#testosterone is low too

[adhdnojutsu]

Previous Anon sound silly. This is Fandom. Itachi can have any sexuality we want. Ever heard of bi or pan people previous Anon?

Right? People can have a girlfriend today and a boyfriend tomorrow and an enby or agender partner after that, so even if we get some filler episode where Itachi eats Izumi's face without looking as miserable as he always did when he shared a screen or a page with her, he'll never beat the "not entirely straight" allegations XD

this was a choice

Mans is pigeon-toed and primed to practice his Morning Musume dance routine

name a girlier man on that show I'll wait, even Sasuke has more bone and they took him for a girl

the polish is Akatsuki polishy, but is the length?

Someone's looking sheepish. Yes yes filler but when did he look this blissful in an Izumi filler shot, I'll wait

the needlessly emphasized elegance of that moment and every single hand motion of his ever

Official art. Conservative wall flower Itachi with a bare midriff and armpits and little ankle bangles excuse me NONE of the others are that exposed OR that bedazzled OR had their hair done for the occasion. I swear 2/3 of the people drawing Itachi for official purposes have certain thoughts about him, you can't change my mind.

I don't make the rules

Getting teased for liking sweet stuff and feeling compelled to explain that food has no gender. "Bla bla filler bla" okay well exactly, why isn't there any canon anime appearance if she was so important? They didn't even animate her actual novel appearances and reduced her to an annoying, whiny friend with zero commitment, zero romantic foreshadowing, non-canon scenes instead, because IT MADE NO DIFFERENCE. AFTER Obito mentioned a lover on screen. All of Itachi's flashbacks of loss were Shisui and his parents. Must have gotten over her pretty fast.

Oh and also, Obito "meaning her" when he said "his lover" is a problem when Pierrot included that scene, but then had Obito kill her. So who was the lover "Itachi killed" in the anime? Until his fight with Danzo, Sasuke didn't question that Itachi killed *drum roll* Shisui. So in terms of anime-only consistency, that lover wasn't Izumi.

[outlying-hyppocrate]

hold on. if you receive multiple hits to the diaphragm. does it fuck up your voice in some way.

[iwatcheditbegin]

Dear lord somehow Gaylors have gotten even more unhinged. They have decided that Taylor’s lower voice means she’s is / was on testosterone. As if overuse doesn’t make your voice temporarily sound different or like her voice isn’t the same just slightly raspy

[floral-hex]

had lab results come in last week and I’ve been waiting since then for my doctor to contact me about them. called a couple times, sent him a direct message. nothing doing. come on, baby boy, help mama out here.

[slimecpu]

Ok so actually deleted that post since doing more research says going to doctors about intersex variations is one of the WORST ideas. Instead, can someone help me understand what would define "perisex norms and expectations" because Google is not the most helpful and my autistic ass cannot grasp most details about sexual dimorphism very easily

[arsenic-catnep]

Nooo I'm cramping. My period starts soon and my surgery is on Wednesday. It's find if I'm bleeding when they go in and do the surgery but it's the fact that this will be my last period for the next 7 years is... Wild.

I really am about to be sterile. No babies, ever.

I'm so excited.

[mellonhead58]

Synthesizing your own hormones just for the vibes

[superchat]

dad was talking to us abt how our other brother is on testosterone therapy cuz its really low for him and how he went in too to get checked for it and they were like "you dont qualify actually, yours is pretty high" and he said it with like, lowkey pride.

And the whole time im just sitting there thinking abt the irony on how my right wing family going to get hormone shots for their body and on top of that tying their identity as a Man to how much testosterone they have, but theyre still transphobic cuz its Denying Your Natural Body or whatever

[justmarried2012]

getting bloodwork done tomorrow

[medicinemane]

I once was talking with my pharmacy manager about... democracy, about how while there's plenty of stupid people in the world we'd all probably prefer didn't vote, that it was very very hard to actually make a line that makes sure only wise people vote while keeping all the idiots out

And I basically said to him "think of all the doctors and pharmacists you know who are smart, well educated people, who you 100% don't think make good choices"

From the look and his face, I'd say that spoke to him (it's incredible how many smart idiots there are in the world, isn't it?)

Anyway, I make that point because it much more addresses the whole concept of... lets call it democracy of the fit

Like it sounds great till you actually take even one second to think about it. It's almost like trying to draw any line in the sand for who it's ok to disenfranchise is not only dumb and ineffective, but also super dangerous. Ah man, I'm sorry, you scored too low on this test which happens behind closed doors and is graded by my political ally... it's not like you disagreeing with me had anything to do with that

(I'd hope we don't even need to touch on why the idea that testosterone levels are a really stupid useless way to decide who gets to vote, cause if that's true then we don't even have to disenfranchise anyone, we can just give out steroids and have the best country in the world... or is it only naturally produced T that makes you a free thinker?)

oh hey just in case anyone who left twitter is wondering how things are going over there

last night elon tweeted a 4chan screenshot (with bonus antisemitic text in the OP image) advocating for only “high status males” in government and the implied repeal of women’s suffrage. Cool cool cool

[goodlittlestarpuppy]

Fuck I'm needy right now... I've not jacked off this frequently in MONTHS, I've absolutely soiled my panties with how many impotent loads I've leaked into them ughhhh ૮ ˶′ﻌ ‵˶ ა

[llatimeria]

one thing about HRT i think is underdiscussed is the fact that if you're on testosterone, you can (sometimes) just produce Too Much Blood, and the way to fix having Too Much Blood is to Do Bloodletting. There are modern day people doing bloodletting as part of their transitions. why does no one talk about this

Hi! If you're here because you're wondering if testosterone could fix your anemia, low blood pressure, or other blood-related ailment, the answer is I don't fucking know and it's possible that nobody really understands the answer to that question yet! Ask your doctors when it comes to your health, or if you're just benignly curious, find an endocrinologist willing to answer questions about this.

I turned off reblogs because I was worried this post was starting to slip into misinformation territory in an unconstructive way. I don't want this to become another "wow professionals in complicated field X are so stupid, why didn't they think of suspiciously simple solution Y?". It's not that doctors are never stupid and never make bad choices for bad reasons - doctors are humans and fuck up all the goddamn time - but sometimes there is a good reason they didn't consider obvious solution Y and I just do not know enough about this topic to be comfortable offering any answers, sorry!

[aslice-ofcake]

GRAHHHH i'm so fed up with this hormone situation >:[

too much t and i get migraines and fatigue. too little t and i get brain fog, joint pain, and acid reflux bad enough to damage my vocal chords. and the difference between too much and too little? less than 1/4 a packet of t gel. what the fuckkkkkkkk how am i supposed to even measure that?????

[sanerontheinside]

PCOS more of a bucket diagnosis for a number of presentations that indicate a tendency towards ‘metabolic disease’—which is super general but there are some common trends

higher testosterone/androgen presence correlated with insulin resistance

this also correlates with weight gain

additionally this all correlates with irregular menstrual cycles (too frequent, every 2 weeks; or on the opposite extreme, too rare—or something entirely irregular)

and yeah it also correlates with hirsutism. think triangle of dark hair running up to the belly button, darker hairs on chin and upper lip.

fun fact tho. there’s no causality here. weight gain may ‘cause’ insulin resistance or conversely insulin resistance may ‘cause’ weight gain—all we know is that something went wrong and got out of balance. so.

in the end, all this is literally just possible presentations of ‘PCOS’. you can get a person who is not overweight, is insulin resistant, has mild hirsutism (socially acceptable 🙄) and has had regular (tho heavy and painful) periods pre-covid, and they have no cysts. and they still get a diagnosis of pcos and hormone replacement and—oh yep that’s me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now back to the original point, re: no threshold levels of testosterone for reference.

there are certain hormonal levels that it’s not actually … possible to test. The easiest endocrine disorders are the ones where you are able to say ‘oh there’s too much/too little of x hormone’ (eg hypo/hyperthyroid).

But!

Even if you try to time it right, you can’t measure (for example) all the main hormones involved in the menstrual cycle (of which testosterone is one), and get a result that’s possible to interpret. First of all, every person’s baseline is different. Second, the entire web of hormones and their precursors is interconnected.

And at every stage you have receptors for these hormones (what if you have fewer receptors than you need? or what if some of them are broken?). It’s possible to have blockers for them too (see: anyone taking supplements)—so whatever you consume affects the amount of any hormone your body produces/uses/circulates inactive in your bloodstream

So. Tl;dr: because everybody’s body is different and everybody’s environment is different, and there are multiple ways your body can handle hormones internally, it is not actually possible to develop a useful metric for these hormone levels.

(and before you go what the fuck please remember we can’t measure physical quantities of dopamine and serotonin and see how much of those are used, either.)

I forget why, but I was on the Wikipedia page for polycystic ovarian syndrome, and I started researching hirsutism in women, and I learned the following things in this order:

there's a diagnostic criteria used to evaluate how hairy a woman is

This is important because being too hairy is a diagnostic criteria of most disorders that cause hyperandrogenism

Disorders that cause hyperandrogenism can be diagnosed by...measuring how hairy you are (this is the main and most important diagnostic criterion for PCOS)

Disorders that cause hyperandrogenism are important because they are correlated with obesity, infertility, and...being too hairy?

I think to myself, wait, what is a normal range for testosterone in women? I find this article...which set reference ranges for "normal" testosterone levels in women...EXCLUDING WOMEN WITH PCOS?

Quote: "Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is another notable condition in genetic (XX) females, which is characterized by excessive ovarian production of androgens. This condition is included for comparison with DSD, as the affected females with PCOS are genetic and phenotypic females. The elevated levels of testosterone in these females can lead to hyperandrogenism, a clinical disorder characterized variably by hirsutism, acne, male-pattern balding, metabolic disturbances, impaired ovulation and infertility. PCOS is a common condition, affecting 7%-10% of premenopausal women."

So: the study claims to demonstrate a clear distinction between the normal range of hormone levels in "Healthy" men and "healthy" women...with "healthy" being defined in the study as...having hormones within the "normal" range.......................

So I researched what the clinically established "normal" range for testosterone in women is

THERE ISN'T ONE????

Quote from the above article: "Several different approaches have been used to define endocrine disorders. The statistical approach establishes the lower and the upper limits of hormone concentrations solely on the basis of the statistical distribution of hormone levels in a healthy reference population. As an illustration, hypo- and hypercalcemia have been defined on the basis of the statistical distribution of serum calcium concentrations. Using this approach, androgen deficiency could be defined as the occurrence of serum testosterone levels that are below the 97.5th percentile of testosterone levels in healthy population of young men. A second approach is to use a threshold hormone concentration below or above which there is high risk of developing adverse health outcomes. This approach has been used to define osteoporosis and hypercholesterolemia. However, we do not know with certainty the thresholds of testosterone levels which are associated with adverse health outcomes."

What the fuck?

What the fuck?

It's batshit crazy to make a diagnostic criteria for medical disorders by placing arbitrary cutoffs within 2-5% of either end of a statistical distribution. What the actual fuck?

"The results came back, you have Statistical Outlier Disease." "What treatments are available?" "Well, first, we recommend dietary change. You should probably stop eating so many spiders."

Another article which attempted to do this

Quote: "Subjects with signs of hirsutism or with a personal history of diabetes or hypertension, or a family history of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) were excluded."

"We're going to figure out the typical range of testosterone levels that occur in women! First, we're going to exclude all the women that are too hairy from the study. I am very good at science."

Anyway I got off topic but there are apparently race-specific diagnostic tools for "hirsutism." That's kinda weird on its own but when I looked more into this in relation to race I found this article that straight-up uses the term "mongoloid"

[jorjin]

I say I might be biased because my last blood tests revealed I had the hormonal setup of a teenager secret third thing instead of a "cis" woman in her early 20s and my doctor just went "do you feel something's wrong with that?", I said no and she was more than happy to agree and carry on

[oceantornadoo]

Could you maybe write a fic for Simon pursuing a reader who has no experience despite being in her early 20s?

(disclaimer: this ask said early 20s but i didn't really focus on that exact age for reality and inclusivity purposes)

you like to think you're a pretty calm person. have to be, for the kind of work you do - can't be a hothead when you're dealing with hundreds of other hotheads (a.k.a. military men). that environment, seeing the vicious effects of too much testosterone and loyalty to those who don't deserve it, has led you to this predicament. a lack of experience with men. all the ones you've met are loud or self-absorbed and your work is so time-consuming so that when you've found yourself at this precipice, you realize you have no experience to guide you. only a few drunk kisses and one teenage crush to act as the map for the journey you're about to take.

it was odd, how easily you fell into simon riley. he duped you into your first date, calling it a celebratory post-mission dinner when in reality, he'd had the reservations for weeks. it progressed smoothly from there: coffee and ice cream and a scary movie you didn't want to see alone. a few weeks later and you let him into your sacred apartment, a couch no man had ever sat on. he was so respectful, soft words and light touches to get you comfortable with him.

you intrigued simon. it was like befriending a stray cat; one wrong move and he'd be out in the hall. he'd asked around (a.k.a. asked johnny) and found out you'd never dated anyone on base. not surprising, he hadn't either, but your skittish nature led him to believe you'd never dated anybody. you were comfortable with men, sure, but you'd never made any moves on simon despite seeming to like him so much. if he were a less confident man, he would think you weren't interested, but it was in the way your eyes lingered on him, the glances you shot him when you thought he wasn't looking. he decided a conversation was necessary to clear the air so he didn't keep handling you like a bomb that could go off any second.

the two of you were watching footie, a bowl of popcorn in the middle. your hands brushed occasionally as you ate, your knee touching his, but nothing further. simon was well practiced in restraint, and he would wait as long as he needed to, but he felt like he was operating blind, no night vision goggles in sight. "love." it was like flipping a switch. you jumped up, snatching the popcorn bowl and murmuring something about supplying a refill even though it was more than halfway full. he let you have your freakout in the kitchen, giving you time to collect your thoughts. finally, you came back ten minutes later, hand shaking slightly as you put the bowl back down, which was decidedly not full. "can i ask you somethin'?" his hand gripped your knee before you could get up again, settling you back on the couch. your eyes were wide, searching his at a rapid speed as you tried to figure out what he was asking.

"w-what?" he started stroking your knee slowly, thumb brushing over the fabric of your sweats. he didn't answer right away, letting the rhythm of his thumb calm you until your shoulders dropped a fraction. "do i scare y'?" he murmured in a low tone. your shoulders dropped completely, your head collapsing on the couch behind you. you figured it was time to have this talk anyways. "no, it's nothing like that. i trust you, si." he nodded, checking a question off his list. his thumb was still stroking you, the motion anchoring you to the moment. "did someone hurt y'? before me?" you shook your head. "no, it's nothing like that. i just-" you cut yourself off, biting your lip. you chanced a glance at simon, his face open and patient. "i just don't have a lot of experience with men. and it makes me nervous, thinking i'll do something wrong." simon nodded in understanding. "'s while y're so jumpy. how much experience?" you muttered your answer too low for him to hear. "wot?" ugh. "none." oh. oh.

simon was rewriting scripts in his head. no experience was not what he was expecting, but it didn't put him off. if anything, he felt honored you picked him to give you experience. "doesn't matter, love. we can go 's slow as you want. just gotta tell me what y' want." your hand covered his on your knee. "i want you, si. i just don't know how to show it." he squeezed your knee. "trust me?" you nodded instantly. suddenly, you were being moved, strong hands around your waist dragging you into simon's lap. he arranged you into a straddle, setting you back on the middle of his thighs. simon didn't want to give you the wrong idea by putting you on his cock so soon. there was time.

"ya ever kiss anyone?" you gave him a small smile. "not sober. none that i really remember." he laughed, the feeling vibrating through his chest down to his thighs. it was exhilarating, being so close to him and not being scared. you were still nervous, sure, but there was less expectation hanging over your head now that you had talked. "c'mere. we'll take it slow. close your eyes." he sat up a little, a hand on your hip preventing you from being jostled. you closed your eyes obediently, lips parting slightly with the exhale of your breath. you could feel his body heat come closer. he brushed his lips against yours, pulled back, and then gave you a real kiss.

you weren't sure what to do. you had listened to enough advice podcasts to know you shouldn't use any tongue, but that was it. his lips were soft, if a bit chapped, pressing against yours deliciously. he felt so close, so intimate, and you pushed back against him, just a little. it melted your heart a little as he pushed back, warm and willing. your hands instinctively dove into his hair, finally feeling those strands you'd been dreaming about. it went on and on, experimenting with little licks and bites as you got more confident. unfortunately, the more passionate you became, the less air in your lungs. you pulled back with a gasp.

"fuck." his lips were swollen and red, his hair sticking up at all angles. ravished. "good?" he asked, licking his lips. you nodded. "can we do it again?" the eagerness would have made you cringe if you didn't want it so much. "yeah, baby, anytime you want. c'mere."

--

i hope i did this justice!! my first kiss was terrible but i was also 14 so i think it would be better with an experienced man lol