I‘m Eden. I’m a dermatologist. I’m a trans woman. I discovered that second thing at 52 while I was trying to check some hormone calculations.
That’s not a typical origin story. But it clarified something I should have understood earlier: the information exists. The evidence for how to do this well — optimal protocols, what good levels actually look like, how your skin responds to oestrogen, what the literature says versus what you’re told in a consultation — it’s all there. It just doesn’t reach the people who need it.
My dermatology isn’t incidental to any of this. Skin and hormones — the biology that connects them — is the question I started with and never left, and skin is one of the most hormonally responsive organs in the body. Transition was never a separate subject from my work. It runs straight through it.
I arrived at this knowledge sideways. I spent months deep in the HRT tables and clinical studies, optimising my wife’s hormone levels and applying the same clinical training I use every day on skin to the endocrinology behind it. Then I discovered it applied to me. And within days I had done my own bloodwork, built my own protocol, and started.
Clinical knowledge removes uncertainty. It lets you read your own results, ask better questions, and recognise when something isn’t good enough.
This account exists because the gap between what the research shows and what many trans women are actually told is not a small gap. It is years wide. And it costs people quality of life. It costs some people much more than that.
I’m a dermatologist — but I’m not your dermatologist. Nothing here creates a personal treating relationship. I’m here to give you the information your own clinician probably didn’t.
Clinical is the evidence — hormone mechanisms, skin science, and what the literature actually says.
Personal is the experience — what it felt like not to know, and what it felt like to finally understand.
Advocacy is the argument — and the belief that our systems can do better.
Skincare is the practical side — because your skin is an endocrine organ, and most skincare advice ignores that entirely.
I’m 52. I’m sapphic. I’m on HRT. I’m still figuring some things out, and I’ll write about them openly when I’m ready.
And if you’re reading this because you’re trying to figure things out too, you’re welcome here.
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Eden, dermatologist (she/her)
ORCID: 0009-0001-2205-5702
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Disclaimer: Everything on Eden Openly is educational. It is not medical advice, and it is not a substitute for individual clinical care.