R27 women with cancer do feel angry and sidelined and unheard over this issue.
[quote] Even if your grandmother had breast cancer and told you she was doing fine; there is a lot that she didn't tell you. Such possibilities of changes could be- her quality of life, her hair never grew back, she could never have sex again, she is never undressed in front of anyone anymore, she continues to have surgeries, she is ashamed of her body, weight gain, chronic fatigue, she can never go on a plane, she is not capable of fully using her hands, she is in chronic pain, her life expectancy is lowered, her heart is damaged, her bones are brittle, she lives in fear, her mental health is chemically altered, etc etc etc.
[quote] For someone to enter into trans treatments such as hormone therapy, hormone blockers, or get a double mastectomy without being told the truth of the complexities, risks, and side-effects of these procedures; It is completely immoral.
[quote] Most women with breast cancer have some amount of estrogen and/or progesterone influenced breast cancer. This means that estrogen or progesterone is like food to their particular type of breast cancer. Hormone blockers are standard way of preventing the metastasizing of breast cancer into other types of cancer. When it comes back, it is then stage 3 or 4 and can often basically be a slow death march. However the side effects of these hormone blockers are so egregious that many women choose to take the risk and not take the hormone blockers. Understand that most of these women have been through combinations of chemotherapy, radiation, multiple tests and surgical biopsies, extreme surgeries of removal of body parts and sometimes multiple surgeries of reconstruction. They do not want to take that journey again. These women have been through hell and yet the decrease in quality of life is so extreme on these hormone blockers that they say no. Sometimes they have been on them for two or three years and they say no. Previously the recommendation was to be on them for 5 years but some of the latest studies have been pushing them to 10 years.
[quote] The side effects of the hormone blockers, complications from mastectomies, reconstructive surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation, and medications are easy to find. Note that the full truth is only from the women who have experienced it and are being edited out of the medical establishment for obvious reasons. So when you read about the possible side effects you are getting a sanitized version because the reality is much much worse. For those of us who have had our breasts removed to treat cancer, reading about another young woman gleefully having a double mastectomy is like a knife wound to the chest.
[quote] The amount of love and support on the numerous breast cancer support groups that I am part of is deeply moving. When we talk about the lack of women space anymore I would say that this is one of those places where women are supporting each other on such levels and with such consistency that I have not seen in years. Understand that many of these women are dying and in a unique sort of isolated hell which is impossible to truly understand from the outside. The politics of trans is not discussed due to probably previous heated discussions. Unlike traditional women's rights groups and spaces, I have seen very little interest, effort, or compassion for women's issues from the trans right activists.
[quote] Hard science: One in eight women will get breast cancer. The numbers are increasing. Breast cancer is increasing in young women and with the most aggressive breast cancers. Recent medical research has made the correlation with the birth control pill, hormone replacement therapy for menopause, plan B, and other hormonal birth control. It is clear that women just cannot get a break in this world.
