Pumping Polyjuice: The “T” Comparison
Jan 07, 2009
Uncategorized
size=”3″>Polyjuice Potion. Metamorphmagi. Or maybe just a little help from Madam Pomfrey. If you were a witch or wizard, would you ever choose to change your appearance by magic? We all cut our hair, tattoo our skin, get pierced, lose weight, straighten our teeth. But what if you had more than Hermione’s buckteeth or Eloise Midgen’s acne? What if you had body parts you didn’t want? Hair growing where it shouldn’t? What would you be willing to do to change those things?
size=”3″>Though we see all kinds of appearance-changing magic in the Harry Potter saga, it seems a lot of it is not permanent. At the very least, a witch or wizard might have to change their appearance every time the spell wore off, and that would probably depend on how good at magic one was. When the trio breaks into Gringotts, Ron’s disguise as Dragomir Despard is instant and painless temporary plastic surgery. In the Muggle world, there is of course plastic surgery available today which gives the trans community some options, and while these procedures are permanent, they certainly aren’t painless and require a lot of recovery time, not to mention the fact that they’re extremely expensive. The stronger analogy I can see is between Polyjuice Potion and hormone replacement therapy. For those who don’t know, hormone therapy is a treatment program where either estrogen or testosterone is intravenously administered. The therapy has a myriad of effects, which vary in terms of permanency. Some will continue throughout treatment only, while others can never be reversed. In the case of Male to Female (MtF) transitions, the effects include the beginnings of breast development (it takes years for full development), loss of erection/ejaculation (sterility), redistribution of body fat to hips and buttocks, smoother skin, and a decrease in body hair. In Female to Male (FtM), the effects include atrophy of the uterus and ovaries, resulting in sterility, facial and body hair, deeper voice, redistribution of body fat to the abdomen, and increased muscle mass. Sounds great, right? From a trans perspective, it really does. I would say, then, that it’s no surprise that hormone treatment has always been popular, except that there are some very serious drawbacks. As an FtM, even if you could deal with the temporary spike in aggression or the eventual male-patter baldness, there are some pretty serious side effects to hormone treatment for all genders, including gallbladder disease, high blood pressure, hypothyroidism, liver disease, migraines, aneurysms, cancer, diabetes, and depression. To put it simply, hormone therapy can kick the crap out of your body. The process is a huge ordeal for your system. But even for someone like me who breaks into a cold sweat at the mere mention of drawing blood, this is not a black and white issue and in regards to my transition, the subject is certainly not off the table. This does not, however, change the fact that, in my gut, I really feel I won’t ever go down that road. One-time surgery? Yes, please, bring it on. With hormone therapy though, even if I can get beyond the medical risks, there are other factors that still bother me about the process. It is actually the same thing that bothered Voldemort about the Philosopher’s Stone: the dependency. We see this with Polyjuice as well. Barty Crouch Jr. keeps his flask of potion by his side at all times in order to keep the appearance of Mad-Eye Moody. In the end, it is only a matter of time and human error that forces Crouch Jr. back into his old body.
size=”3″>Of course, the biggest difference between Polyjuice and pumping testosterone or estrogen is that with the potion, you are becoming someone else who already exists. With hormone therapy, you’re still you, just another gender. I was thinking about this when it occurred to me that my other big fear about the therapy is that it will end up being more like Polyjuice than I thought. I’m not just talking about the aggression nearly all FtM patients experience after starting therapy, though that is also a concern. Similar to what happens during male adolescence, these mood swings scare me in particular since I am someone who has struggled with aggression in the past. But at least that is something for which I would be able to prepare. I think mainly I’m afraid that I would feel like a different person. I’m worried that even though I’m unhappy with certain aspects of my body, it’s still what is familiar and mine and I might feel like the body the therapy gave me wasn’t mine, and could maybe never be and that, on top of this, I wouldn’t ever be able to return to my old body. I think that, even with words like “aneurysm” and “cancer” staring me in the face, that reality is still far scarier and is still the biggest risk for me. And at least for now, it’s a risk I’m not willing to take.
