Our Unthinkable Reality
Or, the mundane consequences of doing too little, too late
Every week for most of the past three years, I’ve given myself an intramuscular injection of testosterone. This is common among transgender people who were assigned female at birth (AFAB), like myself. Like any self-administered injection, though, this process has its risks.
And today, after three hours of class via Zoom and an hour trying to navigate Target/CVS with nitrile gloves and a cloth face mask my partner made for me, the thought of injecting my T (as trans people often refer to the hormone) brought me to tears.
One of my classmates has type one diabetes, and he’s only eating two meals per day to ration his insulin. That’s also an injection, that also has its risks, and the consequences of not doing it are more immediate for him and other type one diabetics. But I know that, if I stop doing my shots, my physical and mental health will start to suffer within a week or two.
My fear of an injection going horribly wrong is, based on my past experiences, irrational.
Self-administering, at least for me, used to be an annoyance at worst. But with the fear of COVID-19 and the resulting need to avoid seeking medical care whenever possible, the…
