Hey, you, cis girl that's very (correctly) vocal about women being allowed to talk about their periods, do you include trans women in that?

I ask because every single time I've tried to talk about it to anyone that isn't a trans woman they get fucking angry. Which has caused me to have to just suffer in silence every single month. So I really relate to cis women when they talk about literally the exact same thing; being shamed by everyone around them their whole lives for talking about their periods, so they just suffer in silence every month as it negatively impacts their work and social lives. But I don't even feel like I can voice that I am literally dealing with the same exact thing because most of y'all react like you want to throw me in front of a bus for saying it, even those of you who act like your such big great transfem allies.

I guess I'll take this opportunity to talk about trans women periods. The first thing any tme person thinks when they hear this is always "how can trans women have periods? They don't have uteruses!"

The answer is: the uterus isn't what causes your period, it is effected by your period. What causes your period and what causes trans women's periods is the same thing: the endocrine system.

HRT changes the sex of your endocrine system. Feminizing HRT makes it a female endocrine system, giving us a 28-day hormone cycle just like cis women. At the end of that cycle, the hypothalamus floods the body with prostaglandins. Those are what cause all but one of the period symptoms, because they make muscles inflame and contract. They are what make the uterus shed its lining, they are what cause intestinal cramps, they are what cause body aches, they are what cause headaches and migraines. The only period symptom not causes by the release of prostaglandins throughout the body is depression, and that is caused by your endocrine system simply not processing as much estrogen and from simply feeling like shit.

So, the only symptoms trans women don't get every 28 days is menstrual cramps, because yes we do not menstruate since we don't have uteruses. But migraines, depression, body aches, intestinal cramps, and the infamous "period shits" don't exactly add up to us having any better of a time. Except we have to pretend that we're fine and nothing is different because no one believes that we get periods, not even cis women.

"But you can't call it a period then because that refers to MENSTRUATION!" is another one I hear all the time. This is incorrect. You use the word "period" instead of just "menstruation" because it doesn't just refer to menstruation. It refers to a period at the end of the hormone cycle where we experience a host of symptoms. And not all cis women experience all of the symptoms that encompass the period. Not all cis women get migraines, or body aches, or have severe depression. If a cis woman gets a hysterectomy she doesn't menstruate either! In that instance she experiences an identical period to what trans women experience. Yet, I doubt you'd insist that cis women who've had hysterectomies don't have periods.

Oh, another thing that I personally discovered after bottom surgery: vaginal odor changes for trans women during our periods too. I was not expecting that because I always thought it was just from menstruation. But nope, the ph levels of a trans woman's vagina are the same of as a cis woman's vagina, and it changes during our periods just the same.

I don't mean to distract from the very important message of this post, but I'm worried trans women may not know this because even a lot of cis women don't: if your period comes with severe depression, that's not normal or healthy, that's a medical issue. A little bit of depression and mood swings are normal, but if it's severe or debilitating? That's probably Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. It sucks but it's treatable.

I thought it was normal for years to feel that way, and I don't want anybody else to suffer like I did. Trans women are likely even more vulnerable to having untreated PMDD due to a combination of difficulty accessing healthcare and the fact that cis women are refusing to share the period wisdom. (I'm not a cis woman btw, just an enby with a uterus and estrogen-dominant endocrine system.) (I'm also making the assumption that trans and cis women have equal probabilities of getting PMDD, but who knows really? I doubt anyone's ever studied it.)

I just want you to know this in case it helps anybody. Your period isn't supposed to make you feel like you're gonna die every month, and if it does, there are ways to mitigate that.

I always welcome people talking about this. When I made this post I was one of those women who thought the severe depression every month was normal. Another person using this post to talk about PMDD a few days later is how I learned about it and that I probably have it. Now I've seen my doctor about it and we're working on figuring out a treatment that works for me.

@novallion was getting toasty warm under their heat blanket

So…

Vani is too.

Day 64. based on

You wake up one day and discover you've lost control over a random action or feeling!

Spin the wheel to find out what!

This idea was submitted by @dbnekonico!

Yeah I think most people do

The anti-vax and anti-science propaganda is very real - and also, frankly I think doctors and nurses would've had an easier time getting people not to fall for it if they spent less time treating people like fucking shit

This post is about a lot of things but it is especially about racism, medical abuse, and eugenics

Blocking isff supporters and transandro bros in equal measure. I hate everyone on this site.

The rampant transmisogyny on this site only further pushes trans girls into that insulated group. Like sorry but transmisogynists do share an equal blame with the grooming of trans girls on here. It makes the job of isolating these girls very very easy by ensuring they have no outside support in the first place. Do better.

any halfway decent student of history should be able to identify ways that oppressive countercultural movements or groups can be inspired by hegemonic oppressive social dynamics.

for example The People’s Temple led by the infamous Jim Jones in the 1950s-1970s and the Black Hammer Party in the 2010s-2020s were both founded in part on principles of anti-racism and socialism, which of course were responses to the white supremacist capitalist society that the founders lived in.

Those groups engaged in ruthless oppression of their own membership, which was due to the organizational and social structure of those groups.

Decentralized subcultures like trans-exclusionary radical feminism also formed in response to oppressive social dynamics, namely the oppression of cisgender women. TERFs selected a scapegoat outgroup (transgender women and nonbinary transfems) and focused their vitriol primarily at that group, even though the scapegoat outgroup (transgender women and nonbinary transfems) did not produce the oppressive social conditions which gave rise to TERFism or even feminism in general.

The existence of an external threat, an externally-created oppressive social dynamic, can be continually used by an oppressive countercultural group as a reason to exist, a uniting principle, even if their “solution” to the problem does not work or even make logical sense. People can make themselves believe things that do not make logical sense so long as there is some psychological benefit to them. The benefit could be religious/philosophical affirmation, a social ingroup, or a moral palliative that allows them to unburden themselves from the inevitable feelings of discomfort that arise from being friends with pedophile apologists and rape culture cheerleaders.

Fat lib rant:

Ever notice how right wingers endorse the diet industry? It’s all about grifting. People who lose credibility as artists tend to turn into right wing content creators so they can keep making money (think Russell Brand becoming a Christian right wing guy). Then you have people like Dr. Oz and Jillian Michaels becoming involved in politics as republicans/alt right. Then there’s the MAHA thing. It’s all just grifting. The vast majority of bullshit ads on scam sites are about weight loss.

It’s just once you see through the bs of the diet industry you start to see how it’s all connected with The Grift of capitalism.

Just something that’s been stuck in my craw after recently learning (against my will) that Jillian Michaels is a maga influencer now.

actually what the fuck is going on with deciding a ship name for these two

i just got the "see where your blood has gone!" email from giving blood but it glitched and just showed me my current location. which. theyre not wrong. that is where most of my blood is

Sparkle off. It's Thursday. Don’t forget that you left him behind.

“parental rights should be abolished and children’s rights should be established so family are held liable for their abuse”

yes no argument

“…and children should be able to consent to whatever and whomever they want”

hold up ✋🛑

so i’ve been thinking about the broken off piece of ven’s lost memory keyblade and i thought, hey why not give that missing piece to vanitas