I’ve finally joined the cool girls on HRT. It honestly does feel a bit like that, for which I thank the many mid-life activists, academics, healthcare professionals and influencers who have helped to shift perspectives over the past few years. Obviously, women have been talking about their bastard hormones for ever, and particular respect and gratitude are due to those who did so decades before the more accepting present. But being perimenopausal has had a serious glow up.
It’s being reframed as your prime – less vaginal atrophy and incontinence, more Davina McCall with a six-pack and Bridget Christie in biker leathers (in her meno-comedy The Change). There is more media coverage, more high-profile women discussing their experiences and, inevitably, more commodification: once Goop starts targeting libido supplements at your phase of life, it has become, if not aspirational, at least not something you have to whisper about on the top deck of the bus, in case Alan Bennett might be eavesdropping. I doubt I would have written about this here five years ago, so something has definitely changed.
