#and there are other hrt results that i actually DO want anyways so i guess this is just tipping the scale

[theygender]

I was able to refill my BC prescription again but I missed one day of it bc I have ADHD and now I'm dying again 🙃 I wanna get a hysterectomy so bad it's just a matter of finding out which hoops I need to jump through

[wolfenm]

Just deleted a post of mine about my experiences with ADHD and misogyny because a terf reblogged it, and I then realised how, despite my being genderfluid / non-binary, what I said could be misconstrued and misused (honestly, I struggled with how to word certain points in the first place). I said "assigned female" because I wanted to stress that I am not strictly female, but the misogyny was a result of a cis male still *perceiving* me as such, and treating my interests as lesser because of that.

Terfs like to go "See? There are problems trans women can never experience, so they aren't really women!!" Well, one: I have yet to meet a trans woman who doesn't acknowledge that they did and sometimes still benefit from male privilege -- when others refuse to see them as otherwise, and they have to present as male for their own safety, or to prevent family drama. That's not their fault, and a different kind of suffering in it's own right, having to deny their true selves to meet the expectations of others.

And two, there are trans women (and even cis men!!) who ARE perceived by cis men as assigned female, and as such, have suffered misogyny. (Also note that trans girls often have an interest in activities that are coded a female, and a lack of interest in activities that are typically coded as male -- although experiences, of course, vary ... just as they do among cis people. Anyway, they are maligned for their interests even more than cis girls are. And the further trans women get into adulthood, the less likely they are to have ever treated women the way many cis men do.) There are also trans men who have noted that, in being perceived as an assigned-male person, they have then received the privilege that comes with that perception.

And here's the thing: terfs seem to be reducing the idea of womanhood to a specific set of largely negative circumstances. Not even every assigned female person goes through the same problems. If an assigned female person is one of the lucky ones who hasn't actually been sexually assaulted, does that mean she isn't a woman? And doesn't it suggest that a trans woman who has been sexually assaulted, is?

And what about the positive experiences of women? All I seem to see is talk of having children -- which not all women can or want to do!

I likely have undiagnosed PCOS. My body, despite my chromosomes saying I'm female, did not "properly" release hormones as per what it should have for my sex as I was growing up. My breasts are small, despite most of the women in my family being large-breasted. I'm hirsute. I've frequently been perceived as a man. I have to shave my face, and there have been times I have shaved my arms when I wanted to pass better as a woman -- the same gender I was born to. I haven't been sexually harassed since adulthood (thanks the gods), and barely was as a teen; instead, I've been repeatedly called ugly and told to die because I wasn't feminine enough -- an experience I haven't seen many cis women share. (Just as I can't really relate to the problems that go with cis-het men perceiving a woman as beautiful.)

The only time I had a period in my life was when I developed endometrial cancer. A menstrual cycle is considered a common female experience, but it's one that assigned-female-me barely understands. I have no experience with tampons, so I didn't understand a recent tampon-related meme.

I'm not the only assigned-female person with such a circumstance, and many, maybe even most, still whole-heartedly identity as a woman. And what about women who have had a hysterectomy (as I have had)? Why reduce womanhood to the state of our reproductive organs and genitals alone? What about those of us who don't use them? Do we stop being women? Why don't we? And if we don't, why can't trans women be women despite a lack of a uterus or experience with periods?

Are people who do not have two arms and two legs -- especially if they were born without them -- or have prosthetics, somehow not "people" because they are "incomplete" or partially "artificial", and are "missing" some experiences that are otherwise common to people in general?

And anyway, even biological sex is more complicated than just a binary. Do terfs want to say intersex people who had masculinity forced on them have no feminine self? Or that intersex people who had femininity forced on them can't see themselves as masculine? Terfs make a big fuss about biology; intersex have both masculine and feminine traits, yet it's surgery that determines which they are seen by. And if terfs ARE willing to accept assigned-male intersex people as women, why not non-intersex ones?

It's really strange to me to see terfs be angry because someone hasn't suffered as much in the same way as them, and completely miss that trans women suffer in other ways because of embracing their true selves. Trans women are much more likely to be murdered for their gender status than cis women are. Going to the bathroom, a task cis people don't think twice about, becomes an agonising decision about local laws versus personal safety and personal perception.

It's utterly ridiculous to think men are dressing in droves to assault women in bathrooms, when trans women are being forced into men's restrooms and then being sexually assaulted. (Rapey cis men aren't going to take the risk of being attacked by other cis men; if they want to sexually assault women in a bathroom, they'll wait till no one's looking and just walk right in. But really, they'd rather roofie someone in a bar.)

Trans women are *giving up* male privilege, and many cis men hate them for it, treating them even worse than they treat cis women. Trans women's interests -- their entire lives -- are often treated as a joke because they're trans, just like how cis women complain their lives aren't taken seriously because they're women.

And stop acting like transitioning is some easy thing. Children are not being *forced* to transition; it's an elaborate process that takes years before anything medical is allowed to happen, and most don't GET the opportunity to transition in their teens. Many then commit suicide because no one will accept what they know about themselves as fact. (And guess what? HRT is reversible -- hence adults being able to transition. But it's easier on the body during adolescence.)

My apologies to the trans community for how my original post backfired. It's all the more frustrating that, although I can block the user from my main blog, I cannot block them from THIS one, nor does my erasing the post here then erase it from their blog. One of the huge downsides to tumblr. *sigh*

[werevulvi]

Not the anon you replied to but I think the nonbinary argument falls apart for me because no one can be truly sexless nor a hermaphrodite person so this idea that they "should" be is like someone feeling they should be a minotaur or a fairy. It's so disconnected and almost entitled to bend reality that it grates on me, especially when its combined with some flavor of "but it's not a mental illness!".Even from a health pov there is no viable HRT that makes u both. And no gonads+no HRT = bad

Well, that's alright. I might just not see it from the same perspective as you. I don't really view nonbinary as one specific thing, but rather as on a greyscale kinda between male and female. It is not saying that mixing male and female traits on the same body in various ways necessarily "makes" a new gender, or truly sexless. The "gender" is merely personal interpretation.

I still battle this with myself, so it's difficult to talk about, but since I'm the only nonbinary person who's brain I know well enough to speak of... I guess I'll try.

First off though, usually the point with nonbinary isn't to be a specific "third" sex, sexless or to be some mythological hermaphodite. Humans cannot become truly sexless or be both sexes for real, but at the same time females cannot become males or vice versa either. So is it pointless to transition (with hormones and surgery) at all then?

Because at the end of the day, we're all just bio males and bio females, regardless how we feel about it, and regardless if we transition or not. That's what the reality is. But wanting to look different and putting a gendered meaning into that difference, isn't necessarily wrong, bad or illogical to me.

Like I have a teddy tiger which I sometimes refer to as simply "my tiger" even though she's not a real tiger. Because the toy resembles a tiger, and was made to resemble a tiger, it's logical enough to call her a tiger, even though it might sometimes be important to specify that it's made of fabric. Likewise, a nonbinary person might just be a female who looks partially male and partially female, due to hormones and surgery, like myself. To then say that me looking both male and female and liking it "makes" me nonbinary is no more untrue than saying that the soft toy "is" a tiger.

Because I resemble a mix of both sexes, just like the soft toy resembles a tiger. I cannot produce both sperm and eggs so I am not of both sexes for real; and my tiger cannot roar nor scratch, and is not a living creature, thus it is not a real tiger. Often times we call things not only what they are, but also what they resemble. Especially when it comes to art and other creations, but really all sorts of things. Like comparing someone's red hair to fire, or calling my balcony during hot summer days a sauna, even though red hair is not actual flames and my balcony is not an actual sauna. Why? Because it help with communication. Parables are important to describe things or to make a point. I even made another parable to describe a parable, to prove a point with a parable, just now.

Granted that most nonbinary (and binary) trans people do not view themselves as a parable to the gender of the sex they consider themselves to be, but I do.

So, consider the fact that transition doesn't actually change the person's sex, only polishes the surface to either look like the opposite sex, and/or some ambiguous variant of both/neither sex, but it can still make that person feel better about themselves. Is it then pointless for them to do things that make them feel better and find ways to lead a more functional life, regardless of how redundant it might seem to you? Because to me, the point of transitioning is not to become something else (whether that be male, female, sexless or a hermaphrodite), but to reduce dysphoria to improve over all life quality for the dysphoric person. And yes, dysphoria is a mental illness. I wouldn't wanna argue against that. I view my dysphoria as the defect, not my sex. And no, transitioning doesn't help every dysphoric person, but I think it's pretty clear that it helps for some. So then there's just not that much of a difference between... say, transitioning with T and top surgery to live as a self-perceived man - and transitioning with only T to live as a self-perceived half man-half woman. Because neither of those two examples can truly become anything other than a female anyway, so why does it matter? It might not matter to you, but it probably matters to them.

Also, I don't think anyone "should" be of the other sex or some other variant either. I just think people can do whatever they want with their own bodies if it makes them happy, and call themselves whatever they want if they feel that's useful for them somehow.

Both males and females, as well as intersex conditions that look ambiguous exist. Fairies and minotaurs do not. Even if they might be loosely based on bulls and fireflies. I could literally fool people to believe that I'm both male and female by simply saying some stupid shit like "I was born with both a dick and a pussy" because a lot of people have heard that can be a thing, even though they would know it's rare, they likely know it's humanly possible in some way. Getting people to believe I'm a fairy or minotaur would probably be a lot harder, unless they’re 5 years old.

How much or what kind of dysphoria somehow has doesn't really matter, I think. Dysphoria is dysphoria. And yeah, I would at least be willing to possibly extend that non-dysphoric people who seem genuinely more satisfied with themselves post-transition. Because then so what, good for them.

But yeah, I know even I have an easier time accepting certain types of nonbinary more than other types. Someone wanting no genitals, I would personally find very concerning, but someone wanting both a dick and pussy, I wouldn't be nearly as worried about. Someone wanting physical changes that can realistically be acquired through hormones, surgery, etc, would not be as concerning for me as someone wanting... say for example a big beard but not a deeper voice, and start dabbling with testosterone anyway.

You're right that there is no hormone that makes you "both" but it's possible to look androgynous in various ways with the hormones available. Sure, I may pass as male, have a beard and flat chest, but I also have a curvy figure and a pussy. To me, that's kind of a way to look like "both" sexes at once. Not evenly, and not like a hermaphrodite stereotype, but it is a combination of male and female sex characteristics that together makes me look kinda half and half. How I "achieved" that was simply by first going through female puberty (naturally) and then taking testosterone (on standard, "full" dose) for a significant amount of time, and get a mastectomy. Totally doable. Although my personal results depend highly on my genetic as well, of course. For other variants of androgyny, some manage to achieve that with low dose hormones, or going off the hormones after a shorter time on them. Some also go on and off hormones (not sure how healthy that is though.) Not everyone gets their intended results, but I have seen many variants that have looked good to me. I’m not advocating for getting one’s gonads removed and then not take any sort of hrt, or doing hrt without a knowledgable doctor’s supervision.

So really all I can say is I'm generally okay-ish with the concept of nonbinary, but some aspects/variants of it does concern me, make me uncomfortable, make me roll my eyes, or even viscerally upset me. I'm still quicker to critisise nb than I am to defend it, however... I do both critisise and defend it.

Whether I want to admit it or not, I'm practically nonbinary myself, even though I scoff at the concept and can name a hundred things wrong with it. I don't wanna label myself that, though. I hate it.

Let me put it this way: In an ideal world I'd just exist as myself like this, take my testosterone just because I like it (and not because I'm x, y or z gender), dress however I want (without it being questioned to mean I wanna be x, y or z gender), and be openly proud about my bio sex being female (without people telling me they don't believe it), without having to label myself anything at all. Alternatively, I'd also be fine with carrying a label which doesn't exclude ANY of those things I like being/doing with my body, style, name, etc.

But thing is I don't live in an ideal world. I live in Sweden. And in Sweden, we call freaks like me nonbinary. Because women don't wanna take testosterone to look like bearded men in dresses, and (trans) men don't love being female. Only nonbinary people do. So I’m only really nonbinary because I don’t fit any other label, and well, most people I know/come across dislike it too.

At the end of the day my body is just me and I just am like this. It doesn't actually "mean" anything, other than that I had dysphoria and acted on it. I love being female and I love being transitioned. Thus, I feel like I am in some highly abstract and vague sense "a little bit of both" sexes, and I don't think that's a particularly strange conclusion to come to, given my situation. I don't mean it literally. It's just how I relate to my body, and it's how the world relates to me. Sure, far from everyone “reads” me as nonbinary, but the sheer number of people who have told me I should identify that way... is flabbergasting, seriously. It’s like 20+ people who told me that, unprompted. Both people I’ve known, and strangers.

So, as I'm reluctantly trying to slap the uncomfortable nonbinary label on my own ass... perhaps I "shouldn't" invalidate my own kind, while I'm at it. However, the only thing I'd kindly ask of others to "validate" about me is my humanity, and to respect my bodily autonomy. If others think of me as a man or woman, both or neither, I truly do not care. But would I ever truly advocate for the nonbinary community? No, I don't think so. For the most part it’s regressive and goes against my values. I'd rather have gender be done away with, because ultimately I think that's a much better goal... even though it’s a pipedream. We can all dream, right?

So I mean... I'm probably not the best person to come to for some solid argument in support of nonbinary.

[transbionic-shieldmaiden]

a really long post about my stupid HRT adventure

cw medical stuff, tumors.

context: there was a post about getting on HRT that I read but I decided this was too personal to go in a reblog. donut rebagel, but feel free to reply.

ohhhh man, so like obviously i’m glad other people have had a better time than I when it comes to getting on hrt but i really gotta rant about the issues i had, because I had a hell of a time getting it DESPITE NOT ACTUALLY RUNNING INTO GATEKEEPING. so, story time:

this got long, so have a read more.

So I have executive dysfunction, which I cannot recommend. For me at least it comes in a package deal with a bunch of plasticbrains things I’m very much a fan of (stims! hyperfocus! being trans!), but I’d still very much like to not deal with it. And I also have social anxiety. Which overall is not a great combination of issues for dealing with the medical system.

Case in point: figuring out I’m trans was the catalyst for getting me to actually seek therapy (at MIT medical, which -- sidenote -- is free for students and I can’t recommend them highly enough), but what this actually meant was I took basically an entire semester to make the phone call to get an appointment, which was scheduled for a month after the call*. So far so great.

Anyway, as my therapy continued I kept coming in and complaining about dysphoria and being like “man i wish i could start hrt! but i won’t, because that involves talking to strangers :(” and eventually my therapist was like “so like. regular medical, which can prescribe hrt, is literally one floor below us. i can walk you down and schedule an appointment right now.”

and i was like “uhhhh wait i didn’t actually want my problem solved that means i have to talk to strangers!!!” but like obviously this was the social anxiety talking because i did actually want hrt. so my therapist walked me down to medical and i scheduled an appointment with the one Trans Doctor (tee-em) at MIT medical (like seriously this woman is as far as I can tell the PCP for like half of MIT’s trans population, we stan).

so the way this worked out is I needed three appointments: one intake appointment which was largely informational, one appointment with a physical checkup and a blood draw, and finally an appointment once the blood draw results came in. So I went in to the firs appointment, scheduled the second once it was done, and then MIT medical stole my blood.

And when that appointment was done I...didn’t schedule the third.

Cue several months passing due to executive dysfunction and social anxiety.

So I finally get myself together enough to schedule the last appointment, and I go in...and it turns out I have abnormally low testosterone. And I was all ready to be like “Oh no...isn’t that a shame...how terrible...” but the problem is, low testosterone in conjunction with my other blood metrics...was possibly a sign of a brain tumor.

That sounds worse than it actually is -- the brain tumor in question would’ve been benign, so it wouldn’t have been cancer. It does occasionally lead to blindness however, and low testosterone from said tumor would obviously not be very visible once I was taking spironolactone. So we needed to make sure I didn’t have a tumor before we could proceed with HRT. I was sent to take another blood test, optimized for the time of day when testosterone levels peak, and was therefore in the strange situation of being a trans woman hoping for high testosterone levels on a blood test.

Alas, it seems I was truly too trans for my own good, for it turns out the second test was even lower than the first.

This meant I had to go in for another blood test, and I had to get an MRI. And of course remember that every appointment I make here means 3-5 weeks depending on scheduling, all while I’m engaging in the standard MIT pastime of drowning in psets. Which is not fun when you’re depressed from dysphoria, let me tell you.

The MRI rolls around and it’s in this area of the Boston metro area Where The T Dares Not Go. There’s a bus stop near the clinic, but I have only been on an MBTA bus once and I really didn’t want to miss my appointment. So I hop in a lyft and soon it’s time for me to go in the Big Science Tube.

So here’s the thing about the Big Science Tube. It’s loud, it’s cramped, and in my case at least you get pumped with Contrast Juice which like goes in your brain or something? idk i’m not an MRI tech. I actually found it to be a not entirely unpleasant experience, because it sort of feels like you’re in a cryosleep chamber or something and I’m a huge nerd. But it’s also...massively disorienting. You can’t move, your vision is limited to the inside surface of a white cylinder, the whole thing is making Noise and vibrating, there’s the Contrast Juice sloshing in your brain...Oh, and at least in my case they let me listen to satellite radio while i was vibing in the science tube. Thing is, I don’t generally like radio music, since I tend to like individual songs more than genres, so I picked the jazz station. I figured this would ensure fairly enjoyable music the whole time, instead of a weird roller-coaster of songs I like, songs I hate, and songs I haven’t heard (the vast majority).

While I stand by this analysis in general, I do not recommend jazz as the soundtrack to the big science tube.

All this is to say that by the time I got out, I was extremely out of it and loopy. Oh, I also forgot to mention: I did not sleep well the night before. My sleep schedule is a mess at the best of times, and I was very nervous. So I am...completely off the shits by this point, not to mention extremely hungry and thirsty. They tell you to drink a lot to flush the Contrast Juice from your system, so that works out OK. In theory.

I get out, stand by the bus station for a bit, and conclude the bus isn’t coming. I walk across the street to a McDonalds, figuring I could really use some food and liquid. Which was correct.

...Except the bus came and went while I was in there, and looking at the schedule on my phone revealed I’d have to wait another half an hour for another.

This is where I make a terrible mistake. I look at my map, see that Harvard...isn’t too far from where I am, and Harvard has a T station! Perfect! So I, completely loopy from the MRI, still dehydrated because I haven’t gotten nearly enough liquids from McDonalds, decide to WALK TO HARVARD. It was a 30 minute walk, through unfamiliar territory, and I cannot stress this enough: I. Was. Off. The. Shits.

So I walk to Harvard using my phone’s GPS and whatever brain cells were not full of Contrast Juice, somehow managing to navigate through this random neighborhood and over the bridge without getting too lost or getting hit by a car. As I reach Harvard, I realize that this is a bad place for me to be in my current mental state: it’s bustling, full of standard college craziness; i think there was a guy in a chocolate bar costume which I could not process at the time. Oh, and I’ve never been to the Harvard T station so in my condition I struggle to find it. And when I do get there...well, here’s the thing about the Harvard T station: It’s huge. There’s several floors of underground bus terminals and an absolute warren of tunnels. Perfectly navigable, if you’re sober or know the area.

I am of course none of these things.

Still, somehow I find my way to the train, but that wasn’t even the end of my problems! Because, you see, my dorm is twenty minutes from the nearest T stop! So even once I get back to MIT I still have lots of walking to do. I don’t remember how I got back at that point; I think it involved a lot of drinking fountains.

Anyway, I guess this was supposed to be about me getting HRT? So it takes a while for the MRI results to get back, but it turns out I don’t have a tumor. However, in the meantime my parents have been pushing for me to freeze some sperm cells, so that I can have kids someday. Here’s the thing: I do not want kids. I do not expect to ever want kids. And if that changes, I’d be quite happy to adopt kids. But my parents are offering to pay for it, and the risk-averse part of my brain is like “oh...maybe i should do it...just in case???”

It takes me a month to actually call a fertility clinic. In the meantime, I am struggling in my classes; dysphoria is not conducive to educational success. It was not a good time to be me, let’s just put it that way. Finally, I make the call, and uhhhh it turns out sperm freezing is really expensive? And you have to go in for an intake appointment...then do some tests...and then...

So at this point I say, fuck it! And I get on HRT the next week. In total it took me like...a year to get on HRT, depending on how you count it? And all this without anyone actually gatekeeping me on being an Invalid Trans or whatever. But it’s all good, because now I’m far happier and more together than I ever thought I can be. The moral of this story is: HRT good, executive dysfunction bad, and don’t wander through Harvard while completely off the shits from MRI aftereffects.

*this is the one issue with MIT medical; their services are great but also in high demand. the system is a bit better once you actually get into it though.

[tmitransitioning]

I'm on an SNRI that reacts badly, in my body at least, with just about everything (everything else acts like a sponge). Is there a chance of T doing this or are there any type or way of administering T that would be less likely to react badly/don't have weakens SNRIs as a possible side effect?

I don’t think that any commonly used form of testosterone-based HRT would affect SNRI absorption. I’m basing this statement on a couple things that I’m going to write out not because I want to convince you, but because you know your meds better than I do and you can find potential holes in my justifications. (I’m also undercaffeinated, please bear with me.)

First point: Usually, things that reduce the efficacy of an antidepressant do so because they either impact your ability to absorb the medication in the first place or because they stop you from effectively metabolizing it. The former pathway is why, for example, you’re sometimes told not to eat fatty foods at the same time as a medication—your stomach is essentially so busy absorbing that food that it slows down the medication’s entrance into your bloodstream, and you may not get as much of the medication. Conversely, sometimes you’re told to only take your meds with a meal, because slowing it down like that helps you avoid side effects like nausea. Zoloft, for example, is kind of infamous for needing to be taken with food, and you’re supposed to avoid fruit juices with ADHD medication because acidifying your stomach even just that little bit makes it harder to absorb stimulants.

The latter pathway, metabolizing problems, is… really complicated. After you absorb a medication from your stomach, various enzymes in different organs break it down into metabolites; the most common pathway is through your liver. Some psych medications can inhibit different enzymes, either competitively or non-competitively (here’s a good explanation of that). This can prevent you from effectively breaking down the medication, which increases your circulating levels—if it isn’t getting broken down, it just stays there, and can build up quicker. A really good example of this is Luvox, which inhibits a TON of enzymes (link goes to Wikipedia) and thus has a lot of really weird interactions with other medications. It makes coffee last forever.

In the SNRI area, Effexor is also a good example of this because it’s unusual—its metabolites also function as SNRIs, so it works roughly the same between patients who have certain enzyme mutations (CYP2D6, specifically) that make it hard for them to absorb a lot of psych medications. Different people produce different amounts of CYP2D6, but Effexor kind of skips over that variation. Think of it like a slime cube. CYP2D6 is your sword. If you cut the slime cube in half down the middle, it just makes two smaller slime cubes. Luvox, by contrast, is like a rock giant. It’s super hard for your sword to cut that in half, so when more rock giants show up, you can’t fend them off. Most medications are rock giants, or ogres, that are hard to cut in half.

So, second point: Testosterone that we take via HRT isn’t metabolized in the same ways that most psychiatric medication is. It uses different enzymes, and it’s metabolized into other androgens, like DHT, and into estradiol. A small amount of it does go through enzymes that psychiatric meds use, but we don’t actually have any evidence to suggest that the interaction is significant—that doesn’t mean one can’t exist, but just that it hasn’t historically been a significant enough interaction if it does to warrant in-depth study.

What we do know about this is that antidepressants aren’t considered to be significantly different in action between “women” and “men”, meaning cis perisex people with normative endogenous hormone profiles.* There’s also no particular advisory given to people starting T that says you should avoid or adjust dosages of antidepressants, apart from the standard “tell your doctors about all the meds you’re on” warning.

Third point: I also don’t think that absorption through your stomach would be significantly impacted by T for a couple reasons. First, most people on T aren’t on an oral form—pill testosterone has been largely phased out for a lot of complicated reasons, and it’s outright inaccessible in many countries. The dominant forms of administration (injection, patches, gel, pellets) all release T directly into your bloodstream. Injections create sterile pockets of oil in your muscles or subcutaneous fat, which gets sucked into your blood over time. Gel and patches are both transdermal, and absorb into your capillaries. The pellets release their payload into subcutaneous fat over long periods—it’s slower because it’s solid, IIRC. The end result of all of these is the same, which is why we say there’s no difference in how fast you go through ~T Puberty~ based on administration method; once it’s in your blood, it circulates to your liver and throughout your body tissues, where it’s metabolized.

I do also think that you should ask your prescribing psychiatrist about this, if you’re in a position where it’s safe to be out as trans to them. This may be outside of their wheelhouse but they can track and moderate your SNRI dose most appropriately when they know all the other meds you’re on. You could also ask a pharmacist when you pick up your meds; they will likely say to ask your psych, but pharmacists are great and often know medication interactions offhand that psych professionals don’t. I’m couching my wording a bit in this answer because I’m not a medical professional, just a psych student who’s been on a bunch of different meds, and I’m guessing a lot about what could be going on for you that may not be accurate at all. But hopefully some of it is helpful, regardless?

TL;DR: If the reason that your SNRI reacts badly with other meds is because of something funky in the enzyme area, testosterone should bypass most of the pathways actively occupied by your SNRI. If it’s because of a problem in your gut, every form of testosterone that is not the pill avoids this completely. Either way, I don’t anticipate that your SNRI will interact significantly with testosterone, regardless of administration method, and you should be all good.

- Mod Wolf

* There IS a legitimate point to be made about how psych meds tend to be tested on and “calibrated” for cis perisex men. That’s a little outside the scope of this post, though, and likely isn’t relevant anyways because we’re talking about adding testosterone to bring you to the hormonal profile of one of those test subjects.

[scriptlgbt]

I have a character that is a FtM, he experiences dysphoria and is on T but has not undergone any related surgery. At one point, an apocalypse of sorts happens, and as a result for a period of several months to possibly a year he has no access to T. I wanted to know what sort of effects this, as well as getting back on it afterwords, could have on him, physically, mentally, or especially in relation to his dysphoria, as I do not want to misrepresent these things by mistakenly assuming. Thank you!

Answered: Can a trans man stop taking T?

Answered: What is dysphoria like?

Answered: Getting hormones during an apocalypse  

- mod nat

As for what he physically/psychologically goes through, it’s worth remembering that each time your hormones change drastically you essentially go through puberty, which is what happens when someone enters adolescence, go through the menopause, lose parts of their genitals (testes or ovaries) for whatever reason, or if they start/stop HRT. So depending on when he first started HRT he would have gone through his natural puberty 1, starting HRT - puberty 2, having to stop HRT which would switch his dominant hormone back to estrogen - puberty 3, and then puberty 4 when he starts taking T again. Poor kid.

- Mod Emery

I want to add also, because I can’t believe I didn’t make the connection, I’ve had to go on and off hormones at least 3 times. It’s happened because of different issues with executive dysfunction (disabilities made me have issues getting to my clinic and arranging stuff) and insurance initially rejecting me after being on it for 3 months at some point. 

Emotionally it was mainly draining more than anything, and kind of invalidating as especially with my nonbinaryness, people tend to only believe I’m “really trans” if I can prove it by explaining what hoops and medical bs I jumped through to be trans enough by their standards. (Which is toxic and cissexist.) 

It also affected my mental health but I can’t really put my finger on what it did. I’ve heard many people say that testosterone made them angry and estrogen made them sad. I don’t know if that translated to me I think I only ever got actually angry was when I was of it, because I was angry about being off it. I felt more like I had to overompensate but I never had the energy to.

Physically the first things that change are: 

weight redistribution (fat seems to go from hips and chest to stomach and back for me and then vice versa when off), 

appetite (bigger on testosterone), 

acne (which varies from person to person, but has been an extreme issue for me on and off testosterone because that’s just my genes I guess)

libido

energy levels (for me anyway - when estrogen dominant I have been anemic a lot, which testosterone pretty much cured)

muscles (quick to build on testosterone, but generally don’t really deplete with estrogen unless something else makes that happen, like hospitalization)

also, underreported but very true: your body odour smells completely different depending on what your hormones are. not that one smell is definitely ‘estrogen body odour’ etc, but when you switch you will notice that your own distinct BO smells very different from what it once was. testosterone tends to make it stronger but I think that’s likely related to the acne point - more sebum production probably = stronger BO? idk I’m not a medical expert

Also menstruation stopped within around 4 months for me, and then after being on it for maybe 7-9 months-ish, I went off it for maybe 1-3 months again and no menstruation happened during that time, acne and appetite didn’t really go down too fast or noticeably (it would have been gradual, I’m sure it happened though because it did pick up upon returning). Libido tapered within a month and weight redistributed back. I was tired and my POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) was pretty bad in that time. 

Also genitalia does change on testosterone but without getting into too much detail, I don’t think it really changed when getting off testosterone other than things which would be affected by the libido category. (…Boners. This is about boners.) 

Also my actual weight (the number on the scale) has fluctuated a lot, but I can’t really testify about that without explaining how my medications (and the bracket of poverty I live in) also have a massive impact on that. Overall I know that I’ve gained a normal amount for puberty in the past year, and gained as much fat as muscle.

- mod nat

[mukhannath]

okay lets talk for a while

i feel like my identity changed this time, like actually changed. people/personalities can change, why not identities? Im not entirely convinced im binary now because firstly im afraid that some of it is just like internalized homophobia ever since i started liking boys i guess am i desiring a  heteronormative relationship now? the other two things are i still like they them pronouns and then the other crazy part is like i still hate having boobs i like binding a lot more. im not letting those worry me though 

anyway this sort of sucks cuz its literally months after i manage to be out to everyone i know as enby (took me 3 years to tell parents) and so conveniently that changed. I dont know if im gonna tell anyone, and this is where what makes me deeply uncomfortable comes in. Firstly i think my plan to like not tell anyone and just go on with transition stuff like ffs is indicative of a fixation on passing, and i hate that im doing something that was like my #1 pet peeve before (basically being out as enby to ease into identifying as binary trans, when you know for a fact youre not enby. feels like coopting the identity and implying its more accepted by society.) I feel like i am justifying this by the fact that i was enby for years before this (and when i tried to question it id always come back to the same result so i know that Yes that was what was right for me to identify by at the time and it no longer is for whatever reason.) 

i feel like im basing a lot of this on my dysphoria, which i hesitate to say has gotten worse because YEAH it was way worse before HRT when i was literally suicidal, but in other ways its a lot worse, i cant stand being gendered male, i hate having been born male and all the stereotypical characteristics associated with it, i feel like ill never pass andd if i cant pass after ffs im ending it. 

i gotta say im set some precedents firstly i DONT believe that nb identities are just repressing binary trans people nor do i believe its a stepping stone identity or gateway to being binary, cuz the binaries are not end alls. This stance has never changed but i feel the responsibility to reiterate it since im literally like The perfect example for transphobes to use in their argument and i dont want them to. i WAS nonbinary, i wasn’t repressing anything. Secondly, binary privilege is super real especially in the medical realm, ive noticed im having a LOT easier time navigating insurance and contacting surgeons and stuff, so yeah imma keep advocating for binary trans folk to recognize that privilege over enbies (and also how that intersects with other stuff, like i got it a lot easier than some being like middle class white passing and straight in a blue county and figured it out a lot earlier than most, though 19 still feels to late to me.) the first time i identified in the transfem umbrella was when i was 17 and it ended up not being accurate anyway so this dont matter but i wish the community was more welcoming especially to TWOC and i wish fr yall to consider racism especially asian fetishism because its really toxic and yall forget asian trans women actually exist and read the shit yall write. Bye 

[system-architect]

ok ok so in an earlier reblog i mentioned i wanted to talk about my Personal Headcanons (emphasis on that bc not everyone will like them and thats Fine) about asura gender/sexual dimorphism/trans and gnc asura etc etc that whole topic and so im gonna gab about that a bit??

warning that i discuss genitalia a bit in this post but there’s no like.. physical descriptions... i’m discussing it from an angle about what the differences or similarities there’d be between asura you might consider dmab vs asura you might consider dfab

ok SO asura honestly have NEARLY NO sexual dimorphism ingame to be honest and that’s the foundation of a lot of my headcanons-- they have the same body types universally and share some faces + hairs across both models. to be frank i feel like some of the fem asura model faces being sssooo typically girly cutesy feminine (and in turn not masc model not having the same options there; as well as the fem model lacking more masc options) is a fault on anet’s behalf because idk they’re cowards who can only dance around the idea that asura might not have a rigid physical-based gender binary

im also gonna make a disclaimer also that these headcanons are firmly influenced by the fact that i am trans and when it comes to headcanoning how a race handles gender and how their bodies work, of course im going to err towards making them a combination of relateable but “wouldn’t this be a cool fantasy world where everything was ideal and easy”. (if you are cis you might not really ‘relate to’ or find these headcanons desireable in which case pls remember im not holdin a knife to ur throat demanding u accept these as ur own hcs. Do What You Want With Your Own Characters)

But Anyways

based on a loose combo of Some ingame stuff but also my own personal feelings, i do headcanon that asura have sorta ‘body archetypes’ that you would consider dmab and dfab asura, and they do tend to respectively use he or she pronouns as well as girl/boy descriptors for asura who assert that they’re one of those particular genders, but they’re Very loose about it and their anatomy differs a great deal from humans/other races, and are naturally more.. what we’d consider androgynous i guess??

i hc that asura essentially have both types of bits by default HOWEVER depending on how hormones have changed and influenced the growth of a particular asura, one set is highly physically underdeveloped, whereas the other functions as a working reproductive organ capable of producing offspring in whatever way.. both asura would have sets of milk patches, and lactation would be induced by chemical instinctive triggers in the brain which would primarily occur in the asura who birthed/carried the offspring But an asura considered ‘dmab’ would potentially be able to nurse young if specific circumstances set off these chemical instinctive triggers as well

going on HRT wouldn’t make the other set of genitalia fertile but would pick up the physical development where theirs naturally left off prior

because of the fact that they don’t really differ in this department, they’re extremely lax about the concept of a gender binary and don’t really enforce toxic gender roles as well as are very chill about asura being trans or gender nonconforming, and i can’t see them having stigma towards intersex asura either! additionally, asura cultural clothing in itself already tends to be unisex too so like i literally don’t even have to make a headcanon about that..... they just plain don’t dress differently like that is actually canon fgjhkd

we also know that even in humans, humans are very ambiguous as newborns and if asura are very ambiguous in general then asura parents would probably refer to their child as “they” until they hit some kinda weird first puberty or w/e? (or if they had their kid’s chromosomes tested out of curiosity or smth for name planning idek) and may default to calling their child he/she depending on how their child developed but if their society doesn’t have transphobia then they’d be p accepting if their kid asked to be called smth different instead! they might suggest alternative names that they had also thought of for their child

asura would also likely have technology related to transition (surgery, hrt etc) way way more advanced than irl humans do.. being both scientific and also not having a cultural stigma that discourages ppl from working on it, there would probably be a lot of prolific doctors-- many of which would be trans themselves-- who have achieved a lot in this field of research

since it’s not at all implausible that asura could use someone’s genetics to grow an extra organ based off their genetic code and then transplant it into them perfectly, i HC that trans asura who want to be able to have infants But W/ Genitalia That Doesn’t Make Them Dysphoric can get surgery where they have a dif set of gonads grown for em based off their genes and then get it swapped in and their body accepts it and they’re able to produce viable eggs/sperm just like anyone else! i’m not sure if this is wholly scientifically realistic but it’s a fantasy world so i can do what i want

aaaaaaaand that’s basically my headcanons?? asura don’t differ much physically at all and as a result are culturally lax about gender cus like if you’re all nearly the same ((which, humans are too but asura are to an even greater extent)) then like what’s the POINT about gettin uppity about stuff ya??

anyways thx for listenin, feel free to adopt these hcs or use em as insp if you want! (and again I Don’t Care What Anet Has Said About Their Genitalia Or Gender Binary Or Anything, Anet Is Wrong)

[gendertrader]

Physical

279 lbs / 5’9” / 24 / Spiro: 1/1/19 | E: TBD

All right, y’all. I know I’ve been away for some time now, but there haven’t really been many changes to report. Until now.

I’ve set a date. Well, an approximate date, but a date nonetheless. My birthday is coming up (February 10) and I figured now is as good a time as ever. I’ve been on Spiro for a year now and I’ve been happy with all the changes. Of course, there have been mental issues arise since I’ve started, but I like to think of it as unlocking a new level – it’s harder because I’m further in the journey. I originally looked into going to a Planned Parenthood (because they’re informed consent and offer payment options for those without insurance) but there aren’t any near me that offer HRT, merely service referrals. Now I’m shopping around but still plan on setting the appointment for early February. Anyway, let’s get into the data.

Skin

N/A

Hair (body/head)

My hair is a little softer and a little easier to tame than it used to be. Of course, I’m working to improve my haircare routine, but it’s been visibly less crazy even on days when I use the same routine as previous years. It’s not quite as full, but I think that’s due to the hair-loss I experienced a couple weeks ago. I also recently cut my hair (from a lob to a bob) and even though it’s shorter than I wanted, it’s still a cute cut and has gotten me “ma’am”ed a couple times so I’m not unhappy.

My body hair has been growing a little slower for sure, but since I’m on biotin, some of it is growing at regular speeds but is easier to maintain. Chest and armpit hair has been growing slower for sure. I don’t believe anything has gotten thinner or finer, though.

Face

Not much cheekbone growth since my previous mention. I wish there were more, which I guess is why I will be (hopefully?!?) starting E soon.

I finally got my eyebrows thin enough for the look I’m going for! There’s still a little trimming to be done, but I think I finally found what I’ve been looking for.

I experienced a slight increase in facial acne around the chin and forehead, but I imagine this is normal.

Body

Not much here, either. I’ve seen very minor breast growth, but still in a gynecomastia kind of way, and not a breasts kind of way. Which is fine. But I’m starting to doubt (surprise surprise asksdkgskd) my decision in an “I’m just using gender dysphoria as a cover for my desire to be thin” way, which is problematic but a very real worry I’m having. I keep telling myself that I’m actually happier with my fatter body because it feels closer to my desired shape, but there’s no denying that the idealized version of myself that I’m trying to build is thinner, and I’m not sure that I’m appropriately disassociating weight and happiness from transness. Am I falsely assuming that transitioning will help with my weight problems and happiness problems inherently, or do I believe that transitioning will increase my happiness, which will in turn affect my compulsive need to overeat to substitute for the organic happiness I’m not receiving, which will result in my being thinner? Who knows! It is kind of helpful to get it all typed out (thanks for the help lmao) but still doesn’t clarify anything. I’ll have to wait and see.

Ummmmm I’ve been literally so horny recently. Like wtf horny. Like masturbate twice a day as opposed to once a week horny. I guess it’s fine, it just makes me concerned that my Spiro isn’t as strong as it used to be, or that there’s a ‘spillover’ (if you will) of T since Spiro blocks the reception but not the production. I’d like to speak with an endo sometime after I start E to discuss switching to something safer (like bicalutamide or cypro).

I noticed a distinct scent change probably like two or three months ago, I’m not sure if I’ve recorded that, but my shower schedule has had to change because it’s more difficult to hide if I’ve not cleaned in a week. Good for depression or something.

Mental/Emotional

Depression: Definitely getting worse. It could be the SAD or that I’m changing jobs or that I’m hitting a new trans milestone that’s got me all fucked up, but I’m tired of it. I was told that there’s a free clinic near me that would prescribe meds, and I’m seriously considering it. I’m not sure if I want to go before or after my E appointment but I imagine executive dysfunction will cause it to be after. Speaking of which...

I’m p sure I have ADHD: inattentive. Like symptoms and coping mechanisms are lining up interestingly close to those with diagnosed ADHD and some other things are clicking into place. I’m not sure if this means anything, but thoughts are happening for sure.

Anxiety: Not as bad, though I switched the weed strain I’ve been smoking last month, so that could be playing in. I’m definitely smoking more (or for different reasons?) than I used to so I’m trying to keep an eye on that, make sure that I’m not withdrawing too much. This world is a shithole and I sometimes despise being forced to exist here, but it’s the only one we got.

I keep catching myself nervous beyond belief to actually start E, despite having wanted this since high school. I know this is a normal reaction with many valid points, but I can’t help but worry that mine are one of the few that are unfounded (#narcissism). I’m going to have to detransition because I was experiencing mental traumas that made existing as a woman-aligned person easier that confronting my relationship with masculinity and my body. In reality, I think my grasp on masculinity and its role in my personality will become clearer with HRT and I will have an easier time displaying it when “masculine” is no longer the default seen by the people around me.

Finally, I wish to share this with the parents. I think. Probably.

I know I want to share the decision to start E with my Facebook friends, as they’ll likely realize something is up via my posts and pictures, but I can’t do that until I’ve explained this to my family, which will be...interesting. I’ll have to prepare some resources for understanding nonbinary identities and answers to all those pesky questions nobody wants to have to answer, and I’m sure it’ll be a while before they get it, but...this coming out will be different from my first. I guess mainly because I’ve mostly socially transitioned at this point so few people should be surprised, but also because I have more power in how I decide to exist and am a stronger person now who has weathered this before. I think this is where some of my anxieties stem, that I’ve forgotten how to be that person, but I’m working on remembering that I’m stronger than I think, and that I’ve been through much worse.

[robynish]

AMAB... And over it. I guess for the time being I've decided on gender fluid and queer. I have come out to my immediate family and most of the people I am closest with, and they have been accepting of me at the very least. My sister and parents love me regardless of anything and most of my friends I've told have been amazing about it! It took me almost a year from the first people I told and my parents were the most recent. I felt it was difficult to tell people all at once and kinda started with some of them I thought would be the most difficult or less likely to have a favorable reaction. After telling some people I found it draining wait a while before telling others. Rinse and repeat lol. I've never been comfortable with the person I felt I was expected to be, straight male. I spent my life, since probably middle school, training myself to be completely conscious of what I said and how I behaved, to hide who I am. After I graduated high school and trade school I started my career fixing cars, my parents tried and tried to get to me to go to college but I thought I had it figured out. I was gonna be a mechanic and that was that. I've always been really good at it and it's definitely provided for me. But I can't help but feel I missed out on an experience that would've changed my life for the better, helping me realize it was ok to be me. Instead I just worked, and partied my ass off for years. I was drowning the person I should've been in drugs, alcohol, and a hardened, shitty, sarcastic attitude toward life. I was always functional and kept my priorities in order... for the most part lol. I've never been fired from a job or arrested or anything like that. I've been completely sober for a month as I'm writing this and it feels amazing, that's the longest I've gone without any sort of anything in my body since I was 18-19 (I'm 33). I'm proud of myself and I want to stay this way. I had been planning on really starting to transition when I got my tax return and could afford to look into hrt and that kinda stuff, but that got put on hold... I got laid off from my last job in February and honestly it was the best thing that could have happened to me. I was miserable working there and I needed to get out. That's when I decided I would try to open my own business and open my own FLGS. I made a business plan pretty much completely on my own, and got to the point of opening, but couldn't get the finances together to actually pull it off. I felt like I had completely failed and I wanted it to happen so bad. The thought of having to go back to fixing cars was killing me... I was so burned out on it after doing it for 15 years, it seems like a terrible place for someone not cishet, and it's definitely taken it's toll on my body. So being completely bummed about my business plans falling through, I pretty well fucked off for a couple months, money is getting tight and having relationship issues with my girlfriend, made it hard to keep my head above water. Eventually I realized that though it didn't work out it wasn't a failure, I know I can come back to it later, but I had to get my shit together! So I am scheduled to recertify my ASEs on Monday, plus taking the last two tests I needed to be an official Master Tech, I should've had that done like 11 or 12 years ago lmao... I have a really well paying job lined up and I can even pass a pee test! Things are looking up, even though it's not what I wanted this job sounds pretty sweet (as far as mechanic-ing jobs go)!! It feels really amazing to have some victories after feeling so beaten... As far as transitioning goes, I feel like it's a similar situation to my business plan. I had deleted my old Tumblr, it was overwhelming to me see all these beautiful people that seemed so much braver than me, and I was jealous that I didn't have the courage to be like them. Then I realized I am right where I need to be and I've actually made tons of progress toward the person I want to be. When I see the person in the picture at the top of my blog it gives me hope! That is literally one of the only pictures in my life I've felt really good about... I see a beautiful person who is happy, calm and confident. I've been hiding my whole life, and for the longest time I didn't even know it either. I'd always hated how I looked and was uncomfortable with how I felt I was expected to act. I started feeling like I should've been a girl when I was pretty young, but never thought it was even an option. I thought there was something wrong with me and I was so frustrated that I couldn't just feel normal. There was basically no information available to help me figure it out, I always thought I might be gay, but I was always much more attracted to women, so that was confusing. I remember the first time I saw RuPaul on MTV and I was like what?? I know he's not transgender but that was the first time I really sae that someone who was "supposed" to be a man could look like that. Later on, after discovering trans girls in porn I found out that a woman could have a penis... But then I thought that to transition you had to be a porn star. Like all this stuff had me so fucking backward, and then Tumblr happened to me and I finally found answers. I finally found out that there were so many other people who were going through the same shit, and they weren't porn stars or freaks or broken. They were just normal people fucked over by society and I finally felt like I belonged somewhere. The only problem was that I am so awkward and have serious social anxiety issues, I'm guessing is a result of not being comfortable with myself for most of my life. I had trouble connecting with anyone, and when I did, I didn't know how to maintain that. I know there's a happy, caring, quirky, carefree, strong, beautiful person inside me, I want the world to see her... I want a life I'm proud of! I'm grateful and proud of everything I have but I need to work on me as a person. I don't want my son to know me as a bitter, jaded, assholey person. I've always been scared that being who I am would hurt him, and I felt that hiding was protecting him. I'm starting to realize that's probably just completely wrong...  Anyway, if you read this entire wall of babble, bless you! I feel massively better after writing it all down at least.

[transmandonnie]

Hm. I never thought I’d vague, but I really, really have to. I have to talk about it somewhere. I can’t take it any more. It’s been on my mind for fucking years.

You ever remember a friend who spread misinformation about you and probably continues to do so for seemingly no reason than to spite you because they think you’re jealous of them because they got HRT before you?

Yeah. And honestly? I thought it was immature years ago, and I think it’s immature now.

Imagine this: Something happens, that wouldn’t have made you upset if your friend had just told you, right, because friends can tell each other everything especially if your friend has done something that they know concerns you. That’s our perception of friendship, at least nowadays. You are very understandably upset about your friend not telling you, and even more so about the fact that you had to hear it from somebody else, who knew about it before you did. Then, your friend attributes your resulting, very warranted might I add, anger to something incredibly inconsequential to you for some reason, and spreads this to their friends. Whatever, right, you think, you are going to stand above this and not do anything about it, pretend nothing is wrong. You think you’re overreacting, right?

Except, no, you’re not. The principle of them not telling you, and then spreading misinformation behind your back really ticks you off. (You weren’t even upset the thing they didn’t tell you about even happened. You’re long over that.) You thought you were friends who could just tell each other shit. You weren’t the one who did anything wrong, they were. But they think the same about you, so you’re not getting the apology that you were waiting for, because fuck you, I guess.

So is this why we’re not talking? Probably. Had we talked this out, I wouldn’t have been so mad about it, but that just how it be

I can’t do this. I can pretend nothing is wrong, but it chews at the back of my mind sometimes and I hate it. I hate how things happened. I’d have preferred to talk it out and be friends again, hell I’d want this to happen now, but we don’t all get what we want.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to be a good person, shit goes wrong anyway.

I need to live with this.

Also, @ the person that this is about: if you read this, I’d prefer you contact me about this privately and not make some tumblr drama about it. As a courtesy to you, I was vague and didn’t mention you by name at all. We are both old enough to be reasonable adults about this. I’m just posting this here because I don’t think we’re actually going to talk it out at all ever and I need to get it out of my system. Certainly don’t expect me to make the first move, because it’s not my responsibility.

[mammothstrengthx]

Those 3 Little Words..Performance Enhancing…

The fact 101% of the people reading that title filled in the black with DRUGS is very telling.  It just goes to show that PED use is prevalent.  You would think that it would mostly be restricted to the Professional ranks, where any competitive advantage would lead to a bigger pay day.  However, this is not the case.  Let’s face it, we live in a society where alcohol, tobacco and illegal narcotics are used on a daily basis.  With the exception of marijuana (sorry Republicans), none of them have any particular health benefits other than numbing the senses to escape the world around you.

PED’s on the other hand increase your ability to do the things you want to be good at.  So why would it come as a surprise that the number of people that actually use them is several orders of magnitude more than the Average Joe might imagine?  Unfortunately the number of PED users is not the only thing that Mr. Average Joe is ignorant of.  Human beings are pattern seeking mammals, and are prone to labeling something, throwing it in a box and never thinking about it again.  That tendency is perpetuated by the information age that we currently live in.  If something wants to get our attention it better be something we can digest in 140 characters or less, be related to an adorable kitten, or be in some state of undress.  As a result, despite walking around with the culmination of human intelligence in our smart phone, the majority of people seem to choose speed and ignorance over careful study and actual KNOWLEDGE.

How does that apply to performance enhancing drugs?  Well you get people that think anabolic steroids are a magical elixir brewed by the Devil himself to destroy the integrity of sports and kill off every first born male child.  Of course these same people, with no personal experience whatsoever are fairly certain if they had just “cheated” and used steroids they would have made it to Pros themselves.  Unfortunately, once that delusional belief finally takes hold it’s not long before they are out in a field recording videos of their passing skilz, and claiming they could throw a football over a mountain.  I mean if you can convince yourself that one demonstrably false idea is true, then the floodgates open and you can believe all kinds of batshit insane things that make you feel better.

“How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?... Yeah... Coach woulda put me in fourth quarter, we would've been state champions. No doubt. No doubt in my mind.” –Uncle Rico”

Here in my home town of reality it is fairly easy to see that this just isn’t so.  However, it is my personal belief that the bitterness caused by the aforementioned delusions are part of the vilification of steroid use by athletes.  That along with a healthy dose of propaganda from the medical community, and you have a general public that think that people are droppin dead from anabolic steroid use every day.  All I can say to that is “Show Me the Bodies…”

When you actually ask the anti-steroid crowd to produce evidence of all these deaths they don’t really have much to offer.  It is like any other “faith based belief”, when you convince yourself of something with little to no evidence then you are admitting that evidence doesn't matter to you.  And whenever an athlete dies with steroids in his system (or is known to have used them at any point) then that is always one if not the top reason for their death as far as the media is concerned.  I honestly believe that if Mark McGwire died tomorrow of a snake bite, somehow his steroid use which obviously compromised his immune system would be responsible.  The rules of modern “journalism”…Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.

This Graph shows the mortality rates of people who use tobacco and alcohol compared to anabolic steroids. It should be noted that 45 million people use tobacco and nearly 100 million people use alcohol. There isn’t any such quantitative data for anabolic steroid users (Center for Disease Control 2011). [Read more]

None of this is to suggest that anabolic steroids are necessarily “safe”.  If you have any kind of pre-existing condition then a substance that cause growth can exacerbate the situation.  As with anything else in life the safety of something is directly related to the person using it.  Guns are perfectly safe, in the hands of someone trained in gun safety.  Most people would consider hammers even safer, and yet hammers are responsible for hundreds of deaths each year.

Anyone that has read anything I write knows what a big fan of IRONY I am.  And the discussion about PED’s is rife with it.  I have to admit that I sometimes am bored enough to listen to sports talk radio.  And the local channel here is always getting into the anti-PED discussion.  Then when they go to commercial you find out that one of their sponsors is a local HRT Clinic.  In case you didn't know, hormone replacement therapy is the legal way to use anabolic steroids and growth hormone.  All you have to do is convince a Doc that you have lost a little pep in your step, give them your insurance information, pay your deductible and BAM…suddenly PED’s are ok.  Apparently cheating death and the aging process is socially acceptable.  What is also funny is it is socially acceptable for doctors and lawyers to abuse caffeine and other stimulants to get through school and internship.  But a professional athlete that chooses to use PED’s to increase his job performance is EVIL?   Speaking of performance enhancement, how many guys die from Viagra use every year?

Now before you make the mistake of thinking that I am advocating cheating, please know that I AM NOT!  When you compete in a sport that says “doing this is against the rules”, and you do it anyway then you are by definition a cheater.  I am simply questioning the rules, and attempting to point out the inconsistency of the general public’s moral judgment.

POP QUIZ HOT SHOT!!

Why are performance ENHANCING drugs illegal, while performance debilitating drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are legal?! 

A)     Politics

B)     Ignorance

C)     Misinformation/Propaganda

D)     The Myth of The Level Playing Field

E)      All of the above

If you answered anything other than E) All of the Above, I’m sorry but we have some wonderful parting gifts for you.  Obviously politics play a huge role in this equation.  Alcohol and tobacco companies have HUGE lobbying budgets, and are huge profit generating industries.  Unfortunately, there is no corporation that would stand to benefit if PED’s were legalized.  And make no mistake about it money makes the world go around.

Of course ignorance and misinformation play its part in this as well.  The general public, mostly due to apathy, is at the mercy of CNN and FOX for fair and balanced reporting on issues.  Again as I said before, if you aren't really concerned with actual facts and evidence, then you will believe whatever story someone tells you.  Truthfully PED’s just seem to be one of those anomalies that gets lumped into the “Drugs are bad mmmmmkay” mentality of Joe Six Pack.

As much as all of the other reason have something to do with PED’s being illegal; I would argue that the myth of the Level Playing field is the most influential.  For some reason, especially in the United States people think that sports are somehow sacred, and that the records involved in these sports are the Holiest of Holies.

In some strange way I suppose it makes sense.  If sports fans didn't have statistics and records to compare to other fans there would be no more sports hate and pissing contests.  And then *gasp* people would have to accept that sports are just ENTERTAINMENT just like movies and music.  As an aside, think of how ridiculous it would be if people got into drunken fist fights at movie theaters over who’s favorite actor was better.  See what happens when things are put into context.

The truth is that people have been using drugs of all kinds for the entirety of human civilization.  It is only recently that we have deemed some of those drugs illegal.  The “War on Drugs” has been an epic failure, and has not served to curb people’s use of drugs.  It has only served to turn law abiding citizens into criminals.  The same can be said for PED’s.  Athletes are competitive by nature, and to get to the very elite level you are always looking for a way to make yourself better.  The legality of PED’s have turned World Record performances into *Asterisks, and left a black mark on the athletes name.  Guess what, Mark McGwire's homeruns STILL entertained you, and Lance Armstrong STILL raised HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!  So is the problem the athletes, or the laws?

Many fans are opposed to athletes using PED’s, but they also want to see records being broken and they celebrate bigger, stronger, faster without the slightest bit of acknowledgement to the irony of the situation.  Don’t for a second believe that fans give a shit about the players.  They want to be entertained, and when the players get a little long in the tooth, they will want them put out to pasture.  So why wouldn’t a professional athlete dabble in PED’s to extend his professional career a year or two?!  How many of those same fans wouldn’t do the EXACT SAME THING if they had a chance to earn a couple Million Dollars?!

Another thing you will hear is the claim that they are worried about the children, “what about the children” they cry.  By that same logic, shouldn’t they be trying to get drugs and alcohol out of the music industry?  Wouldn’t society be so much better for our children, and for our future if everyone was a teetotaler with regards to all drugs?!  And since it is obvious that you don't care about Pro Athletes once they get past their prime entertainment years, why exactly should the athletes care about being role models to YOUR CHILDREN?!

Here’s the thing, and you may not want to hear it, but if you honestly think that would be a good thing then be careful what you wish for.  You would have to put an *Asterisk next to the majority of the past 100 years.  There would be no more records broken in your lifetime, and the music industry would suck worse than it already does.  Again I am not sayin that athletes should cheat, they should not.  I am suggesting it is hypocrisy of the highest order to make PED's illegal (unless they are part of HRT..thus proving their medical benefit) while alcohol and tobacco are legal.

My point is NOT to advocate PED use.  My point is to advocate education.  If you think PED's (or any drug for that matter) should be illegal then you should have solid reasoning behind it.  If your only reason is FEAR of what might happen if they were legal, then really is that even an argument?!  If you are afraid of "what might happen", then shouldn't you be outraged at what IS happening with regards to alcohol and tobacco.  You seriously are stepping over the bodies of hundreds of thousands of people that die each year from alcohol and tobacco abuse to try to find one or two people that might possibly have died from steroid use.  This kind of inconsistent moral outrage, and the hypocrisy is staggering to try to comprehend.  I will close with the my question from earlier, and I welcome all different points of view…

Why are performance ENHANCING drugs illegal, while performance debilitating drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are legal?!

Read additional information on: http://mammothstrength.com

[viper-no-viping]

Wweelp. I guess it's Rambling Time.

Not even sure how far I'll get in any particular topic, but, we're still kind of rusty with blathering shit for school assignments, so.. Here I am, exercising my shit-blathering pathways, or whatever.

I guess an initial General Weather Report would be suitable, given that seems to be how our collectively chronophobic ass keeps track of things that we will Almost Definitely forget in the nearish future.. But that would require thinking in detail about Various Things and that's kind of Not My Bag rly, heh, so. I dunno, I guess we'll see what happens.

Suppose starting with the current thought process will suffice. There's this trans chick on YouTube we follow, who posted recently that she's getting bottom surgery, now that she's recovered from her facial feminization surgery. From there I ended up at.. One or two other videos, pretty sure it was two, about her transition timeline.

And now "transition timeline testosterone" is sitting there in the YouTube search bar staring back at me and I'm just like :\ lol dunno, or someshit.. sigh.

This video made some Feely Feels rear their dysphoric heads, because of some Hashtag Relatable shit about the way he described stuff.. And I'm sure the seething jealousy that he got top surgery means something, heh, meanwhile we're over here crossing our fingers that the body isn't too fucked up for even a breast reduction, which, even for that, the co-pay alone.. ugh.

I mean, not like I actually know how much it would be yet, hopefully Tahni will remember to ask about that when we see the primary again for the results of the next ultrasound to make sure that ovarian cyst isn't fucking cancer, fucking goddamn cancer, never would have thought we'd be stressing over that as a possibility but here we fucking are..

Well. I personally don't have much history, hehe, what with the Iiii don't, exist, Iiii don't, exist.. et cetera.. yeeup, not sure where that was going, but anyway. Yeah. If not from the fucking ovaries, possibly from the goddamn thyroid, which is Fun. Apparently there are no actual known causes for the thyroid cancers, shit just fucking happens, more commonly in "women." Yay.

But I mean, even if it is some kind of fucking thyroid cancer, at this point just take the shit out and put us on thyroid meds for the rest of our life, just make this shit stop.. ugh, but it's probably not even one thing, is it, this whole fucking body is going to shit, and how many months will it be until we've done enough tests and shit to figure out what's even going on..

It's so funny, two years ago they Really Thought it would just be an endoscopy and colonoscopy to find the cause, just a couple tests.. xD Ahh, funny in a kind of lol kill me way.. But at least shit is actually showing UP on tests now. Just having the vague undiagnosable bullshit is a different kind of agony, like before the LPR was diagnosed, it is Fucked Up trying to get any kind of answer on shit when your main symptom is just a constant hellish nausea, not anything that comes back from a lab test with Actual Results that doctors will Actually Respect.. To say nothing of how family and friends start slowly but surely deciding to themselves that it's just you making a fuss out of "nothing."

So, yeah. Different kind of hell, but godfuckingdamn I would take almost any other ailment aside from this fucking Everlasting Period bullshit. Talk about fucking dysphoria, haha. You really hate acknowledging the existence of this entire section of the meatsuit you're stuck in? Here, have some as-yet-undiagnosed ~menstrual issues~ that make the most unpleasant thing that section of the meatsuit does last TWICE AS LONG AS IT USED TO!! THAT SURELY WON'T MAKE YOU WANT TO STAB YOURSELF AT ALL!!!!

Yep. Look how well I'm coping. XDD STFU self, damn.

Or, well, I guess don't STFU, still need to exercise the word-vomit muscles, god knows how the fuck I'm gonna get by the rest of that godforsaken pass/fail How To Actually Do Shit With Your Psychology Degree Part I class.. Due tomorrow is an assignment in place of a midterm, to make a resume and goal list of shit to do that'll make said resume better.

Except there are no accredited fully-online law schools yet, so what in the ungodly fuck are we gonna even do with the degree? It's not like having it is gonna make the body less of a complete medical fucking wreck, it's not like it'll erase the fact that we can never know when we're going to be suddenly fucking incapacitated with dizziness/ridiculous cramps/intense don't-fucking-move-or-you'll-gag nausea for days on end so we can't actually keep a consistent schedule of doing anything outside of the house, what the fuck good is it gonna do me to make a fucking resume reminding me of exactly how worthless of a job candidate we are at this point?

Whoops, that Got Deep real quick, haha. But like, seriously, what the shit do I even put on a resume aside from the fact that we accidentally started the Psychology Club at our high school? If we use the non-chronological resume format it'll make the employment gap stand out less, but it's supposed to emphasize skills and experience instead, and what fucking skills or whatever can we even put on a resume? What fucking skill set will make you a viable job candidate when you can't even stand for the length of a shower without your legs getting shaky, but you don't have a fancy enough degree or the social stamina to handle a job that doesn't require some form of physical labor? Not to mention I think there's also supposed to be a made-up cover letter, something like "Hi I'm XYZ and I'm applying for ABC job with this resume", what the fucking shit can I even put for that when I know how Ridiculously Limited we are at this point?

A bunch of blathered nonsense to fill a page with lots of words and hopefully conceal the fact that we're completely making shit up. That's what. Because I can't just say "I'm Pretty Much Fucked in terms of traditional employment because chronically ill autistic multiple, and am trying to plan out a career in online comics, or if online law school becomes a thing I'll gladly use my psych degree for that." That's how you fail an assignment, even if it's the truth. I can't exactly write a cover letter to the internet announcing our intent to try that shit. So. Yeah. All aboard the Blathering Train, instead.

But yeah, anyway, that's enough financial/career angst for right now. Back to dysphoria angst!, lolol.

Yeah, so, here I am staring at this shit in the search bar and just.. Like, I don't even know if it would be medically safe to try HRT at this point, but aside from that, I don't even think that's what we want, ideally? Not interested in dealing with facial hair, armpit and "downstairs" hair already pisses some of us off enough..

Not sure if we're interested in being perceived as male, I guess, but not really wanting to be perceived as female either? I'm pretty sure at this point most of us are either specifically agender, or don't subscribe to the concept of gendering traits at all and just call themselves non-binary..

Like, the vast majority of us have fucking hated the body's boobs since they first showed up in middle school. We gave Not A Fuck for gendered shit, in general, but on an autistic sensory level we Fucking Despise pressure on the body's chest and these bitches are heavy. Even moreso than usual, recently, what with the hormones being fucked up. Fucking hate it.

But like, how do you explain to a doctor that you want the boobs off completely? The best we can probably realistically hope for is a reduction because back pain, but I dunno if it would Raise Questions if we asked what the smallest possible size they could do was. Could we settle for As? Would it be weird to ask to go from DDs to As? Weird enough that someone would take the time to be like "now hang on a second" and start trying to make us go through the red tape bullshit to be on record as Officially A Trans TM?

If we could get away with not wearing a bra without looking like we're wearing weird droopy melons under our shirt, I feel like that much would be enough for several of us, even if the body did still technically have some small boobage. As long as it didn't impede us or anything we wanted to do, if it didn't get in the way or weigh down on our chest, if it didn't make our shirts fit weird, I feel like we could deal with that..

But then I see this trans bro on YouTube here and hhnnghh why can't we just not have themmmm..

I mean, ideally, why can't the fuckers be detachable so those who don't hate them can put them on when they feel like it and the rest of us can go on our merry way without them, but, heh, science isn't quite there yet.. Next best thing seems like it would be getting top surgery and letting whomever felt like having boobs just stuff a bra when they wanted to. But of course, insurance won't pay for it if it's just because We Really Want It, we'd have to either be Officially Trans TM and jump through all those hoops and hope top surgery is covered, or we'd have to just settle for a breast reduction covered under back pain.

I guess it also Says Something, that so many of us in the system are asexual-and/or-gay dudes, or simply never thought about it and are female "by default" aka because the body was categorized as that and we didn't care enough about gender to think there was any other option, we just accepted the narrative presented to us, that we were just "not like other girls." None of us have ever felt super masculine or super feminine, that I can recall, because What The Fuck Even Is Gender, and why the fuck is it necessary to divide up traits into human-created categories anyway..

But it makes it hard to figure out exactly where we are in terms of transness.. We've known Basically Forever that we "aren't like other girls," but gender means so little to us that we never particularly wanted to be a boy either, so calling ourselves a trans guy or even just non-binary transmasculine still seems odd, even though it seems like the latter should fit..

But then, how much of that is just cisheteronormativity in action? Because I know we've had several dreams wherein we had a wang and it felt pretty natural, not foreign and out of place like the body's current genitalia setup. But like, what the fuck does wang-creating surgery even look like, that sounds like a whole mess of complicated shit to figure out, and we're already medically compromised..

With the arrival of our newest non-straight dude, one of several in the system, some of us have had to seriously reexamine where we stand on gender shit. I guess at this point it's generally accepted that we would have been much better suited to existence as "semi-effeminate AMAB homoflexible non-binary ace," rather than "pan-quoiro AFAB possibly transmasculine non-binary ace"..

I guess it feels like masculine should have been the starting point that we feminized to our liking, instead of starting off with feminine and not knowing if we want to be "masculine enough" to be categorized as "transmasculine".. Is it "masculine enough" if we want the boobs off but can't do HRT because half the shit this other video mentions sounds just as bad as having the boobs? We can't stand body hair and acne and all that, and god knows how HRT would even work with all the hormonal issues the body's already having..

The more I think about what we ultimately would ideally want, the more it seems like we would really just prefer having no AFAB reproductive parts/periods and no boobs, maybe a wang and a lower voice, and that's it. I guess maybe we could try out the aesthetic of some minimal beardage, but body hair in general already irritates several of us.. So like, for various reasons I don't see HRT happening.

We already know most of us would have the boobs off tomorrow if we could, but I guess what's tripping some of us up now is the fact that Vern is way less genitalia-repulsed than most of us, and in fact seems to generally handle the notion of Having A Body better than most of us.. And he definitely identifies as a guy, a non-binary semi-effeminate robot guy but still definitely masc-leaning, so.. What does it say about us if so many of us have already been questioning this for so long, and now the one who's most secure in his gender identity out of all of us is one of our masc-leaning non-binary guys?

I don't even know how we would.. React to it, I guess, if we did try to.. I dunno, embrace being transmasculine or something.. It doesn't feel like we'd prefer to do anything drastically different, behavior-wise, and we don't care enough about pronouns to try to figure out something gender-neutral that isn't "they" because gender-neutral "they" within a plural "they" system is confusing as fuck.. So like, I don't think most of us on the fence about being transmasculine would change our names or whatever, or use he/him pronouns, it would just.. Feel better to not have certain anatomical bits be perceived as part of who we are?

But then that just kind of makes us wonder if we're being a Bad Trans TM or something, like if that counts as reducing gender to body parts or something.. This is all so goddamn complicated.

Hot damn, finally got around to looking up some YouTubeage about how the fuck a phalloplasty actually works.. Taking skin, fat, a nerve, and an artery from the donor site to make it, that sounds so fucking unnerving to even think about, taking body stuff from one area and like.. Making a wang? Ughh, there are so many stages.. Yeah, no, even getting the AFAB reproductive bits out seems like possibly too much intense surgery for us, I don't see how we could ever manage this kind of bottom surgery, shit sounds fucking terrifying, I guess the notion of taking so much shit from another area on the body just kind of gets us in a body horror kind of way..

So yeah, I don't see us being able to do that.. And I mean, we're not really sexually-focused to begin with, so like, aside from just the base-level comfort of Having It, it's not like we'd desperately Need a wang or anything to have a fulfilling life? Just NOT having the AFAB reproductive shit/periods, that would be the main thing, not having that shit and not having the boobs. If we had a lower voice we could pass as a guy if we wanted to, and we'd probably like that, but weighing that one thing against the whole list of other shit that comes with HRT, it's probably not worth it.

But how do you ask for, much less get covered for, removing the boobs and reproductive stuff with no Official Medical Reason, just "because I don't want it"? Non-binary dysphoria doesn't seem like it would be considered a Valid Enough reason for it to be covered, but we don't want to go into a Full Transition either, so.. yeah, I dunno how we'll end up being more comfortable just existing in the body, with so many roadblocks.

I dunno, objectively it's probably internalized transphobia/nb-phobia or whatever the name for that is, not feeling "trans enough" and whatnot.. But I guess part of it is also, why can't we just be a fucking gender mystery and be allowed to exist that way? It's our fucking meatsuit, why do we have to pigeonhole ourselves into either Male or Female just for our insurance to believe that certain bodyparts cause us extreme dysphoria and we'd be better off without them? Why can't we just be a person with no boobs and maybe a wang and a voice that can't be readily identified as male or female?

I dunno why I'm even rambling about this, I know why, cisheteronormativity and various historical fuckeries, et cetera. I guess it's just frustrating trying to figure out where we are on the gender spectrum when we're blocked from making the modifications that would make the body feel less alien to us. Maybe if we could actually get top surgery, we would have a better idea of whether we consider ourselves transmasculine or just some kind of masc-leaning genderfluid non-binary, which is where several of us seem to be right now..

Hnngh. This guy seems like a good example of where we might end up one day if we do end up trying out HRT, but the idea of the body being more of a pain than it already is in terms of body hair/acne/et cetera just seems so shitty..

Haha, is it weird that I'm kind of hoping that ovarian cyst will end up being cancer and they'll give us an option to remove the whole reproductive setup in there? Because we would do that shit in a heartbeat. What's that called, a hysterectomy? A total laparoscopic hysterectomy with bilateral ovary-something-something.. How do you convince insurance that you Need that to improve your quality of life, without establishing yourself as Fully Transitioning?

Wow, this guy's scars are so small, huh, would have thought it'd be worse.. Goddamn, we'd love to have all that shit taken out. Not like we're fucking using any of it, it's just been causing us more and more agony since puberty, can't be doing this fucking 11-day period bullshit anymore, the dysphoria was bad enough on its own..

ugh, why the fuck am I even looking at all this, not like we can do any major surgeries for a while yet, if at all..

I don't know, I guess trying to work out what we would collectively be least-dysphoric with is useful, it's just extra depressing thinking about how hard it'll be to get the boobs off, or even reduced, much less the whole reproductive removal biz.. feh. Time to ramble about something else.

hmph, actually, should probably do the other quiz for that pass/fail class.. -.- That way we can just deal with the resume/goal list bullshit tomorrow, mmmmboy.. meh, that would require more focus than I probably have though, guess it'll be tomorrow.

I dunno. The 10th-to-12th anniversary is fast approaching, probably best to just disappear into distractions a bit longer, at least until it's passed. Still not sure if it'd be best to avoid tumblr or what, on the 12th, but I guess we'll see.. meh.

[mammothstrengthx]

Those 3 Little Words..Performance Enhancing…

The fact 101% of the people reading that title filled in the black with DRUGS is very telling.  It just goes to show that PED use is prevalent.  You would think that it would mostly be restricted to the Professional ranks, where any competitive advantage would lead to a bigger pay day.  However, this is not the case.  Let’s face it, we live in a society where alcohol, tobacco and illegal narcotics are used on a daily basis.  With the exception of marijuana (sorry Republicans), none of them have any particular health benefits other than numbing the senses to escape the world around you.

PED’s on the other hand increase your ability to do the things you want to be good at.  So why would it come as a surprise that the number of people that actually use them is several orders of magnitude more than the Average Joe might imagine?  Unfortunately the number of PED users is not the only thing that Mr. Average Joe is ignorant of.  Human beings are pattern seeking mammals, and are prone to labeling something, throwing it in a box and never thinking about it again.  That tendency is perpetuated by the information age that we currently live in.  If something wants to get our attention it better be something we can digest in 140 characters or less, be related to an adorable kitten, or be in some state of undress.  As a result, despite walking around with the culmination of human intelligence in our smart phone, the majority of people seem to choose speed and ignorance over careful study and actual KNOWLEDGE.

How does that apply to performance enhancing drugs?  Well you get people that think anabolic steroids are a magical elixir brewed by the Devil himself to destroy the integrity of sports and kill off every first born male child.  Of course these same people, with no personal experience whatsoever are fairly certain if they had just “cheated” and used steroids they would have made it to Pros themselves.  Unfortunately, once that delusional belief finally takes hold it’s not long before they are out in a field recording videos of their passing skilz, and claiming they could throw a football over a mountain.  I mean if you can convince yourself that one demonstrably false idea is true, then the floodgates open and you can believe all kinds of batshit insane things that make you feel better.

“How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?... Yeah... Coach woulda put me in fourth quarter, we would've been state champions. No doubt. No doubt in my mind.” –Uncle Rico”

Here in my home town of reality it is fairly easy to see that this just isn’t so.  However, it is my personal belief that the bitterness caused by the aforementioned delusions are part of the vilification of steroid use by athletes.  That along with a healthy dose of propaganda from the medical community, and you have a general public that think that people are droppin dead from anabolic steroid use every day.  All I can say to that is “Show Me the Bodies…”

When you actually ask the anti-steroid crowd to produce evidence of all these deaths they don’t really have much to offer.  It is like any other “faith based belief”, when you convince yourself of something with little to no evidence then you are admitting that evidence doesn't matter to you.  And whenever an athlete dies with steroids in his system (or is known to have used them at any point) then that is always one if not the top reason for their death as far as the media is concerned.  I honestly believe that if Mark McGwire died tomorrow of a snake bite, somehow his steroid use which obviously compromised his immune system would be responsible.  The rules of modern “journalism”…Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.

This Graph shows the mortality rates of people who use tobacco and alcohol compared to anabolic steroids. It should be noted that 45 million people use tobacco and nearly 100 million people use alcohol. There isn’t any such quantitative data for anabolic steroid users (Center for Disease Control 2011). [Read more]

None of this is to suggest that anabolic steroids are necessarily “safe”.  If you have any kind of pre-existing condition then a substance that cause growth can exacerbate the situation.  As with anything else in life the safety of something is directly related to the person using it.  Guns are perfectly safe, in the hands of someone trained in gun safety.  Most people would consider hammers even safer, and yet hammers are responsible for hundreds of deaths each year.

Anyone that has read anything I write knows what a big fan of IRONY I am.  And the discussion about PED’s is rife with it.  I have to admit that I sometimes am bored enough to listen to sports talk radio.  And the local channel here is always getting into the anti-PED discussion.  Then when they go to commercial you find out that one of their sponsors is a local HRT Clinic.  In case you didn't know, hormone replacement therapy is the legal way to use anabolic steroids and growth hormone.  All you have to do is convince a Doc that you have lost a little pep in your step, give them your insurance information, pay your deductible and BAM…suddenly PED’s are ok.  Apparently cheating death and the aging process is socially acceptable.  What is also funny is it is socially acceptable for doctors and lawyers to abuse caffeine and other stimulants to get through school and internship.  But a professional athlete that chooses to use PED’s to increase his job performance is EVIL?   Speaking of performance enhancement, how many guys die from Viagra use every year?

Now before you make the mistake of thinking that I am advocating cheating, please know that I AM NOT!  When you compete in a sport that says “doing this is against the rules”, and you do it anyway then you are by definition a cheater.  I am simply questioning the rules, and attempting to point out the inconsistency of the general public’s moral judgment.

POP QUIZ HOT SHOT!!

Why are performance ENHANCING drugs illegal, while performance debilitating drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are legal?! 

A)     Politics

B)     Ignorance

C)     Misinformation/Propaganda

D)     The Myth of The Level Playing Field

E)      All of the above

If you answered anything other than E) All of the Above, I’m sorry but we have some wonderful parting gifts for you.  Obviously politics play a huge role in this equation.  Alcohol and tobacco companies have HUGE lobbying budgets, and are huge profit generating industries.  Unfortunately, there is no corporation that would stand to benefit if PED’s were legalized.  And make no mistake about it money makes the world go around.

Of course ignorance and misinformation play its part in this as well.  The general public, mostly due to apathy, is at the mercy of CNN and FOX for fair and balanced reporting on issues.  Again as I said before, if you aren't really concerned with actual facts and evidence, then you will believe whatever story someone tells you.  Truthfully PED’s just seem to be one of those anomalies that gets lumped into the “Drugs are bad mmmmmkay” mentality of Joe Six Pack.

As much as all of the other reason have something to do with PED’s being illegal; I would argue that the myth of the Level Playing field is the most influential.  For some reason, especially in the United States people think that sports are somehow sacred, and that the records involved in these sports are the Holiest of Holies.

In some strange way I suppose it makes sense.  If sports fans didn't have statistics and records to compare to other fans there would be no more sports hate and pissing contests.  And then *gasp* people would have to accept that sports are just ENTERTAINMENT just like movies and music.  As an aside, think of how ridiculous it would be if people got into drunken fist fights at movie theaters over who’s favorite actor was better.  See what happens when things are put into context.

The truth is that people have been using drugs of all kinds for the entirety of human civilization.  It is only recently that we have deemed some of those drugs illegal.  The “War on Drugs” has been an epic failure, and has not served to curb people’s use of drugs.  It has only served to turn law abiding citizens into criminals.  The same can be said for PED’s.  Athletes are competitive by nature, and to get to the very elite level you are always looking for a way to make yourself better.  The legality of PED’s have turned World Record performances into *Asterisks, and left a black mark on the athletes name.  Guess what, Mark McGwire's homeruns STILL entertained you, and Lance Armstrong STILL raised HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!  So is the problem the athletes, or the laws?

Many fans are opposed to athletes using PED’s, but they also want to see records being broken and they celebrate bigger, stronger, faster without the slightest bit of acknowledgement to the irony of the situation.  Don’t for a second believe that fans give a shit about the players.  They want to be entertained, and when the players get a little long in the tooth, they will want them put out to pasture.  So why wouldn’t a professional athlete dabble in PED’s to extend his professional career a year or two?!  How many of those same fans wouldn’t do the EXACT SAME THING if they had a chance to earn a couple Million Dollars?!

Another thing you will hear is the claim that they are worried about the children, “what about the children” they cry.  By that same logic, shouldn’t they be trying to get drugs and alcohol out of the music industry?  Wouldn’t society be so much better for our children, and for our future if everyone was a teetotaler with regards to all drugs?!  And since it is obvious that you don't care about Pro Athletes once they get past their prime entertainment years, why exactly should the athletes care about being role models to YOUR CHILDREN?!

Here’s the thing, and you may not want to hear it, but if you honestly think that would be a good thing then be careful what you wish for.  You would have to put an *Asterisk next to the majority of the past 100 years.  There would be no more records broken in your lifetime, and the music industry would suck worse than it already does.  Again I am not sayin that athletes should cheat, they should not.  I am suggesting it is hypocrisy of the highest order to make PED's illegal (unless they are part of HRT..thus proving their medical benefit) while alcohol and tobacco are legal.

My point is NOT to advocate PED use.  My point is to advocate education.  If you think PED's (or any drug for that matter) should be illegal then you should have solid reasoning behind it.  If your only reason is FEAR of what might happen if they were legal, then really is that even an argument?!  If you are afraid of "what might happen", then shouldn't you be outraged at what IS happening with regards to alcohol and tobacco.  You seriously are stepping over the bodies of hundreds of thousands of people that die each year from alcohol and tobacco abuse to try to find one or two people that might possibly have died from steroid use.  This kind of inconsistent moral outrage, and the hypocrisy is staggering to try to comprehend.  I will close with the my question from earlier, and I welcome all different points of view…

Why are performance ENHANCING drugs illegal, while performance debilitating drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are legal?!

Read more info on: Mammoth Strength