Basically, how long would you have to be on estrogen before you could start getting some of the mental and emotional effects, but before you would start having any irreversible physical effects?

I had emotional effects within the first week. For me I think injecting a sufficient amount of estrogen to block the testosterone from being produced is what helped my mood.

The testosterone was the problem, and the only anti-androgen I tried was bicalutamide which didn’t help because it doesn’t block androgen receptors in the brain very well. It was previously thought to have no effects on the central nervous system, now we know it does act on the CNS but it’s not clear how much. Either way, I can confirm bica didn’t help my biochemical dysphoria at all.

I have heard spiro can help with biochemical dysphoria (it helped Mia Violet), but can also harm mood (I know several trans women IRL who swear it causes problems for them).

So I would personally recommend estrogen monotherapy. The ideal would be lupron, but it’s too expensive, so until an orchi is possible I think monotherapy is the least medically risky (estrogen is very safe, even in high levels), the option with the fewest side effects, and the most feminizing.

Also, mood continued to change and improve over time, and figuring out the right dose took a very long time for me. There were mood changes happening at the 3 month mark, and the estrogen does actively change your brain. I remember distinctly my intrusive anxiety disappeared somewhere in the 3 - 4 month mark.

I am pretty interested in starting HRT, but I don’t necessarily want to go through the whole hassle of freezing sperm first if I end up not liking how HRT makes me feel. Nor do I want to wait a long time before starting HRT just to find out that it me feel like garbage. So I’m thinking about potentially taking it for like two or three months as a “trial run”?

This seems reasonable to me. Depending on dose, frequency, and route of administration, you might have some breast growth that starts around that time that could be irreversible, that is the main risk. I think stopping within two months rather than three months should avoid that, however.

I believe it is actually recommended by The TransitionChannel to try HRT first since you can stop before permanent changes around the 3 month mark.

General recommendation is that you freeze sperm first, it is a risk you will lose fertility. However, it seems to be a bit of a myth that you will permanently lose fertility, most women seem to regain fertility when they stop HRT.

You should really think through the possibility that once you start estrogen you will not want to ever go off of it, even to regain fertility. I vastly underestimated the effects of estrogen on my mood, and once I started, the thought of quitting was tantamount to suicide. It was actually unsafe for me to quit. I don’t know what it will be like for you, though.

I do highly recommend injections rather than oral or sublingual routes though. I have needle phobia, so I went with subcutaneous injections with very small needles that are painless to inject.

I also recommend reading this document a few times: https://transfemscience.org/articles/transfem-intro/

The other comment has done a pretty great job of summarizing it, but the answer is essentially that it differs between people. I’ve just hit the 90 day mark with mine, taking only 2mg per day via the sublingual route. I am only just now getting some soreness behind my nipples that might indicate the start of permanent growth.

My personal rough timeline started as:

1 week:

• Skin was noticeably less oily
• Facial hair already began growing in a little bit slower/thinner
• Higher amounts of executive function

2 weeks:

• Core temperature dropped from a typical average 99.7 to average 96.9 (measured twice daily when I started feeling cold)
• Emotions started to feel bigger. More present. More significant, maybe.

3 Weeks

• Started noticing that I need to eat less to feel full. This was probably due to dieting, but I had already been dieting for a solid 3 months so it came as a surprise.
• Cried for the first time about something that happened years ago. Realized it feels like a wall has come down from between me and my emotions. I have stopped dissociating, and happiness feels more real than it ever has

6 Weeks

• Visible decrease in flaccid size of my genitalia (no erect changes)
• marked decrease in blood pressure
• my nipples are hard constantly, but no notable pain or growth

8 weeks

• Marked changes in sexual sensitivities
• Notably lower amounts of ejaculate
• Realize I haven’t yelled or been aggressive when frustrated in nearly a month at least
• My resting face has come to resemble more of a smile than a scowl … But that’s probably not a medical change :-)

None of those are permanent changes, and talking with some other folks that seems to be a pretty common thread: Permanent changes are usually many months in, so unless you have a very specifically accelerated response to it, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. if your specialist says you can try it out fearlessly, then you should listen to their advice.

The question is somewhat difficult to answer, because the reactions to HRT are very individual. They depend on things like your age, your genetic make-up and the kind of HRT you get (what kind of drugs, what dosage, etc.)

To put things as general as possible: If you start HRT you may first feel euphoria, which is (more often than not) a purely psychological reaction. The actual effects of HRT will usually begin to manifest after a few weeks (once again: highly depending on what you are taking and how your body reacts to it). Unlike the initial psychological effect this will usually be more gradual, as your body and mind “ease into” their new state of being.

The obvious physical effects usually take months to manifest (growth of breast tissue, etc), though infertility can come earlier, particularly if you take anti-androgens or progesterone.

Because you specifically asked about sperm, the effects of HRT are (mostly) reversible in that regard, particularly if you haven’t taken HRT for long. Some people can become fertile after months, sometimes even years of HRT, once they stop taking it.

So: Yes, most people can stop HRT for a while, freeze some sperm and then go back on. There are no guarantees, but it works far more often than not.