Aughh

And for those people who have access to mobility devices but might benefit from a second chair they can abuse without risking expensive damage…

Erik Kondo has made a website, Open Source Innovations, that details plans for DIY wheelchairs. These wheelchairs can be made from common materials like wood, plastic, and pvc. They are lightweight and can be custom fit to the user allowing from the same degree of movement you would get from a custom chair. And they are durable and easily repairable. (he has been stress testing his latest design by dropping it down stairs, dropping it out of a car, launching it across a driveway, and throwing it off a deck). Its 12lbs and I think he said its was in the $200 ish range for parts.

I will add it to my original reblog as well.

1. Progesterone: not for everyone, but for many people it may increase sex drive and WILL make your boobs bigger. Also effects mood in ways that many find positive (but some find negative). Most doctors won’t prescribe this to you unless you ask. Most trans girls I know swear by it.

2. Injectible estrogen: is more effective than pill or patch form. Get on it if you can bear needles bc you will see more effects more quickly.

3. Estradiol Cypionate: There is currently a shortage of injectible estradiol valerate. There is no shortage of estradiol cypionate. Functionally they do the same shit.

The concerns surrounding venous thromboembolic events as a side-effect of hormone replacement therapy can mostly be traced back to one particular study known as the Women’s Health Initiative. This study was an enormous undertaking which, unfortunately, demonstrated significant adverse effects of the hormone therapies studied. As a result of this the use of hormone replacement therapy in postmenopausal cis women was dramatically reduced as the medical community began to question whether or not the therapy caused more harm than good.

Naturally, trans women have been suffering from this fall-out ever since.

What physicians seem to fail to recognize is that the study examined a very specific hormone regimen which was, arguably, outmoded at the time the study was conducted: It examined the use of conjugated equine estrogen (Premarin) with or without the use of medroxyprogesterone acetate. Neither of these drugs is regularly used for the treatment of transgender women.

The estrogen most commonly used to treat transgender women nowadays is 17β-estradiol either in pill form or in the form of a sticky patch that you apply to your skin. Esters of estrogen (e.g. estradiol valerate) are also sometimes used either in a pill form or as an intramuscular injection.

Transdermal estradiol patches are the gold standard when it comes to treating women who are at high risk of a venous thromboembolic event. It simply does not increase the risk of developing a venous thromboembolism. The only thing you should keep in mind is that patches are not always well tolerated because of the lifestyle changes required to keep them from falling off and the fact that they tend to irritate the skin.

Fortunately, oral 17β-estradiol appears to be safe, regardless of the increased risk. At least one large study has shown that the use of oral estradiol in trans women is not associated with venous thromboembolic events. An individual woman’s risk would need to be substantial in order to contraindicate the use of oral estradiol.

For those who have significant risk of venous thromboembolism because they have had a previous thromboembolic event, because they are paralyzed, or because of some other factor it is good to know the relative risk between oral and transdermal estrogen. The latest research indicates that the use of transdermal estrogen lowers your risk of a thromboembolism to 80% of what your risk would be using oral estrogens.

It’s difficult to find hard numbers regarding the relative risk of venous thromboembolic events with regards to hypertension. The best I could find after an hour or so of searching was this study regarding VTE in lung cancer patients. Hypertension increased the risk by a factor of 1.8.

However, to put that into perspective being of African descent increases your relative risk for deep vein thrombosis by a factor of 1.3 when compared to Europeans. Europeans are, themselves, at increased risk when compared to Asians and Pacific Islanders by a considerable margin: a four-fold increase.

I should point out that being ‘male’ is also a risk factor for developing a thromboembolism and hormones are likely to be a contributing factor. Also, menopause is another serious risk factor. Given this information it is likely that the use of transdermal estradiol will lower your risk of thromboembolic events significantly.

As far as the anti-androgen is concerned: The primary use for spironolactone for cisgender people is as an antihypertensive.

Even if the risk of thromboembolism was truly significant with modern hormone replacement therapy it wouldn’t justify what your doctor is doing to you. The fact is that mortality in the transgender community from suicide–caused in part due to the lack of access to hormone therapy–is substantial. The quality of life lost when a trans woman is denied hormone therapy is substantial. The fact that your doctor does not appear to be taking this into consideration when they weigh the risk of thromboembolism against not receiving necessary medical care is deeply concerning.

I strongly recommend that you seek a doctor who is more sensitive to your medical needs as a transgender woman.

I cannot stress this enough- this is transmisogynistic and I am tired of seeing it. I see too many people using asab terminology when it comes to trans people and also trying to like. Figure out my asab when I have already said I am asabless???? I just delete those asks but I really am tired of it. Be normal about trans women. Trans women are not the enemies of trans men. It is a small handful of hateful people spreading bad rhetoric. If you don't trust people who have trans woman/transfem/transfeminist in bio, then please put down the phone, touch grass, and actually talk to trans women. Preferable ones irl. Stop making "jokes" about how trans women are sexually immoral, stop searching TME or TMA on the blogs of only trans women but not doing the same for literally anyone else, stop calling "transfeminist/transfeminism" transandrophobic dogwhistles, and for the love of God just don't be transmisogynistic!!! It is really really easy to just. Not be a transmisogynist???

her name was Marsha P Johnson, and we have her to thank for so much.

remember, the first Pride was a riot, and she was one of the brave souls who endured it to help carve the path which so many of us walk today. she helped found several activist groups regarding LGBT safety and wellbeing. and she was absolutely radiant, too.

There are a lot of intense systems impressed upon us by society with regard to what women should be: maternal, in control, not too pushy, subservient, calm, pleasant, doting, etc. When we women fail at these things, say in the way Lace does by being erratic, cruel, jealous, and controlled, society says that we should be viewed as a failed woman. Lace lacks all of the markers of being good (read: ready to serve the patriarchy). This strikes me as the core from where infantilizing comes from: if you don’t succeed at being a woman then you are a child. And, if you aren’t an actual child, then you are to be reviled. For audience members poisoned by this way of thinking, I reckon the Lace is a child, despite the in fiction insistence that she’s old, is actually trying to solve for this problem. We like Lace but she’s failing at being a woman so she has to be a child or else we have to hate her.

What’s funny is Hornet does also fail at all of these things, but she does not have the same infantilizing done to her, mostly because Hornet does female masculinity in one of the rare approved ways we have for that in our culture: she is masculine in a way that is maternal, I.e. she’s fixing everything and she’s not annoying.

This is the one way we, as dykes, can avoid being infantilized and, to make this a little personal, it’s a scar that runs down the whole of my life. How many decisions have I made about how I present and engage with world that center around not wanting to be a barefoot ass doting mother? How often do I take control of situations because that’s the expectation? It is a sort of motherhood thrust upon us, but I think it’s mechanically different because it’s a bargain the patriarchy gives women with the “charisma” to pay for it. I get to be a sort of accepted woman who isn’t a mother because I’m not annoying to men and I summon a sort of badass, I know how to fix this attitude. But in that way I sacrifice the whole of my identity, the ways I am deeply feminine, the ways I struggle, suffer, want, need, and wish, to not be thrown into the fail woman pit (which is not a consequence any of us can afford to ignore, believe me).

With that in mind, it would be deeply wrong to say I’m mature because I take that bargain. I am not, I’m just trying to survive. Hornet is not any more of a grown spider either: she is just trying to survive. It’s honestly a very fascinating depiction and I’m really enamored with it (even if it is a little bit of TC playing into this facet of misogyny) because it feels so real. It’s for this reason that I am so personally upset at the idea that Hornet should become a mother. It is implying her character growth requires her to switch her bargain from being a butch in a approved way to being a doting mother.

Lace, as the fail woman taking none of the bargains, is left nothing but being infantilized and marked for “needing fixing” and our society does not allow for broken women to find healing in a relationship, especially not with another woman.

Why does this happen? Well if you’re lost in the sauce of this system, struggling to fit into it and not aware of its full scope, then what you have is that innate, wordless discomfort about what is permitted and what is not. I feel like there’s a real insistence in online spaces to defend our beliefs, and so people often fall into the trap of: I feel this and I hope that I am good so the thing I feel must be good. If you feel discomfort at Lace being a failure in her womanhood and still deserving a romantic partner, it is perhaps easier to say “there’s something wrong with this ship” than “there’s something wrong with my entire life and everything about it, and it might be totally unfixable.”

I am sympathetic to the way that this is not anyone’s fault. It is a machine that grinds us up forever. However, it’s also something I am honor bound to lash out at, not only out of desire to carve a world kinder for me and my sisters, but also because mapping this restrictive, brutal, cruel system of good vs bad women leads to extremely boring fiction. The idea that Lace needs to do so much fixing to become good enough for Hornet is a boring and baseless claim. It is not steeped in writing critique or feminism laundered to justify the bad feeling in people’s bellies. It is sexism.

As a woman who dates and loves women on occasion, I can tell you with certainty that there’s a lot to love about flawed women. I’ve loved plenty of them without “needing to fix them” and I’ve been one and been loved and haven’t made much progress on my flaws. I know this is hard and that society doesn’t help us do that, but I do categorically expect everyone to confront this curse a bit and to really think when something makes you uncomfortable.