You're viewing a single thread.
“I feel like I want to ask about this, but doing so wouldn’t support the oppressed people this is likely supporting. Moreover, it’s not my place to ask, but the name sounds dangerous. Hormone therapy is worth consulting an endocrinologist, which frustrates me due to the sorry, stifled state of healthcare in the US, the time zone this meme came from. However, the alternative, an absence of hormone therapy, isn’t safe either and I don’t want to be labeled “rightoid journo scum” for asking a sincere question in an effort to keep my irl friends safe. So maybe I just look it up myself without interviewing lemmy? That’s the ticket.”
May I suggest Abagail Thorn's video "I Emailed my Doctor 133 Times - A Crisis in the British Healthcare System" : https://youtu.be/v1eWIshUzr8?si=MLG5nLhD2GrXS07v
She mentions trans DIY and moreso outlines the systemic issues of oppression which have lead many to take their own healthcare into their own hands due to failures and bottlenecking of trans care.
Took me a while to find time to watch this and I just wanted to say that I appreciate learning more about the situation in the UK.
A lot of it is applicable in many different places.
Whenever someone holds something you desperately need out of reach unless you conform to their very specific formula to make that happen you end up with situations where bad system design alters people's behavior to a specific degree. If you fail the test of being the correct sort of risk for the system to call "a success" your story doesn't end or go on hold. If your conditions for living are to live on your terms you either have to find other ways to get around the system or you die. Misery is deadly and a lot of the problem with being trans under extremely stigmatized terms is that life sometimes doesn't become a quest for happiness - it becomes a choice of which type misery is the most compatible.
There are perfectly good reasons to be concerned about people medicating themselves with off label medication, or medication that have been sourced independently of trained healthcare providers.
However, just like when any demographic begins self medicating it is due to a failure in the public health sector. As a pediatric healthcare provider it's infuriating to see politicians once again attempt to make healthcare their business.
They have no idea how providers assess their patients health, so something like total outcome assessments don't mean anything to them. When providers are prescribing hormone therapy to their patients , they are weighting some minimal potential side effects against very permanent things like suicide.
The big concern when politicians ban certain types of healthcare , is there's always a shady character willing to take advantage of the people seeking that care illicitly. Of course there will be people providing these medications who truly want to help people, but they are usually eventually going to be a minority.
Less safe than prescribed, far more safe than none. Most who do it will have no issue unfortunately even idiots can turn out to be trans.
Even if doctors prescribe it where you live… Around here that still generally means oral estrodiol in low doses (WPATH SoC 8 if you want to know the details) which is known to cause unsatisfactory results due to unstable levels. When doses are increased it affects the liver in potentially negative ways. In also requires usage of an antiandrogen in humans with intact testosterone production, which all have known unpleasant sideeffects… (+ A lot of gatekeeping to even get the prescription in the first place.)
Compare that to doing a single DIY injection a month with no known negative side-effects if administrated carefully (other than feminization, duh) even Less safe than prescribed is a dubious claim, I think.
My doctor monitors my levels and prescribed injections. Sublingual was fine though. Yeah you should go in knowing more than your md, but you do benefit from regular level checks
Agreed! Our GP actually let's us do blood tests whenever we ask for it, so we know that what we're injecting actually contains what's written on the packaging and that it yields the expected levels. We (mostly me) also spent a lot of time reading up and preparing before even starting the FHT… Just wanted to add a coma to your original statement, didn't intend to make it sound contradicting. 😅
WPATH standards of care actually require a doctor to continue to do things like monitoring levels for patients that opt for DIY. I’ve checked with my doctor already if I wanted to switch to DIY shots and she’d be fine to continue to monitor things.
the time zone this meme came from.
What does this even mean? You know that like, people exist and are awake outside of the US while y’all are up right? lol
If it’s posted past 8 AM EST, I assume it’s Americans. Unfortunately, the guardian is global so even that isn’t a determinant of origin. If China weren't sequestered, and India and Europe were less disinterested in lemmy, I’d be less certain. In short, big population, big posts.
Did you know that 8am EST is 6pm AEST (Australia)?