it’s genuinely fucking absurd that cis people have any goddamn say at all on trans healthcare
“oh yeah i mean im not diabetic but i dont really know how insulin works and i think its kinda freaky that you gotta poke your finger all the time so im gonna go ahead and say insulin is illegal”
thats how it sounds.
My understanding is that gender affirming care is elective and not necessary to be considered trans, while Diabetes can and does kill people
I'm wondering, from your perspective what do you think the OP was trying communicate, and do you think you think that your understanding and response is appropriately attuned to that intention? From my reading of the OP, what was being communicated was: -Cis people often lack insights into the lived experience of trans people, and are profoundly ignorant around HRT. -That in the absence of actual phenomenological insight and in depth medical knowledge, cis people will often base their opinions around HRT on their visceral gut reactions, not recognizing what might be informing those reactions. -That is particularly frustrating that many of those doing this are people in positions of authority (whether that authority extends over a single person, whole institutions, or entire nations) are able to restrict access to this life saving medical treatment on the basis of their uninformed gut reactions, and that such decision making is treated a legitimate (again, there is room here to reflect on what might inform and influence that perception of legitimacy) I might be wrong in this reading, OP is certainly welcome to correct me. I'm also curious about the decision to focus in on the technical appropriateness of the analogy the OP has used to make their point. I have a sense that you see this as suggesting an equivalency between medical care to address diabetes and gender affirming medical care, and I'm wondering what that brought up for you?
I was aiming towards a dialogue, but I'm also recognising that I don't have the inclination. So I'm just going to put my cards on the table and call it a night.
I don't actually disagree that the OP may have been drawing a direct parallel between trans healthcare and diabetes healthcare. Perhaps if we think about it a bit deeper we might see why that might be, how it might actually be more appropriate than it might appear, and that maybe even there's something being communicated there that might be escaping you (and maybe that fact even relates back to the very point the OP is making).
Yes, diabetes can and does kill people. Diabetes has a continuum of severity, some people are able to manage this by changing minor aspects of their lifestyle while others may find more serious medical interventions are required to maintain their quality of life.
Likewise gender dysphoria can and does kill people. Some might be inclined to split hairs around the difference of mechanism, but I don't think anybody who has mourned the death of a trans loved one finds that convincing or charming. Personally I believe that there is more to sustaining a human life than simply providing for the body as biochemical mechanism.
I don't know what definition you're using for "elective", my understanding is that any medical treatment which isn't addressing an immediately life threatening issue is "elective", but then that would include treatment for a large swathe of those with diabetes.
Your statement that gender affirming care isn't required to be trans is technically true, one could also say treatment for diabetes isn't required to be diabetic. As with diabetes there is a range of severity for gender dysphoria, and correspondingly different means of managing it. This ranges from simple lifestyle changes to more involved medical interventions.
Alternatively, as with diabetes, one may simply elect not to manage it, or may lack the resources needed to access the care to manage it, or be outright denied the means to manage it.
And that is what brings us back to the core of the analogy, not the fundamental differences between the management of diabetes and gender dysphoria, but that differences in how these two are perceived and treated by people.
Broadly diabetes is a problem with the endocrine system, and has a variety of specific mechanisms behind it. Accordingly, if you struck up conversation with those in the waiting room of an endocrinologist you might expect to meet a few people with diabetes. You might also meet a few transgender people, given that hormone replacement therapy also relates to the endocrine system and is accordingly often overseen by an endocrinologist.
I have found myself sitting in the waiting room of my endocrinologist right next to somebody seeing him for their diabetes. There's a myriad of technical differences between us in our reasons for attending his office, but fundamentally both of us are seeking specialist medical advice around an issue that can dramatically impact our quality of life, up to the point of even ending it.
The fundamental difference between us that is of interest here though is that of the bystanders perspective. As a general rule, most people don't spend any time thinking about diabetes unless its personally relevant, nor does almost anybody adopt serious personal or political stances around how the condition is managed by those who experience it. The same cant be said of trans healthcare, such as HRT. The same people who would never think to scrutinise how people with diabetes manage their condition and would probably react to questions around it with "Well, I wouldn't know anything about that" will readily throw their hat into the ring of a massive arena of public discourse around trans healthcare despite it having no more personal relevance to them, and having no more insight into the matter than they do about diabetes.
We have two aspects of the same area of medical discipline, and between them complete bystanders are displaying very different gut reactions and degrees of entitlement to opine and interfere despite the absence of insight.
Diabetes is just seen as... well, diabetes. While gender affirming care even down to simple changes of pronouns and presentation are being made into weapons of political division and it seems like everybody is carrying.
I feel there's a lot of layers of meaning being communicated in the original post, and maybe some of that isn't as obvious if one doesn't have the lived experience to inform their understanding.
I wonder if there's a takeaway here about lived experience around an issue effecting how we might understand it, and even our inclination to assume a level of understanding that is actually more a product of gut reaction. Even maybe... why this phenomenon might apply differently to different topics, even very similar ones... hmmm
