Hi, all! I've been wanting to make a post like this for some time, but due to my reluctance, I've just been lurking instead. I've finally found the courage to type and post this, though, because I'd like to be more active in this community... and do I need some community! Especially considering my unique sitch (more on that below).
To err on the side of caution, I've marked this post as NSFW.
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I must clarify a few things, first:
- I'm a child of doctors, I have a lot of doctors in my family. I know the importance of relying on medical personnel for these things. Unfortunately, despite being more privileged than most, my family members are conservative, and have proven themselves untrustworthy to rely on regarding these things.
- My goal is to get diagnosed someday. No matter how long it takes. I'm doing all I can to gather as much info as possible, for such a time as when I can finally bring my notes and findings to a safe and trusted professional, in the service of achieving said goal.
- My flair begins with 'suspected' for a reason.
- This is needed in this day and age, but this wasn't written with AI (in fact, I refuse to let AI create anything for me).
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So, about me: AMAB, 34 MtX, posting from Nigeria (born and raised).
I've always looked androgynous, even despite the fact that I started balding at the age of 16. Even before I hit my teens, I'd been considered girly by everyone who knew me. Being a late bloomer with hypogonadism and a voice that still sounds the fem side of boyish didn't help. Heck, even as I type this, I still boymode! And get stared at by people trying to determine my gender, but that's always happened anyway. At least, no one teases me anymore that my hips don't lie, though I notice them trying not to make it obvious that they're curious about my chest...
Around the age of 15-16, I developed symptoms that in retrospect seem really similar to menopause... or at least, hormone deficiency. Everyone just thought it was atypical depression and/or lack of focus. I can barely remember if the period cycle I have now started back then, due to being so dissociated at the time.
Came out to myself as trans in my late 20s. Made the mistake of telling the doctors in my family, but they were (and are) too close-minded... even my doctor father, who has always been obsessed with me being 'normal', shoved me into conversion therapy: strange men sent by the conversion therapist came my room, drugged me and trapped me in a hospital-like prison for months, while I was forced on antipsychotics that dulled my mind.
When that didn't work (and after I stopped taking the medication upon realizing its purpose), I was put at the mercy of a now ex-therapist who decided his project was to fix me so he could make a paper about it.
When that didn't work, my Dad just told me I was an adult and could do what I wanted, but to not talk to him about it. Luckily, at that point I'd been invited a local online 'trans and intersex' network that provided me with community, friends and online resources.
I was on estradiol valerate monotherapy for 2 years, and my body took to E like I was an 11-year old girl: I grew a couple cup sizes in less than a year, my smell permanently changed and I developed a noticeable cycle. Months down the line, though, I noticed symptoms similar to estrogen dominance symptoms, but a dosage reduction (3mg/5days) caused horrible suicidal PMDD during the pre-menstrual phase. Due to my experiences up until that point, I felt alone and afraid to even tell anyone offline about this, trapped in the closet and going it alone (and I'm still closeted offline).
As luck would have it, though, late last year I found a diagnostic lab near where I live, and so made the [scary] decision to temporarily get off HRT on December 30, 2025, so I could check my levels as close to baseline as possible.
At both the 6-week and 15-week mark [after stopping HRT], I checked my levels at the aforementioned diagnostic lab. Both times, I found almost negligible T, endogenous E and prog, and high LH and FSH levels. Since then, I've not felt the need to get back on HRT yet, and I still have my cycle. I *have* noticed that my armpits smell different to each other, and that's outside of cycle-related smell changes. And I got this upper inner thigh sac situation that appears to be responsive to my cycle...
Anyway, as part of my info gathering efforts, I once discreetly questioned my mum about the circumstances of my birth, and during the course of that convo, she mentioned the doctors taking me away as soon as I was born, lying that I didn't cry and needed to be incubated. They only returned me when she yelled for her baby a couple days later, and she got discharged that week. It was in that convo that I learnt I was born with cryptorchidism of the left testicle (that was moving up and down), but it apparently resolved in a couple months. I wonder if my Dad knows more, but he "doesn't want to talk about it" and would rather continue believing I'm his perfectly normal cis perisex son.
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I feel so alone in this. Whenever I share my experiences in trans spaces, people don't quite know how to react... and the one intersex space in a trans server I tried to participate in, I got treated like I couldn't be taken seriously without a surefire diagnosis (but then, everyone else was from the US of A and had the means). And IRL, I live in fear of some doctor who thinks he's being 'helpful' forcing me on T and/or normalizing my body to something more socially 'normal', all without my consent.
It'd help to find people who can relate, maybe find other Nigerians in the sub... perhaps even get some pointers (no, I'm not asking for medical advice, for reasons I've already stated above).