So apparently, Inhouse Pharmacy — a site which some trans folks I know have been using to buy their hormones — is no longer shipping to the US due to legal troubles. Naturally, some people have responded to my friends’ disappointment by sanctimoniously declaring that “that’s what they get” for trying to import prescription drugs without a prescription.
Let me just remind you of some facts:
- To obtain a prescription for hormones, a trans person needs a letter from a psychotherapist stating that the trans person is, in fact, trans.
- In order to get this letter, the trans person typically has to go through months of therapy, the point of which is to convince the therapist that ou really is trans, and not lying or “deluded” (*sigh*). Ou also probably won’t get a letter if ou does not fit a binary gender.
- While insurance does usually cover psychotherapy, a whole lot of trans people can’t afford insurance.
- Without insurance, a single therapy session can easily cost more than an entire three months’ worth of hormones.
- Some trans people will commit suicide if they can’t transition.
See the problems? See why trans people might turn to online pharmacies out of desperation? Yeah. You try to stay safe and work within the system, but if you can’t… well, then you do what you have to. Because there’s no other choice.
And when people look down their noses at others for doing what they have to, I get angry.
