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Personality changes on HRT?

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by DRex, Jun 21, 2016.

  1. DRex

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    Question: Can hormone replacement therapy alter a person's personality and interests, and if so, to what extent?

    I have a close friend who is transgender (mtf) and is about to begin transition. Personality-wise there are two versions of her: a facade that she has to put up in public of a standoffish male, and the version of her I have come to know that appears when she drops that facade, which is a tomboyish gamer girl who is very kind, has a pretty smile, and a quirky, sarcastic sense of humor.

    The two of us met due to a strong shared interest in gaming, both tabletop and video gaming, and that's formed the basis for our lasting friendship. If anything, she's even a more hardcore gamer than I am. And interestingly enough, she has never really expressed much interest in stereotypically feminine things. She has always known she was trans since the beginning.

    I have generally been encouraging her to go farther in transition because she is clearly uncomfortable with herself as she is; however, I recently ran across some information that frightened me. I have read several accounts of people's thought processes, perceptions, and senses changing during hormone therapy, as well as mention of personality traits and even interests shifting. One notable similarity seemed to be that trans women were claiming less interest in video games after starting HRT (see here andhere) and more interest in "girly" things.

    I find this very hard to believe; I was always under the impression that transition wouldn't change a person's personality and interests, just improve their emotional state and put them at peace with themselves. The core person would remain the same. Apparently there are also a few studied showing that brain patterns before and after HRT are different.

    I'm now honestly really afraid of this. I had wanted her to be able to drop the facade completely and be more comfortable with expressing her true inner self publicly all the time. But yet these posts all suggest that she will instead switch over to a third, more "girly" version of herself over time. Being a gamer is such a big and important part of her identity that if she loses that she definitely wouldn't be herself anymore.

    I'm confused. I had always maintained that trans people were fundamentally their target gender in terms of brain structure and HRT only removed dysphoria and allowed the body to match what was in the mind.

    I have to ask because, while I would never want the quirky tomboy gamer girl I know to have to live as her old male self, I want her to stay the same quirky tomboy gamer girl I've always known and not have to become a twisted, super-feminine girly version of herself that bears little resemblance to the girl I know her to be. Point is, I just want to see her be herself, as I know her, and not end up erasing that identity with mind altering chemicals.

    Are any of these fears founded in reality?
     
    #1 DRex, Jun 21, 2016
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2016
  2. thepandaboss

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    Alright, take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt because I'm a little less than a month in. But you know, I really doubt it's as dramatic as those articles you posted suggest, knowing other people on hormones (estrogen and testosterone) and my own experiences.

    Most of my trans women friends still enjoy cars, video games, animals, makeup- whatever the hell they liked before they went on hormones, they still enjoy now. I think it's really more the opposite of what your articles claim- as you figure out who you are in the context of the right hormones, you discover what you're into and there's less pressure to conform to gender stereotypes either way.

    Personalities might shift a little but, again, I think it's because a lot of us now feel a lot more open and our selves. I'm noticing I'm a little more extroverted than I was pre-T but it hasn't made me hate video games or reading.

    Hope it helps.

    ---------- Post added 21st Jun 2016 at 10:47 AM ----------

    And I just wanted to add a little more to that. First off, let's say your friend does become a little more feminine. There isn't anything wrong with that. Femininity isn't something to be ashamed of or something that's less legitimate than masculinity.

    People are complicated. The person you perceive isn't always who that person is, you know?
     
  3. Aberrance

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    Hormones don't dictate personalities. I've seen that oestrogen allows transwomen to feel more emotion and sometimea become more sensitive and the opposite for transguys who become hardened on testosterone but even that's not the same for everyone. Personality and interests are integral.

    Hormones just allow the person to express the real them and feel more comfortable in themself which is why there's sometimes a change in personality. A previously introverted person could take hormones, feel better about themselves physically and mentally hence portraying this to the world and becoming more extroverted. Hormones aren't 'mind altering', don't worry, they just change the body chemically, not the brain (other than emotions etc.).
     
  4. KayJay

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    I started transition about 3 years ago now.

    I won't lie there was a period of time, about two years into my transition, that I kind of lost my feel for video games. I was quite the huge gamer before my transition. After that first year though I kind of had this idea that video games were holding me back from becoming me. Heck I even broke up with my ex at that time because he was only really into video games. It took me a little while but eventually I got back into the games, I realized I was just being silly. I don't totally know if it had anything to do with HRT or not but game wise I'm just as into them as I used to be.

    Other than the brief loss of interest in video games I seem to be the same person. My good friend who I knew before transition says I'm how I was pre HRT but I'm happier and seem to be a bit more comfortable in social situations. I think overall HRT changes people's ability to be comfortable with things they weren't before. It may seem like their personality is changing but in reality they are really just being who they've always been.
     
  5. Rickystarr

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    I think it is cute that you are so concerned about that.

    I just have to say it is normal for interest in video games to go up and down based on what is going on in your life. I doubt it has anything to do with hormones, but I used to be hardcore into games and more recently I've dropped it to be more productive. Even more recently though I have cravings to play again, maybe because of depression and having nothing better to do.
     
    #5 Rickystarr, Jun 21, 2016
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2016
  6. Jiramanau

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    You really shouldn't forget that most of the people who start HRT are very excited and full of expectations. That means one is more likely to experience both a placebo effect and kind of an emotional evolution as their identity is confirmed in a very real way and they become more comfortable in their bodies and secure in who they are. Don't get me wrong she will change, probably not significantly and definitely for the better.

    Check out this video by a girl I follow on YouTube. I like her videos because I identify more with her than others, like you described your friend, nerdy-tomboyish. She literally has hundreds of videos about all her hobbies and interests that span to before she started hrt. You should check it out: https://youtu.be/vidEoRJqzio
     
  7. VacantPlanets

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    8 years and several other things.....into transition and I can say your personality will be effected, but HRT may not be the cause. The experiences you have will reshape you. Rather you let it hold you down, or drive you to meet goals, etc. It's a life experience, not something you simply........try out.
     
  8. Chip

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    Hormones may not dictate personalities per se, but there's no question that testosterone impacts behavior. It is not uncommon for people on testosterone to get more aggressive, become moody, have more anger than they had. This is, of course, dose dependent, and in particular, the non-specific effect of the drug (how it interacts with each person's individual body) has wide variability. The doses generally given for people who are transitioning are pretty carefully monitored and kept at the minimal level to keep the unpleasant effects at a minimum.

    But the bottom line here is... this really isn't something you have any control over. It's a choice your friend is making, so the best you can do is be there 100% in every way you can during the transition period.
     
  9. DRex

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    I never said it was. In fact, if she wanted to give up gaming and switch to a bunch of girly hobbies of her own free will, I wouldn't think anything badly of it. However, if that shift in interests is not out of her own free will, but instead the result of her brain being altered by hormones, than I have to worry that what she's doing is effectively killing her and replacing her with someone else.

    This also ties into something else I've been concerned about. Namely, a lot of people struggle with their family or friends being trans, because they feel as though the person they know has been taken from them and replaced with someone else. I would generally reassure them that, for example, "your daughter is still the same person as you knew your son to be; she's just being more authentic to herself." With these concerns over mental effects, I had begun to wonder if maybe these people were on to something. Not that their daughter in this case wasn't still their daughter and not their son, but that she would have still have become a different person by altering her brain chemistry and thus erasing her original identity.

    But thankfully, that doesn't sound like something I need to worry about given what you've said here. A lot of what people were describing in the articles sounds like something my friend, you, and others have described. Following HRT a number of trans people seem to embrace stereotypical things about their gender in a way they couldn't before (which is accompanied by removing things that were originally used as coping mechanisms), and some go overboard on it. It's not really unrealistic that some would mistakenly attribute this to hormones.

    I actually just brought up these concerns with my friend as well, and she's done a lot to reassure me as well.
     
  10. Kasey

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    I got a little bit more bitchy when I started estrogen. But I have the same interests and such as prior.
     
    #10 Kasey, Jun 21, 2016
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  11. Irisviel

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    Cis girl gamers are living proof estrogen doesn't kill the love for games, so don't worry! And if she plays games more than she would normally do in order to escape problems, becoming happier would only be good for her. However, if she is a genuine fan of digital entertainment then estrogen is not going to change that.

    Estrogen changes your emotional responses and so on, but it doesn't change personalities. Just little details.
     
    #11 Irisviel, Jun 21, 2016
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  12. Creativemind

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    The hormones wouldn't change your interests completely. When people say it changes your personality, It's more that it makes you more emotional, cry more easier, etc. Cis women love and play video games, but we still have estrogen responses that makes our "emotions" different than being a man who plays video games if that makes sense.
     
  13. DRex

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    It seems like the series of forum posts I put up was of people who ditched old interests in favor of trying new ones due to wanting to be more feminine or discarding old habits that were coping mechanisms (and attributing them to HRT), while the article I'd linked just seems really bizarre, inconsistent with everything else I've read including here, and completely off base. She fails to mention any timing for her sudden shift in interests except for a greater need to "clean up" after two months restarting hormones. I wonder if she was unconsciously trying to "be female" all that time, or if over the 20 years she mentioned, she just lost old interests and gained new ones due to social factors. I'm going to have to discard that article as being completely unrealistic, but does anyone have any idea what was going on with her?
     
  14. BradThePug

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    My interests have not changed since i have been on T. Really, the only thing persobality wise that has changed for me is that I have become a lot more extroverted than I used to be. This was a good thing for me though, because for a while I talked to nobody but my family and other people that I had to talk to.

    I thibk that some of it is that as people appear more as the gender they identify as, they feel that they have to fit the mold of that gender. So, it is easy to hypermasculinize or hyperfeminize yourself when going through the process of transitioning.
     
  15. DRex

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    Ugh, why did I even bother looking for this? I found yet another horror story of someone completely changing.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nHFaAG5tn4

    What's weird about this one is that she claims things just changed dramatically within a few months, and that she found it all completely unexpected. That and it wasn't even about being more social or anything. She just randomly lost interest in video games entirely and started watching girly TV shows instead.

    I have a hard time chalking this one up to anything social. It can't be a deliberate move toward more "girly" things since she says it was unexpected, and it can't be a gradual shift in interest since it just suddenly changed over a few months. Any ideas what could be happening here?
     
  16. thepandaboss

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    I think in a lot of cases, people take on more stereotypical gender roles as they transition and try to find themselves. I know when I first came out, my closet was full of flannel. Also, with some people there's a bit of a placebo effect when it comes to hormones. You feel better/a little different even if it doesn't have anything to really do with hormones.

    But, really, I'm a little over a month in on T and I can't say I give any more of a shit about sports than I did pre-T (which is to say, not even a smidgen of a shit. I can't follow any kind of sport).
     
    #16 thepandaboss, Jul 7, 2016
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2016
  17. RainDreamer

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    If hormones can dictate a person's traits so much I think women in menopause would all be manly man already. It would effect your moods and emotion expression for sure, but it wouldn't turn you to someone you are not already.
     
  18. Invidia

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    I don't think that if a person changes very drastically, it's because of hormones - not causally, although it can be correlative in cases, I think. Like, person X has started MtF HRT and now person X has started, let's say, being interested in vintage fashion, therefore the hormones made her interested in vintage fashion. Some people might think that, but I don't think that's how it works. I think it's rather the person being more comfortable to express their suppressed sides of themselves, or they are of the conviction that they have to change to fit stereotypes, or something like that. Hormones can contribute to both of those, like, it can be a catalyst, but I think it's rarely, if ever, the cause.
     
  19. Daydreamer1

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    I've been on T for I think 17 months now, and I'm still the same goober I was back then who still likes pastel colors, animals, horror movies, video games, classics cars, and cartoons.

    Personality wise, if anything changed,I blame that more on being mentally I'll.
     
  20. DRex

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    I remember using my own puberty as an analogue for advising a trans guy I knew who would begin HRT soon, and aside from the latter happening twice as fast for biochemical reasons the physical changes were about the same.

    So if the video discussed changes that happened around 9 months in, and if the timescale is accurate, I should expect to find similar personality changes in myself after 18 months into puberty. The first indicators I had of that happened a few months after i turned 12, and I'll even be generous and extend the time out to two years into the future.

    So what was different about my personality between when I was 12 and when I was 14? Well, I developed a sexual drive and desires, of course. And.... well, nothing else. At 14 I still had the same personality and the same interests as I had when I was 12. I'd physically changed a lot, but aside from developing a sexuality nothing about my personality was different. Even, somewhat embarrassingly, I still cried just as much then as when I was younger, which I thought testosterone was supposed to stop or reduce.

    So either i'm biologically messed up or hormones don't bring on as many personality changes as some people claim they do. Or my reasoning is flawed.

    PS: For the record, I actually talked to the woman who posted that video, and she told me that she actually attributes most of the changes in personality and interests to finally feeling she can be herself now and not have to force herself to dislike things she otherwise would. And she still plays video games, just not as much, so it seems a lot of that was exaggerated in the video for some reason.

    PPS: Incidentally, there's a lot of talk about sexuality and sexual desires changing on HRT. This is one I'll actually grant, since it actually did happen to me too. Actually, now that I think about it, I'd developed some rudimentary attraction to guys around age 12 that was largely forgotten by a stronger interest in girls during puberty, and I rediscovered my earlier feelings for guys around age 21 when the hormonal changes died down. This seems to parallel a number of transition accounts as well, especially for trans women who liked women before but developed a desire for men after HRT, but I also attribute the suppression of those desires to a heavy religious phase I went through between ages 13 and 20, so who knows?
     
    #20 DRex, Jul 7, 2016
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2016