How significant really is biochemical dysphoria?
Conversations surrounding this are one of the few things that gives me doubts about starting HRT.
I don’t like how testosterone affects my mind, sure, but I’m generally able to act just normal and I experience a wide range of emotions. I’m not depressed. I have a strong, healthy drive to handle responsibilities that I don’t want to lose.
Some of the conversations around it almost feel like pseudoscience. Yes, my brain feels female, I feel like my gender identity is female, and I feel like my body is not how I want it to be, but people are saying to be trans my brain must have developed in such a way that it cannot function properly without HRT? I have dissociative thoughts, sure, but that’s probably because I think of myself as a lonely woman who unfortunately looks like a man to everyone else, not because my brain is wired to rely on estrogen.
Posted Nov 5, 2025, 11:41 PM UTC