Transfem

CW: suicidal ideation

yeah, I socially transitioned three months before I started estrogen. That was because the same day I figured out I was trans I realized I just wouldn't ever transition if I didn't force myself out of the closet by being public in that moment. The temptation to never transition and rationalize a way out of transitioning was too great, and I realized I had been doing that my entire adult life.

Needless to say, social transition without any hormones was hell for me. Obviously I should have been on estrogen my whole life, I had awful biochemical dysphoria, and I honestly marvel how I survived and didn't kill myself. There were previous attempts and lots of suicidal ideation from the time I was 13 years old. When I was 18 - 19 I made very concrete plans and took steps to make that plan happen, but I couldn't pull the trigger (metaphorically speaking).

During the three month wait for estrogen there was one night I woke up in the middle of the night in extreme distress and had to carefully manage extremely intense suicidal impulses. I just don't think anyone should go through that, and even though at the time I downplayed how much I was suffering, I look back now and balk.

I suspect many other trans women without estrogen feel the way I did, and it's incredible to me how much we as a community tolerate this harm. If the problem were diabetes, nobody would be wringing their hands about when or whether they should start insulin, it's only because of transphobia that we all think it's reasonable to not address a serious hormone condition. (Though not every trans person requires HRT or has biochemical dysphoria, since so many do and it's such a low risk for those who don't need it, I think it's worth encouraging any trans person to start hormones ASAP as a kind of obvious harm reduction.)

EDIT: also, taking hormones made it more obvious to me that transitioning wasn't the ... optional step I thought it was. I had previously thought it was just a way for me to indulge in the desire to wear women's clothes and try to be socially accepted as a woman - desires I thought were much less important than other considerations like a career which would have been threatened by transition / being visibly trans. Once I was on hormones I understood that transition was fundamental to my health and well-being, and that by not transitioning I was risking my life. It's not a choice for me, it truly isn't - it only seemed that way when I was pre-transition and didn't know better. Taking estrogen helped clarify the necessity of HRT, which I did not believe in before then. Before I would have thought of estrogen just as a means to an end, something you do to look like a woman so you can live as one socially, not realizing estrogen is an essential hormone to make your body work correctly when you are a woman and that the wrong sex hormones can wreck havoc.