Sunday, January 12, 2014

What You Need Know About Transgender Health Services

By Marissa Velazquez


Today, the term transgender is most used by people who feel that they belong to a gender that they were not assigned at birth. Some trans people use hormones or even go through surgeries to feel more comfortable with their body. The number of this class of people is growing on a daily basis and the debate goes on how to best handle them and accommodate them in the society. Thanks to transgender health program, this provides a holistic approach to individual well being. This ranges from behavioral wellbeing to violence recovery program to substance abuse among others.

Males are different from females physiologically, psychologically and emotionally because they were created to perform different roles. A man seeking to transform into a woman therefore has to undergo hormonal replacements. An expert should handle this exercise failure to which will lead to adverse effects on the patient body. The purpose for replacing these hormones is to change the secondary sexual characteristics of an individual.

Testosterone and estrogen are hormones present in the body in different quantities. Men always have an increased level of testosterone as compared to women while women have a raised level of estrogen compared to their male counterparts. Testosterone is the hormone responsible for the masculinity of a mans body. The objective of this procedure therefore is to raise the levels of estrogen in transwomen to reach the levels present in the female. This is an important substance since it controls the menstrual cycle, moods and even libido.

Progesterone is another important hormone. This is an important substance in a woman responsible for the skin texture and also affects the urge of sex. This should be given to transwomen to enable them develop breasts. Such development will take care of the mammary glands and the alveoli just to name a few. Other than the surgical procedures, this method has proved an effective option.

The first step in this program involves introduction of anti-androgens to help deal with testosterone. This helps to suppress this hormone prior to surgery. This does not spot testicles produce this hormone as it is not needed at this time but anti-androgens render it weak so as to allow the estrogen bind with the androgen receptors in its place.

It is good to know that hormone replacement therapy cannot reverse the changes experienced by an individual during puberty. For instance, the location of body hair will require another procedure to deal with. This will diminish slowly over time with the falling levels of testosterone in the body. There are many other changes like the bone size and length which reaches the DNA predestined size at puberty.

Therapeutic procedure is not enough for one to experience a complete change. One has to undergo surgery to change the sex organ to the desired gender. This procedure is quite delicate and requires a lot of expertise for optimum functionality of the organ after the surgery.

Transpeople have particular health disparities as compared to the overall population. One should understand these disparities and when attending to transgender health, the practitioner should ask the patient their well being history. This should be done before administering any drug, be it herbal or artificial.




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