Lee says:

Personally speaking as someone without hyperflexible joints, I haven’t lost any flexibility since I started testosterone because I don’t really do the type of exercise that would bulk up my muscles a lot (I do cross country running and that’s it lol) and I stretch before running.

I can still do the same things as I could do before I started T, like touch my toes, and I still can't do things I've never been able to do, like a split.

It’s usually possible to maintain your current level of flexibility if you frequently stretch (maybe consider taking up yoga or something similar?) but that applies to folks with typical joints, and folks who don't body build.

I don’t know what would type of stretches would be safe for someone with hypermobile joints-- you don't want to push yourself too far end end up with joint instability, subluxations, dislocations, or any other issue.

If it's possible, maybe you could discuss this with your endocrinologist/testosterone prescriber and your primary care provider and/or the specialist you see for your hypermobility, if you have one, for advice.

Gains in muscle mass and associated hormonal changes in joints are one of the reversible changes of testosterone, so if this issue is the only thing that's holding you back from starting T and you're happy with all of the other changes, then maybe it might be worth starting T and seeing whether this is truly a dealbreaker after you've been on it for a while. You might find that even if you miss the flexibility, it's a sacrifice you're willing to make because testosterone has caused positive changes for you too.

If you end up being very unhappy about changes in your flexibility (if it occurs), and you feel like all the positive changes in the "pros" column for starting testosterone aren't worth that one "con", then stopping testosterone will likely reverse the change in flexibility.

But again, I'd urge caution in trying to preserve hyper-flexibility because you don't want to injure yourself while attempting to keep the same range of motion-- physical therapy might be able to help you increase muscle strength and joint resilience without causing injury if you want to work on stretching.

Followers, if anyone has hyperflexible joints and has personal experience with starting testosterone, please chime in and share your knowledge with us!

Followers say:

@evilphrog said: I have hypermobility and only take a very low dose of T, but I would personally feel relieved if it decreased my flexibility. Thus far it has not. To the poster, hyperextending your joints is something that seems really cool when you're young but leads to severe chronic pain as an adult. I hope you can talk to a doctor about your condition and find ways to manage it before it gets to that point.

@worminthesky said: I have a hypermobility disorder and I have noticed that some of the joint pain I had before I started t has gotten better. I haven’t noticed a decrease in the big flexibility things (I can still do fun backbends and stuff, hyperextend my elbows) but my fingers definitely got less flexible and hurt less when I use them.

@skiingmaniac80 said: Yeah so I have hEDS and I asked the doctor I see for these issues if people taking T saw improvement in pain and she said it's possible but it's not really anything they've studied. I've been taking T for around 6 months or so and haven't seen improvement in pain. To add on it's bad to hyperextend joints even if it doesn't hurt when you do it. For me I've been told not to Crack my knuckles but I still did it now when they accidently pop it hurts like hell. So be careful and if you can talk to a doctor or physical therapist that knows about hypermobility/eds.

Lee says:

Hi there friend! It's 100% okay for you to use a packer.

Experimenting with your gender expression shouldn't be limited to people of a particular identity label.

It isn't "appropriation" (or inappropriate) for people to try binding or packing or anything else they may want to do, even if they don't identify as a binary trans man.

If someone thinks it might be fun to try something like packing, then I would encourage them to go for it, whether they identify as a cisgender woman and are just curious, whether they're butch, whether they're questioning if they're trans, whether they're confidently non-binary, or whatever the case may be.

And maybe they'll find that they like it because it makes them feel confident or sexy or reduces their dysphoria or they just like the look of it, even if they are not a binary transgender man-- and that's okay.

While I'm not 100% sure what you mean when you said that packing makes people look more genderless/smoothed over, that's sort of irrelevant anyway-- there's no "wrong" or "bad" reasons for wanting to pack, so it's a valid thing to do regardless of your motivation.

Your identity as an agender person who uses they/them pronouns doesn't make you any less deserving of a packer than a binary transgender man who uses he/him pronouns.

I'm a genderqueer non-binary transmasculine person, not a transgender man, and I used to bind and pack for several years before I got top surgery and bottom surgery.

I haven't maintained the list of packers in a while since I've had my own bottom surgery and now I personally don't need to pack anymore so I spend less time researching new packer models and new companies and stuff, but you can still see some useful resources on getting a packer here.

We also have a page on coping with dysphoria here since you're struggling with hating the genitals you currently have, and some info on getting bottom surgery here for things to think about in the future, but it seems like getting a soft packer is a great first step for you!

Lee says:

Good question anon!

Although the mainstream medical & scientific community does not consider people with PCOS to be intersex, there are a few exceptions; "some researchers have included extreme polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)-related hyperandrogenism within the umbrella of intersex variations (Huang, Brennan, & Azziz, 2010; Jones et al., 2016)," (source).

However, as you mentioned, the intersex community seems to mostly be open to including people with PCOS under the intersex umbrella-- although of course there are a few exceptions there as well as there is almost never as 100% consensus of opinion in any broad and diverse community.

I'm not intersex myself, so resolve the issue for this particular survey I've updated the questions to list being intersex and/or having PCOS as two distinct things because that gives us the most flexibility in interpreting the results.

I've specified that people with PCOS-only should answer "no" to the "are you intersex" question so I have the option of keeping the data separate for now, but could later merge the results of the two categories in one graph and include PCOS with other intersex disorders if folks would like to see the results that way as well.

The link to the survey is here: https://bit.ly/T-growth

@lihue

!!

Fox says:

Oh, yeah. That’s totally fine. I think anon was referring to cis people drawing trans headcanons/OCs/etc. and being like, “In honour of like, y’know, trans*genders, I drew this genderbend, I call her Firelady Zuki. :) :) :) Happy TDOV!!”

 Emery says: 

I don’t think TDoV is about drawing pictures??? TDoV is about recognizing and celebrating trans people??? And the way for cis people to show allyship is to actually fucking support trans people????