yes, the whole idea that some hobbies are “male” and some are “female” is traditionally sexist / stereotyping. I do suspect there might be some biological role in how some of the gender differences get expressed (like, the way I played with my male-coded toys was different than the way other boys played with them, and I think my lack of interest in toys like trucks and machines related to the way my gender preferences), but the idea that the biology wholly determines these preferences (or worse, that biology determines what you should do) is obviously bunk. As usual, this stuff is extremely complex with biological, social, and psychological factors.

And even so, trans people often occupy fuzzy boundaries in terms of sex and gender, and so it makes sense we would be exactly the cohort that would challenge stereotypes and be the exception to the rule (even while some of us conform entirely to gender expectations). I would imagine the experiences of being raised as boys is likely to impact those psychological and social factors I was talking about, leading many of us to have different experiences and preferences than some cis women. But this is not special to trans people either, cis people are also diverse in their gender and experiences - and as you are pointing out, cis women can and are into cars and motorbikes or other “male” things. Some cis women have affinity for masculine coded things, it’s not like being gender-queer is reserved for people who transition or who identify differently than their assigned sex.

Anyway, I’m rambling - but I agree that gatekeeping based on stereotypes is ick, lol.

Yup, my “boy hobbies” are the sole evidence my parents cite to say they’re 100% sure I’m making this up and that there were no other signs.

Muscle loss was one thing I worried about, but, as a non-body-builder, it hasn’t been an issue in the past ~year. I can still lift the same things I was able to before, to my surprise. Best of luck keeping strong!

Informed consent is great. I was less certain I was interested in HRT than you seem to be and if any I regret anything related to it so far is just that I didn’t start sooner. People’s fear of some cis people exploring their identity and realizing certain hormones levels don’t work for them at the cost of preventing trans people from finding ones that do work for them is absurd.

Even so, your therapist should also know that doubts and hesitation are very common with trans people. The second group of psychologists I had to see to get an independent letter for vaginoplasty talked about how it’s very common for trans people to even experience regret and doubts immediately after the surgery and how those tend to melt away after a few months, etc. It just really sounds like your therapist is not up to date with current clinical guidelines and not familiar with trans patients generally (this is unfortunately common with therapists and doctors, tbh).

And HRT doesn’t melt your muscles away like butter, especially not if you’re working out or remaining active. I’m over a year on HRT and my calves are still so muscular they make me want to puke, I would love to lose muscle mass, and it’s just not happening. I think I have lost a little strength in my biceps, but I have also completely stopped a lot of the activity that maintained those muscles, in addition to the estrogen.

You know cis women are able to build significant muscle right? You can definitely build and maintain muscle while on estrogen, you might just find it requires some minor adjustments to diet and exercise - increasing protein and increasing weight or frequency to maintain the same bulk. It might just require more effort to achieve the same results that you found easy to achieve on testosterone.

Either way, I wouldn’t be too worried about this - maintaining your muscles on estrogen is within your control. If that’s your only hesitation starting HRT I think you will be fine, there’s no reason to go with low doses and so on.

Also, so weird that you’ve heard of going to Planned Parenthood as DIY, that’s wild, lol. It sorta makes sense to me because informed consent feels like you’re deciding for yourself and it feels like eliminating the gatekeeper, but it’s still very much under the supervision of a doctor and with safety-regulated hormones.

There is a really old narrative that the only valid trans women are people who as young children refused boyhood and only wanted to play with girl-coded toys and so on. Even though we know that’s not true now, the narrative remains strong and it’s how the mainstream media portrays trans women still, etc.

So it’s not surprising the therapist might be really worried her patient might be making a mistake if they don’t match the narrative she has come to accept as the paradigm of a valid trans woman. She just isn’t familiar with the fact that lots of trans women, probably most in fact, have “normal” boyhoods and are able to socially adapt to living as a boy. A lot of times the problems don’t start until puberty, for example. Even David Reimer, the cis boy that was forced to grow up as a girl, didn’t have any awareness about gender problems until ages 9 - 11, and didn’t actually insist and start living as a boy until 15. That’s with a cis person that we know was born a boy.

A lot of these bizarre hesitations and extreme expectations, like a child at 3 - 4 years old being able to articulate and fight for their gender identity, just come from the discomfort cis people feel about trans people - when people are more worried that a cis person might accidentally transition than they are about preventing further changes to a trans person’s body, it shows a clear bias and preference for cis people over trans on no other basis than their being cis and trans. Wrong puberty is wrong puberty, and if a cis person accidentally gets gender affirming care that causes them to undergo the wrong changes - well, that’s exactly the default that will happen to trans people without the intervention of gender affirming care! The therapist should be worried about their patient not getting on HRT soon enough, about the harms that might be caused by delaying life-saving treatments.