Recognition

It all started the way everything in my life seems to these days, scrolling aimlessly on my phone.

After checking every other social media platform, I was reduced to going onto my old friend Facebook to see what was going on.

And I ended up on The Shed, which for those not in the know, that is an invite-only group for Australian transmasculine people.

The questions that community members tend to post on the shed do get a little samey after the first few years.

They tend to be along the lines of, can anyone recommend a trans-friendly pharmacy or gym or gestalt therapist to...

Does Medicare or private health companies cover the full cost of chest surgery? The answer to that remains sadly no.

But on this day, there was something a little different posted in the shed.

The ad read, are you worried about hair loss? We are currently recruiting trans and gender diverse people who have been on full dose testosterone for more than six months and have noticed hair loss to participate in a clinical trial.

Participants will be provided with a free course of oral minoxidil or placebo.

Study visits will be in East Melbourne.

Now, one of the benefits of my previous estrogen-fuelled life was not having to worry if I was going to inherit my granddad's male pattern baldness.

But since I'd been taking tea for a few years, hair loss was very much on the agenda.

While you may be able to tell I'm not especially attentive to my personal grooming, even I had noticed that the plug hole in the shower was had begun to clog up every time I shampooed.

Now, there is, of course, nothing at all wrong with being bald.

It is, after all, perhaps the most masculine look you can get, especially coupled with a beard, for example.

But I was a 90s grunge kid.

My style icons had been Kurt Cobain and Edward Furlong in Terminator 2, and I was very keen to keep my hair, if at all possible.

So I sent off an email expressing my interest in the clinical hair loss study and got on with my day.

But within an hour, I received a reply from Dr. Hui Nguyen.

Hui was very excited to have me on board.

Once I passed the eligibility criteria, transmasculine, concerned about balding and not on any hair loss medication, he sent me a huge raft of paperwork about the study, which I proceeded not to read.

Hui named a time and date to meet him at a private dermatology clinic and signed off his surprisingly informal email with, bring a hat.

In retrospect, this probably should have set off alarm bells in my mind.

But it was summer and I assumed as a dermatologist in training, Hui was just especially sun safe.

LAUGHTER On the big day of my appointment, I caught the tram from the city over to East Melbourne, which for anyone who doesn't know it, is an odd inner city suburb full of 19th century flats, glassy, ultra-modern hospital buildings and hordes of doctors and lawyers.

It all started the way everything in my life seems to these days, scrolling aimlessly on my phone.

After checking every other social media platform, I was reduced to going onto my old friend Facebook to see what was going on.

And I ended up on The Shed, which for those not in the know, that is an invite-only group for Australian transmasculine people.

The questions that community members tend to post on the shed do get a little samey after the first few years.

They tend to be along the lines of, can anyone recommend a trans-friendly pharmacy or gym or gestalt therapist to...

Does Medicare or private health companies cover the full cost of chest surgery? The answer to that remains sadly no.

But on this day, there was something a little different posted in the shed.

The ad read, are you worried about hair loss? We are currently recruiting trans and gender diverse people who have been on full dose testosterone for more than six months and have noticed hair loss to participate in a clinical trial.

Participants will be provided with a free course of oral minoxidil or placebo.

Study visits will be in East Melbourne.

Now, one of the benefits of my previous estrogen-fuelled life was not having to worry if I was going to inherit my granddad's male pattern baldness.

But since I'd been taking tea for a few years, hair loss was very much on the agenda.

While you may be able to tell I'm not especially attentive to my personal grooming, even I had noticed that the plug hole in the shower was had begun to clog up every time I shampooed.

Now, there is, of course, nothing at all wrong with being bald.

It is, after all, perhaps the most masculine look you can get, especially coupled with a beard, for example.

But I was a 90s grunge kid.

My style icons had been Kurt Cobain and Edward Furlong in Terminator 2, and I was very keen to keep my hair, if at all possible.

So I sent off an email expressing my interest in the clinical hair loss study and got on with my day.

But within an hour, I received a reply from Dr. Hui Nguyen.

Hui was very excited to have me on board.

Once I passed the eligibility criteria, transmasculine, concerned about balding and not on any hair loss medication, he sent me a huge raft of paperwork about the study, which I proceeded not to read.

Hui named a time and date to meet him at a private dermatology clinic and signed off his surprisingly informal email with, bring a hat.

In retrospect, this probably should have set off alarm bells in my mind.

But it was summer and I assumed as a dermatologist in training, Hui was just especially sun safe.

LAUGHTER On the big day of my appointment, I caught the tram from the city over to East Melbourne, which for anyone who doesn't know it, is an odd inner city suburb full of 19th century flats, glassy, ultra-modern hospital buildings and hordes of doctors and lawyers.