Kayla's Page

because yes, there are a lot of non-transfems who use it, and on a certain level as a descriptivist linguist, a word means what people use it to mean. but also, especially when it comes to marginalized groups and their own terms, it can be really important to establish and understand and respect what they mean, not broaden and coopt them into meaninglessness. so let's talk about t4t as a term and why i personally hold that it refers specifically to transfem4transfem.

most of you are aware that t4t means trans4trans, and comes from dating and hookup websites, the same way terms like m4f, f4m, m4m, and f4f do. so, in order to really dig down into how these terms were used and what they signal to, we have to talk about how the word "transgender" gets used in cis dominated, 18+ spaces online, both now and in the early 2000s.

the fact of the matter is that trans women bear the absolute brunt of fetishization and sexualization from cisnormative society. when people say "tranny", they mean trans women. when people talk about trans sex workers, they mean trans women. when people talk about trans pornography, they mean trans women. when people talk about trans predators, they mean trans women. and when chasers on dating sites talked about looking for trans hookups, they meant trans women.

and that's where this usage originates, that's the environment under which t4t becomes a seeking category as well. for trans women looking for other trans women to date, rather than the chasers fetishizing them. and just like the word tranny, those who do not bear the brunt of the fetishization, sexualization, and marginalization that gave rise to the word do not get to reclaim it. so it is with tranny, and so it is with t4t.

it is also, i think, worth noting some other context surrounding why transfems would specifically need a term for dating each other, instead of dating anyone else. lots of transmascs date each other too, and lots of trans men and women date each other. so why shouldn't this fall under t4t?

consider what t4t means, given the historical context discussed above. t4t means transfems, trans lesbians specifically, seeking each other out for love and sex and connection. t4t specifically being a trans lesbian term is important, because trans women have been largely excluded and pushed out of lesbian communities and scenes, a problem that still persists today.

yknow who isn't excluded from those communities? transmascs, even trans men. the "lesbian community" at large, as much as such a thing exists, has been more willing to discuss the philosophy of men being lesbians than it is to accept that trans women can be lesbians. tme trans people have been accepted into the wider lesbian community since before the dating sites that spawned the term t4t existed. they've had communities, they've had ways to find each other, to seek love and sex and connection amongst each other.

transfems have been excluded from the lesbian community by tme lesbians, fetishized by chasers, and made to feel unsafe and dehumanized regardless when dating. for these reasons, t4t is a specifically lesbian, specifically transfem term, one that helps lesbian transfems find each other, find safety, find solidarity, find love and lust and comfort and companionship amongst each other, when surrounded on all sides by exclusion.

None of the other "Evil" characters had different genders. "The Dictator" was still a man, "Evil Ragatha" was still a woman, "Evil Pomni" was still a woman, and "Evil Zooble" was still non-binary. The only thing that was opposite was their personalities.

The answer is: the uterus isn't what causes your period, it is effected by your period. What causes your period and what causes trans women's periods is the same thing: the endocrine system.

HRT changes the sex of your endocrine system. Feminizing HRT makes it a female endocrine system, giving us a 28-day hormone cycle just like cis women. At the end of that cycle, the hypothalamus floods the body with prostaglandins. Those are what cause all but one of the period symptoms, because they make muscles inflame and contract. They are what make the uterus shed its lining, they are what cause intestinal cramps, they are what cause body aches, they are what cause headaches and migraines. The only period symptom not causes by the release of prostaglandins throughout the body is depression, and that is caused by your endocrine system simply not processing as much estrogen and from simply feeling like shit.

So, the only symptoms trans women don't get every 28 days is menstrual cramps, because yes we do not menstruate since we don't have uteruses. But migraines, depression, body aches, intestinal cramps, and the infamous "period shits" don't exactly add up to us having any better of a time. Except we have to pretend that we're fine and nothing is different because no one believes that we get periods, not even cis women.

I thought it was normal for years to feel that way, and I don't want anybody else to suffer like I did. Trans women are likely even more vulnerable to having untreated PMDD due to a combination of difficulty accessing healthcare and the fact that cis women are refusing to share the period wisdom. (I'm not a cis woman btw, just an enby with a uterus and estrogen-dominant endocrine system.) (I'm also making the assumption that trans and cis women have equal probabilities of getting PMDD, but who knows really? I doubt anyone's ever studied it.)

While there's not much on it - something that will hopefully change! - there has been one study done that found that there is a hormonal cycle that trans women on HRT can (specifying can because tons of periods are wonky per person, who knows what folks will go through) go through that causes many symptoms "associated with the luteal phase in cisgender women".

The luteal phase is "the second half of the menstrual cycle". For people who go through menstruation, that's the part where you're sore and hungry all the time and generally annoyed (PMS symptoms).

Currently it's mostly left to anecdotal evidence - which does nothing to invalidate the experiences, everything was purely anecdotal once! - but there's likely still plenty of research being done on the topic. Hopefully we'll have some more news as time goes on!

Definitely interesting!

It's two words. "Trans" is an adjective describing what kind of women we are. Like "lesbian women" or "scottish women" or "muslim women."

Okay, well "neovagina/neopussy" is exactly the same. It's a way to say "sure, it looks like a vagina, feels like a vagina, works like a vagina, but its not a real vagina"