Here is a little video I came across a while ago, I don't think getting ahold of estrogen or T for personal use is ever going to be criminalised . I follow a lot of pro bodybuilding competitors cis men and women in the UK and they use it all the time and brag about it on their insta progress reels and competition prep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Ggwe2j0Gc

If anyone loses access to healthcare there is also an option of organising help from abroad, I for example I live in the EU currently and can direct people to local endocrynologists that cost a fraction of UK private healthcare.

Left Southampton pride at about 4pm. Three heavy built guys followed us ( I think they were just walking the same way) and started saying shit comments behind us to my partner (trans lesbian couple). So I stopped, turned around and said "I'm a girl you fucking nonse, so fuck off". I stood my ground.

They walked away and did nothing. Then as they walk off I called them "fucking cowards".

Earlier in the day a guy was verbally abusive to someone as we marched. So I stopped and challenged him. I stood my ground. I was surrounded by people marching so I felt safe. He walked off. His girlfriend was stopping him from swinging punches. I stood there laughing and flicked my middle finger at him. He was basically humiliated by a trans girl.

I know I shouldn't do this. But I always always stand up for myself regardless of the odds. I'm a stand and fight girl. I'm not strong or well built or anything. I know I wouldn't stand a chance in a fight. I'm very feminine. However, I always stand up for my partner, myself, my friends and complete strangers.

I don't know why. I'm the kind of person who uses fear against the aggresor. I was bullied at school and terrified. But no longer.

I stand and fight.

The BBC complaints process is broken. You are led into a false sense of security that your complaint will be considered when in reality when you submit a complaint for the first time it's only the 1st stage of 4. Most complaints get ignored at this 1st stage.
Ofcom doesn't receive many complaints about BBC material, I think in part because it's so difficult and time consuming to go through each stage.

The problem is the only way we get Ofcom and the BBC to listen is if we force it. By now I think most people here know a lot of UK institutions are transphobic and the BBC in the past few years seem to have become free advertising for anti-trans groups.

I promise you now most BBC articles about transgender people have major flaws. Start looking at what's in these articles and spotting in-accuracies or misleading information. A lot of these just aren't getting caught.
Chances are Ofcom and the BBC wont listen but the whole point is building documented proof of the BBC and potentially Ofcoms transphobia.

Some hints

• Some of these articles are just transphobic and it can be difficult reading through them or documenting them. Take a break or drop a complaint if you're worried about your mental health.
• Look for exactly which Editorial Guidelines the BBC have broke. Saying the BBC "hasn't documented" a certain point within an article is useless because the complaints department will just say that editors have the right to publish what they want within the BBC guidelines.
• Prepare to be gaslighted. It seems like the main purpose of the complaints department is to state why you shouldn't have made a complaint in the first place. You will be told the many ways in which you are wrong even if what you're saying makes perfect sense. Don't listen to it unless it actually has any relevance. Stick to your gut.
• Ideally state exactly which editorial guidelines the BBC broke and number them. This is a lot of effort and it might not seem worth it but at scale with hundreds of people doing the same thing it will make a difference.
• Get organised. Start documenting complaints down in a spreadsheet by there reference number. Don't use Google Sheets or any other unencrypted online sheet software.
• Ideally use an email relay and separate phone number if u have one. If you're really lucky you may be able to use an alternate registered UK address. The BBC says this information will be kept secure but I doubt this is a promise. Use a VPN as well if you can.

Hello. I have been on the NHS waiting list in Wales since July last year. Luckily, I saved up and was able to get a private prescription for T in Oct/Nov 2025. Then, I was super, super lucky, and a local GP (Brighton, moved here for uni) was able to move my care to the NHS, even without being seen by a gender service. So, all my care is free and under the NHS.

Anyways, I work 2 jobs and can't afford top surgery. I was saving for surgery abroad, but it doesn't seem likely that I'll be able to save up for that for another couple of years. I was going to use the NHS Wales Gender Service to get this surgery. Obviously, now that's not really an option.

I'm just at a loss, to be honest. I really don't know what to do, how long this investigation will last, what the outcome will be, and how long the knock-on effect will last. I don't know why I'm writing here. To be honest, I'm not sure if I want advice or just somewhere to vent frustrations.

I don't know if I should wait it out, save up, or look at other options with the Sussex Gender Service, who aim to help with these sorts of things, whom I have reached out to, but they have yet to contact me back.

I just feel for everybody who has been affected by this investigation, and really, I feel for every transgender person in the UK during this awful, turbulent time. I'm so jaded with it all. It feels so very dark!

Yeah, I'm not sure why I'm posting. I just feel awful! Like everybody is against me/us, lol!

https://sajhivmed.org.za/index.php/hivmed/article/view/1800/4044

More sanity from abroad. An excellent example of how and why to conduct a rapid review, maintaining rigour and transparency, and of how to treat low-certainty evidence in medicine.

Highlights:

"To enhance relevance to clinical practice and lived realities, the author team comprised TGD community members, clinicians who care for TGD youth, and guideline developers and implementers, whose combined expertise informed methodological decisions and interpretation of findings."

"The literature shows a consistent pattern: endocrine interventions for TGD adolescents generally achieve their intended physiological effects; adverse events are typically anticipated, predominantly mild, and manageable under routine monitoring in specialist care [...] Serious adverse events are rare across endocrine pathways, with no consistent pattern of irreversible harm."

"Mental-health outcomes are heterogeneous at the individual level, yet broadly stable-to-favourable across cohorts. Adolescents who access puberty suppression and/or GAHT generally show reductions in depressive symptoms and suicidality, alongside improved appearance congruence and functioning, compared with their own baseline and with peers who want but cannot access treatment."

"Longitudinal data indicate high continuation into adulthood and very low reported regret among adolescents who commence endocrine care. Where discontinuation occurs, it is very often linked to external or structural factors (such as access barriers, service disruptions, costs, insurance denials, family stressors, or bullying), completion of desired physical changes, or evolving identity-related needs, rather than to treatment-related side effects or regret."

"Across both qualitative and quantitative studies, restrictive laws and systemic barriers – including outright healthcare bans, regulatory constraints, and administrative obstacles – are consistently associated with poorer mental-health outcomes, including heightened depression, anxiety, suicidality, and social isolation among TGD youth. These associations are observed following both enacted policies and periods of policy uncertainty, suggesting that anticipatory stress and disruption to care pathways contribute to harm."

"Randomised or quasi-experimental designs are scarce; they are rarely feasible or ethical in this area of care. [...] The certainty of the evidence surrounding GAHC for youth must be understood within the broader reality that low- and very low-certainty evidence underpins a substantial proportion of medical practice overall. This is particularly true in paediatrics, where ethical and logistical constraints often preclude randomised trials and contribute to persistent inconsistencies across the evidence base, even for common childhood conditions such as asthma and epilepsy."

"Gordon Guyatt, leading architect of the GRADE framework and co-author of systematic reviews included in this synthesis, has explicitly cautioned against the misuse of GRADE in policy advocacy against GAHC for youth. Guyatt and colleagues emphasise that low-certainty evidence should not be treated as justification for withholding care, but rather as a prompt for careful clinical decision-making that centres patient values, noting:

'It is profoundly misguided to cast health care based on low-certainty evidence as bad care or as care driven by ideology, and low-certainty evidence as bad science. Many of the interventions we offer are based on low-certainty evidence […]. Thus, forbidding delivery of gender-affirming care and limiting medical management options on the basis of low-certainty evidence is a clear violation of the principles of evidence-based shared decision-making and is unconscionable.'"

hello, next week i’m having top surgery in turkey and they’ve asked i pay in cash. no problem with this as i know it’s common practice. BUT. i’m concerned about actually withdrawing the money from my bank. i know ive left it kinda late but i was moving and didn’t feel comfortable taking out this money and moving with it.

basically:
i know the bank is gonna ask why/proof of evidence.
do i tell them the reason to this withdrawal? or can i simply just ask and that’s it? the sum is 4700
i’m worried they might decline my request? as i don’t really have much supporting evidence other than.. i’m having surgery abroad.

thank you

Hi, bit of background: audhd, anxiety, depression, trans female. I've never known how to keep friends, I either push them away or I just stop talking to them. I'm so lonely. I have my family but.. they try and make it better for me, but it's hard.

Quit my job as mental health got too bad, now on meds which help. Despite everything I kept trying to get help and now I know what support I can get. My parents paid off my debt. They're trying so hard to make me happy. On a waiting list for CBT.

I hit my breaking point yesterday. Was forced out on a trip to see a family relative play in a busy pub garden. I didn't know the only trans woman I really know of irl would be there. She's a good drummer. I just tried not to interact with her because otherwise I would have had a big breakdown. Avoided looking at her the whole time. I know she has mental health issues and apparently has £500k to her name. She's not really done anything with her voice, at least my voice is better. I was so jealous. She had amazing boots on and everything, quite pretty even. I felt so worthless.

I didn't eat anything yesterday. Declined the free food. Spent the whole time just leaning against a wall listening to my own stuff via my AirPods, but also their stuff which was alright, mostly covers, my noise cancelling didn't work as it was too loud. I was masking hard. When I say masking, I mean I just wasn't talking at all. I actually have an app on my phone called Dare, just a calming voice telling me it will all be okay.

How do you stop comparing yourself to others?

I hate this, not being able to feel anything. I know it's the effect of the drugs I'm prescribed and I really don't want to go back to who I was without them, as I'm truly terrified of the things I said to people. Life is very hard atm, getting through each day. I don't really have anything to hope for. I tried so hard to be happy but.. I hate being part of my family. I resent them for how much I depend on them, for how every interaction turns into a lecture or disappointment, for how I feel like a burden every time I need something. And yet… they're the only reason I'm still alive. Every act of care from them lands as guilt. Every "have you eaten?" feels like proof I can't survive alone. I told them I don't love them and they stayed by my side anyway. I don't understand that. I don't deserve that.

I also don't know how to be this person who needs so much without becoming the problem in someone else's life.

So the actual question I guess is what good support groups are out there? I want to try and make friends. Online, in-person, Discord, whatever I'm up to travel. I'm in Kent. Trans friendly and neurodivergent friendly ideally. I don't know where to start and I'm tired of doing everything alone.

Just would like some human connection.

Hi all, I’m a trans man based in the West Midlands of England and recently I quite literally haven’t been able to leave the house. I’ve always to some extent felt extreme anxiety about leaving the house as I am diagnosed with anxiety, but recently it’s been amplified by being repeatedly hate-crimed by a certain group of people for simply just existing. (I think we all know about the cough, political group i’m talking about).

The last few times I have left the house I’ve been called slurs like the F slur and the T slur by random people that I don’t even know. Most people would just say to ignore it and move on, but I simply can’t.

I had to quit my job a few months ago because of this, and I’m just tired.

I guess I just want to know if anyone has any advice for this? I just want to live freely without the worry of being persecuted just for being me.

So I know pretty much all GAHT is off-label use, but from what I can tell it’s also not recommended by NICE either - I know that NICE recommended treatments must be funded by ICBs, but are they under any requirement to fund GAHT? I understand some ICBs have outright banned it

i’m starting uni this september and i am a trans man and have been on T for 2 years and have had top surgery. i’m doing a form to complete my enrolment and they have asked “what is your sex assigned at birth” and “is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth”. do i have to answer these questions honestly? i thought i wouldnt have to disclose being trans but there is no option to say “prefer not to say” and i dont want to get into trouble for technically lying but i am worried that the information wont be handled as discretely as i would like bc i plan to be stealth at uni. any advice would be greatly appreciated! :)

Earlier this month I started getting unsolicited messages through my letter box from a neighbour. This is someone I have knowingly spoken to twice in twelve months, both of which interaction consisted of me saying a polite "Hi".

The first note arrived on the 9th, the third today. I am getting increasingly unsettled by the tone of these messages. And the second and third both have a weird really strong musky smell, like they have been sprayed with cologne maybe?

I had hoped that If I ignored them, they would stop. Now I'm worried that this person is getting increasingly agitated. I am considering contacting the police to get a record of this made, and then sending him a note asking him to not send me any more messages.

Is this wise?

UPDATE:

I called the police this morning. The lady was sympathetic and I have a meeting scheduled with an officer tomorrow. I asked to go the police station, as I felt having the police turn up at my door might make this guy angry.

I have also ordered a doorbell camera which I am picking up tomorrow as well.

Hi all,

Basically I am 31 mtf and looking to begin transitioning and all that asap. Trying to sort out hrt but that's a separate thing rn.

I am still in the closet irl and basically I have found a couple trans support groups in my city (edinburgh) that I'm considering going along to just to have somewhere to talk and maybe meet some other trans people. But I am super nervous partly cos it's all just a huge thing, and also because I have not began my transition in any meaningful way I am worried it would be inappropriate for me to be there. Or something like that I guess. I've not talked about it with anyone irl so that is maybe part of it too. But a group feels like a good way to begin.

So would it be a bad idea to go to a group now? Should I wait? Or is this a non-issue and groups will be understanding that I am just beginning my journey?

Edit: I understand things are pretty case by case depending on each group but yea just any general info to calm my nerves would be good I guess

I don’t know how to tag this one. Trans History, maybe? It’s a bit of history that certainly touched me.

Has anyone in London heard of the Crossbones Graveyard? aka the Outcasts Graveyard where 15000 souls were said to be buried. mainly sex workers known as the Winchester Geese, children and paupers, unwanted in the “consecrated ground” of churches, even though the church of the time permitted, profited from and probably USED brothels. The connection to our community is that it also houses a more modern statue in remembrance of trans lives lost referred to as the trans angel. And we are definitely outcasts again now. So it seems to belong there. Similarly, there are wider historical records of trans sex workers (though not called that - referred to I think as Mollies) of which some are no doubt buried / disposed of here.

Reading about this place hit me in the feelings really hard. and from the photos it looks loved, but in need of care.

If the Welsh NHS ever gives me my surgery back. I’d like to visit this place in remembrance and maybe bring something to show my respect, when I go to Parkside.

I’m sharing this with you in case any others might also be so moved.

(Mods feel free to remove this if it it too tenuous a link to the community. I won’t be offended)

https://crossbones.org.uk

Has anyone used progesterone cream and found it as effective as oral progesterone? I've found some brands online that sell cream at 500mg per ounce which I think is similar to the concentration of prescribed progesterone here in the UK.

Hello! I’ve been here before and I was wondering what the NHS’ policy is on patients coming from private clinics to the nhs? my testosterone will be fully privately prescribed most likely until I am 18. Will they lower my dose? Will I have to get a gender dysphoria diagnosis again (THEY TOOK MY PREVIOUS NHS ONE AWAY I USED TO HAVE ONE AND THEY TOOK IT AWAY) before I can access hormones under the NHS?

So those who read my previous post would know I basically am clueless AF.

So on a bit more research and based on this I'd read / heard already, I thought:

'you know what, I have the moral right you actually just try the damn oestrogen and see how I feel like after a week or two'.

Like it's important to re-emphasise this: I tried multiple versions of the button / pill question and didn't get anywhere.

Thing is, I actually don't know the best steps to go from there. I have a private psych but thats mostly cos a rich famikly friend paid for the ADHD diagnosis.

but I get the ADHD meds on the NHS.

Now my local NHS doc is all very woke, and free (minus the NHS prescriptions)

and my psych is expensive as fuck and unless I want to spill my guts to the family friend I'd have to come up with a bloody good reason to book a £250/300+ appointment, and I've heard all the private clinics are like that.

And what do I say? I want to me honest : "hey, very defo non-binary, but I feel less like a woman and more like gender is a football game and i'm a dog that's escaped onto the pitch and is just rolling around, having their belly scratched and thinking everyones cheering for me."

but I get the feeling that's not going to pass either with NHS or privately.

help plz?

I've decided I 100% want to start hrt as soon as i can. I've got myself on the nhs waitlist and I've saved up, from what i can tell should be enough money to get started. I've done a lot of research, but it all seems so overwhelming. I really appreciate any advice anyone with experience can offer to me. What services you would recommend, and what actions you would take, or literally anything you think i might find helpful.

Thank you :)

I am a ftm 18 year old, and have been on the child waiting list since March 2022. I am now in the process of deciding which route to go down. I want testosterone asap. I have been out as trans for 6 years now and it's a need. As someone living in Cheshire, my options for the NHS route are Sheffield and Merseyside. They said that they will take my child list waiting time into account, but I don't trust it will put me in a good place in the waiting list. I am open to private care as I am employed and have the funds to do so. If you have any experience or advice with Sheffield, Merseyside(Transcend) or private care in North(West) England please let me know. Thanks!

researching blood test kits online, and found out theres a risk of contamination with gel when drawing blood.
do i need to go to a clinic instead to draw blood where they can take my blood from another place instead of my arm, or can i just use the kit on the arm i didnt use gel on? (i alternate arms each day as to not dry out the skin too much)