Hormone Schmormone

Yesterday I had the privilege of seeing Dr. Rebecca Jordan-Young give a presentation on campus about her new book “Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences.” My classmates and I all agreed that she gave a superb talk about why the scientific studies that claim to demonstrate neurological “sex differences” are all very, well, unscientific.

After the presentation an audience member asked Dr. Jordan-Young if any studies have investigated the effects of so-called “cross-sex” hormone treatment in transsexuals. She answered that this is a difficult phenomenon to study because 1.) People who transition have many expectations and hopes as to what the hormones will do and who they will become and 2.) It would be nearly impossible to do a double-blind study in which one group of people is assigned hormones and the other group isn’t, because hormones have effects on the skin, hair, etc. (i.e.: testosterone makes the skin produce excess oil, so it would be rather easy for most people to tell if they were given testosterone). Dr. Jordan-Young then related a story about a man who called in to a radio show she was on, insisting that testosterone administration has profound psychological effects. The man identified himself as gay and HIV positive, and stated that after his doctor prescribed him testosterone for HIV-related hypogonadism, his personality changed drastically. He said that while he had once been a pacifist, the hormones awoke in him a kind of rage: he suddenly felt the need to watch boxing matches, fight, and have sex constantly. Dr. Jordan-Young chalked this up to the placebo effect, and what she calls the “mythology” surrounding testosterone. I couldn’t agree more, and after the presentation I went to her and told her about my own experience with testosterone.

I have taken testosterone for nearly 30 months now. I do not, however, identify as male. Then again, I do not identify as female either. My history sounds typical of many FTMs—as a kid I hated wearing dresses, hated being called Christina, wanted short hair and played every sport I could. When I was seven I asked my mother if there was an “operation that could make me a boy” (to which she laughed and replied “no”—I wonder if her response would have been the same if my brother had asked for an operation to make him a girl). However, I don’t buy into the whole gender binary thing, and I’m actually somewhat critical of the entire phenomenon of transsexuality, so I refuse to identify as any gender. Obviously I have no qualms with people modifying their bodies however they like, but I am uneasy when people endorse gender binarism. This applies to both trans and cis people, but I find it almost hypocritical when trans people insist that sex is binary.

My reasons for going on testosterone were twofold: first, out of curiosity, and second, to stop the monthly anguish that came along with ovulation (I’m extremely sensitive to progesterone, and the mid-cycle surges of it would cause me to become profoundly depressed every month. I had tried every kind of remedy, including birth control, and nothing worked).  Did I want the “masculinizing” effects that go along with taking T? To some degree. I like being somewhat more muscular, and I definitely like that my voice has dropped quite a bit, but at the same time I’d prefer not to have hair growing on my stomach. I figured that because my brother is practically hairless the testosterone would not cause me to grow a lot of body hair—boy was I wrong! What started as a hairless midsection turned into a happy trail, which is now steadily becoming more like a happy highway. And worst of all, I’m starting to lose the hair at my temples. It’s very slight, but it’s happening. Ugh! Oh, and the acne has not been fun either. So I have very mixed feelings about the physical changes I’ve experienced from T. If I could have my way I wouldn’t produce or take any hormones at all, but then I’d be guaranteed to get osteoporosis, so I really see testosterone as the lesser of two evils.

And how about the psychological changes I’ve experienced from T? Aside from no longer experiencing progesterone-induced despair on a monthly basis, there haven’t been any. Even though I never believed any of the myths about testosterone making people more aggressive, I was expecting my sex drive to increase, as this was something most FTMs report experiencing when they start T. Alas, it never happened. My sex drive is no more and no less than before the hormones. And this is what I told Dr. Jordan-Young after her presentation yesterday—that, in my experience at least, testosterone’s effects are purely physical. Of course, I am not any less biased than anyone else who has taken hormones, but Dr. Jordan-Young agreed with me: “I took testosterone,” she said, which surprised me, being that she looks rather gender-normative, “it just made my skin really oily.”