Going on hormone replacement therapy, some of us like to say, is like enduring a ‘second puberty’ as you finally start bringing your body into alignment with your identity…with a few bumps along the way. It’s not just that hormones are expensive and finally progressing with medical transition — for those who choose to pursue it — can be emotionally intense.
It’s that it’s, well, puberty. As transgender people of all genders start adding HRT into their lives, it can result in some radical and unexpected changes, most of which aren’t on the informed consent form. No matter how much research people do into testosterone and estrogen replacement therapies, including talking with other trans people, reading up on the subject, and talking with their endocrinologists, the actual experience can be unpredictable, and sometimes not in the best ways. Puberty the second time around is every bit as unique as puberty the first time around, it turns out.
That’s why Ashley Lauren Rogers and Lux Alptraum are pairing up to produce Second Puberty, a film they believe may be the first of its kind: One directed specifically at trans people undergoing HRT. Rogers, a playwright and comedian, is pairing up with Alptraum, a sex educator, to produce a humorous look at HRT for trans people — and it’s inspired, of course, by the cheesy films we all cringed over during middle school sex ed. Awkward sex ed movies are somehow much funnier as adults, as we all know, and this one will be serving up some serious business education for people facing a pivotal moment in their lives.
They’re planning to use an all-trans cast, including not just binary trans people but nonbinary people all aspects of the gender spectrum, and they want to stack their production crew with trans people as well. To fund the film, they’ve taken to popular crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, with a goal of $10,000 to cover basic production costs (including paying the cast and crew). They’re also surveying the trans community to gather information about a wide variety of HRT experiences in order to incorporate it into the film.
While considerable outreach and education material is available for trans people, it can be hit and miss, and the film has the potential to collect it all in a format that’s fun and easy to digest, but still serious in the end. Alptraum and Rogers haven’t gotten into specifics about what the film will cover, but presumably it will discuss things like what to expect, coping with mood swings, managing bodily changes, how the body responds to increasing doses of hormones, and answering questions people may feel awkward or ashamed to ask.
The practicalities of second puberty can also feel incredibly challenging, and hopefully this is another issue that the film will be addressed. Aside from explorations of gender performance and play, the film can also probe into issues like how to manage facial hair and growing breasts, issues that suddenly become very real when they’re happening to you. How do you shave? How do you fit a bra? How does sensitivity in various areas on the body change with HRT?
Unlike first puberty, which is an exercise in terror and frustration as your body begins to betray you and you feel powerless to stop it, second puberty can feel incredibly liberating, but the daily nuts and bolts are still a challenge. Having an entirely free resource to turn to could be incredibly valuable, especially for members of the trans community who are isolated by geography, the need to remain in stealth, and other factors — not everyone has access to a supportive community of trans mentors and people to turn to with questions about HRT.
It’s also a great tool for reaching out to friends and family who want or need to learn more about HRT. The cis community continues to be mesmerised by transition narratives and fixated on every aspect of transition, which is frustrating and unnecessary — for people undergoing HRT, the process is intense enough without having to act as a sideshow attraction. Being able to point curious parties at an educational video can help to fend off questions — and to provide people with information about what they can do to support their friends and family.
While Second Puberty may be aimed at adults, it has potential applications for teens and young adults as well. Trans awareness is rapidly growing in the West, and consequently, youth are transitioning at increasingly young ages — in fact, the use of puberty blockers is growing more common, to ensure that the next trans generation only has to go through one round of puberty, jumping right from blockers to HRT without allowing their bodies to produce unwanted hormones. The film can make a valuable resource for trans youth and their families, but it can also enter the sexual education canon as a film shown to trans and cis kids alike; transgender issues are still poorly understood among many children and teens, and Second Puberty can help demystify them and create more empathy among classmates and their families.
This is radical activist filmmaking at its best. On the surface, Second Puberty could become a vitally-needed resource for trans people looking for information and help about HRT, drawing upon the experiences of hundreds or even thousands of trans people to create a guide to HRT. It goes a step further, though, by enshrining gender education alongside other aspects of sex education and insisting that transgender issues need to be covered in sex ed. Though aimed at adult audiences, Second Puberty is also a reminder that we need to do better when it comes to sexual education for younger people, because no trans person, of any age, should have to go through second puberty alone.