pov you're roman roy, and you have a body that has reactions you can't control, and those reactions are pathetic and freakish and prove just how much you've gotten it wrong. you can't laugh, you can't talk, you can't even cry at your father's funeral without everyone seeing what a failure made flesh you are.
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The thing about testosterone being a controlled substance means that acess to it for hrt is restricted. While it makes access a significant issue for many people and an easy and effective way to prevent trans men and mascs from transitioning (as we've seen terfs campaign for and succeed at doing in Britain) it also means that is very easy for health care professionals to be able to take it away from trans men/mascs arbitrarily. This is most aborant in cases where trans men/mascs are forced to detransition to gain access to abortions after being raped. However, the first sign of an issues tangentially related to hormones a gp, without any training in trans people or hormones, can and will stop a person's testosterone. Apart from how stressful it is to know that for the rest of your life you'll be dependent on the goodwill of a random person, this has measurable negative consequences for a trans person subjected too it.
Going off t fucking sucks at the best of time, but being forced off t will most likely result in depression and worsening mental health for a trans man/masc, who are already one of the most likely groups to attempt suicide. It can also put a trans person at risk if they suddenly start being visibly trans again, especially if they're closeted in, say, a work place environment. Trans people, including trans men, are already one of the most targeted groups of harassment and violence and sexual assalt and forcibly reducing or stopping t can out people and risk their safety. And a gp won't see this or care about this, or attempt to treat a trans man/masc first or ask for their opinion or situation.
Ultimately, testosterone is seen as entirely optional and so the first resort when something goes wrong it to take it away, when it should be considered the last resort, and is considered the last resort for cis men. And as long as testosterone continues to be a controlled substance it will remain like this.
(edit for clarification: I am a kiwi, this post was intended as a general critique of accessing t through health care systems - based in my lived experience in NZ and what ive heard from international trans ppl; including but not limited to the USA)
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Seriously though, the general canon of TMNT 2k3 must be such a wild ride for Robin O'Neill.
Like. Here is your big sister, brainiac maniac science superstar, the smart one, the one who has it all figured out and who probably has three PhDs by the time she's 23 and the story begins. April just landed her Dream Job with an actual Celebrity Scientist and she is going to create Big Science that will Help Lots of People and--
--and she's quit her job one month in and announces she is going to reopen your late parents' antiquities shop now. Take some time to Find Herself, whatever that means. OK, right, we can work with that, what bout--
--her shop burns to the ground, and April prompty goes completely AWOL for three months. Great! Amazing! You're not panicking at all! This is April you're talking about, after all - the smart one, the good one, who has it all together, and she is dating Casey Jones, neighborhood vigilante now.
HOW DID THEY EVEN MEET.
So you're like. OK. I should probably go to New York and look into that. Meanwhile April rebuilds the antique shop brick by brick and moves back in, things get serious with Casey Jones, she keeps offhandedly mentioning a bunch of Italian men that like, fix her boiler and stuff, she's fine. She's fine. You don't think she's fine.
Before you can do anything about it, she goes AWOL for a few months again.
You eventually find out she has been hanging out with her boyfriend's country mum at a derelict farm. Cleaning. Cooking, sort of thing. Maybe you're a bit concerned now. Just a bit. You decide you will definitely visit her soon. She excitedly mentions that she has started practising kendo using a real sword, and her teacher is this old guy who gives her lessons one on one. You move your visit forward.
So you go to New York. You enter her apartment, which is the one you grew up in, rebuilt eerily similarly to how you remember it. Your sister is happy to see you. She's just going to nip out for a minute to grab some milk. That's fine. You go through the list of things to talk to her about in your head one more time: how are you? how are you Really? let's do some girly things, without the boyfriend and the teacher and the Italian men. Just us girls. Won't that be nice?
April comes back upstairs. You'll never guess who she ran into on her way to the shops!
Behind her stands your beloved uncle Augie, who went missing fifteen years ago without a trace.
Like. Holy. Shit.
That same evening, as you're trying to work out the new sleeping arrangements now there's three of you in the flat for the night, you pull uncle Augie aside for a moment. You're worried about April, you say. Something has been going on with her, and it's weird.
Uncle Augie looks at you for a long moment. His clothing is ripped, his beard is a growth on his face. There are deep lines on his face that you don't remember, marked not by smiles and laughter, but by sadness and fear. His arms are tree trunks. He smells like he hasn't showered in a month.
Nah, he says. I think April's doing just fine.
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