Estrogen isn’t a molecule. It’s a class of feminizing hormones, the most prominent of which is estradiol. Others include estrone and estriol. Collectively, these are called estrogens.

The masculinizing analog for estrogen is androgen (a word you practically never hear*), which also refers to a class of hormones. In addition to being the most well-known of the androgens, testosterone might be the most famous hormone in the whole body**. Dihydrotestosterone is actually the most potent androgen. Androsterone and Androstenedione are (relatively weak) others.


*e.g. It’s such an androgen fest!

**Adrenaline is the only competitor that comes to mind.


This moment of pedantry was brought to you by TankieTanuki. the-more-you-know

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      17 days ago

      I work in a lab type area with lab coats. The button thing is so ingrained that women during training will frequently get confused with the lab coats because they have the masculine button arrangement.

      • That’s interesting, I’ve never seen someone get confused but I have known several women who didn’t know it was a gendered thing and just thought it was kinda random bc they’ve worn a lot of men’s clothes and didn’t put it together

    • Hexboare [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      17 days ago

      [in the west] Despite the fact that the vast majority of all humans are right-handed, only men’s shirts have buttons on the right side. Women’s shirts have buttons on the left side.

      • nothx [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        17 days ago

        Holy shit, I’ve never noticed that. Admittedly I have only ever worn men’s shirts, but do the laundry all the time and I guess just never looked close enough at my wife’s shirts.

        Now I’m going to need to look up why. Is there a reason aside from really weird misogyny?

        Edit: preliminary research shows that it was possibly due to the intricate nature of women clothing in the renaissance era, usually a servant was doing the buttons

    • Yeah men’s buttons are on the right side, women’s are on the left.

      In the long ago women’s clothes were very complicated so (rich) women would have servants help dress them, so the buttons on women’s clothes are meant for a second person to button them.

      Vs men’s clothes even kings would dress themselves because it was easy, so the weird things we have are like, the bottom button on suit jackets that is never supposed to be buttoned bc some king wasn’t able to button his jacket

    • bunnygirl [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      17 days ago

      actually figured this was sth all trans people knew cause at one point half my shirts were on one side and the other half on the other side lmfao

    • Chump [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      17 days ago

      It’s the same with belts in my experience. Men wear buckles pointing to the right and women to the left. (Requisite GENERALLY here. I’m obviously not going around getting up close and personal to peoples’ waists).

    • HexBeara [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      17 days ago

      Yes. 99.9% sure I wore girl jeans when I was first homeless. The pockets were kind of nice though still not like “man” pockets though. But they buttoned opposite and or had the metal tab that slid into the “cover up the gibblets” (very technical stuff here) staple. Have no idea what happened to them at this point. Was probably not thrilled about it at the time (because I was 18 and so far in the closet and wanted to take my time coming out plus I like to just not show up on any radar. ) but really liked the fit though.