https://archive.ph/t9fz6
https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/07/04/brain-fog-trans-explainer/
We’ve all experienced “brain fog” at one time or another, but there is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that prolonged symptoms could mean something about your gender identity.
Brain fog, sometimes known as “clouding of consciousness,” is a colloquial umbrella term for an array of symptoms that temporarily affect a person’s concentration, cognitive thinking or memory. This can include fatigue or mental exhaustion, slower cognitive ability, muddling words and general forgetfulness.
The severity and duration of these symptoms typically depends on the root cause. The main causes, according to the NHS, include a lack of sleep, anxiety or depression, stress, poor nutrition, and, in rare cases, autoimmune conditions.
Brain fog can also occur after recovering from an illness, long hospital stays or following chemotherapy.
Brain fog is an umbrella term for dissociative symptoms.
While there is no specific treatment, you can pin down the reason by reflecting on your daily routine and improving your habits such as your sleep schedule, diet and relaxation time. In many cases, these are only temporary fixes. If you are facing prolonged brain fog, it might be a good idea to consider therapy or consulting your doctor.
Generally speaking, most causes of brain fog can come down to a subconscious dissatisfaction with either your daily habit or something in your life. And that could include your gender identity.
How does brain fog relate to gender dysphoria?
Much like other mental-health issues, brain frog can often be a sign of a deeper dissatisfaction with your life, and one of those things can be gender identity.
There are hundreds of examples of transgender people who experienced a form of dissociation or depersonalisation before coming out as trans. One Reddit said their thoughts were “slow to form” and would often dissipate mid-sentence.
“Often, I’d wait for someone to finish their sentence and forget a question I had been trying to memorise the whole time they were talking,” they said. “Once I started hormones, I actually had hope for a future where I could be myself. I became more active and my brain stopped losing focus all the time.”
Being trans has been linked to some cases of brain fog.
The feeling can be part-and-parcel of gender dysphoria – the feeling of unease or discomfort between a person’s gender identity and the gender assigned at birth – and can often be a tell-tale sign of it.
The phenomenon is explained as part of a series of articles dubbed The Gender Dysphoria Bible, which outlined how gender dysphoria wasn’t simply an issue of the mind but could manifest in physical ways, such as symptoms of brain fog, which it called biochemical dysphoria.
Effectively, because gender dysphoria derives from a disparity between the brain and your hormonal balance, it can cause a “biochemical malfunction” which can produce a form of brain fog, as well as symptoms of depersonalisation and derealisation (DPDR).
Hormones said to improve brain fog for some trans people
In 2017, activist Zinnia Jones said that DPDR often described a “sense of detachment or estrangement from your own thoughts, feelings or body” or “feeling split into two parts”. Closeted trans people often feel distant from their own lives, as though they are in a dreamlike or artificial state.
This can often culminate, Jones went on to say, in either extreme self-criticism, anxiety, depression or a general disconnect from life.
Several trans people who have spoken about their experiences with gender-dysphoria-induced brain fog noted that starting hormone replacement therapy (HRT) either mitigated or completely alleviated symptoms.
HRT pills have been found to help some people.
In a Reddit post on experiences of brain fog pre-transition, one user wrote: “It felt like I was never clear-headed, even after a good night’s sleep. The mental fog felt like a low-grade headache from lack of sleep although it wasn’t quite the same feeling. I had trouble concentrating too, it felt like something was holding my mind back.
“After around a week of HRT, I noticed that my head and thoughts were incredibly clear, even when I only got five hours sleep a night (that’s not enough for me). I noticed this at work… my job requires a lot of thinking. My mind felt sharp like never before.”
Another said: “When I started hormones, it was like I had been walking around in a fog bank for over a decade (since puberty) and had completely forgotten there was a place without fog.
“Starting hormones was like cresting a hill and seeing the sun for the first time in a very long time… and it being so much clearer where I had been, and where I needed to go. Having the correct hormones does very good things for your cognitive functions.”
One participant in a study last year reported experiencing clearer cognitive function two months after starting HRT, while another said they had overcome their “breaking point”.
https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/07/04/brain-fog-trans-explainer/
We’ve all experienced “brain fog” at one time or another, but there is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that prolonged symptoms could mean something about your gender identity.
Brain fog, sometimes known as “clouding of consciousness,” is a colloquial umbrella term for an array of symptoms that temporarily affect a person’s concentration, cognitive thinking or memory. This can include fatigue or mental exhaustion, slower cognitive ability, muddling words and general forgetfulness.
The severity and duration of these symptoms typically depends on the root cause. The main causes, according to the NHS, include a lack of sleep, anxiety or depression, stress, poor nutrition, and, in rare cases, autoimmune conditions.
Brain fog can also occur after recovering from an illness, long hospital stays or following chemotherapy.
Brain fog is an umbrella term for dissociative symptoms.
While there is no specific treatment, you can pin down the reason by reflecting on your daily routine and improving your habits such as your sleep schedule, diet and relaxation time. In many cases, these are only temporary fixes. If you are facing prolonged brain fog, it might be a good idea to consider therapy or consulting your doctor.
Generally speaking, most causes of brain fog can come down to a subconscious dissatisfaction with either your daily habit or something in your life. And that could include your gender identity.
How does brain fog relate to gender dysphoria?
Much like other mental-health issues, brain frog can often be a sign of a deeper dissatisfaction with your life, and one of those things can be gender identity.
There are hundreds of examples of transgender people who experienced a form of dissociation or depersonalisation before coming out as trans. One Reddit said their thoughts were “slow to form” and would often dissipate mid-sentence.
“Often, I’d wait for someone to finish their sentence and forget a question I had been trying to memorise the whole time they were talking,” they said. “Once I started hormones, I actually had hope for a future where I could be myself. I became more active and my brain stopped losing focus all the time.”
Being trans has been linked to some cases of brain fog.
The feeling can be part-and-parcel of gender dysphoria – the feeling of unease or discomfort between a person’s gender identity and the gender assigned at birth – and can often be a tell-tale sign of it.
The phenomenon is explained as part of a series of articles dubbed The Gender Dysphoria Bible, which outlined how gender dysphoria wasn’t simply an issue of the mind but could manifest in physical ways, such as symptoms of brain fog, which it called biochemical dysphoria.
Effectively, because gender dysphoria derives from a disparity between the brain and your hormonal balance, it can cause a “biochemical malfunction” which can produce a form of brain fog, as well as symptoms of depersonalisation and derealisation (DPDR).
Hormones said to improve brain fog for some trans people
In 2017, activist Zinnia Jones said that DPDR often described a “sense of detachment or estrangement from your own thoughts, feelings or body” or “feeling split into two parts”. Closeted trans people often feel distant from their own lives, as though they are in a dreamlike or artificial state.
This can often culminate, Jones went on to say, in either extreme self-criticism, anxiety, depression or a general disconnect from life.
Several trans people who have spoken about their experiences with gender-dysphoria-induced brain fog noted that starting hormone replacement therapy (HRT) either mitigated or completely alleviated symptoms.
HRT pills have been found to help some people.
In a Reddit post on experiences of brain fog pre-transition, one user wrote: “It felt like I was never clear-headed, even after a good night’s sleep. The mental fog felt like a low-grade headache from lack of sleep although it wasn’t quite the same feeling. I had trouble concentrating too, it felt like something was holding my mind back.
“After around a week of HRT, I noticed that my head and thoughts were incredibly clear, even when I only got five hours sleep a night (that’s not enough for me). I noticed this at work… my job requires a lot of thinking. My mind felt sharp like never before.”
Another said: “When I started hormones, it was like I had been walking around in a fog bank for over a decade (since puberty) and had completely forgotten there was a place without fog.
“Starting hormones was like cresting a hill and seeing the sun for the first time in a very long time… and it being so much clearer where I had been, and where I needed to go. Having the correct hormones does very good things for your cognitive functions.”
One participant in a study last year reported experiencing clearer cognitive function two months after starting HRT, while another said they had overcome their “breaking point”.
