8 ms·

> men pursuing a change in gender are expected to sign their name or initial in the box at least ten times in a row in order to receive their prescription This

> men pursuing a change in gender are expected to sign their name or initial in the box at least ten times in a row in order to receive their prescription This is not true, at least not anywhere I've gotten Estradiol. Also, while I'm sure you intended to be respectful with your comment, most people getting this treatment see themselves as women who are changing their bodies to match their gender, not as men who are changing their gender.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
syshum 6y ago
>>most people getting this treatment see themselves as women who are changing their bodies to match their gender, not as men who are changing their gender. I am assuming you have some sort of source showing that this person has the desire to transition? If not I am unclear why this fact matters in the context of this story of what appears to be a doctor forcing medication on a patient against both their and their guardians desire or consent
- anamexis 6y ago
  Parent is responding to the sentence they quoted at the top of their comment.
- geofft 6y ago
  The higher-order reason that it's relevant is that there's something of a moral panic going on about medical therapy for transgender youth. While this particular case (assuming that the news story is accurate, of course) seems like an entirely unjustified prescription that's also entirely irrelevant to any medical gender transition, there is absolutely a push to try to get doctors to be unable to prescribe estrogen or testosterone for children under any circumstances, and most of the people pushing this seem to have trouble using standard/well-accepted terms for transgender people. So, it's a reason to take the claim about estrogen's side effects with a grain of salt, in much the same way that you'd be at least slightly skeptical of claims about Linux from someone who insists on spelling it "LINUX" - it's a sign that they might be getting their information, in turn, from an unreliable source.
  - TeaDrunk 6y ago
    Do you have a source for encouraging the prescription of children to have hormone replacement therapy? All I’ve seen are puberty blockers myself.
    - geofft 6y ago
      There's a case where an NHS gender clinic at Tavistock Centre is being sued by a former patient who was given both puberty blockers and testosterone at age 16. You can find reports from both mainstream media (like the BBC) and places like LifeSiteNews. To be clear, by "children" I mean minors past the age of puberty, not, like, 5-year-olds.
blahbhthrow3748 6y ago
Yeah I've taken a lot of estrogen at this point and I was never required to sign anything... Agree that people who call themselves "men" typically don't sign up for titty skittles.
- floatingatoll 6y ago
  It seems to vary wildly; I have heard horror stories about having to go through multiple visits and sign multiple consent forms. Some of this is due to WPATH SoC v7 (released 2011), which meant well but has resulted in overly-burdensome consent requirements that especially harm those who cannot afford it. As I understand it, SoC v8 intends to lessen those consent requirements, but it still hasn't been released yet :( https://www.wpath.org/publications/soc https://www.wpath.org/publications/soc ps. "Estrogen. Little, Blue, Different."
jjeaff 6y ago
How should one phrase that sentence without it becoming completely confusing? Would it be offensive to say "a person with an x and y chromosome"? Even though gender is only a social construct... for some reason, taking estrogen will have totally different effects on a person, depending on that gender.
- aidenn0 6y ago
  It's always going to be confusing but I believe "transgender woman" is unambiguously someone assigned male gender at birth who identifies as a woman.
  - Foober223 6y ago
    What if a biological male is assigned female gender at birth? Would they be transgender, or just female?
    - andykx 6y ago
      1. When is that going to happen? (Genuinely curious if it does happen) 2. It is really up to the person.
      - eggsome 6y ago
        Regarding 1: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34290981 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34290981
    - geofft 6y ago
      That's part of the reason that "biological male" isn't a highly informative/technically-precise term, but assuming you mean something like Swyer syndrome, there isn't really a reason to worry about estrogen making them infertile, so in context using the phrase "transgender women" would have been clear regardless.
    - bashinator 6y ago
      This is a bit off-topic, but "at birth" is a seriously wrong phrasing - they were assigned that phenotypical gender well before birth.
arkis22 6y ago
I'm sure you intended to be respectful with your comment, but why are women changing their bodies to match their gender superior to men changing their bodies to match their gender?
- geofft 6y ago
  Nobody said anything about "superior". Men changing their bodies to match their gender are generally not prescribed estrogen, so it doesn't make sense to reference them in the context of people being prescribed estrogen, that's all.
  - arkis22 6y ago
    you're really quite sure that trans women are not offered estrogen?
    - qtplatypus 6y ago
      Trans men are not offered estrogen. Which is what the parent is saying.
      - arkis22 6y ago
        trans men are born female who are male. why would you give them estrogen
        2038AD 6y ago
        Exactly
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      Trans women are offered estrogen, of course. Neither cis nor trans men are normally prescribed estrogen.
      - arkis22 6y ago
floatingatoll 6y ago
I consciously chose "men" both to parallel the construction of the headline "Boy", with the specific intention of having the sentence hit home for those HN readers who see themselves as "men", while quietly tapping into a certain sexist bias ^1 I've observed in both American medical practices. Under normal circumstances, I would agree with your point, and I would likely have selected either "transwomen" or "bio-males" in this scenario. Both are exclusionary for various reasons ^2^3, and when making my selection I came to realize that all possible phrases I could use here would result in some sort of HN reply thread about the word or phrase chosen. Technically, the most correct phrasing for the sentiment I was expressing clocks in at 26 words: "People seeking estradiol treatment for body dysphoria who are perceived as 'men' by their prescribing doctor, regardless of their self-identified gender or their physical sex characteristics". However, that itself would have resulted in a reply thread about shorter ways I could have expressed that, and encouraged a discussion about weakening the accuracy of transgender representation for the convenience of others. That would do more harm than good to transgender acceptance at this point in time than I could accept. In the end, I considered it most productive for the guaranteed-to-occur HN tangent about my choice of phrasing here to focus on how the word "men" in transgender treatment contexts is insufficiently representative, rather than to focus on how the most-correct phrase is overly representative. In review of the replies, I am content with the results of my choice. Many users are realizing that there is no simple wording to express this concept, and that every possible choice has issues. It will slightly improve empathy and understanding of transgender representation issues. I feel this choice of wording has been successful. ^1 Doctors are more likely to seek informed consent for procedures affecting reproductive systems (including E2/T dosing) from those they perceive as "men", regardless of the person's actual 'sex' or self-identified gender, especially when the side effects would affect virility in a fertile male. ^2 Genders that are not "women" are permitted to treat body dysphoria by increasing their estradiol levels, too. ^3 Short for "biological males", which excludes people who are not simple 'XY males', such as hermaphrodites, that for whatever reason choose to treat body dysphoria with estradiol.
- damnyou 6y ago
  People on feminizing HRT.
ukverwwrttyv 6y ago
This comment should not be downvoted. HN have the smart people but does not have a basic knowledge how to be respectful and 'debating' about gender and biology.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

syshum 6y ago

>>most people getting this treatment see themselves as women who are changing their bodies to match their gender, not as men who are changing their gender. I am assuming you have some sort of source showing that this person has the desire to transition? If not I am unclear why this fact matters in the context of this story of what appears to be a doctor forcing medication on a patient against both their and their guardians desire or consent

anamexis 6y ago
Parent is responding to the sentence they quoted at the top of their comment.
geofft 6y ago
The higher-order reason that it's relevant is that there's something of a moral panic going on about medical therapy for transgender youth. While this particular case (assuming that the news story is accurate, of course) seems like an entirely unjustified prescription that's also entirely irrelevant to any medical gender transition, there is absolutely a push to try to get doctors to be unable to prescribe estrogen or testosterone for children under any circumstances, and most of the people pushing this seem to have trouble using standard/well-accepted terms for transgender people. So, it's a reason to take the claim about estrogen's side effects with a grain of salt, in much the same way that you'd be at least slightly skeptical of claims about Linux from someone who insists on spelling it "LINUX" - it's a sign that they might be getting their information, in turn, from an unreliable source.
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  Do you have a source for encouraging the prescription of children to have hormone replacement therapy? All I’ve seen are puberty blockers myself.
  - geofft 6y ago
    There's a case where an NHS gender clinic at Tavistock Centre is being sued by a former patient who was given both puberty blockers and testosterone at age 16. You can find reports from both mainstream media (like the BBC) and places like LifeSiteNews. To be clear, by "children" I mean minors past the age of puberty, not, like, 5-year-olds.

blahbhthrow3748 6y ago

Yeah I've taken a lot of estrogen at this point and I was never required to sign anything... Agree that people who call themselves "men" typically don't sign up for titty skittles.

floatingatoll 6y ago
It seems to vary wildly; I have heard horror stories about having to go through multiple visits and sign multiple consent forms. Some of this is due to WPATH SoC v7 (released 2011), which meant well but has resulted in overly-burdensome consent requirements that especially harm those who cannot afford it. As I understand it, SoC v8 intends to lessen those consent requirements, but it still hasn't been released yet :( https://www.wpath.org/publications/soc https://www.wpath.org/publications/soc ps. "Estrogen. Little, Blue, Different."

jjeaff 6y ago

How should one phrase that sentence without it becoming completely confusing? Would it be offensive to say "a person with an x and y chromosome"? Even though gender is only a social construct... for some reason, taking estrogen will have totally different effects on a person, depending on that gender.

aidenn0 6y ago
It's always going to be confusing but I believe "transgender woman" is unambiguously someone assigned male gender at birth who identifies as a woman.
- Foober223 6y ago
  What if a biological male is assigned female gender at birth? Would they be transgender, or just female?
  - andykx 6y ago
    1. When is that going to happen? (Genuinely curious if it does happen) 2. It is really up to the person.
    - eggsome 6y ago
      Regarding 1: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34290981 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34290981
  - geofft 6y ago
    That's part of the reason that "biological male" isn't a highly informative/technically-precise term, but assuming you mean something like Swyer syndrome, there isn't really a reason to worry about estrogen making them infertile, so in context using the phrase "transgender women" would have been clear regardless.
  - bashinator 6y ago
    This is a bit off-topic, but "at birth" is a seriously wrong phrasing - they were assigned that phenotypical gender well before birth.

arkis22 6y ago

I'm sure you intended to be respectful with your comment, but why are women changing their bodies to match their gender superior to men changing their bodies to match their gender?

geofft 6y ago
Nobody said anything about "superior". Men changing their bodies to match their gender are generally not prescribed estrogen, so it doesn't make sense to reference them in the context of people being prescribed estrogen, that's all.
- arkis22 6y ago
  you're really quite sure that trans women are not offered estrogen?
  - qtplatypus 6y ago
    Trans men are not offered estrogen. Which is what the parent is saying.
    - arkis22 6y ago
      trans men are born female who are male. why would you give them estrogen
      - 2038AD 6y ago
        Exactly
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    Trans women are offered estrogen, of course. Neither cis nor trans men are normally prescribed estrogen.
    - arkis22 6y ago

floatingatoll 6y ago

I consciously chose "men" both to parallel the construction of the headline "Boy", with the specific intention of having the sentence hit home for those HN readers who see themselves as "men", while quietly tapping into a certain sexist bias ^1 I've observed in both American medical practices. Under normal circumstances, I would agree with your point, and I would likely have selected either "transwomen" or "bio-males" in this scenario. Both are exclusionary for various reasons ^2^3, and when making my selection I came to realize that all possible phrases I could use here would result in some sort of HN reply thread about the word or phrase chosen. Technically, the most correct phrasing for the sentiment I was expressing clocks in at 26 words: "People seeking estradiol treatment for body dysphoria who are perceived as 'men' by their prescribing doctor, regardless of their self-identified gender or their physical sex characteristics". However, that itself would have resulted in a reply thread about shorter ways I could have expressed that, and encouraged a discussion about weakening the accuracy of transgender representation for the convenience of others. That would do more harm than good to transgender acceptance at this point in time than I could accept. In the end, I considered it most productive for the guaranteed-to-occur HN tangent about my choice of phrasing here to focus on how the word "men" in transgender treatment contexts is insufficiently representative, rather than to focus on how the most-correct phrase is overly representative. In review of the replies, I am content with the results of my choice. Many users are realizing that there is no simple wording to express this concept, and that every possible choice has issues. It will slightly improve empathy and understanding of transgender representation issues. I feel this choice of wording has been successful. ^1 Doctors are more likely to seek informed consent for procedures affecting reproductive systems (including E2/T dosing) from those they perceive as "men", regardless of the person's actual 'sex' or self-identified gender, especially when the side effects would affect virility in a fertile male. ^2 Genders that are not "women" are permitted to treat body dysphoria by increasing their estradiol levels, too. ^3 Short for "biological males", which excludes people who are not simple 'XY males', such as hermaphrodites, that for whatever reason choose to treat body dysphoria with estradiol.

damnyou 6y ago
People on feminizing HRT.

ukverwwrttyv 6y ago

This comment should not be downvoted. HN have the smart people but does not have a basic knowledge how to be respectful and 'debating' about gender and biology.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]