@rikke Feel free to pick my brain if you need help dealing with anything. I’ve done DIY HRT and helped friends deal with insurance companies illegally discriminating against them for trans care which is mostly banned in the US under the ACA(actually enforcing that is another matter though)

@queerhackerwitch thank you! i live in norway so it's a pretty different situation i think. the healthcare itself isn't costly but getting access to it is nearly impossible and very strongly gatekept. idk if i'm quite at the point of doing DIY HRT yet but i'm considering it...tho i'll admit it scares me.

@rikke so the one thing I was able to do with that which you might find more difficult is getting blood tests done. In the US this can be done without seeing a doctor at all, though you’ll probably have to find a provider there willing to at least do that much. With regular blood tests and sane dosage levels, I don’t think DIY is any more dangerous than prescribed HRT. Another thing to note is just saying you’re doing DIY may bypass some of the gatekeeping.

@rikke most doctors are going to see writing you a prescription as harm reduction vs letting you continue your own regimen without their supervision. If they are letting “policy” get in the way of that then they’re not a doctor I’d trust long term.

@queerhackerwitch it used to bypass the gatekeeping a little bit but the institute in charge of providing treatment for all trans people here recently announced that they wouldn't touch anyone who's done DIY or gotten help elsewhere etc... which makes it a bit of a last resort. to my knowledge they're pretty hard to bypass as well, doctors aren't really permitted to give prescriptions for HRT without a diagnosis from them first.

@queerhackerwitch so if i were to try that it'd be a huge gambit because if it failed i would have no access to trans healthcare beyond DIY at all

@rikke I don’t see how it could be legal for them to permanently refuse to provide healthcare just because you previously got hormones without going through them.

@queerhackerwitch thankfully i misremembered and that isn't 100% their practice rn - they tried to suddenly make that happen but the backlash made them delay it basically. i wish it was illegal, but it really seems like it isn't.

@queerhackerwitch the state stopped requiring sterilisation to legally change your gender marker two years ago, so violating the human rights of trans people is a non-issue i guess

@rikke There are still some parts of the US that continue to require that and the only way around it is to either move to another state or pay >$2000 to a lawyer to get a court order requiring them to change it. There’s a lot of ways this planet could improve. I just hope the places that have gotten better will eventually inspire other places to improve.

@queerhackerwitch it's pretty exhausting, but it does make me hopeful seeing other places implement less inhumane policies. i think i'm gonna go to bed, it's pretty late and i'm very tired. thank you so much, just talking to other people who've dealt with the same stuff is very helpful and i appreciate it a lot <3

@rikke *offers more hugs* Something to keep in mind I guess is that while I wouldn’t wish testosterone poisoning on anyone that didn’t want it, lack of HRT doesn’t have to be a blocker for everything else you have in mind with your own transition. I’ve found a lot of “passing” has to do with how you carry yourself (confidence, being yourself vs who you were pretending to be, etc.)

@queerhackerwitch *hugs* thank you, i'm doing what i can outside of medical transition, and honestly that's going better than i could've dreamt of, i just wish there was more i could do for myself and those i love

@rikke Shit like that should be illegal. All it does is make it harder for us to get the care we deserve. You don’t need specialists to prescribe HRT, any general doctor should have enough knowledge to do it.