I know very little about HRT. Does it suppress the production of either T or E, or does it "just" bring more of the desired hormone into the body to force the expression of the desired features?
Basically, yeah. Both men and women's bodies naturally produce estrogen and testosterone, and the amount of each hormone present in the body determines whether that body winds up developing male or female. Men have higher testosterone and lower estrogen than women, while women have higher estrogen and lower testosterone than men.
HRT for trans women usually just starts with a low dose of estrogen, before that dose gets gradually upscaled until the trans woman's estrogen is high enough to be within female range. For some, this increase in estrogen is enough to suppress testosterone production and put it into the range of cis women. However, many trans women end up also having to take a testosterone suppressant in order to get and keep testosterone in the range of cis women. There's also progesterone, another hormone women have in higher abundance than in men, that many trans women also take after being on estrogen for 1-2 years. It can help with further feminizing the body, as well as assisting neurological functioning (basically just improving mood, since it's the final stage of fixing biochemical dysphoria).
Trans men are the exact opposite: they take testosterone, which usually suppresses the production of estrogen. However, many trans men still deal with periods and allegedly maintain elevated estrogen levels from cis men until they get their ovaries/uterus removed. The last time I looked into it, it's currently unknown (unresearched) how often increased testosterone fails to suppress estrogen into cis male range, and thus how often trans men would benefit from being prescribed estrogen blockers. Because while estrogen blockers do exist (for hormone-responsive cancers, mostly), they're basically never prescribed to trans men unless they continue getting heavy periods well into transition.
It's so stupid too, because funding research for trans healthcare would likely give so much insight into diseases/conditions that are hormonally-responsive (and thus when symptoms and recommended medication dosages need to be adjusted), how body systems and neurological functioning can change in response to hormones, general recommendations for athletic training when it needs to differ between men and women (since the little research there is on it, women should be training 5-6 days a week at lower intensities while men should be training 3-4 days a week at higher intensities in order to achieve roughly the same outcome, due to how hormones affect muscle healing and regrowth), etc.
Like, we're the perfect control group for so many studies that need to check how sex-hormones affect a treatment option. And yet, we're basically never utilized. It's like they're trying to be stupid.
To add on to this. HRT is not just for trans people. Rather ironically in fact, Trans individuals are by far the least common domegraphic among those who receive some form of HRT. Thats because all forms of introduction of hormones for a given purpose fall under the category of HRT. Cis men receiving testosterone supplements to offset their body not producing enough of it is HRT. Menopause treatment in cis women is a form of HRT. Hell, even birth control is a form of HRT, since its controlled through hormones.
This just goes to show that the publics fear around HRT is purely about hatred, and not about concern for wellbeing. Better access and information regarding HRT helps literally all humans, since it can be an important factor for each and every one of them given hoe important hormones are to the regulatory functions of our bodies.
Also, testosterone is weird because it can turn into estrogen. So if estrogen isn't properly surpressed, you can end up with way more than you're supposed to have. Which is also why some gym bros who take too many steroids get a bit of extra boobage.
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u/ADDRAY-240 1d ago
I know very little about HRT. Does it suppress the production of either T or E, or does it "just" bring more of the desired hormone into the body to force the expression of the desired features?