I will restrain from it. It's a slippery slope and i already got my final warning. Now you can call me a new Number 6 5. Shit!
I aknowledge that adult trans people have every right to do with their body what they need to do.
Typical and expected but fair enough. How about next time you remember this
prior to derailing the thread?
You said Rowling has a point in a tweet where she claims the left "betrayed" women and girls. Not only is this untrue, it is an impressive showing of projection from her, since she actively uses her time and money to harm trans
and cis women.
Also:
Every trans person should have the right to do with their body what they want to do. Not only adults. Trans youth exists and denying them lifesaving healthcare is cruel and unscientific. The experts know better than you. Minors aren't getting surgeries, but there is other gender affirming care that drastically increases their quality of life. They should have access to that, just like cis minors do.
That makes sense. I had not heard of gender dysphoria before, it seems like a scary condition. We got to learn about transgender people in school last year, a lot of the other kids in my class were very negative towards transgender people. But they were not very knowledgeable on the subject, so when the teacher challenged their claims they had no counter argument for the most part. I think a lot of people read something on TikTok and such platforms and they are never source critical. So they get a very narrow understanding of the subject because they don’t think further about the information they acquired. So they can propose an argument but cant back it up.
For the record, I am obviously incredibly biased on this topic. I'm politically far left and I'm of the belief that any person, no matter their gender, their religion, their nationality or ethnicity deserves the same rights and respect. Everyone deserves to live their live with dignity. Also, I've neither studied biology, nor medicine, so I'm not an authority on the subject. Feel free to second guess and fact check the things I'm about to write; don't accept them blindly because they sound "nice and neat" or something.
With that out of the way: I've been reading about and supporting the trans community for a long while at this point. Many of my friends have a background in biology and medicine. I've spent quite a bit of time reading studies on the subjects. I'll try to give some overall information on the topic to broadly cover the basics.
Biology in school is taught in very simple manners and for 99% of the things we experience in live things tend to align with the way the textbook describes them. There are always exceptions though, because biology isn't just a thing that exists; it is our way of explaining the things we see in nature. Sometimes we get things wrong. Other times we have definitions that cover most things but fail to cover a few exceptions.
So, what does it mean being trans? Let's talk about the words trans and cis. They are prefixes that come from Latin, cis means "on the same side", trans means "on the other side". They are words that are used frequently in certain contexts. For example in Organic Chemistry they use these words daily to describe certain compounds. So, transgender means that the gender of a person does not align with their biological sex. I am a cis man, that means I was born in a male body and I also identify as male; in other words, I am not trans.
Sex and gender are different things. Sex is most easily defined by chromosomes, were male individuals have XY chromosomes while female individuals have XX chromosomes. That's the basic definition. There are exceptions to those rules though. There are people who are intersex, who basically fall between the sexes and have both male and female features (note that I'm not always using accurated medical terms to make the explanations somewhat simpler). There's a condition known as
Swyer's Syndrome. The individuals who have that condition have XY chromosomes, so you'd think they'd be men, but they look female and even have vaginas instead of penises. Many of them go through their whole lives thinking they are cis women (as in, not trans) only to find out after medical examinations that their chromosomes are different than they assumed. That's one of those examples that shows how real life biology is far more complex than we learn in school.
What's the deal with gender then? Gender is something that can change and something that is mostly defined by yourself and your feelings. Asking "how many genders are there" misses the point and is like asking "how many colours are between red and blue". It's a spectrum. Some people, like me, have a male gender. Others have female genders. Some people see themselves as nonbinary; that means that they don't feel like they fall on the male or female side. They might feel entirely disconnected from the spectrum or they might feel as if they belong to multiple sides at the same time. Remember: Every person is different, everyone's journey is different. We don't have to understand all of that to be able to accept and respect that.
Gender identity is something that forms very early in humans. Around the ages of 2 to 5 years old, on average. It's also something we tend to feel strongly about. Go to a little boy and call him a girl; he'll obviously get mad at you for that. Trans people have a disconnect, where the gender identity that formed and their actual biological body do not align. For simplicity's sake: a person feels they are male, but were born in a woman's body. These feelings of being in the wrong body is what is also known as gender dysphoria. It is a serious condition and unfortunately a high number of trans individuals ends up committing suicide due to not being able to deal with this situation. That's just to highlight how serious this topic is.
So, what do we do in such a situation? What's the plan when someone realizes they are trans? Various countries deal with these matters differently, but the majority of doctors world wide are in agreement that letting the trans person transition is the best course of action. Gender dysphoria is the diagnosis, transitioning the treatment to deal with that.
There are multiple ways for people to transition and it is different for every person. Some might want to do all the things I'll mention, others might be happy with only a few of them. Everyone's journey is different and equally valid.
The first step that is recommended is what's known as "social transitioning". Things like changing your name, your pronouns, your hair style and your clothes. Those are all easily reversed, so if the person realizes that they actually aren't trans they can just go back without any harm done. So, the person who is born in a female body but feels that they are a boy? Well, when socially transitioning he might cut his hair short, start wearing boys' clothes and use "he" and "him" as pronouns instead of "she" and "her". For many trans people this is already an easy but great first step that helps them feel more comfortable in their skin.
The next step, when talking about minors, is the use of puberty blockers. Those were developed 50-ish years ago for cis kids who went too early into puberty. They "stop" puberty and delay it until it is healthy to resume at the appropriate age. So, you know how boys get taller, start getting facial hair, their voice becomes lower and all that? A trans girl (born in a boy's body, but identifies as female) would obviously hate it if her voice became deeper and she started growing a beard. Same with a trans boy (born in a girl's body, identifies as male), he would prefer to have a low voice but instead starts menstruating and getting wider hips. They essentially go "through the wrong puberty", if you will. Those things increase the feelings of gender dysphoria. The idea behing puberty blockers is to give the trans youth more time to be sure that they are trans before continuing with their journey. They stop puberty, but it will resume once they stop taking the blockers. So if someone thinks they are trans, takes the blockers and after a year or two realizes "hey, I'm not trans after all, I'm actually cis" they stop with the blockers and everything continues "like normal".
As I mentioned, the blockers were originally developed for cis youth and have been used like that for decades. Some countries want the blockers banned for trans people, because they don't want trans kids to be able to transition, but this is a political discussion for another time. The majority of experts world wide believe trans kids should be able to use the blockers, so that they get more time.
Also, important to note: All steps of a transition, especially with minors, are done with close supervision of doctors and the parents. A kid can't just get a surgery. It takes literal years and countless appointments. In some countries you also have to have regular appointments with a psychiatrist. Just to add some context and to remind that it's not an easy decision that someone might make overnight.
After this the next step is hormone therapy. Trans women (born in a male body) start taking estrogen, while trans men (born in a female body) start taking testosterone. This acts like a second puberty, but now they go through the one that aligns with their gender, instead of their birth sex. For example:
This is a picture of a trans man. He was born in a female body, but thanks to the hormone therapy he went through a "male puberty" if we wanna call it that. His voice dropped, his shoulders got wider, he started growing facial hair. All that stuff. Obviously every person is different and people respond differently, but this is just to show you how effective these therapies can actually be.
These are not easily reversed. In fact, if a person regrets their transition there will be things that can't be changed. That's why this isn't available for kids and why it takes so many years to even get to the point of being able to start with this therapy. At the same time, if a trans kid was denied puberty blockers and they went through the "wrong" puberty, they also have to deal with changes that they didn't want that are not easily changed. That's why it is important for them to get the time that they need to be certain with how they'll continue and to be sure that they are trans.
You might hear from people that some kids say they are trans just because of it being a trend. Considering how much harassment trans individuals face in society this is a pretty silly claim. There is also no evidence to suggest such a thing. From what we know, the people who claim to be trans are doing so because they are experiencing gender dysphoria, not because they were duped into it by some TikTok video or stuff like that.
So, after a trans person reaches adulthood and underwent hormone replacement therapy, they might decide to also get surgeries. A trans man like the one in the picture above might decide to get surgery to turn the vagina he was born with into a penis. A trans woman (born in a male body, I repeat these things because I know how complicated and confusing all these terms can be in the beginning) might get surgery to get breast. This doesn't even have to be a sexual thing; it's about feeling comfortable in your skin. Imagine if you are male that you wake up tomorrow, you go to the bathroom and see that you have no penis. It might be interesting for a minute, but if this were a permanent change you'd obviously be freaked out and you'd love to change that. Surgery is a way for trans people to change their body in a way that aligns with their gender, or what they feel as their true self.
I hope I mentioned most of the important things and didn't miss anything vital. Feel free to ask any further or clarifying questions (and if this isn't the thread for it you can send me a DM). For me all of this is pretty simple: Everyone of us, whether we are cis or trans, are having to deal with a variety of problems in our lives. Why make it difficult for one another? Treat each other with dignity and respect. If someone says to you "hey, my name is John" you will call him John, right? You won't go "no, you look like a Kevin, I'll call you Kevin". That would be an asshole thing to do. Same thing with gender, pronouns and all that. If you ever meet a trans person and they tell you their name and pronouns it's easier to respect that and use those, instead of going out of your way to annoy them. Live and let live and all that.
