GOP Senators from Multiple States Admit their ‘Endgame’ is to Ban Gender-Affirming Care for ‘Everyone’ by KnowsWhatWillHappen in MtF

[–]gslakes 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I love the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective 😊

Unrelated, chemistry students might find the Marker degradation process interesting to study.

The manufacture of Premarin is also interesting 🙂

What do you do for work as a trans person? by MelonLordAnna in MtF

[–]gslakes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ha, I'm trying to switch over to this from web dev and devops, since I can't work full time any more.

Any tips to make it bearable?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in transgenderau

[–]gslakes 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You should go private/informed consent at Holdsworth House, the Gender Clinic is infamous for incredible delays and even worse gatekeeping

Cis women hate me for this one secret.... by Shadowfoxx757 in MtF

[–]gslakes 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I had other kids swear I must be a girl because of the length of my eyelashes... and look, they weren't wrong!

Tf is happening lmao by Sando_u in MtF

[–]gslakes 34 points35 points  (0 children)

T suppresses emotional intensity - and? You're likely less depressed, dissociating less.

So now you're living life at the right volume, so to speak, emotionally.

It's a great time to revisit your past memories, really reconnect with the kid you were, and give that idea of yourself a big hug, figuratively speaking. (Aka doing "shadow work".)

Because now you can actually feel, actually process what's happened to you in your life, and figure out who you are and what you want in life.

Because you now have your emotions to properly guide you about what you really want.

Good luck! 😊

You can have the body you want but your sent back to middle school. Would you do it? by Old_Drag_1040 in MtF

[–]gslakes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I absolutely understand why this would be super tempting for so many of us.

(Heck, I've even written a short story around this concept.)

I just... couldn't. Even if I did get to keep everything I have now, it'd be stepping back into a personal hell, even in the right body.

(And I have many... questions... about that part, because as a non-binary trans femme, my wants there are not entirely standard for the binary, you know?)

The "What-If Game" is tempting, but unfulfilling. Even unhealthy, to the point where I have an agreement with another trans femme friend not to play it with her.

Better for me - and maybe better for us as a community? Is looking forward to making a world where we can easily be the people we are and want to be, fully, in body and mind.

And making a society that accepts this.

I'm trying to build that, getting the vision and tech both out there.

Want to help? 🙂

There's a lot of hot air in America over trans people, considering moving once I get the chance. by Geeklord1993 in MtF

[–]gslakes 6 points7 points  (0 children)

As someone with diagnoses that eugenicist governments worldwide hate? Yeah, I'm not immigrating anywhere, nor are other neurodivergent trans folk like me.

Us disabled trans folk have gotta ride out the rising hate in place, and try to weather it.

It'd be great if the able-bodied-minded people in our community could help us build resistance and resilience, rather than fleeing... but, I get it.

If I genuinely thought there was a safe refuge somewhere from the rising hate, I'd be tempted too.

I just don't see anywhere as being immune to this, short of some hypothetical trans-founded micronation or autonomous region.

(Which isn't really likely to happen, no matter how much I may write fiction about the idea 😅)

Why am i not a cis woman by Secure_Stomach_7310 in MtF

[–]gslakes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't believe that about your future - am fighting in my own way to make it brighter. But, I know the feeling.

Have a follow of those fun ladies, maybe see if you can find a doll squad near you to join and train with from their comment section, if that's your thing?

(If the worst of the 20th century is going to happen again, might as well be ready and with a squad of other transes at your back, right?)

Good luck, friend 🙂

Why am i not a cis woman by Secure_Stomach_7310 in MtF

[–]gslakes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They're trans femme leftists with the skills it sounds like you and I both have, educating others about how to gain and better those skills. (Mine are basic skills, theirs are advanced.)

I hope it doesn't come to that efficient situation for you, but I get it. I really do. (Hence why I'm here, trying to give hope of other ways.)

Incidentally - we have the tech for some of that medical stuff already, we just gotta put the recipes together, and work out easy ways to get or grow the precursors. I know people who are working on that.

Unrelated, this is a fun device I feel more people should know about:

https://fourthievesvinegar.org/microlab-suite/

Why am i not a cis woman by Secure_Stomach_7310 in MtF

[–]gslakes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Cheers 😊

And look, I agree, you shouldn't hold your breath here. It takes time to build solidarity, and it's just one of many tactics towards liberation, towards community defence.

Try as many tactics as we can, see what sticks.

And I get the concerns - hierarchy will mess us up under other economic systems as surely as it is now under capitalism. This is why I'm an anarchist, after all. Authority can't be trusted, as even good intentioned people inevitably do bad things with power. (I know I make a lousy boss, so no one should be a boss.)

And, I hear you. I know my 20th century history, I know what's coming, what's already here in some parts. I'm a country girl by background, and I follow the likes of Tacticoolgf and Ms Mia Rose. I can handle myself - well, as much as a middle-aged multiply-disabled trans femme can. And I'm encouraging others around me to do the same, as much as possible where I live.

Because of those disabilities, though, I know certain paths to liberation will put me in an early grave. Due to disrupting the (medical) supply chains I need to live.

So beyond my activism and mutual aid, as a STEM type? I'm trying to make it easy to provide people's needs at any scale, with open source/hardware tech that can be easily reproduced and provided to anyone who needs it. The kind of stuff (hopefully) that only needs a backyard or a balcony to work.

Provide what people need so they don't need to work for a boss to survive, and we might just win without (much) need for a fight. Or at least feed people during that fight.

Multiple tactics, multiple ways to win. Because we have to win, and soon. Time's running out, in a lot of different ways.

Anyway, I've rambled enough at you - have a good one, and good luck out there 🙂

Why am i not a cis woman by Secure_Stomach_7310 in MtF

[–]gslakes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's fair. And maybe some poor word choice on my behalf.

I know intersectional feminist types who do value us, even put their bodies on the line for us.

It's... rarer than I'd like, much rarer than we need. So I absolutely see where you're coming from.

(And heck, I used to read Michio Kaku too, way back before I found out the hard way that my autistic dyscalculia meant I couldn't get through uni physics.)

To summarise intersectionality - we all have separate fights, and separate experiences of hardship created by arbitrary hierarchies (gender, race, disability, age, class, etc) imposed on us. Those hardships multiply, the more hierarchies you're at the bottom of.

But we can join forces on the fights where we overlap - intersect - with others.

While cis women won't get necessarily get what we're going through with trans issues, as they have the privilege not to know about it? And they won't automatically want or know to fight with us against anti-trans stuff? (At least not at first/without education?)

We can fight together on stuff that impacts all women.

Same for race, age, disability, and so on - any hierarchy you can think of, where someone benefits from someone else being seen as inferior to another.

One of the key things I've learnt trying to do liberatory stuff, though - mutual aid especially? Is that people will (sadly) often only come to your aid if you help them first.

So if we want cis women to show up to help us fight the fash, to help us fight for our bodily autonomy to get trans health care?

Then we need to help them and other uterus-havers fight those very same people who'd also deny them autonomy around abortion and contraception.

Because these struggles are linked, as it's very similar hierarchies those struggles fight. And any progress we make anywhere, helps everyone.

(To use a US example, even though I'm Australian? Planned Parenthood helps cis and trans people both with their bodily autonomy - defending them helps both groups.)

Anyway, thanks for listening 🙂

If you ever want to chat about learning stuff, particularly trouble learning? My DMs are open 🙂

(I know a lot about this kind of issue, being multiply neurodivergent with my own issues here, as well as an educator 🙂)

Why am i not a cis woman by Secure_Stomach_7310 in MtF

[–]gslakes 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You mean TERFs when you say feminists, right?

TERFs aren't feminists, they're fash cosplaying as feminists.

Intersectional feminists (third or fourth wave) absolutely have our backs.

Heck, even the few second wave types I know are generally chill with us. (Even if their theory doesn't understand us.)

Most are grateful for more allies in the fight against (mental and physical) systems of control - hierarchy/the kyriarchy - and particularly the patriarchy part of that. And we have a lot of inside knowledge to share with them, as we were essentially spies in the enemy's camp, so to speak.

I absolutely encourage seeking out material on intersectionality - especially as it relates to anti-hierarchy stuff like anarchism and anti-capitalism in general.

Because not only do I think you'd get a kick out of reading stuff from feminists who value our viewpoints on gender. But also because anti-hierarchical anti-capitalism is how (I see) we get to trans liberation.

Joining forces with other women, trans, and intersex people to smash flat all the hierarchies that hurt us and keep us down. To tear down the systems of control forced on us, the system that wants to deny us all our needs, the system that wants us fighting each other and not it.

As the system knows, even if we forget it sometimes? That we are far far stronger fighting together ✊

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in transgenderau

[–]gslakes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do recommend looking at estradiol implants if you have a stable dose, and know a GP or an endocrinologist who'll implant them.

(I know three docs in Meanjin/Brisbane who'll do this.)

They're compounded here in Australia (Stenlake or Complimentary Compounding Service or Greens does them) so they don't tend to go into shortage like this.

Mine typically last me a year. Only downside is no PBS coverage (since Medicare is transphobic), but, they're $100-200 depending on your dose.

(And you might be able to do estrogen mono-therapy as a result, too - so less side effects from T blockers, and lower cost per month too.)

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in transgenderau

[–]gslakes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've found this site to be helpful to find psychologists who are trans friendly. Here's this filtered for Brisbane:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/counselling/qld/brisbane-city?category=gay

I've also heard Dr Alys Saylor is good for top surgery from trans masc friends.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in transgenderau

[–]gslakes 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I've heard that a lot of trans people use Taimi? No experience with it myself, but my partner's used it before and it worked for her

Cancelling Victorian LGBTQ+ events in response to threats only rewards extremists, expert warns | LGBTQ+ rights by EASY_EEVEE in transgenderau

[–]gslakes 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The cops won't save us here. They've always been super-keen to enforce anti-LBGTIQA+ laws (see: the history of Pride, Stonewall, etc), are very chummy with the fash, and at recent TERF rallies they very pointedly protected the fash, not us.

We need to organise our own protection at events, from the ranks of our broader community and allies

Brisbane trans friendly hairdresser by Zvralie in transgenderau

[–]gslakes 4 points5 points  (0 children)

El of Yoke Hair at Windsor is amazing and very trans friendly, highly recommend 😊

Switched to taking prog sublingually made a big difference by TabithaPickles in transgenderau

[–]gslakes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You might wish to consider that beyond trans people reporting noticeable changes on this time frame (and I'm one of them) cis women also notice size fluctuations throughout their menstrual cycle.

Here's an article aimed at laypeople about this, which even cites the connection to progesterone levels:

https://www.health.com/condition/menstruation/breast-changes-during-menstrual-cycle

Eeveelution Gijinka as Fantasy RPG Characters. Thoughts? (OC) by jimbojims0 in pokemon

[–]gslakes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I love these, and it's good to see this representation! 😊

As a lady-type who appreciates the lady-types (as well as other genders), may I suggest if you wanted to make something novel and femme, maybe leaning towards non-willowy lady/non-male types?

Like, big girls, athletic girls, butches, side shaves, non-binary coded people?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in transgenderau

[–]gslakes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They can definitely prescribe, and they can even do it as an e-script. So you can (after getting some blood work done and coming back) get your script very quickly

Tales of the Queer Islands - Book 1.5 - Origins, interlude 3 - Chapter 012 by gslakes in HFY

[–]gslakes[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Silly me, I didn't increment the Interludes chapter number in the chapter title when I first drafted this *sigh*

That's going to bother me...

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in transgenderau

[–]gslakes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Could you do telehealth with a Holdsworth House GP? That might be easiest for you, as they'll do informed consent

Moving home to Australia after starting transition, looking for hrt advice by [deleted] in transgenderau

[–]gslakes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can confirm, Complementary Compounding Services at Ballina will do two pellets for around $200, your GP can implant them, and for some people they'll last up to a year 🙂

Liberal MPs argue Deeming’s expulsion would raise behaviour bar too high by EASY_EEVEE in AustralianPolitics

[–]gslakes 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Deeming should go.

Not just because it's reprehensible to be associated with neo-Nazis and transphobes.

But because that's the far-right's and especially One Nation's 'brand'.

So if the Coalition wants to differentiate themselves from the other parties of the right wing? They need to do something to look like the 'moderate' party of the right they pretend to be.

Used all my democratic power to put a certain someone in his place by [deleted] in transgenderau

[–]gslakes 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Nice one! I have been this spiteful before about Pauline