Ask Victor Lopez, a 17-year-old transgender male, what it was like when he got his period at the age of 8, and he’ll tell you a wrenching story about locking himself in his room for hours, crying and hiding from his family. Just getting out of bed for school was a struggle. The onset of menarche made him feel disgusting and terrified, as though his body had dragged him through someone else’s puberty, he says, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
“Preteen and adolescence were some of my most messed-up years,” says Lopez, who adds that he has always felt like a boy. “I went through so much more with puberty than any normal kid would go through by trying to understand myself and who I was. It’s not anything someone should have to face. It was scary.”
For the transgender female-to-male youth population of the United States, markers of puberty such as menstruation and developing breasts are even scarier prospects than usual. Confronting a biological reality at odds with gender identity can distress — even traumatize — trans youth. And while hormone-based therapy can delay puberty, very few people even know it exists, or if they do, can afford to pay out of pocket for the treatment, which is expensive and typically isn’t covered by insurance.
[For more of this story, written by Natalie Patillo, go to http://america.aljazeera.com/a...by-their-bodies.html]
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