Caroline O'Donoghue: Let's talk about hormones

Hormonal therapy is normal in our society - so why can some access it easier than others?

'Trans people need us to see them clearly.'

When I was 16, following complaints of severe menstrual cramps and acne, my mother took me to our family GP who prescribed me the contraceptive pill. It’s a pretty common practice for teenage girls who are being punished too harshly by their periods, and many girls in my class at school were prescribed the same thing.

I’m sure there were politicians, journalists, religious figures, and random people phoning into Joe Duffy who might have objected to a 16-year-old girl going on the pill, even in 2006. They might have had sympathy, in a distant sort of way, for my pain, for the depression that followed it, for the fact tough years were being made tougher by the fact that I was missing school or skipping social events because of my unruly body.