I have no idea what I'm doing

this is what I mean about how right now in the united states (won't speak for elsewhere but feel free to lmk in the notes if you'd like) a lot of us trans adults who are able to access transition care can only do so at the direct expense of trans minors. this clinic would not have opened if they held the line and offered equal access to healthcare to trans minors.

"Martin announced the direct-care clinic, calling it “one of the first times a public health department has ever taken that step.” But when Cabán pushed back, pointing out that trans youth are the ones most under attack right now—noting that there are “almost no providers” left for youth the entire city—Martin indicated the clinic would not serve youth, citing the need to “strike a balance” between providing care and avoiding “clawbacks from the federal government.” This morning, EITM can directly confirm that the age cutoff is 19—matching the Trump administration’s executive order threshold, not the standard legal age of adulthood in New York."

a lot of the structural transphobia we are experiencing is hitting minors even worse. their care gets banned first. if you want a preview of what access to healthcare will look like for us trans adults in 2 years, look at what access looks like for legal minors right now.

It can almost certainly tell different species apart based on the shape of those air bladders. And it can tell if a fish has something weird inside it, like a metal hook. In Hawaii, false killer whales often pluck tuna off fishing lines, and “they’ll know where the hook is inside that fish,” Aude Pacini, who studies these animals, tells me. “They can ‘see’ things that you and I would never consider unless we had an X-ray machine or an MRI scanner.”

This penetrating perception is so unusual that scientists have barely begun to consider its implications. The beaked whales, for example, are odontocetes that look dolphin-esque on the outside—but on the inside, their skulls bear a strange assortment of crests, ridges, and bumps, many of which are only found in males.

Pavel Gol’din has suggested that these structures might be the equivalent of deer antlers—showy ornaments that are used to attract mates. Such ornaments would normally protrude from the body in a visible and conspicuous way, but that’s unnecessary for animals that are living medical scanners.’

I'm not sure if I ever shared this story before here, but in Curacao, when I was allowed to assist in a guest interaction programme, there was suddenly consternation in the pool behind us. A guest had entered the water and the dolphins were going crazy, paying no heed to the trainers anymore. The lead trainer that was with me gave the dolphins to me to watch over while she went to help. When she came back she told me what had happened. The guest that had caused so much uproar had left the water again and was asked if he had done anything to upset the dolphins. He hadn't, and he couldn't imagine what was wrong... until he mentioned he had a pacemaker. The younger dolphins in the pool had never seen someone with a pacemaker before and apparently it rocked their world.

glad to see everyone here shares the same brain cell lmao

And no matter how gently this is pointed out, the newbie will often initially feel instinctively defensive towards what they perceive as scolding. Which means that when another community member comes along and says "Don't worry about the language police 🙄, many of us think AGAB language is fine, it's a useful way to refer to the kind of formative experiences you had as a child," the newbie will latch on to them like a life raft.

And yes, we live in a transphobic society, a lot of people coming into the trans community will have uninterrogated transphobic views, but that just makes them more vulnerable when there is always someone in the community willing to tell them "no, your transphobic views are fine actually, and in fact here are some more you might not have thought of!"

It means a sizeable chunk of newly-out NBs are swiftly radicalised into increasingly extreme transphobia and transmisogyny simply as a defense mechanism against having their own comments criticised. One day they're just happy to join a community where people supposedly don't judge you on your birth sex, and the next they're talking about the importance of "AGAB socialisation".