Just saw a reddit thread about sharing how long everyone has been on HRT, and no shade to my fellow baby trans, but seeing that the majority were on HRT for significantly less time than me (1.75yrs) explained a LOT about how much the effects of HRT are under exaggerated online
Like tbh a good rule of thumb is whenever you hear “this will not change or have minimal changes on HRT” a good rule of thumb is just to add “within the first two years” to it and you’re probably going to be much closer to the truth
“it’s unlikely you’ll get a chest beyond a B cup. Within the first two years”
“it’ll barely do anything to your head hair. Within the first two years.”
“Your ‘hard’ facial features won’t shift that much. Within the first two years.”
The most pervasive way that HRT under exaggeration manifests is “cutting the timeline short”, eg, accepting “2 years” as the magic “endpoint” of HRT’s main effects, and anything that happens after that to be a “surprise”.
When in reality, the timescale is of course similar to cis female puberty, and also affects how you age.
These myths are then perpetuated online by early transition trans women, who are more likely to be isolated and more desperate for community, who have internalized what has been told to them by uninformed medical professionals and random people, but haven’t been on HRT long enough to have any counterexamples.
Btw. I am less than two years on HRT. Less than one year living as a woman. I am babytrans. I am early transition. I feel like I’ve avoided this pitfall at this point but I definitely was in it for a bit.
i am five years and a month on hrt and a month away from being five years out.
i stopped being on reddit after a year on hrt because i realized that reddit was just a place for trans people to anxiously compare their progress to each other instead of existing in the real world.
and don’t get me wrong, being on reddit was an important part of my transition because for a long time, i didn’t know where else to look to find advice or to hear other trans people’s experiences. my egg cracked on egg_irl and i spent way too much time browsing r/transtimelines. if you dig back far enough, youll even see me anxiously post in r/transpassing.
but once i started being a part of the world, i started to learn from my own experiences. i realized i didn’t need to keep comparing myself to everyone else because i started to appreciate my own journey for what it was. at a certain point, living vicariously through others becomes a pale shadow of the vivid beauty of your own existence.
i still look at reddit every now and then and even post an update every once in awhile but i don’t do it with the purpose of asking if i pass or asking for validation for how im doing in my transition. i just want all those young trans people to know that their own journey is ahead of them whenever they’re ready.
we all have to leave the nest eventually.
This is kind of exactly it. A lot of online spaces for trans people are essentially early transition support groups. And they’re wonderful for that! But slowly, very slowly, you start to realize that you don’t need that anymore.
This isn’t to say “don’t have trans community”. Precisely the opposite, actually. I’m saying that there’s a life on the other side of transition. Being trans will always be a part of who you are. But part of trans community is living on the “other side”, having a good and fulfilled life while you grow up and age as your gender.