"Does testosterone make you gay?" 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 This question comes up a lot. Sometimes with humor, sometimes with anxiety, but always with curiosity.

And it makes sense. Many trans and non-binary people notice changes in attraction, identity, or how they relate to desire after starting T.

In a survey conducted by Plume Clinic, 45.5% of participants said their sexual attraction changed after starting gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT or sometimes called HRT).

Another 16.3% said they weren’t sure, and 38.2% said it didn’t change.

i’ve been on T for more than a month and a half and i’m already starting to notice that my voice is dropping! :D

i did not expect to notice anything different with my voice until 3 months in, so this is amazing!

oh my god. I don't know if I can even properly express how I feel right now. I am gonna need some time to fully process this, lmao.

I've been freaking out over this for a week, and today I finally had my appointment, and everyone I spoke to was so warm and friendly! I did NOT expect to walk away with a prescription today, like I figured that would be too good to be true, I'd probably have to come back for a follow-up before that happened, but no! The doc was like 'I want to do a few tests to make sure there's nothing we need to worry about, so I'm ordering these labs,' and I was like 'okay,' thinking that the T would come after those were squared away, but THEN she was immediately like 'and I'm also putting in a prescription for androgel' ajauhsbehdehjejbs

said prescription is being processed at the pharmacy, so we'll see how long I have to wait before I can pick it up. I'm so fucking excited. I can't believe this is happening.

I see some people doing 'transition timeline' sort of things, and I'm going to try to do my own but more focused on my neurodivergencies/disabilities and how they interact with the testosterone.

So today I'm going to put down my unique factors, and hopefully keep remembering to write down what happens as I go on T for however long I can actually get it.

I have Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, though that has actually been barely noticeable the last two periods I had. I have (level 1) autism and ADHD, depression and anxiety, possibly OCD, a psychotic disorder that my therapist and psychiatrist are trying to diagnose, DP-DR, and a CDD that they are also trying to diagnose officially. On the physical side, I have fibromyalgia that comes with chronic fatigue, GERD and other GI issues, osteopenia (I don't know if I'll get any data on that, honestly, but its worth mentioning), unfortunately increasing cholesterol, a dysautonomic disorder, chronic joint pain, and sciatic pain. Plus I'm officially obese but I know quite a bit of it is muscle/just how I'm built, and the other part is having to be on antipsychotics that really made me gain weight. (Every time I get my weight checked and tell it to my mom, she's like 'you do NOT look like you weigh that much!') I had migraines on hormonal (estrogen) birth control, but I'm hoping that doesn't come back on T.

In addition, I'm allergic to aluminum and nickel, so I can't use antiperspirant (just alum free deodorant--there are aluminum salts in antiperspirant) or traditional step/heart rate tracker watches (because most of those have nickel in the metal bits). To get around this, I will probably need to up my hygiene game--I shower almost nightly and use deodorant 2 times a day, but that will probably need to increase, especially in summer--and use a step counter without all the fancy trackers that I can clip to my belt or hang around my neck, which is fine with me.