transgender

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17883633

Title really says it all, warning for mentions of 'crossdressing' etc and disliking labels.

Cross posted from r/MtF

Transgender Unity Coalition is a US-based transgender advocacy non-profit looking to expand! Hi, I'm Bree, the founder and executive director of TUC. We have been around for just a few months now, but we have gotten a lot done in this short amount of time! From lobbying (successfully) for protection-based laws, to holding multi-hundred attendee irl community events, and more. We have so many services and offerings to the public that I can't squeeze them all into one post.

But I bet you haven't heard of us before, and that's because we are super new. We only have one state chapter in Michigan right now, a true purple state, and we are looking to expand into red states that need our help the most. Our mission is this: empower the transgender community across America. It always has been, even before Trump won the recent election. We will not stop fighting, but we need your help and we need it right now.

We are 100% volunteer-driven from the top down. We have a team of over 40 right now, but we need at least 2,000 strong, or about what we have now in every U.S. state. It sounds ambitious, but keep in mind that with over 2.2 million Americans (minimum) alone belong to our community, 2,000 to represent that number isn't anywhere close, so in any small way, even just occassionally, we can absolutely use your help.

I will also throw in there that our team embraces a work-from-home model, and our behind-the-scenes planning primarily operates through Discord, which has given us a strong sense of culture and community through this digital platform. Our model has proven successful through pass coordination efforts of ours, and we hope to implement it as we continue.

tl;dr Join our team. Please give us a chance, because we are all in this together. You can reach out via email at unity@transunitycoalition.org with any questions, or if you want to meet me personally to learn more and see that this is real, schedule something at https://calendly.com/bree-at-tuc and I'll give you that time. It is of my own personal opinion that the time is right now to make a stand and solidify who we are into human history.

I'm a bit perplexed at the amount of men I've matched with who are hardcore, Trump-voting Republicans. These guys are fully open to the idea of being in a relationship (not just a hookup) with a trans person, but staunchly support Trump. How does that logic work?

This is a rough translation of what I put on the polish fundraising portal. If any of you wish to support it, it would mean a world to me. My goal is around PLN 10,000.00, which is around €2,400.00. Or $2,450. Or £2,000.00. I was told the site supports foreign transfers but did not test it.

Full description below:

'To leave the pain, bitterness, and sorrow behind'

Hello. My name is Maja. I inhabit the Internet and occasionally I live in a Polish countryside. I talk too much. I have a menial, boring, poorly paid job. The family used to tell me that I would be famous and brilliant; only they forgot to make sure that I was born among the 1%. So on the daily basis I am rather a bundle of nerves. I can't even code, which makes me less of a trans girl.

For most of the time I was involved in helping people like me through the Milo Mazurkiewicz Solidarity Fund — the grassroots initiative created by transgender people for transgender people. Helping others with what I have been denying myself. I am raising money for something called transition. I see it as a passage from one state, full of pain and suffering, to a state where there will presumably be less pain and suffering.

I am humbly asking for your help if you have anything to give away. I won't try to impose myself but without your help I will spend more years beating myself up. I can't even gather as much as I ask on my own for now — and I will eventually need more. I live in Poland, and there are almost no possible ways to obtain what I'm looking for via public healthcare. If you're curious about how things run around here, you can read this article:

https://tranzycja.pl/en/publications/how-to-start-medical-transition-in-poland/

You don't even know how hard it is for me to write about this. I've been preparing for this for like a month. Usually it's easy for me to complain or spit long text walls — but not to openly ask for help.

I don't even know what I should tell you about what the purpose of this fundraiser is. Most people title is “for transition.” Or “for being myself.” Someone once stole the idea from me, as they wrote sth like “To stop being afraid and start living.” But what does that actually mean to someone who has never experienced anything like me? Someone who didn't grow up for years feeling that something was wrong with them but was not sure what it was? How do you even explain it to anyone?

There are many narratives of a person “born in the wrong body.” Such flawed attempts to tell what cannot be put to words. How do you tell the story of being frightened by stubble appearing on your face when you were a teenager? Or the body hair that was dark and thick and was taking up more and more of the surface of your skin, so you could no longer look at without disgust? Even now I feel dirty when I write about it. And I still have a voice in my head that tells me, “Leave it, people around the world have more serious issues.”

Because they do. What's more, people like me cannot count on good press these days. The panic that a “man dressed as a woman” will enter your bathroom and do you harm has recently hooked on such absurdity that one so-called feminist in the UK urged armed men to patrol women's toilets (!). Normal people knock themselves on the head when they hear such things or argue with those who say so. But when it starts to affect you personally, the perspective changes completely. First comes rage, then fear. And then self-doubt.

A typical cisgender person doesn't ask themselves as many difficult questions a day as transgender people do. Do I actually need this? What's in it for me? Isn't it better to live your life as before, pretending that you are comfortable not only with your natural-born body, but also with the fact that everyone treats you like someone you are not?

I know what I'm saying. I've spent far too much time denying who I am. For example, I told myself for years that I had no gender at all. Or that life is hard enough for me anyway to add more weight to my worries.

I am 36 years old. In February, I will turn 37. When I was a child, I had no idea at all that there was such a thing as transgender person. Yes, I sometimes played with dolls and read Astrid Lindgren books, but I also played with Matchbox cars and watched Power Rangers. I was playing more often with girls than with boys, but the family thought it was because I was afraid of boys and that it were some “developmental problems.” Also, come on, guys, you've never played jump rope or hopscotch with the girls? No? You lads are weird.

Adolescence is a strange time and growing up in denial of what your surroundings are starting to put into your head and constantly grokking yourself is even stranger. Everything around you tells you that certain behaviors and certain roles belong with your gender. You are forgiven for certain things, and you get scolded for others. Boys don't cry. You hear this and something rebels inside you. But it's not an “oh just that they cry” kind of rebellion. It's something more like “why do you assume you know who I am?”. And it's only harder from here. Anxiety. Despair. Denial.

For years, I had no idea it could be different. And when it first seriously struck me that something was deeply wrong with me, I was immediately reassured by the world that this was the natural order of things and that I needed to grow up. To be a man. At the time, I didn't know whether I felt more like a woman or not, but when I heard the M word, I got chills. I had never ever in my entire life used it to describe myself. If I did I must have been in a phase of acute denial. When I heard the word from my first therapist, it made me shiver. I really felt like I was in a cage.

When I first saw a documentary about “sex change” on some Discovery Channel, I was struck by the image of someone (a "man") from the US in their fifties in a military uniform whose psychiatrist told them to wear his wife's make-up and the final result was so gross that it made me wish to bury my face in the ground. I didn't know what to think about it; I couldn't see myself in it. The vision that if I wanted to “become a girl” I would have to undergo a series of further humiliations — as if the everyday ones in my life were not enough — was chilling. You know, things weren't too good at school or at home; I was raised by so-called high-functioning alcoholics. Well, the “high” part was just crumbling before my eyes, since they were getting older.

I'm not going to summarize al my life for you, don't worry. That's not the point here. I just wanted to show you that different people's experiences are... different. For years, I pushed away the very idea that maybe I wasn't this “genderless entity” I thought I was after all — that perhaps my whole aversion to the subject of corporeality and communication with my body didn't come from the fact that, according to myself, I came from outer space. Perhaps it was simply a matter of me being a woman who actually never had the chance to be born. That I grew my hair long not just because I wanted to cover my protruding ears, and that I didn't dress up in skirts “for fun” in theater classes. That when I met a girl who I knew from the beginning was a lesbian, I fell in love with her as if I thought it was natural that it could be mutual.

And at the same time, I pushed it all away. Very actively. I even wanted to start practicing Krav Maga to "man up". Then, something finally snapped. In 2017 or 2018, I woke up from a dream in which I had a different body, a different voice, and a different presence. You can guess what kind of. When I woke up, I almost burst to tears. I wanted to go back there. Everything hit me like a 10,000-pound weight on the head of Wile E. Coyote.

Someone then told me that people who are not transgender never spend so much time thinking about their identity. If you see this happening to you, be aware there may be a reason for it.

I fell into despair. I had wasted so many years flailing around in corners, denying the obvious. Along the way, I developed anxiety, including the existential one. When I went to the first meetings of a support group for trans people in my city, I was devastated by the fact that I was surrounded by these young people who had the chance to do something for themselves much earlier in their lives. Something that I could only dream about.

At that time, I only got my first job on a regular contract. There was no way I was coming out to these people, since it was a customer service and "customers may not understand". I was earning just enough to survive, as I had a close dependent — a person whose life was also hard, only in a different way. So I supported myself, her, and the house. And the cats. For more than five years I was telling myself: just a little more time, and everything will change; then I'll save some money and start the transition.

Of course I was being myself, so instead of demanding something from others, me and some girls have founded an initiative with the goal to... help people like me get money for treatments and medical appointments, which are not reimbursed in Poland. That's how the Milo Mazurkiewicz Solidarity Fund was created — an initiative named after a person who lost their battle against the health care system and general national idiocy, taking their own life. A final leap into infinite darkness — to go along with the pretentious title of this collection. [it's a song, but don't ask who sang it; he was not a good person]

Meanwhile, cramming in my job to the point of impossibility, I finally seized the opportunity and scouted out a corporate job. A corpo was appearing as nice, rainbow-colored. It paid me even less, but at least I got a chance to rest. I was still working to support the household. The years went by. Finally, the person I supported for years found a job. Only that I had to finance a nightmarishly expensive roof renovation, on which it literally depended whether my house would survive the coming winter. I would rather not tell you how much I borrowed — either through my family or simply denying myself everything to save some monies. Then, out of the blue, I lost my corpo job at and I found myself unemployed for a full year. Had I arranged such a fundraiser at that time, I would have spent everything on living expenses and whip myself with the guilt for cheating my supporters.

Because you need to know that if you want to transition in Poland, you need money. A lot of money. Not even for some plastic surgeries, but for appointments with doctors who are at least not ignorant. There are only few of them in 40-million country. Then, an endocrinologist who will help choose the right dosages for hormone replacement therapy. A sexologist who will be able to give an opinion for the court, since you have to sue your parents to change the sex marker on your ID. A psychologist to get through it all. A voice training lessons 'cause I'd like to sing the way I hear myself in my head and not like a caricature of my grandfather during morning shave.

And, last but not least, laser body hair removal. A 'rich girl's whim', as certain person once spitefully told me. Well, maybe so. Perhaps the canons of beauty imposed by culture are absurd. But tell that to cis women with hirsutism, or people like me who went through sexual puberty on testosterone and their hair grows even on their shoulders, and the thick facial stubble sticks out from under their skin after just shaving.

I don't even dream of some more complicated operations or surgical interventions. That's something I certainly won't be able to save for in this lifetime. But I don't need everything, either. There are things I can get over. However, there are some thing that ache too much. One day I'd like to be able to go out on the street, looking more or less like the ones in my photos (they're ancient; the second one I had to redo a bit because I'm simply ashamed to expose myself to strangers). Maybe even appear somewhere in a tailored dress and not arouse malicious whispers. To appear in public without being embarrassed that someone will take a picture of me that I will be ashamed of for the rest of my life.

My relationship was shattered to a fine dust by my coming-out. It happens to almost every one of us. My parents don't even fully know about me. I've made allusions, but I don't dare tell them. No, they are not in a position to hurt me; I am an adult and independent. But they can whine worse than me. In good faith, they will discourage me and undermine my self-confidence. But they will learn because, of course, they deserve it. When I feel for myself, nothing they say will turn me from this path.

I have many passions. Many of them underdeveloped — whether through lack of money or time, or simply through fears and anxieties that I won't be good enough at it, so why bother. For many years I've been writing to a drawer, playing the bass, producing a lot of junk content on the Internet and arguing with various dangerous narratives in public discourse. I can't code, so I must stick to unskilled white-collar jobs. I wrote an essay on the politics of Star Wars - maybe I will translate it to English some day. I also used to be a 'real' activist, but became disillusioned with local movements.

In fact, all my life I've been helping other people solve their problems instead of taking care of my own ones. I've been appreciated for it on occasions, but did not really need it. You can't make your stomach full of virtue, as the old Polish saying goes. And it was also strangely convenient for the same people to peel away from me when my help was no longer needed.

I'm not sure if anyone reading these words has made it here. But if they have, I just want to briefly summarize this nightmarishly long elaboration. I apologize for it. But when something is suppressed for years, it then spills out like a river. And you dress it up with quotes from songs about the deaths of Polish poets - although, to be honest, I've never had such thoughts myself. And I hope I won't have any. It's not my style. If my dreams don't come true, I will remain unhappy but alive. Empty inside and even more bitter, but still able to contribute to GDP.

Switching to the professional language, so highly valued in this era:

1. I am raising money for aesthetic medicine treatments and hormone replacement therapy for so-called feminization. I will use all the favors and acquaintances I can use, but with galloping inflation, these costs alone are even more than what I am asking for here. I simply doubt that anyone will help me even to that extent.

2. All money raised here I will use only for my personal needs as described above. The money raised will not contribute to the Solidarity Fund in which I am active. That initiative is mediated by the non-governmental organization Fund For Change (Fundusz Dla Odmiany), where everything works transparently, is accounted for, etc.

3. If you think that someone like me does not deserve help because we once quarreled on the Internet and/or I am generally pathetic, but you may be willing to help other transgender people in Poland, I sincerely ask you to contribute any amount to the account of the Fund For Variety with the note “Fundusz Milo”. I do not own this initiative, this is a collective, and we are charitably helping people in deep need.

4. I cannot offer any handicrafts or gadgets in exchange for help, because I am all thumbs. But if there is something I can do for you, please don't hesitate to ask me. I'll even feel better with the thought that I didn't scrounge for help. Well, unless you are a laughingstock who wants to pay me just to say sth like “kill yourself”. Then sorry, you can't afford this service.

Whoever you are, I thank you a thousandfold.

The Socialists, led by Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister, included plans to limit participation in female sports to “people with a female biological sex” in a policy document decided on at the party’s congress over the weekend.

The decision to also remove Q+ from a plan to protect sexual and gender minorities from the impact of social inequality sparked fury from LGBTQ+ activists and politicians from Left-wing partners of Mr Sánchez’s minority government.

The passing of a transgender rights reform in 2023, allowing anyone to change their official sex simply by stating their wish to switch, caused a bitter rift within Spain’s ruling Left-wing forces.

Carmen Calvo, the former Socialist deputy prime minister, said at the time the reform would “destroy the powerful battery of equality legislation in our country”.

Pathetic display from so-called socialists

Khanna responded to Greer’s criticism. “I deeply respect Evan Greer’s activism and courageous advocacy for trans rights. During my exchange with Rep. Mace, I stood up for Rep. McBride and reaffirmed that everyone should be treated with respect," Khanna told The Advocate in an email. "I am open to dialogue about how we ensure the Kids Online Safety Act protects both LGBTQ rights and kids’ safety.”

Mace’s actions are part of a larger Republican strategy to use trans rights as a wedge issue, particularly ahead of the incoming Trump administration. LGBTQ+ advocates argue that these attacks perpetuate harmful stereotypes while distracting from pressing issues like housing and healthcare.

I am a cisgender man with dual citizenship between the USA and the UK. My husband is a transgender man who does not have UK citizenship.

As part of our threat modeling, we are developing a shortlist of nations where we would migrate if things get rough. The UK, while being on a worrisome trend line with regards ro trans rights, made the list because it would be relatively simple for us to move and work there with my citizenship already sorted.

Could any UK trans people help us to understand the GRC? My husband has fully transitioned with respect to his US documentation. When we married, he was also a man. Since all his documents match, could he get by without a GRC, or would he be forced through the humiliation of immigrating as his birth-sex and then acquiring a GRC once we moved? Would a GRC be necessary to receive basic healthcare and/or hormones?

In relation to the recent Indiana ban for transgender youth care, some thoughts that I think have a broader outlook as rebuttals of a commonly held trope that adolescents can't give medical consent to gender treatment.

Also consider this BBC article about a judge deciding under 16s might not be able to consent to gender care in the UK AFAIK this had been later overturned on appeal . As for one of the cases explored in the dishonest Reuters article debunked by Vaush it turns out one of the cases (the trans boy one) under Ontario laws where he lives, he had medical consent since he was 15. So Why is it different for transgender care specifically?

Here are my thoughts:

Adolescents presented as "technically kids" always gets my gears grinding, since it is dishonest to equate adolescents and children on so many levels. For example they might have medical consent which should be enough. They might drive in some places, and also they can have intimate relations to another adolescent. Toddlers can't do any of that. There are grades of consent that are legally and rationally different between adolescents and kids, so "technically a kid" is a far fetch, a dishonest prevarication, and just plain wrong on so many levels.

They just don't say that when kids of essentially the same age are allowed to get married and become "technically" parents. They don't say a word for actual infant mutilation in the cases of intersex genital normalization surgeries, nor circumcision. They did not get out of the way to ban breast enhancement in teenage cis girls. They just never fucking uttered "they are technically kids" in any of these equivalent cases.

And there is another underlying problem, that most advocates fail to bring up while they are distracted by bullshit like the "technically kids" fallacy. That in contrast to strictly sexual orientation and needs that start during and after puberty, gender identity is something that manifests way earlier, typically in early childhood. This is extensively documented before the 2020s craze with transgender condemnation.

Mind you, transphobes have dealt with and exploited this fact for a long time. It is not that they do not know it. They do, but they strategically suppress it all the same. There are at least two ways they know and leverage this fact: in separating trans people into genuine and fake, like with the "homosexual transexual" pseudoscience; and in developing and popularizing concepts of social contagion of transgender ideation in adolescent. Even though implicitly, both notions require that true transexuals manifest themselves during childhood, but none of the real trans people we hear about are true trans. This is in turn the True Scotsman fallacy.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/32677832

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3635039

Various thoughts:

• Around 20 people weren't properly covered by the gender categories, obviously we're trying to be as inclusive as possible and a different approach will be tried next time

• There were about 600 respondents, which gives us a accurate sampling of the active userbase. If you multiply any number by 3, you'll get a fairly accurate representation of the full userbase each week. This means there are around 800-900 people who don't identify fully as cis each week on this site.

• Nearly 300 trans/gender diverse/questioning people unanimously agree that hexbear is an inclusive space

• There was so much data on gender that I was really struggling to find a way to convey the data that wasnt a pie chart, graph, or an incomprehensible kalaeidoscope. If you have an idea on how to beautify the data, you can download the raw data here: https://pad.artemislena.eu/file/#/2/file/xzy4pck8on+oZp9yGRUIezR+/ - I further anonymized this data by removing time of response and any specific comments, I don't think it would be easy for anyone to figure out who is who.

• There were a couple of text responses that really needed further elaboration, I noted hexbear's rules next to these comments

• I'll probably be doing a demographics survey sometime in the future, including basic fairly anonymous stuff like "what region were you born in" "where do the languages you speak originate" "would you describe yourself as a POC" "what age range are you in".

• The percentage of people answering they were cisgender increased by 8% than the previous survey. This could be for a myriad of reasons, such as cis people being afraid trans people will hunt them down in the public thread and assassinate them. Anonymity may have made them feel safer to respond. Regardless, way more people responded this time, which signifies that people felt safer responding to the cryptpad or it was easier to do. The leading question was a bit more inclusive than last time, but I think I'll include both questions (are you transgender / gender diverse and are you cisgender) to see how people respond.

• We have a lot of people that aren't binary trans on this site.

• Some of the questions were pretty funky and we got a lot of fuzzy responses on them as a result. In particular "After you realized you were trans/gender diverse, how long did it take for you to begin to act on it?" and "At what age did you begin transition?" caused a lot of friction, I think I will ask more vague questions in the future that lead to a path of more specific questions to capture better data, and to save people time. Questions like "Do you feel your gender transition had a defined starting point?" and some further ones.

• Around 20 people each week on this site are cis she/hers, which is very low and roughly the same as last time. I feel like if hexbear ever starts hosting other federated stuff (like a federated tiktok or something) and can hook into it natively with lemmy, we'd see a better ratio.

• I tried to be very sure any data with >2 people on it was clearly legible, I think some people might find it fun that there are others with their same fairly specific classifications per this survey lurking around on the site.

• Overall I feel like the survey was a success despite some bumps.

• You can find the other surveys/links here: https://hexbear.net/post/3016455

• I made these graphs on company time

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5865085

Love this discussion!

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5779704

Subtitle:

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The letter, which was sent to the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, attempts to use consumer protection laws to make it against the law to support puberty blockers.

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From the article:

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On Tuesday, a group of 22 Republican attorneys general, led by Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, sent a letter to the president and vice president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, accusing the organization of violating consumer protection laws by endorsing the use of puberty blockers. The letter also demands answers to 14 probing questions and extensive access to internal documents. While the letter carries no legal authority, states have increasingly used vague and broad consumer protection laws to investigate the records of gender-affirming care and abortion providers, often with little to no judicial oversight.

The letter, bearing the seal of the Idaho Attorney General's office, seeks to prohibit the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) from endorsing puberty blockers as a form of reversible gender-affirming care for transgender teenagers, using consumer protection laws as the basis. "Statements made by medical trade organizations, like the AAP, are subject to state consumer protection laws… misleading and deceptive statements of medical trade associations are connected to commerce and reach consumers," the letter states, asserting the authority of Republican-controlled states to challenge the AAP’s endorsement of puberty blockers and justify extensive investigations into the organization's documents.

The letter leans on flawed science and previous hit pieces from far-right, anti-transgender think tanks that have struggled to gain credibility in scientific and medical communities. It criticizes the organization for describing puberty blockers as “reversible,” a stance supported by several medical and scientific organizations, backed by studies, and decades of use in treating precocious puberty and other conditions. A review by the Sax Institute found that “two systematic reviews reported that puberty suppression treatment is reversible,” and that the treatment is “effective, safe, well tolerated, and reversible.”

The letter heavily references the Cass Review. On the second page, for example, it asserts that the claim puberty blockers are reversible is false, “beyond medical debate.” To support this assertion, it cites the Cass Review, which identifies several "possible" irreversible consequences, such as interference with neurocognitive development, bone density, and “blocking normal pubertal experience and experimentation.”

See this claim here:

These claims, however, are not well-supported by evidence. For instance, the assertion regarding neurocognitive development in the Cass Review is entirely speculative. In contrast, the Sax Review found that transgender youth who received gender-affirming hormone therapy demonstrated better cognitive development compared to those who did not, meaning that gender affirming care actually improved the cognitive development for many trans youth through a reduction in negative psychological symptoms. It likewise states that one study making this assertion did not control for ASD and anxiety, which have proven impacts on cognitive development. Other studies on brain development primarily focus on sheep or on youth experiencing precocious puberty.

Similarly, bone density concerns are frequently cited to justify bans on puberty blockers. However, the Sax Review notes that bone density reductions are “within one standard deviation of normal,” and that bone density is restored once puberty resumes. Additionally, most youth in the studies showing bone density reductions were deficient in vitamin D, according to the Sax Review. This is why the informed consent form for puberty blockers addresses this risk and its mitigation, stating, “It is important that patients on Lupron Depot® take other measures to protect their bones: keeping active and ensuring good calcium and Vitamin D intake.”

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Read the rest here.

Just trying to support this person. Good Substack.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/15865014

Hi, everyone! So, I'm moving toward going on estrogen in the next year. Before I do that, there are some steps I want to take to prepare. I'm using an at-home IPL machine now for hair removal, and I'd like to get some voice lessons under my belt as well. The main step I want to take next is sperm cryopreservation. My fiancee and I want kids, but I'm not certain it would be a good idea to have a kid during puberty. So, we want to freeze my sperm or our embryos, and I was wondering if ya'll have any resources you could share? I've looked into a few at-home sperm freezing kits, but it's such a big deal to place your fertility in the hands of a company like that and any advice would be much appreciated! <3

PinkNews CEO Benjamin Cohen refusing to campaign on trans issues ahead of the election, dismissing them as "incredibly contentious" and insisting they’re different to the equal marriage fight.

He doesn’t want Pinknews to be seen as "some sort of charity” for the trans community

twitter link to the audio.

I hope someone will find those helpful