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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.

It's both.

People don't understand hormones as a core signal for development, they understand them as "a drizzle of something that makes women emotional sometimes"

some rules:

no because the term "carcinization" was created to describe the tendency for marine decapod crustaceans to convergently evolve crab-like body plans, it was never supposed to be applicable to other animals!

I blame pop science for spreading it around as a funny term that got misunderstood and misapplied basically from that point onward. most other animal groups don't get their own term for this phenomena and carcinization does NOT apply because... these animals aren't evolving into crabs. only decapods do that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In the Broadway show, their interactions carry a much more respectful, two-way energy. I don't know that I'd say she's fully his equal, but they work together as though she has a stake in the company. Not majority ownership, but like she helped found it or co-signed something; IDK if that's a possibility, but it's the energy that their dynamic carries.

It's not that he's telling her to seduce someone, it's that they're planning it together. He lies to her about some things, yes, but he doesn't order her to keep stringing along the Duke. It's more duplicitous, but in that duplicity, the show carries the message that he believes she has too much agency and independence for him to control her outright the way he does in the movie, and that's why he has to lie about the contract he signed with the Duke.

I need to be clear that in the stage version, part of why Satine is doing this shit is because the dance hall is going under. Harold is cutting staff left and right to make rent. Fewer servers, just fired the last sommelier, that sort of thing. It's why he urges Satine to seduce the Duke; he's trying to save the dance hall by getting a new investor, and she knows that.

Satine is also the only one that he's actually honest with about the dire financial straits. Everyone suspects it, but she's the one that he actually lets in on the issue, and these factors are part of what sells that more equal dynamic that I mentioned. He's not her pimp, he's her co-founder, but since Harold can't get that funding himself Satine does it.

An explicit comment in the show is that without that funding, the dance hall goes under, and they all end up back on the streets. Satine seducing the Duke is her making a choice between one guy, or having to switch to full-service sex work full time again, especially since she's not getting any younger, and she's unlikely to find more work as a performer at her age.

"Some more rouge, perhaps?" kills me because like. He treats her like an equal. She has denied his offer to step down, to heal, and let someone else take the center role until she's feeling better.

The Broadway show is also a lot less weird about the topic of virginity, and also sex work in general. It's pretty clearly indicated during "Sympathy for the Duke" that they boink that very night, and regularly afterwards. His motivations aren't just about having her purity or whatever. He wants genuine affection. He doesn't promise to marry her or anything, but his intent is to have her move into his house, and he says "all of this can be yours."

He is very selfish about wanting her love, but it's all about her heart, about her affection and time and attention, and not just her body. The movie's "Like a Virgin" is funny, but the Broadway show's choice hits so much harder thematically.

He is also much more of a threat on a personal level than just having minions. Every Duke I've seen on Broadway has carried an air of menace that suggests he can and will do actual gangster-style violence to people who cross him.

Also the way that Satine and Toulouse are written in relation to each other is great. (I will never be able to see that man as anyone but Andre Ward. He is phenomenal.)

(For anyone who needs some context here, I have seen this show live three times. I kept winning discount tickets and had multiple family/friends who wanted to see it, so I just took a different person every time since you can only win two tickets, and the person who won has to be one of the two.)

ALSO, the Raise a Glass number! It's so fun! Paired with the specific way that she tries to seduce Christian later, it sells the sudden romance a bit better to me than the movie does.

Her relationship with Nini is also a lot more nuanced. Nini is both ferociously jealous of her and protective. When Satine starts coughing and nearly passes out in the middle of her big opening number, Nini runs to her to help her get back to her feet before the clientele notice. When Satine and Christian are fucking around behind closed doors, Nini is bitchy about it, but she warns Satine that hey, you're gonna get caught. She's not nice about it, she's even a bit slyly threatening about it, but she warns her instead of selling her out in order to get the part. When she sees blood on the handkerchief, she's concerned and she does her best to help Satine hide the issue. When Satine is almost too sick to perform, she does offer to take on the role as understudy, but she's very obviously not happy about it, despite earlier having said that she'd do anything to have Satine's headlining role.