#androgens

i'm pretty sure i have hyperestrogenism; i started developing a chest at ~8 and started menstruating at ~9, and i have adenomyosis.

i'm also planning on going on androgenizing HRT when i can.

my main concern is that i'm worried my (possible) hyperestrogenism will interfere with my HRT plans and goals. would you happen to have any resources on this?

thank you so much in advance. your resources are the reason i discovered i probably have PUGS and VH and hyperestrogenism. thank you for all the work you do :D

Hi! So, you really should get your hormones tested first and foremost. This isn't just something questioning intersex people should do, this is something every person should do before starting HRT.

Super Enzyme Regulates Testosterone Levels In Male Ruffs

"A single gene in the shorebird species known as ruffs controls the blood concentrations of testosterone in males, and this in turn affects their appearances and behavior."

2nd (or 3rd or nth) puberty is hard but we'll get through

Know what is something I’ve been thinking about for a while? I think there are very real and solid grounds to argue that there should be a coalition between: trans women, women with PCOS, intersex women in general, and anyone who identifies as a woman while also having had an excess of unwanted androgens (aka testosterone/masculinizing hormones) at some point in their development/life.

I see it as being a way to fight back against the misogyny we all face, for being women who have some amount of secondary, and sometimes primary, sex characteristics which were caused by those androgens. Due to the cissexist/cisnormative society we all inhabit, we are almost all made to feel some level of shame over these androgenic characteristics, and understandably often try to rectify them through similar means. These include hrt, various temp/perm hair removal methods, contouring/feminizing makeup, etc. We also almost all face some level of difficulty conceiving, inability to carry a pregnancy, or total infertility due to the various changes that these unwanted androgens bring about in our bodies.

We could all benefit from an advocacy platform that denounces the sexist notion that a woman’s validity has anything to do with the amount of androgenic sex characteristics that she has, or has previously had.

I see it as being welcoming of women regardless of whether or not they are gender conforming, and also essentially without considering this as a factor. That is to say, it isn’t advocacy centered around gnc womanhood, lgbtq womanhood, or anything like that. These people are 100% welcome, and will in fact likely be a large portion of the people represented by this advocacy, but it isn’t primarily about that. I want it to be advocacy that is aware of its intersections, but which is primarily a coalition by and for women who have had excessive/unwanted androgen exposure effect their lives.

I’m sure there is fertile grounds for a similar community to be built amongst trans men, intersex men, and all men who have some amount of unwanted estrogenic chracteristics as well. Perhaps a community could even be built by men who face unwanted estrogens and women who face unwanted androgens. However, I don’t feel it’s my lane to say anything more than that on their behalf atm. I’m not at all sure how most nonbinary people will feel about all this, but would want them to feel welcome to engage with either hypothetical community if they felt it represented them, their concens, or their interests...

Anyone’s feedback would be more than appreciated!!! Also, does anyone have any names that pop to mind for this coalition?

An androgen is essentially testosterone and it’s derivative hormones.

And there are tons of things your doctor might not tell you about it because most physicians aren’t educated as much as trans people on the topic. You’ll have to do research and ask your doctor frequent questions, and what they don’t know you can learn together.

Driving Testes

Testes, the male reproductive organs, comprise many cell types. This research focuses on the male hormone-producing Leydig cells in foetal testes and finds that Nr2f2 gene regulation is crucial in their development

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Martín Andrés Estermann and colleagues

Reproductive Developmental Biology Group, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Durham, NC, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Nature Communications, April 2025