Temporal regimes in gender-affirming hormone therapy: An Austrian case study of neuroscientific and clinical temporalities

Gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) is organized through multiple, overlapping temporal regimes that shape what counts as valid knowledge as well as when and for whom care becomes accessible. This study examines the social organisation of time in GAHT through an ex-post qualitative case study of an Austrian neuroscience project. Drawing on interviews with study authors and researchers (n = 4), related peer-reviewed publications, media coverage, policy and institutional documents, and visual materials, we analyse how scientific and institutional temporalities are produced, stabilised, and circulated. We demonstrate how standardised measurement intervals (e.g. neuroimaging at fixed time points), publication cycles, and diagnostic procedures act as time generators that privilege institutional pacing over the open-ended character of transition. As findings travel into media and policy arenas, they are re-temporalized into progress narratives that compress processual change into discrete ‘snapshots’, reinforcing chrononormative expectations and gatekeeping timelines. Our analysis foregrounds chronopolitics and temporal capital to explain how temporal arrangements distribute authority, produce delays, and delimit legibility within research and care. While lived temporalities are not directly sampled, we demonstrate how institutional and scientific temporalities condition what becomes visible about transgender lives. Based on our observations, we argue for reflexive, temporally responsive research designs and clinical protocols that recognise transition as continuous and varied, and for policies that reduce temporal inequalities in access to GAHT.