Honestly Caught Me So Off-quard That I Laughed For Like 20 Seconds Straight

my tumblr algorthim seems to think i have a chronic illness and is intersex, my youtube algorith thinks im trans, my twitter algorithm *thinks* i love bigotry. this is what happens when you try to learn about other peoples culture, like why is it so stigmatized to learn and listen to people? (and then if theyre really wrong, call them out)

we should go absolutely buck- fuckin' -wild at the cybertrucks

(them specifically, other teslas are fine)

i am shit scared, i know i live in denmark where people are sane, but denmark has had its history of banning random ass shit (they banned religous face coverings for women???(only affected 24 people or so) they banned a specific brand of hot noodles???(i think the ban didnt end up happening) they also banned ferrets (that was just one person that did that) but still im shit scared)

well its fake oppression because when jkr oppresses someones rights, its feminism

the fact j. k. rowling called international asexuality day, "fake oppression day", is just an obvious example on why asexual, and aromantic, people are oppressed

the reason its getting banned is because the law makers dont even meet any kids whove gotten it, the only thing they learn about transgender people is from transphobes, and documentaries about detransitioners

So today I want to talk about puberty blockers for transgender kids, because despite being cisgender, this is a subject I’m actually well-versed in. Specifically, I want to talk about how far backwards things have gone.

This story starts almost 20 years ago, and it’s kind of long, but I think it’s important to give you the full history. At the time, I was working as an administrative assistant for a pediatric endocrinologist in a red state. Not a deep deep red state like Alabama, we had a little bit of a purple trend, but still very much red. (I don’t want to say the state at the risk of doxxing myself.) And I took a phone call from a woman who said, “My son is transgender. Does your doctor do hormone therapy?”

I said, “Good question! Let me find out.”

I went into the back and found the doctor playing Solitaire on his computer and said, “Do you do hormone therapy for transgender kids?” It had literally never come up before. He had opened his practice there in the early 2000s. This was roughly 2006, and the first time someone asked. Without looking up from his game of Solitaire, the doctor said, “I’ve never done it before, but I know how it works, so sure.”

I got back on the phone and told the mom, who was overjoyed, and scheduled an appointment for her son. He was the first transgender child we treated with puberty blockers. But not, by far, the first child we treated with puberty blockers, period. Because puberty blockers are used very commonly for children with precocious puberty (early-onset puberty). I would say about twenty percent of the kids our doctor treated were for precocious puberty and were on puberty blockers. They have been well studied and are widely used, safe, and effective.

Well. It turned out, the doctor I worked for was the only doctor in the state who was willing to do this. And word spread pretty fast in the tight-knit community of ‘parents of transgender children in a red state’. We started seeing more kids. A better drug came out. We saw some kids who were at the age where they were past puberty, and prescribed them estrogen or testosterone. Our doctor became, I’m fairly sure, a small folk hero to this community. 

Insurance coverage was a struggle. I remember copying articles and pages out of the Endocrine Society Manual to submit with prior authorization requests for the medications. Insurance coverage was a struggle for a lot of what we did, though. Growth hormone for kids with severe idiopathic short stature. Insulin pumps, which weren’t as common at the time, and then continuous glucose monitoring, when that came out. Insurance struggles were just part and parcel of the job.

I remember vividly when CVS Caremark, a pharmaceutical management company, changed their criteria and included gender dysphoria as a covered diagnosis for puberty blockers. I thought they had put the option on the questionnaire to trigger an automatic denial. But no - it triggered an approval. Medicaid started to cover it. I got so good at getting approvals with my by then tidy packet of articles and documentation that I actually had people in other states calling me to see what I was submitting (the pharmaceutical rep gave them my number because they wanted more people on their drug, which, shady, but sure. He did ask me if it was okay first).

And here’s the key point of this story:

At no point, during any of this, did it ever even occur to any of us that we might have to worry about whether or not what we were doing was legal.

It just never even came up. It was the medically recommended treatment so we did it. And seeing what’s happening in the UK and certain states in America is both terrifying and genuinely shocking to me, as someone who did this for almost fifteen years, without ever even wondering about the legality of it.

The doctor retired some years ago, at which point there were two other doctors in the state who were willing to prescribe the medications for transgender kids. I truly think that he would still be working if nobody else had been willing to take those kids on as patients. He was, by the way, a white cisgender heterosexual Boomer. I remember when he was introduced to the concept of ‘genderfluid’ because one of our patients on HRT wanted to go off. He said ‘that’s so interesting!’ and immediately went to Google to learn more about it. 

I watched these kids transform. I saw them come into the office the first time, sometimes anxious and uncertain, sometimes sullen and angry. I saw them come in the subsequent times, once they were on hormone therapy, how they gradually became happy and confident in themselves. I saw the smiles on their faces when I gave them a gender marker letter for the DMV. I heard them cheer when I called to tell them I’d gotten HRT approved by insurance and we were calling in a prescription. It was honestly amazing and I will always consider the work I did in that red state with those kids to be something I am incredibly proud of. I was honored to be a part of it.

When I see all this transgender backlash, it’s horrifying, because it was well on the way to become standard and accepted treatment. Insurances started to cover it. Other doctors were learning to prescribe it. And now … it’s fucking illegal? Like what the actual fuck. We have gone so far backwards that it makes me want to cry. I don’t know how to stop this slide. But I wrote this so people would understand exactly how steep the slide is.

there is no difference between 400 billion and 401 billion, yet giving that billion out to employees will WILDLY improve their quality of life

saying someone commited terrorism for disliking a companies **business strategy** is just so fucking insane

Briana Boston faces terrorism charges and CEOs are getting free therapy

Briana Boston is a 42 year old mother of three from Florida who is under house arrest for expressing her frustration at her insurance (which she PAYS for) who denied her claim. She owns ZERO guns and doesn't have a criminal record.

She was originally held in prison for $100,000 bail. They have not dropped the charges and she is under house arrest even after widespread backlash.

They are trying to charge her with terrorism. They want her to spend 15 years in prison.

They are calling her a Luigi Mangione copycat. As if she killed someone. She made a indirect, not at all credible threat.

Meanwhile...

I want every woman who has ever faced threats online, stalking, etc to bring this Briana Boston up at every opportunity. Every time you were told by police that there was nothing they could do, know that they not only CAN do something, but they WILL do something, just not for you.

nice day today

I’m on my semi-balcony with my laptop outside, I got blankets, I built a shade fortress, the weather gods promised no rain, it’s sunny, I got a cable out here to have energy to my laptop, and I took a light adhd medicine dose for my add

it’s nice to be outside :), even if I’m not being social.

i dont watch scifi, but ive been able to deduce the three types of it:

1: this is the quantum network mainframe, its litterally fucking magic, it uses fucking mana, it also gives us futiristic laser beam guns

2: *voice like the "number 15; burger king foot lettuce"* this is the spooky scary creature 😦 , it has killed exactly 37 billion humans under testing alone, seeing it will cause a cognitohazard that will make you to shit yourself instantly because its so horrifying looking (its litterally just human looking but an inhuman shape)

3: ayyy its my boy bing bong the alien!! hows the kids been at planet zeep zorp?

all scifi falls into at least one of these categories, for example scp is 2 and MIB is 1 and 3

yes, but whats a neber mill, does it grind netherrack

a world without trans people has never existed and never will

prints