too autistic to live, too petty to die

But people get touchy and reactive about that conversation, because of how many bigots are doing the "omg trans people are FORCING their DIRTY HORMONES on our CHILDREN!" narrative.

I never want to accidentally contribute to that moral panic. But at the same time, as a nonbinary intersex person, some trans people really fucking do pull the "oh my god you have to get HRT and surgery in order to be VALID and REAL like ME!" shit.

The authors haven't done anything shitty in telling their stories. These stories are important to share. But it's hard not to notice that I've yet to see a story like mine, where the journey of self-love comes through learning that body parts have no gender, that my body does not determine my identity, and that I don't have to alter it in order to fit binarist, truscum, intersexist ideas of what I should look like. My body can just exist without intervention. I don't need to do anything to it unless I want to, and the fact that I don't want to does not make me any less trans, nonbinary, or intersex.

It just gets kind of exhausting and alienating to see endless "trans empowerment is through SURGERY and HORMONES!!!!" stories, without much variation.

One of her family told us that she had given birth yesterday evening, but that Child Protection services had taken her baby away with no warning, claiming that she wasnt prepared to look after him. What had happened, is that she'd literally only just given birth -- hadn't even passed the afterbirth yet, is holding her blood-coated, crying, newborn baby to her chest -- and a nurse asked what her feeding plan was. She was tired from the birth and distracted by the brand new baby in her arms and thrown off by the timing of the question, but still, she managed to answer, and said she planned to breastfeed him whenever he was hungry.

Well apparently that wasn't enough of a plan for the hospital staff, who reported her and claimed that she was unprepared to look after the child, and claimed that had no social supports, and that the baby was at risk if left with her. All because a brand new mother, 30 seconds after giving birth, didn't have a PowerPoint presentation ready to go that cited the timing cycle she would feed her kid on, and instead simply said that she would feed him when he was hungry.

Child Protection services showed up, took her kid, and she was told to show up to court the next day to contest custody if she wanted her baby back.

So a woman who had given birth less than 24 hours prior was forced to rally her family and show up to court to prove that she a) had a feeding plan for the child, and b) had enough social supports to justify reclaiming her baby.

It was one of the most appalling things I'd ever seen. I don't even know if she won her case. They didn't know at the time we saw them, and after that brief interaction on the stairs, i never saw them again. I sincerely hope she got her newborn baby back.

That was about 5 years ago. And the exact same kind of thing is still happening today.

News broke today from a South Australian whistle-blower of the appalling treatment new mothers frequently receive, including hospital staff taking the baby away from the mother "for medical tests," only for the mother to then be told, with absolutely no prior warning, that the baby was not going to be returned to her.

Here's the article, and here are some excerpts: