#i feel like i have talked about estrogen with a lot of cis women

[dyke-pollinator]

It constantly astounds me how little the vast majority of cis people actually know about they ways in which their primary sex hormone impacts them.

[asoftgoth]

To ask my dream future self in case I ever escape the closet, how is weight stuff on HRT?

So much I try to read online is full of fatphobes drowning it in desperate weight loss / maintenance talk for such different body types. Would love to hear from a calmer voice what eating on E as a bigger girl is like, if it's actually that much easier to gain, whatever you've been noticing/feeling

I wanted to know this too before I started and there really isn’t a good resource at all for this kind of info, especially for truly obese people like me. From talking with other big trans girls like myself, I can honestly say is that a lot of it will depend on your genetics. I know that’s not what people like to hear, and it’s scary. A lot of transitioning seems like it’s kind of a dice roll. What I will say, though, is that if you look at your mother, if she’s a bigger woman, you will probably end up with a build similar to hers. For me, that was definitely the case. For example, when it comes to boob size people say that you take your mother’s cup size and go down a size, and that that’s what you’ll probably get.

As for my transition, when I actually started on estrogen, I lost quite a bit of weight. Although most of it was almost entirely muscle mass. I did some measurements throughout the process and so far I have lost about 25ish pounds overall but I’ve gained about 4.5 inches on my hips and lost about 4inches on my waist. I initially lost probably 40 pounds, but I’ve gained back another 10-15. So there was that aspect. I think what I’ve gained back has been fat. And definitely I’ve lost a ton of muscle. If you have a big upper body, don’t be super scared because most of the muscle that I lost was actually from my upper body. Like shoulders, upper tummy, that kind of stuff. I actually don’t think it’s much easier to gain weight on estrogen. Or at least it isn’t for me. Some people have said that it is but of all the trans woman that I know that are also feedists it doesn’t seem like it’s some super easy thing to gain weight on estrogen. It’s why I really really really hate the term “biological males”, because our bodies act like cis women’s bodies do in practically every way. 

Lastly, I’ll talk about medication’s. I didn’t see a ton of fat transfer while I was on estrogen. I saw some for sure, but it hasn’t been anything compared to what I’ve seen since being on progesterone. I’ve been on estrogen now for a year and 3 months. I’ve been on prog for about 3 and a half months of that, and I’ve seen more fat transfer while on progesterone then on only estrogen (and an anti-androgen which I still take too). What sucks the most I think about transitioning, is how long things take. Your body is going through a lot, and it’s really important for you to take care of it and help it along through this process. It’s why I haven’t really been actively gaining, and I’ve just been trying to make sure I’m eating decent enough food and drinking lots of water and getting the exercise that I need. I think that’s really the most important thing with all of this. Eventually, I probably will try gaining weight intentionally again, but I’m just kind of letting my body do its thing. It’s going through enough changes on its own.

I hope this helps!!

[smalltestaccount]

okay i think ive come to the conclusion that i dont really fit in with most other trans women, like personality wise, and thats okay. Like i think recently a lot of trans women, not just on tumblr, have been making me think i have to be kinky and bizarre or something, be blasé about transitioning or gender roles, or even just like be okay with some borderline harassing behavior. Its okay if that is you (except the harassing behavior some of yall need to work on that), but like thats not really me. Acting this way just makes me feel bad. Just ignoring that Im a total straightedge, that im like a 1 on the Kinsey scale now. Ever since i was like 11 my biggest desire is just like being a normal cis girl. I always am happiest embracing basic American femininity, and i only just re-realized this after after it helped me get out of a depressive episode (along with antidepressants and an increased estrogen dose). I don't care if im "enforcing gender roles", because i fucking love female gender roles (in modern American culture) cause they make me feel like not-a-piece-of-shit. Also i don't strictly adhere to many anyways. And i just don't think terfs would have any issues with cis girls who love the color pink, flowers, being boy crazy, and dreaming about being a mother. So like why should I feel like its wrong to like that stuff? I don't think there is anything wrong with it. And you know if you don't have that relationship with gender that is fine, you need to do what makes you happy, that's why feminism exists. I'm just saying I don't want to pretend like my personality is something that really just makes me uncomfortable.

I dont like when people here imply being a trans woman entails being sexual cause like i just want to be normal and that stereotype is harmful, especially to transgender children who are really likley to be targeted for some kind of sexual abuse because theyre trans and being trans is already sexualized more than it needs to be. Adults can navigate that to some extent, but not kids; I couldnt really navigate that when i started transitioning in middle school and im lucky it only stayed online. Trying to even somewhat fit in with tumblrs idea of trans women has made me encounter tranny porn on my dash and whenever i post images of myself I'm followed by gross accounts that just reblog that stuff . A lot of trans women don't hate it, because sex work is very much as part of the trans community. But honestly, seeing trans women be treated in those ways just makes me feel bad for the actresses and sick about myself and very dysphoric.

Im not saying that you cant express kinkiness and hyper-sexuality, because I dont want to dictate how you act any more than i want you to be dictated on how I act. But I also want to encourage thoughfulness in what you say. Saying you, yourself, is kinky and weird, is not that same as saying trans *girls* are kinky and weird. In the same way I'm not going to reblog tradwife content, I don't think its productive to make an "all tgirls be kinky" post. You shouldn't try to paint that image of other trans women.

As its the first day of june I'll just tie it up by saying that not all trans people fit into one personality and if you want to show support its best not to suggest trans women all act a certain way, and please don't think talking about "gock" is a good way to show support. This isn't a "kink at pride" discourse post in the very slightest cause I don't, and never have, given any shits about that, cause I've never been to pride. This is just me talking about how I fit into the trans community.

Im Alexa and I'm going to reblog and post shit i like, not what other people like or expect. That Includes not doing tummy tuesday cause i really only briefly did it out of fomo and peer pressure. And please don't say things about me that you wouldnt say about other women

[defilerwyrm]

I feel so stupid to say this but I'm a trans man, but I have a lot of learning disabilities so I'm trying to understand things better. I was born AFAB but I'm trying to understand how "bio sex" works and if it is even real. I've heard a lot of people say it isn't but that makes me feel sorta as if my transness isn't valid then. I do not agree w trans meds at all, they're terf lites and their "male/female brain" stuff is so wrong. But I'm curious since the brain isn't gendered, what makes us the bio sex we are? I get gender is different and it is WHO we are and how we think and present etc but can you explain bio sex please? :) I also really want phallo and top surgery and it makes me curious how gender which is a social construct has an urge to match up with biology somehow? Like how come my dysphoria feels so bad that I lack a dick..how does my gender want that?

Hoo boy. Biological sex is actually really complex. It’s made up of your sex chromosomes, sex hormones, primary sex characteristics developed as a fetus, secondary sex characteristics developed in puberty, and I think a few other factors I’m forgetting. All of these elements are not binary (meaning there are only two options), but instead bimodal (meaning there are two options that are the most common, but there are others).

So using myself as an example, my chromosomes are unknown because I’ve never been karyotyped (tested for sex chromosomes); my endocrine system is almost completely testosterone-based; I have zero “female” reproductive organs and most of the “male” ones (minus testes); and I have a few “female” sex characteristics (undeveloped hyoid (Adam’s apple), wide hips, narrow shoulders, smallish hands & feet) and many “male” ones (deep voice, broad jaw, flat chest, vascular hands, body hair, facial hair, male pattern alopecia, male fat distribution, lower body temperature, high sex drive). So without knowing what my chromosomes are, by all accounts I’m male.

The whole male brain/female brain thing has been pretty well debunked. There are only subtle differences between the brains of cis men and cis women at the population level, and those physical differences that do exist are most likely caused by differences in socialization for certain skillsets. In other words, if you teach boys and girls that they’re supposed to be good at different things as they’re growing up, their brains will develop to be better at those things that they practice from an early age—be that fine motor skills, or telling colors apart, or interpreting other people’s tone and moods, or being empathetic, etc. Obviously there are disabilities that can stand in the way or complicate matters, but there’s something called the Pygmalion effect where if you consistently tell a child that they’re good at a certain thing, they will BECOME good at it—and if you consistently tell a child they’re bad at a thing, they will do poorly at it.

Something I find really interesting, talking about the link between biological sex and gender identity, is the prevalence of PCOS (poly-cystic ovarian syndrome) in trans men. The rates shown by studies varies a lot, but taking average rates, about 5% (1 in 20) AFAB people have PCOS, but about 60% (3 in 5) trans men have it. PCOS is an endocrine condition (and, arguably, an intersex condition) that has a slew of effects, and one of those is relatively high levels of androgens like testosterone. The REALLY interesting part is that PCOS medications that decrease testosterone and increase estrogen result in MORE gender dysphoria for trans men and LESS in cis women! I remember before I even figure out I’m trans, my mom told me I needed to get on metformin to decrease testosterone and boost estrogen, and the very thought of it made me nauseous and angry!

A possible interpretation of that is that there is an intrinsic link between our gender identity and our physical sex that opposes our primary sex characteristics. In other words, we’re MEANT to be men and our bodies know it.

(Now, things like this on the trans woman side, I will admit I don’t know offhand; you’d have to ask a trans woman who follows medical science. I would point you to my sister because she fits the bill, but we have an unspoken agreement to keep our online lives separate for privacy. That is to say, I don’t remember her blog name lmao sorry sis)

But yeah. The thing about top and bottom dysphoria is that it isn’t like social dysphoria where it depends on how you’re seen by others. It’s an internal knowledge—a gnosis, if you will—that something is WRONG regardless of what others think, say, or do. Speaking for myself again, sure you can be a man without a dick, fine, whatever, but I, personally, was supposed to have one. It wasn’t the social construction of what masculinity is supposed to entail that made me hate my tits and cooch, it was the fact that they felt horrible and wrong and I knew I was meant to have a flat chest, dick, and balls instead. And that feeling of wrongness started at a very young age, if I’m honest; I just didn’t have the vocabulary and knowledge to identify it until my mid-20s.

How does this relate to my PCOS? We don’t actually know. But don’t you think it’s interesting that the signs that I was trans were there long before my first puberty awakened the PCOS in the first place?

Gender roles are a fluid social construct. What’s considered masculine and feminine change with culture and time. But gender identity is, as far as medical science can figure, hardwired in the brain. For most people, by happy coincidence of sex and gender being bimodal, their physical sex (as complex as it is!) and gender identity more or less align, and they never really have to think about it. For others, there is a natural misalignment between the two—and it can take quite some time to figure it all out, because our cultures try very to force a bimodal spectrum into a binary box.

I think I’ve rambled enough, hey? Let’s see if my dogshit wifi will let me post this without losing everything.

[x-honeycomb-x]

ftms can be trans feminine ♥️

mtfs can be trans masculine 💙

completely ooc post, recently my mtf friend came out as trans masculine, and I've also been out as she/they for months now. I was at a t4t party and was referred by people as a trans woman and it gave me so much euphoria.

personally i enjoy being feminine but I wish I was AMAB. I wish I was a amab person on estrogen. That makes me trans. And I'm genderfluid, so when I'm in my feminine mood swing, I am a trans woman.

and turns out im not alone in this! after talking about it on instagram and discord, there's a lot of non-binary people telling me that they want to transition SO they can do more stuff that's related to their birth gender. I literally had said "I can't wait to be at least 6 months on testosterone so I can wear more women's clothes."

my friend asked me, what is the difference between let's say a ftm being feminine or trans feminine? to that I replied,

some ftms want to be a feminine guy

some ftms wanna be a trans woman

yeah! there's a lot of ways people can experience euphoria and dysphoria, and it's different to everyone. I have a friend who went through masculinization and feminization surgery in one day. I have a friend joked they're tris (mix of trans cis) cause they are just butch, not entirely a cis woman but also not quite trans. I have friends who prefer to be on low dose of testosterone. I personally want to be a girl with a dick. And a boy with a pussy.

I remember seeing a post here saying "reblog to completely detransition the person you repost this from", and I think i engaged with this kink in a very cusheteronormal way. i don't want to be bred by a cis man, and I don't want to be a cis girl either. i'm guessing since this kink community is the way I experienced genderbending, it did encourage me to experiment with gender, but also I feel like it has limited my options with gender. or maybe i just wasn't shown the possibilities of genders.

I am genderfluid and now I identify as a futch dyke. I'm a bit of a butch and femme, and I am a lesbian when I'm fem. When I'm masc I am mlm. Sometimes Im non-binary and into non-binary stuff.

Anyways. Just wanna be able to say that I'm trans feminine, and ftms are allowed to be trans feminine, and mtfs are allowed to be trans masculine. thanks for reading. 🖤🖤

[toastedblacksesame]

New pinned post

I am an owned 34 year old former trans identified female. I "transitioned" at 16 and stayed that way until 34. My beliefs about this are not very politically correct, but I'll gladly talk respectfully about it in DMs (as in, I'll be respectful of differing beliefs and hope that you'll respect mine as well).

I am partway through being detransitioned by my Owner.

I wear women's clothes 100% of the time. I take estrogen and a prenatal vitamin. I still "feel trans" but have decided to fully identify as a straight cis woman. I have not socially detransitioned, because it's a kind of complicated situation, but that is likely in my future.

I have kinks that can be very extreme, so I don't post about them here much (but I love talking about them, so feel free to chat!), but they include: male supremacy, waiving my right to revoke my consent with my Owner, permanent orgasm denial (in fact, I'm not allowed any sexual pleasure at all), extreme torture including the complete destruction of my clit, extreme food restrictions, piss drinking, puke, and urethra fucking (I'm currently working toward this as a goal). I post a lot more about all these things on my bdsmlr blog.

[lift-heavy-be-gay]

Let's talk about transgender athletes

this is gonna be a long rant so I'm just gonna put a cut down below. dni if you're a terf or just wanna cause problems.

So, recently in class we were discussing different drugs used illegally and legally in sports and eventually the topic of transgender athletes came up (because of course). However, my professor handled it really well and as a trans athlete (pre transition), I just wanna talk about my feelings on the matter.

Keep in mind that this is my opinion, but I have been studying this in uni and may have more of an insight on how testosterone and estrogen actually affect the body. Anyway, there are two main points I wanna make.

As an afab athlete myself, I compete in a mostly strength based sport (though some technique and skill is necessary). However, I could not even begin to think about competing with my amab counterparts. It would put me at an unfair disadvantage and them an unfair advantage.

The first being that—depending on the time you began taking hormones/how long you've been taking hormones—you most likely won't be able to compete in high level competitions like the olympics. I know that people are going to be upset at this, but please listen. If you began taking hormones around the age you would begin puberty, then by the time you're an adult still presumably taking said hormones, then your levels would most likely be that of a cis person. However, if you're taking hormones after puberty, then the testosterone difference between amab and afab people is *staggering*. This article states that amab people generate 15x more testosterone than afab people. Even if they begin taking hrt, it takes YEARS to even begin to see a significant difference.

But

(and this leads to my second point)

There are numerous advantages and disadvantages for cis people in sports. Whether it be financial status, family history, access to training, facilities, or injury prevention/rehabilitation. If kid A is from a long line of well-off basketball players and has the resources to compete, then he definitely has an advantage over kid B who is from the middle of nowhere with no support and even worse facilities. Fact of the matter is, cis people are unevenly matched up against each other all the time. There are a hundred and one different ways that they may have an advantage or disadvantage over each other. Why is it different for transgender athletes? Scratch that. Why is it different between genders at all?

What I'm trying to say is that, I've met plenty afab people who are stronger than amab guys. I really don't think gender matters that much in a lot of sports. I believe we should start separating athletes based on weight rather than gender. (Of course, that's just my opinion.)

It's just that whenever I hear the topic about transgender athletes in sports, it's always about trans women. It's about how it's "not fair" and they are "doing it on purpose to get an easy win" and a bunch of other excuses to try and justify not letting them play. Surprisingly, I don't often (if at all) hear the same argument about trans men. On the surface, a lot of these debates about trans athletes is good ole' transphobia. But if you look deeper, it's really just misogyny. Most people don't even care about the sport, they just want another avenue to oppress a group of people.

Basically, the situation is not as black and white as most would like to believe, and there's a lot of nuance involved when trying to understand this topic. It's unfortunate that many trans athletes have to even deal with this extra bs in order to compete.

anyway, end of rant. thanks for reading if you made it this far. there's definitely more I could say on this, but these are the main points I wanted to make.

tldr: while there are inherent biological differences between amab and afab people, that doesn't excuse excluding trans athletes from being able to compete

[tirfpikachu]

I still do want to apologize for what I said, I genuinely hope you don't feel too bad, however I still want to say that your love for the trans community is really skewed, if I said that I loved the jewish community and every take I had was agreed with by nazis, it wouldnt exactly make me a great ally, again really hope the wheelchair thing didnt feel too bad, a lot of it came from my struggle with a wheelchair, my ass cannot walk either

i do appreciate the apology, as bewildering as it is!

honestly my blog is like a pinterest folder for me of the wide spectrum of radfem views that people have around these parts. not everyone is a jerk, which was fuckin wild to my detrans brain after so long in trans spaces being told they're all right-wing tradwives... what peaked my interest and led me to make this blog was me finding trans-led radfem blogs that were fighting for cis/bio women's rights and trying to find cis-trans compromises, talking abt being trans radfems or radfem allies while being trans. ofc you could say they're all fake, but i've even met irl trans ppl very open to certain radfem beliefs when i presented them out of curiosity without saying they were radfem ones. cuz let's be real, most ppl don't really know what radfems actually believe in, and know thy enemy is a pretty important thing in activism! ppl study all kinds of groups where bigotry has festered, and i don't believe radfems are like incels or nazis at all

it's late, so i'm going to ramble about what i've learned -- radfems, the ones that aren't just jerks, are basically saying: "i care first and foremost about afab rights! i want afab-only spaces in bathrooms & changing rooms, alongside gender neutral ones! i care about afab-specific issues like abortions and forced pregnancy and afab genital mutilation and trauma that only cis women & transmasc ppl face growing up, afab ppl face unique misogyny that is wayyy too often seen as a less important issue than transmisogyny instead of an equal struggle, and transfems can be misogynistic af against afab folks in a unique way that needs to be called THE FUCK OUT!! afab rights matter! afab people are more than just their body type! afab people have unique sex-based oppression!" they aren't calling for trans ppl's deaths, the grand majority anyway. they're all for gender nonconformity, they just don't believe it will ever your agab and they believe your agab matters in certain leftist discussions... like how transfems will say theyfabs and use the word afab to describe a specific dynamic between the two sexes, afab/female & amab/male

and i know "there are two sexes in humans" gets ppl mad -- from what i read about there being two sexes, radfems told me the one thing no one has been able to debunk so far is that if you google male & female it says that the male/amab sex is the group of humans that has small spermazoid gametes, and female/afab sex produce larger gametes; intersex people still fit under one of these two, and the term itself is actually seen as offensive, they're just people with DSDs. afab ppl typically are born with vaginas and go through estrogen puberty, and amab ppl are typically born with penises. radfems are saying that amab/male and afab/female are just body types that shouldn't dictate one's life, but the patriarchy and creepy powerful cis men have turned afab bodies (and afab-passing bodies) into something sexualized and objectified, and people with afab bodies are raised under misogyny from birth, which amab people typically don't go through unless they start passing 100% perfectly (and even then the misogyny they face is conditional; if someone learns they're amab, they will face homophobic disgust, like the typical movie joke of a guy realizing a girl is transfem and throwing up... that isn't the misogyny that cis women & transmasc ppl face). penises can forcibly impregnate and feel genital pleasure while penetrating, which does mean afab people & post-op transfems (the grand majority of transfems statistically still have dicks) are uniquely vulnerable against amab bodies. these are big differences that need to be talked about

radfems are saying that amab/male & afab/female socialization matters and the trans community should take it into account, and stop seeing cis women & transmascs as the one-way oppressors of transfems, when transfems are also privileged for being amab; they do not face systemic body issues that afab ppl face, and they do not know what it's like to grow up as afab, therefore sometime need to sit tf down and listen too. it's not a strict oppressor/oppressed dynamic, it's more complex. afab-unique oppression is violent and widespread worldwide, afab ppl have generational trauma and may face afab-unique issues that anyone amab cannot even begin to understand. i think everyone should listen to one another. i think transmisogyny & afabmisogyny both matter. that's what radfems are saying.

radfems often do not use the most respectful language. they say male instead of amab, female instead of afab, they misgender, they say trans-identified male (tim) and trans-identified female (tif). many have faced afabmisogyny from transfems and have nowhere to go. some are transmascs, and some are transfems and strong allies. radfems often do not mince their words. but i think, as an oppressed class, their words still do matter. if identifying as a woman makes you oppressed, and being afab makes you oppressed, wouldn't being a woman-identified afab person bring a unique oppression? don't cis, or as they call themselves biological women, matter? they don't feel a gender identity, they see their agab as just a body type, one they did not choose and may not always like, but they align with it and they want to normalize it and stop oppression against it. if cis people tell trans people they don't have a gender identity, they don't have ~womanly feelings~ inside their heads, does anyone ever listen or do they just go umm you're probably agender? if cis women say they have worries about certain gender-affirming things, bc it may bring harm their way, do we talk abt it or just mock them and call them terfy bitches? what about all the replies from trans people involving r*pe threats and forced impregnation and guilt-tripping same-sex attracted ppl for not being into the opposite agab, when some trans people also are only attracted to the same agab (transfem4transfem) or attracted only to the opposite agab. some openly admit it! yet cis people can't do the same? what about certain concerns related to medical transition, ones that many detrans people raise but no one except right-wing bigots listen to? and the ironic gender normative sexist things that some trans ppl say? why aren't there discussions abt this shit in trans spaces?? it genuinely worries me

there's soooo many of these issues, you see... and trans folks and trans allies aren't speaking up, they aren't posting about them, they aren't having actual discussions, they just brush it all under the rug as terf bs bc it makes them look bad so they want to believe all this shit is fake. that's why radfems are getting more and more fed up. i want to ease that tension. i want to do something. bc i care a whole fucking lot about all lgbtq people. trans people literally funded my escape from my abusive home when i was younger, i know y'all protect your own. i just want to throw away the misconception that cis women aren't a unique oppressed class too, and actually listen to what they're saying so we can put an end to the bullshit cis-trans war, bc the people killing trans people ARE ACTUALLY CIS MEN! the people in power ARE CIS MEN! we are wasting our fucking breath on eachother. and it needs to change. that's what my book is gonna be about and that's why i'm on here collecting receipts and having deep convos with radfems and eventually doing surveys etc

i genuinely did not know what i'd find when i started researching radfeminism. i expected something radically (ha!) different. i think the trans community could really benefit from at least learning more, if only to have genuine debates and not just slurs and threats. i really do care and i hope both communities can somehow find peace :/

[cedarnommer]

There's a big and frankly stupid debate about trans women in sports and how we're supposedly predisposed to win in sports. I'll talk personal experiences rather than some big research. Not that people that hate trans women care for what we say, but I digress.

Prior to being on HRT, my body had a far higher nmol of t than actual cis men. It hovered between 230 and was almost above 250. The dysphoria I felt from that was awful. I was aware that at some point I had the crazy ability to just repeat a physical exercise a bunch and get muscular rapidly. I always avoided arm exercises yet I could lift up fairly heavy things. After starting estrogen, I noticed that I got weaker. After I started taking t blockers, it became significantly more apparent. Groceries of 5-10 kg that became easier to carry around now feel like me trying to carry them in my preteens to early puberty time.

None of this is to say cis women are weaker. Since our bodies are not absolutes and some cis men have lower t and some cis women higher t. But, trans women are likely to be taking some form of t blockers if transitioning. And this does affect our physical strength a lot.

The sports discourse is a fascinating intellectual tool used by actual sexists. It isn't necessarily just transmysogynist in its structure. The core argument made is that women are more physically weak than men. Therefore women need intervention so that they're protected from the physically superior men. It asserts that a patriarchal hierarchy is natural and actually beneficial to women. And I feel like it's this logical tool which tricks people into assuming this is to their benefit. We're nothing but a tool for actual cis men to assert themselves and gain power. So people that use the label feminist yet defend these actions aren't all that feministic. It reminds me of how many issues second wave feminism had in the US due to excluding non white women and lesbians. This isn't real feminism in this case. It gives acknowledgement that men are indeed superior and all feminism amounts to is an idea to beg and seek approval of spaces that men decided for women.

But all I hear is how we, trans women, dominate women's sports. Most of us can't even lift a bag of groceries well, let alone dream of doing this. The other rhetorical reasoning behind this is to belittle and attack our femininity as trans people. Our womanhood is denied while we're also called failed males. And ya know, this rhetorical idea was used by white feminists in the past to deny non-white women too. You're not the defender of women you think you are, if you're not seeking genuine liberation from this garbage gendered system.

But what do I know. I'm just the supposed weak "man" that's also somehow super powerful and superior to cis women. I'm also supposedly having a super imposing male privilege because everything I say is heard and enforced over cis women while people debate my literal right to pee in a public restroom.

Do I feel privileged and mighty? No. And I certainly doubt I can overpower cis women. And to be quite honest, I don't understand why I'm supposed to. I've never understood why men have this idea of domination and aggression. That should hint to you that I'm not a man.

Trans rights. Women's rights. The ghouls that enforce all this suffering can go to hell.

[doberbutts]

Your recent posts talking about how HRT are incredible. Im so happy for you with the progress youre making!! Its genuinely shameful how HRT is treated by medical communities- that Gender is more important than a person healing. A cis woman should be able to access Testosterone with 0 stigma if it means healing a condition she suffers from.

That said, I have a trans woman friend who started HRT and the hormones she took (estrogen and progesterone i believe) actually triggered her body into a Fibromyalgia episode, apparently to the point where she has developed from being completely able bodied into being entirely disabled because of this auto immune disease. Shes considering detransitioning because apparently Testosterone can help with her symptoms. I feel very sad for her, and I obviously wish this didn't happen to her, nor is this an attempt to scare anyone into not going on HRT, but I really wish resources out there were more honest about the effects of hormones on the body, both good and bad!

Theres such a mystification around HRT, both from people who are transphobic and gender conservative, and from trans people and allies. I want the genuine truth to be told, so i really appreciate you telling your story on here! Thanks so much for being here for us Jaz! You make the community a much better place 💖

You bring up a good point and it's back to the POTS conversation I had [which I think this ask may be from lmao sorry for taking so long to respond] regarding how I wondered if any amab person taking estrogen discovered any of these "occurs most often in women" conditions like POTS and fibro etc and regretted their decision to transition. For me, simply adding testosterone fixed a lot of my health problems to the point that I don't really have a problem with my heart anymore. But if made me curious if anyone *gained* a problem from estrogen.

I won't say there's no drawbacks to HRT, but to me the massive health boost is worth it. I wish others could experience this too.

[cryptidshadows]

Hi this is kind of invasive and you definitely don't gotta answer - I'm a trans guy ~2mo on T, and it's been great so far, already feel way better even with just my small changes. One thing I'm worried about is I've heard that once you're 10+ years on T, there are some unavoidable lower/reproductive system issues that can only be solved with surgery. Specifically painful cramping that requires a hysterectomy, and urinary urgency that requires bottom surgery with urethral lengthening. Was this your experience too? Can't really afford surgeries rn and if I can save for one, top surgery is way more urgent. I wouldn't mind getting hysto if I can afford it someday but I don't think I want bottom surgery; I do got bottom dysphoria but bottom growth is helping a ton. My doc did talk to me about atrophy and prescribing estrogen cream if I experience symptoms, but I heard that doesn't help with uterine issues at all, nor urinary urgency most of the time. I really don't wanna go off T ever if I can help it though lol, so I'm just wondering what other people's experiences were, if it was that big an issue, and how they dealt with it. Sorry for the wall of text and invasive question, thank you if you respond and hope you're having a good day either way

Hey glad things are going good for you dude! Since answers are medical and will involve certain medical terminology, I'll put that under the cut.

Honestly these are some tough questions to answer, because there hasn't been enough research conducted on trans men on T for 10+ years yet, at least not enough to be truly conclusive. I had an endocrinologist tell me that it was imperative that I get a total hysterectomy within 2 years because it was inevitable that I'd develop endometrial atrophy. Buck Angel (my opinions on him aside) often speaks of how he nearly died from atrophic complications. But I had another endocrinologist and ob/gyn tell me that there isn't really a lot of evidence that there's a particular timeline or even that it happens to everyone. When it does, it's typically gradual and very rarely severe enough to cause life-threatening problems. That doesn't mean it's to be taken lightly, but it also happens to some cis women who've had a total hysterectomy or are naturally producing less estrogen, especially later in life.

I had a hysterectomy just 3 weeks ago, after more than 10 years in HRT. The biopsy did reveal endometrial atrophy. I was not experiencing cramping or pain (actually, I had very severe pain and period issues before HRT, which went away entirely once I stared T) but sometimes penetration with toys caused some light bleeding. Estrogen cream can help with that, yes - but even post-hysterectomy, I'm producing natural lube down below so far. But with any medical intervention, there's risk involved.

For urinary urgency, yes lol, I do have to pee more often, but I also drink entirely too much coffee, so that may be a factor. I've never known any trans men who had surgery for urethral lengthening except as a part of bottom surgery (to reroute the urethra through their neophallus or bottom growth). Hysterectomies come with a risk of more urinary urgency and incontinence as well. There are pelvic floor exercises that are often recommended to prevent these problems, which I'll be doing once I'm a bit more healed up.

It's very good that you're prioritizing the surgery you most need, and not pursuing operations that you don't feel are vital for you. With costs, you may be able to get a hysterectomy covered by insurance, especially if you have any pre-existing issues like PCOS, endometriosis, or evidence of atrophy, so at least there may be financial options for you if you are one day in need of it - but there's no solid evidence that you will absolutely need to remove everything as a result of HRT, at least not that I know of yet.

[radkindoffeminist]

read your bio and came to bully you anyways lol ❤️ imagine being so narrow-minded and brainless that you hate the idea of people being themselves and living their lives and feeling oh so threatened by the existence of women who are different from you.

what defines a woman to you? a vagina? well, what about your "anti-porn" stance? why would you reduce a woman to her genitals? isn't that what you TERFs hate, when women are reduced to being walking vaginas, as men often do? "a woman is someone who can carry a child" what about women who are infertile? women with PCOS, ovarian cancer, etc etc. would you shun females with body/facial hair due to a natural excess of testosterone? how then could you tell a trans woman from a cis woman with excess testosterone? and don't be like "well obviously i could pick out a man in a dress from a woman" because a lot of trans women are not obvious! blaire white? jamie clayton? laverne cox? i don't know about you, but i didn't know they were trans until i was explicitly told that they were.

we can talk biology all you want, but the fact is: every single individual is unique. even identical twins. and not everyone has the same amount of estrogen and testosterone (of which everyone has both of! that's right! even as a biological female, you have *some* testosterone! that's just how it works! and it's there to maintain your physical health. and as we've established, some women have Too Much testosterone, and as trans women prove, sometimes that excess of testosterone in women results in a penis forming while they're in their parent's womb)

go read a fucking book you blockheaded plebeian. biology is way more complicated than what you learned in 3rd grade.

p.s. i encourage you to google any of this shit <3 educate yourself. don't be an idiot.

Ooof, a lot post of stupidity. Be glad that you found me on a high energy day.

imagine being so narrow-minded and brainless that you hate the idea of people being themselves and living their lives

What is it with the ‘these people are just trying to live their lives’ rhetoric? Realising that this whole idea was fucking bullshit was one of the things which made me peak! How can you say that they’re just trying to live their lives when they are removing safe spaces for women by shifting to self-ID as standard and attacking rape crisis shelters for not complying with this ideal; continually attacking and insult people (but lesbians especially) for refusing to change their sexuality to include trans people and forcing conversion therapy ideas onto them so that they’re ‘inclusive’ (receipts at @tra-receipts); and forcing literally everyone to change their language about issues related to the female body to be ‘more inclusive’ despite the fact that women hate this language because it is degrading and misogynistic and despite it being ‘for inclusivity’ it is almost exclusively used to label women and not men (receipts at @misogynistic-inclusive-language)? Please explain exactly how people just want to live their lives in peace when all of shit is going down and affecting so many other people constantly.

feeling oh so threatened by the existence of women who are different from you.

No part of me is threatened by the existence of women who are different from me. I am, however, threatened by the thought of males being allowed in safe spaces which were designed to protect me for men/male violence just because these men say they’re women. And I’m offended by the idea that some males put on some makeup and dresses and think that makes them women and that they are actually worse off because of that, despite never being socialised the same as me and never having the fear of sexual violence/harassment hanging over them and so many other things which are inherent to womanhood

what defines a woman to you? a vagina?

What defines a woman? Adult human female which means that yes, women have a vagina. What do you define as being a woman, anon? A feeling maybe? Or the debunked brain sex theory? Or maybe you're not even that smart and think it's just being a woman. In any case, woman means adult human female and there is no other coherent definition which has ever been provided (receipts @woman-defined), though you're welcome to prove me wrong. So maybe you should tell me why we need to change all our language and laws and safe spaces to accommodate people based on them ‘feeling’ like an incoherent concept.

well, what about your "anti-porn" stance?

What about my anti-porn stance? How dare I hate an industry which is notoriously abusive towards women and which is linked with misogyny and sexual violence in the men who consume it? Idk, seems like a reasonable stance to take 🤷🏼‍♀️ (Sources and further reading @antiporn-activist. One of the best users for this topic.)

why would you reduce a woman to her genitals? isn't that what you TERFs hate, when women are reduced to being walking vaginas, as men often do?

You seem to both understand and not understand what it means to be reduced to something so let me explain since you obviously need the clarity. Being ‘reduced to’ something means that you are seen as only being that thing or only useful because of that thing. Radfems hate being reduced to their organs and reproductive capabilities so by that we mean we hate it when men say that our only purpose in life should be to reproduce and that that’s the only thing we’re good for.

Saying that a woman has a vagina isn’t reducing her to her vagina. I am saying that it is a part of her body which she has. Much like if I said that lesbians only date women. I am not saying that lesbians are sex-obsessed weirdos who ogle every woman they see because they can’t control themselves and reducing them to their sexuality but rather that stating a characteristic which is inherent to that group. Hope you are now able to understand the difference and why radfems don’t reduce women to their vaginas!

(Side note: Do you not think it’s a little ironic to say that radfems are the one ‘reducing women’ to their vagina and organs when it’s the TRAs who believe that we should be using terms like ‘vagina haver’ and ‘uterus owner’ to describe women?)

"a woman is someone who can carry a child" what about women who are infertile? women with PCOS, ovarian cancer, etc etc.

Mate, I literally have PCOS so don’t fuck with me about this. Not a single radfem in the four years that I have been on this site has ever told me that I am less of a woman or not a woman because I have a PCOS. Not one. Ever. Many TRAs have however implied that I’m not fully female due to a fucking medical condition but I digress. Radfems do not exclude women with medical conditions and radfems have literally never defined being a woman as being able to carry a child. I don’t even know why you bothered putting quotation marks around something no radfem has ever said. As I said before, a woman is an adult human female. PCOS and ovarian cancer sufferers/survivors are still fucking female.

would you shun females with body/facial hair due to a natural excess of testosterone?

Nope.

how then could you tell a trans woman from a cis woman with excess testosterone? and don't be like "well obviously i could pick out a man in a dress from a woman" because a lot of trans women are not obvious! blaire white? jamie clayton? laverne cox? i don't know about you, but i didn't know they were trans until i was explicitly told that they were.

Because the vast majority of trans people are clockable due to having distinctly male features. Are there some trans women who I cannot clock? Yeah, I’ll admit that. After years on hormones, multiple surgeries, masses of makeup, and voice coaching there are a handful of trans women who I would not be able to clock and haven’t been able to clock. But you’re a fucking idiot if you think the vast, vast majority of trans women are completely unclockable because most don’t have access to the money to do all the things which would allow them to appear like a regular woman. Hell, some don’t even want to. A very small handful of very rich trans people being able to pass well doesn’t discount that the average trans woman cannot pass.

(But seriously? You couldn’t clock Laverne Cox? Are you dumb?)

go read a fucking book you blockheaded plebeian.

Nah, don’t like reading books that much

biology is way more complicated than what you learned in 3rd grade.

I fucking love this argument. Actually got an ask about this the other day, funnily enough. I thought that sex and gender were supposed to be two completely separate, though slightly linked, concepts? So while you spew complete bullshit about disorders of sexual development, how about you tell what the existence of intersex conditions has to do with gender? Because seriously, I don’t understand. ‘Hey a very small percentage of people are born with XY chromosomes but appear externally to be female due to this rare medical condition which means that this fully grown man with a penis can call himself a woman’? Seriously, I do not understand how because ‘biology is way more complicated than what [I] learned in 3rd grade’ that means that males can call themselves women and we need to cope. Please explain the logic here.

p.s. i encourage you to google any of this shit <3 educate yourself. don't be an idiot.

I have spent a lot of time educating myself of trans people and trans issues but guess what? Still gender critical and still have not seen a coherent definition of what a woman which includes trans women! Also really don’t appreciate having people talk down to me and telling me that my view can only come from a place of ignorance just because they refuse to educate themselves on what gender critical views actually are so will go along with any lies that they’re told. Your message to me was not trying to educate me and you didn’t show the most basic understanding of radfem view points yet you’re going to sit there and tell me that I’m the uneducated one? Damn, that’s fucking bold of you. How about you start by reading the blogs that I have tagged above, coherently defining what a woman is, and then educating yourself on the most basic radfem views?

[kalamitykas]

A rant about the difference between what some people (GC, TERFs, Incels, etc) think a Trans Person thinks, vs My experience

Hi! I’m kinda tired of seeing comments, memes and people talking about trans people assigning us mentalities, ideas and similar that are just.... made up. A lot of these people look like they have never met a trans people, much less sit down to talk with them, actually ask them. Maybe once in a rally, in a screaming match, but not as HUMAN BEINGS.

So, here is my rant, I want to address some of the most common “ideas” they assign trans people, and how different they are to the experience I have or people I know. So, I have all the things I want to say in one place I can just post as a link the next time I see a toxic meme or the same comments. Feel free to use it in that way.

How many trans people there is

I’ll keep this short, but, basically? There’s less of us than you think. We are LESS than 1% of the population. And guess what? At least half of those people are trans MEN. There’s such a focus from people that hate or ridicule trans people on the trans women, or NB, and then they completely ignore at least half of us.

That’s why people that like to sell hate to then sell a product, or win an election love to send hate towards us. We are not enough to care about antagonising us. If a politician starts spewing anti trans rethorics and hate, he won’t even notice the lose of votes from the Trans people of their local area. And since there’s so few of us, they can say whatever they want about us, and most people won’t know a trans person to know if that is true or not.

So these people, they claim all sort of things, waste the time, money and efforts of media, governments, etc, into stoking all this hate and creating all this panic for a miniscule sector of the population, and people effing believe them. Thus they increase their voters, they sell their shitty products, and we get less and less rights, abuse, deaths, etc. And since most people don’t know us in person, they don’t care.

Menstruation/Period

I’ve seen SO many variants of this. From us “lying to ourselves” about how period works, to full “What, do they bleed from their penises?”. Here’s what I know, and then, my experience. OF COURSE trans people don’t experience periods like most Cis menstruating people do. Heck, most Cis menstruating people have VERY different experiences from one another. It is still not well investigated (what a surprise), so we know little of the Hormonal Replacement Threatment effect on periods for people taking estrogen for transition. There are just beginning to be studies about it. So let me share MY experience. I was warned by my endocronologist that it was VERY likely that I would experience menstrual pains to some degree. And since most women in my family have really painful periods, I knew it was going to suck. I WAS NOT PREPARED. Periods for me are like... slow. Instead of each month, they tend to happen every two to three. But instead of being like 3-7 days of pain, for me it can last from 1 to 3 weeks (luckily, it’s more often 1, 1.5 weeks). Of course I don’t bleed, I don’t have a uterus. But I do get: Cramps, muscle ache, back pain, liquid retention increases. And I’ve slowly learned to notice the cyclic changes to my mood. How painful is it for me? The first time I got it, I thought I had caught SEVERE food poisoning. To the point of almost going to the hospital. But then I talked to my sisters, and they started asking me questions, and it was very similar to what they experienced. Of course, missing lots of parts from their experiences. So, when I see people calling trans people delusional because “we think we’ll get our period”.... guess what, the period is not just the uterus part, there are several parts of the process that are controlled directly by the hormones.  Does this mean that I can talk as if I knew what it feels to be a Cis Menstruating person? Hell no. On the contrary, it has given me a whole level of respect for them. I get the “lite” experience and feels like dying, they have the full effing experience and continue going to work, doing chores, living. Mad effing respect.

We want to replace Cis people

Well... no. As said previously, we are not even 1% of the population. How the hell are we going to replace everyone? That point aside, I haven’t talked to a single trans person that wants to “take over” anyone’s life or role.

The whole reason some trans people starts HRT is not to “become X”, is to get closer to how their identity is versus how their body is. It’s an insanely slow process, but it also allows us to slowly learn better what resonates with us.

Don’t get me wrong, I think (this is MY OPINION) that it’s very common for Trans or NB people to change their mind about their identity. This has less to do with us “lying to ourselves”, and more with us learning the difference between our gender identity and what we’ve been told by society a “man” or “woman” should be. That’s why I’m so grateful that the therapist who was helping me at the beginning of my transition hammered into my head this nugget of wisdom: “Don’t jump to behaviours or changes just because that’s what you think you should be, instead try things, see if they feel natural or not. Gauge who you are by yourself, not by what others say you should.”

Trans people force people to date/sleep with them

This one blows my mind, because it only makes sense in videogame logic. Can you imagine, even if you do that, force someone to sleep with you because “Oh, you like women, you have to like me”, how uncomfortable, weird and straight up unsexy it would be to intimate with them? To be intimate who does not find you attractive? Who doesn’t want to be with you? I mean, forget having fun, I think it would be just horrible to go through.

I’ve never met any person, trans or not, that would think like that. I mean, does it hurt a bit when you meet someone and they tell you “I’m not interested”? Sure. Does it sting a bit more if they mention it is because you being trans? Absolutely. Would I ever consider being intimate with someone I know sees me that way? NOPE. Not a chance.

Trans people want to invade Women’s safe spaces

This one is really painful for me. Because at every step in my transition I’ve been SUPER hesitant about stepping in women’s space. Even virtual ones. I would always ask first to the cis people around me if they are ok with me doing so. Heck, I'm terrified of making someone uncomfortable even to this day on the office toilet, where everyone knows me and are friendly with me. EVERY TIME. I don’t use changing rooms. I think even after I have bottom surgery I won’t. I make my plans so I can change at home. And these are places where I know almost everyone involved. When I have to go to a toilet in a bar or public space? Some days I’ve been so terrified that I would feel nauseous. 

And on top of that, add the fear of meeting someone that has anti-trans views. When I go to the toilet is because that’s what I want to do, use the effing toilet. My ideal situation, every time, is that is empty. That I don’t have to do my biological needs withing ear range from another living thing.  I don’t know to what kind of toilets people that think our “final goal” is to invade women’s toilets go.... but nothing sexy happens there. Each does their needs in a cubicle... you have an awkward moment when you leave and they go in... wash your hands, and leave. Anyone really thinks I’ll suffer dysphoria, the fear of being beaten to death just because people think I’m weird and by monthly pains, just for THAT experience? REALLY?

Trans people have a Fetish

I kind of can understand a little bit, if I’m generous, where this one comes from. It’s still completely wrong and proves that people that spew it have not meet real trans people in a personal level. So, let me give you my two cents of how I view this one:

For a lot of trans people, either by discrepancies between how they felt and how they saw themselves, dysphoria, or social enviroment, it was hard to even impossible to consider seeing themselves as desirable or “sexy”. The amount of times people would tell me they were attracted to me during my life and I was SO confused. I saw myself as ugly, as undesirable. I had friends literally telling me “You are attractive”, and I didn’t believe them. Now, after starting HRT, seeing myself in a different light, even with the severe dysphoria I feel about my body, I do like myself a LOT more. Still consider myself not attractive, but it’s less of a visceral reaction than before.

So, to people that do not have all that context, seeing trans people being more open about their bodies, and them liking their bodies more and being proud, as I say, I kinda can see how they could jump to that conclussion. Still, it proves a lot of them talk about us as if they knew everything about us without really knowing anything at all.

Because here’s a diference between what a lot of people seem to think Gender Euphoria is and what it actually means. When someone experiences Euphoria is not a “sexual arousement”, is not that they “get hard on it”. It means that they feel good about being themselves. They finally feel comfortable in their body. It’s like feeling warming inside out of sheer happyness. Is not a kink, is not a fetish, it’s the same happy feeling any Cis person that achieves their gym goals feel. Ah “Look, I’m happy, I’m not horrible... YAY!”

They are targeting kids because they are perverts

Here’s the one that pisses me off because is a combination of ignorance and malicious lies. The main reason the entire LGBTQ+ collective is so adamant about educating children and young people about gender identity and sexualities has NOTHING to do with “recruitment”.

A lot of people from my generation and previous ones suffered for YEARS, because we didn’t understood why we felt different from everyone else. Because we didn’t even know that other people felt like us. I didn’t knew that trans people EXISTED, much less have enough information to identify that I was trans until I was around 26. My biggest regret is having wasted SO MANY years of my life being miserable because I was trying to fit into a role, identity that wasn’t me, and I couldn’t understand WHY I was miserable. I was doing everything I was told I had to do. EVERY. SINGLE. THING. And I hated it. 

That’s why we want the future generation to have all the information. Of course, 90% of them will never use said information, they are Cis Het and they can continue with their lives happily. But for those who aren’t, having the information to identify how they feel and react, know it’s normal, and have the language to ask for guidance and help, is SO important for their happiness.

Teaching kids about the LGBTQ+ won’t make them something they are not. It will help those who already are, and maybe, hopefully reduce the bullying from those who ain’t. THAT is our goal. People living happier lives.

You only need to say you are trans and you get an appointment for a Gender Affirming Surgery and get started on Hormones instantly

If you believe this... you literally have not talked to a trans person ever. Even in countries that have amazing support for Transition, you can expect waiting lines of months if not years to get your FIRST appointment. And that’s just to start talking about the process. Doctors will ask you a lot of questions, recommend alternatives and therapy consultancy if they have doubts, and that’s if they are well intended. The sheer amount of doctors that set a super high bar to even consider allowing the patient to proceed with the treatment is VERY HIGH. Hell, I’m an adult, my case was super clear for all the doctors involved, and I might still have to wait YEARS before I get my bottom surgery. In a place that has a quite good system. Now imagine you are in places like the UK (where doctors actively block people, and the waiting line is on average 8 YEARS), the US (where you are mostly on your own, and even with money in your hand, doctors can and will still block you), or similar.

And now with the increasing waves of anti-trans rethorics and politicians using us as scape goats? Is getting WORSE.

And don’t get me started on the shit options available to most trans people. Just google the options for bottom surgery available for trans men.... is just depressing.

Laws that allow for self-identification

I had to explain this one SO MANY times to cis people, is not even funny. Again, the concern that if you allow a person to legally change their gender will unlock all sorts of crazy and dangerous scenarios only makes sense if we lived in a videogame. Just because my ID says “female” it doesn’t mean that everyone around me will automatically SEE me as female. Hell, it won’t even change how people treat me. How many people asks for your ID before deciding “what” you are?

Here were I live, Spain, we had a new law that simplified the process of legan gender and name change. I had even doctors asking me “but wouldn’t this create issues?” and when I asked them “Ok, name one situation, in everyday life, where the life of a person would change because of a legal change”. Not a single one of them could name a situation. I wouldn’t magically get access to spaces that I couldn’t access before. And before anyone says “Women’s bathroom”, as I mentioned earlier, I use women’s bathrooms, what prevented me from using them was asking people around me if they were ok with me doing so. Not a magical barrier, not a cop asking for IDs.

Funnily enough, these changes due have some negative impacts.... the other way around. If you live in an area that still has some sexist rules for medical access, it can become REALLY hard for trans men to request gynecologist coverage from their social security. Apparently this is getting better, but still, is dumb that it happens.

Trans people are people that wants to have an easier life

This one is straight up dumb. Because of two factors: a) again, our world does not operate by videogame logic. b) If you feel that women have it easier than man, you have some serious “tunnel vision” case.

Let me give you some examples of how my life has becomed more complex or even scary since I pass as a woman.

- I grew up going to highschool in a nasty neighbourhood, so I quickly learned what body language to use, how to walk, talk, etc, to be “invisible”. To be safe. Guess what? That does not work for women. Since I pass, I’ve had situations were I was terrified and suddenly I had no defenses, no tools to avoid notice. Heck, is even worse, as a trans person, I draw even more unwanted attention.

- Dating? Yeah, nope. Now I not only have to deal with the nasty people cis women have to deal with, I also have to deal with guys that have a trans fetish. And I know a lot of people (probably mostly men) will say “Oh, you are complaining that there are people that want to sleep with you?”. And that fails to understand human relationships. To those people I’m not “attractive”. I’m a piece of meat with a specific tag. I’m like a flavour of icecream. They don’t care about me as a person, just as something that they have a fetish. And is so INSANELY creepy and scary.

- Clothes: If Cis women already have it hard to find decent clothes that fit, now imagine having and even less conventional body shape. Heck, finding shoes that do not suck is almost impossible, I have to use customizing options most of the time. Dresses? 90% don’t fit, or look super weird on me. Trousers? Hah. Shirts is the least painful. Accesories? Impossible. I can’t buy online, because the chances of anything fitting me are non-existant.

TL; DR and Conclussion

The image that memes and social media paints of trans people is so disconnected from reality. Most trans people are just that, people that are trying to fit better in their body, in their experience, in their life. We don’t want special treatment, special rights, we just want to be treated as people. And a lot of those views and rethorics encourage people to treat us as much less than that. We are constantly bombarded with comments of “You’ll kill yourself eventually”, “you’re just a pervert”, “you are delusional”. We are treated as if we were the monsters, but what hurts more is that is done in a monstrous way.

I’m not going to ask for empathy or sympathy, because in this day and age, it seems that’s an effing BIG ask. I’m just asking for understanding. In the same way that if someone tells you the sky has turned green, you would turn around and look to check, if someone says something that sounds like trans people “is out of their mind, to cartoonish levels”... maybe double check that? Maybe ask a trans person? Just to confirm. “Hey, is it true that you people believe X?”.

It’s tiring to be dehumanized constantly, by the internet, by politicians, by celebrities. Specially when we see people spend so much time demonizing us and wasting resources on passing laws to make our life even more complicated or impossible, when the world around us has SO MANY THINGS that are important to fight for. Does it make sense that with the state of so many countries, so many politicians put everything on hold to debate if a trans person has the right to a legal name change? Instead of talking about how more and more people can afford to eat and pay rent? They are using us as a distraction, so most people are angry at us, and not at them for not fixing the shit that NEEDS fixing. Stop dancing to their tune. If you don’t care about trans people enough to see us as humans, at the very least, care about yourself enough to not be distracted by the hate manufactured against us to keep you from paying attention.

[therubymuse]

Biologically Angry

Preface

Recently, a trans woman by the name of Dylan has been the focus of intense outrage from conservatives who live on the stuff, but today, I want to use one of her actions as a jumping off point to talk about who owns the writ on womanhood. Before she was (in)famous for Bud Light and Nike sponsorships, Dylan was taking heat from trans-exclusionary reactionary fascists for another reason: because she carries tampons in her purse. 

I have recently been having some complicated feelings on the limitations of my body, as a trans woman, and owing to either autism, borderline personality disorder, or a mix of the two, I feel a need to share the loss and mourning I’m experiencing with those in my circles. This has, in turn, brought up more complicated feelings.

It may or may not be a surprise for you to learn that trans women have periods. I never know who’s going to read this stuff so this may feel a little Trans 101, but owing to feminizing hormones, a lot of the experiences cis women have with menstruation, like the cramping, the moods, and the cravings, are all things people on feminizing hormones also experience. 

The technical reason for this is hormonal levels dictate fertility cycle windows. Put estrogen and progesterone into a body, and it’s going to react the same way cis bodies that produce those hormones naturally react. As to cramping, it’s not actually the uterus doing the squeeze, but the smooth muscle lining around the intestines, which means that despite not having a uterus, I still get cramps that have knocked me to the floor at times. The only thing we don’t experience is the bleeding, cause of the aforementioned lack of uterus. 

All of this absolutely outrages our some folks, of course. They claim we’re erasing and robbing meaning from the feminine experience. They claim that people like Dylan “masquerade” as women and that her carrying tampons is just another shake of salt in their wounds. It doesn’t occur to them that the reason Dylan does this, the reason I do it, and the reason lots of women, trans or cis, do this is so we can help other women when they’re stuck. I don’t know a single cis woman who hasn’t at one time or another been caught short with her period. Why wouldn’t you want a friendly sister in the next stall over to pass you a pad or a tampon to help get you by? Why should it matter if that sister is trans or cisgender? 

Apparently these things matter a great deal to a vocal few, because according to some recent study work, most cisgender lesbians, for instance, are fully supportive of transgender lesbians. But you wouldn’t know that to sit on Twitter and watch the stream of hatred and calls for outright genocide of people like me. Which is why most of the online world ought to be taken with a grain of salt. 

However, my complicated feelings tie back to Dylan’s actions and experiences in a few other ways. And it’s my intention to air them here for your perusal, because I’m nothing if not a vulnerable trove of queer trauma hastily plastered to the wall for your education.

We are so often told that what is in the physical realm, is not what makes us women, and I agree with that statement. But it doesn’t change the emotional and physical longings I’ve felt and the loss and mourning I’ve experienced. I don’t expect anyone to believe me, but I do wish people would stop telling me what I should and shouldn’t feel, or that I’m better off for the loss. Cause I’m not. 

I: Bleeding

People will often tell you, with varying degrees of veracity, that an experience cannot ever be truly understood unless it is felt. It is this concept that is used to bludgeon transgender people back into our assigned gender and roles. I can’t know that I’m a woman, because I don’t know what a woman  feels like, or some variation on the concept. 

Except there are many ways that I can.

When I grew up in the 90s, there was no awareness or support for transgender kids. Most of my friends were girls, and they told me often the reason I was their friend, instead of most other boys at school, was because I wasn’t like those boys. One of them invited me over to a sleepover once, but their parents forbade boys from sleepovers. I asked my mother if I could join the Girl Guides, but the Guides didn’t know about trans kids at that time, so the answer was no. As I got older, my shy and feminine demeanour made me a target for bullying. I was often called a chicken and a f*gg*t for not engaging with boys. And so by senior high, I had learned to hide who I was really well, and continued to wear that mask into my 30s. 

My high school had a gay/lesbian support group, which I attended once, thinking I might be actually be gay. But I didn’t find I had much in common with gay boys, either. There was no support or wisdom for trans individuals. At home, my parents were not homophobes or particularly religious, but trans people weren’t talked about there either, and films with any gender incongruences such as The Birdcage or To Wong Foo were considered adult viewing, so I didn’t get to see them until much later in my life. Not that those films are paragon examples of trans experiences, but it would have been something. 

Despite all this, when I discovered what trans people were, and that they’d been here all along, I couldn’t explode from the closet fast enough. I knew with every fibre of my being that this is what I was missing. It didn’t matter that I’d never been a girl, I had been so painfully awkward and uncomfortable most of my life, that an answer so simple, that I was a girl, made perfect sense. 

We do trans people a disservice when we gatekeep these experiences. I was trapped inside the body, gender expectations, and social stature of manhood that felt completely alien to me, but there was nothing else, until I learned about being trans. 

I have a body that doesn’t have a uterus, and as such, I don’t bleed on my periods, but I have extended the thought to other folks who do experience this that I wish I could take that from them. And mostly, the response to this suggestion is incredulousness, bordering on anger. The thinking goes, that because I can’t know how this feels, I shouldn’t want it. And wanting it anyway feels disrespectful or demeaning to some. 

And to say I struggle with those emotions would be an understatement. It’s pretty much standard operating procedure at this point to deny a trans woman’s validity based on what she cannot do, but this doesn’t fit with feminism as I know it. There are women who are born without uteruses, or who are infertile, or who otherwise can’t have kids. The fact that they mourn that loss isn’t seen as an afront to womanhood. But it is when a trans woman does it. I don’t want to be angry at my sisters, but sometimes I am, because even allies struggle to understand why this hurts so much. 

The feminism I grew up with, that I saw in school amongst friends, told me that womanhood was not a club whose cost of admission was the strict adherence to patriarchal ideals. You didn’t need to bleed to be a woman, or have kids, or devote yourself to housekeeping and partnership at the cost of your artistry or personal development. The freedom to choose, not just in terms of bodily autonomy, but in all aspects of our identities, was paramount. And it feels like this notion has all but turned on it’s head in an attempt to keep trans women out of the club. The fact that I don’t bleed, that I can’t have kids, that I don’t want to devote myself to housework and partnership, are all points used against me, to prove I’m not a real woman. And yet, my desire to share things with other women is also somehow demeaning and shameful. 

That shrill charge of inauthenticity rings in my ears every time you tell me I  don’t actually know what we want. And it only makes the pain of loss more potent.

II: Childbirth

When I was quite young, I had some sort of Cabbage Patch Kids-adjacent doll. I carried it around the house, calling it my daughter. I think this alarmed my parents, as I was 7 years old at a time and this wasn’t something typical 7 year old boys did. Like most things I did as a child, I suppressed it when it became unacceptable, only to have it pop up in later life. 

I didn’t really give much thought to parenthood in my adult life until transition, admittedly. I was speaking with a friend about their kids, and afterwards, I had a very messy breakdown over the loss of that experience. In several ways, the world considers me unfit for motherhood. Biological essentialists say I’m perverting womanhood to have a child and teach them that I am their mother. My mental health and my financial dependence on the state means that I’m not fit to adopt a child, nor do I have the space to do so. And of course, my body will not create a life in the way I suddenly wanted to experience. 

The pain of realizing all that was very much akin to the pain of someone dying. It was like being made aware of a life I didn’t know I wanted, and then having it taken from me, all in the same realization. I have had to spend a lot of time coming to terms with it. And when I have opened up and spoken about it, I’m either mocked, or I’m told I should be grateful to be free of the trouble. 

When cis women who are able to have kids decide to have them anyway despite warnings of how difficult the experience will be, they’re applauded and supported and given space to experience those feelings. When I express that I want the same, I’m insane. And I’m honestly just so tired of having to justify it. 

I have found ways to be a mother to myself, in the absence of my actual mother. A huge drive in the desire to be someone’s mother figure is to be a better mom than my mom was. I carried my mother’s trauma all my life, and wasn’t allowed to hold boundaries or space for myself. Borderline and dissociative identity disorder are both challenges that carry beginnings in the treatment I experienced. Now that she’s gone, I’ve worked to be my own mother, to the figures in my head who have needed it. My 7 year old self, my lovely Coral, I have loved her even though she causes a lot of distress and pain. 

And so, I don’t need to be a mother as much as I once did, but the pain of loss is still there. The experiences I won’t have and the mourning I’ve done weighs so much. And I haven’t felt like I’ve been able to share that without someone trying to offer me alternatives, or talk me out of it entirely, as if I just don’t know how bad it could be. 

My mother was in labour with me for 17 hours. She had opted for natural childbirth early on in the process and by the time she felt enough pain to want to back out, they couldn’t give her the drugs. So she struggled. They offered to put her on a helicopter to a bigger hospital to maybe assist, and I’m pretty sure the swearing and throwing of things was interpreted as no, cause there I was, born in Tofino in the middle of a storm. She told me the story once, and then told me, in a rare moment of emotional clarity, that I was worth every second of her pain and every opportunity she gave up, just to have me. 

And I still cry, thinking about that, because it’s not like she didn’t know what was coming. But she thought it was worth it anyway. That I was worth it anyway. And that’s how I feel about the children I won’t ever bear. 

They’d have been worth it. 

III: Coping

Once upon a time, I hated myself for my appearance. I hated my thin, frail body, my tall forehead, my facial hair. I was deeply ashamed of my figure and would hide myself in oversized clothing and shirts/shorts when I went swimming. I hated how I was aging, looking more and more like my father, and looking old beyond my years due to the stress and strain of my life and it’s many masks. 

Today, I have the opposite relationship with my body, partly because I could transition, and partly by accepting the parts that aren’t perfect. There are parts of me I adore, like my curves, my thick and recovered head of hair, my eyes. And then there are parts I’ve accepted through radical self-love, such as my voice, my eyes (but in a different way), and my nose (something I rarely admit to having hated in the past). Overall, I’m in a really healthy place. 

However, some things haven’t been as easily let go, such as my longing to be somebody’s mom. I’m working on it, and Coral certainly helps me a lot, because helping her heal trauma from our shared childhood means she is having less meltdown responses to emotional stimuli. I feel proud of her, and the work I’ve done with her. But my invisible head child is pretty hard to explain to strangers, and it’s unfair to ask her to fill all of the emotional cavities I find in myself. That would make me more like my mother than I ever want to be. 

I don’t hate my body for what she is unable to do, but I feel a hole in my chest when I think of what she might have done. There are so many ways that I can be a mother figure, and some of those roads I’m already on in various ways. One of my challenges with borderline is how intense all emotions feel. When I think about not having a child, it hurts just as bad as losing a loved one. I can’t explain why. I think it’s similar to what happens when a cis woman loses a child in pregnancy, although I’m certain that saying so will cause more ire. I can imagine who they would be, how I would have been their friend and parent, what our family would have been like. Sometimes I see them in dreams. And then I wake up, and mourn again. And people tell me what I’m experiencing is insulting to them. 

If the world doesn’t go completely to hell, it’s entirely possible that within my lifetime, trans women will be able to have children via uterine transplants. This has already been done successfully but it’s still quite experimental. If it does go to hell, probably not, and either way, it won’t happen soon enough for me to take part in it. 

It’s going to take a long time to work through these emotions, learn how to cope with them, and direct some of them towards becoming a motherly figure in the ways I can be. But I doubt the ache I feel will ever go away. And I’m tired of pretending that it will, or not talking about it, to save the feelings of others. Motherly longing is part of a lot of trans women’s experiences, and coping requires recognition.

I need to make space to process and feel those things, but we need to make space as a society for trans women to feel these things without persecution, abuse, and belittling. Our womanhood, and our motherhood, matters just as much.

Photo of French Beach, BC, taken by me.

[intersex-support]

Hello, I am trying to send this ask with as much respect as possible, I have tried doing research on my own but I find it very difficult but I do know a fair bit

Tw: medical experiences, unwanted hormones

My doctors say that I have “higher testosterone than expected from a woman” and by that they mean a dyadic cis woman, I am a pre-transition trans man, and I have incredibly painful periods that they “can’t do anything about” except put me on estrogen or painkillers, and I have slightly under developed breasts I think because they don’t look like most cis women’s, and I am constantly slightly anemic and I can’t seem to become un-anemic no matter how much I try, but they say that it’s not significant enough to impact my transition and I don’t think it shows up a lot physically, I don’t have a lot of facial hair or an especially deep voice but it does break a lot, but I do have a very high hairline and I think my hair might be getting thinner but Im unsure?

I feel out of control of my body and like doctors will not help me but maybe what I perceive as problems will go away when I transition and there will be no breasts or periods? I don’t even know if I want to call myself intersex because I don’t want to step on intersex people’s toes but on the other hand maybe it would be a good thing because strength in numbers? How do I figure out what is happening with my body and how to care for it when doctors will just not want to talk about it or say they can’t help me?

Hi anon, sorry that it took a while to answer.

I'm so sorry to hear that doctors have been so unhelpful. You deserve to have doctors that help you figure this out and to go on the hormones that you want to go on. If doctors have told you that you have higher testosterone (hyperandrogenism), that probably means that you are intersex. Doctors rarely ever actually use the word "intersex" when they are diagnosing people, so it kind of takes a lot of doing our own figuring out. When people are diagnosed with hyperandrogenism, usually the cause is PCOS or NCAH if things like Cushing syndrome have been ruled out. There are specific tests for NCAH if that is something you would be interested in exploring.

I don't think you would be stepping on intersex people's toes if you identified as intersex, intersex questioning, or went into intersex community spaces. As long as you are honest with where you are in your journey and don't speak over other people, I've found the intersex community to be really welcoming. The things you've shared are things that a lot of intersex people can relate to, and you deserve support and understanding. I think you would be welcome in intersex community. Intersex community has room for all of us, and we all have different experiences, variations, diagnoses--we have space to support each other without talking over each others experiences. You belong here if you want to belong here, but you also have the room to use whatever language feels most comfortable. There is no rush, and you don't have to move at a pace that feels too fast when it comes to understanding yourself, your body, and the language that you use.

I also had some similar symptoms and going on testosterone did really help me (still didn't get rid of my weird anemia and I'm still trying to figure that out, I know a lot of intersex people with weird anemia issues that none of us have figured out why.) I say that not to minimize what you're currently going through but to let you know that there is hope that things will get easier with your body. I know for a lot of intersex people, being on some type of consistent hormone helps us a lot, whether we are on estrogen HRT, testosterone HRT, or progestin like through an IUD or otherwise. Intersex people are still intersex no matter what hormones we take, but hormones can be an important option for managing our health. You might need to work with your doctor to figure out the best dosages and it might take a bit of trial and error to manage your hormonal health, but it can get better.

Doctors suck so bad, but know that you are not alone and you deserve to be listened to. You can check out this post for tips on advocating for yourself at the doctors. This is also a brochure you can print out and give to your doctor if that's something you are comfortable with. If you want to talk to other intersex people about your experiences, feel free to send an ask off anon and I can give you a link to an intersex discord server. There's also ISpace, an intersex facebook group, if that's something that you would like.

Truly the best of luck, anon <3

-Mod E

[mickadamz]

hiii so english isn't my first language and i'm learning more about gender and trans stuff and if i might be trans or something (i've been told i sound agender?? but that feels wrong), and something that confuses me, so i'm asking around abt it… "woman" used to simply denote afab, right? like a body type of ppl with a biological (not surgical) vagina & estrogen puberty. like a female dog. ppl say that it reduces women to their genitals, but what about with other animals? like female cat, female horse, etc, just bc we say "oh she's a girl" or "oh i have a male dog" doesn't mean we're saying they're only their genitals in that case, right…? a bitch is just a female dog, that's why it's a misogynistic word. misogyny is based on how ppl see someone without a penis as lesser, bc they don't have the power to forcibly penetrate and feel genital pleasure for it, they can't impregnate, they're "just a hole" etc. like so much of misogyny is just body-specific. the misogyny transfems experience seems terrible but also conditional? bc if they're found out to be amab they're treated as creepy men, so they then stop experiencing misogyny, they just face usually homophobia. meanwhile bio women (and transmascs who don't transition) have no exit door to the misogyny unless they transition and pass perfectly as male or something, and historically that wasn't an option. to me man & woman have always been neutral body types until i came across trans stuff, and i think the idea of gendered brains sounds sexist af. like gender seems like bullshit, i see me being a woman as just like being a female cat, i don't have ~womanly~ vibes in my brain, i was just born female and that's the least important thing about me, but male society made it weird. why should gender continue to be a thing? what does gender actually mean, if sexism was to be eradicated? is it bad if i view my womanhood as just a body type? most cis people i've talked to view their "gender" like this, as just a body type, like any other animal. they don't "feel" like one, they just have the body and aren't dysphoric about it. they might not always like it, but they don't have dysphoria about it, so they just… are. is that transphobic? i've heard mixed thoughts about it from trans ppl & activists, i'm just curious. feel free to ignore this lol ;;

i don't think there's an inherently wrong way for YOU to perceive YOUR OWN gender/body. i think the only time it becomes a problem is when you try to force others to adopt this mindset for their own personal experience as a trans (or even cis) person

as for everything else you asked (though likely in a rhetorical sense) im not sure i have an answer. its very nuanced. gender exists because we as humans like to put names to things and make categories and identify with something, though unfortunately there are a lot of bad actors and misinformation.

if anyone has their own feedback feel free to leave it. other than that, i wish you luck on your journey, anon