Injecting Hormones s a Teenager…

Oliver Frater is a Web Designer and University of Salford Graduate who undertook Gender Affirmation Surgery during his late teenage life. He talks through his trails and tribulations with self-identity and the changes which his body faced whilst transitioning.

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Eddie Dodds:

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I had a very high voice my body was very female by the time I started hormones I was 18 deciding to um go for the surgery and um how it was with the UK like NHS things like that so um so the start of my so in the UK with the NHS you have to go to therapy before you can um have any sort of medical

Intervention which I think is fair enough like and I think it helps support trans people because then people can’t turn around and be like oh well you’re just doing this because it’s a phase of because you have a literal diagnosis from someone in the medical field um so when I was

Uh I want to say 16 um I was referred um from my GP to like a gender specialist therapy service um that was in leads so I had um an appointment every like two months or something and me and my parents would go and they would talk to me and my parents

Together and then they would talk to just me and then they talked to just my parents and by the end of it basically they just said they they gave me a diagnosis of gender dysphoria which is the mismatch between your brain and your body um or your brain and your identity

That obviously includes your outwards appearance as well um and then with that diagnosis um I could have medical intervention so I knew that I wanted to start start hormones um and I cuz I had a very high voice and my body was very like female like I had because it’s

16 isn’t female’s um [ __ ] puberty slightly earlier so you would have been near the end yeah by the time I started hormones I was 18 I’d I’d finished was I 18 um yeah I was 18 I was done with puberty and honestly as [ __ ] as it was

Going through PU I mean it’s [ __ ] for anyone going through Pub but as hard as that was I’m glad I went through it because I knew who I was because I knew that that Pub wasn’t the pub I should have gone through wow um like every

Change that came with puberty I was like yeah this is this is not for me this is not what should be changing like fortnite updates that happening like I don’t want this update can we just like relax guys but your body yeah that must have been so hard changes in your body

Happening that you know consciously you don’t associate with your personality your way of live like wow yeah um so one of the options before you go on hormones is that you take something called puberty blockers which I don’t I mean I’m not a doctor I don’t know the science behind it but

Basically it blocks whatever hormone your PU e um produces so testosterone or estrogen um and basically if you’re a young kid who has been diagnosed to a service like this that’s the only medical intervention that they can give you to start with and the good thing with it is as soon as you

Stop taking it your body kicks back in it’s completely a temporary thing so um a lot of young people people when they are questioning their identity like before puberty or as they’re starting to go through it choose to take this um medication and it stops puberty from

Happening and again if one day they’re just like actually no I am yeah this gender you just stop taking it yeah and it continues um however for me I was done with puberty by the time I’d got to that stage so you ready get on the yeah so um

I also knew that I wanted at least the possibility of having biological children and if you start testosterone um it can make you infertile but if it doesn’t when it comes to wanting biological children you have to stop taking testosterone for a certain period

Of time to be able to so that your body can revert back to like the menstrual cycle and stuff like that so that you can do that and I knew I mean um periods and stuff like that for me were horrendous anyway like from a mental

Aspect so I knew that there was no chance in hell that I would want to do that but I wanted at least a chance of having a biological child so I went through um the egg freezing procedure so in I started that in uh January of

2020 so I uh no the end of 2020 um just after Co um luckily I was fortunate that my um my process was all covered by the NHS which I don’t know why it was cuz it’s not normally and by this time I was

18 so it wasn’t that I was under 18 um but I’m not compling yeah because fertility procedures are like really expensive so for sure I mean um so with um you going through that how sorry I’m just trying to get clear with um so you’ve frozen your eggs so then later on

In life if you wanted to have biological children you can so and and that would be through um like uh it would essentially be like surrogacy in the sense that my eggs would be um what’s the word would be like a like a like the way they do it

In the yeah it’s like IVF so my eggs would be fertilized that’s word fertilized with a sperm donor yeah and then they would be put into my partner wow so technically my partner would be like a surrogate for my child but obviously if we’re together then it’s it

Would just be like if if you like if you and your partner couldn’t have kids for some reason it would just be like if that was to happen for you guys yeah yeah that’s really good that you have the opportunity by the sounds of it not

A lot of people get that I I don’t I think it’s difficult for people to choose to do it because it’s a very invasive procedure and it’s I mean I don’t regret going through it would I do it again absolutely not like I for three or four months before the actual

Procedure I had to inject myself with hormones every day that like get everything inside ready um but I was I was living at that time as a guy I was completely out socially to everyone but every day I was actively injecting female hormones into myself

And it was almost like I know that this is going to sound so dramatic but it was like conversion therapy it was like okay mentally I know who I am everyone else now knows who I am let’s inject female hormones into myself every single day that like mentally it was really

Difficult for me and um again like the whole like menstrual cycle was emotionally hard for me anyway and I was actively having to like induce that yeah so any girl that complains about a period to you you must be like what the [ __ ] man you want to see what I’ve been

Through um and then the actual procedure itself was traumatic like I I mean I was you’re not put to sleep but you’re sedated um and as Sue I know that when you sedated like your emotions are all over the place anyway but I just remember for two hours just crying the

Entire time the procedure was happening um but I also now I think one because I was sedated I don’t really remember it but two I think my brain just doesn’t let me remember it like it was so emotionally traumatic that I’ve just like completely put it out of my brain he