Why is it that almost every other TG story has someone going on hormones or being "girly" and they are emotional wrecks?
I seriously do not get that at all. Introducing female hormones will NOT make someone emotional or girly or crying wrecks. That comes from releasing oneself. In truth estrogen will more likely calm a person than anything.
Testosterione will make someone quick to anger but not raving lunatics just from the hormone.
Both will, in certian amounts, kick up a sex drive though since they are sex hormones.
I just don't get why some people insist that being on mones makes them cry at the drop of a hat. Like seriously?
Comments
Convention
Everybody uses it because everybody uses it. To be fair there have been some stories lately where the protagonist tries to blame the hormones for her emotional state and nobody, not even the protagonist, believes it, not for a second. If bringing such a huge change into your life doesn't cause a release of pent-up emotions then I don't know what would. But there is still the male "can't show my emotions" thing that causes them to try to place the blame elsewhere.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
I do believe
Amanda Flowers is still tough as nails and hasn't had a lot of crying jags. I think a lot of authors tend to turn their boys into super feminine girls because they can and it's fiction. As you can tell from my story, Amanda isn't that feminine little girl but did want curves, which she is getting. Hopefully the girl I'm trying to portray is going to be a strong woman and a person one can relate to, Arecee
Hormones are drugs, whether
Hormones are drugs, whether they are natural or artificial.
People do _not_ react the same way to the same drugs. That's why we have so many different kinds of drugs to treat the same symptoms. As for emotional? It depends on the person.
I knew someone that went through hell every month when the hormones cycled. She didn't stabilize until she went on birth control pills - to force her body to smooth out the hormone flow.
Those jokes about PMS and pregnancy? They wouldn't exist if there weren't enough people to make up a reasonable minority. That's the deal with humour - it's exaggerating easily recognized stereotypes - that have a grain of truth in them.
Now, if you took someone who was used to the spikes and surges of testosterone, especially if they had anger management issues, and then slammed them suddenly into the estrogen pool - I'd say that there's a good chance they _would_ go overly emotional. Not because they were always going to be that way, but because they hadn't adapted yet.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
I agree with you.
My crying and weeping came from the abominable way my family, friends, employer and church treated me. And I actually think the estrogen hormones made me more steady. In retrospect, I think that Testosterone should be a controlled substance, only available in pill form while a couple try to have a child.
I usually try to avoid that in my work
Estrogen doesn't necessarily make you girly or weak. I'm as girly as they get but I always have been even when I was pretending to be male. But I have always had a tough Goth side too and that's me, two sides, same coin. But everyone is different and so are their reactions. For some estrogen is good and for some not so much. Its why I focus my stories on characters who become stronger with the change. Female characters do not need to be seen as weak and effeminate to be likeable or believable. I myself prefer to read about strong women that I can admire for having the guts to be themselves no matter what society might think of them. We're in the 21st century and women can and should be free to express themselves in whatever way they wish.
I do occasionally have the new girl blame the estrogen for her emotions, but that is a typically male response. Tough guy is all emotional it must be the girl bits causing it. But I make sure to portray it in a tone where everyone, including the readers, knows better.
*hugs*
Amethyst
Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3
I can speak only for my self.
In my body testosterone created depression and rage. My emotions ran like a pendulum depending what hormone had prominence at a given time. Tick was testosterone , tock estrogen, tick I was emotionally unstable, angry all the time unable to concentrate. Tock I was stable a little sad but a lot more grounded and empathic. Tick was not me, tock was real. in 1996 I went into treatment for my emotional swings and in 1998 I started HRT estrogen and anti antigens, pinning my hormonal norm to the female side of my personality. Within two months I stabilized and was able to start taking big steps to getting my life together.
I do not cry at a drop of a hat but I do tear up when things push buttons. I am a lot happier and able to understand social cues. So many native women I have shared a close emotional relationship with lived in mortal terror of that time of month.
They had a very difficult relationship with being female and they were the opposite of myself in desiring to be male.
Every one is different from person to person and there is such a range of possibilities we can only speak win generalities.
This is only In My Humble Opinion. And From My Experiences.
Huggles
Michele
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
In the past
In the past drs gave very high doses of estrogen believing that would cause a teenage level of hormones. The high doses were coupled with monthly booster shots. The severe imbalance caused not only wild swings in emotions they are caused bliod clots and severe depression. This is why doses were significantly reduced.
So hormones cant make you "girly" but they can affect your mood in high enough doses but you're more likely to be quick to snapping anger than a crying jag. Kind of like a woman on her monthly.
Dayna
Hormone balance
From my own experience and what the gynaecologists have told me.
I started with a total blocade of testosterone production. and I was not allowed to start the oestrogene treatment until I got into a nasty mood. That was explained to me was because of the total lack of testosterone that my body was used to. It took me a couple weeks to reach. I had warned my working pals that thie would happen so they would not send me to the psy hospital as it was such a marked change in my atitude. I even found a picture somewhere on the net of a nasty old woman so I put that on my door with the text "Now she is there..!!!" And then i started the oestrogen therapy. That took a couple of weks to get the full constant level8 (aka: steady state). The instable bad mood disapeared and the new hormoinal life started. But as sos many other have described my mode started to have great swings. Whether this is caused by the lack of he testosterone or the oestrogene is hard to say. The odd thing was that I was as moved with happy scenes as well as bad/ugly things sthat I saw. It took me 1½ to 2 years to get these oemotional reactions under some controle, but can now 10 years later sometimes have relaps of the easy swing modes.
Another reason for swinging modes is that the hormonal cycles that most all males have has bothered me during all these years. With a cycle-span of about 30 days I enter what could be called an emotional PMS. I tend to make a note in my calendar, and when I have these feeling again I go bak and see that it is 29 to 31 days since I had this the last time.
As these swings are chemical(hormonal) and depending on the inner clock is evident to me, so I cannot see that the authors are totally off scene in their novels/short stries.
Ginnie
GinnieG
I was emotional before I went on hormones
but it does feel like I cry a lot more now. Not that I'm at all girly, or anything ...
(giggles, blushes, and tries to hide her blush with her hands ..)
I've found myself to be more emotional....
Even before transition, I cried quite easily, but that was nothing compared to after transition. Now I cry at sad moments in even the stupidest movies. I suppose my mom's death is partly to blame, though, since I cry whenever I see anything that even remotely reminds me of her. It seems as though I have a hair trigger--it doesn't take much to get the tears flowing.
Like some others here, though, I feel a great deal more calm after taking estrogen. I was subject to blind rages during puberty, to my undying shame. Those episodes are now long past.
Livin' A Ragtime Life,
Rachel
Well, I can't speak to
Well, I can't speak to estrogen, or any kind of hormones really, but can mention that one of my antidepressants does effect me in a somewhat similar way as that described. Ever since I got on this drug, about three or four months ago, I have been crying at any sad, dramatic, or stirring event I hear or see, mostly on television or the radio. I don't really get any more emotional than I was before taking the antidepressant, it just seems to have lowered the threshold at which I start to tear up. It's pretty disconcerting when I'm listening to the news and I start to cry because, for instance, someone is giving a moving speech because Nelson Mandela has just died. I didn't even know that much about him before that. Of course, I have always been a pretty emotional guy, but the effects of this drug are diffidently weird.
So the point of my anecdote? um...I guess putting strange things into your body can have weird effects? Yeah, I'll go with that, it's better than that I felt like chatting about something that is only vaguely connected to the topic at hand or any thing. :P
"Lowering the threshold"....
The above sounds like a more accurate description of what happens to me than simply "more emotional." The walls were flimsy before estrogen, but they were turned to rubble afterward. The first time I had an idea what the hormones were doing, it was not long after I started transition--I was watching a reality show set in a veterinarian's office, and someone brought in a pit bull puppy that some idiot fed whiskey as a joke. The poor little thing was just trembling, and they fought to save the puppy's life. Unfortunately, it died. When that happened, I let out an enormous shriek and the tears wouldn't stop flowing. A year earlier, I would have been visibly upset, but would have done a reasonably good job of keeping myself together.
Livin' A Ragtime Life,
Rachel