"Finesteride Caused Me to be Trans" Person on Anderson Cooper

[Carolyn Marie]

This interview will be aired tonight. We'll see how credible a reporter Cooper is by how he handles this.

http://www.lgbtqnati...n-live-segment/

Carolyn Marie

[Carolyn Marie]

I watched all but the first 10 minutes, and it apparently didn't air. Probably got pushed off by all the other stuff going on. Just as well, in all likelihood.

Carolyn Marie

[Drea]

I have encuntered enough trans with similar "this made me trans" sorts of things that it doesn't surprise me. As far as the attacks at anderson cooper there is a bit of elitism comming into play referring to "real trans people". Who is to say who is real or not? I saw a documentary once where the subject, accordimg to their words, hadn't thought one bit ab out being trans till some vestigle remanents of overaries were found and then the person was absolutely bent on transitioning from their male role to female. I seen others who, after 30+ or 40+ years of never thinking of themselves as trans, never having what they believed are trans feeling, never having crossed dress suddenly find that they need to transition. Are such people invalid? Are such people not "real trans people"?

Seems to me the distinctions get pretty blurry.

[Carolyn Marie]

Here is an article about the interview, which was on the daytime version of Cooper's show, not the prime time version I saw. Seems to me from the little I can glean from the story, she was probably in denial her whole life, and the Finesteride is a convenient thing to blame it on. My first question would have been, "the moment you noticed something happening, why didn't you stop taking it?"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2203366/Transgender-woman-claims-pills-male-hair-loss-sparked-gender-change-opens-life-death-struggle.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Carolyn Marie

[Guest Mia J]

Total garbage. The person may have had some of the side effects from taking it but the dose for hair loss is very low compared to the dose for prostate problems.

Mia

[Guest BeccaC]

As it appears to be a fairly small world Mandi is actually a friend of mine and I have talked to her about this. She is one of the % of people that has developed Post Finasteride Syndrome from taking the generic propecia, after 9 months taking the drug she noticed some of the side effects and quit the medication. That's when she started going downhill pretty fast, the list of side effects are pretty lengthy I won't get into them here you can google post finasteride syndrome. As more studies are being done, the side effects are very possibly permanent. From my understanding her body no longer can process testosterone and she started being feminized.18 months after she quit taking the medication she was separated, jobless, and pretty much homeless. She couldn't get work due to having "brain fog", or as the side effect calls it cognitive brain impairment. I do believe her that she didn't have any indications she was trans before (that's just the feeling I got from her), but who's to say it didn't "awaken" it or the only path forward for her was to accept being feminized and to move forward from there.

She is trying to bring awareness of the dangers of the drug and has been in contact with numerous guys that have varying degrees of PFS. It's a real enough condition that there is a class action lawsuit against the company, but it was ruled that people that took generics can't join so she has no monetary gains in mind. The media though has sensationalized the "it made me trans" and has distorted her intended message. She was also promised to be able to bring the science, she has a lot of it, into the AC interview and minutes before she went on stage was told she couldn't and to only "speak from the heart", they also swapped the Dr who is doing studies on PFS for a Dr who basically denied any of the claims of PFS..

Becca

[Guest LizMarie]

Total speculation here so hear me out.

Reading the science (the AMA video link in my signature is great for this but there are other sources), both gender identity and sexual orientation appear to be shaped by similar forces in early pregnancy, namely hormone levels and ratios. Mandi is just 38 years old. How many of us fought this and said we were not trans, trying to deny it most of our lives? And there are trans people who simply refused to recognize it in themselves until later in life. Not everyone is able to articulate this clearly at a young age.

So what I am wondering is if Mandi, because of acknowledging sexual orientation issues, might have always been "latent trans" just never triggered into crisis (yet). Then the finasteride biochemically shoved her over the edge and here we are. That, to me, seems far more plausible than that finasteride just caused her to be trans.

And remember, it's not just hormone levels in that 12th-16th week of pregnancy, but also hormone ratios.

Anyway, total speculation on my part, but that seems more reasonable than being turned trans by the drug. And, as biologists are discovering people don't have nice neat uniform gender identities or sexual orientations. We're all along a continuum and this is natural. Just that most people cluster near certain points of that spectrum hence the illusion of gender binaries and sexual orientation binaries. It's those of us further away from the clusters that cause all the social consternation.