it’s hard to know exactly what to call this because the way someone approaches hormones has nothing to do with “how nonbinary” they are. but i still know there are ways to use hormones in ways outside of the typical pathways and that plenty of us find that fits us better. but I haven’t seen a lot of information about what the options are, and infos about safety.
but to be clear about the kind thing i’m talking about, i mean doing HRT in ways intended to move more towards physical androgyny, your own balance between masculinisation and feminisation, or being able to be selective about the effects you get from your hormone regime. for example, taking non-monotherapy levels of E without blocking T, low dose T, use of DHT blockers, and more.
i’m not looking for personal advice, more like inviting people to share their experiences of doing HRT this way, and anything else they might wanna share, like their aims, mistakes (since sometimes we’re making guesses due to reduced medical care and research), intersections with illness or disability.
My HRT situation is quite specific because it interacts with my being intersex and also a related disability. i was unsure how much detail to include but decided to add a certain amount about both complications because the infos could still be useful.
my HRT and related health and intersex info
due to my particular intersex condition i don’t produce sex hormones, and didn’t go through puberty. i also have EDS and my physical health is very sensitive to my sex hormones, so my regime tries to balance physical health and gender feel.
i started out switching between estrogen and testosterone every few years, but unfortunately taking estrogen caused problems associated with my intersex condition. they tried to treat this with progesterone, which made my joints progressively worse until i wasn’t able to walk without crutches. so i basically need to take testosterone. i’ve been trying to incorporate estrogen into my regime but so far haven’t been successful. however i recently managed to find some research that gave me an idea of the max dose of E i can take, and i’m planning on trying again at this lower dose to see if i can tolerate it.
my goal has always been to stay somewhere in the middle of the masculinisation and feminisation effects. i would honestly like to have more control over the effects of either hormone than is actually possible, and i do get some level of dysphoria from the effects of both. but it’s much less than it was when i was younger and i am regularly asked by the poor confused cis if i’m a man or a woman so i guess it’s been working well enough.