#transmascs
idk who needs to hear this but testosterone is not poison, it did not poison you, you just didn’t like the effects it had on you
as it is, testosterone is highly controlled (to the detriment of countless trans men/mascs trying to access hrt) because the fearmongering about its effects is so prevalent
it’s literally illegal for us to have it without a doctor’s permission, and even its controlled status is used to get in the way of us being able to access it (delaying when we can refill prescriptions, etc)
how do so many people see that think it’s like…all fun and games and totally harmless to talk about it like a literal poison?
even if none of that were true, it would be shitty — i wish every day that i could get top surgery and undo what estrogen did to my chest but you don’t see me calling it poison just because i don’t like it’s effects! and why don’t i? because i know my experiences aren’t universal and me not liking it doesn’t make it poison, so i’m not going to shit on it and make the people who like/need it feel bad!
but ESPECIALLY when fearmongering about testosterone has led to legal restrictions that have fucked so many of us over AND there have been so many attacks on transitioning access recently, how do people not see that talking about it that way is bad?
access to testosterone is incredibly precarious for many many people right now because its status as a controlled substance makes it a particularly easy target for people who want to stop us from transitioning — there’s never a right time for comments like that, but even if there was, *right now is not it*
not to mention, the most recent example of this rhetoric that i’ve seen (the one that inspired this) is especially disturbing because it’s literally a trans person looking at a shirt made by a transphobe calling testosterone poison and saying “oh that’s perfect for me!”
like…how can you look at something made by a transphobe (which was made with the sole purpose of being transphobic), think “i love this! perfect for me!”, and not realize that there’s something Very Wrong With That?
i have so little patience left for this bullshit at this point. i want to be understanding because i know dysphoria sucks and testosterone’s effects are super painful for some people, but i just don’t have it in me
testosterone is not poison, it’s a very natural hormone which most (if not all) people have in their bodies in some capacity, and for some of us the effects of it are genuinely so healing and just…generally wonderful
i’ve been on t for almost two months now and i’m fucking THRILLED! i love what it’s done so far! my therapist of almost 7 years said she’s never seen me smile as much as i do now! my voice has only just started dropping and i’ve already gone from hating the sound of it to almost crying from happiness when i hear it sometimes because it sounds so much more right!
does that sound like the effects of a poison to you? no! of course it doesn’t! because it’s not a poison, it’s a fundamentally neutral hormone that some people will love, some will hate, and some will be totally indifferent to. there’s nothing inherently bad about it, no matter how much you personally disliked it
if you care about trans men and transmascs like…literally at all, you should be advocating for testosterone to be descheduled, not adding to the demonization of it that allowed them to restrict it in the first place
why shit on something that’s been so incredibly life-changing (and life-saving) to do many members of your community, which so many of us have had to fight to get, when you could do literally anything else?
deeply deeply exhausted with the way everyone seems to think it’s perfectly okay to relentlessly make fun of how trans men and transmasc people look
i see it everywhere, from cis people and other trans people (including other trans men and transmascs — thanks internalized transphobia). no one has any qualms about just…throwing as many “jokes” and criticisms at us as they possibly can. if it boils down to calling transmasculinity ugly, it’s fair game to them and i’m sick of it
no one wants to hear about how bad you think our facial hair is. no one wants to hear your comments about our acne or hairlines. no one wants to hear about how upset you would be if you had our scars. no one wants to hear about how gross you think bottom growth is. nobody asked for your opinions on our bodies so please stop sharing them!
and of course, it’s all part of this larger idea that transmasculinity is something to be mocked and rejected. the comments about our voices, our names, our clothes, our hair, everything — nothing about us is free from being ridiculed in one way or another
but the criticisms of our bodies in particular have been on my mind lately as i’ve started seeing changes from t, and it’s absolutely exhausting seeing all these things that i really like (or at least feel neutral about) and knowing that the rest of the world, including members of my own community, will see them as my body being ruined
leave our bodies alone. we’re literally just sitting here existing, that’s not an invitation for you to make every joke you can think of and pick apart every inch of us
the “jokes” aren’t funny, y’all just have a fucking pathetic sense of humor
Mfs are like “I totally see trans men as men” and then perform cringe culture against anything associated with transmascs with the same vigorous vitriol they’d do to boy bands or YA
Pro-tip to young trans guys:
If a stranger misgenders you, please please please do not ever utter the phrase, “I’m a man.” It sounds very unnatural and immediately sounds overly defensive.
My advice? Just look at the person like they’re an idiot and, in the deepest voice possible, say, “Uh. Alright, then.”
Just act as though they made a huge and obvious mistake, and don’t get flustered. If you’re comfortable with it, handle the situation with humor and say something like, “Man, I know I’ve got a babyface, but I didn’t think it was thatbad.”
and if someone doesn’t believe u, say you have a hormonal imbalance + are on meds for it. it’s quick, believable, and most ppl are too uncomfortable discussing health problems with strangers to question it.
THIS POST, hang on somewhere is the notes is a sentence that changed my whole fucking life! I don’t have time to dig for it right now but
Can’t find it, going to just going to explain it. I’ve been out for like 4 and a half years. I saw this post when I was Freshly Out, and this post has been so deep in my fucking rat brain for actual years.
You have to react like you’re not expecting to be misgendered. It’s hard and it’s weird, because I know, you walk out into the world very aware and afraid of how the cis people are going to perceive you. But deadass there is a “Wow, that stranger has made a bold call there” mentality that, yeah it’s a fake it till you make it type of deal. But once I internalized that, I genuinely don’t even hear people misgendering me most of the time.
I’m nonbinary, most of the time my gender presentation priorities are Have Fun and Look Queer.
The first time I noticed that being misgendered slides off my brain like a wet duck I was in a 7/11 and a cashier tried to direct me to the cardboard drink sleeves while I was like 3rd or 4th in line (yeah it was kinda weird, I was holding a large hot coffee in my bare hand and I guess it freaked the dude out, but like my hands are actually really heat resistant I was fine, anyway) He said several variations on “Mam, would you like a cardboard sleeve for your coffee, they’re right there” and I legitimately did not process that he could possibly be talking to me until he tried something like “the one in the red hat” and then I tuned back in and declined the heat protectant sleeve. (I do not know why this human man was so insistent that I needed a heat protection cardboard sleeve, and I’m gathering that me totally zoned the fuck out to his multiple attempts to get my attention holding something that he apparently thought was made out of fucking lava probably had the exact Genderless Eldritch Horror effect that we all know and love)
I accidentally also did this to one of my professors a couple weeks ago, I was given an instruction with she/her pronouns in it, purely by accident, this professor genuinely does right by his trans students as best he can, but I legitimately did not even process that it was for me until he repeated it with they/them.
This compared with a couple years ago a different professor slipped up and used me in an example to the class with she/her pronouns and I literally barely held myself together until the end of the class, made it 4 steps out the door and started silently crying.
It feels fucking powerful in a “that should have hurt, and I didn’t even notice, cis people have no power over me” way. I have a little piece of the security that cis people have in the way that they interact with the world. And that is absolutely precious.
It takes untraining years of social conditioning, and pretending that you can’t fathom that someone would use those words on you, that no one has ever said that to you before and the words are so foreign that they mean nothing to you.
And yeah I started out begging my body not to flinch when a stranger calls out “mam”, and practicing a moment of confusion and unaffected disbelief when cashiers would ask if I found everything I was looking for “young lady” and deliberately ignoring the incorrect gendered terms. And you know op’s “Just look at the person like they’re an idiot, break out the deep voice and say “Um, alright then”” it will feel fake at first.
Butfuckat some point it stops being an act, and that feels fucking bulletproof.
