Once you start noticing the erasure and exclusion of trans mascs in everything from media to academics you can never stop noticing it
Back when I was in university we were asked to do a brief research exercise on a health condition impacting a community. Can't remember what I wanted to look at now, but it was something to do with the trans community.
Whatever it was, to put it this way, if there were 10 studies on the trans community as a whole, there were 3 on trans women and trans fems and 0 on trans men and trans mascs, and 0 on nonbinary people. All of the mixed studies were also pretty much useless for my purposes as well because they were all so lopsided.
I think I swapped to a bunch of different things - addiction rates, smoking, depression, mental health in general - nothing that was even roughly equal in looking at all of us. Trans men, trans mascs and nonbinary people are so under researched as to be nonexistent.
To keep this brief since I've rambled a bunch - this is a major issue health wise since we have not a lot of literature on what testosterone does to certain bodies. This can lead to major health complications, not because of the testosterone itself, but because there might be an interaction thats missed or a complication that's not noticed (which is the same for any medication that's under researched on certain bodies. This is not me scaring people off of hrt, this is me pointing out its a medication like any other.)
#the therapist who wrote my permission slip for hrt was a trans man#and during that appointment we talked about the erasure of trans men from basically everything#and i talked about an article i had read a week or so earlier about trans people and hiv#it very in depth about risks prevention treatment etc#except that it exclusively referenced trans women with a single sentence at the end basically saying 'oh trans men are at risk too'#less than a year later i saw that same therapist speaking at an hiv organization fundraising event#he talked about how he had just recently been diagnosed with hiv#and had to sit there while this doctor told him all about how the treatment options had never been tested on trans men#none of them#they knew that the treatment would work#but not how effective it would be in comparison to its effectiveness in other demographics#no idea what kind of side effects he might experience#how it would interact with his body and his hormones#what the long term effects would be#nothing#he had to sit there while his doctor told him he would have to be a guinea pig but its not like he has a choice#the only alternative is dying from aids#that whole thing was kind of a wake up call for me#and i started paying more attention getting tested regularly myself and all that sruff you're supposed to do#and over time i befriended the person who did most of my testing#they were also trans masc and we would talk about this kind of stuff#and i told them i wanted to get on prep but every doctor i asked had a wildly different answer on if i even could take it#which verison i could take etc#and they said that only one form of prep has been approved fot trans men but its never actually been tested on trans men#and that one version isnt good for long term use because it has some pretty serious side effects long term#and they said that they regularly go to conferences and meet with representatives from all these drug companies#and they ask 'wheres the data on trans men' 'when are you doing clinical studies on trans men'#and the answer#every single time is: we have not done any studies on trans men and we have no intention to ever do studies on trans men#this is not some passive result of trans masc invisibility it is an active act of erasure that needs to be recognized as an act of violence
