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

  • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]
    ·
    5 months ago

    Bro we have rules about what side your shirt has to button up depending on how your genitals look, none of it makes any fucking sense

      • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
        ·
        5 months 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.

        • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          5 months ago

          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]
        ·
        5 months 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]
          ·
          edit-2
          5 months 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

      • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        5 months ago

        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]
        ·
        5 months 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]
        ·
        5 months 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
        ·
        edit-2
        3 months ago

        deleted by creator

  • Hexboare [they/them]
    ·
    5 months ago

    Ever think it's weird that the class of female sex hormones is named after a biological process that doesn't actually occur in humans

    Humans don't go into heat with an estrous cycle, they have a menstrual cycle

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      I mean one of the important proteins for embryos to develop symmetry is named after sonic the hedgehog

    • TankieTanuki [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      TIL

      That reminds me of the word "vitamin". It's short for "vital amines", because scientists believed that they were all amines (nitrogen-containing organic molecules). They are not.

  • the_post_of_tom_joad [any, any]
    ·
    5 months ago

    *e.g. It's such an androgen fest!

    I wish we used that instead just for the pun of calling muscle-heads "androids"

    • HexBeara
      ·
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      deleted by creator

  • AOCapitulator [they/them, she/her]
    ·
    5 months ago

    I don't think it's weird because we live in a capitalist patriarchal gender binary authoritarian hell world where man and woman are elemental particle antiparticle pairs

    • Llituro [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      5 months ago

      we live in a capitalist patriarchal gender binary authoritarian hell world where man and woman are elemental particle antiparticle pairs

      that's maybe the perfect description of why binarity is nonsense in gender. great example.

    • TankieTanuki [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      5 months ago

      Maybe. But neither does testosterone.

      It's not so bad if you know the pronunciation: Ess---truhh---DIE---all