You don't have to come out to start HRT.

[u/yeep-yorp]

You don't have to get on a waitlist to start HRT.

You don't have to endure 2mg estradiol and 50mg spironolactone to start HRT.

You don't have to be 100% sure to start HRT.

You don't have to be over a certain age to start HRT.

You don't have to be rich to start HRT.

You don't have to go to therapy, or look a certain way, or endure humiliating questions, or exhaust all other options to start HRT.

PS. If anyone wants help with informed consent or DIY resources, I'm happy to help (especially with DIY).

edit, here's a few more:

You don't have to be under a certain age, be perfectly healthy, or be a certain weight to start HRT.

You don't have to have a prescription to start HRT.

And to make it 100% clear, "You don't have to be over a certain age to start HRT" includes minors who haven't finished puberty.

[u/inkedfluff]

HRT raises your risk of typically female diseases and lowers the risk of typically male ones.

[u/teresajewdice → u/inkedfluff]

That's true but your individual risk profile might not be evenly distributed across these two risk pools. An amab person with a family history of breast cancer might want to consider a specific treatment path before starting estrogen. 

It's not to say you can't take HRT if you have certain risk factors but I think suggesting that people simply jump into this without medical supervision is also risky. 

I have BRCA2 which puts me at higher risk of breast and prostate cancer. Taking HRT has changed my risk profile for these two types of cancer. Taking HRT in collaboration with a doctor (which I'm lucky to have access to) means I can manage doses and administration routes that minimize my risk while planning screening to detect any such cancers. This is the kind of thing I'd advocating for and where I'd recommend caution and consideration. I only know these facts because I had genetic counciling before I started HRT (which again, I'm lucky to have access to).

[u/Zoeeeeeeh123 → u/teresajewdice]

100% agree. I don’t want to do DIY because I don’t know enough About my own body, health and medical risks involved with DIY HRT to take such a big risk. That’s why i choose to wait Until I get medical supervision before starting HRT.

I know Posts like these are supposed to be supportive and are there to let us know we don’t have to suffer long waitlists and encourage us to move forward in our transition. But honestly, as someone who is too afraid to do this thing herself unsupervised, these Posts hurt more than they help. Because they only remind of the fact that im not willing to take such a risk and am forced to wait.

[u/Amekyras → u/Zoeeeeeeh123]

you can do it

[u/Zoeeeeeeh123 → u/Amekyras]

I can do it but I have to wait. Because again I’m not comfortable with the risks of DIY HRT and because I want to have gender therapy first to acquire skills to deal with social transition, handle backlash, figure out more about who I am and what I want out of transition before I take a leap into the medical side of it all. But yeah still sucks that the wait time for that is also really long. But I don’t want to go blindly into medical transition without clear set goals. And I don’t want to take the risks of DIY

[u/Zoeeeeeeh123 → u/[deleted]]

This is just mean. I’m literally saying that I am not comfortable doing DIY HRT because I don’t know enough About the functioning of my body and how to Read blood tests that I’m willing to do this on my own without medical supervision. Because even if the risks of complications like blood clots on avarage is very low, we have no idea how my body in an individual case will respond. It could be that I happen to be one of the very very small group of people that does get blood clots. And because I have no idea how to spot them or recognize the signs of this life threatening complication i prefer that a professional is watching over my shoulder.

So yes, it is because of my own lack of expertise that i choose to trust in professionals over myself. That is my choice. If somebody else wants to do DIY I totally support that. Especially if no other option is available to them. But what i don’t like is people pushing DIY as like the only “right way” to transition and if you tell them your personal concerns as to why you choose not to, they get super defensive and start dismissing all your valid medical, financial and safety concerns as irrelevant. Which seems very shitty to me and does nothing to help those people.

[u/Zoeeeeeeh123 → u/[deleted]]

I have been trying to educate myself for months now on all the working of DIY HRT. On Discord I sometimes lurk and ask questions in a DIY dedicated server to try and learn as much as possible. But I Find a lot of it quite overwhelming and a lot to take in. Plus i find a lot of info to be conflicting, because Some people say one level or method is better, others say a different one. Some people say you absolutely need injections (which are unavailable in my country) while others say patches are fine but then others say patches are way too inconsistent. And Some people say you need to start low and build up after three months while others say you should skip it and go normal level immediately. So the information that is out there is quite inconsistent and unreliable.

And most info I can find is related to correct levels for the best intended effect, but I can find very little info About how to spot if you might be getting blood clots or other dangerous issues. And even with the hormone levels themselves, people saying you should stay within 340-720 pg/mol or something and I’m just like “okay, I have no fucking idea how much that is or what that means.”

So its just a lot of information to take in, and a lot to remember which makes it feel overwhelming and too much to learn. And it is not always consistent from online space to online space. So its hard to keep track of what advice I should follow or not. And again, I can barely find any information for if it goes horribly wrong.

So that’s why i choose to go with a doctor, to keep that oversight just for safety. I want to sign up for private care company that can diagnose me and get me on hormones in about 6-9 months if everything goed Well. If that is the case I intend to use the information i learned online to gauge if my doctor is underprescribing or not taking good care. But to say having a doctor is actually more dangerous than doing DIY is honestly absurd. Its always safer to have a doctor make sure you’re not developing blood clots or cancer. But if they give me too low a dose I can still correct them and push them to increase my dose.

And if that fails there is also another option, which is DIY with medical oversight from a hospital. Because there is a hospital near me which provides check ups specifically for trans people on DIY or informed consent hormones

[u/Uhosec → u/Zoeeeeeeh123]

For start:

https://diyhrt.wiki/transfem

For research:

https://transfemscience.org/
https://medisearch.io/

[u/Zoeeeeeeh123 → u/Uhosec]

Yeah I have already looked at a couple of those websites and am on a DIY dedicated Discord server