Erin Reed was just 13 years old when she first began researching gender transition. It took her another 18 years to transition publicly—and access to treatment, or lack thereof, played a big role in the wait.

As a teen, Reed found that in order to be prescribed hormone therapy, she would need letters from “gender specialists” and she would have to present as a girl for months (or even longer) prior to her first dose. “It just didn’t seem like something I could access,” she told Rewire.News. Transitioning without hormones terrified Reed—although many trans people do transition non-medically, she didn’t want to—so she didn’t try at all.

“There was no way I could present as female for a year before receiving treatment. The whole process just seemed really daunting to me,” Reed said.

It wasn’t until adulthood that Reed, now the digital director of the progressive news site Shareblue, discovered informed consent (IC) clinics, where trans people can access hormones without jumping through the various hoops. Reed booked an appointment at one a few hours from her home in Washington, D.C., and began hormone replacement therapy a few months ago. But after her challenging road to finding the resources she needed, Reed felt inspired to help others. So she created what has become one of the largest repositories of information on IC clinics in the country: a map of clinics all over the United States.

Conventional medical wisdom holds that hormone therapy treatment should involve a long series of complex steps. Rather than having to consult with a mental health professional and present as their gender for a year, patients at informed consent clinics are educated about the impact of the drugs they are interested in starting therapy with. If they are determined to be of “sound mind” and fully able to consent, they can sign a form and begin treatment. Patients, who are often still in the early stages of hormone therapy at IC clinics, are then monitored carefully; their hormone levels are checked every few months.