A bill to restrict HRT to age 21+ has been proposed in Ohio.

They are currently taking comments on the issue via the MHA website linked above. The commentary phase ends January 19th at 5pm.

Please take this opportunity to make your voice heard while the window is open.

Hey I just read this and it looks like it will also restrict elective sterilization surgeries like vasectomy and hysterectomy to these guidelines. This isn’t just a trans issue, this is a bodily autonomy and reproductive rights issue.

I’m also very concerned that treatment for early onset puberty, which runs in my family, is not mentioned. Would I really have to let my (currently hypothetical) 8-9yo afab child go through puberty for six months and subject them to psychological evaluation to get it delayed?? FFS.

The problem with TMA vs TME transmisogyny theory isn't that it's "divisive" or whatever, it's that it erases & trivializes the experiences of trans men. Categorizing our experiences on the basis of us not experiencing transphobia charged misogyny (or vice versa) is patently false. It relies on a framework that takes for granted that trans men somehow don't experience chronic third engenderment, which would fall apart the moment any of these people actually talked to us about our experiences. It survives on the basis of and perpetuates our chronic invisibility.

Feminism has always, always had a history with Racism and White Supremacy - particularly in a way that promotes fascist leaning "Protection for Me and Mine" type "activism".

There have always been several Upper Class, White, Women at the helm of Feminist movements and it is something Poor, Working Class, Women of Color have been vocally criticizing since the First Wave.

I mean, US Americans, did you not learn about Sojourner Truth? Have you not read "Ain't I A Woman?"? It is one of the most famous early accounts of the racialized nature of gender. It perfectly highlights the way the social aspects of gender have always been barred from People of Color in a way they aren't barred from White People in a firsthand historical account.

Women's Suffrage, and subsequently the First Wave of Feminism was an actively Racially Segregated movement. White Suffragettes intentionally campaigned for themselves and themselves only because they thought that campaigning for Black, Immigrant, and Indigenous Women would undermine their own movement. They did not seek liberation for women, they sought the Systemic, Institutional Power of their White Male Peers and they got it - by intentionally leaving Women of Color behind them.

This is most evident in the fact that White Women received the right to vote in 1920, but Black Women did not receive the right to vote until 1965 with the Voting Rights Act. Almost 50 years later. That is over half a lifetime. This was also only approximately 2-3 years before Radical Feminism and the Second Wave began around 1967~1968.

If you think racial segregation and racism in the Feminist Movement ended with Black Women's suffrage and completely dissipated within the two years it took for the Second Wave to pick up it's feet, you are naïve at best and actively racist yourself at worst. The Women's Liberation Movement / Radical Feminism have always been White Woman's movements riding the coattails of the Suffragette's racism.

Look at the website for the Women's Liberation Front. WoLF is one of the original Radical Feminist organizations. It was founded in the late 60's and is one of the largest Radfem organizations to date. Now. Look at their board. Look at the photos of women they choose to include across their site. Look at the women who are speaking at their events. Beyond one or two token Black Women, it is a sea of Whiteness.

You know who is a special advisor to WoLF and the founder of the group "Standing for Women"? Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, aka Posie Parker. Kellie-Jay is the woman who popularized "Woman means adult human female" as an anti-trans slogan. Kellie-Jay is also real good buddies with - you guessed it! Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists!

WoLF also takes money from the Alliance Defending Freedom, (ADF) a Right Wing Christian Organization, and it's members have worked directly with the Heritage Foundation, a Conservative organization founded during the Reagan Presidency.

Radical Feminism as a political movement cares about the lives and held power of White Women under the guise of "Women's Liberation" in the exact same way as their foremothers, the Suffragettes. It's a foundationally White Supremacist movement. Black Feminists, Indigenous Feminists, Immigrant Feminists, and Colonized Feminists have been talking about this for over a century but it falls on White ears so why would they listen.

anyway tme is a useless term because people use it to mean "not a trans woman" when more than just trans women experience the intersection of misogyny and transphobia. also personally it feels like listing your privelages which is dumb nobody on the internet needs to know that about you.

there's no trans man equivalent. so to me it just feels like another roundabout reminder that people don't care about trans men

READ:

That's enough money to give every homeless American 24 THOUSAND DOLLARS

That's enough money to give 43 dollars to the ENTIRE U.S. POPULATION.

That's enough to fully treat ~95,000 Cancer Patients for FREE.

This is where your tax dollars go.

NOT schools.

NOT Protection.

NOT Healthcare.

NOT Homes and shelter.

NOT Science and Medicine.

NOT the potholes in your roads.

NOT your retirement or your future.

You are being made to pay for Genocide while your own people die.

I disagree that periods *aren't* gross, but they're also no more gross than other bodily fluids and waste like urine, feces and vomit. Sometimes life is gross and that's nothing to be ashamed of. If you treat periods any differently from the above then that's a problem and a double standard.

some people have responded to this saying "period blood is as sanitary as venous blood" which, yes is true, but you still wouldn't want to sit in it on the bus or something, ESPECIALLY since blood-borne illnesses could still be transferred this way. Also, same with urine, while it is "sterile" inside of your body, the openings of your body are not! Once it leaves your body it has already been contaminated by the germs and bacteria around your genitals. The whole point is that, bodies are kinda gross, and that's ok. Having an accident or a bleed-through happens and it's nothing to be ashamed of, but it also isn't a pleasant experience for anyone involved and thats! okay!

The moment period blood becomes this "sacred, holy substance", that's when you get into misogynist, new-age trad bullshit that's usually also ableist and transphobic.

Period blood is just blood. If someone next to you on the subway started bleeding, sure, you might get squeamish, but you'd want to help them right? Same with a bleed-through.

It's okay to be concerned about the hygiene of period blood, because after all, it's bodily fluids. It's just not okay to treat people who menstruate like they're dirty or shameful. You wouldn't treat someone with a nosebleed like that, right?

Just....stop treating period blood like it's different, whether it's treating it like it's shameful or sacred. Both stigmatize menstruation and lead to harm.

If you have to ignore or erase the existence of multiply marginalized people speaking out about anti-transmasculinity/transmisandry/transandrophobia in order to try to invalidate trans men and mascs speaking about our experiences, you’re standing on extremely shaky ground.

You’re also being extremely bigoted against those multiple marginalizations because of the ignoring/erasure of their existence.

Pretending that there aren’t trans men/mascs of colour, disabled trans men/mascs, otherwise queer trans men/mascs, fat trans men/mascs, and other multiply marginalized trans men/mascs talking about how their experiences intersect with transandrophobia is racist, ableist, queerphobic, fatphobic, and so on, because those people do exist and are speaking, but you would prefer to paint over their existence by assuming these people either don’t exist or aren’t speaking up about these things to make your argument.

Y'all are just making up new ways to be homophobic, huh.

don't these people just believe trans men are women? if so, how can they not see how misogynistic it is, especially to reduce someone to their genitals?

i need some of y'all to consider that maybe the reason you're celebrated, welcomed, and prioritized in trans spaces isn't bc you're trans masc but bc you're white, thin, and conventionally attractive.

like i want you to think about all the trans people you say are being prioritized in trans spaces and ask yourself: were they black or african? indigenous? latine? south, east, or west asian? pacific islander? visibly not white? jewish or romani? visibly religious? disabled? fat and hairy? balding? because if the answer is "well not really" then these spaces aren't "centering trans mascs" they're centering whiteness and white beauty.

the idea that any space, community, or movement ever needs to be Kept Safe from the Fakers and the Infiltrators has done incalculable damage to every single fight for justice for every single vulnerable or marginalized group.

if somebody is there for the wrong reasons, the people in that space that they interact with will see that through their words and actions. that's what you look for. that's what you react to.

if they use a label to mock it, if they co-opt or derail the conversation, if they stir up drama, if they're bigoted or they won't listen or they won't change when it's needed, that's when you know, and that's when you take action.

but someone's identity, affiliation, or reasons for identifying a certain way aren't going to tell you what their intentions are- and even intentions can evolve under the right circumstances.

perpetual witch-hunts and policing and paranoia does not serve anyone but those who seek to divide us.

one of the reasons I hesitate to identify as a man is because I primarily am attracted to men and don't want to be called a gay infiltrator or a fetishizer, like I've seen people call trans gay men.

"only white women are allowed to reclaim masculinity because black women are always seen as masculine!!!" cold ass take. as if the fact that we are always seen as masculine which somehow makes us "less than a woman" which results in black and brown women attempting to be seen as feminine isn't the most suppressing thing in the world. you've never had your mother force you into a dress for the most mundane activities ever (ex. literally just existing in public) because anything else would be seen as "less presentable" and it shows. woc can reclaim masculinity too lol

the fact that we are seen as masculine and less of a woman because of it often results in black and brown women trying to be as feminine as possible in order to not be seen as masculine aka a man. which means that black and brown mothers are often forcing their daughters into femininity against their will which, especially for gnc girls, is traumatizing!!! masculinity can be reclaimed by black and brown girls and can be liberating for us!!!! stop saying it can't be you racist fuck

i see people rbing this post but can you plsssss rb it with this addition as well. i feel like the first one is kind of messy and i make more sense of it w this rb pls rb this addition!!!!

god, stuff like this is such a punch to the gut. i usually don’t feel that emotionally affected by comments like this other than being angry at them, but it’s so different when it’s someone i genuinely really respect, who seems to be very conscious of these things, who’s making a point of being a vocal ally, and they still just don’t see how people really treat us.

so much of the current legislation against trans healthcare (i would argue the vast majority of it, if not literally all of it) is founded upon denial of our bodily autonomy and fearmongering about our transitions. people call us predators and abusers for having and feeding our children. a huge number of people pretty recently jumped on a singular incidence of violence as “proof” that testosterone turns us all into evil monsters. people talk about how we’re stealing our bodies from them and say that if they could just grope us or have sex with us, we’d see that we’re really women. we ask for something as simple as the use of language that includes us so that we can better access the healthcare we need, and even that is asking too much.

but sure, people don’t really have a problem with us being men, so everyone can just stop bothering with affirming that we are who we say we are because clearly people are already on board with that idea, right?

and of course, it’s upsetting on a personal (one might say parasocial) level because it just sucks to see someone you respect openly state that they don’t think the things happening to your community are really happening. that was the initial reaction i had — i know this is one person, a fallible person, who i have no true relationship with, but it still feels like a betrayal of some sort to read that.

the thing that really gets me, though, is that there are a lot of people who trust him (whether rightly or not) to be a good source of info, and a lot of those people are going to see this and just take it at face value. they’re not going to look into it, they’re just going to accept that people really don’t have a problem with us and they’re going to feel empowered to look the other way when we’re under attack. i’m sure he wouldn’t want people to take the things he says at face value without fact-checking them, but the fact remains that most people will do just that and will proceed to not give a shit about us because they don’t think they have to.

it’s one thing to see this coming from some random person. it’s another entirely when it’s someone you already liked and respected, and who has a large audience who are likely to trust the things they say.

and it just…would’ve been so easy to not say it, to just say “they’re men!” and let that message stand without immediately undermining its importance.

?? Maybe I'm misunderstanding but this comes across as "a lot of the transphobic media storm at the minute focuses on trans women and headlines that sensationalise and try to spin things as men using hormones to cheat at women's sports/enter women's bathrooms with ill intentions etc" rather than "trans men are Men Lite or trans men don't suffer the same level of transphobia"

Is there a better way he could've said this? Sure. Is this the worst possible thing ever/evidence that he's actually transphobic? I certainly don't think so.

the way i see it, there are two main problems with what he said:

it’s absolutely true that a lot of the current transphobic media storm is targeting trans women. it’s also true that a lot of the current transphobic political rhetoric is targeting trans men. if we want to combat the attacks on our community, we have to be able to acknowledge both of those things together rather than trying to quantify it and making broad statements about who “has it worse”.

by saying that people don’t have as much of a problem with us, he is absolutely saying that we don’t suffer the same level of transphobia. and yeah, that’s an easy lie to unknowingly buy into because of how erased our issues are, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it when someone does fall for it, especially when they have such a large following.

don’t get me wrong, i absolutely love hank green and i want to assume the absolute best intentions possible. that’s why it hurt so much to see this, because no matter how well-meant the statement was, the harm still stands. i don’t think this means he’s A Generally Transphobic Person by any means, but that doesn’t change the fact that in this instance, he contributed to transphobia against trans men and that needs to be talked about.

and the fact that other people in the notes have already said this also really hurt them to read should tell you that i’m not just talking out of my ass or blowing it out of proportion. the harm caused by some forms of transphobia can be hard to see, but that’s what makes them so dangerous and so important to point out when we do see them.

a big part of why trans men's issues are less known is because trans men are under visible. hyper visibility of trans women causes unique issues just like under visibility. but neither is a privelage.

pride month reminder that trans men r not ur human meat shields. trans men deserve advocacy and safety.

someone who isn’t a trans man: transphobes pity trans men, they don’t call you predators or accuse you of going after kids!

transphobes seeing a trans man literally just breastfeeding his own child:

(the truth is, they think we’re all disgusting. they think we’re all horrible predators who deserve to be locked up or dead. any claims they make of caring about us are lies — it’s nothing more than a cover story.

if this kind of vitriol being targeted directly at a trans man doesn’t fit into your understanding of how transphobia works, it’s time to update your understanding.)

if a transphobe is trying to act sympathetic/concerned/pitying (gag) of trans men, it is a good chance that they are a terf trying to fucking indoctrinate more people into their fucked up little world. and that’s if they think the person is “salvageable” to the terf mind to try to shame and convince them they’re just a self hating lesbian.

and if they know you’re “too far gone” or just transphobic on the whole in a different way, there’s the above. don’t give them a goddamn inch. they hate all of us. and even if they didn’t, we cannot sell out our sisters for our own false sense of reassurance. 

If they didn't hate all of us, you would be a mother fucking traitor either way.

I am, generally, a person that will say "live and let live" to most things

Hate is not one of them. Infighting is not one of them. And there's a shit ton of people like me who will not stand with you.

Don't be the transphobe you feared growing up to others, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars.