First hormone appointment end of April!

[MissBrooke]

Hi girls!!!! I know I haven't been here in forever, but have been very busy with school and support groups, etc.

Just letting everyone know that I made my first hormone appointment for the end of next month!!!!!


What should I expect?

Thanks,

~Brooke

[Absaroka]

Expect lots of good wishes from the folks here at the forums, and please keep us informed.

[Leeza]

I wish you good luck on the hormone trip.

Leeza

[Kimberly Kael]

What should I expect?

Is this a consultation, or the beginning of treatment? If it's the former you can expect them to take a blood sample to get a line on your personal hormone levels and talk about the options available (pills, patches, injections, etc.)

If you're actually starting to take hormones you shouldn't base your expectations on anyone else's experience because there's a really wide range of experiences. Even the medical professionals monitoring your treatments will likely tell you that they can't predict how they'll affect you and when. The one thing I've heard from just about everyone is that the effects are gradual, not something that happens overnight.

[Anthony Simon]

Just looking back through your old posts, you actually say you hadn't dressed a month ago. You were about to do it at that point. So going from that to hormone treatment in a months time seems like a pretty steep (learning) curve.

I don't know anything about hormones, apart from the fact that they can change all sorts of things. I would have thought you'd have a lot of new stuff to process already if you've just started dressing. I mean, if you're 20, you've got lots of time ahead of you. I'm not answering your question, but the person you're talking to would want to know your transgender history.

[MissBrooke]

What should I expect?

Is this a consultation?

Yes.

[Kimberly Kael]

Anthony makes a very good point. I wasn't familiar with your post history, but I would expect a medical professional to refuse treatment until you've worked with a therapist enough to be comfortable that you're not making a mistake. The tradition of the Hippocratic Oath states that a doctor must keep his or her patients from harm, and hormone therapy leads to irreversible changes and involves non-trivial health risks. It's not a recreational activity or something to be taken lightly.

One of the real challenges of being anywhere in the transgender spectrum is figuring out where you belong. It is difficult to "test drive" different approaches to gender expression when there's such a strong societal imperative to fit in. So it's difficult, but not impossible. Most worthwhile things in life are like that. So you owe it to yourself to take a balanced approach to exploring your feminine side: read some women's history, find opportunities to go out dressed the way you feel suits you, find out how a new perspective on the world changes the way you interact with other people. There are plenty of challenges in re-socializing beyond the purely physical, and in time if those changes still feels appropriate it may be more obvious to others that it's the right choice for you, too.