I have a pair of breasts
Seems like this should be in a tl;dr at the top. Not judging but this isn't a minor thing.
Whether having breasts is a minor thing to the person who has them depends greatly on the size.
Below a certain size, you can have breast development that's visible when nude, but easy to hide if you want to. Bras aren't generally necessary (though they can be an aesthetic preference or helpful for reducing friction when clothes move across the area), and little to no effort or discomfort is required to wear a sports bra or binder and comfortably wear clothing cut for body types without breasts. The current selfies in the post make look to me like the author is almost certainly in this category. Plenty of women, both cis and trans, have less volume of breast tissue than a certain phenotype of obese cis men.
Above a certain size, having breasts can be a major inconvenience, even for people who generally like having them. Bras become mandatory for avoiding pain when moving about in one's daily life, and rather than cute decorations, they're expensive feats of structural engineering. Finding any clothing which fits flatteringly can become between difficult and impossible, and major social stigma can be experienced for choosing clothes that the viewer perceives as "too revealing".
Are you calling it a non-minor thing to you as a reader just learning about Sapphire's journey, or a non-minor thing to you as someone considering the pros and cons of transition? The former would seem kind of out of line, but the latter seems very understandable to me.
FWIW, breast growth generally proceeds slowly enough that you can stop it by stopping the hormones causing it, if that's an option for you. (it's not an option when the hormones show up by default at puberty, so that's one of the many facets of being human that's distressing to some teens...)
(Adding to this) My sense is that for thin trans women you will almost certainly not end up with seriously inconveniently-sized breasts unless you get implants. It's not a guarantee as I do know trans women with pretty huge bazonkas but it's certainly a strong tendency.
Before I transitioned I was non-overweight and had moderate gynecomastia. It never posed any problems for my ability to present as male or to be attractive to straight women.
Whether it's a big deal depends on the person, but one objective piece of evidence is male plastic surgery statistics: looking at US plastic surgery statistics for year 2022, surgery for gynecomastia (overdevelopment of breasts) is the most popular surgery for men: 23k surgeries per year total, 50% of total male body surgeries and 30% of total male cosmetic surgeries. So it seems that not having breasts is likely quite important for a man's body image.
(note that this ignores base rates, with more effort one could maybe compare the ratios of [prevalence vs number of surgeries] for other indications, but that's very hard to quantify for other surgeries like tummy tuck - what's the prevalence of needing a tummy tuck?)
The degree to which one would see this as a major downside would be strongly correlated with the factors that cause one to start taking HRT. There is a popular TERF narrative that detransitioners universally realise that everything was a mistake and regret the physical changes. From observation, however, this is rare and, if there's any concrete concrete identifiable reason for detransition like "I found Jesus Christ", detransitioners tend to not express significant levels of distress about the fact that they experienced physical changes.
I think the people arguing it's a minor thing are being nonsensical but I also think this is sufficiently obviously a consequence of HRT which doesn't go away off it that I'm not convinced it needs to be in the top. I guess it could be nice to have available for people who haven't even considered taking HRT and therefore don't know about it, especially since this seems to be the main consequence, but it's not really its magnitude or relevance for gender explorers that does this.
Huh, cool. Good to have at least one anecdote that you can de (re?) transition and it's just not a huge deal.
I wonder if a proper study of people who took hormones and transitioned socially but de-transitioned fully voluntarily - not because of a medical complication, outside pressure, running out of money etc. but could have fully chosen to continue hormones and didn't - would find this is common. I wouldn't be surprised, "I tried something for a year or two and it didn't work out" is not uncommon in life.
Speaking as someone who's been on hormones for 4 years and considered myself trans for 5, this is probably the majority of detransitions (insofar as they can be considered "de"). Many of my friends have detransitioned without any regret for taking hormones (or continued hormones but decided to socially detransition, etc), and they usually remain fairly integrated with trans friends, having enough trans experience to "get it" and be an honorary trans no matter what. Like OP said, cultural integration is pretty sufficient to remain in trans communities even if you're "cis".
I think there's a very common perspective that having a non-cis-typical body is a horrible disfigurement and that's why vocally regretful detransitioners are given such a large platform in media (despite their grievances being about the same or less as a trans person forced through natal puberty). Most trans people come to peace with having a non-cis-typical body in the process of being trans, so in the case of detransition it's less horrible regret and more like becoming a trans person in the other direction. Notably the most vocally regretful detransitioners are formerly of the type of trans person who loathes being trans and gatekeeps it strictly as a reified medical condition which is to be Treated with hormones.
All I can say is this hasn’t been my experience. Many of my friends are transgirls. No on has de-friended me or treated me badly because I am off estrogen. It is well known that many people who de-transition later re-transition. And I am still queer. Regardless majority transgirl spaces are usually accepting of cis people as long as the cis people are actually into the local transgirl dominated culture.
Anecdotally, the big issue seems to be when people detransition because of severe medical issues, especially permanent ones. Because in that case they sometimes want to warn others about those medical issues, or at least don't want to be silent when the medical issues are downplayed, and this causes tension with trans people who want to downplay them.
As someone who has been on HRT for ~10 months now this was an interesting read. I've had various trouble in the form of tiredness (perhaps caused by blockers, not by estrogen) that we're trying to adjust for with my doctor but it's an open question in my head that how bad negative effects I would tolerate for HRT.
Part of the difficulty is that many of the "gains" of HRT do subjectively feel like gains from lowering my testosterone rather than raising the estrogen levels. (Might be related to what the estrogen levels are, and eventually I'll probably need to try injections if pills just don't do it.) I have less "anxious / tireless energy" that has been problematic in the past. But I also have lower energy to solve problems that cause me stress.
(And in general, what most scared me re: hormones is the possibility of small but difficult to deal with or harmful small psychological changes, basically same thing that made / makes me anxious about SSRIs.)
I don't really know much about cismen who have AGP and don't actively identify as trans women, but at least subjectively I would probably have wondered "if I should have done it" forever if I didn't try HRT.
(Also, probably unsurprisingly, Eneasz Brodski's "Eventually, one can experience The Best Feeling In The World." argument doesn't seem very emotionally convincing to me either.)
Not sure what you're on, but "You might listen to an idiot doctor that puts you on spiro" is definitely a real transition downside
I was really surprised to see a post like this on here. I read Eneasz’s original post to get more context, and I encourage others to do so as well (even if it’s a difficult read). I think your post offers a valuable and more hopeful perspective.
I will also note that the number of transwomen who are attracted to males is higher than it at first appears.
like, maybe they tell you they're attracted to women and you take that at face value (its kind of personal so no one is under any kind of obligation to disclose that, but sometimes they disclose that). And then some months later at a party you see you them leaving with a guy, and mentally update your p(their sexual orientation) without, of course, saying anything.
Estrogen seems to make a lot of girls more interested in men over time. Possibly progesterone is involved idk. So you may be meeting girls who are still figuring out their new sexuality with a new hormone balance. I don't think it's well understood. Both certainty a surprising number of trans girls predict they will be lesbian but end up with some sexual interest in cis men .
so, yes, I know at least one person who reports becoming attracted to men after starting hrt.
but I was more referring to the social dark matter effect, where the true amount of something is greater than is reported.
And I really cannot think of much less masculine than being afraid of a scar.
Uh, you can be a guy and masculine while also being afraid of scars. I'm a bit amused at this line, because even after transitioning and detransitioning and (as far as I can tell) being intensely part of the queer community for years, you have to drop in a line that gatekeeps masculinity.
2note: I have been informed by my hotel mate I cried writing this comment in the bathroom I had to reassure her the audible crying had nothing to do with her.
I thought about this for awhile. My real opinion is that 'being afraid of a scar on your chest' just isn't a great way to live. And so I am not exactly against the traditional masculine gender role discouraging people from being afraid of that stuff. Arguable the 'traditional masc gender role' only discourages expressing such fears not having them. I think there is a place for expressing negative emotions, you can't always bottle them up. But for the most part expressing emotions makes them stronger not weaker. If you are going to cry tears, cry about something that really matters. Or cry about the plight of others not yourself. Though of course I am against oppressing or bullying others.
I am diagnosed with BPD. A nice way to describe BPD is being someone with 'hard to mange emotions' and almost always means being really sensitive and easy to hurt. I won't speak for others but at least for me personally 'Man up' has been a good attitude. So its hard for me personally to be too against this aspect of the male gender role. I am mostly a queer community norms partisan but on this one I think trad masculinity has a point. It really does seem better to encourage people to 'be strong'. Though I dont think bravery and strength always point in a particularly 'trad' direction - arguably thats a lot of the point of the post. There are a lot of ways to be a man. But this just isn't the softest world. The more you can handle your own pain the more strength you have to fight for the people who are in a lot of trouble.
Thats how I see it anyway. And I decided to be quite open about how I really feel about this stuff. I definitely didn't add many disclaimers to my post, and I could have added a whole lot. For example I am personally not willing to risk bottom surgery. But I have a quite strong commitment to bodily autonomy. I'm very supportive of other people making other choices.
I now see that your claims may mainly be exhortations to yourself, or a more direct reflection of how you relate to yourself. I feel like I understand you better now, and I'm glad about it.
Note that in general there's no contradiction between
"X is a very not-Y trait, in fact just about the least Y trait there is"
And
"Nevertheless, one can be X and also overall very Y"
The trans community has, traditionally, considered there to be a distinction between cross dressers and transsexuals. We might now think that the distinction is blurry and it's not always obvious which category a particular person belongs to. For example someone might meet most of the expected characteristic of the transsexul type but not have actually had surgery - due to considerations of risk, expense, being on a years long NHS waiting list, etc. etc.
Russell Reid (used to be a psychiatrist in the UK, now retired) used to regard response to hormones as diagnostic. Like, if you're sexually driven estrogen will typically reduce sex drive and you won't like it, but transsexuals will actually feel better. (Some people report increased sex drive on estrogen - that there is sometimes an atypical response is interestinot). Still, there's an idea here that transition is suitable for some people and not others, and this is one of the points where you get to find out which type you are.
(Theres a joke that goes "Q: whats the different between a cross dresser and a transsexual? A: About six months" which may have some truth to it, but is not the official answer to that question).
The trans community has, traditionally, considered there to be a distinction between cross dressers and transsexuals. We might now think that the distinction is blurry and it's not always obvious which category a particular person belongs to. For example someone might meet most of the expected characteristic of the transsexul type but not have actually had surgery - due to considerations of risk, expense, being on a years long NHS waiting list, etc. etc.
There are lots of real distinctions among trans-spectrum people on trans-related topics. One cannot really boil it down to a single binary of transsexual vs crossdresser. That said, these distinctions often correlate along an axis of "more trans vs less trans", but the exact weights that matter in any given context vary a lot, so one cannot really consider there as being One Single Axis To Rule Them All.
Russell Reid (used to be a psychiatrist in the UK, now retired) used to regard response to hormones as diagnostic. Like, if you're sexually driven estrogen will typically reduce sex drive and you won't like it, but transsexuals will actually feel better. (Some people report increased sex drive on estrogen - that there is sometimes an atypical response is interestinot). Still, there's an idea here that transition is suitable for some people and not others, and this is one of the points where you get to find out which type you are.
Since there are lots of distinctions, there are lots of things one could decide to use for diagnostics. Things like response to hormones are important and legible, so they are good to talk about, but one also needs situational nuances.
The LessWrong Review runs every year to select the posts that have most stood the test of time. This post is not yet eligible for review, but will be at the end of 2025. The top fifty or so posts are featured prominently on the site throughout the year.
Hopefully, the review is better than karma at judging enduring value. If we have accurate prediction markets on the review results, maybe we can have better incentives on LessWrong today. Will this post make the top fifty?
The rationalist community has been discussing whether ‘AGP males’ should try hormones or not. Eneaz Brodsky says Transitioning Is Harmful To Most AGP Males. Ozy has a thoughtful, but paywalled, reply. Regardless of the benefits of transitioning you would think the main downside would be the costs incurred if you decide to detransition1. Given that I have actually detransitioned, and didn’t find it very difficult or costly, I feel like I should share my experiences. Trying hormones, even for years, wasn’t very scary for me. Given the subject matter I am not going to try to avoid TMI and in fact will be very candid even if the subject is more than a bit embarrassing.
I spent about three years on estrogen, during most of that period I identified as female and used she/her pronouns. I stopped estrogen for a few reason. Unlike hormones bottom surgery does feel quite risky to me. Even if they are fully committed to living as a woman, transgirls definitely commonly have problems with orgasms and maintaining vagina depth post surgery. Since I didn’t want bottom surgery it was a serious problem that my dick eventually stopped functioning very well. Even masturbation stopped being as fun. I tried using topical testosterone but it didn’t help enough in doses consistent with transfemme HRT goals.
Estrogen also sadly made my Borderline Personality Disorder and anxiety worse. Estrogen had a lot of advantages. I was much more in tune with emotions and more interested in other people. It was very nice to have an easier time connecting. I was able to cry. But I am hoping I can keep some of the gains despite stopping estrogen. For example I have been off estrogen for awhile but am still able to cry.
Of course I could still identify as a girl and use she/her despite being off estrogen. But when I think of my personal gender I think about what I want to express and which gender mythos appeal to me. There is definitely a heroic beauty to being a boy or a man; bravery and strength in service of those who need help. It feels inspiring to cultivate those virtues. So I am trying out being a boy again.
People seem quite worried about long term costs to their body so lets see how I look these days:
Here is a link to some uhhh sluttier pics of me if you want to see my body in more detail. In one of these I am fully naked.
Here is a picture of me right before starting estrogen:
Here is an older pic of normal cisboy me:
I think I look great. Im 32 years old and look really cute. Obviously pre-E I was a lot more muscular but that is fixable if I want to get my muscles back. I strongly prefer how my face looks these days, in fact I’d prefer an even more femme face despite presenting male. I like how femme guys look and its not exactly unusual for women to love femme dudes. Here is an especially beautiful anime boy for flavor.
Now it is true that most men don’t really want to look like cute anime characters. Though I am actually unsure about the percentages given the distribution of avatars chosen by male gamers. But I cannot imagine many men who considered transitioning would mind looking a little fruity. Eneaz certainly doesn’t present himself like a lumberjack.
The elephant in the room is that I have a pair of breasts. They definitely show through a t-shirt. My experience if that, if you are presenting masc and not in a very queer space, people mostly don’t even notice. Brain’s do a lot of work to make things seem coherent. But even if people notice I don’t care. I certainly don’t mind if someone thinks im a transgirl boy-modding or a transman who hasn’t had top surgery. If I want to get rid of my breasts I can always get top surgery. Top surgery scars are kind of cool. And I really cannot think of much less masculine than being afraid of a scar.
An underappreciated long term risk of HRT is permanently losing penis size. My understanding is that the penis atrophies when it is no longer getting enough full erection. You can definitely see this coming and as far as I know it takes at least a year to start happening. But once your dick is no longer working well you do kind of need to make your choices. As I said I tried to get my dick working with topical testosterone but it didn’t work well enough. My Dick function has recovered fully. There was a brief period when it hurt a bit to get hard but that has passed. If you look at the NSFW link you can see my dick was never very big. But I didn’t lose any size permanently, its still a little under 5 inches hard and uhhhh ‘not big’ soft. Of course I am not exactly deathless afraid of having a smaller penis. Lots of people manage just fine with dicks smaller than mine. Gorilla’s have tiny dicks you know.
All I can say is this hasn’t been my experience. Many of my friends are transgirls. No on has de-friended me or treated me badly because I am off estrogen. It is well known that many people who de-transition later re-transition. And I am still queer. Regardless majority transgirl spaces are usually accepting of cis people as long as the cis people are actually into the local transgirl dominated culture.
True Rejection
Aella wrote a very interesting series of articles teaching men how to get mind-blowingly good at sex with (a subset of) women. I am not sure it is easy to give a brief summary. But a big part of the series is about having a really strong sense of how you want the sex to go. And then getting the girl to enter your frame. In part five Aella talks about how this extends outside the bedroom. Obviously this kind of attitude can be toxic but I am definitely emotionally pre-disposed towards people holding to their truth even under pressure. I admire people who will fight for their dreams even when its scary. Even if things don’t work out you can hold your head high. Why would you want to live the rest of your life constantly wondering if you should have transitioned earlier?
I don’t want to make things sound too rosy. There was definitely some social conflicts surrounding my transition. A few very old friendships didn’t survive it. I cried my tears. But I survived just fine. I can move forward with clarity. Odin hung for nine days for knowledge. He gave up his eye. When I think of positive masculinity the first thing that comes to mind is courage. Sometimes we have to follow Odin’s example. (Incidentally Masculine Ideal Odin was fond of crossdressing).
Eneaz is explicitly addressing and audience of straight men who ‘deeply wish they were gay women’. I am not going to tell anyone else how to live their life. Certainly not Eneaz who has a different point of view from me. I can’t really relate to his experience of ‘being desired by an attractive woman as the best thing in the world’. But if that is his truth I hope he lives it out with courage and honor. But in general I recommend fighting for your deepest wishes. Even if you primarily care what women think plenty of them will appreciate the bravery.