I needed two letters to get on hormones. One was a referral from a therapist who had about an hour alone with me. The other was from my regular therapist saying I was of sound mind. I got a whole bunch of mental health and neurodevelopmental diagnoses seven years after I was first given testosterone. I feel like I lost years of my life focusing on changing my aesthetic and reinventing my life when it did absolutely nothing for my mental health. It took me ten years to detransition. It's criminal that this is considered health care.

Stuff like this bothers me, because I've seen other detransitioners echoing this, that they were able to get access to hormones or whatever pretty easily. I think I remember another story about an ex-transman who was able to get access to T after only a single consultation with a therapist over the phone, with no in-person meeting, for example. But then on the flipside you've got TRAs and other trans people claiming that the process of accessing trans healthcare is very difficult. That you have to undergo all sorts of psychological examinations and be put on long waiting lists and such.

These claims are pretty contradictory, so what's up with that? Two possible conclusions are that A) Either detransitioners or TRAs are lying or B) Standards and protocols for trans healthcare vary wildly from country to country, region to region, or even clinic to clinic. Which makes "gender doctors" look even more shady.

But what's the truth? How difficult or easy is it to get access to hormones/surgery legally in western countries, really?