TransGuys

Meet Mauricio

Mauricio Ochieng, 30, Kisumu state, Kenya

Mauricio travels seven hours on a bus to Nairobi to collect his testosterone injections. It’s a journey he’s been making for over a year. It’s worth it.

“With the injections my body has started changing, I look less ‘feminine’, my voice is deeper and I’m growing a beard,” he says. “I was finally on the way to becoming myself. I am a man. I was never a woman.”

Growing up in rural Kenya, about 350km from the capital Nairobi, Mauricio knew he was different. He has more than 150 cousins and couldn’t relate to any of them.

“I was the black sheep of the family.”

He knew that he was not a girl, despite his body. His parents believed he was a lesbian. That was bad enough, they said, but it was something they understood. When he told them that he was a man in a woman’s body, they made him leave the family home.

Mauricio was 16 and homeless. He was sexually assaulted multiple times. Just over a year later, he fell pregnant from one of the rapes. People called him a “chkora”, a slur for a street beggar.

He went to his mother’s house and said: “Please don’t make me give birth in the street like a dog.”

She let him come home.

Mauricio’s daughter was born in 2007. He worked at the local market, buying and selling shoes.

In 2018 he decided to begin his transition. Testosterone injections cost around 1,200 shilling per dose (about £9) - which is a day’s work.

The 14-hour round trip each month to collect his medication felt like a huge achievement. Mauricio was saving up for Top Surgery: to have his breasts removed.

Then coronavirus reached Kenya, and soon lockdown restrictions followed.

Mauricio does not have his next supply of testosterone.

“I’m having sleepless nights, depression,” he says. “What will happen if I cannot have access to my medication? What will all this pain have been for?

"I am a trans man in a transphobic country. If I don’t get my medication what will happen to my body - it is already changing. Will I look abnormal? Who is going to fight for us to be heard in this chaos?”

(Source: bbc.com)

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10 Ways To Avoid Getting Caught Up In a Testosterone Shortage

There’s zero indication that testosterone shortages are going away, so it’s important to arm yourself with information so that you know what to do when a shortage strikes. 

1. The best way to avoid a testosterone shortage is to not let yourself run out of T to begin with. It’s a good idea to always keep a backup vial around, but this is becoming harder to do in many areas of the U.S. where 10ml and 5ml vials are no longer dispensed and only 1ml vials are available. (Seemingly all of the sudden, pharmacies are enforcing the 28-day rule that calls for multi-dose vials to be discarded 28 days after first use.) If you can, leave a spare vial in your emergency kit, and order your testosterone prescription refill BEFORE you actually run out of T!

2. Get informed about the shortage. Talk with your pharmacist and look up information about the shortage online. You may be able to find out when the shortage is expected to end. In the U.S., you can use this USA Drug Shortage Search tool. In Canada, check here.

3. Take your prescription to another pharmacy. Pharmacies don’t all run out of testosterone at the same time, so if your pharmacy can’t fill your prescription crack the phone book and start calling all the pharmacies in your area, even pharmacies in nearby cities if you have to. You’ll probably need to see your doctor to move your prescription to a different pharmacy.

4. Switch to another brand or formulation. This can be harder to do than it sounds. First, you’ll have to see your doctor for a new prescription. Don’t delay as it’s unlikely that you’ll be the first in line for the alternative brand or formulation and what often happens during a shortage is that the alternative product also becomes unavailable due to increased demand.

In Canada, there are just two brands of injectable testosterone available. They have different concentrations of testosterone requiring a different dosage, as well as different suspension oils which some people are allergic to. If you obtain an alternative brand or formulation, be sure to read the label carefully and compare it to what you normally take.

Switching between different delivery methods, ie. intramuscular vs transdermal, can also lead to difficulty in maintaining stable hormone levels and it can take months for your body to adjust to the switch.

“Switching back and forth between different products is not ideal, and many doctors do not have experience in prescribing the different forms of testosterone,” said Dr Anastacia Tomson during the recent South African shortage.

Of course, be prepared to pay more as all the alternatives to T. cypionate and T. enanthate will be more expensive.

“I noticed a difference when I switched from Reandron to Testex, but this [shortage] is much worse. It’s not just about getting my period back, which is bad enough because it means reliving everything I’ve struggled to get away from, it’s about general changes in my body. I feel more sluggish and tired. And I’ve put on weight.” —Yerai, transgender man in Spain

5. Check with your local trans health clinic. If you have access to a trans health clinic, you may find that they keep some testosterone on hand and can give you shots during a shortage (provided you have an existing prescription.)

6. Get injectable T compounded. Only certain compounding pharmacies can make injectable testosterone so you’ll need to search around. Depending on where you live in the U.S., New Era Pharmacy in Portland, OR may be able to ship to you. Some downsides are that the accuracy of testosterone concentrations in compounded T has been questioned and compounded injectable testosterone can cost twice as much as what you’re used to spending on testosterone.

7. Get T from a friend. This is illegal and would likely be frowned upon by your prescribing doctor, but when times are tough sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

8. Ration your supply of testosterone. If you can reduce your dosage or frequency of injections, you might be able to ride out the shortage, though you probably won’t feel 100%.

9. Patience. If a testosterone shortage isn’t expected to last very long, you might be able to just wait it out, although symptoms of low T will start to creep up as soon as two weeks after a shot.

10. Underground labs. This is illegal and not recommended. Buying testosterone from a rogue internet pharmacy is a dangerous way to obtain medicine, but when you’re left without options the risks can look a little less menacing. If you’re forced to resort to this, you absolutely must purchase a testosterone testing kit.

Hopefully, you’ll never feel the effects of a testosterone shortage, but if you do, at least you’ve got a game plan now.

Source: Testosterone Shortages: Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come For YOU?

(Source: transguys.com)

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Safer Sex for Trans Bodies

Source: Safer Sex for Trans Bodies

(Source: trans-health.com)

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Chella Man @ NYFW2018

At the Asos’ debut U.S. presentation at New York Fashion Week: Men’s, which wrapped up on Thursday, artist Chella Man, who’s genderqueer, deaf and transitioning on testosterone, modeled a neat pair of patterned pants and a loose cardigan. 

“I always say be your own representation, because I didn’t have any deaf, genderqueer transitioning on testosterone young artists to ever look up to, so it’s an honor to be able to be that for myself,” Man said in an interview backstage at the Asos presentation.

Man has been incredibly open with his fans about his identity on his own YouTube page, offering insights into whether or not he is trans, as well as insights into how his voice has progressed since being on testosterone, and his top surgery.

(Source: mic.com)

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Finding a New Voice: Indigenous, Francophone, Queer, Songster Grey Gritt vies for Indigenous Music Award

Listening to Grey Gritt now, one may notice a different sound compared to their album Live at the NACC, which is up for an Indigenous Music Award on Friday.

That’s because Gritt’s voice is growing deeper, as the Yellowknife blues-folk musician — who identifies as transgender — has been taking testosterone over the past year.

“I feel like I’m getting to know my new voice, and it’s scary and exciting,” said Gritt, who is also one half of the Juno Award-winning duo Quantum Tangle.

Gritt said being busy with Quantum Tangle has meant less solo work for now, but added that working in a duo has been helpful during the vocal transformation.

“There’s a lot of fear with deciding to take hormones, and one of it being that your voice changes permanently,” Gritt explained.

“One of the reasons why I think … I focused on Quantum Tangle is that you’re sharing the attention and you’re sharing the performance, so it was also like, ‘Hey, if I can’t quite sing for a little while in the same way, we can modify our show together so that it can accommodate for my vocal change.’”

Read the full article >

Testosterone and the Trans Male Singing Voice >

(Source: cbc.ca)

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Book Box Set Giveaway

You’re invited to enter to win one of two box sets from Transgress Press that include the books Hung Jury: Testimonies of Genital Surgery by Transsexual Men and Below the Belt: Genital Talk by Men of Trans Experience.

Ends September 29. Enter now!

(Source: transguys.com)

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I’m living through the turmoil of HB2

That deal was signed on the anniversary of my friend’s death, his suicide. He was an 18-year-old trans person of colour. Me and two of my friends did a Chinese lantern for him in the backyard of my house that night. When I heard what was going on, it was a punch to the gut.

Before HB2, I didn’t really think about going into the bathroom. I started transitioning when I was 20, so nobody’s going to know I’m trans unless I tell them. So it didn’t really affect me, but now people are looking around or starting to target trans people. ‘Cisgender’ people are going to look around the bathrooms, “Oh, is there a trans person here,” that’s been brought up.

You’re losing sleep at night. You worry about your trans brothers and sisters who are not passing, or are either queer or gender non-conforming. You worry about the people you can’t protect, the people you love and care about who are unsafe now.

I’m a 27-year-old trans guy who’s just trying to make it in my community. I put myself through college to be a paramedic. I also do bartending. I do things normal people do. I take care of my parents. My father is 76 and lives with me. I take care of my mother and grandmother.

I can’t just up and leave North Carolina because of this bill. I’m living through the turmoil of HB2.

- Liam Kai Johns, 27, from Charlotte

Source: CBC

(Source: cbc.ca)

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