AFTER ESTROGEN
After Estrogen is a movement for women living with hormone-reactive breast cancer.
Who We Are
After Estrogen is a global community focused on one specific reality of breast cancer that most people do not understand: the years of endocrine therapy that begin when treatment is supposed to be over.
Seventy to eighty percent of people diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide are hormone receptor–positive (HR+). For most, that means long-term hormone suppression for five to ten years to reduce recurrence risk.
This is not a side note to treatment. This is the treatment.
After Estrogen exists to make that reality visible. We create space for honest conversation about what hormone suppression does to our bodies, relationships, careers, cognition, sexuality, and identities.
This is where women find common ground, and their lived reality stops being so privately endured.
The Data Tells the Hard Truth
Each year, more than 2.3 million women worldwide are diagnosed with breast cancer; roughly 70–80% of those diagnoses are hormone receptor–positive. That means the majority of breast cancer patients will spend years on endocrine therapy, often entering medically induced menopause abruptly, with little preparation, while being told their treatment is complete.
They are not finished; they are years into it.
The clinical success of endocrine therapy in reducing recurrence is real, as is the cost of living on it.
Women's Health Has Been Systematically Underfunded
The lack of preparation around endocrine therapy is not accidental; it reflects a broader pattern in women’s health research.
In 2020, only 5% of global research and development funding was allocated to women’s health. Just 4% went to women’s cancers, and 1% to all other female-specific health conditions.
Analyses of U.S. National Institutes of Health funding show that in nearly three-quarters of cases where a disease primarily affects one gender, funding favors males.
The pattern is consistent: conditions that affect women most receive less investment relative to their impact.
Menopause Research Has Been Overlooked for Decades
Menopause (natural or medically induced) has long been treated as peripheral to “serious” medicine. In 2023, NIH funding for menopause research totaled $56 million, despite menopause affecting roughly half the population. Less than 1% of published aging studies include menopause as a variable, even though the majority of age-related diseases are influenced by it.
Only 30% of U.S. residency programs include a formal menopause curriculum. More than 80% of OB-GYN residents report feeling unprepared to discuss menopause with patients.
While menopause is finally gaining public attention, women forced into it abruptly through cancer treatment remain largely excluded from that conversation.
The Treatment Itself Is Half a Century Old
Tamoxifen, often a first-line therapy for HR+ breast cancer, received FDA approval in 1977, nearly 50 years ago. It remains effective, widely prescribed, and emblematic of how little innovation has occurred in managing the long-term consequences of estrogen suppression.
Women are prescribed medications that alter their bodies for five to ten years, often with minimal explanation of what that will mean for:
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cognitive function
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sexual health
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bone density
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cardiovascular risk
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mental health
There is little preparation, little language, and little acknowledgment.
The Disconnect Is Enormous
After diagnosis, the world often treats you as cured. You are expected to move on. To be grateful. To be fine.
Meanwhile, you are still on treatment, still managing side effects, still reorganizing your life around medication designed to keep the cancer from returning.
That disconnect between being told you're "done" and the reality of what lies ahead on endocrine therapy is why After Estrogen exists.
For too long, survivorship has been treated like a finish line, but for women with hormone-reactive breast cancer, it’s only the start of another chapter.
After Estrogen is the unfiltered, un-pretty, unspoken side of hormone-reactive breast cancer. It’s the part no one talks about: what it means to live without estrogen, when you’re not old enough for menopause, and not ready to lose what it gave you. This isn’t a pity party. It’s a firestorm of honesty, identity, and connection. We’re building a community that speaks the truth about the after, and shows up for each other in it.
How We Do It
After Estrogen is not here to tell women how to feel or how to cope. We created space for conversation and community. A space for women to speak honestly with one another about what endocrine therapy is doing to their bodies, their work, their relationships, and their sense of self without having to minimize it, justify it, or frame it as personal failure.
Conversation matters. Community is where women find one another. Change begins when those conversations become a groundswell.
All with the hope that the women diagnosed after us are more prepared, with care teams who have language and awareness of the cost of the endocrine therapy, and so our friends, families, and colleagues have a better understanding of what it means to be a breast cancer survivor.
About the Founder
After Estrogen was founded by Angie Brandt, a hormone-receptor positive breast cancer survivor living with long-term endocrine therapy.
The idea for After Estrogen did not come from inspiration. It came from what was missing. Between diagnosis and the start of endocrine therapy, women live without a clear explanation of what estrogen suppression will do to their bodies or how to live with it.
There was no roadmap for managing side effects, no candid discussion about medically induced menopause, no acknowledgment of what it means to be prescribed a medication essential for survival without being prepared for its consequences.
What she found instead were fragmented testimonials from women already struggling and constant targeted ads about hormone replacement therapy for women her age, offering relief she would never be eligible to receive.
There was no place to hear the truth plainly, and no space to name the fear before starting treatment, no language for the grief of being told a medication is necessary while being given no tools to live with it. Angie began by creating After Estrogen: Women Navigating Hormone-Reactive Breast Cancer as a first-line way to start the conversation. What followed was a robust community of women who felt seen, understood, and relieved to finally have a place where they could name the impact of life on endocrine therapy.
Angie is the owner of Both Worlds Travel, a luxury travel agency built on high-touch planning, deep relationships, and thoughtful, well-considered journeys, and the founder of Go There Women, a women’s travel group created for accomplished women ready to travel with intention and clarity. Both are rooted in the same core belief that drives After Estrogen: that agency matters, that presence is learned through lived experience, and that surviving is not the end of the story.
What's Next
After Estrogen is building momentum for long-term change through:
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A platform offering conversations, peer connection, and resources specific to endocrine therapy
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Partnerships with healthcare professionals committed to improving survivorship care for HR+ patients
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Collaboration with companies investing in meaningful innovation for this population
The full platform launches soon; the movement is already here.
Join Us
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For women managing HR+ breast cancer: Join our email list below to stay connected with community updates and upcoming resources.
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For healthcare professionals: Email us to learn about opportunities to contribute to conversations on survivorship care.
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For brands and partners: Email us to explore collaboration with the After Estrogen community.