puberty blockers

Sometimes I think about that time an endocrinologist asked me if I felt masculine. She thought I might not, given how I present and some of my test results. My testosterone levels were fine, but there was evidence I might be resistant to it. To be honest, in some ways, yes. In some ways, no, I don't feel very masculine.

I've always found it both comical and disturbing that people equate a lack of masculinity with femininity. No, women are not men minus some stuff. Development branches in different directions, accounting for the differences, although of course, everyone's genetics are different, and we go in all sorts of directions. In terms of sex, I just mean to explain what shouldn't need to be explained; that women are not underdeveloped men. They aren't missing any parts. They have their own parts.

Me, I'm missing some stuff. I feel less masculine because I am underdeveloped, but that's not to say feminine. 

I've somehow fallen into the rabbit hole of learning more about gender transitioning, and one thing that comes up a lot is children. Why not at least wait to make such a consequential decision until they're adults, right? It seemed beyond reasonable. Kids can't even get tattoos. 

It's because there is a strong push from the opposing side to transition kids before they start puberty. Their reasoning is that they're saving kids from gender dysphoria. Blocking puberty means less gendered traits to worry about; less gender dysphoria. The transition will be more profound, something many adult transitioners dream of.

In reading about it, learning about the effects of blocking puberty, it suddenly looked familiar. I never made it all the way through puberty myself, but I never framed it that way. I'm ashamed to admit that it's why I'm like this. Not masculine. Childlike. I still don't need to shave. This is why my frame is so small. It could account for a lot that's odd about me. 

Hormones are elaborately interconnected, which is one reason endocrinologists tend to err on the side of caution. You tweak one, you tweak the entire system. Growth hormone plays a role in triggering puberty. I've been stuck in the middle of it my entire life. Much the way growth hormone only causes growing until a certain age, you can't go through puberty later in life. There's a window, and it closes. Interrupting it in the middle though, that's something even trans clinics try to avoid.

The same hormones no longer do the same things, so supplementing them doesn't work. It still works in some ways, but I'll never fill out or grow a beard. I don't care about the beard, per se. I use it as an easy example, but there are all sorts of changes our bodies go through during puberty. Skin, muscle, fat and bone structure changes. The brain changes. A metamorphosis of sorts. 

I did get about halfway through, but stalled out when I stopped taking the growth hormone. We had no idea that would happen. Doctors never mentioned it. We should have asked, but I just stopped when I knew I was within half an inch of my projected height. Close enough, and no more shots, I thought. I hated those shots. 

I was only 15. My mother should have known better than to just stop treatment like that, without seeing my endocrinologist one last time, discussing it, proper closure. Somebody should have told me it wasn't just about my height.. but no, I just stopped.

Doh.