Trans women insisting that PMS isn't a thing for us makes me feel exhausted.

Jasmine running

Jasmine running

Some just deny that we can know our own inner states well enough to tell whether we have a repeating and roughly month-long cycle of psychological and physical changes or not. And that's… I mean look, every trans woman I know who has made that claim has also been a transmedicalist. They think that trans people are incapable of understanding their own inner states and must rely on cis people's insight to make sense of anything.

Jasmine running

Others don't go that far and instead come up with really wild explanations of how the experience of a monthly cycle can come to happen.

The last one I heard was that it's because many trans women do estradiol injections once per month, so there will be a week or so when estradiol levels are extra low, and that's how that week happens.

But like—who injects once per month? And then why did I get my most obvious cycle symptoms on transdermal gel applied twice per day?

Jasmine running

All these women are doing is helping cis doctors continue to believe that we're confused about everything, that we need to be very carefully evaluated and interrogated before being given access to gender affirming care, and that we're probably confused about the whole trans thing right from the start.

What these women need to do is to shut up.

Jasmine running

I mean obviously everyone should speak and be heard about their own experiences, including trans women who don't experience this, or who experience some kind of cycle that matches their HRT schedule. But please shut up about whether the experiences of other people are real or not based on your own personal experiences.

Jasmine running

And I say that after hearing someone deny that it can happen, who transitioned decades ago in her teens.

Cis people can go their whole lives without realising that other cis people's physical and mental experiences are radically different from their own. And being trans doesn't actually make you epistemically special. Arrogance is still arrogance.

Miss Rari 🏳️‍⚧️

@jasmine Adding to this with an example of variances, my mom (who is cis) doesn't get nausea, but I do.

Jasmine running

@raritastic … wait is that why I'm nauseous!?

my symptoms have been changing during this year after I quit gel+cypro and started doing monotherapy injections, and I'm just now realising that the new way I get PMS is dominated by being extremely tired—but the nausea has had me thinking that maybe it's something else.

but it actually fits with the PMS explanation instead??

Riley S. Faelan

@jasmine It apparently isn't a thing for about half of us. Only (very roughly) half of trans women experience a recurring monthly cycle. Nobody seems to yet know why this is, but the fact that most trans women don't take progesterone as a part of their HRT might be a factor.

Riley S. Faelan

@jasmine FTR, this is very rare nowadays. I think it would require something like estradiol cypionate to pull off successfully, and that just isn't readily available. It doesn't have a lot of uses in cis medicine, for one.

Historically, monthly estrogen injections have been proposed, not because it's a good idea but because doctors were used to monthly scheduling cycles. In practice, it leads to the poor girl suffering with very low estrogen for half of each month, perhaps even some three weeks, so it went out of fashion as soon as trans people's ideas started to be listened to by endocrinologists.

BUT ... transmedicalists kind of like old textbooks with esoteric, even occult, ideas about transitude, so if you run into a bunch of them, they might happily quote you the old, now abandoned, protocols as gospel.

Monthly testosterone for trans men is actually a thing, although not the most common injection cycle these days. Long-half-life testosterone esters are more readily available (from a prescriber's perspective), too, than long-half-like estrogen esters, probably because of the peculiarities of how cis people get their gonadal hormone injections.

Riley S. Faelan

@jasmine There's probably some sort of subtle interaction between gonadal hormone levels and something secreted by one of the many parts of the pituitary gland. My hunch is, we'll get a better idea of how this might work once somebody figures out the system behind the network of homeobox genes and the myriad of growth factors associated with them. (And because other things that homeobox genes do, I'd give a >50% chance of the research team that figures it out including at least one furry.)

Riley S. Faelan

@jasmine That's the strange thing about neurotypical people: they consider not realising that Other People might be different an autistic trait, yet thinking that Other People are all alike is the most neurotypical trait there is.

Riley S. Faelan

@jasmine So now you understand why thalidomide was such a hit, until. :blobcatblush:

@raritastic