Had I finished puberty?

[neutrois (imported)]

Hi folks,

I'm a neutrois trans person in my early 30s, born male and transitioned to a non-binary gender. I haven't had testosterone in my system since I was 19.

There are some good websites about how I identify here:-

http://neutrois.com/

http://gender.wikia.com/wiki/Neutrois

http://neutrois.me/

http://nonbinary.org/

http://genderqueerid.com/

I'm looking for some castration/chemical castration answers. I've been researching on transgender forums and websites and haven't had much luck. I think this is partly because it seems that most neutrois, genderqueer and non-binary gendered bloggers started off with female bodies. I know a few non-binary gendered people who were male at birth or intersex but assumed to be male but none are in quite my situation. I've been lurking here for a while and found some threads come tantalisingly close to answering my questions but never really got there. I thought it was probably time to bite the bullet and register an account here.

So my questions are

(1) was my puberty normal?

(2) had I finished going through all the changes of puberty when I was chemically castrated at 19?

My puberty started pretty early but didn't seem to get so bad I couldn't cope until my late teens. I had my first pubic hair on my scrotum age 11, before any other visible changes. Next I got wiry black hairs on my legs before I was 12. I had my first ejaculation just before my 13th birthday. I think I had the first signs of facial hair growth aged 15 or 16 and was shaving light facial hair every day by 17. I don't remember when my voice broke exactly but I was a choir boy in my local church choir until I was 12. I don't think my voice started changing unusually late because that wasn't one of the things I was bullied for, so I'll guess it was aged 13 or 14 but maybe later.

I hated puberty, I hated facial hair especially and I was pretty obsessed with keeping my voice high and terrified of it dropping any more. Until I was 16 or 17 I wished that I was still pre-pubescent, I hated the way teenage boys acted. Then I got on the internet and found websites about transgender and androgyny and decided I was meant to be third gendered or non-gendered and told some of my close friends about that. By the time I went off to university aged 18 the really bad parts of puberty started kicking in. I had to shave every day and had visible 5 o'clock shadow. My arm muscles which had always been very weak seemed to be getting stronger, I grew and hated my first chest hair, I had hairier arms and I had the starts of hair growing on the back of my hands and fingers. I couldn't bear the idea that my skin would start getting rougher. Worse still people were calling me a man more and more which wasn't something I could cope with.

I convinced myself that I must be transsexual, got onto support mailing lists and arranged to go and see a private psychiatrist who agreed I was transsexual and gave me hormones and blockers (androcur). I started taking those a couple of months after my 19th birthday.

I immediately felt a lot better on the hormones. After a few months, my body hair had thinned considerably, the one chest hair had gone and my skin was as soft and smooth as it had ever been. Obviously the facial hair didn't go, I had to have several months worth of laser treatment to get rid of that permanently. Luckily I didn't have very dramatic fat redistribution. I have larger nipples but my breast tissue never grew to anywhere near big enough to need a bra. I don't have much in the way of bum or hips. This is sheer luck I think. I know plenty of people who took the same treatments I did and now have very feminine bodies. I have heard of one neutrois person who took estrogen and is trying to get top surgery out of the NHS now.

I got blockers, hormones and speech therapy on the NHS. The speech therapy was helpful for giving me more control over my voice but the therapist seemed obsessed with teaching me how to act like a woman and how to pass. I had to argue that I wasn't going through all this to learn how to act like something I wasn't. I was transitioning to be myself. In fact I'd been realising that although I hated being treated as a man, I was just as uncomfortable being treated as a woman too, I didn't feel like I was either. I found that I was happier around people who knew that I was trans and just treated me as me, their friend, not some gender stereotype.

Around this time the Neutrois Outpost website came out and I found myself on mailing lists about that, genderqueer, androgyny and intergender. I realised that what I'd told my friends when I was 17 was right, and I'd accidentally managed to become androgynous and live as third gendered. I also found out about genderqueer people coming out of the lesbian community who were using boi or boy as a non-binary adult gender identity that was neither man nor woman, sort of half way between tom boy and nancy boy. That was the closest I'd come to finding anyone else talking about how I saw myself, even though I had started with a male body while they'd started female.

So I stopped trying to pass and trying to dress and act a certain way. I just wore comfortable clothes and did what came naturally. I stopped trying to do a higher voice. After a few months of that I realised I couldn't be happier. I was comfortable with my body and I was being myself and letting people think whatever they liked about me. After a year or so I came out to family and friends as being neutrois and androgynous, I changed my name so it didn't sound so female and went back to my original gender psych who wrote me letters saying I was living as neither male nor female and he supported that.

I experimented with changing my doses of Androcur and hormones but I didn't like the results. I decided that I was happy with things as they were and shouldn't mess with things. I was lucky to have most of my male puberty effects reversed and not much added by my female puberty. I had smooth skin and a pretty flat chest (not even AAA).

The only thing I was worried about were the blockers I was on were dangerous for taking long term. The idea was you'd have surgery sooner rather than later and until then have annual blood tests to check they weren't damaging your liver or kidneys. We talked about me having an orchidectomy and agreed that I should be totally chemically castrated with Goserelin implants for a year before the surgery to make sure I was happy with that. It would be totally irreversible. My NHS PCT had been paying for everything but they refused to fund Goserelin without me going to the gender clinic. The clinic had a terrible reputation a decade ago and I was paranoid they'd force me to stop treatment so I decided to leave it until I was forced to by health problems.

After 10 years on Androcur I got a danger sign on my annual bloodtest that maybe my liver wasn't happy, so on my GP's suggestion I bit the bullet and went to the NHS gender clinic. I was totally honest about everything with them. I told them how I saw myself and how I live outside the gender binary. They agreed that I have gender dysphoria and that it was totally right for me to be on HRT and blockers despite not IDing as female. They were very cautious about how the PCT might not fund me, but it turned out everything was fine and they moved me over to Goserelin (Zoladex) implants first the lower monthly dose, then the higher dose 12 week version. After 2 years on those I have near 0 testosterone, even lower than on Androcur. I'm not depressed or lethargic, probably because of the estrogen I take. In fact I'm a lot happier without the worry that my treatment might be harming me or might get taken away.

I'm now on the path to finally getting that orchidectomy through the NHS, which is why I've found myself researching the effects on the Eunuch Archive

Back to those questions!

Was my puberty normal? Had I finished going through male puberty when I was chemically castrated age 19?

I have always assumed that physically I'm just like a trans woman who transitioned just after puberty, but I make literally no effort to pass and most people who don't read me as trans assume that I'm still teenage boy. This even happens over the phone or on Skype. People think I sound about 14 or 15 from my voice alone. I can also sing a lot higher than the average man. Singers tell me that my range extends out of tenor and a little way into alto. Is this just luck again and I'd be like that if I'd stayed on testosterone or is this because my voice hadn't finished maturing when I was chemically castrated?

I'm also still skinny and boyish in build, but pretty tall with it (about 5'9") so people who don't think I'm trans assume I'm sixth form collage age, 16-19 (I get asked if I'm on my school holidays or if I've started university yet). From photos and web camming where I'm sitting down, people have guessed I'm as young as 14, usually more like 16. I always assumed this was a result of the feminising effects of the hormones coupled with not looking like I'm trying to pass, like how FtM trans guys are seen as teenagers until they've been on testosterone for a few years.

Recently I've been talking to trans women who transitioned in their late teens like me and was surprised to find out that they haven't got the same sort of boyish build I do. They're more likely to be too wide in the chest and shoulders. I actually can't buy mens clothes from several highstreet shops because I'm 2 or 3 inches narrower in the chest and shoulders than their smallest sizes. Some young transitioners even told me that people assume they're a lot older than they are rather than younger and they assumed this was because of their masculinised features. Of course they are seen as female not male.

Are there any testosterone puberty effects that don't usually happen until 19 or later? Could parts of my puberty have been late starting or slow to complete even though other parts started early? Was I actually chemically castrated during pubescence and not after like I thought? Or is this all just luck or the effects of estrogen?

I'm very interested to hear what you think, especially from those of you with experience or who have researched this a lot more than me. I'm also interested in finding other people with similar life stories to mine, I've only found a handful so far and found it rewarding every time

[Cainanite (imported)]

From what I understand about puberty, you were pretty much finished with it by the time you started hormone treatments. A lot of people don't get very wide shoulders or chest, even after puberty. A lot of people are naturally not very hairy.

Does the body continue to change AFTER puberty? Yes it does. Does that mean you are still going through puberty? No, it does not.

As you age, you can still develop more body hair. I knew guys who were almost hairless at 19, who've become hairy enough to shear, and knit sweaters from at 37.

As a male normally ages they can get hairy ears, and noses. They can develop back hair, and arm hair that is thicker than when they were in their teens and twenties.

A 19 year old probably hasn't developed all the muscles that they will through their twenties. Hence you have less muscle development in your upper body. It doesn't mean that you still had puberty to go through, just that the muscles remained smaller. The important part about recognizing the end of puberty is that all the framework has already been built. It sounds like that was the case for you. The house was already constructed, but not yet furnished. You've since furnished your house in a different way. Landscaping and interior design were all that was left. The house was already done.

It remains up to you how much remodeling and reconstruction you want to do. It's your house.

All the framework for a sexually mature male were already completed by the time you were 19. All that remained was for your muscles and hair to adapt to that finished product. That's not puberty. That is aging. The body continues to change throughout your life. You intervened, and have made different changes with hormones and such. Your body is still changing, just along a different path from what testosterone might put you on.

Sounds to me like you are now changing as you age, in the way you want to change, not in the way biology said you must.

It sounds like you are pretty happy with where you are in your life. I envy you that. Good luck on your journey. Enjoy yourself for who you are.

[neutrois (imported)]

Thanks for the quick reply Cainanite

I've been reading through a few articles about what constitutes pubescence and you're right it does seem like all the stages were hit. I don't see anywhere talking about how long each stage takes so it seems that once the signifiers appear that means the stage has happened. So pubic hair, ejaculations, facial hair, voice changes and growth spurt, that's everything covered and you're through puberty.

I guess I've been mixing up puberty with adolescence? Maybe what I should be asking instead then is how long it takes to fully mature after puberty? I guess by what I'd read that I had ticked all the boxes between about 14 and 16. I was through puberty but I was still maturing into a man and that didn't become intolerable until 17 or 18. It was a slow buildup as more and more small changes added up until I couldn't ignore it and had to stop them.

So like you said I hadn't finished growing body hair because there was only one hair on my chest. Then with blockers and estrogen what I'd grown thinned out or disappeared and what grew instead has ended up in a female pattern. I'm lucky enough to find that my body's female pattern is about what I had as a 14 year old boy apart from gaining more around my genitals. I'd also barely started developing male musculature and again I guess it's also just down to luck there that I've ended up with almost no muscle definition in my arms and shoulders. I say luck because that's what I wanted.

So does the same also apply to voice? Can voice take years to change or change with puberty and then again at the end of adolescence? Could I have stopped a male voice from fully maturing by transitioning during adolescence? Would people still be telling me how much I sound like a teenager in my 30s if I'd left things to develop naturally? Do more men sound like me than I think but they're self conscious about appearing manly or mature and put a lot of effort into lowering their voices?

As you said, I'll have grown the muscles and body hair given to me by female hormones but over a male skeleton, ending up as a boyish androgynous adult. Could the same be true of my voice? Is it possible for it to have half matured as male and then been changed in some way by female hormones? My research is suggesting that the male voice is fully matured by 1. But I think sixth formers at 17 often sound different to university students at 21. So are their voices still developing?

I realise that there are lots of male singers with voices like mine and plenty with even higher voices, so it could just be sheer luck I know. I'm starting to think maybe I'm just the luckiest neutrois person going. I guess it's a matter of perspective though and I'd probably hate my body and be looking for breast implants and facial surgery if I was a trans woman. One person's luck is another's curse.

From knowing FtM friends who went through transition with testosterone, it seems to take at least a couple of years to stop looking like a teenager and about four or five years to really start looking their real ages. Voice changes can start immediately or within the first 3 months at least but can still be developing dramatically over the first couple of years even on a constant high dose. From watching masses of testosterone transition diaries, it seems like most trans guys voices start sounding like mine at 4 to 9 months, then end up getting a lot deeper and more mature sounding later on. I know of a couple of non-binary gendered FtN people who took T for 9 months and stopped who sound startlingly like I do.

With the way I look I know a lot of people assume that I'm a trans guy early in transition or that I'm FtN, took T, maybe had top surgery or lipo and detransitioned before all the permanent affects had finished. I guess that's part of why I started wondering if I'd gone through all the T effects myself during my own adolescence because I met enough FtMs and FtNs who seemed strikingly like me.

Maybe it really is sheer luck that I ended up with what seems like a spot on neutrois body with very few secondary sexual characteristics just through a normal MtF transition. I know many MtN people end up on blockers with very low doses of HRT or mix small doses of both estrogen and testosterone or have to bind or get lipo to be as comfortable as I've ended up. I'm really grateful that I've managed to do my MtN transition so painlessly.

So yes I am very happy with how things have turned out. I consider myself a success story and do enjoy being me. Thanks again for your advice!

[Dave (imported)]

Chances are that you ceased being a "child" at 19. Hormones cause the growth spurt and changes as the body matures. Only a "child" grows. Adults don't grown. They can gain muscle mass but the bones won't grow except to heal breaks and fractures.

There is very little growth between 19 or 20 and 21 and some people's bodies consider themselves "adult" at 19 and others might not be growing but remain "child" until possibly 22/23...

I say this because a relative at mine at 20 y/o had a bone tumor and that type of bone tumor is always cancerous in adults and would have require removal of the thigh bone, baking it dead to kill the bone cancer and then replacing it. Luckily, my relative's body still thought he was a "child" and the tumor is never cancer in a child. The doctor left an 11 inch gash on his thigh but not cancer.

So you see, "child" or "adult" is relative at 19. It may have meant nothing to your taking hormones to feminize your body or it may have meant another 1/8 inch growth because by 19 most people are their full height.

On a personal note, at 18, I had to shave daily and by 5pm I could walk into any bar and not get carded. That was a more than a few years ago and you will not be that lucky nowadays. Please don't ask about hairy. I"m still hairy and don't care for it. It's he gray ones you can't see I hate with a passion. {wink}{wink}

[erikboy (imported)]

Good question about your puberty. You should look at your father pictures of your age and male relatives same age from your mother side, to get clues what you might have inherited genetically.

Some people mature very quick and by age 18 look like old sailormen. It seemed like you started puberty rather early, but it progressed rather slowly. So it is just an educated guess that at age 19 you still had some masculinization ahead.

I had similar slow developement during late teens. I didn't need to shave until I was 19. And full beard developed only by age 25 while I didn't got any chest hair until I was 29. When I look at my old pictures now, I looked still pretty boyish until I was about 30.

I think you were lucky in many ways.

[neutrois (imported)]

Chances are that you ceased being a "child" at 19. Hormones cause the growth spurt and changes as the body matures. Only a "child" grows. Adults don't grown. They can gain muscle mass but the bones won't grow except to heal breaks and fractures.

There is very little growth between 19 or 20 and 21 and some people's bodies consider themselves "adult" at 19 and others might not be growing but remain "child" until possibly 22/23...

[...]

So you see, "child" or "adult" is relative at 19. It may have meant nothing to your taking hormones to feminize your body or it may have meant another 1/8 inch growth because by 19 most people are their full height.

Thanks it's interesting to know that some people are still maturing or considered a 'child' by some standards up until 22 or 23 and that it's not impossible that I could still have had some growing to do.

Knowing that my puberty seemed to have started earlier than most sites were saying but that I was still boyish and androgynous in many ways and didn't yet have chest hair aged 19 made me wonder if that was particularly unusual or could mean anything.

It does seem that everyone is different and there's a lot of natural variation between when people start looking like a man rather than an adolescent, so it's really hard to say if I would've had the build and voice I have now or if there

was still more to come that I've managed to avoid.

Good question about your puberty. You should look at your father pictures of your age and male relatives same age from your mother side, to get clues what you might have inherited genetically.

Some people mature very quick and by age 18 look like old sailormen. It seemed like you started puberty rather early, but it progressed rather slowly. So it is just an educated guess that at age 19 you still had some masculinization ah

ead.

[...]

I think you were lucky in many ways.

There's no clear answers I'm afraid. Some of my male relatives were extremely skinny in their teens but bulked out to look like big burly rugby players in their early 20s. Others stayed about the same build they were in their teens or developed a swimmer's body. I remember finding pictures of how much my big manly uncle looked like me when he was at university age pretty terrifying because they made me think it was going to happen to me too.

My voice still seems like the main clue that maybe I hadn't fully masculinised. I was doing some research on the internet and found a computer programme to analyse voice pitch which said the top end of my speaking voice goes out of the male range but it says the same thing for Chis Colfer who plays Kurt from Glee and there's no reason to think his voice isn't matured now he's in his 20s.

Again it really could all be luck and all we can do is make an educated guess. The only thing to tell me for sure would be to take testosterone and see what happens and the thought of that convinces me that I'm VERY happy to just not know either way!

Thanks again for your opinions and yes whatever is the case I think I've been lucky

[graylayer02 (imported)]

I had my first ejaculation at age 11 (interestingly, thinking of a girl) but continued through my 20s with only one chest hair. I finished growing at 21 or so and I've had to shave every day since about then (even now that I have no male or female hormones). So you probably did manage to arrest the later parts of male development, especially if things are as you describe. How often do you have to shave now?

The major thing I'd recommend for someone like you is to get the orchiectomy, since obviously your liver doesn't like the current situation, and the drugs seem to do funny things with the adrenals too, at least in my experience. Otherwise, what are your long run plans with your configuration?

[neutrois (imported)]

I had my first ejaculation at age 11 (interestingly, thinking of a girl) but continued through my 20s with only one chest hair. I finished growing at 21 or so and I've had to shave every day since about then (even now that I have no male or female hormones). So you probably did manage to arrest the later parts of male development, especially if things are as you describe. How often do you have to shave now?

Thanks, that's interesting to hear. I've also been talking to young transitioning trans women and several who transitioned in their early 20s definitely believed their build changed in permanent ways between 18 and 21.

As for shaving, I had permanent laser hair removal for about 10 sessions in 1999, I have a couple of moles that need shaving once a week because laser doesn't work on dark skin and my top lip needs shaving at the edges of my mouth maybe once a month. I know plenty of women who shave or wax their lip more often than I do.

The major thing I'd recommend for someone like you is to get the orchiectomy, since obviously your liver doesn't like the current situation, and the drugs seem to do funny things with the adrenals too, at least in my experience. Otherwise, what are your long run plans with your configuration?

Like I said, I'm down the path towards getting an orchiectomy on the NHS (state healthcare). I'm expecting to stay on goserelin for a while after that as my endocrine system adjusts, then I expect to be able to stop having to have the implants put in every 12 weeks and just take HRT pills, possibly on lower 'maintenance' doses but that'll depend on blood tests. I have no plans for any further surgery. In a perfect world where I could get any result with a perfect outcome and full sensation I would not opt for what I have now, but I don't feel strongly enough to seek reconstruction surgery. I actually had to be quite insistent that I would never want genital reassignment surgery because the clinic usually has a no orchi policy due to how often people decide to have GRS afterwards and how that often leads to a poorer result from scrotal shrinkage.

Thanks for sharing your perspective

[erikboy (imported)]

Neutrois, just a hint for you,

I remembered that we have a member here who is called Plix. He was castrated around age 20. And after living a full year or so as no Hormone Eunuch he decided to continue with Testosterone Replacement Therapy. Over about 5 or so years he became really hairy and masculine as he himself describes.

So, it might be the path you just avoided. I am sure that you have avoided at least some masculinisation for sure. And I feel littlebit jelaous, as I didn't choose your path at the right time for various reasons. Mostly because of lack of information.

[devi (imported)]

Thirty years might be the age of full maturity, maybe even forty. If you don't have that much facial hair and can't afford laser or electrolysis, plucking for about a half hour or so a week with a magnifying mirror works great. It has for me. I think I grew an inch in my early twenties although I'm still a short person. My ribcage was still very small until about that time too. And I am the only 'male' that is not bald to the third degree of relatedness. As a matter of fact I can still talk with the same exact voice as my sister, so I don't in order to avoid confusion, except I do talk to animals in my feminine for some reason. I still sing soprano as opposed to falsetto but I' not a skilled singer. As far as most strangers know, I sound and look like a twenties something male. In my early years I always avoided being around transgenders, one of the reasons being that most transgenders tend to raise the pitch of their voices without that voice being able to get into the female range and then in addition to that they over exaggerate certain feminisms: a dead give-away which drives me up the wall.