Estrogen is a neurotransmitter. Testosterone is hugely important in dopamine signaling (maybe seratonin too, but we're not sure yet).

HRT directly restructures the way your brain thinks. Change the balance of just these two chemicals and you change how the brain works.

1/7

We have a lot of science on what happens when we lower testosterone in cis men--and it has *massive* impacts on their mental health.

We have lots of science on how changing estrogen levels affects cis women. Again, massive impacts.

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Messing with the balance of natal sex hormone levels impacts mood, cognition, ability to learn and pay attention, even the way the brain stores and recalls information.

And when cis levels are off, their symptoms are almost identical to trans people's, pre HRT.

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There's a line going around that giving a cis person cross-gender HRT gives them dysphoria, and we only have anecdotal evidence to support it.

But understand: when trans people report the positive mental and emotional effects of HRT, those effects are not placebo.

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I'm no transmedicalist, but trans brains respond to hormonal regimes as though our sex matched our identified gender. That's incredibly well-studied, and utterly out of the realm of possible dispute.

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Some brains don't produce the chemicals they need to function well. Depression. Anxiety. ADHD. Any number of other mental and cognitive conditions are treated by tweaking neurotransmitter levels in the brain. This is basic neuroscience. It's beyond dispute.

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If these things are true, and we know they all are, HRT is lifesaving medication in the same way that antidepressants are.

If you're trans and wondering if HRT is worth it, you need to know these things. This is why it matters, as much as any other effect.

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