Your points about the NMDA receptor are really interesting, thanks for writing!
I’m transfem, HRT for 2+ years, just wanted to share my data point. The strength of the positive mental changes I experienced on E shook me existentially. I’ve since been fascinated by this topic. But it is pretty fraught with bias, since starting HRT almost always coincides with massive psychological turmoil, so the confounds of subjective experience here are massive. We should be careful drawing general conclusions. I still think a lot of the self-reported mental changes for most trans people are due to finally embracing feelings they’ve struggled with for a long time—at a psychological level—and that process is just as likely to produce subjective perceptual changes as are physiological effects of the HRT.
I’ve also read a lot of self-reports on reddit. I’m not sure how obvious this is to other LW-ers but I feel like I have to mention that your experience of changes on E seems to be in the 95th+ percentile of salience.
My own subjective data point:
no changes in taste
more averse to bad smells, especially male BO
greater depth of olfactory perception in general
no changes in visual perception
no immediate changes in motor output. Noticed loss of strength and increased difficulty gaining muscle around month 6. Has only become more apparent since.
laugh more easily, and it’s harder to stop laughing once I start. More empathic. External stimuli cause stronger reactions internally, and it’s more difficult for me to override these. I could go on and on, but I’m really not certain these emotional changes are direct effects of the hormones so much as finally “unrepressing” my gender. I was horribly repressed.
More social anxiety but pretty sure that was due to being visibly trans rather than the estrogen.
no changes in systematizing or attention to detail, no change in interest in associative or magical thinking
By far the biggest change for me was that I simply felt inexplicably calmer and happier. Less dissociated, more present. Less depressed, less anxious, and I had an easier time focusing, and maintaining sustained attention.
I’m naturally neurotic, so I spent months interrogating my experience to try to figure out whether this was some kind of mega-placebo. As best as I can figure out, no. It really does feel like my brain was deficient in estradiol, and fixing that made everything better. I don’t know how else to describe it. This all happened in about a week, all before most physical changes, and before social transition.
This may not be true in any meaningful neurochemical way. But I feel estrogen made me less “schizo” as I am now so much more happy and present in whatever I’m doing.
also I agree with this:
sexual differentiation is a fragile rube goldberg machine, prone to random breakage. I speculate that humans have intersex brains
Your points about the NMDA receptor are really interesting, thanks for writing!
I’m transfem, HRT for 2+ years, just wanted to share my data point. The strength of the positive mental changes I experienced on E shook me existentially. I’ve since been fascinated by this topic. But it is pretty fraught with bias, since starting HRT almost always coincides with massive psychological turmoil, so the confounds of subjective experience here are massive. We should be careful drawing general conclusions. I still think a lot of the self-reported mental changes for most trans people are due to finally embracing feelings they’ve struggled with for a long time—at a psychological level—and that process is just as likely to produce subjective perceptual changes as are physiological effects of the HRT.
I’ve also read a lot of self-reports on reddit. I’m not sure how obvious this is to other LW-ers but I feel like I have to mention that your experience of changes on E seems to be in the 95th+ percentile of salience.
My own subjective data point:
no changes in taste
more averse to bad smells, especially male BO
greater depth of olfactory perception in general
no changes in visual perception
no immediate changes in motor output. Noticed loss of strength and increased difficulty gaining muscle around month 6. Has only become more apparent since.
laugh more easily, and it’s harder to stop laughing once I start. More empathic. External stimuli cause stronger reactions internally, and it’s more difficult for me to override these. I could go on and on, but I’m really not certain these emotional changes are direct effects of the hormones so much as finally “unrepressing” my gender. I was horribly repressed.
More social anxiety but pretty sure that was due to being visibly trans rather than the estrogen.
no changes in systematizing or attention to detail, no change in interest in associative or magical thinking
By far the biggest change for me was that I simply felt inexplicably calmer and happier. Less dissociated, more present. Less depressed, less anxious, and I had an easier time focusing, and maintaining sustained attention.
I’m naturally neurotic, so I spent months interrogating my experience to try to figure out whether this was some kind of mega-placebo. As best as I can figure out, no. It really does feel like my brain was deficient in estradiol, and fixing that made everything better. I don’t know how else to describe it. This all happened in about a week, all before most physical changes, and before social transition.
This may not be true in any meaningful neurochemical way. But I feel estrogen made me less “schizo” as I am now so much more happy and present in whatever I’m doing.
also I agree with this: