æææ
-It is never safe to simply tell someone that they are transgender when they haven't asked themselves, even when you are 100% certain that they are. You can educate them on Gender Dysphoria, you can show them parallels between their feelings and your feelings, but you *cannot* simply say to a person "You are transgender".
+It is never safe to simply tell someone that they are transgender when they haven't asked themselves, even when you are 100% certain that they are. You can educate them on gender dysphoria and you can show them parallels between their feelings and your feelings, but you *cannot* simply say to a person, "You are transgender".
Why? Because most of the time they won't believe you.
-Internalized transphobia has indoctrinated us all to believe that its impossible that we are trans, or that being trans is something negative and reviled. Pressures from within a persons family or from their upbringing can make it extremely hard to accept themselves.
+Internalized transphobia has indoctrinated us all to believe that it's impossible that we are trans, or that being trans is something negative and reviled. Pressures from within a person's family or from their upbringing can make it extremely hard to accept themselves.
-Trying to tell someone who isn't already questioning that you think they're transgender triggers a self defense mechanism, their subconscious actively tries to reject the statement, and there is a high probability that the suggestion will not only push them further into the closet, it can make them hostile towards you for making it. Many transphobes show clear evidence of fighting their own struggles with gender, and there is no shortage of trans people who [have a history of being transphobic](https://curvyandtrans.tumblr.com/post/661595258598113280/interview-with-an-ex-radfem) out of self preservation.
+Trying to tell someone who isn't already questioning that you think they're transgender triggers a self-defense mechanism; their subconscious actively tries to reject the statement, and there is a high probability that the suggestion will not only push them further into the closet, but can even make them hostile towards you for making it. Many transphobes show clear evidence of fighting their own struggles with gender, and there is no shortage of trans people who [have a history of being transphobic](https://curvyandtrans.tumblr.com/post/661595258598113280/interview-with-an-ex-radfem) out of self-preservation.
Even when the person accepts your declaration, the fact that you told them instead of letting them discover it themselves leaves an opening for their own self-conscious to instill doubt about their dysphoria and believe that the idea was suggestive, or that they were manipulated into believing they were trans. The only safe pathway forward for someone to learn they are trans is to realize it on their own.
-Finally, the entire purpose of being trans is self assignment and self actualization. Telling a person that they are trans is surely as coercive an assignment as what was done when they were born. If you want to help them figure themselves out, tell them about your life, tell them how dysphoria works, send them to this site, give them ways to see how what they experience isn't something that cis people live with.
+Finally, the entire purpose of being trans is self-assignment and self-actualization. Telling a person that they are trans is surely as coercive an assignment as what was done when they were born. If you want to help them figure themselves out, tell them about your life, tell them how dysphoria works, send them to this site, and give them ways to see how what they experience isn't something that cis people live with.
-Unless of course they ask you if you think they're trans... then the prime directive no longer applies.
+Unless, of course, they ask you if you think they're trans... then the prime directive no longer applies.
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@@ -66,11 +66,11 @@ Unless of course they ask you if you think they're trans... then the prime direc
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-As always, please understand that I have no professional training in gender therapy . I am simply writing this from my own amateur research and personal experiences —mostly my own journey and conversations I’ve had with other trans women and gender questioners. Keep in mind that I am coming at this from the perspective of a fairly binary trans lady who transitioned in her early thirties, which means that I am still blind to a lot of the trans experience. Things are are different for trans masculine and non-binary people, as well as for many other trans women. This is not meant to be a universal expert guide — it’s just the best I can give you right now.
+As always, please understand that I have no professional training in gender therapy. I am simply writing this from my own amateur research and personal experiences — mostly my own journey and conversations I’ve had with other trans women and gender questioners. Keep in mind that I am coming at this from the perspective of a fairly binary trans lady who transitioned in her early thirties, which means that I am still blind to a lot of the trans experience. Things are are different for trans-masculine and non-binary people, as well as for many other trans women. This is not meant to be a universal expert guide — it’s just the best I can give you right now.
### Consider That Most Cis People Don’t Think About Their Gender Very Much
-If you’re already at the stage where you are questioning your gender — even if that just means Googling “Am I Trans?” and then slamming your laptop shut before you get a search result —congratulations, you’ve already thought about your gender more than most cis people will in their entire lifetimes.
+If you’re already at the stage where you are questioning your gender — even if that just means looking up “Am I Trans?” and then slamming your laptop shut before you get a search result — congratulations, you’ve already thought about your gender more than most cis people will in their entire lifetimes.
I’ve asked many of my cis friends if they’ve ever seriously thought about their gender identity, and nine times out of ten they have not. Cis people don’t constantly wonder what it would be like to be a girl. They haven’t had daydreams about how nice it would be if they woke up in a different body. Their hearts don’t race when they think about body-swap movies. Some of them may have imagined what it would be like to be in a body with a gender other than their assigned gender at birth, but those thought experiments have been brief and purely intellectual.
@@ -80,13 +80,13 @@ There’s no *energy* there. Not for them. If you feel a weird kind of *energy*
This was hard for me to believe at first, but cis people actually enjoy their gender! Cis men like being men, and cis women like being women. They don’t secretly wish they had been born a member of the “opposite” gender or a genderless being or anything else, really. As we’ve already established, they don’t think about their gender much at all.
-There are complications here, of course. Plenty of cis men find toxic masculinity stifling and awful, choosing to actively reject the problematic social aspects of their gender. Plenty of women are deeply frustrated by misogyny, the patriarchy, and the tyranny of classical gender roles. “Enjoying being man” does not necessarily mean loving having to bottle up your emotions in all non-NFL situations, and “enjoying being a woman” rarely means that you love getting belittled by your male co-workers or being constantly asked, “so, when are you getting married?”
+There are complications here, of course. Plenty of cis men find toxic masculinity stifling and awful, choosing to actively reject the problematic social aspects of their gender. Plenty of women are deeply frustrated by misogyny, the patriarchy, and the tyranny of classical gender roles. “Enjoying being a man” does not necessarily mean loving having to bottle up your emotions in all non-NFL situations, and “enjoying being a woman” rarely means that you love getting belittled by your male co-workers or being constantly asked, “So, when are you getting married?”
Once you cut through all of that, though? Cis people still enjoy their genders. They might wish that certain aspects of how their gender is performed in society were different, but they would still choose to keep their assigned genders if swapping were on the table. Unfortunately, a lot of closeted trans people hear cis people complaining about the frustrating and problematic aspects of their gender and assume that everybody has the same low-grade dislike for their gender that they do.
Closeted trans people also assume that “I don’t hate being a man” is the same thing as “I enjoy being a man.” I can’t tell you how many of these questioning ladies tell me some variation of “I can’t be trans because I don’t hate being a man,” and then go on to describe countless little things they dislike about being seen as male, as if their gender were a pair of wet socks that they could never quite find a way to take off.
-You might be surprised to hear that I didn’t actively hate being seen as a man before I came out to myself, either . Being seen as a guy wasn’t a constant source of misery for me. It just…was who I was, apparently, so I learned to just kind of live with it. A lot of people believe that you can only be trans if you feel actively hurt by being seen as a man, but that particular feeling won’t usually arrive until after you’ve started to transition and you finally know who you truly are. Before self-acceptance, your relationship with your assigned gender at birth is likely to feel a lot more like disconnection than distress.
+You might be surprised to hear that I didn’t actively hate being seen as a man before I came out to myself, either. Being seen as a guy wasn’t a constant source of misery for me. It just… was who I was, apparently, so I learned to just kind of live with it. A lot of people believe that you can only be trans if you feel actively hurt by being seen as a man, but that particular feeling won’t usually arrive until after you’ve started to transition and you finally know who you truly are. Before self-acceptance, your relationship with your assigned gender at birth is likely to feel a lot more like disconnection than distress.
I also can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard closeted trans women say something like, “well, I don’t hate being a man, and men have lots of institutional privilege. I don’t think I’d choose to be a woman, even if I could, because I wouldn’t want to give up my male privilege.” Male privilege is a real thing, of course, but it isn’t a reward that men get for having to endure the eternal discomfort of being men. Men enjoy being men, and they would still enjoy being men without their social privileges. If the only thing you like about masculinity is male privilege, that probably means something.
@@ -96,7 +96,7 @@ For years, I thought that I couldn’t be trans because I didn’t experience ge
One thing that kept me from realizing that I was experiencing dysphoria was the same reason that fish don’t know they’re swimming in water — it’s just what my life had always been like, so I thought being dysphoric all the time was normal human behavior. I knew that I was kind of sad and more than a little odd, and I knew that my experiences with masculinity were at least slightly gender non-conforming, but I was dealing with the pain of dysphoria every single day without having any idea what was actually going on. No matter how bad I felt, I could always come up with a good enough explanation that had nothing to do with gender.
-The other problem is that gender dysphoria manifests differently in pre-acceptance trans women than it does in post-acceptance trans women. I always thought that gender dysphoria was the distress that you get from looking in the mirror and seeing a boy starting back at you instead of a girl, but that wasn’t a feeling I actually had until I started transitioning. You can’t get distressed about not seeing a girl in the mirror until after you’ve realize you’re a girl!
+The other problem is that gender dysphoria manifests differently in pre-acceptance trans women than it does in post-acceptance trans women. I always thought that gender dysphoria was the distress that you get from looking in the mirror and seeing a boy starting back at you instead of a girl, but that wasn’t a feeling I actually had until I started transitioning. You can’t get distressed about not seeing a girl in the mirror until after you’ve realized you’re a girl!
Before that, dysphoria manifests in dozens of other, much subtler ways. [I wrote about my experience with pre-acceptance dysphoria here, in what has become my most popular essay ever.](https://cassielabelle.medium.com/gender-dysphoria-isnt-what-you-think-6fdc7ae3ac85) I highly recommend reading it in full if you are questioning your gender.
@@ -114,7 +114,7 @@ The Null HypotheCis poses a simple and effective question: once you take your fi
It really is that simple. Men want to be men, and women want to be women. If you want to be a man, then you‘re a man. If you want to be a woman, then you’re a woman. If you don’t want to be either, or you want to be both, or you want to be a woman sometimes and a man other times, then you’re probably some flavor of genderfluid or non-binary.
-“But you can’t just…do that!” I hear you say. But you absolutely can just do that. In fact, this is basically the one and only question you really have to answer for yourself. If you want to be a girl and you’ve always thought of yourself as a guy, then you will probably be happier living as a girl. It’s at least worth taking some steps to see if transitioning will bring you happiness, right?
+“But you can’t just… do that!” I hear you say. But you absolutely can just do that. In fact, this is basically the one and only question you really have to answer for yourself. If you want to be a girl and you’ve always thought of yourself as a guy, then you will probably be happier living as a girl. It’s at least worth taking some steps to see if transitioning will bring you happiness, right?
### Consider That Doubting Yourself Does Not Invalidate Your Possible Trans-ness
@@ -130,7 +130,7 @@ If you feel all of this stuff, you’re in good company. My therapist even jokes
### Consider That Your Trans Journey Might Not Fit The Accepted, Popular Narrative
-Popular culture has basically decided that there’s only one transfeminine story worth telling. It’s the story of a young trans girl who figures out her identity at a very young age. Even in childhood, she gravitates toward dolls and tea parties. She tries on her older sister’s dresses and begs her mom to buy her make-up and jewelry. She basically always looks like a girl, too — feminine facial features, short stature, thin and androgynous. If she doesn’t transition in childhood or adolescence, then she’ll still somehow makes it to adulthood still looking more or less like a woman. She cross-dresses all the time, and might even be a drag queen. She is also probably attracted to men, and might have worked a spell as a sex worker.
+Popular culture has basically decided that there’s only one transfeminine story worth telling. It’s the story of a young trans girl who figures out her identity at a very young age. Even in childhood, she gravitates toward dolls and tea parties. She tries on her older sister’s dresses and begs her mom to buy her make-up and jewelry. She basically always looks like a girl, too — feminine facial features, short stature, thin and androgynous. If she doesn’t transition in childhood or adolescence, then she’ll still somehow make it to adulthood still looking more or less like a woman. She crossdresses all the time, and might even be a drag queen. She is also probably attracted to men, and might have worked a spell as a sex worker.
This is a valid and common trans narrative. I know many girls who have experienced some or all of these tropes. There’s a reason why this story is told over and over again, after all.
@@ -142,19 +142,19 @@ But girls like us are incredibly common. [This scientific study from 2003](https
I also believe that more trans women like us are coming out now because there’s so much more representation and so many more resources. In 1991, 2001, even 2011, the path to transition was much more difficult, and most people didn’t know any openly trans people. In this world, the only people who chose to transition were those for whom not doing so was just about impossible.
-It isn’t just easier to question your gender here in 2021, it’s easier to gain access to trans communities, hormones, and other crucial resources. If I’d been born thirty years earlier, I might not have transitioned at all. If I’d been born thirty years later, I’d probably have transitioned as a teenager. Don’t worry about whether or not you’ve “always known” if this is the first time you’ve ever had the freedom and resources to truly ask yourself this question.
+It isn’t just easier to question your gender here in 2021; it’s easier to gain access to trans communities, hormones, and other crucial resources. If I’d been born thirty years earlier, I might not have transitioned at all. If I’d been born thirty years later, I’d probably have transitioned as a teenager. Don’t worry about whether or not you’ve “always known” if this is the first time you’ve ever had the freedom and resources to truly ask yourself this question.
### Consider That The Things Keeping You From Self-Acceptance Might Have Nothing To Do With Your Identity
-Whenever I’m talking to a questioning trans women, the conversation eventually turns to the obstacles that she might face if she chooses to transition. “I worry that I’m too tall/large/hairy/ugly to transition” is a pretty common fear. “I worry that my family will disown me/my partner will leave me” is another worry I hear a lot. Other girls are really worried about their career, education, or college situation. Many fear that they simply can’t handle the medical bills for HRT or trans surgeries.
+Whenever I’m talking to a questioning trans woman, the conversation eventually turns to the obstacles that she might face if she chooses to transition. “I worry that I’m too tall/large/hairy/ugly to transition” is a pretty common fear. “I worry that my family will disown me/my partner will leave me” is another worry I hear a lot. Other girls are really worried about their career, education, or college situation. Many fear that they simply can’t handle the medical bills for HRT or trans surgeries.
-Everyone — everyone — doubts that they have the fortitude to deal with socially transitioning. Coming out to friends, wearing women’s clothing, dealing with transphobia…it’s a terrifying mess, especially for closeted trans women, who usually fell pretty short on resilience as it is. The whole thing can seem chronically overwhelming.
+Everyone — everyone — doubts that they have the fortitude to deal with socially transitioning. Coming out to friends, wearing women’s clothing, dealing with transphobia… it’s a terrifying mess, especially for closeted trans women, who usually feel pretty short on resilience as it is. The whole thing can seem chronically overwhelming.
These fears often manifest in the form of self-gatekeeping. “I’m afraid that I will never be a pretty girl” turns into “I can’t be trans, because what if I’m not pretty enough after I transition?” This seems somewhat silly in a vacuum, but pre-acceptance trans girls will sometimes do anything to convince themselves that they aren’t actually trans. I definitely thought that I wasn’t trans because I simply couldn’t imagine actually taking HRT and dressing like a woman every day. That was something that brave people did, not people like me, so I couldn’t be trans!
Why do we do this to ourselves? I think it’s all about self-protection. We know that transition is incredibly difficult, and so we will try literally everything else in the world before we’re even willing to start facing the “am I trans?” question. We develop really strong self-protective voices that push back hard against the truth because then we don’t have to worry about the terror of what comes next.
-Here’s the thing, though: even if you are trans, you don’t actually have to do anything about it. While I highly recommend transitioning, it’s definitely possible to self-accept and then just…do nothing. Keep your name, your pronouns, your life as it is. Or you can just change a few things, and enjoy those little pings of gender euphoria where you can.
+Here’s the thing, though: even if you are trans, you don’t actually have to do anything about it. While I highly recommend transitioning, it’s definitely possible to self-accept and then just… do nothing. Keep your name, your pronouns, your life as it is. Or you can just change a few things, and enjoy those little pings of gender euphoria where you can.
The important thing to remember is that the truth of your identity is separate from all of the hopes and fears you have about transitioning. If you’re a girl on the inside, it doesn’t matter what you look like. It doesn’t matter what your family thinks of you. It doesn’t matter whether or not you have the means or even the desire to medically transition. Identity is a mental and spiritual thing, separate from all of this. If you’re a girl, you’re a girl.
@@ -176,7 +176,7 @@ This makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Sex is one of the few realms
Unfortunately, exploring gender this way can actually make self-acceptance harder for many trans women. While I found this sort of sexual exploration absolutely necessary in my pre-self-acceptance days, it also meant that I was able to write off my intrusive gender thoughts or daydreams as “just a fetish.” I treated them as something hidden and shameful instead of something to investigate further.
-This issue is further complicated by the term “autogynephilia,” a bogus transphobic “theory” posited by a crank psychologist named Ray Blanchard. Autogynephilia posits that many people who self-identify as trans women aren’t actually women at all, but are instead creepy men who are turned on by the idea of being a woman or having a vagina. According to Blanchard, their entire transition is just an elaborate fetish game that they’re forcing the the world to participate in.
+This issue is further complicated by the term “autogynephilia,” a bogus transphobic “theory” posited by a crank psychologist named Ray Blanchard. Autogynephilia posits that many people who self-identify as trans women aren’t actually women at all, but are instead creepy men who are turned on by the idea of being a woman or having a vagina. According to Blanchard, their entire transition is just an elaborate fetish game that they’re forcing the world to participate in.
I want to be clear, here: autogynephilia is bullshit. [It has been discredited by actual scientists and researchers many, many times.](https://juliaserano.medium.com/making-sense-of-autogynephilia-debates-73d9051e88d3) The entire point of this theory, as far as I can tell, was to try and get cis people to start viewing trans women as male sex predators. Thankfully, most cis people don’t feel this way, and most of them haven’t heard of Blanchard or autogynephilia at all.
@@ -212,7 +212,7 @@ Unfortunately, this is pretty much impossible to do, especially before you’ve
To that end, it’s worth keeping in mind that you are not a puzzle to be solved. You do not have to perform an exact taxonomic classification of your own gender. You’re just a human with your own complex set of needs, desires, dreams, goals, fears, triggers, and a whole mess of everything else. You are a contradictory, complex, illogical being who contains vast multitudes.
-This is kind of scary, but hopefully it’s also somewhat freeing. There’s no “proper” timeline to your transition. No list of things that you absolutely have to do. You can keep your name, or change it. You can get gender conformation surgery, or you can keep what you’ve got. You can wear dresses every day, or you can leave them all for me. Some trans ladies have been dressing like women since they were old enough to buy clothes, but I didn’t once wear a full femme outfit until I was already three months into HRT. There are no rules. They were all made up by people who have been dead for hundreds of years.
+This is kind of scary, but hopefully it’s also somewhat freeing. There’s no “proper” timeline to your transition. No list of things that you absolutely have to do. You can keep your name, or change it. You can get gender confirmation surgery, or you can keep what you’ve got. You can wear dresses every day, or you can leave them all for me. Some trans ladies have been dressing like women since they were old enough to buy clothes, but I didn’t once wear a full femme outfit until I was already three months into HRT. There are no rules. They were all made up by people who have been dead for hundreds of years.
You also don’t have to commit to anything right away. Transition isn’t one giant leap into the abyss — it’s a series of small, willing steps. All of the early steps are easily reversible, and you never have to do anything that you don’t think will help make your life better. If you keep your eyes on your feet, you’ll cross the chasm before you know it.
diff --git a/public/en/biochemical-dysphoria.md b/public/en/biochemical-dysphoria.md
index da8cd91..c82d534 100644
--- a/public/en/biochemical-dysphoria.md
+++ b/public/en/biochemical-dysphoria.md
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
date: "2020-01-26T20:41:55.827Z"
title: "How Gender Dysphoria Manifests: Biochemical Dysphoria"
linkTitle: "Biochemical Dysphoria"
-description: "The very real and biological factors of Gender Dysphoria that cause mental disturbance."
+description: "The very real and biological factors of gender dysphoria that cause mental disturbance."
preBody: '_disclaimer'
classes:
- gdb
@@ -27,9 +27,9 @@ siblings:
# Biochemical Dysphoria
-The primary sexual features of the body begin development during the 8th week of human gestation. Typically by week 11 it is possible to determine the genitals of a fetus via ultrasound. The brain, however, forms [between weeks 14 and 24](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2989000/#Sec5title). Current prevailing understanding of neurological development suggests that it is during these 10 weeks when the brain will either masculinize or feminize based upon the presence of testosterone in the fetus bloodstream (initiated by the SRY gene on the Y chromosome, or introduced from other sources). This process locks the brain into a pattern of either desiring estrogens or androgens.
+The primary sexual features of the body begin development during the eighth week of human gestation. Typically, by week 11, it is possible to determine the genitals of a fetus via ultrasound. The brain, however, forms [between weeks 14 and 24](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2989000/#Sec5title). Current prevailing understanding of neurological development suggests that it is during these 10 weeks when the brain will either masculinize or feminize based upon the presence of testosterone in the fetus bloodstream (initiated by the SRY gene on the Y chromosome, or introduced from other sources). This process locks the brain into a pattern of either desiring estrogens or androgens.
-If your brain is wired for one gonadal hormones (such as testosterone) and your body produces the other hormone (such as estradiol), this can result in a biochemical malfunction within your brain chemistry. This produces a sort of brain fog, a reduction in mental capacity, and a general state of anxiety and unease. This is the source of the first two symptoms that often alleviate with medical hormonal therapy, Depersonalization and Derealization (DPDR).
+If your brain is wired for one kind of gonadal hormones (such as testosterone) and your body produces the other hormone (such as estradiol), this can result in a biochemical malfunction within your brain chemistry. This produces a sort of brain fog: a reduction in mental capacity and a general state of anxiety and unease. This is the source of the first two symptoms that often alleviate with medical hormonal therapy: **depersonalization and derealization (DPDR)**.
{!{
@@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ If your brain is wired for one gonadal hormones (such as testosterone) and your
}!}
-**Depersonalization** is a disconnect from your own body, an inability to believe that the person you see in the mirror is actually yourself. You feel like you are watching someone else in your body. You may find yourself not caring about what happens to your body, lack of concern with weight changes or improving your fitness because you have no ownership of this fleshy vehicle that transports you around your life.
+**Depersonalization** is a disconnect from your own body: an inability to believe that the person you see in the mirror is actually yourself. You feel like you are watching someone else in your body. You may find yourself not caring about what happens to your body, feeling a lack of concern with weight changes or improving your fitness because you have no ownership of this fleshy vehicle that transports you around your life.
Zinnia Jones [gives these descriptions for Depersonalization](https://web.archive.org/web/20190406141617/https://genderanalysis.net/2017/06/depersonalization-in-gender-dysphoria-widespread-and-widely-unrecognized/):
@@ -88,7 +88,7 @@ You may be unconcerned with the state of your body, perhaps not even fearing dea
'1215740224325783553'
] tweets=meta.tweets className="oneblock" }} }!}
-**Derealization** is a detachment from the world around you, a mental sense that everything you perceive is false.
+**Derealization** is a detachment from the world around you: a mental sense that everything you perceive is false.
- Your surroundings seem alien or unfamiliar, even if you've always been there, like someone has swapped out your house for a stage replica.
- Moving through the world feels like you're walking on a treadmill, with the buildings moving around you instead of you through them.
@@ -98,11 +98,11 @@ You may be unconcerned with the state of your body, perhaps not even fearing dea
- Distortions of distance and the size and shape of objects
- Feeling like a passive observer in the events of your life
-If you found yourself strongly relating to The Matrix or The Truman Show, you might be experiencing derealization. This can also manifest as a feeling of otherworldliness, like you don't belong in this society. You're just walking around waiting for your super powers to appear, or for an owl to fly up with your letter to Hogwarts. As a teen I was obsessed with an episode of The Outer Limits where a boy discovers a spaceship under his house and learns that he and his parents aren't actually human.
+If you found yourself strongly relating to *The Matrix* or *The Truman Show*, you might be experiencing derealization. This can also manifest as a feeling of otherworldliness, like you don't belong in this society. You're just walking around waiting for your super powers to appear, or for an owl to fly up with your letter to Hogwarts. As a teen I was obsessed with an episode of *The Outer Limits* where a boy discovers a spaceship under his house and learns that he and his parents aren't actually human.
DPDR sometimes comes with an emotional stunting. You are able to laugh and find humor, but rarely ever genuine joy. Moments of sadness or grief cause you to just go numb, dissociated by the event that caused it. This can also go in the opposite direction, where the person is under so much anxiety that their emotional response is extremely disproportionate to the catalyst, resulting in severe crying or violent outbursts from seemingly small events.
-It's important to note that DPDR is not exclusive to Gender Dysphoria. This condition is co-morbid with several other mental health issues, including chronic depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, and borderline personality disorder. DPDR should not be taken as a sign of Gender Dysphoria purely on its own, it's just a big alarm signal that something is very wrong. It's also usually pretty easy to spot externally, once you know how to watch for it. People with DPDR tend to have a mile long stare as they move about in the world; eyes so gloomy and dead that they look like a shell. One of the most common comments on transition timelines is how the eyes gain so much spark.
+It's important to note that DPDR is not exclusive to gender dysphoria. This condition is comorbid with several other mental health issues, including chronic depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, and borderline personality disorder. DPDR should not be taken as a sign of gender dysphoria purely on its own; it's just a big alarm signal that something is very wrong. It's also usually pretty easy to spot externally, once you know how to watch for it. People with DPDR tend to have a mile long stare as they move about in the world; eyes so gloomy and dead that they look like a shell. One of the most common comments on transition timelines is how the eyes gain so much spark.
### The Ebb and Flow
@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ The intensity of physical and biochemical dysphoria is highly influenced by othe
- If your blood sugar is out of whack, or you have a thyroid condition, it could cause your dysphoria to spike.
- If you are having dopamine withdrawal because of ceasing stimulants, that can make it worse.
-- If you start on an SSRI Antidepressant and start running with more serotonin, that can make it less intense.
+- If you start on an SSRI antidepressant and start running with more serotonin, that can make it less intense.
- Transfeminine AMABs (people assigned male at birth) with testicles experience surges in testosterone in relation to attraction and desire, which can make them more dysphoric.
- Transmasculine AFABs (people assigned female at birth) with unsuppressed ovaries experience rises and falls in estrogen and progesterone over the course of their menstrual cycle, making their dysphoria intensify and lessen based on what day of the cycle they are on.
@@ -131,12 +131,12 @@ All of this is valid, and just because you feel very dysphoric one day and not d
'1222743749920464896'
] tweets=meta.tweets className="oneblock" }} }!}
-Sometimes you will hear naysayers suggesting that taking hormone therapy always improves mental health. I heard this myself when I came out to my mother. "Estrogen makes everyone happier." This is flat out false. When cis people are put on cross hormone therapy it always results in dysphoria. This is one reason why Spironolactone is rarely ever prescribed to men, because the anti-androgen factor causes mental instability. Five to ten percent of cis women suffer from Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), a condition which causes the ovaries to produce testosterone instead of estrogen. Ask any one of them how their mental health has been, and they will give you an ear full.
+Sometimes you will hear naysayers suggesting that taking hormone therapy always improves mental health. I heard this myself when I came out to my mother. "Estrogen makes everyone happier." This is flat out false. When cis people are put on cross-hormone therapy it always results in dysphoria. This is one reason why Spironolactone is rarely ever prescribed to men, because the anti-androgen factor causes mental instability. Five to ten percent of cis women suffer from [polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycystic_ovary_syndrome), a condition which causes the ovaries to produce testosterone instead of estrogen. Ask any one of them how their mental health has been, and they will give you an earful.
-One very potent demonstration of this is the tragic case of [David Reimer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer). At seven months of age David and his twin brother were given circumcisions to treat a bad case of phimosis (a skin condition on the foreskin). David's went horribly wrong, and the penis was destroyed. The decision was made to perform vaginoplasty and raise him as a girl, including estrogen therapy at pubescence. By the age of 13 he was deep into suicidal depression and suffering greatly, as no amount of coaching and encouraging can make a boy enjoy being a girl. When his parents informed him of what had happened, he returned to a male presentation, switched to testosterone therapy, and over the course of his teen years had multiple operations in order to transition back to male.
+One very potent demonstration of this is the tragic case of [David Reimer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer). At seven months of age David and his twin brother were given circumcisions to treat a bad case of phimosis (a skin condition on the foreskin). David's went horribly wrong, and the penis was destroyed. The decision was made to perform vaginoplasty and raise him as a girl, including estrogen therapy at pubescence. By the age of 13, he was deep into suicidal depression and suffering greatly, as no amount of coaching and encouraging can make a boy enjoy being a girl. When his parents informed him of what had happened, he returned to a male presentation, switched to testosterone therapy, and over the course of his teen years had multiple operations in order to transition back to male.
People know when they're living the wrong gender.
-Psychologist John Money oversaw David's case and was largely responsible for the decisions that were made in David's upbringing. Money, seeking to make a name for himself, massively misreported on David's case, calling it a complete success in his reports. The result of this echoes to this day, as Money's reports were used as an example of why performing genital corrective surgeries on intersex infants was an appropriate course of action. Fifty years later there are still doctors who believe that you can just change a child's genitals and raise them as that gender, and it will stick.
+Psychologist John Money oversaw David's case and was largely responsible for the decisions that were made in David's upbringing. Money, seeking to make a name for himself, massively misreported on David's case, calling it a complete success in his reports. The result of this echoes to this day, as Money's reports were used as an example of why performing genital corrective surgeries on intersex infants was an appropriate course of action. Fifty years later there are still doctors who believe that you can just change a child's genitals and raise them as that gender and it will stick.
This is the tragedy of the [intersex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex) community. Roughly one in every 60 births results in some kind of intersex condition (though not all of these are related to genitalia). Often times the "corrective" procedures used on intersex children results in a loss of function and/or sensation. Far too frequently, doctors would opt towards forced female assignment because it was easier to construct a vulva than a penis.
diff --git a/public/en/causes.md b/public/en/causes.md
index 89d5628..b53c4ae 100644
--- a/public/en/causes.md
+++ b/public/en/causes.md
@@ -23,11 +23,11 @@ siblings:
# What is the Cause of Gender Incongruence?
-To put it bluntly: We don't know, not firmly. Science and modern psychology has proven that it is **not** caused by nurture; no one *becomes* transgender, gender identity is congenital, solidifying before we even exit the womb. It also appears to sometimes be hereditary; transgender parents have a higher likelihood of having transgender children, and many times they realize this in reverse. The child comes out to the parent, and that helps the parent realize they can come out as well.
+To put it bluntly, we don't know (at least not firmly). Science and modern psychology has proven that it is **not** caused by nurture; no one *becomes* transgender, gender identity is congenital, solidifying before we even exit the womb. It also appears to sometimes be hereditary; transgender parents have a higher likelihood of having transgender children, and many times they realize this in reverse. The child comes out to the parent, and that helps the parent realize they can come out as well.
Here is the science that is believed to influence gender identity. This does not mean that it *defines* gender identity, nor does it fully encapsulate one's gender, as so many aspects of gender are cultural and social. None of this is prescriptive of a person's identity, none of it is cast in stone.
-If you've seen Jurassic Park then you may remember this scene:
+If you've seen Jurassic Park, you may remember this scene:
{!{
{{import '~/img' images.jurassicpark
@@ -47,16 +47,15 @@ If you've seen Jurassic Park then you may remember this scene:
}!}
-The gonads in human fetuses initially develop in a bi-potential state, meaning they can become either ovaries or testes. The SRY gene on the Y chromosome releases a protein called [Testis Determining Factor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testis-determining_factor) (TDF). This protein then starts a chain reaction with SOX9 production (another protein), which causes the gonadal cells to form into the Sertoli and Leydig cells that make up the testes. If TDF is never produced or is interfered with then the gonad cells form into the Theca cells and Follicles which comprise the ovaries.
+The gonads in human fetuses initially develop in a bi-potential state, meaning they can become either ovaries or testes. The SRY gene on the Y chromosome releases a protein called [testis-determining factor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testis-determining_factor) (TDF). This protein then starts a chain reaction with SOX9 production (another protein), which causes the gonadal cells to form into the Sertoli and Leydig cells that make up the testes. If TDF is never produced or is interfered with, the gonad cells form into the Theca cells and follicles which comprise the ovaries.
+Once formed, the testes then begin producing a testosterone surge which typically starts in the eighth week of gestation and continues until the 24th week. This surge, [combined with another hormone from the placenta](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190214153053.htm), is responsible for the development of the penis and scrotum. Genitalia formation starts around week nine and becomes identifiable by the 11th week. If the surge does not occur, or the body does not respond to it (such as in the case of androgen insensitivity syndrome) then the genitalia form into the vulva, vagina, and uterus instead.
-Once formed, the testes then begin producing a testosterone surge which typically starts in the 8th week of gestation and continues until the 24th week. This surge, [combined with another hormone from the placenta](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190214153053.htm), is responsible for the development of the penis and scrotum. Genitalia formation starts around week 9 and becomes identifiable by the 11th week. If the surge does not occur, or the body does not respond to it (such as in the case of Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome) then the genitalia form into the vulva, vagina and uterus instead.
+If there is an interference in this process then you can end up with the wrong bits, and this is the result of many intersex conditions. Oftentimes this is a partial development, where the external genitalia only partially form but functional gonads still exist. Sometimes the child comes out with fully functional male or female genitalia, but mismatched gonads. Sometimes the TDF protein fails to release and the fetus grows completely functional female reproductive organs, despite the presence of a Y chromosome.
-If there is an interference in this process then you can end up with the wrong bits, and this is the result of many intersex conditions. Often times this is a partial development, where the external genitalia only partially form, but functional gonads still exist. Sometimes the child comes out with fully functional male or female genitalia, but mismatched gonads. Sometimes the TDF protein fails to release and the fetus grows completely functional female reproductive organs, despite the presence of a Y chromosome.
+This is known as Swyer syndrome, and an unknown number of women may have this condition. In 2015 [an XY woman with Swyer syndrome who was born without ovaries](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mostly-male-woman-gives-birth-to-twins-in-medical-miracle-10033528.html) successfully carried and gave birth to a child via IVF. Usually, Swyer syndrome results in completely non-functional ovaries, but [in 2008 a woman was found with Swyer syndrome](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190741/) who had gone through puberty, menstruated normally, and had two unassisted pregnancies. Her condition went undiscovered until her daughter was found to also have it.
-This is known as Swyer Syndrome, and an unknown number of women may have this condition. In 2015 [an XY woman with Swyer Syndrome who was born without ovaries](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mostly-male-woman-gives-birth-to-twins-in-medical-miracle-10033528.html) successfully carried and gave birth to a child via IVF. Usually Swyer Syndrome results in completely non-functional ovaries, but [in 2008 a woman was found with Swyer Syndrome](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190741/) who had gone through puberty, menstruated normally, and had two unassisted pregnancies. Her condition went undiscovered until her daughter was found to also have it.
-
-The fact is, the vast majority of the population has never been tested for genetic karyotype, so we don’t know how common these cases actually are. Where does this come into affect for gender identity? Well, the exact same process that causes the external genitals to differentiate also occurs for the brain.
+The fact is, the vast majority of the population has never been tested for genetic karyotype, so we don’t know how common these cases actually are. Where does this come into effect for gender identity? Well, the exact same process that causes the external genitals to differentiate also occurs for the brain.
{!{
{{import '~/tweet' ids=[
diff --git a/public/en/conclusion.md b/public/en/conclusion.md
index 0668382..b80526b 100644
--- a/public/en/conclusion.md
+++ b/public/en/conclusion.md
@@ -15,15 +15,15 @@ preBody: '_disclaimer'
What is choice? No, I’m not talking about free will and fate. That is not a subject within the scope of this essay. However, in the context of gender, I do believe it is important to consider the processes that drive us to make decisions.
-In the philosophy of decision theory, choice is broken down into two pieces, [preferences and prospects](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/decision-theory/#WhaPreOvePro). Prospects are the different paths that lay before us, the unresolved potential of any given choice. Preferences are our internal factors that drive us towards one prospect over another. Sometimes these are overtly clear, rational choices that we can describe easily with language. These motivations come from what is coined as the Rational Mind. Just as often, however, these preferences come to us without clear reasoning, stemming from our past experiences, our biochemical driving forces, or instinctual drives that exist below all of that. Sometimes our preference is just a gut feeling, deep inside. Proponents of Mindfulness refer to this as the Emotional Mind.
+In the philosophy of decision theory, choice is broken down into two pieces: [preferences and prospects](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/decision-theory/#WhaPreOvePro). Prospects are the different paths that lay before us — the unresolved potential of any given choice. Preferences are our internal factors that drive us towards one prospect over another. Sometimes these are overtly clear, rational choices that we can describe easily with language. These motivations come from what is coined as the rational mind. Just as often, however, these preferences come to us without clear reasoning, stemming from our past experiences, our biochemical driving forces, or instinctual drives that exist below all of that. Sometimes our preference is just a gut feeling, deep inside. Proponents of mindfulness refer to this as the emotional mind.
-Regardless of where a preference originates from, however, it is shaped by its position between two poles. Pleasure and Discomfort. Peace and Dissonance. Euphoria and Dysphoria. Everything we do, every choice we make, comes from either positive or negative responses. When faced with two options, we will select the one we find most beneficial or least harmful to our own internal needs.
+Regardless of where a preference originates from, however, it is shaped by its position between two poles. Pleasure and discomfort. Peace and dissonance. Euphoria and dysphoria. Everything we do, every choice we make, comes from either positive or negative responses. When faced with two options, we will select the one we find most beneficial or least harmful to our own internal needs.
-What does this have to do with Gender? A person’s gender is not a choice, it comes from somewhere deep inside them at a level of the brain’s function that is not subject to change. There are factors which may result in fluctuation of a persons perception of their gender (as in genderfluid individuals and those with dissociative identities), and a person may change how they describe their gender over time, but no one *chooses* their gender identity. We only choose how to present it to the rest of the world.
+What does this have to do with gender? A person’s gender is not a choice; it comes from somewhere deep inside them at a level of the brain’s function that is not subject to change. There are factors which may result in fluctuation of a person's perception of their gender (as in genderfluid individuals and those with dissociative identities), and a person may change how they describe their gender over time, but no one *chooses* their gender identity. We only choose how to present it to the rest of the world.
-Those choices, those preferences, are driven by what feels good and what feels bad. A person who chooses to publicly identify as a gender different from the one assigned them at their birth is making that choice based on what feels right to do. A person defending that identity does so based on what feels wrong. We make these choices against the social stigma and discrimination that comes with the transgender label, and indeed a not insignificant number of trans people may choose to go stealth and abandon that label once it is safe to do so. Even among those who are not stealth, many trans people accept the safety of being presumed cisgender, and take no effort to break people of that presumption. That is, again, a choice. Being visibly trans produces a negative experience for them.
+Those choices, those preferences, are driven by what feels good and what feels bad. A person who chooses to publicly identify as a gender different from the one assigned to them at their birth is making that choice based on what feels right to do. A person defending that identity does so based on what feels wrong. We make these choices against the social stigma and discrimination that comes with the transgender label, and indeed a not-insignificant number of trans people may choose to go stealth and abandon that label once it is safe to do so. Even among those who are not stealth, many trans people accept the safety of being presumed cisgender, and take no effort to break people of that presumption. That is, again, a choice. Being visibly trans produces a negative experience for them.
-There are those who find the notion that Euphoria and Dysphoria are central motivators behind gender variance to be uncomfortable, you could even say they experience dysphoria at the concept of dysphoria. To them ask, if you believe you do not have dysphoria, why did you take on the mantle of the trans label? That *choice* did not happen in a vacuum; even if your motivations stem entirely from happy feelings, ask yourself how you feel when your gender is not respected. How do you feel when others invalidate your identity?
+There are those who find the notion that euphoria and dysphoria are central motivators behind gender variance to be uncomfortable; one could even say they experience dysphoria at the concept of dysphoria. To them, ask, if you believe you do not have dysphoria, why did you take on the mantle of the trans label? That *choice* did not happen in a vacuum; even if your motivations stem entirely from happy feelings, ask yourself how you feel when your gender is not respected. How do you feel when others invalidate your identity?
Is it not _a state of unease or generalized dissatisfaction_?
@@ -31,9 +31,9 @@ That’s dysphoria, baby.
## We’re here, we’re queer.
-Every single year we get new studies that show an increase in the size of the transgender population. As awareness continues to grow, more and more people are realizing what has been wrong with their lives and are coming out of the closet. People who transitioned decades ago are coming out of stealth. GLAAD estimates as much as 3% of the population could be transgender, and I have seen numbers as high as 5% or even 10% from more liberal estimations. The more we come to understand about gender, the more language we gain to describe gender, the more people realize that the rigid Male and Female sexual structure that we have been forced into is false.
+Every single year, we get new studies that show an increase in the size of the transgender population. As awareness continues to grow, more and more people are realizing what has been wrong with their lives and are coming out of the closet. People who transitioned decades ago are coming out of stealth. GLAAD estimates as much as 3% of the population could be transgender, and I have seen numbers as high as 5% or even 10% from more liberal estimations. The more we come to understand about gender, the more language we gain to describe gender, the more people realize that the rigid Male and Female sexual structure that we have been forced into is false.
-Yet all this change frightens people. It frightens conservatives who see their patriarchal social structures dissolving under the new understanding of gender. It frightens old-school transgender people who transitioned under the Harry Benjamin rules and now see so many people easily obtaining what they had to act and lie and manipulate to achieve. They fear that if anyone can be trans, then the public will stop taking trans people seriously. It frightens the misogynistic trans-exclusionary groups that fight so hard to invalidate transgender rights, because they think if anyone can be a man or a woman, then their status as a man or a woman is harmed.
+Yet all this change frightens people. It frightens conservatives who see their patriarchal social structures dissolving under the new understanding of gender. It frightens old-school transgender people who transitioned under the Harry Benjamin rules and now see so many people easily obtaining what they had to act and lie and manipulate to achieve. They fear that if anyone can be trans, the public will stop taking trans people seriously. It frightens the misogynistic or misandristic trans-exclusionary groups that fight so hard to invalidate transgender rights because they think, if anyone can be a man or a woman, their status as a man or a woman is harmed.
There is no such thing as a "Transtrender".
@@ -42,4 +42,3 @@ There is no such thing as "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria".
There is no such thing as people "transing" kids.
These mentalities have to stop.
-
diff --git a/public/en/diagnoses.md b/public/en/diagnoses.md
index 3300fdc..bcd6a65 100644
--- a/public/en/diagnoses.md
+++ b/public/en/diagnoses.md
@@ -15,30 +15,30 @@ siblings:
# How is Gender Dysphoria Diagnosed?
-This section is going to focus on the diagnostic criteria under the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, version five (DSM-5). The reason I'm focusing on this standard is because, well, nobody else has one. The UK's National Health Service basically mirrors the APA's DSM. Other countries have their own local standards, but they're all either very similar, or a lot more outdated.
+This section is going to focus on the diagnostic criteria under the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, version five (DSM-5). The reason I'm focusing on this standard is because, well, nobody else has one. The UK's National Health Service basically mirrors the APA's DSM. Other countries have their own local standards, but they're all either very similar or a lot more outdated.
-The WPATH SoC describes ways that Gender Dysphoria manifests, but does not define clear diagnostic criteria, instead leaving it up to individual mental health professionals to make their own diagnoses. In general it advocates that if the patient is of sound mind and body and says that they have Gender Dysphoria, then they should be believed. The key piece here is "sound mind and body", it is left to the mental health professional to do the due diligence to ensure that there are no other conditions which may be causing the patient to believe this.
+The WPATH SoC describes ways that gender dysphoria manifests, but does not define clear diagnostic criteria, instead leaving it up to individual mental health professionals to make their own diagnoses. In general, it advocates that, if the patient is of sound mind and body and says that they have gender dysphoria, they should be believed. The key piece here is "sound mind and body"; it is left to the mental health professional to do the due diligence to ensure that there are no other conditions which may be causing the patient to believe this.
-Or to put it bluntly, WPATH says that if you think you're trans, you're trans. This has been the attitude that the majority of the community has adopted as well. As long as you believe your gender does not match what you were assigned at birth, you are transgender. However, insurance companies aren't so happy with self-diagnoses, so here are the criteria which are defined in DSM-5 for diagnosing someone with Gender Dysphoria.
+Or, to put it bluntly, WPATH says that if you think you're trans, you're trans. This has been the attitude that the majority of the community has adopted as well. As long as you believe your gender does not match what you were assigned at birth, you are transgender. However, insurance companies aren't so happy with self-diagnoses, so here are the criteria which are defined in the DSM-5 for diagnosing someone with gender dysphoria.
{!{
For Your Information
}!}
-Diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria in prepubescent children requires the child must have a documented six month history of meeting six of these criteria, as well as demonstrated distress or impairment in function.
+Diagnosis of gender dysphoria in prepubescent children requires the child must have a documented six month history of meeting six of these criteria (one of which must be Criterion 1), as well as demonstrated distress or impairment in social, school, or other important areas of functioning.
-1. A strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence that one is the other gender
-2. A strong preference for wearing clothes typical of the opposite gender
-3. A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play
-4. A strong preference for the toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender
-5. A strong preference for playmates of the other gender
-6. A strong rejection of toys, games and activities typical of one’s assigned gender
-7. A strong dislike of one’s sexual anatomy
-8. A strong desire for the physical sex characteristics that match one’s experienced gender
+1. A strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence that one is the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one's assigned gender).
+2. A strong preference for wearing clothes typical of the other gender.
+3. A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play.
+4. A strong preference for the toys, games, or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender.
+5. A strong preference for playmates of the other gender.
+6. A strong rejection of toys, games, and activities typical of one’s assigned gender.
+7. A strong dislike of one’s sexual anatomy.
+8. A strong desire for the physical sex characteristics that match one’s experienced gender.
{!{ }!}
-**Note** These are the criteria for adolescents and adults. Children have a different set of criteria, which [you can find here](https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria). I have also changed the wording slightly, here, as the official criteria are binary-centric.
+**Note** These are the criteria for children. Adolescents and adults have a different set of criteria. Both sets [can also be found here](https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria). I have also changed the wording slightly, here, as the official criteria are binary-centric.
-For an adult to be diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria by a licensed mental health professional they must meet two of these six criteria, and have experienced those criteria for longer than six months.
+For an adult to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria by a licensed mental health professional, they must meet two of these six criteria and have experienced those criteria for longer than six months.
- **A marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and primary and/or secondary sex characteristics**
@@ -58,10 +58,10 @@ For an adult to be diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria by a licensed mental health p
This is pretty self explanatory.
-As I said, only two of these conditions need be met for a formal diagnosis. You may notice that only two of these comprise the physical body. It is perfectly valid for a trans person to be experiencing Gender Dysphoria without actually hating any part of their body, or wanting to change any part of their body. Physical Dysphoria is only one fraction of the many ways that lead to being trans.
+As I said, only two of these conditions need to be met for a formal diagnosis. You may notice that only two of these comprise the physical body. It is perfectly valid for a trans person to be experiencing gender dysphoria without actually hating any part of their body or wanting to change any part of their body. Physical dysphoria is only one fraction of the many things that lead to being trans.
Now, here is the kicker. If you identify as transgender, meaning that your gender does not align with the binary sex you were assigned at birth, you already meet two of these criteria! You have a strong enough desire to be of another gender that you are identifying that you *are* another gender, and you have a strong conviction of what your gender feels like, and it isn't what you were given at birth.
So, it is literally impossible for a person to identify as trans and not experience gender dysphoria. By the WPATH requirements anyone can identify as trans. Ergo, the statement "you do not have to have dysphoria to be transgender" is a logical paradox.
-Then why do we still say it? Because most people don't know what gender dysphoria actually is, and it is easier to repeat the mantra than to explain the nuances and subtleties of how Gender Dysphoria manifests. But hey, look, now you've got a nice article to link to that can help people understand that.
+Then why do we still say it? Because most people don't know what gender dysphoria actually is, and it is easier to repeat the mantra than to explain the nuances and subtleties of how gender dysphoria manifests. But hey, look, now you've got a nice article to link to that can help people understand that.
diff --git a/public/en/euphoria.md b/public/en/euphoria.md
index 4874c5e..cefe062 100644
--- a/public/en/euphoria.md
+++ b/public/en/euphoria.md
@@ -28,15 +28,15 @@ tweets:
}!}
-Before I can talk about discomfort, I have to talk about relief. Gender Euphoria is itself a sign of Gender Dysphoria. You might be asking yourself, "how can happiness be sadness?" The answer to that is simple.
+Before I can talk about discomfort, I have to talk about relief. Gender euphoria is itself a sign of gender dysphoria. You might be asking yourself, "how can happiness be sadness?" The answer to that is simple.
-Imagine a person who was born in a cave, who spent their entire life living underground, their only source of illumination being candles and oil lamps. Imagine they've never been above ground, they don't even know the surface exists. Then one day a cave-in happens in a side tunnel, and reveals an opening to the surface. Sunlight pours into the opening, and at first it is blinding and the person runs away in fear. Later they return to the opening, and as the person's eyes adjust they look out through the hole and see a bright and brilliant world full of colors they didn't even know existed.
+Imagine a person who was born in a cave, who spent their entire life living underground, with their only source of illumination being candles and oil lamps. Imagine they've never been above ground; they don't even know the surface exists. Then, one day, a cave-in happens in a side tunnel, and reveals an opening to the surface. Sunlight pours into the opening, and at first it is blinding and the person runs away in fear. Later, they return to the opening, and, as the person's eyes adjust, they look out through the hole and see a bright and brilliant world full of colors they didn't even know existed.
-That world is scary, it's huge and full of unknowns, so they crawl back into the cave for safety, but that hole is still there, and they see the light every time they pass it. Gradually they peek out more and more frequently, and further and further from the opening. They start to want that light, they find reasons to visit it more often.
+That world is scary, huge, and full of unknowns, so they crawl back into the cave for safety, but that hole is still there, and they see the light every time they pass it. Gradually, they peek out more and more frequently, and further and further from the opening. They start to want that light; they find reasons to visit it more often.
-Eventually they realize that they don't want to go back into the hole any more. They have to go back, because that is where their family and friends are, but this place is so much better, they want to stay here. Going back into the hole feels wrong, it starts to hurt to be in the dark so much.
+Eventually they realize that they don't want to go back into the hole any more. They have to go back, because that is where their family and friends are, but this place is so much better, and they want to stay here. Going back into the hole feels wrong; it starts to hurt to be in the dark so much.
-This is what Gender Euphoria is like, it is brief flashes of a light that may be too bright to handle at first, too confusing to understand, but as time goes on you become more accustomed to them and you realize that this is where you belong, and the darkness becomes the dysphoria.
+This is what gender euphoria is like: brief flashes of a light that may be too bright to handle at first, too confusing to understand, but as time goes on you become more accustomed to them and you realize that this is where you belong, and the darkness becomes the dysphoria.
{!{
{{import '~/tweet' ids=[
'1215716433210105856'
@@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ Examples:
- Being gendered correctly
- Being addressed by your chosen name
-- Wearing correctly gendered clothing
+- Wearing correctly-gendered clothing
- Seeing and feeling changes in your body
- Seeing yourself in the mirror (removal of depersonalization)
- Socializing in a way that conforms with gendered expectations
@@ -72,6 +72,6 @@ Examples:
Even just being out in the world as yourself and being seen as yourself can be massively euphoric.
-**What euphoria is NOT** is a sexual high, turn on, or fetish. Sometimes euphoria can trigger a sexual response, and there are many factors at play that cause that (feeling good about your body is a turn on, for example), but it is not a source of sexual excitement. Trans people are not "getting off" on presenting or acting like their true selves.
+**What euphoria is NOT** is a sexual high, turn-on, or fetish. Sometimes euphoria can trigger a sexual response, and there are many factors at play that cause that (feeling good about your body is a turn-on, for example), but it is not a source of sexual excitement. Trans people are not "getting off" on presenting or acting like their true selves.
-That said, many people who have not yet realized they are trans may resort to fetishes and kinks to express their gender and/or relieve their dysphoria. They may maintain some of these kinks through transition. There is no shame in this, how they find sexual fulfillment is their own business. However, these things are *alongside* their gender. A trans person's sense of gender persists indefinitely, it does not go away when they go back to their daily lives.
+That said, many people who have not yet realized they are trans may resort to fetishes and kinks to express their gender and/or relieve their dysphoria. They may maintain some of these kinks through transition. There is no shame in this; how they find sexual fulfillment is their own business. However, these things are *alongside* their gender. A trans person's sense of gender persists indefinitely; it does not go away when they go back to their daily lives.
diff --git a/public/en/existential-dysphoria.md b/public/en/existential-dysphoria.md
index a909f2f..af663bf 100644
--- a/public/en/existential-dysphoria.md
+++ b/public/en/existential-dysphoria.md
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
date: "2020-01-26T20:41:55.827Z"
title: "How Gender Dysphoria Manifests: Existential Dysphoria"
linkTitle: "Existential Dysphoria"
-description: "I don't regret the things I have done, I regret the things I didn't do when I had the chance."
+description: "I don't regret the things I have done; I regret the things I didn't do when I had the chance."
classes:
- gdb
preBody: '_disclaimer'
diff --git a/public/en/history.md b/public/en/history.md
index a932f82..1babef1 100644
--- a/public/en/history.md
+++ b/public/en/history.md
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ siblings:
In 1948, noted sexologist Dr. Alfred Kinsey (yes, [*that* Kinsey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Kinsey)) was contacted by a woman whose male child adamantly insisted that they were in fact a girl, and that something had gone very wrong. The mother, rather than trying to suppress her daughter, wished to help her become who she knew herself to be. Kinsey reached out to a German endocrinologist named [Dr. Harry Benjamin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Benjamin) to see if he could help the child. Dr. Benjamin then developed a protocol of estrogen therapy for the teen, and worked with the family to find surgical help.
-Benjamin then went on to refine his protocol and treated thousands of patients with similar feelings over the course of his career. He refused to take payment for his work, instead taking satisfaction from the relief he granted these patients, and using their treatment to further his understanding of the condition. He coined a term for this feeling of incongruence in 1973: Gender Dysphoria. Unfortunately, this term would not be used in the United States until 2013, with the American Psychiatric Association opting for the term Gender Identity Disorder instead.
+Benjamin then went on to refine his protocol and treated thousands of patients with similar feelings over the course of his career. He refused to take payment for his work, instead taking satisfaction from the relief he granted these patients, and using their treatment to further his understanding of the condition. He coined a term for this feeling of incongruence in 1973: **gender dysphoria**. Unfortunately, this term would not be used in the United States until 2013, with the American Psychiatric Association opting for the term "gender identity disorder" instead.
{!{
@@ -28,11 +28,11 @@ Benjamin then went on to refine his protocol and treated thousands of patients w
}!}
-If you are a trans person reading this, you may have heard the name Harry Benjamin before, but probably not in a favorable context. In 1979 his name was used (with permission) in the forming of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA), which released a Standards of Care (SoC) for transgender people. This SoC came to be known as the Harry Benjamin Rules, and were infamously limiting in regards to how Gender Dysphoria could be diagnosed. Patients were placed within a six tier scale based upon their level of misery and sexual dysfunction. If you did not land at Tier 5 or higher, classified as a "True Transsexual", you were usually rejected for treatment.
+If you are a trans person reading this, you may have heard the name Harry Benjamin before, but probably not in a favorable context. In 1979 his name was used (with permission) in the forming of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA), which released a Standards of Care (SoC) for transgender people. This SoC came to be known as the Harry Benjamin Rules, and were infamously limiting in regards to how gender dysphoria could be diagnosed. Patients were placed within a six tier scale based upon their level of misery and sexual dysfunction. If you did not land at Tier 5 or higher, classified as a "True Transsexual", you were usually rejected for treatment.
-The problem was, Tier 5 and 6 required that you had to be exclusively attracted to your own birth sex. Transition *had* to be making you straight, not gay, and bisexuals were not allowed. You also had to be experiencing severe distress with your body and genitals, and already be living as your true gender without treatment. Many trans people got around these limitations through community coaching and performative presentations, but for many people (myself included) it was believed that if you did not fit all the criteria, then you were not trans enough to transition.
+The problem was that Tiers 5 and 6 required that you had to be exclusively attracted to your own birth sex. Transition *had* to be making you straight, not gay, and bisexuals were not allowed. You also had to be experiencing severe distress with your body and genitals and already be living as your true gender without treatment. Many trans people got around these limitations through community coaching and performative presentations, but for many people (myself included) it was believed that, if you did not fit all the criteria, you were not trans enough to transition.
-In 2011 the HBIGDA reorganized itself to respond to mounting pressures in trans understanding and acceptance, taking on the new name World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). Under guidance by actual transgender people (a first for the organization), WPATH then proceeded to release an entirely new Standards of Care (SoC, version 7, the first in ten years) which abandoned the Benjamin Scale, focusing on specific individual symptoms and disconnecting gender from sexuality entirely. Two years later, in 2013, the American Psychiatric Association changed their diagnostic criteria to match the WPATH SoC in their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) version 5, replacing Gender Identity Disorder with Gender Dysphoria. With this change, medical transition became available to all trans people in the United States.
+In 2011, the HBIGDA reorganized itself to respond to mounting pressures in trans understanding and acceptance, taking on the new name World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). Under guidance by actual transgender people (a first for the organization), WPATH then proceeded to release an entirely new Standards of Care (SoC, version 7, the first in ten years) which abandoned the Benjamin Scale, focusing on specific individual symptoms and disconnecting gender from sexuality entirely. Two years later, in 2013, the American Psychiatric Association changed their diagnostic criteria to match the WPATH SoC in their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) version 5, replacing Gender Identity Disorder with Gender Dysphoria. With this change, medical transition became available to all trans people in the United States.
This is why trans presence across the world has suddenly exploded in the last decade. With easier access comes larger numbers, with larger numbers comes more visibility, with more visibility comes more awareness, and with more awareness comes more people accessing treatment. [A study conducted in 2014](https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/TransAgeReport.pdf) showed 0.6% of adults and 0.7% of youth in the United States identified as transgender, [a study conducted in 2016](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6803a3.htm) showed 1.8% of high school age students identified as transgender, and [a survey conducted by GLAAD in 2017](https://www.glaad.org/files/aa/2017_GLAAD_Accelerating_Acceptance.pdf) showed a whopping 12% of respondents 18 to 34 did not identify as cisgender.
@@ -50,9 +50,9 @@ Transgender people are coming out of the woodwork; we are everywhere.
}!}
-There is a common misconception among both cisgender and transgender people that Gender Dysphoria refers exclusively to a physical discomfort with ones own body. However, this belief that body discomfort is central to Gender Dysphoria is in fact a misconception, and is not even a majority component of a Gender Dysphoria diagnosis. Gender Dysphoria crosses a large number of all aspects of life, including how you interact with others, how others interact with you, how you dress, how you behave, how you fit into society, how you perceive the world around you, and yes, how you relate to your own body. Consequently, proponents of the WPATH SoC 7 and the DSM-5 have taken to a habit of saying that you do not have to have dysphoria to be transgender. This statement is often repeated like a mantra, as it informs people who do not feel significant body discomfort that they may also be transgender.
+There is a common misconception among both cisgender and transgender people that gender dysphoria refers exclusively to a physical discomfort with ones own body. However, this belief that body discomfort is central to gender dysphoria is in fact a misconception, and is not even a majority component of a gender dysphoria diagnosis. Gender dysphoria crosses a large number of all aspects of life, including how you interact with others, how others interact with you, how you dress, how you behave, how you fit into society, how you perceive the world around you, and, yes, how you relate to your own body. Consequently, proponents of the WPATH SoC 7 and the DSM-5 have taken to a habit of saying that you do not have to have dysphoria to be transgender. This statement is often repeated like a mantra, as it informs people who do not feel significant body discomfort that they may also be transgender.
-In principle, Gender Dysphoria is a feeling of wrongness intrinsic to the self. There is no logical backing to this wrongness, there is nothing which explains it, you can not describe why you feel this way, it is just there. Things in your existence are incorrect, and even knowing which things *are* incorrect can be hard to properly identify.
+In principle, gender dysphoria is a feeling of wrongness intrinsic to the self. There is no logical backing to this wrongness; there is nothing which explains it, and you can not describe why you feel this way; it is just there. Things in your existence are incorrect, and even knowing which things *are* incorrect can be hard to properly identify.
The way I used to describe it is like wearing an adult's glove when you are a child. You can put your hand into the glove, and your fingers feed into the digits of the glove, but your dexterity with the glove is severely hindered. You might be able to pick something up, but you can not manipulate it like an adult could. Things just aren't quite right.
@@ -66,16 +66,16 @@ Evey Winters described it this way [in her Dysphoria post](https://eveywinters.c
>
> It is knowing that something is wrong and not being able to do a damn thing about it.
-Gender Dysphoria is, at its core, simply emotional reactions to the brain knowing that something does not fit. This incongruence is so deep inside the brain's subsystems that there is no obvious message of what the problem is. The only way we have to identify it is via the emotions that it triggers. Our consciousness receives either positive (euphoria) or negative (dysphoria) feedback according to how well our current environment aligns with our internal sense of self. Part of transition is learning to recognize those signals.
+Gender dysphoria is, at its core, simply emotional reactions to the brain knowing that something does not fit. This incongruence is so deep inside the brain's subsystems that there is no obvious message of what the problem is. The only way we have to identify it is via the emotions that it triggers. Our consciousness receives either positive (euphoria) or negative (dysphoria) feedback according to how well our current environment aligns with our internal sense of self. Part of transition is learning to recognize those signals.
Cisgender people receive them as well, but since the signals usually align with their environment, they take them for granted. There have been a few notable occasions, however, when a cisgender person has been [put into a situation](https://www.teenvogue.com/story/maisie-williams-arya-stark-game-of-thrones-affected-her-body-image) where they experience gender dysphoria. Attempts to raise cisgender children [as the opposite sex](https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/12/us/david-reimer-38-subject-of-the-john-joan-case.html) (Content warning: suicide) have always met with failure when the child inevitably declares themselves differently.
-These impulses of euphoria and dysphoria, arousal and aversion, they all manifest in many different ways, some obvious, some much more subtle. Dysphoria changes over time as well, taking on new shapes as one moves from pre-awareness into understanding and through transition. The goal of this book is to break down these manifestations into their distinct categories and describe them so that others may learn to recognize them.
+These impulses of euphoria and dysphoria, arousal and aversion — they all manifest in many different ways: some obvious, some much more subtle. Dysphoria changes over time as well, taking on new shapes as one moves from pre-awareness into understanding and through transition. The goal of this book is to break down these manifestations into their distinct categories and describe them so that others may learn to recognize them.
However, first I must stress something very important, so important that I am putting it into big bold letters:
**EVERY SINGLE TRANS PERSON EXPERIENCES A DIFFERENT SET OF DYSPHORIA SOURCES AND INTENSITIES**
-There is no one single trans experience, there is no standard set of feelings and discomforts, there *is no one true trans narrative*. Every trans person experiences dysphoria in their own way to their own degree, and what bothers one person may not bother another.
+There is no one single trans experience; there is no standard set of feelings and discomforts; there *is no one true trans narrative*. Every trans person experiences dysphoria in their own way to their own degree, and what bothers one person may not bother another.
-Ok, that disclaimer out of the way, let's get to the meat and potatoes.
+Okay, with that disclaimer out of the way, let's get to the meat and potatoes.
diff --git a/public/en/hormones.md b/public/en/hormones.md
index 3f18ca7..4a2a5da 100644
--- a/public/en/hormones.md
+++ b/public/en/hormones.md
@@ -15,77 +15,74 @@ classes:
# How Hormones Work
-As we described in the [Causes of Gender Dysphoria](/en/causes) section, every human's DNA contains the genetic instructions for both male and female bodies, and which set of instructions gets used is controlled by what hormones your gonads produce. That differentiation occurs entirely based on whether you happen to have an SRY gene which, in the 6-8th week of gestation, kicks off a chain reaction that produces testes instead of ovaries. From that point on, every sexual attribute of the human body (primary and secondary) is a result of the hormones that those gonads produce.
+As we described in the [Causes of Gender Dysphoria](/en/causes) section, every human's DNA contains the genetic instructions for both male and female bodies, and which set of instructions gets used is controlled by what hormones your gonads produce. That differentiation occurs entirely based on whether you happen to have an SRY gene which, between the sixth and eighth weeks of gestation, kicks off a chain reaction that produces testes instead of ovaries. From that point on, every sexual attribute of the human body (primary and secondary) is a result of the hormones that those gonads produce.
-If they produce estrogens (primarily Estradiol) then the genitals form into a vulva, vagina and uterus. If they produce androgens (primarily Testosterone) then the genitals form into a penis and scrotum, shifting the [Skene's gland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skene%27s_gland) downward and enlarging it into a prostate. Differentiation ends here until the onset of puberty, 9-10 years later, and we all know what puberty does.
-
-So how does this work? Why do the cells differentiate like this? Well, before we can explain that, first we have to explain the concept of a **Receptor**.
+If they produce estrogens (primarily estradiol), the genitals form into a vulva, vagina, and uterus. If they produce androgens (primarily testosterone), the genitals form into a penis and scrotum, shifting the [Skene's gland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skene%27s_gland) downward and enlarging it into a prostate. Differentiation ends here until the onset of puberty, nine to ten years later, and we all know what puberty does.
+So how does this work? Why do the cells differentiate like this? Well, before we can explain that, first we have to explain the concept of a **receptor**.
## Hormone Receptors
-In simplest terms, a receptor is like the keyed lock ignition on a car (do new car’s still have keyed ignitions?). Every cell in the body has a set of locks which activate different functions within that cell. They’re like switches which signal to the cell that it should activate a different part of its genetic sequence. Each receptor can only accept certain chemical compounds, much like how a lock can only accept certain keys, and different chemicals have different capabilities at turning the key. Some can completely start the car, while others only turn it to Accessory Mode.
+In simplest terms, a receptor is like the keyed lock ignition on a car (do new cars still have keyed ignitions?). Every cell in the body has a set of locks which activate different functions within that cell. They’re like switches which signal to the cell that it should activate a different part of its genetic sequence. Each receptor can only accept certain chemical compounds, much like how a lock can only accept certain keys, and different chemicals have different capabilities at turning the key. Some can completely start the car, while others only turn it to Accessory Mode.
-The ability for a chemical to fit into a receptor is called **Relational Binding Affinity**, and is measured as percentage of how likely a chemical will bind to a receptor compared to another. So, for example, if Hormone B binds only 10% of the time in relation to Hormone A, then it is said to have a 10% binding affinity. Similarly, the ability for a chemical to turn the key is called *Transactivational Ability*. Compounds which fit into a receptor but don’t do anything are called *Antagonists*, compounds which are able to turn the key are called **Agonists**. If it can only turn the key a tiny bit, it’s called a **Partial Agonist**.
+The ability for a chemical to fit into a receptor is called **relational binding affinity**, and is measured as a percentage of how likely a chemical will bind to a receptor compared to another. So, for example, if hormone B binds only 10% of the time in relation to hormone A, then it is said to have a 10% binding affinity. Similarly, the ability for a chemical to turn the key is called *transactivational ability*. Compounds which fit into a receptor but don’t do anything are called *antagonists*; compounds which are able to turn the key are called **agonists**. If it can only turn the key a tiny bit, it’s called a **partial agonist**.
You can think of antagonists like bouncers at a club. They stand in the doorway and prevent anything else from getting through, but don’t enter the club themselves. Most antagonists are referred to as **blockers**. This is different from an **inhibitor**, which is a compound that slows down a chemical reaction, or an *activator*, which speeds up a reaction. In receptors, an inhibitor lowers the ability of the receptor, causing it to respond less effectively to things that bind to the receptor, and an activator increases the ability of the receptor, making it respond stronger, like a booster.
-In some cases a hormone can function as an inhibitor or an activator for a different hormone by slowing down or increasing behavior in a cell. For example, progesterone increase cell activity, making cells respond more effectively to estrogens and androgens, and testosterone increases the transaction ability of dopamine receptors, so less dopamine is needed in the brain for the same effect.
+In some cases, a hormone can function as an inhibitor or an activator for a different hormone by slowing down or increasing behavior in a cell. For example, progesterone increases cell activity, making cells respond more effectively to estrogens and androgens, and testosterone increases the transactivational ability of dopamine receptors, so less dopamine is needed in the brain for the same effect.
-## Whats in a Hormone
+## What's in a Hormone
There are four main kinds of hormones:
-- [Amino Acids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amino_acid) such as Melatonin which controls sleep, or Thyroxine which regulates the metabolism.
-- [Peptides](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peptide_hormone), like Oxytocin and Insulin, which are collections of Amino Acids.
-- [Eicosanoids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eicosanoid) that are formed from lipids and fatty acids and predominantly affect the immune system
-- [Steroids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steroid) are signaling molecules produced by various internal organs in order to pass messages to other organs within the body.
+- [Amino acids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amino_acid) such as melatonin (which controls sleep) or thyroxine (which regulates metabolism).
+- [Peptides](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peptide_hormone) like oxytocin and insulin, which are collections of amino acids.
+- [Eicosanoids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eicosanoid) that are formed from lipids and fatty acids and predominantly affect the immune system.
+- [Steroids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steroid), which signaling molecules produced by various internal organs in order to pass messages to other organs within the body.
{!{
{{import '~/img' images.steroidogenesis
className="card"
link="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Steroidogenesis.svg"
external=1
alt="Chart of steroid metabolism flow"
- caption="All steroids are formed from cholesterols (top left) and are derived from other steroids. Progestins form into Androgens which form into Estrogens. This is a one-way exchange, and does not reverse, so don't believe it when someone tells you that too much estrogen will turn it into testosterone."
+ caption="All steroids are formed from cholesterols (top left) and are derived from other steroids. Progestogens form into androgens which form into estrogens. This is a one-way exchange, and does not reverse, so don't believe it when someone tells you that too much estrogen will turn it into testosterone."
}}
}!}
For the purposes of transition, this last category is what we care about the most, as all of the sex hormones are steroids. They fall into seven main categories:
- [Androgens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen)
- [Estrogens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estrogen)
-- [Progestagins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progestogen)
+- [Progestogens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progestogen)
- [Glucocorticoids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucocorticoid)
-- [Mineralcorticoids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineralocorticoid)
+- [Mineralocorticoids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineralocorticoid)
- [Neurosteroids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steroid)
- [Aminosteroids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aminosteroid)
-The first three of these are what we care about most when it comes to Hormone Therapy. Note: All human beings, regardless of phenotype, have some of every one of these hormones in their bodies. The ratios are what affect body shape.
-
+The first three of these are what we care about most when it comes to hormone therapy. Note: All human beings, regardless of phenotype, have some of every one of these hormones in their bodies. The ratios are what affect body shape.
### Androgens
-There are nearly a dozen different androgens, but the ones we care about the most are [Testosterone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone) and [Dihydrotestosterone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrotestosterone).
+There are nearly a dozen different androgens, but the ones we care about the most are [testosterone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone) and [dihydrotestosterone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrotestosterone).
-Testosterone is the primary masculinizing hormone for the human body and is produced in the adrenal glands, the testes, and in the ovaries (where it is immediately converted into estrone and estradiol). It tells both muscle and bone cells to grow and in higher concentrations encourages larger muscle mass and thicker skeletal structure. This also means that Testosterone is critical for bone health, as it affects calcium distribution within the skeletal structure. Thus, severe depletion of testosterone can result in osteoperosis and fragile bones. Testosterone also plays a major role in sex drive and libido, encouraging mating behavior within the cerebral cortex.
-
-Dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which is converted from Testosterone in the prostate, skin and liver, plays a major role in the development of the male genitalia during puberty by inducing random erections, and the growth of facial and body hair. Paradoxically, DHT is also what causes male pattern baldness, as it chokes off blood circulation to the follicles on the top of the scalp (sorry, trans guys, it's a double edged sword). DHT binds to androgen receptors ten times more strongly than testosterone, which is why it is critical to eliminate it for feminizing transition.
+Testosterone is the primary masculinizing hormone for the human body and is produced in the adrenal glands, the testes, and in the ovaries (where it is immediately converted into estrone and estradiol). It tells both muscle and bone cells to grow and, in higher concentrations, encourages larger muscle mass and thicker skeletal structure. This also means that testosterone is critical for bone health, as it affects calcium distribution within the skeletal structure. Thus, severe depletion of testosterone can result in osteoporosis and fragile bones. Testosterone also plays a major role in sex drive and libido, encouraging mating behavior within the cerebral cortex.
+Dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which is converted from testosterone in the prostate, skin, and liver, plays a major role in the development of the male genitalia during puberty by inducing random erections, and the growth of facial and body hair. Paradoxically, DHT is also what causes male pattern baldness, as it chokes off blood circulation to the follicles on the top of the scalp (sorry, trans guys, it's a double-edged sword). DHT binds to androgen receptors ten times more strongly than testosterone, which is why it is critical to eliminate it for feminizing transition.
### Estrogens
-There are four estrogens: [Estradiol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estradiol), [Estrone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estrone), Estriol and Estetrol. The latter two are only produced during pregnancy and are important for fetal health, but have no bearing on transition.
+There are four estrogens: [estradiol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estradiol), [estrone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estrone), estriol and estetrol. The latter two are only produced during pregnancy and are important for fetal health, but have no bearing on transition.
-Estradiol is the Feminizing hormone, as it is the primary signaling hormone for growth in the mammary glands (breast tissue), and because it encourages fat deposits in the thighs, hips, butt, chest and arms, while discouraging fat deposits in the abdomen, thus producing a curvier figure. Estradiol also promote increased collagen production, resulting in softer skin and more flexible tendons & ligaments.
+Estradiol is the feminizing hormone, as it is the primary signaling hormone for growth in the mammary glands (breast tissue), and because it encourages fat deposits in the thighs, hips, butt, chest, and arms, while discouraging fat deposits in the abdomen, thus producing a curvier figure. Estradiol also promotes increased collagen production, resulting in softer skin and more flexible tendons & ligaments.
-Estrone's role in the body has been something of a puzzle in medical research, as it has significantly lower binding affinity compared to estradiol (0.6%) and very low transactivational ability (4%). The hormone doesn't appear to *do* anything, it just sits in the blood stream. However it has a unique ability to convert to and from Estradiol via an enzyme group called [17β-HSD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17%CE%B2-Hydroxysteroid_dehydrogenase), making it ideally suited to function like an estrogen battery within the body.
+Estrone's role in the body has been something of a puzzle in medical research, as it has significantly lower binding affinity compared to estradiol (0.6%) and very low transactivational ability (4%). The hormone doesn't appear to *do* anything; it just sits in the bloodstream. However, it has a unique ability to convert to and from estradiol via an enzyme group called [17β-HSD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17%CE%B2-Hydroxysteroid_dehydrogenase), making it ideally suited to function like an estrogen battery within the body.
-New research is starting to suggest that the body may regulate total estradiol levels by releasing HSD17B1 to turn estradiol into estrone, and releasing HSD17B2 to convert it back, however this is very early study. Both enzymes are produced in breast tissue, and may play a role in the presence of cyclical period-like symptoms in estrogenic individuals who do not have ovaries, such as trans women.
+New research is starting to suggest that the body may regulate total estradiol levels by releasing HSD17B1 to turn estradiol into estrone, and releasing HSD17B2 to convert it back, but this is a very early study. Both enzymes are produced in breast tissue, and may play a role in the presence of cyclical period-like symptoms in estrogenic individuals who do not have ovaries, such as trans women.
{!{
For Your Information
}!}
**Why aren't AFAB trans people prescribed estrogen blockers alongside testosterone?**
-There are two separate sources for estrogens within the female reproductive system. Ovaries contains thousands of follicles, cell structures which produce eggs. The pituitary gland produces luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), which encourages the follicles to grow into luteal cells. Theca cells within the follicle produce testosterone, and granulosa cells produce the enzyme [aromatase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aromatase), which converts that testosterone into estradiol. This is the first source of estrogen, but it is not the largest source.
+There are two separate sources for estrogens within the female reproductive system. Ovaries contain thousands of follicles: cell structures which produce eggs. The pituitary gland produces luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), which encourages the follicles to grow into luteal cells. Theca cells within the follicle produce testosterone, and granulosa cells produce the enzyme [aromatase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aromatase), which converts that testosterone into estradiol. This is the first source of estrogen, but it is not the largest source.
Note: This is why PCOS causes ovaries to produce testosterone; the ovarian cysts disrupt the aromatase production, so the testosterone does not get converted.
@@ -97,24 +94,24 @@ Taking testosterone causes the hypothalamus to deactivate the genes that initiat
{!{ }!}
-### Progestagins
+### Progestogens
-The primary progestogin is [progesterone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progesterone), which plays numerous roles in the body and has been found to be [an important component for feminizing hormone therapy](https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/104/4/1181/5270376).
+The primary progestogen is [progesterone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progesterone), which plays numerous roles in the body and has been found to be [an important component for feminizing hormone therapy](https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/104/4/1181/5270376).
-One of the largest roles that the progestogin receptor plays is in the regulation of gonadal function (ovaries and testies). The hypothalamus is positively *littered* with progestogin receptors and responds strongly to their activation, downregulating the production of [GnRH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonadotropin-releasing_hormone), which then reduces the production of [luteinizing hormone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luteinizing_hormone) by the pituitary gland.
+One of the largest roles that the progestogen receptor plays is in the regulation of gonadal function (ovaries and testes). The hypothalamus is positively *littered* with progestogen receptors and responds strongly to their activation, downregulating the production of [GnRH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonadotropin-releasing_hormone), which then reduces the production of [luteinizing hormone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luteinizing_hormone) by the pituitary gland.
-LH is what tells the ovaries and testes to produce estrogen and androgens. LH and its sibling hormone [FSH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Follicle-stimulating_hormone) both play central roles in ovulation, which is another large source of estrogen in ovary-havers. Thus, synthetic progestins, chemicals that fit into progestogin receptors, are often included in birth control in order to prevent ovulation. In AMABs, progestogins are a useful tool for blocking testosterone production.
+LH is what tells the ovaries and testes to produce estrogen and androgens. LH and its sibling hormone [FSH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Follicle-stimulating_hormone) both play central roles in ovulation, which is another large source of estrogen in ovary-havers. Thus, synthetic progestogens (chemicals that fit into progestogen receptors) are often included in birth control in order to prevent ovulation. In AMABs, progestogens are a useful tool for blocking testosterone production.
-Another type of cell that is full of progestogin receptors is mammary tissue. Progesterone plays a major role in the growth and maturation of milk ducts within breast tissue. While little formal research has been conducted into progesterone's effect on breast development, anecdotally it has been seen widely across the transfem community to provide significant improvements in breast fullness. Progesterone has also been demonstrated to increase blood flow to breast tissue, and encourages fat deposits in the breasts, both of which increase breast size.
+Another type of cell that is full of progestogen receptors is mammary tissue. Progesterone plays a major role in the growth and maturation of milk ducts within breast tissue. While little formal research has been conducted into progesterone's effect on breast development, anecdotally it has been seen widely across the transfem community to provide significant improvements in breast fullness. Progesterone has also been demonstrated to increase blood flow to breast tissue, and encourages fat deposits in the breasts, both of which increase breast size.
Additionally, progesterone promotes better sleep, improves cardiovascular health, increases ketogenesis (reducing triglycerides), increases metabolic function, and has been found to reduce breast cancer risk.
-### Mineralcorticoids
+### Mineralocorticoids
-Mineralcorticoids play no role in transition, but they are worth mentioning because of one major hormone: [Aldosterone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldosterone).
+Mineralocorticoids play no role in transition, but they are worth mentioning because of one major hormone: [aldosterone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldosterone).
-Aldosterone is what instructs the kidneys to *stop* extracting water from the blood stream. It is produced by the adrenal glands in order to regulate body hydration. Why is this significant?
+Aldosterone is what instructs the kidneys to *stop* extracting water from the bloodstream. It is produced by the adrenal glands in order to regulate body hydration. Why is this significant?
-Because one drug that is very commonly used in trans hormone therapy is an extremely powerful aldosterone antagonist... Spironolactone. Spiro binds to mineralcorticoid receptors more strongly than aldosterone does, but does not activate the receptor. It just clogs it, preventing the kidneys from receiving the signal to stop extracting water.
+Because one drug that is very commonly used in trans hormone therapy is an extremely powerful aldosterone antagonist: spironolactone. Spiro binds to mineralocorticoid receptors more strongly than aldosterone does, but does not activate the receptor. It just clogs it, preventing the kidneys from receiving the signal to stop extracting water.
This is why spiro makes people pee so much.
diff --git a/public/en/impostor-syndrome.md b/public/en/impostor-syndrome.md
index 0a53068..29346b2 100644
--- a/public/en/impostor-syndrome.md
+++ b/public/en/impostor-syndrome.md
@@ -28,13 +28,13 @@ tweets:
'1219963582063968258'
] tweets=meta.tweets className="hide-reply" }}
{{import '~/tweet' ids=[
'1221970265862811650'
@@ -42,9 +42,9 @@ On top of this, messages saying that trans people hate their bodies or hate thei
On top of this, the constant messaging from transphobic media that trans people are not actually their true genders and are simply trying to trick people into believing otherwise gets internalized like a virus. This creates a lot of self doubt about the authenticity of one's gender, especially in the face of so many gender stereotypes. Seeing oneself fail to meet those stereotypes can make it very easy to convince yourself that you do not live up to your own gender (note: cis men and women get this too, far too often).
-Furthermore, due to a history of transphobic abuse, many trans people suffer from damaged self-esteems, and often already have difficulty with self doubts. Gender Dysphoria also causes depression, which further contributes to and reinforces those doubts. This all leads into a massive cluster of self invalidation that can lead someone to struggle over and over again to accept their own gender identity.
+Furthermore, due to a history of transphobic abuse, many trans people suffer from damaged self-esteems, and often already have difficulty with self-doubt. Gender dysphoria also causes depression, which further contributes to and reinforces those doubts. This all leads into a massive cluster of self-invalidation that can lead someone to struggle over and over again to accept their own gender identity.
-But here's the thing... only trans people are worried about if they are actually transgender! A cisgender person does not have this obsession with their identity, they think about it, they process it, they move on. If you keep returning to these thoughts over and over again, this is your brain telling you that you took a wrong turn.
+But here's the thing... only trans people are worried about if they are actually transgender! A cisgender person does not have this obsession with their identity: they think about it, they process it, they move on. If you keep returning to these thoughts over and over again, this is your brain telling you that you took a wrong turn.
The world is *full* of influences put in place to fill us with doubt and keep us from breaking outside of the established social order. These are some of the systems and ideologies that seek to invalidate trans people and keep us from self-actualizing.
@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ The world is *full* of influences put in place to fill us with doubt and keep us
'1153300374133981186'
] tweets=meta.tweets className="oneblock" }}
}!}
-This pattern was strongly reinforced during the late 1980s when the Autogynephelia (AGP) theory of Ray Blanchard gained a lot of traction as trans awareness was just starting to escalate. AGP is a pseudo-scientific explanation intended to "explain" the source of trans women's identities using [paraphilias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraphilia). Blanchard separated trans women according to if they were attracted to men or to women, while simultaneously invalidating their womanhood. His work completely ignored transgender men, and he dismisses non-binary identities outright.
+This pattern was strongly reinforced during the late 1980s when the autogynephelia (AGP) theory of Ray Blanchard gained a lot of traction as trans awareness was just starting to escalate. AGP is a pseudo-scientific explanation intended to "explain" the source of trans women's identities using [paraphilias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraphilia). Blanchard separated trans women according to if they were attracted to men or to women, while simultaneously invalidating their womanhood. His work completely ignored transgender men, and he dismisses non-binary identities outright.
Autogynephelia attests that straight trans women are actually just gay men who seek a feminine appearance to draw desire from straight men, and that trans lesbians are actually straight men who have become so obsessed with their desire for women that they wish to become a woman in order to gain sexual gratification from themselves.
@@ -69,15 +69,15 @@ Yes, it boggles the mind, but this was actually considered a valid theory of psy
AGP had been thoroughly dismissed by modern psychology by the late 2000s, but the damage has been done. In the public's eye, trans women were all perverted fetishists. Media portrayals of trans women mirrored this attitude, further spreading negative imagery into the public consciousness.
-Transfeminine individuals then internalize these messages, and come to the conclusion that they are not actually transgender, just fetishists. It happened to me, it's happened to nearly every millennial trans woman I know who figured themselves out as a teen.
+Transfeminine individuals then internalize these messages, and come to the conclusion that they are not actually transgender — just fetishists. It happened to me, and it's happened to nearly every millennial trans woman I know who figured themselves out as a teen.
-You are not a fetishist, the feeling you get from thinking of yourself as a woman is gender euphoria.
+You are not a fetishist. The feeling you get from thinking of yourself as a woman is gender euphoria.
### Patriarchal Oppression
-A common source of invalidation for AFABs is the conflation of gender with the systemic oppression of women, particularly among non-medically-transitioning non-binary people. The message of "oh you just don't want to be a woman because of how women are treated" is far too often heard, and it can deeply infest your subconscious to the point of self doubt. But this doesn't make much sense, because if you're AFAB and not a woman, that makes you transgender. And on average, society treats transgender folks worse than women. So transitioning to escape systemic oppression is a dumb concept (and I personally have never met a trans person who has done this).
+A common source of invalidation for AFABs is the conflation of gender with the systemic oppression of women, particularly among non-medically-transitioning non-binary people. The message of "oh you just don't want to be a woman because of how women are treated" is far too often heard, and it can deeply infest your subconscious to the point of self-doubt. But this doesn't make much sense, because if you're AFAB and not a woman, that makes you transgender, and, on average, society treats transgender folks worse than women. So transitioning to escape systemic oppression is a dumb concept (and I personally have never met a trans person who has done this).
-Radical Feminism's messaging of abandoning female gender roles can also make parsing your own feelings harder. "Am I actually non-binary, or am I just a feminist?" "Am I actually a man, or am I just a very butch lesbian?". For this, I encourage you to talk to cis woman feminists, especially lesbians. They'll complain about systems of oppression and the patriarchy, but the problems are all external, and they *want to be women*. Even very butch lesbians want to be women, just in a different way from mainstream femininity.
+Radical feminism's messaging of abandoning female gender roles can also make parsing your own feelings harder. "Am I actually non-binary, or am I just a feminist?" "Am I actually a man, or am I just a very butch lesbian?". For this, I encourage you to talk to cis woman feminists, especially lesbians. They'll complain about systems of oppression and the patriarchy, but the problems are all external, and they *want to be women*. Even very butch lesbians want to be women, just in a different way from mainstream femininity.
Then you have the problem of people believing that to be non-binary is to be androgynous, and to be androgynous is to be less feminine. Feminine enbies are valid! It is okay if you do not want to remove your breasts. It is okay if you enjoy your curves. It is okay if you do not mind being called "she" and "her". That does not make you any less transgender.
@@ -85,30 +85,30 @@ If you feel like you are not a binary woman, than you are not a binary woman. Ci
### Toxic Masculinity
-Male-assigned kids grow up positively drenched in messaging of what it is to "be a man". There are so few examples of positive masculinity in popular media, and AMAB Masculine Enbies are also so commonly erased in trans representation that being a genderqueer male can feel very lonely. AMAB Enbies are often either grouped in with gay cis men or treated like trans women.
+Male-assigned kids grow up positively drenched in messaging of what it is to "be a man". There are so few examples of positive masculinity in popular media, and AMAB masculine enbies are also so commonly erased in trans representation that being a genderqueer male can feel very lonely. AMAB enbies are often either grouped in with gay cis men or treated like trans women.
You can just be genderqueer! Your identity is valid!
### Transmedicalism
-This one hits *everybody*. Transmedicalism (aka Truetrans) is a transgender ideology derived from the Harry Benjamin scale (ranks 5 and 6). It seeks to reinforce the pre-WPATH rules, requiring intense physical dysphoria, demanding medical transition, and often invalidating all non-binary identities. At its core, transmedicalism is a supremacist concept, elevating binary trans people above the needs of any other gender identity, and a push back against the expansion of the transgender identity. They wish for more gatekeeping than we have today, rail against enbies using the transgender label, and would prefer to see fewer people receive treatment for their gender dysphoria.
+This one hits *everybody*. Transmedicalism (aka Truetrans) is a transgender ideology derived from the Harry Benjamin scale (ranks 5 and 6). It seeks to reinforce the pre-WPATH rules, requiring intense physical dysphoria, demanding medical transition, and often invalidating all non-binary identities. At its core, transmedicalism is a supremacist concept, elevating binary trans people above the needs of any other gender identity, and is a push back against the expansion of the transgender identity. They wish for more gatekeeping than we have today, rail against enbies using the transgender label, and would prefer to see fewer people receive treatment for their gender dysphoria.
To put it succinctly, many transmedicalists hate that the newer generation "has it so easy," despite the fact that many of their ranks are part of that generation. This ideology started among disgruntled trans elders, but has since spread to other binary individuals, particularly among young trans men.
If a trans person's first exposure to transness is a transmedicalist, this can severely set back their own self-acceptance and push them even further into the closet. Transmeds are well known to actually tell people "No, you are not trans."
-**Do not believe these lies.** They are bully tactics explicitly designed to gaslight and dismiss people's pain for self gratification.
+**Do not believe these lies.** They are bully tactics explicitly designed to gaslight and dismiss people's pain for self-gratification.
-There are related hurtful concepts a trans person can internalize, revolving around seeing transition as a list of required actions. One such idea is a belief that a person shouldn't expect being gendered correctly or even complain about misgendering as long as they haven't changed their gender marker. In other words, legally conditioned pronoun respect, or translegalism. Not only can changing gender marker be a complicated, prolonged process, not only cannot some people afford to out themselves by pursuing it, but also most countries wouldn't allow a gender marker outside of the gender binary. Translegalism convinces a person that they deserve misgendering because of their ID.
+There are related hurtful concepts a trans person can internalize, revolving around seeing transition as a list of required actions. One such idea is a belief that a person shouldn't expect being gendered correctly or even complain about misgendering as long as they haven't changed their gender marker. In other words, legally conditioned pronoun respect, or translegalism. Not only can changing gender marker be a complicated, prolonged process, not only can some people not afford to out themselves by pursuing it, but most countries wouldn't even allow a gender marker outside of the gender binary. Translegalism convinces a person that they deserve misgendering because of their ID.
### Trans-Exclusionary Reactionary Feminism / Gender Critical Movement / Gender Essentialism
-[Gender Essentialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_essentialism) is the belief that there are an innate attributes to a person's existence that are derived based on what sex organs the person is born with. TERF and GC ideology was born out of the lesbian separatist movement of second wave feminism and fully denies the existence of transgender biology and non-binary identities. The movement has been largely overtaken by right-wing reactionaries, racists, and homophobes, and is now being bolstered by evangelical Christian organizations.
+[Gender Essentialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_essentialism) is the belief that there are innate attributes to a person's existence that are derived based on what sex organs the person is born with. TERF and GC ideology was born out of the lesbian separatist movement of second wave feminism and fully denies the existence of transgender biology and non-binary identities. The movement has been largely overtaken by right-wing reactionaries, racists, and homophobes, and is now being bolstered by evangelical Christian organizations.
These people will stop at nothing to invalidate your existence. Do not give them the time of day.
### Gender Abolitionism / Postgenderism
-[Postgenderism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postgenderism) is a [transhumanist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism) philosophy originating in radical feminism which states that gender causes more harm than good, and seeks to eradicate it from our society. Old school TERFs latched on to GA as reasoning for why trans people should not exist. This trans exclusionary faction of Gender Abolition believes that all gender is a construct and that anyone who feels strongly connected to a binary gender is either nefariously propagating gender stereotypes or ignorantly following systemic indoctrination. They do not believe in the existence of gender dysphoria, and will attempt to invalidate those who experience it.
+[Postgenderism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postgenderism) is a [transhumanist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism) philosophy originating in radical feminism which states that gender causes more harm than good, and seeks to eradicate it from our society. Old-school TERFs latched on to GA as reasoning for why trans people should not exist. This trans-exclusionary faction of gender abolitionism believes that all gender is a construct and that anyone who feels strongly connected to a binary gender is either nefariously propagating gender stereotypes or ignorantly following systemic indoctrination. They do not believe in the existence of gender dysphoria, and will attempt to invalidate those who experience it.
-Note, this is NOT about trans people who identify as Postgender or Gender Abolition as a whole. This is specifically about TERF abuse of the concepts.
+Note, this is NOT about trans people who identify as postgender or gender abolitionism as a whole. This is specifically about TERF abuse of the concepts.
diff --git a/public/en/index.md b/public/en/index.md
index 2f98960..e809720 100644
--- a/public/en/index.md
+++ b/public/en/index.md
@@ -84,19 +84,19 @@ siblings:
}!}
-In cultures worldwide, for as long as human civilization has existed, [there have been people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history) whose experience of their gender identity do not align with the anglo-european concepts of binary sex based on genital structure. The Gala, a middle gender priest class of the Sumerian empire, existed over 4,500 years ago. The Indigenous cultures of North America recognized [a third gender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender) far before European colonialism, and still do to this day. Tribal [cultures all across Africa](https://medium.com/@janelane_62637/the-splendor-of-gender-non-conformity-in-africa-f894ff5706e1) recognize numerous gender identities, which [Europeans tried to wipe out](https://daily.jstor.org/the-deviant-african-genders-that-colonialism-condemned/). Human beings have long lived with identities, norms, and degrees of conformity to those norms which differ from the so-called "traditional" idea of gender in westernized culture today.
+In cultures worldwide, for as long as human civilization has existed, [there have been people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history) whose experience of their gender identity do not align with the Anglo-European concepts of binary sex based on genital structure. The Gala, a middle gender priest class of the Sumerian empire, existed over 4,500 years ago. The Indigenous cultures of North America recognized [a third gender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender) far before European colonialism, and still do to this day. Tribal [cultures all across Africa](https://medium.com/@janelane_62637/the-splendor-of-gender-non-conformity-in-africa-f894ff5706e1) recognize numerous gender identities, which [Europeans tried to wipe out](https://daily.jstor.org/the-deviant-african-genders-that-colonialism-condemned/). Human beings have long lived with identities, norms, and degrees of conformity to those norms which differ from the so-called "traditional" idea of gender in westernized culture today.
-In spite of this, however, the modern western understanding of the transgender experience has only existed for approximately 130 years. Even the word "transgender" only dates back to 1965, when John Oliven proposed it as a more accurate alternative to David Cauldwell's term "transsexual" (coined in 1949), which itself replaced Magnus Hirschfield's term "transvestite" (1910).
+In spite of this, however, the modern western understanding of the transgender experience has only existed for approximately 130 years. Even the word "transgender" only dates back to 1965, when John Oliven proposed it as a more accurate alternative to David Cauldwell's term "transsexual" (coined in 1949), which itself replaced Magnus Hirschfeld's term "transvestite" (1910).
Being transgender can mean that a person born with a penis is actually a girl, that a person born with a vulva is actually a boy, or that a person with any genital configuration may not wholly fit either side of that spectrum and is non-binary.
-A trans person can come to recognize this at *any point* in their life. Some children identify it at as soon as they are able to grasp the concept of gender, others don't start to feel anything until the onset of puberty, and still others do not realize that anything is wrong at all until they are fully adults. Many people are simply never exposed to the idea that their gender could mismatch their sex assigned at birth, or what that feels like, and thus simply accepted their fate.
+A trans person can come to recognize this at *any point* in their life. Some children identify it at as soon as they are able to grasp the concept of gender, others don't start to feel anything until the onset of puberty, and still others do not realize that anything is wrong at all until they are fully adults. Many people are simply never exposed to the idea that their gender could mismatch their sex assigned at birth, or what that feels like, and thus have simply accepted their fate.
-Even more common is a perception that even though they have feelings about being unhappy with the gender they were assigned at birth, they believe that this is not the same as what transgender people experience. Some may feel that a wish to be transgender and have transition available is some kind of disrespect towards "real" trans people who knew they were actually boys or girls "born in the wrong body." These narratives of the transgender experience that have been spread by popular media can create a very false impression of just what it means to be transgender and what growing up transgender feels like.
+Even more common is a perception wherein, even though someone may have feelings about being unhappy with the gender they were assigned at birth, they believe that this is not the same as what transgender people experience. Some may feel that a wish to be transgender and have transition available is some kind of disrespect towards "real" trans people who knew they were actually boys or girls "born in the wrong body." These narratives of the transgender experience that have been spread by popular media can create a very false impression of just what it means to be transgender and what growing up transgender feels like.
-This experience of discontinuity between the societal presumed gender and the internal sense of self is what we describe as Gender Dysphoria, and is common among nearly all trans individuals, regardless of their position within or outside of the gender binary. This has at times been something of a political topic within trans communities, as different groups have their own ideas of what Gender Dysphoria is, how it manifests itself, and what qualifies a person as being trans. So as not to get lost in that topic, this site will define Gender Dysphoria in broad terms of incongruence with sex assigned at birth. If you experience gender identity in a way that does not match what was assigned to you at birth, your claim to the transgender identity is valid, no matter how that incongruence manifests for you.
+This experience of discontinuity between the societal presumed gender and the internal sense of self is what we describe as **gender dysphoria**, and is common among nearly all trans individuals, regardless of their position within or outside of the gender binary. This has at times been something of a political topic within trans communities, as different groups have their own ideas of what gender dysphoria is, how it manifests itself, and what qualifies a person as being trans. So as not to get lost in that topic, this site will define gender dysphoria in broad terms of incongruence with sex assigned at birth. If you experience gender identity in a way that does not match what was assigned to you at birth, your claim to the transgender identity is valid, no matter how that incongruence manifests for you.
-The purpose of this site is to document the many ways that Gender Dysphoria can manifest, as well as the numerous forms of gender transition, in order to provide a guide for those who are questioning, those who are starting their transgender journey, those already on their path, and those who simply wish to be better allies.
+The purpose of this site is to document the many ways that gender dysphoria can manifest, as well as the numerous forms of gender transition, in order to provide a guide for those who are questioning, those who are starting their transgender journey, those already on their path, and those who simply wish to be better allies.
{!{
diff --git a/public/en/managed-dysphoria.md b/public/en/managed-dysphoria.md
index d33dd30..d94794b 100644
--- a/public/en/managed-dysphoria.md
+++ b/public/en/managed-dysphoria.md
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ Growing up in the closet, even when you don't know you're in the closet, becomes
- When a video game gives you the option of choosing your gender, you tend to choose differently than your assigned gender. This may be accompanied with excuses to defend that choice. "It defaulted to male and I didn't care." "I don't want to stare at a guy's butt for hours."
-- A preference for literature and film with characters of your true gender, or with characters who break gender norms (Mulan, Little Women).
+- A preference for literature and film with characters of your true gender, or with characters who break gender norms (_Mulan_, _Little Women_).
- Pornographic outlets which satisfy strong desires or feel more relatable, such as a draw towards gay/lesbian porn, bridal kink, or transformation sequences.
@@ -65,9 +65,9 @@ Because so much abuse is handed down onto gender non-conforming children, many t
- Buying in to ultra-conservative attitudes towards gender and sexuality.
-- Expressing Homophobia and Transphobia in self defense to ward off suspicion.
+- Expressing homophobia and transphobia in self-defense to ward off suspicion.
-- Aggressively passive engagement in anything connected to one's true gender.
+- Aggressively-passive engagement in anything connected to one's true gender.
Finally, another very common coping mechanism is to find means of escape or mental engagement in order to forget your own feelings.
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ Finally, another very common coping mechanism is to find means of escape or ment
- Long hours spent at work.
-- Chain binging movies, TV shows or books.
+- Chain-binging movies, TV shows, or books.
- Spending all idle time playing video games or on social media.
diff --git a/public/en/physical-dysphoria.md b/public/en/physical-dysphoria.md
index dd3c824..54c510e 100644
--- a/public/en/physical-dysphoria.md
+++ b/public/en/physical-dysphoria.md
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
date: "2020-01-26T20:41:55.827Z"
title: "How Gender Dysphoria Manifests: Physical Dysphoria"
linkTitle: "Physical Dysphoria"
-description: "Body discomfort is only one of the many ways Gender Dysphoria manifests."
+description: "Body discomfort is only one of the many ways gender dysphoria can manifest."
preBody: '_disclaimer'
siblings:
prev: /en/euphoria
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ tweets:
# Physical Gender Dysphoria
-Everyone has heard of the "born in the wrong body" narrative. Physical Dysphoria is discomfort over the shape of one's body due to the sexual characteristics it presents. So what body features are we talking about here?
+Everyone has heard of the "born in the wrong body" narrative. Physical dysphoria is discomfort over the shape of one's body due to the sexual characteristics it presents. So what body features are we talking about here?
{!{