I’m 17 months into my #transition, which (for me) means just as many months of hormone replacement therapy (#HRT). Every so often, I head into SF and lie down on a giant scanner bed, and have my body composition analyzed.
The most-profound change has been the loss of lean muscle mass. For the first sox months, muscle held steady; over the next six, ten pounds evaporated.
Right now, I’m losing more than a pound of muscle a month. 🎢
I have such mixed feelings!
On one hand: goodbye and good riddance. I’ve always been tall, broad-chested, and muscular, and I’ve always hated it. I well remember my friends encouraging me towards sports in high school—“you’re a beast!!”—and how much it fucking hurt when they did.
On the other hand: this rhymes with aging—an accelerated enfeeblement. For the first time in my adult life, I can be physically overpowered by nearly half of the species. This is humbling. It sponsors nightmares and late night pepper spray purchases on Amazon.
But the first hand is the dominant one: when I see myself in the mirror, the new prominence of my collar bone, the gradual, gradual, too-gradual thinning of my neck, it makes me happy. I am happy to be reduced in this way under these circumstances.
But should I be? 🤓
Who decides the answer to this question is probably more important than the answer itself. I’m pretty sure it’s me. 😇
Speaking from experience, testosterone should be a controlled substance.
Ten years of meditation and reflection in a mountaintop temple should stand between people and power.
But also, on the eve of 2023, I find myself wondering if a global reduction in muscle mass and prettier collarbones all around might just be good medicine for us all. 😘