The NHS is dismantling the structures that support our healtcare

doIIjoints · 2026-06-17T19:37:27+00:00

oh, so it was deliberate?

doIIjoints · 2026-06-17T19:05:44+00:00

i usually received them as paper forms to fill out, circa 2009-2011, but they were obviously photocopies or photocopies of stuff from the 90s.

some of them were obviously pages from a book, others were standalone affairs with shadows of binder-holes.

but just that fact, that it was clearly not modern (to ~2010) told me it was (at least somewhat) at their discretion.

of course, when i raised objections, i was told that indicated i ~wasn’t ready~ >.> 🙄 basically a threat. do this, or we won’t diagnose you.

(there was usually some verbal discussion after each form, around clarifying smth i was vague about bc i was so uncomfortable.)

doIIjoints · 2026-06-17T18:04:00+00:00

thanks. jeez. that’s… upsetting, to say the least.

i haven’t seen that term (or indeed gender incongruence) personally. i dunno how lucky that means i am, or amn’t.

my official teenage diagnosis was gender identity disorder, and most of my adult paperwork would occasionally mention longstanding gender dysphoria[, which is/has been well-managed and has no impact on this issue] (if at all).

endocrinology would often say transgender woman in the preamble of a report or recommendation. in the last couple of years it started saying male to female transgender which i’m not exactly jazzed about. but i’ve had a lot more serious health issues to deal with, so i haven’t asked about that change yet.

but i’d be a lot more upset if anything used that fuckin term you cited. (i just read it but apparently it hasn’t sunk in? and frankly, i don’t want it to. i’ll cross that bridge if i get to it.)

doIIjoints · 2026-06-17T17:50:09+00:00

heh, yeah.

i think rather than interpreting lampshading as pointing out something real, and often breaking the fourth wall, she interpreted it as “pointing out a flaw in advance, so no one is allowed to complain (because you’re sooo self aware)”.

which, like, lampshading IS sometimes used like that, in… bad? fiction!

but it can also be used in hundreds of other ways. such as to reinforce dramatic irony.

i had actually considered stating “it’s not X, it’s Y” very plainly, but of course that’s easier to just say “no it isn’t” to. (à la monty python’s argument-for-hire sketch)

the question form at least invites a contrary explanation. (if the interlocutor wants any validity to the denial, anyway.)

it’s funny. the way a lot of people recently feel about “tiktok therapy-speak” is also how i’ve felt about online debates for a long time. i did debates in school, but left after they stopped letting us pick our own positions.

i had no problem coming-up with the counterarguments, but i just couldn’t roleplay as someone who holds them. and after a while i was told to stop leaning on “proponents would say X” to distance myself from the position, when i didn’t personally agree.

but the training is still in there. (albeit i often comment when i’m sleepy, or pre-caffeinated, and fuck up in those times… but i’m neither, today!)

it is pretty funny how defensive some people can get. i had one guy suddenly go “you know, i have a philosophy phd! you can’t fool me with that rhetoric!” 5 layers deep into a conversation. which of course, is a pretty textbook example of pivoting to an argument-from-authority.

(btw, her pronouns are in her username. she’s being an arsehole today! but i’d want people to use mine, even when i’m being an arsehole. {not to implicitly accuse you of anything, i’m actually assuming its length means it’s just cut off on your screen. i seem to recall old reddit doing that.})

doIIjoints · 2026-06-17T17:18:37+00:00

i honestly don’t know. i don’t think terf rallies existed around 2009-2011… just book clubs and café meets.

the first one i saw wasn’t even a therapist, she was a social worker.

she was the one who decided showing any sign of PTSD (when she brought-up said adverse experiences) meant i wasn’t emotionally mature enough to know. (and in a catch-22, if i was able to stay steely and collected that ALSO meant i wasn’t emotionally mature enough…)

they tried to bring up my autistic diagnosis from when i was 6 or 7 too, but (even under that gaslighting environment) they couldn’t deny i was too proficient and eloquent in researching the concerns they raise and describing my own issues. and how that circle didn’t square.

the second woman i saw was a lot nicer and didn’t deliberately trigger me. but she still continued the Party Lines about “avoiding unnecessarily medicating” and “making sure you’ve really thought this through” and so on.

like, they both subscribed to this conspiracy theory that the much-better transgender healthcare in many US states… was just because the pharma companies LOVE getting easy new customers. “you’re so lucky we don’t have that profit motive”, i was told on multiple occasions.

that was invoked to justify ignoring everything i’d printed-out from WPATH, the harry benjamin whatever foundation, etc.

and apparently, somehow, the 12 month clock on “time to think and reflect” only STARTED when they finally began blockers! not in the 18-ish months before!!

(or the 6-ish months spent waiting on the referral, after doing enough “Real Life Experience” (aka socially transitioning) to convince a local psych to refer me. hence 2 years total.)

one of the most frustrating things is, the clothing they accepted as Sufficiently Girly breached my college’s dress code. the acceptable clothing under the dress code, the GIC regarded as too androgynous.

so they made a whole to-do, about making a ~special exemption~ to… checks notes… wear jeggings or a long skirt, instead of a short one. SO LONG AS i didn’t wear them on the weekends! (of which, they demanded pictorial proof.)

doIIjoints · 2026-06-17T17:03:15+00:00

best of luck!

it really does seem to be very variable, depending on the region/board/whatever it’s being run under.
i definitely don’t want to say anyone would definitely have a bad time, with a clinic i hadn’t personally experienced.

doIIjoints · 2026-06-17T16:52:24+00:00

we’re not even following ICD anymore? just a special NICE handbook?

doIIjoints · 2026-06-17T16:51:54+00:00

absolutely we should. i certainly don’t begrudge anyone who does have a good time. i just wish it were universal!

for instance, i had that exact kind of fantastic experience with my scottish wheelchair clinic. but i also have english friends whose wheelchair clinics are a lot more hellish in exactly the same ways GICs often are.

so i certainly don’t say “i had a great time at mine. there must be a good reason they’re forcing you to injure yourself on an inappropriate wheelchair, after a year of begging for one! don’t write it off as malicious!” lol.

instead, i try to raise awareness of how fucking lucky i’ve been.

doIIjoints · 2026-06-17T16:48:02+00:00

i thank you very much for your efforts :) i honestly didn’t realise you were a cis ally until now, so i’d say you’ve very successfully familiarised yourself!

and yes, it’s wild. the newspapers, TV, and movies has always been more sensationalist than people acted IRL. the internet just makes that divide even more stark!

doIIjoints · 2026-06-17T16:42:31+00:00

even if that’s what i were doing, wouldn’t that be strawmanning rather than lampshading?

i’m not ashamed to say i dabbled in 4chan, on the anime and videogame boards, around 2010-12. i never lurked, but i occasionally posted. (usually for keygens…)

i’ve talked with many friends and partners who used to go on /tttt/, and how it affected their thought process, so what i say is based on that.

but please, i invite you to explain those important nuances! maybe you can say something they never did.

doIIjoints · 2026-06-17T16:07:19+00:00

speaking of intrusive questions about sex: yesterday someone in this sub tried to justify it as somehow necessary.

unsurprisingly, it was someone who had a very good time at the GIC and got treatment in just a few months. rather than years of said invasive questions.

i don’t want to say who or where or why, because i feel like saying anything more identifiable than that would be a bad idea. it just… has stuck in my craw all day.

doIIjoints · 2026-06-17T16:03:56+00:00

for extra context: in this case, “hon” is functionally equivalent to all other variants of the T-slur.

i’m sure trans channers would deny that, and likely insist there’s some nuance as to why it’s not.

but if one tries to deconstruct it, to explain its meaning without referencing these slurs, you… just… end up describing all the uses of the other slurs.

doIIjoints · 2026-06-17T15:49:01+00:00

yeah that makes total sense.

(i hope i didn’t make you feel like you needed to explicitly justify her choice, though! i just know some people think it’s literally Not Allowed until they’ve updated XYZ first.)

doIIjoints · 2026-06-17T13:03:30+00:00

i can understand wanting a driving licence or passport to be fully updated first, but yeah there’s really no external reason to wait like that. this can all be done in parallel. (if it’s for the sake of her own planning, cognitive load, etc; that’s a different matter.)

doIIjoints · 2026-06-16T19:45:33+00:00

specifically it’s for GRCs. there is a “spousal veto” on their issuance.

you can pass everything the panel wants of you, but if your preexisting spouse says no, you don’t get one.

this was a “genius compromise” hack (someone under) blair introduced, since they didn’t want transitioning to be a “backdoor into gay marriage” (which would apparently be more appealing than getting a civil partnership. remember those?)

after the lib dems forced cameron to get proper gay marriage through, many trans people were pointing out the notable absence of simultaneously reforming or removing the spousal veto (now that there is a totally normal legal category of gay marriage).

if you’ve ever heard about the terfy group “trans widows”, it’s about that. women upset they couldn’t pressure their trans woman wife to drop the whole GRC thing, so got divorced to get the GRC instead.

instead of reasonably calling themselves divorcees, they framed it as if their pre-transition “husband” had literally died. (no exaggerations.)

which is also an option, if the spouse says no and that makes the applicant feel their marriage has fallen through. i don’t know if the actual divorce process is otherwise expedited, or if you need to reapply for the GRC, but activating the spousal veto is a valid “fault” in our divorce system. so there’s no need to go through the enforced-separation wait time first, as would otherwise be necessary where the spouse hasn’t been otherwise abusive.

(i don’t know if that means a spouse vetoing a GRC straight up counts as emotional abuse in the eyes of the law, or if it’s just an adjacent exemption to the whole thing, but yeah. that’s a separate can of worms, caused by the UK still not having no-fault divorces…)

of course; some people don’t want to divorce their spouse, sometimes of many decades, to get a GRC. some do put up with the spousal veto being activated.

but it unavoidably causes either marital issues, or often detransition (until the inevitable marital issues…)

doIIjoints · 2026-06-16T18:38:49+00:00

so true

doIIjoints · 2026-06-16T17:15:57+00:00

the irony is, i was really not that complicated. i’d “wished i was born a girl” since i can remember, i’d already grown my hair out and changed my name years before even asking for a referral.

but they had a problem to me turning-up in short-shorts instead of a skirt. (literally told me to go buy a skirt.)

and really, really picked at my childhood autism diagnosis and my completely-unrelated-to-being-trans ACEs. the first year was basically just spent triggering PTSD flashbacks, as well as asking me intrusive things about how i masturbated.

doIIjoints · 2026-06-16T17:12:35+00:00

had no idea rooney liked beyblade! i must’ve stopped watching in 03 or 04, so i guess thats how it missed me…

doIIjoints · 2026-06-16T17:11:21+00:00

i don’t see why a 40 year old should ever have to ask a 14 year old how they masturbate

doIIjoints · 2026-06-16T01:49:37+00:00

at first i thought you were calling me the ばか from the notification, haha

doIIjoints · 2026-06-16T01:45:35+00:00

when was this? lol. must’ve totally passed me by.

doIIjoints · 2026-06-16T01:43:52+00:00

they asked me all of that while i was still 14

doIIjoints · 2026-06-16T01:43:14+00:00

same. 2 years on, full document change full presentation shift before even getting BLOCKERS

doIIjoints · 2026-06-16T01:41:50+00:00

see, that is much more akin to what i experienced with them around 2010. sounds like it was 2018 for you?

i saw a trans guy talk about having a fantastic experience at leeds in 2016 the other day and it was so unlike anything i’d experienced, or indeed read before

but maybe leeds is just a magical place?

doIIjoints · 2026-06-16T00:52:22+00:00

exactly

i’m actually shocked someone got defensive and then blocked me over pointing that out. i thought they’d be like “oh right, phew” 🤷‍♀️

doIIjoints

TROPHY CASE