Today is the big day, after 3 years of knowing that I want HRT I was finally able to start it, and I couldn't be happier! This feels like a huge step, almost like being reborn. In this article I plan to talk a little bit about my feelings and how I started HRT here in the UK.
There have been several occasions where I've wanted to start HRT and nearly did, whether that be through DIY, a private service or my own GP (who asked me if I'd tried my girlfriend's makeup and then proceeded to refer me to an irrelevant mental health service). None of these attempts were successful as I lacked the confidence to start (or was downright rejected). Three months ago that all changed.
This time, I resolved to start HRT through GenderGP. A lot of trans people in the UK will know about this company, primarily because they are the only provider in the UK that operate via a system called informed consent. The idea behind informed consent is that all you need to start treatment is an understanding of what the treatment entails as opposed to lenghty and invasive psychological "assessements" to see if you're "really trans".
To start treatment through GenderGP I first had to dip into my savings and pay a small fortune to join their service, then I paid for an information gathering session, which is where they check to see whether you're able to consent to treatment. Following that, I had to wait while GenderGP reviewed my case, I was told that this would be around a month, it actually ended up being closer to two months (a painful wait at the time, but far less painful than the years that it takes to be seen by a gender identity clinic on the NHS.)
Eventually, I was approved and after some delays with an online pharmacy I was able to order my medication and have it sent to me by post. For anyone wondering I was prescribed the following medication:
Finasteride 5mg every morning
Oestrogel 3 pumps in the morning
From what I can from others who have used GenderGP this is a fairly typical hormone regimen that they prescribe. I did initially want bicalutamide but that would have been far more expensive to start.
Overall, it took me around 3 months to start HRT after contacting GenderGP. If you're interested in GenderGP's costs they have a page about it here, Though it's not necessarily 100% accurate as I ended up paying more for the hormones than what is stated on the page.
This next part might be of importance to anyone who isn't out to their family yet; the online pharmacy that GenderGP uses is very discrete. My medication came in a white envelope with no identifying marks on it. Nobody would ever suspect that the package contains medication.
Technically, I was supposed to wait until the morning to take my first dose of hormones, but I couldn't wait that long, so instead I hopped onto a video call with a close friend and took my first dose in the early afternoon. It felt like a huge moment for me and one of the greatest moments in my life.
I expected to feel some amount of trepedation, perhaps it'd take a few hours for me to bring myself to take my first dose, that isn't what happened. I couldn't take it quickly enough.
Obviously, I couldn't feel any physical changes immediately. But I did feel that a huge mental weight had been lifted. In the moment that I took my first dose I felt nothing but pure joy.
It's clear to me that I made the right choice. I needed these hormones.
It's honestly crazy to think that as I write this blog post estrogen is flowing through me, it's almost surreal in a way.
I can't wait to see what the future holds, I can't wait to see how my body grows and develops into a body I feel at home in.
I know that this blog post is long and rambly, and for that I'm sorry. But there are so many thoughts in my head that I need to get written down. I probably haven't even scratched the surface. My hope is that I can keep writing new blog posts as I notice things changing, hopefully the future blog posts will be far shorter!
Thanks for reading!
P.S my estrogen looks like it's in a shampoo bottle and that's the funniest thing in the world to me >.<