Suzanne Harrington: Would there be a shortage of HRT if it wasn't a woman's problem?

The ban on our bodies is off but our access to hormones is being limited.

'Imagine if it were not only women who endure menopause – imagine the speed and efficacy of the supply chain then, if it were more than merely women affected by its interruption'

Maybe when Irvine Welsh wrote the opening words of Trainspotting – “The sweat wis lashing oafay Sickboy” – it was in reference not to opiate withdrawal but to HRT, or the lack thereof. Even with an open window on a cold day, the sweat is lashing off of all of us who cannot access what we need. Not heroin – oestrogen. How very foolhardy of those in charge of supply chains to let this happen. How very rash to allow a shortage of the one thing that keeps menopausal women from killing you all with our bare hands.

We are coming for you, with our overheated bodies and our anxiety turned to rage, our thinning vaginal walls and our thinning hair and nails, our overactive bladders and insanity-inducing insomnia, our sagging skin and drooping libido and headaches and fatigue and aching joints. We are coming for you, if only we could remember where you are. Or who you are, or who we are, or which way is up.