A discussion of the two socially constructed genders of ex trans people, in the wake of my diagnosis of osteopenia at 37, secondary to years of gender-affirming menstrual suppression.
Brilliant post, Ex ! I applaud your honesty, integrity and continued activism against the harms done to women and children by the gender zealots and the medical providers who follow their lead. Thank you for exposing the fraud as well as the shameful negligence.
Thank you for sharing this. No one has a right to label your pain, experience, or feelings on something you went through and are still going through. *cyber hugs*
Your position is clear, well reasoned, accurate and supported by concrete data that has been proven and "affirmed" by the scientific method. (as is the case with all the data you put forward for public consideration.) Thank you.
Hearing your story helps all women. It doesn't matter whether we went down the socially constructed rabbit hole of trans-ness or not. When I read this, I realize how close I came to medical interventions that would have been disastrous for me. I see how my parents and my doctors were pushing me down a ramp into a killing field and I recognize how medicine is routinely weaponized (unconsciously, but still) to silence "uppity" women.
We're all in a bind here (no pun intended) because there are aspects to conventional medical treatments that are necessary to lead a decent life. Medicine is more often life saving than not. Vaccines give a person like me a shot at a normal life. A quadruple bypass saved my life.
But as a woman, throughout my life, I have had to dodge other treatments that would have harmed me. We are all, often, put in that position. I refused to allow them to stop my periods and refused to believe they "were not necessary" based on practically no information and certainly no support. I opted to try to weather the hormonal storm every month and landed in hospital needing transfusions to survive on a fairly regular basis from the age of 12. I was in the high-risk AIDS category for decades because of this. (mercifully never got a bad batch of blood, but that's only by chance.) My first transfusions were performed when the virus was making its way, silently, through the gay population.
Anyway, there is more, because there always is, because medical professionals don't stop trying to experiment with women's bodies as long as they can gain access to us, but my point is, your story is our story. It's not only a detransitioner story, it is the story of women struggling to stand up for our medical dignity and the right to understand the treatments being offered to us at evey stage of our lives.
I wish I could say; "It gets better." But it doesn't. You will always need help from doctors and they will often slip into the habits the medical profession has deemed acceptable over the years: they will try to use your body as a place to practice their skills and expand on their art form. You will always need to be at least a little wary of every treatment they offer.
I've outlived a terminal diagnosis by a factor of three by being "difficult" and sometimes by taking medical furloughs where I just drop off the physician's grid for a few years to let treatments catch up to where I am with my various issues in my physical state. Research is always being done. But doctors tend to become inflexible in their medical opinions at the moment they feel they've gained a credible level of authority. Human nature, I guess, we all have egos.
That's why the trans activists work so hard to capture scientists. If the trans movement can feed the egos of doctors well enough to stop them from believing that medical science has reached its acme and the pinnacle of medical knowledge is that everything is known because we have power over everything, then the goal is achieved. Trans-ness is real and the "treatments" they've developed are life-saving and medical advancement ends with refining techniques that create better illusions.
You can see this in every aspect of medicine. I've learned over the decades, to thrive, or even survive, as a woman in this culture you must approach the medical establishment holding tight to the paradox of absolute hope mixed equally with absolute distrust.
As you have elegantly demonstrated in your essay. many doctors, (maybe most doctors) hold a belief in the absolute authority of whatever was popularly accepted at the moment of the completion of their residency. That's a serious drawback. It's hard to understand and it's harder to explain.
Women need to challenge the ways we allow the medical system to help or they will hurt us. That seems to be the baseline running through all our stories. Thank you for the cogent reminder of that reality.
this: "That's why the trans activists work so hard to capture scientists. If the trans movement can feed the egos of doctors well enough to stop them from believing that medical science has reached its acme and the pinnacle of medical knowledge is that everything is known because we have power over everything, then the goal is achieved. Trans-ness is real and the "treatments" they've developed are life-saving and medical advancement ends with refining techniques that create better illusions."
was flipped around.
What I mean is this:
Trans activists reinforce a doctor's innate belief that medical science stops progressing the minute they graduate into regular practice. Many doctors seem to think they are always coming from a position of absolute authority. They believe their expertise is unsurpassed. They have to attend conferences as a condition of licensing so they assume they know all there is to know. That is the myth and the personal trait the trans activists use to keep them on team trans.
Ironically and frustratingly, part of our case depends on the fact that there was a time when they did have possession of an absolute truth, and that was before they were doctors and knew the difference between male and female. I'm sorry to go on for so long but it does seem to me that this is the crux of the matter.
It's also a reason why FTM trans patients should be staying well away from any and all medical treatments. They don't know anything about women's bodies but they think they know it all.
good to know, I'll leave it this time. It's such a difficult and to me anyway, shocking concept to understand that the more times and the more ways I write it out, the more likely I am to remember it.
As women in this utterly sexist medical paradigm, I know I need to be thinking about this phenomenon all the time. And I tend to get a bit caught up in how unfair and exhausting that is, especially when it's added to the work of dealing with a serious issue. (and of course, all medical issues have the potential to become serious depending on how they're treated)
I'm winded by how unfair the patterns of behavior toward women are and how they can actually be lethal and my natural tendency is to just withdraw. That's a tendency I dearly wish young women would acquire because, in my 50+ years of experience, watching my friends and dealing with things myself, it has become clear to me that medical interventions for women during our pre-menopausal years nearly always result in complex medical problems later in life.
And of course, there's danger there too. It shouldn't be this hard to be one half of the human race. But here we are.
Thank You for sharing these experiences in such vivid detail.
.
"At that time I believed that, to be trans meant you really did need to be on the opposite-sex hormones and not on your own hormones. I now label this model of what is trans, as Our Lady of the Perpetual Hormone Replacement Therapy."
—> The problem with calling it "opposite-sex" or "cross-sex" hormone treatment is that this is a compete and abject lie, at least for the estrogen treatment given to men who identify as transwomen.
To properly merit the "opposite-sex" or "cross-sex" label, the treatment should faithfully replicate at least ••something•• about the actual internal environment of hormonally normal people of the opposite sex. "Transwoman HRT" does no such thing whatsoever; it merely creates an elevated steady-state estradiol level, which is NOTHING like the corresponding levels in hormonally normal Women of ANY age.
Not before Menopause—when Women's estrogen levels fluctuate WILDLY over each Menstrual cycle, from as low as normal male levels during periods, to 6-10 as high just before ovulation.
Nor after it. Post-Menopausal Women's estrogen levels are LOWER than those of same-age men—this being, among other things, the main reason why osteopenia and osteoporosis are primarily Female afflictions—so if middle-aged autogynephiles rlly wanted "opposite-sex HRT" then they'd actually wamt to take mild doses of ANTI-estrogens and/or estrogen blockers!
There's literally nothing even vaguely "cross-sex" or "opposite-sex" about so-called transwoman so-called HRT. I can only guess that estradiol injections have become the go-to protocol because they cause gynecomastia—i.e., because they make men grow excess breast fat AKA moobs.
and that's not even getting into all the various and sundry other sex hormones—progesterone, LH, FSH, SHBG just to name a few—that also exhibit biologically functional fluctuations in Female bodies, yet none of which are addressed by so-called "cross-sex" hormone manipulation.
Also, keep in mind that when women are in their reproductive years, they store extra calcium in their skeleton, to support pregnancy and breastfeeding. So, it is entirely physiologic for this extra calcium to be lost at menopause. This change can lead to a diagnosis of osteopenia, which means that there has been a decrease of calcium from the bones but the underlying connective tissue structures are still normal. The normal menopause-related decrease in calcium stores does not mean that the woman is sick. The strength of the bones depends heavily on the integrity of the underlying connective tissue matrix.
The take-home messages are pretty simple. Eat a diet with a low to negative PRAL (i.e., a plant-based diet with a lot of fruit and vegetables), do yoga to rebuild bone, and get sun exposure to ensure that you have normal amounts of vitamin D in your system. There are also some other factors that affect bone health (e.g., corticosteroids, thyroid hormone levels) and may need to be addressed.
"It doesn't seem to have a clear dividing line."
Just like everything else trans 🤦♀️ Even TRAs can't agree on their own ideology among themselves.
Brilliant post, Ex ! I applaud your honesty, integrity and continued activism against the harms done to women and children by the gender zealots and the medical providers who follow their lead. Thank you for exposing the fraud as well as the shameful negligence.
"Gender Gremlins at 20,000 Feet" was the best Twilight Zone episode
nothing makes me madder than twats & twits telling me my feelings, experiences, motivations.
u look adorable! except for that one angry strand of hair.. it doesn't want to hide behind fairy tales.
Still unable to "like" comments. Anybody know how to fix this?
my condolences, TT. and i hope you and the other detransitioners see justice done in your lifetime.
Thank you for sharing this. No one has a right to label your pain, experience, or feelings on something you went through and are still going through. *cyber hugs*
Binding is absolutely more than social transition. I'm not sure it's medical, though. Sometimes it may be medically assisted self harm.
Thank you for this video and essay.
Good point, and this is why the difference between desister ans detrans is really stupid
Your position is clear, well reasoned, accurate and supported by concrete data that has been proven and "affirmed" by the scientific method. (as is the case with all the data you put forward for public consideration.) Thank you.
Hearing your story helps all women. It doesn't matter whether we went down the socially constructed rabbit hole of trans-ness or not. When I read this, I realize how close I came to medical interventions that would have been disastrous for me. I see how my parents and my doctors were pushing me down a ramp into a killing field and I recognize how medicine is routinely weaponized (unconsciously, but still) to silence "uppity" women.
We're all in a bind here (no pun intended) because there are aspects to conventional medical treatments that are necessary to lead a decent life. Medicine is more often life saving than not. Vaccines give a person like me a shot at a normal life. A quadruple bypass saved my life.
But as a woman, throughout my life, I have had to dodge other treatments that would have harmed me. We are all, often, put in that position. I refused to allow them to stop my periods and refused to believe they "were not necessary" based on practically no information and certainly no support. I opted to try to weather the hormonal storm every month and landed in hospital needing transfusions to survive on a fairly regular basis from the age of 12. I was in the high-risk AIDS category for decades because of this. (mercifully never got a bad batch of blood, but that's only by chance.) My first transfusions were performed when the virus was making its way, silently, through the gay population.
Anyway, there is more, because there always is, because medical professionals don't stop trying to experiment with women's bodies as long as they can gain access to us, but my point is, your story is our story. It's not only a detransitioner story, it is the story of women struggling to stand up for our medical dignity and the right to understand the treatments being offered to us at evey stage of our lives.
I wish I could say; "It gets better." But it doesn't. You will always need help from doctors and they will often slip into the habits the medical profession has deemed acceptable over the years: they will try to use your body as a place to practice their skills and expand on their art form. You will always need to be at least a little wary of every treatment they offer.
I've outlived a terminal diagnosis by a factor of three by being "difficult" and sometimes by taking medical furloughs where I just drop off the physician's grid for a few years to let treatments catch up to where I am with my various issues in my physical state. Research is always being done. But doctors tend to become inflexible in their medical opinions at the moment they feel they've gained a credible level of authority. Human nature, I guess, we all have egos.
That's why the trans activists work so hard to capture scientists. If the trans movement can feed the egos of doctors well enough to stop them from believing that medical science has reached its acme and the pinnacle of medical knowledge is that everything is known because we have power over everything, then the goal is achieved. Trans-ness is real and the "treatments" they've developed are life-saving and medical advancement ends with refining techniques that create better illusions.
You can see this in every aspect of medicine. I've learned over the decades, to thrive, or even survive, as a woman in this culture you must approach the medical establishment holding tight to the paradox of absolute hope mixed equally with absolute distrust.
As you have elegantly demonstrated in your essay. many doctors, (maybe most doctors) hold a belief in the absolute authority of whatever was popularly accepted at the moment of the completion of their residency. That's a serious drawback. It's hard to understand and it's harder to explain.
Women need to challenge the ways we allow the medical system to help or they will hurt us. That seems to be the baseline running through all our stories. Thank you for the cogent reminder of that reality.
Made a mistake here
this: "That's why the trans activists work so hard to capture scientists. If the trans movement can feed the egos of doctors well enough to stop them from believing that medical science has reached its acme and the pinnacle of medical knowledge is that everything is known because we have power over everything, then the goal is achieved. Trans-ness is real and the "treatments" they've developed are life-saving and medical advancement ends with refining techniques that create better illusions."
was flipped around.
What I mean is this:
Trans activists reinforce a doctor's innate belief that medical science stops progressing the minute they graduate into regular practice. Many doctors seem to think they are always coming from a position of absolute authority. They believe their expertise is unsurpassed. They have to attend conferences as a condition of licensing so they assume they know all there is to know. That is the myth and the personal trait the trans activists use to keep them on team trans.
Ironically and frustratingly, part of our case depends on the fact that there was a time when they did have possession of an absolute truth, and that was before they were doctors and knew the difference between male and female. I'm sorry to go on for so long but it does seem to me that this is the crux of the matter.
It's also a reason why FTM trans patients should be staying well away from any and all medical treatments. They don't know anything about women's bodies but they think they know it all.
They cannot help but hurt us.
FYI you can edit comments if you go on Substack on the web.
good to know, I'll leave it this time. It's such a difficult and to me anyway, shocking concept to understand that the more times and the more ways I write it out, the more likely I am to remember it.
As women in this utterly sexist medical paradigm, I know I need to be thinking about this phenomenon all the time. And I tend to get a bit caught up in how unfair and exhausting that is, especially when it's added to the work of dealing with a serious issue. (and of course, all medical issues have the potential to become serious depending on how they're treated)
I'm winded by how unfair the patterns of behavior toward women are and how they can actually be lethal and my natural tendency is to just withdraw. That's a tendency I dearly wish young women would acquire because, in my 50+ years of experience, watching my friends and dealing with things myself, it has become clear to me that medical interventions for women during our pre-menopausal years nearly always result in complex medical problems later in life.
And of course, there's danger there too. It shouldn't be this hard to be one half of the human race. But here we are.
❤︎❤︎❤︎ Hang in there and please continue putting Your voice out there.
Thank You for sharing these experiences in such vivid detail.
.
"At that time I believed that, to be trans meant you really did need to be on the opposite-sex hormones and not on your own hormones. I now label this model of what is trans, as Our Lady of the Perpetual Hormone Replacement Therapy."
—> The problem with calling it "opposite-sex" or "cross-sex" hormone treatment is that this is a compete and abject lie, at least for the estrogen treatment given to men who identify as transwomen.
To properly merit the "opposite-sex" or "cross-sex" label, the treatment should faithfully replicate at least ••something•• about the actual internal environment of hormonally normal people of the opposite sex. "Transwoman HRT" does no such thing whatsoever; it merely creates an elevated steady-state estradiol level, which is NOTHING like the corresponding levels in hormonally normal Women of ANY age.
Not before Menopause—when Women's estrogen levels fluctuate WILDLY over each Menstrual cycle, from as low as normal male levels during periods, to 6-10 as high just before ovulation.
Nor after it. Post-Menopausal Women's estrogen levels are LOWER than those of same-age men—this being, among other things, the main reason why osteopenia and osteoporosis are primarily Female afflictions—so if middle-aged autogynephiles rlly wanted "opposite-sex HRT" then they'd actually wamt to take mild doses of ANTI-estrogens and/or estrogen blockers!
There's literally nothing even vaguely "cross-sex" or "opposite-sex" about so-called transwoman so-called HRT. I can only guess that estradiol injections have become the go-to protocol because they cause gynecomastia—i.e., because they make men grow excess breast fat AKA moobs.
and that's not even getting into all the various and sundry other sex hormones—progesterone, LH, FSH, SHBG just to name a few—that also exhibit biologically functional fluctuations in Female bodies, yet none of which are addressed by so-called "cross-sex" hormone manipulation.
https://youtu.be/3E1_EMTY5tk?si=nT_IDwIYDTylvJGs
This man has an interesting point of view of what caused him to think he was a woman.
I dropped a link to your substack in the comments under his video.
Perhaps he will consent to an interview with you.
Fortunately, this yoga regimen has been proved to rebuild bone: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27226695/ Many other kinds of exercise do not.
Epidemiologic studies have shown that osteoporosis is most common in societies that eat a high-protein diet. The problem is the high potential renal acid load (PRAL) from animal-source foods. Counterintuitively, a high calcium intake seems to make the problem worse. https://ajcn.nutrition.org/article/S0002-9165(23)06372-4/fulltext#:~:text=Although%20high%20calcium%20intakes%20have%20long%20been%20recommended,artery%20disease%2C%20largely%20a%20disease%20of%20Western%20societies.
Also, keep in mind that when women are in their reproductive years, they store extra calcium in their skeleton, to support pregnancy and breastfeeding. So, it is entirely physiologic for this extra calcium to be lost at menopause. This change can lead to a diagnosis of osteopenia, which means that there has been a decrease of calcium from the bones but the underlying connective tissue structures are still normal. The normal menopause-related decrease in calcium stores does not mean that the woman is sick. The strength of the bones depends heavily on the integrity of the underlying connective tissue matrix.
The take-home messages are pretty simple. Eat a diet with a low to negative PRAL (i.e., a plant-based diet with a lot of fruit and vegetables), do yoga to rebuild bone, and get sun exposure to ensure that you have normal amounts of vitamin D in your system. There are also some other factors that affect bone health (e.g., corticosteroids, thyroid hormone levels) and may need to be addressed.