How is the trans issue ever going to be resolved?

[PassportPanicFuuuck]

It seems as insoluble as the Israel/Palestine question when the two "sides" want directly opposing things. I've heard the arguments that trans people "just want to pee" and that "no-one would go through medical/surgical gender reassignment purely to abuse women", plus the mantras that "trans people exist", "trans rights are human rights" and "trans women are women" and it's quite clear that the people who believe these things fervently aren't going to change their minds any time soon.

But to a certain extent, life isn't fair. Not everyone does have equal opportunities. If you're in a gay relationship (and there's nothing wrong with that) you can't have a biological child with your partner; if you're infertile (as I am) you can't have a child at all; if you're trans (and there's nothing wrong with that either) you can't enter the spaces of the opposite sex; if you're British you don't have an automatic right to go and live in the US; if you're short and unsporty you don't have a right to be on the Olympic basketball team - and so on. All sorts of opportunities are denied people at various different points, some as a result of decisions you make (like not studying for a medical degree means I can never be a doctor) and some not (see above re. infertility), and beyond universal human rights you don't have a right - one might say "entitlement" - to an awful lot of things, much as you might keenly want them.

Like it or not, once we end up in these categories we have to accept it. Absolutely no-one is eligible to do everything or to go everywhere. However if you have made a choice - even if you consider it to be more a recognition of something innate rather than a conscious decision - it doesn't mean that you have made this choice on behalf of everyone else. If you have chosen to transition (again, you may not consider it to be a "choice") you can't dictate that everyone else ignore biology and logic and linguistic authenticity and you can't dictate that everyone else will want to celebrate your decision. No, we don't have to accept the "lady bulge", we don't have to accept child abuse under the guise of gender-affirming care and we don't have to accept men in female sports / changing rooms / organisations.

Not sure how coherently worded all the above is, but perhaps it will provoke some interesting debate.

Actually I think maybe I should take my local friendly TRAs for a thank you drink - without them I wouldn’t have evolved into a raging feminist…

Propanolol slowed my heart rate to the point that I thought I was dying. I'm on pizotifen.

When looking at contraceptives, I recommend the minipill backed up with condoms, rather than any of the implants and injectibles. Your DD needs to be able to stop the treatment immediately if it disagrees with her. Depo-provera will also make her weight balloon, which would raise havoc with her eating disorder. She should not be offered anything with oestrogen in it because of her migraines. If she is offered it, she must decline and say why.

If she goes for an IUS, she should get the smallest frame possible (so not Mirena) and demand cervical local anaesthesia. My screams were audible from the waiting room when I had a Mirena fitted without anaesthesia and it hurt all cycle round because it was too big for my uterus.

@selffellatingouroborosofhate DD won’t consider anything or anyone access her privates, so a IUD is out. I personally only just managed to keep the noise down when having a mirena fitted myself recently. Had one before but must have expunged the trauma from my mind - had a wonderful female doctor do it, though.

Have suggested an implant but DD flipped out at the idea of having something under her skin (ironic considering the research she did on 3d printed phalluses and attachment surgeries, and leg lengthening surgeries to get her to a respectable male height… I am kind of grateful for the breast binder that caused an infected cyst that needed aspirating, but was ultimately treatable as this put her off anything surgical.)

I think it’ll need to be a mini pill - she is very ‘light’, 8st2 when wet on a 5ft5 frame, so gaining a few pounds would not be an issue other than I suspect she’d track every gramme of weight gain. It’s a minefield, isn’t it?

Will ask about pizotifen. DS and I use the propanol as it helps anxiety and is compatible with ADHD meds. Willing to try anything as she has spent most of the last 4 weeks in bed in an autistic burnout and migraine fest…

And these indignities are what TW aspire to and role play on insta…

@CautiousLurker2 May all the Fates smile on you, you're a mensch.

Small point from a late-diagnosed ASD woman with a background of gender woes, if propanalol doesn't suit (or if it doesn't work alone) a 6-month scrip for very low dose amitriptyline was what finally broke the migraine cycle for me. The more migraines I had, the more frequent they got, until my idea of a good week was one with 3 days free of utterly debilitating migraine.
The cycle has picked up a few times since then but the same treatment brings frequency & duration back down to manageable levels. AFAICS, I'll probably always be a migraineuse but it's nothing like the horrors of my teens & early 20s.

Aw, thanks Hildegard. Will add amitriptyline to our list for the appointment next week. Appreciate all the recommendations I am getting for DD 🙏

It really does take a village to raise a child 🥰

Low dose amitrip is also good for sleep. Take it about 8pm though or you’d be groggy in the morning.

Lots of this sounds familiar. Won't go into my family history here but unusually rigid ideas about gender and roles in society.

No diagnosis but GP has looked at my history and gone, "yep fairly sure you are neurodiverse, get back to me on how you want to approach this one way or another if you think it will help."

Went through a period in my teens to early twenties wishing I wasn't a girl. I hated it. I was awkward and couldn't get 'doing a girl' right.

Didn't really make peace with it until about 25. I decided I wanted to leave everything behind and start a new life on the other side of the world. Turns out you can't run away from yourself... And a bit of distance makes you rethink a lot of things. Came back and things were just - different.

Does she get anxious around doctors more generally or just over certain things?

I have had issues with pill and blood pressure due to white coat hypertension. I get so anxious around doctors I struggle with getting sensible blood pressure readings in a medical setting. Its caused issues on numerous occasions.

I was fine with Combined Pill - weirdly (but perhaps unsurprisingly as it turns out) this was a pretty stable time in my twenties. They later insisted I went on minipill due to blood pressure. Omg. When It says in the side effects 'mood swings' it doesn't really cover what this means. It pretty much triggered a breakdown for me. Like proper complete meltdown. Couldn't function day to day.

So it turns out my current GP is a specialist in womens health and she says apparently neurodiversity is somehow linked to hormonal imbalances and sensitivities. Revelation. And as I found out with the minipill, it turns out I do not agree with at least some synthetic progesterones... As I have since found out synthetic progesterone sensitivity is much more common with neurodiversity (Fab this isn't it?!). Given this information, I am pretty glad I didn't go for the implant at the time. It scares me to think about.

What I'm saying is really do your research on this and keep an eye on it. Different pills have different progestins. Not all may agree with everyone - and this is a higher risk if you are neurodiverse. Really watch out for mood swings - I was fine on the combined pill I had but really really not fine on the minipill. I had no idea what was going on as I was in the midst of it. DH noticed the swings far more, before it just went off a cliff.

Anyway, moving on... I couldn't cope with the very idea of giving birth. I can't explain it. Never have been able to. I said for many many years I didn't want kids. In the end I had a C-section agreed before getting pregnant.

Also it turns out that perimenopause doesn't agree very much with neurodiversity either... Again those pesky hormone imbalances. Lo and behold, that's been fun too. Went to GP. GP said "yep that's your hormones" and "yeah probably best not to put you on synthetic type progesterone again after last time".

Subsequently having looked into this a little, I've gone down a bit of a rabbit hole of realising just how bad hormone issues + neurodiversity are. Reading further one of the things I've discovered is anxiety/depression is diagnosed when actually a hormone imbalance is an underlying cause so straightening this up, actually can do a lot to relieve the anxiety/depression symptoms.

Make sure she's armed with this knowledge because it really doesn't seem well recognised and understood. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and looking back I really really wish I'd known this in order to ask better questions and spot and deal with problems a lot sooner.

@RedToothBrush thank you - will see if I can find some info on what you’ve mentioned. A lot of what you say resonates with me and I can see it in my DD. I think some times that had she had an NT mother she might had got the help she needed sooner, because most of what she experienced (heavy periods, migraines, feeling different etc) was ‘normal’ to me. I thought it was all stuff you had to learn to live with. I know differently now and sincerely hope there are researchers and clinicians lurking on these threads willing to push this in their settings.

I think (and I may have posted this on another thread recently) people think autism is ‘just’ the brain working differently. But they forget the brain is attached to the nervous system - it is interconnected to the ANS and the CNS (autonomic and central nervous systems). It interacts with and works with the whole of your body.

As a rather embarrassing example - I have always had issues with bladder control - I was the kid that smelled of pee because my knickers were always a little bit wet. If I needed the loo, I NEEDED the loo. Right then. And if I got to the loo, the very sight of it was enough to start emptying, fully clothed. I’ve spent years carrying a wash bag and underwear changes.

It wasn’t until I sat with an HRT doctor recently that I mentioned this, along side my AuDHD diagnosis… and she said, oh, so you have an overactive bladder? ‘That’s a neurological issue. You can take medication for that. If you find that you are hyperfocused on tasks or whatever you are lost in, if you’re anxious/over-stimulated, you may be missing the signal that you need to go until your body is literally screaming at you, by which time your brain bladder communication is fucked. But medication can help, with that as you will not be constantly fighting that signal.’ I started meds and within 2 weeks - note this has been an issue for 50 years - within 2 weeks, no soiled pantyliners. No desperate fight with my trousers once I reach the loo, no desperate repeated ‘just in case’ visits to the loo on trips out. Changed my life… and all because it’s a misunderstood side effect/symptom/indicator of ADHD.

So I totally get that hormones would be similarly impacted. So much more research needs to be done to understand the way ND shapes bodily functions, emotions, hormones. the Autistic Girls Network and the NAS now have pages on ASD/hormones/periods - but GPs and schools need educating as well. Parents need to be made aware that ASD girls may face extra or different challenging. If I’d known [before my google search now], I might have supported my DD better when she started.

As far as supports for puberty, one thing that has really struck me comparing my children to when I was a tween, is the generalised social messaging seems to be completely differernt.

We had constant messaging along the lines of:

It's normal to feel really upset or scared about growing up
It's normal to feel panicked about your body changing, even to feel like its not your body
It's normal to feel panicked about your body not changing as quickly as other girls
It's normal to struggle with periods, breasts, body hair
It's normal for girls to look differernt and most girls and women don't look like models
What you see in the media about sex is largely nothing like the real thing
It's normal to feel out of place and like no one understand you
It's normal to struggle with friends and relationships
It's normal to be scared of sex and normal for teens to not be having sex
It's normal for girls and boys to like all kinds of things tha are gender non-conforming
All of these things are a function of being a teen and will get better as you grow into adulthood.

We had these messages in school classes. In books we read, stuff like Judy Blume. It was the subject of the tv shows we watched, kids experiencing all of those elements and more. Even kids I knew with quite conservative parents were hearing the same stuff at home.

What my kids get seems to be a combination of you are supposed to be happy all the time and something is wrong if you aren't, and these are all the ways kids deal with unhappiness and adults need to do something if you are doing these things (self-harm, eating disorders.) Plus a shot of extra attention for being needy in that way.

A baseline of telling all adolescents that this stuff is normal has to be more supportive. Not just in terms of how they understand themselves but it also helps them to understand that other kids are going through the same stuff, as did your parents (who now are mainly over it.)

Fairly simple: trans people will keep being born, attending school and progressing to work. They'll have sex, raise families, care for relatives and drive cars just like everyone else.

And hopefully, eventually, they'll stop being characterised as villains dedicated to Penelope Pitstopping women. It'll be recognised that lots of trans people are gay and bi, and that dating while trans is an individual, private thing rather than a crime.

Parents who don't reject or try to forcibly convert their trans kids won't be called 'child abusers' because, apart from anything else, that trivialises actual abuse.

Maybe some people will finally get that parents don't want to 'trans' their kids. That apart from this being a ridiculous fiction, parents know exam failure and extreme violence (most of it sexual) are what trans kids can expect. Loving, respecting and supporting a trans child is very different to wanting them to be trans.

it'll be recognised that trans people have always existed, and that transition exposes them to enormous risk. Trans men and women are treated with extreme hostility by violent cis men. They have a very high risk of being raped.

Hopefully, trans children within schools will be left alone. They won't be told that it's okay for them to be touched, hit, or sexually assaulted because "it doesn't count". They'll be able to go on school buses and enter classrooms without children attacking them. And because the extreme violence will have died down, they'll be able to take their exams, not be permanently.doped.up on anti-social meds and actually enjoy their childhoods.

Perhaps grown adults will stop commenting on their appearance, and recognise that the very small number of trans kids who get care are better off being treated by doctors than dying young. That surgery for.under-18s is banned in most places, and gender-affirming care has a very low regret rate.

Personally, I hope for a world where misgendering is recognised as petty bullying and inclusive language as life-saving. Where it's understood that safeguarding is already a thing, women don't have any 'safe spaces' (just the occasional lockable cubicle) and that no one would be trans unless it meant everything to them.

And that trans people aren't an issue or an ideology, just normal humans. They don't transition for sexual reasons, because sex and gender are different things.

“Dating while trans” is only a crime if you pretend to be the opposite sex to your sexual partner without their knowledge. Is that something you think people should be able to do with impunity @TransParentlyAnnoyed?

Also, who is telling any children, “trans” or not, that assaulting or abusing them “doesn’t count” exactly? If you are aware of any such incidences you need to report them.

Replace ‘trans kids’ with ‘girls’ or ‘female children’ and remove the insulting ‘cis’. The world contains only a small number of people who pretend they are the opposite sex.

Why should people be forced to pretend they believe a lie?

Trans people still exist, my dude. Getting mad ain't fixing that.

So you cannot answer any of the points that demolish your misogynistic Ai screed.

The female sex exists. We will NEVER stop fighting for our sex-based rights. Get used to it!

I'm a cis woman btw.

Stay mad if it helps ya.

My god if you believe any of the hateful misogynistic rubbish you posted, and that men will kill themselves if called men, you really need professional help.

Being a misogynist bigot is not normal. Posting like that isn't normal, it really isn't.

Women, girls and rape survivors have a right to change away from fully intact males. You need professional help if you cannot understand that.

Sure you are. Rape survivors will fight for our privacy to change away from males sir, stay mad at that. We will never stop fighting for our rights.

Trans children are suffering enormously because of ridiculous aggression like this.

They are suicidal because of the horrific bullying that transphobia inspires.

It's constant, very sexual and extremely violent. Most trans children don't take their exams because they miss so much school due to the harassment.

Shouting 'misogyny' isn't an argument, it's deflection.

Consider the impact of your behaviour upon trans children please. It's very real.

There is ZERO evidence 'trans children' (not that there is such a thing) are suicidal because of this. None whatsoever. There is however, evidence that over 80% of 'trans' children suffer co-morbidities such as Autism, depression, and a history of sexual abuse.

Please understand that when you WEAPONISE suicide, and promote Suicide Idealisation, you are harming children.

Please realise when you aggressively and callously disregard the needs of RAPE SURVIVORS, DV Victims, and other trauma victims to spaces away from males, you are HURTING US. Consider the impact of your behaviour on US please, when you say we have no rights to safety, privacy and dignity. It's very real.

I am, yeah. Mum of three kids, relative of two trans kids who were both bullied our of school by transphobia.

And they're still trans. Despite the incredible violence they went through, they're rebuilding their lives.

I'd offer to show my stretch marks, but it's late :)

Oh and trans kids exist. Sorry your ignorance and lack of imagination prevents you understanding reality.

Have fun hating! Won't change a thing.