People take hormones intravenously? I’ve only heard of intramuscular and subcutaneous injections. I thought intravenous injection resulted in too large of a spike in hormone levels.

Do you normally celebrate when a cisgender woman tells you she has something wrong with her body such that she doesn’t get periods anymore? Oh, so sorry to hear you’re struggling with this condition, but thank god you dont get periods right?

Yes, when a cis woman knows I’m trans, on the topic of periods she often brings up how wonderful it is that I don’t have them and I’m so lucky, etc. - but when I tell a medical worker that I was born without a uterus, they take pity on me (there is no celebratory tone or “wow, I wish I didn’t have periods like you!”). So I think you’re spot on about how cis women treat fellow cis women vs trans women on this issue.

I have definitely internalized that not having periods is a positive and convenient aspect of being a trans woman, but it comes at a steep cost of a lifetime of dependence on injectable medications that my access to is not guaranteed (putting my physical and mental health in a far more fragile / tenuous state), and obviously at the cost of infertility (as well as the other forms of distress that accompany the horrors of being trans, both internal & external).

I really believe cis women who tell me about their period pain and suffering - I do not envy them or wish I had that suffering, and I think it’s completely valid for them to envy my lack of that suffering … but I also understand how awful it can feel when they communicate envy about being trans, or how invalidating it can feel when cis women compare gender dysphoria to body dysmorphia. The empirical evidence shows these are not the same, that treatment & causes differ significantly, even if superficially they seem similar. At best it just comes across as well-intended but ignorant, at worst it feels like a form of testimonial injustice and we aren’t being listened to or taken seriously (ironically something cis women often experience themselves).

Honestly I think it has to do with the way cis and straight allyship relates to queerness, often elevating and glorifying it in a way that is compatible with pride movements … and the reality is that not every queer person feels pride.

Sometimes it feels like allies no longer think of being trans as a serious medical condition, they’ve so internalized that pathologization is wrong (applying the same approach for homosexuality as transsexuality), that they seem to think it’s wrong to think of trans people as having any kind of biomedical issue. This I think explains the way that trans people are often told that they don’t need to feminize to be a woman, that they are valid so why bother with estrogen or surgeries, etc. as if medical transition has become an outdated and even transphobic practice.

And they might be right for some trans* folks, not everyone has gender dysphoria, not everyone benefits from medical transition - that is to say, not every kind of being trans has “pathology” or “disordered” elements that need intervention … but it seems inappropriate to take what is true for a minority and insist it’s true for the rest.

Though to be fair, I think it’s mostly innocent, more a consequence of ignorance and superficial interaction with mainstream progressive ally culture or politically-informed queer culture than anything more intentionally malicious … though it is interesting the way cis anxiety about medical transition finds expression through seemingly supportive language, so it can still feel like transphobia is at the emotional root of telling a trans person to not medically transition because they’re valid without it.