Well, anyone taking hormones needs to talk to their doctor before stopping. And stopping without a taper is not a good idea

However, the medical effects of hrt cessation aren’t life threatening short term. Long term, there’s less info online, and that’s because we’re just now hitting the point where long term data is coming in decent amounts.

But the fact that long term data exists for hrt cessation points to it not being a physical threat of a high order

Now, it also depends on what hrt someone is on, and the state of their gonads, plus the rest of their endocrine system. I’m not sure how much you want some stranger going into the nitty gritty of that, because I know that discussing those matters can be very triggering. So I won’t elaborate much without a direct request to do so.

With that disclaimer, don’t read further if you aren’t up for bare minimum elaboration. Pick back up after the spoiler section.

!Generally, estrogen is more problematic to stop than testosterone. But stopping rooster either without the body having some hormone production of some hormone is going to cause issues. They shouldn’t be life threatening, but they could be, in the worst circumstances.

The greatest threat would be to someone that had their gonads removed, as that would greatly inhibit hormone dependent body functions

However, beyond that, the real danger to life is that not only is an cessation going to have a surge or onset of depression as a potential side effect, if the cessation isn’t voluntary, that’s going to make it even worse if it occurs!<

The good news is that trans people sometimes have to stop hrt for medical reasons. From what I’ve seen in published literature over the last decade or so, as well as online discussion here and on reddit, the effects usually aren’t horrible. Most people, most of the time, lead a perfectly satisfactory life. As you may be aware, trans men deal with increased stroke and cardiovascular effects, as would a cis man taking supplemental T. When those risks climb high enough, or result in a medical event, cessation of hrt is necessary. The mortality rate after cessation is not higher than for cis men, though I cannot find my copy of that pdf to verify.

For trans women, the last time I checked (maybe three years ago?) The greatest risk was osteoporosis, which isn’t a good thing, but it typically takes a long time to present. On the order of a decade or more.

Which all adds up to the concept of cessation causing death directly being a myth. I did a quick search before starting this comment and could find no data indicating that it is a concern medically. Now, non-physically? When the cessation is involuntary, that is definitely a problem, and deaths do occur because of it. And there are deaths when it is voluntary, for the same reasons. But that’s not from the cessation itself, and that is a different, if still horrible, causation.

Scrolling through the search results here, I’m not seeing anything to indicate a short term death risk. Long term, maybe, but not short term. My search query is “hrt cessation effects for trans people”, on ddg. The word choice was to minimize menopause results, and maybe pull up more medical hits as opposed to layman/social media via the term cessation. Tangential, but you’d be amazed how results can vary based on stopping vs cessation for things like this.

The reddit stuff is showing things that would be expected, like changes to libido, mood, hair growth patterns, etc. But no mentions of anyone actually dying as a result of cessation. Not even unreliable reports, which I’d kind of expect on social media. Plenty of what you said; that people say that stopping will kill you, but no actual claims of someone dying because of it.

My take? It’s either outright misinformation, or an exaggeration. It’s definitely a reasonable fear, as hormone changes can cause major disruption. But death just doesn’t seem to be a realistic risk. Certainly not if the cessation is medically supervised and done with a taper