I absolutely hate needles- I can barely even tolerate a nurse injecting me- but when I saw an NHS gender specialist about going on t she treated me like an idiot for even asking about gel. Is there anyone who can tell me whether or not it's possible to access alternate forms of t on the NHS? My boyfriend was with me in the waiting room for support andmy clothes were masculine but quite flamboyant, and I've had NHS therapists try to dissuade me from taking hrt for not presenting ~male enough~ itr
My professional opinion is that that specialist is a buttface.
This packet from the NHS from 2007 talks about possible alternate delivery methods for testosterone, and I haven’t found anything that says they’ve decided “actually, injections only.” So it seems that you’ve just had the unfortunately common experience of someone else deciding that they get to make way more choices about what you’re doing with your gender than you do. It’s an obnoxiously prevalent opinion that if you “really want it” and you’re “man enough,” you’ll be able to deal with needles, but there’s nothing about gender identity that makes you more or less capable of dealing with pointy things. Some people can, some people can’t, some people would just prefer not to, and it’s not anyone’s place to make judgments about someone else’s gender identity based on whether they’re comfortable with injections.
See if you can get to a different specialist. Keep going to different specialists until you find someone who will listen, because you are in the right here and it is absolutely unacceptable for their bigotry to prevent you from transitioning the way you want to.
- Mod Rabbit
