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A grey budgie with yellow head feathers runs around a wooden table in circles excitedly, before lifting up & trapping itself under a small tupperware. It struggles to escape the tupperware and can only manage to charge off the table, landing on the floor with a soft thud and a small chirp of victory.

the thing happening right now (at the very least in the US and UK) is that trans youth are actively and systemically losing access to healthcare. this has been gradually escalating since the start of the pandemic, and more young people lose healthcare every single year.

when I talk about this I tend to get two responses

"why do trans adults want to expand these experimental treatments to children who can't consent"

"providers offering care to trans adults is a step in the right direction, even if they aren't offering it to trans youth. the perfect is the enemy of the good. we can't fight our allies."

do you see how both the overtly transphobic version and the nominally "pro-trans" version replicate the same misinformation?

this is not a question of "should we expand access to trans youth?" trans youth have had access to medical transition care for a long time. what is happening is the care they already had access to is being made inaccessible and then criminalized systematically.

am I making sense? places refusing to offer care to trans youth are not "a step in the right direction" because that implies that the trend is expanding access that "begins" with trans adults and innately will gradually encompass young people. that is not the case. this is not a hypothetical thing that we can all have different theoretical opinions on. what is happening is the systematic revoking of healthcare.

the further this progresses, the more healthcare is restricted for more demographics. that's how this works. healthcare is being restricted across the board as part of the broader eugenics project. abortion is being restricted. vaccines are becoming more expensive. insurance companies are denying more treatments to disabled people. anti-fatness is surging. ableism is surging. there are active campaigns to get people to mistrust the very idea of healthcare in favor of "wellness" grifts. no one wears N-95 masks. this is the trend. it's been the trend.

when consent is affirmed, it has to be believed and trusted. even if it takes a moment for the question to processed and answered.

the thing happening right now (at the very least in the US and UK) is that trans youth are actively and systemically losing access to healthcare. this has been gradually escalating since the start of the pandemic, and more young people lose healthcare every single year.

when I talk about this I tend to get two responses

"why do trans adults want to expand these experimental treatments to children who can't consent"

"providers offering care to trans adults is a step in the right direction, even if they aren't offering it to trans youth. the perfect is the enemy of the good. we can't fight our allies."

do you see how both the overtly transphobic version and the nominally "pro-trans" version replicate the same misinformation?

this is not a question of "should we expand access to trans youth?" trans youth have had access to medical transition care for a long time. what is happening is the care they already had access to is being made inaccessible and then criminalized systematically.

am I making sense? places refusing to offer care to trans youth are not "a step in the right direction" because that implies that the trend is expanding access that "begins" with trans adults and innately will gradually encompass young people. that is not the case. this is not a hypothetical thing that we can all have different theoretical opinions on. what is happening is the systematic revoking of healthcare.

the further this progresses, the more healthcare is restricted for more demographics. that's how this works. healthcare is being restricted across the board as part of the broader eugenics project. abortion is being restricted. vaccines are becoming more expensive. insurance companies are denying more treatments to disabled people. anti-fatness is surging. ableism is surging. there are active campaigns to get people to mistrust the very idea of healthcare in favor of "wellness" grifts. no one wears N-95 masks. this is the trend. it's been the trend.

You do not need convincing.

You need conviction.

There is still time. But this is a double-edged sword. One day the urgency will catch up with you and eat you from the inside out.

Don't wait.

The second best time to be a woman is tomorrow.

Owen isn't a trans woman. Owen refuses to be a trans woman. He's left Isabel buried in that grave, and won't save her because he knows that it would require burying himself, his "safety", his "comfort", his "frictionless" life. Of course none of that is true, and his life would be infinitely improved by coming out and being who he actually is. But he feels like it's too late, and he's right, but only because he makes it true.

The only thing keeping Owen from being Isabel is cracking open his chest. It's scary, it's difficult, and he won't do it.

i must, obligitarily, note: a higher amount of transfem cast members (or the presence of them, period) does not necessarily mean a completely safe environment for transfems, either viewers or cast members alike. but at the very least, it demonstrates a marked effort to platform and support trans women as valued community members. an effort which, notably, dropout tv has not bothered to make. nrb in specific, the channel this happened on, is one of the botc community channels striving to make this effort, with one of the key and beloved members in their botc series being mara joy (who is a trans woman, noted not to tokenize her in specific but to highlight her)!!

so, to lay it out more specifically, sam reich made this joke on a platform that is expected to be a safe space for transfem viewers. he was a guest star on a show which has far less social pull than dropout tv, was one of the only white cishet guys in the room, and took advantage of that. i cannot stress this enough: sam reich went to a community that has a general expectation of being a safe place for transfems, as a guest, likely for the purposes of promoting his latest kickstarter, and he used that platform to make a "joke" about transfems being pedophiles.

it was also directed towards a gay man, who, like… well, we all saw the clip, it's my opinion that he looks pretty genuinely uncomfortable for a moment before trying to hide it by playing it up for the camera. tbh i find it disappointing that said joke ended up in the final edit at all! but the fact that sam felt so comfortable dropping that kind of quip given the setting and the current overall climate is so frustrating and gross.

Mancountry. The pizza deodorant. Watching your dad do bonding activities that are for "the pals" and "the boys" only. The way the weird route puts Kris into the role of Groom in an abusive partnership, bestowing a ring onto their childhood friend in a white dress.

It doesn't invalidate the character, or anyone else, to pick up that there are gendered expectations placed onto them - even if it's not explicitly said by another character, there's a spectre in the air around all of those things. And that spectre is coercive gendering!

* Armour that doesn't fit you

* Commendations you neither want nor need

* Your transfem friend, forced into a closet.