4 ms·

As a transgender woman, I can assure you that hormone levels (estradiol in particular) do affect mood. If I forget to take my medication I will get a migraine,

As a transgender woman, I can assure you that hormone levels (estradiol in particular) do affect mood. If I forget to take my medication I will get a migraine, for instance, and this is a pattern also observed in cisgender women. But what levels are ideal, what is good and bad, etc, is not the least bit clear cut for anybody.

grumblepeet 7y ago
Same here. Loss of estradiol makes me feel like I'm falling off a cliff. There was a shortage of estradiol here in the UK lately (due to Brexit mostly) and I ran out for a few days and went into a panic. The last time I ran out previously was a bad time for me, but who can accurately say that the lack of estradiol was entirely to blame? I'm an artist well as techie, and my artwork has completely changed since starting estradiol 4 years ago. I used to draw only in pen and ink, always architectural scenes, black and white, lots of straight lines. Now that doesn't interest me in the least, and its all watercolours, and curves, and trees, and people. I am fascinated by people. I also really enjoy talking now, about anything to anyone. I never ever used to do this before.
- JimboOmega 7y ago
  It's so hard to untangle hormones from life events. I transitioned in a way that's somewhat backwards from how people typically do it these days; I was presenting female or genderqueer pretty much 100% of the time before I transitioned. And through that, I found my female side was the one full of color, life, extroversion, you name it. It wasn't hormones so much as just being me. The party half of me - who went to bars, clubs, etc, was always female. It definitely does something, though. Both times I got on hormones (once after a few weeks break for surgery) I went through a period of weeks-to-months where I was very zen and in control of my life, though whatever it was, I gradually adjusted. It's almost impossible to tease out what's life events, what's hormones, and then what hormones are causing which things. Because E2 and T are coupled (E2 suppresses T, albeit with lag)... which is really driving what? And never mind P. Bottom line, biology is too complicated for the very blunt instruments we have to measure it. We're really winging it, transgender people especially. It's easy to say things like women live longer and are way more prone to migraines and depression. But why? Is that from hormones? Are people who have a little bit more of some hormone just a little bit more likely to be depressed? Or is the depression an artifact of how culture treats women? There's no basis for the assumption that cisgender hormone levels are ideal for transgender people (and even if they were, at what part of the cycle would be ideal?), but it's kinda all we got to go on. Hormones are weird, yo.
cat199 7y ago
> hormone levels (estradiol in particular) do affect mood. ... almost as if we shouldn't build cultures of messing with them for our own physical gratification
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't take HN threads into flamewar. Nothing good can come of this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
kofi_afrika 7y ago
I have some roots for migraines to stop.

grumblepeet 7y ago

Same here. Loss of estradiol makes me feel like I'm falling off a cliff. There was a shortage of estradiol here in the UK lately (due to Brexit mostly) and I ran out for a few days and went into a panic. The last time I ran out previously was a bad time for me, but who can accurately say that the lack of estradiol was entirely to blame? I'm an artist well as techie, and my artwork has completely changed since starting estradiol 4 years ago. I used to draw only in pen and ink, always architectural scenes, black and white, lots of straight lines. Now that doesn't interest me in the least, and its all watercolours, and curves, and trees, and people. I am fascinated by people. I also really enjoy talking now, about anything to anyone. I never ever used to do this before.

JimboOmega 7y ago
It's so hard to untangle hormones from life events. I transitioned in a way that's somewhat backwards from how people typically do it these days; I was presenting female or genderqueer pretty much 100% of the time before I transitioned. And through that, I found my female side was the one full of color, life, extroversion, you name it. It wasn't hormones so much as just being me. The party half of me - who went to bars, clubs, etc, was always female. It definitely does something, though. Both times I got on hormones (once after a few weeks break for surgery) I went through a period of weeks-to-months where I was very zen and in control of my life, though whatever it was, I gradually adjusted. It's almost impossible to tease out what's life events, what's hormones, and then what hormones are causing which things. Because E2 and T are coupled (E2 suppresses T, albeit with lag)... which is really driving what? And never mind P. Bottom line, biology is too complicated for the very blunt instruments we have to measure it. We're really winging it, transgender people especially. It's easy to say things like women live longer and are way more prone to migraines and depression. But why? Is that from hormones? Are people who have a little bit more of some hormone just a little bit more likely to be depressed? Or is the depression an artifact of how culture treats women? There's no basis for the assumption that cisgender hormone levels are ideal for transgender people (and even if they were, at what part of the cycle would be ideal?), but it's kinda all we got to go on. Hormones are weird, yo.

cat199 7y ago

> hormone levels (estradiol in particular) do affect mood. ... almost as if we shouldn't build cultures of messing with them for our own physical gratification

dang 7y ago
Please don't take HN threads into flamewar. Nothing good can come of this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

kofi_afrika 7y ago

I have some roots for migraines to stop.