#gender therapist online

[sharkneto]

Hey, sorry if this is a bit of a personal question - and feel free to ignore it if it is - but how did you know you wanted to start hrt? I am someone who IDs as transmasc and knows in an ideal world, I would've loved to have been born a guy. But the idea of going on hormones is terrifying because I can't figure out if I really want it... I worry about regretting it, or it making me 'unappealing' physically, or my friends judging me for it. Did you ever struggle with similar worries?

I think every person thinking about and starting HRT goes through this. A rite of passage, if you will, and also not a bad thing to do. HRT is a big step, some of the changes (especially on T) are irreversible. It's good to think through if it's a choice that's right for you or not.

That said, it's also Just A Thing You Can Do. I first started really questioning my gender at the end of 2020 (thank you, Elliot Page, for coming out and making me go "oh shit, you can do that?"). I got a therapist to talk about gender... Mid 2022? And started hormones spring 2023, top surgery a year later.

Before getting the therapist, I spent over a year Just Thinking About It. And a lot of the thoughts were around the changes on T and if I'd like them or not or if I'd regret them. If I'd be ugly, after being conventionally attractive as a woman.

It hits a point, though, where eventually you have to pull the plug one way or another. I spent a lot of time thinking about how my body would change on T. A Lot. With longing. I caught myself putting things off Until I Knew For Sure and because I didn't want to do it while being perceived as a woman. I was sitting, treading water for a hypothetical Later that I could start moving towards at any time. I was scared for the Teenage Round 2 phase, and didn't want to spend months being "ugly and awkward", but then the months passed anyway and I was still in the same spot.

HRT isn't an all-or-nothing thing, you can ease into it on a low dose. My doctor started me on a low dose and we ramped up over months. Some T changes can start pretty quickly (voice dropping, bottom growth - this isn't true for everyone, but was true for me). If these changes excite you, make you feel good - great! Keep going! If they scare you, feel wrong - stop. Assess. Figure out what about it isn't right (a gender therapist for all of this process is a Huge Help). In early days if you stop T, the changes can revert, for the most part. But you can always stop at any time.

The bigger thing I actively worked to wrap my head around before starting HRT is - Who Cares If You're Wrong? What's right for you now might not be right for you later. The idea of detransitioning was scary to me, society has such a weird spotlight on it, the Right uses people who have detransitioned as props against transition. But it shouldn't matter. At the end of the day, if I do change my mind, I'll know myself better, and I don't think it's wrong to chase and find comfort in your own body.

A year+ on T, I've mostly made it through the ugly duck phase, I think. I was lucky, I didn't get bad acne or get too oily or anything (after having horrible acne in my first puberty). Most of what I dealt with was the chronic baby face, where I was getting read as male but a teenager - I'm almost 30 and a woman wanted to card me over a free T-shirt at a baseball game because it had beer logos on it. After some middle months of changes and going "oh my god what am I doing" and not feeling confident in how this was all going to turn out, I think of myself as relatively attractive and I think I'm just going to get more vain as my beard comes in. Some of that is physical, sure, but I think a significant amount of that is me feeling more confident in myself and liking the body I'm in more. I was never a selfie or picture person, now I am. I joke I'm like a budgie, always looking at myself if there's a reflective surface nearby. I'm more excited to exercise, I'm interested in lifting weights for the first time, I'm curious what my body on T can do and become. Keep your eyes on the pieces that are going well, the changes exciting you, and let the rest catch up.

My social circle helped a lot. I'm very lucky and blessed to have great friends and family, all of whom are supportive. If you don't have friends who are supportive of you, that are judging you for exploring yourself rather than lifting you up for it, it's a sign to expand the social circle and find ones that are. Family is harder, but that's a thing you have to navigate for yourself and find your own boundaries for.

So, there's no ~one moment~ where you're 100% certain that medical transition is right for you. It's a huge unknown and you're changing the body you've had your entire life. At some point, though, you just have to jump and see how it lands. Part of being alive is making mistakes and doing things you might regret.

That said, the regret rate for trans people is something like 3%. The regret rate for knee surgery is something like 20%. Trust yourself.

[twinkskeletons]

Adhd or autism? (Respectfully)

if ur asking what i have im like 99% sure im autistic and could possibly be adhd as well. idk too much abt the symptoms havent really looked into it but i often interrupt coversations pick up new hobbies + give up very quickly cant stand still poor memory etc

[barbiefaeg]

I think something a lot of cis ppl don’t realize is like. And I’m not saying this applies to all trans ppl but in my experience. I have experienced specific trauma that mainly cis women have experienced and so, when I look for guidance in how to heal from that trauma from generalized sources they will almost entirely only mention “women” having experienced said trauma. And thus two things. 1. It’s not that big of a deal but I feel I constantly have to remind myself I’m allowed to seek this guidance and heal even though the text isn’t technically directed toward me, a trans man. 2. It kinda sucks feeling like you relate to something and then consistently being reminded by the text that it’s directed at a demographic you feel very uncomfortable being grouped into 3. Sometimes the guidance doesn’t help! Some times integral to the guidance is something about celebrating womanhood… like even painful or traumatic experiences I’ve had and need to heal from are identical to many cis women’s experiences. I’m not a woman. And celebrating anything perceived as my “womanhood” would be very painful for me.

[beazt]

something I don’t really see mentioned or acknowledged at all is that “being in the closet” is a spectrum.

some people are only out to themselves.

some people are only out online.

some people are only out on specific websites or accounts.

some people are only out on a specific space on an account, such as a discord server.

some people are only out irl.

some people are only out when they’re in an area they don’t live in (such as the next city over, or on vacation).

some people are only out to their therapist and/or medical team.

some people are only out at school/uni.

some people are only out at work.

some people are only out to their family.

some people are only out to their friends.

some people are only out to their partner(s).

some people are only out to specific family/friends/partners.

some people express a muted or more “palatable” version of their identity in some or all spaces, not necessarily expressing the fullness of their identity anywhere but to themselves.

some people are partially or fully expressing their gender and/or sexuality, but not expressing other identity signifiers such as new pronouns or name.

or the above but express different versions of these signifiers in different circumstances or spaces.

some people express their identity fully, but don’t correct anyone who is “wrong” or tell anyone the full extent of their identity, with some answering when asked and others not.

some people have come out “fully”, and gone back into the closet “fully.”

some people are stealth, and are very cautious about who they allow (if anyone) to know their full identity.

and most queer people are incredibly complex mixtures of all of the above scenarios, and many more. I can’t possibly list them all.

we cannot meaningfully divide experiences between those who are “in/out of the closet” (full stop) because individual experience is way more nuanced than that. and everyone’s definition of either in/out is going to be different, ranging from “if 1 other person knows, you’re out of the closet” to “unless everybody knows the full extent of your identity, you’re not out of the closet.”

[st-dionysus]

(The Poem is named) Emetophobia CW

It’s 2024 and I’m in a 20 year old drag bar, watching the very first trans-masculine performer to compete on their stage, he gets second place even though he deserved first.

I show up to the men’s bathhouse on trans night to get free entry and get turned away at the door, and told it’s for transgirls only, bitch you could have put it on the flyer that transmen need not apply.

I’m doing a line of ketamine off the table, calling it stealing transfem valor.

I get banned from the camsite for listing myself as transgender when I don’t have a dick, I complain online and get told that the trans-masculine body is to grotesque to be fetishized and I should be grateful.

I wear a packer and hitch up a skirt, walk the street, get $20, calling it stealing transfem valor.

Cissie puts a TW #body-mutilation tag under my thirst trap. Tranny puts a TW #dysphoria tag under my thirst trap.

T-girl with a callout post pedojackets me, Enby with TME in bio pedojackets me, T-boy with a self-deprecating joke about men in his bio pedojackets me.

I do another line of ketamine off the table, calling it stealing transfem valor.

I am at the woman’s clinic, I am at the woman’s clinic, I am at the woman’s clinic wearing a mask – not cause I’m compromised (I am), just to hide my beard – avoiding making everyone uncomfortable.

I am getting re-diagnosed with BPD, which just means I have bitch disorder and no one trusts me.

I take my pills and throw them up. I drink my liquor before the beer and throw them up.

I am just 14 when the picture and videos go up. Remind me that I have it easy, they were only pictures and videos.

I am just 17 when the recording of my proof stops before it happens, my phone memory is full, I’m called a liar and now I can’t see buttered crackers, thanksgiving, or sriracha sauce without wanting to kill myself.

No one gets me therapy, but they still want to convert me, she puts her hands down my pants, at least I’m 19, to remind me I’m a woman – tell me how they love trans men again.

I do a third line of ketamine off the table, realize it doesn’t effect me, calling it stealing transfem valor.

I call myself a dog, I start biting my lovers and I have to hold back from ripping out a chunk of flesh, I don’t think I’d throw it up.

I am reading the statistics, 40% of BPD patients try and kill themselves. 1 in 2 transgender men try and kill themselves. I’m one of them. I’m 12 and I swallowed all the pills. I’m 14 and the gun is empty. I’m 17 and I put the box-opener against my throat. Therapist calls me a liar, there is no scar, and my words don’t count for anything.

I’m using he/him pronouns for Stormé DeLarverie, like the stonewall veteran association said to, and telling you he started the riot, calling it stealing transfem valor from a woman who told you she didn’t fucking do it.

I’m shoving my fingers down my throat in a fit of mania, convinced I can vomit up my uterus. She tells me I should be grateful, she’d do anything to be able to get pregnant.

My brother in the struggle gets bottom surgery without top, calling it stealing transfem valor to feel comfortable in his body.

It’s 2024 and I’m at trans pride, the announcers tells everyone to give a round of applause for trans woman, a round of applause for gender-queers, a round of applause for transfems, a round of applause for the enbies, a round of applause for trans-masculine people. You forgot someone. Did you know a trans man started the first ever transgender pride parade?

A book on queer history talks about gay men and lesbians and trans women and the women who dressed as men for better job opportunities. I’m reminded that my invisibility is a privilege, if you aren’t seen you don’t get bashed.

I’m 13 and they throw me in the girls bathroom, pin me down, beat me, and in black sharpie write “dyke”, write “tranny”, write “lesbo”, and pull my hair out the cap I shoved it in.

I’m 19 with D cups that a binder can’t hide and a beard I refuse to shave less I break the mirror and kill myself with the shards of glass I would swallow.

Man at the bus stop calls me tranny and tells me I’ll never be a woman. I’d laugh if he didn’t have his hand on my throat. Calling it stealing transfem valor.

I’m 21 and have to pull a taser on him, cause from the back, even with short hair and top surgery, I look rape-able.

I’m 23 and in the gay district when they chase me down the street, calling me faggot.

Make another forcemasc post, calling it stealing transfem valor.

Read an article about a trans man prostitute that kills himself and ends up another female statistic.

Read an article about a trans man shooter, they blame the HRT he didn’t have access too.

Going to read a callout about me, five pages on Google Docs, does this post make it on the list?

Do a final line of ketamine, write the final line of a poem that makes me want to die, calling it stealing transfem valor.

I puke and miss the toilet.

[itsawritblr]

Holy shit, the New York Times is FINALLY interviewing and listening to detransistioners.

The tide is turning.

Opinion by Pamela Paul

As Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They No Longer Do.

Feb. 2, 2024

Grace Powell was 12 or 13 when she discovered she could be a boy.

Growing up in a relatively conservative community in Grand Rapids, Mich., Powell, like many teenagers, didn’t feel comfortable in her own skin. She was unpopular and frequently bullied. Puberty made everything worse. She suffered from depression and was in and out of therapy.

“I felt so detached from my body, and the way it was developing felt hostile to me,” Powell told me. It was classic gender dysphoria, a feeling of discomfort with your sex.

Reading about transgender people online, Powell believed that the reason she didn’t feel comfortable in her body was that she was in the wrong body. Transitioning seemed like the obvious solution. The narrative she had heard and absorbed was that if you don’t transition, you’ll kill yourself.

At 17, desperate to begin hormone therapy, Powell broke the news to her parents. They sent her to a gender specialist to make sure she was serious. In the fall of her senior year of high school, she started cross-sex hormones. She had a double mastectomy the summer before college, then went off as a transgender man named Grayson to Sarah Lawrence College, where she was paired with a male roommate on a men’s floor. At 5-foot-3, she felt she came across as a very effeminate gay man.

At no point during her medical or surgical transition, Powell says, did anyone ask her about the reasons behind her gender dysphoria or her depression. At no point was she asked about her sexual orientation. And at no point was she asked about any previous trauma, and so neither the therapists nor the doctors ever learned that she’d been sexually abused as a child.

“I wish there had been more open conversations,” Powell, now 23 and detransitioned, told me. “But I was told there is one cure and one thing to do if this is your problem, and this will help you.”

Progressives often portray the heated debate over childhood transgender care as a clash between those who are trying to help growing numbers of children express what they believe their genders to be and conservative politicians who won’t let kids be themselves.

But right-wing demagogues are not the only ones who have inflamed this debate. Transgender activists have pushed their own ideological extremism, especially by pressing for a treatment orthodoxy that has faced increased scrutiny in recent years. Under that model of care, clinicians are expected to affirm a young person’s assertion of gender identity and even provide medical treatment before, or even without, exploring other possible sources of distress.

Many who think there needs to be a more cautious approach — including well-meaning liberal parents, doctors and people who have undergone gender transition and subsequently regretted their procedures — have been attacked as anti-trans and intimidated into silencing their concerns.

And while Donald Trump denounces “left-wing gender insanity” and many trans activists describe any opposition as transphobic, parents in America’s vast ideological middle can find little dispassionate discussion of the genuine risks or trade-offs involved in what proponents call gender-affirming care.

Powell’s story shows how easy it is for young people to get caught up by the pull of ideology in this atmosphere.

“What should be a medical and psychological issue has been morphed into a political one,” Powell lamented during our conversation. “It’s a mess.”

A New and Growing Group of Patients

Many transgender adults are happy with their transitions and, whether they began to transition as adults or adolescents, feel it was life changing, even lifesaving. The small but rapidly growing number of children who express gender dysphoria and who transition at an early age, according to clinicians, is a recent and more controversial phenomenon.

Laura Edwards-Leeper, the founding psychologist of the first pediatric gender clinic in the United States, said that when she started her practice in 2007, most of her patients had longstanding and deep-seated gender dysphoria. Transitioning clearly made sense for almost all of them, and any mental health issues they had were generally resolved through gender transition.

“But that is just not the case anymore,” she told me recently. While she doesn’t regret transitioning the earlier cohort of patients and opposes government bans on transgender medical care, she said, “As far as I can tell, there are no professional organizations who are stepping in to regulate what’s going on.”

Most of her patients now, she said, have no history of childhood gender dysphoria. Others refer to this phenomenon, with some controversy, as rapid onset gender dysphoria, in which adolescents, particularly tween and teenage girls, express gender dysphoria despite never having done so when they were younger. Frequently, they have mental health issues unrelated to gender. While professional associations say there is a lack of quality research on rapid onset gender dysphoria, several researchers have documented the phenomenon, and many health care providers have seen evidence of it in their practices.

“The population has changed drastically,” said Edwards-Leeper, a former head of the Child and Adolescent Committee for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the organization responsible for setting gender transition guidelines for medical professionals.

For these young people, she told me, “you have to take time to really assess what’s going on and hear the timeline and get the parents’ perspective in order to create an individualized treatment plan. Many providers are completely missing that step.”

Yet those health care professionals and scientists who do not think clinicians should automatically agree to a young person’s self-diagnosis are often afraid to speak out. A report commissioned by the National Health Service about Britain’s Tavistock gender clinic, which, until it was ordered to be shut down, was the country’s only health center dedicated to gender identity, noted that “primary and secondary care staff have told us that they feel under pressure to adopt an unquestioning affirmative approach and that this is at odds with the standard process of clinical assessment and diagnosis that they have been trained to undertake in all other clinical encounters.”

Of the dozens of students she’s trained as psychologists, Edwards-Leeper said, few still seem to be providing gender-related care. While her students have left the field for various reasons, “some have told me that they didn’t feel they could continue because of the pushback, the accusations of being transphobic, from being pro-assessment and wanting a more thorough process,” she said.

They have good reasons to be wary. Stephanie Winn, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Oregon, was trained in gender-affirming care and treated multiple transgender patients. But in 2020, after coming across detransition videos online, she began to doubt the gender-affirming model. In 2021 she spoke out in favor of approaching gender dysphoria in a more considered way, urging others in the field to pay attention to detransitioners, people who no longer consider themselves transgender after undergoing medical or surgical interventions. She has since been attacked by transgender activists. Some threatened to send complaints to her licensing board saying that she was trying to make trans kids change their minds through conversion therapy.

In April 2022, the Oregon Board of Licensed Professional Counselors and Therapists told Winn that she was under investigation. Her case was ultimately dismissed, but Winn no longer treats minors and practices only online, where many of her patients are worried parents of trans-identifying children.

“I don’t feel safe having a location where people can find me,” she said.

Detransitioners say that only conservative media outlets seem interested in telling their stories, which has left them open to attacks as hapless tools of the right, something that frustrated and dismayed every detransitioner I interviewed. These are people who were once the trans-identified kids that so many organizations say they’re trying to protect — but when they change their minds, they say, they feel abandoned.

Most parents and clinicians are simply trying to do what they think is best for the children involved. But parents with qualms about the current model of care are frustrated by what they see as a lack of options.

Parents told me it was a struggle to balance the desire to compassionately support a child with gender dysphoria while seeking the best psychological and medical care. Many believed their kids were gay or dealing with an array of complicated issues. But all said they felt compelled by gender clinicians, doctors, schools and social pressure to accede to their child’s declared gender identity even if they had serious doubts. They feared it would tear apart their family if they didn’t unquestioningly support social transition and medical treatment. All asked to speak anonymously, so desperate were they to maintain or repair any relationship with their children, some of whom were currently estranged.

Several of those who questioned their child’s self-diagnosis told me it had ruined their relationship. A few parents said simply, “I feel like I’ve lost my daughter.”

One mother described a meeting with 12 other parents in a support group for relatives of trans-identified youth where all of the participants described their children as autistic or otherwise neurodivergent. To all questions, the woman running the meeting replied, “Just let them transition.” The mother left in shock. How would hormones help a child with obsessive-compulsive disorder or depression? she wondered.

Some parents have found refuge in anonymous online support groups. There, people share tips on finding caregivers who will explore the causes of their children’s distress or tend to their overall emotional and developmental health and well-being without automatically acceding to their children’s self-diagnosis.

Many parents of kids who consider themselves trans say their children were introduced to transgender influencers on YouTube or TikTok, a phenomenon intensified for some by the isolation and online cocoon of Covid. Others say their kids learned these ideas in the classroom, as early as elementary school, often in child-friendly ways through curriculums supplied by trans rights organizations, with concepts like the gender unicorn or the Genderbread person.

‘Do You Want a Dead Son or a Live Daughter?’

After Kathleen’s 15-year-old son, whom she described as an obsessive child, abruptly told his parents he was trans, the doctor who was going to assess whether he had A.D.H.D. referred him instead to someone who specialized in both A.D.H.D. and gender. Kathleen, who asked to be identified only by her first name to protect her son’s privacy, assumed that the specialist would do some kind of evaluation or assessment. That was not the case.

The meeting was brief and began on a shocking note. “In front of my son, the therapist said, ‘Do you want a dead son or a live daughter?’” Kathleen recounted.

Parents are routinely warned that to pursue any path outside of agreeing with a child’s self-declared gender identity is to put a gender dysphoric youth at risk for suicide, which feels to many people like emotional blackmail. Proponents of the gender-affirming model have cited studies showing an association between that standard of care and a lower risk of suicide. But those studies were found to have methodological flaws or have been deemed not entirely conclusive. A survey of studies on the psychological effects of cross-sex hormones, published three years ago in The Journal of the Endocrine Society, the professional organization for hormone specialists, found it “could not draw any conclusions about death by suicide.” In a letter to The Wall Street Journal last year, 21 experts from nine countries said that survey was one reason they believed there was “no reliable evidence to suggest that hormonal transition is an effective suicide prevention measure.”

Moreover, the incidence of suicidal thoughts and attempts among gender dysphoric youth is complicated by the high incidence of accompanying conditions, such as autism spectrum disorder. As one systematic overview put it, “Children with gender dysphoria often experience a range of psychiatric comorbidities, with a high prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders, trauma, eating disorders and autism spectrum conditions, suicidality and self-harm.”

But rather than being treated as patients who deserve unbiased professional help, children with gender dysphoria often become political pawns.

Conservative lawmakers are working to ban access to gender care for minors and occasionally for adults as well. On the other side, however, many medical and mental health practitioners feel their hands have been tied by activist pressure and organizational capture. They say that it has become difficult to practice responsible mental health care or medicine for these young people.

Pediatricians, psychologists and other clinicians who dissent from this orthodoxy, believing that it is not based on reliable evidence, feel frustrated by their professional organizations. The American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have wholeheartedly backed the gender-affirming model.

In 2021, Aaron Kimberly, a 50-year-old trans man and registered nurse, left the clinic in British Columbia where his job focused on the intake and assessment of gender-dysphoric youth. Kimberly received a comprehensive screening when he embarked on his own successful transition at age 33, which resolved the gender dysphoria he experienced from an early age.

But when the gender-affirming model was introduced at his clinic, he was instructed to support the initiation of hormone treatment for incoming patients regardless of whether they had complex mental problems, experiences with trauma or were otherwise “severely unwell,” Kimberly said. When he referred patients for further mental health care rather than immediate hormone treatment, he said he was accused of what they called gatekeeping and had to change jobs.

“I realized something had gone totally off the rails,” Kimberly, who subsequently founded the Gender Dysphoria Alliance and the L.G.B.T. Courage Coalition to advocate better gender care, told me.

Gay men and women often told me they fear that same-sex-attracted kids, especially effeminate boys and tomboy girls who are gender nonconforming, will be transitioned during a normal phase of childhood and before sexual maturation — and that gender ideology can mask and even abet homophobia.

As one detransitioned man, now in a gay relationship, put it, “I was a gay man pumped up to look like a woman and dated a lesbian who was pumped up to look like a man. If that’s not conversion therapy, I don’t know what is.”

“I transitioned because I didn’t want to be gay,” Kasey Emerick, a 23-year-old woman and detransitioner from Pennsylvania, told me. Raised in a conservative Christian church, she said, “I believed homosexuality was a sin.”

When she was 15, Emerick confessed her homosexuality to her mother. Her mother attributed her sexual orientation to trauma — Emerick’s father was convicted of raping and assaulting her repeatedly when she was between the ages of 4 and 7 — but after catching Emerick texting with another girl at age 16, she took away her phone. When Emerick melted down, her mother admitted her to a psychiatric hospital. While there, Emerick told herself, “If I was a boy, none of this would have happened.”

In May 2017, Emerick began searching “gender” online and encountered trans advocacy websites. After realizing she could “pick the other side,” she told her mother, “I’m sick of being called a dyke and not a real girl.” If she were a man, she’d be free to pursue relationships with women.

That September, she and her mother met with a licensed professional counselor for the first of two 90-minute consultations. She told the counselor that she had wished to be a Boy Scout rather than a Girl Scout. She said she didn’t like being gay or a butch lesbian. She also told the counselor that she had suffered from anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation. The clinic recommended testosterone, which was prescribed by a nearby L.G.B.T.Q. health clinic. Shortly thereafter, she was also diagnosed with A.D.H.D. She developed panic attacks. At age 17, she was cleared for a double mastectomy.

“I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m having my breasts removed. I’m 17. I’m too young for this,’” she recalled. But she went ahead with the operation.

“Transition felt like a way to control something when I couldn’t control anything in my life,” Emerick explained. But after living as a trans man for five years, Emerick realized her mental health symptoms were only getting worse. In the fall of 2022, she came out as a detransitioner on Twitter and was immediately attacked. Transgender influencers told her she was bald and ugly. She received multiple threats.

“I thought my life was over,” she said. “I realized that I had lived a lie for over five years.”

Today Emerick’s voice, permanently altered by testosterone, is that of a man. When she tells people she’s a detransitioner, they ask when she plans to stop taking T and live as a woman. “I’ve been off it for a year,” she replies.

Once, after she recounted her story to a therapist, the therapist tried to reassure her. If it’s any consolation, the therapist remarked, “I would never have guessed that you were once a trans woman.” Emerick replied, “Wait, what sex do you think I am?”

To the trans activist dictum that children know their gender best, it is important to add something all parents know from experience: Children change their minds all the time. One mother told me that after her teenage son desisted — pulled back from a trans identity before any irreversible medical procedures — he explained, “I was just rebelling. I look at it like a subculture, like being goth.”

“The job of children and adolescents is to experiment and explore where they fit into the world, and a big part of that exploration, especially during adolescence, is around their sense of identity,” Sasha Ayad, a licensed professional counselor based in Phoenix, told me. “Children at that age often present with a great deal of certainty and urgency about who they believe they are at the time and things they would like to do in order to enact that sense of identity.”

Ayad, a co-author of “When Kids Say They’re Trans: A Guide for Thoughtful Parents,” advises parents to be wary of the gender affirmation model. “We’ve always known that adolescents are particularly malleable in relationship to their peers and their social context and that exploration is often an attempt to navigate difficulties of that stage, such as puberty, coming to terms with the responsibilities and complications of young adulthood, romance and solidifying their sexual orientation,” she told me. For providing this kind of exploratory approach in her own practice with gender dysphoric youth, Ayad has had her license challenged twice, both times by adults who were not her patients. Both times, the charges were dismissed.

Studies show that around eight in 10 cases of childhood gender dysphoria resolve themselves by puberty and 30 percent of people on hormone therapy discontinue its use within four years, though the effects, including infertility, are often irreversible.

Proponents of early social transition and medical interventions for gender dysphoric youth cite a 2022 study showing that 98 percent of children who took both puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones continued treatment for short periods, and another study that tracked 317 children who socially transitioned between the ages of 3 and 12, which found that 94 percent of them still identified as transgender five years later. But such early interventions may cement children’s self-conceptions without giving them time to think or sexually mature.

‘The Process of Transition Didn’t Make Me Feel Better’

At the end of her freshman year of college, Grace Powell, horrifically depressed, began dissociating, feeling detached from her body and from reality, which had never happened to her before. Ultimately, she said, “the process of transition didn’t make me feel better. It magnified what I found was wrong with myself.”

“I expected it to change everything, but I was just me, with a slightly deeper voice,” she added. “It took me two years to start detransitioning and living as Grace again.”

She tried in vain to find a therapist who would treat her underlying issues, but they kept asking her: How do you want to be seen? Do you want to be nonbinary? Powell wanted to talk about her trauma, not her identity or her gender presentation. She ended up getting online therapy from a former employee of the Tavistock clinic in Britain. This therapist, a woman who has broken from the gender-affirming model, talked Grace through what she sees as her failure to launch and her efforts to reset. The therapist asked questions like: Who is Grace? What do you want from your life? For the first time, Powell felt someone was seeing and helping her as a person, not simply looking to slot her into an identity category.

Many detransitioners say they face ostracism and silencing because of the toxic politics around transgender issues.

“It is extraordinarily frustrating to feel that something I am is inherently political,” Powell told me. “I’ve been accused multiple times that I’m some right-winger who’s making a fake narrative to discredit transgender people, which is just crazy.”

While she believes there are people who benefit from transitioning, “I wish more people would understand that there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution,” she said. “I wish we could have that conversation.”

In a recent study in The Archives of Sexual Behavior, about 40 young detransitioners out of 78 surveyed said they had suffered from rapid onset gender dysphoria. Trans activists have fought hard to suppress any discussion of rapid onset gender dysphoria, despite evidence that the condition is real. In its guide for journalists, the activist organization GLAAD warns the media against using the term, as it is not “a formal condition or diagnosis.” Human Rights Campaign, another activist group, calls it “a right-wing theory.” A group of professional organizations put out a statement urging clinicians to eliminate the term from use.

Nobody knows how many young people desist after social, medical or surgical transitions. Trans activists often cite low regret rates for gender transition, along with low figures for detransition. But those studies, which often rely on self-reported cases to gender clinics, likely understate the actual numbers. None of the seven detransitioners I interviewed, for instance, even considered reporting back to the gender clinics that prescribed them medication they now consider to have been a mistake. Nor did they know any other detransitioners who had done so.

As Americans furiously debate the basis of transgender care, a number of advances in understanding have taken place in Europe, where the early Dutch studies that became the underpinning of gender-affirming care have been broadly questioned and criticized. Unlike some of the current population of gender dysphoric youth, the Dutch study participants had no serious psychological conditions. Those studies were riddled with methodological flaws and weaknesses. There was no evidence that any intervention was lifesaving. There was no long-term follow-up with any of the study’s 55 participants or the 15 who dropped out. A British effort to replicate the study said that it “identified no changes in psychological function” and that more studies were needed.

In countries like Sweden, Norway, France, the Netherlands and Britain — long considered exemplars of gender progress — medical professionals have recognized that early research on medical interventions for childhood gender dysphoria was either faulty or incomplete. Last month, the World Health Organization, in explaining why it is developing “a guideline on the health of trans and gender diverse people,” said it will cover only adults because “the evidence base for children and adolescents is limited and variable regarding the longer-term outcomes of gender-affirming care for children and adolescents.”

But in America, and Canada, the results of those widely criticized Dutch studies are falsely presented to the public as settled science.

Other countries have recently halted or limited the medical and surgical treatment of gender dysphoric youth, pending further study. Britain’s Tavistock clinic was ordered to be shut down next month, after a National Health Service-commissioned investigation found deficiencies in service and “a lack of consensus and open discussion about the nature of gender dysphoria and therefore about the appropriate clinical response.”

Meanwhile, the American medical establishment has hunkered down, stuck in an outdated model of gender affirmation. The American Academy of Pediatrics only recently agreed to conduct more research in response to yearslong efforts by dissenting experts, including Dr. Julia Mason, a self-described “bleeding-heart liberal.”

The larger threat to transgender people comes from Republicans who wish to deny them rights and protections. But the doctrinal rigidity of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is disappointing, frustrating and counterproductive.

“I was always a liberal Democrat,” one woman whose son desisted after social transition and hormone therapy told me. “Now I feel politically homeless.”

She noted that the Biden administration has “unequivocally” supported gender-affirming care for minors, in cases in which it deems it “medically appropriate and necessary.” Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told NPR in 2022 that “there is no argument among medical professionals — pediatricians, pediatric endocrinologists, adolescent medicine physicians, adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, et cetera — about the value and the importance of gender-affirming care.”

Of course, politics should not influence medical practice, whether the issue is birth control, abortion or gender medicine. But unfortunately, politics has gotten in the way of progress. Last year The Economist published a thorough investigation into America’s approach to gender medicine. Zanny Minton Beddoes, the editor, put the issue into political context. “If you look internationally at countries in Europe, the U.K. included, their medical establishments are much more concerned,” Beddoes told Vanity Fair. “But here — in part because this has become wrapped up in the culture wars where you have, you know, crazy extremes from the Republican right — if you want to be an upstanding liberal, you feel like you can’t say anything.”

Some people are trying to open up that dialogue, or at least provide outlets for kids and families to seek a more therapeutic approach to gender dysphoria.

Paul Garcia-Ryan is a psychotherapist in New York who cares for kids and families seeking holistic, exploratory care for gender dysphoria. He is also a detransitioner who from ages 15 to 30 fully believed he was a woman.

Garcia-Ryan is gay, but as a boy, he said, “it was much less threatening to my psyche to think that I was a straight girl born into the wrong body — that I had a medical condition that could be tended to.” When he visited a clinic at 15, the clinician immediately affirmed he was female, and rather than explore the reasons for his mental distress, simply confirmed Garcia-Ryan’s belief that he was not meant to be a man.

Once in college, he began medically transitioning and eventually had surgery on his genitals. Severe medical complications from both the surgery and hormone medication led him to reconsider what he had done, and to detransition. He also reconsidered the basis of gender affirmation, which, as a licensed clinical social worker at a gender clinic, he had been trained in and provided to clients.

“You’re made to believe these slogans,” he said. “Evidence-based, lifesaving care, safe and effective, medically necessary, the science is settled — and none of that is evidence based.”

Garcia-Ryan, 32, is now the board president of Therapy First, an organization that supports therapists who do not agree with the gender affirmation model. He thinks transition can help some people manage the symptoms of gender dysphoria but no longer believes anyone under 25 should socially, medically or surgically transition without exploratory psychotherapy first.

“When a professional affirms a gender identity for a younger person, what they are doing is implementing a psychological intervention that narrows a person’s sense of self and closes off their options for considering what’s possible for them,” Garcia-Ryan told me.

Instead of promoting unproven treatments for children, which surveys show many Americans are uncomfortable with, transgender activists would be more effective if they focused on a shared agenda. Most Americans across the political spectrum can agree on the need for legal protections for transgender adults. They would also probably support additional research on the needs of young people reporting gender dysphoria so that kids could get the best treatment possible.

A shift in this direction would model tolerance and acceptance. It would prioritize compassion over demonization. It would require rising above culture-war politics and returning to reason. It would be the most humane path forward. And it would be the right thing to do.

*~*~*~*~*~*

For those who want tor ead more by those fighting the cancellation forquestioning, read:

Graham Lineham, who's been fighting since the beginning and paid the price, but is not seeing things turn around.

The Glinner Update, Grahan Linehan's Substack.

Kellie-Jay Keen @ThePosieParker, who's been physically attacked for organizing events for women demanding women-only spaces.

REDUXX, Feminst news & opinion.

Gays Against Groomers @againstgrmrs, A nonprofit of gay people and others within the community against the sexualization, indoctrination and medicalization of children under the guise of "LGBTQIA+"

[so-i-did-this-thing]

im sorry if this is too personal a question.

but how did you manage to transition so well? is there a secret to it? im too scared to take my first step and i don't know where to start.

-a trans guy

I choose my camera angles very carefully.

A glib reply, but it's the truth. What I put out here is a crafted persona to make myself feel better about the shortcomings of my own transition. And myself, really. We all feel scared and insecure, even those of us who transition "well". The first step is still the hardest. Mine was at rock bottom, my depression and hoarding exacerbated to where I was starting to live (just exist, really) in squalor. I had no money for transition, but after selling a few things and finding a new job, found some after all. There's ways to make it work. A local LGBT center who can refer you to a therapist or doctor, some local community. Other online trans folks who can direct you to informed consent clinics, or explain how they got their paperwork done. Facebook groups about top surgery where folks of all genders share their fears and euphoria. There's no one place to start. Maybe it's trying on a new name or pronouns in a safe place for a while. New clothes or a haircut. Or maybe it's leaping into the fire and starting on T as soon as you can. It boils down to what makes you feel safe and what you need to keep going. It'll be tough, to learn that some of the people in your life life have a love that is conditional and you never knew. It's tough being vulnerable and running into people who are repulsed by that. Some folks will set impossible standards, where you can never transition slow enough for them. And it's tough still having to do all the other things you need to in life, like wake up and go to work, feed yourself properly, clean the house. Remember to be kind to yourself. Sometimes that means waiting until morning to wash the dishes, and sometimes that means cleaning them right away because you know your tendency to let things slide. But the good tends to outweigh the bad. You'll find confidence you never knew you had, you will. Don't shut yourself away. You'll find new people who share your morals, and discover that some folks who have always been in your life will always have your back. Some might even surprise you in a good way. You'll find yourself smiling at your reflection more and more. And weirdly, what seemed out of reach will become mundane in an amazing, wonderful way. And you'll find yourself thinking more about the future as something that you can control, rather than something that just happens to you. You'll probably learn new things about yourself along the way, too, be it about your gender, your sexuality, or really anything under the sun.

And you might find yourself writing to help out someone who was where you were nearly 30 years ago.

Take care. You probably know already what you need to do. <3

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for telling my friends I want to use they/them pronouns for a bad reason?

I (19F) am 100% a cis girl, but never really felt like I was "allowed" to be girly or feminine because of a lot of internal and external sexism and misogyny in my house growing up. No one ever really acknowledged the fact that I was a girl, unless it was in a negative sense. I was also homeschooled, so that made things worse because limited social interaction and stuff.

Now that I'm older and have a lot more connection with people through the internet, I'm a lot more comfortable with my identity and genuinely love being perceived as a girl. I understand the gender euphoria trans people feel when someone uses she/her pronouns for me. I also feel a hint of disappointment when people I don't know use they/them for me online (e.g. "prev knows their stuff").

With context out of the way, what actually happened was a few weeks ago. I went through a depressive episode, which came with the usual feelings of not ever deserving good things in life or happiness of any kind, and that no one cared/should care about me. As part of that, I withdrew from my friends for a couple days, leaving our discord server and blocking all of them (I know I shouldn't have done that, we worked it out). When I finally returned, I told them in vague terms that things were rough, I was a mess, and I wanted to start using they/them. I'm the only cis person in the group of 8 people so no one batted an eye about my request and just went along with it.

Here's where I might be the ah: the only reason I asked that is because I thought I didn't deserve to feel good about myself in any way, including my gender. My friends don't know I was asking them for help in basically punishing myself. I know if they'd known they would never go along with it. I also feel like an ah for using my privilege of being cis and having accepting friends to punish myself when there's real people in the world suffering because people refuse to gender them correctly.

Additional details that might be relevant: my friends are great, we met online about two years ago in a bigger server and grew closer and made our own small server not too long after. They know about my mental health issues and have helped me a lot. Almost everyone I know irl is transphobic and homophobic, so my reference for what is offensive and what isn't is kinda off. I still live with my family and they're by no means bad people. I'm also in the process of finding a therapist.

What are these acronyms?

[cleolinda]

Every time I get super positive about how the new herniated disc is gonna be fine and not as bad as last time, I get a phone call that’s like, no, it’s worse than you thought. So I am having to retrench now and actually get hold of the surgeon I was recommended—I was going to anyway—but do it ASAP, and accept that he might say, “You do need surgery. Again. In fact, let’s do a spinal fusion. I feel cute today, let’s send you back to the worst pain of your life.” So I am having a totally normal morning feeling sad and anxious about that and I don’t think anyone around me wants to hear it. Literally anyone, not even my therapist yesterday. I think people want to support me with 100% positivity but I also think the situation scares them. But I’d rather fight off tears deal with the idea now than get slapped in the face with crushing reality again. And I can at least say that here, I guess, because I know you guys (gender neutral) are caring people, but you have enough distance from me that there’s space to talk about it.

Maybe it’s just my perception that people won’t let me be afraid, honestly—maybe we just have a cultural insistence on being positive, being A Fighter when you get the diagnosis, and I’m performing that on my own steam. Even online I keep being like, “listen, it fucking sucks but it’s fine, I don’t want to make this sound like it’s life or death.” I don’t know. I want to give an accurate impression of how serious it is or isn’t separate from my feelings, but also write about physical and emotional experiences other people do go through and might want to hear about. At excruciating length. Welcome to hell, it’s my medical ordeals! I baked cookies, grab one in your way in.

[transgenderteensurvivalguide]

up until recently i ran a pretty popular radfem blog (stay with me, this ask is in good faith) but after i took a social media detox, i realized i don’t share those beliefs anymore and in fact i might be trans myself. i just kind of abandoned the blog, but i’d feel bad if i didn’t tell my followers what happened. i’m scared of telling anyone because i feel like i’d be a bad feminist if i transitioned. (i know, you can be trans and a feminist just fine, but that’s just the kind of thing radfems tell you.) even worse, i’m scared of posting about it on my main or radfem blog because radfems and trans people by and large hate each other (obv), and i’m scared to mention i’ve been in both groups because of the hate i’ll get

Lee says:

When I first started as a mod, I would have told you that you need to immediately post on all your blogs to disown the transphobic beliefs you had previously expressed to try to make up for the harm that you may have perpetrated as a radfem.

Now that I'm a little older, my feelings on the topic have shifted a bit. Before anything else, I think you need to slow down and make sure that you ensure your own safety and mental health.

If you believe that revealing this change to your followers could result in backlash online that would affect you emotionally, it's crucial to prepare by turning off anonymous asks and muting notifications from social media apps.

You should also make sure you have a non-online place to turn for support. If they used to be your community, you may feel like you've lost online friends, so make sure you don't become too isolated. Instead, lean on your IRL connections and seek support from trans-friendly people in your community.

You may even want to consider looking for a therapist-- questioning being trans can be difficult for anyone, and adding a layer of internalized transphobia doesn't help.

When you're ready to share your feelings on your blog, you should write a thoughtful post explaining your journey. You don't have to justify your identity; rather, focus on your personal growth, how your views have evolved, and how you came to understand yourself better. Acknowledge the complexity of the situation and that you're still learning.

These people were once your buddies and there's a chance you may be able to make some of them question their beliefs too if you don't lash out at them and trigger that instinctual defensive us-versus-them mindset, so I would try to keep a friendly tone even while noting that you no longer support them.

So thank your followers for their support and engagement over the years, but tell them you aren't comfortable staying part of their community now that you've realized that the beliefs underpinning the group are doing damage and you are trying to unlearn that type of thinking.

Gently challenge any misconceptions you once held or promoted. Clarify that being trans and feminist are not mutually exclusive and that everyone deserves respect and equality, regardless of their gender identity.

If you're comfortable, share resources that helped you on your journey. This could be educational materials, support groups, books you found helpful, or contact information for trans-supportive LGBTQ+ organizations. If there's anything you'd recommend to others who were once in the same place as you were on getting out, this is the time to share your advice.

Understand that reactions will likely be mixed. Some followers may feel confused, betrayed, or angry, while others might be supportive or even share their similar experiences. Remember, you're not responsible for their reactions and you don't need to respond to them if you don't want to argue and they aren't willing to have a respectful conversation.

Be clear about your boundaries. Let your followers know what kind of comments you're willing to engage with and that hate or harassment won't be tolerated. You can even stop engaging with the account altogether if you don't think you can deal with the hate that you may receive.

You don't have to post about this immediately. Again, it's okay to take as much time as you need to feel ready. It's okay to wait until you're in a safe and stable position before making any announcements.

If you do post about it and get hate, remind yourself that you're doing the right thing by letting go of that community, and that you're not only making the right choice for your own life in allowing yourself the freedom to explore your gender identity but you're also doing the right thing overall since you're now standing up for the trans community (late is better than never!) and no longer encouraging transphobic narratives.

If you feel that your current blog is no longer a space where you can express yourself authentically, consider starting a new blog or platform where you can write freely about your experiences and beliefs. Or just get offline altogether-- your digital detox is what started this, so maybe it's healthy for you to continue it for a while!

If you tell someone "I support trans folks" and they send you hate, that person is not your friend anyway. This is an opportunity to meet nice people who you can be yourself with. I would really encourage you to connect with IRL activists who are actually regularly volunteering and doing something concrete for their community if you have the opportunity.

When I was in high school, I volunteered at my local library's teen advisory board, and when I was in college I volunteered at a local hospital and through my college. This weekend I'm starting training for volunteering in-person for my town's emergency preparedness group which also does things like help to unload trucks for the food pantry, and I also volunteer remotely for two organizations online.

I'm really pushing for you to get out and volunteer (online or IRL) because I know one draw of the radfem community is feeling like you're an activist and that you're supporting women's rights and protecting and defending women. And it is important to support women's rights and protect and defend women! But there are other ways to do that beyond running a hateful blog attacking trans women.

I have a friend who works at an organization for survivors of domestic violence, for example, and she works with volunteers who help staff events, answer the hotline, etc. You can look around and see what local initiatives there are in your community and if you can't find the thing you're looking for you can start a group yourself or look online and join a national or state-wide cause that you care about, like pushing the legislature to support access to abortions.

Giving up the radfem community doesn't mean giving up feminism, and this is a good opportunity for you to take a look at your own time, your values, and think about how you can take this chance to start working to be a more effective feminist. Not everyone has to be an activist, but if you want to be one, think about how you can start doing good in a way that will actually affect people in a positive way.

I've also often been involved in doing events like conferences and workshops and panels IRL from my time in high school to the present day to try and educate folks on the community, but I also know that sometimes you need to take a step back and prioritize yourself. If you think you're not ready to jump into making change that's also okay. Just join something. A soccer team, a book club, anything hobby-related, to have something else to do and talk about and think about and stay tethered to feeling part of something.

Remember, it's okay to grow and change. You're not betraying anyone by being true to yourself. It's a courageous step to admit when your views have changed, and it's an integral part of personal growth. Be kind to yourself during this process.

Whether or not you end up identify as trans, you still will be doing the right thing by separating yourself from that community. I know it may be difficult because they were a place where you felt supported and part of a movement, but I really believe that you're taking steps in the right direction by letting go of that ideology and just living your life!

Followers, if you have any experiences unlearning toxic beliefs please reply with your advice for anon!

[maaarine]

The Heteronormativity Theory of Low Sexual Desire in Women Partnered with Men

"Since the birth of the twins, Denise felt a great sense of loss after leaving her previously rewarding job, James’ work increased in duration to compensate for the shift in income, and Denise’s identity as a mother superseded any sense of herself as a partner or lover.

She lost desire for sex and for James completely and perceived his requests for sex as intrusive; they were yet another demand placed upon her following a full day of devoting herself to her two demanding children who slept no longer than 4-h intervals through the night, even now at 22 months old.

James withdrew from childcare and household chores and activities, in part due to exhaustion following his 14-h work days and in part to “punish” Denise for withholding sex from him.

She resented him for expecting that she would be the sole caretaker for their children, and lost attraction for him as he increasingly retreated to online gaming late at night after the twins were asleep.

(…)

And yet, as they went to leave the end of their first session with the therapist, James turned to the provider and asked, point-blank, whether she thought that “the female Viagra” could help solve their woes.

This case study is one example of the issues plaguing perceptions of low sexual desire in women partnered with men.

That is, while James and Denise’s situation seems an obvious example of contextually-determined low desire, James ascribed the problem to a biological dysfunction in Denise’s body.

The idea that low desire rests in the individual reflects an essentialist view of sexuality that has been advanced by the medical field for decades and cogently critiqued. As such, James’ reaction is not particularly surprising or uncommon.

(…)

But why have essentialist, medicalized views of sexuality come to monopolize how people understand low sexual desire?

One argument is neoliberal—that locating the problem of low desire in individuals’ bodies has high financial stakes.

Naming low desire as an individualized biological dysfunction creates a demand for biological (i.e., medical) solutions; thus, pharmaceutical companies stand to gain by selling a “treatment.”

(…)

It reflects what has become a suspiciously common pattern in women’s relationships with men more broadly, where a woman’s sexual desire disappears and/or becomes “too low” and then is deemed a dysfunction within the woman.

This pattern is suspicious because the numbers of women reporting low desire are so high that they might be modal, if not ordinary; and, they are certainly too high to reflect individual pathologies within individual women’s bodies.

It is also suspicious because many women who report low sexual desire describe considerably similar interpersonal problems with their men partners.

Thus, while low desire is likely not an individual problem within Denise’ body, the issues and inequities it results from are also likely not an individual problem within James or the interpersonal dynamics of James’ and Denise’s specific relationship.

Instead, we turn to a structural level explanation: gender norms, following other foundational work.

(…)

Desire is often situated as low because of its relative status to a partner’s level of desire.

Interestingly, however, this is not a gender-neutral process and the bound is often set with the man partner as reference point.

Accordingly, when a woman experiences lower desire than a man partner, her desire is often labeled low.

In the converse situation, however, men are still the referent: in the case of a man reporting lower desire than a woman partner, the woman’s desire is labeled too high (e.g., they are labeled insatiable or “sluts” in negative ways), rather than the man’s desire being labeled too low.

This highlights the gendered subjectivity inherent to conceptualizations of low desire, where low desire is most often seen as residing not just in bodies, but in women’s bodies relative to men’s desires.

(…)

In Prediction 2.1, heteronormativity’s inequitable casting of women into a caregiver-mother role to men partners contributes to the women’s lower desire.

While heteronormativity slots women into nurturant caregiving roles in general, this caregiving is also directed at men partners specifically.

Nurturance—warm, loving, and caring treatment—is a critical aspect of long-term and/or successful relationships, but one inequitably shared between women and men in relationships with each other.

Heteronormative asymmetries in caregiving can matter not only because they are inequitable, but because they translate into dependencies that contravene contemporary norms of relational interdependence.

Interdependent relationships involve a mutual ethic of care, with partners supporting each other simultaneously or sequentially, akin to a something like a mix of equals, friends, and sexual partners.

The gender inequities inherent to heteronormative framings of complementarity violate norms of relational interdependence, transforming expectations of a partner–partner relationship into something closer to one that is caregiver-dependent or mother–child.

Women end up doing many of the same things for their men partners as mothers do for their children, e.g., reminding them of chores, organizing social events (or playdates), buying clothes, ensuring there is food for snacks and meals and that these are made available.

Additionally, women often take on tasks for their husbands or other men partners that were originally performed by the men’s mothers, perhaps an implicitly-held leftover from more historical understandings of marriage.

(…)

In Prediction 3.1, the heteronormative push for women to focus on their appearance, especially during and in reference to sexual activity, contributes to their low desire.

Heteronormativity focuses on women’s sexual appearance over their pleasure, socializing women to be sexy rather than sexual.

It positions women as sexual objects for men partners, and women’s bodies as offerings gifted to men for sex as part of a relationship contract.

This can result in sexual objectification.

The internalization of this objectification—sexual self-objectification—means that women’s desire is often contingent upon whether they think they are desirable.

(…)

Penetrative intercourse is painted as the only version of “real sex” within heteronormativity, but women have a low likelihood of experiencing orgasm (a highly pleasurable experience) with penetrative intercourse.

Heteronormativity means that, though women may want to be sexual, even with men partners, they are often taught that they can’t be in the ways that are more likely to feel pleasurable for them.

This ongoing separation between experiences of desire and sexual pleasure may dampen desire because it is not reinforced or followed up by sexual activity that actually leads to sexual pleasure.

In Prediction 4.3, seeing sex as a duty to perform with men will contribute to lower desire in women.

Some women have sex they want, and some women have sex that their men partners want and that the women are open to.

But a number of women (and almost no men) have reported in a nationally representative survey that they engaged with sex because it was part of their job, a duty or obligation of being married, which is a heteronormative hallmark.

“Duty sex” is not very sexy, and people—including men—report losing sexual interest in this situation, as occurred in our case study above.

(…)

Moreover, that low desire is seen as a medical and health issue could make for a circular association between it and chronic stress.

Women come to know their desire as “too low” and report feeling like failures as women and partners, making for an iatrogenic source of chronic stress.

Locating the “problem” of low desire in women’s bodies and minds ultimately places the responsibility for it on women, arguably a form of gaslighting when the problem exists outside women and will not be fixed with individual effort.

This can exacerbate women’s stress, by placing yet another responsibility on their shoulders but one that is impossible: to fix their desire problem by fixing themselves, when they are not the problem."

[mattgrayyes]

Representation’s important, esp during times like now where people are marginalised and turned into scapegoats regularly.

So here’s some stuff that, while none of your business, I’ll share in case it helps anyone feeling alone:

I’m non-binary & have gender dysphoria.

I’m prob demisexual & polyamorous.

I’ve got ADHD, ASD, & a history of depression, and panic/anxiety disorder.

I take anti depressants monitored by a psychiatrist, and see a therapist regularly.

Long COVID gave me Chronic Fatigue which I’ve had for two years now.

Being “person off the internet” I’m usually careful not to talk about personal stuff. I’m in the odd position where people have a parasocial relationship with me, and are interested in me and my life.

I enjoy sharing my work, humour, and things I’ve made online. But that doesn’t entitle anyone to know anything about my personal life.

I’ve seen other creators have their life and relationships discussed, and I don’t want that.

I’m sharing personal info despite this, in case it helps someone.

[authormars]

I'm so sorry to ask, but what do you think about Luci x extremely Paranoid, depressed, and some kind of "polite but very sarcastic" mc?

And no offense really, i...just...I've been dealing with paranoia and depression for many years, and I really just need a bit comfort. If you don't want to do it, just ignore, I don't want you to feel uncomfortable or think I'm some kind of cringe weirdo.

Dude, that MC is basically just me. But of course! I'll take any request, don't worry, you're not a bother

As always, with any of my x MC content, MC is gender neutral!

Lucifer read your file, so he already knew about the depression. He and Diavolo had already agreed upon some accomodations for it. You wouldn't be penalized for missing RAD and all of your work would be online, if you wanted to skip the day or the whole week. They had a therapist on hand, both human and demon, if you wanted someone to talk to, and you were free to ask Satan or Lucifer for help if you were behind on work because you missed an important lecture.

Lucifer kept his distance from you mostly. He was busy man and, outside of your penchant for pacts, really only interacted with you if you came to him or if he needed a report for Diavolo.

That was, until he heard you hadn't come out of your room in days. He had researched depression before signing off on your file for the exchange program, but even this was out of the ordinary. No matter who texted you or knocked on your door, you didn't answer. Eventually, he had to take matters into his own hands.

To say it was terrifying when he busted down your door in demon form is an understatement. You had already been feeling absolutely awful and had barely left your bed outside of grabbing the occasional snack to not die. Thankfully, none of the more high energy (Mammon) brothers were with him.

"MC. Why haven't you been answering your DDD?" Lucifer seemed annoyed to even have to come here, making you feel even worse. You were a burden to him. "I know about your depression, but you must complete at least a little work or at least answer our texts." And now he was scolding you.

"So Pridey McPrideface doesn't ever miss texts on his phone? Or not want to do work?" You snapped at him. You were annoyed and the response slipped out. You immediately regretted it, at the angry expression Lucifer gave you. After a moment, the look softened.

"MC. I understand you don't want to complete your work, but perhaps I can be of service. If you do not understand the material or simply need someone to be with you as you complete it, the door to my office is always open." He seemed to have realized his presence was making you uncomfortable so he retreated to the doorway.

"Just please answer your texts. I haven't heard the end of it from Mammon and you can only string him up for so long before it isn't a real punishment anymore."

After your interaction with him, you slowly became more comfortable with him. He stopped being the scary demon who could and probably would kill you, given the chance, and became something of a friend.

He didn't yell at you when you joined him in his study or office. He didn't get mad when you were failing your classes because you couldn't find the motivation for work. He simply offered to tutor you when he could and he didn't bat an eye when you snapped with a sarcastic comment when you got annoyed.

Lucifer started walking you to class when you felt up to go to RAD. As the walks became more frequent, he started noticing all your fidgets. How you would glance at any demon passing by, as if you were scared one might jump out at you and try and hurt you. He noticed how you would narrow your eyes when he made a statement, as if you didn't trust what he was saying.

Eventually, he worked up the courage to ask you about it. He didn't want to pry, but he wanted to make life in Devildom as good as it could be for you. Your answer was not what he expected.

"Paranoia?"

"Yeah. I mean, I feel like everyone is always watching me. Talking about me. Trying to hurt me. Always plotting against me. Even you. I know it's irrational, but I can't stop it. I'm always on the defensive. No one can be trusted"

"Is there... any way I can help? I want to make your experience as good as it can be here, MC."

"I... I don't know"

"Well, if you think of anything, tell me. I will help in any way I can. I promise you, you can trust me."

Over time, Lucifer slowly learned your triggers. He learned not to assume you knew what he meant or that you trusted him. He made sure never to lie to you. No matter what, he wanted to be someone you can trust.

Wow this was long. Sorry if I strayed off topic or didn't do the request correctly!

If you have any requests for x MC content or Character x Character stuff, feel free to send me an ask. I will write basically anything!

[d011zk1ll]

Au where they have the miraculous, but after LB and Chats debut, Alya makes an update discord server as well as the Blog. Adrien doesn't go to their school, his father using the amok to stop him, but he joins the server. What's the harm in getting updates quicker than the ladyblog anyways?

Marinette joins for the same reason, as well as supporting her friend.

Alya eventually opens up a general section so people can talk, and share experiences. To bring the server together (she also finds volunteer therapist's with experience who help Akuma victims through the server cause Alyas like that). Adrien is the biggest Ladybug fan, his username is probably something like LBLove123 and Marinette is Chat's. She literally pays nitro so she can make her server name and entire server profile Chat Noir themed. They get into light hearted joke arguments about who the better Hero is, eventually Marinette wins and Adrien has to change his profile picture to some mug of Chat as a losing thingy.

All while this is happening, Lb and Chat are hiding the fact they're on the server from one another.

After like, half a year Adrien dm's marinette like "hey, so you like. Really like Chat Noir, huh?" And she goes "no. He's actually the worst and I hate him" adrien, the autistic little dumbass he is takes it as the truth and responds with "oh :(" So marinette apologises a ton and starts using tone tags. They add eachother as friends and even start playing online UMC on VC together.

Adrien really wants to meet marinette, but she responds with "how about this, when Ladybug and Chat Noir get together." And it's like a reverse crush au, so Adrien is infatuated with this girl he's never met and Marinette falls for Chat. So now, chat is trying to convince Lb to fake date him, and she (as much as she wants to say yes) says no. Because well. It's dangerous! Stuff could happen and it might not end well! Plus, it would mean LbLove123 (who only kept his name to match Marinette's) won the bet she set up in her head

Basically reverse crush online friend adrienette au while they're actually just eachothers dumbass superhero partner.

Plagg would egg him on, Tikki would warn her the risks of people online.

Also Adrien's pronouns in his pronouns slot are "🎀🐾🐞He/She/They🐞🐾🎀"

The bow is for this mysterious Chat noir lover who he knows loves pink, bows, fashion and threatens to beat him up with her shoe on the regular. The paw print is for Chat Noir, and the ladybug is for Lb!! Also he's gender fluid in this au ✨✨

[josnhoes]

I would love to see if reader had a crush on someone, like she was madly in love and yandere Jason Todd, Yandere Damian Wayne, and Yandere Tim Drake found out. (Maybe yandere dicks reaction as an extra)

I'm going to assume this is in the young adult reader verse. So platonic (though since you said she I will use fem pronouns), if you wish for a romantic yandere separate from that verse let me know.

Note to readers this is a side story to the young adult reader story. It is not directly canon due to the use of gender.

Warning: Fem reader, yandere, murder mentions, obsession, over protective,

Jason knew his Sparky had a lot of love to give, and he figured eventually you'd end up in love. Granted, he'd figured since you never were outside of the manor without someone at your side that you wouldn't get a chance to. Oh boy, was he wrong.

The person in question was some rich kid who attended almost every gala or party due to their parent's part in the various charities Bruce ran. He knew because he'd tried to get Bruce to stop inviting them just so this blooming romance would fade. Yes, he was a romantic at heart, but he couldn't agree to *you* being the one involved in romance. You were too young and naive.

Since he couldn't get them uninvited and his siblings were failing as your guards and keepers, it looked like he'd have to step in. Jason had learned that despite Bruce's moral high ground of no murder that whenever the Wayne princess was involved murder was sanctioned. It was the only exception Bruce made. Usually he'd be pissed someone was more worthy of being killed for by Bruce, hadn't Jason been worthy of vengeance? But his baby sister was someone he saw as worth killing for too so Bruce got a pass...this time.

If he were a more patient man, he'd have dragged Tim in on this; but he wanted this budding romance gone. So he took care of it. You'd mourn, probably have a few breakdowns, but you didn't need to know it was him. Gotham *was* dangerous. After all, it could have been anyone who shot them.

Damian was somehow the most protective of the brothers; which said a lot since the entire family was willing to kill for you. But Damian was the one willing to torture for you. But for his devotion, he expected you to give him attention. Ideally, he'd be the focus of your attention, but he realized he had to share with his family.

That being said, anyone outside of the family he absolutely refused to let you give them even an ounce of your attention. Exceptions were people like doctors or therapists. As your brother, he wanted you to be healthy after all. Still when your attention wavered from the family to some budding socialite from the Galas he was enraged.

Not at you, he realized as a human on so sheltered his darling sister would naturally crave bonds with others. Romantic ones were inevitable; and maybe some day when you were older and it was someone he could approve of he would have let it continue. This was not that. This was an unknown; one who would put you in more danger.

He debated what to do about this problem. Clearly he had to keep you both apart. Tripling his hovering in galas and the rare occasions you left the manor. But that wasn't enough for him. Damian knew a proper threat and maybe some light torture would scare them away from you, the only question was did he do it in his old league uniform or as Robin.

The league of shadows garb would ensure the continued positive image of the vigilantes, but the Robin costume would make people second guess the socialite and their sanity. Well he'd hoped so, then again he *was* known as the stabby Robin. League gear it was.

No matter your feelings for this person, Damian knew you'd get over them. You had him. You didn't truly need anyone else.

Tim was all for giving you online freedom. Or an illusion of it anyway. Everything you did was monitored, and any attempt to lash out and try and call for help was prevented by your device's new program. But you hadn't even tried that in months; he'd figured you'd finally stopped trying to rebel, but that wouldn't gain you any extra freedom.

Your emotional attachment to the new person was worrisome. The socialite had approached you and charmed you at an event when Dick was supposed to be watching you. From there, a small romance began budding online. A fact that was loathed by Tim. As your big brother he had to protect your honor.

He was saving physical retaliation for a last ditch option. Instead, he'd planned a mind game. Hacked phones and social media leaking the socialite's secrets. Bank accounts being flagged. Even forging a few criminal charges. Every bit of their life was going to suffer.

Some would say that was more cruel than simply physically handling them, but Tim knew those kind of things were far longer lasting. You would see the worst in them, and if that didn't keep you apart, then the way their life would burn would keep them too busy for you.

If all of that failed, Tim had no problem making them disappear.

[veren-cos]

Bachelors (Sdv) x gn!Anorexic Reader

Tw for anorexia, mentions of purging, poor self image, and weight loss. If you struggle with an eating disorder please reach out for help. Things will be okay, and you can get through it.

Another note, this fic (even tho almost all of mine are) is gender neutral. There is this stereotype that only girls can have eating disorders, but this is not true. Anyone can get an eating disorder and everyone deserves comfort.

This is proofread / sensitivity read (Is that the word?)and requested by @vvnbxz (tysm!!!)

Sam

• If you told Sam you had anorexia he wouldn't know what the hell to do.

• Honestly if you opened up to him about anything to do with mental health he wouldn't know what to do.

• And it isn't that he doesn't try, it's just that he doesn't know. (He is just a clueless guy and that's okay/hj)

• But yeah, when you tell him he is just so worried. He noticed as a general statement you didn't eat a lot, but he thought you just had a low appetite.

• So he never thought too much of it, unless it was the days you didn't eat anything.

• On one of those days, he finally asked about it. When you told him you had anorexia, he just looked. So sad.

• "Babe I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I didn't notice. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. But I will be now. What do you need?"

• If you need comfort, he is there the whole time. Whispering sweet nothings into your ear. "You are beautiful babe. How on earth did ever land someone like you?" (He is still a skater boy haha)

• If you need structure and legitimate help, he will be asking and researching. He asks Harvey how to help someone with Anorexia, and Google became his best friend. Though Google was a tad unreliable, you appreciated the effort.

• Overall, he just wants to be there for you, and will do his damned best to make sure you feel better.

Sebastian

• This is going to sound off topic but it's relevant I promise!!

• Sebastian is online a lot, okay? He almost definitely uses discord. At one point he was in a mental health server because he was really struggling and was just trying to find resources to help himself right?

• Well there was a channel in there about eating disorders, and while he didn't personally have one, he kinda just lurked in the server and read about everything.

• So Sebastian has a really large amount of knowledge in almost any mental health topic! And knows where to look for more info, and has heard personal storied. (Yay context is over with now onto the actual thing-)

• When you tell Sebastian you have anorexia, he is probably the calmest put of all of the Bachelors.

• He saw the signs, but recognized that it was still your business, and you were not in a desperate situation where he would have to step in. So he waited for you to tell him, while keeping an eye to make sure things didn't get any worse.

• Back to when you tell him though, he holds your hand and just pulls you into a hug. He offers to make food more often so you don't have to think about it.

• He tries to make sure it's lighter stuff, and doesn't overwhelm you with anything.

• He watches out for signs of it getting worse, and checks in with you often about how you are doing, and if there is anything more he can do to help.

• He understands that anorexia affects your entire life, but he knows that it is your life. He respects your boundaries, basically. He wants you to he in full control of your recovery, with him just helping you along the way.

• He encourages you to go to therapy. He sets you up with an tele-health therapist, and he gives you a bunch of online resources for when he isn't around.

• Overall, Sebastian is really sweet about it, and just tries to be helpful.

Alex

• He would unknowingly make things worse at first.

• When you get together for sure, but especially when you move in together. He definitely counts calories to make sure he is getting enough for whatever sport thing he is doing, and when he tried to encourage you to join it brings back some old habits.

• After a month or so of living together, Alex notices you've been loosing way too much weight. So he asks about it.

• He thought you were doing an extremely unhealthy diet, so when he did ask you about it he was not expecting this to be a long time issue.

• When you tell him that you have anorexia, he immediately apologizes for asking bluntly.

• "No, no. Alex it's fine. I should have told you."

• He takes a pause because he knows he has to be careful now. "..why didn't you?" It was so quiet.

• "I just couldn't Alex!" That came out louder than you meant it.

• "You are so perfect and really damn.. I dont even know you just.. I'm jealous of you. You have everything under control all the time. And I see how much effort you put into keeping it up that I didn't feel like I could stand next to you! I feel gross, food makes me feel gross. And I didn't want to burden you with this. Nothing in my life is going right right now. And this is the one thing I can make go right. But apparently I can't because I'm screwing this up too!"

• You pulled your hands to your face and broke down sobbing.

• Alex pulled you onto a hug. "Shhh, shhh" he strokes your hair. "Your going to be okay? I'm sorry. I didn't realize that I was making you feel like that."

• You shot up. "No don't apologize! You aren't doing anything wrong, I'm the one who needs to get things together!"

• "But I should have been more considerate! I should have seen!"

• Both of you took a second to calm down.

• After a moment, Alex spoke again, "what can I do to help you?"

• And you didn't know. You didn't know anything.

• "Alex I don't know. I didn't even think this was going to come back again I don't even know how I dealt with it the first time."

• He let out a breath. "Okay. I'm not changing what I'm doing, because I know that will just make you feel guilty. But I won't talk about it okay? I'll move the scale outside somewhere else. And I'm going to check in with you every once in a while. Okay?"

• You nodded.

• "I don't know what I can do to help, but I will not be giving you more to overtime about. You are perfect just the way you are. You don't need to change, your body is perfect. Okay?"

• You nodded again. This time it was you pulling him into a hug.

• "Okay. Okay yeah we can do this. Thank you." The last words came so softly that you just hoped Alex heard.

• "Of course, anything for you."

Harvey

• Harvey had seen the signs well before you confirmed his suspicions.

• He noticed you leaving very shortly after dinner dates, how you avoided mirrors when getting ready.

• He had known you for a long time now and he could see that you had lost weight, and not at a normal rate.

• After you moved in together, things became blaringly obvious.

• One morning he woke up to the sound of you throwing up.

• That's when everything became real.

• He walked to the bathroom and knocked on the door. "My love? Can I come in?"

• "NO!" You coughed, "no, no I'm fine it's okay."

• "Dear we have to talk about this."

• "No we don't, I'm fine. I just wasn't feeling good."

• You went back and forth on this for a while, but eventually he just came in.

• "My love, we just moved in together. I am very serious about this relationship. This means we have to tell each other when things aren't okay. Okay?"

• You thought for a moment. "Harvey, you're a doctor. You are just going to go on a medical spiel if I talk to you. I already know what's wrong. I'm handling it."

• He sighed, "I don't mean to be blunt, but clearly you aren't. All you have is protein shakes in your fridge, you can't live off of those. And I'm assuming you do this every morning? You can't be drinking those and then throwing them up. It defeats the purpose of drinking in the first place."

• "But I have to! I have to do this Harvey. This is the one thing in my life I have control over I have to do this."

• "No, you don't! Dear, I can help you, you just have to let me! You have full control over your life. Let me be here for you"

• You sat there. Just thinking. Harvey had no idea how what he said would land. Would you get upset? Would you lash out? Cry?

• "Okay." You whispered

• He stared at you.

• "I said okay!" You were nearly shouting. "Help me! I know this isn't okay but I need help!"

• Oh thank yoba you listened. "Thank you. Now, please just listen to me. Please." He waited for a nod of recognition before continuing,

• "I'm making all the food from here on out. And I dont care what you say because you are not burdening anyone. You aren't going to look at any labels, I'll scratch them out if you need me too.

• "I'll make a meal chart for each week, and you don't have to eat all of it, but you need to eat something. Eating something is better than nothing, I don't care what it is."

• This was already making you nervous. It was all too much, but if nothing else you had to try for him.

• "Okay.. okay. Okay yeah... thank you."

• He gave you a big hug.

• "I'm here for you with this. You don't have to do this alone."

Shane

• Shane is not perfect by any means, we all know this.

• But one thing I will stand on is that, if y'all are dating, he will stand with you through any mental health crisis no problems.

• He probably wouldn't notice much of the mental signs, but would notice you loosing weight.

• He tried to ask you about it a few times, but you always brushed it off.

• He let it be until you literally fainted from lack of food intake.

• He rushed you to Harvey's and honestly just hoped you would finally open up to him about what was going on.

• Harvey had already known you had an eating disorder because it was in your file, so when you woke up, he strongly encouraged you to talk to Shane about it.

• Shane was chill enough to at least wait until you had gotten home to talk about it.

• ...

• "So what the hell was that?" He asked.

• "Shane, I'm sorr-"

• "No, don't be sorry that's not what I'm asking for. I'm asking what that was." He stared you down.

• "Shane.." You sighed. You had meant to tell him but everything you tried, something got in the way.

• "Shane, I have anorexia. I'm not going to make it into a big thing. I mean, I guess I already did because I literally fainted. But I want you to know that I am working on it."

• "And you didn't tell me, because.? Babe, we all have our issues we are going through. I want to be there for you but I can't be if you don't tell me."

• "It was hard, That's why. I know you don't care, but I care so much as to what others think of me. About what I think of me. I dont like the way I feel. The way I look. I just always compare myself to others and I don't like it. I'm not asking for help and I certainly don't want it but I think I might need it at this point."

• He sighed, and had both of you sit down. "Okay.. okay, thank you for telling me. Now that the hard part is over, here is the harder part. We are getting you into therapy. It might be uncomfortable. But it will help. I know it helps me. And I know I can't do anything personally, but talk to me if anything is going on. I'm here to listen, okay?"

• He doesn't tend to be one for random physicaly affection, but he pulls you into a tight hug.

• He really meant every word, so from then on you became more dependent on him like he was on you.

Elliott

• Elliott. Oh Elliott.

• He knew something was up right when you started going out.

• You never ate much, never drank much. It looked like you felt food and taking care of yourself was a burden.

• So once you got married and moved in together, he knew he had to confront you about it.

• "My love?" He knocked on the door to your room. You were in your pajamas getting ready for bed.

• "Yes?" You smiled softly at him.

• "We need to talk." Your face dropped. Elliott tended to have a way with words but he became far less eloquent under stress. "Not in a we need to talk, my dear. Apologies." He cleared his throat,

• "I've noticed your. Ehm. Unusual? Eating habits?" And your face dropped more.

• "Oh Ellio-"

• "Hold on." He reached for your hand, cupping it between his. "I'm not upset with you. There is no reason to be. But I think I know what is going on, and I just want you to know. I am here for you. Alright, love? You can talk to me, and I can help. Food can become a stressor for the best of us. So you don't have to talk to me now, but just know I'm here for when you need."

• You met his hands with the one left on the bed. "I'm not sure if what your thinking is entirely accurate? But I suppose I should clarify." You took a deep breath, "I have anorexia. I've been managing it, at least what I thought was, pretty well. I didn't think you would notice, but I guess it was something I should tell you. I just.. I just didn't have control over much in my life when I worked for Joja. So food was a thing I could control! I thought it helped. But it didn't."

• You continued, "When I moved here, things genuinely became better! I have full control over my life. How I run the farm. My time, my pace. But I became so dependent on my food patterns for regulation that it was just a habbit I couldn't give up. So now here we are!" You let out a dry laugh.

• Elliott wasn't going to make a big deal out of it, despite his general dramatics.

• He knew that it was hard for you, but from what you said, you were working so hard on your own to help yourself.

• He reassured you that he would be there if you needed it, and tried to make sure you were eating a good amount of food everyday. But life continued on as normal for you two, and you wouldn't have it any other way.

An* so this was a deep one, I personally do not have anorexia but a lot of this still resonated with me for other reasons. Please reach out to either a doctor, family member, or friend if you think you have an eating disorder. They are serious business.

Also. I tried to make it accurate to anorexia but my knowledge isn't all encompassing, so it might have slipped into general eating disorder territory. So if it doesn't line up perfectly, I'm sorry about that- I also tried to not make it stereotypical but there may be a varying amount of success with that. Please lmk!!

Less serious an* I really wrote so much for Harvey I was not expecting to be able to write this much- Harvey's might as well have been it's own little fic from how long it was.

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