Writing What You Don't Know: The Assistants

The one time I've had to wait for a tow, it took them about two hours - definitely enough time and good motivation to wander off to a bar, tbh.

 

The last time I had to wait for a tow (not tired related, the transmission befuckened itself) I waited about half an hour but i DO live very rural area so traffic wasn't bad and the tow was from the next town over so only ~10km driving for them to find me

 

Had a puncture just outside of Baltimore and we waited an hour+ for a tow to an autoshop.

 

Spoiler: genital surgery/mutilation related

If an AMAB person lost their testicles after puberty was over but didn't start taking hormone replacement of any kind, what physiological changes if any would occur? Would facial hair stop growing if they no longer had testosterone?

 

Spoiler: re: spoiler, nsfw, non-consensual body modification

Facial hair is related to peak testosterone, not current testosterone. It might grow slower? But I'm pretty sure it won't stop; mtf transition often includes both medication to lower T and something to control facial hair. Voice pitch would stay the same too. You'd see some fat redistribution though, as well as changes to sexual function (erectile dysfunction I think is a common issue with low T), and loss of both the testosterone advantage for strength/muscle building and the related restlessness. The biggest visible change would be the fat redistribution, I'd think. As for behavioral and psychological changes...

Well, honestly, if the circumstances of the genital modification are as horrifying as I think they will be, knowing you as a writer, trauma will cause bigger changes there.

oh and! long-term, having one's gonads removed without any alternate source of sex hormones! is medically inadvisable. I can't remember why, it could be osteoporosis, it could be cancer, it's something like that. so that's something to keep in mind.

 

Hehehe, actually this case isn't as horrible as many of my ideas.

Spoiler: continued above

I have a trans female character in a setting where hormone replacement wouldn't exist, but basic removal of unwanted parts would be. (Disclaimer: I know not all trans people in such a setting would go for that, it would have been very dangerous, etc.)

 

Spoiler: reply to above

ancient greeks had MtF HRT based off of heavily filtered pregnant mare urine; are horses not available in your setting, or have they just not figured it out?

 

they had what now

 

Ah! I vaguely remember hearing about that. How accessible would it be in Victorian England?

 

i have no idea. but if they dont have ready access to horses its probably at least expensive.

 

Horses certainly exist in steampunk London, but collecting their urine without awkward questions would probably be difficult.

 

Until synthetic estrogen was readily available that's where all estrogen supplements came from!

 

well there was also the supplement derived from the same fluid but from late-stage-pregancy canadian women but that wasnt in use long

the history of hormone supplements is WEIRD

 

oh my god

 

Question, wasn't horse urine also used in tanning leather? That could be a possible way to get a supply without questions.

 

I got the (possibly incorrect?) impression that urine had to be from pregnant horses? Which might make acquiring it more difficult.

 

also the urine used in tanning tends to be stale because you're specifically after the ammonia in it, which happens over time. Hormones are by and large not super shelf-stable, going by the stability times we're using as guidelines in the lab

 

Still, if she had a contact who collected it from the source for the purpose of using it for tanning later, she could ask them to hold some which fit the criteria back. Probably not a reliable supply, but possibly better than nothing.

 

it definitely had to be from pregnant mares, but mares are pregnant for 11 months anyways, and it might have been used for other stuff too?

 

Fun fact, one of the first brand names of estrogen supplement, Premarin, was named after this origin: Pregnant Mare urIne. In fact, I believe it's still on the market today with the same source.