Ask A Trans Man 28 Mar 2026
Ask a trans man is a work of love. I believe that many people don't ask questions because they are afraid of being judged, so I'm giving people a place to ask their questions anonymously. I'd rather have you asking me than AI. I just request that you are kind. If you'd like to submit a question, click here.
Question: What were some unexpected changes both good and bad that came with transition?
Simon Says: Oh, there were so many changes I didn't expect and I could write an entire book on this. I transitioned because I knew in my soul that the way I existed in the world did not match who I felt like I was on the inside, but there was a lot of stuff that I just wasn't aware of. I knew the basics. I knew I would grow facial hair, my shape would masculinize, my voice would drop, etc. Before they ever give you your first dose of testosterone, you have to sign a waver that says you know all that stuff. But some things just happen different than you expect.
So here are a few of the things I didn't expect.
- I did not expect so much body hair in some of the places it has chosen to grow. I have no control over this process. It just grows. I am a massage therapist and have touched men who are super hairy and men who have no body hair and I have seen my brothers in swim suits so I had an idea of what I would grow and I was wrong.
My body loves growing hair. Not on my back, thankfully, but basically everywhere else is hair. Hair on my butt cheeks surprised me. I really was not anticipating that, but I also have never seen my brothers' butt cheeks so that makes sense. I also have hobbit feet now. They are so hairy. I do not get it. I'm thinking of being Frodo this Halloween.
Also, the body hair started right away. As soon as my body got testosterone it was like "OH! I KNOW WHAT TO DO! HAIR!". So now I have lots of hair on most of my body. (Someday I'll tell you about why this does not phase me and it all goes back to a newspaper article I read when I was 12 about men's body hair. Because it's very normal for a 12 year old "girl" who was not attracted to men to be invested in a newspaper article about men's body hair...Still cis though*.) - I did not expect my mustache to come in blonde. Or to not grow in the center? I don't get it. The rest of my body has thick, dark hair. From my head to my feet. Dark brown hair. Up until I stared testosterone, I had never had a blonde hair on my body. Not when I was a baby. Not when I was a child. Not as an adult. And then, my mustache grew in blonde. It took like 3 years to darken enough to be visible and it's still lighter than the rest of my hair. It also has a big empty patch in the middle. Hair just does what it does. I give up trying to understand it.
- I did not expect my migraines to decrease. This one is a little weird to write now because I'm actually in the middle of a migraine cycle. However, my migraines were getting progressively worse for years and going on testosterone almost completely got rid of them for 4 years. Now, they come in phases when I'm under a lot of stress. Or when I go off testosterone for a while and go back on (that's a whole story for another day). But it turns out most of my migraines were actually hormonal. Even now when I have them, they are not as bad as they were before starting. Testosterone is the best migraine preventative medicine I've tried.
- I did not expect my joints to be more stable. I think I have hEDS. I don't know for sure, but that seems likely. My joints used to be pretty unstable. My kneecap, for example, used to randomly pop off and back on. It hurt like hell, but it just did it and I had no control over it. Since going on T, this isn't really an issue anymore. Testosterone tightens up your ligaments and tendons. This is actually one of the reasons men to be less flexible than women, which I knew, but I didn't realize it was a direct result of the T. It is. 🤷
- I did not expect how long it took for me to "pass". (For those who don't know, passing is when people look at you and assume you are the gender you want to be viewed as.)
I started testosterone 22 June 2021. 2 years in, I passed maybe 50% of the time. Getting top surgery end of August 2023 helped a lot, but it took almost another year before most people saw me as a man most of the time and I would say it wasn't until the Fall of 2024 that I was passing almost 100%.
This surprised me because everyone always talks about how fast the changes on Testosterone are and how permanent, etc. Everyone was telling me I'd be passing so quickly and I saw men who do! My husband, for example, has been on T less than a year and already passes almost all the time. But that wasn't my reality. And it was hard. All I wanted was to be seen as a man and no one did. Every single day I had to wake up and convince people that I should exist as me when they couldn't see me. It didn't help that my voice never dropped to a deep level. On the phone, most people still think I'm a woman. So now people think I'm a gay man. Close enough. - I did not expect to discover attraction to men. This one... I still cannot fully wrap my head around. I did not feel attracted to men until about a year and a half ago. None. Zip. Zero. And then, about the point I started passing, I started having feelings for men. In February 2025, I had a friend with benefits situation with a bisexual cis man and it did something for me that I had never had before. It was wild. And then, when I met Tommy and we went on that road trip to Arches as friends... It was like... this was what I was waiting for my whole life. This was it. Dating a man who was like me, in basically every way. Yes. This is what my soul longed for. (See my post Kismet for some more details).
Anyway. I legitimately thought I was a lesbian until I realized I was a man and then I was disappointed that I was a straight man until a year and a half ago and now I'm just living my happy little gay life.
BONUS: This one I knew would happen, but I didn't know how it would feel when it did. I did not expect how it would feel to be treated as a cis man.
The first time I walked into a room and had people... stop what they were doing... it was mind blowing. I walked into a Uhaul and started talking and people listened. I genuinely did not understand what was happening. My brain kind of short-circuited. Having people just pay attention because I was speaking? What is this? But it happens all the time now and it feels odd as fuck. On the one hand, I like it. On the other hand. IT'S THE GOD-DAMN 21st CENTURY. WHY ARE WE STILL TREATING WOMEN AS LESS? Seriously. Y'all. You need to start respecting women the way you respect men. I should not have had to be surprised by how that felt because it shouldn't be a thing.
Related, the first time a woman treated me like a cis man and acted like I was intruding on her space, was a mind fuck. I got it. I really, really got it and I did not protest, but it stung. I do not blame women for choosing the bear over me because they don't know me. I am passing. I look like another man and so many men are terrible. I don't blame the responses I got. But oof. That's not the women's fault though. I blame men for that one. Thanks men. 🖕
*Still cis though is a joke on a big trans masc server I am on about all the weird things that we did before our eggs cracked that are actually not typical behaviors of girls and women.
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