The reason vaginal atrophy in HRT is rarely discussed isn’t because some nefarious boogeyman wants to transgenderficate all your pretty lesbian crushes into chronic pelvic pain it’s because people don’t give a shit about transmasculine reproductive health and you hijacking the topic for your detransition propaganda will only make things worse as you discourage transmascs from researching the subject and learning that it’s treatable
“You’ll live with chronic pain for the rest of your life is it worth it” casual ableism aside you’re saying that as if vaginal atrophy doesn’t happen to half of all postmenopausal people, what makes you think you’re immune
Because I am on a mission to make sure everyone knows this and every time vaginal atrophy comes up, I will bring it up:
Vaginal atrophy is easily preventable and treatable. if YOU are on T and you’re experiencing it, PLEASE let your gyno/HRT doc know. They can prescribe topical estrogen which will treat the issue without interfering with your HRT!
I’ve looked into it a LITTLE and over the counter phyto-estrogen creams seem to have an effect but IDK if I’d 100% trust them.
Sorry, this is just super fucking important to me and literally everyone on T needs to know about it because when I was doing the research NO ONE brought up how easily it was treated until I looked into vaginal atrophy itself and found out because of how it’s treated in menopausal women.
When I talked to the doctor at planned parenthood she echoed this, too. That if vaginal atrophy starts to develop, I should just let her know so she can prescribe me topical estrogen to help!
the fact that we aren’t fucking told this is PART of the problem. The fact that we’re told it’s inevitable and untreatable is part of the problem. You don’t *have* to deal with that pain and discomfort.!!!
Topical estrogen won’t affect your T levels either, from what I know. It will just affect the vagina, so you don’t have to worry that your transition will be impacted if you do get vaginal atrophy treated. If you are worried about topical estrogen affecting your transition talk to your doctor! There’s no reason trans people should suffer out of fear and misinformation.
This is true! Be aware that whether you can get effective treatments over the counter will depend on the exact pharmacy laws in your area – for example, in NZ it’s a prescription-only medicine (but prescriptions are subsidised so this isn’t too bad).
This matters because there’s a bunch of products out there that claim to treat vaginal atrophy, including lube and “vaginal moisturisers”, which don’t have the estrogen in them that makes it work properly. You’ll probably get some relief from the moisturising but it won’t be reversing the atrophy. These products are available over the counter
and one is directly shilled by Buck Angel lmfaoso it can be tempting to go for them rather than going through the hassle of getting a script, but please, if you can, get the prescription stuff that works the best ^_^