[Requesting engagement from trans-feminine people on HRT]
I don’t yet know when I will begin hormone replacement therapy, but the anticipation leaves me prone to developing expectations I worry are unrealistic.
Not sure how best to explain. My emotions, and sometimes my expression of those emotions, will feel masculine when heightened. Feeling intensely happy or angry about something even unrelated to my identity, those feelings give me dysphoria because of how masculine they seem. It’s not that being happy or angry is inherently masculine, of course. The dysphoria comes from the emotion’s manifestation seeming masculine.
I don’t know if this makes sense, but has anyone experienced something similar and/or seen changes to these sorts of things?
Definitely something that many mention experiencing and different people attribute to various things. I think sometimes though changes are almost sort of a placebo effect, where HRT acts as a justification to express emotions that have been suppressed when masking. Also anger that exists as a result of the masking has no reason to exist without the masking, so if you start see yourself a bit more like your true self, the self-frustation may go.
Personally I saw some effects people sometimes attribute to HRT (not really the emotions you mention) simply as a result realizing I’m not actually technical cis long before starting. I haven’t been on HRT long enough (only 3 days) to say how it might effect me, but even if it just helps with dissociation, it would likely have that affect of making emotions feel more vibrant just simply because they’re feel like they’re my emotions. But time will tell.