I'm going to play devil's advocate here and question what the perceived benefits over "natural" transitioning is over "synthetic" transitioning is? From my understanding, pharmaceutical T can come in bio-identical forms, hence the body can't distinguish whether the introduced T is "synthetic" or "naturally" made from the body itself. From my very very basic understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong), I prefer the pharmaceutical route anyway for a variety of reasons:

1.) I live in Canada where DHEA is illegal.
2.) Excess intake of vitamins is usually excreted and the usefulness of some vitamins has been questioned and even regarded as harmful (link)
3.) A lot of "natural remedies" (not including commonly found foods) aren't screened, whereas pharmaceutical drugs are tested often so there MAY be an issue with safety and/or dose quantity from some natural sources.
4.) "Synthetic" T is actually often derived from sources such as soybeans and yams so they're not some crazy chemistry experiment in vial lol as some people tend to believe when they see the word "synthetic".

Anyway, just providing food for thought and I don't doubt the claims concerning people's positive experiences through natural transitioning. However, I'm somewhat confused as to the rationale and therefore am providing an opposing viewpoint to hopefully gather more info. Thanks!

If nothing else, please read this guide as it explains the whole "natural" vs. "synthetic" thing: link

Lol I just read that link and it's definitely a good read for someone considering the natural transitioning route described by Tristan Skye. I'm already cautious of that guy because he's scammed a bunch of guys out of money promising them STPs and then just flat out disappeared on them....The list of supplements provided from that link is astounding as well.

Yep, you were the one I was referring to - I'm sorry to hear it made you nauseous. =(

I was reading articles on bodybuilding sites and they've collected a bunch of scientific papers that conclude that the testosterone boost that comes with weightlifting is only minimal in female-bodied persons, but is a significant boost in male-bodied persons :S so I'm unsure how this would work in persons who are taking T, but otherwise have "female-bodies".

I looked up more stuff on my own and there was a 7 week study conducted on high school aged female runners and there was a significant increase in testosterone, DHEA, DHEAS, leptin, and cortisol when comparing from week 1 to week 7. So it may be the TYPE of exercise you take part in that produces more T.

Getting rid of body fat is a sure-fire way to lower your E levels and perhaps increase T levels because adipose tissue (body fat) is a huge producer of E and also a site of aromatization (the process by which testosterone is converted into estrogen).

Other than that, it's really hard to say what's the "best" route here :O. I can get you the links for the article if you'd like, just let me know . And also, may I ask why you may stop testosterone in the future? I feel like I might be missing something because a lot of guys have said the same thing.

Thank you so much for all this info! I'd love to see the links if you could post them, thank you. I really hope more follow-up studies are done on these sort of things, though I guess for now I just have to wait.

For me personally, I just don't like the idea of being dependent on the medical system all my life if I don't have to be. I plan on traveling a lot, and that would make getting hormones complicated, plus I always have irrational paranoia about what I would do if civilization collapsed. Because of this, I'm a huge fan of either items that last near-permanently (like Diva cups and solar-powered flashlights) or habits that don't depend on many outside resources. Obviously this isn't a sentiment shared with many others - many of the trans* people I know are simply non-binary and don't want all of the masculinizing effects of testosterone, and I suspect there's others who simply can't afford to stay on it forever.

I'll just PM you the links and such because I feel like I might be getting a bit too off topic for the thread now D:.

You make a good point about "what if I don't have access to hormones one day?"; I hadn't actually thought about that.