Career Gender Therapist | Deep Concerns With Gender Affirming Care | Hasty Irreversible Treatments

Sara Stockton, a gender therapist, is calling for a change in the way gender dysphoria is treated as it has become an epidemic. She discusses how the mental and physical health treatment of transgenders has shifted drastically in the last decade.

Maybe also worth considering, in regards to Marcille's weird gender views, that humans canonically looking really masculine to elves, combined with her being half human means she might be kinda masc by elf standards-- which probably adds to her feeling like an outcast and means she has to work harder to fit into whatever standards for femininity elves have

gender and bodies, that something complicated

imagine you’ve possessed a doll. you have no control over this possession; you didn’t do it intentionally and can’t leave it, you’re stuck in it.

it’s scary, instead of flesh your skin is made of plastic, you’re tiny compared to your proper hight, your clothes are probably strange too. you can’t just act like a normal doll. play the parts the kid who owns you wants to play, act out the little lives she wants you to have or sit on the shelf like all her others when she’s busy. half of you wishes you could for her sake and the other half wants to rebel harder against her stronger force than you already have to.

there are ways to feel more comfortable, become more outwardly human. they’ve invented ways to make you a normal hight for a person, to make your skin as close to flesh as possible, to make you seem human again. but they’re hard to get. they’re expensive, it takes a while to even get to the clinic, it needs to heal, it won’t be a perfect recreation and worst of all, the kid has to be cool with it as long as she’s still playing with you; which she’s not. she also wants to play with you forever and ever or at least be able to go back to it if she wants to. you’ll be breaking her heart if you ever go through with it but she won’t just say yes while she has the power. you don’t care about what she thinks about it. you hate yourself for it too though.

you didn’t mean to kill her perfect toy, it wasn’t your fault (or hers) that something shoved your spirit into her plastic friend. but it happened and because she can’t accept it all you can do for now is try and get your hair to look less synthetic and wear people clothes instead of the doll ones, though she keeps trying to put you in shirts with velcro at the back (they just don’t make human clothes in your size and the ones we shrink down break so quickly!).

the kid almost pretends as if she believes you. she says she loves you but you know she just sees you as acting out for fun, she talks about you that way, sometimes too your face. you feel bad about taking her precious pretty doll from her but it wasn’t like you could control it. you resent her for dehumanising you like this, though. no matter how hard it is for her. you just want to be loved as a person.

It's so weird when some people honestly tell me that they think gender dysphoria isn't real and the entire time my inner monologue is just:

I am actively going insane because I don't have boobs and you have the nerve to tell me my feelings are fake?

"trans people are only trans because of oppressive gender roles and if we just got rid of the gender roles nobody would be trans" might sound like a hot take, a thoughtful and compassionate take, but unfortunately it is ice cold and does not understand how being trans works at all. meet and talk to and listen to more trans people - preferably in real life - before making assertions like this, especially if you yourself are not trans.

listen to me. jinx. is a boy. she's a girly little boy. but she's non-binary. okay listen.

Lawrence liking seahorses could be used as a metaphor for him atp secretly wishing he could just carry a baby...just so he could have one. Maybe not in him having gender dysphoria or whatever or maybe him having it. I could see that being used as both. deenene okay imma run off now idk if I make sense.

You analyzed it perfectly!! He does get dysphoria with that, I'm glad I did a good job hinting at that!!

remind me btw that sometime i need to write a well worded post about how a number of self-defined transmeds/truscum are literally not transmedicalists and are just pointlessly boxing themselves in w actual transphobes while not meaningfully espousing any of their views and literally just fighting some strawman theyve made up in their heads.. like ik transmeds are not that relevant anymore and we dont see them much and the remaining ones are probably Actual transmedicalists but also a number of them are just dumb teens literally using the term to describe themselves based on absolutely nothing and ostracizing themselves for no good reason

on that note. a week or two ago i swapped out some info in my about to list my gender as genderqueer as a super low stakes way of feeling it out lol

ive spent pretty much my whole life w/ my gender on a sliding scale from "agender" to "gnc cis girl" and while i definitely still feel more connected to the former than the latter rn i like. really appreciate genderqueer as a term that captures every stage of that

gender rant under the cut

good things abt testosterone and passing: do not often get called a woman or miss/ma'am, get called sir, getting closer every day to my gender goals (I just want to look like jack black/meatloaf/laszlo from wwdits), terms like "boyfriend" are very gender euphoric, overall much much happier with my physical appearance

bad things abt testosterone and passing: constantly assumed to be a gay man despite that being so far from my sexuality. this in itself is fine up until I start to get to know people and explicitly tell them many times that I am not a man, I do not like being referred to as a man, and I do not like binary men and yet everyone Still constantly refers to me as a man and acts like I have no experience liking women (including cracking jokes abt how much I wouldn't understand liking women. laughing my fucking ass off.) and as if I have not, do not, and could never experience misogyny, never or rarely feeling welcomed in spaces w women, etc etc

like don't get me wrong being called a woman gives me the same amount of dysphoria but it happens much less now and this kind of dysphoria is incredibly infuriating bc it's usually done by other queer people who unquestionably support gender conforming afab people's genders/sexuality but god forbid the bitch w a beard tries to say they're a dyke that likes women bc obviously he's just a silly little smol gay boy!!

⋆list of things that give me gender dysphoria that i can’t explain⋆

1. wearing only pants/bottoms

-idk dude it’s just not it

2. overalls

-like i love how it looks on other people so i got some for me turns out it’s a no but hey i got them for only $10 (usd) so good enough

3. skirts (kinda)

-this one is very specific cuz it’s only skirts that r longer than the top of my knee to like 3/4 of the way down my calf like only this specific length of skirt makes me dysphoric idk

4. like fresh blowout/straight hair

-this one is just idk like is it cuz i’m gay?? idk is it cuz i’m not used to it?? idk is it cuz i’m actually an alien and seeing hair like this messes with how my kind evolved?? idk

bonus

thing that gives me gender euphoria for getting through this shit show

heels

but very specific types of heels like or else i don’t like them

Which of your organs would you miss the least?

appendix because it’s useless to functioning as a modern human - loads of people already live happily without it. sorry that’s not a fun answer but it’s factually correct.

if you’re looking for the emotional “let’s pretend you can live without a vital organ”answer, then it’s skin.

I want to peel it off my body about 70% of the time.

something that i am really tired of in lgbt / trans spaces is just. the implication that people can't have complex relationships with masculinity and maleness. the idea that masculinity and manhood are rigidly fixed, that there's only one possible way to express masculinity and manhood, and that only femininity is complex, only womanhood is flexible and malleable. it really does feel like a lot of online lgbt spaces have this idea that the only "real" kind of masculinity or expression of manhood is the traditional patriarchal idea of white abled cishet masculinity, and that any other expressions of masculinity and manhood are not actually real masculinity / manhood and that not being traditionally masculine is exactly the same thing as being feminine.

it's just exhausting, because it shows that so many online lgbt spaces have swallowed this ra/dfe/m-lite idea, and it makes existing as a genderqueer trans guy completely tiring and unfun. like i have a complex relationship with my own masculinity, specifically because it is non-traditional. i feel like my masculinity is flexible, with certain aspects being very butch and certain other aspects being more open to alternate expression. but the thing about it is--i don't consider myself feminine. i don't have any kind of ties to womanhood. i might dress in a vaguely effeminate fashion if given the chance, but i'm not about to put on a dress and wear lipstick, you know? and i want to see more trans (and hell, even cis) characters who have deep and sometimes contradictory relationships with manhood and masculinity, where they aren't treated as these utterly rigid and inflexible categories that allow for absolutely no introspection or boundary-pushing. sometimes i want to see Transgressive Masculinity. the idea that only femininity can be Revolutionary and Transgressive is such r/ad/f/em shit and i am sick of it. Give Me Complex Masculinity.

About to try to get a referral to gids from my gp, kinda terrified