I am Jazz. ***Trans content. Please do not open if you just want to post insults or whinge about another trans thread***

Same here yet

I always took it to mean "the wrong side of the historical record" - i.e. as a statement about how people and actions will be judged in years to come.

That's a really good point Saskia. One to remember the next time anyone uses it to me

I think if that phrase can be said to mean anything, it is not the people challenging transing children and giving them sterilising hormones before they are 18, eroding sex based protections and redefining the word woman who will be seen as being on the 'wrong side'

SaskiaRembrandtWasFramed

The first time I heard that expression, I was struck by the effectiveness of it. It has a disturbing way of putting what you're saying in the context of other historical disasters.

I hadn't realised it was part of any kind of belief system.

For what it's worth, it became hackneyed very quickly, in my opinion.

But it does demonstrate that language is important. And these soundbites incentivise people.

Although, I believe, that particular one is now having a more negative effect than anything else because of its overuse.

Like the word transphobe. It's just synonymous with shut up.

I'm sorry to be pedantic but the term 'the right side of history' is meaningless. History does not have a wrong or right side, well not unless you believe in teleology, and that history is a process towards some predefined and desirable end point. However, if you did, you would be wrong and would also be allying yourself with some very dubious ideologies.

Poor Jazz. God, what a fucked up life to lives

They also claim that their imaginary "cycles" sync up with the females they're around - apparently, like a lot of people, they haven't got the memo that period syncing is a myth!

re. "periods" - I fell down the rabbit hole of reading trans blogs a while back and apparently some transwomen choose to take the hormones in cycles so it mimics fluctuating female hormone levels. It was described as a sort of balancing, spiritual cleanse or something!

I completely agree with you Olenna. Oestrogen is a feel good chemical and what you say about spirolactone is interesting too. I wonder whether females who inject testosterone get a similar rush/high.

I can totally see how certain drugs can be addictive, even without the heavy backdrop of purporting to magically change oneself into something completely different

OlennasWimple

I suppose every mood in existence can be attributed to chemicals. We're not machines after all. It's galling though, isn't it? That we can't all just be on top of our game, all the time, through sheer force of will!

The effect of spiro really took me by surprise. It worked amazingly well on my skin, so within a couple of days I was feeling better about myself because I could see the results, but even before then there was a marked effect on my mood. DH remarked that it was like I had started taking prozac

I was under the impression that estrogen was a bit of a magical hormone anyway. Doesn't it produce serotonin? Isn't that the feelgood chemical?

From what I understand it's not about the amount of estrogen you have but the way it 'communicates' with your body and the rest of your hormones.

Although, conversely, plummeting levels after menopause seem to create a more even mood.

I think it can account for mood swings in women, but only conjunction with other female hormones, so maybe a man taking it, with no other process going on, just gets the feelgood aspect?

Either way, introducing foreign chemicals into your body and you suddenly feeling great, seems far more about that chemical, than you suddenly getting a hormone that you think matches, or completes, your gender identity.

The often heard assertion that as soon as homones started they knew they had completed their journey sounds much more likely to be the result of a high, than the achievement of an ideological goal.

I'm not convinced that as a group, they can be reliably counted on to report truthfully/accurately.

I've read/watched too many blogs/vlogs which start off saying what aaaamazing sex and orgasms they are having, only to go on and contradict themselves by saying it took two hours with a sex toy to get something resembling an orgasm and nobody wants to have sex with them. It's like listening to streams of consciousness that reflect whatever narrative suits in the moment. The period thing is bunkum.

I never watch this show, but oddly I saw it this week because I was up doing some work and I couldn't find the controller to switch it over.

Aside from how uncomfortable I felt for Noelle during the Dating in the Dark scene, the worst bit was Jazz's parents faux planning to protect Jazz from the crowds at Pride, because they were due to be on a float and Jazz has crippling social anxiety. How about just not making your anxious child do something like that... oh but then you wouldn't have material for your show that you are milking off the back of your child's mental health you avaricious a-holes.

Perhaps it's more a culmulative thing, alpaca. I've read loads of threads on Reddit and elsewhere with MTT describing the day that they started hormone treatment as the best day of their lives. I don't doubt that taking a positive step towards achieving a desired outcome is bound to play a large role in how they respond, but I do jsut wonder whether there is a bit of chemical stuff in there too

Just caught thread, and what Datun writes on page 10, at top, is ENTIRELY correct.

Honestly, I have written loads about this before on MN, living with a man like this, and it has been one hell of a learning curve.

I think putting it down to a medicinal side effect is frankly being charitable.

They are so mentally unwell that they claim to be a woman despite having a penis and make endless vlogs to justify it, I don't think they're troubled by the need to have any real evidence for their symptoms. Their brains just create them out of nowhere.

this seems like a good a place as any to make an observation about my personal experience taking androgen blockers...

In the past I have taken spironolactone as a treatment for acne. I have recently found out that it is one of the most commonly used drugs in the US for MTT hormone treatment.

As well as being very effective at clearing up my skin, I felt terrific on it: loads of energy, sleeping more soundly, generally feeling great. I wonder whether this is a common side-effect, and how often this is taken as a sign that hormone therapy is the right thing to be doing / relief to be starting down the trans route? (It is also a diuretic, which might rather focus the mind on the "which bathroom" issue more than otherwise)

There are side effects to oestrogen only HRT but not sure they could be considered period-esque if you don't have the relevant bits. According to the NHS:
The main side effects associated with taking oestrogen include:

bloating
breast tenderness or swelling
swelling in other parts of the body
nausea
leg cramps
headaches 
indigestion 
vaginal bleeding

Women are very rarely prescribed oestrogen only because it increases the risk of ovarian cancer. More info: www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Hormone-replacement-therapy/Pages/Side-effects.aspx

One thing that is niggling is that women aren't allowed to take HRT for very long because it increases the risk of cancer and it's not prescribed at all to women who are obese or have high blood pressure. Does anyone care about that with TG men? Or is their health secondary to their mental well-being?

I had a conversation with a man who was on hormone therapy for cancer who was really shocked by how wobbly and emotional he felt when his hormones went out of whack and testosterone wasn't in charge any more. Being generous, maybe that's what MTT are experiencing - but it is not PMS or menstruation, as they don't have the full hormone complement for that, or the plumbing.

JigglyTuff

So if a transwoman was on oestrogen, whether permanently or intermittently, would it produce anything that could be considered period-esque?

HRT for men who want to present as women contains no progesterone. It's the progesterone which causes hormonal surges during the menstrual cycle. I've told a TW that it is imaginary. They are adamant it's true - even though there is no biological basis for it. But then they are adamant they are a woman, despite the fact that they have a cock and balls.

Ok. Then as a woman, I can argue that I definitely get erections. Can't I?

Because it's my subjective mental experience that matters, not some biological fact.

This is what comes of pathologising childhood.

QuackPorridgeBacon

This new push to say they have periods, without blood, is a fresh turn from what I can tell.

I don't know whether the hormones that are taken are stopped, or increased, for any reason. Which may, or may not produce a different reaction.

But in no universe is it a period.

Sorry. But no. And all this, I cry at films, eat chocolate etc.