Hong Kong (CNN) Largely forgotten by China's health system, young transgender men and women are turning to dangerous alternatives such as a black market drugs and even life-threatening self surgery, according to a new report.

The study by human rights group Amnesty International, released Friday, reveals how China's transgender people face both widespread discrimination and daunting obstacles to important gender-affirming treatments.

"Interviewees give examples of them being discriminated against at work, being told by employers not to wear (their) hair long, or not to wear to wrong clothes -- 'You're driving away customers.' At home their family will tell them to suppress their gender identity: 'Be a man or have a child,'" Amnesty International China researcher Doriane Lau told CNN.

Ran, one of the gender non-binary trans people interviewed by Amnesty, uses they/them pronouns. Their T-shirt reads "I am a transgender person, can you hug me?"

Lau said the consequences of the discrimination and isolation can be disastrous. One 30-year-old transgender woman, Huiming, told researchers when she was unable to obtain hormone treatment legally, she began to self-medicate in large doses in a desperate attempt to reconcile her body with her identity.

Eventually, afraid to tell her family but desperate for surgery, she took matters into her own hands. "She tried putting ice on her male genitals to stop them functioning and even booked a surgery with a black-market doctor, but the doctor was arrested," the report said.