#androgenization

IF YOU'RE NOT ON ANDROGENISING HORMONES THEN MINOXIDIL WON'T MAKE YOU GROW FACIAL HAIR.

Your hair grows in stages. Your body is covered in something called vellus hair—"peach fuzz". The hair that's on your cheeks, your face, those tiny hairs that are almost clear in their thinness that cover your whole body. The stage up from this is "terminal hair"—the hair on your scalp, on your crotch, the hair on your body that's easily visible. We all love happy trails, right? That's terminal hair. And so is beards.

In the presence of androgenising hormones, some vellus hairs on your body will fall out and your follicles will start producing terminal hair in their place.

All Minoxidil does is speed up the hair production cycle and increase rate of growth. It will not convert vellus hair into terminal hair unless the hair follicles are already capable of producing terminal hair.

Minoxodil was created to combat balding. The way it works is that balding is caused by the body's reaction to DHT (dihydrotestosterone, a leftover conversion from testosterone in the body). Dihydrotestosterone, among some other things, tells the hair follicles to stop producing terminal hair, usually at the scalp. This results in baldness. All Minoxidil does is encourage the follicles to produce hair again (and sometimes it doesn't work unless you're also on a dihydrotestosterone blocker, like Finasteride).

For facial hair, Minoxidil works similarly. During androgenisation the hair follicles on your face, when exposed to rising testosterone levels, will convert from vellus-producing to terminal-producing. But it takes time, and a few hair cycles, for them to actually start producing terminal hair. All that Minoxidil does is speed up that cycle to fill those follicles in faster. It makes the vellus hairs die off, and grow back in, and die off, and grow back in, and die off, and grow back in, on and on until the follicles have matured and start producing terminal hairs instead. Even on Minoxidil this can take up to two years to fill out a beard—it's a matter of luck of the draw of your genetics.

But Minoxidil won't grow terminal hair (beard hair) unless the follicles have matured, and that only happens in the presence of androgenising hormones. If your hair is very dark and visible against your skin you might be able to get away with using Minoxidil to increase the amount of vellus hair you're growing, but the most you'll get is a slight shadow on your upper lip. You will not grow a beard unless you are on androgenising hormones as well, and Minoxidil is still subject to genetics. If you are not capable of growing a beard, Minoxidil won't give you one as it requires your follicles to become terminal first.

Also, on that note: if you're on androgenising hormones and using Minoxidil, remember that topical Minoxidil is toxic to animals and especially cats. Wash your hands after application and don't let your pets near your face until it's dried. If you want good results, apply it twice daily. The 5% strength is ideal. Don't buy that shit on Amazon cuz there's a lotta fakes out there—buy it in stores. You want Equate or Kirkland.

In any case, I distinctly remember someone once mentioning* a form of intersex variation wherein the individual is masculine enough at birth to be assigned male but whom later on undergoes a female puberty and may be/often is reassigned to/treated as female. However, for the life of me, I cannot remember the name of this variation (or if it's even a single variation and not multiple that can cause this.) Do you happen to know what variation(s) I might be thinking of? And, if possible, do you happen to know where I can find additional information on this variation as well as the experiences of people who are like that?

*I do believe this was in relation to answering how someone can be transmasc and AMAB

Hello, yes, there are multiple variations that this could be! We highly recommend checking out our intersex guide for more in-depth discussion (if you haven't seen in already), but we'll give you a brief!

First things first, to clarify a few things - rather than "female" we use the term mulleripathian, and rather than "male" we use the term wolffipathian. You can see more in depth discussion of that here.

Additionally, we also use the term androgenized rather than masculinized and estrogenized rather than feminized, because sex traits should not be gendered.

Now, onto what you may be thinking of!

A person who is androgenized at birth, but later goes on to develop estrogenizing traits could have a variety of variations. Here are the ones we can think of that it may have been:

-A person with ambiguous genitals as a lone variation, with XX chromosomes & a mulleripathian-related reproductive system, who was AMAB due to to their genitals passing as "male enough", but due to having ovaries, developed an estrogenized puberty. -A person with ovotesticular syndrome as a lone variation, with XY chromosomes & a penis (or ambiguous genitals passing as "male enough"), who was AMAB but has ovarian tissue that functions more prominently than their testicular tissue, resulting in an estrogenized puberty. -A person with hyperestrogenism as a lone variation, specifically the XY form (meaning they have a a wolffipathian-related reproductive system), who was AMAB but later has an estrogenizing puberty, due to producing high estrogen. -A person with partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (PAIS), who has a penis (or ambiguous genitals passing as "male enough") and develops breasts and/or widened hips during puberty. -A person with mixed gonadal dysgenesis or XX-XY chimerism, who has a penis (or ambiguous genitals passing as "male enough") and has an estrogenizing or micro-estrogenizing puberty. -A person with XXXYY syndrome, XXYY syndrome, Klinefelter syndrome, XXXY syndrome, XXXXY syndrome, or de la chapelle syndrome, who has a penis (or ambiguous genitals passing as "male enough") and has an estrogenizing or micro-estrogenizing puberty.

Or additionally:

PT: Androgynos Hamah Flag /end PT

ID: a flag with five horizontal stripes, the middle one being very thin. Their colors are, from top to bottom, blue, light blue, white, orange and dark orange. In the center is a symbol ressembling a circle with six spikes. /end ID

Androgynos Hamah: a person whose sex is described as possessing both or mix of sexed characteristics, through natural development. Androginos hamah is usually assigned to intersex variations with mixed genitalia, but can be used for other variations of the ambiguous spectrum.

Note that this is just my *personal* attempt to define androgynos hamah, this definition isn't carved in stone. Even though adam and hamah are usually only used along with saris & ay'lonit, proposal to expand the hamah/adam distinction to androgynos and tumtum has been made, thus creating distinct gendered and sexed subcategories for each gendered sex.

This term is of a physical nature: they depend upon your physicality, and serve a legal purpose in Judaism. However, anyone Jew can use these terms, regardless of their spiritual practice.

Made mixing the flags by desactivated Tumblr user bigfootrights (link), and the ones made by Tumblr user gendertreyf (link), adding on top the intersex Jewish symbol made by desactivated Tumblr user sproutflags (link).

PSD file link.

The reason why we listed it as a non-typical sex trait is because of how it influences muscular development in terms of secondary sex development.

Since people with an androgenized hormone profile tend to develop higher muscle mass, hypotonia can make it appear as though they are not hitting puberty fully, especially if they have severe hypotonia.

And people with an estrogenized hormone profile tend to have more curves, but hypotonia can cause differences in the amount of curvature. Obviously most curves come from fat tissue, but muscle tissue also plays a part in layering underneath the fat.