Starting HRT — the Nonbinary Way
Month 2 — by Emil Tinkler
Hello everyone! This is my second month on testosterone update, so if you did not read my introduction to starting HRT, I recommend reading that one first to avoid any confusion.
So far, my second month has been going well! Since I am on a low dose of topical testosterone, my transition is happening a bit slower than if I were to be taking shots. This unfortunately means I am still having the time of the month, but I hope that this will go away sooner rather than later. In less exciting news, I have also noticed myself feeling frustrated more often and being quicker to anger than before I was on T. I have heard that this can be normal, but I do plan to talk with my therapist about it further to make sure I am handling and processing everything in a healthy way.
In more exciting news — starting on November 18th, my voice finally started the process of dropping! In my previous post, I talked about having a voice crack or two within the first month of starting, but now my voice cracks several times a day. I have even started to notice an audible difference in the pitch of my voice when talking normally. During the first few days of the drop, my partner was worried that I was upset with him because my voice was weird and deep which he was not used to. Another thing I have noticed with my voice is that I am somewhat losing my ability to sing. This is very disappointing as I have always really loved singing and I even did choir in high school. I have a hard time realizing what my pitch is now and singing songs that are higher in pitch.
Another odd thing I have noticed is that sometimes when I try to sing the way I am naturally used to I simply can’t get any sound to come out other than something that sounds like and airy wheezing noise which is certainly something interesting to say the least. Despite being disappointed in the slight loss of my singing ability, I am still happy with how my voice is progressing as it is really starting to in my opinion get down towards to slightly masculine/gender-neutral range that I am aiming for.
Other than this, the only other small change I can really think of is that my eyebrows seem darker and they are starting to fill in more. I used to fill in my own eyebrows to make them look darker and more “masc” and I it looks as though my eyebrows are naturally starting to look the way I would try to fill them in — which is nice.
Again, my transition is going pretty slowly so I’m not expecting a whole lot of big changes to happen often or frequently, but I will continue to update as new changes occur!
About the Author:
Emil Tinkler is a 21 year old college student living in Central Florida. They are a gay agender person. Emil is a psychology major and a humanities minor. They want to be a therapist one day and help trans kids access medical care, and they love Harry Potter, Bad Suns, and LGBTQ activism. Emil was Vice President of the LGBTQ group on their campus for a year, and will continue to keep activism close to their heart in everything they do.
