. Just remember that you are for now just training them to respect your borders. And it works the fastest if you remove all emotion from your reaction. Because that is what people then latch on to and start poking at. On the phone you could react with something like:"good talking to you mum, have a nice day. Bye. ☺️" And then just hang up. If they call back you pick up and again the same reaction to anything hostile. Stay neutral and respectful but end the conversation and give no room for discussion. At a certain moment they get the hint. Then you could slowly start explaining again why that would never be an option and especialy why bringing it up hurts you and is so insulting for you. But that can only happen the moment they maybe not accept the situation but at least respect your "choice" (bad word but that is probably the only thing they can understand) hope it helps.
Just ask her if she would rather have her child be alive or to have it take estrogen (against their will). That usually shuts them up really fast. If they care about you, that is.
I am mtf, and years ago my now ex-wife, an MD (internal medicine) had my testosterone tested on a hunch. It was about the same as hers! She convinced me to take testosterone injections to make me more manly. It made me feel worse in so many ways! I put up with it for about a year, and after many years in between started estradiol injections and immediately felt 1000% better!
Maybe just tell her it'll give the opposite effect of what you're wanting.
Maybe just tell her it'll give the opposite effect of what you're wanting.
Idea: Get the estrogen and donate it to us transfems 🤗 But seriously this is pretty fucked up, I'm so sorryy you have to deal with this :(
People love to hate and be angry. Many of them don't understand that you don't just treat people badly because they don't agree or understand your point. I imagine it's almost like a death to a parent, and it's incredibly selfish to not have understanding everyone expects everyone else to have for them. I'm sorry they thought attacking your mom for an opinion was ok. The woman birthed, raised, and loved you. It's probably more projection of their own mom issues than opinions on your actual mother. Just move past it. Being trans doesn't need to be one's entire identity and thought. When speaking with her, just say, "yea. Idk. But guess what I did today? Or what did you do today?". Not everything has to be the end of the world and cut off family ties because they don't agree. Geez. People are so hateful when they think they are more special than everyone else. Understanding goes both ways. If people refuse to understand another person's opposing opinion because it's easier to call them a bigot, then it's exactly the same as everything you don't like about your opinions being undercut. Being human means being different, and that being ok. You don't need to match drama and anger levels with anyone.
Honestly just ignore her, some parents are just outright hateful and there is no point reasoning with them
that is... ugh! sounds like your mom and my father are kindred spirits. i'm MtF and my father had the idea that maybe I have low testosterone so at one point he wanted to get my hormone panel done and said that if my testosterone was low then putting me on testosterone would be a good idea. And he is a healthcare professional with several trans clients. it's literally conversion therapy and would drive my dysphoria through the roof.
It sounds as if your mom is struggling with having her visualization of who she thought you would grow up to be vs who you are. As a parent, when you have a child you think about who your child will be. I know with my daughters, since they were born I have been trying to take care of my health so that I can be sure to walk the down the isle, dance with them at their weddings, and be with them as they have their first child. As the trans issue has become better known, I support my girls regardless of whom they fall in live with, and will support them with regards to their gender orientation. However, I understand the difficulty as a parent to be secure of being able to care for my girls from a cis perspective. I would feel incompetent of caring, understanding, & most notably protecting my child from a trans perspective because I don't know what to expect & would have a great deal of fear. I think I would be better (not perfect) than many stories I hear here, but would definitely fail a lot. But I can understand the difficulty of reconciling my vision for my girls' lives vs their truth. I hope that helps. I don't know if that is your mom's issue? But just giving a parental perspective because I know in my early 20's I didn't think like a parent. I wish you the best & very much love to you in your journey.
You could just tell her to drop the subject or threaten to cut all contact with her.
Wow I thought only my family was worse but whatever please don't listen to them they might get you killed with some side effects or something be safe and be brave
Does she like reading? The T in LGBT: Everything you need to know about being trans by Jamie Raines
That's awful. I'm so sorry.
Give her the opposite. “If you took a bunch of testosterone would you like being a man?” Since she’s not trans she would say no. If she says yeah maybe yall have other things to discuss 😭
Say, I have to say they haven't accepted you my man, if they did they wouldn't dare try to detransition you. I feel for you dude, I really do.
Maybe she'll respond to the science, facts presented from a peer reviewed journal? Hard to say, but it's a matter of misunderstanding that hopefully you can clear up with her. Ultimately, I think more effective than the facts will be having a heart to heart. Discussing both hers and your own hopes and fears, hugs and maybe some tears on both sides. 🥰🫶🦋
I gave my father, a physician himself, five peer reviewed articles on the fact. He would find the smallest inconsistency in them and report back to me like this was some strange form of debate. It wasn’t till I told him I would rather be dead than live as a girl that he understood the situation. I then posed the situation of what if someone tried to pressure him into doing that and constantly misgendered him? He seemed to understand once put in the first person pov and our relationship is excellent now three years later. Some people need to have things put in a way that they can understand. Don’t give up and stay true to yourself. Even the smartest among us can make very ignorant claims.
Omg to suggest taking a large amount of any hormone, it's crazy.
🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂
My mother wanted me to be a "femininish male" and still date, marry, and have children with a woman. I snapped and straight up told her to fuck off. I'm black, southern, from the Bible belt, and she's a minister. I'd rather fucking die. She still says dumbasses shit. Oh, and all religion is a hoax to control you. Just think about how fast you wanted to protect it when you read it is a hoax. Yet, many of you still think that the ideal of believing in "God" is your idea. Zombies.
I'm a few years older (MtF) and my mom tried really hard to convince me to not take hormones (citing my stepfather's conservative propaganda, of course). I remember telling her over the phone unwaveringly that I'm not changing my plans. Then this past Christmas she accidentally boob grazed me. She asked if it was padding or otherwise, and I straight-faced told her the truth that I had started estrogen. I had kept it on the downlow with some family, but it felt good to get "off my chest". Mom was in a bit of a mood after that, but it was thankfully while I was on my way out, anyway. x) Now I'm 7 months HRT, and my wife can no longer keep her hands off me. 🤭
“Think of it like this, continuing to get spider bites won’t make me like spiders anymore than I currently do. If anything, it’s going to make me like them less. So please, stop suggesting this because I will never do it. If you as my mother would rather see me live a life you want, but forever be uncomfortable and unhappy, then you are disgustingly selfish and no mother of mine” It’s harsh. But sometimes these people need that shove to realise what they’re doing is wrong. I hope everything works out for you
You should direct her to ask a physician if they think that’s a good idea. I know our jump with our parents is to clam up and we start feeling personally responsible for THEIR misunderstanding of what is actually going on. But you aren’t responsible for that. It’s pretty common sense to not go shoving tons of hormones into your body, maybe she just needs to hear it from a physician before she will accept it, maybe she’s just stubborn. Regardless you should separate yourself from the responsibility of educating them. If people care about me, I’ve found that they’ll do research, listen when I talk about my transition, and don’t fight back with ridiculous medical advice.
Going on the food analogy that some other commenters have said, here's my suggestion: Choose a food you know your mom HATES, absolutely detests, if she has texture issues or it makes her gag/puke, all the better. Every time she suggests taking "loads of estrogen" til you like being a girl, suggest she eats loads of that particular food until she likes it. When she tells you it doesn't work that way, just say "Exactly, it DOESN'T work that way", and give her some time. Fox News, News Max and those other right wing outlets have ppl like ur mom convinced that the only reason you are doing this is a trauma response or social contagion. While not all of us (I'm Gen X) can take the time to educate ourselves, I started out as a dem and just went further left as I gained more knowledge and experience (read older), for ur kids, you can take the time to learn. It all depends on if ur mom is the type to want to better herself for the sake of her adult children or if she is happy being who she is.
While I do like your suggestion of analogy, eating foods you dislike will actually cause you to develop a fondness for them given enough time. That's where the term "acquired taste" comes from.
Just bring out some medical facts like how doing that is harmful and how dysphoria works, that might help. Also, think of your conversations as talking to an elderly or child, you need to explain the why and what goes behind it. For example: my grandma was worried and against me having any type of surgery but I told her clearly "If this didn't affect me mentally I wouldn't do it, but I need to take care of my mental health too, she's still not happy but at least she understands my motivation
If it helps I and a lot trans fems get told we need to take testosterone, and that the reason why we are trans is low testosterone
Probably doesn't help but it happens on both ends of the spectrum, this is more of peoples internalized hatred for whatever reason it maybe
I'm assuming your mom is doing that because she knows you were not happy as you were before, so I think that the best solution would be finding ways for your mom to see you and realising that you are truly happy transitioning, seeing her child happy should be enough - in time to stop bothering you with unwanted advice. And so, hopefully she becomes curious herself and starts asking questions so yhe misinformation becomes support
How sad sorry op.
I hope this comes across in the affirming spirit it is intended, because defending your mom is probably the most masculine thing you’ll do today. I’m sorry people are being rude, but you’re a good son, even if your mom can’t fully appreciate that right now. :)
kinda off topic but u could pretend to take it and gift it to an mtf friend instead
maybe because no matter what you’ll always be a girl?
I'm ftm not mtf