Comment by hrt_throw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hrt_throw | Hacker News Reader

I am very curious about how transgender HRT affects personality. In a sense, HRT is supposed to change who one is, but the personality changes people undergo on it seem underappreciated and not really understood or studied clinically. At least I have not been able to find a published study specifically about about how HRT changes personality. I think not all of it can be attributed to decreased gender dysphoria or people "coming out of their shell" and being able to live and socialize as who they want to be after transition.

If I had to make a $100 bet today on what future research will find, I would wager that

1. FtM HRT reduces Big Five neuroticism despite increasing aggression. The effect is permanent and persists after the person's "second puberty" induced by HRT is over. It affects beliefs about how society should function. To a degree of approximation, it makes transmen more conservative or right-wing than they were before the treatment.

2. MtF HRT does not have the opposite effect to the above (but it may, and probably does, have other effects). Edit: The opposite effect on neuroticism and sociopolitical beliefs. It decreases aggression.

It could be but I used to look at studies about roid rage and found back then that there was not that much support for increased aggression, at least not when using testosterone and in moderate dosages for bodybuilding (which are very large dosages compared to replacement therapy).

On the other hand I'm pretty sure when we are talking really strong AAS such trendbolone there is so much anecdotal evidence that people get aggressive that I have no problem buying it in that case.

Never done any AAS but been prescribed corticosteroids (prednisone) which is an anti-inflammatory and that sure as hell changes the mood for me and many others. It is on the side-effects list as well I think and personally can get more irritated on it. Not always but it is noticable.

Are you blaming Trump on the trans? That's a funny new perspective!

But joke aside, why would hormones only work in one way?

And why couldn't you say the same about, say acetaminophen? Without a RCT your guess is as good as mine!

Sorry, not following. I don't have any deep knowledge about the subject more than I historically been interested in fitness and bodybuilding and with that comes some knowledge about hormones.

Not saying "roid rage" is not impossible but the studies I saw was that the idea mainly came from people in criminal circles who often used a multitude of drugs who wanted to be bigger and more intimidating and then drank some alcohol, popped some benzo or did pcp and started fights. Thus "roid rage" became a thing.

But when they looked at people who were just in the fitness industry with normal jobs and families that used testosterone they did not find the connection. This was a time ago and maybe there are newer studies. However there are much stronger anabolic steroids than testosterone and those I suspect can cause real roid rage; some people seem to get odd rages on for example trenbolone.

Hormones do affect how you feel though and like I said I do only have experience with Prednisone for inflammatory bowel disease flares and while I get noticeable more irritated (I can control it, so I know that I'm pissed that my colleague is humming because of the medicine and I can just ignore it) but I've read in forums about the disease that one decided to stop driving when he was on high dose Prednisone just because he got such insane road rage and was afraid that he would do something stupid. That is rarely something doctors tell you.

About your other questions I don't know I'm afraid. I have very little knowledge about the subject more than these specifics.

Fair enough!

> ...Big Five neuroticism...

It's gonna be really hard to deconvolve hormones from environment. Men and women are treated very differently in our culture; men's and women's behaviors are interpreted very differently; the former having a possible causal relationship with neuroticism, the latter having a possible causal relationship with diagnosis. You'd need a fairly large study involving a large number of trans people who aren't on hrt but pass as well as those who are.

I think it’d be hard to isolate factors to test your hypothesis. You’re likely not wrong to some extent given that HRT changes the body (almost always for the betterment of voluntary trans individuals), but there’s so much activity going on in the song and dance of society it’d be hard to isolate.

I think most people don’t have the context to understand half of what’s being said there.

This is a funny comment on HN, where it is very easy, for me at least, to be so far out of my element that I have no clue what is being discussed, such as any post about hardware!

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