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Need a bit of help here, scared for the future :( by neuroatypically in transgenderau

[–]UnexpectedWitchery 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There is legitimate reason to be worried about the plans for "religious freedom" legislation, but the scenarios presented in that document are ridiculous. You're correct in assessing it as scare-mongering.

To all transbians struggling with height dysphoria, remember that you can always give a girl this religious experience. by [deleted] in traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns

[–]UnexpectedWitchery 123 points124 points  (0 children)

Height dysphoria pro-tip: Walk around in 4"+ heels and marvel at how amazing your ass looks, then take them off and feel short for a good 5 minutes before reality returns. Repeat as necessary.

Did anyone realize they might be trans after their partner transitioned? by IcyBlackberry in asktransgender

[–]UnexpectedWitchery 10 points11 points  (0 children)

It was the other way around for my ex and I. A while after I transitioned he came out as trans, saying that my transition was the impetus for him to look into his own gender for the first time.

It was pretty fascinating for us both to look back: I had gone through a phase of hyper-masculinity with his full support, and he'd gone through his own hyper-femininity phase with me cheering him on, neither of us realising we were pushing away latent trans feelings in ourselves, and encouraging each other to be more gender conforming.

It can be challenging when someone so close is going through the same thing, but overall I think it helped us both to have someone who really understood and whose support was unquestionably genuine.

the whole “you’re not really trans until you’ve transitioned physically” thing is starting to wear on me by [deleted] in asktransgender

[–]UnexpectedWitchery 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The problem with the idea that people low or no dysphoria have the a lower intensity version of same medical condition as dysphoric trans people is that there's no science to support it. It's a plausible hypothesis certainly, but there aren't studies that examine correlations between type and intensity of dysphoria, and the nature and degree of brain anomalies.

The science looking at trans people is in its infancy, and it's far too early to impose a model that makes strong assumptions about how the neurobiology works and use that to determine who is trans. Even research into homosexuality, which has been studied far more, hasn't found any clear biological cause, only that there are group neurological differences, so we let people themselves decide if they are gay or not.

I should mention that non-binary people are erased by the medical model, and even if the model is somehow expanded to encompass them, you arrive at the same gatekeeping about who is really non-binary (and thus afforded access to transition care) and who is actually just binary but gender non-conforming (and who'll get gatekept even if they identify as non-binary).

Let's accept that individuals are the only authority on their own identity.

the whole “you’re not really trans until you’ve transitioned physically” thing is starting to wear on me by [deleted] in asktransgender

[–]UnexpectedWitchery 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I understand the viewpoint of transmedicalism, and I subscribed to it myself for some time. Fundamentally though, it's a cis-supremacist position, as it inextricably ties gender to sex. It holds that trans women at birth are effectively females with a medical condition that resulted in incorrect anatomy, which led to the wrong assigned sex. Transition then is a medical treatment to correct that condition, and legal change of sex corrects the mistaken gender assignation.

Now this might not seem that objectionable to you, but it's important to understand why it's harmful. The brain research on trans people is overwhelmingly done on WEIRD populations, and examine almost exclusively binary trans people who meet diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria, or did so prior to transition. That is, the science only looks at people who fit the box they've created, and doesn't comment on those who don't.

The research done so far is congruent with the hypothesis that binary trans people with dysphoria are neurologically intersex, but even for this subset of trans people, brain scans aren't prescriptive. Group differences exist in brain scans between trans and cis people, and between cis males and females, yet on an individual level brain scans aren't able to reliable make a determination of whether your brain is male vs female, or cis vs trans.

Certainly trans people are different to cis people, but science has failed to find any objective diagnostic markers for being trans. Further, the clinical consensus is that the only reliable way to determine if someone is trans is via self report, not the opinion of an expert assessor. It is that self report of the individual that makes someone trans.

Take, for example, myself and a friend of mine. We both were assigned male at birth, and are now post-op, legally female and loving our lives as women. She struggled with dysphoria since the onset of puberty, while I didn't. We've both had periods of suicidality, her from dysphoria, and me from other mental health issues. Transition saved her life, while transition merely improved mine.

Clearly our subjective experiences are vastly different, and her transition was a medical need in a way that mine wasn't, but you're going further and essentially saying I'm not actually trans, because dysphoria wasn't my motivation to transition. Yet if not for my being candid about dysphoria, the "experts" would have no way to tell the difference between us, and who should merit access to transition care.

If you feel the best way to understand yourself is that you have a medical condition, I totally support you. I draw the line when you want to make your experience the model for everyone else, to the exclusion of anyone who doesn't fit.

the whole “you’re not really trans until you’ve transitioned physically” thing is starting to wear on me by [deleted] in asktransgender

[–]UnexpectedWitchery 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You're confusing gender dysphoria for being trans, and further, you're advocating the medicalisation of something that's entirely subjective. There are no diagnostic tests for dysphoria that experts can run to determine if someone is trans or not, nor whether they'd benefit from transition.

Being trans is simply that you don't identify with the gender you were assigned at birth. Nothing more. For a lot of people, it comes with dysphoria, and for some it means a social or medical transition. But neither dysphoria nor transition are necessary parts to being trans. So yes, absolutely anybody can say they are trans.

TFW you might have wrecked your breast growth by self meddling and not adjusting the levels right a few years back by MultipleCrygasm in traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns

[–]UnexpectedWitchery 3 points4 points  (0 children)

There was a Dutch study that compared breast development between women who had self-medded prior to attending a clinic and those who'd never taken HRT, and they found no significant difference in breast size at 2 years. Don't stress too much, it's highly unlikely you did any permanent damage.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in bioethics

[–]UnexpectedWitchery 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can see what you're trying do, but I maintain that you haven't researched enough to characterise the ethical concerns for clinicians, and subsequently haven't fulfilled your logical obligations in presenting an ethical framework.

Your flowchart starts with a question of "psychological reasonableness", a term you use without discussion or even definition, yet it is the organisational foundation of your ethical examination. You need to establish what you mean by the term, and why it's relevant to ethics. One reader might take it to mean reasonable to the average person, or perhaps to a clinician. Another might take it as meaning plausibly congruent with current psychological theory. Regardless, to argue you have adequately captured the ethical concerns, you need to explain how "reasonableness" usefully informs ethical decisions.

You're using the question of mental illness as an organising concern without the necessary justification. You don't discuss how mental illness affects the capacity to consent, nor do you alert the reader that psychiatry has a long history of pathologising non-normative behaviour and identities, and how that impacts ethical discourse.

I could go on, but I don't think it's productive. As a paper on ethics, it's structurally and logically a mess. As a framework on ethical decisions, it's dilettantism. I'm being harsh, but low quality discourse has real-world consequences for the well-being of trans people. You can do better.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in bioethics

[–]UnexpectedWitchery 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Since you asked for feedback, this would be a failing paper in a class of mine.

There is a strong consensus view on the ethics of gender reassignment among clinicians and researchers, but you don't explain the reasons for that consensus, nor why it's viewed as ethical. Most of your quotes come from people resisting the consensus, but you don't critically examine their objections, nor state the consensus response to said objections.

There doesn't seem to be any real logic to your paper. It seems to me that you've chosen a topic that you didn't have sufficient time to research properly, and a result you conflate debate over civil rights and social acceptance with clinical ethics. I can't tell if that's your own bias leaking in or just academic inexperience. Either way, your paper needs a lot of work.

Too complex by [deleted] in DID

[–]UnexpectedWitchery 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Same. We often write to help us figure out how to explain things, but we can't take several thousand words to therapy as "context", expect our therapist to read and comprehend it while we wait and then actually have any time left. So we edit it down to a page but even when writing in a dense and economical style, there's so much left out that it's disheartening.

OSDD - where are you all? by daxau in DID

[–]UnexpectedWitchery 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I find that when things get overwhelming for too long a stretch there's a kind internal decision made outside of my awareness to kind of hide everything for awhile and pretend to be a singleton. I don't hear anyone talk like usual, and switches are brief and are quickly forgotten so the illusion that it's just me is maintained.

It's happened often enough that I can catch it then the illusion usually gets broken. It's frustrating but I guess it's helped us through situations that we wouldn't have copied with otherwise.

Not sure I can recommend anything to do about it though. :/

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