Gender Affirming Care - Tumblr Posts
we love when studies confirm shit we already know 🥳🥳🥳
"puzzle companies will often reuse the same stencils to cut out their pieces, so you can mix and match"
After I learned this, I thought of a good (in my opinion) trans analogy.
Imagine that everyone is a puzzle. Being trans is like having half or more of your pieces replaced with the wrong puzzle. You can realize that something is wrong, but whenever you mention it to someone, they tell you that it can't be wrong because those were the pieces that were in the box, and how could the manufacturer be wrong. You try to ignore it, but it doesn't fix the fact that something is wrong. Different. Broken.
Then, you might see something online or meet someone that went through the same thing, and you realize that you aren't alone. You finally have the words to describe yourself, and you feel more like yourself than ever as you start finding the pieces that go with your puzzle. You'll find a new name and figure out which pronouns (if any) fit you. You might start looking up information for gender affirming care, or maybe you won't. You will slowly come out to friends and family and start socially (and medically) transitioning. Each time you do this, you find another piece of that puzzle and slowly become the person you were always suppost to be.
Going back to the original part about the clinician, does he need more hair? I had laser reduction a few years ago, but it's starting to come back more steadily again and I'm considering seeking electrolysis. (Not a completely serious question, as I don't know where you are, but I really am considering it.)
When I first signed up for electrolysis, the clinic owner told me her whole staff is trans. Cool. I assumed that meant trans femmes, since we're the ones who usually need the facial hair removal, so it only makes sense that some of us will go into the business.
Nope! My electrolysis tech is a trans man with a full beard. Huh.
Please sign these petitions. I'm begging you.
Stop the anti-LGBTQ bills
Please reblog if you see this. This is important. This saves lives. Every reblog matters.
The Campaign for Southern Equality, in partnership with state and local organizations, is providing rapid response support to the families of youth who are impacted by anti-transgender healthcare bans that are passing across the South. We are providing grants, navigation support, and resources to impacted families as they ensure their children can access the care they need and deserve. We are currently providing support to impacted families in Mississippi, Tennessee and South Carolina, and we are preparing to work in other states.
Please join us by donating.
We are honored to work on this project in partnership with The TRANS Program, Mississippi Rising, Inclusion TN, and OUT Memphis.
(ID: text reads "Donate to support the Southern Trans Youth Emergency Fund. Fuel our work to provide direct support to trans youth and families impacted by anti-transgender healthcare bans across the south", below this the Campaign for Southern Equality logo and a link to the fund on their website.)
Dear trans youth:
I am sorry.
I am so sorry you are facing more and more hatred nationally, which I’m sure is emboldening the transphobes in your life to express more and more hatred personally. I’m so sorry your right to safely exist is seen as “controversial” in so many places. I’m so sorry laws are being passed that serve no other purpose than to harm you.
I’ve always been cis, so I can only imagine how it must feel to have your life mocked and dismissed and so often threatened, targeted as a talking-point by bigots who promote violence against you because it “polls well”.
I’m horrified by the literal, this-is-not-a-joke, actual goddamn genocide already gaining steam in the Northern Hemisphere’s taint-stain I mean South, the US South. I hate that I am watching human rights get rolled back with every election cycle. I am more ashamed of my country every day.
As a Californian I feel like I can’t do much politically, except vote and sign petitions and write long emails to various representatives (find yours here), but I can at least tell you about some resources I know of:
The Office of Transgender Initiative is a San Francisco-based national resource with just, like, pretty much everything. And if they don’t have it, they’ll know where to get it.
This Texas-based nonprofit has counseling and crises guidance.
This Atlanta-based youth group has a crisis hotline, as well as a bunch of other hotlines.
This Maine-based advocacy group can hook you up with everything from literature to social events to legal advice.
This advocacy group has tons of information and counselors, with FAQs for many relevant topics including surgery prep.
This online support group discusses the ins and outs of medical transitioning.
This discord server has several LGBTQIA+ groups.
This risk assessment map can predict just how bad your state might get in the next two years.
This nonprofit can help you find safe housing, free food, legal council, and even a job.
This organization can help you if you’re about to be homeless.
This hotline can help you find a safe place to sleep tonight.
These folks, and these folks, and these folks, can give you free legal advice, including help with emancipating from your parents if you’re a minor.
These folks, and these folks, and these folks, can also give you free legal advice, including help with seeking asylum or refugee status.
This Lifeline is a wealth of suicide prevention resources.
And every word in this sentence links to an online support group.
I wish I could do more. I wish there were more resources out there for you. (And if you know of any more, please reblog with them!) I wish we lived in a better world.
I am so sorry you have to face all this, but please, please remember that you are not facing it alone. You have allies.
We see you.
We are fighting for you.
Please don’t give up hope.
gender affirming care is listening to the same song on repeat for three days so you can learn the dude's harmonies and sing those instead of the girl's
I am trying to figure out what my options are to permentally stop my period.
I first heard of hysterectomy but then I saw lots of risks like dementia heat flashes and more.
I have also heard of a type of ablation where they destroy the lining in the uterus.
It just is kinda freaky what things could go wrong. I never wanted a period, as a kid I knew I wasn't a girl, but I knew I wasn't a boy, so I decided I had to be a girl, but I felt I wasn't girl enough for all the puberty things I had been told about. When puberty happened my world fell apart.
I'm still too young for any surgery right now, but I feel like I need to better know my options. I want to make the right decision. I want to stop my menstruation cycle permentally, with as few negative side effects as possible.
If any of you have feedback or could tell me about your experiences, I would love to hear it.
I have had a hysterectomy and lemme tell y’all smthn real quick about my experience.
Pros:
No babies.
No period.
Less dysphoria.
Better mental health literally immediately.
Cons:
No drinking/smoking for set amount of time each. (I use cbd for pain and that is not allowed during Big Pain Meds, after which I can have supplements but not carts)
No sexual anything for set amount of time (both external and internal for different amounts of time).
Body requires so much fucking calories and liquids. Get high calorie food and drinks. You will thank me. It’s annoying how often I have to eat.
For the first 24 hours after discharge I could feel the empty space where the removed tissue once resided. This is a wild experience as my body attempts to adjust to the new space and everything fights to take up as much of it as possible, as if they ascribe to Manifest Destiny.
Currently (day 19) suffering the third day of my belly button nerve being triggered from the inside by my shifting organs. This feels like I still have the ghost of my umbilical chord attached and it’s attempting to pierce me and suck out my insides but it hasn’t figured out the sucking thing yet, as well as it’s made of ghost so it’s just… touching the nerves in a ghostly way. Tartarus hath found me before my soul has left mine body and teases me with what is yet to come.
Farting. So much farting. Also, constipation is the worst. Take your anti constipation stuff. It’s not worth shitting rocks.
Will update with more Fun Facts as they come!
goes to a bottom surgery consultation and asks for this guy as my new peanis
cis ppl can have horns and swirls and spikes n shit surgically implanted under their skin any time they want if theyre rich enough but a trans woman wants boobs she has to wait at least 1-2 years for doctors to be convinced that she REALLY wants them
; ID: four images of people with tattoos covering top surgery scars. The first one is of someone with barbed wire that goes just underneath their nipples. The second is of two hands, one on either side, reaching out to one another. The third is of possibly large animal bones ( difficult for writer to figure out so sorry ) going underneath the nipples. The fourth and final is of 3 tattoos, one around the left nipple ( from viewer point of view ) that is sharp geometric shapes connected together to create a sort of cracking / chasm shape. The third is in the center of the chest and a tear drop shape with similar shapes of the previous one surrounding it, and the third surrounding the right nipple is supposedly the same as the left side, but is mostly cut off due to the person being angled. :end ID
top surgery tats
With the Alberta government announcing a ban on gender-affirming care until 16 years old, let’s take a minute to correct some misinformation using peer-reviewed publications. A thread.🧵
“High quality evidence doesn’t support gender-affirming care.”
‘High quality evidence’ is a technical term that essentially just means ’no randomized controlled trials.’ RCTs are not scientifically feasible for trans youth care and would be unethical (link).
The evidence-base for gender-affirming care is quite robust and is at least as good at the evidence base for comparable interventions like abortion and birth control. For an overview of available studies, albeit already few years outdated, see page 144 onwards (link).
“Over 80% of kids grow out of being trans.”
That’s just not true. The claim is based on old, poor-quality studies that included tons of kids who never claimed to be trans (link).
But even if we took the percentage at face value, it would be irrelevant since it’s based on pre-pubertal data and virtually all the so-called ‘desistance’ occurred before puberty, when gender-affirming care becomes available (link).
More recent, better studies suggest that only around 2.5% have ‘grown out of it’ after 5 years (link).
“Kids falsely believe that they are trans because of social contagion.”
There is no evidence for that claim. It’s based on the reports of transphobic parents who were surprised that their kid came out ‘out of the blue’ and happened to have trans friends, as trans kids tend to do. For a careful explanation of why the claim is completely unsupported by evidence, see this (link).
Studies of trans youth that used clinical data to look into the claim have also failed to find any evidence of epidemic or large-scale social contagion (link).
“We need a years-long diagnostic process to make sure kids are ‘truly’ trans before they transition.”
There is no evidence that gender assessments fare any better than self-report at predicting future outcomes, as we explain in our recent review (link).
“Gender-exploratory therapy can help identify the trauma that made these kids gender dysphoric.”
Gender-exploratory therapy is extremely difficult to distinguish from classic conversion therapy, which also starts from the premise that ‘trauma’ makes people LGBTQ2S+ (link).
Since conversion therapy is known to be harmful, we have reasons to believe that gender-exploratory therapy would be as well.
Self-directed exploration is good. Forced exploration rooted in suspicion towards trans identities isn’t. If you’re starting from the belief that trans identities are inherently suspicious, you’re not doing therapy, you’re doing transphobia.
Any more myths about gender-affirming care you’d like me to bust, Tumblr?
A survey of more than 90,000 transgender people in the U.S. — the largest nationwide survey of the community ever — found that trans people continue to experience workplace and medical discrimination. However, the overwhelming majority of them still report more life satisfaction after having transitioned. The National Center for Transgender Equality, or NCTE, one of the country’s largest trans rights organizations, released its 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey Early Insights report Wednesday after a yearslong delay due, in part, to the pandemic. The survey, the most comprehensive look to date at life for transgender people in the U.S., comes as hundreds of bills in the last three years have attempted to roll back trans rights, most often by restricting trans people’s access to transition-related health care and trans students’ abilities to play school sports.
[...]
More than one-third of adult respondents, or 34%, were experiencing poverty at the time of the survey, and 18% were unemployed. More than 1 in 10, or 11%, of respondents who had ever held jobs said they had been fired or forced to resign or had lost jobs or been laid off because of their gender identities or expressions. And, in line with previous survey findings, 30% of respondents had experienced homelessness in their lifetimes. Of adult respondents who saw health care providers in the previous 12 months, 48% reported having had at least one negative experience because they were transgender, including being refused health care, having staff members use the incorrect pronouns for them or having providers use abusive language or be physically rough or abusive while treating them. Fear of mistreatment prevented 24% of respondents from seeing doctors when they needed it in the 12 months before the survey. Many respondents also reported past mistreatment in school. Of adult respondents, 80% who were out or perceived as trans in K-12 experienced one or more forms of mistreatment, including verbal harassment, physical attacks, online bullying or being denied use of the restrooms or locker rooms that matched their gender identities. Of the 8,159 respondents who were 16 and 17, 60% reported such mistreatment. Despite those negative experiences, the vast majority of adult respondents, 79%, who lived at least some of the time in different genders from the ones they were assigned at birth reported that they were “a lot more satisfied” with their lives. An additional 15% reported they were “a little more satisfied.”
my HRT (testosterone) screening appointment has been delayed by a month after being on a wait list for a year and a half
but prior to that, i was told by doctors over and over for around four years that i wasn't not allowed to apply for gender-affirming care because of my age. my doctor at the time was incredibly transphobic (she refused to use correct pronouns and name even after I legally changed it)… they refused everything, including puberty blockers, which would have significantly decreased the possibility of my disability developing.
safe to say i'm angry
all up, it's been about six years of begging.
tw suicide
.. i don't want to know what will happen if they push it back again. considering holding onto getting HRT is one of two threads stopping another suicide attempt.
HRT is SO IMPORTANT.
surgery that turns me into the ao oni oni
Vent
TW death
So I was talking about gender affirming care in class and my friend said that people die from those surgeries and I continued talking about it because I'm doing a project on it and she got upset and I was confused until I learned her friend died of a gender affirming surgery and so I feel terrible