WalrusDragonOnABike

Its kinda weird reading something from 1995 saying something like

There’s a lot of writing about gender now. I keep reading the magazine articles, the newspaper columns, and the text books, pre- and postmodern. I read, watch, and listen to all the ads and commercials. You can learn a lot about gender from those commercials. I’ve also been watching the talk shows, listening to the call-in programs, and browsing the electronic bulletin boards. When I was very young, growing up in the 50s, I read the medical texts, devoured the tabloids, and hoarded the pornography—because I was intensely interested in me and my people.

Like, I was too young then to be noticing such, but its still weird seeing that when I don't think I really had even a vague idea of what transsexual/transgender was until probably the late 00's or maybe even early 10's. My parents frequently took us to LGBT family events as young children, so I wonder how much representation the T's got or if it was almost exclusively the LGB at those? Doubt I'd have noticed though... I remember one time being at a church my parents had taken us to occasionally (mostly for Christmas service) and I had missed that it was largely an LGBT church until I was in the middle of high school because I simply didn't notice all the same-sex couples (suddenly it made sense why my mom went so far out of the way to go to that church). So maybe I was just oblivious.

Personally used PP. Had a virtual appointment and part of the sign-up is clicking a dropdown menus/box telling them why you are scheduling the appointment, so they already know what you want. For my appointment, they were like "what are your goals?" and I was a basically a deer in the headlights and they were like "that's okay, but its good to know what you aiming for" and then asked if I wanted both E and anti-androgen or just one (I put non-binary for my gender when I signed up, so that might have influenced their questions) and asked what form of E I wanted (I went with pills at first). If you are taking anti-androgens (I did), in the US the standard is spiro, which can cause high potassium, so they'll probably do a blood test to make sure you're K isn't already high (mine did not test baseline levels of T or E). For virtual, you'd get bloodwork done at a place like labcorp (at least for me, they couldn't tell the appointment was from planned parenthood). There should also either be a discussion of potential effects/side-effects or give you paperwork explaining that.

Follow-up for seeing how your levels are doing and possibly adjusting how much you take is at 3 months. If things are already good, follow-ups might be spaced out more.

Lol. Can't help but follow up "harder" with "better" and if that was already done, i'd have to go with "faster".

“Oh, you hate the ‘feminization’ of western culture? Well we’re all gonna go see the most feminine movie we can over and over, that’ll show 'em!

Also think there were some guys who'd do things like 'crossdress' to go watch it and such? Idk... just what I heard 2nd hand. Never seen it.

Post better.

I had no issue with prescriptions getting covered by insurance. Informed consent clinics are still just doctors. So.. just a matter of finding one covered by insurance. I went with PP because my insurance covered them and they had virtual options (I've met with them once during my lunch break at work for a follow up; super-convenient).

As long as the prescription doesn't require pre-approval processes, it shouldn't be an issue. And also good doctors will just lie to insurance companies who demand preapproval to get things to be covered when they're necessary.

If you are in the US, you don't need to talk to a psychiatric person to get HRT in most places. Informed consent clinics* do exist: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1DxyOTw8dI8n96BHFF2JVUMK7bXsRKtzA&ll=37.77742828588296%2C-103.34469751119877&z=4

Personally, I haven't ever talked to such a person. But if informed consent is an option, then perhaps the focus should be a broader discussion about gender and goals (which would include HRT) rather than specifically HRT?

Or from the foul zone.

I knew gendered bathrooms were created by Big Bathroom to sell more bathrooms! /j

If gendered bathrooms weren't the norm, I'm curious how frequently people ignored it when it they first encountered them.

Kinda feels that way. My mom never cared about how we fit gender norms at home... As long as we didn't go out in a way that was too transgressive for others. Whether it being worried about us being bullied by other children in school (or worried about potentially losing custody of us) or worried about harassment from cop as adult. Not to say she isn't also transphobic or didn't gender me as male, but as a young child I didn't worry about things like playing dress up or playing with dolls or nail polish (although I don't think my mom liked that last part because of how hard it is to get off and the no presenting like that outside implicit rule).

But between the implicit rule implying it was something to hide and clear societal expectations, I no longer would freely engage in those kinds of things by early adolescence even at home. Even then, she might have at one point offered to buy me a bra in seriousness, but I'm not confident in my memory of that and the only other person who would potentially know is her and I don't want to ask.

Guess dream brain took my comment here as a challenge and decided to make me look like a girl in my dream. Still not something I've consciously done - I'm not usually able to do that sort of visualization even intentionally, so I kinda suspect it still just borrowed from somewhere else.

Even that's context dependent. Plenty of cultures that just considers boobs hanging out normal. My household wasn't one of them (although my mom also just assumed everyone was asleep if it was 4am when we were young children and she was just going from the bath to her bedroom). Personally always thought it was stupid women's chests were treated different then men's.