cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/735905

Glad that the party has improved on this. It wasn't always so. During the 60s, 70s, and 80s, it either said little of LGBTQ struggle or allowed homophobic opinions; this was due to a misunderstanding that communist parties had about Marxism and gay and trans folks. Also, during the tail end of the 1980s, just things started to go away but it was too late...

Sadly, some communist parties are lax on this question (I won't name names though).

Hello! This may be very off topic, so feel free to remove! I wanna find more queer friends or even partners... and i dont really know where to look lol

Meeting queer people irl is not really possible for me rn and what would prolly be the go-to places to look for peeps online - reddit and discord, are borderline spyware

I suppose by its nature, this post already kinda acts as an advert, so hi my very real name is CocaineShark and I'm a (learning) ML and a linux n' art nerd, 19 they/she

I'm brewing up ideas for a manga that incorporates trans stuff.

I want to add them at some point without resorting to stereotypes so I need some discussion regarding this here.

In bills specifically made for children, and framed as solely a woman’s issue, if an athlete’s biological sex is called into question they can be subject to genital inspection. If fondling a child isn’t enough “confirmation,” they will also undergo a DNA test to make sure there is no Y chromosome lurking, and if that’s not enough to satisfy the accusers, the child’s testosterone levels will be analyzed, just like Semenya’s.

The governors of Utah and Indiana actually vetoed the anti-transgender sports acts, resulting in a “rare split in culture wars” between Republicans. (Reuters, March 25, 2022)

Mind you, the British Columbia case is in an elementary school, where hormone levels are indistinguishable between sexes, as is average physical ability. A little girl had a random man request to see her genitals purely because of her short hair and what he described as “floppy boy shorts.”

And if asked in Florida instead of British Columbia, that request becomes infinitely more likely to be carried out. This kind of increasingly accepted reaction teaches little girls their appearance matters more than their physical prowess. They are to appear feminine at all times or risk state-sanctioned molestation.

The New York Times, which has become notorious for its bad coverage of trans issues, has at least twice (6/9/23, 11/14/22) uncritically presented the speculative claim that puberty blockers “lock in” kids on a pathway toward subsequent treatment with cross-sex hormones. Both articles cited a portion of a report by Dr. Hillary Cass, commissioned by the English National Health Service to review its gender-identity services:

“The most difficult question is whether puberty blockers do indeed provide valuable time for children and young people to consider their options, or whether they effectively ‘lock in’ children and young people to a treatment pathway,” Dr. Hilary Cass, the pediatrician overseeing the independent review of the NHS gender service, wrote last year.

The Cass review provided no studies indicating that blockers “lock in” children toward a treatment pathway. Instead, it cited two small studies showing that nearly all participants who start blockers (96.5% and 98%) proceed to cross-sex hormones.

Hinkle’s ruling points out two problems with this claim that the Times doesn’t. First, this is correlation, not causation. Second, there’s a more plausible explanation, backed by research, that most kids proceed to cross-sex hormones because they had persistent transgender identities before starting blockers:

The defendants note that 98% or more of adolescents treated with GnRH agonists progress to cross-sex hormones. That is hardly an indictment of the treatment; it is instead consistent with the view that in 98% or more of the cases, the patient’s gender identity did not align with natal sex, this was accurately determined, and the patient was appropriately treated first with GnRH agonists and later with cross-sex hormones.

(Emphasis original.)

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/530122

[Excerpt]

On 27 May 1937, R. was interned at Sachsenhausen concentration camp under protective custody. On 5 February 1938, R. and Gertrud were divorced. R. was released from Sachsenhausen six weeks later, on 22 March 1938, and by October that year Gertrud had remarried.

R. believed that Gertrud was the one to denounce her to the Gestapo, a deep betrayal that had landed her in Sachsenhausen. According to R., Gertrud told the Gestapo that she knew nothing of R.’s gender non-conformity, claiming a narrative of ‘deceit’ that would have been familiar to the authorities.

Up until this point in history, gender-crossing behaviours were often linked to espionage and theft. Claiming deceit would protect Gertrud from accusations of adultery and would legitimize her divorce and remarriage.

Gertrud’s actions are less shocking when contextualized within the climate of fear in [the Third Reich], in which wider society functioned as an unofficial branch of the Gestapo, with neighbours and even loved ones denouncing those who did not belong in the Volksgemeinschaft.

Gender nonconformity constituted a heightened ‘risk’ category in terms of drawing negative attention to visible queerness, and the practice of alerting gender non-conforming people to the police in [the Third Reich] was common, even within queer circles.

[…]

While interned in Sachsenhausen, R. continued to experience betrayal. Her mother, Alice, wrote letters to the Youth Welfare Office, who took R.’s children away from her. While her mother ‘did not care’ for the children emotionally, she gained custody of them when the state deemed both R. and her wife incapable of looking after them.

Alice also cleared out all items from R.’s flat, removing her economic security and, according to R., pushing R. to ‘lose interest in life’. R. would later reflect on ‘what moves the woman to want to get rid of me’, because Alice ‘continued to work against’ R. after 1936.

Despite her forced de-transition, R.’s mother continued to spurn her — the sharp break between the Weimar and [Fascist] eras blurred by the continuity in familial rejection. There is no downplaying the crushing reality of the post-1933 world. But for R. the significant watershed was 1936. The greatest losses were her gender and her closest relationships.

Released from Sachsenhausen in March 1938, R. was now childless and partnerless. Yet she did not attempt to avoid repeat offences or reinternment after her stay at Sachsenhausen. As will become clear, R. suffered over the course of the ensuing years, but her life cannot be captured with the simple juxtaposition of a queer haven destroyed by the unyielding brutality of [anticommunist] violence.

[…]

For R., much of her personhood and self-worth was linked to her being allowed to live as a woman. Through her de-transition, she had suffered a profound deprivation of humanity. It also signalled a change in her personality and personal relationships. While the [Fascist] state heterogeneously persecuted R. from this point onwards, her de‐transition evoked greater personal and interpersonal damage than direct forms of punishment and incarceration.

R.’s emotional state in 1941 was bleak: not only could she no longer live as the gender that gave her the most self‐worth, but she was also alone, plagued by voices that buttressed her sense of worthlessness, abusing alcohol to stem the feelings she could not bear, without the resilience necessary to prevent herself acting on self-destructive behaviours.

In the eyes of the court, repeated imprisonment and internment had not altered R.’s behaviour, indicating the need for alternative measures to be taken. The judge overseeing R.’s prosecution in 1941 therefore saw no use in further carceral punishment, and instead sent for her to be psychologically assessed so that she might be sent to a psychiatric institute. The presiding judge for her previous offence had also had R.’s ‘state of mind’ assessed.

In 1938, Dr. Frommer had produced a highly detailed report, which concluded that R. was a transvestite and a masochist. Dr. Fommer noted that R. had an ‘abnormality of the sex drive’, but she was ‘certainly not a dangerous moral offender in the sense of the relevant provisions of the penal code’. This was Dr. Frommer’s way of absolving R. of accusations against §175 while still acknowledging her unorthodox sexual tastes.

[…]

R. was not a prized Volksgenosse (member of the people’s community) of the SS ilk, nor homosexual, but she was ‘Aryan’ and unstable. Indeed, these characteristics played a central rôle in her treatment.

Jennifer Evans’s work has shown that transvestism was of ‘the worst kind’ when perceived as an act of homosexual prostitution. But the contrast of this with R.’s case confirms Jane Caplan’s hunch that there was no decisive and uniform response to transness from the [anticommunist] state.

This mirrors Samuel Huneke’s formulation of the ‘heterogeneous persecution’ lesbians were subject to in the Third Reich, wherein how lesbians were treated differed greatly depending on the categories additional to ‘lesbian’ that were assigned to them.

R. occupied a liminal place in the [Fascist] carceral system. She was not clearly criminal (homosexual), but was a public nuisance to the Volksgemeinschaft; she had an ‘abnormal sex drive’ and was a Transvestit, but she was worthy of medical care and treatment, and given a chance to re-establish her place in [Fascist] society.

[…]

On the morning of 12 March 1943, R. was found hanging in one of the toilet cubicles in the Wittenau. The subsequent report stated that R. had committed suicide the night before and was found that morning by the caretaker.

[…]

R.’s gendered sense of self had tentatively found validation in the form of womanhood and femininity before 1936. But since that world had been flattened with the [Fascist] takeover, she could no longer inhabit it. Perhaps R. could no longer find a sense of place in the world or self within the gender binary, so she untethered herself from it.

This can be interpreted as her letting go: a signal of her intentions in March 1943. If she could never see a future in which she could live again as a woman, she would be neither man nor woman — she would become nothing.

While normally I’m impersonal when I comment on these anecdotes, I want to take this moment to express my deepest sorrow and sympathy for this poor woman. Gerd R., I am so, deeply sorry. You didn’t deserve the life that you got. Rest in peace, wherever you are.

I have been on HRT for 2 years and my face is pretty angular and masculine. My nose does not help and my browbone. I have been wanting FFS but it is so expensive.

I have been thinking about going with Dr. Bryan Rolfes at Omni Cosmetic. They accept my insurance it is one of the reasons I am going with him.

Has anyone had FFS with him? I am hoping someone knows how much it was for him? I just have so many bills but FFS is the only thing that will help me present as a woman.

The proposed law would allow people the right to change gender identity, request a different gender identity to the one assigned at birth and the right to choose a medical intervention method for gender-reaffirming surgery.

[…]

“[Society] is relatively open towards the issue already. If we don’t soon build a legal corridor, there will be a lot of issues in both institutional and practical dimensions,” national assembly secretary general, Bùi Văn Cường, said.

(Now imagine the U.S. Congress even considering—never mind passing—a law like this.)

I got a letter that I'm registered for military service, it's 12 months, I will be accepted in the medical exams and there's no way to avoid it, I don't fear dying in a war since what our military basically does is training and planting trees. I can choose the age that I serve in between 19 and 25.

Service will obviously make it impossible to affirm? or how it's called, yk uniforms and military codes, not really something that i find myself in.

So, I am wondering if anyone here has a similar experience and can provide with some tips or anything.

Also, would it be better to do it early or late? If I do it early I'll be worked like a donkey, but I'll be given more freedom earlier. Or should I do it late which will give me a higher rank instantly (it's based on the college degree not age) and I'll just sit in an office for 12 months, but I'll finish it late and I have the risk of dropping out in college and being dragged into service earlier and possibly falling into a depression mental state with a fully loaded Chinese AK..

This is a common myth spread by transphobic - for lack of a better term - degenerates like Matt Walsh and JK Rowling. Basically they're saying sex reassignment surgery is being performed on minors. Surprisingly, this shit is easy to debunk.

My response: No one is advocating for SRS to be performed on people below 18 and rightfully so. There's a reason why puberty blockers are recommended for trans kids, why we campaign against discrimination of trans kids, why we campaigned to not need surgery to be considered a man or a woman.

I would argue this myth is nothing more than a strawman

It is very concerning and frightening the extent to which people will go to when it comes to fighting against trans rights, whether that be verbally or physically. The importance of supporting trans rights is as important as anything, especially with the way things currently are. How can we best help and support the rights, safety, and well-being of trans people?

We have always been here. We just haven’t always felt safe coming out. But there’s no turning back the clock. We’re going to win our liberation today or tomorrow. At most, those who wish us ill will succeed in causing pain and suffering on their way out. I call on their well-meaning allies not to help them.

Transcript:

It is not a woman’s specific feminine virtue that gives her a place of honor in human society, but the worth of her personality as human being, as citizen, as thinker, as fighter.

Alexandra Kollontai

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP)—It was pharmacist Gwendolyn Herzig’s first time testifying before a legislative committee when she spoke to several Arkansas lawmakers in a packed hearing room this month about a bill restricting gender-affirming care for minors.

Herzig, who is transgender, spoke out against the legislation and told the panel that one of the biggest obstacles trans people face is a lack of empathy. Only a few minutes later, a Republican lawmaker asked her an inappropriate question about her genitalia.

“It was horrifying,” she said.

The exchange, which was livestreamed on the Legislature’s website and has since been widely shared on social media, is an example of the type of demeaning questions and rhetoric that transgender people meet when they show up to statehouses to testify against new bills targeting their rights.

In South Dakota, a lawmaker invoked “furries”—people who dress up as animals—when talking about gender-affirming care. In Montana, a legislator compared parents supporting their children in finding treatment to asking doctors to carry out medically assisted suicide.

Advocates worry that increasingly hostile rhetoric about transgender people could have a chilling effect on those who want to speak out against new restrictions and could do lasting damage to a community of trans youth that is already marginalized.

“I feel like that’s what they’re trying to do, to keep us from coming and exercising this right that we have,” said Rumba Yambu, executive director of Intransitive, an advocacy and support group for transgender people in Arkansas. “Because who wants to go and be asked about their genitalia in front of a bunch of strangers? Especially strangers in power.”

So far this year, at least 150 bills targeting transgender people have been introduced, which is the highest in a single year, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

Bans on gender-affirming care for minors have already been enacted this year in South Dakota and Utah, and Republican governors in Tennessee and Mississippi are expected to sign similar bans into law. Arkansas and Alabama have bans that were temporarily blocked by federal judges.

The push has included efforts in some states to restrict gender-affirming care for adults and proposed bans on drag shows that opponents have warned would also discriminate against transgender people.

Herzig came to the state Capitol to testify against a bill attempting to reinstate Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming care for minors by making it easier to file malpractice lawsuits against providers. In her testimony, Herzig talked about working with transgender patients who are on hormone replacement therapy.

“Bills like SB199 are designed to hinder, not help, Arkansans by creating barriers to evidence-driven health care they deserve under the guise of helping the young and innocent,” she said, later saying a vote for the bill was “unpatriotic, and casts doubts on our own health and research institutions who have worked through health care fields to improve the lives of Americans.”

During follow-up questions, Republican Sen. Matt McKee asked Herzig if she is transgender.

When she said yes, he asked: “Do you have a penis?”

The question was met with jeers and audible gasps in the packed committee room.

“That’s horrible,” Herzig responded, telling McKee that asking her such a question was inappropriate and noting she was testifying as a health care professional.

“I had never been so publicly humiliated in my life,” Herzig told The Associated Press in an interview days later.

McKee did not respond to an email or phone call, but defended his question in a written statement.

“As a father of four daughters, I will do everything in my power to protect my children and the children of Arkansas, especially from the woke mob who intend to push their agenda and beliefs down our throats and destroy our families,” McKee’s statement said.

The idea of protecting children by withholding medical care is undermined by health experts, who have said minors with gender dysphoria who do not receive appropriate care face dramatically increased risk of suicide and serious depression.

McKee’s questions were similar in tone to those posed to Debi Jackson’s teen Avery, who is transgender and nonbinary, when they testified before Missouri legislators last year about a proposal to ban trans girls and women from participating on sports teams matching their gender identity.

During the hearing, a lawmaker asked Avery if they were “gonna go through the procedure.” Since that exchange, Jackson said Avery hasn’t wanted to testify again before the Legislature.

“It’s this same idea that in any of these discussions about trans people just being treated with basic dignity and respect, legislators want to reduce them to one body part,” Jackson said. “They miss the entirety of the human being sitting in front of them having a conversation.”

Advocates say the rhetoric surrounding these proposed bans further exacerbates an already treacherous environment for transgender people, their families, and medical providers. Children’s hospitals around the country have faced an uptick of harassment and threats of violence for providing gender-confirming care.

Though she said she’s received an outcry of support since her testimony, Herzig said she and the pharmacy she owns have also gotten hateful emails and calls.

People opposed to gender-affirming care for minors argue that children are too young to make decisions about their futures, sometimes comparing such treatments to child abuse. That’s despite medical experts saying the care is safe when administered properly.

Nearly every major medical group, including the American Medical Association, has opposed the bans on such care for minors.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last year ordered the state’s child welfare agency to investigate reports of gender-affirming care for kids as abuse, but a judge has since blocked those investigations.

Amber Briggle, the mother of a transgender teenager in Texas whose family was investigated after Abbott’s order, said she gets frustrated when speaking before lawmakers in her state who she thinks already have made up their minds on the issue. But Briggle said she plans on returning to Texas’ Capitol this year and that Herzig’s encounter motivates her even more to show up and speak out.

“They should not have to fight this alone,” Briggle said of transgender people testifying in statehouses. “They should know they have loving, supporting allies in their corner.”

Herzig said she probably would not have testified had she known she was going to be asked about her genitalia. “I felt like I was pretty much prepared for any combative question,” she said. “Except that.”

Hello everyone,

You all know me as Arsen6331

A while ago, I had a realization. I realized I was trans.

As with all the other major realizations in my life, my brain has been subconsciously collecting evidence for years, and I had this realization in a single moment. My egg didn't crack, it exploded and shattered violently. Memories containing evidence started popping up in quick succession, from when I was as young as 3 years old, and I had to process all of them. It has been a major emotional rollercoaster.

I've been repressing this for as long as I've been alive, so this makes me very anxious, but now that most of it has been processed, and the most important people have been told, I can tell all of you:

Hello, I am Elara, an Autistic, Trans ML.

Thanks to everyone here. You all were a huge part of my realization. Without you, it might've happened a lot later or not at all.

Hi comrades, some people on the prolewiki discord already know this, but I have decided to come out as trans!

I'm a woman and my name is Anna!

I will be changing my pfp and name tomorrow. I don't know what else to say and I don't want to overthink, so here you go.

Edit 1: Thanks for the all positivity comrades! I written this like near midnight and I was just hiding and anticipating some response. This community really just is great.

Edit 2: I've changed my PFP and Username. I feel happier now that it's this way!

Don't mind me, just going on a shitposting spree to celebrate my top surgery, yay!!

A sad day for the trans community…

Im an egg

this is where the fun begins

I struggle to see a boy when I look in the mirror now. :)

What gives this more importance is that I'm still pre-hrt and I can't do makeup. I'm proud of myself for getting to a point where I can LIKE myself, and when I start hrt and whatever I'll LOVE myself.

We are winning <3 I hope nothing but the best for all my trans siblings, good luck and stay safe. Remember to take care of yourselves, it helps in the long run.