Hey tanglog,
I think I read parts of this thread some time ago. That was way before I started chemical castration 11 weeks ago.
You always come up with such clever thread titles ( not to mention avatars) though, that I've kept overlooking this one since then I started Androcur. I've really enjoyed rereading your experiences.
Although I'm a bit (OK, a lot
) older than you, it's really interesting and reassuring to me that many of the emotions and physical changes I'm experiencing mirror your own. I can also relate to your sexuality, as I'm gay, too.
I haven't had a single hot flash to date, which I find disappointing. It seems like this is a rite of passage for eunuchs so I can't really make the grade until I experience those.
I'm totally thrilled by the clear, minimal ejaculate. OTOH, I've never experienced this multi-orgasmic thing. Maybe I need some help developing my technique
.
I first asked my psychiatrist for a reference to a gender specialist in October. I'd done some self-harming over the years but it tended to be intermittent. The two weeks before I spoke to him, though, I'd been doing this just about every night for two weeks AND getting really drunk on 5 - 6 cans of beer. I knew I needed to do something or risk becoming an alcoholic, badly damaging my body in a way that might not be repairable and who knows what else. I explained all this to him.
Now whenever I see him, he always asks if I'm thinking of castrating myself. I'm extremely clear with him that I am not, which is true. Now that I'm on Androcur, any desire like that has disappeared.
He knows I'm seeing Katie at the Univer of Minn Center for Human Sexuality. I suppose, with my history or depression (now totally absent and I hope that lasts) and more recent hypomania, it's not unreasonable for him to ask me this.
I'm not sure what he'd do if I said I was thinking of auto-castration. Sounds like here in Minnesota you can be committed if there's a perceived threat of self-harm. In one case I just read, part of the proof of self-harm was the inability to keep a neat household. If that were the only criterion, I'd have been locked up long ago!
Very occasionally, I wonder if I'm doing the right thing with chemical castration. There was a period of about 10 days in mid-December when I was reducing the Androcur dose because I was running out. First five days of that were fine, then I started to feel like the 'old' Todd with some testosterone and I was absolutely miserable. When the new shipment of Androcur arrived, I felt like I'd rediscovered the fountain of youth
Or at least the fountain of middle age!
I don't want to go back to the old me, I'm really into the new me. At this point in my life, and I know this doesn't or can't work for everyone, I feel like the more open I am about my status the better. I'm absolutely comfortable being open. I feel that if I have a need to hide what I'm doing, who I am (transgender male to eunuch) or where I'm headed, I must not be ready for it.
Best of luck as you continue your journey, tanglog.
-todd
)
I really need to get my eyebrows waxed, too!! They're starting to look like some kind of miniature Yosemite Sam mustaches.
It was something I had been feeling like doing, but not getting round to. Somehow I no longer had any fear of the operation. It was even the same surgeon who performed the circumcision as had given me the life saving surgery 3 months earlier - I bet he thought I was a funny chap. 
