I’ve been saying, “I was born without a uterus”, which so far seems to answer honestly without directly outing myself as trans.
Any thoughts on how to best navigate this? Ideally without disclosing I’m trans 😅
I’ve been saying, “I was born without a uterus”, which so far seems to answer honestly without directly outing myself as trans.
Any thoughts on how to best navigate this? Ideally without disclosing I’m trans 😅
For an ongoing relationship with a primary care doctor or a specialist for a new health problem that my GP has referred me out for, sure. For something like the dentist or an urgent care doctor because I have an ear infection? Absolutely not, I’m not trying to deal with trans broken arm syndrome.
If I have concerns about medication interactions I’ll ask the pharmacist at my local LGBT health center. The odds of there being a medication only cis men can take (for reasons other than fetal health) or that the dosage is going to be drastically different because of my sex rather than my hormonal profile, medications, and weight is vanishingly small.
I assume by “cis men” you mean “biologically male” (roughly including trans women?), and while this is an idea that hasn’t been revised much in the hospitals, that idea is a bit broken and scientists have moved on from the idea of “biologically male/female”, either way - what I was wondering is what even is an example of such a medication? I don’t know of any medication that would be so different for men vs. women that a trans woman would need to be treated differently than cis women.
Generally the drugs that metabolize differently (or are dosed differently) between sexes (broadly speaking) are going to be the same whether you are a cis or trans woman (assuming the trans woman is on estrogen), because estrogen seems to mediate a lot of those differences.
Can you think of an example? I don’t know of any!
I wrote cis men because I’m a trans man and was talking more about a hypothetical medication that would harm me if the doctor thought I was a cis man and didn’t out myself. But yeah, I’ve never been able to get an answer from anyone on how urgent care is going to kill me if I don’t tell the doctor I’m trans before I get antibiotics 🤷♂️
🤦♀️ sorry about that mixup, I hate it when I make bad assumptions like that 😬 also, glad you’re here!
and yeah, I have no clue either … I’m open to being wrong, but my doctors aren’t telling me I need to disclose I am trans. To the contrary they seem to indicate I shouldn’t, and were clear the one exception was to get prostate exams past a certain age, a concern that is suspicious, and may be a bit misinformed, considering it is based on the assumption of risks from male levels of androgens. I have a relative with prostate cancer currently taking medication to block androgens to treat the cancer, for example …
Though I am in the U.S. so my doctors might be more concerned about my disclosure given the context. I was also at the time getting care in one of the worst anti-trans states.
Yeah. The best way to lower risk of prostate cancer is to lower testosterone levels. And the best way to stop it growing if you do develop it, is to lower testosterone levels, and add estrogen. And they rarely, if ever choose surgical intervention when it comes to prostate cancer. So, despite being at the age where a cis man would have to start thinking about this, it’s not something I plan on investigating, given that I’ve got a reduced risk profile, and I’m already on the same medication they use as treatment…
right!? I find it so strange they are treating my prostate like it’s in a cis man’s body … one guess is maybe the time before transition adds risk because there was exposure to male levels of androgens? But then … I’m already on the treatment for prostate cancer … something just doesn’t make sense here and it feels like blind policy being implemented on the assumption that I’m “male”, exactly the kind of mistaken view I don’t want to perpetuate by disclosing I’m trans.
No worries, this is literally the transfem community!
And yeah, I get all the relevant exams that my GP (who I’m out to) thinks I should get, I disclose what medications I’m on, beyond that it’s my discretion because it’s not their business.
Not that I’m accusing you of anything, but this is a hypothetical that I hear a lot from transphobes (ie, "would you take the medication only for “biological” men / women despite being a trans woman / man? If so, ha ha! You admit to being your AGAB really. If not, ha ha! You die).
Other than questions of what anatomy is physically present, I’ve never heard of (and sincerely doubt the existence of) any case where birth sex is relevant.
Yeah, I say hypothetical medication because as far as I can tell it remains that. Medicine is complicated enough that I’m not willing to rule it out as inherently impossible, but if such a thing exists I doubt we even know about it, given the sorry state of medication trials with regards to treating cis men as the default human.