Trans Health

I recently attended the Southern Comfort Conference, a five-day trans-geared event in Atlanta, Georgia. Yes, the largest trans conference in the world just happens to be held in the depths of the Bible belt!

Trans people, genderqueer people, allies, organizations, not-for-profits, and healthcare providers gather over the course of these five days to share experiences, knowledge, and friendship.

Last year when I attended I met Tristan Skye (most of you trans/genderqueer folk probably already know of him) and his wife Sicily. Tristan is a transman, and he is also the founder of TransQueerNation.com. He has transitioned completely naturally, aka without the use of testosterone. His journey started when Sicily, who has been in bodybuilding/fitness for 10+ years, figured that if they did enough research, they could probably come up with a diet/exercise/supplement program that would increase his own testosterone levels and make his appearance more masculine, and lo and behold it worked!

Needless to say, because I am a Naturopathic Doctor interested in Trans health, Tristan and I became fast friends. He wrote a book this year called "Natural Transitioning: an FTM Alternative" (ya'll should grab a copy! Do I sound like a Georgian?) and asked if I would write a conclusion chapter for him. I was happy to do it, and I was even happier when he said he'd be giving a presentation about his experiences at Southern Comfort this year, and invited me to be a part of it and bring in the medical perspective .

We presented to a crowd of around thirty-five people who learned about Tristan and Sicily's research, his experiences with the program they developed, fitness techniques to sculpt a masculine body, and then I spoke about specific herbs, dietary advice and supplements I use to help trans men increase testosterone levels, increase growth hormone levels, decrease fat storage/improve fat distribution, help people on hormones deal with the inevitable unwanted side effects and improve or prevent other medical and mental health issues common to the trans population.

Stay tuned, because in a couple of weeks I will post an article with more details about the specific strategies I discussed. Mostly geared towards FTMs, but don't worry my lovely MTFs, your turn will come soon.

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