"My friend's roommate gave me a shot of T at a Barbie party, now I'm questioning everything"
Said no man ever.
TL;DR I'm not sure if I'm a trans guy or transmasc enby, but I'm interested in starting testosterone after trying a shot of T and experiencing gender euphoria. However, I'm nervous about taking the next step when I'm still uncertain of my gender identity. Looking for some support and/or advice.
My (28NB/afab) friend was throwing a Barbie-themed party last week (I know, I know -- what better place for a gender identity crisis?) 😂
My friend's new roommate "Lee" (30FTM) and I started discussing gender after I asked what his pronouns are. We talked for a bit and I told him that I had been reevaluating my own gender identity for the past couple of years (wondering if I'm a trans guy). His response?
"I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have about my experience!"
Y'all should've seen my face, I was ELATED. I've been wanting to have a conversation with a trans guy about transitioning for a while now, but I never wanted to put that kind of pressure on anyone if they weren't comfortable sharing. So when he offered?? Ohh, you can bet your bottom dollar I took him up on it immediately.
We talked back and forth, sharing our experiences and some laughs. With every part of my journey that I shared with him, he'd start vigorously nodding like: "Yep. Yep. Uh-huh. That sounds like me." We legit had SO MANY overlaps in our experience with gender, it was uncanny... I asked him a few more questions, most of which had to do with testosterone. He told me he'd been on T for 4 years, explained some of the most notable changes and the euphoria that came with it.
My takeaway from the conversation left me with a LOT more "pros" than "cons" when it came to the idea of transitioning. After mulling it over for years, my interest in T was at an all-time high. Noticing my excitement, my new friend Lee made another offer:
"Wanna try a shot of T right now?"
He explained that his first shot of T came to him through similar circumstances: he met a trans guy at a party, they resonated with each others' experiences, the guy offered him a shot of T, and just a week later -- he was at his first doctor's appointment to get started on T himself.
He asked me if I had any serious health conditions before offering (which I don't). And then, with my interest piqued and several years of questioning behind me, I said: "You know what? Let's do this."
And "do this" we did. Next thing I know: I'm belly down on the couch, ass out, about to be T-christened at a Barbie party. Life is funny like that lol.
I asked him if I would feel anything from just one shot. He said his first shot made him feel energized, confident, euphoric... And to be honest, it was the same for me! I was stoked!! Maybe it was just a placebo effect, but even so, that seems pretty telling in and of itself.
So now the question is: to T, or not to T?
Despite my euphoria, I'm still kinda nervous about it. Not only am I unsure of my gender identity, but I also know transitions are different for everyone, and the unknown variables are making me hesitant (e.g. I'm a singer, so I'm a bit concerned about the voice change...but, paradoxically, the voice change would be one of my favorite parts since my current voice gives me gender dysphoria lol)
Open to advice, support, and personal anecdotes of all kinds. Thanks for reading! 🏳️⚧️ 💕
To be honest, it’s been a long time since I read anything this explicitly girly in content (Barbie party) as well as tone (“Y'all should've seen my face, I was ELATED”).
Girl gets injected with testosterone, a steroid, at a Barbie party. Girl reacts to testosterone, which is a steroid, the way anybody would (energized, confident, euphoric). Girl wonders if she should turn a one-time hit into a serious drug habit.
The comment section is divided on this. There’s a lot of cheerleading/lovebombing, you name it:
It's okay to be nervous. From your post, it looks like you have your answer already though. Follow your heart. What makes you happy is good, with regards to gender
I'll give u a hint; cis people don't do this 😂
Listen, if you think you are trans and have been thinking about it for a while, there is a high chance you are trans. It's happened multiple times, trust me. Still, think about it and listen to your body and feelings, if you get excited about the thought of being a boy/man then you most likely are lol (sometimes I think deeply about it and I start to cry of joy and smile like an idiot and overall just feel amazing just thinking about myself that way lol 😭😭✌️) and ya that's all I gotta say for now, I wish you luck on your journey to your identity :)
You don’t need to have your gender figured out to experiment with transitioning and hrt! You can fuck around and find out!
(I’m guessing I read that last line differently than the author intended it…)
But there’s also some concern, with a few commenters arguing this was reckless and irresponsible:
I’m all for people exploring their gender, but I draw the line at injectable hormones that can have permanent effects. Hormones are POWERFUL and should not be played with. They’re for people who have done the necessary steps to continue their transition. Stop acting like it’s totally okay to get injected by a rando at a party when someone is curious and not even 100% sure they want to medically transition. You don’t need hrt to transition, but if you’re going to add in hrt to your transition, you had better make sure you’re aware of all of the side effects that can be permanent.
and
I know you said it was a microdose, but there is a reason you have to get blood work and medical evaluations done before you start T, and why it’s a controlled substance. Ethics aside, it can be dangerous for your health in ways you couldn’t imagine. Please no one take testosterone without a proper prescription
But they mostly get smacked down by the “fuck gatekeeping” DIY-ers:
Trans people hooking other trans people up with hormones is like, a many decades long thing. Don’t worry about the people who think it’s only okay to have the medical industrial complex be the ONLY way you’re allowed to access it.
Dude, STAHP. OP is fine, that one shot isn't going to hurt them in the slightest, and your emphasis on "controlled substance" makes you sound like a cop. EW. Get over yourself.
This thread is so bizarre. The level of moralizing and hyperbolizing from total strangers makes me wonder just how much our community has lost it's spine.
Don't let anyone tell you how to feel about this. It sounds like you're stoked and that's great! We should all be happy for you.
i feel like people in the comments debating whether this is ethical forget that this is how people got gender affirming care for YEARS before the medical institution caught up. you took it, it felt good, it sounds like you should take more. if that answer feels like the one you wanted to hear then it’s the right one. this actually sounds like a really lovely first shot experience- i had to figure mine out alone and i got all my meds and diagnoses from people who could only guess at the trans experience. who’s to say whether that was the “right” way to start T but you took the first step and you can keep stepping
I'm sorry but you're being very patronizing. Did you miss the part where OP talked about questioning their gender for years? Fuck gatekeeping.
Yay, gender: “fuck around and find out!”
So, mentally ill people boasting about abusing drugs... and this kind is “kinda” accepted and even sanctioned by western society... 🤢🤮
Great post; I was thinking along these lines this morning and wrote this:
Watching "Painkiller" on Netflix, about the rise of Oxycontin, as a method of curing pain, and solving a huge problem everyone has with suffering and pain, it occurred to me how much it parallels the rise of transgenderism.
A phalanx of attractive, young evangelists ( the drug reps) pushed this onto doctors, who were encouraged to forget everything humanity had known for thousands of years about the addictive power of opiates, who then, thinking they had a magical wonder drug, dispensed it onto the trusting population. People then had a brief honeymoon period where their pain was indeed taken away for a short time. Many folks went on to suffer horrific descent into addiction, with all of its attendant misery and destruction of families and jobs, etc.
Similarly, transgenderism was brought into the mainstream by attractive celebrities ( Bruce Jenner, Jazz Jennings, the cast of Pose, Chaz Bono, etc) and held up as the cure for pubertal discomfort, gender nonconformity, social isolation, depression, suicidality, etc. Transition works very nicely at first, for folks who undergo it; one gains friends, community, supportive messages from schools, online friends and the like. We are just beginning to see the descent into horrific medical complications ( osteoporosis, vaginal atrophy, heart disease, cancer, infertility), detransition efforts, family disconnection and societal disruptions ( assaults on women in prison and elsewhere, violent clashes with nonbelievers and women, silencing of dissent) as this cohort passes through time.
Richard Sackler's techniques of convincing doctors to prescribe by using sales reps motivated by money, believing they were curing pain "the 5th vital sign" , using young, true believers who did not have enough knowledge to understand the bigger picture, enlisting the conferences and the media with testimonials (Lived experience) and phony "studies" ( a small letter to the editor in NEJM was inflated to a study) is similar to the pushing of transgenderism based on the flawed Dutch protocol, and using young naive grad students and college students to push this narrative which ultimately is based on strict gender stereotypes and misogyny and homophobia. It does not solve the discomfort folks have with their sexed bodies; in fact it precludes comfort and perpetuates the rigid stereotypes we thought we had escaped in the 1970s by allowing women control over their reproductive capacity and freedom to pursue careers...