sparkledawgs

It happened in broad daylight. It was telegraphed ahead of time; TERFs were very clear they wanted trans men removed from public life entirely. Yet during the entire lead-up, and even since then, people have erased transmascs completely from the conversation, saying they weren't in danger like transfemmes are, and in fact alleging that transmascs enjoyed a measure of protection from TERFs, who allegedly just see them as confused little girls they want to protect.

And while people were busy being useful idiots and spreading TERF propaganda for them, while people were busy actively denying the threat to transmascs, TERFs made it so transmascs can be excluded from any public bathroom in the UK.

I have difficulty managing the stresses of daily life without becoming overwhelmed and debilitated by anxiety. That is disabling. A drug that blunts my anxiety response is an adaptive tool I choose to use to manage my disability.

I don't have to use that tool. I didn't always use that tool. When I choose to forgo that tool or don't have access to it, I just Am More Anxious.

I also choose to wear eyeglasses to improve my eyesight. I could choose not to wear them, but then I wouldn't be able to see very well. It's okay not to see very well (plenty of people don't), but especially in a highly visually-oriented society, I would rather wear glasses and see things.

Without diminishing the reality of vidism and systemic oppression of people with vision disabilities, the fact is that people with vision disabilities and Mad/neurodivergent people are treated very differently.

An adult who doesn't want to wear their glasses generally has the legal right to make that choice.

When someone commits a murder, the public's reaction is not "This must have happened because the killer wasn't wearing his glasses. We need laws to force people to wear their glasses, or else they'll become murderers."

If you called the police and said "My 18 year old daughter ran away from home and refuses to wear her glasses," the police would probably say "That's not our problem."

If you said "When I was growing up, my mom was nearsighted but never wore her glasses, so she mostly navigated by sound and touch," the reactions would probably be negative and judgmental (because, again, vidism is a very real form of ableism), but most people would probably not say "No child should live through that kind of trauma, obviously she should never have had you!"

If I want surgery for something unrelated to my eyes, no one is going to turn me away because I also happen to be myopic.

If I take off my glasses to have sex, no one is going to accuse my partner of rape because nearsighted people can't consent to sex.

*and therapists, nurses, pharmacists maybe etc. you know, people likely to understand chemical interactions in the brain more than your average person on account of several years of training

But also... sure, I guess? But it doesn't actually have that much to... do with anything?

mae page before may ends (+ some more nitw drawings i made last year under the cut)

img 1: “Hey, you, cis girl that's very (correctly) vocal about women being allowed to talk about their periods, do you include trans women in that?

I ask because every single time I've tried to talk about it to anyone that isn't a trans woman they get fucking angry. Which has caused me to have to just suffer in silence every single month. So I really relate to cis women when they talk about literally the exact same thing; being shamed by everyone around them their whole lives for talking about their periods, so they just suffer in silence every month as it negatively impacts their work and social lives. But I don't even feel like I can voice that I am literally dealing with the same exact thing because most of y'all react like you want to throw me in front of a bus for saying it, even those of you who act like your such big great transfem allies.

I guess lil take this opportunity to talk about trans women periods.

The first thing any tme person thinks when they hear this is always "how can trans women have periods? They don't have uteruses!"

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.

"But you can't call it a period then because that refers to

MENSTRUATION!" is another one I hear all the time. This is incorrect.

You use the word "period" instead of just "menstruation" because it doesn't just refer to menstruation. It refers to a period at the end of the hormone cycle where we experience a host of symptoms. And not all cis women experience all of the symptoms that encompass the period. Not all cis women get migraines, or body aches, or have severe depression. If a cis woman gets a hysterectomy she doesn't menstruate either! In that instance she experiences an identical period to what trans women experience. Yet, I doubt you'd insist that cis women who've had hysterectomies don't have periods.

Oh, another thing that I personally discovered after bottom surgery: vaginal odor changes for trans women during our periods too. I was not expecting that because I always thought it was just from menstruation.

But nope, the ph levels of a trans woman's vagina are the same of as a cis woman's vagina, and it changes during our periods just the same.

#also this can happen with anyone with a vagina#fi know this is specifically about trans women#but if you got enough estrogen you can get a hormonal period

You don't have to have a vagina to get a period. The vagina does not control the hormone cycle, the endocrine system does. Trans women who have not had bottom surgery but have been on HRT for more than 6-10 months will have a 28-day hormone cycle and get periods of varying severity.

#trans #transgender #trans women #transfem #transfeminism #trans healthcare #periods #hormone cycle”