Long term hormonal treatment for transgender people

### What you need to know The aim of hormone treatment in transgender people is to adjust their secondary sex characteristics to be more congruent with their experienced gender. Hormone treatment for transgender people is usually initiated by specialist gender clinics, but some people start hormone treatment of their own accord without a prescription. With growing numbers of transgender people presenting to healthcare services (estimated as 9.2 per 100 0001), general practitioners, general endocrinologists, and other doctors will become increasingly involved in their long term care, the prescription of hormones, and consideration of potential side effects. Several guidelines are available on the start of hormonal treatment234567; the focus of this article is the long term hormonal care for transgender people who might no longer attend a specialist clinic. It is aimed at a more general readership of physicians occasionally seeing adult transgender people. ### Transgender terminology Language and terminology are sensitive. Some terms used in the past are no longer appropriate because they might have negative connotations. #### Sex/gender The term gender has historically been used to refer to psychological, behavioural, and sociological characteristics, and their categorisation by society as “masculine” or “feminine.” The term sex has historically been used to refer to …