#like it literally just happens because of hormones. it’s a secondary sex characteristic just like body hair getting thicker/darker

[prettyboyscollection]

gender critical people, especially women, will spend all their time tearing down the appearances of trans people, especially trans women, and then when trans people dare to retaliate and make a joke about their appearances, they act like they’ve just been shot

[eldritchamy]

WAIT hold on hi abt the tags on the post about terfs being stupid about periods you reblogged - does HRT really end up causing similar hormone change cycles to periods? i've never heard abt that before and it's kind of boggling my mind because on the one hand why WOULDN'T HRT do that but on the other hand why WOULD it?

So keep in mind I am not an expert on the subject and everything I’m about to tell you is for the purpose of introducing you to the subject matter.

The short answer is yes. And it’s not similar to periods. It’s EXACTLY periods. Caused by the exact same hormones interacting with the body in the exact same way.

So yes it does happen, and it happens because a period doesn’t come from a uterus. It comes from the hypothalamus. A uterus is just the organ most noticeably affected by it. A uterus is not necessary whatsoever to experience period symptoms.

Everyone has a hypothalamus. It’s just a little thing in your brain that does some endocrine/hormone stuff. Under the right hormone conditions, ANYONE can have period symptoms. Not everyone can bleed because you need uterine lining tissue for that (some amab intersex people do! I’ve read at least one account from an amab person who found out they were intersex BECAUSE they had a small amount of uterine lining in their rectum which caused monthly bleeding when they hit puberty).

But literally every other period symptom is fair game.

And yes, that sucks.

If you want quick links to some sources I’ve read about the subject without clicking through for my rambling bullshit, here:

Yes, Trans Women Can Get Period Symptoms (2016)

Cycle Dynamic - Why Trans Women Can Have Periods (2018)

If you DO want my rambling bullshit, buckle up because I’m Very Normal when I find a subject interesting.

The background fact you need to understand the rest of this is that the human body doesn’t actually HAVE separate “versions” of anything for ‘male’ and ‘female’ bodies (I may be using these terms more liberally than they should really be used for ease of reading, but for the record the gender binary is bullshit, which is the point of where this is going). Even a penis is just a modified clitoris. It’s not an analogous structure. It’s literally the exact same organ. (And it does change in response to hormones).

The human body is just the human body. It decides how it behaves based on chemistry, not genetics. There are CERTAIN STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT (namely embryonic/EARLY fetal and puberty) in which major diversions in form and function happen. And of those embryonic is faaaaaaar more significant because it’s what sets the harder to change things (primary sex characteristics) in place. Most secondary sex characteristics can be changed later just by changing the hormone chemistry of your body, which is the entire principle behind why HRT is possible.

At no point ever in the entire span of a human life cycle does anything like “oh okay, you have a BOY hypothalamus :) enjoy :)” happen. You just have the same hypothalamus as everyone else, barring medical conditions.

SO. Basically how it works is your hypothalamus knows how much estrogen is in your body at any given time, and if it notices a spike in that level, it says to itself, “OH SHIT! WE HAVE A MATURE EGG! Time to MAKE SOME CHANGES.”

Your hypothalamus does not know or care whether you have a uterus. It only responds to the estrogen cycle.

Both cis and trans women (and anyone else who either has a working uterus or takes an estrogen supplement, but again, using simple language to get the ideas across) have estrogen cycles.

In CIS women, the estrogen cycle is internal and based on ovulation. TL;DR, your ovaries release different amounts of estrogen throughout the cycle based on the maturity of an egg cell.

In TRANS women, the estrogen cycle is external because we get our estrogen from pills or injections instead of from ovaries, and it’s based on how your body metabolizes that medication. You usually get a big hit around the time you get the dosage and then it tapers off until you take the next dose. Back to this in a second.

IN EITHER CASE, your hypothalamus tracks those changes and responds to them by releasing the period hormones (GnRH (Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone), FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone), LH (Leutinizing Hormone)) at a certain point in that cycle. When your hypothalamus feels that estrogen spike, it doesn’t CARE where that estrogen came from because it’s not its JOB to know where the estrogen came from. It only cares that it’s there. And you have the exact same hypothalamus no matter what genitals you have.

This next bit is speculation on my part based on experience and anecdotal evidence, but it seems like the greater and more predictable the VARIATION over the course of that cycle, the easier it is for your hypothalamus to be like “AHA! NOW!” and keep you on a regular cycle. Trans women who take INJECTIONS, which are on a much longer release schedule than pills, tend to experience more ups and downs in their estrogen levels and more noticeable, and regular, period symptoms. FOR ME, I’ve only ever been on pills, at a few different dosages. Earlier on I noticed that for (surprise) about 3 to 5 days every month, I would get all kinds of symptoms like headaches, backaches, joint aches, muscle aches, irritability, mood swings, depressive episodes, odd cravings (usually just crunchy and salty but sometimes really specific things), bloating, cramps (yes really), gastrointestinal stuff, etc. I suspect, with no evidence either way, that these symptoms were mild, but I’ve heard other trans women describe their symptoms as much less severe than mine, so idk.

ALSO earlier on, I used to take all of my pills at once, one time per day. I noticed something interesting when I switched to splitting my dosage and taking half twice a day: a huge reduction in severity and regularity of period symptoms. My levels are a lot more consistent throughout the day now, and I guess my hypothalamus can no longer sense a spike in my levels. (It used to be ESPECIALLY severe when I ran out and it took a few days to get my prescriptions refilled, cause then I had an estrogen crash (which gives you symptoms of menopause and wow THAT’S a wild ride, hot flashes are the actual worst) followed by a spike when I got back on them and almost always would have a super noticeable period within days of this happening).

So when I started spreading my dosage throughout the day, I basically made my hypothalamus too confused to know when to release those hormones. Either that or it thinks I’m pregnant. I’m not sure.

Coming back from that tangent.

It is a VERY KNOWN THING that when you take estrogen INJECTIONS, you need to work with your doctors a bit to figure out the exact dosage and timing that works best for you, because a lot of the time what happens with that is you’ll experience pretty severe dysphoria and depression symptoms in the days leading up to your next injection, and if this describes the experience of anyone you know, congrats, that’s PMDD (pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder), and you need your injections to be a few days closer together to prevent those symptoms. It’s literally your body experiencing an estrogen crash because your last dose wore off too long before you got the next one. This is also more common in people who take Progesterone.

The long and short of what happens when your hypothalamus registers an estrogen spike is that it releases the period hormones, which basically among other things go down to your abdomen and say W̶̫̬̒I̶̧̬̤͛Ĝ̴̦͆̽G̴̢̞̈́L̴̩͖̂E̷͇̲̊͐̀. And if you have a uterus, all that wiggling is what makes your uterus cramp up and squeeze out its lining and start bleeding. It ALSO has the delightful side effect of not really caring enough to target the uterus specifically, so it also makes your INTESTINES start cramping up and squeezing themselves, so fun fact that’s where period shits come from if you have those.

Everybody say “thank you, hypothalamus.”

So yeah that’s why it happens. The TL;DR is blame the hypothalamus. The human body is differentiated by chemistry not chromosomes. Put the right chemistry in place and you can absolutely get periods.

And yes, they suck for us too.

[stardustedknuckles]

I hope I don't have to put on a show about my gender to the people at planned parenthood. The more I look into testosterone, the more I keep seeing things like "anti inflammatory" and "stabilizes stomach issues" and "provides energy," which are basically the three absolute biggest things putting a cramp in my life as a human person. That alone is more than enough to get me to go for hormones. It just also happens that I dislike being in any kind of female shape, and it also happens that I don't really know the depths of my dysphoria outside of glimpses on bad days, largely because I've been dealing so much with those three big things that I haven't had the energy to detect dysphoria. It just so happens that I also do not mind the effects of testosterone itself. I'll deal with the body hair as it comes. Everything else? Also sounds neat. I'd love to have a consistent libido. I'd love to be consistently hungry - because the thing about not being able to feel want on a basic biological level is that I also rarely feel the joy of satisfaction. Estrogen is destroying my quality of life. In a way I guess that's true for most of us trans people with female secondary sex characteristics, but I mean literally, medically, T has so much to offer me.

Now that I've set an appointment to talk about getting on them (!!!) I'm nervous they'll decide I'm not trans enough or not suffering in the right way. I am suffering from estrogen. Hugely, continuously suffering. It's just that dysphoria isn't a big part of that suffering. But I think euphoria is very, very likely to be evident in the results. Not the least because with inflammation removed, I can feel things like euphoria in the first place.

[spiritus-sonne]

Where Gender & Animality Meet

I thought I had posted this here, but turns out I didn't. This is a writing I did expressing various things related to my experience and identity of having a "nonhuman gender". I have thankfully come across some others who can relate to this, even if their experiences are specifically different from mine, it's comforting to read them nevertheless. Of course, I've had to see skeptics about it who either trivialize my experience and identity, state it's impossible to have a nonhuman gender (because "gender is a human construct" or that "it just doesn't make sense for a gender to be nonhuman"), and/or that gender is only a social construct so I shouldn't even bother with introspecting on my gender and seeking to understand it. Which, this being Tumblr, I'll probably get more of that by posting this here, but oh well.

So with that, here's the essay:

I periodically get times of trying to figure out what to call my gender and how to explain it well.  Of the established terms, demifemale maybe the closest one I’ve found.  Recently I came across the term “xenogender” and noticed it can be used in relating, for example, animals to gender, and thought that maybe it was close to my experience/identity, but after looking further into it, the term and concept doesn’t fit me, as it’s more so about symbolic or sensory explanations for gender or utilizes nounself-genders—which just isn’t fitting to me.

Another issue I have with using xenogender for myself is that my gender still feels like it is “binary” in the sense of feeling like and identifying as “female”.  However, it is on a nonhuman spectrum of gender without being symbolic—more of a literal kind of nonhuman gender, in contrast to how xenogender tends to be used.  The definition, though, seems mostly fitting of my gender if taken in that literal sense and if it wasn’t restricted to nonbinary genders.  I guess I could be considered adjacent to or overlapping with xenogender.

Demifemale still feels not quite right but is closer than others I’ve come across so far because I do see myself as partially feminine (specifically just feminine leaning), no (human) masculinity in my identity, and not a blend of feminine and masculine (like androgynous would be).  I’m comfortable referring to myself as she/her and female, though I tend to think that what *I* mean by female for myself is rather different than what is generally meant by human society as female.  If anything, I’d call it something like “neuter-female”, but that still doesn’t get into the depth of what the hell I am gender-wise.

Now granted, maybe I shouldn’t even be caring much about a term to fit my gender identity, especially with so many terms and definitions already and with more being coined as time goes on.  I know I don’t need a term for it, let alone some perfectly-fitting one.  However, at least thinking about the terminology and exposing myself to some of these terms helps in my introspection and toward better understanding myself, including in relation to and in contrast to other people.  It also lets me understand the extent of my personal animality and how it permeates through into so much of who and what I am on a non-physical level.  Over time, in part through considering these gender identity terms, I’ve developed a better concept and understanding of just what gender means to me and how or where I fall along the vast diversity of gender identity.

If anything, I kind of like the term “feragender”, which I came up with only to follow that with a web search and finding someone last year had coined it online.  Though their definition still kind of fits, just without the specification of *wild* animal because I don’t see mine as specific to being a *wild* creature.  Sure, “fera-“ denotes wild, but honestly so many other terms I thought of were already coined and weren’t fitting (e.g., aliagender, zoogender (granted, I don’t like the sound or look of that one—just personal preference), allogender).  And zoanthgender sounds okay, but too specific-sounding, even though this is ultimately meant for *me*–I’m just weird and like it broader than that **shrugs**.  I suppose feragender, neuter-female is about as specific and fitting I have currently.

So aside from all this terminology stuff, what even *is* my gender identity like?  Well, from what I’ve figured out so far, I see myself as *female*, but not human-female.  It’s essentially a different construct and spectrum from that of human-specific gender.  I, beyond gender, identify as both, intrinsically, human and nonhuman—humanoid and non-humanoid.  And that runs through into my gender, it turns out (I’m not surprised, honestly).  At my core, I am a shapeshifting (to a restricted number of forms/creatures) humanoid who happens to live a mundane human life in a human body, and that pervades into the whole of what is *me*.

My understanding of my gender deals with concepts derived from the sexual, genital, and sex hormonal aspects and influences of a creature that doesn’t exist.  I’ve realized there’s basically a concept my mind identifies as fitting my gender that happens to be based on some kind of shapeshifting humanoid creature, which has therefore previously made extra difficulty in me understanding, let alone explaining and naming, my personal gender.

About these humanoid creatures: they still have males, females, and in-betweens/others in regards to sexes (let alone genders), but they have distinct differences from that of human sexes.  They are sexually dimorphic, but only mildly (less than humans).  All sexes have minimal body and facial hair (their hair is mainly on scalp, eyelashes, and eyebrows, with thin, fine, and light-colored hair over the rest of their bodies, including armpits and pubic area).  Females have permanent breasts like humans, but their vulva is minor (only a slit or hole); they are more “curvaceous” like human females tend to be.  Males have no external genitalia (only an external slit or hole as the opening) and have a human-like androgynous appearance to their bodies.  They don’t have much in the way of femininity or masculinity in the sense of how it is often conceived for humans in general.  Actually, I don’t know if that’s really just an attribute of those creatures or if it’s mainly a “me” thing from me seeing myself as basically a “neutered” nonhuman creature/humanoid.

In my case, for my gender identity, I would be like one of those females although a “neutered” one (post development of secondary sex characteristics)—retaining a sexuality and sex drive (based out of pleasure, not for reproduction or from sex hormone influence), and identify as sterile.  I also sometimes when my libido and arousal are strong experience an erect phantom humanoid penis (I don’t have a good concept of its form, but it’s without testicles), though so far I don’t consider that part of my gender identity—I feel it is just something strange I experience for whatever reason.  Though perhaps it’s a humanoid internal penis that I only feel when it is erect and “unsheathed” in an external position—I really don’t know yet.  Also, at times I have the desire to do binding of my breasts (though I’ve never journeyed into actually trying it), including feeling sometimes (not always) more aesthetic and sensory-based satisfaction when my breasts feel relatively flatter due to wearing certain kinds of shirts.  So I feel like I primarily identify as a female gender of that strange humanoid species, while also, less often feel myself fluctuate toward the male (more androgynous and not masculine) part of the species’ spectrum.

It’s all very strange (having a “nonhuman gender”, so to speak) and I haven’t yet found someone who experiences this sort of thing, but then again, it’s a difficult thing to figure out (has taken me several years to nail down this much), is outside the human ‘normal’ spectrum of gender and sex, and is probably something that very relatively few people experience.  It would be tricky to ‘transition’ to feel more comfortable with myself and body, but I’ve taken some steps—I did get sterilized a few years ago, so that’s at least something closer to the whole “neutered” aspect (to be fully ‘neutered’ I’d have to have my ovaries and uterus removed and that would have its own set of health issues following it), and I keep my legs and armpits shaved close most of the time (to me it’s not a “female-specific” thing, as I noted above regarding the appearances of that humanoid species).  I haven’t worn makeup in a long time—lack of motivation is part of the reason (I’m content with my face looking how it does, sans things like plucking my eyebrows or reducing my acne), but I will note that initially in high school when I started wearing makeup, it was largely inspired by *men* wearing similar styles of makeup that I went with, as also the same men influencing my hairstyles back then sometimes; I see makeup as a gender-neutral thing, even if it isn’t treated that way in a lot of our societies.  Beyond that, I’ll never have my genitals transitioned to be more like I feel they should be.

While I’m at it, I’ll throw some in here about my sexuality.  For years I’ve identified as gray-asexual, more specifically now as demisexual, which I feel is fitting enough for me, along with polysexual, though confirming the polysexuality is tricky giving that I’m demisexual and have only been sexually attracted to I think two people in my life (one a transman and the other a transwoman).  When I’m outside of one of those romantic relationships (and before I developed a genuine romantic attraction to either person), I have been devoid of sexual attraction and even lacking a sex drive.  For the past several years I’ve been in a stable romantic relationship and it started off with some level of sexual attraction (already romantically attracted to this person and been with them previous times) and maybe a low to moderate sex drive.  But for the past few years the sexual attraction and, especially sex drive, have been high.  Personally, I think it relates to my chronic depression, as some fucked up way to balance out the fact that around the same time as the sex drive went up, my ability to feel pleasure during sex dropped (sexual anhedonia) and so did my ability to orgasm.  So it feels weird to be a demisexual person with such a high libido and high sexual attraction (albeit, all directed at either one human person or, alternatively, fictional humanoid creatures), and on top of that being anorgasmic and having sexual anhedonia.  My body and mind are just odd when it comes to this stuff.

[love-takes-work]

Some people are being weird about Stevonnie's intersex designation.

Hopefully I can write a post that sums up and addresses a few confusions and criticisms I've been seeing!

Intersex: This is a term for anyone who has one of the dozens of biological sex variations outside of "male" and "female." Knowing someone is intersex does not tell you anything about their genitals, their hormones, their surgeries, their gender identity, whether they identify as trans or nonbinary, their secondary sex characteristics, or their chromosomes.

Some intersex variations are hormonal. Some are about genitals. Some are chromosomal. Some are a mixture.

Intersex is a designation that is exactly as "sexual" as calling someone "male" or calling someone "female." It isn't explicit in a way that makes it racy, sexualized, or inappropriate for children to see. And in fact, it answers zero questions about what is in Stevonnie's pants (or the pants of any intersex person).

Preoccupation with nonbinary, intersex, and trans people's genitals is what's inappropriate.

And unless the person in question wants you to know, it isn't your business.

Please also acknowledge that while we're talking about a cartoon character here, the way we treat and talk about them shouldn't be different from the way we treat and talk about real people. It's not about whether we're concerned about "hurting" an imaginary person. You all know that how people react to conceptual people is often how we learn to react to real people. Trans people and intersex people and people with hormone variations have historically been (and continue in the present to be) mocked and paraded as weirdos, from "man in a dress" pitched as a joke to "bearded lady in a sideshow" tropes.

Note: Say intersex, not "intersexed." Because people aren't intersexed any more than they're maled or femaled.

I personally have a couple intersex friends who are open about their designation. It's way more common than you might think and the shame and stigma surrounding intersex is part of why many people have been saying it's bizarre or gross to talk about associated with Stevonnie. Intersex isn’t rare, bizarre, or gross. It's just what happens when physical sex isn't a binary, which it's not.

Some people don't find out they're intersex until they have genetic testing for some reason and see a chromosome anomaly. Some people don't find out they're intersex until they don't experience typical puberty. Some people find out they had unnecessary surgery when they were infants to "normalize" their external genitalia, which is something some intersex activists are trying to stop from happening (especially since a. unnecessary surgeries can be painful and dangerous; b. they cannot consent at that age; c. they may have preferred an intersex body; and d. the sex determined by doctors or parents to be the right one might be the wrong one if the intersex person grows up and identifies differently gender-wise, and the parts they were born with are forever taken from them).

Stevonnie being intersex is a positive thing overall, mostly because intersex is not talked about for no good reason, and because of that we'll continue to have generations of parents who want unnecessary surgery on intersex infants, intersex people feeling ashamed or weird about their bodies, and people in general believing untrue things about the physical sex of bodies. A character just casually identifying as intersex is a really nice change for once.

The only issue I have with it, honestly, is the same issue I have with non-binary representation on the show. So far, we've only seen it explicitly acknowledged in Fusions.

Fusion is a magical concept on a SF/fantasy show, and I do worry that the value of intersex rep on the show is somewhat diluted by the fact that it's attached to a character who is LITERALLY a mixture of male and female characters. Being "a mix of male and female" isn't really the best way to see intersex people--the parts in question have names and what determines their maleness or femaleness or non-binary-ness is who owns the parts--and I worry that if some people are introduced to intersex for the first time as if it only exists as a result of an impossible science fiction concept, they might also get the idea that it doesn't happen in the real world.

It does happen in the real world! Just like nonbinary people and same-sex couples!

I would love to see some explicit nonbinary and intersex rep among human cartoon characters, and more same-sex human relationships too. SU is the perfect show to do this because it's got sensitive, informed, diverse, cool people behind it who know how important this is. There are still people watching this show who are "excusing" its queerness because it's mixed with literal aliens, but the intention of the show is the opposite: to give its audience characters that are relatable to historically marginalized groups who are not from outer space. So far it's still GREAT that we got a Gem wedding, a few casual references to humans who are probably gay or queer, a polyamorous Gem Fusion, and a nice little gaggle of nonbinary Fusions, including an intersex Fusion. The only reservation I have with it is that introducing these concepts attached to characters whose non-binary and/or intersex identities and designations are consequences of being literal mixtures of more than one person does make it less readily incorporated into a less savvy viewer's real-life understanding. What's still fantastic about it is that people can see Stevonnie supporting Intersex Awareness Day and look it up and find out why it exists. It's absolutely a stepping stone if nothing else, and they're not wrong for doing it.

And please do stop claiming that talking about intersex is sexually explicit or disgusting because you think it refers to the genitals of minors. That isn't true AND it is misleading when it comes to what intersex is. If you wouldn't consider it inappropriate to ask a new parent about the gender of their baby knowing they can't ask the baby and are therefore explicitly disclosing what genitals the child has, you shouldn't consider it inappropriate to have a children's show character identify as intersex.

Hope that helps.

[nathanielthecurious]

one thing i find really interesting is how, even with the existence of custom gender settings in the game, interpreting a sim as trans, ftm, mtf, nb, etc. will always have ambiguities. gender nonconforming sims, just like gender nonconforming humans, are interpreted differently by different people, but the factors that determine that arent quite the same as they are for humans. sims can’t have gender-neutral pronouns, their gendered language is basically tied to whether they have breasts or whether they can grow facial hair (since those are the main aspects of gender that can’t be changed via custom gender settings), and so in a sense gender identity doesn’t exist in ts4, just bodies and gender expression. you see people trying to fit gnc sims into human categories of cis and trans and nb, arguing online about how morgyn ember probably isn’t a trans man because they wear feminine clothing, and how if the game had they/them pronouns then morgyn would probably use them.

another thing is that premade/npc sims dont have a gender at birth because they aren’t created with a past or future, just a body and self-expression that can imply a past. a sim like morgyn looks like, if they were human, they’re likely to have experienced high levels of both estrogen and testosterone, but that could represent an intersex person, someone female at birth who’s been on testosterone, or someone male at birth who’s been on estrogen, or someone who’s not intersex and has never been on hrt but just happens to look androgynous.

sure, you can pretty clearly signal that a character is transgender by giving them a physical frame (i.e. bone structure, basically) that’s different from their gender, but lots of real-life trans people require a little more artistry if you want to make a sim that has their secondary sex characteristics. for example, while our facial structures and bone structures are mostly determined by the first puberty we had, our fat and muscle distribution is more determined by our current hormones, which means that the (incredibly useful) category of “physical frame” that the sims uses to fine-tune sim sex characteristics is literally a binary that our bodies don’t fit into. and as we can see, when you have a combination of custom gender settings other than the most obviously trans settings, it can be kind of hard to tell how the maker of the sim even imagined that sim’s history or identity.

(also literally none of this is a criticism of either ts4 or simmers; ts4 has super amazing trans/nb/gnc representation, and when i say that it doesnt quite match up to real-life trans bodies that’s because nothing in the sims is exactly like real life, and gender is an area of life where those small differences result in really interesting perceptions and discourses)

[purplepeoplelickingtruthpeddler]

I’ve been saying something to people for a while, and honestly I don’t have the data to back up my end point. But what would ya’ll say if I told you that doctors are moving away from treating people who have PCOS with spironolactone specifically because the other most common use for it is HRT for trans women? 

The only half decent doctor I’ve had, and I really do mean half decent because he was useless outside of PCOS, backed me up when I told him that birth control gave me really high blood pressure, which is common for people with PCOS because A: we’re at risk of high blood pressure already, B: birth control is known to make blood pressure high in general, C: because birth control is estrogen based (and sometimes also contains progesterone if it’s a combo pill), D: PCOS already causes high estrogen, E: The same problem which causes low progesterone and high estrogen to begin with is worsened from birth control because it’s caused by a lack of ovulation, and birth control stops you ovulating. He warned me about going to a gyno and his exact words were “all they’re going to do is push birth control on you” and they did, that’s all they do. When I go in for literally anything, the entire appointment turns into a sales pitch. One particularly crooked and incompetent gyno told me that “PCOS causes too many hormones and birth control is one little pill to calm them all down instead of spiro, and metformin, and progesterone.” You know what that was? A straight faced lie. Because A: PCOS comes from insulin resistance in the cells of the ovaries which causes them to turn to other methods (producing androgens) for energy. Metformin, and metformin alone, addresses insulin resistance. That’s why PCOS puts us at greater risk of developing diabetes. We have low progesterone. Progesterone, and progesterone alone, addresses that. Estrogen makes it worse. Why take a combo BC when you can just take progesterone and not take one step forward and one step back? Spironolactone? Oh ho ho. Spironolactone addresses androgens just like it does for trans women, (oh, but don’t let anyone argue that PCOS is an intersex condition, god forbid). You know what doesn’t do all of those things? Extra estrogen, in the form of birth control. Like, okay, maybe BC slightly calms some of the less desirable symptoms in a transphobic, intersexphobic, and sexist world, like acne and facial hair. But, it’s the progesterone in the pill doing that. Specifically. If you consider yourself a cis women and you experience dysphoria because of these things, like I don’t on both counts, and that matters to you, that’s fair. sure. Your mental well-being is just as important as that of trans people who need to transition because of their own dysphoria, I’ll give you that. But BC treats the problems less than it creates more and spironolactone is way more effective for male sex characteristics specifically or else they wouldn’t be giving it to trans women. 

That’s basically a summary of why ya’ll should see an endocrinologist firstly. Stop going to your gyno unless you have really bad cysts and physical abdominal pain that could be a further complication from any of the other various things we’re at risk for. Either way home base is an endocrinologist, gyno is secondary at best. Go to an endo who won’t lie to you. Heck go to one that treats trans people. Go to one who has diabetes and PCOS listed in their profile. 

Finally, why in the entire f@#$! would the majority of the medical community move away from using a treatment that actually works? Could it be because uhhhhhh if they can separate us from the same treatment that trans women also happen to take, also happening to have male sex characteristics, (oh, but no worries, I won’t offend your cis sensibilities and call it an intersex condition), and then make the drug itself difficult to get, then maybe they’ll make access to HRT that much more difficult in general? Winner winner chicken dinner. I hate to burst bubbles. Actually, no I don’t. We aren’t getting appropriate treatment because of transphobia.

And you know who loses? Like literally everyone. Intersex, trans, women, chronically ill. We literally all go down with that boat. I’m waiting and watching the price of spironolactone to go up even further. 

Start caring. Do your research. Interrogate your doctors, because if they can’t give you more than vague spoon-fed “you wouldn’t understand this anyways because you’re just a patient” bullshit, you need to keep looking. Don’t let them relegate us to less than effective treatment so they can block trans people from access to the meds that they need too.

[lacrimosathedark]

Sorry, but how you FEEL doesn't change anything about science, logic (which is laughable, coming from the likes of you SJWs), reason and skepticism. You aren't male or female because you feel you are. That's the dumbest thing I've heard all day. That's like me saying, "I feel like I'm chocolate, therefore I am." You can be what you identify as all you want, but feeling what you are doesn't determine your established biology at birth. You think you're so smart, but you argue like a typical SJW

I don’t know what SJWs you’ve hunted for, but the few that I’ve seen have all mostly been whiny and never talk about logic or science, which is not what I’m doing at all. Perhaps your definition of SJW is broader than mine. I thought SJWs tend to go out to find people to attack. I didn’t attack you for one, and for another I only said anything because you were sending hate anons to someone I follow, unprovoked, for no reason. I don’t sit by while people I care about are hurting if I can help it. I also have never thought of myself as an SJW and I don’t understand why you are throwing it around so much.

I never said anything as ridiculous as “I feel like chocolate therefore I am”. Chocolate isn’t a gender it’s a flavor or a food???? I don’t understand where that came from at all??????  You’re strawmanning me and to be quite honest it’s rather pathetic. Can you not argue the substance of what I’ve postulated and you have to twist things and make shit up? What does that say about your argument?

I also am not changing logic or reason, and you can be skeptical but that doesn’t give you a free pass to be rude, cruel, and hateful. Being skeptical gives you the opportunity to attempt to understand. You are throwing that opportunity away purely to be rude and hateful which, frankly, I don’t understand why you would waste the time, effort, and your physical and mental health on being to angry and hateful. It’s not healthy.

Literally how a person feels is their biology. It’s the biochemistry in their brain amongst other unknown factors. That’s why people with things like depression and anxiety and attention disorders can’t just fix it and often times need medication to balance out what happens in their body. Feelings and thoughts aren’t some “spiritual other”. You aren’t separate from your body. You think the way you do because of your biochemistry and body structure. If your biochemistry consistently tells you “I’m not a girl” or “I’m not a guy” then something in your biology is sending that signal to your brain. That is logic.

Scientifically, there is more to male and female than just your genitals. There’s secondary characteristics, chromosomes, hormones, DNA, and things we haven’t even discovered yet because we don’t know everything about the human body or what determines how we turn out. Additionally you are ignoring intersex people, people who are in between more obviously than nonbinary people. Intersex people can be born with testicles and a uterus, with larger functioning breast tissue and a penis, with ovaries and a penis. Even if you want to go with “just your genitals define you”, it is not binary and there is more than male and female. Intersex people are born with both characteristics in one way or another and don’t fit neatly into male or female. How do they fit into your view of gender and sex?

[dono-harm-totonystark]

Yes, Trans Women Have Periods (And Yes, It Makes Sense)

DISCLAIMER: As some of you may or may not know, I am a vet student. This post stems from the fact that I have a major test on Fowl Diseases tomorrow, so--of course--I spent the last 5 hours on the wide cast InterNets.

One of my online adventures took me to EverydayFeminism.com (which I proudly subscribe to) and one of its articles, specifically THIS ONE. It’s written by @samriedel​, and it talks about how transgender women undergoing HRT seem to be experiencing regular period symptoms of the same more-or-less debilitating nature as cis gals so knowingly do.

The article is ridden with numerous anecdotal data, and just about as many questions of the scientific nature which no self-respecting M.D. would seem to be willing to answer. But since I am no M.D., and I incidentally happen to have no self-respect, too, I decided to tackle the task to the best of my abilities and my veterinarian knowledge gathered in the course of my studies.

WARNING: I am batshit crazy and also over-caffeinated right now, and this is not written in an entirely serious manner. However, all the medical and scientific facts are, in fact, facts, and I stand by them. Also, there’s references. Real, scientific references.

Gals and gents and everyone in between, I present to you: Why Do Trans-Gals Have To Suffer Too?

What exactly is HRT?

HRT = Hormonal Replacement Therapy is, to put it bluntly, the medical way of telling a person’s body what to do with itself. It was invented to deal with the drama of menopause, and then some genius thought it would be great to help trans people feel more like themselves, so, thank you, unnamed genius. What we will be discussing is the so-called HRT-MTF = the male-to-female version of HRT, and what is important is that it consists of antiandrogens and estrogens (and, occasionally, progestagens, too, buy not often enough, as we will soon discuss).

antiandrogens are supposed to counteract the effects of testosteron produced naturally in AMABs’ bodies;

estrogens, in turn, are supposed to tell the body to become more feminine--they allow for the development of secondary sex characteristics, and, as we will soon learn, they also change the body’s physiology.

What exactly is the menstrual cycle in female bodies?

Hate to be the one to break it to y’all, folks, but we are all actually animals. And animals have estrus cycles. Human menstrual cycle is literally just an estrus cycle, but it’s called differently, because we don’t go into heat at one end of it (although that could be disputed)--instead, we menstruate on the other. But it is still an estrus cycle and like every other one, its wheels are spun by estrogens (with some help from progestagens to keep these crazy estro-girls in check).

The most noticeable symptom of menstruation is the blood flowing from one’s vagina. That’s the obvious one. The blood comes from the uterus’s lining which has been building up over the last two-three weeks in preparation for an embryo, and when it doesn’t get an embryo, it breaks apart and flakes off, and that causes the blood vessels to burst and all of that gets flushed out in those wonderful 3-7 days. Then the uterus takes a few days off, reveling in how it’s calm, and normal and not bloated like it used to be before puberty, and then another ovulation happens, and boom, the nightmare repeats.

Now, ovulation happens just after the highest estrogen peak. (And LH peak, but we don’t care about LH now.) This is important. This high estrogen level then quickly falls, and then builds up again, and that second rise is associated with uterus lining growth. But it is ALSO associated with changes in physiological functions of the body, such as directing blood to the woman’s abdomen to feed the growing uterus, activating COX-2 (responsible for cramps), and other delightful things we are so familiar with.

How is it trans women experience period symptoms?

As I’ve just explained, most period symptoms are not associated with the uterus itself--they’re associated with the rise in estrogen levels. A.k.a., YES, the same rise in estrogen levels that trans women experience after they take their HRT hormones. Boom. There you go. Hormones. They’re a bitch.

But WHY do trans women, who were born with male bodies, even react to those levels? Well, as was stated in the aforementioned article, the difference between a male and female body, genetically, boils down to just one gene: and that gene is called SRY, it’s one of the, like, 0,4% of genes on the Y chromosome. Up until a certain point in pregnancy, all embryos are girls before they become men. After we’re developed and born, that translates to both males and females sharing the same pathways for veins, arteries, and nerves--meaning they come from and go to the same places in our bodies. The hormones the bodies produce and react to, are also the same across a species (and very similar across species, but I digress), and they have the same receptors. Sure, men naturally produce much less estrogens than women, and therefore they have less receptors, for them, BUT the amount of receptors for any given substance is not constant. And that’s why, even though trans women’s bodies are built like male ones, they still have the biological ability to react to hormones like estrogen.

Okay, but why are those period symptoms cyclical even though the estrogen levels during HRT are fairly stable?

Yeah... Here’s where I draw a blank. I have no idea. Technically, they shouldn’t, because yes, the estrogen levels during HRT are fairly stable. And yet they do. I can offer only two fairly viable explanations:

"What she said.” In the article, Sam Riedel wonders if those symptoms can be psychosomatic. Well, the symptoms themselves, probably not. The cyclical nature of them, probably yes. What I mean is this picture: a trans woman gets her first period symptoms. She realizes she’s experiencing a period. She knows periods are supposed to be monthly. She subconsciously expects to have these symptoms roughly every month, and the brain does the rest. The problem with this theory:  usually, psychosomatic symptoms are a result of repeated thought, emotional distress or want, or some such things, like it is with phantom pregnancy. Meaning: trans women would have to really want to have period symptoms next month, or be really scared of having them, or be really convinced they will have them, after the first time they happen, all the way to the next time they happen. On the other hand, the brain is the brain and it does what it wants, but YET on the third mutated hand, this seems to be such a widespread phenomenon, it cannot simply be written off as brain whimsicalities. So, yeah, sure, it’s theoretically possible, but I am not entirely convinced, BUT ALSO the only people who can truly know if this theory makes sense are the trans women experiencing period symptoms. They would have to analyze how they felt the first time the symptoms occured, if they were thinking about them a lot, were they emotional about them, did the symptoms start occuring regularly after some time, and if they forgot about them, did they occur later or with less severity, and so on, and so forth, and to give it any scientific weight, they’d have to do a widespread survey, and then its results would have to be analyzed by a team of proper medical professionals, and only then could any conclusions be drawn. And we know none of that is gonna happen anytime soon. What can be done with this?: Unfortunately, probably nothing.

My second theory is the actual physical fluctuations in hormone levels. AMAB people have male hormonal patterns, and those have been studies, and there are, like, three controversial studies showing that men, too, experience monthly hormonal cycles, most notably in their testosterone levels. (As described HERE and, more believably, HERE.) Now, bear with me. Testosterone is metabolizes by first being transformed into estradiol (estrogens attack again), and then further down the hormone memory lane metabolic pathway. Perhaps, when in male hormonal cycle testosterone levels are lower, PERHAPS, the natural estrogen levels are higher. And PERHAPS, in trans women, that natural rise in estrogen is boosted by the HRT estrogens, and together they go over the magical ‘oh my god I think I’m having a period’ bar, and that’s why it occurs roughly regularly. The problem with this theory: Well, hormones don’t generally work that way. Usually, when the body receives a hormone boost (e.g. from HRT), it protects itself from hormone-overdose by LOWERING the production of internal hormones. So if you boost estrogen levels externally, the body will react by stifling its natural production of estrogen. It’s called negative feedback and it’s supposed to help maintain the body’s homeostasis. That negative feedback is the reason any hormonal therapy, be it HRT or thyroid hormone replacement, takes so damn long to start working. The body has to stop working against it, first. But I’m not sure if it’s possible for the body to start working with it. Maybe the body can return to its natural cycle after it gets used to HRT, but it sounds ridiculous, to be honest. On the other hand, the idea of the body shutting down its estrogen production completely is ridiculous, too. And the hormonal therapies clearly work, so it’s not like the body completely ignores them. On the third mutated hand, the hormones are even more whimsical than the brain, so everything goes. Personally, I think this theory makes more sense than the first one, but the only way to check would be to... well, I have no idea. For starters, it would be nice to know if those period symptoms begin occuring soon after the beginning of HRT (which would mean it might be a ‘what the hell is happening’ response and should dissipate after the hormones regulate), or if it starts happening months and months into the HRT when it’s clearly doing it’s job (which would further validate this theory). What can be done about this?: Assuming the hormones really start working in unison, MAYBE the period symptoms in trans women could be remedied the same way they are in cis women. I mean, progestagens. As I stated at the beginning of this monster, progestagens are sometimes, albeit rarely, added to HRT-MTF. So, usually they aren’t. And it sucks, because the sole purpose of progestagens in a woman’s body is to counter the effects of estrogens. That’s why women who take birth control often experience less painful, less severe periods. So maybe adding progestagens to the HRT regime after the symptoms begin could help smooth things down a bit. On another hand, perhaps lowering the estrogen intake slightly after the desirable effects have been achieved could help, but since I clearly have no clinical experience in this area, I cannot speak for such things. You should discuss it with your doctor, assuming your doctor is open to such ideas, of course.

Anyway, that’s my take on the issue. Do I think this makes sense? Yeah, sure. Do I think I exhausted the topic? No, I don’t. Do I believe my theories are a good explanation of the phenomenon? Absolutely not. I’m just throwing ideas here. Maybe this’ll turn into a discussion. I strongly hope some other and maybe more experienced medical-sciencey people of Tumblr will pitch in with some of their own theories. Maybe eventually we’ll even figure this thing out. Maybe one of us will even do some actual research and publish their findings and get laughed at by the rest of the snobbish medical community and then die in misery, and then receive a post-mortem Nobel Prize because the world will finally realize they were actually a genius.

Either way or another, we should stick together. This is just one of the many issues LGBTQ+ community deals with, but for the trans women who experience it first-hand, it might be one of the most important ones. That’s why I felt that if I could remedy those woes and answer those questions the article posed at least to some extent, I was obligated to do so.

PS. An afterword: I am terribly sorry if any part of this whole thing was in any way offensive; I’m sorry if you felt I was brushing off your problems; I’m sorry if you felt I put you on the same shelf as cis men; I’m sorry if I came off as the mad scientist who looks at other people like they’re her lab rats, or if I was cold, or anything of the sort. That was not my intention. I wanted to approach the subject with some small measure of professionalism, so that it would read more like a medical journal than ‘Oh, you’re a curious creature, let me analyze you’ kind of thing. I absolutely don’t think you’re the same as cis men. But the fact remains you were assigned male at birth, that before HRT, your bodies’ physiology was indeed similar to mens’. For this little science debate, I had to consider your bodies as male, but I respect your identities in every regard.

PPS. Sam Riedel also mentioned in her article the ominous not-so-secret society known as TERFs. That mention was one-sentence long. That one sentence pissed me off more than... well, anything recently. So, if any of those find this post, here goes A MESSAGE FOR THE STRONG AND VALIANT ‘FEMINISTS’:

SHUT UP. Nobody cares about your selective equality. Nobody wants to listen to your transphobia.

If you need scientific reasons to believe trans women experience the same problems you do, you have about half a dozen of those above.

I’m sorry if I took away your ‘individuality’. I’m sorry that you can’t have this one sad thing only you have, all for yourself. And by “I’m sorry”, I mean I’m not sorry, because you are not special. I am not special. We are all people, altogether, and putting yourself on the pedestal of your close-minded views only means it hurts more when it crumbles under your feet.

Now sit down, shut up, and eat your veggies. Let the grownups talk.

[theconservativevoice2020]

Just to be clear non binary is not an actual thing lol. It's not scientifically recognized as an actual valid term, as in no scientist worth a fuck acknowledges the term as having any scientific credibility. Gender is binary. I'm sorry to all you tweens who think your special, your not. You can't be a man and a woman at the same time. You can be a extremely feminine guy or a masculine woman, we have had those throughout history, they were still though male or female. There is no historical background or precedent for non binary. People like David Bowie gender bended for fun and fame, he's as masculine as any guy. There is no such thing as " crushing the binary", or whatever, as human beings we will always be binary and there will be always be intersex and they make up less than 0.003% of all US births in a given year. And from my reading and experience NBs are almost never intersex, they are just kids who don't know shit and think it's cool, or stupid SJW folks who buy into radical gender theory, they don't transition thus I have a hard time seeing how any of them can claim to be trans. The literal definition of being transexual is not being happy with your BIRTH gender and thus needing to transition in order to portray themselves as the gender they feel comfortable with, because again, gender is binary so there are only two choices when you are trans and transition, a man or a woman. There is no such thing as moon gender, or aqua gender, or star gender lol, or any of the other retarded crap some of these Leftist idiots call themselves. You can't be born a moon. Or from the moon. Gender is set at creation, and affirmed while a baby is in utero and is exposed to pre natal testosterone and hormone exposure which is what leads to the development of the brain. It's all very simple, there is no such thing as doctors lying to babies about their gender at birth lol. Over 99.7% of all human beings genders can be detected by secondary sex characteristics such as looking at them, sorry SJWs but you can determine sex and gender through primary sex characteristics- such as genitalia, at birth. Intersex is such a rare thing and that has not changed, there is no correlation between the surge of kids coming out as trans and a spike in intersex cases, it simply hasn't happened. What has happened is an increase in rapid onset gender dysphoria, which according to the Brown study that the trans activists and lobby and left wing media forced brown to take down off the internet because it threatens there ideology. ROGD is caused by social contagion .

[putonyourdamnedwarpaint]

If anyone tells you that there are 2-3 sexes in the world I want you to just go ahead and slap them.

I was making a chart this morning, but by the time I got to the twentieth configuration of primary sex characteristics, I got bored and angry, so just fucking slap them. Don’t bother giving them a chart, it’s a pain in the ass to produce anyway.

Here’s some non-chart-form lists.

Primary sex is defined by taking one or more item from each list (roughly, because just as there are double dominant intersex conditions there are double recessive ones too and it’s a whole thing). All potential combinations of these options can be said to constitute their own primary sex category.

Chromosomes:

XX

XY

X/X0

Mosaic

XXY

XXXY

XXX

XYY

Others (there are so many, like I think you can live with up to five chromosomes? So many)

Hormones

Estrogenized

Androgenized

Double dominant (high levels of both estrogenic and androgenic hormones)

Double recessive (low or no sex hormones)

Gonads

Testicle/es

Ovary/ies

Ovotestes

Gonads

Testicular agenesis

Gonadal dysgenesis

Probably more, I’m not a professional here

Genitals

Penis

Vagina

Pseudovaginal pouch

Clitoromegaly

Micropenis

Hypospadias

Diphallia

Definitely more but I am Tired™

There’s like at least several dozen primary sexes, and that’s before secondary characteristic development comes into play and the point is biological sex is a fucking mass hallucination. Slap anyone who says otherwise.

(This is not a professionally sourced and cited resource post please do not treat this like it’s some kind of all powerful reference work I literally just made it in a fit of rage in abt ten minutes based on stuff I already know I didn’t even research it be careful use google etc and so forth)