Nothing of Importance

If I saw the clues and caught the hints then yes! I am clever and me and the author/creator/artist etc were in on it together the whole time!

If I didn't notice the clues or got fooled but can clearly see them in hindsight then "Ha! You won this time storyteller! I am delighted by this game we play!' and then I enjoy putting the pieces together afterwards and enjoying how clever it was. I feel like the creator respects me as an audience

If there is a "twist" that comes with 0 clues or foreshadowing at all I'm annoyed. I'm pissed off. I feel like I'm being condescended to and patronised. It's not clever or interesting and makes me annoyed I ended up caring about characters and plot points that ended up meaningless.

Because it's not that these stories don't have foreshadowing or plot clues. They just abandon it for a "surprising twist"

A story that pays off the clues is letting me into the fun and makes a participant in the story

Random plot twists that don't connect to anything in the story are not clever. If we don't see it coming because the writer didn't provide any clues, they aren't clever and it's totally unsatisfying (and I will NEVER read this writer again). These clues need not be lit up in neon with a parade of elephants and showgirls. But they need to be present

If no one figures it out, you're doing your job wrong.

If everyone figures it out, you're doing your job wrong.

Of COURSE some people figure it out, they're paying attention.

If you're doing your job right, and laying out the clues, a certain number of people HAVE to figure it out.

Nick Barlow, Clusterfuck/Keep It Together, 2022

a few things:

pedantic, but the claim wasnt that diy is safe, wasnt that it is "safer", but in many ways it is.

doctors are often (read: almost always) uneducated on transgender health. from Continuing Gaps in Transgender Medicine Education Among Health Care Providers "few of [the endocrinologists] (11%) rated themselves as very compotent in transgender care. Consistent with their self report, only 5% correctly answered knowledge questions. Further, only 36% reported training in transgender care during endocrinology fellowship."

because of this, trans women are often prescribed doses of estrogen so low as to have very little feminizing effect. for example, the common dosing of 2mg daily estradiol tablets with 50mg daily spironolactone is generally not enough estrogen to dominate a woman's endocrine system, but is enough to strongly weaken her testosterone, which is likely to cause harm (your body needs a dominant hormone, it doesn't care if it's estrogen or testosterone, but not having either is directly dangerous). these doses also fail to meaningfully decrease risk of depression and its symptoms (self harm, suicide, etc).

A census can understand population level trends just fine without storing your assigned sex as part of your legal identity. They can ask for this information in the census. The census tracking population level data is not the same as your assigned sex being permanently part of your legal identity. (At least, the way my country does a census.)

Your doctor can know your anatomy by you communicating it to them if/when it is relevant. There is never a time when they might need to know something that could only be conveyed by your assigned sex being officially relayed to them via government documentation. You can just use your words. The same way you tell your doctor any other part of your medical history.

People respond to "the government doesn't need to store your assigned sex as part of your legal identity" as if they are hearing "no one should ever acknowledge gender or sex at all" but that's not what's being said.

Your birth certificate conveys important legal information about you. Your name, as a designation. Your parents, as they have a legal obligation to you. Your place of birth, as that place has a legal obligation to you. Date and time of birth, since age is important for application of some laws.

And sex. That's on there too. But what is the legal relevance? What laws is the government going to apply to you differently based on what sex is on your birth certificate? I can only think of one thing my government really uses that for, and that is to determine who has to sign up for the draft. And guess what, fuck that shit anyway. The government also used to use this to decide who is allowed to marry who. They don't do that anymore. For now.