Just confirmed my appointment with my doctor to start HRT

May 15, let's fucking go 😤🤯

“You’re not leaving here with a prescription today. ”

My GP was upfront about not having much experience providing for trans patients. But she works with a colleague who does and assured me that together they would come up with a plan to get me on hormones fast.

What we ended up doing was… Talking. About my journey, the state of my support network, what I was hoping to get out of hormones. None of the questions felt invasive nor bureaucratic. Never once did I feel means-tested and the only move I had in my arsenal was to perform a sufficient amount of dysphoria. (Ridiculous.) (This isn't applying for E.I.) I remember telling her that I knew hrt wasn’t magic and I’d have broad shoulders for the rest of my life. She politely snapped back and said, “But many women have broad shoulders!” I didn’t expect that.

But since my consult, I find myself returning to one question in particular: “When did this start?”

I began using she/her pronouns and dressing almost exclusively in femme-coded clothes last September. Some of the acts commonly known as socially transitioning. But my journey really began in 2014-15 and the months leading up to writing Swole Without A Goal, the essay that landed me my book deal. I realize now that deliberately putting on weight was my attempt to approximate a feminine figure. At least the figures of the women I knew growing up in Kuwait, India and Newfoundland. Only through fat could I see this fundamental truth about myself. It’s why I owe my life to fatness and why I’ve dedicated myself to making fat culture through my porn and videogames.

Next week, I’ll have my second consult. I’m tempering expectations. It’s too soon for bloodwork so I imagine it’ll be more of the same: a conversation, a plan to make plans. That’s okay, true transformation is slow and accretive, akin to the geological time scale. Seismic work takes years.

But I’m finally here? I’ll be turning 40 in two months. I can’t think of a better way to usher in a new decade.

I had my second hrt consult yesterday. This time with my clinic’s trans healthcare specialist. Turns out this was the critical psychological evaluation I’d heard so much about, though I wouldn’t know that until much later. Like my last consult, it was a respectful and compassionate conversation, but more blunt, borderline brutal, in its clarity.

“I noticed you paused when I brought up biological children. Why?”
“Are you aware your partners may change their feelings towards you as you transition?”

I understand that this was as much for my benefit as it was theirs. I understand they were only following a process enforced by the Province. In the weeks after my dad’s sudden death, I learned, quickly, how unserious we are a culture when it comes to the irreversible. I reminded myself I have it better than most. Still, it never once escaped me that a cis person seeking gender affirming care would never be asked the same questions.

But I was ready. Limber. I wouldn’t shut up. I even made them laugh a few times. They sat back in their chair and said, “You really thought this through.” I wanted to tell them that I was a first generation immigrant and hypervigilance is all I have. Instead, I thanked them.

The rest of the consult was a deep dive into the hormones and their mechanisms of delivery, a timeline of expected changes. I felt an electric current at the topic of breast buds.

At the end of the consult they asked if I had any questions. I reached for the only one that mattered: “Did I pass the eval?”

“I don’t like framing it as ‘passing,’” they said with a chuckle. “But yes, you definitely did.”

Next Steps!
Bloodwork to check my estriadol, testosterone and prolactin levels followed by a "Preventative Health Screening" (a physical) with my GP in two weeks!

Last Thursday, I started HRT. I wanted to share the news with you right away, but thought it best to process the moment privately, the only way I knew how. I went clubbing.

I arrived at my clinic for a Preventative Health Screening, the next leg on my journey towards HRT. It had been a month since I told my GP what I wanted to achieve. A comfortable rhythm had set in.

I first met with a nurse who took my blood pressure, height, weight. The usual gauntlet. I then saw my GP to go over a surprising discovery in my bloodwork: I naturally produce elevated levels of estrogen. (I had my suspicions…) After a quick physical exam to rule out any obvious red flags, we went over the medications and their various combinations. I could take it slow, many do.

“Would it be wrong?” I asked. “To go? All in? I’m almost 40.”

“Not at all,” she said smizing through her mask. We decided on spironolactone tablets twice a day and an estradiol patch twice a week. That felt right. “Now give me a minute to fill out your prescriptions.” Already? I expected more appointments, more tests. “You’ve met all the requirements. I imagine you’re eager to get started.”

I felt time pick up speed.

I took the streetcar home gripping my purse and the prescription inside with iron hands. There I ran into a close friend, as if the universe knew I needed to tell someone I trusted immediately. I don’t remember what I said. There was yelling.

Back home I set up my filming equipment, a nod to the beginning of Paul B. Preciado’s Testo Junkie, minus the anal. (Plenty of that on OnlyFans.) I pressed record and devoured the spiro in a single gulp. Minty, turns out. Next, I carefully tore the foil envelope holding the estradiol patch and peeled it out of its backing. A slip of translucent plastic. No bigger than an SD card. I pressed it into my upper arm and counted to 10. I checked for air bubbles and pressed again. Satisfied, I looked to my camera, to my future self, and said hello.

🔮✨