Sven Slootweg @joepie91@pixie.town

Hey folks

Needed to get this vent out of our system too, as it's been really bugging us lately.

Right now, the vast majority of the medical community, even those who consider themselves trans-supportive, are incredibly gatekeeping when it comes to giving trans youth any form of care, even puberty blockers like GnRH agonists.

In an ideal world, the following would happen:

A trans kid says they're trans.
If they've started or will soon start puberty, the trans kid goes to their GP or doctor with a parent or guardian.If they can demonstrate Gillick competence, this can be without a parent or guardian.
The GP or doctor offers the following options to the trans kid:A puberty blocker (GnRH agonist or antagonist).
Monotherapy GAHT (i.e., maintaining a high enough estradiol or testosterone level to block gonadal hormone production).
A lower level of GAHT alongside a puberty blocker.

In the real-world, this sadly isn't the case. At the very best, trans kids:

Won't be offered a puberty blocker unless they've at least reached stage 2 on the Tanner scale!
Won't be offered HRT until 14 at the very, very earliest!

In practice, it's even worse than this in many places now. Even in many countries that consider themselves to be "progressive" on trans healthcare, trans youth will need to:

Have been on a puberty blocker for 6-12 months before GAHT will be considered.
Be at least 16 before GAHT will be offered.

In the worst places, there's no healthcare for trans youth whatsoever. In the UK, there's currently a permanent ban on new prescriptions of puberty blockers to any trans person under the age of 18. There are workarounds in place by private companies for this, but they're out of the price range for most people. Getting GAHT before the age of 18 will also require going private.

This forms the basis of the "wait and see" approach, which is conversion therapy by another name. Its nefarious aim is to reduce the number of people transitioning and to reduce the number of trans people overall, as many trans kids will not reach adulthood by being actively denied the right to transition medically.

The worst thing about this isn't the transphobia and transmisia from outside the trans community, but from within it

We've seen people agree with the age gatekeeping and the need for medical diagnoses of being trans (ICD-11 - gender incongruence of childhood or gender incongruence of adolescence or adulthood), as if they don't trust trans kids to know that they're trans.

If we're going to use that logic, then clearly no-one should be allowed to go through puberty until they're legally an adult, as clearly all kids can't be trusted, right? Oh, and we should distrust all kids about sexuality too and prevent relationships of any kind until they're 18, yes?

The false logic quickly falls apart there. It's not based on not trusting kids: it's based on not trusting trans kids. It's the same nonsense that leads people to assume that all kids are heterosexual by default ("heteronormativity") and to distrust that anyone under 18 could recognise this about themselves.

The only reason it took us so long to realise that we were trans and bi wasn't because we weren't both of these things all along, but due to external pressures (Section 28; transphobia and homophobia) that made us suppress and repress these feelings. If we had felt able to be ourselves, we'd have realised we weren't a boy in our early teens, and that we were bi not much later.

In the UK, estrogenic puberty typically starts anywhere from age 8 to 13 and androgenic puberty from 9 to 14. There's simply no reasonable argument for delaying puberty in trans kids until they're 16 or even older. The "appropriate" age to start GAHT is whenever they've met the minimum puberty start age (8 or 9), when their peers are starting, and when they feel ready to start.

So yeah, we fully support trans youth starting GAHT at 11-12 or possibly even earlier in some cases.

Puberty blockers are meant to be a short-term stop-gap only to delay puberty. Once puberty has started, they can be used alongside GAHT in order to provide an age-appropriate ramp up, but in most cases it would simply be safer and cheaper to go with GAHT monotherapy. With monotherapy, trans kids get the added emotional, physical, and psychological benefits that come with a slightly-higher sex hormone level. (Just think how shitty it feels to have a low estradiol or testosterone level.)

Anyways, that's enough venting for now. We'll probably come back to correct typos, make minor amendments, or add further thoughts later. Right now though, we need to head up to bed.

#trans #transgender #transition #PubertyBlockers #TransYouthAreLoved #TransKidsAreLoved #TransKidsDeserveBetter #TransYouthDeserveBetter #TransKidsDeserveToThrive #TransYouthDeserveToThrive #TransKidsDeserveToGrowUp #TransYouthDeserveToGrowUp #LGBTQ+ #LGBTQIA+ #queer #GAHT #HRT #TransRights #TransRightsAreHumanRights #TransLiberation #TransLiberationNow #InformedConsent #GillickCompetence

fedi is great — you can post a silly tech thing like this and nerdsnipe someone into thinking about it and like 48 hours later your shitpost idea has a git repo with 174 commits

https://fox.nexus/@theresnotime/113857236298937505

@element @troed ... and whose fault is that?

Have scientists discovered a new organ that accounts for about 20% of your body weight?

It's called the 'interstitium'. It's a network of channels between the other organs. The fluid in these channels is called 'interstitial fluid', and it transports nutrients and molecules that carry communications between cells, especially involving the immune system. The interstitium drains into the lymph system, but it's not the same thing.

Here's an interesting show about why it remained unnoticed for so long. Basically the problem was that scientists were studying dried-up tissue samples instead of living tissue!

Thanks to @rustoleumlove for alerting me to the interstitium here on Mastodon before I heard about it in on the radio.

https://radiolab.org/podcast/interstitium

Make stupid, unprofitable stuff if it makes you happy. They *really* hate that, because they don't have the capacity to understand why anybody would make stuff for *free*.

Growing very tired of Element's passive voice when responding to criticisms, as if their hand was somehow forced and their current predicament isn't entirely a consequence of their own decisions which people have cautioned them about for years

this sketch (right image) was originally made for KDE VDG issue # 46 (Fedora KDE welcome screen) in april of last year, however, because I was too nervous to present it to the developers and communicate with them, eventually someone else created a graphic and the issue was closed before I could say anything.

recently, I decided to finish it anyway, so it isn't left to collect dust in my hard drive

#MastoArt #DigitalArt #krita #konqi #kde #anthro #arctaxia #fediart #artwithopensource #dragon #dragons #mascot #sfwfurry #artwork #foss

@emiledingemans de VVD wil een kleinere overheid voor het grootkapitaal - maar voor bijvoorbeeld de uitkeringsgerechtigde kan die overheid niet groot en bureaucratisch genoeg zijn. Vind het altijd belangrijk die kanttekening te plaatsen bij de "kleine overheid" fabel.

an ability to choose does not necessarily imply agency or a difference in outcomes

One feature Mastodon does better than virtually every other platform is the edit button. It's free, has unlimited edits, is not time limited, has edit history, edit notifications, real-time updates, and is generally just awesome. As someone who does a LOT of typos, and constantly forgets alt text etc, I am eternally grateful to the Mastodon Devs for such a flawless implementation.

Omgggg!! I just discovered that Project Gutenberg has an automated feed on #Mastodon where they post new books they add!

Go follow them: @gutenberg_new

#books #bookstodon #reading

A quick financial update as we finish up our accounting:

EMF 2024 cost £575k to organise, and despite some unexpected costs due to the wet weather, we made a surplus of about £20k. We're a non-profit, so all the surplus goes towards making it easier to run future events.

The swap shop collected £3,220.95 in donations, which we've rounded up to £3.5k and split equally between Medical Aid for Palestinians and Gendered Intelligence.

We're planning to publish the full financial details on our website soon.

love articles like this https://insurancenewsnet.com/innarticle/disability-claims-skyrocket-raising-new-puzzle-alongside-excess-mortality

"Along with a baffling rise in post-pandemic mortality rates that has insurers stymied, the number of Americans claiming disabilities has skyrocketed since 2020"

oh my god, what could have caused public health to go in the shitter? i know there was this plague in 2020 that we just started ignoring cause it was too hard in 2022, but that can't be it. what a mystery!

also, the actuaries know. they've known for half a fucking decade. they've published articles about it for gods sake. of course insurers fucking know why

"Mental health disorders also surge"

boy do i have news for you about some of the large array of disorders covid, the brain damaging disease, causes!