By Lil Kalish

Emily Bray was supposed to be celebrating on Tuesday morning. After years of trying to change her name and gender marker, the 27-year-old YouTuber received an official court order from a Texas judge that she was at last, in the eyes of the state, the woman she had long known herself to be.

But that elation was short-lived.

An hour later, she logged onto the private Facebook group where she and other trans Texans discussed the bureaucracy of changing one’s name and gender in a state that is becoming increasingly hostile to trans people. One person shared that they had gone into the Department of Public Safety to update their driver’s license that day and learned that the agency had issued a new policy, barring the use of court orders or birth certificates to change one’s listed sex.

“There’s no other way to describe it than a gut punch,” Bray told HuffPost.

I have an upcoming appointment for an FFS consultation and was wondering if there are any questions y'all recommend asking 🙂

This is mainly for the women here who've had GRS/orchi, but if you experience these then be sure to see your doctor either way ~

symptoms of menopause

Please don't judge my story too harshly I have terrible mental health lol.

I got an orchi some time ago and when my hormones were tested shortly after, my estrogen was about double what it should be so my endocrinologist reduced my estradiol dosage by half. Shortly after I started experiencing some of what I would later learn are menopause symptoms. I thought they were my body getting used to the changes from the operation and just soldiered through them. By the time I saw my endocrinologist six months later they had become much worse and were pretty severely impacting my quality of life.

I'm on a higher dose now and I'm sad to say for me it is not an instant fix. A week later and I'm still experiencing issues so if anyone knows generally how long it takes symptoms to resolve I'd love to know lol. I'm mad/disappointed in myself for letting things get as bad as they have and worried that they won't get better. I appreciate y'all reading <3

First, if you have any interest in seeing this movie, do not read anything about it, just go see it as soon as you possibly can.

What did y'all think of it? Any film recommendations in a similar vein?

The political situation for trans people in the southern US has been devolving rapidly and I'm looking to move to a protected state. I'm going to start applying to jobs soon, and I've been considering whether I should apply as my dead self or not.

I haven't changed my legal name yet, so my job applications immediately out me as trans and even if it didn't I don't pass at all currently, so if I got an interview I'd be outed then. I've been reading about how hard it is to get a job as a trans woman and I'll need all the help I can get to get out of this shithole state.

It would kill me to have to go back into the closet for work, but the alternative is being potentially stuck in a place that will forcibly detransition me which is way worse.

Has anyone been in this situation or has any advice?

There was a thread I saw recently, that really struck me as a growing trend I have been seeing online. It has been bothering me and I felt the need to write my thoughts about it. The post in question is about a trans woman joking about being in denial and having tea parties because they are awesome.

Whenever cis people see trans people discussing signs of their gender identity online, they immediately feel the need to jump in and discount the signs in a number of ways. Whether it’s because they did the same things but are still cis or that trans people shouldn’t “police” gender roles, or that kids should be allowed to do what they want without assigning identities to them. Many of them seem like they feel their own cis gender identity is being attacked.

In the beginning of my gender journey™, I clung to signs from my past as a way to justify to society and myself that I am in fact trans and valid, because the truth is, I was extremely insecure about my identity. I grew up during a time that said trans people don’t exist, and the ones that do are to be shunned, and there was only a very narrow way to be trans.

Despite it being completely and utterly wrong, the phrase, FEELINGS AREN’T FACTS are a part of the cultural zeitgeist, and it infects the way people think, including myself. So much of being trans is based on feeling and when you’ve been shoving feelings down and ignoring them your entire life, it can be impossible to hear them. So, for people in similar situations, signs are all they have and they were all I had for a time.

After becoming secure in my gender identity, I truly don’t believe you need signs to be trans. The official diagnosis doesn’t even include signs among its criteria. I actually think it does a pretty good job aside from the clinically significant distress/impairment part. I would be hard-pressed to be convinced that someone isn’t trans if they meet the criteria, but aren’t distressed/impaired by it.

However, I do not think a cis boy enjoying a tea party because it’s awesome and a trans girl enjoying a tea party because it is affirming are two competing ideas and can easily coexist in the same space. You don’t need to have enjoyed tea parties to be trans, but if it was a way for you to feel gender affirmation then it is absolutely a sign. The same goes for any other common trope or sign that trans people use.

This could easily be transphobes being disingenuous and trolling, as they are relentless online, but I still wanted to express my feelings on the matter. My wish is for online spaces to become more empathetic to each other's experiences (fat chance I know) and to stop competing on what makes someone's gender identity in threads like these. There is room for everyone's experience of tea parties and they are all just as valid.

Doc Impossible made a wonderfully written article that is more coherent than I will ever be about signs and gender identity last year that I highly recommend for more reading on the topic.

I've been feeling down lately and I started re-watching futurama for some good nostalgia, but it keeps making transphobic jokes which is kind of just making me feel worse. Anyone have any suggestions for comfort shows to watch?

[The Is This a Pigeon? meme template with the words “MY CLUELESS ASS” over the character’s head, the words “OBVIOUS SIGNS OF DYSPHORIA” below the butterfly and captioned with the words “IS THIS A CIS FEELING?”]