Mel

Once you start noticing the erasure and exclusion of trans mascs in everything from media to academics you can never stop noticing it

#the therapist who wrote my permission slip for hrt was a trans man#and during that appointment we talked about the erasure of trans men from basically everything#and i talked about an article i had read a week or so earlier about trans people and hiv#it very in depth about risks prevention treatment etc#except that it exclusively referenced trans women with a single sentence at the end basically saying 'oh trans men are at risk too'#less than a year later i saw that same therapist speaking at an hiv organization fundraising event#he talked about how he had just recently been diagnosed with hiv#and had to sit there while this doctor told him all about how the treatment options had never been tested on trans men#none of them#they knew that the treatment would work#but not how effective it would be in comparison to its effectiveness in other demographics#no idea what kind of side effects he might experience#how it would interact with his body and his hormones#what the long term effects would be#nothing#he had to sit there while his doctor told him he would have to be a guinea pig but its not like he has a choice#the only alternative is dying from aids#that whole thing was kind of a wake up call for me#and i started paying more attention getting tested regularly myself and all that sruff you're supposed to do#and over time i befriended the person who did most of my testing#they were also trans masc and we would talk about this kind of stuff#and i told them i wanted to get on prep but every doctor i asked had a wildly different answer on if i even could take it#which verison i could take etc#and they said that only one form of prep has been approved fot trans men but its never actually been tested on trans men#and that one version isnt good for long term use because it has some pretty serious side effects long term#and they said that they regularly go to conferences and meet with representatives from all these drug companies#and they ask 'wheres the data on trans men' 'when are you doing clinical studies on trans men'#and the answer#every single time is: we have not done any studies on trans men and we have no intention to ever do studies on trans men#this is not some passive result of trans masc invisibility it is an active act of erasure that needs to be recognized as an act of violence

i’ve just seen the craziest image

Bilateral salpingectomy, baybeeee. There are lists of gynos who will do the operation without you needing to be a specific age or what the fuck ever. Yeeting my tubes (6 years before my yeeterus became necessary) was the best thing I did for my mental health. 4 days of downtime watching trashy TV and no more pregnancy scares, or pregnancy, ever again. Plus if you just take the tubes out, it's one less thing that can turn cancerous later.

Definitely don't look at this excel sheet that has a list of gynecologists who will sterilize you if you're +21 regardless of number of children or marital status.

yes, I want conditions to improve for women in [named country], which is why I don't want the US and its allies invading, bombing, or fomenting a coup there. for every wonderful story of a woman in Kabul getting a better education and an exciting new job while Afghanistan was occupied by NATO, there was a woman in a rural village who wept over her children after they got limbs blown off. this isn't an isolated situation. what happened in places like Chile or Guatemala after US backed coups? in Guatemala's case it led to a civil war where the state committed genocide against the indigenous population, while in Chile Pinochet's regime imprisoned, tortured, and killed their opposition just as brutally. there's an endless list of atrocities that have come from Western intervention, because shock horror, these interventions aren't actually a means of helping anyone but Western capitalists. the humanitarianism justifications the West started using in the 90s are just propaganda

Younger people, one thing I want you to understand about Millenials is that, overall, our parents taught their daughters to aim for careers and employment, but they didn't teach their sons to keep house. This causes a whole lot of Situations.

Yep.

I was told in high school that it was my job to have dinner ready and on the table by 5pm sharp when my parents got home. My brothers never had to cook or wash the dishes. I had to teach myself how to cook because I was told to just do it since "it's a girl's job. You're going to be a woman soon, so you need to know this." (I've since realized I'm transmasculine nonbinary but that's a different discussion people probably aren't ready for). My brothers never had to learn to cook. Sure, they did it for fun when they did boy scout camping, but never at home. I did the dishes and cooked while doing hours of homework because I was in all the advanced placement classes. They could play video games or go to football practice, and I had to take care of the house. When I asked if my oldest brother, who was always home and who was also over 18 the entire time, could make dinner even one night a week, so I could do my homework, I got screamed at so fiercely by my mother. Never once did I get help with anything. Never once did my parents say that they'd make dinner and we'd eat at 6 or 7 after they came home so we could have family dinner together. It was always my job as the only girl and the youngest, which is ironic since usually the oldest sibling is usually said to take care of the family.

Man I can’t be feeling things about Kingdom Hearts man I need to be going to sleep rn man

Y’know speaking of sleep—