A friend of mine sent me this video of two young British women gushing about testosterone and everything’s here: the “soft changes” they’re seeking, their ‘embodiment goals’ (escape social expectations, “align” their bodies with their self-concepts, “confuse” the normies), the way they minimize their experiments (including self-medicating) by saying everybody has different hormone levels anyway, their entanglement with ‘sex work,’ the clear role of social influence (one starts testosterone and the other follows, then gets top surgery and hands down her binder), the idea that sharing testosterone prescriptions = love and community, the claim that more or less everything is ‘gender-affirming care’ (so what’s the big deal?), the sense that if performing stereotypical femininity feels like “drag” that means you’re not really a woman, the equation of testosterone and masculinity and strength and freedom—the kind of freedom girls lose at the onset of puberty.
As a parent, watching this 11 minutes was heartbreaking and depressing. Influencing and grooming girls to take testosterone is devastating to watch. Instead, let's influence girls to care for their natural bodies and health. https://thetranstrain.substack.com/p/a-message-to-girls-about-their-bodies
Why does this video sound so much like a cross between those cringe-y social media videos from the women in those MLM schemes selling their vitamins, energy shakes, or water filters that cured all their health issues, changed their lives, and empowered them and women gushing over how whatever the latest fluff self-help book that got a shoutout from Oprah or Gwyneth Paltrow made them feel so seen and heard? There's nothing revolutionary or edgy or life-affirming about this. It's just the latest way "empowerment" and "fulfillment" and "transformation" are being marketed and sold to women - a particularly toxic one with a heavy dose of self-rejection and medical malpractice
But young people do not realize that. They have no idea about social and cultural history which is why they fall for the bs that butch lesbians in the past were really men.
I love this depiction. I think this is a great way to warn our daughters away from this- “another fad to make us better” when we already are fine as is. Thank you!
This video has managed to scare the crap out of me. I don’t see it as any different than anorexics or drug users pushing their agenda on others, but because it’s gender, it’s so covert. I could see completely falling for this in college- it’s just putting a little gel on your tummy and then you feel amazing. Probably build muscle better, increased sex drive, more energy. And the way they speak of their breasts as if it’s no big deal to just make them smaller (not quite top surgery). Like seriously?? The whole thing is so slippery that I feel sick thinking that this went from “transitioning” to now just bettering yourself. I want to wrap my daughter up in a cocoon and keep her away from this craziness.
I know it's been said before but this video shows once again how these young people in the trans cult get stuck in a mid adolescence mentality. Putting so much effort into confusing others while simultaneously pretending not to care what others think - isn't it something that most of us get over by the time we graduate from high school? They admit that they can't even answer clearly a question of what and why they are doing it. Yet, they just "vibe" with it in a very adolescent way.
And yeah, this is part of a bigger transhumanism movement and is incredibly terrifying.
It scares me for the same reason. Allowing this movement any medical legitimacy at all was very dangerous beyond even the direct short-term harm. It’s now grown beyond even the massive healthcare industry to homebrew and sharing bottles. Once you decide that female and male are flexible terms and not tenets of reality, it follows that medical necessity is a hollow concept. Needs and wants may as well be the same thing. It is all very sad and rotten.
The one and only positive I can see (which is wishful thinking for most cases, but it’s something!) is that by linking the idea of body/gender transcendence so heavily with the gender movement as a whole, becoming disillusioned by one part may drive more young people, particularly women, into seeking answers through radical feminism, at the very core of all of the misogyny driving women away from the reality of our bodies. If being trans were really counter-culture and revolutionary, there would not be an emoji for its flag, simple as. A little knowledge in the right place and at the right time is a dangerous thing!
>>A little knowledge in the right place and at the right time is a dangerous thing! <<
Hopefully they'll get sick of all of it and find a healthier and more creative way to say no to all the things they want to reject, without rejecting their bodies.
The idea of a community working on a shared project of escaping binary sex by taking hormones & having procedures is powerful for a young person who feels that they don't belong. Videos like this show that you don't have to have scary genital surgeries, lose your nipples to a radical mastectomy, or take enough hormones to grow a beard. It reminds me of videos of young gender conforming women who talk about how their mental health has improved since they had a breast enlargement and body contouring & really, it's all about you being in control & finding your truth, isn't it? T is provided on the NHS for dysphoric women because it's assumed their dysphoria is so severe it balances the many severe side-effects. I don't know what 'micro doses' these people are taking or how much evidence we have about effects like genito-urinary dysfunction at lower doses, but this use of hormones will probably lead to long term unwanted side-effects, just as some of the breast enlargement patients will end up with chronic health conditions.
I appreciate your warning that we cannot become complacent. Your insight here is both profound and horrifying: “I fear that the ‘trans’ way of thinking about our bodies—as endlessly modifiable avatars that could always represent us a bit more faithfully if only our jaws were sharper and our chests flatter and our voices deeper—is here to stay.” I hear too many people now saying that young people are over this. My usual way of responding is, even so, gender ideology is so completely embedded within every nook and cranny of our laws, policies, and societies as a whole that it is going to take years to root it out. What you describe here adds yet another, awful layer to this. Grateful for your work.
Boy, I hope it is eliminated. I wish there was some watershed moment that turns this around. So many of Gen Z has been affected by this. Heartbreaking.
Young people caught up in this will not likely even hear about lawsuits by detransitioners whose health has been irreversibly damaged. Also, young people have that immortality delusion that makes them just shrug off any awareness of risks of negative consequences. By the time their cerebral frontal cortexes mature when they are 25 to 30, and they have an adult understanding of risks versus benefits, they will have already irreparably messed up their endocrine system and caused serious damage to their kidneys, livers, etc., in addition to being sterile.
I had a feeling that this was the major vibe of this movement. It is not going anywhere. The 'lifestyle vibe'. Everyone is micro-dosing something. Lip-plumping has been big for many years and now we have jaw-squaring and voice-lowering thanks to T.
It's 'cool'.
And maybe I would feel better with a little T but I'm a Boomer who has always wanted to avoid pharma and the unintended consequences of adding drugs and hormones to my body so I would never go near any of that.
Fascinating and strange and what? Worrisome I guess because who knows what these hormones do to bodies that were not designed for them or at least for the levels that are being consumed.
Yes. Usually when I see people trying to justify this, I feel anger, sadness, frustration, or deep pity. I do feel really bad these young women got sucked into this, but watching this video I mostly felt just annoyed and embarrassed for them 😞
Yeah, I'm not sure how old they were (did they say? I may have missed it), but they seemed quite young, quite vapid, and very very concerned with how they look above all other things. They need hobbies. Things that have nothing to do with gender.
It's kind of funny that to make up for doing away with their tits, they have to be literal strippers, in stockings, showing their arses in sex clubs to get that necessary objectification. These women are *absolute gimps* for the patriarchy and it might even be the death of them. That bit's not funny :(
My OBGYN offered me a prescription for T cream for post-menopausal low sex drive. I filled it but was too scared to use it. The casual attitude towards tampering with normal bodies is scary.
Meant to add that I’ve been reading a lot of Dr Jen Gunter re: menopausal treatments and she is both very cautious and also suggest that small doses of hormones may help for libido. But there are a LOT of other non pharmaceutical options first!
I think the emerging tsunami of stories about detransitioners, as well as those beyond the point of no return expressing deep regret over the decision, will have some impact on the public.
Old lady here. I think women’s hormonal contraception was the big step towards people treating their bodies like modifiable avatars. It still amazes me to talk to women who think downsides are rare. I try to keep an open mind but I think many just don’t see the negatives for their bodies and minds.
When I began learning about trans body modification I couldn't help but think about our society’s normalization of cosmetic surgery and getting pharmaceuticals (GLP 1) in the mail. It didn't cause this attitude but it paved the way by normalizing. All that was then needed were euphemism. I remember articles about double mastectomy being heart wrenchingly painful and horrible for women (after a cancer scare). The difficulty accepting their bodies. Now here we are. I felt nauseated watching the video and saw the young women as ridiculous.
Now that the goalposts for "gender affirming care" encompass any human behavior, there's no reference point for discernment and wisdom.
The axiomatic logic on display reminds me of a middle-school debate club.
If we set "murderer" as a person who consumes another living biological entity, then, by definition, there's no difference between Jeffrey Dahmer and any vegan. Plants are living entities after all. Isn't that clever! We are ALL murderers! So how is what he did any big deal?
So... now we are all constantly engaging in gender affirming care with every breath. We are all trans, so what's the big deal?
But yet... as you point out, part of the point is to confuse the basic people. So they deeply need to be different from the rest of us and, thus, superior.
The saddest part was hearing the NB say "Oh, I actually feel alive!" Sounds like addicts I've known describing what coke, heroin or meth does for them.
Entirely agree that this is here to stay and will accelerate, even as it is increasingly restricted for minors.
As disturbed as I am by trans gender "medicine", particularly focused on youths, it is part of the far broader overall trend towards ever greater and more prevalent chemical and surgical interventions people are choosing. E.g. there are far more bio-males ruining their health by taking testosteropne than bio-females. Remember when cutting edge radical feminists decried that as "toxic masculinity"? Now that's just garden variety "gender affirming care."
The consequences in this shift in thinking could be quite mind boggling. Will prohibitions on performance enhancing drugs become "transphobic"?
Weren't Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds just practicing gender affirming self care?
As a parent, watching this 11 minutes was heartbreaking and depressing. Influencing and grooming girls to take testosterone is devastating to watch. Instead, let's influence girls to care for their natural bodies and health. https://thetranstrain.substack.com/p/a-message-to-girls-about-their-bodies
Why does this video sound so much like a cross between those cringe-y social media videos from the women in those MLM schemes selling their vitamins, energy shakes, or water filters that cured all their health issues, changed their lives, and empowered them and women gushing over how whatever the latest fluff self-help book that got a shoutout from Oprah or Gwyneth Paltrow made them feel so seen and heard? There's nothing revolutionary or edgy or life-affirming about this. It's just the latest way "empowerment" and "fulfillment" and "transformation" are being marketed and sold to women - a particularly toxic one with a heavy dose of self-rejection and medical malpractice
But young people do not realize that. They have no idea about social and cultural history which is why they fall for the bs that butch lesbians in the past were really men.
Oh, I think this video is definitely a commercial.
I love this depiction. I think this is a great way to warn our daughters away from this- “another fad to make us better” when we already are fine as is. Thank you!
This video has managed to scare the crap out of me. I don’t see it as any different than anorexics or drug users pushing their agenda on others, but because it’s gender, it’s so covert. I could see completely falling for this in college- it’s just putting a little gel on your tummy and then you feel amazing. Probably build muscle better, increased sex drive, more energy. And the way they speak of their breasts as if it’s no big deal to just make them smaller (not quite top surgery). Like seriously?? The whole thing is so slippery that I feel sick thinking that this went from “transitioning” to now just bettering yourself. I want to wrap my daughter up in a cocoon and keep her away from this craziness.
I know it's been said before but this video shows once again how these young people in the trans cult get stuck in a mid adolescence mentality. Putting so much effort into confusing others while simultaneously pretending not to care what others think - isn't it something that most of us get over by the time we graduate from high school? They admit that they can't even answer clearly a question of what and why they are doing it. Yet, they just "vibe" with it in a very adolescent way.
And yeah, this is part of a bigger transhumanism movement and is incredibly terrifying.
I agree. I'm rethinking my own comment, in which I found little to object about the video.
It scares me for the same reason. Allowing this movement any medical legitimacy at all was very dangerous beyond even the direct short-term harm. It’s now grown beyond even the massive healthcare industry to homebrew and sharing bottles. Once you decide that female and male are flexible terms and not tenets of reality, it follows that medical necessity is a hollow concept. Needs and wants may as well be the same thing. It is all very sad and rotten.
The one and only positive I can see (which is wishful thinking for most cases, but it’s something!) is that by linking the idea of body/gender transcendence so heavily with the gender movement as a whole, becoming disillusioned by one part may drive more young people, particularly women, into seeking answers through radical feminism, at the very core of all of the misogyny driving women away from the reality of our bodies. If being trans were really counter-culture and revolutionary, there would not be an emoji for its flag, simple as. A little knowledge in the right place and at the right time is a dangerous thing!
>>A little knowledge in the right place and at the right time is a dangerous thing! <<
Hopefully they'll get sick of all of it and find a healthier and more creative way to say no to all the things they want to reject, without rejecting their bodies.
Why would it be either/or? It might also end up being yes/and, as in trans plus whatever is the next big transgressive panacea.
The idea of a community working on a shared project of escaping binary sex by taking hormones & having procedures is powerful for a young person who feels that they don't belong. Videos like this show that you don't have to have scary genital surgeries, lose your nipples to a radical mastectomy, or take enough hormones to grow a beard. It reminds me of videos of young gender conforming women who talk about how their mental health has improved since they had a breast enlargement and body contouring & really, it's all about you being in control & finding your truth, isn't it? T is provided on the NHS for dysphoric women because it's assumed their dysphoria is so severe it balances the many severe side-effects. I don't know what 'micro doses' these people are taking or how much evidence we have about effects like genito-urinary dysfunction at lower doses, but this use of hormones will probably lead to long term unwanted side-effects, just as some of the breast enlargement patients will end up with chronic health conditions.
Yes, it's gone from transvestitism to transexualism to transgenderism and now the full consumer model of embodiment goals.
What part of vaginal atrophy do those maidens not understand?
I appreciate your warning that we cannot become complacent. Your insight here is both profound and horrifying: “I fear that the ‘trans’ way of thinking about our bodies—as endlessly modifiable avatars that could always represent us a bit more faithfully if only our jaws were sharper and our chests flatter and our voices deeper—is here to stay.” I hear too many people now saying that young people are over this. My usual way of responding is, even so, gender ideology is so completely embedded within every nook and cranny of our laws, policies, and societies as a whole that it is going to take years to root it out. What you describe here adds yet another, awful layer to this. Grateful for your work.
you are so right. this isn't going anywhere.
Boy, I hope it is eliminated. I wish there was some watershed moment that turns this around. So many of Gen Z has been affected by this. Heartbreaking.
Flat earthers will never go away but society is doing a pretty good job containing it. I hope we can do the same for gender.
I am afraid the only way it will go away is with a tsunami of lawsuits by detransitioners whose health has been irreversibly damaged.
Young people caught up in this will not likely even hear about lawsuits by detransitioners whose health has been irreversibly damaged. Also, young people have that immortality delusion that makes them just shrug off any awareness of risks of negative consequences. By the time their cerebral frontal cortexes mature when they are 25 to 30, and they have an adult understanding of risks versus benefits, they will have already irreparably messed up their endocrine system and caused serious damage to their kidneys, livers, etc., in addition to being sterile.
I had a feeling that this was the major vibe of this movement. It is not going anywhere. The 'lifestyle vibe'. Everyone is micro-dosing something. Lip-plumping has been big for many years and now we have jaw-squaring and voice-lowering thanks to T.
It's 'cool'.
And maybe I would feel better with a little T but I'm a Boomer who has always wanted to avoid pharma and the unintended consequences of adding drugs and hormones to my body so I would never go near any of that.
Fascinating and strange and what? Worrisome I guess because who knows what these hormones do to bodies that were not designed for them or at least for the levels that are being consumed.
What are the medical and health implications?
This was so embarrassing and insufferable that I actually could not get to the end. Reasons to never go to London.
Yes. Usually when I see people trying to justify this, I feel anger, sadness, frustration, or deep pity. I do feel really bad these young women got sucked into this, but watching this video I mostly felt just annoyed and embarrassed for them 😞
Yeah, I'm not sure how old they were (did they say? I may have missed it), but they seemed quite young, quite vapid, and very very concerned with how they look above all other things. They need hobbies. Things that have nothing to do with gender.
Hobbies, and maybe a book or two.
It's kind of funny that to make up for doing away with their tits, they have to be literal strippers, in stockings, showing their arses in sex clubs to get that necessary objectification. These women are *absolute gimps* for the patriarchy and it might even be the death of them. That bit's not funny :(
My OBGYN offered me a prescription for T cream for post-menopausal low sex drive. I filled it but was too scared to use it. The casual attitude towards tampering with normal bodies is scary.
Good to know, thanks. I don’t recall being offered any other treatments.
Meant to add that I’ve been reading a lot of Dr Jen Gunter re: menopausal treatments and she is both very cautious and also suggest that small doses of hormones may help for libido. But there are a LOT of other non pharmaceutical options first!
A woman gp where I live regularly suggests testosterone to women in their 30s and 40s as ‘it’ll give you the best orgasm ever’
WTF that’s so misleading and misogynistic. Placebo effect is realz
If you don’t mind me asking did your OB/GYN ask about CBT and other therapeutic modalities first?
this was a dystopia I didn't have the imagination for...didn't even consider it...but here we are
I think the emerging tsunami of stories about detransitioners, as well as those beyond the point of no return expressing deep regret over the decision, will have some impact on the public.
Old lady here. I think women’s hormonal contraception was the big step towards people treating their bodies like modifiable avatars. It still amazes me to talk to women who think downsides are rare. I try to keep an open mind but I think many just don’t see the negatives for their bodies and minds.
When I began learning about trans body modification I couldn't help but think about our society’s normalization of cosmetic surgery and getting pharmaceuticals (GLP 1) in the mail. It didn't cause this attitude but it paved the way by normalizing. All that was then needed were euphemism. I remember articles about double mastectomy being heart wrenchingly painful and horrible for women (after a cancer scare). The difficulty accepting their bodies. Now here we are. I felt nauseated watching the video and saw the young women as ridiculous.
It just strikes me as tragic...
Fascinating and disturbing.
Trans ideology is very clever -- too clever.
Now that the goalposts for "gender affirming care" encompass any human behavior, there's no reference point for discernment and wisdom.
The axiomatic logic on display reminds me of a middle-school debate club.
If we set "murderer" as a person who consumes another living biological entity, then, by definition, there's no difference between Jeffrey Dahmer and any vegan. Plants are living entities after all. Isn't that clever! We are ALL murderers! So how is what he did any big deal?
So... now we are all constantly engaging in gender affirming care with every breath. We are all trans, so what's the big deal?
But yet... as you point out, part of the point is to confuse the basic people. So they deeply need to be different from the rest of us and, thus, superior.
The saddest part was hearing the NB say "Oh, I actually feel alive!" Sounds like addicts I've known describing what coke, heroin or meth does for them.
Entirely agree that this is here to stay and will accelerate, even as it is increasingly restricted for minors.
As disturbed as I am by trans gender "medicine", particularly focused on youths, it is part of the far broader overall trend towards ever greater and more prevalent chemical and surgical interventions people are choosing. E.g. there are far more bio-males ruining their health by taking testosteropne than bio-females. Remember when cutting edge radical feminists decried that as "toxic masculinity"? Now that's just garden variety "gender affirming care."
The consequences in this shift in thinking could be quite mind boggling. Will prohibitions on performance enhancing drugs become "transphobic"?
Weren't Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds just practicing gender affirming self care?