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selkies-world · 2 years ago

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Some discussion points:

"It’s not always easy in this job because I’m focused on doing what I believe is right for the country… often that means doing things that may not always be popular, and this is a good example of that."

That is about whether he should pay nurses, teachers and rail workers a higher wage.

So... it's his job to do what he thinks is right, according to his personal opinion, rather than what the general public wants??? Sounds like a dictatorship rather than a democracy...

Sunak also insisted that the government’s plan to deport refugees to Rwanda while their asylum claims are processed will definitely go ahead, with reports claiming that women, married men, and LGBTQ+ people are being sent notices for deportation.

"The system that we need, the system that I want to introduce, is one whereby if you come here illegally, you should be swiftly detained and in a matter of days or weeks we will hear your claim, not months and years. Then we will safely remove you somewhere else."

..... So if someone comes here because they're gay & that's punishable by death in their own country, they're gonna get sent to Rwanda, where.... Someone remind me what their stance on women's & LGBTQIA+ rights are, again???

The prime minister has been criticised for his stance on the trans community before, stating in November that he wanted to modify the 2010 Equality Act to exclude trans people.

According to The Telegraph, Rishi Sunak was planning to “review the Equality Act to make it clear that sex means biological sex rather than gender”.

Under the latter, trans people are protected regardless of whether they have undergone or plan to undergo medical transition, and regardless of whether or not they hold a Gender Recognition Certificate, the document by which a person can change their legal gender.

It means trans people can access single-sex spaces such as shelters, toilets and hospital wards.

The Telegraph also reported: “It would… mean clarifying that self-identification for transgender people does not have legal force, meaning transgender women have no legal right to access women-only facilities."

Reread that.

Reread it again.

Sunak is a dictator & he's turning the UK into a dictatorship rather than a democracy.

He's attacking the 1% of trans people, and using "the good of the majority" defense as a shield.

He's openly targeting us, and saying it's the best thing for the public if we don't have basic human rights.

Remember that he prioritised the difficulties of updating an IT system over a trans persons right to get married or die with dignity, and argued that cis comfort matters more than trans inclusion.

He's a dictator. He could be addressing the homeless crisis, the energy crisis, the cost of living crisis, inflation, education, even the fucking army or police which are rife with abusers and murderers. He could be addressing climate change, the wildlife crisis we're in the middle of due to failing ecosystems.

But instead, he's focusing on one of the most vulnerable groups of people in the country. He's focusing on making us more vulnerable, to the point of committing genocide against us and with the end goal of making it impossible - legally and socially - for us to live here.

We've seen this before and we know exactly where it ends: in camps and gas chambers. It might not be called that this time around, and maybe it won't look the exact same, but changing the language and uniforms doesn't change the facts.

And the fact this is seen as not just alright by the public and other members of government, but that this is being supported and that his supporters either say they agree with him or "don't have a strong opinion" due to the fact they literally don't understand what's going on... the fact this is just being rolled out as acceptable, and he's not even being questioned for this view, or these actions?

That is terrifying.

I've joked about moving to another country with better trans rights in the past, but now I'm genuinely considering it.

As it stands, 15 countries in the world allow self-ID for trans people, with a selection of them also allowing an 'x' gender marker for non binary or trans people. In Europe, some countries are even considering removing the legal gender marker altogether. Within those 15 countries, instances of hate crime against trans people has fallen, and crimes against cis women haven't sky rocketed, or actually increased any noticeable amount.

The UN spoke in support of Scotland moving forward with self-ID laws, as they saw no issue with it. Sunak over ruled based on personal beliefs, and he can't even hide that. He has said that the hypothetical situation of a cis woman choosing to not use a womens-only space due to the possibility of encountering a trans woman, was more important than the inclusion or safety of that trans woman.

He has stated that if an all-girls school was "forced' to accept a trans girl into their system, they would no longer be seen as an all-girls school and would "have to" allow "more boys" to join. The same was said in reverse about all-boys schools "being forced" to welcome a trans boy, and then having to allow "more girls" to join the school.

He doesn't see trans people as human beings. He stated that people need to "tolerate" us - and that we need "kindness and understanding". This is in a country which still requires medical diagnosis of dysphoria for someone to be legally acceptable to apply for a GRC. I'll say that again: we legally need to be diagnosed with a mental illness in order for them to consider placating us with a bit of paper which will allow us to get married, and which would allow us to have our real name on our death certificate & tomb stone rather than our deadname.

He doesn't see us as human; he sees us as an illness to cleanse his lands of.

And nobody is questioning him about it.

#trans stuff #selkie shifts #human rights #politics #scotland #england #ireland #wales #trans rights #trans rights are human rights

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coochiequeens · 10 months ago

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It's not everyday I cheer for an army but I will cheer for the Spanish Army for keeping an intact male out of women’s changing rooms.

By Nuria Muíña García January 16, 2024

A 42-year-old soldier who recently announced his gender transition is slamming the Spanish Army for putting up obstacles to his use of the female changing rooms. Francisco Javier L. G., first began changing his legal documents in the spring of 2023 following the enactment of Spain’s controversial Trans Law.

Francisco has boldly stated that he has no intention of changing his name or undergoing any alterations to his body, noting in a recent interview that he is fine with his overtly masculine appearance.

“I like my body, I am happy with it and I do not intend to change it,” he said, adding that the only measures he is taking to complete his “transition” to “female” is altering his gender marker on legal documents.

“I am happy with my body and I [am sexually attracted to] women, but I realized some things and I felt like a woman. For example, I’m a beautician, and I feel better talking to women than men,” Francisco said. “When the new [trans] law came out, I asked my daughter if she minded if I became a woman. She’s 10-years-old, and told me she didn’t mind. Then I made the decision to do it.”

Months prior to his change in “identity,” Francisco participated in a TV program called First Dates, a show aimed at helping people find love. At one point during the show, the question “what turns you on the most?” was posed to participants, to which Francisco replied “I like long hair and high heels. I have a high heel shoe fetish. I love high heels.” He goes on to imply that he enjoyed wearing high heels himself.

Francisco appearing on “First Dates” in 2023.

In March of 2023, Spain dramatically relaxed its requirements for changing such documents, striking down a requirement that the individual provide medical reports demonstrating they had gender dysphoria or were undergoing cross-sex hormone therapy. The only formalities Francisco had to complete were the presentation of his documents at the Civil Registry, and waiting for a cursory three-month period.

Francisco has been in the military since 1999 and is stationed in the southern city of Seville where he is a heavy machinery mechanic. He is currently on medical leave due to a shoulder injury. But he has stated that his “problems” began after he informed his superiors of his legal gender transition and desire to use the women’s changing room.

“I could not continue using a locker room contrary to my gender, so I requested the use of the locker room that corresponded to my gender, which I understand should be a female locker room, since I am a woman,” the soldier tells Diario de Sevilla.

But Francisco says he was told he could not use the women’s facilities due to space issues, with the women’s area being 110% over capacity. Dissatisfied with the response, Francisco continued to pursue the issue.

The Army then sent him a summons to attend a meeting with the intention of resolving the case, where officials agreed that he could not use the male facilities as it was incompatible with his “new gender.” He was also told that an expansion was underway to increase the side of the women’s locker room area, and that he will eventually be allowed to use the women’s facilities.

Until then, he was offered the women’s senior command locker rooms on a pre-determined schedule, giving him access to the area within certain times of the day.

But Francisco believes the accommodation measures are neither fair nor right, and claims that he is being discriminated against on the basis of his transgender status.

“If a judge has declared me a woman, what does an army lawyer have to say about it?” he said to media.

In statements made yesterday to Diario de Sevilla, Francisco explained that he is pursuing avenues for possible legal action against the Army for failing to properly facilitate his gender transition.

Spain’s Ministry of Defense does not currently have any guidance on how to best adhere to the trans law, which was enacted last February, and is currently dealing with cases on an individualized basis. But both Francisco’s demands, and the Army’s attempt to accommodate him, have sparked backlash from Spanish women’s rights advocates.

On X (formerly Twitter), Ana Pollán, a well-known feminist activist, sarcastically detailed Francisco’s case.

“This woman named Francisco is not committing any fraud of law. She has scrupulously complied with all the formalities provided for in the trans law and there are no legal reasons to deny her rights. This is what happens when intellectual indigents legislate.”

#Spain #The Spanish Army #Francisco Javier L. G. Is a male #Spain's Trans Law #transbian #He has a 10 year old daughter #First Dates #TIM who admitted to fetishes on national TV #autogynephilia #Diario de Sevilla #The women’s changing room were already too crowded?

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moscatoslut · 1 year ago

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please take a moment to read ❤️

(reposting to my 10 yr old side blog bc my main has been temporarily deactivated and tumblr has not gotten back to me)

My husband and I are currently doing everything we can to get our 3 children out of Ohio as soon as we can. We are in an area that has gotten more hostile towards our trans child as time has passed, and we fear with the legislature being pushed forward in other red states that things are headed for the worst here. We are desperately trying to avoid our son having to detransition due to the laws being pushed forward (especially as we enter into an election year), as well as moving from the hatred he has had to face from the school system and social atmosphere of our area. My parents currently live in Vermont and have been kind enough to offer to let us stay with them so that we can get out of Ohio before things get any worse, but we are facing some financial barriers keeping us from being able to make the move. Vermont has protections in place for trans children in school that keep teachers from outing them and they are required to use his chosen name. Despite working around the clock to be able to make this move happen, the skyrocketing cost of living has made it near impossible to save. We need to be able to pay the out of pocket costs associated with hormone therapy and daily medications when we lose insurance between jobs, and our family vehicle needs maintenance to be able to make the 11 hour move to a new state. If we are able to meet our donation goal, we can cover the moving costs, medication and repairs necessary to be able to get our family to a better place. If we were fortunate enough to exceed that goal, all extra funds would be put towards supporting our son in the next step to his transition (top surgery and legal name change). I am so grateful to anyone that has read this far and for any donations to our family. We are doing everything we can to support our children through this social and political uncertainty and any outside support (financial and emotional) is so meaningful to our family.

I completely understand that things are financially difficult for a lot of people and families right now and that this is a lot of money. Even if you are able to just able to reblog this it would be so helpful!

#trans pride #pride month #pride #transgender #mutual aid #queer mutual aid

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mariacallous · 2 years ago

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*sigh* so I'm at a loss, my nephew (he's really my oldest cousin's son, but I'm "uncle...") is trans I've strongly suspected that since he was 7 or 8 and he told me for real for real like 2 years ago, and he's been working on coming out to everyone (I was the first person after mom/dad) over the last year and everyone knows as of December. He's out at school, fully socially transitioned etc.

any ways his parents are very straight very very straight, they're not Republicans but both sets of grandparents are and it's very like... you could see them voting that way. So this all has been very outside their comfort zone but they've been okay and I thought it was best to hang back and let them education themselves at their own speed. My understanding was that there was an understanding between them and the nephew that if he still felt the way that he felt when he turned 16 then next steps would start. I don't agree with the deadline pre-say but if that was what they needed to get there okay sure.

well thats coming up and it seems like they're going back on that, they're very resistant to a legal name change (though again he's been using his name in school all year, he/him pronouns etc) hormones seems really... so yeah. I've mostly taken the role of being supportive of him, just so he feels like there's an adult 100% on his side and left his parents alone to figure out, they're smart his mom is a nurse etc so I thought it was best to not be pushing them and 16 felt doable but... do I say something? is it worthwhile? does anyone want parenting tips from their single childless gay younger cousin? I told him to be very claim, persistent and focused on the name change and not to drop it to avoid conflict but like should I talk to them? and what do I say? how do I manage to say what I need to without venting how upset it makes me they're not being as supportive as he needs.

I think if your nephew feels like it would help to have your support and come talk to them, definitely come in, but otherwise I think you're doing great being supportive and giving him that advice (which is good advice).

If and when you do get to the point where you come in, I think just letting them know how upset this has made both you and your nephew, adding to the stresses and worries he's facing both because of being trans at this point in time but also as a teenager trying to navigate the world, and how the lack of support (real or otherwise) can have effects elsewhere in other parts of his life. It's clear that he obviously still loves and respects them and wants them to be in his life, and it's important for them to keep that in mind. And it sounds like this would only cause a delay, and have him wait out the clock until he's able to do it without parental consent, which is not exactly ideal. It might be helpful, for him and/or for you, to figure out more what their concerns or hesitations (or opposition) is and where they're coming from, just to have a better idea and understanding of the situation.

I also think it would be helpful for them to find and go to a trans youth support group, with other trans teens and their parents and families, both just because it's always good to find community and support and also to help with education and adaptation. Everyone in the situation needs to know that they aren't alone and that they all have options and resources.

It's very rare that people are immediately put on hormones, and they start out doses low and they can be paused or stopped at any time, and they regularly check hormone levels and do other tests to make sure there aren't any issues. Before that point, assessments have to be done, with all kinds of paperwork and specialist visits, and because he's 16, his parents would have to be there for that anyway.

Scheduling an assessment or referral for gender-affirming care is just the start, and it's not even necessarily a definitive one, but it *is* an opportunity to speak with medical professionals and other providers who specialize and work in this field, and can help answer questions and hopefully resolve concerns. That's also why I recommend the trans youth support group (and often gender-affirming care programs will have that information and other resources, as well as other organizations).

I ended up waiting until I was well into adulthood and long since having not lived with my parents, and one of my regrets is not saying and doing something sooner, but for a variety of reasons that wasn't possible, and part of it was how my mom and dad had spoken about trans people when I was living with them (not actively opposed or hostile, but also not really supportive or understanding, which is I think where most people tend to fall) and some of the other struggles and issues when I was growing up. We're good now (and since it's pretty much a fait accompli and times have changed, it's not quite the issue or rift I had worried about at one point) but that's a lot of time and a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding and delays and stress that I think we all would like to take back.

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oldtvandcomics · 2 months ago

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i feel like people don't think of conversion therapy as a serious issue in western europe anymore ever since the talking point came up that giving therapy to a child who desperately wants to medically transition, rather than just giving them the hormones and surgery they ask for, is conversion therapy.

like if that's what we call conversion therapy, if we convince people that's what conversion therapy is, then most ordinary people will consider themselves to be in favour of conversion therapy as a direct result of that rhetorical tactic.

i know the intent was to make prevention of childhood transition seem like a seriously cruel act by calling it conversion therapy, but the effect has been the opposite. rather than raising the perceived stakes of preventing childhood transition, it has instead lowered the perceived stakes of conversion therapy. conversion therapy now is not taken seriously as an issue at all, or even seen as a good thing, because people now think that "conversion therapy" = not letting children get plastic surgery. because we told them that that's what it means. and the truth is most adults are against elective plastic surgery for children, and likely always will be

Hi! So, I'm not really sure what you wanted to achieve with this ask, because I generally don't touch this particular hot Discourse point with a ten-meter pole. I'm not trans, I'm not a legal guardian of trans children, I'm not a medical or mental health professional. It simply is not my subject.

I do agree that people in the West don't take conversion therapy as seriously any more, but to me, that seems to be a pretty simple consequence of the queer community gaining more and more rights and understanding. It is simply less of an issue.

Which is why it would be important to remember that the citizens' initiative to ban conversion therapy in the EU is, well, for all the EU. It gives us a chance to step up for our fellow queer people in the East. French and Dutch queers are not the ones who really need this, it is people living in countries like Hungary or Poland. Those are the ones where not enough signatures will be collected to reach the threshold. But people in France and the Netherlands, they could reach the threshold. And if enough from us push to get this through, then it is guaranteed to save lives in the East.

(And in Western countries too, don't get me wrong. It is still an issue, and we too need it banned, absolutely. But we are not the ones in the most danger right now.)

EDIT: OK, I started to go through the notes and comments on that post, I think I know now what you were referring to. I deleted the person suggesting that we should ban being trans, and I will delete any other similar comments I see.

#anyway I linked the citizens' initiative #we have a real chance of the EU banning conversion therapy IN ALL COUNTRIES #we just need to collect a fuckton of signatures #go sign it!#political #EU politics #conversion therapy #trans healthcare #queer rights #trans rights #human rights

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doberbutts · 2 years ago

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Maybe because I don't populate the communities folks who say this do, but like.

In my group of queer and gay and gendery friends, not a single one of us considers asab to be a sign of "harmlessness", because all of us know someone in the group who has been hurt by, well, pretty much every possible demographic. There's no "afab people are safe and amab people are dangerous" because in honesty quite a few of us have been sexually assaulted by either or and sometimes both. Quite a few have been mistreated by either or and sometimes both. Quite a few have been abused by either or and sometimes both.

Maybe there are trans people who are afab, who weaponize their "afabness". But every time I've seen that accusation fly by my tracked tags or my dash or even levied at me, people are just talking about their life. Last summer a trans masc on tumblr was talking about how he had to fight to access the morning after pill due to his legal gender marker and he was accused of rubbing his afabness and his ability to get pregnant in trans women's faces. For??? Talking about the transphobia he experienced??? Not even mentioning anyone else just talking about his experience??? So I see this accusation and I wonder, is that really what's happening, because I keep seeing it being used in Not That Context.

The other one I see is as you said, this idea that men are inherently dangerous and trans people who are afab "play up" their "afabness" to distance themselves from being accused of being dangerous men. But... idk where we decided that roughly half the population of the world is inherently dangerous but uh. Men aren't dangerous just for existing. And much of the danger of so-called "male violence" is due to patriarchial society and thus perpetuated by all participants as a systemic issue rather than being on the shoulders of individual men.

And, because it's a systemic issue rather than an individual one, a lot of the factors that contribute to creating this male violence, what we call male privilege, are routinely denied to anyone with any connection whatsoever to being forcibly labeled as "woman". Which includes, but is not limited to, trans people who are afab who may have been raised under the strict expectation they were to be girls and women. Not all of us knew from birth. Not all of us who did know had words to describe it. Transition wasn't just out of reach, it wasn't even a considerable option. Many of us *were* raised as broken girls and women. Many of us didn't even know transition was *possible* until we were late teens or well into adulthood. How can we have male privilege and represent male violence when we have walked through life identically to cis women and girls? When we don't pass and before we medically transition if we medically transition at all?

And, like, not for nothing, but some "afab trans people" are still women and are not men. The label "afab trans people" includes nonbinary folks who may or may not still consider themselves women, who are bigender, who are neither women nor men, who are butch he/him lesbian boyfriend women, who are intersex and label their own gender journey as transition... not just binary gender-conforming trans men.

Is that also leaning into, weaponizing, relying on our "afabness" to make us seem harmless?

It's all bad faith. And I just refuse to engage with it. I've asked several times for someone to explain to me how a little black girl in braids with beads and a frilly pink skirt has anything that amounts to male privilege and nothing. Because they know it's nonsense. That's the trouble with bad faith arguments. They can't explain it logically because they know it's not logical.

Understand that when I say "they", I don't just mean one demographic or the other. FFS I've seen cis people pulling this shit too. Just recently there was a trans guy going around telling trans women who agreed with sentiments like mine that trans men just have a victim complex and then was getting mad at them for telling him he was being needlessly cruel. "They" is anyone who acts like this. It's so unnecessary, and so awful. I can't believe we've come to this.

someone replied to one of your posts and said that trans men weaponize their "afabness" in queer communities. like at that point they should just stop pretending they actually see trans men as men or care about us at all.

I saw. And unfortunately I just. I think folks like that just won't listen so it's not worth it to argue.

Rather than give in to bitterness and anger and resentment and despair, in the face of people like that, I'd rather devote my energy to uplifting those I see in need. Speaking their stories. Providing them shelter. Helping out in any way I can. There will always be those who deride you for being who you are. Show others watching that you're better by *being* better. Hold out your hand to those who reach for it, instead of shake your fist at those who don't deserve your attention.

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baeddel · 3 years ago

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speaking of trans boys. re: this post: it’s funnily enough been picked up by people i would typically consider my enemies, who tag it with #transandrophobia #transmisandry. you’ll laugh, but perhaps they’re right to tag it that way. if we have to be a theorist of transandrophobia lets at least try and do so seriously.

it’s worth reading the replies to that post from my friends. i may overemphasize the differences between the US and the UK in that post. one of the examples i use, Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage, was actually published in the US and not the UK (by the far-right Regnery Publishing, built on the Regnery fortune one of the heirs to which uses his wealth to fund the activities of the white supremacist National Policy Institute and the Charles Martel Society; how do you like them apples?). but i still think it is the case, correct me if i’m wrong, that TERFs have enjoyed the most success at legal reform in the US pursuing a transmisogynist scaremongering agenda about potential predators, and that TERFs have enjoyed the most success at legal reform in the UK pursuing a #TransgenderTrend moral panic centered around the dangers posed to young cafabs (the two other major areas worth considering apart from legal reform would be medical reform and public attitudes; we wouldn’t be surprised to find the same trend in those areas, but we would also not be surprised to find a different trend).

anyway, the analysis i make about reproductive futurity (where transmascs themselves embody the Child as victims of transgender ideology who must be rescued, their fertility restored) is i think vulnerable to the same criticism made in this post. where sybil says “TERFs view you as a misguided corrupted victim”, and the rest, fig (sybil’s interlocutor) responds that what they are describing “are v much white transmasc experiences” and that black and brown transmascs are instead treated by white women “as threats, due to the intersecting views on manhood/masculinity and race.”

sybil accepts this argument and i accepted it at the time because it makes intuitive sense; this corresponds to how i understand racism to work. but i don’t really like accepting arguments on intuition like this because competing narratives would convince me equally based on the same principles. look at it this way: if we wanted to apply fig’s argument to my post we would say that transmascs of colour cannot embody the Child in this way because white women protray men of colour (even, people of colour quite generally) as dangerous, masculine, predatory, etc. we would bring up a number of examples to prove this, such as the role of ‘masculinity’ in the repressively reconstrued diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia applied to black male radicals in the 60s, the many instances where news writers refer to black 16 year old victims of police shootings as “men”, and so forth. we have a coherent story that people of colour are denied any notion of childhood and are seen to possess a sort of inaliable masculinity.

however, we could also tell the opposite story. there are many discourses where black and brown people figure as Children par excellence. i can’t find it now (frustrating!) but there is a very demonstrative old painting: it has a white woman who is meant to represent Europe nursing several children of colour (one for each ‘race’, as they saw it). this metaphor of mother Europe and her dependant colonies was very common (eg. here {warning: obscenely racist image}; common enough to be mocked in László Moholy-Nagy’s 1925 collage Mother Europe Cares for Her Colonies). further, the notion of the ‘childhood of man’ implicit in discourses about savages and primitives, important to liberal humanist evolutionism, became more than merely a discourse when deployed in eg. the reserve schools of America and Canada and the missionary schools of French Polynesia which sought to save native Children from their own indigineity—this in fact very much resembles our narrative about transmascs and their perverse salvation. in our conversation about this dev reminded me that people conflate “the capacity for self-infantilism and the use of infantilism as a means of social control.” one remembers what Eldridge Cleaver had to say about what he called the emasculation of black men, to such an extent that he analogized black men in America to court eunuchs (this is perhaps the only feature of his thought that stayed with him throughout his transition from black muslim to revolutionary communist to conservative fundamentalist).

you can see how i now have two competing stories that i might find intuitively convincing. both have historical analogues. i don’t want to arbitrarily decide one is the right version over the other without seeing good evidence and hearing good arguments. but even if i did, i should remain mindful that one might predominate in some discourses, might predominate in certain epochs, but may easily become its opposite under different conditions. if it can i’d like to know how, if it can’t i’d like to know why. in any case, it’s significant to me that personally i have never seen TERFs talk about cafabs of colour. of course they aren’t likely to talk about it to me, but this seems to be something that they acknowledge themselves (in a paraliptic way). Shrier confines her discussion to “(mostly white) girls,” by girls meaning trans men, who previously would have “[fallen] prey to anorexia and bulimia or multiple personality disorder“ (citation needed???). i can already imagine the sort of paper you could write about this parenthetical suggestion, (mostly white).

#racism tw #antiblackness tw

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kirksfattitties · 4 years ago

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asks you can smell the privilege and internalized ableism radiate from

(tw for ableism and other bigoted implications)

i’m bad at reading tone but even i understand that this is 100% you being condescending and trying to cover it up with smiley faces and false sincerity. and i don’t appreciate that.

before i get into deconstructing your shitty ableist argument, i want to explain the reasons i believe in self diagnosis (self-dx):

even professional diagnosis doesn’t start with a doctor diagnosing you. there has to be a reason for seeing the doctor. some people see a doctor in their adult life because they’re struggling, some people are taken by their parents, some people are referred or suggested that they see a specialist. whatever it is, you don’t just see a doctor and they magically give you a neurodivergency. people have neurodivergencies before they see doctors and even if they NEVER see a doctor.

the psychiatry system is flawed in MANY ways and to say that it isn’t means you’re denying the experiences of people with less privledge than yourself. also like psychiatry isn’t gonna suck your dick. you don’t have to be a bootlicker lol

in many places (hi hello i’m from america where our government tries to indirectly kill us by not providing us with adequate healthcare! i and many other people have many issues we can’t get fixed because simply our government cares more about the economy than us), seeing a psychiatrist or a therapist or going to a mental hospital or WHATEVER is INCREDIBLY expensive. and to assume that everyone has access and enough time/money/energy/transportation/whatever to do all of that is classist and elitist.

ANYTHING medical (including mental health) is biased towards white cis men. most studies are done on white cis men/boys. because of this, people who aren’t white cis men (or people who aren’t perceived as white cis men) are often not diagnosed. the system is racist. the system is sexist. the system is transphobic. people don’t know how to diagnose autism or adhd or personality disorders or other neurodivergencies or even mental illnesses in black people and other people of color, in women, in trans people, etc. and GOD FORBID someone be in multiple (or all) of those categories. saying “just go get diagnosed :)” is a privileged statement to make.

shocker! the psychiatry system is also ableist. if you’re already diasabled (whether it be mental or physical) and you see a doctor about ANOTHER disability? the doctor is most likely going to shoot you down. or at least be weary about someone having mutliple disabilities.

also most people who diagnose are neurotypical. they have never and will probably never experience neurodivergency so they can never fully understand it. they operate off of stereotypes of neurodivergent people and usually only stereotypical behavior of neurodivergent white cis men (which, as i mentioned before, is problematic for anyone who isn’t a white cis man). neurotypical diagnosers don’t know the neurodivergent culture and aren’t trained to recognize very common things (like masking for example).

a professional diagnosis can also be weaponized. not everyone can get a professional diagnosis because there are some neurodivergencies (such as autism and personality disorders) and mental illnesses (like depression) that can have legal and medical respercussions to have in your record. trans people can be denied medical and legal transition for being professionally diagnosed. people can lose custody battles for being professionally diagnosed. a professional diagnosis can be used as justification for taking away someone’s body autonomy (especially if that person is also physically disabled).

a LOT of neurodivergencies also have some type of symptom (or symptoms) that make it difficult to interact with people. troubles recognizing facial expressions, troubles understanding certain phrases and types of speech, paranoid about people, audio processing issues, being nonverbal in an environment that doesn’t accommodate for it, overstimulation, extreme social anxiety, discomfort in new situations, problems with eye contact, and a lot more. because like. for many nd people, interacting with people is very difficult and stressful. and hey. if you want to get a professional diagnosis? take a WILD guess what you have to do? FUCKING INTERACT with people! LIKE?? JEHDJJDKEKKDKDKDS. do you know how many professionally diagnosed nd people i know who made their appointment COMPLETELY on their own without help from a parent or family member or friend? LITERALLY ZERO! and i know A FEW nd people who have professional diagnoses! so if someone has social issues that prevent them from doing tasks like calling and making an appointment, showing up for an appointment, talking during the appointment, etc and ALSO doesn’t have familial or friend support (because newsflash! people who are friends/family of disabled people can still be ableist)? almost impossible to get a diagnosis! plus, the diagnosis process is TIME CONSUMING. not everyone can focus on a task for that long and not everyone can miss work/school for that long.

so those are the reasons i support self-dx. (although there’s probably more that i’m forgetting but i have adhd and it’s hard for me to remember things!)

so hopefully you now understand my reasons for believing in self-dx, and perhaps even you’re pro-self-dx now because before you were just uneducated on these issues and how they impact people who aren’t you.

but in case you’re still anti-self-dx and probably hate already-marginalized neurodivergent people, let’s talk about this horrendous ask (series of asks, actually) that i got sent. i feel like i can feel the self hatred and internalized ableism OOZING from this ask and into my inbox, so thanks for that i guess /s

“Sometimes people who self diagnose can take away from those who are actually nd, even sometimes from themselves.”

starting out strong with the ableism on this one by separating people into “self diagnosed” and “actually nd” people. self diagnosed people ARE actually nd

there’s not a limited number of nd resources. this isn’t a math equation of only x amount of people can be nd because there’s only y amount of resources. more people realizing they’re nd will actually MAKE more resources for nd people and will bring more awareness to being nd

even IF someone self diagnosed, and they go back on it later, what harm was done? they learned some coping mechanisms? they made some nd friends? neither of those are problematic and i think they’re both actually very helpful. i think nt people SHOULD learn more about nd people and stuff because i think that will lead to WAYYY less misunderstandings and WAYYYY less ableism

“There are many people who fake nds for attention,”

hey anon, what fucking world do you live in that nd’s are cool enough to fake having? because i would LOVE to live there. like, i literally had a post about my personality disorder (which i will not be specifying) i had to delete because people were sending my anons about how i was “scary” and “threatening” now that they knew i had the personality disorder i have. last year i left a discord server because the ableism i was recieving from not only the members of the server, but the mods as well. there are very few people i know irl who i tell about my personality disorder, but when i tell people about my adhd, they start treating me different. they infantalize me and make fun of me and use “jokes” about stereotypical adhd behaviors to alienate me and they even TELL OTHER PEOPLE without my permission. i was SEVERELY bullied throughout elementary and middle school for being nd. i have been refused job and educational opportunities as well as literal medical attention for being nd. people aren’t “faking” being nd, and if they were they probably wouldn’t be doing it for long because it’s not something that’s EASY to deal with.

kinda ironic that you’re saying people can’t diagnose themselves but that YOU can tell when someone is faking their diagnosis. that’s both hypocritical and a double standard.

masking exists. if you think someone isn’t “acting nd enough” they’re probably masking because they’ve been fucking bullied and harrassed. also you’re probably basing whatever you think nd is on stereotypes. not every nd person is sheldon cooper lol.

this is a side note but can we talk about how you’re literally just taking transmed rhetoric and molding it to fit nd people? like. you really come onto MY NONBINARY NEURODIVERGENT blog and expect me to validate your recycled “but what about the REAL [insert group] people?” ??? like grow up, elitist. you’re not better than anyone else just because you lick some boots 🥾 👅

“and claiming that self diagnosis (and this is just what I interpreted) is just as valid as professional diagnosis”

it is 😌

the only difference between self diagnosis and professional diagnosis is that a professional diagnosis can also get you medicine. not every neurodivergency needs meds and not every neurodivergency can be treated (at this time or even ever). for example, my pd (self diagnosed) doesn’t have a specific treatment but multiple symptoms of the pd (all professionally diagnosed) have specific treatments and medicines that work, so patients are given/diagnosed with/prescribed those instead. also, medicine doesn’t work for everyone! and sometimes people are allergic to or take medicines that will conflict with any new medicine.

“can really devalue the account of someone who actually has a disorder”

here we go again with that “self diagnosed” vs “actually nd” bullshit. literally just say you hate poor people n minorities and leave lol

someone having a different experience than you isn’t devaluing you, but if you’re the one who always has the spotlight maybe you should use your privledge uplift other marginalized people instead of feeling angry when everything isn’t all about you 100% of the time

“I have a second ask”

i don’t want it

“Plus it can be damaging for a person if they self diagnose wrong.”

how? what if they learn information that they wouldn’t’ve otherwise known like coping mechanisms that help them with their own neurodivergencies? that’s definitely not a bad thing

i think it’s funny that you bring up that people can self diagnose wrong and don’t even MENTION that doctors can diagnose wrong. like. you know. the people who GIVE OUT MEDICINE to people. i think it’s MUCH more dangerous when a PROFESSIONAL diagnosis is wrong. what are self-dx people with wrong diagnoses gonna do? read up on nd tips? maybe smoke some weed? drink some coffee? that’s about all they can do with a self-dx. but if a MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL gives you an INCORRECT diagnosis, they can ACTUALLY fuck you up.

“I was recently diagnosed with PTSD, a disorder which I would have never considered I’d have.”

that’s great about your professional diagnosis! i don’t know you but i’m glad you’re finding out about yourself and getting the help you want and/or need /srs

sorry if this sounds blunt, but honestly i’m not surprised you never considered you could have PTSD. based on your asks, you sound like you have a lot of internalized ableism you need to work through and a lot more research about neurodiversity you need to do. being anti-self diagnosis is a common belief among a lot of people with internalized ableism and a lot of these same people are the ones who have no issue with and even SUPPORT auti$m $peaks. many nd organizations that are run BY nd people (like asan) actually support self-dx.

“If I had of diagnosed my own symptoms and then started treating myself or taking precautions based on my self diagnosed "condition", it could of really hurt me.”

how? taking precautions to preserve your mental health is NEVER a bad idea. i’m not ptsd, but someone i care deeply about DOES have ptsd and has shared a lot of the precautions and coping mechanisms for ptsd with me and honestly they’ve been incredibly helpful. it’s almost as if different neurodivergencies and/or mental illnesses have overlap and that’s why there’s a whole community for us to be able to share these resources and information with each other!

the same person was rejected a formal autism diagnosis because of their ptsd, plus the fact that they’re transgender and the fact they have symptoms of adhd. it’s not really my place to talk about their experience with professional diagnosis, but i’ll send this post to them and allow them to add on their experience in a rb if they’re comfortable with that. but it’s almost as if their experience with the professional diagnosis process was unhelpful, harmful, ableist, and transphobic 🧐 and unfortunately this is a pretty common experience

“Also, by self diagnosing, I devalue the account of a person with the disorder l assumed I had.”

how? if someone thinks they’re nd, they have a legitimate reason for thinking so. either they have another neurodivergency than the one they thought they had, or they’re neurotypical and need to figure themself out and have a need for support. either way, they learned more about the specific neurodivergency, more about the nd community, and more about themself. i don’t see how that’s a bad thing.

if you think self-diagnosed people’s experiences inherently have less value, that is straight up ableism. especially considering that other marginalized identities and minorities have trouble getting professional diagnoses, you might also be bigoted in some other way. or at the very least, refusing to acknowledge your privilege.

“only one more I promise”

i don’t want it

“I understand that doctors are expensive and professionals can get it wrong,”

okay. if you understand this, then dm me your information so i can bill you for the cost of my professional diagnoses, the cost for my therapy sessions, the cost for my medicine, and the cost for transportation to and from all these places. PLUS the cost of the work and school i’ll be missing for these sessions. 🤲

“but self diagnosis can be really harmful to yourself or others.”

nah, you’re just ableist and a gatekeeper lol

“If you feel like you have a disorder, go see a psychiatrist, you may have it.”

[remembers when i went to a psychiatrist who diagnosed me with two major symptoms of a personality disorder and said i had other symptoms of the pd as well but refused to diagnose me with the actual personality disorder because i was a minor at the time and he told me “kids don’t have personalities so they can’t have personality disorders”. i understand being weary about diagnosing children with personality disorders because they aren’t fully developed but this dude straight up told me that i didn’t have a personality. this man literally only worked with children so that means he literally never diagnosed personality disorders. this man was literally just lazy and didn’t care about his patients. this man also refused to believe me when i told him the medicine he prescribed me made my symptoms worse and even made me hallucinate. he ignored me and refused to change my medicine so eventually i just changed psychiatrists and they put me on a new medicine that DIDNT make my symptoms worse and DIDNT make me hallucinate. also i looked it up after our session and apparently ONLY people with my pd and related ones experience hallucinations on that certain medication. it’s almost like his refusal to diagnose me and ignoring my symptoms/concerns harmed me. this man also constantly misgendered me and told me that homosexuality and transgenderism should’ve still been in the dsm. like golly, it’s almost as if being queer and neurodivergent in an extremely conservative state is harmful and dangerous. and that psychiatrists aren’t immune from being homophobic and transphobic and ableist.] but yes :) perhaps i should see another psychiatrist in this conservative state :)

“I don't want to undermine anyone's actual experiences, but it can be dangerous.”

then stop undermining people’s actual experiences :)

no ❤️

“If you feel like something's wrong, go see a professional.”

the whole point of the neurodiversity movement is that there IS no such thing as a “normal” brain, so saying that neurodivergent people have something “wrong” with them is ableist.

💰 🤲 hand it over

“I don't want to offend, I just don't want anyone to get mislead or hurt. :)”

you absolutely meant to offend. you literally said that self-diagnosed people’s experiences aren’t valid and have less value than people who have professional diagnoses

i know more people who have been (and personally have been) mislead and hurt by professionals than by simply existing as a self-diagnosed person

also i want to say that being pro-self dx is NOT being anti-professional/formal diagnosis. i think that people should absolutely get a professional diagnosis (if they are able to without negative repercussions)! being pro-self dx is more inclusive of marginalized people (like people of color, women, lgbtq+ people, people with multiple disabilities, etc). pro-self dx is simply just saying that professional diagnosis isn’t the only option

(neurotypical people and anti-self dx people don’t add anything; pro-self dx neurodivergent people are allowed to add with their experiences if they want)

#asks #long post #nd adventures #ableism tw #sexism tw #racism tw #transphobia tw #misgendering mention #medical abuse mention #not star trek #homophobia tw

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destroyyourbinder · 4 years ago

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Unriddling the Sphinx: Autism & the Magnetism of Gender Transition

When people note that "trans children" tend to have autistic traits and that children with an autism diagnosis (particularly natal girls, but also boys) are massively overrepresented in the population that is referred to assessment and treatment for gender dysphoria, many trans people's (and allies') response is that it is a kind of dehumanization and denial of agency to claim that autistic people cannot be transgender, do not have the right to seek gender transition, or that they may be vulnerable to being exploited by the transgender healthcare system. Most recently, this claim has come up again with regards to a recent piece by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, where among many other things she notes the enormous increase in child referrals to gender clinics, including a disproportionate number of autistic children, to explain her reticence to endorse the political stances of modern transgender movements.

This is my response as an autistic woman, who was once an autistic child, who is a lesbian with experiences of gender dysphoria and who once wanted to transition to male.

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Recognizing our vulnerability to social predation and to cultural systems that we do not understand because they were not made for us is not offensive. As autistic people, it is key to claiming our autonomy as a particular kind of disabled person. We often do not recognize our limitations in reference to greater social systems not because we are "too stupid" (i.e. cognitively or intellectually limited) but because we have different value systems than neurotypical people and hierarchical institutions built for their benefit. Autism is a pervasive developmental disability, and it is a way of being. It is not merely being a "regular person" minus various clinically defined psychological capacities or skills. It is a difference across all domains of life, and as a disability that causes differences in our social and sensory perception it is also a disability that causes differences in what we want and what we care about. Both those who exhibit condescending "concern" for autistic people and those people who naively defend our right to do whatever we see fit miss this component of being autistic. It is not that we are merely vulnerable because we are missing parts of our decision-making or social skills apparatus. It is not that we are merely being unfairly denied what we want to do, and our autism is immaterial, just some excuse for the denial.

It's that we aren't recognized as having wants, only "special needs". It's that we aren't given the skills to know what it is that we want, or that it might be different from those around us. It's that we are never told how to get what we want in safe and healthy ways, or that there is even a potentially safe and healthy way to get it. It's that we are deemed automatically pathological and empty of internal experiences as autistic people. It's that we're not given any help on how to navigate our deep differences from others and how to navigate being deprived of social resources and networking in a way that doesn't tell us to just cover it up and deal with it. It's that most people who dedicate their lives to "helping" us do not care about any of these things, merely that we can be trained to act in a way that doesn't disrupt the lives of neurotypical people. Given this context, it is far more insulting to me to insist that having autonomy renders us somehow invulnerable to exploitation than to correctly perceive that we are in fact an intensely vulnerable people. By nature of our disability, we are always on the margins of social resources and social networks, and exercising our autonomy unfortunately often puts us even further outside social acceptability and social protection rather than somehow shielding us materially from the consequences of living a self-actualized autistic life. Few autistic people are prepared for this when they begin trying to make decisions "true to self" in adolescence.

I believe nearly every autistic person is traumatized from the consequences of living in this world and what others do to us. Clinicians do not usually recognize that autistic children and adults can be traumatized, that there is even anything there to traumatize. (Why else could they feel so comfortable shocking us, shackling us, or feeding us bleach?)

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I think because we are not neurotypical we often struggle to understand just why a neurotypical person would feel ok excluding us, or maybe even anyone. Many of us autistic people have little impulse to do such things, and if we do, we rarely have the social power to make someone that we've cut out of our lives unemployable, unable to access medical care, food, housing, and so on. But neurotypical institutions are set up, from top to bottom, to create hierarchies of value with extreme material difference between the top and bottom. They are set up to stratify the "worthy" people from "unworthy" people.

Autistic people are almost universally considered "unworthy" in these systems, and to the extent that we can curry favor from them we must consent to our exploitation: to entering into a transaction on neurotypical terms, where we can get some sort of worth through providing a "benefit" to this hierarchical resource system which is not made according to our value system or for us whatsoever. This is common to all marginalized people. But it is often particularly poignant to autistic people, who struggle to find community with any social group of human beings. There is no "elsewhere" for us, there is no "home". We are stuck, as they say, on the "wrong planet", and the spaceship was destroyed.

The idea that exercising our autonomy would protect us from this world rather than render us more vulnerable because we are refusing to transact correctly or refusing to provide a benefit is utterly absurd. Our autonomy is perfectly compatible with our continued social ostracization and exploitation. It usually coexists with our continued social ostracization and exploitation.

In social skills classes-- or just the wild, wild world-- you are not taught how to deal with the fact that everyone will hate you for being you. You are taught to be someone else. You are not taught about your native autonomy. You are taught about how to put your hands here or here, how to choose between actions that are condescendingly and ridiculously normal. You are not taught how to take responsibility in a way you understand, that is harmonious to your own values and others'. You are taught to hold yourself accountable for your abnormality.

So forgive me if I do not believe for one second that impersonal, well-funded medical systems that were built off of medically experimenting on intersex children and adults (the nightmares wreaked by John Money at Johns Hopkins) or psychologically experimenting on behaviorally aberrant children (UCLA, where behaviorist torturer of autistic children Ivan Lovaas tinkered with gender nonconforming children alongside conversion therapist George Rekers) have autistic people's self-defined well being in mind.

And forgive me if I do not think informed consent clinics have autistic people's self-defined well-being in mind when they're more interested in rubber stamping hormones while shielding themselves from legal liability than assisting autistic adolescents and adults, who have an intrinsically different way of understanding gendered social norms, navigate the enormous complexity of how to interface with the single most fundamental social fixation of the neurotypical world as someone who will always and automatically fail.

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I do not think most gender clinicians even have the first understanding of what it means to be autistic and what this does in and of itself to your understanding of gender and sexuality. What J.K. Rowling said in her piece-- a straightforward accounting of facts-- is far, far less insulting to me than what Diane Ehrensaft-- one of the premier "experts" in the United States on pediatric transgender cases-- published in a peer-reviewed journal on autism. In a 2018 letter to the editor reading remarkably like new-age material on Indigo Children, she writes that she likes to call autistic transgender children "Double Helix Rainbow Kids" and declares us "freed" from the restrictions of gender as "more creative" individuals. This article ends with an anecdote about an eight year old autistic female child with limited language use who begins speaking, making eye contact, and relating more appropriately with clinic staff after she is socially transitioned by her family. Ehrensaft muses, "“Could gender be an alleviator for the stressors of autism?”

She is not the only one to pontificate about the magical changes a gender transition brings on autistic children. Norman Spack (the first clinician in the US to use GnRH agonists on gender dysphoric children as puberty-suppressing drugs) claims in a coauthored, peer-reviewed 2012 paper (insults upon insults, in the Journal of Homosexuality) that in his clinical experience the symptoms of comorbid diagnoses--including "problems with social competence"-- "decrease and even disappear" with gender treatment. In the same paper, this passage appears:

Although the question of whether gender dysphoria is simply a symptom of an autism spectrum disorder has been raised by mental health clinicians in the field, we feel it is equally worth questioning the validity of an autism diagnosis among transgender youth, particularly of those diagnosed with Asperger’s disorder. Perhaps the social awkwardness and lack of peer relationships common among GID-Asperger’s patients is a result of a lifetime of feeling isolated and rejected; and maybe the unusual behavior patterns are simply a coping method for dealing with the anxiety and depression created from living in an “alien body,” as one patient described it.

Do autistic trans people-- who rightfully protest against mainstream autism organizations focusing on a "cure" for autism rather than respectful accommodations for our differences and medical needs-- know that very well-connected, very respected, and very powerful gender doctors are claiming that gender transition cures the symptoms of autism? Do autistic trans people-- who rightfully discuss the implications of denying that someone can both be autistic and hold a meaningful gender variant identity-- know that it is an active clinical debate as to whether or not their disability and all its struggles is "just" a result of somehow ending up in the "wrong body"?

If they do not, they should know that this is how doctors are perceiving the pervasive issues that the children in their care are having: not as the result of a life-long, stigmatized, but eminently livable disability, but as the result of a mystical gender failure that can be medically corrected. That essentially, the disability "goes away" so long as outsiders no longer perceive a problem with a child's conformity to gender norms. That either an autistic girl somehow is transfigured into a non-autistic child through transition, or more likely, an autistic girl's autistic behavior is unfitting for her as a girl but not for her as a boy. That the "proof" of pediatric transition's effectiveness and standard of an autistic child's happiness is how much the child wishes to participate in neurotypical society on neurotypical society's terms.

I cannot pretend that this isn't ludicrously disrespectful to autistic people, or that it isn't a total erasure of our experience as human beings. To these gender doctors, the fact that a girl might see the world in a different way and care about different things and thereby struggle in a world not made for her does not matter whatsoever, except maybe as a tokenistic "journey" she can go on alongside her wonderfully progressive and affirming doctors. What "autism" is for them is a particularly severe and inconvenient social adjustment problem which can be forcibly corrected through body modifications, should an autistic child or adult rightly note that they can't do gender right and this is causing problems for them. They are more interested-- like in a long history of abusive and even deadly "treatments" for autism-- in correcting the problem for them than for the autistic person. How convenient for neurotypical people both the gender incongruous behavior and the social noncompliance goes away once you medically modify a child to look like the other sex.

I cannot be anything but sick that "increased eye contact" is a sign an autistic child needed medical meddling in the intimate process of navigating and negotiating their sexual and gender development. I cannot trust that these doctors aren't missing enormous parts of their autistic patients' experiences, if this is what they are so gleeful to report as a positive transformation and their justification for disrupting and surveilling children's bodies. What do they think of autistic people and those who are gender non-conforming if they are so willing to believe that existing as a person with a stigmatized disability is actually just a misdiagnosis for the pseudoscientific condition of being a man in a woman's body, or vice versa?

-----

It takes many, many years and quite a bit of luck and support for most autistic people to fully understand and come to terms with how their autism affects them and sets them apart from both individual neurotypical people and neurotypical society at large. It takes years-- often far, far into adulthood, especially for those abused under a medical model or for those who went decades undiagnosed-- to understand the differences between social and non-social aspects of this disability.

It takes years to not resort to chalking up all of your own distress and difficulties to being a "retard".

I have not met an autistic woman yet who did not have extreme difficulty integrating her autistic differences in values with a broader sense of self that includes whatever version of herself she uses to navigate a world in which women's values are simultaneously invisible (since she has no right to determine them herself) and nitpicked to death (since it is important she complies).

In a world like this why would it not be difficult for autistic people to know when it is they are being fooled or exploited while participating in transgender communities or while seeking transgender health care? Autistic people-- especially those who are dependent on caregivers or health systems for basic care, as well as those who depend on the goodwill of their families, employers, or welfare benefit institutions to remain as independent as they can-- have to make continual compromises just to maintain enough acceptability to communicate with the outside world nonetheless do things like "make a friend", "go to the doctor", "find a job".

I do not think neurotypical people understand or care that when I speak or write it is always with a similar effort as with a second language. Language-- whether it is verbal or nonverbal, with all the extensive symbology of the neurotypical world-- does not ever get to be something other than "translation" for me. As someone with an Asperger's-profile of abilities who has studied the neurotypical world intensely for years, I have the opportunity to translate in a way that allows others to understand me at least some of the time. Many autistic people who are more affected live in the world which gives "autism" its name, where nobody cares to do the translation for us and we are left totally and utterly alone.

The 20th century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (who, perhaps not coincidentally, was likely autistic) was fixated on questions about the meaning of communication. About whether a language of one could make any sense, about what it would mean to speak about something hidden from everyone else or perhaps even ourselves. In a famous passage debated vociferously, he wrote, "If a lion could speak, we would not be able to understand him."

Many have resolved the question posed by this statement by claiming that for fuck's sake, a lion is a lion, and has nothing to say.

-----

Gender transition appealed to me because it was cloaked in the farcical notion that there was some version of me and my body that could finally speak directly. I never quite understood the whole Adam and Eve story as an autistic child-- just don't eat it!-- but if there truly were a serpent's apple for autistic folks it would consist of this promise: that there was a world where the glass and the fog would dissolve, that we weren't covered in a repulsive and bumbling slime made of our own desires to understand, that instead of our words and hands glancing off the skin of everyone around us we could do that magic everyone else could and hold someone's heart in our hands. I was fooled because like many struggling autistic people, I wanted the problem to be me. Because then it was fixable. I would let them take my only body (which was such a sensory drag) to convert me into one of these blessed transponders that normal people were, receiving and sending all these messages like shooting stars blazing through the unimpeded vacuum of space. Without my femaleness and without the Difficulties That Should Not Be Named, I could send whatever message I wanted to whoever I wanted and it would be received, I could be gregarious, important, sexually compelling; my will and autonomy wouldn't be stifled by 140 pounds of dumpy, itchy flesh with an overbite and slack hands.

When I imagined myself as a man I didn't imagine myself like most of the childhood boys I managed to ingratiate myself with, who lisped, repeated themselves, and tripped over their own shoes. I imagined myself as a musician who was absolutely magnetic, I imagined myself as a writer with a legacy, I imagined myself telling other guys they were stupid shits and they could fuck off. I imagined being able to hold onto a football without dropping it, being able to smoke weed without getting a migraine, being able to talk without squeaking or letting out a little drool.

I thought I would finally be a human being with no embarrassments and nothing that could get me bullied in the bathroom between class. I thought when I would say "no", other people would listen. I would enter whatever mystical world it is that Ehrensaft names, made of messages and meanings, where every twist of word and piece of clothing said something, connected by a fine filament back to that Necronomicon filled with the runes of social symbology. And it would make sense.

I would become a lion, not a house cat. And the lion would speak. And we would understand him.

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It is a neurotypical narrative that this is what transition can do for you, because it is what someone else's transition does for neurotypical people. A gender transition is magical because it decodes the lion. It unriddles the sphinx. The autistic person must be happier now, because the neurotypical person is happier now. (And who has an empathy deficit?)

But if I have learned to be afraid of anything as an autistic person it is not my own neuroticism and fixations, but those of the so-called "normal people". Forget double helix rainbows: being an autistic person is like your DNA is a converted school bus trundling through the world in spray-painted glory and the whole world has an HOA. I understand why autistic people who see themselves as transgender see "concern" as the busybody stupidity of the neurotypical world. They aren't wrong. But it exists alongside other mundane and brutal busybody stupidities, such as grant funding, progressive saviorism, and psychiatric god-complexes.

To understand and resist what the neurotypical world communicates to us about our worth is not to protest back to them in their own language. I am an autistic woman and like many other autistic women I am tired of not only making myself more palatable but translating my existence into something intelligible to outsiders, who are both men and the non-autistic. Radical feminists miss one of these; trans activists and allies miss the other. But I am irrevocably othered from both.

When you are autistic you are taught only one symbolic structure. It is not your own, but it is the only medium you will ever have to communicate with any complexity. More sinisterly, it becomes the only medium we have to communicate to ourselves, the only medium we can use to work around the silent and jumbled parts of our bodies and minds. Am I hungry? It is not always obvious. To ask the question I find myself translating, even when alone.

My fantasy about lions and men was that whatever world a lion lived in and whatever he had to say, he did not need to translate, and especially never to himself. When a lion says something he does not stop to ask if he means what he says or who is saying it. When a lion looks into the water hole and sees his own reflection, he does not need to reconcile anything. The lion does not need to speak to understand himself. A lion is made of teeth and blood and claws and the lion just does.

I do not use the symbolism of transgenderism to explain the little gaps and incongruities that are my problems with gender, with my sexed body, with sexuality. It is not only a language born of neurotypical neuroses and regulation, but it is always and forever fundamentally a translation. As an autistic woman I have spent my whole life avoiding these dual facts, through both my time thinking of myself as trans and while trying to understand this whole thing afterwards: I am my body and I am not my body. Because I speak, but I do not understand. Because I understand, but I do not speak.

I will, unavoidably, always have to translate to speak and understand. But my autonomy requires that at bottom I must respect the native communication of my own body and mind. I refuse to use force or coercion to get it to talk, to interrupt its silence, to confabulate stories on its behalf, to speak for it using assumptions it cannot confirm or deny. I have to make peace with the fact that sometimes the blanks of my body or the redacted corners of my mind will say nothing. I have to make peace with the fact that translation is always inaccurate, that something is always beyond that constellation of symbols and words. The autistic body and the autistic mind have their own boundaries, and I refuse to believe that exercising my autonomy requires breaking them.

I do not know if J.K. Rowling knows this. I hope you do.

#writings #autism #detransition #reidentifying

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lachlanwrites · 3 years ago

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Black market hormones: How red tape is forcing a trans generation to self-medicate

HORMONE THERAPY: Treatment for trans people in the UK is woefully inadequate, forcing many to consider risky alternatives

Lachlan Mykura reports on the difficulties of treatment for transgender people, documenting his own experiences and the bureaucracy surrounding them.

Transgender issues have long been a source of controversy and debate. In recent years, these issues have come under the spotlight. Younger generations are more able to explore their gender, and the concept of a strict binary is being slowly replaced with a far more fluid and flexible umbrella.

Not everyone who is transgender will transition medically, but for those who do it can be an arduous process bogged down by bureaucracy. While it is important to note that those who choose not to transition, or have no desire to transition, are valid, this article will specifically focus on the people that do.

I am Lachlan Mykura, and I am FTM - female to male transgender. My transition has been marked by wait times, delays, gatekeeping and uncertainty, so I did what a growing number of transgender people are doing. I decided to start taking hormones without a prescription.

To understand why I, and many other trans people do this, we need to look at the system and its failures. There are currently seven NHS gender identity clinics (GIC’s) in the UK, with plans for three more in Manchester, London and Merseyside. In 2015 there were 1,408 referrals to these clinics. In 2020 there were 2,728. With only seven clinics for thousands of referrals, wait times for NHS GIC’s have skyrocketed, and many clinics no longer publish their times, estimated to be years. Indeed, many of them seem to have completely ground to a halt.

One such clinic, The Laurels in Exeter, has 2,592 people currently on its waiting list, and yet saw only 2 people in 2020. One patient has been on the list for nearly 6 years, 17 times the NHS legal guideline of 18 weeks.

Many GP’s are uneducated or unused to trans issues, and don’t know the proper procedures for referring patients on to a GIC. I found this myself when I was beginning to consider medical transition, with one GP outright telling me they didn’t know how to help me.

Nearly a year later I managed to get a referral, and my waiting game began.

These wait times add to an already time sensitive process. Transgender people under 18 cannot go to most GIC’s. Tavistock is currently the only GIC that will see underage patients, and even getting to this clinic before you become 18 is a struggle.

Although transition can be successful at any age, the younger you start medical transition, the better the results are likely to be, especially for male to female (MTF) patients. By the time you can start hormones on the NHS, you will likely have gone through puberty entirely, and will have the sex characteristics of your assigned gender at birth (AGAB).

The NHS is a clumsy beast when it comes to gender care, and with the rapidly rising number of referrals, it may fall even further behind.

The NHS is also not currently very supportive of non-binary people looking to transition. A diagnosis of gender dysphoria is necessary to start hormones, and while the NHS has become more accepting of non-binary identities in recent years, some non-binary people may struggle to meet the criteria.

If you don’t want to wait for NHS treatment then there is the option for private treatment. In the UK this comes in the form of two providers, Gendercare and GenderGP.

Gendercare is a private network of doctors, and is staffed by some of the most experienced gender specialists in the UK. Unfortunately, this means it also has a price tag to match. Each of the doctors working at Gendercare set their own prices, but most tend to be around £300 for an initial appointment, and then £150 for follow ups, which are necessary to start on hormones.

GenderGP is a cheaper alternative, although the quality of treatment they offer is arguably worse. They are a telemedicine service, working on a system of ‘informed consent’. This means that during their consultations, they will tell you about any possible risks and effects of the treatment, but the end choice to start hormones is down to you. They don’t require any formal diagnoses. On paper, this sounds like an excellent choice, and I originally decided to go with them, paying my £65 initial appointment fee and talking to one of their psychologists.

However, GenderGP is not the most reputable service. Doctors Helen and Mike Webberly, the couple who started the service, have both been struck off by the GMC for providing hormones and puberty blockers to those under 18. This gave me cause for concern, but having seen firsthand the politicization of trans treatments, especially for those under 18, I thought that this wasn’t enough for me to stop using their services. The nail in the coffin for GenderGP came in October 2020, when their pharmacy, ClearChemist, said that they would no longer be working with GenderGP. This put GenderGP’s ability to prescribe hormones in jeopardy. Even though their services were cheaper, faster and accessible online, I didn’t know if they could fulfil what they promised. I decided to switch to Gendercare instead.

“The NHS is a clumsy beast when it comes to gender”

TESTOGEL: One of the forms of hormone treatment available to FTM transgender people.

I contacted two of the doctors working for Gendercare, who I thought would have the shortest wait times. One of them said that he could not accept me as a patient, and the other said that he could offer me an initial appointment in January 2021. Progress.

This January appointment would be followed up by another appointment or two with one of Gendercare’s endocrinologists. I would have paid around £1000 without even being sure I could get a prescription. As a student, I had more important things to spend money on, like instant ramen and rent.

I was sitting with friends one evening and the topic came onto hormones. I was lamenting the trials and tribulations of transgender treatment in the UK when one of the friends I was with, another trans man, piped up “I could give you my spare bottle.”

Bingo.

I thought about the prospect for a while, I knew people who took testosterone without a prescription and their transitions were going well. However, I was really nervous about it, I had no way of knowing my hormone levels, I wouldn’t have a consistent supply and, well, it just wasn’t a very good idea.

I did it anyway.

A few weeks of soul searching later I realised that I had known I was trans since I was a young teenager. I had been sitting on these feelings, hoping they would ‘go away’ or second guessing myself as to whether or not I was ‘really trans. But they hadn’t. They had stuck like toilet paper on a shoe throughout my teenage years and into my twenties. My excuses of waiting until I was an adult had no weight, after all, I was an adult now. Years of waiting, doctors appointments, and questioning and now here I was, being offered hormones on a silver platter over a glass of wine. I had to take it.

I had no way of knowing my hormone levels, I wouldn’t have a consistent supply and, well, it just wasn’t a very good idea. I did it anyway.

Gel is, in my opinion, the easiest and best way to take testosterone, the other popular one being injection. Gel is a daily application which means that your hormone levels don’t suffer from the same rises and falls that weekly injection causes. However, with these smaller doses comes slower changes, on average.

I wasn’t too worried about this, since I didn’t really want incredibly quick changes when I had no access to a specialist to help monitor my levels. Injections are also cheaper than gel, but I didn’t need to worry about that, after all, I was getting mine for free. Besides, even if I didn’t hate needles, I wasn’t about to go injecting myself with drugs unless a doctor had told me to.

In order for trans men to do their injections, they need to be shown how to by a nurse, generally at their first appointment. If done wrong, injecting testosterone can cause pain, swelling, and infection.

The gel I use is called Testogel. Testogel dosage is measured by pumps, the bottle is designed so that each pump will give the exact same amount of gel. I started on one pump, since I wanted to stretch out the amount of gel I had for as long as I could. I didn’t know if I would be able to get another one on time, and I was fully aware that I was relying only on the generosity of my friend.

The changes have, as expected, come rather slowly. I have been on testosterone for around a month and a half now, and, unfortunately, I’m no closer to resembling Chris Hemsworth or Zac Effron than I was when I started. All in good time. What I have noticed is that my voice has dropped, and I’m plagued by embarrassing voice cracks at the worst of times. Every man has to go through them at some point and I’m no exception. God help me when I get stuck trying to grow a beard.

None of my fears about making a mistake have come to pass. I have been happy with all the changes, which is not something I could ever say about going through my first puberty.

The reasons that people choose to self-prescribe hormones are vast, not least because of the cost and time that goes into getting a prescription legally. The reasons, however, run much deeper than just personal cost.

Transgender treatment is a subject of fierce debate worldwide, and the UK is no exception. Recently, a lawsuit was brought against the Tavistock GIC by a woman who started taking puberty blockers when she was a teenager, and then detransitioned at 23. She believes that the NHS did not take enough precautions before prescribing her puberty blockers - which are fully reversible.

As a result of this, under 16’s in the UK may now no longer be able to give informed consent to start taking puberty blockers before they start on hormones at 18. While people who detransition are facing a very difficult time in their lives and deserve support, the backlash falls on actual trans people.

TERF groups (trans exclusionary radical feminists) see these detransitoners as martyrs who have been brainwashed and victimized by ‘the trans cult’. As a result, actual trans people face not only increased waiting times and inaccessible appointments but also increased media scrutiny and online vitriol.

Trans issues are in the limelight. Recently, Elliot Paige, who plays Vanya in The Umbrella Academy, came out as FTM, becoming one of the most high-profile celebrities to come out transmasculine. Trans men are often left out of public conversation, as trans women are more often the focus of transphobic tabloid media and TERF rhetoric. With more and more people coming out, either as transgender, or in support of transgender rights, trans treatment should hopefully become more and more accessible.

Written December 2020 By Lachlan Mykura

#ftm #transgender #transmasculine #hormones #testogel #NHS #gender #gender identity #transition #testosterone #journalism #news #lachlanwrites

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