Taking care of your overall wellness, including mental and physical well-being, is important in your gender-affirming care journey, helping you feel good about yourself.

• Affirmation and empowerment: Making decisions about your care that are true to your wishes may be challenging. It might feel like providers are quick to tell you the risks of options instead of the affirming reasons for doing it. This can lead to people making decisions that they either don’t want to make or making decisions out of fear. Feeling empowered and having more people in the healthcare system that understand gender affirmation is starting to change this.
• Sex and intimacy: Finding accurate and inclusive information about sexual health can be difficult. There are also many ways to express sexuality that is individual for each person. Understanding arousal, potential changes with transition, and feeling safe to explore your desires are just a few of the many aspects of sexual well-being.
• Pregnancy: Many transgender people who can become pregnant take testosterone to affirm their gender. Planning a pregnancy requires the person to stop taking testosterone as it is not safe to take during pregnancy. Stopping testosterone will lead to physical and emotional changes and during pregnancy, our bodies go through a lot of changes. These combined changes can feel like a rollercoaster, but knowing what to expect and putting supports in place can help.

For more information about sex, pregnancy, and gender affirmation, visit Trans Care BC.

Your healthcare team may continue to check in on different areas of your health based on the treatment and management options you choose. This could include checking for other health conditions, called co-morbidities, and making sure you’re up to date with screening like cancer, heart disease, and sexual health screenings.

Find resources and services in your community

• 211 Alberta helps people in Alberta find the right resource or service for whatever issue they need help with. 211 is available any time, day or night, by phone (call 211), text, and online chat. It is confidential and available in over 170 languages over the phone.
• The Alberta Healthy Living Program has workshops, classes, and services to improve your health and quality of life.
• The Alberta Health Services Chronic Disease Management program has links and resources to help people living with chronic conditions.