Thread by @alexhaagaard

[medical bullshit]

For #TransDayOfVisibility, I want to talk a little about medical transitioning with medical trauma.

I've got medical PTSD from a whole slew of stuff, ranging from medical assault to literally 3 decades of gaslighting me about my embodied reality...

...so for a long time, I didn't even consider medical transition because I didn't feel comfortable allowing medical professionals to get their grimy little violent hands anywhere near my gender.

But over the past year, as my mental health has healed slightly, and I've watched trans friends and acquaintances begin their medical transitions, it was something I became more interested in.

So at the start of January, I called the local gender clinic to make an appointment.

I got that intake appointment, with the counsellor, in mid February. During that intake, as I was listing my health conditions, they said, "that's a lot of stuff." An honest reaction, but also one that raised red flags for me.

Typically, my local trans health clinic goes through the psych evaluation process with the counsellor, then you get passed on to the nurse practitioner who evaluates whether HRT is likely to be physically safe for you.

They suggested instead that they would refer me to an MD who works with their clinic who would "hopefully" know more about my chronic illnesses, in order to be able to make a judgment call about whether T would be safe for me. They said I should get a call within 1-2 weeks.

I finally got a call yesterday, 6 weeks later. I have an intake appointment for the first week of July. (Which is a tiny wait compared to folks in the UK but still...)

This is the clinic to which I've been referred 🙃

So yeah, I somehow doubt I'm going to be starting T, and I'm kind of regretting deciding to seek clinical care, as I do every time I decide to pursue clinical care.

All of which is to say, there are a lot of reasons why people may not transition medically, and medical trauma is a huge one.

Also, fuck the clinic.

(Also also, I am SO VERY NOT looking for advice here.)