Has anyone gone this route for HRT? Or looked into it? I have had a couple of gender therapy appointments already and my therapist is ready to write me a letter but her appointments are sooo expensive. I live in Kansas City so it might be hard to do around here but I'd be willing to travel a bit. Would this be cheaper? Anyone know of clinics in KC or a list of clinics in the US that do this? Or have any info at all??
I always ask these questions then get impatient and just go for it haha. I have an appointment at planned parenthood this Tuesday. Apparently some locations do informed consent HRT and there happens to be one very close to my house that does that and a lot of other trans care! I'd still love to hear about anyone's experience or knowledge though!
I don't have much experience, but I know a little about it. Unfortunately the site for the ICATH (Informed Consent for Access for Trans Health) standards of care is currently down, so I'll need to go off of memory. ICATH is a basic standard of care for medical practicioners to follow during the medical treatment of transgender individuals. Most professionals tend to follow WPATH by default. The difference between the two is that the WPATH standard of care carries a lot of requirements (therapy for X amount of years, living as your gender identity for X years, etc.) while IPATH relies on the fact that you are a consenting and willing adult making an informed decision about your body and your health. It details that as long as a person is legally an adult in their region and demonstrates a knowledge of the procedure(s), an understanding of the health risks and what exactly will happen - which the medical professional will discuss with you, and is in a sound state of mind to make the decisions (either no mental illnesses, or mental illnesses that you do have are well-controlled) then they are able to access HRT or SRS or other transition-related surgical procedures. I don't remember this bit for certain, but I'm pretty sure that the site also said that a professional cannot turn you away on the grounds that you haven't met the WPATH requirements if you are pursuing informed consent treatment. Sometimes a medical professional will refuse you on the grounds that they want you to see a therapist first to check that you are mentally capable of making the decision - in this case you can simply go to any therapist and tell them you want to pursue informed consent and they will be able to write you a letter. The letter would simply need to state that you are of sound mind, are aware of the effects of these procedures, and are a willing participant and are not being coerced. You can get the doctor in touch with ICATH if they are still resistant. If the site ever does come back up, here's a link: www.icath.org It has some templates for the letters both for you to give the doctor and for the therapist to use if you have to see one. I don't know if you'll need them seeing as Planned Parenthood have already stated that they are willing to work under IPATH standards, but it never hurts to have it! (Might also be useful if anyone else reading is interested in informed consent. )
I actually have an appointment at PP to start T tomorrow so I can let you know how it goes. I'm not sure about pricing for the non-informed consent route but I'd imagine it would be pretty similar unless your insurance coverage differs for them.
Totally let me know how it goes! I'm definitely going the informed consent route as of this point. Should be cheaper for me anyway because I am paying $175 each for therapy appointments.
Ok so I had my appointment earlier. It went pretty well, everyone was very nice and used my preferred name and pronouns the whole time. BUT I didn't get to start T yet I had gone to a talk by PP recently where they said you would start at your first appointment. But for my location at least, that was not true. So don't get your heart set on that. The reason is that you have to talk to a social worker first, and they are at a completely different place. So I will have to wait at least another week because of my schedule. I know another week is not bad but I'm just really tired of waiting at this point. Well, good luck, and I hope yours goes well! Oh, also there were some abortion protestors standing out in the rain when I got there so that was interesting.
First, I'm really proud of yall. You're doing great. Second, I'm imagining all sorts so snarky things a person there for HRT could say to the abortion protesters.
A social worker really? I never heard of that. Are you a minor? Anyway, a week is nothing! How exciting!
I'm not sure if you meant for WPATH or ICATH, but I'm afraid I don't know either from memory. I looked around briefly but I couldn't find a clear list and, to be quite honest, some of the sites confused me or offered conflicting information. I'd advise you to do your own research or contact your GP (or endocrinologist/gender therapist, if you have one) or WPATH/ICATH directly since they should be able to tell you for sure what the current requirements are. Sorry that I couldn't help more.
I'm just worried, I guess. I think I misheard my gender therapist when she said I need to wait 2 years for a letter of recommendation... I'm looking around, but I can't find any person who's been told this and no policy says this either... I think she meant 2 years for something else, but idk what... I'll ask her, because I know for a fact that many, MANY therapists would disagree with her if that's what she said, but again, I think I just misheard her... She definitely seems awesome, but now I'm worried... I am interested in hearing about this ICATH thing though. :/ It's a shame the site's down though... My main goal atm is to get on testosterone tbh, so if I could go back in time, I'd probably choose a therapist who went by that method... Oh well! My therapist specializes in anxiety stuff and gender stuff, and since that's what I need I'm happy to have her. ^_^
No, it's a policy PP has. If you go there for HRT you have to do it. They just want to make sure your life is all good, you have adequate support and stuff, and offer help if not. And yeah it is pretty exciting
Social workers have a credential to be therapists in most states (this guy) so it may be PP's way of skipping that step. Also good to have someone help make sure the rest of your life is stable, too. Dont want anyone having no food or shelter while transitioning.
So I had my appointment with PP today. It was mostly pleasant. They asked for my preferred name on the sign up sheet and I was correctly named and gendered the whole time. Today I mostly had my blood drawn and they just asked me some questions about history. The nurse that drew my blood was very nice and pleasant and called me Patrick repeatedly and laughed at all my jokes. She can draw my blood any time. But apparently the nurse practitioner who usually deals with the trans stuff wasn't in today and she was going to talk to me about hormones. So they sent in a different NP who made the rest of my visit very unpleasant by saying the word "cervix" approximately 8 times more than necessary. I imagine the necessary amount of times would have been maybe 0-1 times. She kept trying to push me into doing this "women's wellness exam" before I started for some reason, saying that hormones can affect the cervix or something. Which okay, perhaps, but I haven't started them yet? So shut the fuck up? No? You wanna say cervix seven more times just for fun? I think she also said breasts at least five times. Which again, had nothing to do with what I was there for outside of asking if I have a history of breast cancer. So yeah kinda wish I had waited for the other chick because that one really pissed me off and now I'm going to be dysphoric all day. And turns out I'm not getting my first shot today, tomorrow, or even next week. I am going back in October 10th and hopefully I'll get it then. So yeah, mixed reviews for today. I no longer fear having a fear of needles because the blood drawing was actually almost pleasant. I'm no longer worried about injecting T either for that reason. I was correctly gendered a lot. Buuuut I also am not starting T for two more weeks and I just realized I have a cervix. Whatever. It's probably not a bad thing I have to wait a while anyway since I felt kind of bad about not wanting it enough and it being too easy. Now I'll have a little while longer to think about everything.
If you want to trick yourself.... the word cervix also means Neck, as in cervical vertebrae. Make believe the bitch is worried about the effect T will have on your neck? Like, in case it bulks up like The Rock, we want to make sure it wont crush your shoulders? ..... And, you are gonna need to eat a lot of protein to bulk up like The Rock. I wonder how many chicken breasts you will have to eat to bulk up you neck that much. Or we could just roast the bitch ass NP on a spit. I bet she has a lot of protein. Sounds like the start of a good party to celebrate starting T soon. Seriously, im proud of you for going, and im sorry the NP was an an insensitive asshole shitting all over your day. Is there anything in your circle of control that you can do to make your day a little better from here? Personally, to me, nether region exams and testifying at court both automatically justify me buying a milkshake. FYI, the frosted lemonade things at chikfila are awesome. I hope you can salvage ypur day, even make it good.
Haha you made my day all by yourself. I will remember that next time someone wants to say shit about my cervix. I don't think she had a lot of protein on her unfortunately. She was one skinny bitch! To make my day better...I bought some tonic to mix with all this gin I had no use for and another pack of cigarettes. Even though I was planning on quitting smoking today. But that was only if I was starting T within the next week because I don't want to smoke while on T and I wanted to be able to track my emotional changes without being cranky from nicotine withdrawal. I guess I will quit next week. But man fuck her. I could understand if she was to mention it once, and I could even forgive her saying the word cervix once, but seriously, just over and over. Couldn't she just say "pelvic exam" or "pap smear"? And say it one time then fucking drop it? I'm not doing any of that shit btw. I've never fucked a dude, I'm 24 years old, and I am getting all that nonsense removed asap. I can't even handle someone talking about it apparently let alone looking at it. So at least that kind of verified my transness a bit because I almost died of dysphoria today lol. Anyway thanks. You've always been super sweet and supportive and always know what to say. <3
