The intolerance of trans activists and why silencing people for having unpopular beliefs on sex + gender isn't the solution.

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The conversation in the surrounding menstruation is shallow given we're focused on the terminology and "all genders get periods". Period poverty is a huge problem. Lots of low income or homeless women cannot afford hygiene products. Worldwide the cultural attitude surrounding periods is negative. Periods are often seen as dirty and gross. These myths are caused by lack of education. In some cultures, women on her period get locked in sheds. Menstrual huts have led to the death of some women by starvation. Transsexual men getting periods is a topic we should be aware of cause some of them feel intense dysphoria surrounding menstruation and so it's something other females may not be able to relate with but the conversation surrounding menstruation shouldn't be a gender identity debate.
 
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Within the transgender community, the belief that being transgender is scientifically backed and in order to be trans you have to have the disorder gender dysphoria is frowned upon. Up until recently, gender dysphoria was widely recognized as a condition with neurological causes until it was declassified in the DSM-5. Transgender people who believe that gender dysphoria is synonymous with transgender are forced out of the spaces they helped create for "gate keeping" the transgender community. Transgender people who think you need gender dysphoria to be trans are not welcome in many transgender spaces. In the mainstream transgender community, a transgender person who believes in the science of being transgender are known as transmedicalists and called the slur truscum (true transsexual scum) that was coined on a micro -blogging site by a transgender woman. Similarly, the word for non-dysphoric trans indentified people in the transmed community is tucute. Some transgender people within the transgender community feel it's invalidating to expand the meaning of transgender to include non-dysphoric transgender people, those who are gender non-conforming or non-binary and think that erasing the medical history behind being transgender is delegitimizing being transgender. What they argue is a person can self-indentify and live their life how they choose but they cannot be conflated with transgender people and not everyone can be transgender. In other words, there should be a space for gender non conforming and non binary people and a medical space for transgenders. To distinguish themselves from non-dysphoric transgender people, GNC and non binary some transgender people have started to use the word transsexual.
 
As previously said, transgender people are a politically and culturally diverse population of people. Transgender people come from any background. Many people feel like they're walking on eggshells when discussing gender identity given how it can seem like the only valid belief to have is gender is a social construct and every gender identity is valid. Lots of people are labelled bigots and deplatformed for hate speech for giving a different perspective on transgender issues. Acceptance of the transgender community is going down given how everyone is expected to hold the politically correct beliefs.
 
Detransitioners are people who medically transitioned to appear as the opposite sex and are in the process of reversing the changes that happened to their body. The vast of detransitioners are female -to -male-to female (ftmtf) but there are some male- to-female-to male (mtftm) detransitioners. Detransitioners are reversing a major life decision they made and many people in the transgender community are cold to them. When a female medically transitions to appear male lots of changes can happen to their bodies and many of these changes are permanent. If a female is on testosterone long enough it can cause vaginal atrophy ( thinning, drying and inflammation of vaginal walls caused by low levels of estrogen), thickening of vocal cords that makes voice deeper is permanent, the higher risk of uterine cancer and uterine fibroids, double mastectomy ( complete removal of breasts) is not reversible, getting implants can never be the same as natural breasts. Detransition is uncommon within the transgender community. Some of the most common causes is social pressure, medical problems and financial reasons. Detransitioners are stigmatized within the transgender community and the attitude towards these people tends to be unsympathetic. Some detransitioners reported being silenced for invalidating transgenders and fear mongering for sharing their stories of detransition in some LGBT spaces. Detransitioners often feel jaded towards the medical community and transgender community and some of them have a phase of questioning the validity of being transgender. For some reason detransitioners tend to go far into the other direction in terms of their stance on transgender issues and the detrans community can be an echo chamber of problematic beliefs such transgender is a fetish or caused by trauma from sexual abuse and internalized homophobia. From how I see it, detransitioners belief system is out of hurt and rejection from a community they once called home and it'd be helpful for everyone if detransitioners were widely accepted by transgenders. What's more is detransitioners often have a voice in far right community's who allow them to speak freely about their stories. Sadly, far right group's often weaponize detransitioners as proof that transgenderism is not real. How I view it the far left community tends to censor detransitioners and the extreme right uses detransitioners to try and prove their beliefs. Admittedly when I first desisted ( stopping indentifying as transgender) out of social pressure I went down the far right rabbit hole out of feeling really out of place in the mainstream LGBT community and misunderstood. Out of my false consensus belief, I got the wrong idea every other transgender person was destined to go down the same pathway I did. I wanted to erase my past of indentifying as transgender and I feel guilty cause I feel like me co-opting the trans -movement cause I was gender non-conforming/ non binary is harming dysphoric transgender people. I'm not going to deny I had a phase of radical beliefs cause I needed to convince myself I was tricked and brainwashed in order to live as a member of my sex.
 
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There's been a push to use the phrase assigned female at birth (AFAB) to refer to non-binary people with vulva and transsexual men and assigned (AMAB) male at birth to refer to transsexual women and non binary people with a penis. Similarly you may see the phrases DMAB (designated male at birth) and DFAB (designated female at birth). Let's go over both sides of this debate and then I'll give my thoughts.

Pro AFAB/ AMAB:
- Calling transsexual women male's+ and transsexual men females is invalidating
- A person should be allowed to distance themselves from their sex
- Not every female indentify's with femalehood + not every male identifies with malehood
- Some believe that getting gender affirmation surgery and hormone replacement therapy changes your sex and so a transsexual man becomes a male and a transsexual female becomes a man.
- Thinks the phrases AMAB + AFAB are respectful to the transgender and non binary community and should be normalized.

Pro- female and male:
- Male and female are to do with what reproductive system you have
- Sex is not assigned at birth , it's observed
- Thinks it's okay to refer to transsexual people by their sex in certain contexts
- Argues that it's illogical to suggest that sex is something the doctor guesses

I understand both sides of the argument. In my belief, male and female are words we use to describe someone's reproductive function. A male is someone with testes and a penis whose reproductive system is responsible for producing sperm cells and a female is someone with a vulva, ovaries, fallopian tubes and a uterus who produces egg cells (ova) + is the sex responsible for bearing children. Some people have differences in sexual development who do not fit into these standard definitions. I feel like the phrases AFAB+ AMAB are conflating gender with sex and so I think the phrases AWAB ( assigned woman at birth) and AMAB( assigned man at birth) should be used instead cause the words man and woman are generally associated with gender. Sex isn't assigned, it's a fact about someone we can observe but gender roles and expectations are assigned. Society tends to expect someone to act and dress a certain way based on genitals.
 
Transsexual men are not the same as men and transsexual women are not the same as women. It's become taboo to acknowledge the differences between cisgender men and women and transgender men and women. I feel like people are confusing the word different for wrong/bad. How a transgender people experience manhood/womanhood is not the same as their cisgender counterparts. It does not mean we should disrespect them or their gender is not valid. Women experience things transsexual women cannot relate to and men go through things transsexual men cannot, that isn't to say that there isn't some shared experiences. When ideas such as transsexual men are biological men are spread it erases what it means to be transsexual which is medically and socially transition to live life as the opposite sex. What's more is people who deny that others have an innate and unchanging sex is fueling the stereotype that transgender people do not understand the concept of sex.
 
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