I take it out of an abundance of paranoia (my levels are fine, but what if they suddenly aren’t???) No weird side effects, likely no effects at all since my testosterone levels are super low, but all the men in my family are bald and I’m not taking any risks if I can avoid it. It’s just another tiny pill I take before bed.

Not trans, but I use finasteride as preventative maintenance topically. Hope it’s ok to respond with my experience.

With me, like you, I used minoxidil and saw nil results. However I am on a finasteride/minoxidil combination spray that has done wonders. Some hair regrowth, yes. But more importantly, the thickening of my existing hair. I would say it took about three months to see a noticeable difference but yes, yes, fuck yes - it worked for me.

Good luck!

I eventually got increased anxiety from it. This was after like 5 years on it so I simply stopped it and within a couple months it went back to normal.

It made some thinning go back to how it was before, and it hasn’t re-thinned after I stopped it (its been more than 5 years now), so yeah. Worked great, might as well give it a go.

I am Finasteride’s strongest soldier. At this point it’s the only medication I’m taking as I work out where I am. I’ve been on it 12-18mths. I noticed no changes until nearly 6 months in.

There’s obviously the risk of depression and sexual side effects that must be considered. But also most studies are on Cis Men. Not Trans or non binary people (or Cis Women) who also take it. As you say transfemmes still experience it but I have to wonder if the rates are different. I have had zero effects on my sexual function and my mood is if anything improved by the changes I have seen.

I had fantastic hair already before I started taking it. Probably 90th percentile of men and in women in terms of thickness. Now it’s maybe 99th percentile. Insane.

Fortunately I could be honest with my doctor that I wanted to start it to thin my body hair, which was quite thick. Haven’t talked any gender stuff, more just that I’d lost 30kg and was working out and was having mid life crisis vanity about my bodyhair. Which speaking off I have been lasering which is a confounding factor but I’ve been using my back as a control as I just shave that with a long handled razor. It definitely has thinned and slowed my back hair growth.

I have noticed subtle gynaecomastia after about a year. It would be enough to distress me years ago, but now I’m more ambivalent.

I get prescribed 5mgs which I quartered initially, because it’s much cheaper than 1mg tablets. In Australia on a private script a generic box of 30x1mg tablets is 30AUD, a box of 30x5mg is 20AUD (no idea why it’s cheaper), so if you quarter it it’s like 5 dollars a month. Any GP can prescribe. Hair-loss clinics are a scam to charge you like 100AUD for the same medication.

Chiming in with a trans man’s perspective: My hair started thinning considerably about two years ago after about 5 years on T, and I ended up getting a prescription for topical finasteride (plus a low dose of oral minoxidil) since I was worried about the potential side effects of taking finasteride orally. Though the doctor I spoke to about it wasn’t really worried about it “reversing” the changes from testosterone, getting a topical solution seems to prevent a lot of the hormonal side effects from happening? The main thing I was worried about was potentially getting periods again, which apparently can happen to some people.

I’ve definitely noticed improvement from the finasteride! The main downside is that I need to buy it from a compounding pharmacy, and my insurance won’t cover it.

I’ve been on finasteride for over a year and did basically exactly what you’re proposing, used it for about six months on its own before starting estradiol as a way to dip my toes in.

I’ll be honest, it didn’t do much on its own for me, so i’d recommend keeping your expectations low. it didn’t do anything to help with my body hair unfortunately, but i did notice i was losing a lot less hair in the shower which was reason enough for me to like it. i didn’t notice any mental health related effects, except that I feel like it made me dream more (might be correlation not causation)

i still take it along with the e in place of something like spiro, mostly because those potential side effects scare me more.

i give finasteride a tepid thumbs up! good luck

I had thinning hair when i started HRT, and the thinning area is no longer visible. A friend I started with had far more significant hair loss and was significantly older, but has also seen a total reversal of hair loss.

YMMV, and for what it’s worth, said friend was on finasteride for years, but IME it’s not necessary, and there have been frequent issues getting insurance to cover it for some reason.

Also, iirc some studies have come out that finasteride has some funky health risks? I literally can’t remember the specifics, nor if it was applicable to trans women, but i know there is some body of literature that would probably caution use.

I take Dutasteride at the highest dose allowed for hair and I’ve been on it for years now. As I understand it, Dutasteride is a lot more potent. I noticed some emotional changes fairly quickly, I’ve felt a lot better on it with a more stable and manageable emotions. I’m also on SSRI’s so that helps too.

But I didn’t know it can have feminizing effects… Tell me more?

I take dutasteride and have had pretty great results. I will still ‘need’ a hair transplant for my scalp if I want it at some point, but have been so pleased with the hair I have gotten.

i’m cis but i just wanted to add to this and say i’ve been seeing a lot of really good results from topical finesteride with zero side effects. i’ve been on it for about 9ish months and my hair is a lot thicker and i think my hairline might’ve grown back just a very tiny bit. minoxidil didn’t do much for me either, but as soon as i got off of it my hair immediately seemed worse (and it gave me black circles around my eyes), so i got a lower dose of that with my topical finesteride and those went away.

Why not dutasteride?