Howard Brown Health Center in Chicago (HBHC) has instituted a program called Trans Hormones – Informed Consent (THInC).  "It is a comprehensive 3-step program designed to assist those interested in accessing hormones in an efficient, supportive and validating manner."

Effectively, this removes the need for months of therapy and removes gender identity issues from mental disorder status.

If you want to learn more about HBHC Transgender Health Services click HERE.

...and why aren't they in Britain!

There's loads of places you can go already that work on informed consent.

Hell I have an informed consent form right in front of me all ready for when this kid pops out

Here in Ontario, the Sherbourne clinic publishes their protocols on their website, and I've been told I can, if I wish, print them out or otherwise convey them to my doctor, who could get me started on HRT.  I'm not quite ready for that, I think, but that's an option, apparently...

Wow, is this everywhere, or just in some places?

OMG, they actually use the term "gender queer" in the brochure.

For those down South, there's Ochsner in Louisiana. I made contact by email requesting HRT evaluation and walked out of the first visit with prescriptions in hand. I was asked if I'd like therapy going forward, which seemed like a good idea to me (major life change, after all), but they don't seem open to the idea that my transition is anything other than a quality of life improvement.

Quote from: SydneyTinker on August 24, 2010, 06:01:33 PMI was asked if I'd like therapy going forward, which seemed like a good idea to me (major life change, after all), but they don't seem open to the idea that my transition is anything other than a quality of life improvement.

Wow, that's a really encouraging sign.  I had one today also - I spoke with a therapist to make an appointment, and one thing she said was that the local GIC (CAMH) takes a very "medical" (pathologizing) viewpoint regarding transition, and that she doesn't take that view at all.  So I like her already.  It's very encouraging to encounter professionals who take such an enlightened view of things.

Therapy is a pain. Some people just don't really need therapy.

But I don't think I could get around that, being underage and all. Where I go my therapist refers to it as a medical condition so yeah, pathologizing but what can we do? It's a means to treatment (why fix it if it isn't broken?)

Well, in my case, I think therapy might be really useful.  I've spent most of my life trying to run from, minimize, explain away (to myself), and otherwise deny my condition.  Even got married and raised 3 kids to adulthood.  And now I'm faced with the task of transitioning, which will probably mean the end of my 31-year marriage, and lots of pain and agony to go around.  So naturally I'm a bit conflicted about that, and I'm hoping the therapist will help me with that.  But yeah, if I were still a teenager, and felt happy and whole as a TS, then I'd agree therapy might be a waste of time.  Everyone has their own story, and their own needs.

Quote from: SydneyTinker on August 24, 2010, 06:01:33 PM
OMG, they actually use the term "gender queer" in the brochure.

For those down South, there's Ochsner in Louisiana. I made contact by email requesting HRT evaluation and walked out of the first visit with prescriptions in hand. I was asked if I'd like therapy going forward, which seemed like a good idea to me (major life change, after all), but they don't seem open to the idea that my transition is anything other than a quality of life improvement.

Is this the same therapist you mentioned earlier? Costs $400 a session?

laying aside the potential need for future therapy what would be the cost of just going back for the necessary appearances to keep the prescriptions current?

My therapist and primary physician seem resolutely against reinforcing any sense of pathology I bring to this business.

If I want prescriptions, letters, etc., those are no problem. But they seem to stand united between me and any suggestion that something is wrong with me, or that my dysphoria entails some diagnosis of a disorder.

Honestly, though, starting puberty at 39 is a situation in which I feel perfectly cool hashing out stuff with my therapist. She just seems to steer the discussion more toward what's eating me and away from fixating on transition.

Quote from: Tammy Hope on August 24, 2010, 08:35:12 PM
Is this the same therapist you mentioned earlier? Costs $400 a session?

laying aside the potential need for future therapy what would be the cost of just going back for the necessary appearances to keep the prescriptions current?

Same one, yes. However, digging through my box o' hospital bills for the year in an attempt to answer the question, it seems that the therapist sessions range considerably in price, presumably based on straight time billed. At least one was just over $150.

Looks like I'd have to dig through my insurance statements to really say, but I think just the medical office visits are under a hundred a pop.

Since I go to the same place on the same days for everything from cardiology to therapy & HRT, it's sort of a hurricane of numbers.

I'm in Ontario.

My doctor ran an informed consent program.  I was on hormones about two months before therapy.  She moved her practice to Hamilton, but found me another doctor who would continue my treatment.

Steph

Quote from: SydneyTinker on August 24, 2010, 08:50:23 PM
Same one, yes. However, digging through my box o' hospital bills for the year in an attempt to answer the question, it seems that the therapist sessions range considerably in price, presumably based on straight time billed. At least one was just over $150.

Looks like I'd have to dig through my insurance statements to really say, but I think just the medical office visits are under a hundred a pop.

Since I go to the same place on the same days for everything from cardiology to therapy & HRT, it's sort of a hurricane of numbers.

Ok....I'm 250 miles north of you but let's lay aside travel expenses...if you can sort it out, I'd love to know what I'd be looking at if i simply drove down, had the one session and got approved (which seems to be pretty much the default status) and then did whatever endo stuff or whatever was necessary to go away with a prescription.

(or, alternately, PM me a name and a phone number and i could see if they could tell me on the phone, given that i'd almost certainly be private pay unless Toyota MMC or something rescues me)

I'll just PM you the contact info for the MD who handles the hormones & other medical aspects of the process. I don't think you actually have to get clearance from a therapist.

It's not uncommon for some of us in the central MS area to actually just schedule our appointments on the same day & ride together, BTW.

You've got half a dozen ways to reach me by now if you need to touch base personally. heh

I'm in therapy, and my doctor is all set to write me my "letter," but I think this is a great step forward. If anyone has read Julia Serano's book "Whipping Girl," she really persuasively argues that a lot of the "gatekeeping" functions the medical establishment uses to keep hormones away from trans people who need them ought to be razed to the ground.

Personally, I'm a highly educated, intelligent person, and I completely grasp the effects of hormones (and my reaction to hearing those effects? "Woo-Hoo! Now pill me up!"). While I've gone through a part of the "gatekeeping" process, I don't really feel I needed it. Therapy has helped with other problems I'm having, but I didn't need therapy to figure out if I wanted to transition.

Does anyone know if there are "informed consent" providers of hormones in Ohio? I'd settle for Michigan and/or Indiana too.

I never got a letter.  When I asked my family physician for hormones, he said that he knew I was a careful, thoughtful person so he prescribed them.  I was lucky.

Therapy helped me a lot.  Transition was a life-altering process.  I had one of the easiest possible, I think, but part of the reason for that was that I had someone to talk to who was trained to help me through the process.

- Kate

I think the "Informed Consent" stuff is a good idea.

I had to deal with a nice, but old-school gatekeeper as there was nobody else around in my region who was okay and who could take care of the gender sh*t. I never wanted to be in therapy for the gender stuff, and even less to be forced to go to therapy to get on T. But no other way to get at hormones. Well and he requested 6 months real-life test before hormones, full-time of course, one year before I ended university so what's the point outing myself just before it all ends? I just found that plain stupid. Cause I mostly did not pass before hormones, no matter what. Moreover, it's a stupid request for FTMs - most will pass on hormones, but not before, point. Well so I had to lie at him consequently. As I had my own mind and did not adhere to his strict rule and wanted to be free to transition my own way (official German rule by the way, a strict & stupid deviation of the SOC). But I needed the PAPER for the testosterone, so I had to play the game. And had to tell him some stuff about my sexuality as well, but of course I did not tell anything about all my kinks and stuff in order not to be checked in detail about that crap. No one's business but mine. My paper says I'm a bore in bed but have used strap-ons on my ex-girlfriend and one of my ex-boyfriends. Haha. That's maybe 2% of what's interesting about my sex life. Sorry, but I cannot open my soul to a gatekeeper, that's a no-go on it's own.

The "gatekeeper function" of my old-school therapist had only one effect on me - it was counter-productive. I wanted to wait one year before getting on T anyway, just to go sure, so no potential trouble from my side. And I cannot stand being patronized about HOW exactly I have to transition, especially not the RLT before hormones sh*it. I'm not gonna go into details here, but this gatekeeping ripped open traumas again which had healed before as it happened to push the very few buttons you can push to really freak me out. And for a while I really thougth I needed a therapy to get over that therapy as I had tried to get through that stuff without being re-traumatized as much as I could but I could not avoid that effect completely...

Oh and his method to check whether I still had dissociative identity disorder (DID) did not work either. (I had DID, but mostly cured by then). He tried to trick me into believing it was another day of the week than it was, I corrected him and he was relieved. He made that several times. Other people of my self-help group, when I told them and thought the poor guy was just getting old, told me he always does that to rule out Schizophrenia, DID etc. I could have passed this therapist's test with my DID being full-blown and us being hi-jacked by a personality wanting to transition. As we always knew which day of the week it was when someone asked, especially in "trial mode". You always find someone inside willing to answer that kind of questions once you're enough people inside.

So I think this "informed consent" thing is useful.

This is a VERY good development.  Thank goodness programs like this one are coming about.

I did therapy in the traditional way.  Actually, I enjoyed it.  However, what really bums me out is the medicalization of the transition process.  Just to get my hormone replacement therapy and blockade costs me a bundle, believe me.  Outrageous.  The doctors are greedy ... period.  Like, $300 for about 5 minutes of their time and many hundreds more in laboratory fees.  B.S.  Arggh!   

Quote from: SydneyTinker on August 24, 2010, 06:01:33 PM
OMG, they actually use the term "gender queer" in the brochure.

For those down South, there's Ochsner in Louisiana. I made contact by email requesting HRT evaluation and walked out of the first visit with prescriptions in hand. I was asked if I'd like therapy going forward, which seemed like a good idea to me (major life change, after all), but they don't seem open to the idea that my transition is anything other than a quality of life improvement.

Hello, I just moved to Louisiana and was doing a search on doctors down here, what part of La are they in, could you give me some contact info for them?  Thank you.