Fear of Trans Bodies

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What does it mean for a body to be damaged?
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References
2. “Irreversible Damage” by Abigail Shrier:
5. “What’s so Good about Being Natural?” by Nour Abi-Nakhoul:

Media used
“It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water (STEMS Version)” by The Microphones
“Transphobic Techno (B**** Got a P****)” by Your Favorite Martian
“Back to the Future” by Robert Zemeckis
Several videos by TT Exulansic
“I Emailed my Doctor 133 Times - The Crisis in the British Healthcare System” by Philosophy Tube
Twitter vent by KC Miller
“Network” by Sidney Lumet
“Synecdoche, New York” by Charlie Kaufman
“RaeLynn - God Made Girls” by TK McKamy
“The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia” by Jonni Phillips
Backxwash live set - M for Montreal 2021
“The Queen” by Frank Simon

Inspirations
“Health Communism” by Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant
“My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix” by Susan Stryker
“Should Have Known Better” by Sufjan Stevens
Everything ever released by The Microphones & Mount Eerie

“There is no other world, and there has never been.”

Correction: 33:31 The sale actually ends January 2nd, 2023. After that, my link gives a smaller discount.

[purplepanda]

You know, in 1000 years when they dig up your skeleton, they’re gonna say “HOLY SH*T, ITS SANS FROM UNDERTAALE!”

[abracadaverous]

I'm a trans man who's had my internal reproductive organs and breasts removed. But those surgeries were ultimately unrelated to my gender identity; they were performed due to an extreme cancer risk. I wonder how Schrier thinks her rhetoric falls on the ears of cis women who've required mastectomies or hysterectomies due to non-gender-related reasons?

[blackonyx]

As a transmasculine person who's been on testosterone for about three months now, I cannot describe how glad I am that I got through the worry that HRT would "mess up my body" or make me somehow "gross". Testosterone is so much better than I ever thought it would be. Sure, I'll joke about how T is "actually kind of garbage for you, " and it *can* increase your risk for certain health problems, but the health *benefits* of being in a body you like and want to take care of are pretty incredible.

[risamaeve]

I've had a hysterectomy and i think i'm nonbinary. The surgery was absolutely lifechanging for me for health reasons, but i'd already decided i didn't want kids and then got unexpected gender euphoria. Body autonomy is #1 and it kills me that people with fibroids and endometriosis are gatekept from surgery because "but

[Oshacompliantshibari]

12:20 "[Estrogen] increased the rate of breast cancer by 46 times"
Yes, you are far more likely to develop breast cancer once you grow breasts. I'm so glad Sherlock is out here informing the masses.

[kindofcl]

The connections you made to ableism and the fear of aging were really eye opening. Being reminded that your very existence is an act of defiance can be terrifying but also empowering.

[asliwins]

Quick thing: neither of my grandmothers were able to have biological children. They were cis women who couldn't. They adopted, they were mothers. Bodies don't dictate a person's ability to be a parent.

[KatieBadenhorst]

Maybe I'm the minority but growing up in the 90's trans people were invisible to me. The drag queens of Rocky Horror were probably my first images of trans identity. It's only after seeing trans "transformation" videos on YouTube that my understanding shifted. It wasn't just their looks - I could see how happy trans people were after transitioning. It was amazing seeing how they came alive. Since then I've followed more amazing trans creators. As a woman and part of the LGBT+ community, I see trans women as my sisters. They are the part of the community which faces the brunt of the conservative backlash, yet at the same time they are in the front as activists and intellectuals pushing the left forward. Nowadays I am so terrified for your safety. My thoughts are with you.

[hardhatnewt]

I never understood the "God didn't mean for you to be this way." argument, because if god doesn't want me to be like this he could easily stop me.

[dream_weaver]

So sad, that one day, archeologists will dig up my bones and find out, that I was only a skeleton, pretending to be a human, all along

[sawgerrera]

Interesting. I was quite ignorant to anything non straight before I started working as a bouncer at an LGBTQ club. I've seen a trans girl get drinks brought for her all night and kiss this guy Alex who's there every weekend. When one of his boys said she was a dude as they waited for their coats at the end of the night Alex pretend he didn't know her biology and started trying to fight her. It made me feel Sick, made me feel guilty and then made me super interested in this whole topic. Basically most of the things trans women say happen to them I've witnessed happen in real time in that club. It's opened my eyes.

[tragician]

When I talked about starting T people were always like "but what about like your hairline receding and stuff, do you really want that" and these aspects used to scare me a lot and made me hesitate in starting T, but I've started to think about it as "if it happens it's the way it was supposed to be because if I was a cis man it would happen to me anyway just without the choice"

[iferlyf]

Funnily, walking corpse is what I call my pre transition self.

I was a zombie, wishing I didn't exist while trying to look alive and constantly failling

[brielleanyez]

I recently met a trans man( ftm) . I had no idea they were trans and would not have known unless I had been told. This is the first trans person I ever have met and I must say I'm ashamed of the preconceived notions and biased I held before knowing him. I think that is what will actually help people, actually meeting and getting to know a trans person. Great video.

[Aerational]

The ironic part of the whole "when archeologists dig you up they won't care what gender you identified as" argument is that archeologists literally dig to understand the culture of the time and figure out how people lived their lives. They would 100% care about understanding people's gender identity, and assuming this is far in the future would likely have technology that would allow them to much better examine and understand the remains and artifacts they find.

[deepcreek]

My wife and I carry similar scars, similar body hair, similar vocal registers. One of us is a trans woman; one of us was declared female at birth and has a hormonal abnormality and endometriosis. How beautiful to have someone to sing with in unison, someone to apply one's lidocaine gel, someone who can tweeze those stubborn hairs between the neck and chin. How beautiful to plan our hormonal futures from the same baseline, to set one reminder for both our bone density scans, to look forward to many kisses between mouths dyed a little blue. It's transcendent and affirming to plan surgeries together, to care for one another in times of bodily discomfort or transition, to challenge shitty doctors with a real-life a/b test. Trans womanhood is beautifying and challenges outdated ideas about women with hormonal irregularities being broken/sick/damaged. Sisterhood continues to be powerful. Thank you, Lily, for existing publicly in your body despite the scrutiny that brings. May your body bring you many blessings.

[chameleonhrt]

Joke's on you transphobes, you won't be able to judge my bones up after I get cremated.

[Ancusohm]

There's that quote that goes something like, "God made trans people for the same reason he made grapes but not wine or grain but not bread. So that humans might share in the beauty of creation."

I'm not a particularly religious person, but the quote helps me see the beauty in being trans.

[fairesmashysmash]

Growing up as a cis girl/woman, I was often bullied by transphobic peers for my appearance, and as an adult I’ve more than once had transphobic peers assume I’m a trans woman because of how they perceive things like my facial features. I’m also Jewish, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that there’s almost always a connection, in my experience, between people who judge me for “looking trans” and people who judge me for “looking Jewish” — who see my curly hair, wide nose, and loud voice as inherently sinister and ugly; who place me lower in their hierarchy of “womanhood” because of things that, to them, mark me as Jewish. The Venn diagram between these groups is a circle, and I think this video gets at why: it’s eugenics, babey!

The connections between TERF ideology and racism, antisemitism, ableism, classism, etc have been well-established, but I found this video really refreshing nonetheless. There’s a lot to be said for demystifying and normalizing the human body. Not to be that person who’s like “capitalism benefits from alienating us all from our bodies and forcing us to see them as simple tools for production instead of complex living organisms that we can and should be able to exercise autonomy over in this brief yet meaningful existence we all experience” but, well… 🤷🏻‍♀️

[TheAetherealMeadow]

In my hometown, the psychiatrist who does all the trans related stuff was a big ally to the trans community (may he RIP, as he passed away a few years ago).

There's something he said which really stood out to me. It was along the lines of, "I think some cis people get scared when they realize they are only a hormone prescription away from the opposite sex." I think what he is saying is so on point in regards to where the fear of trans bodies comes from.

If you look at most people who are anti-trans, they are heavily invested in the idea that their gender is what their body is, without conscious self awareness that it is actually who they are as a person. The idea that so many aspects of sexual dimprohism are so changeable with medical technology, or even just presentation alone for that matter, makes them have to grapple with the concpet that the way they are "naturally" is actually just as much of a "choice" for them as they percieve it to be for trans people. The fact that their body can theoretically change so much scares them, because it makes them realize that their choice not to transition is what makes them a man or a woman, and not their body's inherent physical state. The fact that transition is even possible challenges so many of their beleifs and world views.