I’ve been dysphoric about my body since the moment my sixth grade health teacher told me my hips and chest would grow with puberty. I cried inconsolably that afternoon and spent the next few weeks desperately searching for a solution; a way to cheat adolescence and maintain my androgynous form. I broke down in an anxious heap, terrified at the prospect of growing up to become a woman, and started praying to God to never let me grow boobs.
10 years later, I sat in a doctor’s office, waiting on a different powerful being to help answer the prayers that God never did. After years spent desiring a more masculine form, I knew that I wanted to finally seek out hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to help ease the gnawing feeling of being mismatched with my own body.
But I felt like a complete fraud for doing it.
When I came out as nonbinary, I worried constantly that I wasn’t “trans enough” to warrant starting testosterone. That fear was amplified the first time I researched the process of medical transition; everything I found online was a one-way, no-turning-back formula: You could be either a trans woman or a trans man. There was no space for someone like me.
Reading about trans men’s experiences with testosterone, I felt like a spy collecting research on someone else’s territory. It seemed like everyone’s experiences were focused on the ultimate goal of presenting as a man in public. Effects of testosterone, like beard growth and baritone-level voice drops, were laid out like landmarks only to be celebrated as part of a straightforward journey to manhood. As my self-confidence splintered, my Google search history quickly morphed from “What is testosterone?” into “Am even I allowed to take testosterone?”
On my own, I struggled with whether or not HRT was right for me and my dysphoria. Though I didn’t find my experience reflected online, I knew that because my own goal was to transition to appear more androgynous, there were some changes I wanted with testosterone and others that I did not. I found community in the shared desire for body fat redistribution and the masculinization of my facial structure, but I felt my stomach drop in panic and isolation as I scrolled through photos of trans men celebrating their facial hair growth. When I read through checklists of the physical changes testosterone causes, I darted between excitement and panic. Then I read the line at the bottom of every web page: “You cannot pick and choose the changes that you want when you start testosterone.”
My doctor told me the same thing when he stepped into his office where I anxiously waited to discuss the prescription process. By that point, two nurses had already referred to me as “he” and “sir” after checking my chart, and while their intentions were good, it made me wish I had checked my nonbinary label at the door. When the doctor asked me why I wanted to start testosterone, I panicked and parroted back some of the lines I had read from trans men about wanting to become more masculine. Though I had checked the “other” box for gender on my intake form that day, I found myself leaning heavily away from talking about my nonbinary identity because I worried that he wouldn’t think I was “trans enough” to get testosterone if he caught even a whiff of femininity or hesitation regarding certain physical changes.
We discussed side effects and timelines, and I was asked to sign a contract stating that I understood that some changes brought on by testosterone are permanent, like facial hair, the deepening of one’s voice, and clitoral growth, while others (like body fat redistribution) would revert if I ever stopped treatment.
Though I had spent almost half a year struggling with whether I should start HRT and finally felt confident in my decision, I couldn’t help feeling like I was an impostor. Even as I walked into the pharmacy to pick up my first vial of testosterone and the necessary syringes to self-inject, I found myself constantly questioning my own legitimacy: If I’m not transitioning from female to male, then what exactly am I transitioning into?
In my first few months on testosterone, I watched the checklists of physical changes imprint themselves on my body. I grew frustrated with my fluctuating sense of self as I alternated between insecurity and self-confidence. I was falling in love with the way my body looked while growing distraught at the masculinization of my singing voice. After four months, I felt my dysphoria fade away as I morphed into who I was meant to be: an androgynous human whose physical figure had stretched into a more masculine mold, with wider shoulders and a flatter chest.
Still, as my testosterone levels rose, I continued to struggle with my deepening voice and burgeoning facial hair. Every week around the time of my injection, I questioned whether or not I wanted to continue — until the decision was taken out of my hands at the six-month mark. Due to health insurance issues, I was no longer able to afford doctor’s visits to monitor my hormone levels and update my prescriptions. As I used up the last drops of my final vial of testosterone, I wondered if this would be a pause on my journey, or a more permanent end.
Trying to figure this out gnawed at me for weeks, as I turned the personal pros and cons of being on testosterone over and over in my head. I knew that the sense of stability and inner peace I felt was a direct result of feeling increasingly at home in my shifting physical form, but I worried that over time, those shifts would eventually render my androgyny unrecognizable. If I wasn’t thrilled about every single change that testosterone offered, was I inherently less trans than someone who was?
I felt torn and confused, but I started to wonder if my fear was less about the physical effects themselves, and more about whether my reaction to each change validated or invalidated my transness. My facial hair growth on its own, for example, could be shaved and removed — but the act of intentionally removing a hormone-induced change that so many others desperately desire could make me doubt both my own gender and my decision to take testosterone. I felt I had to choose between either not having to second-guess myself every day for taking hormones, or being able to exist in the body I dreamed about. The former, I came to realize, was a byproduct of social pressures to exist within the confines of the gender binary, while the latter was where my inner compass had been pointing to this entire time.
It has been four months since I stopped HRT, and I have watched my body slowly shift, leaving me with a reverted physique and a still-cracking voice. Watching the changes that I loved slip away has been difficult, but also affirms why I started hormones in the first place. Even though my dysphoria worsens every time I look in the mirror, I have regained my confidence by finally refusing to measure my own gender against anyone else's. I’ve learned that there is no measuring stick for being trans, and the path of medical transition is not a one-way road from point A to point B, but a constantly evolving journey. For me, that journey has taken me back to where I started: impatiently waiting to start testosterone.
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