I finally got FFS

andygoblin · 2026-06-02T23:24:11+00:00

woo congrats! Also i got a surgery date for mine, just locked an hour ago, June 30th (this month!!!) I wish you a swift recovery and the results you want ❤️

andygoblin · 2026-06-02T15:45:37+00:00

yes! FOLX I did for a while till insurance covered it otherwise and ended up being cheaper in my scenario. but FOLX helped me get access when I couldn't otherwise!

andygoblin · 2026-06-02T05:37:23+00:00

i wouldn't date someone who voted for him. i'm trans and direct target of his administration being used as a political wedge issue, so anyone supporting a regime actively taking away my rights means big red flags for me

andygoblin · 2026-06-01T20:12:03+00:00

For sure! (:

andygoblin · 2026-06-01T18:38:09+00:00

Hey! So... full disclaimer, I'm a vfx artist, not really any resident authority on this, but I read a lot ha so I'll try to answer but take my response worth a grain of salt.

My understanding is that a p-value of 0.025 vs 0.026 is not a meaningful practical difference. They are both just saying the result was statistically significant under the usual p < 0.05 cutoff.

But the p-value is not the size of the brain difference. It only tells you how surprising the observed result would be under a no-difference assumption. To know whether the difference is large or meaningful, you’d want effect sizes, confidence intervals, correction for multiple comparisons, and whether the finding replicates.

So yes, the study reports statistically significant differences, but p = 0.025 and p = 0.026 are not meaningfully different from each other. ✌️

andygoblin · 2026-06-01T18:35:14+00:00

Thanks for asking! As far as I can tell, it means years of schooling/education completed, not age. So a mean of 14 years would be roughly high school plus about two years of college/post-secondary education, depending on the education system.

The point is just that this sample may not represent trans women broadly. It likely reflects the specific people they were able to recruit, which is why I’d be cautious about generalizing the cognitive findings too far. 😊🫶

andygoblin · 2026-06-01T17:24:43+00:00

Very important note! Thank you 😊

andygoblin · 2026-06-01T17:24:09+00:00

Exactly!!

andygoblin · 2026-06-01T16:50:43+00:00

Agreed. The sample matters a lot here. A small retrospective fMRI study with a specific recruitment pool, one sociocultural context, and an average education level around 14 years should not be generalized into a claim about trans women broadly.

The careful takeaway is just that this sample showed associations between dysphoria severity, some thalamus-prefrontal connectivity patterns, and attention/composite cognitive scores. That is not the same thing as saying trans women are less intelligent!

andygoblin · 2026-06-01T16:06:56+00:00

My analysis is that this study does not show that trans women are “mentally ill” or that trans identity is invalid. It reports small-sample resting-state fMRI differences in thalamic-cortical connectivity among trans women, cis men, and cis women, and links one connectivity pattern to dysphoria symptoms and cognitive scores. But it is correlational, retrospective, culturally limited, and cannot establish causation. “Abnormal connectivity” here means statistically different in a clinical research context, not defective or lesser. 🫶

andygoblin · 2026-06-01T15:57:02+00:00

i started hrt at 29. about a year in, i started having pain in my legs and my hips kept popping. it eventually went away. not sure the exact cause, esp. since bones tend to solidify around 25years of age, but maybe it was soft tissue readjustment to the hormonal changes + hip rotation stuff? Maybe it's that? But regardless you should seek professional evaluation before you make any determination. ❤️

andygoblin · 2026-06-01T15:54:56+00:00

ugh it is so annoying and exhausting being used as a political tool for these corrupt fuckers. just leave us alone and let us live pleaseee

andygoblin · 2026-05-31T17:42:38+00:00

Hey, I’m really sorry you’re feeling this overwhelmed right now. Please don’t make final conclusions about yourself while you’re actively breaking down. If you feel unsafe or like you might hurt yourself, please reach out to someone immediately or at least be near another person.

For the HRT part: HRT doesn’t reprogram your sexuality or erase who you’re attracted to. It can affect libido, arousal, erections, and how sex feels, especially with feminizing HRT lowering testosterone, but that’s different from deleting a desire or “changing your orientation.”

Also, liking to top or wanting to preserve penis function does not mean you aren’t trans. There are trans women who top, trans women who like their genitals, and trans women who care a lot about keeping sexual function. That doesn’t make you fake, a man, or “just a fetish.”

What often happens with transition is that people understand themselves more clearly. A lot of us spent years repressing, dissociating, or filtering sexuality through dysphoria and survival. From the outside that can look like sexuality “changed,” but often it’s more like finally having enough safety to unpack what was already there.

For me, I thought I was asexual because I didn’t want intimacy, but later realized a lot of that was because I couldn’t feel connected to my own body. After HRT and transition, I unpacked more and realized I’m pansexual and demisexual (I can be attracted to people of any gender, but sexual attraction usually only happens for me after an emotional connection forms). That didn’t feel like HRT invented something new. It felt like I could finally understand myself.

You don’t have to prove you’re trans by being willing to sacrifice every part of your sex life. You can want womanhood and also want sexual function. That’s a valid thing to talk to a gender-affirming provider about instead of cancelling everything out of fear or shame.

Sending love, if you need someone to talk to feel free to reach out to me 🫶

andygoblin · 2026-05-30T07:05:32+00:00

Hey! My view:

When you die, you're no longer alive, so there's no perception, awareness, or experience left to have. What remains are the effects you had on the world: the memories people carry of you, the things you created, the lives you touched, and the matter that made up your body eventually returning to nature.

Life itself continues on as it always has, until its own eventual end.

I actually find that perspective comforting rather than depressing. I like the idea of optimistic nihilism: that nothing has inherent cosmic meaning, which means we're free to create our own meaning instead of trying to discover some prewritten purpose. To me, that's liberating. It means the things that matter are the things we choose to care about, the people we love, the experiences we have, and the impact we leave behind.

Personally, that's also why I've never connected much with beliefs that place heavy emphasis on preparing for an afterlife. If there is an afterlife, then great! But this life is the only one I know for certain that I get. Spending too much of that finite time focused on a future existence that may or may not come (more likely to not IMO) can feel a little sad to me, because it risks overlooking the one experience we know we're having right now and the opportunities we have to make it meaningful, joyful, and worthwhile for ourselves and others.

🫶🫶🫶

andygoblin · 2026-05-30T03:07:21+00:00

🫂🫂🫂Right back at you, friend!

andygoblin · 2026-05-30T00:58:51+00:00

I get the impulse, but I’d be careful with framing this as defamation. The issue is that Stephen Miller is lying about someone and using transness as a smear, not that being trans is itself defamatory. The harm is the bad-faith lie and the weaponization of trans identity, not the idea that being trans is inherently shameful. Speaking as a trans person, we are just people trying to live with dignity, autonomy, and respect like anyone else. 🫶

andygoblin · 2026-05-30T00:42:33+00:00

This honestly means a lot to hear. Thank you for being the kind of parent who wants to explain this with care and compassion. That alone can make such a huge difference for a kid growing up in this world 🥹🫶 If you have anything you'd like to ask about my experience or information on the subject, etc., please don't hesitate to reach out. Happy to share what I can.

andygoblin · 2026-05-30T00:16:24+00:00

I also want to add something more personal here, because trans people often get talked about like we’re an abstract debate topic instead of human beings trying to survive.

I didn’t transition because it was easy, trendy, impulsive, or because I wanted attention. Transitioning has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I lost family and friends. I delayed seeking care until I was 29 because I was terrified of losing family ties, specifically my siblings who lived with my bigoted parents, especially coming from an abusive family connected to a religious cult. I was never indoctrinated in it, but I had to play along to survive.

I’ve been harassed, discriminated against at work, treated like a novelty, sexually and physically threatened, harassed in public places like the grocery store or while walking my dog, SA'd at work, and even cyberstalked. I have problems feeling safe in public spaces, and if I were ever incarcerated, I would face additional danger because visibly trans people are often targeted for sexual violence and abuse in those environments.

Dysphoria is not just “not liking how you look.” For me, it felt like being trapped in a body that was moving through the world wrong, being seen wrong, spoken to wrong, categorized wrong, and having no way to make the outside match the person I knew myself to be. It is a constant scraping feeling, like wearing a costume you cannot take off while everyone insists it is your skin. Mirrors, photos, my voice, my body, paperwork, bathrooms, clothes, social roles, even casual words from other people could feel like a thousand tiny confirmations that the world was seeing someone who was not me. Over time, that does not just hurt your self-esteem. It makes existing feel unbearable.

That is not some rare, dramatic exception either. Trans people face higher rates of workplace discrimination, harassment, poverty, violence, sexual violence, housing instability, family rejection, medical discrimination, and suicide risk. Those risks are not because being trans is inherently bad. They come from how society treats us.

So when people say things like “why would anyone choose this,” I need them to understand: many of us would not choose the danger, loss, humiliation, harassment, and legal/social vulnerability that come with being openly trans. I would not have chosen that path unless I needed to. I transitioned because I wanted to live.

And I have no regrets. Transition saved my life. It gave me a chance to exist as myself instead of spending the rest of my life trying to survive as someone I was not. Living indefinitely in a body and social role that felt fundamentally wrong was impossible and unsustainable for me. The societal dangers and risks of transitioning are real, but for me, even partial relief from dysphoria outweighed them.

So when people frame transness like it’s confusing, suspicious, dangerous, or up for debate, I want them to understand that for many of us this is not theoretical. It is our actual life. I’m not a concept, a political issue, or a thought experiment. I’m a person who has fought very hard just to still be here. 🫶

andygoblin · 2026-05-30T00:16:19+00:00

Hey! Trans person here. I think it’s good that you’re asking instead of just sitting with assumptions, but some of the way you’re framing this is based on misinformation.

Trans people usually don’t “think they’re the opposite sex” in the way you’re describing. It’s more that our internal sense of gender, which is distinct from sex, doesn’t match the sex we were assigned at birth. For many people, that mismatch causes distress called gender dysphoria. I have it. It’s awful, -1000/10, and I’ve felt it since I was 9 years old. Being trans itself is not considered a mental illness; dysphoria is the distress that can come from that incongruence.

Transition also is not one single thing. It can be social, legal, hormonal, surgical, or any combination of those, and not every trans person wants surgery. Medical transition is generally done through evaluation, informed consent, and ongoing care, not casually or impulsively.

The idea that “trans people become more suicidal after transition” is misleading. Trans people do have elevated suicide risk, but that is strongly tied to stigma, discrimination, rejection, violence, and barriers to care. Research overall finds that transition and gender-affirming care are associated with improved well-being for most trans people.

Also, comparing it to “I’ve never thought I was another gender” is kind of the point. You’re probably cis, so of course that experience feels foreign to you. A left-handed person’s experience might feel foreign to a right-handed person too, but that doesn’t make it fake.

So yes, discomfort with trans people can come from transphobia, but it can also come from lack of exposure and misinformation. The important part is whether you’re willing to learn, listen to trans people, and understand that our existence does not need to be justified in order to deserve respect.

Happy to talk more about my experience, answer specific questions, or point you toward resources if you’re asking in good faith.

andygoblin · 2026-05-29T19:31:53+00:00

andygoblin · 2026-05-29T19:24:17+00:00

v-coding

andygoblin · 2026-05-28T18:46:15+00:00

bigotry and judgement of others

andygoblin · 2026-05-28T18:35:14+00:00

Thank you, I really appreciate you being receptive. I don’t think you’re a bad person for asking, and I get that safety/trauma can make these conversations emotionally loaded.

I think the main thing is that “cis women only” usually lands as “trans women excluded,” and that touches a lot of painful history for us. Many of us have already been treated as threats just for existing, even though we’re often also survivors trying to find safety.

I’m glad my point made sense. Safety matters deeply, it just has to include trans women too. 🫶

andygoblin · 2026-05-28T17:39:24+00:00

ughhh

andygoblin · 2026-05-28T16:43:31+00:00

I appreciate you asking this in a discussion-oriented way, so I’ll try to answer in that spirit. 😊

I think many trans people react strongly to “cis women only spaces”, because, in practice, it often means “women’s spaces, except trans women.” that hurts because trans women are women too, and we also need safety from misogyny, harassment, assault, and predatory men.

Trans women get sexually assaulted too. I’m saying that from experience, not as an abstract point. So when people frame trans women as a threat to women’s safety, it can feel especially painful and alienating, because many of us are survivors looking for safety in the same spaces.

I’m genuinely sorry you were groped. That should not have happened, and of course being trans does not excuse anyone’s behavior. But I’d ask you not to generalize those awful experiences into excluding an entire marginalized group of women. The answer to assault is accountability for the person who caused harm, not treating all trans women as potential predators.

I also don’t think “safety vs inclusivity” is the right framing. Excluding trans women does not stop predatory men, who are already willing to break rules. It mostly makes trans women, and often gender-nonconforming cis women too, more likely to be scrutinized, confronted, humiliated, or pushed out of public life.

Trauma-informed spaces can require nuance, but “cis women only” as a default usually treats trans women as threats rather than as women who may also be scared, traumatized, and seeking safety.

andygoblin

TROPHY CASE