SO HORMONAL

Prefaced with a foreword from the author of Please Read This Leaflet Carefully, Karen Havelin, contributors discuss topics such as periods, steroid use, chronic illness, transitioning, men’s fertility and menopause with refreshing openness and honesty.

Expect pieces that celebrate the wonders and joys of hormones, while also challenging the stigma and discrimination routinely faced at the intersection of hormonal experiences. Compiled and introduced by Emily Horgan and Zachary Dickson, So Hormonal is an open call for new conversations about our hormones.

Essays include:

Forewordby author Karen Havelin

No Country for Neurodivergent Women: Addressing Undiagnosed ADHD and Cluster Headaches by Donna Alexander

The Waiting Room: Fighting For Trans-Inclusive Healthcareby Hidden Ink Child

Getting Off the Back Foot with Male Fertility Healthby Tyler Christie

The Self-Made Body: Personal Growth and Steroidsby Michael Collins

Notes from a Medical Menopause: There’s a Tea for That by Alexia Pepper de Caires

‘Man... I Feel Like a Woman’ A Trans Woman’s Oestrogen Therapy to Treat Gender Dysmorphia by Kacey de Groot

Roaccutane Tubes: On Navigating Puberty Hormones and Bodily Changes in the Wake of Sexual Abuseby Madeleine Dunne

Withholding: An Experience of Diabulimiaby Clare Marie Edgeman

Don’t Tell Me to Calm Down: The Politics of Stress, Rest, and Lion Tamingby L C Elliott

Telling Hormonal Stories bySonja Erikainen, Andrea Ford, Roslyn Malcolm and Lisa Raeder

Meron: Breaking Free From the Maria Clara Ideal in Filipino Cultureby Rita Faire

Dear Lexi: A Letter to a Friend About PMDD by Tomiwa Folorunso

Let’s Make a Baby (With Science)by Erica Gillingham

The Feminine Chaotic: Endocrine Disorders, the Feminine Identity, and Queer Culture byL j Gray

Blood is Back: How my Knowledge and Experience of Periods was Revolutionised, While I Wasn’t Having Them by Rachel Grocott

My Anxiety Is Part of My IdentitybyToonika Guha

Wanna See My Party Trick? *Stops Taking Testosterone* byJames Hudson

An Impersonal History of Self-Medicationby Kate Kiernan

I’m Wearing Docs, Michael: On Thyroids, Tallness and Teenage Sufferingby Aifric Kyne

Spinning through Fog (High Salt Content): Addisons’s Disease and Hormonal Treatment by Ali Maloney

Everything and Nothing: On Pregnancy and Depression by Fiadh Melina

Ten Years in the Making: Conversations with Partners About Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome by Sonali Misra

Clot: Pulmonary Embolisms and the Pillby Rachel Moss

Mood Swings and Misunderstandings: The Complexities of ‘Teenage Hormones’ by Cathy Naughton

Period, the End: Sixty Years of Learning by Sigrid Nielsen

What If I’m Not Just a Massive Bitch? Redefining Self with Severe PMDD by Heather Parry

‘Wait. I’m Not Finding a Heartbeat’ Speaking Out on Baby Lossby Laura Pearson

The Puberty That Wasn’t Supposed to Exist: Navigating Growing Up Intersexby Maya Posch

Blood and Bone: Osteoporosis at 23 by Georgia Priestley

What a Difference a Day Makes: How my Middle-Aged Zest for Sex was a Catalyst for Change by Lins Ringer

A Period Piece: On PCOS, PMDD and the NHS in 2020by Jo Ross-Barrett

Change: The Bitter Pill Medicine Must Continue to Swallowby Annabel Sowemimo

If Rabbits, Why Not Women?: Living in a Woman’s Body Shaped and Kept Together by the Inventions of Menby Jeanne Sutton

Three Magic Days: Celebrating the Curious Power of Hormonesby Alice Tarbuck

Banana-Leaf Poultices: Black British Attitudes to Healthcare and Medication by Rianna Walcott

LLETZ, a Locus: Reconfiguring My Body as a Body That Will Bleed by Anna Walsh