Transgender Teen Survival Guide

Lee says:

Anyone can wear any underwear they like! If you like wearing underwear sold in the women’s section, go for it! If you like wearing underwear sold in the men’s section, go for it!

You don’t need to have X body part or Y gender identity to buy the clothes that you like, it’s all just fabric and you can put it on your body if you want to. Trans women can wear women’s underwear without tucking, trans men can wear men’s underwear even if they don’t have the parts to fill out the pouch and don’t want to pack.

And yes, trans men can still wear women’s underwear, and trans women can still wear men’s underwear because gender identity isn’t the same thing as gender expression, and it’s ok to wear the clothes associated with your assigned gender at birth if you want to, and it doesn’t make you any less trans or any less valid.

You can often see the sizing on the package of underwear if you’re looking at it in the store, but when you’re shopping online check the product page for their sizing chart and then measure yourself with a measuring tape to find the right size for you. If you don’t have a measuring tape, see this post!

If you’re looking for some specific brands, I do have a few links below, but yeah, you can also just wear Hanes like anyone else too- being trans doesn’t mean you have to buy special “trans underwear” or something. But sometimes, we do have specific wants/needs/body considerations that can make buying a pair of specific-use underwear useful.

Flat-front masculine underwear (doesn’t have penis-room for folks who aren’t big down there/don’t have a penis):

Period underwear:

STP packer-compatible underwear (typically also compatible with non-STP packers, but it depends on the packer model):

Soft packer-compatible underwear (underwear you can wear with packer without also having to wear a harness underneath):

Packer harnesses (wear underneath your own underwear):

Packing pouches (attach to your own underwear):

Pouch underwear is sometimes recommended for the well-endowed folks who need extra support (#BigDickProblems are sometimes like a real™ thing after ALT phallo) and sometimes is also helpful for packing:

For those looking to do the opposite and minimize their bulge, gaffs might be helpful:

Wearing semi-tight spandex or cotton boyshorts is usually enough for most folks who want to have a flatter looking crotch area. But for people who like wearing tighter and more revealing clothes or are having bad dysphoria days, wearing Spanx-like shapewear, or cutting the legs off tights so they’re just the length of underwear and using those is a more effective option. If you don’t find those options comfortable, you can try buying a gaff like the ones listed above which can help gently flatten things without the risks involved with tucking with tape or pushing the testes into the inguinal canals.

If you want to shop online for underwear instead of browsing in a store but you don’t have a credit/debit card or don’t want your family to see what you’re buying, see this post about buying binders online! The same technique can be applied to buying anything online.

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Lee says:

Your chest may feel a bit more sore/tender around that time, but it’s still safe to bind.

The only issue I could see is if you have a dramatic increase in chest size around your period- I knew one person who went up like a cup or two in size which was wild. In that case, I’d suggest re-measuring yourself at the time of the month when your chest is the largest and make sure you still fit the same size binder and it isn’t too small.

But in general, it’s safe to bind while you have your period- you just might need to buy a second binder if you experience chest size fluctuations.

As always, listen to your body & respect your limits- don’t push yourself past your warning signs, and take your binder off if you need to.

Lee says:

Yeah, it can kinda feel damp to be honest. I’m Autistic, so I thought that would be a big sensory issue for me, but you kinda get used to it. Plus being on T and getting a hysterectomy means I never have the damp bloody menstrual pad experience anymore, which was also a similar and gross sensation, so I think it all cosmically cancels out.

After you pee, you should tip the cup forward to make sure the last drips are out, then if you want, you can push the back of the stp cup over your bits so it sort of “wipes” discreetly. Then you’re kinda damp, but not wet? You’ll see what I mean.

I have dysphoria about not being able to stand to pee, but that doesn’t mean I want to stand to pee publicly; if I’m packing with my STP and I have the choice between a stall and a urinal, I’ll always use the stall even though I’m still peeing standing up either way because I just prefer the privacy.

So there are some people who still choose to go in the stall despite having an STP, and they may do the traditional wipe with toilet paper and dry things a bit if they want to. Some people even want to wash the STP in the stall, and they bring a bottle of water & pour some though after. I personally don’t feel that’s necessary, but I know some people have anxiety about sanitary-ness.

When you have an STP it’s worth practicing with before you go out to see what is the most comfortable for you, and so you can get used to wearing it around. But try doing the same things in your house you’d do in public- so if you plan on not wiping with TP in the stall, don’t do that in your house either to see how it goes.

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Lee says:

There definitely is precedent, and there are a lot of people who are or have been on low-dose T, you just may not be aware of them.

For example, Micah from the blog @neutrois also identifies as neutrois and they started low-dose T in 2012, which is 7 years ago now. One of their blog posts is titled “Low Dose Testosterone Update 2015: Video update in which I talk about being on low dose testosterone for over 3 years.” This post has someone’s voice changes on low-dose T. This is a forum discussion of it, and here’s another one of Micah’s posts.

If you take low-dose T, the changes associated with being on testosterone will take longer to happen but you will most likely end up with all of them except possibly the stopping of menstruation, which happens for some people but not all.

People take low-dose T so they can get used to the changes slower and have time to adjust, or because they don’t want to overshoot their goal of androgyny and end up in the masc side of things so they want to be able to stop before certain things have changed.

I was on low-dose T myself, and I wrote a little about that here. 

It can be kind of scary to know that you’re the only one who decides what you want to do with your body and then realize that you don’t actually know what you want to do with it. But everyone makes their own paths, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all predetermined route for anyone. We all have to make our own choices. I’m not sure exactly what question you’re asking us, but if you want to continue T then do it, and if you feel like stopping that’s also ok.

The whole point of being on low-dose T is choosing your own destination and having the ability to stop when you feel like you’ve gotten to the place that you want to be, or continue if you want- and that endplace is different for everyone because different people want different things!

Lee says:

Yes, dysphoria that fluctuates over time is normal! There’s nothing wrong with having fluctuating levels of dysphoria- the vast majority of people experience fluctuations in their dysphoria! 

Sometimes that’s a small-scale fluctuation like changes in your dysphoria from day-to-day, and sometimes it’s a shift in dysphoria over a period of months or days. It’s normal for someone to experience decreases in their dysphoria, and it’s normal for someone to experience increases in their dysphoria.

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Here’s a few examples of dysphoria that changes over time:

Someone has a lot of dysphoria and they can’t find any ways to cope with it because they’re struggling with mental illness in general and it ends up being like a positive feedback loop where both make the other worse, but when they start mental health treatment/recovery some of that distress is lowered which makes it possible for them to then start coping with the dysphoria.

Someone has a lot of dysphoria when they’re closeted, but when they come out and their peers start gendering them correctly their dysphoria decreases.

Someone has a lot of dysphoria about something like their height, but over time they grow to accept it because it’s something that they can’t change so they still don’t like it but it becomes less actively distressing.

Someone has a lot of dysphoria when they’re in an unsupportive environment, but when their family/peers start to accept them, then their dysphoria is reduced.

Someone has a lot of dysphoria before their medical transition, but after they’ve gotten HRT/surgery/etc, their dysphoria reduces because the thing that made them dysphoric has changed.

Someone has a lot of chest dysphoria but not much genital dysphoria, then they get top surgery or a breast augmentation. Afterwards, they have less chest dysphoria but they start noticing more genital dysphoria which either developed after surgery, or was there the whole time but they didn’t notice because their chest dysphoria was so big and distracting.

Dysphoria that changes when you’re with or seeing certain people like celebrities/models/people with “ideal” bodies but no dysphoria when you’re around other people with the same kind of body as you. Or the reverse- dysphoria triggered when you’re around people who do have the same kind of body as you but it goes away when you’re around people who don’t have the same kind of body.

Someone has dysphoria that is triggered by certain activities like dressing a certain way, exercising, shopping, having sex, being in public bathrooms, etc, but when they’re not doing those things they don’t have much dysphoria- it comes and goes with the activity.

Someone was feeling dysphoric one day because they were misgendered a lot, but the next day they do something validating and their dysphoria decreases again.

Someone has a particularly dysphoric week for reasons they don’t really know, but then the next week they don’t feel very dysphoric.

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And so on- there are a million reasons why someone might have less or more dysphoria over time, whether that time is days or months. Sometimes there’s an obvious cause -> effect relationship, and sometimes it just seems to happen on it’s own. So you don’t necessarily have to have an obvious dysphoria trigger that explains your shifts in dysphoria over time.

And of course, having less dysphoria doesn’t invalidate you or mean that you’re not trans.

Our Dysphoria page has a Is my dysphoria normal? link to check out!

Lee says:

As for getting back on the feminine side of things, gender expression goes a long way, so growing your hair longer, wearing feminine clothing, wearing nail polish, wearing jewelry, etc can all help you with getting some feminine elements if you think that testosterone and trying to fit the masculine image has tipped you too far in the other direction.

Passing involves someone unconsciously and rapidly taking in a bunch of factors about your appearance, your voice, and your demeanor and then automatically mentally assigning you a gender. Some features are more important than others in this mental categorization; facial hair is often a bigger indicator than hip size, for example.

This isn’t like a conscious checklist people go through every time they see you; society trains our brains to automatically and unconsciously take in gendered features and categorize them as feminine or masculine to spit out a binary gender association.

But when you’re visibly gender non-conforming, or androgynous or just visibly non-cis, that tends to throw a wrench in the works and you can tell because the cis people start to like stare at your chest or something and you can see the gears turning in their heads as they try to figure out what gender you are- or more accurately, they want to figure out what gender you were assigned at birth and/or what genitals you have.

I’d say a mix of masculine and feminine things is good if you want an equal balance of masculine and feminine, so if you have a “masculine” body trait then compensate with a feminine accessory, if you’re wearing men’s clothes then wear women’s jewelry, if you’ve got long hair then wear masculine things, so forth.

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Menstruation will automatically resume if you stop taking T, but you can intervene and stop your periods again without having to take testosterone.

Endometrial Ablation usually stops your periods. 

A Hysterectomy will definitely stop your period forever- just remove the whole uterus and problem solved, no more periods for the rest of your life guaranteed. That’s the route I took! 

If you’re looking for something less surgical, some forms of Birth control will stop your period- check out that link for more info because I’ve gathered a ton of mod answers to that question for you. Some people find that the right dose of birth control or the right form (the Pill, an IUD, etc) just stops their period all together, but some folks experience “breakthrough bleeding” sometimes which is like a Suprise period. 

It’s 100% possible to not have a period even if you’re not on T, but it’s a good thing and a bad thing that you have so many different options to try because it can be overwhelming to pick one. 

You should talk to your endocrinologist and/or your doctor about the best way to stop periods for you, and check out the links above so you can ask them about specific things- sadly, trans patients often have to educate their doctors on the options available.

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If you stop taking T…

Change: Your voice will change while taking T, and after you stop it’ll stay the same depth. Reversing it: If you want it to raise higher again, try voice training and if that doesn’t work and you’ve seen a professional speech pathologist then try surgery. More info on that here.

Change: Any facial or body hair that has grown will remain, and continue to grow in if you shave it, but it won’t increase. So if you have a patchy beard, it will remain a patchy beard and won’t increase or decrease. Reversing it: You can try electrolysis if you want permanent hair removal, or laser hair removal if you want to permanently lighten/reduce it, and shaving/waxing/nair if you want a non-permanent solution. More info on that here.

Change: If you experienced hair loss on your head/scalp, the hair won’t regrow, but the hair loss will be halted so you won’t lose any more hair. Reversing it: You may be advised to try minoxidil, get a hair transplant, grow out the rest of your hair so it’s long to hide the bald spot, or wear a wig. See Hair Loss: Information and Treatment Options and Transgender hair loss recommendations.

Change: Clitoral growth is supposed to be a permanent change, so once you’ve experienced the growth your clitoris will keep the same growth it had reached on T.  I have heard anecdotally from a few people who took my informal survey that stopping testosterone changed their clitoral size a little bit, but most say that it won’t increase or decrease in size very much. Reversing it: I’ve never heard of anyone able to reverse this change. Surgery is the only thing that might do that, and but surgeons are loathe to do anything close to female genital mutilation so getting a clitoroplexy might be hard, and it may reduce sensation.

Change: Your body fat will re-distribute to how it was before T over time if you stop taking T. Reversing it: Facial masculinization surgery and Body masculinization surgery can help you keep a masculine body.

Change: Your muscles will also slowly go back to how they were before T if you stop taking it. Reversing it: Continue working out to preserve muscle mass.

Change: The vaginal atrophy will reverse, and your vaginal walls will get a bit thicker because of the estrogen becoming dominant in your body again and if T made it uncomfortably dry there during sex then you’ll get “wetter” again. 

Change: Above info on stopping period when it resumes.

You may not want to un-do any of these things- some folks want to undo some things temporarily like shaving sometimes and not others, some people want to only undo one single change and keep the rest, and other folks want to keep everything physical and just change their gender expression via clothes/hair. It’s all up to you to experiment with.

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On a personal note, I have to say that it’s really hard to pass as non-binary- I’ve found that strangers who can’t tell what gender you are sometimes refer to you with (maybe randomly chosen) gendered pronouns and gendered terms anyway because they’re stuck in a binary mindset and don’t know what else to do, or they become hostile and you find yourself getting shouted at when you enter the women’s locker room so you go to the men’s locker room and then they tell you to leave there too.

I didn’t really like that- while being gendered as female and male in equal parts might be as close to androgyny as I could get, I was dysphoric when people saw me as a girl. Some people’s ideal presentation is being able to switch between passing as male or female, but it just wasn’t right for me.

In the end, I decided that I would rather be seen as male most of the time than get misgendered as a girl, even though in an ideal world I’d be able to have people automatically use gender neutral terms for me and pass as non-binary.

But my story isn’t everyone’s stories, and some people do like being gendered as male sometimes and female at other times, or enjoy the androgynous middle ground appearance even if it isn’t easy. I’m telling you my experience to prepare you, not dissuade you.

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More info: Non-binary resources

Lee says:

Yes, it’s okay! I know a trans guy who put off getting phallo until after he had his kids, and then he got surgery.

You don’t have to live your life following the stereotyped expectations that other people have about what a trans man would or should do. You should do what you want to do, and if having a kid is something that’s important to you then that’s what you should do.

If you want to transition in some ways that won’t affect fertility, you can always take some steps like coming out, binding (which shouldn’t impact breastfeeding later in life), cutting your hair, wearing men’s clothes, voice training to lower your voice, socially transitioning and generally presenting as male, etc.

Testosterone decreases your biological fertility and it stops menstruation. Both typically return to pre-T levels after a few months if you stop taking T, but there is a risk of reduced fertility that you should discuss with your endocrinologist before you decide to take T. You may want to look into freezing your eggs if you’re interested in having biological children after T. If oocyte preservation is desired, that should be pursued before you start T. You can still get pregnant on T, although it’s less likely to happen than if you were not on T. If you plan on getting pregnant you have to stop testosterone because taking testosterone while pregnant can cause birth defects in your unborn baby. Check out the If you can’t start T link if you want to try to get some similar changes but without starting T.

Wanting to have a child of your own doesn’t necessarily mean that you want to breastfeed them yourself. If you want to be able to breastfeed for sure, then don’t get top surgery until after you’ve had a child. Getting top surgery makes it way less likely you’ll be able to breastfeed, and if you’re not comfortable with the possibility that you won’t be able to breastfeed then you’ll want to wait. I’ve heard of trans men who have been able to, but haven’t been able to produce enough milk to feed the child on that alone, they also need to supplement it with other things, like formula or donated milk. But top surgery doesn’t affect fertility- just the ability to breastfeed.

But yes, it’s 100% valid to postpone your medical transition until after you’ve had a child and it doesn’t make you any less trans or any less of a man.

The theme of today (and forever) is do what you want to do, do what will make you happy, and you’re still valid so don’t restrict yourself and take away your own happiness because other people are ignorant or transphobic.

Lee says:

Yes, that’s what I’d do. 

Some people feel a bit mood-swingy towards the end of their injectable cycle if they didn’t do a full dose, and occasionally if you miss a dose or two entirely your period may pop back. But taking half a dose just for one week won’t cause you to “detransition” and lose the T changes you’ve gained.

I missed a shot during the stress of finals week & honestly nothing happened, I just did my regular dose the next week when I remembered.

So it should be fine, but as always, we aren’t doctors & can’t give medical advice so contact whoever is prescribing your testosterone if you have a question about your dose.