Shadowraix

I don't imagine false equivalencies.

Its called HRT. That is the actual medical name for this treatment. Addressing all 3 of these at once. Despite these claims most trans women lose in sports. There are so few trans athletes another sports category wouldn't even work. We've been allowed to compete since 2004. Also having less muscle driving a larger frame would be a disadvantage. Cite anatomical differences based on averages all you want but its moot unless you can prove a consistent unfair advantage in real world performance where trans individuals fall outside the performance range of cis individuals. We typically don't. We don't dominate. Trans individuals are already regulated in sports. There are guidelines for this stuff. For E2 to properly suppress T by itself you usually need to reach 200pg/ml and there are a fraction of individuals who still can't achieve proper suppression. Having a T-blocker is common. Spironolactone is the most common in the US. Cyproterone Acetate in Europe. Bicalumatide is arguably the best since it blocks the actual receptors instead of T production and has a better safety profile but its use in trans healthcare isn't as common. I'm currently on a transdermal application of E and Cypro temporarily but plan to go back to monotherapy with gel. No DHEA and no adrenal problems. A psychedelic trip. A friend showed me Leo's content.

Yet most efforts to try to push trans people out of sports categories they identify with push them out too. They are conveniently ignored just like how trans women are always targeted and trans men are often conveniently ignored in discourse about us. Lets not call it chemical castration. Thats another rhetoric piece fascists use to demonize us. HRT is fine. You would be surprised just how much weaker we are with HRT. Saying we are 'stronger' after HRT is a non point regardless if its true or not. Trans bodies vary in athletic performance just like cis bodies. The issue is an unfair advantage. Current guidelines is to keep our toestosterone <50 ng/dl and to keep our estradiol levels between 100 pg/ml - 200 pg/ml. Upper range with monotherapy, lower range with a T-blocker. Cis women reach higher levels than this.

@Adrian colby ding ding You hit the nail on the head for a lot of things. Ironically our testosterone levels often tend to be lower than cis women. We've been allowed to compete in the sports category that aligns with our gender identity since 2004 when the IOC allowed it. Suddenly its a hot debate when right wing parties found a new target. The IOC guidelines solved this issue a long time ago. You can't justify excluding an entire demographic until there is robust science that there is a very consistent pattern of an unfair advantage. Science has not been able to produce this. If people want a more objective answer to this subject then they should be supporting more research on this.

"Biological women" and "transgenderism" are terms used by the right and especially fascists who take great issue with the existence of trans people in society up to the point of desiring extermination. "Transgenderism" in particular is a term used to pretend you can separate trans people from the thing that makes them trans. You can't. These are largely the people making the biggest fuss about the inclusion of trans people and hating that there are social consequences to not showing basic respect to trans individuals. Accountability for being an asshole is not something they like. As an an oppressed minority, no. I don't think its the most pressing issue on the list of problems, but I won't let someone who knows nothing about what its like to tell me how to feel on the subject. Because it highlights an intrinsic problem in sex-based sports as only supporting a cisnormative view on things. I highlighted many of dynamics to this subject in one of my previous replies. I am a big advocate of a society that is inclusive to all minorities even ones that don't pertain to me. Living life as a trans person is being used to constant harassment & discrimination that can even be life threatening just for being trans. You are used and accustomed to dealing with people who absolutely despise you and believe all sorts of propaganda about you based on that attribute alone. Its not a matter of thinking people "have" to do things or setting expectations. Those do not get things done or change anything. What does is the fight for our rights and proper education to combat the fear mongering and misinformation spread about us. I elaborated more on how this issue is more complex than you make it out to be in one of my previous post. Its not as simple as "men stronger women weaker" especially when it comes to trans individuals on HRT and individuals who never went through puberty expected of their sex in the first place. Especially when it comes to intersex individuals. If you want to make an actual argument for this, support more research on trans people and their athletic performance. Believe it or not the results we see is most trans people do not dominate sports and we've been allowed to compete for close to 2 decades now. Thats weight class and a much more reasonable way to separate sports than just making broad assumptions based on sex. Mack Beggs is a trans man wrestler who is forced to compete on the womens team despite the insistence to compete on the mens team. Yet people aren't railing that this is unfair. Why?

Ron DeSantis will be why voter turnout among more left leaning people goes up. Whether that is enough is yet to be seen.

"I'm not debating your existence, Just how you are allowed to exist in society" Such conversations often take place without the people actually involved being a part of the conversation Such conversations often have input from people not very well versed on the subject of trans issues. Such conversations rarely took place until right-wing platforms made it their whole personality to come after us. Such conversations often hyper focus on trans women when trans men and non-binary folk are part of the conversation too.

Oh yippee love when my existence is being debated. Trans rights and feminism have a long history together and is intersectional. Feminists are generally trans inclusive and provide pushback against the TERF movement who reinforce typical gender roles and don't care to get cisgender women in the crossfire of their anti-trans tirade. Big figures in that movement have close ties to fascists. While we encourage the increase in scientific literature towards us we generally are wary of the pathologization of the trans experience as it could lead down a path that is further harmful to us. Gender dysphoria is not a requirement to be trans. It does not make people trans. Trans people can have gender dysphoria because they are trans. You can't diagnose someone as trans like how you can't diagnose someone as being gay. There are so few trans athletes that this would not be viable and it merely just 'others' trans folk into a corner of society to maintain a system that is catered towards cisgender individuals. Its not very inclusive to intersex individuals either. The differences derive from hormones rather than the sex itself and it gets fairly complex. While there are averages that happen based on which hormone based puberty you went through first, they aren't inherent guarantees. There is lots of genetic diversity among those of the same sex. And when you factor in trans people you have to consider how HRT changes their physiology and consider that trans folk exist that don't go through puberty expected of their sex at all. HRT for a year or two is considered the standard in sports committee regulations that allow trans participation. Then we get into the issue of fairness and genetic advantages. Even among a particular sex a certain degree of genetic advantage is tolerated because it is considered fair. I mean on the extreme end olympians are basically chock full of people who won the genetic lottery. But in general we still allow genetic diversity even if it gives someone an edge. The question becomes not whether trans people may have a physiology thats also observed in cisgender individuals but whether their real-world performance operates outside the parameters of whats allowed for cisgender individuals. You can cite attributes and quantify them all day long but its meaningless unless it translates to unfair real world performance. When trans people win in sports they make big headlines and it starts a ruckus on this issue, but when we lose like we do the majority of the time it sweeps under the radar since it doesn't fuel the outrage machine. Lia Thomas was a big recent case of outrage despite her only just winning in one category and being none of the 27 records broken during that competition. Shes also lost to Iszac Henig, a trans man. Trans people have been allowed to compete among many sports orgs for several decades now. The IOC has guidelines that exclusion is not justified unless there is robust evidence of an unfair advantage. Currently the scientific literature on this subject is mixed and theres a conflict of methodologies where some will actually test real world performance while others just measure physical attributes and don't test performance.

@OP: Women who feel threatened by more attractive women are just projecting insecurity without realizing if their boyfriend could be stolen, the attractive women is just helping them dodge a bullet. Life is a multi-facet thing that varies even more by location it's not easily measurable as a sum total. Being a successful man sex workers is harder. But being a successful woman in stem fields is harder. Sexual assault on men and women are both not handled properly but the lack of seriousness from men was created by men to think any sex you receive you should just enjoy and grow up. For women excuses are often shifted on the victim to be at fault but that's just the surface. And then what about being a minority? What if you aren't straight? What if your trans? Starting to see how complex this is getting? People often cherry pick. If your a man who is facing major hardships in one facet and see a lot of women having it easier it's easy to think life is easier for them. I know you are asking specifically about attractive men and women but lots of factors tying into attraction is deeply influenced by general gender dynamics and other aspects of ourself like sexuality. Attraction often acts as an amplifies or reduces benefits and struggles of these dynamics. @Quote: Sex work isn't as easy as you think you aren't going to make bank immediately. It takes a lot of work getting good at photography to take good shots, you have to market yourself, and have a persona people like. And the porn industry is so messed up that pornstars often get exploited and turning yourself into a big enough pornstar to make money is a lot of work to market yourself and to produce high quality content too. Its a pretty common thing for people to see sex work as lazy because they think it's as simple as take a minute to snap whatever picture of your body or just to film a dude fucking you and it's instant profit. Men are often just jealous that there isn't as big of a market for them like the market they created for women. When you perceive an aspect of your life to be harder say working a 9-5 than something like sex work some gain mentalities glorifying working hard so they can justify what they do and pull down those they are jealous of.

Hey ty for that I'll take a look when I can. If there's any other resources I can become more educated on the topic I would greatly appreciate it (I could just google it but recommendations beforehand so i can reduce stumbling on a biased source)

I'm not really familiar with this conflict but I was informed a little bit (so I don't concretely think any of this true) by someone a lot of Palestinian's attacks were often in retaliation and people often justify that as to not be mad at Israel. Correct or nuance this whoever knows more about the topic. But even in defensive retaliation there could be a discussion on if it was done in a reasonable manner. I also was told Israel pulled out of the Gaza strip as a symbol of peace but the Palestinians took that strip and turned it into a zone to attack Israel. I'm not very informed on the topic so throwing this out there if anybody feels able to confirm or correct.

Closure is very powerful when it's possible. My ex after being a year split came to me wanting closure for something super shitty I did. And I was able to apologize for it and show I have grown and no longer believe what I said at all. It helped her tremendously and I also have the privilege of using my growth to be a positive influence in her life which feels great to be able to help when I did so much damage. Do some inquiry. Is there some uncertainty? Trauma or things that was never addressed? Not fully understanding why it ended etc. But in the long run love that runs deep has been primarily time based if there's no big issues or trauma that's being a blockade. Where I can appreciate things for how it was and appreciate the time for what it was instead of thinking on them in pain of what I used to have. Personally what got me over my ex was my current partner of over 9mo now. I think loneliness was what held me back from healing. But I don't know if my experience would give you much insight or not.

Even if your engaging in this life the most conscious thing you can do is be conscious of why you are doing things. Why are you doing x or y? And by gaining a more deeper understanding of reality you can not bullshit yourself and be brutally honest. One example as of recent I had a discussion about the value of life. We prioritize those close to us or other humans because we are naturally biased on that for survival. People didn't like that response. I know my biases are bullshit and I'm not perfect but because I have that knowledge whenever I even dare to say kill a bug when I'm too scared to handle it I do so consciously knowing my biases and even though I killed that bug there's almost a sense of empathy and love and appreciation for the immense value I feel towards it. That bugs death benefited me and I should not take it for granted. Being conscious is the primary tool that's helped me heal, become less toxic, and even though my spiritual development on understanding is not anywhere close to people here and a lot of my growth derived from spiritual knowledge from a total of 2 trips and the rest deconstructing myself, it has helped me tremendously. Even if you don't perfectly embody every insight perfectly it doesn't mean that insight is less valid and doesn't mean that increased awareness won't help you live and engage in things in a more aware way . Bit of a tangent but Leo's advice can still be valuable and that is largely how he helped me.

Its an interesting topic. I have people close to me who are more 'spiritually tuned' than I am who have had visions of 'past lives' that more highlighted lessons they've needed to learn in more than one lifetime. I would say there is something to the idea of reincarnation for growth and raising consciousness.

I would agree that Biden has the better chance mainly due to the left being tired of Trump's presidency, and people overall just seeking change. Biden's presidency won't be good by any means, but we also have to factor in voter suppression and the mess that the electoral college is right now. Many states require their candidates vote for their popular vote but at no repercussion for it so they get away with it.