just a girl

my progesterone diary

in the best lit bathroom in brooklyn… you can see i’ve been taking my hormones

I have been taking too many selfies lately. In the bathroom, on the train, in my room, sometimes at work. I try to capture how soft my skin is, how my fingers daintly hold my acrylic nails, how my lips now protrude soft and pillowy from my face, and how sometimes my boobs are now big enough to show through my shirt. Maybe hormones have made me one of those vain Leo’s… Or maybe I am just now happy and proud of who I am. For the first time, I am seeing myself in a photograph. I am making up for lost time.

I am thinking about the song “Girl, So Confusing” from the new Charli XCX album, which goes:

Girl, it's so confusing sometimes to be a girl
Girl, girl, girl, girl
Girl, it's so confusing sometimes to be a girl
Girl, girl, girl, girl
Girl, how do you feel being a girl?
Girl, girl, girl, girl
Girl, how do you feel being a girl?
Girl, girl
Man, I don't know, I'm just a girl
Girl, girl, girl, girl

Lately, I have been feeling very girl… woman… strong feminine being… and when Charli asks “how do you feel being a girl?” I also answer: “I don’t know, I’m just a girl”.

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　　 . ✦　　　 　˚　　　　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔

We all know what it’s like to have blood drawn, right? Well… maybe not. I can’t remember a time that I had to get blood taken at the doctor until I began hormone replacement therapy last year. Every 3 months or so for the first while, they take blood to determine hormone levels in order to see how you are responding to the medication. I wrote a poem about this routine here.

So I was in for my 9-month blood draw just last month in April. I looked away as they told me to breathe in and poked the needle through my skin, drawing blood in multiple ways. Afterwards, I had a check-in with my doctor who asked me how things were going with the hormone regimen, any developments or things that I might want to change. I said that the estrogen had been making me feel good, but there were some things that I wanted to remedy. I had been looking in the mirror as of late, and while I was happy as to where I was at in my transition, I still wanted to be further along. Patience… I know.

So I candidly told her that I wanted to speed things up a bit more. I also told her that I wanted to have a libido again, something that pretty much every trans femme goes through when they are purposely lowering their testosterone levels. I also wanted to sleep better and reduce my moodiness. Estrogen, at times, made me feel a bit sluggish.

If you are a trans femme you might know where I am going with this… I eventually asked her about the ever-mysterious, only rumored about, highly talked-up, medication called progesterone. 

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I want to preface this next part by saying that I am not a doctor in any way. This piece is strictly based on my own personal experience and therefore is anecdotal evidence. All bodies are different and you must talk to your (trans-competent) doctor before beginning any medication to see if it is right for you.

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My doctor gave me the rundown: progesterone, like estrogen, is a hormone that is found in cisgender women. If one's transition goals as a trans woman are to similarly feel, and look, like a cis woman, then replicating those hormones are beneficial. Everyone’s transition goals and journeys with medication are different, though. 

If you are a trans woman who typically runs in trans circles then I am sure you have heard murmurs about the wonders of progesterone. After taking it, women have told me that they begin to sleep deeper than they had in years, their libido finally comes back after disappearing from estrogen (and for some, testosterone-blockers), and they generally feel a sense of peace and happiness. A mood boost… an anti-anxiety… a medication to feel hot and sexy… helping the estrogen work better and move transition along faster… where can I sign up??

My doctor confirmed all of these benefits of progesterone as part of an HRT regime and I figured I may as well try it to see what all of the hype was about. I want to write a little bit about my experience so far, as it has been a little over a month now since I started it. 

I was advised to take it at night, before bed, because of its tendency to make you sleepy. The first night I took it, I slept the deepest I probably had in almost a year. I woke up feeling refreshed, my body wasn’t tired and achy, as it so often was when I woke up. Anxiety and stress often kept me up at night and interfered with my sleep. I am so happy to be trans, obviously, but at times it is a hard life to live. When you are an honest and free person who is unapologetically themselves, the world tends to make you pay for it. 

So I was sleeping great all of a sudden, and as a result I had much more energy throughout the day. However, after a few days on the hormone, I began to develop some side effects.

I was getting pretty intense nausea, feelings of muscle weakness, fatigue, and mood swings. This was the opposite of how I was supposed to be feeling! After speaking with my doctor, they determined that these side effects were normal as my body was adjusting to the new hormone. 

I then spent some time scouring trans reddit threads and reading more and more about progesterone. I learned that it is a hormone closely related to both pregnancy and menstruation. Ok so… the nausea I was experiencing was morning sickness. The mood swings I was having were similar to PMS. This was all making sense. 

Among the trans reddit threads (an amazing place for HRT anecdotal evidence by the way), I found out that some women cycle progesterone. This is to mimic a period cycle. By doing so, these side effects tend not to go away and instead return each month that they are taking the hormone. It is fascinating to me that even as trans women we can be a part of the cultural significance surrounding menstruation. That being said, it is not required in order to be a woman. 

So I am not cycling progesterone, I simply take it once every night. Now, my body seems to have adjusted (it took about two weeks to feel normal again, but I toughed it out…). It is clearer to me now the benefits of this hormone, and it is an experience that has really deepened my understanding of both myself and womanhood. 

Firstly, I absolutely feel the anti-anxiety effects of the hormone. I feel a general sense of calm moving through day to day life. My mood is boosted, for sure. Because of this, I have noticed a huge jump in confidence that I now carry. My confidence has been growing exponentially since beginning HRT last year, but progesterone has really given me an even bigger boost. I can’t pin it down to being because of my lower anxiety levels or the hormone pushing my transition along faster and therefore feeling better about myself and my appearance. 

Secondly, progesterone has restored my once dwindling libido. I will spare sharing *too many* details as I have family members who read this blog… but I think that it is an important benefit that I have noticed from adding this hormone to my regimen. It has deepened my relationship with my body and therefore my understanding of my own sexuality. I can feel my sexuality evolving with my gender, which is a liberating and expansive feeling. 

Feeling expansive has been a primary theme with progesterone. I genuinely feel like my range of emotions is greater and much clearer than it ever has been. I feel like my depth of understanding both of myself and my emotions is at a far greater level (who knows if that can be pinned down to progesterone alone, but it has certainly helped). 

All in all I feel the most feminine that I ever have, which is to say the most like myself. Progesterone has given me an incredible array of feeling, confidence, and sense of peace. My body and my emotions have changed and grown in the ways that I want it too. Even experiencing those symptoms of PMS (and.. pregnancy) allow me to understand deeper what many other women go through, therefore feeling closer to womanhood in the ways that I haven’t been awarded from birth. I have awarded them to myself. 

Being at 9 months on estrogen and one month on progesterone, I continue to learn so much about myself and this world. The complexities of womanhood and all of its nuances are finding themselves wrapped up in my soul, deeply tied to the calm of my heart. Maybe that’s what I’m really trying to capture with my words, and of course, with my selfies. I don’t know… I’m just a girl.