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Abstract

Engaging in ‘do it yourself’ hormone replacement therapy (DIY HRT), including accessing hormones through non-medical pathways or self-altering one’s prescribed dosage, is a common way trans people fulfill their transition-related needs. Public health literature cases DIY HRT in a negative light, often ascribing the practice to failures of patient access or patient-provider relationships within the trans medical system. Although extant research has primarily focused only on binary trans populations, “DIYing” may be particularly salient for those who are not seeking a binary transition. This paper shares findings from a qualitative, in-depth interview study with nonbinary adults who engage in DIY HRT practices and medical providers who prescribe HRT. Findings show that participants utilize both medical and non-medical pathways for accessing HRT fluidly and frequently in conjunction with each other, indicating that nonbinary trans people may opt to DIY due to disinvestment in the production of knowledge and quality care within trans medical spaces, choosing instead to engage with the wealth of knowledge and resources that exist in DIY HRT sites and communal care networks. This framework of DIY HRT practices diverges from how it has been represented in scholarship, which has primarily described DIY HRT use as a rudimentary stand-in for appropriate medicalized access to HRT. The implications of these findings open the door for recognizing a more holistic view of DIY HRT, which contributes to the ongoing project of depathologization in the field of trans medical sociology.

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