one of these days I am gonna start brewing my own oestrogen
@celesteh
1. Yeah... I think I would want to get a trained chemist to test a sample for potency.
2. Sounds interesting. I think the politics can go either way? I mean, democratising the skill set could be the first step to a serious attempt to displace the medical-industrial complex with a more collectivist means of providing treatment. In other words: "Seize the means of hormone production!"
@celesteh
further thoughts on 2: I think the more worrying thing is the "cis-led" bit than the "hacking" bit, if you see where I'm coming from?
I think universal care in the US is an achievable and necessary goal and part of why I'm dubious is that I'm not sure this advances that goal. But, again, I can dig up their info if you're interested.
@celesteh I would be interested. And yes, I don't think this is likely to bring about a universal health system, but in the UK people are suffering at the hands of their universal health system so it's good to be able to provide alternatives? And in a US context, it might at least bring the price of hormone treatments down.
The position of trans men is not so easy, because testosterone is a controlled substance. Athletes were hurting themselves by using it in extremely large doses, so any attempt to homebrew would be illegal.
Anyway, the only reason hormones are expensive in the US is price-gouging, as they are really cheap to produce. Every problem is a policy problem....
@celesteh It is low, but it's still a cost burden on some people, and it requires a fixed address. Would be much nicer if you could just grab a box at a drop-in clinic or something. :D
@celesteh Also lots of GPs don't like to do the monitoring. At one point I was trying to get a local sexual health clinic provide monitoring tests (they do it for steroid users so it's not outside the realm of possibility) but I burned out before I could see it through :(
@celesteh I'm confused. Where is "here"?
1. I knew somebody who did this and damaged her liver because she was getting the dosages wrong.
2. There is a cis-lead science/art project working to do this with/for trans women. They're based in the US at a university. I can dig up their names if you're interested. It was started by a cis het man who wanted to brew birth control for his girlfriend, but then he was joined by a cis woman who thought it might be useful to teach trans women who to splice genes for oestrogen production. It's meant to be political, but I found it such an alarmingly american way to respond to the healthcare crisis (read: 'hacking!' rather than collective action) that I was kind of alarmed by the whole thing.