Starting HRT — The Nonbinary Way
by Emil Tinkler
Hello everyone! As of October 6th, 2020, I started hormone replacement therapy better known as HRT. I wanted to share my experience and journey transitioning because I know there are not very many resources for nonbinary people especially when it comes to transitioning. That being said, all nonbinary people are different, and everyone will approach their decision whether or not they transition and how differently. This is just my experience and I will try to share as much as possible for anyone who is curious about approaching their transition in a similar way.
I am an Agender person who leans masculine sometimes so I would prefer to have a more masculine appearance overall but still a generally “nonbinary” or “androgynous” appearance. This is why I have started taking a low dose of Testosterone. My dose is 1.62% and in a gel form which I apply to my shoulders once a day in the morning. Another reason I wanted to share my HRT experience is because I could find very little online about other people’s experience on a T-gel especially in such a low dose. Most people who take testosterone dose via injections and those who I could find taking gel were taking very high doses as many of them were transmen not nonbinary people. So, I’ve been tracking what little changes I can everyday so that way I can update my transition timeline for anyone else who may need it!
Having started testosterone on the 6th, I noticed the next day having a sore throat while speaking especially if I talked for a longer period of time. The sore throat lasted until about day 4 which is also when I noticed only very very small vocal changes. When I say small, I mean small I was noticing a slight issue with singing higher notes or embarrassingly enough talking to my pet lizard in “baby voice.” And it’s pretty much been like that since then. My normal voice is still pretty much the same, but I am noticing my range being restricted in how high my pitch can go. The last change may be considered NSFW, so warning to anyone who would not like to read that, but I will but it in the least graphic way possible. Since starting T, I had a small bit of what is called bottom growth which I first noticed around day 11 of being on testosterone. If you don’t know what that means I invite you to look it up on your own time but again it can be considered NSFW so be warned.
As of today, these are all the changes I have been able to notice so far. It hasn’t been a full month yet and I am not surprised by the slow progress of my transition. I don’t want to fully transition into a man the way many transmen do, which is why I am taking such a low dose. It will allow me to closely track my transition to have the results I want without going too far past that point but that means I have to wait a long time to get there. At this point, I am not sure how often I will post updates, because if there are no changes, I won’t have much to say but it is most likely that I will post an update at least once a month. I just realized I am not sure how to end this sooo I hope anyone who read this has a good day and hopefully I will have another update soon!
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.
