9: Beginning treatment pt.2/Hormones pt. 1- My life as a hothouse plant

After a year on Oxandrolone it had come time for me to start hormone treatment. This was to ensure that I went through puberty like other girls my age. This firstly involved taking oestrogen but later involved taking progesterone to induce periods.

I had very mixed feelings about this. I felt highly uncomfortable about having to take tablets for my body to do something that happened to all my peers naturally. It felt like I was getting my femininity through a tablet. I wondered why I had to be put through the physical horrors of puberty if I was never going to be fertile. It took me some years to fully understand that there was more to it than that.

This was exacerbated by the way that I was treated at the TS clinic. The clinician would examine my breasts and pubic development every time I had an appointment in front of a group of medical students, often making comments such as 'coming along nicely!' I did not feel like a young woman but like a hothouse orchid the clinician was growing. The Clinician did not mean any malicious by their treatment. They were probably unaware just how inappropriate it was.

This had the effect of causing a serious disconnect between how I feel about myself both as a woman and as a sexual being. It has made me feel as though my femininity is something clinical and my sexual organs are a case study , not an integral part of my body and who I am as a person.
It has made me feel as though these parts of me are something which I can take no joy in and give no joy with. It has also made me feel as though any sexual partner would find me lacking as a woman or be repulsed by me.

I am also incredibly protective of my body and rather nervous about showing any part of it.

I am still a virgin at 37 and while there are a number of things which have lead to this, my treatment as a teenager at my TS clinic has not helped. It was only last year that a counsellor began to get me to explore myself as a woman and reclaim these parts of my body for myself. It is going to be a long journey!

I am not the only woman with TS who has been treated this way. I have heard various horror stories along these lines. Many women have serious issues with taking HRT. Some do not even bother. It is clear from the discussions I have had with them that the way they were treated either at time of diagnosis (for those who were later diagnoses) or the way they were treated while going through puberty is at the root of this. Not taking HRT is a way of reasserting some control over their bodies, trying to reclaim some kind of belief in their womanhood.

My current clinician is a very sweet person who is interested in trying to help women with TS overcome the issues they have with sexuality. Maybe looking at the treatment we received when younger.