So here’s the thing with that. My testosterone is in the cis female range. Has been for a while. I strength trained for years and even after having started estrogen. I continued going to the gym while on HRT and my capacity kept decreasing rather than increasing. So I looked into this. Because visibly I still had the muscles I’d gained. To actually activate said muscles, you need testosterone. That’s how it works. No testosterone = the muscles never activate = they atrophy away. While I looked the same in terms of muscles that I had while I was doing 12 pull-ups, I quickly came down to being able to do 0 unassisted. Now the visible bulk is also reducing because they just never get activated. A cis male on steroids still has testosterone after cessation. Hence the muscles they gained can retain stimulus for activation. I’ve been tracking my body comp through DEXA scans for years now and after starting HRT, within a year I was at the higher end of cis female muscle mass and had lost kilos of muscle throughout my body. Can I still beat most cis women at lifting? Yes. Only because I’m trained, not because I lived for years under heavier testosterone influence. I cannot outlift or outrun trained cis women, only untrained ones. I am unable to outlift my brother who is completely untrained. I used to be able to hold my own arm wrestling with cis men but now I know it’ll be foolish to even try it because even cis men with zero training ever have arms twice my size and active testosterone stimulus to be able to activate their muscles.