Speaker 1: Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, the podcast about
Speaker 1: things falling apart and sometimes how we can put things
Speaker 1: back together. I'm Garrison Davis, aspiring Rebus, and this is
Speaker 1: part two of my little two part series talking about
Speaker 1: trans hormone replacement therapy. Last episode, we discussed what HRT is,
Speaker 1: it's various benefits as gender affirming treatment, and the informed
Speaker 1: consent model of receiving hormones. Before we continue on with
Speaker 1: my discussion with Dr Grieve, I would like to talk
Speaker 1: a bit more about informed consent. So the informed consent
Speaker 1: option can be great for many many people as it
Speaker 1: attempts to bypass some of the red tape around receiving
Speaker 1: gender reforming healthcare. For its form of consent, all you
Speaker 1: gotta do is set up an appointment, signed the forms,
Speaker 1: maybe get some blood work done, and then pick up
Speaker 1: your hormones. Right. You don't need to live as trans
Speaker 1: for like two years or have letters from therapyest s.
Speaker 1: It's it is. It is just up to you, so
Speaker 1: it is it is really convenient if you can get
Speaker 1: that option. Some places even let you do it via
Speaker 1: telemedicine appointments, so you can just sit at home holding
Speaker 1: your little, I kea shark and then get your hormones,
Speaker 1: which does sound very very nice. Planned Parenthood offers informed
Speaker 1: consent trans health care in many states, and in the
Speaker 1: show notes I will link a Google map of the
Speaker 1: informed consent clinics from across the country. Depending on your insurance,
Speaker 1: you can get hormones for a little to no extra cost.
Speaker 1: This way it can be really convenient. The biggest asterisk
Speaker 1: for informed consent is that since it's based on you know,
Speaker 1: informed consent, it often is just for humans age eighteen
Speaker 1: and older, or sometimes teens a few years younger, but
Speaker 1: only if their parents or guardians signed the forms. Obviously,
Speaker 1: this is not ideal for a sixteen year old with
Speaker 1: transphobic parents, who would really be helped by receiving like
Speaker 1: hormone blockers or something right. Another potential drawback is that
Speaker 1: the clinics can sometimes have quite the wait list. I
Speaker 1: started off with the informed consent model because it was
Speaker 1: the easiest, but by the time I needed more blood
Speaker 1: work done and my prescription refilled, setting up more appointments
Speaker 1: that Planned Parenthood became kind of a nightmare. I was
Speaker 1: continuously having appointments being canceled on me last minute. And
Speaker 1: just getting pushed back months and months into the future. Eventually,
Speaker 1: I just resorted to getting hormones through my regular doctor
Speaker 1: instead of just continuing on with informed consent. Now, this
Speaker 1: is obviously a regional issue, right I. I don't know
Speaker 1: what it's like in Florida, for example, but the COVID
Speaker 1: andeen pandemic has stressed a lot of the medical infrastructure
Speaker 1: here in the States, and scheduling some appointments in these
Speaker 1: clinics can be still quite challenging. And as you know,
Speaker 1: a big theme of this show is that maybe we
Speaker 1: shouldn't assume the structures that hold up our society are concrete,
Speaker 1: permanent fixtures. The term the crumbles that we used to
Speaker 1: describe the slow deterioration of the systems that we rely on,
Speaker 1: was initially coined in reference to our medical system by
Speaker 1: a friend of the show who works in the medical field.
Speaker 1: Listen to the first five episodes of The Daily Show
Speaker 1: talking about climate change for more on that. But a
Speaker 1: part of the Criminal's idea is trying to learn how
Speaker 1: to become less reliant on the systems that we take
Speaker 1: for granted, right, trying to solve for the fallacy of
Speaker 1: misplaced concreteness before it's too late. On that note, back
Speaker 1: to my discussion with Dr Victoria Luna Brendan Grieve, Assistant
Speaker 1: professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy. For
Speaker 1: places that are getting uh, you know, all of these
Speaker 1: anti trends bills criminalizing all of this stuff for miners,
Speaker 1: and then you know, eventually maybe even you know, my
Speaker 1: big fear is that, you know, first off, they're gonna
Speaker 1: criminalize it for minors, and they're gonna say the brains
Speaker 1: not fully developed, your twenty five, and they're gonna criminalize
Speaker 1: it until you're twenty five, and they're just gonna criminalize
Speaker 1: it for everyone after that. Um So, for all of
Speaker 1: these places that are making access to healthcare is so
Speaker 1: much harder, what what is what is one to do?
Speaker 1: Like if these if there's these kids and then even
Speaker 1: adults who are like just find it so much harder
Speaker 1: to get stuff. Like I know there's the informed clinics,
Speaker 1: but there there's like there's like a few in Texas,
Speaker 1: but I don't even know what they can even offer anymore, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's really unclear. Yeah, well, I'll tell you some
Speaker 1: of that fear is already becoming reality here in Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: just two days ago. HB. I think it was HBO
Speaker 1: passed by the House in don in Harrisburg that prevents
Speaker 1: it's a ban on trans people playing sports up through
Speaker 1: the college level, not just high school in grade school,
Speaker 1: it's all the way up through you know, secondary education. Uh.
Speaker 1: And even though our governors like has failed to vito it,
Speaker 1: like who even knows what's going to happen, but they're
Speaker 1: already taking taking aim at this higher level kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of president for that. What my goodness.
Speaker 1: If there's a long and storied history of d I
Speaker 1: Y hormone therapy and it's easier for the trans feminine
Speaker 1: individuals because testosterone is actually a scheduled to control I
Speaker 1: think it might be a three I think it's scheduled
Speaker 1: three steroid. I'll write a little thing about it and
Speaker 1: I'll say in the episode. And it's such a funny
Speaker 1: reason too, because it's just you can use it to
Speaker 1: dope for endurance based like like cycling and running, because
Speaker 1: it will increase your red blood cell account that's a like.
Speaker 1: And so it's a controlled substance because people can use
Speaker 1: it to dope for for exit, for for sports. So
Speaker 1: it's that's a little bit harder to get ahold of
Speaker 1: in like a meaningful way. But there are a lot
Speaker 1: of different Allegedly, there are a lot of different places
Speaker 1: online that you can acquire estrogen or estra dial relatively easily.
Speaker 1: Now I'm gonna actually pause the discussion with me and
Speaker 1: Dr Grieve to talk a little bit about d I
Speaker 1: y h r T or for those anti acronym people
Speaker 1: out there, do it yourself hormone replacement therapy. Again, I'm
Speaker 1: not a medical doctor. Unless you have a problem regarding parapsychology,
Speaker 1: I cannot offer you any expertise, but I can talk
Speaker 1: about d I y h r T as it's existed
Speaker 1: for trans people for the past two decades. Because an
Speaker 1: unfortunate truth is, although it's gotten much easier to get
Speaker 1: gender affirm and care and hormones the past few years,
Speaker 1: even in states that aren't facing this wave of anti
Speaker 1: trans health care bills, the medical establishment hasn't been the
Speaker 1: most trans friendly place in general. A recent Center for
Speaker 1: American Progress report found that nearly half of transgender people
Speaker 1: and six of transgender people of color reported having experienced
Speaker 1: mistreatment at the hands of a medical provider, including refusal
Speaker 1: of care and verbal or physical abuse just in the
Speaker 1: year before the survey, which took place in June of
Speaker 1: twenty so this is this is still very much an
Speaker 1: ongoing issue. One in two trans people reported that their
Speaker 1: access to gender affirming healthcare was curtailed significantly during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and nearly one in two transgender adults have had insurance
Speaker 1: providers denying them coverage for gender affirming care, and very
Speaker 1: often doctors don't even know how to properly treat transgender patients,
Speaker 1: and often it's up to the patients to educate the
Speaker 1: doctors on trans healthcare issues. The Center for American Progress
Speaker 1: survey from last year found that one in three trans
Speaker 1: people report having to teach their doctors about trans people
Speaker 1: to get them appropriate care, and reported having been asked
Speaker 1: innovasive or unnecessary questions about being trans which were not
Speaker 1: related to the reasons for them visiting the doctor. The
Speaker 1: report cited a twenty eight team brief from the Kaiser
Speaker 1: Family Foundation that found that more than half of medical
Speaker 1: school curriculums lack information about unique health issues the LGBTQ
Speaker 1: community faces, and doesn't cover treatment beyond HIV prevention and care,
Speaker 1: so obviously that leaves a lot to be desired for
Speaker 1: people wanting to receive transgender health care. Between medical mistreatment,
Speaker 1: insurance complications, and doctor ignorance, many trans folks have taken
Speaker 1: it upon themselves to get the drug necessary for hormone
Speaker 1: replacement therapy because the alternative is often just having to
Speaker 1: face not being able to receive the health care that,
Speaker 1: in many cases makes it possible to live. The Center
Speaker 1: for American Progress survey found that twenty eight percent of
Speaker 1: trans folks report having postponed or not gotten necessary medical
Speaker 1: care for fear of discrimination. Taking your endochronology and hormone
Speaker 1: treatment into your own hands has a lengthy history and
Speaker 1: used to be much more common in the days before
Speaker 1: informed consent. In a survey of trans people in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Circus two thousand, over half of the respondents
Speaker 1: so that they had used non prescribed hormones also known
Speaker 1: as d I y h RT. So information on how
Speaker 1: to go about d I yng your HRT spread via
Speaker 1: online forms and websites in the early two thousands, and
Speaker 1: after some trial and error, the information is kind of
Speaker 1: consolidated into a few main information hubs that being the
Speaker 1: d I y h r T Wiki, HRT dot Cafe
Speaker 1: and d I y HRT dot get hub dot io. Now, obviously,
Speaker 1: when you're getting into taking drugs from online sources, you
Speaker 1: need to be extremely careful and cautious about what foreign
Speaker 1: chemicals you're putting into your body, including and trying to
Speaker 1: only acquire drugs from trustworthy sources, doing drug testing if
Speaker 1: you can, and doing your own blood testing before and
Speaker 1: after to keep an eye on your testosterone and estrogen levels.
Speaker 1: It is possible to order blood tests via online and
Speaker 1: send it through a lab that you have to ship
Speaker 1: your blood too, but often it's just easier to do
Speaker 1: it by going through the medical system. Now, one massive
Speaker 1: caveat with d y h r T is although it's
Speaker 1: more straightforward to acquire extra dial and antiandrogen's like spiro
Speaker 1: from online sources, getting to stosterone for masculinization therapy is
Speaker 1: much more tricky because in most places it's a restricted drug.
Speaker 1: Here in the States, it is a Schedule three substance,
Speaker 1: so technically buying it without a prescription would be a
Speaker 1: felony um So for this reason, most d I O
Speaker 1: y h r T stuff focuses on feminizing hormones since
Speaker 1: that is less legally complicated. Now, obviously you know steroids exist,
Speaker 1: so it is possible to get them, but I will
Speaker 1: not be giving out guides on how to do that
Speaker 1: here on the pod, but you know you can you
Speaker 1: can look into it if you so desire for feminizing hormones.
Speaker 1: The main way of going about it requires obtaining bioidentical
Speaker 1: extra dial. It can come in a few forms pills,
Speaker 1: which are not difficult to acquire, and assuming you get
Speaker 1: the dose right, it's pretty easy because it's just a
Speaker 1: process of dissolving the little pill tablets under your tongue,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of it right. Dosed is its own thing,
Speaker 1: which you can figure out if you do reading, but
Speaker 1: the actual taking of it is pretty straightforward. Transdermal estrogen
Speaker 1: or transdermal estra dial is kind of the new hot thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: Usually this has you taking weekly estra dial patches which
Speaker 1: you just switch out every week um or you can
Speaker 1: also do daily gels, which you just rub out your body,
Speaker 1: although unfortunately for dosing gels it can be more tricky
Speaker 1: if you go d I Y because it's hard to
Speaker 1: know what concentration just the jela is. If you're just
Speaker 1: rubbing a sav on yourself. It's not already prepackaged, but
Speaker 1: the patches are pretty good. And lastly, the classic method
Speaker 1: is injectable estradial at various concentrations in the form of
Speaker 1: some oil solution. This can usually be the cheapest option
Speaker 1: if you can figure out how to buy estradial, and
Speaker 1: needles and syringes can be bought at any pharmacy just
Speaker 1: over the counter in most countries without a prescription. For
Speaker 1: feminizing hormones, some people also take antiandrogen's a k a.
Speaker 1: Testosterone lockers like spiral lactone, which can be acquired online
Speaker 1: and are almost always taken orally in the form of
Speaker 1: a pill. Now, when getting these drugs online, there are
Speaker 1: two main categories of purchase. There's pharmaceutical grade and home brewed.
Speaker 1: Pharmaceutical grade refers to HRT produced by legitimate pharmaceutical companies
Speaker 1: that are licensed and subject to regulation. They should be
Speaker 1: of the same quality as those found in your local pharmacy,
Speaker 1: and they can be ordered without a prescription from websites
Speaker 1: based in countries that allow for the legal exportation of
Speaker 1: certain medications. These will almost always carry less inherent risk
Speaker 1: versus receiving and taking home brewed hormones, which leads us
Speaker 1: to the second version that you can buy, which is homebrewed.
Speaker 1: This refers to HRT produced by individuals by sourcing raw
Speaker 1: extradial or whatever other chemicals you're taking in the form
Speaker 1: of a powder and then compounding the medication themselves. They
Speaker 1: do not synthesize or current from scratch these hormones, but
Speaker 1: they do use the powdered vers of them, and they
Speaker 1: get them from sources from drug manufacturing companies to synthesize
Speaker 1: it into their own extra dial or whatever arther drug
Speaker 1: you're taking. You know, in the antiandrogen list. There's there's
Speaker 1: too many, too many to name now. While this this
Speaker 1: concept does sound scary and it can obviously go wrong
Speaker 1: if someone's not synthesizing it correctly. Uh, there are a
Speaker 1: couple of well respected members of the community that have
Speaker 1: been known to produce high quality and safe HRT medications.
Speaker 1: But before anyone decides to take drugs that you get
Speaker 1: on the internet, please, please, please please do lots of
Speaker 1: reading beforehand on on dosage effects, side effects, and be
Speaker 1: very cautious with your drug sourcing. Right, you should know
Speaker 1: who you're buying it from. You don't want to just
Speaker 1: buy from whatever it's get your website. You should make
Speaker 1: sure that what you're doing is other people are backing
Speaker 1: up on this decision and make sure that it's there.
Speaker 1: You can cross reference information here because there's a lot
Speaker 1: of information out their online and not all of it
Speaker 1: is good information, obviously, but really try to cross reference
Speaker 1: information on any drug sources, on hormone dosage, on any
Speaker 1: possible drug interactions. If you're taking multiple drugs or you
Speaker 1: already have prescriptions now I should I should note that
Speaker 1: supply chain issues that affect the medical system can even
Speaker 1: extend out to d Y A h r T. There's
Speaker 1: no true escape. There's no true other. One of the
Speaker 1: main pharmaceutical grade online sites to source HRT from is
Speaker 1: currently out of estradial pills, so there there is there
Speaker 1: is no true escape sometimes, but to learn more about
Speaker 1: d I Y h RT, you should check out d
Speaker 1: I Y HRT dot get hub, dot io or HRT
Speaker 1: dot cafe and the d I Y trans dot wiki
Speaker 1: and keep in mind not everything you read on those
Speaker 1: sources is necessarily good advice or up to date with
Speaker 1: the current information on how these drugs work. Recently, I
Speaker 1: was reading a guide I found via one of those
Speaker 1: sites on how to homebrew my own estrogen by buying
Speaker 1: the powdered version of it than synthesizing it myself to
Speaker 1: level up my alchemy stat um, and I found the
Speaker 1: guy that I was reading contained quite a bit of
Speaker 1: outdated misinformation about progester around. So don't take everything you
Speaker 1: read as gospel, but those resources are at least a
Speaker 1: good place to start. Anyway, Now back to the interview,
Speaker 1: the problem that you might run into with the I
Speaker 1: y NG is you might not be able to get
Speaker 1: the bioequivalent estradial in some form. You might have to
Speaker 1: settle for conjugated estrogens or even something like an ethanol ESTRADIALE,
Speaker 1: which is like hormonal birth control, which because they are synthetics,
Speaker 1: they actually have a much rougher time on your body.
Speaker 1: And that's where a lot of the side effects quote
Speaker 1: unquote like come from. Like all of the worry about
Speaker 1: like blood clots and things from taking estrogens comes from
Speaker 1: conjugated estrogens. Est Yeah, the actual study, uh that a
Speaker 1: lot of that is citing goes all the way back
Speaker 1: and it was studying the rate of plotting in cis
Speaker 1: gender women taking hormonal birth control, and it's just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: so this is the wrong population with the wrong medication. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that seems like not a great scientific study, right, what
Speaker 1: do we do? I mean, it might be great to
Speaker 1: talk about for the rate of yeah, right for trans women,
Speaker 1: or doesn't really right? It doesn't it doesn't really help
Speaker 1: so much. Um. And what I think is also pretty
Speaker 1: wild too. I mentioned the progesteran thing earlier. A lot
Speaker 1: of that controversy comes from the fact that the original
Speaker 1: studies on whether or not it could be beneficial. We're
Speaker 1: done with medroxy progesterone, a synthetic progesterone that has a
Speaker 1: really nasty side effect profile in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1: And now that we have micronized progesterone, where the evidence
Speaker 1: suggested not only is it safe, it actually makes estrogen safer.
Speaker 1: And now they're like, no, we can't give that. That's
Speaker 1: just that's just crazy talk. I will say, I have
Speaker 1: heard from people with more experienced hormones and be that
Speaker 1: progesterone does make you way too hoardy. Um. The heads
Speaker 1: up for for side effects ASHTAG can confirm. But um, well,
Speaker 1: but but progesterone can have a lot of other really
Speaker 1: beneficial side effects. It can really increase the fat deposition
Speaker 1: to various places. It can help with your mood, it
Speaker 1: can help with your sleep. It actually reduced the period
Speaker 1: symptoms that I was having because I because there's a surprise,
Speaker 1: people on estrogen can also have periods. Uh. And because
Speaker 1: your body again knows what it's doing, it's going to
Speaker 1: modulate it through the E one, E two, E three pathway,
Speaker 1: like throughout the month in a sixical fashion, and you
Speaker 1: can get bloating and cramps. And I had really bad
Speaker 1: morning sickness like for for three days every twenty eight
Speaker 1: days for months, until eventually I started micronized progesterone and
Speaker 1: those symptoms alleviated, Which makes a kind of sense if
Speaker 1: you know that progesterone only birth control reduces periods. So
Speaker 1: like there's a there's there's a lot of precedent, a
Speaker 1: lot of makes a out of like sense that it
Speaker 1: would work. God, I it's I need to tell you
Speaker 1: have have you ever heard of the Powers method of
Speaker 1: no Oh Garrison. I am so excited to introduce you
Speaker 1: to this person. Like doctor Powers is a fascinating grifter
Speaker 1: in the trans health care space because He is a
Speaker 1: he's a physician who like has has made it his
Speaker 1: duty to to to make sure that trans people, especially
Speaker 1: trans women. He actually doesn't like really have anything to
Speaker 1: say about trans men because the the therapy is so
Speaker 1: like easy to to to do that. He has a
Speaker 1: wild postulation as to like better ways to give hormone,
Speaker 1: and he he has things worths like we don't need antiandrogens.
Speaker 1: You just give really high levels of injectable estrogen, which, like,
Speaker 1: I mean that'll probably work because for some people, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but but also estrogen is like really safe and so
Speaker 1: like you can give it to an unbelievably high level,
Speaker 1: it's not really going to speed things up exactly, Like
Speaker 1: it will maybe a little bit, but not that much.
Speaker 1: And any of the side effects you might experience, which
Speaker 1: could also come from the the excipients, the non active
Speaker 1: elements of it, like you can be allergic to those
Speaker 1: if you ever really high dose can be a real problem. Um.
Speaker 1: But the big thing for him is he pushes that
Speaker 1: micronized progesterone is not only necessary and good especially for
Speaker 1: breast size, you should also stick the oral capsules in
Speaker 1: your butt. Oh I were we are we are officially
Speaker 1: boothing estrogen. Now, yes, yes, okay, well I'm I'm switching
Speaker 1: back to pills. This sounds very exciting. Well so well,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh. So the idea is his line is
Speaker 1: um that you know that the oral capsules you only
Speaker 1: get a tiny fraction of the total progesterone, and you
Speaker 1: get a lot more if you stick it up You
Speaker 1: get the whole dose if you stick it up your butt, which,
Speaker 1: like if you know literally anything about pharmacology is both
Speaker 1: right and entirely insane because anything that you take orally,
Speaker 1: there's a bioavailable like level of it. Like so oral uh,
Speaker 1: micronized progesterone has a bioequivalence of I think like two
Speaker 1: or three percent, which is why when you take like
Speaker 1: a hundred milligram capsule, you get like a certain blood level.
Speaker 1: If you take it rectally, it's like a twelve. It's
Speaker 1: still not the whole thing, which is why the the
Speaker 1: micronized progesterone rectal suppositories are twenty five milligrams to give
Speaker 1: you the same exposure, so it's four times the systemic absorption,
Speaker 1: which means that if you are boofing a micronized progesterone capsule,
Speaker 1: you are geting three to four times the dose that
Speaker 1: you should be getting. And uh, the I pulled because
Speaker 1: I get into fights with people all the time about this.
Speaker 1: I pulled the original FDA filing for Mike and Ice progesterone,
Speaker 1: and they suggested that three hundred milligrams is basically getting
Speaker 1: to what like a cis gender person's maximum progesterone levels
Speaker 1: would be, meaning that if you're boofing one or two,
Speaker 1: as some of his regimens suggests, like, you might be
Speaker 1: essentially overdosing on progesterone for no reason, like there's no
Speaker 1: real reason to do that, and it is just crazy.
Speaker 1: When what I started this call today, I did. I
Speaker 1: did not think we would get boofing progesterone. It is
Speaker 1: a weird, like a weirdly large part of my Twitter
Speaker 1: interactions have been fighting people to stop boofing progesterone. UM,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to Unfortunately just exposed this idea to
Speaker 1: millions of more people. Know I'm saying talk do it
Speaker 1: well and so, but you know, you know, you know
Speaker 1: that's not how that works. I do know that's not
Speaker 1: how that works. But I mean, I I tell you,
Speaker 1: if if your your friend Robert Evans for here, I
Speaker 1: could pitch a hole behind the bastards on this doctor
Speaker 1: powers guy. Um so he sounds fascinating. He has a subreddit,
Speaker 1: like all good physicians do. I love the doctor has
Speaker 1: a subreddit, and my my favorite post other than recently,
Speaker 1: he's been pushing this like miracle hair tonic that he made,
Speaker 1: which is like, come on, buddy, like like now, and
Speaker 1: it's just obvious. He calls it, yep, yep, the verbon
Speaker 1: he might call it. He might even call it an elixir,
Speaker 1: which is very funny, but all from a magical hand
Speaker 1: tonic exactly. It's so funny because one of the components
Speaker 1: of it, I think is finasteride. Like I I looked
Speaker 1: at the and I'm like, yes, that is something for
Speaker 1: bald for male pattern baldness. It will probably work. Congratulations,
Speaker 1: you just remade rogaine. Uh. But the the single post
Speaker 1: that I feel like perfectly encapsulates this guy's mentality. Um is,
Speaker 1: There's this big post that went around through like cis
Speaker 1: gender like kind of like centrist spaces that every trans
Speaker 1: person I saw was just like, excuse me, what the fuck?
Speaker 1: Where this guy was secretly micro dosing injectable estrogen that
Speaker 1: he prescribes himself, which sounds kind of illegal. Not gonna lie, uh,
Speaker 1: and messed up the dose by a thousand percent, by
Speaker 1: a thought, by a times thousand yeah, yea yeah, And um,
Speaker 1: like I can give you the link. I I can.
Speaker 1: I know exactly where it is. I can give you
Speaker 1: the link if you wanted to read this. It is
Speaker 1: buck Wild. But the thing is, he goes on to
Speaker 1: describe this like acute dysphoric episode that he had from
Speaker 1: one high dose of subcutaneous estrogen, a thing that is
Speaker 1: not physiologically possible and in completely insane. That and he
Speaker 1: but he was like, but I understand the pain the
Speaker 1: trans women go through because I fucked up a dose
Speaker 1: where I was secretly taking estrogen to make my face
Speaker 1: look younger. So I understand your pain and have so
Speaker 1: much empathy for for the trans women's that I am
Speaker 1: trying to save. And it is so frustrating to me
Speaker 1: how many people give him like credence, give him credit,
Speaker 1: um because he he has he has claims like apply
Speaker 1: progesterone cream to the the the smaller breast to even
Speaker 1: them out, And it's like, Okay, my dude, have you
Speaker 1: ever met like people with breasts. One is larger than
Speaker 1: the other. That's how breasts work. It's like, well, what's
Speaker 1: your evidence for that? Well, I had two people who
Speaker 1: did it and they said it worked. Okay, cool. Do
Speaker 1: you have those those reports? No? No, no, they got
Speaker 1: burned up in a house fire, and it's very sad
Speaker 1: and I can't give you that. Yes. So, so he
Speaker 1: worked in a clinic that a friend of mine actually
Speaker 1: moved to after they got rid of him because he
Speaker 1: made all these wildly anecdotal claims and whenever anybody challenged,
Speaker 1: and then his house burned out, which is actually very
Speaker 1: sad because his cats died in it, and he didn't
Speaker 1: deserve his cats because cats are perfect creatures and this
Speaker 1: man is insane and cats never do anything wrong. Cats
Speaker 1: are a perfect, magical beings. I love yours so much
Speaker 1: as they keep crossing in front of the screen. They're perfect. Um.
Speaker 1: But so, whenever anybody challenges him on literally any of
Speaker 1: his claims, he goes, well, I had all of that data,
Speaker 1: but it burned up in my house. And then he
Speaker 1: like makes it a sob story about like how like
Speaker 1: like horrible this was, which like I'm sure it was
Speaker 1: really bad, Like I'm sure it was like really really bad.
Speaker 1: But even his um like power point presentations that he
Speaker 1: has that he like goes through to like really like
Speaker 1: talk about the powers method and make it sound like
Speaker 1: really really good, has a like fire safety section specifically
Speaker 1: so he can garner this like sympathy so people will
Speaker 1: not quest in his claims that have no evidence behind them.
Speaker 1: And so it's just such a fantastic examinated to me,
Speaker 1: Like it's just so weird seeing like a space that
Speaker 1: has historically been denigrated in the evidence. You know, you
Speaker 1: had that whole episode on the Hirshfeld Institute, and you
Speaker 1: know we see all this like anti anti trans uh
Speaker 1: like propaganda and legislation going on right now that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of like empty space in the medical record
Speaker 1: and in the evidence record for what to do in
Speaker 1: these situations. There's a lot of confusion from the guidelines
Speaker 1: in these other societies like I was talking about, and insteps.
Speaker 1: This guy who sees an opportunity to be like, uh
Speaker 1: like popular like powerful individual in this space to give
Speaker 1: people hope that he can cash in on uh And
Speaker 1: since the medications and since the hormone therapy is so safe,
Speaker 1: he doesn't actually hurt that many people, And it's it
Speaker 1: is so wilde being this juxtaposition of individuals being like, well,
Speaker 1: this is unsafe experimental nonsense, and seeing this guy flagrantly
Speaker 1: overdosing people on hormones with no ill effects because they're
Speaker 1: that safe. Uh, that is that is pretty funny. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's funny in that like laughing until you're
Speaker 1: crying kind of way. Yes, Yes, What is the way
Speaker 1: that people can try to combat all the medical disinformation
Speaker 1: around HRT specifically because we do specifically let's you see
Speaker 1: this a lot and to save the children rhetoric, we
Speaker 1: see this a lot for just anti tran stuff in
Speaker 1: general of and like, yeah, just in terms of someone
Speaker 1: who has to deal with this stuff on a professional level,
Speaker 1: like when when we're just faced with all of this
Speaker 1: just complainely just like wrong stuff being treated as absolute
Speaker 1: fact when your experience, what's kind of the best ways
Speaker 1: to go about that? In people? Oh my goodness. Um,
Speaker 1: it kind of depends on the audience. When I'm talking
Speaker 1: to other other health care practitioners, I UM, I can.
Speaker 1: I I have historically because I do a lot of
Speaker 1: like teaching and advocacy in this area. To other health
Speaker 1: care practitioners and UM holding sessions like volunteering for to
Speaker 1: to hold sessions of like to educate on this and
Speaker 1: say like, these are the kind of regimens that are
Speaker 1: commonly used in clinics. This is why these are things
Speaker 1: to look out for and to stress the importance of
Speaker 1: believing the patient and UM the importance of you don't
Speaker 1: want to gate keep because if if which they're not
Speaker 1: that dangerous, but if there is to be a problem,
Speaker 1: you would rather have that patient want to work with
Speaker 1: you to solve it. Is like such a big part
Speaker 1: of it, like even just understanding that from that level
Speaker 1: that you're not like delivering this kind of like life
Speaker 1: saving medication to them as this like Lord on High.
Speaker 1: It's this idea that like, no, you should be working
Speaker 1: with this person and if you're not familiar with it,
Speaker 1: you need to do your fucking research. And I will
Speaker 1: give you the resources for that. I will. I will
Speaker 1: walk you through those resources. And that's that's awfully convincing
Speaker 1: for the majority of healthcare individuals at any level, because
Speaker 1: I've done I've done talks for students and nursing programs
Speaker 1: and physical therapy programs all the way up to like
Speaker 1: actively practicing physicians, nurses, and pharmacists, and it's basically the same.
Speaker 1: You just you make the argument, you show the evidence,
Speaker 1: You give them the evidence, and you walk them through,
Speaker 1: uh like kind of and and then and then have
Speaker 1: a robust question and answer period where they will ask
Speaker 1: you those questions and you can explain why they are wrong.
Speaker 1: Having that kind of dedicated space can be really beneficial,
Speaker 1: but not scalable in a way that's necessarily helpful. Like
Speaker 1: I've made a positive impact on my city, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't really necessarily help if you yourself are not a
Speaker 1: health care practitioner and want to like explain this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. And I mentioned earlier that on Twitter, I've
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time like arguing that people shouldn't
Speaker 1: be boofing their progesterone. But I've had to stop because
Speaker 1: it's exhausting every single person like coming back. It's like
Speaker 1: the same conversations over and over again. And there's no
Speaker 1: good way to like have a central location that just
Speaker 1: has all that information that anybody is gonna believe because
Speaker 1: of the way the internetworks. Um, So I guess my
Speaker 1: answer is I'm not sure, Like there's so much misinformation
Speaker 1: out there, and so much of it is so wrong
Speaker 1: and not in alignment with reality that looking at it
Speaker 1: at all, it falls to pieces and and the idea
Speaker 1: of the majority of people too. I guess I could
Speaker 1: say if a person is coming to you and asking
Speaker 1: legitimate questions and they don't really know, like they're just
Speaker 1: like parroting stuff that they heard, they they're much easier
Speaker 1: to convince because you can show like, oh, like we
Speaker 1: have a long history of doing this, like look at
Speaker 1: the you know, I tell my students about how like
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two was the first like recognized hormonal mediated
Speaker 1: transition in the United States, Like she was like a
Speaker 1: movie star. Um and and you know, I talked about
Speaker 1: a lot of the history to be like this isn't new,
Speaker 1: this is something like we have been here forever. Um
Speaker 1: My my favorite story. Do you know about the story
Speaker 1: about the Scifian priestesses. Yes, I actually do, but I
Speaker 1: would love for you to explain it. But oh my god,
Speaker 1: I found out about that a few months ago and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, it makes me so happy.
Speaker 1: So so to to explain very briefly, I think it's
Speaker 1: it's an old Um. I think it was like Herodotus.
Speaker 1: It's like an old like Crestian like author that we
Speaker 1: have information, author, philosopher, whatever, historian. But they talk about
Speaker 1: in one of the texts the Scythian priestesses, who essentially
Speaker 1: distill the poison of woman. They call it in one
Speaker 1: of the texts, which I think is just such a
Speaker 1: great term from um uh, pregnant mayor urine, which interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: we actually still make today conjugated estrogens. The brand name
Speaker 1: is premarin because it comes from pregnant mayor urine. Like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's literally a thing that we still do today.
Speaker 1: That is hilarious. It's beautiful, it's so good. Um. And
Speaker 1: So they were priestesses. They were like, you know, people
Speaker 1: would come to them to seek out their wisdom and
Speaker 1: they're like the like spiritual thing. And it was a
Speaker 1: it was like a bunch of trans women who like
Speaker 1: got high, told stories and probably sucked each other. And
Speaker 1: that sounds like a policule to me. But like the Cillian,
Speaker 1: the Scythians were like a nomadic group of people who
Speaker 1: would travel all around kind of what is now the
Speaker 1: Middle East. Um and yeah, it's I mean, I do
Speaker 1: love the idea of trans people having like specific like
Speaker 1: more esoteric insight almost naturally because they've had to deal
Speaker 1: with ideas of ontology, and ideas as ontology is just
Speaker 1: like the nature of being um and so having people
Speaker 1: with that having to deal with like the nature of
Speaker 1: reality from a much a younger age because their whole
Speaker 1: perception of reality and self is obviously so different because
Speaker 1: of their experience of being what is now called trans um.
Speaker 1: So it makes a lot of sense that a lot
Speaker 1: of these people would have been like basically different forms
Speaker 1: of Shabin's mediums. We'll just have like esoteric insight because
Speaker 1: they've been thinking about these types of like reality altering
Speaker 1: topics for so much longer because it's so much more
Speaker 1: personally affecting to them. Um. But yes, what I specifically
Speaker 1: read about the cythy and priestesses and like, oh my,
Speaker 1: they're just like doing the thing, just doing the thing.
Speaker 1: It turns out we've been doing this forever. My favorite
Speaker 1: account is one of the reasons they commanded respect of
Speaker 1: the like masculine leaders that would come to get information
Speaker 1: was because they were all terrified that they would inflict
Speaker 1: the poison of women, which of them it does spread
Speaker 1: by the way it is, it's highly contagiousous. But it's
Speaker 1: just the idea that like there was like some of
Speaker 1: the respect was from like this fear of being force
Speaker 1: femed is hilarious, from like this early BC, the primordial
Speaker 1: fear of the primordial fear. I was gonna say, Garrison,
Speaker 1: you mentioning like ontology. My original degree was in psychology
Speaker 1: and philosophy, So like, let's go, baby, we can go
Speaker 1: deep on some of this stuff. Sure, I'm sure, I'm
Speaker 1: sure we couldn't talk about mysticism and magic and gender
Speaker 1: for a long long time. Oh my god, there'll be
Speaker 1: a whole another podcast. Are big areas of interest. But
Speaker 1: I but I, but I super agree with you because
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this and I've ended up having
Speaker 1: conversations with a lot of my peers in pharmacy and
Speaker 1: in the university. Because people might not recognize this, but
Speaker 1: pharmacy is actually one of the more conservative spaces in healthcare. Uh.
Speaker 1: Like my my school had a dress code for this
Speaker 1: students until two years ago when I fought hard enough
Speaker 1: to get it removed, like it was wild. Um, like
Speaker 1: the Code of Conduct committee tried to get me, tried
Speaker 1: to prevent me from getting my ears pierced. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a wild space for me to exist in. Um
Speaker 1: it's extremely conservative, extremely traditional, like the some like yeah,
Speaker 1: I got stories that I'd love to tell if you
Speaker 1: wanted to hear them. But the thing that I think
Speaker 1: is really interesting is when you look at me in
Speaker 1: comparison to my my colleagues who are predominantly like Christian,
Speaker 1: predominantly like traditionalist, predominantly capitalist, and I roll in as
Speaker 1: this like anti capitalist, like anarchists, trans woman, who's Polly,
Speaker 1: who's pan sexual, who's a pagan? All the p's And
Speaker 1: it's like, well, once I question gender, I started realizing
Speaker 1: all of culture and society is bullshit, and now I
Speaker 1: can tell you the truth come to me. For the
Speaker 1: truth of reality, No even make sense in terms of
Speaker 1: like you know, why why did two trans women make
Speaker 1: the matrix? You're like, yeah, no, it's like it's it is.
Speaker 1: It is the same thing as your Your entire nature
Speaker 1: and basis of reality was severely questioned. So so you're
Speaker 1: trying to trying to understand these feelings. And for you know,
Speaker 1: mid modern days, we have like stuff like simulation theory,
Speaker 1: we have the matrix. UM, and then you know, but
Speaker 1: before before then, you know it would have been taken
Speaker 1: out in like spiritualism and religion and you know, the
Speaker 1: different levels of reality on like the whole like mystic
Speaker 1: side of things as opposed to like the more sci
Speaker 1: fi side of things. Um, but yeah, like it's it's
Speaker 1: all the same stuff. Like you're, you're, you're, you're playing
Speaker 1: with the same things. Um, yeah, it is. It is
Speaker 1: just a funny, a funny trend that once you, once
Speaker 1: you notice it, you'll you'll start seeing it in in
Speaker 1: like different places. Yeah. So we are still mystics who
Speaker 1: understand the true reality of the world and will force
Speaker 1: from you if you don't give us respect. I just
Speaker 1: don't see what the problem I believe that that was
Speaker 1: to take away from matrix resurrections. Oh yeah, I mean, well,
Speaker 1: of is there is there anything else you would want
Speaker 1: to you would want to add? Oh my goodness, Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Fight for trans people. One of the
Speaker 1: things that I end up always having to talk to
Speaker 1: my students about in colleagues and things is what ally means,
Speaker 1: because I've literally gotten into arguments with people who are like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, it's l g B t Q. I A
Speaker 1: because a standard for ally, and I'm like, oh, I
Speaker 1: will knife you, like like, it doesn't stand for ally,
Speaker 1: it stands for a sexual or very romantic of all
Speaker 1: of all of the other a's. Yes, but it's the
Speaker 1: it's this thing where people think being an ally is
Speaker 1: just being like like okay with a person existing the
Speaker 1: kind of like well if it makes you happy, which
Speaker 1: is like okay, motherfucker, that's not like that is so
Speaker 1: belittling of the experience. Um, that's not ally ship. To
Speaker 1: be an ally, you have to leverage your privilege by
Speaker 1: not being a member of that community to protect people
Speaker 1: in that community. You can be tolerant, but not an ally.
Speaker 1: And that's sort of where the old saying comes from
Speaker 1: that if that's what being an ally is to you,
Speaker 1: we don't need allies, we need accomplices. And Um. With
Speaker 1: the current legislative push against trans people, I mean like
Speaker 1: literally what I do is like a felony in three
Speaker 1: states now are almost a felony in three states, and
Speaker 1: it's going to be a growing number of states. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and it's just so unbelievably depressing. And there
Speaker 1: aren't enough I mean, there's a lot of trans and
Speaker 1: non binary and and every kind of expression you could want.
Speaker 1: People in this country way more than than a lot
Speaker 1: of surveys suspected. Um. But we're not enough to necessarily
Speaker 1: fight this in a way that isn't going to end
Speaker 1: up with increasing violence. I mean, the the FBI is
Speaker 1: statistics of random violence against in like hate crime specifically
Speaker 1: has been rising against LGBT people, especially trans people in
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, and I'm sure it's only
Speaker 1: going to get more in the next few years, still
Speaker 1: with all of the with the wave of stuff happening
Speaker 1: in the past few months. Yeah, So if you're if
Speaker 1: you're not, if you're assist person and you want to
Speaker 1: be an ally, you gotta fight for us. And if
Speaker 1: you're a trans person, if you don't have other reasons
Speaker 1: why you can't maybe arm yourself in some way at
Speaker 1: this point, if you if you feel mentally capable, it's
Speaker 1: not a bad idea to learn how to do things.
Speaker 1: It's not a not a bad idea to get stop
Speaker 1: the bleed training, not a bad idea to get you know,
Speaker 1: emergency first aid training, right all of all of all
Speaker 1: of the things. Because things are things are happening, and
Speaker 1: they're going to keep happening. Uh, one might say it
Speaker 1: could happen here. Wow, I know we really we really
Speaker 1: put this together, just pulled it back, just just really
Speaker 1: encapsulated it. So yeah, I think that does it for
Speaker 1: us today. UM, do do you have Do you have
Speaker 1: any uh plugables that you would like to plug? Yeah? Sure,
Speaker 1: so if you wanted to talk to me more, you can.
Speaker 1: I'm on Twitter for now, assuming that elon must doesn't
Speaker 1: make it entirely unlivable at Vixen, which but the w
Speaker 1: S two vs. I don't post a hole up you can.
Speaker 1: You can find me there. You can also just straight
Speaker 1: up email me if you had questions. My like work
Speaker 1: email for that purpose is just Victoria dot grieve at
Speaker 1: pit dot e d U I'd have I'd be happy
Speaker 1: to answer any questions that people have. Uh. And it's
Speaker 1: a robust university firewall, so if I get hey that
Speaker 1: that's fine. It won't get through. Um the and then
Speaker 1: outside of like my classes and stuff. The only other
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to plug because you brought it up.
Speaker 1: I am a frequent guest on a podcast that a
Speaker 1: friend of mine hosts called School of Movies, and we
Speaker 1: actually did Matrix two three and four UM and I
Speaker 1: was on those episodes and talked a lot about the
Speaker 1: trans narrative therein we also did an episode on Priscilla,
Speaker 1: Queen of the Desert that I'm really troubed because that's great.
Speaker 1: I was that was lucky enough to watch Prisiliquity of
Speaker 1: the Desert a few a few months ago UM with
Speaker 1: some queer friends of mine and with Hugo Weaving in
Speaker 1: in both of those he is he is. It is
Speaker 1: pretty It is pretty fun watching Hugo Weaving go from
Speaker 1: Agents Smith to his character and Priscilo Queen of the Desert.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful. It's a beautiful metamorphosis. It is. It is
Speaker 1: very good. But yeah, thank you so much for coming
Speaker 1: on to talk anytime. Thank you for listening to my
Speaker 1: little two parter on hormone replacement therapy. If you want
Speaker 1: to start reading more on the d I Y and
Speaker 1: mutual aid side of things, check out d I Y
Speaker 1: HRT dot, get hub dot io HRT dot Cafe and
Speaker 1: d I Y trans dot Luckie as a jumping off point.
Speaker 1: But obviously you don't everything to read on the internet
Speaker 1: as gospel. I do think it's worth learning how to
Speaker 1: make your own drugs possibly and learning how to source
Speaker 1: your nestrogen from places that are not just a doctor,
Speaker 1: because who knows what other states will start criminalizing getting
Speaker 1: drugs for doctor right it's it is. There seems to
Speaker 1: be a trend of making HRT illegal via the medical system.
Speaker 1: So this is something definitely to look into because it
Speaker 1: seems more and more people will face restrictions in this vein.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's kind of a big reason for why
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about this today on the pod.
Speaker 1: Big extra special thanks to Dr Victoria Luna Brennan Grieve
Speaker 1: for coming on to talk with me about gender affirming
Speaker 1: hormonal treatment. You can check her out or ask her
Speaker 1: questions on her Twitter, which can be found at vixen
Speaker 1: which with two vs for the w in which, or
Speaker 1: you can email her queries at Victoria dot Grieve at
Speaker 1: pit dot e d U. And that does it for
Speaker 1: us today, everybody. You can follow the show at Happened
Speaker 1: Here pod and cool Zone Media on Twitter and Instagram,
Speaker 1: and you can look at my late night gender hostile
Speaker 1: tweets at Hungry bow Tie. See you on the other side.
Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production of Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media. Visit our website
Speaker 1: cool zone media dot com, or check us out on
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts, you can find sources for It could
Speaker 1: happen here, Updated monthly at cool zone media dot com
Speaker 1: slash sources. Thanks for listening.