Transgendered and Thinking of Starting the Transition? One of the first steps taken in gender reassignment is hormone treatments. These treatments consist of large amounts of hormones (By Injection and/or Pill Form) that slowly change your body over the span of a few months to years. You have to be okayed by a psychiatrist before you begin treatments, and the treatments themselves are actually administered by a psychiatrist. Insurance does cover it sometimes but you'll have to check with your provider to see if they cover it for you. Regardless of whether you're an MtF (Male to Female) or FtM (Female to Male), you should note and be aware of the side-effects of hormone therapy. For MTFs this means eventual sterility and shrinking of the testicles as well as diminished strength, less hair growth on the body, slow formation of breasts, loss of ejaculation and erection, smoother skin, redistributed fat, and all of the other physical changes you'd associate with what happen to a girl in puberty (with marked differences involving the reproductive organs, obviously.) For FTMs, the effects are sterility, more hair growth, lower voice, larger clitoris, increased sex drive, sterility, increased aggression, beginning of balding patterns, increased acne, and so on. FTM testosterone treatments CAN also have the side effects of: * Breast cancer * Cancer of endometrium * Diabetes * High cholesterol * Hypertension * Liver disease MTF estrogen treatments, on the other hand, can result in: * Benign pituitary tumors * Gallbladder disease * Hypertension (high blood pressure) * Hypothyroidism * Liver disease * Migraine headache * Tendency for blood to clot, causing related conditions: ---o Aneurysm ---o Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) ---o Pulmonary embolism (can be fatal) * Weight gain * Worsening of depression (if present); increased sensitivity to stress Despite all of the risks (remember that while some of these seem like huge side-effects, some of the medication you may already take might list "heart attack leading to death" among many other major side effects on their bottles, too...it doesn't mean that you'll automatically contract any of those diseases) you're probably still dead-set on it. If you are then more power to you and I completely understand. This varies from state-to-state and country-to-country, but for the most part you have to be 18 years or older OR have parental consent to undergo the treatments. Unfortunately the psychiatric analysis a transperson has to undergo to be cleared for surgery is sort of odd and assumes some things about people in general. Your answers to their assessment will be compared against the guidelines set forth by the American Psychiatric Association for the diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder (GID). I'm not saying I agree at all that our condition should be considered a disorder (I flat disagree and Want GID Out of the DSM V)...that kind of maddens me...but if you look at the logic behind the word, coming to terms with the label of GID is easier as we're way out of society's regular supposed order for things. There's a lot more you need to consider and look into, and I hope that you can manage to get to at least some of this material while at school. Here's a few places you may want to go read up at: Transgendercare.com LGBThealth.com FTM Info Network TS Roadmap - the TS Roadmap list of forums where you can seek help from people that have undergone it or are undergoing treatment Laura's Playground Transgender/Gender Variant/Genderqueer Gruops of DA |