#testosterone zine

[wundergeek]

To celebrate my upcoming 6-monthiversary of starting T, I made a zine:

Shit I wish someone had told me when I started T

It is HARD to find good information about what to expect after starting T. A lot of medical providers don't even understand the basics of trans 101, and even when I found one who did, there was a lot of warnings about fertility loss and eliding over sex stuff with unhelpful euphemisms

Additionally, transmasc communities online are often actively unhelpful. Early-T trans mascs are ridiculed or lectured by other trans mascs for being stressed about the weird and uncomfortable effects of T (I know I certainly was).

When I went on T, there were a lot of things I found myself getting indignant about - WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT THIS? So hopefully, my experiences can help you avoid some unpleasant surprises.

Buy it PWYC on Ko-Fi

Note: This zine uses frank language about some TMI-type subjects. Second puberty can be weird and gross. You have been warned.

[t-the-zine]

✨SUBMISSIONS OPEN✨

Seeking submissions for Volume 1 Issue 3 of T! - a zine about testosterone.

Full submission guidelines can be found here!

Deadline 4th February 2024.

Open to all - not just testosterone-takers (even cis people)!

While you're there, check out our first two issues.

[transmonstera]

DIGITAL VERSION OF GROWTH NOW AVAILABLE (+ physical version has also been restocked!) <3

GRAB YOUR ZINES HERE!

"A 6 page mini-zine titled "Growth: a facial hair mini zine" providing information and support for those either currently transitioning or pre-transition (ie. pre-t primarily) who are struggling with wanting facial hair but not experiencing growth. This zine has tips, tricks, recommendations, product instructions, and gentle supportive reminders aiming to guide you through (hopefully!) getting what you want when it comes to facial hair! This zine uses casual non-technical language to be accessible and has art inside so as not to be overwhelming blocks of text.

This is an all ages zine though does mention use of minoxidil which is of course not suitable for children to use. There are images of needles on the cover of this zine and two instances inside the zine for those uncomfortable with that imagery and who may need a heads up.

This zine is ideal for those early on hormones, pre-hormones, on hormones for years and understandably frustrated, or even if you just wish to buy it as a gift to a trans person in your life who may appreciate it!

THIS IS A DIGITAL PDF VERSION OF THE PHYSICAL ZINE AVAILABLE ON MY STORE. IDEAL FOR THOSE WHO CAN'T HAVE TRANS-RELATED ITEMS WITH THEM. YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE A PHYSICAL ITEM BY BUYING THIS ITEM. IF YOU WANT THE PHYSICAL ZINE, BE SURE TO PURCHASE THAT LISTING INSTEAD OF THIS ONE AS THIS IS NON-REFUNDABLE."

[bitterpillpress-old]

My other new zine this month, Going On T, about my personal HRT journey! ✨

16 pages, 3.5" x 5"

PRINT and free/pay-what-you-want PDF copies are available in our shop!

[cowboysmp3]

went to a little local zine making society event tonight and it was so unbelievably pleasant and i made a zine about why disco elysium is so good. i think the world is good and kind actually

[jr-the-frog]

Link

"A fresh perspective on testosterone."

Really enjoyed these collaborative zines. You get a mix of perspectives along with with pieces such as articles, collages, and even a recipe.

[bitform]

Calls for submission : writing for transmasc writers!

[bitterteahymnal]

New zine! "Testosterone is for Girls, Too" black and white, 24 pages, quarter size, 5 bucks

[scramratz]

Hey transmasc friends NOT on hrt, what questions do you have about testosterone that I could answer in a zine

[genderkoolaid]

crazy because like. to anyone who has ever spent any time in transmasc/trans man spaces sex ed is such a necessity, especially if youre on t. so many people dont know about atrophy and the effects and how to be safe about it. so many people dont know about bottom growth and expect a trans man 10 years on t's genitalia to look no different to a cis woman - i know countless trans men whos partners left them when they started t solely because they got weirded out by bottom growth. i personally dont bottom and SO many cis and trans people dont even consider that to be a possibility for a sexually active transmasc. the comments being like "oooh its so obvious just talk to them like anyone else" yeah but also itd be great if everyone was more aware, its kind of annoying to explain all this stuff every single time you wanna hook up, and for a lot of people to still get freaked out at the sight of a naked trans man

Fr!! The amount of people in the comments of that post being snarky about "oh just ask" like. it's clear those people haven't read Fucking Trans Women because that zine starts by talking about /why/ having resources for good trans sex is important, how even trans people ourselves often don't have the words or knowledge to express to a lover how we want to be touched or what feels good. It is in fact very nice to have sex with someone who is already familiar with what your body looks like and how it might function.

& the assumptions… for one like you said, people not knowing what a trans man's genitals can look like. People who think every trans man is gonna be clean shaven down there, or who don't realize (like you said) that testosterone Does Things To Your Dick. & the assumption that every trans man who is attracted to women is a stone top & every trans man attracted to men is a bottom. Or that if you aren't topping, you NEED to involve a hole. For me this is less a trans thing & more body-weirdness-possibly-intersex thing, but like. My mind has always been more focused on my clit/dick, and penetration is something that's extra at best. You don't need to penetrate anything. Just because a hole is there doesn't mean it needs something in it.

Also!! We need more appreciation for bottom surgery dicks!!! I'm tired of only seeing them in clinical contexts. I need to see 30 minutes of someone lovingly sucking on phallo cock stat. I need meta dick worship. Even the sex ed things I've seen talk about phallo and meta do so in such… frankly unsexy ways, that don't do much to make having sex with a neocock sound positive. I need us to start romanticizing and sexualizing bottom surgery.

[genderqueerdykes]

new zine live on ko-fi! FTMs and the transmasculine is zine about our personal experience with transmasculinity, as well as insight into the community, transmasculine terms and identities, testosterone HRT, social transition, transandrophobia, and more. This zine is about and for all transmasculine identifying people including FTMs, trans men, transmasculine nonbinary people, genderqueer people, genderfluid people, bigender people, transmasc lesbians, male lesbians, and more!

this zine is available for $5+, and buying a copy supports a transmasculine bigender man & woman who is currently struggling with housing, food, medicine and more. we appreciate any support and interactions with our post and ko-fi page, thank you so much!

[church-mousee]

made this collage for a zine my best friend and I are making together. it’s called Garden Fairies because we’re both not straight and I’ll def post more about it

all photos are from the Digital Transgender Archive except the hand that’s just me holding my very own bottle of testosterone 

[t-the-zine]

IT'S HERE!

T! volume 1 issue 3 is now available at a price of your choosing, from free, at tthezine.itch.io.

Featuring new and returning contributors with a huge array of different pieces, bringing a fresh perspective on testosterone, whether endogenous, exogenous, loved, hated or complicated.

I'm absolutely thrilled to share it with the world.

[transmonstera]

NEW ZINE NOW AVAILABLE - GROWTH: A FACIAL HAIR MINI ZINE

ONLY 10 AVAILABLE IN FIRST BATCH!

"A 6 page mini-zine titled "Growth: a facial hair mini zine" providing information and support for those either currently transitioning or pre-transition (ie. pre-t primarily) who are struggling with wanting facial hair but not experiencing growth. This zine has tips, tricks, recommendations, product instructions, and gentle supportive reminders aiming to guide you through (hopefully!) getting what you want when it comes to facial hair! This zine uses casual non-technical language to be accessible and has art inside so as not to be overwhelming blocks of text.

This is an all ages zine though does mention use of minoxidil which is of course not suitable for children to use. There are images of needles on the cover of this zine and two instances inside the zine for those uncomfortable with that imagery and who may need a heads up.

This zine is ideal for those early on hormones, pre-hormones, on hormones for years and understandably frustrated, or even if you just wish to buy it as a gift to a trans person in your life who may appreciate it!

Text and art is printed on 160gsm A4 grey card and folded into a small mini zine approx. 3x4inches (7.5x10.5cm)"

[mxjackparker]

SWARM and THORN recently collaborated on putting together a zine, entitled Nuance Doesn't Pay the Bills - a work of poetry, prose, and essays from trans sex workers! I was lucky enough to be asked to write a piece for it, The Price of Cisification which I've included below. It's all about the costs association with pretending to be cis while selling sex as a trans person.

The Price of Cisification

If you asked me to put a price on my detransition, I’d tell you I wouldn’t do it for any amount of money. It would be the height of hypocrisy, because I already did delay my transition for financial reasons. When I was a cis for pay hooker, I put a price on the repression of aspects of my gender to sell my services to clients.

A client would flash cash and I’d give him the full cissexual fantasy. All tits and lipstick and long-haired wigs. A light dusting of fur on my legs that I could easily shave away, a soft jawline and weight carried in the hips, all the result of my choice to put off taking testosterone until I had saved enough money.

I thought about my earnings as payment for hours of my time, failing to factor in the 24/7 forced cisification of my body. Unbeknownst to me, my rate began to serve as subpar compensation for being forced to play the part of a woman. I had to live my life so that I was prepared to be a cis woman during sex with less than an hour’s notice, without the on-call pay to make up for it. I was afraid to so much as cut my hair, lest I scare off some straight men.

In the few hours left between taking selfies and filming myself and being ready for clients and sleep, I was too exhausted to dress in the ways that made me feel masculine and comfortable. Successful transmasculine sex workers became a fascination of mine, serving as wish fulfilment as I watched them whilst all dolled up, and I longed to attain enough success that I could afford to come out.

The material costs associated with medical transition were more quantifiable than the emotional ones I experienced selling sex as a woman. I can add the cost of appointments with endocrinologists and gender therapists to the fee for top surgery, to obtain a figure that represents the price of my transition; I cannot tell you how much money it took to keep me from it, for the benefit of cis men who had no way to know what performance they were really paying me for.

I ask myself how much money would feel like enough, for the misery I felt during the months that my life stagnated while I fucked straight cis male client after client. I ask myself the second question, which I find harder to answer honestly, of how little money I would have done it for.

How much was my additional dysphoria worth, to me? A surcharge for every menstrual cycle I endured, shoving a sponge inside myself so I could keep seeing clients through it. A surcharge for every time I caught

my reflection on my way to a booking and saw a woman. A surcharge for each day I woke up with the same high-pitched voice, because I knew that testosterone would change my anatomy in other ways that clients would notice. How many surcharges would make up for the suffocating feeling of walking around in this working girl skinsuit?

Resentment for every client who values sex workers less when we are gender non-conforming bubbles up inside me, as I consider what happened when I finally began to make compromises. Shaving my head lost me almost every regular, despite my willingness to wear wigs that appeared similar to my previous hair. Trying out t-shirts and jeans for bookings earned me odd looks and reviews on punter forums that called me “tomboyish” and lazy with my appearance. As soon as the word trans appeared on my profile, most of my inquiries evaporated and I had to rebuild my client base almost from scratch.

Eventually, I made the choice to transition despite the financial and social strife I knew would come with it, and to accept the regret I would always feel over not holding on just a little longer and saving a little more money. Surpassing the costs to afford hormones didn’t make me feel like I had permission to be an openly trans sex worker, but a change in perspective. There would never have been a point where I felt like I could stop denying myself, if finances were always the priority, and I had to believe I could still find enough clients to pay my rent.

I wonder how many people are stuck being cis for pay, like I was. At a minimum, I want them to be better paid. I meet closeted trans sex workers who I’m sure would be taking hormones or seeking surgery, if not for how scared they are of being unable to afford basic necessities if they transition, and I feel an echo of that pre-transition ache. I want every single trans sex worker who has yet to transition to become self-aware and determine what the delay of their transition is truly worth.

Staying in the closet can’t be a freebie that clients get with our services. We need to charge them for it.

The price of cisification just went up.

The zine launches on the 4th of February, so feel free to come along if you're in London - there are still tickets left!

[tboyswagging]

Recently I have been making a kind of trans memory box of important things from my transition and as someone who lives in a fairly unsupportive environment I'm finding it really healing in a way. Like even despite it all I'm finding elements of me. I saw someone do this on Instagram a while ago so I definitely stole the idea. I'm just putting it in a random shoebox but I hope I'll look back on it one day when I'm in a better situation and further transitioned and like,, feel emotional about it. But this is what's in my memory box so far:

- my diary from 2016 which is the year I came out to everyone, it starts in May and I came out to my parents in January so I don't have their reaction but from the fact they gave me the notebook and they wrote a dedication to me which says "dear [deadname]" we can infer they are not on board (they still arent). But I've written entries about coming out to other people and talk about my life. Also I was in an abusive relationship later on in 2016 and its interesting to hear abt that bcs a lot of my memory has gone. I was in year 7 and its just crazy to think how my life has changed.

- old binder, not my very first binder bcs idk where that has gone I don't think I still have it but it's the last gc2b binder I had I've been getting spectrum since 2019 and its very stretched out bcs once I wore it for 8 consecutive days and nights (very very unadvisable). But its the longest ago binder I have so it'll have to do

- zine I was in when i was 17 that I hid from my parents bcs its Trans Themed

- my deedpoll

- letters from the GIC clinic from 2019 and 2021 (the second one telling me I have been put on the adult waiting list). I am literally nearly a year and a half on T and I still haven't got a GIC appointment it's a joke. (I started T priv but then transferred over to a nhs dr)

- First ever testosterone bottle packaging that I have stuck both my private prescription label and nhs prescription label to

I think I am gonna print out my gender dysphoria diagnosis if I ever have the opportunity (it is very funny bcs when I got diagnosed w gender dysphoria I was 3 months on T and had been identifying as trans for 7 years so i was like. Yeah no shit) and a photo of me the day I came out but I'm trying to think what other things I can put in it