#I just want to get referral to start hrt please please please please please please

[dragongirlwizard]

They should invent a doctor's appointment that is easy to schedule

[wolfeyedwitch]

Going through some IRL shit atm so I will likely be slow on updating... anything, really.

More info under the readmore because its medical stuff so... yeah.

I am having a hysterectomy!!! This is fantastic news to me and I'm pleased but nervous too. I've wanted to do this for a long time, and the recent SCOTUS decision made me step up my time frame.

As soon as I scheduled it, everyone in my life started asking me if I was okay. I swear. Everyone else is freaking out and I'm just sitting here like "im too fatigued to be freaked out, calm down". Even the doc whos doing the procedure asked if I needed a referral to a mental health provider about it.

And like. Thanks??? But no??? This organ has been nothing but trouble for the entirety of my life. Growing up, my periods were so bad they felt like I was literally ill. Like "take myself to urgent care" ill. (If I didn't know what the reason was, anyway. As it was it was more like "aw fuck, here comes shark week.") Like "make a nest out of couch cushions on the bathroom floor" ill. Like nausea, vomiting, feeling hot/cold like I had a fever, severe cramping, major bleeding. I was constantly anemic because I just bled so much.

I got an IUD placed 5 years ago, and it has been one of the best medical decisions I've made. I haven't had a period that entire time. Unfortunately, this bliss could not last. Starting 3 years ago, I began getting ovarian cysts that would rupture and cause general angst and misery.

So now I'm on Depo shots to control the ovarian cysts, on top of having an IUD, on top of NOT NEEDING BIRTH CONTROL BECAUSE IM NOT HAVING ANY KIND OF SEX THAT REQUIRES THAT. Its frustrating as hell, and I want to be on LESS medication, not more.

So yeah. Hysterectomy. The only reason I'm not saying "take the ovaries out while you're at it, they're nothing but troublemakers" is because then I'd have to deal with HRT, and as previously mentioned, I want LESS medication. The doc said she'd take a look at the ovaries while she's in there and if one looks worse than the other, she'll take one out but not both. Im cool with that, given its a lot easier to go back and take something out later than it would be to do the opposite.

(Oh and it turns out that IUDs can contribute to ovarian cysts. So without that pesky uterus to need the IUD, this problem might just resolve itself on its own. One can only hope.)

Yeah. My mom is hovering. My SO is happy for me but worried about surgery because, surgery. My dad is sad that im taking away any potential to have kids, but he's keeping that to himself admirably well.

And to me its just. Its another thing on my plate. It doesn't feel any bigger or more important than the rest of the shit I gotta do to take care of myself. Its just a lot of meetings with doctors and nurses and coordinators for pre and post op stuff.

Maybe this will all hit me harder at a later date. Who knows. But yeah, its taking up a lot of my brain space. So. Slow updates on anything. Long explanation, but there you go.

[transfemininomenon]

Hey, i'm actually a "truscum" i found out recently, but im a little confused on the whole ordeal. Im not even sure if i actually am truscum or not- because some posts seem to tie up with me being one but others dont, but i saw you were really against them, so i wanted to ask if you're okay with a friendly calm conversation about it? I am very confused and i just want to learn a bit more or find out if i'm wrong about the whole ordeal. Are you open to it?

i'll be honest im not sure how friendly i can be with this kind of conversation because i really truly genuinely, and i don't use this word lightly, Hate truscum and its hard for me to really be civil about the discussion. but for the sake of this and me giving you a lot of benefit of the doubt that this ask is in good faith i'll explain why i do not like the entire truscum ideology

1. i guess i'll start off with the Big One - the claim that dysphoria is Required to be trans. i'll preface this by saying that i am someone who has experienced, and currently Experiences in wildly different degrees depending on what is happening in my life, dysphoria throughout my entire life. i had my entire teenage and young adult years stolen from me by it. i won't get into details about it because that is a Very Very Personal subject for me, but needless to say dysphoria is something that was a very prevalent part of my life.

anyway. the notion that dysphoria is a Trans Requirement™ is something that i hugely disagree with. i used to think that me figuring out i was a trans woman was because i experienced dysphoria, but frankly the opposite is true. dysphoria is what made me refuse to believe i was a woman or could ever be one. it made me believe i was a man and that was all i would ever be. it wasn't until i really started experimenting with my gender and unpacking a lot of stuff i felt about myself that i started to finally realize the woman i was. i first started trying our she/her pronouns nearing four years now, and started using the name Alice a few months after that. being referred to as a woman & experimenting with different feminine things gave me such incredible feelings of euphoria that i still experience to this day whenever i discover something new about my identity.

and that is something ive heard from SO many other trans people i know. or different things too - i know people who are completely fine with their bodies, just certain words and terms never felt Right to them. because the thing with dysphoria is that it, like all things gender related, is a product of society. dysphoria only exists because transphobia exists - people are told that there are these two rigid things that you are and HERE is what makes you one of those things, and those things are drilled into you literally since birth. everything from colors to jobs to hobbies to cars to entertainment to clothing to Literally Everything is gendered, and when that happens then of fucking course there are gonna be people who don't fall in line with that, and when it's so instilled into people and seen as such societal norms of COURSE people are going to have trouble with that.

and that's not even getting into the subject of gender on a biological level. the fact of the matter is that the two sex system Isn't True and that biological sex is very complicated. intersex people exist, people with all kinds of different chromosomes exist, people of certain body types that have higher levels of different hormones exist, SO much goes into that subject that frankly narrowing it down to two things just doesn't Work

and that's the real problem at the end of the day. dysphoria only exists because of a fucked up gender binary that clashes with both biology and sociology. people are complicated on both a biological and personal level and having set binaries for things is bound to cause confusion & doubt.

like, people's identities are SUCH personal things in so many different ways. there isn't any Right Way™ to be trans. i know trans women with beards, trans women who have no interest in starting hrt, trans men who wear dresses and makeup, non-binary people who make no effort to be androgynous, i know SO many different identities and different people. because the fact is that there's no right way to be trans because nothing is inherently gendered including people's very bodies. people are themselves and there is no Right way to be themselves.

that's on top of the lack of education when it comes to the subject of gender. such a huge part too of me figuring out i was trans was literally learning that it was even a fucking option. i genuinely didn't know just Being A Girl was an option. reading up on gender stuff and researching the different idea of transitioning was intrinsic in my figuring out who i was because oh shit turns out there are people like me and that is Okay.

like, dysphoria literally could've been a non-issue for me. i could've lived in a world where i could just Exist and enjoy whatever i wanted without it being weird. i could've decided so much sooner that i wasn't happy with the way my body was growing and not spent my entire teen years being so confused why i was so sad seeing my girl peers. i could have from the start just gotten to be a girl and never have had dysphoria be part of the equation.

im not trans being i experience dysphoria. im trans because being a woman is rad as hell and it's what i wanted. im trans because changing my name to Alice was the biggest moment of my entire life. im trans because rebelling against the societal restraints of gender is fucking metal. im trans because my friends can't even remember me ever not being me now. im trans because im a great older sister. im trans because god nerfed me and i said nah thanks man but im not feeling it.

my identity and my gender are very personal and complicated things, and narrowing it down to "i experience dysphoria" is frankly insulting to me.

anyway, that's the big point out of the way, so here's some shorter ones

2. this is kinda expanding on the last point, but truscum both insisting non-binary people aren't a thing and them insisting "transtrenders" exist is hmm Bad

the sheer fact of the matter is the concept of being non-binary has existed from the oldest known records of human history on TOP of that concept being prevalent in many different cultures so what do ya know there's a healthy dose of racism involved in the denial of non-binary people. the gender binary is such a western concept and there are SO many different cultures where different gender identities exist.

and, frankly, going back to the above point that gender is fucking Fake and is a societal concept - again, of fucking course there are going to be people who see a rigid set of rules on gender and are like "well wait that doesn't fit me" so of COURSE non-binary people exist

on the subject of "transtrenders" i feel like i shouldn't even HAVE to get into this subject because of how inherently transphobic it is. the concept doesn't exist. there are people who experiment with their gender and then decide their assigned one is fine. there are people who go through all kinds of different identities. there are people who come out as a different gender and then revert back due to backlash. there are people who get told the way they present their gender is the Wrong Way™ and get branded a trender. it's a dangerous thought process that literally does nothing but serve the cis status quo and make people afraid to experiment and think about their identities.

3. the idea that Those Evil Trenders™ are stealing resources from the Real Trans People™ is, frankly, fucking bullshit. issues when it comes to trans people finding difficulty accessing healthcare comes from a transphobic society hellbent on denying us care on top of fucked up healthcare systems in general. hormones aren't some limited quality hard to acquire thing - when i started hrt transferring my prescription from my clinic to my local pharmacy was a non-issue because it's something basically any pharmacy will have for ALL kinds of different purposes. it's an issue because healthcare in general is a god damn Mess on TOP of inherent transphobia

and, frankly, truscum are directly involved in that transphobia in the medical field. unless you find an informed consent clinic you're going to have to jump through all kinds of hoops to prove you're Actually Trans™ by getting referrals from other (almost always cis) people and then get put on ridiculous waitlists to make sure you're not about to change your mind. that kind of attitude is only encouraged by truscum and it is one of the biggest source of trans people having such difficulty accessing healthcare.

4. truscum as far as im concerned are no different than any other transphobe. two years ago before i started hrt i was harassed by truscum multiple times, each time having them tell me i wasn't trans, that i was just a trender, and it genuinely boggles my mind that anyone thinks misgendering me because i disagreed with their ideology is Woke, actually. I've seen so many fellow trans women getting called men by truscum who disagreed with them. i was actively told i shouldn't start hrt because i "wasn't really trans and was gonna ruin my life"

i really hope all of people live in anger every day knowing ive been on hrt over a year and a half and am fucking Thriving

anyway that's all i got to say on the matter i realize my points became less thought out as it went on but frankly the first point is enough for me to not like truscum

(please refrain from reblogging this i don't want any clowns in my inbox)

[loghainmactir]

hewwo! i was wondering if u could pls give me some advice on starting my transition? ive been so scared to start bc of family and costs but ive decided to just. do it. yknow? like if i don't ill probably die lol. u look amazing and rly confident in yourself in all ur selfies and one day i wanna be Like That ✌️❤️

hi! ok, so first of all: yeah, i absolutely can give u advice, and second of all: i remember feeling exactly like you did. it literally wasn’t that long ago, either, it was like. 2013/14/15 (i can’t remember, time is fake, whatever lmao!). third of all: bless u yr so sweet. i still have a lotta issues with confidence (i doubt myself, my talent and what i can do literally hourly), but honestly? i love my body right now. it’s a good, genderless body, goddamnit.

long, long post ahead bc i’m trying to think of things i did and good god please take it with a grain of salt because a lot of this is just me ranting about things i wish I’D done in my own position. i’m also coming from a place where HRT and surgeries AREN’T free, so that’s also A Thing. everyone’s experience is different.

transitioning (particularly medically) really super fuckin varies country by country (and honestly probably even state by state, age by age and fuckin gender by gender because cis people won’t let us fucking BE goddamn): i don’t know where you are, so my only tips there r: find a trans friendly doctor/endo (i was kinda forced to go through a hospital bc That Was How It Was here in good ol’ Australia), and one people wholeheartedly recommend, if you wanna go that route.

my first point is make sure you find safe spaces in every goddamn aspect of your transition. medically, socially, physically. if you think your doctor is refusing you treatment or is discriminating against you, you NEED to ditch that doctor. if your friends and family are really verbally or physically violent against LGBT folks, you NEED to leave that space if you can (or not come out and wait until you can leave. seriously. i’m kinda lucky– my grandma was verbally violent against LGBT folks, and initially my mum was skepitcal, but i convinced them both to go to a group for LGBT+ parents and friends and they slowly turned around). get yourself friends, get yourself allies.

i cannot stress that enough. my first doctor refused to send my referral letter to the royal children’s hospital gender clinic because even tho he presented as a “nice” guy, he believed that because this was “”””out of the blue”””” for me, he figured he’d just Not Send It (and tried to tell me that a lotta kids there didn’t actually helpo, lol). so there i was, a young 15-16 year old alister, waiting like 2-3 months for something that didn’t even get fucking sent.

join trans groups on facebook and in real life. seriously, they’re a godsend; there’s buy-and-sells, advice posts, encouragement posts. ESPECIALLY local ones. most of them on facebook are private, meaning no one can see if you’re posting/in the group, and it’s easy to check if they’re not. these fb pages + local groups are good ways to find trans friendly spaces and doctors. i found my current doctor, who’s actually one of the very few doctors who knows what the fuck he’s on about re: trans people, through a real life trans group. they were like “oh, you should see x”, and even though he’s about 30-40 minutes away from me, he’s brilliant and honestly saved my life.

along those lines: figure out what you want from your transition, and then realize & accept that this may change (and it also may not change!). very early on, i was super insistent that i wanted phalloplasty and to wear packers, and now i couldn’t care less. at first, i identified as agender, and then as a trans guy/ftm, and now i identify as a Black Hole (i’m kidding, don’t @ me). like, a lotta people DON’T change their minds. but i did, some people do, and it shouldn’t be anyone’s business but your own what you want to do with your body��

(sidenote: this also goes for detransitioning or stopping medical transition but continuing to socially transition/present differently. literally, it’s fine. it’s your body. fuck anyone who says otherwise.)

again: FUCK ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE.

your body is literally your body. do NOT let anyone tell you what to do with it or who you are. i had people very early on scream at me (legitimately scream and throw me out of home, thanks grandma), tell me i wasn’t actually trans, and harrass me for this shit: but frankly, if i’d put myself back in the closet, i wouldn’t be alive right now. i would’ve killed myself years ago, and i wish i wasn’t kidding. if it’s safe, you need to stand up for your own body and your rights and put yourself somewhere that will allow you to follow through. you need to keep going and keep living.

my only other two pieces of advice are “patience, baby”– like, for real, every single part of transition takes time. this varies from where you are and who’s supporting you, but it’s generally true. it takes time for people to accept new names and pronouns 

(lotta people get furious about this, and i used to be one of those people, but hindsight’s a bitch and you gotta realize that… like, it’s hard for some cis people. you gotta give them a little bit of wiggle room, especially if they’ve never ever met a trans person before. it’s about reminders, reminders, reminders: which is SO hard if you’re not safe/don’t have the confidence. there IS a flip side to this though: if chad and stacey have known your new pronouns for months, now, and they keep “””slipping””” up, they’re not slipping up, honey. they’re doing it on purpose. kick their teeth in i’m kidding please don’t do this you know what i mean.)

it takes time for HRT to kick in. it takes time to gather a Look™ of your own you like, it takes time to build confidence to even tell people, it takes time to save up money for surgeries and it just… takes time. sometimes because it’s a naturally slow process, sometimes because cis people are Cis People and like to gatekeep. i remember being very young in my transition, sitting in the car after one of my appointments with the afformentioned shithead doctor bawling my eyes out because he’d told me i wouldn’t be able to access t for x amount of time and it was bullshit. this year i’ll be 2 years on t. wild, huh? there’s a lot of us and not equal amounts of resources (ESPECIALLY in public systems) depending on where you are, so you gotta be prepared to WAIT.

i’ll tell you what super helped me through those years: hyping myself up for other things! i still have the ticket from my first twenty one pilots show. that show meant SO much to me. i cried all through it, because waiting for that show kept my mind off of the wait for my royal children’s appointments (and even waiting to go up to melbourne bc my mum and i would go and get kebabs was a good thing to focus on!). keep things that aren’t trans related on hand (seriously i struggled with this because dysphoria and shit is fucking hard!! it’s easy to say but really fucking hard to put into practice).

(one day i’m gonna tell tyler and josh just how much they saved my goddamn life. i know they hear it weekly, but i will.)

my other thing is that uh. it won’t solve all your problems especially if you’ve got mental illnesses. this is a really fuckin depressing thing i had to drill into my brain, but it really helped. transitioning solved SO many of my issues. i no longer have back issues (thanks, like, literal kilo titties, lmao), i no longer have sore ribs and i can breathe and wear shirts. i lost so much weight (and am kinda gaining it back, but whatever). i no longer have anxiety about whether people can tell i’m binding– which is WILD because i used to stress the fuck out about it to the point where i never went out anywhere. i used to sit on the bus wondering if the person next to me could tell i had titties. now it literally doesn’t even register.

my issues now stem from PTSD, depression, BPD and ADHD. how do you fix this? you don’t. but what HAS helped is finding a therapist who won’t pressure you into talking about trans shit. lemme tell you: this shit gets exhausting after the fifth time of “oh i googled ‘can you become a boy’ when i was, like, nine” (this is my go to story because this memory is so vivid). of course, there’s gonna be moments where you HAVE to: my therapist recently actively asked me to briefly run through it for my PTSD report. but otherwise we literally haven’t talked about it and that is a GODSEND (because i don’t need it. if you need it, that’s good, too!). having a therapist that you can just wordvomit at wrt anything is literally the best thing and can be super helpful– seriously, there were a few trans-related sessions where i just snarled about the bullshit gatekeeping and the bastard i had to see for my therapist letter (oooh, every time i think abt the fact that it was something like $400-500 for two fucking sessions i get so mad lol), but outta 14 it’s really only like 2-3 of them.

but yeah. that’s it. i dunno, these are things that i’ve learnt and sorta… like to think as helpful for myself. of course, this could be different for you: you’re not me, you’re entirely different, in no doubt an entirely different country, social, financial, mental state. i was FUCKED UP when i first came out. i didn’t know that then, but i do now. i spent a lotta time by myself and that’s not healthy, so i really encourage you to reach out to our community, local and worldly, because oh my god, we’re here for you. we are SO here for you.

[selfmademen]

What To Expect

So this is just a little write up from my personal experience with getting my testosterone prescription and the tests that needed to be done before I received it. I’d imagine it’s fairly consistent across countries, but I AM Australian, so certain things may differ depending on your location. 

Also please remember that I am in no way a professional. Always do your own research and write down any questions you have for your doctors. Every doctor has a different way of doing things. Some may require a report from a gender therapist, others may simply do informed consent. I was lucky in that I’d already had a report done a few years back when I initially attempted to transition so by this time I was basically ready to go. It took a friend of mine six months to get approved because he needed to see a therapist.

If you’re unsure whether you’ll need to see a therapist, its best to make a preliminary appointment with the endocrinologist, and the two of you can go over the things that are required of you.

I’d already seen my endocrinologist once before, which resulted in a major breakdown because I was really nervous about everything. When I finally went back things were much better. You’ll need a referral from a GP who you trust and is aware of you transitioning before you visit an endocrinologist. This MIGHT cost if you’re in a country with a different healthcare system (for me, it’s free and covered by Medicare). 

So, I went in to the hospital to get mine done, since that’s where my endo is located. Your endo might have a private office or work in a clinic, it really depends. But it’s something to be aware of if you’re nervous in clinical spaces like I am. 

They’ll usually ask you a few questions, and talk to you about the changes you’ll expect on Testosterone. Feel free to ask any questions or bring up any concerns you have; I mentioned my fear of needles which is why ultimately we decided I should use gel rather than shots. 

Now, your endo is going to want to make sure you’re healthy enough to start HRT. They’ll likely take your weight and height and order a blood test. I needed to get mine done before I was prescribed T so my endo could check my hormone levels and judge what my starting dose would be. If you have other health problems, take medication of any kind, or are concerned about something you NEED to inform them. This includes things like asthma medication or birth control.

I’m not gunna lie, I’m TERRIFIED of needles. The whole reason I had a breakdown at my prior appointment was because I expected to have a blood test and I freaked out. I know needles can be scary, and so are injections, but this is something that needs to happen, and if you’re on T for a long time (which, you most likely will be), you need to have regular blood tests to monitor your hormone levels. 

They check your T levels and the levels of a few other ‘female’ hormones that have names that are just letters so I forget them, your liver, your cholesterol, your blood sugar, and your RBC (red blood cell) count, and possibly some others. I had quite a few knocked out all at once because I needed other things checked and my endo and GP decided it was best to get it done all at once. 

The reason they need to check more than just your testosterone levels is because T changes more than just physical aspects. It can affect your liver as well as increase your bad cholesterol, and can boost RBC count. I had quite a few tests done and they only took one vial of blood. Your endo might be able to take the blood for you, but in my case they gave me a script and I went to a pathology clinic. You can also get blood tests done at family clinics. 

If you have any questions I’m happy to help in any way I can. This is all just a write up from personal experience, but I’m not a doctor so I can’t give you an in depth explanation of everything, only offer suggestions on reading material. 

[realtransfacts]

This question might have been asked before and it might be kinda hard to answer but I'm very close to coming out and maybe even transitioning so I need to know: about how long (on average, I know it's different for different areas) does it take to get hormones after talking to a doctor? Like do they just diagnose you right there and you get them that first day or is it more complicated than that? Also keep up the great work, amazing blog :)

It’s very, very different depending on where you live and what kind of doctors you get.

Here in Sweden, the diagnosing process usually takes about a year and you can usually start hrt very soon after you’ve got diagnosed. But before that there’s also an (up to 9 months) waiting period before you get to start seeing the people who can give you the diagnosis, after they’ve accepted your referral. And getting the referral itself can also take some time, depending on what psychiatrists and doctors you have acess to.

If any of my followers want to share info about what it is like where you live, please feel free to add to this post.