Bringing Me To Life (the benefits of the internet)

CW: a really sad story about a dog

Tara

This is an expanded twitter thread I wrote. You can read the original thread here.

The internet gets hated on more than any other tool, and yet there are so many positives to it. If you can’t see them, maybe you need a break from the doomscrolling, because there’s good on here too. I see things all the time like “it is hastening the downfall of our humanity,” but the thing about a tool is that what it does really depends on how you use it, and why. Like I can use a screwdriver to chip holes in the wall of my house and with enough time and energy and dedication I might make enough holes that my house falls down. Or I could screw things together and build shit.

Anonymity on the internet leads to a lot of bullying and awful shit, but it also allows people to come forward safely who couldn’t without that anonymity. It allows for government leaks, for LGBTQIA+ people in unsafe and unsupported areas to find community and support. We really shouldn’t need this, but since we do, the internet allows for gofundme’s to reach large enough audiences that medical treatments can then be afforded. It saves lives. It allows for easy and often free sharing of information, which benefits both academics and activists. Plus there’s online gaming and porn, so that’s pretty cool.

If all you’re seeing is the bad, this genuinely isn’t good for you, and you should take a moment to try and see the good. Like any tool, the internet can be wonderful. Or awful. It depends how its used. And if someone else is knocking holes in the wall with a screwdriver, you should move to a safer location before their house falls down.

We control what we post online, and the content we see. Be the joy you want to see in the world, post things that make you happy, follow people that make you happy, and maybe curate a Twitter Doomscrolling list so you can visit when you need to but you don’t live there.

Ultimately, the “it is hastening the downfall of our humanity” take is one of utter privilege, and yet I often see people who lack privilege sharing this idea. Looking at trans folk, I see them post it online sometimes, often because of transphobia, but I also see them sharing advice on medication (because the doctors often don’t have a clue), coming out, dealing with transphobic family members and more. They offer support and community, guidance, even sometimes money. I’ve seen people helped to pay their bills, employers contacted about transphobic employees, and people have found love. And they offer something that really doesn’t get applauded enough: their existence.

When I was young, I was at school during Section 28. I didn’t know this, because not promoting homosexuality seems to have extended to not mentioning the law that meant they couldn’t promote homosexuality. Trans people were lumped in under this law, too.

Enacted on 24 May 1988, the amendment stated that a local authority “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality” or “promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”.

Wikipedia

This act lasted until 2000 in Scotland. I was born in 82, so I probably started school in 86, and I don’t remember learning about gay people in between colouring outside the lines and learning to spell my name in primary one and two. I left school in 1999.

I’m a writer, yet I don’t really have words to express the way that, for most of my life, I felt wrong. Not different, because I assumed everyone felt this way, but empty and pointless. I wasn’t suicidal, but I didn’t feel like it would have mattered had I died. In a lot of ways, life was just very bland. Not exactly terrible, but not good either. Mostly just a long period of nothingness interspersed with some really bad shit.

Basically I’ve spent most of my life dissociating and, at the same time, searching.

Dissociation, as a concept that has been developed over time, is any of a wide array of experiences, ranging from a mild emotional detachment from the immediate surroundings, to a more severe disconnection from physical and emotional experiences.

Wikipedia

I don’t have any memories from before my first day at high school when I was 13, and I don’t have many memories after that. I still struggle with recent memories, and I struggle with emotions. I feel them, now, but I often don’t know what they are. I remember saying once “I feel happy and scared” and getting the reply “that’s excitement.” Before then, excitement had only been a word I’d read or heard, I couldn’t have explained how it felt. I wasn’t young when I learned this.

There are still emotions I don’t understand or feel now, and one I’ve just chosen to go without (guilt is an absolutely pointless emotion, it just makes you feel bad for things you can’t change: apologise, and do better next time, and don’t waste your energy dwelling on shit that’s happened).

So, yeah, I was disassociating heavily from a very young age, and I don’t remember things, and I never really felt things, and when I eventually started to feel emotions, I had no real idea what I was feeling. Even now, I’ll easily become overwhelmed, and I’m prone to leaking happy tears when reading or watching movies. Especially Disney, that shit makes me cry every time.

And I was searching, for a meaning or a purpose or a connection.

I had a dog when I was a young teen. Her name was Tara, she was a collie-lab cross, and she was all gangly limbs and hyperactive excitement. She’d greet me at the door after school every day, and she’d follow any command I gave her, but she completely ignored everyone else. She loved to jump, she was terrified of cats, and when I lay on the floor to read or watch TV she’d lie between my legs with her head on my butt. She loved me, and I loved her in a way I’d never been able to love anyone, a way I didn’t know I could love. I’d never really managed to form emotional attachments to anyone, not even my family. I have no friendships that lasted from childhood. I was detached from the world, emotionally dead, until I got a dog who taught me to love and be loved.

My mum gave her away.

I came home from school, and she didn’t meet me at the door. I checked the garden and the bedrooms because my mum had a habit of locking her up when I wasn’t in to stop her. She wasn’t there. I went to my dad and asked where she was. I still remember his exact words, which shows the impact when I can’t remember much else about entire years of my life at that point.

“I’m really glad you asked, because your mum said you wouldn’t notice.”

They gave my young, boundlessly energetic, cat-phobic dog away to an old woman with a cat. I told them she’d hate it, she couldn’t live with a cat, and would the old woman have the energy for such a playful and bouncy pup (I’d had her since she was a baby, and she was maybe about 2 by this time). They said it would be fine.

It wasn’t, and two weeks later we got her back. I was over the moon. Tara was over the moon. I’d clearly been distraught for the past two weeks, and I was now very clearly the happiest I’d been in my entire life. My parents remarked on the difference. They saw it, they knew how deeply affected I was.

A few weeks after that, my mum gave Tara away. Again. They did it whilst I was at school. Again. She thought I wouldn’t notice. Again.

I was told she went to a farm in Perth, where she’d have plenty of space to run around and use all her energy, and there were no cats. I believed them; why wouldn’t I? They were my parents. I might have been incapable of connecting to them on a deep and meaningful emotional level, but they are still my parents.

I mentioned to them a few years ago about Tara going to the farm, and my dad asked me if I still believed that. They gave her to a pound, the kind that puts down dogs that don’t find homes. I like to think she found a happy home and was loved, but the reality is that my incredible, beautiful, funny baby girl probably spent the last few months of her life alone and abandoned by me and not understanding why until someone killed her. And my parents lied to me about this for decades.

When I was in my late teens, I met someone. A girl. I was emotionally stunted and desperate for a connection and she liked me. We moved in together, got married, had kids. For most of our relationship, she was physically, mentally, and emotionally abusive, and I was desperate to be needed and loved and feel like my life actually had a point. Then she ended the relationship, and I was really lost for a while.

Eventually, I came to realise I’m trans, and the cracks in my egg that let me be me, that let me express who I am to the world, led to cracks in other walls constructed so long ago I didn’t know they were there. I started to feel emotions more: sadness, happiness. Fear. Anxiety. So much fucking anxiety. I ended up with depression so bad I was on medication, and then I came out of it and took myself off the meds. And now I cry happy tears at Disney movies and enjoy singing really badly and have a kind of peace with myself that doesn’t leave me so desperate for a connection that I’ll stay in an abusive relationship because I think that it’s love.

And it was the internet that taught me about trans people, that showed to me we’re more than the Ace Ventura caricature’s I’d been exposed to in the media. I should have learned this when I was young, but the government was against me, the media was against me, and in the small backwater town I grew up in, there were no out trans people.

So you can say the internet “is hastening the downfall of our humanity,” but it has given me so much, allowed me to find who I am, to live the life I’ve merely been existing in before now. It’s brought me peace and a deeper understanding of who I am. It brought me to life.

Maybe you’re privileged enough that you’ve never needed the good of the internet, or maybe you used the internet for good in the past, but in all the doomscrolling you’ve forgotten that side of it. Here are the best things on the internet; if my blog post didn’t do prove anything to you, then looking through this might help you have some fun online.

Going Shopping for Clothes for the First Time as a Trans Woman (Part One, Before You Go)

The first time you go shopping for gender-affirming clothes is an absolutely nerve-wracking experience. Many trans people online ask about it before their first shopping trip and are clearly distressed at the idea. From my own experience, the first few things I bought were absolute panic buys and don’t even fit me, because I had no idea what I was looking for or how to find things I wanted.

Before You Buy Clothes

There are a few things I recommend you doing before you buy clothes. First, it’s a good idea to find a size conversion chart. If you know, for instance, your waist size in men’s jeans, you can use the conversion chart to find the size of women’s clothes you need. It’s really handy to have this info before going to a store and panic buying the first thing you pick up.

I found this one on google and it’s pretty good, but feel free to search for your own.

This chart comes from a fantastic blog post for trans women about what size of clothes you need, and I recommend you read it.

Second, have an idea of what you want in terms of style. Pinterest can be awesome for collating style boards. Are  you goth? Preppy? Sporty? Vanilla? Every style is legit, but you’re gonna need to have an idea of what you want so you can at least determine where to shop.

Have an idea of what you need. I spent my first few months, after I got passed the panic buying stage, in the “I’m-getting-that-because-it’s-pretty-stage.” I ended up with about ten pairs of gorgeous shoes, very few clothes, and absolutely no underwear. Don’t get me wrong, these shoes are absolutely gorgeous, but I can’t just wear shoes and nothing else. At least, not outside of my house anyway.

So, what do you need? This is hard to gauge because the real answer is – it depends. It depends on your geography, or rather the weather and temperature in your area. Maybe you don’t need a jacket. It depends on your existing wardrobe – can you transfer anything across? I have a “guy’s” jacket I always wear which I fully intend to keep wearing throughout and after transitioning. It’s army green, frayed, hip length, faded, covered in patches and pins and I love it. It suits me, and it’s the kinda thing that will fit my female style way more than my male style (I never had a male style, only male clothes). I’m also keeping my docs, and I’m considering keeping some jeans and hoodies. There’s no real difference between boyfriend cut jeans and guys jeans.

It comes back to style, too. I have what could be considered a very “dyke” style of clothing. I’m definitely more of a masculine woman than anything else: lots of flannel, suit jackets, army surplus stuff, and so on. I actually socially transitioned my clothing a while back, and all that really happened was that my new shirts have buttons on a different side, and the label on my jeans says size 14 instead of 44. It’s not really surprising that no one noticed.

Because of this, I have to work extra to come across as feminine. I’m working on losing weight because I have very male patterned fat (basically its all in my belly and I want it in my hips, ass and tits instead). I use makeup and wigs but I definitely don’t come anywhere near passing. I’m okay with that for now though, I haven’t even started HRT yet and like I said, I need to lose weight.

If you’re more of a femme trans woman, you’ll probably have less you can transfer across and more you need to buy.

Regardless of your style, you need to take stock of exactly what you have in your wardrobe. If you’re anything like me, you probably have no idea what’s there. I care so little about guys clothes or what I look like that I wear things until they’re basically rags. I hadn’t bought clothes in years before I started shopping for women’s stuff: my brother is so into having everything new that he buys a bunch of new clothes every year and gives me his old stuff, often unworn and with the labels still attached.

This is why I say I never had a style, only clothes. I’d basically wear whatever I could get for free. My underwear was all Christmas gifts, and the only thing I can remember buying was really thick socks when I bought my docs.

I recommend splitting your existing clothes into piles: get rid of first, get rid of later, and keep. The get rid of first pile is clothes that you want to stop wearing as soon as possible, things that make you feel dysphoric or that you absolutely cannot keep wearing after you socially transition. This is basically the burn pile, only don’t burn them. Offer them to a trans guy, take them to a clothes swap, or donate them to a charity shop.

The second pile is optional. It’s clothes that you can keep wearing after you transition, but you don’t want to. The idea behind this pile is that buying an all new wardrobe in one go can be expensive, so you can buy everything you need right now and then for maybe six months to a year after you socially transition, you can slowly replace the items in this pile with new clothes that are more you. Alternatively, you might be really loaded and can easily afford to replace all your clothing, in which case ignore this and do as you please.

The third pile is clothes you intend to keep wearing after you transition, because they fit your style, or because they’re unisex, or because they’re socks. I firmly believe there’s no difference between male and female socks. Like, at all. Actually, it’s ridiculously difficult to find female socks above a size six, so if you have large feet, you might be buying male socks decades after transitioning, just to get ones that fit. Other than this, there’s no real difference.

Okay, so you know the clothes you intend to keep permanently, if any, and the clothes you intend to replace eventually, and the clothes you want to replace immediately.

Now, what do you actually need:

I like to have two weeks worth of clothing. I live alone (most of the time) and I do like to leave washings until I’ve built up enough clothes to fill the machine. Also, two weeks of clothes gives you lots of choices. Choice is a good thing.

There’s a lot of debate on what two weeks of clothing means. Mostly this debate is around how long items can be worn before being washed. Some people wash their jeans after wearing them for a day, others wear them for two days. Others go longer. Some people wear hoodies for a week before washing them (unless they spill stuff on it). Some people never wash their bras. I did some quick and dirty twitter polls on this: there are two here and one here.

It doesn’t really matter what your thoughts on how often things can be washed are, it only matters that you know what they are. You can factor this in when deciding how much clothes you need for two weeks.

Also, if you have a tumble dryer, your clothes are wearable again quicker.

Next you have to think about your occupation. You probably spend a lot of time at work or school. There might be a dress code or uniform. This will obviously mean you can have less personal clothes.

Lastly, you should think about lifestyle. Do you regularly go to the gym? Workout clothes might be required. Do you go clubbing every week? You’ll need something for that.

Okay, so you know what clothes you can keep wearing and what needs replaced, where you wear these clothes (and what clothes are required for that), and how often you wash clothes and how quickly you can dry them. With all this prepared, you should be able to work out what you need to fill the gaps.

A handy thing to use is a resource like this which tells you how much you need two pack for a two week trip. You can even google it with your location – what clothes do I pack for two weeks in… Glasgow? San Francisco? Sydney? Tokyo?

My own personal preference is to times whatever these lists suggest by 1.5. This list says 4 bottoms and 8 tops (sounds like an orgy) but I say 6 and 12.

So, 6 bottoms, 12 tops, plus underwear, shoes, a jacket, and maybe a jumper or hoodie if it gets cold. Then you can add in workout clothes, nightclub clothes, etc. If you supply your own work clothes, factor that in too. Then minus whatever you currently have that you’re not getting rid of right now, and try and collate some of these clothes down a little if you wish. If you would wear your gym leggings at home when you’re watching tv, or your office skirt could be worn on a night out, you can factor that in.

And then you should have a good list of exactly what items of clothing you need.

So, that’s it for part 1 of going shopping as a trans woman for the first time. Part 2 will be out on eventually.

On Trans Biology, Gatekeeping, and Not Being Truscum

A while ago I wrote a blog post about the studies that have looked at transgender people’s brains. This blog post looked at several studies, but not all of them as there are too many. I recently read a fantastic Twitter thread about the subject.

To sum up that thread, it brings in a lot of information I didn’t know. Apparently, what these studies discovered is that the differences they found have always been differences of averages, not individuals. As an example, men are taller than women is a difference of averages, but individually there are some very tall women and very short men. There is currently no way to look at a specific individual brain and determine if it belongs to a man or a woman, or if the person is cis or trans.

And Skye, who wrote that thread, brought up a very good point I hadn’t considered. If scientists can determine a specific way to tell if some people are trans, and if that way doesn’t account for everyone who is transgender, then this could be a new way to gatekeep healthcare.

I don’t think you’ll be able to fully understand and explain transness before you’ve fully mapped and understood the entire human brain,

Skye (@stimmyskye)

This comment I 100% agree with and was my conclusion when I looked at the studies that had been done. My thought, from reading those studies, was simply that we need more studies. That there is some kind of difference seems to be implied in that some differences were found. However, not all people had these differences, and there are many neurological differences which may or may not be a factor in whether or not a person is trans. There also seems to be some kind of genetic component, which they have determined through the study of transgender twins. However, what this genetic component might be, what genes determine it, whether or not it applies to all transgender people, and how it affects us, has not been determined.

Ultimately, my thoughts on this, and I could be wrong, is that there is some kind of biological (neurological, genetic, or both) reason that trans people exist. Actually, I think there are several reasons, and that the reason I am trans might not be the same reason someone else is trans. Certainly, from conversations I have had with other trans people, the way I experience being trans is not the same as the way other people experience being trans. There are differences between my transness and the transness of trans men, of non-binary people, and even of other trans women.

I’m also not sure that we’ll ever really have the answers that we seek, or as Skye pointed out, by the time we do understand, we’ll have the knowledge and technology to reprogram our brains anyway, like in a sci-fi book.

Transmedicalism

Transmedicalists, or truscum as they are called, are gatekeepers. They not only believe being trans is a medical condition, but they seek to exclude others. They think transitioning is a requirement of being trans. They often don’t recognise non-binary gender people, a-gender people, gender fluid people, or any other gender that isn’t part of the gender binary.

I am not a transmedicalist. I generally don’t seek to gatekeep anyone except cis cross-dressing men who see themselves as being the same as me, because I’m not a cis man. And even then, I don’t actually gatekeep them. I get offended by them, I don’t like to interact with them, but I don’t stop them from doing what they want to do.

I do think that transgender people experience dysphoria. I know not every trans person agrees with me, but the DSM-5 definition of dysphoria is incredibly broad and wide-ranging.

• A marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and primary and/or secondary sex characteristics (or in young adolescents, the anticipated secondary sex characteristics)
• A strong desire to be rid of one’s primary and/or secondary sex characteristics because of a marked incongruence with one’s experienced/expressed gender (or in young adolescents, a desire to prevent the development of the anticipated secondary sex characteristics)
• A strong desire for the primary and/or secondary sex characteristics of the other gender
• A strong desire to be of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
• A strong desire to be treated as the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
• A strong conviction that one has the typical feelings and reactions of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)

Not all trans people will experience all of these. They may not want to transition, they may not want the primary or secondary sex characteristics of a different gender, they may not want rid of their own primary or secondary sex characteristics, they may not feel gender incongruence.

However, if someone doesn’t have any desire to be a different gender, or to be treated as a different gender, then why would they want to be a different gender or be treated as a different gender? If they don’t want it, why would they want it? I genuinely cannot understand this concept, and I have tried.

Now there is an idea put around by some trans people that trans people who say they don’t feel dysphoria are referring to the first three things on this list. There are trans people who say they don’t feel dysphoria, but they do feel gender euphoria when presenting as a different gender to the one they were assigned at birth. This, to me, seems like it would come under a desire to be treated as another gender, or a desire to be another gender. If you didn’t desire those things, surely you wouldn’t experience euphoria when presenting as another gender? Then again, I’m not in their heads, so I can never truly know what they experience.

Again, I’m not gatekeeping anyone. Apart from anything else, I have no ability to gatekeep. I can’t stop people doing whatever they want to do, accessing whatever resources they need to access, or being whoever they are. Not only that, I don’t want to. I’m perfectly fine with everyone being whoever they are, as long as who they are doesn’t impact on who other people are. Or, to put it another way, I’m fine with everyone except bigots.

Forcing Dysphoria Onto Cis People

Basically, my thoughts on this are that there is probably some reason trans people exist, and I seriously doubt it’s because of some god or something. There is an argument to be made that dysphoria could be a social phenomenon:

We ultimately don’t even know if dysphoria is a medical or social phenomenon, say, imagine a society where everyone gets to pick their gender freely regardless of their body. Would dysphoria still exist? Probably yes, but to what extent and how related would it be to transness? We don’t know. We have no fucking clue what gender even is. Various cultures exist and have existed in the past that have more than two genders.

Skye (@stimmyskye)

My personal experience of dysphoria is not that social. I still felt dysphoria when I was deep in covid lockdown, living alone, seeing no one for days or weeks at a time. If dysphoria was entirely social, then the absence of any socialisation at all should have temporarily “cured” me.

One thing we potentially do know from a particularly horrid part of British history (so, much the same as the rest of British history then) is that dysphoria can possibly be forced onto cis people. In the 1950s gay men in Britain were chemically castrated and then put on estrogen.

Stilbestrol, in 1952, was a synthetic estrogen whose potential serious side effects were unknown, dosage information poorly understood and severe overdosing (to more than 100x required dose) was the norm. We can safely assume that almost all of AT’s estrogen receptors were consistently saturated for a period of one year during the “therapy”

AT in the above quote is Alan Turing, the most famous gay man to have undergone this barbaric torture, but not the only one by far. Many of the gay men who were forcibly given feminising hormones killed themselves, which mirrors the higher rates of suicide amongst trans people who can’t access the hormone treatments they require. There is some doubt about whether Turing accidentally killed himself, deliberately killed himself, or was murdered by the British government. There is a little more information about this through this link.

Being able to force dysphoria onto cis people seems to suggest that there is some kind of biological component to it. On the other hand, it absolutely has a social factor. That can’t be denied either. And, as I mentioned earlier, my experience of being trans is not the same as other trans people’s experience.

Summary

So, yes, I do genuinely believe that there is something in my body, in my brain or my genetics or my hormones, or somewhere else, or in all of these or some combination of these, that makes me really want to have tits and a vagina, and not have a penis. And I do also think that the science isn’t anywhere near a place where it could tell us what that something is. We don’t have nearly enough knowledge about how the human body works. People think we’ve solved it all, but the body is basically a miracle and a lot of it isn’t understood yet. And I do also think that it isn’t my place to say whether anyone else is or isn’t trans, and that I don’t have to understand them to accept them. If someone tells me they are trans, then they are trans.

Basically, I think my transness is biological, but I’m not telling other people that theirs is, and I am absolutely not a transmedicalist, nor a gatekeeper of any kind.

Lastly, definitely check out Skye’s twitter thread and the comments under it. Its super informative and interesting.

Crossdressers Are Not Trans (unless they are, obviously)

I’m no Heimdall, and gatekeeping sucks. It does, I get that. I hate being gatekeepery.

But I hate it even more when cross-dressing cis men claim to be the same as me.

Fuck that, fuck them.

Garfunkel and Oates

Look, I’ve nothing against cross-dressing. Hell, I did it when I was a confused little egg and was trying to sort through feelings I didn’t understand. Some of those cross-dressers may well go on to realise they are trans.

Others won’t.

I know a guy, a genuinely nice guy who I’ve had a drink with, chatted with. We have similar interests (motorbikes). He also likes to dress up in female clothes and be ridiculed and demeaned by dominant women. It’s a sex thing. He’d never say he was the same as me.

But some crossdresser’s do say this.

I don’t dress in women’s clothes because it’s kinky. I do it because I’m a woman. And a crossdresser wouldn’t say they were the same as a cis woman, because they’re not.

When crossdressers say they are the same as trans women, they are saying that they are men in female clothing and that’s how they see us, too.

FUCK THEM

What makes this even worse than the transphobia is that for cis men cross dressing is a fetish. And terfs are always claiming it’s a fetish for trans people, too, but it isn’t a fetish for us. This just muddies the waters and gives terfs ammunition.

It’s even worse (I think) when they invade our spaces, when they come along to trans support groups and the like, when we are being open and honest and vulnerable and crying about the lack of access to the basic healthcare we need and how shitty some people treat us and for them it’s just something they get off on.

Similarities

Look, crossdressers and some trans people (particularly pre-hormone trans women) face some similar issues – like where to buy really big women’s shoes, or how to go shopping for female clothes for the first time. There are similar experiences across both groups and we can absolutely share tips and advice and point out lovely little boutiques that sell size 12 heels.

Just, you know, stop inferring that we’re men in dresses.

And do not get me started on sissies.

The Truth About Truscum (CW: Transphobia)

The Truescum subreddit is an interesting place. It has this nice little definition of truescum over there.

What does "truscum" mean? from truscum

Going by this, I could easily see myself as a transmedicalist – I believe non-binary people exist (but this says some truescum believe that), I believe in gender euphoria (but this says some truescum believe that) “plenty of us simply count euphoria and incongruence as part of dysphoria” – yeah, I can kinda get on board with this – maybe it’s not part of dysphoria but certainly dysphoria, euphoria, and incongruence all seem to be parts of the same thing. Some of what is in that definition definitely appeals to me.

However, there’s one glaring problem with the definition above:

It’s A Load Of Crap

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

Maya Angelou

The Truescum subreddit makes all these great claims, but if you look through the actual posts on the sub, you see none of the claims are held up and they’re all hateful little bigots.

 I’m fine with not having enforced gender roles or stereotypes but no gender at all makes no sense.

Truscum Redditor

Neopronouns were made to combat tucute’s lack of oppression

Different Truscum Redditor

I’m a bigger asshole when I see the most feminine looking people claiming they are trans and that some stupid filter is giving them euphoria? I’m singling out these kind of people only cause it’s what I see most. You won’t know what it feels like to be transgender or will you know what gender dysphoria feels like if you just slap whatever pronouns look good to you and call it a day. You aren’t a male just because you say you are. You aren’t non-binary either just because you don’t want to be called a girl.

Yet Another Truscum Redditor

The most glaring problem with these (other than the transphobia) is that none of the sub’s mods ever speak out against them, and none of the other redditors do either. They’re saying they’ve got a bad rep but they’re not actually that bad, and at the same time, they are showing us they are the hateful little bigots everyone thinks they are.

People may doubt what you say but they will believe what you do

Lewis Cass

I believe what the Truscum do.

I believe it’s bigotry.

The Sea is Full of Plastic (an analogy for why I have hope for the future of trans rights)

The UK government decided to ban conversion therapy for everyone except trans people recently. Texas passed a bill that makes gender affirming parents of trans kids child abusers. There are many other incidences of transphobic laws and situations lately. These are very clearly awful, and I absolutely understand. I don’t think things are good right now. However, I do feel more hope for the future than a lot of other trans people currently feel. This analogy explains why.

There is Plastic Beneath the Surface of the Sea

The sea is full of plastic, but it’s deep beneath the waves. There are sunbathers on the beach enjoying a view of the pristine looking waters of the sea. There are deep sea divers looking at all the plastic under the water. There are innumerably more sunbathers than divers. The divers come onto the beach. “The sea is full of plastic,” the divers shout. “Nonsense,” the sunbathers reply. “I can see from here it is perfectly fine.”

The Plastic Becomes Buoyant

One day, all the plastic in the sea becomes buoyant, and floats to the surface. It looks like a chunky vegetable soup. “The sea is full of plastic,” the sunbathers cry. “We know,” the divers roll their eyes. “We’ve been telling you this for literally years.”

“We need to do something,” the sunbathers say. The divers have been trying to do things, but there aren’t many of them, and they are very tired from doing the work all alone for all these years. Still, they turn to the sunbathers. “Thank you for wanting to help. Here are things you can do.” “No,” the sunbathers cry. “We have our own plans,” because by sitting beside the sea they somehow believe they are more expert at sea knowledge than the people who have been in the water.

Eventually, the sunbathers sort themselves into different groups. There is a group that wants to remove the plastic from the sea. There is a group that thinks “not my circus, not my monkeys,” and goes home. And the last group protests removing the plastic from the sea because then it will be on the land and will impact their land-based rights.

The Pervs, or Plastic-Exclusionary Radical enViromentalist Sunbathers, as they like to be known, claim that the majority of the sunbathers support leaving the plastic in the sea. The allies, as the plastic removing group calls themselves, talk over the divers, infantilise them, and claim the majority of the sunbathers support the removal of the plastic. In actual fact, the majority of the sunbathers are back at home having barbecues in their gardens, not giving a shit. They don’t think the situation has anything to do with them, but they still sometimes dispose of plastic in ways that makes it end up in the sea.

Meanwhile, the divers are trying to organise a boat to go out and remove plastic from the sea. But there aren’t a lot of boats, and they’re being used by fishermen, or day tours, or cruises. Because of this, there is a huge waiting list to get a boat and also the boats are very expensive. It is also obvious that a crew will be hard to find, so some of the divers learn how to sail boats so they don’t need help.

But the PERVS have gone to the government and asked that fishing boats not be allowed to remove plastic from the sea. The divers point out that this is diverphobic. The PERVS say it isn’t, they just don’t think we should have plastic on fishing boats. It might end up in our diets. They have concerns. The newspapers report that the divers want plastic in our diets. The sunbathers who went home take notice of this because they like to eat fish. Suddenly, the problem affects them and they are worried about what they see in the news.

The government sees the majority of people supporting no plastic on fishing boats, and makes this a law. However, because the sea is full of plastic, and fish live in the sea, the fish are already full of plastic. The PERVS know this, but they don’t care, because they are diverphobic and are only out to cause maximum pain to divers. The newspapers know this, but write their articles in deliberately true yet misleading ways because fear sells news. The Daily Mail forgets to include the “true yet misleading” part and just straight makes shit up. The government knows this, but rather than educate the population and hold the misleading media to account, the government are instead chasing the majority crowd because they want voted in again next time. The sunbathers who went home don’t know this and believe what the news reports.

Now there is less opportunity to hire a boat and longer waiting lists. The market sees the demand and prices increase. The news reports that the fish are already full of plastic in ways that seem to suggest the divers have been infecting fish with plastic or something. The Daily Mail reports that Elvis is alive, lives on the moon, is a trans woman, and steals and eats babies for eternal life.

The allies organise a National No Plastic In The Sea day, which is nice but doesn’t actually get the plastic out of the sea. The megacorps, responsible for most of the plastic in the sea, tweet out a No Plastic In The Sea Day message and use the movements flag to sell some plastic crap that is absolutely gonna end up in the sea.

The divers struggle on with the job of removing the plastic from the sea. The sunbathing allies stand on the beach, loudly proclaiming their support, but they’re not actually doing anything to get the plastic out. The divers put up with getting talked over and infantilised and don’t correct the sunbathers because they desperately don’t want to lose the little support they have.

A few divers, so exhausted with the never ending task of plastic removal, stop being divers. They go home to have barbecues. The PERVS seek these former divers out, and chat to them, and offer support, and gradually draw the exhausted and often depressed former divers into the PERVS movement, until they are locked in and see no way out. Then the PERVS parade their former divers out in front of their diverphobic hate campaigns because “some divers are fine with the sea being full of plastic” and “if you just stop being a diver, then it won’t matter that the sea is full of plastic.”

Why Have Hope For the Future?

The sunbathers who went home for barbecues miss the beach. They want to come back and sit on the sand, but not while the sea is full of plastic. They gradually start to realise that this is a much wider problem that actually affects them. The allies realise they’re not achieving anything. They start listening to the divers, and with their support it’s easier to get the funding to hire boats. More and more people become allies, and the clout chasing government follows the crowd. Meanwhile, sales of beach supplies and fish have massively decreased, and the corporations realise that if they want to make a profit instead of a loss, they’re going to have to do more than tweet solidarity, and so they start supporting the removal of plastic from the sea, too.

The Analogy Explained

The divers are trans people. The sunbathers are cis people. The plastic is transphobia. The gatekeeping boat owners and crews are doctors, nurses, and other medical specialists. The government is the government, the corporations are corporations, the media is the media, and the Daily Mail isn’t good enough to wipe your arse with.

Trans people often say things used to be better. It wasn’t, it just looked better because the plastic was all hidden under the sea. Some trans people think things are much worse now, but the truth is simply that the rot that was always there is now more easily visible. And the great thing about this is, when it was hidden it was hard to do anything about it. Now that it’s all out in the open we can see where the plastic is floating, and work at removing it.

Our cis allies are already swelling in numbers as the barbecuers join them. And more and more of them are listening to us, learning from us, and helping us in ways that actually remove the plastic from the sea. They are actively helping us against the transphobia we face. Members of the government are already noticing, and following this swelling crowd, and many corporations are doing more than just tweeting solidarity.

The same thing happened with the gay rights and marriage movement. We have to expose all the shit so we can clean it up – it just really fucking sucks that this means we have to live currently surrounded by exposed shit. But I firmly believe that because all the shit is exposed, and because it is clear that transphobia affects cis people too, it will get cleaned up. Things from this point might get worse, but only if they have to for them to ultimately get better, and I one hundred percent believe that they will get better.

The Sea is Full of Plastic

This was an analogy, but the sea genuinely is full of plastic.

If you want to learn more about ongoing efforts to clean the ocean, or find ways to support that, The Ocean Cleanup is a great place to start.

If you want to support a trans person, I have a GofundMe and a Paypal.

If you want to know more about non-financial ways to support trans people, follow my blog, because I will be sharing posts about ways to do this.

Thanks for reading, please leave a comment if you want.

Q: Are trans women “biologically male” and trans men “biologically female”? A: No.

A gender crit on twitter tried to get me with the “biology” gotcha, and asked me to explain the science behind being trans. I didn’t have the answers immediately to hand, so I’m sure they think they won. But it’s not about winning or losing, it’s about lying and misrepresenting data, using out-of-date theories, and simplifying biology to a point where an 11-year-old can understand it, or being honest and open and presenting new information and research and admitting that our knowledge still isn’t complete.

This post is not everything I can find on the biology of trans people (there was too much). There are way too many studies for a simple blog post. It is accurate to the best of my knowledge as of February 2021.

Disclaimer: I am not a scientist

Some definitions:

Female: Noun, dictionary – a female animal or plant

So female is female.

Adjective, dictionary – of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes.

So females can have babies. But not all cis women can have babies.

Gametes are an organism’s reproductive cells. They are also referred to as sex cells. Female gametes are called ova or egg cells, and male gametes are called sperm.

Google

Okay, trans women can’t yet get ova or egg cells. I’m not convinced it will never happen, there’s some interesting studies going into womb transplants and who knows where that will end up in a few decades, but it can’t currently happen. I have never seen a trans woman say it can happen, though, so I’m not sure where the confusion is here.

But, again, not all cis women can have babies. Some cis women are infertile, or too young or too old. Most problems with infertility are caused by ovulation. Without ovulation, there are no eggs to fertilise, So some cis women can’t create gametes and are still female.

Woman: Noun, dictionary – an adult female human being.

Okay, woman means female and female means female and female means produces gametes but some cis women don’t produce gametes, clear?

You know the problem might be the language itself because those definitions are a mess.

Okay, let’s forget the definition and concentrate on the actual biology.

Genetics

Gender critical people say that it’s basic science that female = xx gene. It is, it’s very basic science. Like first year high school science.

The very first thing that needs to be pointed out is that we don’t know everything about genetics. The human genome was mapped a century ago, but we don’t know what every gene does, and we don’t know how to do things with genes. We can’t say which genes form hearts, and there are plenty of genes doing things and we don’t know what they’re doing.

So whilst we can say xx is female and xy is male we can’t say those are the only factors determining sex, can we? Actually, we can absolutely say those aren’t the only factors determining sex because intersex people exist.

Intersex people are individuals born with any of several variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies”.

Wikipedia

Okay, so already, according to genetics, we have male, female, and several other variants of intersex people.

Hmm. Well, there goes the gender binary. Gender critical people have this great thing they do where they say “I accept the evidence of intersex people” and then discount it entirely. It’s fascinating to watch them do it.

Now personally, I’ve wondered if being transgender isn’t a form of being intersex. Now don’t take this out of context – I’m not saying scientists or doctors say this. I’m saying I have a sort of half-formed partial curiosity about the possibility. If being transgender isn’t part of the cisgender binary and there are biological reasons for it, it could come under the intersex umbrella, couldn’t it?

Going by the current definition of intersex, no. But I do wonder if one day, when the biological causes are more understood, the intersex definition might expand to include transgender people.

As above, definitions are somewhat circular here. We really don’t have the language to adequately express things.

What else do we know about the genetics of trans people?

Well, we know it matters, even if we don’t know how.

In 2013, a twin study combined a survey of pairs of twins where one or both had undergone, or had plans and medical approval to undergo, gender transition, with a literature review of published reports of transgender twins. The study found that one third of identical twin pairs in the sample were both transgender: 13 of 39 (33%) monozygotic or identical pairs of assigned males and 8 of 35 (22.8%) pairs of assigned females. Among dizygotic or genetically non-identical twin pairs, there was only 1 of 38 (2.6%) pairs where both twins were trans. The significant percent of identical twin pairs in which both twins are trans and the virtual absence of dizygotic twins (raised in the same family at the same time) in which both were trans would provide evidence that transgender identity is significantly influenced by genetics if both sets were raised in different families.

Wikipedia

Alright, genetics matters. But how does it matter?

Studies comparing trans women and cis men found trans women are more likely to have a longer version of a receptor gene for the sex hormone androgen and thus are less likely to bind testosterone. A variant genotype for a gene called CYP17 has been linked to trans men, but not trans women. CYP17 acts on the hormones pregnenolone and progesterone.

A 2019 meta-analysis of previous studies found:

Trans woman population exhibits significantly longer polymorphic CAG repeat sequences in the AR gene. Further studies are warranted to elucidate whether, how and to what extent multiple functional variants in sex hormone signaling genes could be associated with gender incongruence/dysphoria.

But what does any of this mean?

Foetus Development

All foetuses start off as female. In the first trimester, foetuses with a Y chromosome develop male gonads, i.e. a gamete producing organ that produces sperm. This is the only sex change development at that stage.

In the 3^rd semester, hormones flood the womb and some bind to receptor genes within the foetus. In a cis male, who has developed male gonads in the first trimester, this means testosterone binds to the androgen receptors. In a trans woman, the androgen receptors are too long and the testosterone can’t bind correctly, meaning the brain doesn’t switch to being male.

Yes, I’m saying men and women have brain differences. There is evidence supporting this. I’ll get to that soon.

But it’s not just androgen receptors. A report published in February 2020 found 21 variants in 19 genes in estrogen signalling pathways critical to establishing whether the brain is male or female.

“It doesn’t matter which sex organs you have, it’s whether estrogen, or androgen, which is converted to estrogen in the brain, masculinizes the brain during this critical period,” says Dr. Lawrence C. Layman, chief of the MCG Section of Reproductive Endocrinology, Infertility and Genetics in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. “We have found variants in genes that are important in some of these different areas of the brain.”

Now it does go on to say it’s too early to say if these are causes of dysphoria, but it continues with “We are saying that looking into these pathways is the approach we are going to be taking in the years ahead to explore the genetic contribution to gender dysphoria in humans.”

That there is a genetic contribution is pretty much accepted as fact at this point by scientists, researchers, and doctors. When gender critical people talk about xx and xy genes, they are clearly denying the science beyond what is taught in first year high school classes.

Brains!

In 1995 (26 years ago and we’re still arguing about this) a study found that a region of the brain called the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc) – which is a region known for sex and anxiety responses, and which is affected by prenatal androgens – in six cadavers of trans women had female-normal BSTc sizes.

The interesting thing wasn’t that transgender women who had taken estrogen had female-normal BSTc sizes, but that cis male and cis female cadavers who had experienced hormone reversal for a variety of medical reasons had cis-normal BTSc sizes. The effects of the hormones hadn’t changed their BSTc size. (Zhou)

A followup study in 2000 counted the number of neurons in the BSTc. They found the same result: trans women’s brains matched cis women’s brains. They even managed to include a trans woman who had never taken hormones and her brain also matched cis women’s brains. (Kruijver)

In 2002 it was discovered that significant sexual dimophism in BSTc isn’t established until adulthood. It was theorized that changes in fetal hormone levels produce changes in BSTc synaptic density, neuronal activity, or neurochemical content which later lead to size and neuron count changes or, alternatively, the size of the BSTc is “affected by the generation of a gender identity inconsistent with one’s assigned sex.” (Chung)

There are differences. This is known. What exactly causes the differences is unknown. This is important.

In a 2006 review of the evidence, Gooren confirmed the earlier research as supporting the concept that transsexuality is a sexual differentiation disorder of the sex dimorphic brain. Swaab (2004) agrees.

Garcia-Falgueras and Swaab found the interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus (INAHs), which is part of the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus, in 2008. The same control methods for hormone usage was used as in the 2000 and 1995 tests and the results were even more pronounced. Cis men had 1.9 times the volume and 2.3 times the neurons as cis women, trans women were within the cis women range and trans men were within the cis men range.

But the really interesting thing here is that some of the transgender people hadn’t had any hormone treatments, which means that the brains of these transgender women had INAHs within the range of cis women even without hormones, and the brains of trans men had INAHs within the range of cis men even without hormones.

An MRI study in 2009 of trans women not yet given hormone treatments found regional grey-matter concentrations different to both cis men and cis women, but closer to cis men. However, there was a significantly larger volume of grey matter in the right putamen compared to cis men. It concluded that a distinct cerebral pattern is associated with people who are transgender. (Luders)

In 2010, Rametti’s study concluded that “compared to [cis women], [trans women] showed higher fractional anisotropy values in posterior part of the right superior longitudinal fasciculus, the forceps minor and corticospinal tract. Compared to [cis men], [trans women] showed only lower fractional anisotropy values in the corticospinal tap.” The white matter pattern in trans men was found to be shifted in the direction of cis men.

There are many, many more brain studies (Hulshoff Pol, Gizewski, another Rametti, Savic and Arver, Nawata) but this is getting long enough. They all essentially conclude the same thing: cis people’s brains and tran’s peoples brains are different.

Conclusion!

There are some obvious conclusions to make from the above data, and some not so obvious conclusions too. First, it should be noted that a lot of these studies only used a few people. It must be difficult to find enough corpses to use for the studies that require them since so few people are willing to their bodies to science. A quick Google tells me its about 600 people per year. I don’t know how many of those are trans, but it can’t be some huge number.

However, even the studies that use living people have low numbers. This suggests its hard to get funding to do huge research projects, and that means the GC theories about pharma funding and Soros bankrolling trans people is as much of an absurd conspiracy theory as everything else they believe.

Another thing about these studies is that they only seem to address binary transgender people. Non-binary people are not represented in the studies. This needs addressed.

The data itself shows many things. There is clearly some kind of genetic factor in a person being transgender, though we don’t know what. There are clearly differences between the brains of cis men and cis women, and trans women’s brains, whilst different from either, most closely align with cis women’s brains, and vice versa for trans men. However, we don’t know what causes these differences.

There are clearly biological – genetic and neurological – factors that make a person transgender, and some of these are known to come from foetal development in the womb. But there is still much more research into this needing to be carried out. We don’t have all the answers. The answers we do have clearly show “sex is male and female, XX and XY” is misleading, simplified, and absolutely not based in facts.

Lastly, this blog post may have some thinking I’m a transmedicalist or truscum. From my understanding of what that means, I’m not. At some point I will do a blog post on what transmedicalism is and why I don’t see myself as one. However, I do think there are biological reasons trans people exist – we’re born this way, we don’t grow into it. It’s nature, not nurture. And maybe some people don’t seem to fit into the “nature” thing and are still trans – I’m not saying they aren’t. I think that with further research and more knowledge we’ll understand they are transgender. I think, if you’re arguing being trans is nurture, not nature, then you’re arguing in favour of conversion therapy instead of transition.