As a family doctor, I agree with you somewhat.

We do indeed treat cisgender men who have low testosterone with testosterone, as endocrinologists do with transgender men. And the treatment goals for both groups are essentially the same widely accepted testosterone ranges that we would expect to find in a large group of healthy cisgender men.

However, there is a big problem of inappropriate testosterone use among young men. Many start taking testosterone taken illegally, elevating their blood levels far above the highest levels a healthy human body can produce, to the point where it is dangerous to their health. This actually causes a feedback loop where the body stops producing its own testosterone, causing levels to crash when they stop taking it. So they start “cycling” with medications used for female infertility, breast cancer, or menopause that have never been tested in men to try to mitigate that, all based on pseudoscientific nonsense theories that circulate widely on the internet. I’ve then gotten several of these patients in my office with crashing testosterone asking me to prescribe HRR, which of course will only extend the problem by continuing to suppress the body’s natural testosterone production.

There is also a big problem of people going to doctors with symptoms that could be caused by 100 different illnesses, who have convinced themselves that only testosterone could be the cause. They go to shady doctors who don’t care enough about the person to investigate the symptoms properly, and then just prescribe testosterone without doing any testing. Or they do some testing, find the testosterone is low, but don’t do any follow-up to figure out why it’s low. Which is frustrating because there are very clear guidelines based on extensive scientific data that are being ignored in exchange for easy money from patients.

While I agree that autonomy is important, I disagree that it should “always be the final word.” What if someone came up to you and said they have decided they need opioids for their pain, but they can’t afford them, so they want you to go rob a pharmacy and give them some? Would you do that in the name of bodily autonomy? Of course not: your bodily autonomy is yours. You can’t expect to go to someone else and ask them to do something they know is unethical, illegal, and/or potentially dangerous in the name of your bodily autonomy.

The guiding principle of medicine is “Do no harm.” Because of this, we as doctors have an ethical and legal obligation to protect patients from harm that we cause. You cannot expect to go to your doctor and ask them to do something they know is unethical, illegal, and/or potentially dangerous in the name of your bodily autonomy.

I’m happy to prescribe testosterone to my patients who need it. But I draw the line at people who want it without needing it, especially if they want dangerously large amounts, because I know the harm this med can cause if not taken correctly. So while that person might very well get testosterone elsewhere if I say no, I personally am not going to be a party to it.

Why wait all the way to Turn 1?

Let the newbie go first, and kill them in their first upkeep with Hulk Flash.

Congrats on coming out!

My wife’s mom still insists on deadnaming her over a decade after her transition, and refuses to recognize her gender. Sucks because she could be in our lives but instead just gets a phone call at Christmas, and I’ve never even talked to her. Some parents just make that choice, sucks that your mom is one of them.

inspired by the epic cliffhanger from Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Project Borealis represents a fan-made effort to realize a cohesive story conclusion to the episodic series.

I wonder if this takes Half-Life: Alyx into account?

He’s 83 years old, older than both Trump and Biden.

I’d like to see AOC throw her hat in for 2028. She’ll be 39 then.

God damn it, won’t Harris stop trying to transition everyone already? First literally every school child and immigrant, now shitty presidents! /s

I showed up to vote. But not enough others were excited to do so.

Climate change isn’t permanent. It has changed before and will change again. This will all sort itself out in the next several million years, you’ll see.

When it’s all counted, he will likely have about the same amount as he did last time.

It’s not that people voted for Trump, it’s that people didn’t vote for Harris.

What people believe and what is true are two different things. A lot of people believed Trump’s wild rants about people eating dogs and cats, doesn’t make it true.

Because the objective, non-partisan facts suggest the economy is doing well.

Here from the future: they weren’t wrong.

In most of the games she’s racing against another group, but several times is alongside them or even ahead of them. For example, in the very first game she’s working with someone else who sends her in first to retrieve the treasure, and then steals it from her.

Plus, a good chunk of the time the items are hidden inside priceless ancient artifacts, and Croft has to dig into her British roots to destroy an ancient culture’s legacy so she can get a few bullets or whatever.

We just got the answer to that question yesterday.

We’re going to get a Supreme Court who says a sitting president can’t go to jail for any crime, including the state felonies he’s been convicted of that he can’t self pardon.

Trump got about the same amount of votes as he did in 2020. Harris got about 16 million less than Biden did.

It’s less that voters changed their mind and more that millions of voters will show up and vote Democrat when they care and stay home when they don’t.

The only silver lining is that maybe the Republicans will just forget about trans people until it’s time to stoke the hate again for the next election.

But yeah, very disappointing result. The country was willing to vote in a twice impeached convicted felon (whose sentencing will be postposed indefinitely, I suspect) over a gasp! brown woman.

Welp

This was silly and cheesy. But it is such a relief to see a politician enjoying themselves rather than ranting.

Or even “vs only president to be impeached twice,” “only president to be elected after losing and being impeached” “first president elected by an electorate that knows full well he is a rapist,” etc.