Are Trans Youth Self-Medicating?

Transgendered young adults often face dubious or undereducated healthcare providers when they seek care related to transitioning. While a healthy dose of skepticism may be warranted as young adults move through the developmental identity crisis phase, it turns out many transgendered youth are capable of getting hormones and other medications on the black market.

Check out the revealing article at Youth Today:

Do-it-yourself hormone treatment, or “self-medding,” as Amelia calls it, is an increasingly popular method by which transgender people acquire the hormones necessary for gender transition. It’s an alternative to professional medical care with its excessive expenses and deficiency of trans-knowledgeable providers. DIY, as many trans forums and online guidebooks see it, is the next-best solution despite associated health risks like blood clots, high blood pressure and liver damage.

Amelia, now 22 and living as a female trans activist in Chicago, called the self-medding issue a “big point of contention between the trans community and the medical community” because of a lack of understanding between the two groups.

“They don’t see all the hoops we’re forced to jump through as being really restrictive or bad things or in any way negatively impacting us,” she said. “So when they see us self-medding, they see it as us putting ourselves in unnecessary danger, when really it’s more like a response to inadequacies of the medical structure.”