More Silliness

From Peter, we see this story about a man who is taking hormones to be a woman and is now claiming that he is having menstrual cramps. Impossible. Menstrual cramps are caused by the female reproductive organs responding to hormone changes: thickening endometrial tissue, then shedding that thickening tissue as a part of the monthly reproductive cycle.

Even ignoring the absence of endometrial tissue, the hormone changes that cause this cycle aren’t there. The hormones responsible for driving this cycle are the Luteinizing Hormone (LH), Estradiol, the Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH), and Progesterone. It’s a complex dance of hormones that work to control the menstrual cycle.

A gland in a woman’s brain (the pituitary gland) produces Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH). FSH is carried by your blood to her ovaries. FSH stimulates follicles to grow. As she approaches ovulation, one of these follicles will start growing bigger and faster than all the others. It’s known as the dominant follicle. It is this follicle that contains the mature egg that will be released when she ovulates.

While FSH is encouraging lots of follicles to grow, LH, luteinising hormone, is also produced in small amounts (by the same gland in the brain that produces FSH, the pituitary gland) throughout the follicular phase. LH encourages the follicles already growing to produce estradiol (estrogen). As a woman approaches ovulation, a surge in LH will help to ripen the dominant follicle and rupture it for the egg to be released. (This surge in LH is what the ovulation test kits try and pick up on.)

When the dominant follicle ruptures, it is now called the corpus luteum. LH stimulates the corpus luteum to produce progesterone. The corpus luteum produces both progesterone and estradiol, with the primary role of these two hormones ensuring that the lining of the uterus is fully prepared for implantation by making it thicker, so that it is ready in the event that fertilization occurs. If the woman doesn’t get pregnant, the corpus luteum breaks down, progesterone production decreases and the next menstrual cycle begins when follicle stimulating hormone starts to rise again.

He isn’t taking any female hormone except for Estradiol. Even though men produce many of these hormones, they do so in a steady level. LH and FSH order testes to produce sperm, progesterone is key in the production of testosterone, and estradiol is produced when men have an excess of testosterone, so it is converted into estradiol by an enzyme called aromatase. You can see that, even though men have all of those hormones, they are not cycling up and down from the actions of the pituitary gland and cannot produce a menstrual cycle.

So even if he DID have a uterus and other female reproductive organs, he doesn’t have the necessary hormone cycles to be having menstrual cramps. He is a delusional, mentally disturbed male who needs counseling, not pills.