WalrusDragonOnABike [they/them]

Given that I currently look like a recently-shaved walrus in a dress

Is that supposed to be an insult?

Glad to hear that. Just want to make sure you aren’t being unkind to yourself.

Like, I’m the sperm donor, not the one who carried them for nine months.

Neither of my moms birthed us and that doesn’t make them any less of moms. And we don’t even talk to the person who birthed us (we probably have talked to our formally anonymous sperm donor more recently and are on better terms with him). You shouldn’t let irrelevant things make you feel like you are less of a mom. If its a compromise for your children, that seems like a good enough reason to accept “dad”, but you shouldn’t feel like you would be an imposter (or you should at least realize those feelings aren’t rational).

I realized I was some flavor of trans about two years ago. At first, I considered myself agender and not cis, but didn’t accept the trans label (that didn’t last long so its still about 2 years either way - I still like the agender label I think, but also consider myself transfem). Started HRT almost 3 weeks ago.

Part of the delay was not sure HRT was right for me. Specifically didn’t know if boobs were something I wanted to deal with, so I tested them out via breast forms, including going cosplay back in November.

Another is I worried about how it would affect my ability to earn money, so I wanted to save up a lot first.

Another reason for waiting is a I wanted to at least come out to my parents and sister before starting (which I still have not done).

Anyways, finally decided to start because we were considering getting a house and if so, that would have delayed savings goals far too long. At the same time, my sister announced being pregnant and I realized I didn’t like the idea of being an uncle.

I still am not certain and wonder if I should quit taking HRT. I don’t really have a reason why I should stop, but given I don’t consider myself a woman, it feels like I’m breaking some sort of rules that I intellectually don’t believe should exist (if someone wants HRT, it shouldn’t matter what their gender is). And of course anxiety related to discrimination is still a thing, particularly given my field of work and the state I’m in. Also, the anxiety of having an appointment for getting HRT (the lack of specific goals and using my very gendered birthname made me feel particularly like an imposter during the appointment) and anxiety starting (despite being really happy about it) I think triggered quite significant feelings of dissociation before I started, so at the time I started, my thoughts were basically “the me of a few days ago decided I should take this, so I’m going to, but I have a hard time feeling like that person was me and I feel disconnected for my current feelings.”

Abbott doesn’t strike me as the type who can chew bubble gum and walk at the same time, metaphorically speaking.

Before seriously questioning whether I was cis or not, I specifically looked up autism gender because I’ve long thought I’m too autistic for gender. But since I don’t have an official diagnosis, I never considered using the autigender label and just didn’t think about that for a while longer. I always found it a bit strange that other autistic people could be binary trans because of my own disconnect from gender. Allistic cis people caring about gender was always weird too, but like. They’re allistic. They’re gonna be weird. Why would autistic people go out of their way to embrace the charade of gender? At least teenage me still didn’t use my confusion as a reason to be transphobic.

Gotta wonder if this type of thing is partly an attempt to undermine public schools to shovel more money towards for-profit schools. Or if it really just is culture-war BS to try to appeal to his base…

Great seeing exploration to be encouraged. Fear of being “ammunition” for transphobes has definitely been something that’s held me back. I don’t know have any solid gender identity and don’t think I want one. Finally decided to try out HRT and I’m grateful for the existence of informed consent. Still not sure what my goals are or if its a good decision, but I think I’d rather find out by giving it a try and think it will be a valuable experiment regardless of the outcome. I intended to come out to a few more people before starting HRT, but was never sure what I’d be coming out as and didn’t want to get put into narrower boxes based on whatever that was. Guess now I can come out as someone taking HRT?

Wish we could be at the point where things HRT and other surgeries currently labeled “gender-affirming care” were considered more like getting a tattoo or other cosmetic surgeries respectively such it was more normalized and more people, cis or trans, could have access to them if they want. Why should someone have to figure out something as nebulas as gender to know what sort of body they want?

Definitely something that many mention experiencing and different people attribute to various things. I think sometimes though changes are almost sort of a placebo effect, where HRT acts as a justification to express emotions that have been suppressed when masking. Also anger that exists as a result of the masking has no reason to exist without the masking, so if you start see yourself a bit more like your true self, the self-frustation may go.

Personally I saw some effects people sometimes attribute to HRT (not really the emotions you mention) simply as a result realizing I’m not actually technical cis long before starting. I haven’t been on HRT long enough (only 3 days) to say how it might effect me, but even if it just helps with dissociation, it would likely have that affect of making emotions feel more vibrant just simply because they’re feel like they’re my emotions. But time will tell.

No clue if they ship to Europe/what the cost of shipping are, but I’ve liked EnFemme’s offerings, but they’re not cheap. Tried a few other things, but its what has worked the best for me. Doubling or tripling up on basic panties can also work to some degree and probably a lot cheaper and more broadly available.

I’ve just started doing dressing in ways more non-conforming for my AGAB, but I didn’t realize my interest until after I moved out from my parents*. First just like hair clips here, leggings there. With my sister (and her boyfriend and her best friend), I just showed up in cosplay as a female character once for Ren Fest. No warning. No explanations.

*technically I was caught back when I was in middle school, but I had no clue back then…

Don’t think I could start HRT without at least coming out to a couple more people (not like I literally can’t, but I feel it important for me). With my brother, I came out to him basically as soon as I started questioning my gender and updated him whenever I got a chance. My cousin also knows. Brother was helpfully skeptical, but excited. My cousin didn’t have much reaction. Mostly just a “Walrus gonna do what Walrus gonna do”

My parents, sister, and friend have seen me dress in varying degrees of gender non-conformity (including my sister seeing me cosplaying as a female character), enough so that two of them have explicitly asked if I’m a woman (which I just said no because I consider myself an enby). Not exactly trying to hide it, but also kinda uncomfortable talking about it.

Kinda feel the same even if I follow some of the transfem tropes. But I think at least for me, part of the reason I find gender and feminity/masculinity is simply because my early childhood didn’t enforce those things. My mom presents in a masculine way and didn’t care if we behaved in ways not conforming to gender norms at home. If someone wanted to wear a pink one piece bathing suit, it didn’t matter if they were a boy or a girl.

Even now, the ones who tell me I should trim my nails are the women in my family, whom keep their nails short. Of course the rest of society was not as open to such behavior and I learned subconsciously to mask a lot.

Also disclaimer I don’t consider myself a woman and am pre-transition (partly because uncertainty about what I want, partly because fear of treatment by others).

Essentially, the paragraph states that for suicide, those who did not receive gender affirming care saw a 3x higher suicide rate than controls - and this is with overcontrolling for psychological treatment visits. Those who did receive care had no significant difference in suicide rates from controls. Dr. Meyerowitz-Katz, epidemiologist, stated of these findings, “The authors in their discussion focus on the fact that this difference was not statistically significant (presumably the p-value was 0.051-0.054), but that’s not a useful distinction. There’s a lot of uncertainty here, but the increased risk is still remarkable!”

Notably, this is the only section where the researchers withhold the model that doesn’t include visits to psychological specialists. It’s likely that the correlation between receiving gender-affirming care and a decreased suicide risk would be even more pronounced in a model free from the issue of overcontrolling. If the researchers had presented such a finding, it would fundamentally challenge the basis of their paper… that gender-affirming care indeed saves lives. Even in attempts to dilute this relationship with confounding variables, the signal around gender affirming care remains strong!

Main problem with the student explained in that quote. The overcorrection problem refers to the fact that suicide correlates with psychiatric visits because suicidal people are more likely to seek help and therefore would be like saying visit to cancer doctors causes death from cancer.

Additionally, the median age for referral to the gender clinic was 19, so the results can’t really be applied to minors.

That was a fairly annoying thread to read through. A lot of cis people who totally lack the context of in-jokes and trans experiences using gender abolition as a weapon against trans people.

Like, I don’t necessary even disagree with the basic principles espoused by them. I’m not really a fan of gender. Would be better if we didn’t have it IMO. I personally don’t care about “signs” that are just doing things that are stereotypically associated with girls or boys like dolls or trucks. The things I think of as “haha, lol, I was an egg” moments are things like when I said like “I don’t like being considered a guy, but I’m not a woman so I guess I’m technically cis.” I do think some trans people takes those types of “signs” too seriously, and either try to label GNC people trans by calling them eggs or are in self-denial longer because they don’t think they had those signs. But at least in the communities these kinds of memes are shared, the former often get called out and the latter is something that’s commonly addressed.

Essentially accusing trans people of doing those things or reinforcing traditional gender for talking about how their personal experiences relate to their own gender is a bit ironic. Can’t tell if they’re concern trolling and just want an excuse to harass trans people or if they’re actually just trying to promote their version of gender abolition in the most ineffective way possible.

Hanlon’s razor tells us we should just assume stupid vampires :D