Thank you, so much. My masc presenting AFAB child asks me often whether they ‘have to get boobies’, ‘I only want nipples’ and ‘can I stop it from happening? Can you promise me?’. They are already anxious about the prospect of dysphoria. I used to be able to say to them that when the time comes, they will have a choice. Reversing puberty via surgery later on, to affirm gender and save a life, is far more irreversible and involved than medically slowing a process our trans kids are dreading, a process we all know will impact their mental health so drastically if they are trans. I don’t want to speak to my child about cutting off body parts they loathe when they one day have the agency and money. I want to speak to my child about how I support their choice in defining their beautiful identity, and how I will offer them their rights as a human being to be exactly who they are.
My darling, I had no idea that this was happening in your family. God we really need to have that cup of tea. I can't imagine your heartbreak, watching this monstrous cruelty play out.
Oh Anna - I’ve just read your post. I hope you’re still able to access the Gender Clinic and that B gets unconditional love from everyone around them. Big love to you.
"Very little desire for preventing the bodily changes".
I'm thoroughly convinced the conservative argumentation on this front exists only to ensure that those bodily changes associated with puberty take place. Fragile masculinity is deathly afraid of trans people that are indistinguishable from cis.
They want trans people to be easily identifiable by sight and at face value. To know who to discriminate against, to know who to target. To know who to pull a gun on, to know who to beat down in the street.
Forcing natural puberty on a trans person is not an unintentional cruelty. It's an act of calculated violence.
I was explaining to someone yesterday about the conservative US agenda around abortion as a means of controlling women. If you remove a person's agency around the timing and size of their family, you tether them to a cycle where they are dependent on men. My limited nuance in gender terms (woman/man) aside, removing abortion access is an effective method to ensure people's lives remain in the orbits of patriarchal structures.
And so it is with transition care...
The children who now have to experience puberty they might not want will now be saddled with the cost, pain, difficulty of post-puberty transition. It will keep them in the orbit of those who wish to control them because they wont have the financial independence to live how they choose. This is a deliberate attempt to trap vulnerable people in cycles of oppression and the proof is as simple as realising how EASY it would be to elevate them out of it... but they don't... and it's clearly a choice.
I love you, Sean. Thank you for sharing this. I’m so proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with you as we face these monsters down.
Mitti jokes that I’m a “transparent” and I love the combination of openness and parenting a Trans person the word evokes. Please know we’ve got you. There’s an army of us who will never stop fighting to protect Trans kids - and as far as I’m concerned that extends to every Trans adult.
Thank you, so much. My masc presenting AFAB child asks me often whether they ‘have to get boobies’, ‘I only want nipples’ and ‘can I stop it from happening? Can you promise me?’. They are already anxious about the prospect of dysphoria. I used to be able to say to them that when the time comes, they will have a choice. Reversing puberty via surgery later on, to affirm gender and save a life, is far more irreversible and involved than medically slowing a process our trans kids are dreading, a process we all know will impact their mental health so drastically if they are trans. I don’t want to speak to my child about cutting off body parts they loathe when they one day have the agency and money. I want to speak to my child about how I support their choice in defining their beautiful identity, and how I will offer them their rights as a human being to be exactly who they are.
Devastated is an understatement.
My darling, I had no idea that this was happening in your family. God we really need to have that cup of tea. I can't imagine your heartbreak, watching this monstrous cruelty play out.
We do 😭 zero pressure to read, but I wrote this a few months ago about it… https://open.substack.com/pub/otherpeoplessecrets/p/the-haircut?r=5fvxx&utm_medium=ios
We received our acceptance letter for the QCH gender clinic two weeks ago.
Oh Anna - I’ve just read your post. I hope you’re still able to access the Gender Clinic and that B gets unconditional love from everyone around them. Big love to you.
"Very little desire for preventing the bodily changes".
I'm thoroughly convinced the conservative argumentation on this front exists only to ensure that those bodily changes associated with puberty take place. Fragile masculinity is deathly afraid of trans people that are indistinguishable from cis.
They want trans people to be easily identifiable by sight and at face value. To know who to discriminate against, to know who to target. To know who to pull a gun on, to know who to beat down in the street.
Forcing natural puberty on a trans person is not an unintentional cruelty. It's an act of calculated violence.
100% agree.
I was explaining to someone yesterday about the conservative US agenda around abortion as a means of controlling women. If you remove a person's agency around the timing and size of their family, you tether them to a cycle where they are dependent on men. My limited nuance in gender terms (woman/man) aside, removing abortion access is an effective method to ensure people's lives remain in the orbits of patriarchal structures.
And so it is with transition care...
The children who now have to experience puberty they might not want will now be saddled with the cost, pain, difficulty of post-puberty transition. It will keep them in the orbit of those who wish to control them because they wont have the financial independence to live how they choose. This is a deliberate attempt to trap vulnerable people in cycles of oppression and the proof is as simple as realising how EASY it would be to elevate them out of it... but they don't... and it's clearly a choice.
I love you, Sean. Thank you for sharing this. I’m so proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with you as we face these monsters down.
Mitti jokes that I’m a “transparent” and I love the combination of openness and parenting a Trans person the word evokes. Please know we’ve got you. There’s an army of us who will never stop fighting to protect Trans kids - and as far as I’m concerned that extends to every Trans adult.
❤️