Hello everyone! I recently started T (huzzah!) and I thought I'd share my experience as there doesn't seem to be as many people who go this route than the "letter from therapist" route.
First and foremost, I want to emphasize how important I think therapy is. I personally did not have lots of "gender therapy" per se, but I was seeing a licensed psychologist for over a year and doing this really enabled me to recognize my feelings and emotions a lot better. I was in the military, only recently out (two months) so I wasn't exactly able to discuss gender related things either.
Now, on to the topic at hand. Informed Consent. I had no idea what that even was until about a month and a half ago when I stumbled upon the term somewhere in this forum. (Just in case anyone reading this is also unfamiliar, this page explains it)
https://www.susans.org/wiki/Informed_consentAfter researching a bit, I decided this was the route I wanted to go, and conveniently located about a 20 minute drive from my house was a Planned Parenthood location listed on the above link as a clinic that operated on informed consent. Lucky me. Unlucky for me is that they didn't accept my insurance (Tricare), but they do accept most others. More on that later.
Well, I called and scheduled my appointment, when prompted I told them I wanted to be seen for Transgender Services. On the day of my appointment, as I got to the counter to check in, the receptionist looked me up by last name then handed me a sticky note and asked me to write my preferred name on it. From that point on I was referred to by male pronouns and my preferred name, Konnor. She handed me two small packets of paper to fill out and bring back to her when done. One was a standard medical history and information form, and the other was all questions due to gender identity. Once those were done and I sat in the waiting room for awhile (they were quite busy) I was called back into a room. When the doctor came in she gave me the Informed Consent form, which basically has all the effects of testosterone written on it. Next to each line you must initial and at the end is a "I understand the risks and associated changes with Testosterone...." line which I signed and gave back to her. She asked me questions on gender identity, etc, and told me I'll need to do a blood lab. So a nurse came in, drew some blood samples, and the doc came back in saying she had written my prescription, was faxing it to Strohecker's Pharmacy and to give them a call so they could ship it to my address.
Bada bing bada boom that was it. Now like I said, since they didn't accept my insurance I had to pay out of pocket. I was a bit worried thinking it was going to come out to $200+ dollars. Nope. For the visit and lab and everything, it came out to about $70. Now they do operate on a sliding scale, so that's not a definitive price, but I will say I had two incomes from being on my final leave still technically in the army and working a part time job but getting full time hours. So I imagine it can be even cheaper.
Once I was done there, I had to wait until the next day to call Strohecker's as it was after 5pm when I was done. When I did call them, they were very, very friendly, had my prescription ready, and all I had to do was provide my email and home address, and then give them my card information to pay for the T. I don't remember the exact amount, but I believe the T came out to about $67 dollars, and they also gave me free needles and supplies, and shipped it priority. It arrived at my house in three days. Now I only need to go back to the clinic periodically for blood tests to check my T levels.
My total cost was about $140. Not bad, not bad at all.
Well, today is my 1 week on T mark. I am very grateful for so easily being able to start T, as I know it's not so easy for other guys. I hope sharing my story helps someone out there.
