đ Right-wing trans woman finds out "gender-criticals" cannot be reasoned with
...I could have told you that đ¤ˇ
Source: https://x.com/BriannaWu/status/1984574165643403370
Not my usual kind of source (Xitter), but I want any centrists out there who ask trans people to "just get along" / compromise with actual hate groups that want them eradicated to know that it doesn't work.
There is no such thing as a reasonable bigot, by definition.
148 replies
This is why advocating for "finding middle ground", or centrism, or this repackaged warmed over Abundance crap is so toxic.
You can't match these people half way. you have to beat them
Most arguments have a middle ground, but its a case by case basis. In this case the sides are:
let a marginalized group experience a little joy and feel comfortable in their bodies
refuse to accept that a middle school understanding of gender and biology might not be totally correct.
Meeting in the middle here is how you get second class citizens.
I see a lot of (often well deserved) shit talk about centrists/middle ground. Honestly, it IS silly to talk about middle ground between reason and raw hate. I do, however, doubt myself if I look around and find myself spouting the most extreme ideas on a given topic. How isnt that scary to people? I dont want to be the fanatic. I was raised with talk about the middle path and the golden mean. Virtue in courage is found between recklessness and cowardice. I still subscribe to that notion, but absolutely recognize how one can lull themselves into false means based on the prevailing culture (Overton window). Still, I dont see how it is that hard to have some bedrock principals, and use those to anchor a true middle ground.
Beat them with rods is the only method.
(Not sarcasm)
Political centrism works well in a staunch democracy with a certain Overton window. As soon as these Alt-Righters have influence in a country, it doesn't work anymore.
Itâs sad sheâs so close but still on âI want a middle ground on these issuesâ really? LikeâŚ. She is okay with a little disrespect? A little discrimination?
Just a little second class citizen, as a treat.
Taking the middle ground with Nazis is saying you want the holocaust to happen but only three million jews should die.
She is desperate for a place that she can be considered "one of the good ones" with the implicit idea of "there are bad ones and they deserve to be treated worse than the good ones". She doesn't understand that the world builds rules on foundational ideas that are just straw men dressed in stereotypes - no one bothers with distinction.
Whatâs more, if she would just embrace who she is, reject the bigots, and joins the lgbt communityâŚ. She will find people who will treat her well. And maybe together maybe we can build a better worldâŚ..
just like Jenner wants, a little here and there. still not palatable to magats though.
First off, Brianna Wu is not my sister or comrade, so she can write that down.
They're not, they just don't feel the need to hide those parts of their goals any more, and you should have listened to us when we warned you about those goals.
And you should be listening to us now about their future goals.
They kinda are. Not at the fringes, there used to be targeted outing campaigns in the hopes of getting trans people fired or killed back in the day, but what was once extreme personal bigotry has become a pipeline and is increasingly legitimized by mainstream right wing politics. If you ask the average bush era republican if the medical establishment should be forced to institutionalize trans people, they'd reply with a slur for sure but they'd not support overriding medical institutions.
Goldwater was absolute dogwater but he was right about republicans in 1981âŚ
âOn religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs."
"Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
Even after all of that, she still doesn't get it:
The problem is that "our" (using quotes as I'm only progressive, not LGBTQ+) most extreme ideas are only held by a minority of progressive people, and meanwhile the things she thinks are their "most extreme ideas" are the ones that she saw personally, while interacting with people who don't mind interacting with a trans-woman. Those aren't their "most extreme ideas." They're their mainstream ideas.
She's comparing our most extreme ideas against their mainstream ideas.
I'm not sure who she's referring to when she says our there but whoever it is would be insane to invite her in with that take
Also, she doesn't say what our most extreme ideas are. The most extreme idea she mentions is allowing trans-women to compete in women's sports. But I think that's probably a mainstream belief, and also the one that is best supported by science.
(Meanwhile, the most extreme idea of theirs that she mentions is that trans-women should face non-stop violent rape if they go to prison.)
If I were to try to define the most extreme positions held by any in our community (in regards to trans issues), they might be:
Bathroom access based on identity only. Very few people are actually like this. But some folks would say that all that is needed to switch bathrooms is identifying as a different gender. So it's perfectly acceptable for a person dressed in male clothing, with a beard, using a deep voice, etc. to use the women's restroom as long as they identify as female. Very few trans folks would be caught dead doing that. Most recognize that there is a certain give and take, a negotiation of social spaces. I imagine most would say you shouldn't have to pass in order to use the bathroom, but most would recognize that it's going to cause a ton of unnecessary friction and hate if someone fully masculine-presenting uses the women's restroom. I don't think people who can't pass should be banished from the bathroom that matches their identity. But I myself would be very uncomfortable sharing the women's restroom with an entirely masculine-presenting person, trans or not.
Unrealistic/impractical pronoun expectations. Some folks confuse "gender is a social construct" with "nothing is real and nothing matters." Pronouns are a social construct. That doesn't mean they mean nothing; it means they have socially constructed definitions. If I invent a new pronoun tomorrow and start demanding others call me it, that isn't a social construction. That's just something I invented and am now imposing on others without their participation or consent. In order to socially construct something, there must be a meeting of the minds, a shared milieu of understanding. A pronoun, if you expect people to actually use it, can't be something you just invented. It has to be something negotiated among a large number of people. This is why the pronouns people tend to actually use are he, she, and they. Most others get little use beyond extremely online teenagers. Pronouns are meant to be shorthand for characteristics of your identity. If your pronoun is so unique that no one has any idea what the hell it means, you're not using a pronoun, you're just using a nickname.
Sports based purely on identity with no qualifiers. I support trans women playing on women's teams and trans men playing on men's teams. But that's not just because of identity, but because I recognize that the science says that trans women don't have any advantages after a few years on HRT. I wouldn't however support trans women who still have male testosterone levels competing on women's teams. That's just about basic fairness. But, some would say that it's just sports, and that respect for identity matters more than athletic fairness, and that no one should have to seek out medical treatment they may not otherwise want. Fair enough, but I would disagree.
Still, these are extremes. The vast, vast majority of trans people wouldn't switch bathrooms before at least changing their presentation, use pronouns they can actually expect other people to use, and wouldn't expect to switch sports teams without altering their own hormones. If TERFs really were interested in compromise, these are the issues we could compromise on. So maybe we restrict bathrooms based on legal identity, but in turn we make it really easy to change your legal identity, say up to once per year. And we have clear social expectations about the rules of bathrooms. So it's OK if you don't fully pass, but you shouldn't be rocking a beard in the women's restroom. Or, we come to a compromise on pronouns. You can have your close friends call you whatever you want, but the only pronouns you should expect others to recognize are the broad and generic he, she, and they. We compromise by, for example, making it workplace harassment to not respect someone's pronouns. But in turn we trans people also don't demand that people learn hundreds of new pronouns or start referring to human beings as inanimate objects. Or, we regulate sports, but we don't try to ban trans people from sports all together. We follow the science that says trans women have no advantage after a few years on E. You can't change your teams based purely on self-ID, but we do give trans men and women a clear and open path to participate fully and equally in athletics.
If TERFs and other conservatives really were just looking for a reasonable compromise, these are the types of issues we could compromise on. But, as the post notes, you give these bastards an inch and they'll take a mile.
My proposition to solve the bathroom issue is making gendered bathrooms illegal and mandating proper cubicle walls that guarantee privacy. The harassment that gender neutral bathrooms are claimed to cause is vastly exagerrated by the right wing. It does not outweigh the harassment towards gender minorities that gendered bathrooms cause.
I would love to know what those extreme left ideas that are bad are. Like 99% of progressive ideas boil down to "stop treating other people like shit."
"You know, I'm starting to think these ethnicity-critical Nazis can't be reasoned with."
once again ignoring entirely that trans masc people exist and we are impacted by the bullshit she spouts as well. what impacts one of us affects all of us, and I am not your fucking sister.
Transmascs aren't part of her personal experience. That makes sense to me. Also they are not the primary enemy of the Anti-Trans people.
In the same way that lesbians weren't the "primary enemy" of Anti-Gay people. They ate shit all the same.
Yes.
In a negotiation its important to ask for more than you want. Compromise is what you reach during negotiations. If you start your negotiations from a pre-compromised position, you're just ceding ground to the other side.
Support the extremists. Support those who go too far and ask too much, as that's the only way to reach a fair and reasonable compromise.
Congrats, you have a better grasp of negotiation than a 6-figure-salary consultant contracted to the DNC.
Oh, they ask for more than they want.
For those who are not familiar with Brianna Wu: She has tried to be a left-wing grifter, before she discovered that it got her nowhere and thus decided to be a right-wing grifter instead. She tried to the right-wing's "good trans woman", agreeing with everything they said, until the above message. And yeah, she is already trying to spin this yet again...
And if you think that all of that is rather weird, she is also the creator of this masterpiece.
Had to read that a couple of times for it to sink in.
what the hell was that last image
I just replied to another comment with this but I'll put it as a top level comment here because I think it's important.
I want MORE right wing idiots to realize they're wrong and join our camp. The more the better. Remember, these people are still our neighbors, they still exist and we will have to interact with them outside our homes. I want more reasonable people, so when we do have converts, please receive them with open arms.
Okay, you were a huge idiot, but welcome to sanity part 1. Of they're big enough to realize they were wrong (and they've had a LOT of brainwashing, it takes a lot for them to snap out of the crazy) we should be big enough to say bygones.
I understand the want for revenge because they were "the enemy". I understand, they were a huge asshole and now we have to play nice with them? That doesn't sound fair! But I think we have to, we want to welcome more idiots into sanity and reason. The less idiots out there, the better. And for what it's worth, there are people that listen to her, if they can now be on the side of reason, they can pull a lot more people with them.
If we don't we'll make it harder for people to move out of the right wing camp, and I want much much less people in the right wing camp
Maybe in general, but in this case Wu is a far right genocidal fascist, and not just on trans issues. And it certainly doesn't seem like she's changing that except on the one issue that affects her personally. A trans woman fascist is still a fascist, you shouldn't get points for carving out an exception to your fascism to protect yourself personally.
Part of the problem is, this is not the first time this assault on minorities has happened; and many of the people who voted for Trump were previously thought of as allies who were reformed.
We can even scare our own allies by âmaking niceâ with villains. I remember hearing out a very betrayed voter whose core issue of dismay was hearing Gavin Newsom get cowed by Joe Rogan into saying supporting Trans people was a mistake.
People like Joe Rogan have HURT them. I want you to picture having someone that ruined your life, and picture what itâs like to have them sleeping in your home, based on nothing more than âHey, bud. Weâre good now, right?â
There's a difference between "making nice" in the sense of compromising values as you mention and between giving them a chance to prove they can grow out of their hateful mindset. They'll have to work for that trust, but we should be willing to forgive and accept them back if they show genuine change.
It wouldn't be directly moving into your home, but more like the general neighbourhood. If they turn it good neighbours, then their past hostilities can serve as a lesson and an object study, but shouldn't eternally shackle them.
We should also understand that some people can't forgive some wounds. Just because it's the ideal doesn't mean it will, can or even has to be fully attained.
A good compromise is never just halfway between two policies. It requires understanding both perspectives and addressing their actual problems. So the compromise here would be trans rights for trans people, and free mental health care for anti-trans people.
The Trans Athlete debate also never seems to address the fact that it's all unfair from the get go. Being born to a poor family? Being born with a birth defect? Being born into an unsupportive family/community? Being born at the wrong time of year?
It also shouldn't matter how well someone does in sports. No athlete is using their skills in the work place and students shouldn't need athletics scholarships to pay for school. It should just be for fun with nothing on the line.
In the real world, it doesn't even cause a real fairness issue. The Olympics started allowing trans competitors in the 90s, but there's never been a trans medal winner. If there was a real advantage, then you'd expect the best person at some sports in some counties to be trans, so there to be trans athletes competing, and their advantage to put them on the podium. You'd also potentially expect some countries to pad their team with trans people to get more medals. This hasn't happened.
I think you're kind of confusing trans people and people with DSDs. The Olympics stopped doing sex testing themselves in the 90's. There have been a few biological males with DSDs that won women's medals in the Olympics though. All 3 medals for the women's 800m at the 2016 Rio Olympics were awarded to biological males, Caster Semenya, Francine Niyonsaba, and Margaret Wambui. Likewise, Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting are also biologically male (not trans as some people incorrectly claimed) and notably won gold in 2024. They were all wrongly assigned female at birth but have the physical advantages of male puberty.
Ana Caldas is a more specific example of why trans people that are biologically male have an insurmountable advantage in the women's category.
This is a lie. Wikipedia links to no fewer than 3 sources that confirm this is a lie. I will be blocking you.
"Those cheering fans have embraced Khelif throughout her run in Paris even as she faced an extraordinary amount of scrutiny from world leaders, major celebrities and others who have questioned her eligibility or falsely claimed she was a man." -- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/algerian-boxer-imane-khelif-fights-for-olympic-gold-after-enduring-abuse-fueled-by-misinformation
'The participation of Algeria's Khelif and Taiwan's Lin has proved controversial given they were disqualified from the 2023 World Championships.
"Let's be very clear, we are talking about women's boxing," said Bach at Saturday's daily IOC briefing.
"We have two boxers who are born as a woman, who have been raised as a woman, who have a passport as a woman and who have competed for many years as a woman.
"This is the clear definition of a woman. There was never any doubt about them being a woman."' -- https://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/articles/c28e88jdprno
'Khelif and a second boxer, Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting, fell foul of IBA eligibility rules [...].
[...] a March 2023 IBA board meeting stated that "the athletes do not meet one of the eligibility criteria", without stating which one.' -- https://www.reuters.com/sports/olympics/who-is-algerian-boxer-imane-khelif-2024-08-03/
Right, they were incorrectly assigned female at birth and raised as women but are biologically male, because
I'm confused as to why you think those quotes support your point. The sex testing was done by an accredited lab, and is the eligibility criteria they do not meet.
The sources people cite for Imane Khelif being biologically male are:
People have claimed sex testing was done by an accreddited independent lab, but chasing that citation just leads to the IBA saying she was disqualified without elaborating why, which doesn't support the claim.
There's no actual evidence to support the speculation. That doesn't mean it's untrue, but does mean it's unreasonable to present it as fact - there's just as much evidence for alternative speculation, e.g. that she bribed the opponent to forfeit and was disqualified by the IBA because they found she'd bribed people to forfeit in the past, and it would be just as unreasonable to spread that rumour I just invented around as if it were fact.
JK Rowling/IBA/etc don't matter, they're just noise. The sex test is what matters. Chasing that citation shows this
https://www.3wiresports.com/articles/2025/6/1/xxyetyl1aewfij823hnfdrsbi1sqjm
And note this correction (from the IOC!), which straightforwardly implies that it's a DSD case
The weight of evidence strongly points towards Imane Khelif being biologically male. It doesn't mean the IBA isn't corrupt, JK Rowling isn't terrible etc, but none of that matters.
The trans athlete debate was a solved problem before the right wing learned about it. Let the professional authority body of whatever sport, in collaboration with relevant medical professionals, determine what hormone levels or transition progress is qualifying or unqualifying in each individual sport in a case by case basis. Because we tried this before, with genetic testing of Olympic female athletes and enough turned out intersex or androgyn disordered that they stopped doing it.
Is Brianna wu grifting to the left because she realizes there isn't a place for her on the right anymore? I'm a bit too cynical to believe this is legitimate since the right has been like this for quite a while. Just with the trump admin the center right position on the trans movement is not a profitable option for pundits anymore
If this truly is a come to Jesus moment, I'll believe it if she can back it up over time
My attitude after the last election is trust no republican, they'll go back the second they can while crying to the left when they're being mistreated by their own.
I hope youâre right!
Wu is just the latest poster child for Reactionary Uncle Tom washouts. There's internet graveyards full of would-be pundits and ex-liberal turncoats who realized far too late that The Log Cabin Republicans and Blacks for Trump weren't going to protect them when fascists came knocking.
The thing you need to recognize about Wu - more than anything else - is that she comes from money. Look at my Porsche collection money. She's reactionary because that's where she eats. And pivoting her identity as a Trans Woman into an income stream as a reactionary poster is just the path failkids of the GenZ+ generations are trained into.
Brianna Wu is a product of her material conditions. In a better world, she wouldn't be able to horde wealth at her neighbors' expense. And she wouldn't have an economic incentive to fuck over her Trans peers in hopes of maintaining her precarious position among the wealthy elites.
Though I agree with you, i think there has to be a pragmatic aspect to this
I want MORE right wing idiots to realize they're wrong and join our camp. The more the better. Remember, these people are still our neighbors, they still exist and we will have to interact with them outside our homes. I want more reasonable people, so when we do have converts, please receive them with open arms.
Okay, you were a huge idiot, but welcome to sanity part 1. Of they're big enough to realize they were wrong (and they've had a LOT of brainwashing, it takes a lot for them to snap out of the crazy) we should be big enough to say bygones.
If we don't we'll make it harder for people to move out of the right wing camp, and I want muchuch less people in the right wing camp
I don't think she's a "right wing idiot" or that she's seriously joining anyone's camp. She's just an influencer trying to pull a new source of revenue.
She was wrong, certainly. But the play - sucking up to right-wing oligarchs in hopes of a six or seven digit payday down the line - wasn't stupid. It was a calculated risk that failed to pay out.
This isn't an issue of physical camps. She's not joining a military and putting on a uniform. She's fishing for dupes to send her money, because her old income streams have dried up.
This is less "winning someone over to a camp" and more "trying to bribe an unreliable mercenary".
The fact that she's admitting she was wrong about the one issue that personally affects her doesn't mean she's not a genocidal fascist anymore.
Not my sister.
i like how sheâs still worried about "our extreme ideas"
what extreme ideas??? that trans women should compete in womenâs sports??? the extreme idea that trans women are women???
iâd say my most extreme idea is that trans kids should be able to start HRT when they (and their cis peers) start puberty. and thatâs only an extreme idea if you believe that trans kids are less deserving of a normal puberty than cis kids.
I realize this isn't exactly the point of the thread but you offered the opinion so I assume you're OK with expanding on it. If not that's alright too.
How do you reconcile the ideas that children:
To be clear, this isn't meant to be an antagonistic question in any way. I haven't given much thought to the topic and it seems like you have so I am interested in hearing your perspective.
Underage sex and HRT are not really comparable.
That said I advocate for puberty blockers rather than HRT for adolescents myself. That allows them to safely postpone their decision if they are unsure and lets them decide when they are adults.
I'm not a doctor though, it's best to ask an endocrinologist (I think) to determine what's best for a child.
You're right. We should put all teenagers on puberty blockers until age 18. The high E or T spikes that occur with natal puberty dramatically change the body. And, we know that people absolutely can have puberty safely delayed for a long time. The AVERAGE age for girls to reach menarche was 17-18 before the industrial revolution. We actually have kids going through puberty at an age that is radically young by historical standards.
So we should put all kids, cis or trans, on puberty blockers. That way we don't have to worry about a cis kid mistakenly starting transition, or a trans kid not realizing they're trans in time and having to go through a natal puberty. Everyone just puts off puberty until they're done with high school. As a bonus, no more teen pregnancy!
/s
But really, the answer to your question is that it's poorly framed. We do let children, well specifically teenagers, consent to sex. But, just like trans healthcare, we do it in very carefully controlled settings. Teenagers are going to have sex. That's something that is simply going to happen. So in sane places, we have kids go through sex education. We teach them safe sex practices and teach them on healthy relationship patterns. And we try to encourage any teens that do choose to be sexually active to use protection and get on birth control. Oh, and we legally regulate teen sex without trying to ban it. We pass Romeo and Juliet laws that try to thread the needle. You don't want 40 year olds sleeping with 12 year olds, but you also don't want to put a 15-year old on the sex offender registry for sleeping with their 14-year old classmate. You use your brain, don't fall for moral panics, and try to design systems that navigate a very complex ethical landscape.
And really it's the same here. We're talking about people in the exact same age range - people 12-18. And we handle gender-affirming care for minors with a similar complexity and intelligence. We don't let 12 year old trans boys go on Amazon and order up vials of T shots. But we also don't infantilize trans kids either. We have them go through therapy and clinical assessment. We have clinical guidelines on what treatment is appropriate when. And most importantly, we don't fall for the naturalistic fallacy, which you have done. We recognize that just because something is natural does not mean it is good or desirable. Forcing a trans kid to go through a natal puberty is just as cruel and barbaric as dosing a cis kid with cross-sex hormones against their will. And we recognize that barbarity of telling 100 trans kids that they simply have to go through the trauma of natal puberty, just in case one of them happens to regret it later. In other words, we place equal value on the lives and well-being of cis kids and trans kids. You, however, seem to follow the rule of "it is acceptable for a hundred trans kids to suffer through Hell on Earth if it prevents one cis kid from mistakenly transitioning." You fundamentally do not place equal value on the lives of cis and trans people.
It works the same way that children approach other invasive medical interventions. If there's great harm and a costly intervention, then child, parents, and doctors work to decide if the intervention is appropriate. As a nice black and white example, it would be unthinkable to avoid giving a young leukemia patient chemotherapy where necessary.
Thus, the threat of harm has to be measured, and the danger of the treatment has to be measured. This happens. We understand that cases of gender dysphoria can cause real harm. These are only diagnosed when a child demonstrates a "persistent, insistent, and consistent" transgender identity. The doctors working with these children do the due diligence to ensure these are real cases with a strong need: the cases where we would be doing harm by failing to act.
Puberty blockers, despite unwarranted infamy, are excellent for buying a little time to ensure the proper judgement. These do not usually have permanent consequences. Other HRT treatments can be applied when we have high confidence that they are preventing harm. Again, that's pretty much like any other invasive pediatric treatment.
We don't want compromise with the far-right. We want FULL POLITICAL POWER đŞđź
Nah I don't think we need full political power. I'd settle not giving it to anyone on the right at the moment. Lets not have any more societal backsliding at least.
You don't move the Overton window in the direction you want by preemptively moderating yourself. You move it by taking a more extreme position perhaps even than you actually want, in order to normalize it.
Make the middle ground billionaires are humanely executed.
What The hell are extreme Position on "trans people" that come from trans people themselves? Such extreme stuff like "just let everyone life the way they want and dont be fucking dick?"
I seriously have no fucking clue what she could mean that might be somewhat controversial. The only thing I could think of is stuff like "chop everyone's dick off" but that's more like extreme feminism and not just "extreme trans".
I think that people like to imagine this opposite dangerous "extreme" to validate that they can have the right to hold their problematic values. But that other extreme is basically a boogeyman. I hear from frienda and family on every subject "oh but we should be careful to not go too far in the other extreme". As if it was a real threat. Not only because we are so closer to right wing extremism at the moment but also because how can caring about other people can be "too extreme".
The problem with compromising for a âmiddle groundâ is that, when the right decide to re-litigate the issue (if they ever stop litigating to begin with), your starting position is now that middle ground. Compromising for a middle ground simply moves the Overton window to the right.
Here is what you should do, Brianna:
Delete your twitter and never post about trans issues again. When you have been so consistently wrong about about something for such a long time, it is the best thing for everyone to simply accept that you shouldn't be part of the conversation anymore rather than trying to claw your way back into it.
(I know she isn't actually reading.)
Importantly there is an immediate follow up tweet,
I'm glad she was able to admit she was wrong, that's absolutely a step in the right direction, but it's just a step. I don't want to speak of behalf of "trans sisters", but I certainly wouldn't consider the matter closed. She's apologized, great, but there is A LOT more work to be done.
Well she was able to admit that she was probably wrong.
Me over here with actually somewhat radical positions.
All HRT should be available OTC. (Yes, including T.)
A parent denying a child access to puberty blockers should be required to pay reparations if the child continues to identify as trans into adulthood.
Require unisex bathrooms for any business larger than a bananna stand.
I'm going to push back on OTC HRT because of the health risks. Supraphysiologic estrogen and testosterone can both have lethal side effects, so correct dosing and monitoring for health complications are essential components of trans healthcare.
Both are already OTC in most of the world, specifically most developing countries.
More importantly, you are applying an insane and bad-faith standard when assessing medication. ANY medication can have lethal side effects. Down a bottle full of Tylenol and you'll condemn yourself to a slow agonizing death of liver failure. Yet you can buy that shit at gas stations.
You answered the wrong question. You asked, "can HRT be dangerous?" Any rational person trying to form an unbiased opinion about it would ask, "is HRT of comparable risk to existing OTC medications?"
In countries besides America, Tylenol comes in blister packs of maybe 20 total pills per package in a lower dose than the American variation. The drug and marketing regulations here are not a good example and I think a lot of medications that are currently OTC need to be much more closely regulated or have things like the inconvenient packaging and MUCH better warnings on them for patient safety.
That being said, poorly managed (or un-managed) HRT has more potential for significant harm than most OTC medications. There are many complications that can come from exogenous hormone treatment for both trans and cis patients, and the risks need to be adequately assessed and managed. Estrogen significantly increases the risk of blood clots and strokes, and Testosterone drastically increases the risk of heart attack and organ failure if not dosed appropriately.
In no way do I intend to restrict trans healthcare, but most medications on the market in America need to be much more closely regulated than they are now because of the risks of harms that can vastly outweigh the benefits, especially when not dosed or monitored accurately.
You're spreading anti trans FUD. The risks are extremely modest. The risks you cite, like heart attack risk on T, are just from moving an FTM person from a female to make heart attack profile. Men have a greater risk of heart attack than women do. Having a male hormone profile gives you male health risks. But people like you like to spread fear by citing this as an effect of HRT.
You're portraying hrt as this crazy substance, but we're talking bioidentical hormones here. They are the same exact molecules that are produced naturally.
You are shamelessly spreading anti trans propaganda. Or take estrogen for example. Trans women raise their E levels to the 100-300 range, the normal female E range. Yet cis women, when pregnant, experience E levels 10-20 times those levels. The human body can handle very high levels of estrogen quite well. You can take 10x the recommended E dose and still be extremely unlikely to have any adverse effects from it.
Show me one single person that has died from the misuse of modern bioidentical hormones. Find me one. Because hrt is absolutely far safer than almost every otc medication out there. You can literally take 10x the recommended doses. That's how safe it is. It's safe because we're talking the exact same molecules that are made by the body.
There's a reason diy is so common among the trans community. Even most doctors are comically ignorant and repeat long disproven myths like the ones you repeat here.
HRT is extremely safe when dosed appropriately. As I said in another comment, I'm less worried about trans folks getting the HRT wrong than cis people taking a bunch of extra hormones because some influencer convinced them that more estrogen or more testosterone will fix all their health problems. Making something OTC makes it available to everyone, not just the people that need it. Trans people need HRT, cis people very rarely do.
And yet, other countries where HRT is OTC don't have an epidemic of cis kids dead from taking T and E. Your concern is purely hypothetical. Meanwhile we have real world data showing the risks of OTC HRT are minimal. And even cis people taking it have very low risks, comparable to other otc medications.
Social media leads people to do all sorts of stupid things. We don't ban bleach because someone might try and drink it to cure covid.
It isn't the cis kids I worry about. It's the menopausal woman in the emergency department with a DVT and PE from the estrogen she got online on the advice of her chiropractor. It's the man in his 50's that thought testosterone would fix his lost libido and fatigue that now has to get coronary artery stents because he got his dosing recommendations from body building influencers.
It's the real patients I have seen and treated that concern me when these hormones aren't even that freely available. It's not a hypothetical for me, it's real people that have suffered real harm even if they didn't die from it.
You can get lethal effects from nicotine, alcohol, bleach, ammonia, and many, many combinations of chemicals that are available with, at most, age verification.
I'm all for people educating themselves as much as they want, from whatever sources they trust, but bodily autonomy DEMANDS someone be able to direct their own medication, including gender affirming medication. Doctor-as-gatekeeper is, IMO, not as good a model as Doctor-as-confidant-and-educator.
As a soon-to-be physician that has sought training in trans healthcare, I do not see my role as gatekeeper, but the role of educator includes teaching about and monitoring for the risks and complications that can come from HRT. Estrogen and Testosterone are both powerful and potentially dangerous hormones and I do not want to see my trans patients dying from strokes or heart attacks that could have been prevented with more careful dosing of their HRT.
No one imagines they are the bad guy. But, if a patient asks for a drug and you deny it to them, you are being a gatekeeper. I imagine you are only doing this for "good reasons", but you are still violating their bodily autonomy.
To be clear: I am not saying this about HRT specifically because, most of the time, HRT is safe when dosed appropriately.
That being said, if I think a medication is going to be dangerous, harmful, or lethal to a patient and I prescribe it anyways, I am legally and morally liable for any harm that comes to them from that medication. I have had conversations with patients about weight loss drugs that they really want, but that would be extremely dangerous based on other comorbid conditions like heart problems or pancreas issues. If a patient asks me for something that I think is unsafe, I engage them in a discussion about why they want that medication, the risks and benefits of it, and possible alternatives that could be safer. If a patient is dead-set on getting a medication that is very likely to harm them, I'm not going to write that prescription because if the worst happened, their blood is on my hands.
It is very uncommon that physicians refuse to prescribe something that a patient is asking for specifically. The much more common situation ends up being that the physician can write the prescription, but insurance won't pay for it. There are obviously some physicians out there that refuse to prescribe things like birth control based on their personal beliefs, but they are obligated to refer that patient to a provider that will give them the prescription.
Then, you don't value bodily autonomy as much as I do, and will deny it to some of your patients, gatekeeping -- no matter what you "think" you are doing.
Does my ethical autonomy count for nothing? Am I really obligated under your worldview to harm my patients by acquiescing to their demands carte blanche?
Even as a medical student, I have had patients die in my care from things I couldn't do anything about. I had no way to save them because the medicine to fix the problem simply does not exist. As an ER tech, I have had multiple times where the physician running the code called the time of death while I was the one doing compressions on the patient. Most of those were children. I am already haunted by the patients I have lost through no malpractice, negligence, incompetence, or malice of my own. I refuse to intentionally add to my nightmares by doing something that I truly believe would harm my patient, even if it is what they are asking for.
DIY saved my life. I purchased bloodtests and monitored my own treatment. But it would have been a lot safer had I not needed to order estrogen online from a foreign supplier.
I am very glad that you were able to get your own care and didn't have any bad outcomes. On the other hand, I've had cis-female patients go to naturopaths or chiropractors to get estrogen and/or testosterone pellets for peri-menopause symptoms and they had no idea what the risks were. In the emergency department, I've had cis-female patients on estrogen replacement therapy that was not well managed show up with DVTs. Cis-male patients on supraphysiologic testosterone are at risk for several different kinds of organ failure along with a drastically increased risk of heart attacks.
I don't think that trans patients are terribly likely to harm themselves with DIY HRT, but having hormones available OTC is going to lead to a lot of cis people getting sick or getting killed by taking extra hormones to try to fix their problems because scammers and quacks have convinced them that hormones will magically fix all of their problems.
You're still focusing on risk and not relative risk. You're answering the wrong question. You are addressing whether HRT can have health risks. You're completely ignoring whether its health risks are in any way worse than other OTC medications. That is the question here. You'll die if you drink enough tap water. Do you have any evidence at all that HRT is riskier than other typical OTC medications? Cause I'm not seeing any here. Instead you're treating HRT as its own unique and special category, rather than just assessing it like very other medication.
I also said that many OTC medications need to be more strictly regulated. The American capitalistic approach to marketing drugs is obscene and needs to be heavily reigned in. HRT is not a special category of medication because every substance that has a desired effect also has side effects that need to be considered. Acetaminophen (aka paracetamol or Tylenol) in other countries is regulated similar to how pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) is regulated as in needing to get it from the pharmacist in limited quantities in individual blister packs. It is absurd how poorly controlled dangerous medications are in this country, but it's unlikely that will ever change because of the attitudes of American individualism and pharma lobbying groups.
I don't believe parents should be able to make any permanent decisions about a child's body.
This includes hormones, tattoos, genital mutilation of any kind, plastic surgery, piercings.
Children cannot provide consent for anything.
Unfortunately doing nothing is still a choice. And things aren't better just because they are natural.
It is morally abominable to believe that it is better for 100 trans kids to go through the Hell on Earth of the wrong puberty than for one cis kid to mistakenly go on puberty blockers or HRT. It shows that you fundamentally believe the life of 1 cis person to be worth the lives of 100 trans people. You do not believe in the equal moral value of every human life. You fundamentally, in your heart of hearts, believe trans people to be subhuman, because you do not place the value of their pain anywhere near that of cis people.
I think that ratio is an important one in this debate. Is it actually around 1% (of those reporting dysphoria ) that decide it was a mistake post puberty?
Also sorry if dysphoria is the wrong word.
HRT has a success rate over 90%, measured as more than 90% of people who go on HRT report an improvement in their quality of life compared to before HRT. Of that other roughly 10%, the majority report reasons outside of regret for stopping HRT. Things like: medical complications, financial reasons, loss of jobs or housing due to being visibly trans, loss of friends and family due to being trans, assault or rape, etc., and most report that they would start HRT again as soon as possible. Only a small portion of that 10% say that they regret taking HRT and that it was a mistake.
So is it literally 1%? I don't know, but it's certainly less than 10%, which gives HRT one of the highest success rates in the field of medicine. By comparison, antidepressants have a success rate somewhere around 36% and knee replacement surgery hovers a little over 50%.
The biggest regrets reported by those who take HRT are that they didn't start sooner, and/or being forced through an unwanted puberty with permanent life-altering effects as a child - which is why puberty blockers are a critical component of trans healthcare. Puberty blockers have been in use for young girls since the 80s for what's known as "precocious puberty" - when a girl starts puberty at a very young age, usually around 8 but can be as young as 4. Nobody cared when it was cis girls taking them so that they would start puberty at a normal age. But when trans people started taking them to avoid permanent, life-altering changes until they're old enough to consent to whether or not they want to go on HRT, puberty blockers suddenly became this untested drug being forced upon young boys by nefarious outside forces in the public eye.
Good thing puberty blockers are reversible.
But you don't actually care about that do you? You'll just move the goalposts.
I agree parents should not force kids to have piercings. However trans health is a healthcare issue, like other health conditions. There is a problem that is causing suffering. In healthcare, we typically rely on parents as guardians to give legal consent, but kids also have to give their "assent" which carries crucial moral weight in the situation. While kids might not have the capacity to give fully informed consent, they can give assent based on their best understanding.
We apply this to things like cancer treatment, corrective plastic surgery, counselling, and mental health medication for kids. Some of these can be even more permanent and life-altering than hormone blockers for kids (we don't allow bottom surgery for kids).
This is why transcare, like most healthcare for kids, should involve a team of healthcare professionals, guardians, and crucially the child themselves in patient-centered decision-making.
Do bad decisions happen? Yes. Are there misguided professionals, guardians, and kid patients? Yes. But this kind of care as standard is far better than parents deciding, or kids being left alone to figure it out themselves, or worse, policy-makers, who don't give a shit about evidence-based healthcare, deciding no trans kids get care. That's right, banning transcare is also making a decision for people with the consequence that trans kids continue to experience profound suffering without care.
Do you feel the same about all life saving medicine as you do about trans health care?
Sorry kid, we can't remove your appendix. Kids can't give consent and I can't give it as your parent. So, I guess you'll die.
You're right - which is why puberty blockers should be required by law for all children until they're 18 and can decide for themselves which puberty is right for them.
Children don't consent to being brought into existence and yet we constantly do so. They can't consent, as one reply pointed out, to medical care either.
Children can't consent to being refused anything that they ask for either.
And even if the denial is on the basis of "their own good" they'll grow to rightfully resent being denied things if it has a significant impact on them into adulthood and rightfully fucking hate their parents for it. Gender transitioning is one such thing.
Children are not ours to own and control and we owe them for dragging them into existence to critically think about their long term well being not just blindly applying some truism to every decision you make about their lives under your care.
I feel like I'd rather die for having to much faith in humanity than too little. And on that metric, I can't help but think BriannaWu was doing something right approaching right-wing nutjobs the way she did.
But more importantly, I'd rather not die in either of the aforementioned ways. What she did was definitely done out of (perhaps admirable) naĂŻvetĂŠ. And she's clearly grown as a person from the experience.
All that said, I don't know that she's got the best positions on everything. She says she believes that "trans women don't belong in women's sports" and she wants a "middle ground on bathrooms", both of which seem... problematic (even if the right wing wasn't so maximalist and radical about things.) And that part makes me wonder if the rest of the tweet was made in good faith, honestly.
Even if it is, she needs to sit her ass down and talk to other trans people irl. Like, this is terminally ill online brainrot and it's internet famous brainrot. Ms Wu needs therapy, she needs to go to a day of remembrance ceremony, and she needs to delete Twitter.
She comes to us as a sister again, but she still ain't treating us as one. We don't call each other family because it's some quirky thing, we do it because our community is filled with people who lost our families over this, where people we know will be buried with the wrong name. So yeah, she's my sister, but I don't think she thinks of us as such and I think she's been very out of touch with us for a long time.
Naaaah, she was throwing around the Cass Review last I checked (a year ago). This wasn't a virtuous arbitration between two differently informed parties. She's always done reactionary politicking and shouted "lalala cant hear you" whenever forced to break bread with mainstream trans advocacy.
Cheers to her if she's opened her eyes a bit, but I'm not holding my breath.
Ah, Brianna Wu. Theres a name Ive not heard in a while. Always looking to grift off something or other for her own gain. I wonder what she needs money for this time...
Exactly. My dislike of her has zero to do with her being a trans woman.
Yeah, I have been so dissappointed after her turn in the past few years. Like WTF was she even thinking was going to happen. These assholes are not ever going to be anything but assholes.
Some people need to learn about the alt-rightâs cultivated ignorance via hard experience.
The rest of us work just fine via observation.
And thus, conservatism in a nutshell.
Better late than never but bitch we ALL warned you
It's easy to dunk on how wrong she used to be, Brianna absolutely and clearly was. But now that even she agrees, it's not super helpful to mock her about it.
There are a oodles of different social pressures to conform for trans women, I truly understand her motivation. Girl let her internalized transphobia take the wheel and went look for nonexistent middle ground. Especially early in transition it's alluring to be *one of the good ones" and get a very specific type of applause for it.
We need to recognize that Bri didn't have to admit her faults, glad she did, but even on far more trivial issues most folk struggle. I'm glad she got here, and I look forward to her being better advocate for our rights. But her past should only be as an example for others, not a crudgel to mock her previous bargaining.
Welcome Hon, glad to see ya. âĽď¸
She still says she believes in âmiddle groundâ with violent, homicidal, totalitarian fascists. Despite everything, she still hasnât realized that âmiddle groundâ is a fallacy that rightists use as a trap to take everything from others.
âMeet me in the middleâ says the unjust man. You take a step forward, they take a step back. âMeet me in the middleâ says the unjust man.
Sheâs close, I think, but only when you admit that compromising with the unjust is ALWAYS perpetuating injustice can you be forgiven.
Brianna should go home and read, forever.
She was wrong. She remains wrong. The most help she can be to anyone is to butt the fuck out.
The trans movement in no wise needed a quisling to suck up to TERFs, and we aren't going to coddle her for getting what she was told she would.
This is not a matter of innocent ignorance. This was a matter of willfully ignoring all of the people telling you what would happen, complete with historical record.
Absolutely agree that Brianna needs to log the fuck off, de-center herself as any sort of repetitive of the community and sort out her own internalized transphobia. She isn't even close off the hook.
100%. I agree completely. She ignored the broader trans community and perpetuated harm, all for selfish self-congratulatory reasons. But what I'm saying is that she recognized the futility and is starting to listen. This no "forgive and forget", but we can't condemn her for admitting she was wrong.
I just don't want others with misguided bigoted talking points thinking that they are trapped in that echo chamber.
She isn't starting to listen, though.
She just decided that because she half admitted a mistake that lots of people loudly told her she was making, she can just act like none of the nastiness she perpetuated on people who carefully explained why this was going to blow up in her face. She just declared that she was reaccepted, trying to wishcast instead of engaging in personal growth.
Sounds great IF she does agree. She's dropped this ball before. I agree with you, except very tentatively.
I agree in large part, I think she needs to step away from the internet and discourse for a while and actually connect with trans people in real life. Hit up a support group and listen, go to day of remembrance and hang around for a while after just talking about life with people, stuff like that.
I haven't forgiven her yet, but she's still my sister, she just needs to get her shit together and stop hurting the family. And that includes learning that her middle ground is still gonna make us second class citizens (and it's easy to accept it for yourself, but when it's others you care about it's harder, it's why you need community).
I will however say, she's not fresh out, she was out when she was a major target of gamergate like a decade ago. Like idk how she didn't learn by watching Blaire White get used in the same way.
Can we still mock her for being a blood thirsty genocidal psycho?
What a pathetic person :c
Progressives have given so much ground that their encampment is on middle-ground.
Fuck the middleground.
Genuinely surprised this was not in Leopards Ate My Face
Feel free to share it there lol. I did consider posting it there, as you might have guessed from my leopard emoji.
TBH this is probably just more grifting from Brianna Wu. Are there any actual sources for "laugh as she got aids from being raped" type comments? afaik terfs would be more like "that's unfortunate but not our problem"
I have no sympathy whatsoever.
Fuck off and have the day you voted for.
Someone lived under a rock.
Ngl, she is my goat though. like she just fully came to a reasoned decision, she'll be one of us soon.
The fact that this is dated Nov 1st... How the hell could it take you this long to figure it out??
I donât think sheâs right wing. Maybe in the same way that I jokingly call people right wing when theyâre wrong, but I donât think sheâs actually traitor lunatic.
Have you seen her views on the Gaza genocide? She's a straight up fascist
I remember a long time ago someone told me âyou canât reason with crazy.â These people are living in a completely unrealistic universe and do not have their wits about them. You can call them evil or whatever, but even so, they should be getting help from a medical professional because whatever is going on with these people is completely toxic, unhealthy, and destructive, even for themselves. Iâve pretty much written off anyone who still supports this administration a couple of years ago, as any reasonable person has already abandoned Trump and anyone else he associates with.
Oh⌠I know⌠Iâll walk through the chainsaw robot cave⌠they are triggered by motion⌠they tear anything that moves to shreds⌠yeah, thatâs where Iâm going to walkâŚ
Uncle Tom transitioned to Aunty Tom.
I honestly don't understand how you can be conservative LGBTQ+. You existence is progressive.
The world is not one-dimensional, USA.
Stop đđź arguing đđź about đđź trans đđź issues đđź
She's right about one thing, it's a slope we can't gain any traction on right now, and the more time we spend on it, the more we slide backwards with both actual trans rights and voter opinion.
Every time someone attacks on trans rights just say "shut the hell up, who cares, look at the disaster of an economy we're all suffering in."
Not defending our lives is the losingest strategy of them all
Fuck that. Trans people are my friends. Transphobes can catch these hands.
What a stupid take
You seem to think that we only fight one battle at a time, which is not true