BLUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! XPPPPPPPPPPP

It also includes these fascinating paragraphs about the role of estrogen in different types of physical activity, directly debunking the widespread notion that estrogen is the weak human's hormone and only does weak human things:

Given the fitness world's persistent touting of the hormone testosterone for athletic success, you'd be forgiven for not knowing that estrogen, which females typically produce more of than males, plays an incredibly important role in athletic performance… The estrogen receptor—the protein that estrogen binds to in order to do its work—is deeply ancient. Joseph Thornton of the University of Chicago and his colleagues have estimated that it is around 1.2 billion to 600 million years old—roughly twice as old as the testosterone receptor. In addition to helping regulate the reproductive system, estrogen influences fine-motor control and memory, enhances the growth and development of neurons, and helps to prevent hardening of the arteries. Important for the purposes of this discussion, estrogen also improves fat metabolism. During exercise, estrogen seems to encourage the body to use stored fat for energy before stored carbohydrates. Fat contains more calories per gram than carbohydrates do, so it burns more slowly, which can delay fatigue during endurance activity. Not only does estrogen encourage fat burning, but it also promotes greater fat storage within muscles… which makes that fat's energy more readily available. Adiponectin, another hormone that is typically present in higher amounts in females than in males, further enhances fat metabolism while sparing carbohydrates for future use, and it protects muscle from breakdown. Anne Friedlander of Stanford University and her colleagues found that females use as much as 70 percent more fat for energy during exercise than males. Estrogen's ability to increase fat metabolism and regulate the body's response to the hormone insulin can help prevent muscle breakdown during intense exercise. Furthermore, estrogen appears to have a stabilizing effect on cell membranes that might otherwise rupture from acute stress brought on by heat and exercise. Ruptured cells release enzymes called creatine kinases, which can damage tissues… Linda Lamont of the University of Rhode Island and her colleagues, as well as Michael Riddell of York University in Canada and his colleagues, found that females experienced less muscle breakdown than males after the same bouts of exercise. Tellingly, in a separate study, Mazen J. Hamadeh of York University and his colleagues found that males supplemented with estrogen suffered less muscle breakdown during cycling than those who didn't receive estrogen supplements.

If you have poor eyesight, you have something in common with the kiwi! This species of bird is nocturnal, and they rely on other senses light smell and hearing to find their prey. As a result, most kiwis have extremely poor vision, and there's even small but healthy population of completely blind individuals. The best part? Scientists believe the gene responsible for the reduction in vision is the Sonic hedgehog gene.

(Image: A North Island brown kiwi (Apteryx mantelli) by Tui de Roy)

Here's why:

I have NO money to give you

I'm not a popular enough blog that I will give you any reach

I am a minor, and most of my followers are too

It makes me feel extremely guilty

Seeing pictures of injuries or hospitals etc are triggering for me (which are in most intro posts for this sort of thing)

They are always worded in a way that makes me feel like I am a murderer if I don't donate

It makes me feel uncomfortable

I said I don't want them, and my boundaries should be respected

I can't tell what is a bot and what isn't

I get a lot of spam from this. It is disappointing to see 10 new asks in my inbox just to be the same ask for donations over and over

Please, just respect the fact that I have said this.

A transmasc posted about how transmascs and trans men are often invisible, how our issues are dismissed, and how resources, especially medical ones, are almost always written with non transmascs in mind. They posted this both to r/Trans and r/lgbt.

A moderator of r/Trans responded by telling them to “stop bitching.” That’s the word they used. That’s the level of respect trans men get. Transandrophobic by the way, don't call trans men bitches.

The comment was deleted, quietly, after backlash. Then the entire post was removed. When asked why, a mod responded that the post was “playing oppression olympics,” and took the time to go through and dismiss each of the original poster’s points, including saying that trans men being sexually assaulted isn’t “unique to transmascs” and therefore not an issue, and claiming that access to testosterone isn’t any more restricted than access to estrogen, which is a straight-up lie, because T is a tightly controlled substance in most places and E is not.

The original poster was banned for three days.

Then a separate mod made a post saying, “nobody asked us our side of the story,” which is wild because people absolutely did, publicly and repeatedly. Users also started reporting that they’d had supportive comments removed or had been banned after disagreeing with the mods, some of those claims are still unconfirmed, but given the general behavior, it wouldn’t be surprising.

Then r/Trans locked down entirely. No new posts. The conversation was forcibly ended.

Some people posted about it on r/FTM, many of those posts were mass-reported, automatically removed by Reddit’s automod, or quietly buried. Meanwhile, r/lgbt also removed the original post, with no explanation.

One of the r/Trans mods eventually posted an “apology,” which was really just a soft-scrubbed PR post full of noncommittal language and distancing. They said they didn’t mean to call a trans man “a bitch,” they just used it synonymously with “complaining,” and they didn’t think about the implications until later even though the first post was about microaggressions just like the mod committed. They did not apologize for anything else, not for wrongfully banning people, not for accusing a transmasc venting like any other user of playing oppression olympics, nothing at all. They said they’re on break and can’t do anything about it. They said, and I quote, “please don’t be mad at the rest of the team.” even though the rest of the team are just as culpable for not stopping their behavior.

They also added that trans men are “a welcome part of the community” and tried to point at moderation history as proof. Because apparently we should be grateful that people occasionally get banned, every so often, for implying trans men aren't oppressed at all, wow, thanks, that is like below the bare minimum, cool.

The current state of things is: r/Trans has over 600,000 members, and trans men and transmascs were silenced, banned, and told to shut up for bringing up their own oppression. And the subreddit is locked down. There’s a mass exodus happening to the new sub, r/trans4every1, but let’s be real, the damage has already been done.

Now let’s talk about what this actually means.

This is not “just more Tumblr discourse.” This isn’t some random blog saying they don’t like transmascs. This isn’t a Twitter reply guy. This isn’t a niche zine or a spicy personal take. This is a massive trans-focused subreddit with over half a million users. It's easily one of the largest public facing trans community online, maybe even the largest, I've certainly never found a bigger one myself. And the moderation team made it crystal clear: they do not want transmascs to feel safe or welcome there.

This is what transandrophobia looks like on a slightly larger internet scale. When it’s in the hands of people who get to decide who gets heard and who gets deleted.

And for anyone who’s still stuck on “well they apologized” listen: trans men are told all the time that we’re being too loud, too angry, too entitled, too manly, too feminine, too confusing, too “binary,” too "Nonbinary", too much. We’re told that we’re “oppression olympics-ing” just for talking about our lives. And now we're getting banned and locked out of the spaces that claim to represent a huge portion of online trans people.

This isn't just online drama. This is a bellwether. And if it isn’t setting off alarms in your head, it should be.

The way transandrophobia manifests in online spaces absolutely bleeds into real life, into medical gatekeeping, into poor data collection, into the erasure of sexual violence against transmascs, into advocacy groups that write us out of the picture, into educational materials that treat us like footnotes, if they include us at all.

And if you’re sitting there thinking, “well it’s not that deep,” you’re part of the problem.

We need to start being more honest about this: Transandrophobia is real, it is widespread, and it is growing. We need to stop giving people the benefit of the doubt when they’ve shown us they don’t want us in the room.

And frankly?

We need to start making TRFs [Trans Radfems & transmasc-exclusionary feminists alike] deeply uncomfortable being open about their beliefs. We need to make them afraid to be TRFs, the way they’re trying to make us afraid to exist.

The same way we don’t coddle fascists. The same way we don’t tolerate TERFs. We need to stop tiptoeing around transandrophobia.

Because this growing wave of transandrophobia is going to kill people. Full stop.

Protect trans men. Protect transmascs. Protect your siblings; all of them!

Edit because I forgot to add it:

Another thing worth noting is that not only was r/trans deleting and banning any users and posts talking about the situation, they were deleting any posts talking about transmasc issues or transmasc positivity full stop.