Long story short, I’ve known that I was trans long before I had even heard the word. There were signs as early as 4 years old and I knew by the time I was 8. I’m in my late 30’s now and I had come to a kind of peace about not transitioning. It’s something that I want but because of life, family, and a lot of fear I decided not to.
Recently a very close friend who I’ve know for decades came out to me as a trans woman.
I want to tell her about myself but I’m worried about planting seeds of doubt about her transition because I’ve known I was trans for so long and yet haven’t started transitioning myself. I’m afraid that if I try and explain why that she might internalize my reasons. If that makes sense. I’ve never told anyone my truth and I’d so love to have someone to talk to about it. Especially since my friends transition is causing me to second guess myself.
I would appreciate some thoughts on whether I should tell my friend.
It depends on the doctor you see. I recommend getting in touch with your local trans community and finding out who provides good care. My endocrinologist lets me lead in my healthcare, so I tried bicalutamide and estradiol valerate injections before switching to just monotherapy injections (where you inject enough estrogen that the testosterone is blocked). He lets me control my own dose and schedule, etc.
The doctor should prescribe you estrogen if you experience dysphoria, they can’t force you to continue taking it if you don’t want to, and they can’t force you to socially transition - but they can write you a prescription based on your dysphoria, yes, and that allows you to try HRT and see how you feel.
I have read that some head hair can come back depending on how long ago it disappeared including hairlines moving down (I’ve also heard the reverse, of testosterone causing the hairline to recede in trans men), and there are also surgical options I have heard of. My hairline is a major source of dysphoria for me, and I am considering FFS for it. The sooner you get on estrogen the better with this one.
I wouldn’t count on height changing by a lot, but because of changes to the curvature of the spine on estrogen you might lose an inch or two - and I have heard this is true from people IRL as well. I haven’t yet witnessed it myself, but I’m like 10-ish months on estrogen.
Body hair will change radically, becoming lighter in color and thinner. A lot of my dysphoria comes from body hair as well. I highly suggest looking into laser and/or electrolysis, but those are long-term / permanent changes that you might want to consider after starting estrogen (if you aren’t ready to transition yet). You can always do the hair removal without transitioning and it’s worth it for how it will alleviate dysphoria, but because it’s a permanent-ish change you might just want to give it some thought.
In my experience, once you start making these changes it’s so much better with them that you won’t want to go back, but you have to try things yourself and see how you will feel - not everyone is the same even if there are common tendencies or patterns.