There's a women who ideates a male persona in my small town. She's quite short and morbidly obese. She's very quick to believe that she "passes" and tells people she's actually a "trans man" while describing the lengths she and her doctor have to go to, for the purpose of monitoring her out-of-control high blood pressure. The next thing she'll say is that she feels a mission to "educate" others about how it's really a much more common "health issue" (that is wanting to be opposite sex, not high blood pressure) that people think, and now that we "have more acceptance" the rates are naturally higher. This recruiting is very, very common. I asked her if she also felt that it was my ex-husband's right, as a "trans woman" to refuse to pay child support and lie about his lucrative employment. She said immediately, "Oh he's one of the bad ones. There are bad divorces in every group." She didn't ask whether my 2 sons came through ok. No, they didn't. This woman is completely brainwashed, to the point of taking her life in her hands. If she actually was male, her doctors would be begging her to take off 75-100 lbs from her 4 ft. 11 inch frame. (she's in a 'heterosexual marriage" with another woman, a telling detail)
Great post; I was thinking along these lines this morning and wrote this:
Watching "Painkiller" on Netflix, about the rise of Oxycontin, as a method of curing pain, and solving a huge problem everyone has with suffering and pain, it occurred to me how much it parallels the rise of transgenderism.
A phalanx of attractive, young evangelists ( the drug reps) pushed this onto doctors, who were encouraged to forget everything humanity had known for thousands of years about the addictive power of opiates, who then, thinking they had a magical wonder drug, dispensed it onto the trusting population. People then had a brief honeymoon period where their pain was indeed taken away for a short time. Many folks went on to suffer horrific descent into addiction, with all of its attendant misery and destruction of families and jobs, etc.
Similarly, transgenderism was brought into the mainstream by attractive celebrities ( Bruce Jenner, Jazz Jennings, the cast of Pose, Chaz Bono, etc) and held up as the cure for pubertal discomfort, gender nonconformity, social isolation, depression, suicidality, etc. Transition works very nicely at first, for folks who undergo it; one gains friends, community, supportive messages from schools, online friends and the like. We are just beginning to see the descent into horrific medical complications ( osteoporosis, vaginal atrophy, heart disease, cancer, infertility), detransition efforts, family disconnection and societal disruptions ( assaults on women in prison and elsewhere, violent clashes with nonbelievers and women, silencing of dissent) as this cohort passes through time.
Richard Sackler's techniques of convincing doctors to prescribe by using sales reps motivated by money, believing they were curing pain "the 5th vital sign" , using young, true believers who did not have enough knowledge to understand the bigger picture, enlisting the conferences and the media with testimonials (Lived experience) and phony "studies" ( a small letter to the editor in NEJM was inflated to a study) is similar to the pushing of transgenderism based on the flawed Dutch protocol, and using young naive grad students and college students to push this narrative which ultimately is based on strict gender stereotypes and misogyny and homophobia. It does not solve the discomfort folks have with their sexed bodies; in fact it precludes comfort and perpetuates the rigid stereotypes we thought we had escaped in the 1970s by allowing women control over their reproductive capacity and freedom to pursue careers...
This reminds me of folks with the mental illness known as body dysmorphic disorder where they are sure they have some bodily defect that no one but them can see. You know the folks that have multiple surgeries to correct the defect. Gender dysphoria leads to faulty decision making leading to depression and confusion and surgeries that will never repair the deep seated depression and contorted sense of self that was cemented early in childhood, and often due to trauma of some sort.
As a parent, this is so scary. To think that some stranger could give hormones to another young person without a doctor present and following the patient. The unbelievable love-bombing on the internet is so bizarre.
I used to think I wouldn’t have to remind my teens, “don’t let anyone inject you with anything at the party”, when sending them out with my usual “no alcohol, no smoking”.
It's so hard to tell. I did get that vibe too, but it's all so phony and affected even when it's real. In any case the comments are telling: It's a cult.
I understand - But I think the response is quite frightening. It is a relief to see many trans people react with incredible concern. But the telling is in those who defend the event and justify it via one means or another.
Yes, sorry, I get that. I just meant they're mistaking getting essentially "high" on this drug to mean they're trans, when it would have precisely the same effect on a non-gender-questioning female.
Testosterone has multiple effects on mood, including aggression and depression. The writer who claimed to get instant euphoria may have much worse effects in the future.
The voice dysphoria... just read a CBC first person about a high soprano opera singer who transitioned to become a tenor.. but really fucked up her/his vocal chords.
Yeah, the vocal chords no longer fit in the space they developed in, of course it's going to fuck up the acoustics. The way they're so casual about it blows my mind.
I guess they show how totally unaware they are, that they can't imagine any consequences. Like a 'Transformers' toy, they expect their body can twist and change into the opposite sex. Except, oh dear, it doesn't seem to work out like that.... no matter how many wrong-sex hormones, and (cosmetic) surgeries...
I started on testosterone at the age of 57, concerned about my diminished muscle tone, lethargy, and my cratering libido. (And, being a gay man, peer pressure frankly.) Testosterone solved all those problems, plus elevated mood and drive. Six months later I had my annual checkup. Surprise! Problematic high cholesterol, pre-diabetic, and a 1 in 10 chance of having a heart attack in the next ten years.
I decided to give myself a deadline of five years and after that I’ll quit T and resign myself to being an old--though healthier--man.
Is there a German word for when you try so hard to go in one direction that you end out coming out on the other side? These FTM’s are like 10x more feminine sounding than my frilly-floral-dress-wearing ass.
Are you thinking of the line from a Marx Bros. movie where a woman tells Groucho to hug her, harder, harder, and he quips, If I hug you any harder, I'll be in back of you. I wish I knew German well enough to know the word you're searching for, but I bet there is one. I agree, the writer in question and her party pals sound about as girly as anyone can get. Poor things, and their poor brains and bodies, they are delusional, and in many circles, it's considered cool and normal these days.
I thought about it for two more seconds and I now wouldn’t say they’re behaving hyperfeminine- tbh they sound more like tweens than 30 year old women. I think that’s why they seem hyper-feminine- there’s actually just a lot of immaturity, over-exaggeration and naïveté in the way they speak (or at least, write) and act, in a way that most women who have reached mature adulthood generally don’t anymore, feminine or masculine. It’s the same dynamic as the MTFs who act like horny aggressive lunkheaded teens but are like 35.
I do see what you mean. I also think that girliness (hyper-femininity, whatever you want to call it) is a sign of immaturity and naivete in any woman, young or old, not to mention men who think they're women. (Maybe that's what you said...? Sorry, I'm kind of thick today). Social femininity is a form of female play-acting (gender role-play?) that only makes sense in the context of a patriarchal society with strict gender roles for men and women, where women are taught to appease and entice men. In no way is it artistic self-expression, which would be a good thing. I'm old now, and so sick of it all, and despair that every wave of real-world, truthful, common sense feminism seems to have failed with each new generation. Backlash and all is to blame, not to mention too many stupid women and men, but really, what a drag. Nonetheless I loved reading the term "lunkheaded." You're a gem!
I red the original thread. I'm grateful to the people who were concrened about the nature of the event and the dangers it could pose. It saddens me that the people who support the idea that getting a T shot at a party is perfectly fine. Young adulthood in the gay scene in the 80s, needles & drugs were being used frequently at parties. This is very akin to those times. Not only is testosterone powerful and dangerous to use so frivously, shooting teststerone at a party can also spread other unwanted disease. This is completely nuts. I lost a lot of people in that decade becasue they shared needles, or fluids in the drugs, the spread of disease and because those drugs became addictive.
Even now, on twitter alone - I am seeing "Go Fund Me" pages of trans people who can no longer afford to buy their hormones - please note that I don't see this new trend as due to addiction, but an unfortunate cosequence of chosing a life that leads you to a life time dependancy on medication, and a global economy that is about to crash and burn. It is becoming very unsustainable for these young people, to be able to maintain the upkeep of drugs to affirm their "chosen" sex. Economically, I see this failing really hard in the next 5 years.
There are a few commentators in the thread who use the "it's hard to get hormones via medical care" as an excuse. Then you have the "that's how it was done in the old days" trope. No. No it wasn't. It was less prevelant, there were less FTM and the process was methodical and stringent. Is it possible that Hormones are an addiction? THAT needs to be looked into. A data set waiting to be done.
Goodness knows how that particular Genie can be put back in the bottle!
Truly heartbreaking. I do honestly care about these beautiful souls, everything is about the now - no long term future in their sights. The stuggle, will get harder day by day, year by year. Not because of social acceptance, but because of economic, envirnmental, physical and psychological struggles that never had to be like that in the first place. They (who's they? the top down?) manipulate people into thinking it is the easy path to take. When it is, in fact, the most difficult path a human could take on every level. Life is a gift. Where did that lesson go?
The number of hard drug addicts in the TQ community is staggering. I personally knew several meth and fentanyl addicts in my previous city's local community.
Schedule hormones, enforce distribution laws, and a good deal of the contagion and "DIY HRT" distribution will end.
Out of the male transitioners (and cross dressers) I've known, several were fueled by bouts of meth and porn. I remember in the pre trans days one guy's wife refusing an offer to get together when I had returned to the town, she told me she kept him away from any situation which might trigger partying and start the cycle of dressing and meth again (I think of her whenever I read about trans widows and hope she's all right. She hated his female 'alter' and called 'her' a b*tch, referring to 'her' in a way that sounded like a third person in the relationship). If they weren't into meth, they were heavy boozers and pill poppers.
I've not known any TIFs personally, but most appear to have eating disorders of some kind or another.
Suffice to say, without meth I think a lot of the men would never have gone down this road.
Thank you, Eliza. If this is representative, in any way, is 30 the new 18? Yikes. Without panicking, I'll read this as just another reminder to keep up the fight (against "gender affirming care", "embodiment goals", and "gender ideology" in our schools/laws/culture). And for a reset, I found myself heading over David Byrne's "Reasons to Be Cheerful" (https://reasonstobecheerful.world) for some other takes on our world.
Finally! It's high time someone took a critical look at the role that "T" plays in youth gender identity culture. The first I heard about testosterone from a trans insider's perspective was an episode of "Gender: A Wider Lens" when the hosts interviewed a woman who detransitioned.
To put this in context, many lesbians in her scene had been transitioning. I came away with the impression that "T" held great allure for her and others in her circle because of its powerful mood-enhancing properties. It reminded me of the way people regarded some recreational drugs when I was in my teens and twenties.
This is problematic for several reasons, the first being that the euphoria may mask or alleviate the distress resulting from gender dysphoria or other mental health problems. In turn, the individual might misinterpret the improvement in outlook brought about by the steroid as a sign that they were right all along about having a male gender identity.
In a different vein, if these exchanges aren't evidence of social contagion in progress, I don't know what would be. It makes me miss a more innocent time when teen girls and young women would have held a Barbie party as an excuse to get high, eat pizza and crack each other up.
I find it really interesting, and often troubling, to think about the way patriarchal values shape our behavior and our perceptions of behavior.
Re: "girly" content and tone, feminist linguist Deborah Cameron offers ample food for thought in her book The Myth of Mars and Venus and her blog, language: a feminist guide, both of which I highly recommend. Re: sex differences in substance use, I found this article to be a good summary https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/substance-use-in-women/sex-gender-differences-in-substance-use as well as food for thought. As usual, I'm left with more questions than answers.
So, mentally ill people boasting about abusing drugs... and this kind is “kinda” accepted and even sanctioned by western society... 🤢🤮
There's a women who ideates a male persona in my small town. She's quite short and morbidly obese. She's very quick to believe that she "passes" and tells people she's actually a "trans man" while describing the lengths she and her doctor have to go to, for the purpose of monitoring her out-of-control high blood pressure. The next thing she'll say is that she feels a mission to "educate" others about how it's really a much more common "health issue" (that is wanting to be opposite sex, not high blood pressure) that people think, and now that we "have more acceptance" the rates are naturally higher. This recruiting is very, very common. I asked her if she also felt that it was my ex-husband's right, as a "trans woman" to refuse to pay child support and lie about his lucrative employment. She said immediately, "Oh he's one of the bad ones. There are bad divorces in every group." She didn't ask whether my 2 sons came through ok. No, they didn't. This woman is completely brainwashed, to the point of taking her life in her hands. If she actually was male, her doctors would be begging her to take off 75-100 lbs from her 4 ft. 11 inch frame. (she's in a 'heterosexual marriage" with another woman, a telling detail)
😳
Great post; I was thinking along these lines this morning and wrote this:
Watching "Painkiller" on Netflix, about the rise of Oxycontin, as a method of curing pain, and solving a huge problem everyone has with suffering and pain, it occurred to me how much it parallels the rise of transgenderism.
A phalanx of attractive, young evangelists ( the drug reps) pushed this onto doctors, who were encouraged to forget everything humanity had known for thousands of years about the addictive power of opiates, who then, thinking they had a magical wonder drug, dispensed it onto the trusting population. People then had a brief honeymoon period where their pain was indeed taken away for a short time. Many folks went on to suffer horrific descent into addiction, with all of its attendant misery and destruction of families and jobs, etc.
Similarly, transgenderism was brought into the mainstream by attractive celebrities ( Bruce Jenner, Jazz Jennings, the cast of Pose, Chaz Bono, etc) and held up as the cure for pubertal discomfort, gender nonconformity, social isolation, depression, suicidality, etc. Transition works very nicely at first, for folks who undergo it; one gains friends, community, supportive messages from schools, online friends and the like. We are just beginning to see the descent into horrific medical complications ( osteoporosis, vaginal atrophy, heart disease, cancer, infertility), detransition efforts, family disconnection and societal disruptions ( assaults on women in prison and elsewhere, violent clashes with nonbelievers and women, silencing of dissent) as this cohort passes through time.
Richard Sackler's techniques of convincing doctors to prescribe by using sales reps motivated by money, believing they were curing pain "the 5th vital sign" , using young, true believers who did not have enough knowledge to understand the bigger picture, enlisting the conferences and the media with testimonials (Lived experience) and phony "studies" ( a small letter to the editor in NEJM was inflated to a study) is similar to the pushing of transgenderism based on the flawed Dutch protocol, and using young naive grad students and college students to push this narrative which ultimately is based on strict gender stereotypes and misogyny and homophobia. It does not solve the discomfort folks have with their sexed bodies; in fact it precludes comfort and perpetuates the rigid stereotypes we thought we had escaped in the 1970s by allowing women control over their reproductive capacity and freedom to pursue careers...
This reminds me of folks with the mental illness known as body dysmorphic disorder where they are sure they have some bodily defect that no one but them can see. You know the folks that have multiple surgeries to correct the defect. Gender dysphoria leads to faulty decision making leading to depression and confusion and surgeries that will never repair the deep seated depression and contorted sense of self that was cemented early in childhood, and often due to trauma of some sort.
Imo it *is* bdd- all the signs are there.
My thoughts as well, however it is an odd unusual variant!
As a parent, this is so scary. To think that some stranger could give hormones to another young person without a doctor present and following the patient. The unbelievable love-bombing on the internet is so bizarre.
I used to think I wouldn’t have to remind my teens, “don’t let anyone inject you with anything at the party”, when sending them out with my usual “no alcohol, no smoking”.
...and watch your drink at all times if you do drink.
"If it feels like the answer you want to hear it's the right answer" pretty much sums up all these online communities.
Cocaine would also make someone feel energized, confident, and euphoric. It doesn't mean being a cokehead is their true, authentic self.
That post didn't ring true to me - there were lots of bells ringing, it feels like a very carefully crafted piece.
It's so hard to tell. I did get that vibe too, but it's all so phony and affected even when it's real. In any case the comments are telling: It's a cult.
I understand - But I think the response is quite frightening. It is a relief to see many trans people react with incredible concern. But the telling is in those who defend the event and justify it via one means or another.
Lots of drugs induce euphoria, of course, nothing to do with one's identity.
Yes, sorry, I get that. I just meant they're mistaking getting essentially "high" on this drug to mean they're trans, when it would have precisely the same effect on a non-gender-questioning female.
Testosterone has multiple effects on mood, including aggression and depression. The writer who claimed to get instant euphoria may have much worse effects in the future.
The voice dysphoria... just read a CBC first person about a high soprano opera singer who transitioned to become a tenor.. but really fucked up her/his vocal chords.
Yeah, the vocal chords no longer fit in the space they developed in, of course it's going to fuck up the acoustics. The way they're so casual about it blows my mind.
I guess they show how totally unaware they are, that they can't imagine any consequences. Like a 'Transformers' toy, they expect their body can twist and change into the opposite sex. Except, oh dear, it doesn't seem to work out like that.... no matter how many wrong-sex hormones, and (cosmetic) surgeries...
Insane. And horrifically dangerous. 😩
I started on testosterone at the age of 57, concerned about my diminished muscle tone, lethargy, and my cratering libido. (And, being a gay man, peer pressure frankly.) Testosterone solved all those problems, plus elevated mood and drive. Six months later I had my annual checkup. Surprise! Problematic high cholesterol, pre-diabetic, and a 1 in 10 chance of having a heart attack in the next ten years.
I decided to give myself a deadline of five years and after that I’ll quit T and resign myself to being an old--though healthier--man.
Is there a German word for when you try so hard to go in one direction that you end out coming out on the other side? These FTM’s are like 10x more feminine sounding than my frilly-floral-dress-wearing ass.
Are you thinking of the line from a Marx Bros. movie where a woman tells Groucho to hug her, harder, harder, and he quips, If I hug you any harder, I'll be in back of you. I wish I knew German well enough to know the word you're searching for, but I bet there is one. I agree, the writer in question and her party pals sound about as girly as anyone can get. Poor things, and their poor brains and bodies, they are delusional, and in many circles, it's considered cool and normal these days.
I thought about it for two more seconds and I now wouldn’t say they’re behaving hyperfeminine- tbh they sound more like tweens than 30 year old women. I think that’s why they seem hyper-feminine- there’s actually just a lot of immaturity, over-exaggeration and naïveté in the way they speak (or at least, write) and act, in a way that most women who have reached mature adulthood generally don’t anymore, feminine or masculine. It’s the same dynamic as the MTFs who act like horny aggressive lunkheaded teens but are like 35.
I do see what you mean. I also think that girliness (hyper-femininity, whatever you want to call it) is a sign of immaturity and naivete in any woman, young or old, not to mention men who think they're women. (Maybe that's what you said...? Sorry, I'm kind of thick today). Social femininity is a form of female play-acting (gender role-play?) that only makes sense in the context of a patriarchal society with strict gender roles for men and women, where women are taught to appease and entice men. In no way is it artistic self-expression, which would be a good thing. I'm old now, and so sick of it all, and despair that every wave of real-world, truthful, common sense feminism seems to have failed with each new generation. Backlash and all is to blame, not to mention too many stupid women and men, but really, what a drag. Nonetheless I loved reading the term "lunkheaded." You're a gem!
I red the original thread. I'm grateful to the people who were concrened about the nature of the event and the dangers it could pose. It saddens me that the people who support the idea that getting a T shot at a party is perfectly fine. Young adulthood in the gay scene in the 80s, needles & drugs were being used frequently at parties. This is very akin to those times. Not only is testosterone powerful and dangerous to use so frivously, shooting teststerone at a party can also spread other unwanted disease. This is completely nuts. I lost a lot of people in that decade becasue they shared needles, or fluids in the drugs, the spread of disease and because those drugs became addictive.
Even now, on twitter alone - I am seeing "Go Fund Me" pages of trans people who can no longer afford to buy their hormones - please note that I don't see this new trend as due to addiction, but an unfortunate cosequence of chosing a life that leads you to a life time dependancy on medication, and a global economy that is about to crash and burn. It is becoming very unsustainable for these young people, to be able to maintain the upkeep of drugs to affirm their "chosen" sex. Economically, I see this failing really hard in the next 5 years.
There are a few commentators in the thread who use the "it's hard to get hormones via medical care" as an excuse. Then you have the "that's how it was done in the old days" trope. No. No it wasn't. It was less prevelant, there were less FTM and the process was methodical and stringent. Is it possible that Hormones are an addiction? THAT needs to be looked into. A data set waiting to be done.
Goodness knows how that particular Genie can be put back in the bottle!
Truly heartbreaking. I do honestly care about these beautiful souls, everything is about the now - no long term future in their sights. The stuggle, will get harder day by day, year by year. Not because of social acceptance, but because of economic, envirnmental, physical and psychological struggles that never had to be like that in the first place. They (who's they? the top down?) manipulate people into thinking it is the easy path to take. When it is, in fact, the most difficult path a human could take on every level. Life is a gift. Where did that lesson go?
The pro T people sound like drug addicts peer pressuring someone into their dead end lifestyle.
The number of hard drug addicts in the TQ community is staggering. I personally knew several meth and fentanyl addicts in my previous city's local community.
Schedule hormones, enforce distribution laws, and a good deal of the contagion and "DIY HRT" distribution will end.
Out of the male transitioners (and cross dressers) I've known, several were fueled by bouts of meth and porn. I remember in the pre trans days one guy's wife refusing an offer to get together when I had returned to the town, she told me she kept him away from any situation which might trigger partying and start the cycle of dressing and meth again (I think of her whenever I read about trans widows and hope she's all right. She hated his female 'alter' and called 'her' a b*tch, referring to 'her' in a way that sounded like a third person in the relationship). If they weren't into meth, they were heavy boozers and pill poppers.
I've not known any TIFs personally, but most appear to have eating disorders of some kind or another.
Suffice to say, without meth I think a lot of the men would never have gone down this road.
Thank you, Eliza. If this is representative, in any way, is 30 the new 18? Yikes. Without panicking, I'll read this as just another reminder to keep up the fight (against "gender affirming care", "embodiment goals", and "gender ideology" in our schools/laws/culture). And for a reset, I found myself heading over David Byrne's "Reasons to Be Cheerful" (https://reasonstobecheerful.world) for some other takes on our world.
This whole movement drenches itself in juvenile aesthetics and arrested adolescence. 30 is the 18 is pretty accurate.
Yes their behavior is very childlike
If it wasn’t T it would sound like a bunch of giggling girls experimenting with a push-up bra...these are girls doing girl things, acting girlishly...
Finally! It's high time someone took a critical look at the role that "T" plays in youth gender identity culture. The first I heard about testosterone from a trans insider's perspective was an episode of "Gender: A Wider Lens" when the hosts interviewed a woman who detransitioned.
To put this in context, many lesbians in her scene had been transitioning. I came away with the impression that "T" held great allure for her and others in her circle because of its powerful mood-enhancing properties. It reminded me of the way people regarded some recreational drugs when I was in my teens and twenties.
This is problematic for several reasons, the first being that the euphoria may mask or alleviate the distress resulting from gender dysphoria or other mental health problems. In turn, the individual might misinterpret the improvement in outlook brought about by the steroid as a sign that they were right all along about having a male gender identity.
In a different vein, if these exchanges aren't evidence of social contagion in progress, I don't know what would be. It makes me miss a more innocent time when teen girls and young women would have held a Barbie party as an excuse to get high, eat pizza and crack each other up.
I find it really interesting, and often troubling, to think about the way patriarchal values shape our behavior and our perceptions of behavior.
Re: "girly" content and tone, feminist linguist Deborah Cameron offers ample food for thought in her book The Myth of Mars and Venus and her blog, language: a feminist guide, both of which I highly recommend. Re: sex differences in substance use, I found this article to be a good summary https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/substance-use-in-women/sex-gender-differences-in-substance-use as well as food for thought. As usual, I'm left with more questions than answers.