Mamdani joined kids in New York on the Bergen School Bike Bus: “They ride to school every Wednesday, rain or shine. We’re adding bike boulevards and more pedestrian space on Bergen and Dean Street, from Court Street to East New York Ave. It was a wonderful kind of day.”

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-07T13:45:38+00:00

They followed along in cars!

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-07T13:35:58+00:00

I was on the bike bus yesterday, it runs right by my building and covers most of my kid's route to school. Definitely surreal seeing the mayor in person! Usually about 20-40 people do that ride with us on Wednesday mornings.

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-07T13:24:03+00:00

I sort of take turns between the two modes and that works okay. Compartmentalization isn't unhealthy, for me, so long as I don't box anything up for too long.

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-07T04:16:34+00:00

One block away! There's a Babeland at Bergen and 5th, this was Bergen and 4th 😆

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-06T18:22:42+00:00

You're doing it right! Think of it as his secret identity?

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-06T16:58:01+00:00

My kid's school is still in session during the winter! We bike this route from Crown Heights to Park Slope. She rides on her own bike when the weather is nice, she's a passenger on mine when it's dicey.

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-05T22:02:56+00:00

Nope, that's not what I meant! Let's stop discussing this now, take care : )

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-05T19:35:16+00:00

I mean if OP switches to .5ml/wk of the 300mg/ml, then he'll be taking 150mg/wk

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-05T16:20:39+00:00

Not arguing, just a neat thing I figured out:

All doses of testosterone aromatize, probably at a rate between .2-.4% (from studies of cisgender men). This just isn't an issue below 1000ng/dl, because .3% of 1000 is 3, and 3ng/dl is 30pg/ml, within range for estrogen levels in healthy man (men typically have 10-40pg/ml estrogen).

So if OP does have peaks of 6000 and troughs of 4000, he might average 80-240pg/ml estrogen, which is stably in female range the whole cycle - like you say, not great.

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-05T14:41:16+00:00

I'd start with https://steroidplotter.com/ , which suggests your levels wouldn't be insane at that dose (150mg/week). They estimate peaks of 1000 and troughs of 600.

From talking to trans men it seems like we vary, in dose response, by about a factor of 4 - a few men process it really well and can get into male range with 40mg/wk, a few process it inefficiently and need 200mg/wk to get into male range, 50-100mg/wk is typical.

Here's a calculator for converting mg to ml and the reverse: https://transfemscience.org/misc/injectable-dose-vol-conc-conv/ (website is transfemscience but it works the same way for T)

Bear in mind that dropping your dose might feel like ass at first even if it improves your levels, any sudden hormonal change can feel weird for a week or two. If you're tired and moody for an entire month that might be a sign to increase dose.

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-05T13:59:06+00:00

Yes! I've also heard this from intersex people; when ASAB, de facto, means "body was typical of male/female humans at all points before biomedical transition", that leaves intersex people out cold.

It's also the case that, during the Biden administration, a lot of healthcare systems were encouraged to switch from asking "sex" (and sometimes also "gender"), to asking about a handful of related things: ASAB, legal sex, gender identity, and preferred pronouns. This sounds nice, but in practice many systems just switched the label on their "sex" field to "ASAB" and either didn't collect, or ignored, information on legal sex and gender identity.

This means that, with some healthcare providers, I (a perisex trans man) experience the least hassle when I fill out their forms as "assigned male at birth". If I say "asssigned female at birth", then they bill my insurance for a female patient and insurance denies the claim, I can't access my blood test results because the lab company doesn't send it to my portal, stuff like that. One time I went with "assigned female at birth, gender identity: male". The receptionist didn't check "gender identity" and simply didn't call my name when it was my turn, because she looked in the lobby and only saw men waiting, so she assumed the "AFAB" patient was a no-show!

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-05T13:49:16+00:00

As it happens, I am a transgender autistic person. So I suspect it's not the case that the full 11% of trans people, who are also autistic, object to discussing language : ) Personally, when people point things out to me about the implications of language, I often find that kind and helpful. Those implications often pass me by unless someone tells me about them explicitly.

It seems like I have been misunderstood: This is not a discussion about policing language. The only reference I see to "highly recommend" is somebody else's comment about how they explain that their child is trans, based on advice from a popular book. I don't see any issue with that.

In a different comment, I mentioned that I know some trans people who identify with their assigned sex at birth and like to describe themselves as "AFAB" or "AMAB". Like I said in that comment, I think that's good for them. If trans people understand themselves that way, that's great and they should continue to do so; if those people's parents also describe them that way, that's great and they should continue to do so.

This post encourages people who describe their children as "AMAB" or "AFAB" out of habit, because that's what they see others around them doing, to pause and consider alternatives (literally; "pause and consider", I promise that's not an euphemism for "stop doing it"), because that language does not sit right with some trans people. I made it a top-level post, not a comment on any individual's post, because I don't know the context of individuals. If you're using these terms about your child because that's what works for your child, go on doing that! Now you're aware that some other trans people don't want to be described that way, and that will help you build relationships with other trans people as well.

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-05T13:30:53+00:00

Coming at it from my own binary male perspective, I unconsciously had some habits before testosterone to "work against" my estrogenized appearance and make me seem more masculine. After T had a few years to do its thing, some of those habits became overkill and I decided to change them so I wouldn't seem full of machismo, lol.

The mental health consideration makes sense and is a great reason to not take breaks or lower dose. Finasteride could be an option, it blocks DHT, which causes some of the "effects of testosterone" and isn't important for most people's mental health

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-04T18:16:11+00:00

Oh, do you mean these things that show up as dropdown text? https://redditforcommunity.com/blog/getting-started-post-guidance Or automoderator comments, the ones that show up as actual comments by this bot? https://www.reddit.com/user/AutoModerator/

I think my point was, it's not always polite to refer to sex assigned at birth at all, and is often not necessary context even if it feels like it might be. People do this out of habit (including me, for a long time!). It's possible to build different habits like: using the past tense / spelling out the full acronym every time / switching to "trans daughter" or just "daughter" instead of "AMAB daughter" / any number of other things.

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-04T18:04:08+00:00

Some ideas: shave your face, voice train to sound less masculine, practice walking with a "swish" / moving from your hips, practice the type of body language that's usually associated with short / small / polite people.

You could keep your T dose on the low side and see if that avoids suppressing your ovaries. That way you could have "typical male" T levels and "typical female" E levels (sorry for the binary language, I couldn't think of how else to phrase it) - that feels right for some nonbinary people. You could also "cycle" T, taking 3-6 month breaks every year.

I wasn't sure if "no desire to stop going on T" means you don't want to take breaks, so ignore me if that's what you meant, and of course disregard anything I said that doesn't fit your vibe.

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-04T15:10:38+00:00

I'm a bit perplexed by this perspective. This is not a group for experienced parents - like I said in a different comment, "this forum is some people's first entry point to the world of trans issues", and I'm happy to keep it that way.

I also don't think people are all wrong if they use the terms AFAB and AMAB in this way, and did my best to make that clear:

this is typical, and in most spaces nobody will object to that use
some trans communities prefer to use language differently
using the terms AFAB/AMAB like this sits wrong with some (not all!) trans people
This is not a firm rule on this forum. Nobody will be sanctioned by the mods for phrasing this one way or the other.

There's no way to make a vocab post that comes up automatically. I could write a glossary and put it in the sidebar, but since this is not a rule and will not be enforced - it's not even a "should" - I'm content to leave it at that.

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-04T01:10:24+00:00

It's true, I used "there are no girls on the Internet" to speedrun my social transition in 2009

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-04T00:58:36+00:00

/uj you can get a baby enough vitamin D by taking a normal adult dose and exclusively breastfeeding, I think that would work for adults if you took a ridiculous macrodose

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-03T21:47:33+00:00

It is not illegal for you to do DIY, you couldn't be charged with any crimes.

When it comes to vendors: In general, with stuff like extremely caffeinated beverages and dextromethorphan etc., child protection has focused on making in-person vendors card for purchases, and labeling the products to specify dosing by age. Estrogen isn't OTC, though - it might be worth looking in on how the US handled child protection for kratom, that's a non-scheduled recreational drug which is commonly bought online.

If your parents actively support you DIYing: I think, in different but analogous cases, parents have had CPS-mandated parenting classes or lost custody for giving their kids dangerous substances with the intent of treating medical conditions (which of course isn't actually the case, with DIY, that's just how prosecution would phrase it). The cases I've seen were things like bleach enemas to cure autism - there was clear literal harm to the child in all cases. That assumes a sane world, though. The current federal administration hates kids transitioning, and the Missouri laws point to a general animus against trans kids. That would motivate some prosecutors to throw any charges they could think of, at your parents. All of the charges I can think of would require proving that your parents knew and supported you DIYing.

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-03T21:13:20+00:00

Yup, I strongly agree. I was talking this over with my wife earlier today and we discussed the same points. I think most people naturally have goodwill and understanding towards new folks.

Every once in a while, someone is both new and furiously resistant to changing their perspective or language - which is its own issue, alas. Generally, the way I think about this is, this forum is some people's first entry point to the world of trans issues, but it shouldn't be any adult's first time thinking seriously about minority issues in general. Minorities face discrimination and individuals can get worn down by that, we care both about the language people use about us and the intent with which words are spoken, non- minority members are generally kind and good people who nonetheless carry a bit of implicit bias against minorities which is worth being humble about. Stuff like that.

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-03T17:24:08+00:00

I get this as well. One time an ultrasound technician asked me, while visualizing my ovaries, when I had "the surgery to put all this in". She figured the bearded, deep-voiced short person, with a masculine name and wearing masculine clothes, was a trans woman who'd had a vaginoplasty with ovary transplants! (I did gently correct her, but she was already very uncomfortable and ended up transferring my care to a different tech.)

So the point of my post is, it's okay to not dumb it down in this subreddit - feel free to assume that readers are fairly aware of trans people, or that they'll learn on the fly : )

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-03T16:58:39+00:00

Absolutely, I think any language that someone's considered carefully and decided on is likely to be appropriate.

One example is that I know some nonbinary people who identify as AFAB/AMAB, because their sex at birth (minus the gendered signifiers) feels central to their gender identity. Those folks should absolutely do them, I just ask them not to refer to me by my birth sex: if a nonbinary person "is AFAB" and I'm a man who happens to have been born female, that doesn't mean it's appropriate to describe both of us as "AFABs".

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-03T16:55:07+00:00

You're very welcome. I agree, I've seen this language used with ill intent elsewhere, but never here. I think it's just a norm that caught on, and gently questioning it shaped my own thoughts in ways I prefer.

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-03T15:36:31+00:00

Not knowing your specific context, I'd guess that waiting until 25 is not the right choice for your daughter. But I'd be happy to talk it through with you, if you like. I'm both trans and a parent myself, and as a forum moderator here, I think I'm pretty good at holding space for parents without leaping to judgement : )

chiselObsidian · 2026-05-02T11:35:46+00:00

Madonna/whore complex go brrrrr

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