Transcending Anatomy

Hi! Are you a CAMAB transfeminine person who’s sick of only ever seeing resources for CAFAB trans people on your dash? Are you just coming out to yourself and struggling with Peak Dysphoria? Are you a CAFAB trans person who wants to support the people above? Then here’s a post for you!

Someone sent in this great illustrated submission that may be helpful for some trans women and MAAB folks who are dealing with dysphoria, and for their partners.

[more in the original; I’ve cut it down for space - engineer—cat]

As far as I know, the instructional video promised above never happened. At any rate, I never found it. So I decided to make one. If you know me outside of Tumblr (irl or from other parts of the internet), please ask me before watching it.

Sylvia Rivera is one of my dyke heroes! The above pictures are of Sylvia Rivera with her wife Julia Murray. While people are quick to talk about Sylvia Rivera’s life, I never, ever hear anyone acknowledge that Sylvia was in a relationship with another women. It would seem that not all parts of her life are given equal respect and attention.

As a trans woman who loves women, it means something important to me personally to know that Sylvia Rivera was in a relationship with another woman. I’ve been made to feel isolated by others because I’m a trans woman who loves women. I’ve had the term “kai kai” disparagingly thrown in my direction on more than one occasion.

I literally drew this entire comic just for that last panel…

Lately, I’ve been thinking about privilege.  There’s a ton of things I could talk about regarding privilege, but right now I’m focusing on my privilege as a cisgender person within my relationship with a transsexual man.  There are some things my partner is going through, will go through, and has gone through that I can never really understand. I can’t really understand what it’s like to have dysphoria, or to have to change my name, or have to get surgery to live with my body. 

So honestly, there are times when the best thing I can do is to just listen.And yeah, sometimes I feel like this isn’t enough, like I should be doing something more, or working harder to understand. And I do work to be in an understanding place. I read articles by other individuals, I ask other people questions (respectfully), I Google a LOT - and all of this has value.

But at the end of the day, I can’t erase the fact that my partner is experiencing something I can’t/won’t experience, and the best authority on his experience is him. No amount of research and/or understanding is going to erase the fact I have cis privilege. Nor should it.  My being cis means that there are things I can’t understand.  And that’s alright, but I have to understand that and respect my limitations and privilege in some conversations/spaces. 

I have never heard of this

‘Domestic Violence: A resource for trans people’ was produced in 2009 by The Greater London Domestic Violence project, in collaboration with the LGBT Domestic Abuse Forum and NHS Barking & Dagenham.

The resource has been written primarily to assist trans people who experience domestic abuse. There is information as well as links to UK resources.

A bunch of articles with titles like “Gonorrhea superbug may be deadlier than AIDS!” keep popping up on my dash. They all seem to trace back to this CNBC article, which was published last May; who knows why it’s become so popular again. The thought of a strain of gonorrhea that is highly contagious and worse than AIDS is terrifying… but it’s also completely bogus. Here’s why:

The article’s “expert” isn’t one:Alan Christianson, the person quoted in the article is a naturopath, not a medical doctor. His specialty is “natural endocrinology” and he doesn’t appear to have any particular background in infectious disease or sexual health. (source)

So far, cases of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea are very isolated: H041, the strain of gonorrhea that is resistant to all current antibiotic treatments, has only been reported in one person, in Japan (source). There are other strains of gonorrhea that are resistant to one or more antibiotics, and this is a growing problem, but they can still be treated with alternate antibiotic regimens (source).

Antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea is not known to be more virulent: Christianson says that “the [antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea] bacteria is more aggressive and will affect more people quickly… Getting gonorrhea from this strain might put someone into septic shock and death in a matter of days.” There have been no reported deaths from H041 (even the CNBC article admits this), and I can’t find any other sources saying that it’s any more virulent than other strains of gonorrhea.

Gonorrhea virtually never causes death from septic shock: Gonorrhea can enter the bloodstream and lead to widespread infection; this is called gonococcemia or disseminated gonococcal infection, and it happens in 0.5-3% of gonorrhea cases (source). This is not the same as septic shock. While gonococcemia can lead to septic shock and death, it is exceedingly rare — only two deaths have ever been reported, here and here.

Gonorrhea is nothing like AIDS: The death rate from untreated AIDS is 98%. The death rate from untreated gonorrhea is 1%. (source)

The truth about gonorrhea: Gonorrhea is the second most commonly-reported infectious disease in the United States. People with gonorrhea may show symptoms, but are also likely to be asymptomatic; it is generally easily cured with a single dose of antibiotics, but if left untreated, it can lead to infertility and increased risk of HIV transmission. The best way to avoid gonorrhea is to use barriers like condoms and dental dams for penetration and for oral sex. Testing for gonorrhea involves a urine sample or a simple swab; some clinics will even let you do your own swab so you don’t have to have an exam.

Fundamental knowledge that is often neglected in sex ed class.