Estrogen Quotes

I still love him so much I'll hide any amount of conjugated estrogen in his food. So much I'll do anything to destroy him.

I stared at her in amazement. "How do you even live with yourself?"..."You're willing to sell children to a foreign government so they can be used as weapons, possibly against other Americans. I don't get it. Were you hiding behind a door on morals and ethics day?...You couldn't mother someone if they shot five gallons of estrogen into your veins.

This estrogen force field needs to dissipate... Move along. All of you. Now!

Two hundred women, no phones, no washing machines, no hair dryers--it was like Lord of the Flies on estrogen.

The gossip mill runs on estrogen.

My good sense bitch slapped my estrogen and told her to get a grip.

Now, now," my father said. "Let's just get the bags." This was typical. My father, the lone male in our estrogen-heavy household, had always dealt with any kind of emotional situation or conflict by doing something concrete and specific. Discussion of cramps and heavy flow at the breakfast table? He was up and out the door to change oil on one of our cars. Coming home in tears for reasons you just didn't want to discuss? He'd go make you a grilled cheese, which he'd probably end up eating. Family crisis brewing in a public place? Bags. Get the bags.

Welcome to the estrogen vortex, dude, where mindfucks are the norm and understanding them is as common as a fucking unicorn in your front yard.

You know, Alix, men suck. Really. They are the worst. Come with me. I need an estrogen fix before their chromosomal defects contaminate me any further. (Zarina)

Because what we associate with the idea of love is purely chemical. It can be broken down into scientifically proven phases: it starts with a dose of testosterone and estrogen, what we would think of as ‘lust,’ followed by the goofy ‘lovesick’ phase, which is a combination of adrenaline, dopamine, and a drop in serotonin levels—which, by the way, makes our brains behave exactly like the brains of crack addicts—and ends up, if we make it through phases one and two, with ‘attachment,’ where the body produces oxytocin and vasopressin, which basically make us want to cuddle excessively. It’s science. That’s all.

My doctor says that, contrary to conventional wisdom, she doesn't believe our memories flag because of a drop in estrogen but because of how crowded it in the drawers of our minds.

Tina is one of those women who thinks every bit of estrogen in the boardroom is a threat to her own existence.

An uncredited study she read once said, quote, “Girls become really stupid in science after they get their period, so you’d better learn as much as possible before that happens.” I had such anxiety about this “clearly proven” biological fact that I was studying calculus by the age of twelve. When I finally got my period, I cried, not because I was growing up, but because I had just learned derivatives and really enjoyed doing them. I was scared that estrogen would wipe the ability to do them from my brain.

This is evidenced in our own hormonal biology; healthy men possess between 12 and17 times the amount of testosterone (the primary hormone in sexual arousal) women do and women produce substantially more estrogen (instrumental in sexual caution) and oxytocin (fostering feelings of security and nurturing) than men.

Men are like parking spaces, the good ones are already taken and the ones left are running out of their metres

Estrogen deficient woman are nothing but the walking dead.

Sally put his gun back in his pants. "Guess I flunked the estrogen test." We all stared at his crotch, and Grandma said what Lula and I were thinking. "I thought that bulge was your dingdong,"Grandma said. "Jesus," Sally said, "who do you think I am, Thunder the Wonder Horse? My gun wouldn't fit in my purse." "You need to get a smaller gun," Lula said. "Ruins your lines with that big old Glock in your drawers.

...she figured out that she was such a mess not because she was trans, but because being trans is so stigmatized. If you could leave civilization for a year, like live in an abandoned shopping mall out in the desert giving yourself injections of estrogen, working on your voice, figuring out how to dress yourself all over again and meditating eight hours a day on gendered socialization, and then get bottom surgery as a reward, it would be pretty easy to transition.

My good sense bitch-slapped my estrogen and told her to get a grip.

We'll blame it on the estrogen, it gets blamed for everything anyway.

Researchers could probably explain how the combination of thick black hair, riveting green eyes, and a slow, confident smile provoked some cascade of estrogen designed to fool the female mind into confusing a simple kiss with a merging of souls.

If indeed it's a race Then the chicks do the most It isn't a brag Or an estrogen boast It's the women who've led me With big open hearts If not for their love I'd have failed at the start. And it's not just the mothers I speak of them ALL It's a woman there first When somebody falls. The multi of tasking That's easy to tease I dare a great man To try it all, PLEASE! So this is my shout out My rallying cry To women all over I hold you up high And though there are others Who'll think this poem strange It's the women who plant The root of big change.

Statistically, our family was due for a girl, and I'm not sure the world could handle a female Maddox. All the fight and anger, plus estrogen? Everyone would die." -Travis Maddox

It's time to stop grouping up and complaining about all our estrogen deficient symptoms and demand real answers and plenty of estrogen.

It's all just hormones, my friend. You might as well just say you're in testosterone with somebody. And if you're really lucky, she might be in estrogen with you.

FUN FACT ABOUT me: I am a fairly mellow person, but I happen to have a very violent fantasy life. Maybe it’s an overactive amygdala. Maybe it’s too much estrogen. Maybe it’s the lack of parental role models in my formative years. I honestly don’t know what the cause is, but the fact remains: I sometimes daydream about murdering people. By “sometimes,” I mean often. And by “people,” I mean Levi Ward. I have my first vivid reverie on my third day at NASA, when I imagine offing him with poison.

she had made her way up the corporate ladder by treading on the backs of more young women than you could count, and then, once she was through the glass ceiling, pulling the ladder up behind her. I remembered Rowan once saying, Tina is one of those women who thinks every bit of estrogen in the boardroom is a threat to her own existence.

This is really a tough choice,” Peri grumbled. “I can either live in estrogen city or testosterone valley.” She looked from the men to the women and then stepped towards the females. “But at least in estrogen city there will be chocolate and Jen to keep me entertained.” Jen grinned. “We aim to please Peri fairy.

Excuse me while I throw this down, I’m old and cranky and tired of hearing the idiocy repeated by people who ought to know better. Real women do not have curves. Real women do not look like just one thing. Real women have curves, and not. They are tall, and not. They are brown-skinned, and olive-skinned, and not. They have small breasts, and big ones, and no breasts whatsoever. Real women start their lives as baby girls. And as baby boys. And as babies of indeterminate biological sex whose bodies terrify their doctors and families into making all kinds of very sudden decisions. Real women have big hands and small hands and long elegant fingers and short stubby fingers and manicures and broken nails with dirt under them. Real women have armpit hair and leg hair and pubic hair and facial hair and chest hair and sexy moustaches and full, luxuriant beards. Real women have none of these things, spontaneously or as the result of intentional change. Real women are bald as eggs, by chance and by choice and by chemo. Real women have hair so long they can sit on it. Real women wear wigs and weaves and extensions and kufi and do-rags and hairnets and hijab and headscarves and hats and yarmulkes and textured rubber swim caps with the plastic flowers on the sides. Real women wear high heels and skirts. Or not. Real women are feminine and smell good and they are masculine and smell good and they are androgynous and smell good, except when they don’t smell so good, but that can be changed if desired because real women change stuff when they want to. Real women have ovaries. Unless they don’t, and sometimes they don’t because they were born that way and sometimes they don’t because they had to have their ovaries removed. Real women have uteruses, unless they don’t, see above. Real women have vaginas and clitorises and XX sex chromosomes and high estrogen levels, they ovulate and menstruate and can get pregnant and have babies. Except sometimes not, for a rather spectacular array of reasons both spontaneous and induced. Real women are fat. And thin. And both, and neither, and otherwise. Doesn’t make them any less real. There is a phrase I wish I could engrave upon the hearts of every single person, everywhere in the world, and it is this sentence which comes from the genius lips of the grand and eloquent Mr. Glenn Marla: There is no wrong way to have a body. I’m going to say it again because it’s important: There is no wrong way to have a body. And if your moral compass points in any way, shape, or form to equality, you need to get this through your thick skull and stop with the “real women are like such-and-so” crap. You are not the authority on what “real” human beings are, and who qualifies as “real” and on what basis. All human beings are real. Yes, I know you’re tired of feeling disenfranchised. It is a tiresome and loathsome thing to be and to feel. But the tit-for-tat disenfranchisement of others is not going to solve that problem. Solidarity has to start somewhere and it might as well be with you and me

According to scientists, there are three stages of love: lust, attraction, and attachment. And, it turns out, each of the stages is orchestrated by chemicals—neurotransmitters—in the brain. As you might expect, lust is ruled by testosterone and estrogen. The second stage, attraction, is governed by dopamine and serotonin. When, for example, couples report feeling indescribably happy in each other’s presence, that’s dopamine, the pleasure hormone, doing its work. Taking cocaine fosters the same level of euphoria. In fact, scientists who study both the brains of new lovers and cocaine addicts are hard-pressed to tell the difference. The second chemical of the attraction phase is serotonin. When couples confess that they can’t stop thinking about each other, it’s because their serotonin level has dropped. People in love have the same low serotonin levels as people with OCD. The reason they can’t stop thinking about each other is that they are literally obsessed. Oxytocin and vasopressin control the third stage: attachment or long-term bonding. Oxytocin is released during orgasm and makes you feel closer to the person you’ve had sex with. It’s also released during childbirth and helps bond mother to child. Vasopressin is released postcoitally. Natasha knows these facts cold. Knowing them helped her get over Rob’s betrayal. So she knows: love is just chemicals and coincidence. So why does Daniel feel like something more?

there is no crueler or more inappropriate present to give a child than estrogen and a big pair of tits.

Estrogen deficient women are the walking dead.

in many ways, there is no crueler or more inappropriate present to give a child than estrogen and a big pair of tits.

Too much estrogen, and you get bitch tits.

It had been a while since I’d had a girls’ night out, and the estrogen rush was invigorating. – p.132

Cooper! Help!' The coward turned and walked into the kitchen as if he hadn't seen me getting frogmarched by the estrogen squad.

Jenks made a face as he levered himself up on the sill. “Much as I enjoy this horrific outpouring of estrogen, I’m going to go say good-bye to my wife. Let me know when you’re ready. I’ll be in the garden—probably next to the stink weed.

The landscape of carcinogens is not static either. We are chemical apes: having discovered the capacity to extract, purify, and react molecules to produce new and wondrous molecules, we have begun to spin a new chemical universe around ourselves. Our bodies, our cells, our genes are thus being immersed and reimmersed in a changing flux of molecules--pesticides, pharmaceutical drugs, plastics, cosmetics, estrogens, food products, hormones, even novel forms of physical impulses, such as radiation and magnetism. Some of these, inevitably, will be carcinogenic. We cannot wish this world away; our task, then, is to sift through it vigilantly to discriminate bona fide carcinogens from innocent and useful bystanders.

Perimenopausal women don't make eye contact, don't want to be touched, they slouch, they scuff, and avoid any social interaction if possible.

All that was left was a Belgian cybernetic assassin, stuck in a woman’s bedroom with an unconscious Frenchman, hemmed in by the African Estrogen Guard, under fire and waiting for a man in a cat suit to come kill him. If it hadn’t been so dire, it would be absurd.

You know, I’m gonna marry a girl just to piss you off.” Mom laughed. “Then you’ll deserve estrogen-fuelled psychotic rants about shoes and cellulite.” “Isn’t that a little stereotypical?” “Of course it is,” Mom said nonchalantly. “Just like saying all gay men love cock and lesbians love to munch clams.

When people have trouble with their emotions – a bout of anxiety or depression, say, or seasonal gloominess - they often want science to pinpoint an offending neurotransmitter in the way that a witness picks the perp out of a lineup. Is it excessive norepinephrine, too little dopamine, errant estrogen? The answer is apt to dissatisfy: no single suspect can be fingered with confidence because the question itself attributes a fallacious simplicity to the brain.

His deep voice drifted to her through the crowd of women. “…my lady when she returns. Och, there ye are, Blossom,” Faolán grinned, standing up and taking her hand so she could ease back into the restaurant booth. “These lasses were just asking if I was a stripper. I told them I doona think so,” he said, his face clouded with uncertainty. “I’m not, am I?” The inquisitive lasses in question flushed scarlet and scattered to the four corners of the room at the murderous look on Colleen’s face. “No, you’re not, but I guess I can see how they’d think that,” she muttered darkly. “What you are is a freaking estrogen magnet.

As girls go through puberty, their hormones will have a direct impact on how their facial features develop. Women with high levels of estrogen will end up with full lips and a large waist-to-hip ratio, while women with lower levels of androgen, the steroid hormones, will keep their short and narrow jaws from childhood, along with their flatter brows—giving them much larger eyes. And—surprise, surprise—this balance of female hormones is also positively linked to fertility.

Our teacher, Mr. Stratton, was way distracting with his angular face and broad shoulders. The dark-rimmed glasses he wore had caused many a breathy sigh from his students when he’d adjusted them on his face. One time he’d bitten his lip, pulling it between his teeth in a totally sexy way and I swear, I could smell the estrogen surge in the room.

If I hear of one more article sourcing the WHI as the standard by which hormone replacement therapy advice should be generated, I think I'm going to puke.

Citing the WHI for Hormone Replacement Therapy standards equates with attending the Flat Earth Society Conference and listening to people try to prove the earth is flat.

Stop exhuming the women's health initiative for which doctors prescribe hormones. The WHI for HRT standards is a dead and irrelevant paradigm to modern HRT that needs to be buried.

The more we think we need, the less we get. The less we say we need, the more we have.

It doesn’t matter how awesome an estrogen-containing birth control pill might be for your lactobacilli if you are not the type who can remember to take a pill every day.

Zarina stood. “You know, Alix, men suck. Really. They are the worst. Come with me. I need an estrogen fix before their chromosomal defects contaminate me any further.” Still

I joked with my friends that I was doing so much with the kids my estrogen levels had risen. I was starting to get emotional during commercials.

The estrogen rush was invigorating

FUN FACT ABOUT me: I am a fairly mellow person, but I happen to have a very violent fantasy life. Maybe it’s an overactive amygdala. Maybe it’s too much estrogen.

You and me little buddy...adrift in an ocean of estrogen

As Davis puts it in a characteristic sentence from Wheat Belly: “Increased estrogen, breast cancer, man boobs . . . all from the bag of bagels shared at the office.

estrogenics are a class of molecule that are structurally similar to estrogen and they are trouble. Serious trouble.

The goal is to get your estrogen where it should be so you don’t have to hang out in social support groups that do nothing but chew the cud on how miserable they are without estrogen.

To take estrogen or not to take estrogen: That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler to abstain and suffer The sweat and puddles of outrageous flashes Or to take arms against a sea of mood swings, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; at first the studies say 'twill end The heart attacks and thousand bouts of bloat That flesh is heir to, 'tis a true confusion - For then they say 'twill cause us all to die Perchance from breast cancer; ay, there's the rub; For who can dream or even sleep while worrying about What doctors might be saying come next week?

The women's health initiative standards for HRT is nothing but an embarrassment to all physicians, and I'm not sure why they have not retracted all the statements that came out of that joke of a study.

Together, estrogen and progesterone are the perfect yin and yang for mood. Estradiol lifts you up by boosting serotonin, oxytocin, and dopamine. Progesterone calms you down by acting like GABA in your brain.

Many menopausal women are now being diagnosed with AD/HD for the first time because previously developed coping skills that hid the symptoms are compromised once the estrogen changes exacerbate the symptoms.

The default to studying men at times veered into absurdity: in the early sixties, observing that women tended to have lower rates of heart disease until their estrogen levels dropped after menopause, researchers conducted the first trial to look at whether supplementation with the hormone was an effective preventive treatment. The study enrolled 8,341 men and no women. (Although doctors began prescribing estrogens to postmenopausal women in droves - by the midseventies, a third would be taking them - it wasn't until 1991 that the first clinical study of hormone therapy was conducted in women.) An NIH-supported pilot study from Rockefeller University looked at how obesity affected breast and uterine cancer didn't enroll a single woman. While men can develop breast cancer - and a small number of them do each year - as Rep. Snowe noted drily at the congressional hearings, 'Somehow I find it hard to believe that the male-dominated medical community would tolerate a study of prostate cancer that used only women as research subjects.

Things To Avoid Hops and beer. The potent estrogen, estradiol, found in large quantities in hops, plays a powerful role in increasing prostate size and is strongly implicated in both BPH and prostate cancer. Hopped beer should be avoided at all cost. Some studies have found that beer consumption is directly related to prostate inflammation. Other estrogenic plants such as licorice and black cohosh should be avoided as well.

Szyf and his colleagues have also shown that the quality of maternal care affects the receptor activity for estrogen—a key female hormone—in daughters, with ramifications for mothering patterns down the generations.[4]

I was drowning in wedding crap and estrogen back at the house, so I called up Lawson to see if he wants to grab a couple beers and play a game of pool. I needed to get out and do something manly so I don’t feel like I’ve completely lost my damn balls.

Dr. Helen Fisher divides love into three categories that correspond to different hormones and brain systems. Her analysis of the data suggests that high androgen and estrogen levels generate lust, romantic love correlates with high dopamine and norepinephrine and low serotonin, and attachment is driven by oxytocin and vasopressin. To make matters more complicated, these three systems interact. For example, testosterone can “kickstart the two love neurotransmitters while an orgasm can elevate the attachment hormone,” according to Fisher. “Don’t copulate with people you don’t want to fall in love with,” she warns.4

Black cohosh is highly estrogenic and is often used for normalizing female hormonal levels during menopause and to alleviate menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes. It has shown an antagonist activity toward the production and release of luteinizing hormone (LH), which is essential in testosterone production.

All of that was eventually shown—there’s considerable adult neuro-genesis in the hippocampus (where roughly 3 percent of neurons are replaced each month) and lesser amounts in the cortex.22 It happens in humans throughout adult life. Hippocampal neurogenesis, for example, is enhanced by learning, exercise, estrogen, antidepressants, environmental enrichment, and brain injuryfn9 and inhibited by various stressors.fn10,23 Moreover, the new hippocampal neurons integrate into preexisting circuits, with the perky excitability of young neurons in the perinatal brain. Most important, new neurons are essential for integrating new information into preexisting schemas, something called “pattern separation.

For their neural networks to function, plants use virtually the same neurotransmitters we do, including the two most important: glutamate and GABA (gamma aminobutyric acid). They also utilize, as do we, acetylcholine, dopamine, serotonin, melatonin, epinephrine, norepinephrine, levodopa, indole-3-acetic acid, 5-hydroxyindole acetic acid, testosterone (and other androgens), estradiol (and other estrogens), nicotine, and a number of other neuroactive compounds. They also make use of their plant-specific neurotransmitter, auxin, which, like serotonin, for example, is synthesized from tryptophan. These transmitters are used, as they are in us, for communication within the organism and to enhance brain function.

Be armed with purpose, persistence and intention and the enemy called defeat will choose another to battle.

When I was in college, the board game RISK was popular for a while. We’d get stoned and I’d stare at the little plastic pieces moving across the territories and get utterly confused about allies and enemies, arguing that nothing could be that black and white, complicating the whole notion of the game. But I understand that estrogen is my enemy now, the very thing that made me big-busted and fertile and a terrific nurser, has turned on me, inside my milk ducts where my body incubated nourishment that made my babies pink cheeked and roly-poly thighed. It’s all so twisted and ironic and confusing. Tamoxifen, a hero and a hazard, my breasts, a giver and taker of life, and I, the protagonist and the antagonist in this story

You seriously raised all that estrogen?” “How I survived I do not know,” Will admitted, but he was looking at them with an indulgent smile. “But if you ever need parenting tips on the teen years, I could write a book. Your number one job?” “I know this one,” Tag said, holding up his hand. “Keep ’em off the pole.” “Gotta keep ’em off the pole,” Mitch said with a frown.

Hormonal responses to various fetal and childhood experiences have epigenetic effects on genes related to the growth factor BDNF, to the vasopressin and oxytocin system, and to estrogen sensitivity. These effects are pertinent to adult cognition, personality, emotionality, and psychiatric health. Childhood abuse, for example, causes epigenetic changes in hundreds of genes in the human hippocampus.

Remarkably, the size of neurons’ dendritic trees in the hippocampus expands and contracts like an accordion throughout a female rat’s ovulatory cycle, with the size (and her cognitive skills) peaking when estrogen peaks.fn6 Thus, neurons can form new dendritic branches and spines, increasing the size of their dendritic tree or, in other circumstances, do the opposite; hormones frequently mediate these effects.

Meat consumption is at an all-time high. In 2000, we ate 195 pounds per person, and that’s 57 more pounds more than in the 1950s. Even though I think of meat eaters as being mainly men… it’s fascinating to me how modern meat is the food that disturbs estrogen balance the most. Since women have far more estrogen than men, that means we’re more vulnerable to the effects of meat and alcohol, which raise estrogen. (Too much estrogen makes you fat.)

Two complications illustrate some endocrine principles.fn16 Estrogen contributes to maternal aggression. But estrogen can also reduce aggression and enhance empathy and emotional recognition. It turns out there are two different types of receptors for estrogen in the brain, mediating these opposing effects and with their levels independently regulated. Thus, same hormone, same levels, different outcome if the brain is set up to respond differently.51

There's a myth that with age the vagina risks a "use it or lose it" scenario - meaning without the potency of a penis the vagina may shrink permanently. It's simply shocking (imagine my voice dripping in sarcasm) that there's no similar myth that the penis can avoid shrinkage with regular vaginal contact. The "use it or lose it" theory was based on lower quality data that wouldn't be accepted today. Loss of estrogen and age related changes are what affect a vagina: it's not a lament for the touch of a man.

Just as there are substances that increase androgen levels and androgenic activity in men, there are also substances that can significantly lower or suppress them. If you are having trouble with your levels of testosterone or your androgen/estrogen ratio, you should especially avoid consuming any quantity of licorice, black cohosh, and hops. Each of these plants contains substances that are either potent estrogens, act as androgen antagonists, or interfere with the conversion of prohormones into androgens, or stimulate the conversion of androgens into estrogens.

Her heart sprang up into her throat. Watching that shadow play was like paying a quarter for a peep show. Only she got it for free. He thinks I'm pretty. Butterflies did a dance around her heart before she could swat them away. Behind the shade. his shadow unbuttoned those soft, worn, butt-hugging jeans and slid them down his lean hips. Charli sucked in a big gulp of air, then headed back to the veranda and her glass of wine. With all the estrogen doing a conga line through her blood, she needed a drink. Well, she really needed something else. But she'd settle for a drink.

Fisher outlines the different hormones and personalities for me. Those with lots of dopamine, she says, are likely to be "Explorers," optimistic risk takers. Serotonin breeds "Builders," who tend to be calm and organized and work well in groups. Those brimming with testosterone she calls "Directors." Two thirds of them are men. They're analytical, logical, and often musical. (They sound suspiciously like Numerati to me.) In the fourth group, their brains coursing with estrogen, are the negotiators. They're verbal and intuitive, and have good people skills. You'd think they'd be built for relationships. But sometimes, Fisher says, "they're so pliable that they turn into placaters. You don't know who they are.

Transgender people are not caterpillars who transform into butterflies, as lovely as that tired analogy may be. We are more like pet snakes who slough off our skin to keep growing, in full view of anyone peeking through the glass. When we finish shedding, our old selves lay there for a while, decomposing. It’s not very glamorous, but it’s closer to the truth.

A study in the Journal of Neuroscience tested pain sensitivity in women at different times during their menstrual cycle—first during their period when estradiol is at its lowest and then when their estradiol levels were at their highest. The women in the study were subjected to a controlled amount of pain and asked to rate the level of their discomfort. At low levels of estradiol, the women reported feeling much more pain than when the hormone was at its highest. The implication is that when your estrogen levels are low, such as during menopause or during the premenstrual or menstrual phase of your cycle, you are likely to feel pain more acutely, which is also likely true for emotional pain. Just one more reason a smart man is especially sensitive at this time!

Moreover, puberty is not just about the onslaught of gonadal hormones. It’s about how they come online.9 The defining feature of ovarian endocrine function is the cyclicity of hormone release—“It’s that time of the month.” In adolescent females puberty does not arrive full flower, so to speak, with one’s first period. Instead, for the first few years only about half of cycles actually involve ovulation and surges of estrogen and progesterone. Thus, not only are young adolescents experiencing these first ovulatory cycles, but there are also higher-order fluctuations in whether the ovulatory fluctuation occurs. Meanwhile, while adolescent males don’t have equivalent hormonal gyrations, it can’t help that their frontal cortex keeps getting hypoxic from the priapic blood flow to the crotch.

If one more person tells me that “all gender is performance,” I think I am going to strangle them. Perhaps most annoying about that sound-bite is the somewhat snooty “I-took-a-gender-studies-class-and-youdidn’t” sort of way in which it is most often recited, a magnificent irony given the way that phrase dumbs down gender. It is a crass oversimplification, as ridiculous as saying all gender is genitals, all gender is chromosomes, or all gender is socialization. In reality, gender is all of these things and more. In fact, if there’s one thing that all of us should be able to agree on, it’s that gender is a confusing and complicated mess. It’s like a junior high school mixer, where our bodies and our internal desires awkwardly dance with one another, and with all the external expectations that other people place on us. Sure, I can perform gender: I can curtsy, or throw like a girl, or bat my eyelashes. But performance doesn’t explain why certain behaviors and ways of being come to me more naturally than others. It offers no insight into the countless restless nights I spent as a pre-teen wrestling with the inexplicable feeling that I should be female. It doesn’t capture the very real physical and emotional changes that I experienced when I hormonally transitioned from testosterone to estrogen. Performance doesn’t even begin to address the fact that, during my transition, I acted the same, wore the same T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers that I always had, yet once other people started reading me as female, they began treating me very differently. When we talk about my gender as though it were a performance, we let the audience—with all their expectations, prejudices, and presumptions—completely off the hook.

At the trial in March 1952, Turing pled guilty, though he made clear he felt no remorse. Max Newman appeared as a character witness. Convicted and stripped of his security clearance,VI Turing was offered a choice: imprisonment or probation contingent on receiving hormone treatments via injections of a synthetic estrogen designed to curb his sexual desires, as if he were a chemically controlled machine. He chose the latter, which he endured for a year. Turing at first seemed to take it all in stride, but on June 7, 1954, he committed suicide by biting into an apple he had laced with cyanide. His friends noted that he had always been fascinated by the scene in Snow White in which the Wicked Queen dips an apple into a poisonous brew. He was found in his bed with froth around his mouth, cyanide in his system, and a half-eaten apple by his side. Was that something a machine would have done?

Fisher says that in the late 1990s she began looking into the biology of personality, the genes, neurotransmitters, and specifically, the hormones. She did this in part by studying brain scans of "romantically obsessed" people. Her theory is that four different hormones-estrogen, testosterone, dopamine, and serotonin-mold our personalities and that we look for people who complement us, who provide what we're missing. Her questionnaire is designed to divide us into four different types, each one with a dominant hormone. Some of the questions focus on the moods and personalities she associates with each hormone. Others, such as the question about the length of our fingers, zero in on the chemical itself. Research shows, she says, that those with an index finger shorter than the ring finger have often been exposed to more testosterone while in the womb, while those with longer index fingers will have more estrogen.

In human studies, black cohosh has been found to decrease hot flashes associated with menopause. Unlike conventional estrogen effects on individuals predisposed to breast cancer, black cohosh has been shown in laboratory studies to inhibit cancer cells. Most studies used doses of 20–80 mg twice daily, providing 4–8 mg triterpene glycosides for up to six months. Melatonin—This hormone is produced in the pineal gland that, among other functions, helps sleep. Melatonin levels decline with age and may lead to the sleep disturbances common during menopause. Melatonin has been shown in laboratory studies to inhibit the growth of breast cancer cells. Melatonin acts as an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant in the brain and other tissues like the intestine. Studies show that low melatonin levels increase breast cancer risk in women. So if you are having trouble sleeping consider 3–6 mg of melatonin before bed. It may boost your immune system and help you sleep.

Look around you, piglet. What do you see? Same thing you see in the mirror—fat, weak, lazy slugs. The gene pool so diluted that you can barely recognize these pale blobs as human, all their juice watered down. We did this to ourselves, piglet. Back before you and me were born, all the politicians got scared about all the crime, and all the wars, so they pumped everybody full of antidepressants and soy and estrogen, trying to dull that fire, that natural fire that’s supposed to burn inside all of us. They gave all the men porn and video games, to soak up their conqueror instincts. Worked like a charm—crime went way down, rape went way down, pregnancy went way down. And the only price was they turned all the men into fat little toothless blobs and the girls into arrogant, squealing little piglets, like you. Puttin’ that fire out forever, that natural fire that comes from the balls. The fire that built this world. Well, I’m here to tell you, there are still some men left. So no, there’s not gonna be no negotiation. The lion don’t negotiate with the gazelle.” He

The history of HRT use dates back to 1966 and the success of Dr. Robert Wilson’s best-selling book Feminine Forever, which he promoted vigorously. The premise of the book was that it was as natural and necessary for a menopausal woman to replace estrogen as it was for a diabetic to replace insulin. Dr. Wilson preached that doing so would keep a woman young, healthy, and attractive. He went so far as to declare that the lack of eggs and decline of reproductive hormones in a menopausal woman was a “galloping catastrophe”5 that could only be averted by taking estrogen supplements. He explained that with estrogen supplements, “Breasts and genital organs will not shrivel. Such women will be much more pleasant to live with and will not become dull and unattractive.” According to Dr. Wilson’s son, Ronald, all of his father’s expenses to write Feminine Forever were paid for by Wyeth-Ayerst, the maker of the synthetic estrogen supplement Premarin. He also said that Wyeth-Ayerst financed his father’s organization, the Wilson Research Foundation, which had offices on Park Avenue in Manhattan.

Suppose there’s a rooster standing next to you, and there’s a chicken across the street. The rooster gives a sexually solicitive gesture that is hot by chicken standards, and she promptly runs over to mate with him (I haven’t a clue if this is how it works, but let’s just suppose). And thus we have a key behavioral biological question—why did the chicken cross the road? And if you’re a psychoneuroendocrinologist, your answer would be “Because circulating estrogen levels in that chicken worked in a certain part of her brain to make her responsive to this male signaling,” and if you’re a bioengineer, the answer would be “Because the long bone in the leg of the chicken forms a fulcrum for her pelvis (or some such thing), allowing her to move forward rapidly,” and if you’re an evolutionary biologist, you’d say, “Because over the course of millions of years, chickens that responded to such gestures at a time that they were fertile left more copies of their genes, and thus this is now an innate behavior in chickens,” and so on, thinking in categories, in differing scientific disciplines of explanation.

ACCORDING TO SCIENTISTS, THERE ARE three stages of love: lust, attraction, and attachment. And, it turns out, each of the stages is orchestrated by chemicals—neurotransmitters—in the brain. As you might expect, lust is ruled by testosterone and estrogen. The second stage, attraction, is governed by dopamine and serotonin. When, for example, couples report feeling indescribably happy in each other’s presence, that’s dopamine, the pleasure hormone, doing its work. Taking cocaine fosters the same level of euphoria. In fact, scientists who study both the brains of new lovers and cocaine addicts are hard-pressed to tell the difference. The second chemical of the attraction phase is serotonin. When couples confess that they can’t stop thinking about each other, it’s because their serotonin level has dropped. People in love have the same low serotonin levels as people with OCD. The reason they can’t stop thinking about each other is that they are literally obsessed. Oxytocin and vasopressin control the third stage: attachment or long-term bonding. Oxytocin is released during orgasm and makes you feel closer to the person you’ve had sex with. It’s also released during childbirth and helps bond mother to child. Vasopressin is released postcoitally.

are out of balance, your life quality diminishes substantially. The hormones estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone make us men and women. Every woman and man has different hormonal requirements. That’s why there is no “one pill fits all” solution. Your hormonal requirements are unique. What you need is different from what I need. This is what hormones “do”; now you might be wondering what they are made of—what they are exactly? A hormone is a chemical substance produced in your body by your glands. They are a complex combination of chemical keys that turn important metabolic locks in our cells, tissues, and organs. All the approximately sixty to ninety trillion cells in our bodies are influenced to some degree by these amazing hormonal keys. The turning on of these “locks” stimulates activity within the cells of our brain, intestines, muscles, genital organs, and skin. As such, hormones determine the rate at which our cells burn up nutrients and other food substances, release energy, and determine whether our cells should produce milk, hair, secretions, enzymes, or some other metabolic (life) product. Hormones affect virtually every function in your body. They affect your mood, how you cope, your sexuality, your sex drive. We all have hormones and without them

Daily Fertility Protocol GI cleanse formula on days 1–10: Take 1 to 3 a day to cleanse the candida. Probiotic defense formula on days 11–15: Take 1 capsule, three times a day to feed your body the good bacteria and support your immune system. Detoxification complex: 2 a day to help nourish and detox body filters, liver, kidney, spleen. Detoxification gel caps: 2 a day to help open up the liver ducts so it doesn’t become clogged with the cleansing you are about to do. Lemon essential oil in all your water to assist liver in its work. Basic vitality supplements: Take as directed to nourish your body with the perfect amount of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and omega 3s it needs. Women’s estrogen complex: 1 a day to help eliminate bad estrogens in your body. Bone complex: 4 a day for bone and hormone support. Grapefruit essential oil: 10 to 15 drops under tongue or in veggie capsule once a day to help balance progesterone. You can split this up into a dose in the morning and another in the evening. Women’s monthly blend: Apply to low abdomen, wrists, and back of neck to help balance hormones and mood swings. Avoid sugar, grains, dairy, fruit juice, and caffeine. Follow this protocol until pregnant, then discontinue GI cleansing complex and continue everything else.

performance during PMS: Take 250 milligrams of magnesium, 45 milligrams of zinc, 80 milligrams of aspirin (baby aspirin), and 1 gram of omega-3 fatty acids (flaxseed and fish oil) each night for the 7 days before your period starts. Pretraining: Take 5 to 7 grams of branched-chain amino acid supplement (BCAAs) to fight the lack of mojo. These amino acids cross the blood-brain barrier and decrease the estrogen-progesterone effect on central nervous system fatigue. In training: Consume a few more carbohydrates per hour. In this high-hormone phase, aim for about 0.45 gram of carbohydrate per pound of body weight (about 61 grams for a 135-pound woman) per hour. In the low-hormone phase (first 2 weeks of the cycle), you can go a bit lower—about 0.35 gram of carbohydrate per pound of body weight (about 47 grams for a 135-pound woman) per hour. (For reference: 2.2 kilograms = 1 pound.) Post-training: Recovery is critical. Progesterone is extremely catabolic (breaks muscle down) and inhibits recovery. Aim to consume 20 to 25 grams of protein within 30 minutes of finishing your session. Overall you should aim to get 0.9 to 1 gram of protein per pound per day (a 135-pound woman needs about 122 to 135 grams of protein per day; see the Roar Daily Diet Cheat Sheet for Athletes for more information). THE MARTIAL ARTIST WHO BEAT HER BLOAT It may not be nice to fool Mother Nature, but there are definitely times when you need to trick her a little.

Turing was offered a choice: imprisonment or probation contingent on receiving hormone treatments via injections of a synthetic estrogen designed to curb his sexual desires, as if he were a chemically controlled machine. He chose the latter, which he endured for a year. Turing at first seemed to take it all in stride, but on June 7, 1954, he committed suicide by biting into an apple he had laced with cyanide. His friends noted that he had always been fascinated by the scene in Snow White in which the Wicked Queen dips an apple into a poisonous brew. He was found in his bed with froth around his mouth, cyanide in his system, and a half-eaten apple by his side. Was that something a machine would have done? I. Stirling’s formula, which approximates the value of the factorial of a number. II. The display and explanations of the Mark I at Harvard’s science center made no mention of Grace Hopper nor pictured any women until 2014, when the display was revised to highlight her role and that of the programmers. III. Von Neumann was successful in this. The plutonium implosion design would result in the first detonation of an atomic device, the Trinity test, in July 1945 near Alamogordo, New Mexico, and it would be used for the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, three days after the uranium bomb was used on Hiroshima. With his hatred of both the Nazis and the Russian-backed communists, von Neumann became a vocal proponent of atomic weaponry.

REPROGRAMMING MY BIOCHEMISTRY A common attitude is that taking substances other than food, such as supplements and medications, should be a last resort, something one takes only to address overt problems. Terry and I believe strongly that this is a bad strategy, particularly as one approaches middle age and beyond. Our philosophy is to embrace the unique opportunity we have at this time and place to expand our longevity and human potential. In keeping with this health philosophy, I am very active in reprogramming my biochemistry. Overall, I am quite satisfied with the dozens of blood levels I routinely test. My biochemical profile has steadily improved during the years that I have done this. For boosting antioxidant levels and for general health, I take a comprehensive vitamin-and-mineral combination, alpha lipoic acid, coenzyme Q10, grapeseed extract, resveratrol, bilberry extract, lycopene, silymarin (milk thistle), conjugated linoleic acid, lecithin, evening primrose oil (omega-6 essential fatty acids), n-acetyl-cysteine, ginger, garlic, l-carnitine, pyridoxal-5-phosphate, and echinacea. I also take Chinese herbs prescribed by Dr. Glenn Rothfeld. For reducing insulin resistance and overcoming my type 2 diabetes, I take chromium, metformin (a powerful anti-aging medication that decreases insulin resistance and which we recommend everyone over 50 consider taking), and gymnema sylvestra. To improve LDL and HDL cholesterol levels, I take policosanol, gugulipid, plant sterols, niacin, oat bran, grapefruit powder, psyllium, lecithin, and Lipitor. To improve blood vessel health, I take arginine, trimethylglycine, and choline. To decrease blood viscosity, I take a daily baby aspirin and lumbrokinase, a natural anti-fibrinolytic agent. Although my CRP (the screening test for inflammation in the body) is very low, I reduce inflammation by taking EPA/DHA (omega-3 essential fatty acids) and curcumin. I have dramatically reduced my homocysteine level by taking folic acid, B6, and trimethylglycine (TMG), and intrinsic factor to improve methylation. I have a B12 shot once a week and take a daily B12 sublingual. Several of my intravenous therapies improve my body’s detoxification: weekly EDTA (for chelating heavy metals, a major source of aging) and monthly DMPS (to chelate mercury). I also take n-acetyl-l-carnitine orally. I take weekly intravenous vitamins and alpha lipoic acid to boost antioxidants. I do a weekly glutathione IV to boost liver health. Perhaps the most important intravenous therapy I do is a weekly phosphatidylcholine (PtC) IV, which rejuvenates all of the body’s tissues by restoring youthful cell membranes. I also take PtC orally each day, and I supplement my hormone levels with DHEA and testosterone. I take I-3-C (indole-3-carbinol), chrysin, nettle, ginger, and herbs to reduce conversion of testosterone into estrogen. I take a saw palmetto complex for prostate health. For stress management, I take l-theonine (the calming substance in green tea), beta sitosterol, phosphatidylserine, and green tea supplements, in addition to drinking 8 to 10 cups of green tea itself. At bedtime, to aid with sleep, I take GABA (a gentle, calming neuro-transmitter) and sublingual melatonin. For brain health, I take acetyl-l-carnitine, vinpocetine, phosphatidylserine, ginkgo biloba, glycerylphosphorylcholine, nextrutine, and quercetin. For eye health, I take lutein and bilberry extract. For skin health, I use an antioxidant skin cream on my face, neck, and hands each day. For digestive health, I take betaine HCL, pepsin, gentian root, peppermint, acidophilus bifodobacter, fructooligosaccharides, fish proteins, l-glutamine, and n-acetyl-d-glucosamine. To inhibit the creation of advanced glycosylated end products (AGEs), a key aging process, I take n-acetyl-carnitine, carnosine, alpha lipoic acid, and quercetin. MAINTAINING A POSITIVE “HEALTH SLOPE” Most important,

toxins. But certain foods can help optimize your body’s natural purification system. These include cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, and kale, all of which contain compounds that help the liver break down harmful forms of estrogen for safe elimination. Onions, leeks, chives, garlic, and shallots are rich in sulfur to fortify detox pathways in the liver. Plants from the thistle family—artichokes, dandelions, and burdock—enhance liver function by upping bile flow.

In the short term, your body has checks and balances to compensate for too much or too little of any hormone; it’s your system’s long-term response that causes persistent symptoms and chronic conditions. As your hormones try to help your body get balanced again, they may instead overcompensate and create other imbalances. This will impact how much estrogen and testosterone, growth hormones, hunger hormones, stress hormones, fat-burning hormones, energy- and libido-related hormones, and sleep hormones it should be making to amend the situation.

What About Alcohol? Alcohol is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, some studies show that a drink or two a day can reduce the risk of heart disease, but on the other, we know that alcohol inhibits fat burning. Moreover, alcohol can boost estrogen levels in women, and may increase the risk of breast cancer. I’ve given the alcohol issue a great deal of thought, and I’ve reached the conclusion that alcohol is probably helpful to people who are very stressed out, but by no means essential for health. Alcohol lowers blood pressure and has a relaxing effect on the body, which may be beneficial to people who have difficulty winding down. A better way to reduce stress, I believe, is to practice yoga or other stress-reduction techniques. Please keep in mind that more than one or two drinks daily has been shown to be harmful to your health. If you do drink, avoid sweet mixed drinks, and stick to red wine, low carb beer, or pure spirits. There are some new low carb beers on the market that are actually quite good and are a good compromise.