The Black Market

For many trans people the only source of hormones is the black market or mail order. It is getting better but if you don’t live around a major metropolitan area you probably don’t have any free clinics where you can go for free hormones.

Transgender teenagers 'risking lives' buying hormones on black market
ABC Australian
By Janine Cohen
August 14, 2016

Transgender teenagers are risking their lives to buy hormones on the black market so they can transition, because they cannot access the Family Court, advocates say.

"Kids who I have talked to who want to buy the medication on the black market, they can't go to court. It's either going to take too long, or they can't afford it, and they have decided that this is their best chance," teenager Georgie Stone says.

Transgender adolescents must go to the Family Court of Australia to be assessed as to their competency to consent to medical treatment.

Australia is the only jurisdiction in the world with this requirement.

Georgie, 16, told Australian Story about her ordeal of racing against the biological clock to get court orders.

She said she understands why some teenagers buy hormones on the black market, rather than go through puberty.

Well maybe going to the Family Court of Australia they might be the only jurisdiction in the world to require it, but many other countries have different hoops to jump through.

Here in the U.S. we have to jump through the hoops of medical gatekeepers instead of legal gatekeepers. We need to be “assessed” by a healthcare provider, depending upon where you live that assessment might be just informed consent while in other places it might mean a full mental health assessment.

Something that I learned at the training that we gave is that some Probate judges here in Connecticut will not grant hardship free waivers because the judge feels that name change is not necessary. Even though the policy states “Applicants who are indigent or otherwise unable to pay the
application fee may be eligible for a waiver.”