so do people know that multiple trans people across the US have reported that their pharmacists have arbitrarily denied them testosterone prescriptions, either because "you need authorization" or "company policy" or, in states where its legal, because they don't feel comfortable giving it to them.
i wouldn't be surprised if its also common for this to happen with estrogen, i found one news story on a trans woman experiencing this, but looking it up there seems to be a LOT of cases of this happening with testosterone. which makes me suspect people feel empowered to do this with T in particular because of its criminalized status. regardless, i do not see this brought up much! and i think we should discuss it more, at the very least to prepare people in case they experience this, so they know how to handle the situation.
examples below the cut for length:
Walgreens says pharmacist was uncomfortable with injection method
For Tristan Martin, a 34-year-old trans man living in North Austin, that fear became a reality last week when a Walgreens pharmacist refused to fill his testosterone prescription.
Martin says his pharmacist’s explanation for not filling his prescription was that she was uncomfortable with the doctor’s instruction that the medicine be administered subcutaneously, meaning as a shallow injection under the skin. But, as Martin explained to the pharmacist, he’s taken the same meds for four years, with the same method, and never heard such an objection. Plus, Martin said that the pharmacist was only being asked to provide the testosterone itself, not the equipment necessary to administer it. He later attempted to reach Walgreens’ pharmacy department and store manager to ask about the situation but wasn’t able to reach anyone and never got any calls back.
A store employee told the Chronicle they could not address the dispute. Tristan’s wife, Hayden Martin, said she received an apology from a Walgreens regional healthcare supervisor, after the supervisor contacted her on May 23. “He said there was absolutely wrongdoing and that it’s going to get figured out,” Hayden said. “He said he was going to reach out to the higher-ups and he’s going to let me know by Friday what happens.”
Hayden Martin told us she was able to contact the pharmacist in question two days after the refusal to fill the prescription. “She would not give a reason as to why she felt the doctor was wrong,” Hayden said. “And she said, ‘I’m not comfortable filling it for ‘her.’ So automatically the assumption is that it’s just an issue of her not being comfortable with the fact that it’s testosterone for a trans man. So I, of course, asked her if this was the reason – because he’s a trans man – and she got very defensive and denied it. And then I tried asking for her name and her license number and she said, ‘Well, that’s not important information.’”
Walgreens Pharmacist Denies Gender Affirming Meds, But Other Options Exist
Recently, one of our readers, who wishes to go unnamed, sent us the following email:
On the 24th when I went to pick up my testosterone prescription at the Walgreens on Lomas & Carlisle, I was asked by the pharmacist why I took it, and when I told him it was gender affirming, he told me he wouldn’t fill it going forward… I want other trans+ folks in our neighborhood to know that this is not a safe pharmacy (I don’t regret reacting by sobbing loudly in the middle of a Walgreens, but I don’t want anyone else to have to go through that), and I want all our cis neighbors to know that this is a thing that is happening.
We reached out to the Walgreens location, and the person who answered (and who we will keep anonymous) confirmed that there is a pharmacist on staff who refuses to fill prescriptions for gender affirming medication due to their beliefs. However, they clarified that other pharmacists at the location would fill a gender affirming prescription if they were on duty, or the prescription could be filled at other Walgreens locations. Unfortunately, they were not able to provide further information as to the pharmacist’s name or when their shifts might be.
A year after KC investigation, another trans customer turned away from Costco pharmacy
The city’s Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity Department launched an investigation in October 2022 after a Star report about five transgender and nonbinary people who said they were denied their prescribed testosterone at the pharmacy. Costco denied the allegations. [...]
Dave, whose name has been changed in this story to protect his identity as a transgender man, was grocery shopping at the Linwood Boulevard Costco on Monday when he decided to pick up some syringes.
Dave has used insulin syringes for years to take his prescribed testosterone — their thin needles make his regular injections less painful.
These small syringes don’t require a prescription, making them easy to obtain — and Costco offers a bulk pack of 100 at a nice discount compared to other pharmacies.
At first, the transaction was painless: Dave asked for a pack of syringes and an employee asked him his preferred size and gauge. But when he mentioned that he uses them to inject testosterone, the tone of the conversation shifted abruptly.
“They got weird about it,” Dave said. “The pharmacist, I guess, overheard and she came out and she’s like, this won’t work for testosterone.”
Dave explained that he has used these syringes for his testosterone injections for years — and has even bought the same syringes at that Costco pharmacy before for the same purpose.
Insulin syringes are regularly used to inject low doses of testosterone. But despite being an over-the-counter product, the pharmacist insisted that Dave needed a prescription before she would sell them to him.
“She’s like, well, we won’t sell it to you unless you have your doctor call it in,” Dave recalled. He stepped aside to call his doctor’s office, but they were closed for Monday’s holiday. “I didn’t feel like arguing (with the pharmacist). So I just left.”
An assistant general manager at the Linwood Costco said Wednesday that he was not aware of the incident and couldn’t comment on it.
A pharmacy employee said that she and her coworkers are not authorized to speak to the media. A request for comment from Costco’s corporate office was not immediately answered.
Dave called the Missouri Pharmacy Board Tuesday and was told that syringes only require a prescription if they bear the label “for Rx only,” which his syringes didn’t.
Beyond that, he said he was told that the state gives pharmacists discretion over what they choose to dispense, as long as they don’t violate federal anti-discrimination laws.
On a Saturday night two years ago, Stann Fransisco was driving back home to New Mexico after visiting their parents ...
“Criminalization has made it easy for pharmacists to deny my [testosterone] prescription, which has happened to me many times,” Artemis McGettigan, a trans student in Dearborn, Michigan, told Filter. “[Pharmacists] have told me in the past that ‘It’s corporate policy, they’re not allowed to fill that type of prescription … but I knew that was false because other CVS locations, for example, were able to fill it.” A CVS media representative told Filter that its policies “do not prohibit our pharmacies from filling testosterone prescriptions.”
CVS Pharmacist refused to fill my T
I have been on T for coming up on 3 years. I’ve never had any problems with any pharmacy I’ve gone to. I recently had to switch pharmacies and for over two weeks this pharmacist at CVS has given me the run around. “I need to talk with your doctor about why you need it” (which I’ve never had happen before). And then the next day would say “I need prior auth”. It’s been so long without my T that my period came back today and I am freaking out. So I sent a very frantic message to my doctors office. They called me about an hour later telling me the pharmacist sounded fishy and said “I’m not comfortable filling this prescription.” Ok? Your job isn’t to judge my prescription your job is to give me the medication my doctor decided I needed. The doctors office was nice enough to transfer everything to a different CVS close by and even apologized for not getting the pharmacists name. We did call to get his name. My partner is very nice and called corporate to file a complaint and the corporate pharmacist on the phone said that they do have grounds to deny a prescription only if there is not enough info or it’s fake. So they reported it as discrimination. Unfortunately I can’t take legal action or I would. Sorry this is more of a rant than anything. This should be illegal and nobody should work in healthcare if they’re going to gate-keep health. I truly hope this man gets fired. I’m trying to file a report to the state board of pharmacists because he can have his license revoked for discrimination. Thanks for listening.
My pharmacy tried to deny me my testosterone
So I called in my prescription on the 2nd and they told me that it would be ready on the 5th. It’s the 8th today so I called and asked if it was ready yet and the pharmacist told me I needed prior authorization and that my insurance wouldn’t cover it. Thing is, my insurance has covered it for the past two months, which is when I first started T. The pharmacist told me to call my doctor and get the authorization so I did and my doctor said that there’s no issues on her end, no authorization needed, and that my insurance still covers my prescription so she’s not sure why he would say that. I end up calling them back and end up speaking to the lady who took my original prescription and she was like “Oh my god. I don’t know why he said that to you. I’m seeing a refill request but nothing that requires an authorization. I’m gonna send this in today and it should be ready by Friday”. I think it’s hilarious too that when I told him my name, he was like “oh you’re (my grandparent’s names) granddaughter!”
CVS for years refused to sell me the needles I need for my T injections (prescription was not required, but they lied and said one was), would say they were out of stock (not when I see the box right there), loudly asked why I need my T when other patient convos were done quietly or not at all, deliberately gave me insulin needles (I need much larger) or sometimes only 1 needle for a multi-dose prescription. (Even for 1 dose, you should have at least 2 needles -- one to draw with and one to inject.) They also "dropped" my vial a few times.
Any one of these could be ignorance/accidents, but these each happened multiple times from 3 locations.
If your clinic does its own dispensing, I highly recommend switching to that for your prescription. If you are worried about needles, get your provider to include the needle info on the scrip. And if you *really* have issues with the needles, buy them in bulk online.
This happens to me all the time. CVS almost universally refuses to fill testosterone prescriptions for gender dysphoria where I live, they make every excuse they can to seem like they're being reasonable. My doctor and I had to shop around for a pharmacy that would fill it, and I have to drive pretty far to the cool chill pharmacy. I live in fear for the day they too start denying my prescription and I have to drive all the way to the costco pharmacy.
Pharmacies are allowed to do this and there's nothing you can do about it.
This caption is not actually correct, the fawn and bobcat were not found in an office together cuddling after a forest fire. The bobcat kitten was found first incredible dehydrated a week prior and then the 2009 Jesusita forest fire occurred and the rescue then had to deal with a huge flood of animals. Animal Rescue Team was saving as many animals as they could, but because of the massive number of animals they ran out of space and didn’t have any choice but to temporarily place the two together while they were running more rescues.
Usually, you would never house these two species together, but when in an emergency situation with literally nowhere else to put them, the rescue had to do it. Luckily for them, the 3 week old kitten and 3 day old fawn quickly bonded in their dire circumstance and several very cute photos were taken before the two were separated to be raised separately for release once the situation had cleared up and there was space for the fawn.
Learning the whole story also means that you get to find out that there are more photos!!
Can anyone help a black transfem with tech and stability for my teaching job? I only owe 250 in rent and need help with procuring a good computer. If I had to set a goal myself it would 750 for other bills and tech by August, when my class starts.
Please please consider helping me out financially to get my best foot forward as a small time educator. Thank you.
Current Goal: 0/750
Link to a post with all my pay apps and gfm info below:
Tumblr is a place to express yourself, discover yourself, and bond over the stuff you love. It's where your interests connect you with your
One of the best ones I saw was a thing noting that every single one of the few survivors of suicide jumps off of the Golden Gate Bridge realized, on the way down, that the problems they were killing themselves over actually were fixable or could be worked through...except for the now - extremely unfixable - problem of gravity.
Went to the Holocaust Museum in DC once. There was a video interview of an Auschwitz survivor who said he and some other prisoners stayed up all night with a man who wanted to kill himself. The man didn’t kill himself and survived to liberation.
In the video the survivor said “Never seek a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And they’re all temporary problems.”
Hearing that from a guy who survived the Holocaust rewired my brain a little bit.
I think something a lot of people don't understand is that depression is not suicidality, and suicidality is not depression.
People can, and are, depressed without being suicidal, and sometimes suicidality peaks as people are emerging from depression.
Suicidality is a wave, and the trick is to allow that wave to crest and subside WITHOUT acting on it.
Whatever it takes to ride it out. For some people that's distraction, like watching television. For others it's calling a friend -- not to talk about the suicidality, but just to talk. For others it could be as simple as going to sit in a coffee shop or library, because the presence of other people is a huge diminisher of suicide risk.
That's what suicide safety planning is about. It's like having any other type of emergency plan, like a plan for fire or evacuation. It's making a plan when you are in the frame of mind to do so, so that you can just DO the plan without having to think about it when the occasion arises.
When you're in the midst of suicidal ideation, or even intent, you're not in a problem-solving mood. So knowing past!you, with the help of a therapist hopefully, came up with the plan and all you have to do is follow up until the wave crests and subsides, is what allows you to see another day.
ETA: Here's a link to a safety plan. https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/988-safety-plan.pdf
There’s a really compassionate and well-written paper/book/thing called Suicide: The Forever Decision that’s written specifically for people who are currently suicidal. The letter to the reader at the beginning is wonderful and deeply understands how to talk to someone who’s suicidal without preaching or talking down to them.
It’s very honest. It’s very clear. It’s very kind. It presents you with a lot of information and a lot of understanding and lets you take it all in like the autonomous human you are, and make decisions from an informed place. It goes over the reality of suicide attempts, pain involved, likelihoods of survival, after effects of attempts, and how to get help if you want it after reading all of that and learning about the reality of suicide attempts.
You can read it for free here: https://qprinstitute.com/pdfs/Forever_Decision.pdf
No one can ever stop you if you’re really determined. Only you can stop yourself. If you’re suicidal and there’s ANY tiny part of you that wants a chance to not go down that route, but can’t convince the rest of you yet, give this short book a try. Or share it with anyone you know who might need it.
what if there was a show where every character was gay and you had the token straight guy character who acted really stereotypical and was into cars beers and women and everyone was like OH STRAIGHT LARRY YOU’RE SO FUNNY AND STRAIGHT
Hey. If people aren't aware, Microsoft admitted they know who you and where you are at all times and will give your info to the police.
They have a Global Device Identifier (GDID) Tracker that functions as a fingerprint for your PC that can surpass VPNs, proxy servers and countries. Although it can't survive a clean reinstall of Windows (it can survive updates), because Microsoft forces you to go to the internet and log in into a Microsoft account, they will be able to get to you.
Microsoft kept it secret and it was only found out when the FBI tracked a hacker thanks to the information Microsoft gave them.
You should be paying attention to this, and possibly consider moving away from Windows. If a government, especially the US government, doesn't like you for some reason, this could be seriously concerning.
This article specifically notes:
For journalism, activism, or domestic abuse situations, skip Windows and use Linux routed through Tor instead of a commercial VPN. A GDID doesn’t care which VPN you use, only that it’s still the same Windows installation.
GDID is the persistent Windows ID that helped FBI trace a Scattered Spider hacker despite VPNs. Here's how it works and how to limit it.
Other important quotes:
What has researchers uneasy is everything else the case reveals. Costin Raiu, a well-known malware researcher, asked on the Three Buddy Problem podcast how much of this exists on other platforms, and whether it is linked more permanently to hardware. Matthew Hickey, another security researcher, called Windows “surveillance software”.
Two things back that up:
There’s no consent screen. A GDID gets assigned when you sign into a Microsoft Account. Apple’s advertising identifier needs an App Tracking Transparency prompt and a visible reset; Android’s works the same way. GDID has neither, and a Windows reinstall only gets you a new number Microsoft can still get back to the same account.
Then there’s activation. Massgrave, the group behind Microsoft Activation Scripts, notes that Windows setup sends hardware info to Microsoft and gets identifiers back, the same tokens later used for Store access and licensing: “It’s impossible to prevent Windows from getting a GDID without breaking activation and UWP app[s].” Anyone who lost a license after swapping a motherboard has already met a smaller version of this.
Hey. If people aren't aware, Microsoft admitted they know who you and where you are at all times and will give your info to the police.
They have a Global Device Identifier (GDID) Tracker that functions as a fingerprint for your PC that can surpass VPNs, proxy servers and countries. Although it can't survive a clean reinstall of Windows (it can survive updates), because Microsoft forces you to go to the internet and log in into a Microsoft account, they will be able to get to you.
Microsoft kept it secret and it was only found out when the FBI tracked a hacker thanks to the information Microsoft gave them.
You should be paying attention to this, and possibly consider moving away from Windows. If a government, especially the US government, doesn't like you for some reason, this could be seriously concerning.
This article specifically notes:
For journalism, activism, or domestic abuse situations, skip Windows and use Linux routed through Tor instead of a commercial VPN. A GDID doesn’t care which VPN you use, only that it’s still the same Windows installation.
GDID is the persistent Windows ID that helped FBI trace a Scattered Spider hacker despite VPNs. Here's how it works and how to limit it.
Other important quotes:
What has researchers uneasy is everything else the case reveals. Costin Raiu, a well-known malware researcher, asked on the Three Buddy Problem podcast how much of this exists on other platforms, and whether it is linked more permanently to hardware. Matthew Hickey, another security researcher, called Windows “surveillance software”.
Two things back that up:
There’s no consent screen. A GDID gets assigned when you sign into a Microsoft Account. Apple’s advertising identifier needs an App Tracking Transparency prompt and a visible reset; Android’s works the same way. GDID has neither, and a Windows reinstall only gets you a new number Microsoft can still get back to the same account.
Then there’s activation. Massgrave, the group behind Microsoft Activation Scripts, notes that Windows setup sends hardware info to Microsoft and gets identifiers back, the same tokens later used for Store access and licensing: “It’s impossible to prevent Windows from getting a GDID without breaking activation and UWP app[s].” Anyone who lost a license after swapping a motherboard has already met a smaller version of this.
NEVER be vulnerable. FLUSH your medication down the toilet. LIE when people ask how you’re doing. SUPPRESS your feelings. ALWAYS be irritable and abrasive. MAKE SURE you push away anyone who’s close to you. CANCEL your therapy appointment.
The core appeal of Willy Wonka is that he's a nigh-omnipotent maniac who uses his near limitless powers over reality to trick shitty people into killing themselves. You can't make him the protagonist of a whimsical coming of age tale - you have to treat him like Jason Voorhees, or Dracula, or any other horror icon. Give him some new victims and new interesting kills and set him loose, that's all audiences want.
Gene lobbied hard for Wonka to be introduced as a feeble limping old man who suddenly falls into a forward somersault and leaps to his feet, because "from that moment on the audience won't know if he can be trusted." On a related note: the director told Gene what would happen during the boat scene, but none of the other actors were prepared; to this day, none of them are sure what he ad libbed and what was scripted.
My favorite detail, though, is his performance of Pure Imagination. On the surface, the song is charming and inviting, but if you look closely at him throughout the scene, you'll notice that Gene never blinks. He looks around, down at his feet, up at the trees; his eyes never fully close. He moves erratically, stuttering up and down the steps of the chocolate room. The lyrics are warm and friendly, but his face is blank. He bows to permit his visitors to run amok, but his posture is stiff. He helps Violet and Mike reach a couple of treats, but there is no joy in the gesture. The final post-chorus feels like a dirge, a threat, and a warning, all at once; Wonka sits in repose under a tree, but his eyes are glassy and dispassionate. "There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination; / living there / you'll be free / if you truly / wish / to be.......... "
Fantasy in excess, like anything else, will destroy you; that's the real message of Gene Wilder's Wonka. He taunts his guests with unrepentant disdain, and doesn't care if they live or die. He toys with their emotions, their safety, and their grip on reality, feeling no regret or remorse, no pity, no compassion. Fantasy is colorful and compelling, but it's false, and ultimately empty. Wonka is a walking maladaptive daydream, and as far as I'm concerned, that's the real reason the 1971 film has endured in the culture for so long.
turnnoffyourmind
theartofmadeline
gummygunk
gracieabrams
