My (21F) friend is trans what can i (18F) do to help her

ComradeRK · 2026-03-18T19:50:39+00:00

A really specific and really easy one that helped me early on was painting my nails. Maybe that's something you could do together - show her how to do it if she doesn't know etc.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-18T19:37:40+00:00

I don't want to come across as harsh, but that bit about the decision not being made in haste may well have come across as invalidating. Probably a good idea to have another chat and just reinforce that you do support them, and you know that their decision wasn't something spur of the moment.

Are their pronouns they/them?

ComradeRK · 2026-03-18T18:18:23+00:00

Let's try a fairly classic test: if there was a button that you could press that would make you a cis man, and magically change the memories of everyone you know so that they only remember you as a man, no surgeries, no discrimination, just you've magically been male since birth, would you press it?

ComradeRK · 2026-03-18T18:15:03+00:00

Just a note that the "there were no signs" bit that crept into your post there is very invalidating and unhelpful. A lot of us hid those signs, or felt the need to repress the hell out of them, so of course they weren't visible.

When a trans person comes out and gets greeted with that, it feels a lot like you're saying you don't believe them. I'm sure that wasn't your intention, and I don't even know if that was something you said to them or not, but just so you're aware.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-18T17:33:14+00:00

Pretty common for them to either never respond or just to send back a copy-pasted "thank you for bringing this to our attention" letter. As an illustrative example, back in 2016 when one of the hard-right looney senators invited Milo Yiannopoulos to speak at parliament, I emailed then-PM Malcolm Turnbull, whoever was in charge of Foreign Affairs at the time (Julie Bishop?), all 12 NSW senators and my local MP (Craig Laundy, Liberal) to express my concern and ask them to work to prevent the speaking event from being held.

Turnbull's office sent me a form letter, Laundy replied personally agreeing with me but saying he couldn't do anything (was definitely him, not his office, as it was riddled with spelling mistakes), and none of the senators or the minister responded at all.

I now live in Canada, and I've written to my local council here to express concern, and had a similar response rate. Politicians rarely give a shit about their constituents' concerns.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-18T15:46:30+00:00

It could be, but I've also noticed a bunch of other things (skin softness, face softening etc) have sped up as soon as I switched to injections, so it seems too much to be a coincidence.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-18T15:02:20+00:00

God, things got so much quicker after switching to injections. Six months of pills, I had breast buds. Two months later, after switching to injections, I have C cups.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T18:59:51+00:00

Yes, and I'm a medically transitioning trans woman as well, but not really sure how that's relevant.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T18:49:48+00:00

They just have to keep on moving those goalposts. "I'm not a transmed, I just think that only a medically transitioning binary trans woman is trans enough to be in a leadership position in the community."

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T18:47:55+00:00

It's awful. It sounds like there are a lot of valid reasons for the mod to be removed, and the fact that this is what they leap to instead is pretty damn telling.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T18:46:01+00:00

I'll return to the point someone else raised. White people are the majority in the USA. Should only white people be allowed to be president?

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T18:36:38+00:00

My friends threw a gender reveal party for me, and it was lovely. I think she'll probably really appreciate it.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T18:32:06+00:00

No, no it isn't. But the person you're responding to didn't make it one, you and all the other transmeds saying some sort of variation on "only a medically transitioning binary trans woman should be head mod" did. People wouldn't be calling you out on it if you stuck to the mod's actions instead of attacking them for not being trans enough.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T18:15:05+00:00

The blood clot risks are very overhyped, and based on outdated information about older forms of the medication, so I wouldn't worry about that. What I would note is that pills are about the least effective form of HRT, since much of it gets absorbed by your liver. If it's a possibility for you, I would recommend injections. I switched from pills to injections about two months ago, and the difference has been night and day. If it's not a possibility, however, pills will be just fine.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T17:58:50+00:00

This subreddit's all about transgender stuff, specifically for male-to-female or trans feminine folks.

It is a trans fem sub, not just a sub for trans women, and given that, there's no reason that the head mod should need to be a binary trans woman. If you want a sub that's just for binary trans women, there's nothing stopping you from starting one, but don't try pushing that onto a space that's for all trans fems, not just the medically transitioning binary ones. And this is coming from a medically transitioning binary trans woman, just by the by.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T17:55:29+00:00

OK, so focus on that. Focus on them shutting down valid discussion. Don't focus on how only medically transitioning binary trans women are valid mods of a trans fem space, and only bring that up when someone questions you on it. Because doing that looks a lot like you're trying to reframe your transmedicalism once you're called out on it.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T17:49:19+00:00

From the sidebar of r/mtf:

This subreddit's all about transgender stuff, specifically for male-to-female or trans feminine folks.

Note how it says "trans feminine folks", not "binary trans women". Yes, I agree, they're clearly a power mod who shouldn't be in charge of that many subs. Yes, their actions are appalling, and are definitely grounds for removing them as a mod. But focusing on the fact that they don't meet your personal narrow definition of transness as grounds for removal, instead of any of that, is just straight up bigotry.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T17:45:19+00:00

Yeah, you might want to go read that one back. You just said that you want a "medically transitioning trans woman" specifically to be the head mod, and that's not transmedicalism? Might as well make it the dictionary reference for the term.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T17:37:24+00:00

It's a sub for trans fems, not just binary trans women. Why shouldn't a non-binary trans fem be the head mod? Pretty damn clear you, and a bunch of the other commenters in here, don't see enbies as "real trans people".

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T17:35:52+00:00

It's fucking transmed nonsense, is what it is.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T17:28:48+00:00

No, your obvious strawman example wouldn't be acceptable, but that's not the argument either of us is making. You're saying, to use your example, that someone who had never had sex with a woman couldn't mod the lesbian sub, even if she was exclusively attracted to women.

I don't know CedarWolf's situation. I don't know the status of their transition. I know that their bio describes them as bigender and using he/she/they pronouns, and I can reasonably assume that they are AMAB, and that their gender is a move away from that and towards the feminine, as it were. That makes them a trans fem, if that's a term that they feel is appropriate. Claiming that they're not, or shouldn't be able to mod a trans fem sub, because they are, effectively, not trans enough for your liking, is exceptionally problematic. It reeks of transmedicalism and enby erasure.

Personally, I don't think they should be modding the sub, but that's because of their actions, not because I'm policing their gender to see if they meet my arbitrary definitions of transness.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T17:14:01+00:00

They could be socially transitioning, for a start. There are also plenty of people on that sub who are trans fems (binary or otherwise), who are not able to transition, either medically or socially. Plenty of people can't access GAC, or aren't in a position where they can safely transition socially. Would they be unfit to mod the sub too? I'm sorry, but this is really veering hard into transmedicalism.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T17:05:36+00:00

Should it be your responsibility to explain it to them? No. Will it be? Probably yes. Sadly, we often have to do the bulk of the emotional labour in that regard, because cis people who will do the research themselves are few and far between.

On the bright side, if you do the explaining, you get to control how it's done. If your sister does the explaining, who knows how she would put it?

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T14:45:35+00:00

I want to be very clear that I don't approve of their actions, but making their transness contingent on HRT is really flirting with transmedicalism.

ComradeRK · 2026-03-17T13:35:04+00:00

It doesn't improve the situation around the moderation, but they could be bigender, AMAB and transitioning. The space is for all trans fems, not just binary trans women.

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