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I think it's also worth bearing in mind that œstradiol is not some exclusively “female” hormone: cis men have it in their blood too, just at a lower concentration. In fact, without it, males are infertile!

Sure but when you’re talking about order of magnitude differences there is a clear delineation and the fear is not unwarranted.

The normal levels are closer then you think. The exact numbers differ depending on what lab you ask, but the normal male range of estradiol in the blood is around 15-55 pg/mL, while the normal healthy female level can vary from 70-500 pg/mL depending on the current stage of the menstrual cycle. Normally that doesn't matter though as most of estradiol's effects are overridden by an overwhelming amount of testosterone

Yes but when the overwhelming majority of women are at >400 pg/ml and men under 20 pg/ml it’s more than an order of magnitude change.

Estrogen is a 'stress hormone' that needs to be balanced with anti-stress hormones for optimal health.

All the steroids in the body are made from cholesterol. The term is steroidogenesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steroid#Steroidogenesis

Estrogen is at the end of the steroidogenesis pathway. It's a stress hormone. In the menstrual cycle, estrogen tells the uterine lining to 'swell and divide'. Fertile women are protected from their higher estrogen levels by their high levels of Progesterone USP during the luteal phase of their menstrual cycle. When women reach menopause, their heart attack numbers rapidly reach men's heart attack numbers.

Adipose tissue has a lot of the aromatase enzyme [0], which converts testosterone to estrogen. People with more adipose tissue lose their testosterone by converting it to estrogen. The heart of both genders concentrates testosterone.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aromatase

[1] Obesity, estrogens and adipose tissue dysfunction – implications for pulmonary arterial hypertension - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20458940209520...

I sold a progesterone supplement on Amazon years ago... My best customer was "Billie", who I suspect was MTF and was using progesterone USP to balance his estrogen treatments. I referred him to other manufacturers when he noticed my supplement was no longer available.

Pregnenolone is a useful supplement for balancing the steroid system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steroid#/media/File:Steroidoge...

(edit: added [1])

Humans aren't the only thing we should be considering.

Collapse of a fish population after exposure to a synthetic estrogen

"We conducted a 7-year, whole-lake experiment at the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) in northwestern Ontario, Canada, and showed that chronic exposure of fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas) to low concentrations (5–6 ng·L−1) of the potent 17α-ethynylestradiol led to feminization of males through the production of vitellogenin mRNA and protein, impacts on gonadal development as evidenced by intersex in males and altered oogenesis in females, and, ultimately, a near extinction of this species from the lake."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1874224/

Ideology doesn't factor into this. There is something in the water that shouldn't be there, and someone put it there---largely without permission. And what constitutes a "low dose" frequently changes by several orders of magnitude depending on who does the study, and who paid for the study.

I agree! I explicitly state that I don't think random pollutants are good in that comment and there could be other reasons to care about it.

I'm merely calling out that the thing most people freak out about with this compound (feminization) is not worth freaking out about.

Something in the water, that doesn't belong there, is worth freaking out about. I don't think you can decide what people decide is important to them.

I'm a woman, and I still don't want it in the water. I certainly don't want my daughter getting hormone imbalances or early irregular puberty either.

Ideology doesn’t factor into this?

Seems odd to say in an era where hormone therapy is being normalized and science is weaponized for ideological purposes regularly.

Dropping testosterone levels and decreasing sperm quality are not a "right wing fear", but a scientific fact, and that should concern everyone: right and left wing, men and women.

Also, to look at this 1 compound in isolation and downplay the significance of it, without considering the cumulative and synergistic effects of all the other xeno estrogens we are exposed to on a daily basis is irresponsible.

> not a "right wing fear", but a scientific fact

Of course it's both, with the kernel of scientific fact being hyped and exaggerated by the right.

It's important to call this out so people can evaluate whether the discussion is in good faith or if it's part of an information operation.

The important thing to take away is that “right wing” talking point or not there is a genuine reason to be concerned here.

No, what's important is the truth or falsehood of a given claim. To attack the messenger, or to put focus on the messenger, is a dangerous path that leads to the deep divides we see, where reality seems just subjective to entire groups of people. It also contributes to a society more concerned about whether a fact is convenient or not for one's belief system, as opposed to an inquiry by a hungry mind which seeks to understand the world as-is (an ideal we should be fostering as intelligent people, for the good of society).

This is more religious-inspired thinking than protecting the world from what you call an information operation. Ironically those institutions do the same thing in reverse (omitting or cherry picking facts to fit narrative).

You are correct in normal circumstances, but when there is an active information operation in progress, people should be aware of that so they can evaluate claims in that light.

It is not a myth. There are serious concerns about the drop of testosterone levels in men - as much as 25% from the 1980s.

https://www.urologytimes.com/view/testosterone-levels-show-s...

Also, sperm count in men has dropped around 59% from the 1970s and so infertility among men is at an all time high: https://nypost.com/2021/02/20/why-more-men-are-suffering-fro...

Who said it's a myth? Who are you arguing with?

Touche

> I bring this up because of the right wing fear of the "feminization of men."

The secular testosterone decline in the west is absolutely incontrovertibly real. The error is looking for a single cause to pin a civilizational scale endocrine disruption event to.

Which can also be related to the mass decrease in exercise and other activities which are known to increase testosterone in men, and rapid increases in stress and sedentary behaviors that are known to decrease it.

Not saying the chemicals aren’t contributing, but our lifestyle is terrible and it has been getting that way rapidly and over a relatively short period of time (a generation).

Point. Basically 15 years(?) of mass computerization of work?

Whereas previous much more of it was physical, at least to the extent of moving around the office.

The rabbit hole is very deep. Our diet has changed (e.g. nutrient deficiencies, take one out, there is a knock-on effect), we have been exposed to more pollution which is absorbed through our skin and lungs, etc.

Lifestyle changes too.. a great example is the legislative mandate for flame retardants. I feel they are used excessively. Flame retardants don't just go away. If your cushion or whatever gets older and starts to break down slowly, you bet those dust particles include flame retardants and you breath it in.

I agree there is no single isolated cause but multiple factors of declining testosterone levels. Body fat and obesity is also linked to reduced testosterone levels, and lifestyle in western countries (the US in particular) leads to more and more overweight and obese population. So if you are concerned about your testosterone levels, and immediate step you can take is to reduce your body fat.

There nothing right wing about this concern. As a progressive man I don’t want to be feminized, it’s terrifying, both at the personal and species level.

> The top 10 countries ... were Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Laos, Brazil, Argentina, Kuwait, Thailand, Indonesia and Portugal...

in many of those countries people drink bottled or purified (not surface) water.

The average person in most of those countries drinks tap water, either boiled or filtered to varying levels of efficiency.

In addition, fish are often caught in surface water, livestock may drink it, etc.

dude, you're right, my mistake. i was thinking of how i travel through those places.

>More specifically for transfem use of 2mg orally is considered a low dose

That refers to "regular" estradiol. Ethinylestradiol is much more powerful. You can't compare doses 1:1.

> I bring this up because of the right wing fear of the "feminization of men."

> Where the right wing ideology on this is strongest (US perhaps?)

I can’t imagine the confusion that would lead someone to conclude that “feminization of men” is a “right wing fear” that is perhaps “strongest” in the US? The US has among the loosest gender norms of any place in the world, including a number of European countries.

In the other countries you mentioned, like China, Kuwait, etc., traditional gender norms aren’t even “right wing”—because that would imply they’re even up for debate: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55926248

they probably assume it because Republicans say it out loud.

Only because what you would call a “Republican take” on gender norms in the US is “common knowledge” nearly everywhere in Asia or Africa. You should hear my mom complain how my dad “doesn’t do man’s work, just laptop.” And she qualifies as a feminist in Bangladesh!

> In the other countries you mentioned, like China, Kuwait, etc., traditional gender norms aren’t even “right wing”—because that would imply they’re even up for debate:

Yet another reason why left/right dichotomy is useless.

I would say this is more about gender roles than gender norms, particularly women’s place in social status / power hierarchy.

It is a fact our increasingly connected world favors some traits that have been traditionally thought of as feminine, such as high emotional intelligence, openness, and agreeableness; and people are adapting. All this anxiety about feminization of men - and masculinization of women - is just useless gnashing of teeth from those who are having trouble coping with rapid change brought on by technological advancement.

I agree with you. What I’m perplexed by is this implication that the US isn’t one of the handful of countries leading the charge on breaking down gender roles and norms. (In large part because the economic changes you speak of haven’t reached other countries. Gender roles driven by the physical demands of subsistence agriculture are still the reality of life for most people.) As if folks in Asia and Africa are sitting around reading Judith Butler.

I’m not sure that a comparison of US to places like Afghanistan or the African bush are the most apt. Maybe some place that is closer to being a peer in terms of technological advancement / adoption like Iran, Korea, Brazil, Russia, or Singapore would make more sense?

The big irony for the US is that the people who are fretting about the “feminization of men” are the same who deny global warming; while technological advancement, increasing connectedness - i.e. rapid movement of matter and information - and global warming are all one singular spacetime event.

But that is a digression. There are certainly many places with less progressive than the US, though I am not sure how strong the average backlash is across places that are closer to the US in terms of technological adoption.

> I’m not sure that a comparison of US to places like Afghanistan or the African bush are the most apt. Maybe some place that is closer to being a peer in terms of technological advancement / adoption like Iran, Korea, Brazil, Russia, or Singapore would make more sense?

Those countries have far more conservative views on gender roles, among ordinary people, than the US. I don’t think there’s a single country in Asia or Africa where the median view on gender roles wouldn’t be to the right of your median American Republican.

> But that is a digression. There are certainly many places with less progressive than the US, though I am not sure how strong the average backlash is across places that are closer to the US in terms of technological adoption.

“Progressive” American views on gender would be outside the Overton window in most of the world. There is no “backlash” because there is no meaningful effort to mainstream progressive ideas on gender. There is nothing to react to.

I’m really not sure what you are trying to achieve by misrepresenting the social norms in those countries.

The US is currently experiencing a hangover from the social effects of the cold war. The intentional construction of a christo-national subjective identity as a counterbalance to the atheistic Russian communists continues to reverberate in the socio-political sphere. There are some obvious contradictions when this meets the business world like, "shouldn't businesses with feminine cultural practices outcompete masculinized corpos?", but I'd argue this is currently being played out in trenches of office politics in the micro and labor vs capital in the macro. If we embark on a process of self-selection into dichotomous gendered organizations I'd expect this to crystalize into more tangible, but it's too early to tell and business/orgs don't have coherent messaging even if they wanted to leverage this into an advantage so it ends up being sublimated into typical ineffectual neoliberal posturing.

Traditional gender roles aren’t a creation of “Christo-nationalistic subjective identity.”

Maybe that’s what’s responsible for OP’s confusion—the belief that Reagan invented these notions about gender, and they’re not near universal outside a handful of countries populated by descendants of Europeans?

Yup, even the "atheistic Russian communists" mentioned in parent post have held on to remarkably traditional ideas about gender roles, and this was in a context of promoting high female achievement in education, work and society in general.

Forget Afghanistan or Russia. 60% of Dutch women who work do so part time: https://www.oecd.org/social/part-time-and-partly-equal-gende...

There is a common trend in the USA or right wing people (generally men) complaining about soy products and the supposed estrogen content that they think is causing widespread hormonal changes in men, despite soy phytoestrogens being the wrong kind of estrogen to do anything and being at extremely low levels.

EDIT: I’m just citing a factual cultural phenomenon in the USA. Look here is a source: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/soy-boy

Progress begets reaction. Reactionary is more often associated with right wing.

That's a bit misleading. One of the major issues is that we have a food chain, in which these chemicals can become concentrated and yes at higher concentrations it would feminize men, or earlier puberty in young girls.

At the same time, we have radical increases in transgendered humans, and earlier puberty in young girls worldwide. Correlation isn't causation, but its often a place to start running experiments looking at causation.