#DIY HRT

[symbol-of-artemis]

I know injections show results faster but "faster" means nothing if the train leaves the station behind schedule. Injections are a pain in the ass to get DIY, and other methods of HRT are perfectly viable, they wouldnt be an option if they werent viable.

"Dont let perfect be the enemy of good"

[genderqueerdykes]

i would strongly suggest anyone considering DIY to instead investigate states with shield laws! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_rights_in_the_United_States#Displacement_and_sanctuary_states

"A number of states have passed laws protecting trans people and their families, as well as their healthcare providers, fleeing anti-trans states, from extradition." essentially, these are jurisdictions that have committed to NOT respecting federal orders that violate transgender human rights. it is very unlikely they will comply with orders to cease issuing HRT OR testing. even if you DIY in your home state, you may be able to access a planned parenthood (many do hormone tests, and many prescribe hrt!) in a sanctuary state so you can have things like your liver enzymes tested, along with basic physical changes like blood pressure.

i personally live in vermont and while it isn't all whiskers on kittens, there IS a LONG tradition of vermont dissent against federal injunctions. idk if i'd suggest moving here (the jobs are bad, the housing is worse, our winters and flooding are intense, and most of the state is an intense food desert) but specifically university of vermont's hospital has a really solid presence and any specialty you could want, including in-hospital plastic surgeons that do various genderful surgeries, as well as gynecology and hormone management. vermont medicaid also is REALLY good. if you are unemployed, for any amount of time, you qualify as long as you live any amount of time in the state. there are no copays. prescriptions are $1 each, no matter what. UVM has eaten almost every smaller practice in the area, and they take medicaid. the local planned parenthood also has a special fund for helping pay for gender affirming care for those who don't have insurance and can't afford it. i know moving is not ideal ever but it's what i did about a decade ago and it's not bad for sure !

Pride Center of Vermont also exists if anyone wants a local org to chat about this sort of thing with, on weekdays during week hours they have a warmline open and are generally very kind and helpful.

thank you so much for this information!! i really appreciate it, i was not aware of this! i feel like this can help a lot of people already living in the United States, or people looking to move here!

[benji-screem]

"you should just DIY your HRT" hey what if I told you that trans men/mascs can and have been arrested (and subsequently killed or put in serious danger) because of that. what if I told you that I spent weeks in jail being denied medical care for because of my (PRESCRIBED!!) possession of testosterone. what if I told you most of the methods of getting testosterone are extremely similar (and can be from the exact same sources) that people get other substances and can be massively triggering to addicts. HEY WHAT IF I TOLD YOU TRANS MEN ARE SYSTEMICALLY OPPRESSED

[selfoftheseus]

Has anyone made a Forcemasc post like this yet

[queerautism]

We're back at this being the entirety of the advice being given for Testosterone DIY HRT in a bunch of current threads about it. Genuinely sick of this.

And it's very dismissive of the legal risk as well, which is significant for many marginalised people in the US, like POC who already get disproportionately targeted by the cops.

[michaelmilkers]

in 2004 george w bush won the presidential election and promised in his acceptance speech to codify a federal ban on gay marriage. 30 states passed bans on gay marriage in the wake of his re-election. and then they fell. one by one by one. it has to get worse before it gets better.

queers. trans people especially. our attitude for the next decade has to be “we’re not fucking scared of you”. do you understand? this has always been at the core of who we are and what we do. we fucking move. we take up space or carve out our own with our bare hands. we take care of us.

do you know the other queers in your neighborhood? do you know who you can call at a bad time? do you know whose house you can crash at? do you know where you can go for a free meal? do you know where you can bring meals to the hungry? do you know the LGBT resources available in your area? do you know the informed consent clinics in your area?

do you know how DIY HRT works? do you know and have friends who don’t? do you know our history? have you read the works of james baldwin and leslie feinberg? are you equipped with knowledge about the forces that work against us? do you understand dialectical materialism? do you know what to say if stopped by the police? do you know what good opsec is? are your legal documents in order? do you know how to get them in order?

scream, cry, rot in your bed, do whatever you need to do to process this, then find something to do. do not fall into despair. in the face of extermination say “fuck you.”

[trans-axolotl]

would people be interested in a post about DIY hrt from a harm reduction perspective

[deadeyedfae]

For the 3rd time, hopfully the last time 💜

[taliabhattwrites]

Less Fearmongering about Testosterone, Please, Or: There is no "Boy HRT"/"Girl HRT" Dichotomy

Hello folks, I'm a trans woman and I'm on testosterone gel.

As an immigrant to a regime that is currently setting trans standards of care on fire, there is no way I can acquire any of the drugs I need to put in my body through the official channels. I've been on E monotherapy (weekly injections, no T-blocker, works out really cheap and I have a few years' worth stockpiled) for a while now, and started T-gel about a year ago.

We initially grabbed it because my wife was interested in microdosing and I decided to do so with her (though she's on injections now). Most feminizing HRT regimes nuke our T levels to lower than the healthy range for cis women, and that frankly isn't good and can lead to various health issues. T is, ultimately, just a hormone, and even if I had too much of it in the past, I still need some of it to be healthy. One noticeable effect for me is that it's helped a lot with my energy levels.

In terms of acquisition, T is actually relatively abundant compared to E because a lot of cis men buy and take steroids, while most cis women who need E are just getting it prescribed by their doctors without much fuss. Our community is the only one that really has a need for E-compounders, while the population of people who consume steroids is way higher.

Funnily, our biggest challenge in acquiring the gel was just finding a forum that would point us to a gel supplier instead of just insisting that "Gel doesn't lead to enough gains, bro! Here just buy these injections." All very well-intentioned advice, of course, but that was very much not my goal and not what I needed.

Where I am, it's legal to purchase and own T, just not to sell it. T possession is not particularly harshly cracked down upon, given that its use amongst a certain crowd is basically an open secret. Gauge your level of risk but ultimately, the official policy on trans existence is discouraging transition and making it harder for us to be able to change our sex. A friend from Germany showed me this extract that explicitly advocates for therapy to dissuade bodily transition:

It's from the guidelines for transition-related care by the association of German health insurances!

If you can get it from a doctor, good. Do that and don't forget you'll constantly have to advocate for yourself. Even if you can, however, you should frankly have your back-up options sorted out, because we live in times increasingly hostile to transitional care, and we all need to have fallbacks.

Maybe the world will eventually become less trans-eliminationist, but in the meantime, transition is always going to carry with it a certain level of risk. All I can really advise is to take charge of your own bodily autonomy, to decide how you want to shape your sex, and if you feel like you can't currently do that, to start making plans for when you eventually can. That kept me going for five years in the closet, and eventually paid off.

Good luck, and death before detransition.

[elierlick]

The Guardian DIY HRT hit piece finally came out and there's something inspirational about it. It's not the article itself. Our community came together over the past month to warn one another not to speak with them - and they couldn't find a single interviewee doing DIY!

[quinnhills]

🚨🚨🚨

Idaho's ban on gender-affirming care for all trans and non-binary people takes effect tomorrow

Lives have been and will be lost because of anti-trans legislation

Please share these resources to get folks the care they need:

[genderqueerdykes]

hi, im on partially diy hrt for nearly a year. i do not leave in the usa btw.

i buy the drugs from just some guy who deals it, i learned about him from one of my trans male friends, if you want to start diy hrt really consider asking if someone in your community does it also. i live in a country where lgbt+ and transitioning is practically outlawed, but there is still community out there, especially in big cities (over 1m people).

but if he dissapears i turn to resources for cis bodybuilders. idk it's pretty googleable, ive checked. again, always ask people in your country.

check your local laws, where i live buying t illegally isnt punished if the drug is bought from your country (its not contraband) and you do not plan to sell it. in this case if someone IS going to be punished, its your dealer.

for safety: check the ingredients of what's your buying, in the best case you should buy a drug that is the exact same as in drug stores, also ask what other people in your shoes are usually buying.

also if you can - buy in bulk. rn me and my partner have 9 months worth of t on our hands. this way you have more time to find other dealer if yours dissapears, and also it's much cheaper often.

also gel is generally WAY EASIER to buy without a prescription (even though you need it on paper)! many drug stores don't ask for a prescription to buy it, and you can go to multiple of them. also if you preorder it online and only go to the drug store to pick it up they are less likely to ask for the prescription. it's all still not 100%, but at least you don't have to look for a dealer or a bodybuilder website

needles are usually pretty cheap and do not require a prescription in a drug store. if you NEED to make something up why you need them - some of the common pain killers come in the form of injections

so, about the blood tests and stuff like that!

personally, i consult with an endocrinologist approximately onse a year, but i don't have any complications. you can make a visit online with a t friendly endocrinologist from another country - this won't show on any of your medical records and doesn't bare any legal weight. this way they can't write you a prescription, but thos us about diy hrt anyway.

ask about what tests you need to have done beforehand!

you can do all the tests in a private clinic and not tell them anything about your trans status. mostly they don't care. it costs money, but its more safe

but also you can tell some bullshit in the government clinic so they prescribe you some of the tests, at least the most general stuff. if they prescribe you to return with the results or go to an endocrinologist - you can just ignore that and JUST NOT GO. they are most probably very busy and understaffed, they dont care.

you should find a general guide to what levels of what you generally should have. id link what i use, but its all in a language other then english.

generally all of the things should be in the norm, except for testosterone and estradiol. prolactin should be in the norm.

of course it varies a lot and might be different for you if you have other health stuff going on, that's the reason you should consult with a doctor if you can. but it is possible on your own.

i really think people are way too scared of diy t many times. this therapy is often very straightforward, and there ARE ways to do it, you can even consult with a doctor while transitioning illegally. where i live transitioning, whether legal or medical is outlawed, but plenty people do it anyway. be careful and midfull, but go for it

sorry if my english isnt very good, i don't use it irl and its my second language

thank you so much for your help and don't worry, your english is plenty good for this kind of thing! thank you for all the help, if you think of any more information you wish to share feel free to ask!

[queerjoys]

as things get harder and harder for transgender people, i find its important for people to share this link

[incognitopolls]

DIY HRT: purchasing and using hormone replacement therapy without a prescription.

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We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[queerautism]

X

@TownTattle on twitter: Susanna Rustin is apparently the Guardian journalist approaching trans people for an interview about DIY.

She’s a card-carrying TERF. Do not engage with her.

[river-taxbird]

SCAM ALERT: Cryptocurrency related but can affect trans people buying HRT. I was probably 10 seconds away from having money stolen and I know what I'm doing. (Crypto Clipper)

Today I was helping a trans friend order some DIY HRT. A lot of DIY HRT places only accept cryptocurrency for security reasons. I am not looking to promote cryptocurrency or anything associated with it, but if you may be forced to use it for HRT or other reasons, you need to know this.

In general if you are forced to use crypto, you should use the cheapest coin your supplier will accept. If it is cheap, that means there is not a lot of activity on the chain and energy use will be less. I used one called Zcash as it was the cheapest one the site accepted but that's not really relevant.

I used an old coinbase account I had used for similar situations in the past. I was doing it on her PC. I got the instructions to pay on the HRT site, and I pasted the wallet address into Coinbase and just before I hit send I noticed the wallet address I had pasted didn't match the wallet address I had copied.

I looked it up and found this is from a form of malware called a Crypto Clipper, that detects when you have copied a crypto address, and makes you paste a different one so it can steal your money. I am lucky I noticed. To remedy it, I installed the free trial of Malwarebytes on her PC to remove malware, and completed the crypto transaction on my PC, and confirmed that the wallet address matched what the HRT site had given me.

I managed to avoid falling for it but it's such an easy thing to fall for, especially if you have avoided crypto thus far for extremely understandable reasons. Be careful out there! It could happen to anyone.