I don’t get my period.

I’m not sick. I’m not pregnant. I’m not taking birth control. Its stoppage was simply brought on by my gender.

I am a man. A man who used to get periods before I started hormone replacement therapy.

Once I began the amazing journey to become smellier, hairier, and hornier than I’ve ever been, my period realized she wasn’t really part of the equation anymore and wandered away.

That is—until I couldn’t get access to my hormones.

It’s 2018 and my fiancé and I have just graduated college. I move across state lines to be with my fiancé as we begin the long and arduous, but beautiful process of merging our lives together. The future feels scary and exciting all at once. So many things were uncertain. Where are we going to live? What kind of jobs will we get with our new degrees? What is our wedding going to look like? Do we need to get a bigger bed?

One thing I never thought would waiver into uncertainty was my medication. At this point, I’ve been taking testosterone for almost four years. I’m a fine friend with the hormone. While I’ve had to say goodbye to my hairline, I get to say hello to an authentic version of myself I was continuing to be excited by as I get to know him. I knew we weren’t ever destined to part ways.

But the funny thing about the world, I quickly find out the hard way, is that it doesn’t really understand trans people. I’m robbed of my hormones for over six months because of this.

Testosterone is a drug I need that I take every month. Not only does it aid me in my transition, it is a chemical I’m used to having in my body. Imagine the idea of stoppering up the concoction in your body that affects your metabolism, sexual function, reproduction, and mood—cold turkey. Reverse puberty; that’s what is forced upon me. My depression creeps back in, the door held open for it by my dysphoria. I’m moody and physically uncomfortable. The longer I go without it, the weaker I feel.

First, I see a primary care physician. She looks at me like I’ve been hit in the head when I tell her what I’m there for. It becomes immediately clear she’s extraordinarily uncomfortable with my presence. She tells me she can’t fill any of my medications—not my testosterone or my much-needed anxiety medication that I’ve been on for years. She writes me a couple of referrals and quickly shuffles me off to her nurses. Not only have I never had a shorter doctor’s appointment in my life, but she has also ignored any of my other health needs. She doesn’t perform a physical—not even a tap on the knee or a peek into my mouth. She doesn’t listen when I talk to her about any of my needs because she’s so preoccupied with the fact that I’m trans.

Not knowing what else to do, I take her referral and book an appointment with a urologist; the specialist she claims I need to see to get my script refilled. I wasn’t told until I drive a half hour to the facility that this was not the doctor I needed. The office calls me fifteen minutes before the appointment and leaves a voicemail message informing me that they’ve canceled my appointment and that I should make one with an endocrinologist instead.

I’m starting to feel a bit hopeless, but I don’t give up. Giving up simply isn’t an option because I’m running desperately low on my current hormone supply. All of these appointments are weeks apart. I begin rationing my medication, only taking it every other week, then every two weeks, until I’m down to once a month.

I follow the urologist’s instructions and call up the only endocrinologist in my area that takes my insurance and make an appointment.

The endocrinologist turns into a hungry predator when he learns what my visit is about. He pressures me to get undressed completely so he can examine my body for “changes”. He asks me invasive questions like, “Do you even want to fuck men anymore?” and “How big has your clit grown?” When I dance around answering his prying curiosities, he leaves me sitting alone in the room for over an hour and a half. I text my fiancé “I feel like an animal.” Despite my discomfort, I stay. It will be worth it if I can get my prescription refilled, I tell myself.

Finally, when he re-enters the room, he tries to coax me into taking my clothes off again by smiling wryly at me. “We’re all family here,” he says, his tone suggesting this was more of a threat than a comfort. He lets me know he’ll refuse to refill my hormones unless I let him look at my genitalia. On the verge of tears, I refuse over and over again until finally, desperate for my hormones, I compromise and say I’ll get undressed from the waist up.

His eyes light up. He invites a gaggle of interns into the room. They all ogle me as he pokes and prods at my body, explaining to his staff what I was. I was being treated like an exciting discovery—a lab experiment. I knew, above all, this man saw me as a curious prize. Jackpot. He’s turned on by my strangeness; a dangerous fetishization every trans person has had to experience at one point or another. I guess now it was my turn.

Still, even after my “compromise,” he informs me that he’s still going to refuse to fill my prescription. He insists that it’s integral that he see my genitals to understand where I am in my transition and monitor any changes. I know that’s a lie. I know what would happen if I comply with his request. So I leave.

I leave before he can do further damage—before he can sate his hunger, knowing I’ll never go back again. As I prepare to go, he mumbles something under his breath about me being nervous and uncooperative to the nurse before handing me some paperwork to come back. The paperwork has “MISS” in all caps before my name; a final punishment for not letting him get what he so desperately wanted.

I’m officially out of my testosterone. Fueled by desperation, I take to scrounging the Internet for answers. I don’t find them. What I do find is the information for a local trans support group.

Support groups have been my saving grace before. All of my original transition resources came from conversations with my old support group back in my hometown. I know it’s a Hail Mary, but I’m out of options. I share my woes in the sharing circle, feeling broken down and ragged in front of over thirty strangers. The miracle that is community care finally, finally delivers to me what could be an answer: a group member shares with me the phone number a local, brand new, trans-specific care clinic. It’s exactly what I need and I call to make an appointment as soon as I wake up the next morning.

“I’m sorry because we’re new, we’ve got quite a long wait list,” the receptionist gently lets me know.

“O-Oh, okay. How long is long?”

“Several months. I’m sorry. Do you want me to put you on the list?”

“Yes.”

I wait.

Then, while I’m waiting...it happens.

I get my period.

No one who can get periods is unfamiliar with it showing up uninvited, but in reality, it doesn’t just feel uninvited —it feels like it has broken in. It smashed my windows and threatened me. It had been looming over my bed like a horror movie monster, waiting until I was most vulnerable to strike.

Getting my period destroys my sense of self in a way I wasn’t prepared for. I feel like a child again, awash with the same brand of terror I felt when I first got my period. My mother hadn’t prepared me for it happening I was in the bathroom and saw the brown stain in my underwear and thought something was wrong with me. As a child, I was deathly ill with chickenpox pneumonia. I was born before the chickenpox shot was invented and the disease left my lungs filling up with fluid as I was laid comatose for months in a row as doctors tried experimental treatments on me.

Without any other context for what could be happening, I was scared that my disease had come back. I had only just started to walk again after being so weak I was confined to a wheelchair. I had already almost died once. Was it happening again?

While I knew I wasn’t dying this time, I certainly feel like it. I crawl my way into the bathroom to find a pad. I’m alone and my hands start to shake with the beginnings of a massive panic attack. Unable to stave it off—and with months of failed attempts to stop this exact scenario weighing heavy on my back, I collapse into wracking sobs as I clean myself off and apply the pad.

Dysphoria is a beast—one that I have become incredibly good at taming. However, this moment feeds that beast from my own flesh and, in my weakened state, I’m defenseless.

And I’m angry.

I’m still angry.

There was no reason for me to have had to go through this. I was a perfectly healthy person who was looking for a routine refill of a prescription medication I had been on for years. I should have been able to walk into any doctor’s office and get treated. Instead, I was violated, brushed off, and disrespected over and over again.

I am constantly left out of conversations about reproductive justice because I’m a man, but I am also denied my manhood. Society doesn’t know what to do with me, even if I know exactly what to do with me and all they ever had to do was listen. I am so often forced to exist on the outskirts of gender, actively erased from all spaces.

Not only have I been forced to have my period even though it caused me great distress, I have been harassed in bathrooms—people banging on the door telling me to get out. I’ve had my property broken as a threat. A man who wanted to “teach me to be a woman” has sexually assaulted me. Sometimes, it feels like I live in a world that doesn’t want me.

I know that’s not true, though, because I want me. My spouse wants me. My friends and loved ones want me. My cats want me. My communities want me.

That painful period was the last one I’ve ever had. As fate would have it, while I was menstruating I got a call from that gender-affirming office with the long wait to let me know they finally had an opening. It’s been years and I’ve been going there ever since. But a part of me, in the back of my mind, is still afraid of the possibility of it one day happening again.

The way the world is going, I am afraid the people who want to erase me will come for my doctors, my loved ones, my drugs. Just like I can’t quite seem to stop accepting free food anytime I receive it as a leftover survival tactic from living in poverty, I feel the need to still skip doses sometimes so I can create a tiny little stockpile, just in case.

Sometimes, though, I get a sign that reminds me that hope isn’t lost.

I recently had the privilege of working with youth activists to help fight period poverty. A group of high school students met weekly as part of a club whose main goal was to ensure access to free, sustainable menstrual products.

These children came into the room with an understanding that someone’s gender did not bar anyone from the fight for equal access. They spoke passionately and eloquently in public about how access to affordable menstrual products and proper education was a right for all, then transformed back into timid and exploring teenagers once they stepped off the stage.

Those children lit a spark within me that I didn’t realize had been snuffed out when I got my period all those years ago. Because of them, I no longer feel like I’m in this alone: the next generation has my back—each other’s backs—hell, even the backs of their peers who need their help but turn their noses up at the work they’re doing. As always, the power of the children—and the power of community—continues to do the work of ensuring justice, safety, and care for anyone left behind by the status quo.

Experiencing those children lead a charge and fund raise to de-stigmatize menstruation—unafraid to tell their own stories in all of their vulnerability and candidness—and even make a documentary about it—reminded me that it’s not the world that doesn’t want me—it’s un-education that tricks people into thinking they don’t want me.

The things that make us glow and make us the amazing people we are—that lift us up—should not always be shrouded in trauma and neglect. They should be as easily accessible as an inhaler for someone with asthma. My body is not for other people to decide, no matter how strongly some people believe they have the right to it.

Lest they come for me—I will wash over them in a red wave. I will harness that amazing power only those who know themselves intrinsically and at their core have access to—and I will survive louder than they can ever shout down.

And, just like a warrior—if I am knocked down—and if I see red—no matter how much it hurts, I will always get back up again.

-Raine Grayson

Raine Grayson (he/him) is a multi-genre storyteller who specializes in social action theatre and autobiographical nonfiction focusing on the trans and queer experience. He is a champion of storytelling not just as a means of expression but also as a tool for social justice. He has spoken his own suicide survival story nationally for The Trevor Project and has edited autobiographical work such as Zelda Miller’s “Que Será, Será: A Life’s Journey of Sexual Orientation and Gender Expression.” His work has been featured by GO Magazine, So Say We All, The AutoEthnographer, Rosendale Theatre, and many more. He has presented his academic essay “Militant Visibility and Corrupting Hegemonic Gender Identity: Trans Representation and Visibility in Solo Shows” at the Mid-America Theatre Conference. He currently works for non-profit theatre company TMI Project (tmiproject.org) running writing workshops, editing, and producing “true storytelling” performances that transform everyday people’s stories into monologues. Visit rainegrayson.com to learn about upcoming publications and performances.