Advocate.com – Joanne Herman
For male-to-female transsexuals, estrogen can deliver soft skin, sensuous curves, and a profound sense of harmony – but it?s no magic bullet.
Forgive me while I dip into my prior (male) life for a proper analogy to describe what it was like to have the wrong primary sex hormone coursing through my body. The only way to explain it is that I felt like a car running on the wrong type of gas. That seems very clear after having replaced testosterone with estrogen four years ago. I now have an amazing sense of well-being and harmony that I never knew before. Now my body just hums.
Estrogen has also accomplished physical changes that contribute to my harmony. Because I now carry a higher body fat content, as other women do, my skin feels softer?and I have a few curves I didn?t have before. Of course, all the curves in the world couldn?t hide my broader shoulders and longer waist, but it helps. My rear end is larger now too but still a little smaller than my ideal. In fact, I have on occasion joked with my nontrans women friends that I would gladly trade my shoulders for their butts.
One thing estrogen cannot do is make a male voice rise into female range. There are surgeries that claim to be able to do this, but their success rates are terrible, and because the procedures can actually cause damage they are not recommended. The safer alternative is voice therapy, and results can be quite good. Remember the voice coach at the very opening of the movie Transamerica? Many MTFs know about Andrea James, and some (including me) own her voice course. There are also speech therapists in larger cities that specialize in voice feminization.