On Seeking Out HRT
Jun. 15th, 2023 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scrubjayspeaks[CW for discussion of medical mistreatment, reproductive care, and dysphoria. (Soon to be) Recurring reminder that everything here represents my personal experience of what it means to be trans, nonbinary, and masculine/butch, and none of it should be taken as commentary on or rejection of any other experiences and ways of being any of those things.]
Earlier this year, I started seriously researching HRT and gender-affirming care. By virtue of being queer and trans on the internet, I had general knowledge about what taking testosterone would be like. What I had absolutely no knowledge of was how to go about getting on it in the first place. I hadn't allowed myself to know anything about the practical steps needed to get hormone therapy.
Knowing how might mean trying to get it.
Trying might mean getting rejected.
And by then, I would have gotten my heart set on it. Being denied felt like it would be a killing blow. Better to pretend I didn't want it in the first place.
My experiences with medical care have been uniformly unpleasant. I hesitate to call them disastrous, because I know chronically ill and disabled people who have had medical professionals so thoroughly botch their care, it caused life-threatening complications or errors in either the immediate or long term. That I consider those to be "real" negative experiences and classify my own neglect and mismanagement as just "unpleasant" is perhaps a case of damning my past doctors with faint praise.
Ironically, though, medical unpleasantness was a big part of why I finally made the leap into research. In December, I had my first pap smear. Note: I was 36. Bit late for a first one, right? Well, that's because I had been studiously refusing to get gynecological care since I was 19. That was when I had my first wretched experience with it and swore I wouldn't put myself through that again. It took 17 years and one persistent friend's cajolery to get me to try again.
It was not a good experience. We'll ignore, for simplicity's sake, the misbehavior of the doctor, which is neither here nor there as far as my gender issues go. Let's focus, instead, on the multi-day tailspin of dysphoria I fell into after the experience of having my bits looked at by strangers.
I'm not going to suggest that actual women super enjoy these sorts of procedures. I did, however, feel like there was some Significance to the level of distress I experienced. The boil-a-lobster shower I needed afterward, the slimy residual sensation of violation, the overwhelming sense that my body was not my own: that felt important.
I found myself confronting the story I had been telling myself for years--that I could be trans and nonbinary almost entirely in secret and without external signifiers. I didn't need to express my masculinity with short hair or men's clothes. I didn't need anyone to speak my true name aloud. I didn't need my body to look a certain way or have certain parts.
It was, after all, safer to be what I had been for the past twenty years or so: a person with an obviously female body, a variably androgynous wardrobe, luxurious and sometimes odd hair, and a physical presence primarily marked by being visibly neurodivergent.
It felt like my existence had fallen into a customer service rut. Polite smile, calculated and obsequious tone of voice, soft edges. Inoffensive. Convenient.
But.
But here I was, confronted with just how starkly my sense of self diverged from the body I had and others' perceptions of me. I suddenly understood that, internally, I was getting by, but I was not doing well. I had a job I loved, greater financial stability than I had ever previously enjoyed in my adult life, and a slowly blooming social life. I had some breathing room. And if the first breath I took into that space was one of panicked horror, well, that was probably something I needed to pay attention to.
The prospect of trying to navigate the notoriously thorny, sometimes overtly hostile process of medical transition filled me with genuine existential dread. When I decided to start looking into it, I had to set timers and schedule sessions of research. That was part of why I started my vagueblogging tag for "aftermarket parts": I needed a way to track how much progress I was making on my goals when they could only be pursued in tiny bites.
To say I feared the possibility of gatekeeping blocking my access is a wild understatement. I felt like a "bad candidate" for medical transition. I was convinced that my chronic illnesses or my weight would be used as an excuse to turn me away. I feared being perceived as insufficiently masculine to be genuinely trans. (Considering I am the model of a very butch person these days, even if you don't classify me as a crossdresser and/or openly transmasculine, this was an impressive level of Imposter Syndrome even for me.) I even worried that my age would work against me, not on the grounds of health but on the principle of "if you really needed this, you would have tried to get it years ago."
I saw this post on tumblr and saved it. I looked at it longingly in my draft folder. And when I finally made my appointment with Planned Parenthood for my first consultation, I scheduled it to post at the time of my appointment. I am not above a little superstition, and I'll take all the blessings I can get.
I may need to reblog that post again, this time with my own testimony and blessing. Because it worked. I got to be one of the strange exceptions. One long consultation was all it took to get my prescription. (Likely, my age worked in my favor after all. When you can tell them you've waited a quarter century, they seem to believe you've thought this through.) And honestly, we spent most of that time discussing goals and preferences for shots or gel. Logistics.
At no point did it feel like my right to hormones was up for debate. A fact that proved slow to percolate through my frantic brain. I kept waiting for the punchline to come.
The punchline, ultimately, was, "This scared boy-creature came in here thinking they would be rejected, the silly thing, and instead we gave them everything they ever dared to dream."
It's funny, right? That must be why I can't stop smiling.
Earlier this year, I started seriously researching HRT and gender-affirming care. By virtue of being queer and trans on the internet, I had general knowledge about what taking testosterone would be like. What I had absolutely no knowledge of was how to go about getting on it in the first place. I hadn't allowed myself to know anything about the practical steps needed to get hormone therapy.
Knowing how might mean trying to get it.
Trying might mean getting rejected.
And by then, I would have gotten my heart set on it. Being denied felt like it would be a killing blow. Better to pretend I didn't want it in the first place.
My experiences with medical care have been uniformly unpleasant. I hesitate to call them disastrous, because I know chronically ill and disabled people who have had medical professionals so thoroughly botch their care, it caused life-threatening complications or errors in either the immediate or long term. That I consider those to be "real" negative experiences and classify my own neglect and mismanagement as just "unpleasant" is perhaps a case of damning my past doctors with faint praise.
Ironically, though, medical unpleasantness was a big part of why I finally made the leap into research. In December, I had my first pap smear. Note: I was 36. Bit late for a first one, right? Well, that's because I had been studiously refusing to get gynecological care since I was 19. That was when I had my first wretched experience with it and swore I wouldn't put myself through that again. It took 17 years and one persistent friend's cajolery to get me to try again.
It was not a good experience. We'll ignore, for simplicity's sake, the misbehavior of the doctor, which is neither here nor there as far as my gender issues go. Let's focus, instead, on the multi-day tailspin of dysphoria I fell into after the experience of having my bits looked at by strangers.
I'm not going to suggest that actual women super enjoy these sorts of procedures. I did, however, feel like there was some Significance to the level of distress I experienced. The boil-a-lobster shower I needed afterward, the slimy residual sensation of violation, the overwhelming sense that my body was not my own: that felt important.
I found myself confronting the story I had been telling myself for years--that I could be trans and nonbinary almost entirely in secret and without external signifiers. I didn't need to express my masculinity with short hair or men's clothes. I didn't need anyone to speak my true name aloud. I didn't need my body to look a certain way or have certain parts.
It was, after all, safer to be what I had been for the past twenty years or so: a person with an obviously female body, a variably androgynous wardrobe, luxurious and sometimes odd hair, and a physical presence primarily marked by being visibly neurodivergent.
It felt like my existence had fallen into a customer service rut. Polite smile, calculated and obsequious tone of voice, soft edges. Inoffensive. Convenient.
But.
But here I was, confronted with just how starkly my sense of self diverged from the body I had and others' perceptions of me. I suddenly understood that, internally, I was getting by, but I was not doing well. I had a job I loved, greater financial stability than I had ever previously enjoyed in my adult life, and a slowly blooming social life. I had some breathing room. And if the first breath I took into that space was one of panicked horror, well, that was probably something I needed to pay attention to.
The prospect of trying to navigate the notoriously thorny, sometimes overtly hostile process of medical transition filled me with genuine existential dread. When I decided to start looking into it, I had to set timers and schedule sessions of research. That was part of why I started my vagueblogging tag for "aftermarket parts": I needed a way to track how much progress I was making on my goals when they could only be pursued in tiny bites.
To say I feared the possibility of gatekeeping blocking my access is a wild understatement. I felt like a "bad candidate" for medical transition. I was convinced that my chronic illnesses or my weight would be used as an excuse to turn me away. I feared being perceived as insufficiently masculine to be genuinely trans. (Considering I am the model of a very butch person these days, even if you don't classify me as a crossdresser and/or openly transmasculine, this was an impressive level of Imposter Syndrome even for me.) I even worried that my age would work against me, not on the grounds of health but on the principle of "if you really needed this, you would have tried to get it years ago."
I saw this post on tumblr and saved it. I looked at it longingly in my draft folder. And when I finally made my appointment with Planned Parenthood for my first consultation, I scheduled it to post at the time of my appointment. I am not above a little superstition, and I'll take all the blessings I can get.
I may need to reblog that post again, this time with my own testimony and blessing. Because it worked. I got to be one of the strange exceptions. One long consultation was all it took to get my prescription. (Likely, my age worked in my favor after all. When you can tell them you've waited a quarter century, they seem to believe you've thought this through.) And honestly, we spent most of that time discussing goals and preferences for shots or gel. Logistics.
At no point did it feel like my right to hormones was up for debate. A fact that proved slow to percolate through my frantic brain. I kept waiting for the punchline to come.
The punchline, ultimately, was, "This scared boy-creature came in here thinking they would be rejected, the silly thing, and instead we gave them everything they ever dared to dream."
It's funny, right? That must be why I can't stop smiling.
