There are risks associated with HRT but as with anything there are risks associated with not taking it as well, and for some people those can be serious and life threatening. A common talking point that people who want to restrict access to hormones bring up has to do with the “irreversible changes” that are associated with taking hormones. This fails to take into account that our bodies are changing in irreversible ways all the time, and for many people these “irreversible changes” are highly desirable! Taking exogenous hormones is simply taking the reins of that change and moving it in the direction that feels more aligned with how you want to be.
While there are innumerable barriers in place to prevent people (especially trans people) from accessing hormones like estradiol there are comparatively few mechanisms in place to ensure that everyone that wants hormones has access to them. Furthermore, even when the medical establishment is able to meet our needs it’s done so on the terms of insurance corporations, medical review boards, the state, the family, and other institutions that have historically served to oppress, exploit, and exclude people. These institutions restrict access to things like hormones in order to reinforce cisheteronormativity (the idea that being cis and straight is the only “correct” or “natural” way to be). They want to reinforce these ideas and gate-keeping structures in order to maintain power and control over people’s bodily autonomy because that power and control helps them maintain control of all other aspects of our lives. Rather than trying to work within and validate the existence of these institutions we deliberately choose to work outside of them. We believe everyone should be free of the coercive power of the state and the medical establishment, and should have access to the tools needed to shape their bodies in the way that they want. We’d rather risk going to jail trying to help other people meet their needs than collaborate with a system responsible for our oppression to begin with. The term we usually use for this is mutual aid – which is just a fancy term for cooperating with other people to meet your needs. Mutual aid is one of the basic tenets of anarchism and as anarchists is something we hold dearly.
The state would tell us that this can’t be done. Only huge institutions can meet people’s needs and even then they have to adopt repressive practices to do so. We are told there is no realistic alternative to this. If you’re reading this zine and holding a vial of estradiol in your hands we’ve proven them wrong. By making estradiol widely and easily available at low/no cost we help people access a greater degree of bodily autonomy than the existing medical establishment. If we can poke a hole in the supposed necessity of these institutions for hormone access, maybe others will start to question their necessity in other contexts too.
We can have freedom from coercion and hierarchy while still providing for each other’s needs (whatever they may be) through building alternatives based on solidarity and mutual aid. If you’re on board with this vision and want to learn more about anarchist politics, stop by whatever anarchist book store/infoshop/social center is nearest to you. If you like the people and projects you learn about there – stick around! Talk to other people and find out how you can plug into things.
Lastly, if this project excites you and you’d like to see it expand consider starting your own chapter. There are step by step instructions further down on how to do so. It takes a bit of money up front and a couple friends but it is doable task. We need as many people as possible committed to acting in accordance with these principles in order to challenge the structures that dominate and oppress us.
As trans healthcare – and other forms of bodily autonomy – are increasingly restricted and criminalized, we find it valuable to generalize the skills and tools to ensure we continue to have access to hormones, regardless of the law. We aim not to become a centralized gray-market pharmacy but rather one of many many groups and people capable of producing and sharing the things we need. Redundancy is good! Also, as healthcare generally becomes more difficult to access and the government becomes increasingly fascistic, we find making our own estrogen to be a fairly low-barrier way to build and practice skills that will only become more pertinent – working together as a group, navigating the internet and making purchases anonymously, setting up a clean room and sanitizing equipment, and basic laboratory procedures.