I continually surprise myself by not sticking to personal goals when it comes to blogging (and journal writing too, if I’m being honest). When I launched this site I wanted to release a blog post fortnightly. That was four months ago now, and… well, this is my first blog post.
If there was ever a time to get blogging, it’s probably my six-month HRT anniversary, which happens to coincide with the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia (long one, I know, but I refuse to use the acronym because it’s absolutely ridiculous).
Honestly, a big part of the reason I haven’t done any blogs is that I wanted to get some short stories up on the site before I start doing a big push on my socials. I’ve been working through some pretty intense fiction writing burnout due to my day job being copywriting – by the end of the day, I’m kind of sick of words. Even so, there are a couple of short stories live that I’m pretty proud of, so please do check those out if you feel so inclined.
How Is My Transition Going?
This post is celebrating my six months on hormone replacement therapy, so you can probably guess that transitioning is going pretty well.
To keep it succinct, this has – without a doubt – been the best six months of my life. So much so that it’s ridiculous. I feel absolutely incredible. Or rather, I don’t feel like total crap anymore. I guess I feel normal now, but I never knew normal felt so damn good.
Mental Changes
You know that feeling when you don’t get enough sleep, and it kind of feels like your brain is trying to process things through honey? You can’t focus because there’s just something clogging up your brainpower.
That was me every single day. I’m not exaggerating. That’s what it felt like 24/7 when my brain was needing estrogen but it was getting testosterone instead. I experienced this for years before I even realised I was trans. I couldn’t work out what was going on, so when I read about trans people experiencing ‘brain fog’ (I assume it’s similar to the COVID brain fog people talk about – I wouldn’t know, since I’ve somehow avoided COVID up to this point), it suddenly made sense.
Six months on HRT and that feeling is completely gone. It faded so slowly that I kind of forgot about it entirely for a while. Now I only get that feeling when I’m sleep deprived, so I’ll put that down as a big win.
Aside from brain fog, the other mental change has been that I’m just happy now. I’m happy by default, rather than on very rare occasions. I also get excited, which is new. HRT was the best thing I possibly could have done for my brain – thank you, estrogen!
Physical Changes
Out in the world beyond my brain, things are also going great. I’m at a point in my transition where I’m getting pretty obvious indicators that the hormones have taken to me well physically. Neraya and I get called ‘girls’ or ‘ladies’ pretty much whenever we go out together now, much to Neraya’s displeasure because she’s never really liked being called that. It’s another win for me, though!
I’m definitely lucky in this regard. 6 months isn’t that long to be on HRT – since my body doesn’t produce estrogen on its own I’ll likely need some supplement of it for the rest of my life, unless we make some big scientific strides. Most people talk about getting major changes to their appearance between one and two years. A lot of trans women don’t have people assuming them female in public within six months, and some might struggle with that forever without facial feminisation surgery. Trans circles talk about the genetic lottery, and it seems I’ve done decently there. Which is nice since I’ll never win the actual lottery.
I’ve taken more selfies in the last six months than I had for the rest of my life, and there’s a pretty clear difference as time goes on. My cheeks are much fuller and my eyes are way brighter now. Several laser hair removal sessions on my face have certainly helped, too.
The Hard Work
It’s not all luck and letting the hormones do their thing, though. I’ve had to work incredibly hard on my voice since hormones don’t change that thanks to testosterone exposure permanently lowering the voice box.
Early on, I set myself a goal that I wanted to go to my father-in-law’s wedding in a dress, which meant I had to get my new voice down by April 15. I spent dozens of hours with a microphone in my home office, recording and listening to myself speak. I watched YouTube videos on voice feminisation, then eventually got to the point where I began to just trust my own ear to judge where I was at and make adjustments from there.
While the rest of you cringe at your own voices in recordings, I’m more than used to hearing my own at this point.
If you’d like a little preview of what my voice roughly sounds like now, check out Episode 0 of the Conclave Cast, where the rest of the team and I introduce a bit about ourselves (note: my voice is still developing naturally as I speak more so it has changed a bit since this recording).
Coming Out
The last thing I publically posted on this website was my coming out page, so I guess I should touch on how that went. I posted it on my Facebook for all my friends and family to see, then braced for impact.
It turned out to be less of a brick-wall impact and more of a pile of pillows. I was genuinely overwhelmed by the love and acceptance I got from everybody. The majority of my Facebook friends followed me over to my new account, and I’m assuming most of the others never saw the post.
Even my D&D church friends who I mentioned on that coming out page were chill with it and accepting – essentially the response was, ‘That’s cool, can we play D&D again now?’ Even though we haven’t played D&D together again yet, it was a genuinely touching response. There was even talk about educating the local congregation on trans stuff so I could feel comfortable attending if I wanted to.
I came out at work a couple of months later, which despite being easy because I work from home 99% of the time, was still a pretty nervous few days. I had very different experiences with my two main workplaces.
At the marketing agency, my team had known about my transition before I even started HRT, and they were a great support in taking the step to come out to the wider company. When the time came, I wrote up a long coming out message to go in one of the company’s Google Chat groups. There was a long list of people at the company that I’d never even met or spoken to, but I felt it important to make the announcement of my name and pronoun change to everyone. As far as I know, I’m the first trans employee there, so I wanted to leave a mark and hopefully make it a more accepting place for future LGBTQIA+ staff members. And, yeah, it went fine. No issues, and I’m very glad that I don’t have to hear my deadname at work anymore because that was really dragging my mental health down.
Coming out at the private school I work at was a much quieter affair. I’m lucky to work at a particularly progressive independent school (I even got to make a social media post celebrating the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia today), and I only work directly with a handful of people. I told my boss and team members about my transition, my boss had IT change my name in the system that day, and boom, it was done. No need for anybody else to know. I’ve even had other staff members who I had communicated with once or twice in the past think I’m an entirely new employee.
The End of the Blog Post
As usual, I’ve written a far longer blog post than I intended. And I know, I hear you. “Maybe this wouldn’t happen if you didn’t wait months between updates, Jade.” A valid point, and one I shall likely continue to ignore.
But yeah, that’s most of the big stuff. It’s been an amazing six months, and I am looking forward to many more estrogen-fuelled months to come.
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You’re a queen 👑