Reflections from 10 Weeks on T — Keely’s Corner
Keely Miyamoto
It’s crazy how quickly things can change. Periods? Gone. Acne? Abundant. Facial hair? Something only a twelve-year-old boy could be proud of.
In early July, a few weeks after I started testosterone, physiology and modern medicine joined forces to tip the first puberty domino. Of course, that did little to keep things falling in a neat and predictable line. (Does puberty work that way for anyone?) Rather, this subtle shift in momentum sent scattering a handful of new and erratic developments.
I began to notice faint changes almost as soon as I’d finished editing a bemused reflection on the anti-climax that was my first month on T. Was I sweating more than usual? Was my voice cracking? Did that whisker always live beneath my nose? Being somewhat skeptical, I was predisposed to dismiss these as wishful interpretations of readily explicable phenomena: The Midwest heat is brutal. I’m probably catching my housemate’s cold. I’ve never truly and closely pondered the ecosystem of my upper lip.
Then, plodding through some emails on a late Wednesday afternoon, it finally happened. Earbuds in and Hadestown playing, I decided to capitalize on an empty office and softly sing along. Wait for me, I’m comin’ too / I’m comin’! I’m comin’! / I’m coming wa– My voice caught, cutting off in a choked sort of squeak. Huh. I rewound the song and tried again. …I’m comin’ too / I’m comin’! I’m comin’! / I’m coming wa– Again, my voice broke.
Now, I’m no singer. But at the very least, my voice has always climbed high enough to emit audible noises during most songs. This was the standard of proof I’d been after: HRT was working. For real.
Thereafter, my voice began to rasp and catch occasionally in everyday conversation. (I notice it more when I’m excited or laughing — anytime my voice naturally pitches up.) Around this same time, I started to sprout enough stray upper lip hairs to graduate from tweezers to an actual razor. (Still, the hairs are disparate enough to evade anything but close security.) And, what felt like surprise trips to the surface of the Sun proved not to be Iowa heat waves with a one-person radius, but instead menopausal hot flashes.
Thankfully, the past month’s rollercoaster of slightly-more-perceptible progress was also accompanied by a growing sense of normalcy. I no longer worry about taking my shot, and my routine has dwindled to a ten-minute weekly to-do. Despite the many starts, stops, and shifts I am both experiencing and anticipating, the unassailable rightness of this for me is steadying. All of these changes — some far less comfortable than others — are more than welcome. At the very least, they are evidence concretizing a journey toward myself. At most, they are myself becoming something I can see.
About the Author
Keely Miyamoto is a second-year at Grinnell College. Keely’s passion for peer support led them to become a founding member of the Be-A-Friend Project’s Teen Kindness Board. They have also volunteered on the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, as well as with Grinnell’s student-run SA/DV hotline. Keely identifies as transgender and nonbinary, and, as a collegiate student-athlete, they are especially invested in representation and inclusion in sports
