Faith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   Aug 26, 2025

The whole "people shouldn't transition before age N because their brain isn't fully formed" thing is so catastrophically dumb.

Like, do you really think I wanted to be a fully formed man? Seriously. What's the upside?

For most trans people, the more of the wrong gender we get, the more pain it brings. Waiting until those changes are permanent only makes them worse. It's like if you have a gluten allergy and someone says they won't believe you until you've tried every loaf of bread in the bread aisle. More pain doesn't fix it. We don't get over gender dysphoria by exposure therapy. We just get more trauma that we have to live with the rest of our lives.

Instead, being able to transition BEFORE the brain and body are fully formed is the ideal. The earlier the better. The earlier you're able to get access to medical transition, the closer your fully formed body and mind will be to what they should be. That's a good thing! Waiting only causes harm.

The only reason why people think like this is because they refuse to believe trans people and trans experiences. They think that their default cis assumptions about people should override those people's own experiences. Sure, they'll grant some allowance in theory to adults who want to muck about with gender. But they don't actually believe we are who we say we are. Not if they think we have to have known since we were 4 but shouldn't transition until 25. The only way that makes sense is if they're either trying to be unbelievably cruel or if they simply don't believe we're real.

If you want to know if someone's an ally, look at how they treat trans kids. Because being an ally starts with believing us, that our experiences are real. And if they won't believe the kids, they're not going to believe you when you're 35 or 45 or 70.

Show threaddeilann v -0.2.1.  Aug 26, 2025
@faithisleaping the same folks argue if you're you should essentially never be allowed to transition if you're neurodivergent and folks eat that up too
Show threadFaith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   Aug 26, 2025
@deilann Yeah...
Show threadFaith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   Aug 26, 2025

@deilann Which again comes down to believing us, only where "us" here now includes all neurodivergant folks. They do the same things to autistic and ADHD kids. We tell our story and they tell us we're lying and then try to gaslight us with some alternative narrative in which we're the villains.

Of course they look at an autistic person and say their gender isn't real. They don't believe us about anything else. Why would they believe us about that?

Show threaddeilann v -0.2.1.  Aug 26, 2025

@faithisleaping

i mean a lot of the narratives about trans men are we can't possibly be real because that's just our silly women brains becoming hysterical

bigots will literally find any reason trans people don't exist

but the real danger of these arguments is that they'll concede there are a few real trans people and they wouldn't deny that

they just deny that every person who tells them they're trans is and there's always a reason that'll work!

they just don't think trans people exist but need a motte for their bailey

Show threadFaith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   

@deilann Yup. I mean it's exactly the same thing my mom did when I came out. Every argument she made came down to some variation of, "But couldn't you just be less trans?" My transition made her uncomfortable and she was reaching for something to get me to bend to improve her comfort.

I thought about tossing in something about clocky trans women and something about trans men (though I wasn't sure what) at the end of that post because, really, what they're looking for is one narrow narrative they can feel comfortable supporting in theory while they deny the rest of us. I just didn't because I want keep it focused.

Aug 26, 2025 at 1:03pmWeb
Show threaddeilann v -0.2.1.  Aug 26, 2025

@faithisleaping

the wanting to keep it focused is also the problem with hot swap arguments like this, where you can always just throw in yet another exhausting "reason"

constantly being asked to prove your own existence is fucking exhausting no matter how ridiculous the "allegations" are or even obviously spurious

Show threadFaith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   Aug 26, 2025

@deilann That's fair. My intention was to focus on the "listen to people" part. But there are plenty of people who will "support" trans kids and then guide their own (possibly trans) child away from the clocky trans woman in the grocery store out of fear.

At the end of the day, it's all of us (including detransitioners and those in hiding) or none of us and we know which the bigots would prefer.

Show threaddeilann v -0.2.1.  Aug 26, 2025

@faithisleaping all these arguments honestly boil down to "listen to people" so it's a good take away in general

the reason "trans person X" can't possibly know who they are is (insert excuse here) which is rebutted by "have you considered listening to people?"

Show threaddeilann v -0.2.1.  Aug 26, 2025

@faithisleaping oh, i totally forgot how shrier is a really good example of how this is all really an extension of how people treat kids

in her horrible book, she goes on about how she knows trans people exist and will refer to trans adults by their correct pronouns (she then goes on to as far as anyone can know from the details she gives, misgender every child in the book)

but

the definition of adult keeps getting stretched to the point that she's referring to adults in college in the way she pinky-promised she'd only refer to kids

our transness itself becomes proof of our immaturity

the only folks she genders correctly in the book are those who have some modicum of power/influence and folks can just look up to find out how laughable it would be to misgender them because like they have major YouTube channels and shit

Show threadFaith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   Aug 26, 2025

@deilann 1000%

It's entirely a power game.They'll properly gender those it costs them something to misgender. Maybe that something is just looking silly ("OMG! How could you think that person is a dude!") or it could be because that person has some amount of power. It's not because they're actually a decent human being who treats people with dignity.

See also every interaction with my parents. I intentionally came out to my siblings first to build a coalition so that by the time I came out to my parents the power dynamics in the family were in my favor. Worked a treat! They still don't believe or support me but they know better than to be total dipshits about it.

But part of why kids are such a canary is because they don't have that power.

Trans men often fall into that category, too. Sure, the dudes on instagram who've spent 3 years in the gym might get believed. But the young guy who's not even on T yet? Nope.