tranfriedshrimp

This is my discourse blog! If anything you read, or come across here upsets you, please close my blog or take break. I recommend spending time with your pet, watching a funny youtube video, going on a walk, ect. call me Shrimp for the purposes of this blog. trans man in California. I put all my private politics, discourse, plus some of my transition updates on this account. I’ve been on T for years, and am post top surgery. I've been on this site since 2011 and followed the development of the transmedicalist community from the beginning.

[aphobicace-blog]

Hey just a reminder you can’t just “opt out” of straight privilege by referring to your orientation as heteroromantic rather than heterosexual. Het is het. If ur het ur straight and u have straight privilege. You can’t just be het and “”””~choose not to identify as straight~”””

[lilytad]

dumbasses in the notes like “unless youre ace or aro too and choose to not id as straight uwu valid!!” This Is About You Gerald

[90905791]

Sorry I know this is a really dumb question but, could you present proof that sex isn't a spectrum? I want to have actual medical proof to show to libfems that say it is, and also I want to read about it. Thanks in advance!

–*EXTREMELY LONG INTERSEX MASTERPOST AHEAD*–

PART 1

Okay, so I’ll start this off by explaining what intersex organizations have meant when they say “spectrum of sex,” “diversity of biological sex,” or “binary ideas of sex.” These terms have been muddied and coopted to fit other groups’ campaigning without care for what they originally meant.

When we say sex is diverse and does not fit into a binary, it means that there is more than one phenotype for the male sex and more than one phenotype for the female sex. Both a male who is not intersex and someone with AIS, an XY condition that makes the body unable to use androgens and therefore no male development occurs giving the person a female phenotype, are still male. Male encompasses the spectrum of XY sexual development between non-intersex male and completely androgen-free males with female phenotypes like AIS and XY lipoid CAH people. Male also includes Swyer Syndrome, where the coding for the hormone that switches uterus development to testes development is mutated and causes uterine development instead.

As for females, you have non-intersex females and you can have females with phenotypes like mine with CAH or a male phenotype like De La Chapelle Syndrome (XX condition where during spermatogenesis a portion of a Y chromosome is accidentally fused onto the arm of the gamete’s intended X). That gives us a spectrum of the way females can be.

There is no “binary” way of being male because males can have penises and functioning testes (non-intersex), clitoromegaly and internal testes (PAIS), or a female-appearing vulva and regular clitoris size with internal testes (AIS). There are even males with uteri in the case of Swyer Syndrome. There is no “binary” way of being female because of the same things.

The “spectrum of sex” is where we overlap phenotypes between two sexes. A non-intersex female will look phenotypically the same as someone with AIS. A non-intersex male will look phenotypically the same as someone with De La Chapelle Syndrome. And I, an intersex female with androgen exposure, will look like an intersex male with PAIS who has had only partial of general male androgen exposure. A side note on that last part, for several years I thought Pidgeon Pagonis had CAH too based on the genitalia descriptions they gave because it was all the same with me. I didn’t know any better until I joined the intersex Discord and the topic came up.

However, while there are not dichotomous ways of being male or female, we know that everyone is either male or female for an important reason: the only reason ours or any species has biological sex is to add different angles and gametes to sexual reproduction. In humans, there are only two options: to make and develop a system to use ova for pregnancy, or to make and develop a system to use spermatozoa for impregnation. No intersex person produces the opposite sex’s gamete or has the full and functioning system of the opposite sex to use that gamete. Most of us are infertile.

If intersex people represented a biological sex other than male or female, we would expect most people to be intersex and few to be male or female. This is like any other thing in statistics: opposite-end extremes are the rarest, while roughly 95% falls in the middle-range, just like a bell curve.

Or, in a less numbery graphic:

We also know that truly being intersex (having a major difference of congenital reproductive development, not PCOS, hormonal differences, or general NCAH) is not 1.7% as many “activists” love to boast about, comparing to red hair and green eyes. The true statistic is about .0667% of the population having an intersex condition.

I’m going to break things down very clearly under the cut for everyone, looking at each intersex variant, how it arises, what sex, why it belongs solely to that sex, the frequency of occurrence etc. Things will be linked to sources. Some sources may overlap because I’m trying to keep each entry consistent but the information is on the same page as another part’s source, like finding the occurrence frequency. Some links will be from MedScape, which has a free registration to view more than a few links but the sources there are good–I will remain skimpy with using these links because of the needing to register. It’ll be very long so I’m giving you guys the benefit of the cut so you don’t have to scroll through miles on your dash to get to the next post. Like, I am not shitting you. Painfully, severely, agonizingly long and detailed. It has taken me more than 14 hours to compile and source this post.

If you click a link to one of the diseases associated with varying gene’s mutations for different intersex conditions and cannot find how it is tied to that mutation of the gene, you can open that gene’s protein or enzyme UniProt page as linked in its description in this post and go to the section for Pathology & Biotech. All diseases associated with intersex gene mutations that I have sourced can be found there.

Content warning for some linked (not shown outright) images of nude people, genitalia, and internal organs.

Keep reading

[90905791]

PART 2

TURNER SYNDROME (45, X or 45, X0)

(Alternate general information link)

Rate of Occurrence: 1 in 2,500 girls

“This condition occurs in about 1 in 2,500 newborn girls worldwide, but it is much more common among pregnancies that do not survive to term (miscarriages and stillbirths).”

Genes Involved: Missing or incomplete second X chromosome sometimes both X chromosomes but one is rendered completely dysfunctional by mutations, karyotype written as “45, X” or “45, X0.”

Health Concerns Associated with Turner Syndrome (Note: not all patients, but many will have these, some will not have any, and many will have some but not others)

Source 1:

“About 30 percent of females with Turner syndrome have extra folds of skin on the neck (webbed neck), a low hairline at the back of the neck, puffiness or swelling (lymphedema) of the hands and feet, skeletal abnormalities, or kidney problems. One third to one half of individuals with Turner syndrome are born with a heart defect, such as a narrowing of the large artery leaving the heart (coarctation of the aorta) or abnormalities of the valve that connects the aorta with the heart (the aortic valve). Complications associated with these heart defects can be life-threatening.”

Source 2:

Before birth

“Turner syndrome may be suspected prenatally based on prenatal cell-free DNA screening ― a method to screen for certain chromosomal abnormalities in a developing baby using a blood sample from the mother ― or prenatal ultrasound. Prenatal ultrasound of a baby with Turner syndrome may show:

Large fluid collection on the back of the neck or other abnormal fluid collections (edema)

Heart abnormalities

Abnormal kidneys

                               At birth or during infancy

Signs of Turner syndrome at birth or during infancy may include:

Wide or weblike neck

Low-set ears

Broad chest with widely spaced nipples

High, narrow roof of the mouth (palate)

Arms that turn outward at the elbows

Fingernails and toenails that are narrow and turned upward

Swelling of the hands and feet, especially at birth

Slightly smaller than average height at birth

Slowed growth

Cardiac defects

Low hairline at the back of the head

Receding or small lower jaw

Short fingers and toes

                              In childhood, teens and adulthood

The most common signs in almost all girls, teenagers and young women with Turner syndrome are short stature and ovarian insufficiency due to ovarian failure that may have occurred by birth or gradually during childhood, the teen years or young adulthood. Signs and symptoms of these include:

    Slowed growth

    No growth spurts at expected times in childhood

    Adult height significantly less than might be expected for a female member of the family

    Failure to begin sexual changes expected during puberty

    Sexual development that “stalls” during teenage years

    Early end to menstrual cycles not due to pregnancy

    For most women with Turner syndrome, inability to conceive a child without fertility treatment”

OMIM Entry

Clinical reports on patients: (X) (X) (X)

Endocrine Profile: abnormally high FSH, LH, and gonadotropin

Intersex: Only occurs in females. No male forms without the presence of Wolffian-determinant coding factors exclusive to the Y chromosome. There is no Y equivalent to Turner Sydrome; humans require at least one X to survive so all fetuses conceived with a singular Y karyotype do not live to be birthed. Turner patients commonly do not form ovaries and instead the tissue degenerates into streak gonads, but in some cases where partial functioning of a second X remains, ovaries may form. Almost all Turner Syndrome patients are infertile.

Images of deformity associated with chromosomal aneuploidy of Turner Syndrome:

More severe, from complete destruction of one X or only inherited one X:

Less severe, partial inheritence of a second X or second X without complete destruction due to mutations:

Some Turner patients may have almost complete functioning of their second X and look and have the same health level as anyone else.

KLINFELTER SYNDROME (XXY)

Rate of Occurence: 1 in 500 to 1 in 1,000 boys

Genes Involved: An extra X chromosome has been placed into either the sperm or ova before conception, so the baby boy has an XXY karyotype.

Health Concerns Associated With Klinefelter Syndrome (again, not all, but a good number)

“Other physical changes associated with Klinefelter Syndrome are usually subtle. Older children and adults with the condition tend to be somewhat taller than their peers. Other differences can include abnormal fusion of certain bones in the forearm (radioulnar synostosis), curved pinky fingers (fifth finger clinodactyly), and flat feet (pes planus).

Children with Klinefelter syndrome may have weak muscle tone (hypotonia) and problems with coordination that delay the development of motor skills, such as sitting, standing, and walking. Affected boys often have learning disabilities, problems with reading, and mild delays in speech and language development. Boys and men with Klinefelter syndrome tend to have better receptive language skills (the ability to understand speech) than expressive language skills (vocabulary and the production of speech) and may have difficulty communicating and expressing themselves. They tend to have anxiety, impaired social skills, a short attention span, and limited problem-solving skills (executive functioning)

Compared with unaffected men, adults with Klinefelter syndrome have an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, blood clots, involuntary trembling (tremors), breast cancer (if gynecomastia develops), thinning and weakening of the bones (osteoporosis), and autoimmune disorders such as systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis. (Autoimmune disorders are a large group of conditions that occur when the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues and organs.)”

OMIM Entry (Couldn’t find one for just the syndrome itself, this one is the closest and focuses on its relation to testicular tumors. Information on this is primarly found in the “Molecular Genetics” section.)

Clinical reports on patients: (X) (X) (X) (X)

Intersex: Klinefelter Syndrome only occurs in males. The intersex symptom is inevitable onset of gynecomastia, lower sperm count, smaller penis and testes size, and low facial and body hair development. As they have proper-functioning Y chromosomes and anti-Mullerian activity, they produce all Wolffian structures, no Mullerian structures, and produce spermatozoa and not ova.

Some Klinefelter guys (literally just normal guys, if you don’t believe me these all came from Google image results for ‘Klinefelter Syndrome’ and I checked the pages they were tied to to make sure they were in fact Klinefelter guys):

XXXY SYNDROME (48, XXXY)

Rate of Occurence: between 1 in 17,000 and 1 in 50,000 boys

Genes Involved: Unintended inheritance of two extra X chromosomes from a dysfunctionally created gamete.

Health Concerns Associated With XXXY Syndrome:

“48,XXXY syndrome is a chromosomal condition in boys and men that causes intellectual disability, developmental delays, physical differences, and an inability to father biological children (infertility). Its signs and symptoms vary among affected individuals.

Most boys and men with 48,XXXY syndrome have mild intellectual disability with learning difficulties. Speech and language development is particularly affected. Most affected boys and men can understand what other people say more easily than they themselves can speak. The problems with speech and communication can contribute to behavioral issues, including irritability and outbursts or temper tantrums. Boys and men with 48,XXXY syndrome tend to have anxiety, a short attention span, and impaired social skills.

48,XXXY syndrome is also associated with weak muscle tone (hypotonia) and problems with coordination that delay the development of motor skills, such as sitting, standing, and walking. Affected boys and men tend to be taller than their peers, with an average adult height of over 6 feet.

Other physical differences associated with 48,XXXY syndrome include abnormal fusion of certain bones in the forearm (radioulnar synostosis), an unusually large range of joint movement (hyperextensibility), elbow abnormalities, curved pinky fingers (fifth finger clinodactyly), and flat feet (pes planus). Affected individuals may have distinctive facial features, including widely spaced eyes (ocular hypertelorism), outside corners of the eyes that point upward (upslanting palpebral fissures), and skin folds covering the inner corner of the eyes (epicanthal folds). However, some boys and men with 48,XXXY syndrome do not have these differences in their facial features.

48,XXXY syndrome disrupts male sexual development. The penis is shorter than usual, and the testes may be undescended, which means they are abnormally located inside the pelvis or abdomen. The testes are small and do not produce enough testosterone, which is the hormone that directs male sexual development. The shortage of testosterone often leads to incomplete puberty. Starting in adolescence, affected boys and men may have sparse body hair, and some experience breast enlargement (gynecomastia). Their testes typically do not produce sperm, so most men with this condition are infertile.”

(No OMIM Entry found)

Clinical reports on patients: (X) (X) (X) <- Last link includes info about other intersex aneuplodies like XXYY and XXXYY, etc.

Intersex: Occurs in males only. The Y chromosome is there and functions, producing anti-Mullerian ability. Regardless of the number of X chromosomes, one “no” in the way of anti-Mullerian development from even a single Y causes male development. They still have Wolffian structures, may be able to perform spermatogenesis, and a male phenotype, though they are infertile. The penis may be smaller and the testes may be undescended. They never have Mullerian structures, menstruate, or produce ova.

Guys with XXXY Syndrome:

XXYY SYNDROME (48, XXYY)

Rate of Occurrence: between 1 in 18,000 and 1 in 40,000 boys

Genes Involved: Due to defects in the parents’ gamete production, inheritance of an extra X and an extra Y from a defective gamete.

Health Concerns Associated With XXYY Syndrome

“48,XXYY syndrome is a chromosomal condition that causes infertility, developmental and behavioral disorders, and other health problems in males.

48,XXYY disrupts male sexual development. Adolescent and adult males with this condition typically have small testes that do not produce enough testosterone, which is the hormone that directs male sexual development. A shortage of testosterone during puberty can lead to reduced facial and body hair, poor muscle development, low energy levels, and an increased risk for breast enlargement (gynecomastia). Because their testes do not function normally, males with 48, XXYY syndrome have an inability to father children (infertility).

48,XXYY syndrome can affect other parts of the body as well. Males with 48,XXYY syndrome are often taller than other males their age with an average adult height of 6 feet 4 inches (193 cm). They tend to develop a tremor that typically starts in adolescence and increases with age. Dental problems are frequently seen with this condition; they include delayed appearance of the primary (baby) or secondary (adult) teeth, thin tooth enamel, crowded and/or misaligned teeth, and multiple cavities. As affected males get older, they may develop a narrowing of the blood vessels in the legs, called peripheral vascular disease. Peripheral vascular disease can cause skin ulcers to form. Affected males are also at risk for developing a type of clot called a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) that occurs in the deep veins of the legs. Additionally, males with 48,XXYY syndrome may have flat feet (pes planus), elbow abnormalities, abnormal fusion of certain bones in the forearm (radioulnar synostosis), allergies, asthma, type 2 diabetes, seizures, and congenital heart defects.

Most males with 48,XXYY syndrome have an IQ that ranges from 70-80 with some degree of difficulty with speech and language development. Learning disabilities, especially those that are language-based, are very common in males with this disorder. Affected males seem to perform better at tasks focused on math, visual-spatial skills such as puzzles, and memorization of locations or directions. Some boys with 48,XXYY syndrome have delayed development of motor skills such as sitting, standing, and walking that can lead to poor coordination. Affected males have higher than average rates of behavioral disorders, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); mood disorders, including anxiety and bipolar disorder; and autism spectrum disorder, which affects communication and social interaction.”

(No OMIM Entry found)

Clinical reports on patients: (X) (X) (X)

Intersex: Again, because of the presence of at least one non-mutated Y chromosome, only males have XXYY. No Mullerian structures, no ova production. Wolffian structures are present.

Guys with XXYY Syndrome:

That should just about cover it for sex chromosome aneuploidies. Obviously we can guess by all this information that they aren’t causing a third sex and instead cause many health concerns no matter the amount of chromosomes or combinations.

XX / XY MOSAICISM

Rate of Occurence: extremely rare and unknown; actual human chimeras are incalculably rare

How this works: This is also called “tetragametic chimerism,” meaning that a baby has inherited genetics from four gametes instead of two. This occurs when a fraternal twin absorbs its twin zygote at some point in pregnancy, adding the twin’s DNA to different locations in its body, sometimes mixing the DNA sometimes not.

(I don’t particularly like this graphic but it gets the point across)

What sex then? If the gonadal tissue receives enough XX zygote DNA, the person will develop a female phenotype and sex development regardless of even being 96% XY DNA elsewhere. Sometimes, absorption of an opposite sex zygote’s DNA can cause development of ovotesticular disorder of sex development, which I’ll get into in its own section.

Here, the person was determined to be only one sex but then the opposite sex fraternal twin was absorbed. The person still only has the ability to produce and use one type of gamete, not both. It was not biology’s intention for the person to have both XX and XY cells and it does not represent nature’s desire to create a third sex. People are still phenotypically one sex or the other. You will not see a patient with a fully developed penis making ova. Most commonly the patient has mixed gonadal dysgenesis (described above in the Swyer Syndrome section of Part 1).

Health Concerns Associated With XX / XY Mosaicism

Congenital Pulmonary Lymphangiectasis with Chylothorax (behind a paywall but the title alone tells you what’s going on)

Perinatal Fatality (again, paywall, only abstract is shown)

Clinical reports on patients: (X) (X) (X) (X)

OVOTESTICULAR DISORDER OF SEX DEVELOPMENT

(60% of all patients with ovotestes are 46, XX. The remainder are XX / XY mosaic chimeras, for which refer to the above passage on XX / XY Mosaicism.)

Rate of Occurence: 1 in 83,000

Genes Involved: Most often in patients who are not mosaics, ovotesticular disorder is caused by faulty sperm genesis in which the father’s sperm production accidentally places one of his Y’s SRY regions onto the arm of another sperm’s X.

What sex? Patients with 46, XX ovotesticular disorder are all females who happened to receive male coding regions by accident and it is a “nonclassical” form of De La Chapelle Syndrome, which is described below. Most often the coding region is SRY, but it may also be caused by unnatural duplication or triplication of SOX9 or duplications or deletions in SOX3. (See sections ‘TEXT’ and ‘Genetic Heterogeneity of 46,XX Sex Reversal’)

As for mosaics with ovotesticular disorder, see their info above.

There is not a condition of ovotesticular disorder where the patient has both a fully functioning penis and vagina, and so cannot make use of both gametes. The person still only has one reproductive capability (if not rendered infertile or physically unable), either pregnancy or impregnation. Persons with ovotesticular disorder do not add a new angle to human sexual reproduction and that is most important in realizing that they are not a third biological sex.

Health Concerns Associated With Ovotesticular Disorder

Cancer of the Testicular Tissue

It is hard to find other information regarding health concerns as they would be specific to which genes are mutated, what hormone levels have been caused, and what quantity of each gonadal tissue has developed. Doctors also care less about these patients’ health and more about photographic their “freaky” patients for fame and fortune, so almost all case reports on ovotesticular disorder disregard the patient’s health in favor of talking about sexual development.

Clinical reports on patients: (X) (X) (X)

DE LA CHAPELLE SYNDROME

Rate of Occurence: unknown

Genes Involved: In 80 - 80% of cases, unnatural translocation of SRY onto an arm of an X during father’s spermatogenesis. The other cases include mutations of SOX9, SOX3, RSPO1 and WNT4, all important genes in sex development.

OMIM Entry (disregard ovotestis-related info here, as that only applies to “nonclassical” De La Chapelle Syndrome that manifests as ovotesticular disorder)

Clinical reports on patients: (X) (X)

Intersex: De La Chapelle Syndrome only occurs in females. It is intersex only because the patient is not actually male. While testes are present, they are very small and unable to produce sperm. The person does not produce ova either. Because this is a female disorder, some breast development may take place and there is lower-than-average testosterone production. The patient may be given testosterone HRT to help with prevention of gynecomastia and influence secondary sex development, if wished.

That’d cover just about all of them, I’d think. Onto our conclusion.

Do intersex people categorize a third sex or disprove that human sex is only male or female? No.

Nothing listed above shows any option toward reproduction other than pregnancy or impregnation, sperm or ova, Mullerian or Wolffian. There is no intersex variant that can make and successfully use both ova and sperm. There is no intersex variant with strict Mullerian development that makes sperm, and no intersex variant with strict Wolffian development that makes ova.

Also, we can tell that different types of being intersex are exclusively tied to mutations of certain genes, which are mutations leading to health concerns or sometimes death. If intersex were a third sex, different disorders wouldn’t be tied to desctruction of function in very specified genes and would instead be healthfully inherited development through a third sex chromosome.

Intersex disorders also tend to be specifically common in some ethnicities and not others, such as virilizing CAH in Ashkenazi Jews, lipoid CAH in Koreans, and 5ARD in the Dominican Republic, some highland tribes in New Guinea, Lebanon and Turkey. All around the world, no matter where you go, almost 50% of people are male and 50% of people are female (save for countries with high rates of femicide). If intersex people were a third sex, we would have each condition show equal rate of occurrence in all ethnicities across the board. But we do not.

We also would not be able to mix “sexes” like having both Klinefelter Syndrome (XXY) and CAH.

Biological sex in humans is dichotomous. We can only be male or female, but there is a spectrum of how males present and a spectrum of how females present. Intersex people do not disprove the existence of biological sex or prove the existence of new sexes; we merely have mutations of genes that altered our course of development, though none that truly reverse our sex and allow us to fully perform the reproductive ability of the opposite sex or both sexes at the same time. Many of us are sterile and unhealthy, and many of us have to live on pharmaceuticals to care for the poor bone and heart health that is so frequent among intersex disorders.

Everyone, please stop spreading misinformation about our bodies as political pawns. We’re just here, a little bit different, but we’re still like you, not some third other.

[severalowls]

Pretty fucked up that you, personally, reading this post don’t give equal attention to every tragedy that happens on the planet every day. I heard that you, personally sometimes only hear about things that news sources in your specific cultural sphere pick up on. That’s pretty fucked up of you, personally.

[ratsouped]

“transtrenders don’t exist!! transtrender is just a mean name that truscum call ppl!!!”

check out the original post for more: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bv3f9TSnXHn/

this is just on ONE SINGLE POST. Out of the 300 people that liked the post, there were approx 20 self-identified former transtrenders. Out of that sample of cis teenagers, over 6% were former trenders. That is a lot for something yall claim never ever happens. 

And, the key word here is self-identified trenders. I am not calling them trenders, they are calling themselves trenders because that’s simply what they were. They labelled themselves trans because it was trendy, which is what a trender is. Trenders exist, and the sheer amount of personal accounts from former transtrenders is proof. 

And tucutes continue to deny this shit happens. Also, former transtrenders, please feel free to add your stories in the notes. 

[chiquitadave]

nondysphoric trans people aren’t choosing to be trans, they just Are Trans same as dysphoric trans people. other trans people Aren’t your enemies, your enemies are the government, transphobic doctors, and insurance workers who make getting hrt and surgeries expensive and difficult.

other trans people are not the enemy.

[thisdiabolicalvarnish]

People who don’t share the defining characteristic of the condition that necessitates our treatment and furthers our marginalization are choosing to identify with us, speak over us, and reframe our narratives and spaces. They are not trans and are actively dismantling the trans community, reorienting it to serve their own politics. Would we be having this conversation if people who don’t experience same sex attraction started identifying as non-ssa gays and bisexuals, occupying and directing lgb community and spaces?

[chiquitadave]

I don’t believe that they are speaking over us, and for the most part I believe that you don’t have to have dysphoria to be trans. I believe that because I don’t think its my decision whether someone really is trans, and that that decision only should involve the individual.

[thisdiabolicalvarnish]

How long have you been in trans spaces? Because I’ve witnessed a significant shift in the atmosphere and focus of trans spaces to where I am identified by my birth sex (but ftm is offensive), told my disconnect with my body is a product of society, denied the language I use to describe myself, pressured to hold political ideologies and participate in advocacy, shamed for passing/being stealth/wanting bottom surgery, fetishized, and denied my own narrative. I am unable to hold space for myself and am decentered if I attempt to. My status is rebranded as a sexy, subversive act of defying social expectation. And as a bonus, I am often unable to intervene in problematic dialogues without both outing myself and facing ostracism and public shaming for viewing my medical transition as a medical process and gender as a construct derived from perceived sex rather than an active claim. I have seen support spaces and resources overwhelmed with people who want a social venue to complain about the “mainstream” to where those who want to commiserate about managing dysphoria, coming out, accessing and navigating transition, and the nuances of being transsexual just stop showing up. Non-dysphoric people have won. They have my space, drive my politics and narrative, have the same access to medical transition that they don’t need. In my experience, it’s a long game of waiting for people to move on to the next thing, when this stops being socially novel and profitable. I don’t want to be here when that happens; I have to be.

[gay-angry-transman]

I never wanted to be a trans male, I wanted to be biologically male.

[1-v4n]

Trans men ARE biologically male, even without HRT or surgery. Y'all need to stop telling yourselves otherwise.

[chronicallytrans]

As flattering as that is, we aren’t and that’s why we’re transitioning.

[1-v4n]

But you are! I’m glad transitioning is helping you reach a point where you visually and mentally feel at a place where your innate maleness and physical maleness are in unison. That’s something to take a lot of happiness in.

For other trans men, that might not be so necessary or medically possible. They are just as male as you or me or any other man. 😊

[chronicallytrans]

I’m not going to sit here and tell you that this way of thinking isn’t positive and won’t help certain people, but that’s just what it is, a way of thinking.

At the end of the day I was born female. They took a quick peek at my anatomy and came to the conclusion that biologically I am female. They weren’t incorrect and here I am now looking to TRANSITION because of this. And while I haven’t started my physical transition I am fortunate enough to be read as male, be treated as male, and have this level of peace before I start my journey. Having this peace doesn’t and will never change my biology.

Your mindset is flattering of course but it isn’t anything close to fact.

[sn-rt-deactivated20181111]

Born biologically male my ass, I’d GIVE ANYTHING to have been born male don’t fucking dare try to tell me I uwu actually was born male.

I endure the painful surgeries, the copious amount of drs appointments, the headache of insurance, and the weekly shots because I was indeed born female and that makes my life unbearable without medical transition.

Telling me I was actually born male is akin to spitting in my face and telling me I’m doing this all for nothing.

Please, think before you ever open your mouth again, I don’t need someone on the internet trying to make me deny reality.

[just-a-smalltown-guy]

“Telling me I was actually born male is akin to spitting in my face and telling me I’m doing this all for nothing.”

^^^^^YES EXACTLY THANK YOU! SOMEONE GETS IT!

[itskittyjeany]

^YES THIS!

Now listen, I know you mean well, but the best intentions are sometimes the worst insults. I was born female. I was raised female. If people will find my skeleton, it will be the skeleton of a female. My chromosomes are - guess what - female. This is a sad fact, but I am not offended by it. And even when we would have a post-gender society, where we could just choose and no one would ever call me female… my body still is and thus, I would still have gender dysphoria. I am enduring surgery and hormonal treatment to feel like myself and I wish I wouldnt have to do this. And as said before, telling me “ah youve always been a biological male. Even if you choose to not transition.” WHY THANK YOU, so this means all of this is pointless if ive always been biologically male?! Where is my penis then?! It is a nice positivity thing for trans guys who cant get hormonal treatment for whatever reason and it would cheer them up. Its like telling children scared of the dark a fairytale so they can sleep. And in one way, you are correct. But the difference between fairytale and truth is, that they are trans men, not biological males. If you worded your answer like “Trans men ARE still trans, even without HRT or surgery. Y'all need to stop telling yourselves otherwise.” I would 100% agree

[mollyjames]

Actually, I rather like being trans

[mollyjames]

I suppose being cis would be nice and all, but it doesn’t quite have the same “I will sieze Destiny by the throat and force it into the shape of my choosing” kind of verve

[221cbakerstreet]

tumblr user mollyjames picking up hormones: “I will seize destiny by the throat and force it into the shape of my choosing”

the cashier at cvs:

[dysphoriaprostate]

Heads up to tucutes! This is what we mean when we say transtrender:

Not this:

Please get it right :))

[tranfriedshrimp]

I'm bisexual. You are not taking the term away from me. When I was dating if I was interested in a transgender individual I asked their preferred pronouns & that was that. To me they were that gender as that is how they portrayed themselves & the gender they wished to live as. I'd date them if they were interested in me & I them & they were a kind, caring person. 1 of 2 (damned character limit)

i dont know what this is referring to or when it was sent

and i’m.....literally bi.....

[tranfriedshrimp]

This tdov I’m actually just really fucking tired and annoyed! Not at the concept of the day itself. But eeevveeery time a trans visibility thing happens it just becomes more and more people who “come out” as trans despite not needing to or even wanting to transition in even the most basic of ways. I’m so tired of seeing people coopt the “trans” label and act like it pertains to them or their experiences in any way. I’m so fucking tired of being made to step back and allow woke cis trendy people to center themselves in trans spaces, of being told I can’t even discuss shit like dysphoria or surgery because Becky over there doesn’t have any, and doesn’t want to change in any way. I’m so fucking tired of these types of people acting like they go through the worst transphobia and oppression ever. I’m so fucking tired of seeing donation funds given to cis people who decide they want to go by a nickname so they just haaaave to legally change it, and sure they like their boobs but if they had surgery then they have those cute little uwu scars! It’s so fucking exhausting!

[tranfriedshrimp]

people: “brands need to be more inclusive in their advertising and such”

*brands like Target do that*

the same people: “this is just marketing capitalism, they’re pandering”

[4thwavenow]

The Unspoken Homophobia Propelling the Transgender Movement in Children - Quillette

When I was a Ph.D. student in sexology, I had a conversation with a colleague that forever cemented, in my mind, why I needed to speak out against the transitioning of children with gender dysphoria. Nowadays, every left-leaning parent and educator seems content to take a child’s word at face value if they say they were born in the wrong body, not realizing that by doing so, an important conversation is being brushed aside. On the day in question, our research lab had just finished our weekly meeting, and I chatted with my colleague as I packed up my things to head back to my office. He had told me previously about his son, who from the moment he was born, announced that a mistake had been made—“I’m a girl,” he would say. As a little boy, his son loved playing with dolls. He would wear his mother’s dresses and high heels, and wanted to grow his hair long like Princess Jasmine from the movie, “Aladdin.” At school, he preferred the company of girls to …

“ And as I’ve watched as glowing stories about transgender children have flooded every progressive news outlet over the last few years, every one of them appalls and saddens me. Because the underlying story that the public isn’t privy to is that many of these children would have grown up to be gay, but are instead undergoing a new form of conversion therapy. ..”

“Children will say they ‘are’ the opposite sex because that’s the only language they have to express to adults that they want to do things the opposite sex does.”

[warriorforartemis]

Great article!

[starinyourhand]

the author is probably getting arson threats right about now

[tranfriedshrimp]

don’t get me wrong, I agree that there are young people who are transitioning when they shouldn’t.

but “it has become more socially acceptable to be a transgender man than a gay woman”? Really? Maybe in extremely homophobic middle eastern countries, but still to this day, many years into my transition I /still/ have people question my choices because “well why couldn’t you just have been lesbian?” (never mind that I’ve only ever been minimally attracted to women) And shit, I’ve been questioned while living in some of the most socially progressive areas of the USA.

Also, I really doubt there’s any sort of meaningful percentage of parents who are homophobic but toootally ok with trans people.

[gillygeewhiz]

The International Journal of Transgenderism (WPATH’s journal) promised last year that they were committed to publishing nonbinary/genderqueer research, so I just took a skim.

The offerings are still sparse, but so far they’ve given us a study confirming that nonbinary people aren’t gender-incongruent and a scale for measuring genderqueer identity that is actually just a measure of how much you treat gender like a political statement and whether you like queer theory.

Please, genderqueer researchers, keep going. Keep on giving us evidence that trans people and enbies have completely different experiences, priorities, and needs… almost like they don’t have anything innately in common and shouldn’t be considered part of the same category.

[transtres-deactivated20190812]

Gender Identity, Brain sex and Transsexualism: a guide for the gender skeptics

In this post I’ll explain the scientific basis for some of the terminology applied to transsexualism and why the medical establishment understands it as a legitimate medical condition. It’ll be a rebuttal of some common complaints and I’ll post all my sources at the end of the post. Feel free to ask me anything or @ me if you have any questions or curiosities on the topic.

Common Complaint: Gender Identity isn’t real or Gender Identity is the same as feeling uncomfortable with Gender Roles.

First of all, what is the clinical definition (that is, the definition used in manuals and guidelines for diagnosing and treating Transsexualism) of Gender Identity and where did it even came from?

The Standards of Care, published by the WPATH, defines Gender Identity (sometimes called “Experienced Gender”) this way:

“A person’s intrinsic sense of being male (a boy or a man), female (a girl or a woman) […]”

That sounds incredibly vague, doesn’t it? One could ask which definition of “gender” is being used in the guidelines. Well, the DSM-V has this to say on the matter of gender:

“The need to introduce the term gender arose with the realization that for individuals with conflicting or ambiguous biological indicators of sex (i.e., “intersex”), the lived role in society and/or the identification as male or female could not be uniformly associated with or predicted from the biological indicators and, later, that some individuals develop an identity as female or male at variance with their uniform set of classical biological indicators. […]”

So the clinical perception of gender as being distinct from biological sex was originated as a way of explaining the experiences of transgender intersex people, that is, intersex people who were brought up as male or female depending of the “sex” they were assigned at birth and during adulthood or adolescence ended up living socially as the opposite “sex”.

On the 1968 Paper, “Can a Biological Force Contribute to Gender Identity?”, Howard J. Baker and Robert J. Stoller (a pioneer on the study of transsexualism) described the experiences of six intersex individuals who despite having no visible atypical anatomy and being raised as typical members of their assigned sex, persistently affirmed that they belonged to the opposite sex. Upon puberty, all of them developed anatomical changes corresponding to the sex that they declared to belong to.

The paper describes the concept of Gender Identity and its development on this way:

Stoller recognized a similarity between the intersex individuals described in his paper and the experiences of transsexual individuals (who have existed at least since the 1930s ):

On the late 2000s we get the following definition on the DSM-V:

“Thus, gender is used to denote the public (and usually legally recognized) lived role as boy or girl, man or woman, but, in contrast to certain social constructionist theories, biological factors are seen as contributing, in interaction with social and psychological factors, to gender development.”

You may have noticed that both definitions assert that gender identity is created by a collection of factors including the awareness of one’s anatomy (a marker of biological sex), family up-bring (the social reinforcement of gender roles) and some unknown (at least in 1968) biological force. You may also have noticed that Stoller’s description of gender identity makes a contrast between the belief of being male or female and the sense of being masculine or feminine.

What do we learned?

1) The clinical concept of Gender Identity isn’t synonymous with Gender Roles (the social expectation of masculinity and femininity). Gender Identity is a collection of social (gender roles), biological (visible sex differences) and psychological factors (the unknown factor as described in 1968).

2) The clinical concept of Gender Identity has existed for over forty years. Tumblr didn’t invent it.

On a 1982 paper called “The Theory of Gender Identity Disorders”, written by Jon K. Meyer, the standard process for gender identity development is described on this way:

The paper goes on describing how this standard gender development is atypical in the case of transsexual individuals. To those individuals whose gender identity is discrepant to biological sex, the psychological conflict alongside social repression of the biologically incongruent gender identity leads to noticeable distress, social impairment and disturbance of one’s body image. You may have noticed that these descriptions are quite similar to our modern diagnosis criteria for Gender Dysphoria.

Common Complaint: There’s no scientific evidence of gender identity.

Several neuroimaging studies were made to understand the role of hormonal influence in brain tissue during hormonal sensitivity periods (prenatal and pubertal periods) on humans. The literature on the effects of prenatal androgen exposure is strong and it’s based on the studies about intersex individuals with different degrees of androgen exposure.

Because anatomical sexual dimorphism happens before the sexual differentiation of the brain (and before the development of gender identity), it’s assumed that transsexual people have some brain-limited condition where there is no concordance between the sexually differentiated state of the brain and the body.

There are several (including recent research made in 2015) studies that give credence to this theory. The studies compare the average brain phenotypes (or patterns) of non dysphoric male and female control groups with ftm and mtf control groups including the ones who hadn’t gone through hormonal replacement therapy at the time of the study and didn’t had intersex conditions.

A 2016 review of nearly all literature on neuroimaging studies on gender dysphoric people, came to the following conclusion:

“A difference in brain phenotype of people with GI [Gender Incongruence] compared to natal sex controls in various brain measures suggests a sex-atypical development of the brain. […] Although the number of studies examining the brain of people with GI is still low, they have taught us that brain phenotypes for FtM and MtF seem to exist, and provided evidence for the role of prenatal organization of the brain in the development of gender incongruence.”

Common Complaint: Ftms don’t have “male brains” and Mtfs don’t have “female brains”.

…That’s not a completely inaccurate affirmation actually. Another 2016 review of transgender neuroimaging studies says the following:

“Untreated MtFs and FtMs who have an early onset of their gender dysphoria and are sexually oriented to persons of their natal sex show a distinctive brain morphology, reflecting a brain phenotype. These phenotypes are different from those of heterosexual males or females; the differences affect the right hemisphere and cortical structures underlying body perception.”

The results from neuroimaging studies don’t actually say that Ftms have “male brains” or that Mtfs have “female brains”. This is an oversimplification of the results from neuroscience. While the studies did show several similarities between the brain patterns of men and Ftms and women and Mtfs; the overall conclusion was that Ftms and Mtfs have unique brain phenotypes that are different than the brain phenotypes found in non dysphoric men and women.

Early onset dysphoric Ftms have a more “masculinized” brain structure and early onset dysphoric Mtfs have a more “feminized” brain structure but the overall “package” looks unique enough to be counted as a distinct phenotype on itself. It would be more accurate to say that that Ftms have Ftms’ brains and that Mtfs have Mtfs’ brains.

The brain phenotypes of early onset and late onset dysphoric people are significantly different. This is in agreement with old theories on the differences between early and late onset dysphoria. Early onset Ftms are often gynephiles (attracted to women) while early onset Mtfs are often androphiles (attracted to men). Their dysphoria manifests in early childhood, increases during puberty and persists through adulthood.

Late onset dysphoric people also have unique brain phenotypes but their phenotypes are distinct than the ones presented by the early onset group. It’s also worth noting that neither the early nor the late onset group share the same brain phenotype of homosexual men and women.

Common Complaint: Gender Dysphoria is the same as Body Dismorphia.

It’s indeed possible for someone to have both Gender Dysphoria and Body dismorphia disorder and some neurological studies have found a link between the brain areas responsible for body perception (it’s all on the right hemisphere) and sense of self and the areas that are sex atypical in transgender individuals (mainly on the right hemisphere). Does that means that dysphoria is just another form of body dismorphia? No.

Body dismorphia involves a disconnection from physical reality and is often associated with symptoms of OCD and eating disorders. Usually, a person with this disorder desires the removal of a body part because they see it as being deformed.

Dysphoric people are usually self aware enough to understand that their bodies are not physically deformed and their dissatisfaction is consistently focused on specific gendered body parts. Upon undergoing gender transition procedures, this psychological distress in dissipated.

These notable differences between dismorphia and dysphoria were visible even on the early years of psychoanalytic research on transsexualism:

(Meyer, 1982)

(Gardiner, 2013)

Common Complaint: Brain sex is a myth, neuroimaging is completely flawed and brain sex research is sexist.

Humans, just like all mammals, have sexually dimorphic bodies and these sexually dimorphic bodies will be influenced by a fundamental organ such as the brain. The human brain itself is vulnerable to hormones involved on the development of sexually dimorphic structures. There’s nothing surprising nor controversial in affirming that the brain, just like any other organ, will exhibit signs of sexual differences.

Neuroimaging research has consistently shown the differences in size, white and gray matter patterns, and many other structures present in the brains of men and women. Usually, men are taller than women. The fact that some men are shorter doesn’t negate the fact that on average men are taller than women. Individual exceptions or overlaps don’t negate the existence of sexual dimorphism because sexual dimorphism is measured by averages rather than by individual distinctions.

The misuse and mischaracterization of neuroimaging research by media outlets doesn’t invalidate the entire scientific field of neuroimaging. If someone has been using a distorted interpretation of neurological research to excuse sexism then the burden of the blame is on them rather than being placed on an entire scientific field.

Common Complaint: But Gina Rippon/Daphna Joel/Rebecca Jordan-Young/Cordelia Fine said that brain sex is a myth.

1) Daphna Joel’s research was methodologically wrong. Her research classified brain phenotypes as “male” or “female” based on the phenotypes exhibited by the 30% extreme examples of gender differences between men and women. If an individual exhibited a single overlapping characteristic they were immediately placed on the “substantial variable” group. If your entire classification method relies on unrealistic examples of sexual dimorphism then you’ll easily arrive at the conclusion that neurological dimophism isn’t internally consistent.

In other words, if your premise is fundamentally wrong (classifying sexual dimorphism based on extreme individual examples rather than averages) your results will be skewed.

This 2015 rebuttal of Joel’s research says the following:

“The definition of“internal consistency”Joel et al. use is so extreme that, in realistic conditions, it can only generate results consistent with their hypothesis. Under more realistic assumptions, the method of Joel et al. virtually always returned the same pattern of results—a preponderance of “substantially variable” profiles, a minority of “intermediate profiles,” and a very small proportion (often close to zero) of “sex-typical” profiles.”

This 2016 rebuttal of Joel’s research says the following:

“The failure of the brain to meet these two requirements does not mean that “human brains cannot be categorized into two distinct classes: male brain/female brain.” In fact, an individual’s biological sex can be classified with extremely high accuracy by considering the brain mosaic as a whole.”

Another 2016 rebuttal concludes with the following:

“A simple multivariate analysis using the same data suggests quite the opposite: Brains are indeed typically male or typically female.”

2) Gina Rippon, Cordelia Fine and Jordan Young have made a career criticizing supposedly methodological flaws on neuroimaging studies while consistently citing and defending the results of Joel’s research as being a more accurate model for understanding brain phenotypes.

It’s not unrealistic to affirm that they might be biased towards a particular type of result, given the fact that they have been consistently involved in controversies within the neuroscientific community because of their habit of coining inflammatory terms such as “neurotrash”, “neurononsense” and “neurosexism” to label neuroimaging research whose results differ with the “mosaic brain” belief.

Common Complaint: The belief in brain sex and gender identity is biological essentialism.

Recognizing that biological differences exist between males and females doesn’t necessarily imply that men are better than women. The average men can be taller and stronger but we do know that women are just as capable of engaging in physically taxing activities regardless of this biological difference.

While there are some studies that show differences in brain function or language acquisition, for example, neuroscientists are still aware of the role of environmental influence on brain development. The recent popularity of the field of epigenetics and the concept of brain plasticity are proofs of this awareness.

While some transgender people do express their gender identity in a somewhat stereotypical way, research on the development of gender identity has shown that it isn’t necessarily limited by gender roles. Again, having an inner sense of being male or female doesn’t imply that one is following all of the expectations of “masculinity” and “femininity”.

Moreover, while some of the diagnosis tools (questionnaires and so on) and the diagnosis of dysphoria in children are very reliant on display or lack of display of traditional “masculinity” and “femininity”, professionals on the field are still instructed to explore things deeper than surface level presentation of masculinity or femininity.

“Assessment of gender dysphoria and mental health should explore the nature and characteristics of a child’s or adolescent’s gender identity. A psychodiagnostic and psychiatric assessment—covering the areas of emotional functioning, peer and other social relationships, and intellectual functioning/school achievement—should be performed.

Assessment should include an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of family functioning. Emotional and behavioral problems are relatively common, and unresolved issues in a child’s or youth’s environment may be present.”

(from the Standards of Care)

References:

(2012) Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender-Nonconforming People, Version 7, International Journal of Transgenderism, 13:4, 165-232, DOI: 10.1080/15532739.2011.700873

American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statisti­cal Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. Arlington, VA, American Psychiatric Associa­tion, 2013.

Baker H, Stoller R: Can a biological force influence gender identity .Amer J Psychiat 124:1653-1658, 1968.

Stoller, R. J. (1968). Sex and gender: Vol. 1. The development of masculinity and femininity. New York: Science House.

Meyer JK. The theory of gender identity disorders. J Am Psychoanal Assoc. 1982;30(2):381-418.

Gardiner, J. K. (2013). Masculinity’s Interior: Men, Transmen, and Theories of Masculinity. The Journal of Men’s Studies, 21(2), 112–126. https://doi.org/10.3149/jms.2102.112

Byne W, Karasic DH, Coleman E, Eyler AE, Kidd JD,Meyer-Bahlburg HFL, Pleak RR, Pula J (2018) Gender dysphoria in adults: an overview and primer for psychiatrists, Transgender Health3:1, 57–73, DOI: 10.1089/trgh.2017.0053.

Baudewijntje P.C. Kreukels & Antonio Guillamon (2016): Neuroimaging studies in people with gender incongruence, International Review of Psychiatry, DOI:10.3109/09540261.2015.1113163

Guillamon A, Junque C, Gómez-Gil E. A Review of the Status of Brain Structure Research in Transsexualism. Arch Sex Behav, 2016 Oct;45(7):1615-48. doi: 10.1007/s10508-016-0768-5.

Del Giudice, M., Lippa, R. A., Puts, D. A., Bailey, D. H., Bailey, J. M., & Schmitt, D. P. (2016). Joel et al.’s method systematically fails to detect large, consistent sex differences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(14), E1965–E1965. doi:10.1073/pnas.1525534113

Jonathan D. Rosenblatt. Male and female brains are distinct. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Apr 2016, 113 (14) E1966-E1967; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1523961113

Adam M. Chekroud, Emily J. Ward, Monica D. Rosenberg, Avram J. Holmes Predictable human brain mosaic. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Apr 2016, 113 (14) E1968; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1523888113

[myragewillendworlds]

You see these TERFs that used to be people transitioning to the opposite sex, and the moment they realize they made a mistake by starting their transition is the moment they start to question the existence of gender dysphoria as a whole and no longer believe in transition – and specifically, no longer consider transsexual men to be men. They are all just in the same boat as them and haven’t yet realized it, but the Good Samaritan Radfem is here to save them from themselves.

There is the obvious issue here with how their arguments are based entirely in subjective reasoning and their own anecdotal stories. Biased opinions are utterly meaningless in any debate that requires objective fact and are not worth a response.

But there’s also the bigger issue: that extreme self-centeredness that leads to this terribly biased logic.

“If I am a transsexual person, then transsexualism exists. If I am no longer a transsexual person, then transsexualism no longer exists.”

They ‘believed’ in transsexual people and respected them for so long as they considered themselves a part of that group, but the moment they realized their error in doing so, suddenly that belief and respect dropped.

Why can a group only exist if it’s in accordance with their own experiences? Why must a group, demonstrably suffering from a medical condition, be completely deconstructed in order to justify one’s own error in thinking?

Because if transsexual men are no longer female due to physical transition, then neither are they once they’ve taken those steps. And when the idea that they might have lost their ‘womanhood’ due to their own choices is too painful to confront, the alternative is to change the world to fit with their narrative. They need transitioned men to “actually still be female” in order to tell themselves that they are still female. They need to blame the outside so they don’t have to carry the blame on the inside.

Basically: in order for both transsexual people and yourself, a detransitioner, to exist, you’d have to be willing to admit you made a mistake in believing yourself to be transsexual. When you cannot do that, transsexualism can therefore no longer be permitted to exist in your world view.

This is externalizing the problem. It’s based in subjective reasoning that’s inconsistent with the objective facts we have on transsexualism and transition. It’s not healthy and emotionally mature thinking to fully externalize one’s problems, and it’s not a solution to the problem either; rather, it is a denial of it. It’s a problem that should be worked out with a mental health professional, not with a bunch of equally emotionally unstable people over angry useless debates on an internet forum.

[myragewillendworlds]

I type this because I think it would do people well to understand better what sort of person the radfem in front of them is, before deciding to engage them.

Because this is not a post about biological sex. Or even transsexualism. It is about their strongly externalizing way of thinking.

They apply this to many other things. You’ll have seen the radfem that vilifies whatever they deem to be degrading to women (e.g. pornography, kinky sex, casual sex, sometimes heterosexuality itself) because of how they personally view these things. They take their personal experience or opinion as absolute fact and apply it to the whole world, and they are simply not able to see that another person might hold a totally different view on it. You’ll have seen them not merely stubbornly holding on to their ideas while leaving others to their own, but actively telling others they are wrong in their feelings/opinions/experiences and even viciously attacking them for it.

There is a typical disrespect of clear personal boundaries (e.g. makes your private life / sex life their business) and in their forcing their views upon you, may even frame this as a positive thing. (“Stupid brainwashed women need to be saved from BDSM.” “Transsexuals need to be saved from destroying themselves.”)

Radfem logic is typically extremely black & white. There is a tendency to frame things as two sides fighting each other, and there is always a side that is to blame. There is an evil wrongdoer and there is a victim. Talk about transsexualism in terms of the medical community (e.g. the scientific research into understanding its origin, studies about the quality of treatment, the defining and diagnosing of sex dysphoria) and you’ll commonly see it turned into a fight about online trans activists vs themselves as the victims, and in general what they’ve experienced over social media instead.

Everything is reframed to fit their narrative. Terms like 'transsexual’ and 'dysphoria’ are redefined to fit their experience, despite being inconsistent with the actual diagnostic criteria that are in use (i.e. a necessary factor of sex dysphoria being that it is not the result of any underlying condition, such as trauma, mental illness or psychosocial problems).

Arguments are written strongly through the lens of subjective reasoning. “I think transition is the wrong solution” and “transsexualism is a mental illness” are pointless statements when reality gives us 30+ studies concluding the positive effect of transition on transsexual people and The Endocrine Society officially stating that transsexualism must be understood as being biological in nature.

This may all be obvious already. But I don’t see it as being obvious yet that when you are faced with a person who thinks in this manner, there is no point in debating them at all. You will only be subjecting yourself to an emotionally unhealthy person, for an acknowledgement you should not seek from them. The medical community will continue its research to better understand and treat this condition with and without their understanding.

[angelslawn-deactivated20210929]

gay history according to tumblr is like:

long time ago men had sex with men in rome

????????

stonewall

today

[tbfpaesthetic]