It took me years to decided to have any type of gender care and the process of accessing it is really stressing me out.
I met with my provider in summer after waiting about a year and a half to establish care. I told myself I was going to treat my PCOS and get on birth control or other hormones like I was supposed to but the words stuck in my throat. I told her I couldn't do it, that getting care to be more properly a woman felt like going in the wrong direction, and I wanted to try testosterone therapy.
She was very supportive and so said we should schedule a longer appointment to talk more about that. I was expressionless, tense, and closed off throughout. I wasn't ready to talk about the what I want. I have been holding it in since I was a teenager hoping the desires I have would go away.
No one wants to hear about it. It's not even something I can talk to my trans relatives about. One told me to come back and talk when I knew what I was and what my pronouns were and not before. Another told me that I just needed to learn to be a woman properly and my problem was lack of guidance and community. Step by step aigot pushed back into the closet.
My therapist's first reaction was "There's a lot of ways of being a woman. Maybe you just need to find the right one." Basically asking if I've tried not being trans. Oh yes, I have, for 15 years. Subsequent conversations were just as unproductive.
At my next doctor's appointment we talked briefly about health risks and why I wanted to try HRT. Never mind I'm already facing those risks from PCOS. My body is already making enough T to give me extra body hair and stop my periods for six months at a stretch.
I didn't know how to articulate why I wanted HRR. I've never talked about it and I feel so numb from depression and am so used to repressing these feelings they just slip through my fingers.
I only know that they are there. A pang of jealousy when I meet a trans man, a stab of shame when I don't meet a standard that was never meant to apply to me. A burst of pride when I push my body. The secret, desperate joy when I started growing chest hair and facial hair. The deep wrongness of being too feminine or completely masculine.
I can clumsily say what I feel but I do not know why I feel it.
I told her I was never normal, being a girl never fit, and if someone had offered me HRT when I was a 14 I would have taken it without a second thought.
She listened though I knew she didn't understand at all and I thankex her though I knew it wasn't what she was looking for. I was no less closed off to her and to myself.
Heading home I finally let myself feel happy. It was such a a fragile feeling, like a soap bubble floating along beside me, and if I looked at it too hard it might burst and all my fears would come crashing down on me again. Letting myself believe that HRT was a possibility for me felt like asking for disappointment or humiliation but I let myself have that hope,to pretend to believe in it just for a little while.
Then the gender limbo began. I was supposed to have an appointment scheduled with an endocrinologist but no one ever called me back. I felt this spark of panic and paranoia. Was someone trying to hook up my care? Like the person at the front desk who angrily snatched my ID out of my hand when I used my chosen name and not my given name?
After two weeks I called to ask what was going on. That day the entire phone system at the clinic went down so I got up and I went in person and was assured they would get back to me asap. They did not so I called them.
I asked about the scheduling and they told me it was being held up because they didn't have my new insurance information. Then, after another week it was being held up because they needed to do "information gathering". They did not specify what information they were gathering or why it took more than three weeks.
The next week I got another call telling me that they still had not scheduled anything and had no idea when they would be able to fit me in. So I made an appointment with a different provider and started the whole thing over again.
I had so much anxiety about keeping that appointment. I could feelyself panicking as I headed out the door and then when I reached the clinic I felt excited and relieved and so so glad I came. Then I was told my appointment was at another clinic. There was no time to get there on the bus so I just had to go home.
I told the receptionist that it was okay, that's just the way it goes sometimes, and then I went to the restroom and cried quietly on the floor for a few minutes. I kept myself together as I left and walked past the weirdos prowling around the clinic. Then I made the call and told scheduling I couldn't make my appointment and they told me that there never was an appointment and I started crying all over again.
I cried half the way home, then got junk food and a face mask, and made up my mind to fill my day with chores and crafts and go out later so I wouldn't be stuck at home. Yes, I am aware, getting the address wrong was my fault. That really doesn't make me less miserable.
This whole process has been so exhausting I don't know how anyone even does it. I don't know how people in the UK deal with all the wait times and all the nonsense.
I don't know how folks in the US copewith finally getting that prescription and then finding out that a pharmacist can just refuse to fill it because they hate transgender people.
I don't think what I've been dealing with personally is bias, it's just that healthcare is a shambles and has been for years. It's so stressful and it must be for everyone. I hope your journies are going better than mine.
Been reading more around PCOS being considered an Intersex condition and I rlly get where people are coming from tbh....my recent bloods showed my body was going thru the motions of like, peri-menopausal symptoms because I was so low in oestrogen, while having more Androgens then your typical cis man..........No wonder my life has been feeling kinda hellish my hormones are all over the place lol
I was diagnosed with PCOS years ago and I wasn't given very much information on what I should be doing to help myself. I was given medication and told to "eat better and lose weight." That's a lot easier said than done. So recently I signed up for this weight loss competition and I started looking up ways to make losing weight with PCOS easier. I'm starting slow, one thing at a time. I've started with removing dairy. I haven't had milk in a week and that's saying a lot for me. I love dairy but I'm looking at dairy free options and going slow. We can do it!
I absolutely hate how much pcos content is weight-centered.
I get it. It's impossible to loose weight, I too don't know what it means to feel full and even when I move around and eat healthy I will always be dummy thicc.
But fucking hell if I have to see another pro-ana post when looking for some pcos content I'm going to fucking loose it
we need to make gynecology offices a trans friendly place. i had a health scare and had to get an internal sonogram, i was frightened, then the nurse said ok. sweetie would you please remove your pants and panties. fucking panties i was wearing pokemon boxers and i was just so scared. later i had to explain thaat i wont notice chest pain because I would misdiagnose it because i wear a chest compressor, the woman got extremely uncomfortable. On the same day i got diagnosed with an endocrine disorder i got misgendered over 20 times.
