stella

please be neutral

[redditreceipts]

So this is the answer to an ask that @wild-wombytch has sent me, and I chose to answer it in this format because the original ask contains a link to a post that I'd rather not share, to maintain respectful of OP.

Thank you, I'm fine! and cool that you like the cat pictures ❤️ I'll make a separate post for you just containing cat pictures

and thank you so much for saying that! ❤️❤️

yeah, so @wild-wombytch refers to a post that deals with a person who got a tumor from HRT. They have made a post in a mainstream trans subreddit and the people on there got mad at them, because they didn't want to recognise the downsides of HRT:

So this is just a whole other level. People hating on OP because they got a brain tumor is so despicable. These people can rot in hell

(Also, if you want to use my post to make fun of OP for having a brain tumor, enjoy getting blocked 🥰 I try to make this a welcoming place for people who are transitioning, detransitioning or having problems with their medical transition. If you can't handle that, please fuck off)

The specific kind of tumor this person is talking about, a pituitary brain tumor, is (as stated) probably linked to HRT in trans women. This reminds me of the myriad of posts by trans women talking about galactorrhea. Galactorrhea refers to the spontaneous lactation without having given birth or breastfeeding a baby, which can occur in women and men. And what is the most common cause for Galactorrhea?

the most common cause of galactorrhea is a benign tumor in your brain. Even though benign tumors are not as dangerous as cancerous tumors, they can still cause severe dysfunction over time, because they can still grow slowly and compress vital areas of the brain. It's definetly not a topic to be joked about.

I was able to find a ton of "I am spontaneously lactating as a trans woman, is this normal"-posts in the span of seconds. Remember: Galactorrhea, a condition that is most commonly caused by a brain tumor. And what are the responses?

keep in mind: this person probably had not only been lactating, but even had blood in their nipple discarge. Up to a fifth of women who have that sign of discharge have a malignant cause for it - I can't imagine that the prospect for biological males on HRT is much better.

so yeah, instead of telling them to go see their doctor or anything, they link them to r/AdultBreastfeeding - it's a fetish subreddit for people who have a lactation fetish and want to induce lactation.

I mean, a large amount of the stuff I post here is kinda funny and absurd, but if you get a bit deeper in these online echochambers, it gets really dark real quick. Where did we go from "everyone should live their lives as they wish" to "downplaying brain cancer to own the terfs"? And this doesn't mean that every trans woman should immediately stop their HRT just to prevent that from happening. That's not what I'm saying here. I'm just saying that these people genuinely don't seem to care about anything other than their ideology, and even medical professionals are seen as "lying" and "bigoted", and people with brain tumors are accused of "attacking the trans community". How is this not a cult??

Also, I wish the person who made the original post all the best :) I hope they find people who support them and help them heal

[skysoconfusing]

Source link (2013)

Source link (2018)

It doesn't matter how low the risk is, everyone should be informed before starting HRT. They should at least be offered irregular screenings. It shouldn't surprise anyone to hear of such cases.

[skysoconfusing]

<3

🫶🏻

[skysoconfusing]

Little update: I don't like what I'm finding 😭

[river-grunfeld]

Hey, I saw your tags and just want to let you know you're not alone. But that it's also not your fault. You joined a cult, and were subsequently manipulated.

I'm in the same boat, I exposed my best friend to trans ideology and she became a fully transitioned TIF and I feel awful now.

[majchic]

What he said. Please dont be hard on yourself 🩷

[skysoconfusing]

Only seeing this now. Thank you two 🫶🏻 ur so sweet

[skysoconfusing]

Little update: I don't like what I'm finding 😭

[marbleguard]

A high rate of suicide is often tied to being trans, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s actually the other way around. My friend group in high school consisted almost entirely of severely mentally ill and suicidal young teenagers. As the years went on, more and more of them became trans until it was the majority of the group. They were suicidal and trans, yes, but they were suicidal long before discovering a trans identity. What are the odds that 80% of the people in one group all happened to turn out trans? Is it really reasonable to argue it was an undiscovered trans identity that made them all suicidal long before any of them “discovered” they were trans? Isn’t it more likely that when you are a mentally ill, unstable teenager, you may be more likely to adopt a trans identity as a way of reinventing yourself, rebelling, and gaining instant sympathy and community?

[nora-fem]

Yeah this makes sense.

To add on:

If you discover a condition that

Is often missed or ignored in childhood

Provides an explanation for a previously unexplainable sense of self hatred

Provides an explanation for internalised homophobia and misogyny that excuses you of guilt

Validates the intense discomfort most people feel going through puberty

Will instantly gain you a community that loves you and provides "protection" to you

Grants you the ability to leave the body you hate and make a new one

Makes you feel like you're a part of something bigger

Is very difficult to prove you don't have

Can be entirely defined by the individual, there are no set definitions besides a vague desire to not be yourself/to be someone else

Gains you access to people and places that you always desired but we're previously barred from

Like what mentally ill teen or adult WON'T find that appealing?

Hell, even mentally well teens and adults will and have been and will continue to be drawn to this diagnosis/identity.

[womenvoices]

Standing up for your rights and safety is not disrespectful.

If a person identifies as trans, that honestly has nothing to do with me. I don’t think it’s truly possible, I think the ideology does more harm than good, and I think there are better ways to cope with gender dysphoria; however, it’s a free country and no matter how much I dislike it sometimes, people can and should be able to express themselves however they want.

I won’t tell a trans person how to live their life. I won’t argue with them about their own feelings and identity no matter how strongly I feel. That would be disrespectful.

Standing up for my rights and integrity as a woman ISN’T disrespectful, though.

To better articulate what I’m trying to say, I will list some examples:

Not letting a trans kid sit at the same lunch table as you and your friends just because they’re trans is mean. Asking a trans person to change in the locker room that corresponds to their biological sex is not mean. That is standing up for your right to a single-sex space.

Denying a transgender person service at an establishment because they are trans is wrong. That’s discrimination. Not permitting a transgender athlete to compete in the sports league/team that doesn’t correlate with their biological sex is not discrimination, though. That is simply reinforcing fairness, safety, and the integrity of said sports league/team.

A homeless shelter denying help to a transgender person because they’re transgender is cruel. A single sex shelter denying access to someone of the opposite sex and directing them towards a place that can help them isn’t cruel. That’s just protecting the inhabitants of said single sex shelter.

Bullying and harassing a transgender person is always condemnable. Expressing how you feel about a situation that affects you and makes you uncomfortable and saying things that are scientifically accurate is justified.

As humans, we all need to treat each other with kindness, but that does not mean that we need to let people walk over us and invalidate our rights and feelings.

[unrespectability]

i also think that when we say "stop saying 'transandrophobia' it's just misogyny" we are erasing the unique ways in which males in the trans(-affirming) communities weaponize transmascs' trans identification to silence and gaslight them and leave them completely rhetorically stranded. like, yes! it is misogyny at the core. but i don't think it's bad to name the specific ways transmasculine self-identification is used as a tool of ideological intra-communal oppression. we know transfems love to use faux-feminist language and rhetoric to justify their misogynistic abuse of transmascs. it's not helping anyone to homogenize it with any other experience of misogyny; it is the same thing, but a distinct and uniquely insidious expression, and it does deserve Some sort of language of its own

[butterflyfault]

They're not ready to call it "misogyny." It might not be entirely bad that they're finding language they are ready for. It's something.

[uncertainwaters]

one thing that's not discussed much is one of the number one reasons dysphoric children commit suicide is bullying (parental abuse being another, but that's a world unto itself and deserves its own post)

i rarely see trans activists discuss the role of social ostracization and bullying in teenage suicide. gender non conforming children, regardless of whether they identify as trans or not, are particularly vulnerable to bullying: many are same sex attracted, others are autistic, but even a heterosexual, neurotypical gender non conforming child is still "different", and anyone who stands out from the crowd is particularly vulnerable to ostracization, isolation, harassment and violence from their peers.

"it gets better" and other slogans and initiatives like it addressed the epidemic of gay children being bullied to death by promising that school is not forever, that there is a life beyond bullying, and there were also many anti-bullying campaigns and a push to humanize and normalize same sex attracted peers, to encourage acceptance and to encourage children to stand up for victims. this had great success- it gets better helped me personally.

but instead of this, so much more often i see people claim that there is no hope for these bullied children. the bullying doesn't stop even if you give these kids puberty blockers, surgeries or hormones. the rate of suicide attempts actually increases shortly after transition, even in adults, and lupron in particular has suicidal thoughts as one of the listed side effects. it can also trigger the manifestation of bipolar i and ii symptoms in those with a predisposition towards it, and mania is associated with an extreme risk of self harm or successful suicide. but this is the only solution these kids are told exists, the only light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. there is so much noise about how unless you get the surgery, unless you halt your puberty, unless you get on exogenous hormones, your life is basically already forfeit. you'll kill yourself, no matter what.

there is a reason suicides are not reported on in the news. suicide is a social contagion. hearing about the successful suicide of someone else increases the risk that a vulnerable person will go on to attempt to take their own life. this is a phenomenon so well known that it has a name- the werther effect. there is also a phenomenon known as cluster suicide, wherein suicide spreads through a community or a school.

to constantly, loudly assert, on social media and in the news, that trans children will absolutely, one hundred percent kill themselves if they can't access these procedures, is doing nothing to address the material reasons why these children are suicidal. and it actively induces suicidal ideation even in children who may not have considered this as their exit strategy before.

i would much rather campaign for something like it gets better. yes, gay kids were killing themselves. but it wouldn't have helped me at all if all the coverage about gay children focused on how often, how seemingly inevitable it was, for gay kids to kill themselves. i do remember scrolling miserably through the suicide statistics, thinking how if it was so common, it must be my inevitable end- how could i fight it when so many other kids like me couldn't? how could i fight it if there was so little hope? might as well give in and do it. add another body to the pile. no, that is not how you "protect trans kids". there is no suicide prevention in this strategy, none at all. child transitioners are still at risk of suicide, because the problems they face do not go away like magic when they take their first T shot. their peers will still be predisposed to bully them, their parents may still consider them a disgrace, their dysphoria will still likely be present. and what is this kid supposed to do even if they do get all these procedures, but life still sucks? where's the campaign to make life not suck for dysphoric and gender non conforming children? where's the it gets better?

this isn't even touching on the ethics of performing permanent body modifications on someone who isn't even old enough to get a tattoo, or health risks, or regret rates, or detransition. even in a perfect world where all who transition have a perfect outcome, and nobody gets hurt, this is still doing nothing to prevent suicide, or address the material reality of being a gender non conforming child. you're not telling them it gets better. you're telling them they're dead kids walking.

[aalexan]

Of course you feel disconnected from your gender it’s quite literally a made up set of rules based on stereotypes

[only-cat-memes]

[missspookie]

Lotta terf lesbians really don't seem to get that the problem isn't not wanting to fuck trans women (we don't wanna fuck you either, stop flattering yourself) but that you in no way can call yourself an ally of trans people if you can't divorce gender from genitals

If you don't like dicks whatever but it's weird how I've seen a lot of them just need to emphasize it so much like wow yes thanks for letting us know our bodies disgust you. I totally believe you were an ally before everyone got sick of your shit and told you to fuck off.

Any terfs wanna come at me I repeat that I don't wanna fuck you either and every woman I've fucked so far has been trans so don't pull any shit where you accuse me of wanting to be trans to get with cis lesbians.

[radkindoffeminist]

No, TRAs need to understand that posts like this are deeply homophobic. Lesbians don’t like dick. Gay men don’t like pussy. Both are allowed to express that they don’t like it and trans people can just get the fuck over themselves.

Guilting people into staying silent on their inherent sexuality because it makes you feel bad because you interpret it as people being disgusted by your body is homophobia.

[sichorean]

"look you can be into other women, just don't talk so openly about it"

Who said it, my homophobic dad in the 1990s or a tra circa 2025

[gatekeeper-of-witchcraft]

I love the transmisogyny/transandrophobia wars bc, other than the complete inability or unwillingness to see or describe this as another permutation of sexism, both sides describe anything they don’t like as “terf rhetoric” in the same way that repubs describe anything they don’t like as communist

bc both have a strict policy of refusing to engage in any material from those schools of thought, lest thou be guilty by association, and thus have no idea what radical feminists (or communists) actually believe

[cannabutch]

ok so. i’m sure i’ll get pushback from someone. but idc I feel like someone has to say something. I really wish certain demographics of ‘femmes’ would stop encouraging a butch to begin transitioning. this isn’t about control; it about social pressures, misogyny, and homophobia. behaving as if changing her body makes her “more” butch is gross. if you don’t like a butch’s female body as she is naturally, and instead desire butches to look as ‘male’ as possible….you aren’t a femme. sorry not sorry.

butches are perfect just the way we are.

[vulva-o-queef]

That thing you think is your “innate gender identity?” It’s your fucking personality

[angrysapphist-deactivated201804]

that love of “boys clothes” or “girls clothes”…that’s your fucking taste in fashion

[fairlyradmother]

That belief that if you’re really a girl because you’re delicate, meek, emotional and bad at math? That’s your fucking misogyny.

[radicalcoffeeclub]

That belief that you’re not really a girl because you’re not feminine, helpless and shallow? That’s also your fucking misogyny.

[niiwa-angel]

The belief that aren’t a girl because you aspire to be an engineer, doctor, or in the trades? That’s your internalized misogyny.

[cannabutch]

my experience on sexuality and gender

when I came back to tumblr, I really had no goal in mind. I just wanted a space to share funny memes and hoped to make friends with other same-sex attracted women. now, I feel it to be my purpose to be the mentor and friend I so desperately needed when I was confused and struggling with my sexuality and fully being able to deconstruct the catholic guilt, the self-hatred, fear, and loneliness. i had no community. I didn’t know any lesbians in real life. it was just me. and yeah, maybe it sounds goofy to hear that tumblr was the reason I found community. but for a baby butch of a heavily catholic family from the midwestern USA, it was all I had.

during that time in my life I also had friends (and even an ex girlfriend) who had encouraged my sex dysphoria. in some way or another each one of them got in my head. my dislike of all things feminine made me un-woman. that maybe hormones and binding my breasts would fix my hard feelings about my body and sexuality. maybe I just have a “male brain.” that being a straight transman would be what finally gave me peace of mind. of course it didn’t. the problem was never my mind or my body—it was the world around me that needed to change. there was never anything wrong with me.

meeting other lesbian feminists saved my life. its not hyperbole. I don’t know who I could’ve been, or what could’ve happened to me if I didn’t have other lesbians telling me there is no wrong way to be a woman—the only requisite is being female. it is not a feeling, or a set of personality traits, or clothing, or some inherent love of all things feminine. “woman” and “girl” aren’t a gender identities, but a descriptor for those born female. “femininity” is how the female population is subjugated under a patriarchal world. I don’t believe in the metaphysical concept gender. gender is how we all are kept in boxes. it is how we all are expected to behave, what we are expected to be interested, and our personality based on our sexes. it is inherently oppressive.

once I learned this it was so freeing. women can be masculine. butch succinctly describes my experience of growing up a girl, of my womanhood, and my innate, exclusive same-sex attraction to other women. I had realized back then that women can be loud, and take up space, and eat our fill. I didn’t have to shrink or change myself to find peace. I am female. I am a woman. I am a butch lesbian. I am exactly who I was always meant to be.

to all the baby butches, and all the young lesbians: there is nothing wrong with you. you are perfect just the way you are. you do not have to un-woman yourselves for the comfort of others. you do not have to fit a set of stereotypes to be a woman.

woman (n.) — adult human female.

break the chains of gender stereotypes. smash the barriers placed on us because of our sex. stand up to the people who insist they know you better than you do—on both sides of the political spectrum. show the world exactly what a woman can be completely uninhibited. we have always existed, and despite their best efforts to shut down our communities, ban us from online spaces, silence us with hate and threats—here we will remain. as women, as lesbians. we will always find each other. I am here for you, too. never hesitate to reach out.

I love and appreciate you all so much.

————————————————————

***inb4 comments: I am not a “terf,” nor do I completely subscribe to radical feminism. however, radfems have been the only group who hasn’t tried to silence or shame me for asking questions. nor have they tried to tell me who I am. I believe all people deserve basic human rights. the right to nondiscrimination and equal opportunity for housing, education, employment, and healthcare.

I am not here to argue or debate about my experiences. if you do not like this, you can simply unfollow and/or block me. if you post hateful comments they will be deleted, and you will be blocked.

[cupcakesandmisandry]

[dworkinlives]

wild how gender is supposed to be this innate, internal truth but the second a transwoman gets called “dude” the whole house of cards collapses. I’m a butch, very masc, and solid in my womanhood, despite the world telling me I shouldn’t be. Getting called “he” or “they” doesn’t send me spiraling or force me to augment my breasts to “prove myself.” I contribute it to that person having a narrow mind and move on with my day. It doesn’t make me want to kill myself, or threaten to kill others. I don’t need strangers to prop me up to know who I am. somehow that makes me the radical one.