A thing I have noticed. 2 decades ago, there was decent pharmaceutical knowledge in the trans community. We knew what GnRH agonists were and how they work. We knew that for trans girls, if you couldn’t get them, then a cocktail of spironolactone and finasteride would do a pretty good job as a replacement. We knew that cyproterone acetate worked even better than spiro, but was hepatotoxic, so be careful.
I feel like that’s all been … lost?
I suspect that until this sentence, most currently transitioning people won’t even know that GnRH agonist is the proper term for what is frequently and misleadingly called a “puberty blocker”.
How did we let all this knowledge get lost? We, as a community, used to know how to outflank attempts to stop us accessing medication.
Now the British government just go, “we’re banning prescription of puberty blockers” and everyone throws their hands up and goes, “oh well, no alternative but unopposed testosterone I guess”.
We were better than this. Why did that go away?
THERE ARE THINGS YOU CAN DO TO GET ROUND GOVERNMENTS TRYING TO KEEP TRANSITION MEDS AWAY FROM YOU.
WE USED TO DO IT ALL THE TIME.
TALK TO TRANS ELDERS. WE KNOW THIS STUFF.
@goatsarah what about self-medding for trans men? Are there any options at all? I can't find much online.
@llwynog @goatsarah it depends on where you're based - and possibly if you're open to moving or very very cautiously picking up some mail in another country. (I see the EU flag in your profile, that gives you options re: moving.) In Ireland it's not a controlled substance, and when I was checking the list of sellers on HRT Cafe for E patches I saw some that had injectable testosterone. Anecdotally, I pass much more easily in Ireland, I think because short and soft spoken men aren't out of the ordinary here.