As always, Honestly provides a lot of food for thought. I have a question though. I admire Brianna Wu's thinking and I hope to hear more of it. That said she has said on at least two occasions that I recall that she fears that President Trump will keep her from receiving certain medication that she needs. Is this truly the case? Is this …
As always, Honestly provides a lot of food for thought. I have a question though. I admire Brianna Wu's thinking and I hope to hear more of it. That said she has said on at least two occasions that I recall that she fears that President Trump will keep her from receiving certain medication that she needs. Is this truly the case? Is this medication not going to be available or does she mean that she has to pay for it? I'm respectful of trans people but I'm not sure I ever voted for paying for it.
Brianna Wu isn’t a woman, he’s a white man whose given name is John Flynt. He had doctors surgically castrate him and invert his penis so he would more resemble a woman, so now he needs to take hormone pills. He chooses to take large static quantities of estrogen and testosterone blockers, instead of the male levels of testosterone that his body needs, so he can look as feminized as possible, even though disrupting the endocrine system like this gives him health problems. Its a tricky question: do we pay money to make people very physically ill, so that they like how they look more? The other problem is that studies show that transgender people’s mental health isn’t good long term even after receiving these procedures. Currently, gender dysphoria is the only body dysmorphic disorder that we are being asked to treat with alterations to the body. It is common consensus that all forms of BDD should be treated with talk therapy coupled with exposure, and that altering the body to relieve the distress actually fuels the disorder longterm. Theres no evidence that gender dysphoria is fundamentally different from any other form of BDD- eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia or binging, body-part specific dysmorphia, racial dysphoria or species dysphoria, etc.
Thank you for this reply. May we infer that Mrs. Wu (by whatever name) will continue to have access to the hormones that she needs to maintain the feminized version of herself as long as she can get a doctor to prescribe them? So does that mean that her "fear" just comes down to money? That puts a rather different spin on her concern that Donald Trump's election will prevent her from receiving needed medication.
It’s not clear what the Trump administration has planned for transgender procedures, whether that’s stopping coverage and treating it like other cosmetic procedures which are legal but out of pocket, or making it illegal to prescribe wrong-sex hormones, castrate healthy gonads, etc. Messing with your hormones can be very dangerous, bc taking the wrong ones for your body means things like elevated stroke risk, heart attack risk, diabetes, dementia, etc, which then need to be payed for by taxpayers. Side effects of drastically altered estrogen or testosterone can be suicidality, mood disorders, and elevated propensity for physical and sexual violence. All hormones are mood altering, so messing with someone’s hormones to the extent that transgender people do can trigger or exacerbate mental illness or behavioral problems. So I doubt it will ever be something people can legally just buy and take with no prescription or regulation. Doctors are supposed to have to assess patients before they prescribe them and some hormones are considered controlled substances. Transgender procedures are an ethical grey area with no clear pathway forward, regardless of who’s currently in office, bc the doctor is being asked to essentially induce an endocrine disorder and it’s accompanying cascade of health problems in order to cure a mental illness. Trying to cure mental illness through body modification is extremely controversial and was considered barbaric and archaic up until about 10 years ago with the rise of transgender activists. So: could republicans create policies that take away Mr Wu’s estrogen, and testosterone blockers? Maybe. He calls that “taking away his healthcare,” I call it “taking away state-sponsored self harm.”
As always, Honestly provides a lot of food for thought. I have a question though. I admire Brianna Wu's thinking and I hope to hear more of it. That said she has said on at least two occasions that I recall that she fears that President Trump will keep her from receiving certain medication that she needs. Is this truly the case? Is this medication not going to be available or does she mean that she has to pay for it? I'm respectful of trans people but I'm not sure I ever voted for paying for it.
Brianna Wu isn’t a woman, he’s a white man whose given name is John Flynt. He had doctors surgically castrate him and invert his penis so he would more resemble a woman, so now he needs to take hormone pills. He chooses to take large static quantities of estrogen and testosterone blockers, instead of the male levels of testosterone that his body needs, so he can look as feminized as possible, even though disrupting the endocrine system like this gives him health problems. Its a tricky question: do we pay money to make people very physically ill, so that they like how they look more? The other problem is that studies show that transgender people’s mental health isn’t good long term even after receiving these procedures. Currently, gender dysphoria is the only body dysmorphic disorder that we are being asked to treat with alterations to the body. It is common consensus that all forms of BDD should be treated with talk therapy coupled with exposure, and that altering the body to relieve the distress actually fuels the disorder longterm. Theres no evidence that gender dysphoria is fundamentally different from any other form of BDD- eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia or binging, body-part specific dysmorphia, racial dysphoria or species dysphoria, etc.
Thank you for this reply. May we infer that Mrs. Wu (by whatever name) will continue to have access to the hormones that she needs to maintain the feminized version of herself as long as she can get a doctor to prescribe them? So does that mean that her "fear" just comes down to money? That puts a rather different spin on her concern that Donald Trump's election will prevent her from receiving needed medication.
It’s not clear what the Trump administration has planned for transgender procedures, whether that’s stopping coverage and treating it like other cosmetic procedures which are legal but out of pocket, or making it illegal to prescribe wrong-sex hormones, castrate healthy gonads, etc. Messing with your hormones can be very dangerous, bc taking the wrong ones for your body means things like elevated stroke risk, heart attack risk, diabetes, dementia, etc, which then need to be payed for by taxpayers. Side effects of drastically altered estrogen or testosterone can be suicidality, mood disorders, and elevated propensity for physical and sexual violence. All hormones are mood altering, so messing with someone’s hormones to the extent that transgender people do can trigger or exacerbate mental illness or behavioral problems. So I doubt it will ever be something people can legally just buy and take with no prescription or regulation. Doctors are supposed to have to assess patients before they prescribe them and some hormones are considered controlled substances. Transgender procedures are an ethical grey area with no clear pathway forward, regardless of who’s currently in office, bc the doctor is being asked to essentially induce an endocrine disorder and it’s accompanying cascade of health problems in order to cure a mental illness. Trying to cure mental illness through body modification is extremely controversial and was considered barbaric and archaic up until about 10 years ago with the rise of transgender activists. So: could republicans create policies that take away Mr Wu’s estrogen, and testosterone blockers? Maybe. He calls that “taking away his healthcare,” I call it “taking away state-sponsored self harm.”
I have the question too.