- So everyone's doing that
how hard did age hit you challenge thing,
and I don't really get it.
Everyone's doing it in a different way.
Okay, so is it supposed to be
your first-ever Facebook profile photo
versus your current Facebook profile photo?
Or is it supposed to be you now versus you 10 years ago?
I don't really know,
but here's my first-ever Facebook profile photo.
And here is my current cover photo,
which is from several years ago,
because I don't really use Facebook.
And that's actually,
that's not a great comparison.
You can't really see my face.
It just looks like I got a haircut,
so maybe a little bit better, here's 2009 me,
versus 2019 me. (snaps fingers)
I don't know, this trend just seems weird for trans people.
(upbeat rock music)
Hello, I'm Jackson Bird, and today I thought I would
check in with a little bit of a transition update.
I haven't done one of these since
about seven months on testosterone.
I've sort of done them for top surgery.
I kind of did like a two-year post-top-surgery video,
although that was a bit more of a rant.
But yeah, I am now three years post top surgery,
and just a couple month shy of four years on testosterone.
If you wanna see all of those
earlier transition videos that I did,
I actually put those up on my second channel,
because back in the day, I was like,
"My channel's not gonna become a trans-only channel."
(laughs awkwardly)
But anyways, there's a playlist there,
if you want to see some of my earlier transition videos,
but like most people, I just kinda stopped making them,
because I at a certain point,
there just aren't that many changes to report on.
But I do usually make some type of video
around the anniversary of my top surgery,
which was on January 6th in 2016,
and I didn't do that this year, so I thought I would just
do an overall transition update while we're here.
Why not?
So I guess we'll start with testosterone changes first.
Things have been pretty steady for a couple of years now.
And I guess one reason that I do actually
wanna make this video and update you on where I am
and what changes have been over these years,
even if there haven't been any recent changes,
is because everyone is so different,
and I want to make sure that when people are looking into
getting on testosterone, they have realistic expectations
of what might or might not happen for them.
So, first things first, facial hair.
I'm almost four years on testosterone
and have less facial hair
than some guys who are a couple months on it.
It really depends on your genetics.
I mean, I can grow a lot here,
all on my neckbeard area,
tons of hair comin' up on the cheeks, pretty good.
I could grow a mustache if I,
like, had an awkward phase for a couple of weeks.
I gotta shave that every day or else it looks stupid.
But it will not grow on my chin, just nothing,
stops right here, nothing happening there.
So I can't really grow a beard,
and I would just, you know,
shave off this stupid neckbeard thing
because everyone hates a neckbeard
and it doesn't look that great, but when I do,
I get mis-gendered and mis-aged way more.
So the neckbeard is here to stay until
either the whiskers finally grow on my chin,
or I, you know, stop looking 16.
Oh my god, that is almost half my age.
One thing that sort of goes in tandem with the facial hair
for a reason that I'll get to in a minute is hair loss.
So back here, I'm receding a little bit.
Is it called receding when it's back--
I don't know, I feel like I'm losing my hair
at that middle area a little bit.
I definitely had the thing,
right when I started testosterone,
I thought I was losing all of my hair,
because it squared out, which is totally normal,
and then it kinda slowed down,
but then I was like, it is going kinda quickly
in this way, and then, like I said, maybe back there,
and I just noticed a lot of hair was falling out
and it was thinning more.
Fortunately I had very thick hair, so thinning, for me,
is just getting more to, like,
normal hair for a lot of other people.
But I was also looking at my older brother,
whose hair has been receding very quickly,
and he's only two and a half years older than me,
so I forgot exactly when it was,
but probably multiple years ago,
I talked to my doctor about starting on Finasteride,
which is a type of medication
that you can take to help prevent hair loss.
A lot of trans guys take it, but it's sort of--
there are pros and cons, because it is a DHT inhibitor,
and DHT is one of the things that testosterone
is giving you and that you want for certain changes,
like facial hair growth, so one of the reasons
that I'm probably not growing as much facial hair
is because I'm on Finasteride.
I'm also not getting that much chest hair,
which I'm kinda cool with,
but compared to other men in my family,
I am like a hairless mole rat.
And that is possibly because of the Finasteride,
and I am kind of okay with that,
because, as much as I would love to have an actual beard
and facial hair on my chin,
I also really want my hair for several more years.
I like my hair a lot.
So that's worth it for me.
I know for a lot of guys it's not,
and also, I will find some better resources, information,
maybe some videos about Finasteride,
that I'll link to in the description box,
because I just did a terrible job of describing it.
But I do wanna say,
a lot of people are unsure of how effective it is.
Even my doctor was asking me, she was like,
"You know, I write this script for lots of people,
"but does it actually do anything?"
And, you know, your results may vary, absolutely,
but I was talking to a cis man who's in his 40s or 50s,
recently, to totally name-drop, it was Jazz Jennings' dad,
and he told me that he lost quite a bit of hair,
had a lot of thinning happening
when he was in his early 20s,
and then he got on Finasteride.
He's been on Finasteride for over 20 years,
and he has not lost any more hair
in the whole time he's been on it.
That's just one guy, but it seems pretty promising.
So I'm continuing to do the Finasteride thing for now,
even if it does inhibit some of the other changes
I could be getting from testosterone.
It's all a balance,
and you definitely gotta do a lot of your research,
and talk to your doctor before making decisions like this.
The biggest change that is actually a new change,
almost four years on, and there's kind of a new change
that has been happening is fat redistribution.
Maybe, I think, I'm not sure.
Unlike, what seems like the majority of people
when they go on testosterone,
I did not experience any fat redistribution.
I guess my waist got a little bit thicker?
I don't know, is that fat?
Is that muscles?
Is that bones?
I'm not sure.
Your bones get a little big denser on testosterone.
But I did not have like the, ooh, magically all the fat
from my thighs and my hips moved to my stomach or something.
That didn't happen to me.
In fact, I gained a lot of weight,
and my hips, thighs, butt all got bigger,
my first three years of testosterone.
Within a couple months of starting,
I gained, I think, like 20 pounds.
By three years on testosterone, I had gained 30 pounds,
and some of that was muscle.
I was one of those people who,
within the first couple weeks on T,
just, like, bulked up, without even lifting weights,
and some of it is your bones get a little bit denser.
But as it was going on and my diet was not changing,
my fitness regime was not changing,
my T intake was not changing, my T levels looked fine,
and I was just continuing to steadily
gain and gain and gain weight,
and so I finally talked to my doctor and my psychiatrist,
and we realized, oh, it's this anxiety medication
that I've been on since right before I started testosterone.
So there were a number of changes in my body
that I always thought were testosterone,
that we finally figured out was that medication.
And so I worked with my doctors to slowly change to
a different anxiety medication, and it took a while,
but after several months, I finally started losing weight.
In the last year, I have lost 20 pounds,
and I always feel a little bit weird saying it,
because I didn't work too hard for it,
I just lost the weight that I gained from the medication.
But anyways, in losing that weight,
I think my fat has finally stared to redistribute.
The biggest tangible takeaway for me has been
there were a number of shirts and pants and things
that I was uncomfortable wearing
because my hips were so big
and the way that they clung to my hips or how I looked,
and now my whole wardrobe is my oyster again.
I feel comfortable and affirmed in my gender,
wearing a lot of my clothes
that I didn't feel comfortable in for a long time before.
But the two takeaways from that, that I want you
to take home are, one, you might not have
that fat redistribution from testosterone.
I have heard of lots of other trans guys who didn't.
And two, there are so many other factors in your life
that can affect what changes you will see or not see
when you're on testosterone.
It could be medications that you're on,
it could be other medical conditions you have,
it could be your age.
The younger you are, the quicker and more extreme
of effects you're gonna see.
Definitely, your genes.
You know, what do the men in your family look like?
What things did they go through?
That's gonna tell you a lot about
what's gonna happen to you on testosterone.
I feel like there are a lot of narratives
about testosterone changes that we see on Instagram
and on YouTube, and in all of our insular communities
that aren't necessarily reflective of the reality
all of us have, so I just always wanna make sure
to put that message out there,
that everyone's experience is very different,
and can depend on so many different things.
You will definitely get some of the changes
and it will be awesome.
This is the right path forward for you.
As far as voice changes,
I almost feel like my voice is a little bit higher now.
I mean, I stopped really documenting the changes in it
after a year, because it had pretty much settled in
to where it was gonna be.
When I've gone through instances where my T levels
were a little bit low,
I did notice my voice was a little bit higher.
I think my range has probably settled into
where it's always gonna be, and the reason that I sometimes
think my voice is higher,
I think might be because I don't care as much.
If I kinda go into a falsetto or something,
I feel fine enough in my gender to have that happen.
Like, if I have to be a little bit louder
and it comes out a little bit higher sometimes,
when I'm in a bar or at a party,
okay, sometimes that does bother me,
but for the most part, I don't care.
I don't care about trying to sound like I have
this super deep, masculine voice all the time.
It's fine, it's whatever, it's my voice, I like it now.
As far as passing goes,
I mean, I do get mis-gendered on occasion.
It really doesn't happen that much,
and it almost exclusively happens
if I'm with more masculine-presenting women,
or non-binary people who get read as that way.
I don't think I ever get mis-gendered
if I'm in a group of guys or people all being read as guys.
And with being read as male more comes all of the weirdness
of now having white male privilege,
and I am often read as straight as well,
until I mention how much I love Downton Abbey
and how cute that guy is, and then people are like,
"Wait, what is happening here?"
But, yeah, for the most part I'm read as
like a cis, straight, white male,
and so I'm having to contend with having all those feelings
and privileges, and I mean, that is a huge other video,
that I will make sometime,
and that I do talk about on social media from time to time.
So, hey, why don't you follow me on Twitter and Instagram?
@jackisnotabird.
But yeah, let's just switch gears
and talk about top surgery.
So I had double-incision top surgery on January 6th, 2016,
with Dr. Kathy Rumer in Ardmore, Pennsylvania.
You can watch some of the videos I made around the time of
top surgery and recovery and one year after at that link.
I had a great experience.
Having had several other friends
go through top surgery since then, I've realized that I had
an extraordinarily good experience and great recovery.
I just kind of lucked out.
And since then, it's been pretty good.
I've had no other complications.
I like how my chest looks.
I will say that my scars are maybe
a little bit more prominent than
I would necessarily like them to be three years on,
but I also know I am, like, ghostily pale,
and that is how my body works.
I mean, I've got another scar on my--
I'll show you in a minute,
but I've got another scar on my chest right now
that is literally just from getting a cut from cardboard
from moving boxes, 'cause we just moved,
hence the new background.
So right now I have a scar from a cardboard box,
and it'll probably go away in about a year,
but even something like that, my body scars from,
so I know my body doesn't take to scars very well.
So I just gotta live with that, and you know what?
If I start working out a little bit more and get some pecs,
then they'll kinda be hidden, so I could work on that, too.
Alright, I guess we will do the, "Here's my chest,"
'cause you gotta see the chest
if you're gonna talk about the chest.
Oh, I like this angle, where you can't see my scars at all.
That's pretty nice.
So there's my scar from the cardboard box.
But yeah, that's how my scars are looking.
My nipples are still--
They're not like perfect circles,
and the way I'm standing now, they look crooked.
I've never thought of them as crooked before,
but I guess maybe they are.
That's pretty much how my chest is lookin' these days.
Yeah, that's my chest, three years post double-incision,
and I'm pretty satisfied with it.
Maybe coulda done a couple more pushups
before I shot this, though.
But I do wanna wrap up this transition update
by talking about some of
the mental and emotional parts of transition,
sort of where I'm at with those at almost four years on T.
I think the biggest thing is that I definitely
got to that point a little while ago where
I don't think about the fact that I'm trans all the time,
I don't feel dysphoric all the time.
More of my brain space is taken up by thinking about
masculinity and what it means to be a man.
Yeah, I've been getting a lot closer
to all of my guy friends, and just, you know,
feeling that gettin' older need to wanna settle down,
and thinking a lot about what settling down
for the rest of my life and growing old
means as a man, and as a trans man,
and just generally what it means to be a man
in today's society, where white men, especially,
are just frickin' trash, and I'm a part of that,
and how can I be part of the solution and not the problem?
And emotionally, it's been interesting.
I've recently been reminded of just
how emotional I used to be, both pre-transition
and also just earlier and throughout my life.
My mom was reminding me of
what a terrible child I was in middle school.
I look back at those times
and it's a little bit mind-boggling to me,
like, I am so much more calm and patient now.
I mean, I still have my moments.
I still have anxiety.
I can still get aggravated.
So I like a good venting session every now and then.
But, yeah, I'm definitely just way more calm and at peace,
and I don't think that's so much a testosterone thing,
as just a general transition thing,
and feeling better about where I am in my life,
and with my person.
And when I do get upset, it is definitely more mad than sad,
and that could maybe be a testosterone thing.
That could also be, I don't know,
a conditioning thing, at this point.
Like, living in the world as a man for four years,
and just sort of knowing that
that's how I'm supposed to express my emotion?
I don't know, that's a hypothesis.
Even as I say that, that doesn't sound quite right.
And I do get sad, but even when I'm sad,
it's almost in a mad kind of way?
I just feel everything in my core,
and so I just wanna punch something,
but I'm also real sad while I do it,
if that makes any sense.
I can't totally cry again, though.
I was one of those people who,
the first several months on T, could not cry at all,
even if I tried, and that was in comparison to pre-T,
when I don't know if it was the hormones in my body
at the time, or I was just so emotionally unstable,
but I remember just feeling like
I was constantly fighting the urge to cry.
Like, if I wasn't always thinking about not crying,
then I would just start bawling, and now I well up at
stupid, happy things on TV all the time.
Oh, I was rewatching this episode of Downton Abbey
I've seen probably six or seven times,
and this guest at dinner acknowledged something good
that Edith had done.
I don't even like Edith as a character, and I started
welling up, 'cause it was just such a nice moment.
So yeah, stupid stuff like that
makes me tear up all the time now,
but I don't really cry out of sadness.
I can't remember the last time that happened.
Being sad just makes me wanna punch things now.
The good news there is that I go boxing regularly now,
so at least I have a productive, healthy outlet
for that feeling, I'm not just punching walls.
I don't wanna perpetuate the myth
that testosterone leads more to anger.
I've read some good research on why it doesn't,
but also, this is my real lived experience, so I don't know,
I'm not sure on all of that.
But yeah, I guess those are my main takeaways,
three years post-top-surgery, almost four years on T.
If you've got any particular questions for me,
go ahead and leave those in the comments.
Others of you who have been on testosterone,
please feel free to chime in with your own experiences.
But yeah, I will be four years on testosterone in April,
and I've been working on a big video
that was originally gonna be a three years on T video,
so that's how long I've been working on it,
and hopefully I'll have that done in May,
because that'll be the anniversary of me coming out.
But also, I recently realized that
my five years on testosterone is gonna be
a couple of weeks before my 30th birthday.
So that's a lot.
If anyone has idea for what I should do
before either five years on testosterone celebration,
or my 30th birthday celebration,
or just the year leading up to those things,
especially the 30th birthday.
I'm in the last year of 20s and I feel like I should
do something about that, like maybe creatively,
something on YouTube, I don't know.
Also, can we talk about the fact that
unless something really seriously happens with aging,
I'm gonna be gettin' mistaken for a teenager when I'm 30.
(sighs) Just messes with your head, man.
If you like this video and you're new around here,
please do hit the subscribe button.
We're gonna get back in the pattern
of new videos every Wednesday afternoon,
and if you wanna keep up with me in between video,
you can always follow me,
again, on Twitter and Instagram @jackisnotabird.
Also, I've got a Patreon, I've got a merch store,
all kinds of fun things that you can check out.
There's links to all of that down in the description box.
I'm pretty excited for some of the things
I have coming up in 2019,
and I can't wait to take you all along for the ride,
so thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for watching, and I'll see you next time.




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