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mintincense · 10 months

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So apparently last year the National Park Service in the US dropped an over 1200 page study of LGBTQ American History as part of their Who We Are program which includes studies on African-American history, Latino history, and Indigenous history.

Like. This is awesome. But also it feels very surreal that maybe one of the most comprehensive examinations of LGBTQ history in America (it covers sports! art! race! historical sites! health! cities!) was just casually done by the parks service.

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mintincense · 1 year

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trans people in nazi Germany and the holocaust

i had originally planned to write out all the important details of what we know of trans people's fates in nazi Germany and the holocaust but after encountering holocaust revisionism for days on end, i feel a bit burnt out. so instead, here are some of the major points with links to further reading.

The Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was a queer-inclusive (and queer-focused) institute for sex research founded by Magnus Hirschfeld. From 1919 to 1933 it was a place of research, education and a safe space for queer people. For example, Lili Elbe, whose story was popularised in the film The Danish Girl, was one of Dr Hirschfeld's patients.

On May 6th 1933 the institute was raided by Nazis, and many of the people running it were forced to flee. The raid was followed by one of the first and most extensive burnings, which included many rare research books relating to queer people.

During the holocaust itself, many people are already aware of the gay men who were sent to the camps, the "pink triangles". Some may argue that this was exclusively done to gay men, however, as cisgender and heterosexual people are notoriously bad at telling the difference between gay, gender non-conforming and trans people, it would be misleading to say that trans people were not involved at all.

In any case, we do have evidence of trans people being persecuted and sent to concentration camps. Aside from the famed Paragraph 175 which banned homosexuality, trans people were also persecuted under Paragraph 183 which prohibited cross-dressing (among other things).

To highlight a specific victim, let's focus on Liddy Bacroff, a trans woman who was in and out of prison for years until 1942 when she was taken to the Mauthausen concentration camp where she was murdered in 1943.

But this was not an isolated case. Earlier this year, the German parliament highlighted the LGBTQ+ victims of the holocaust, mentioning an unknown number of trans people, bi people and lesbians who were held and potentially died in concentration camps alongside gay men. And in 2022, the Regional Court of Cologne ruled that denying the persecution of trans people in Nazi Germany can be considered "denying Nazi crimes".

Sources/further reading:

The Forgotten History of the World's First Trans Clinic

Transgender Experiences in Weimar and Nazi Germany

#prideuntold: Liddy Bacroff

Liddy Bacroff

Germany recalls overlooked LGBT victims of Nazi persecution

Vollbrecht-Tweet darf als Leugnung von NS-Verbrechen bezeichnet werden

Trans Liminality and the Nazi State

#trans people #holocaust #queer #holocaust denial #holocaust revisionism #transgender

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mintincense · 1 year

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Study: Most trans adults say transitioning has made them more satisfied with their lives.

The Washington Post has published a broad study of American transgender lives. It proves that for most trans people transitioning helps.

The Newspaper says that the Post-KFF poll is the largest nongovernmental survey of U.S. transgender adults to rely on random sampling methods. More than 500 people who identify as trans answered questions about their childhoods, their feelings and their lives post-transition.

Here are some take-aways:

Coming out

About 9 in 10 transgender adults under age 35 are out to their family or friends, while about 2 in 10 trans adults 35 and older have not told friends or family about their gender identity.

Many identify as nonbinary or gender non-conforming

62 percent identify as “trans, gender non-conforming” or “trans, nonbinary,” while 33 percent identify as a “trans man” or “trans woman.”

Nearly half prefer they/them pronouns, although most say they use she/her or he/him pronouns.

There are a lot of ways to present as trans

77 percent of trans Americans say they have changed their type of clothing or hairstyle to better fit their gender identity.

57 percent have used a different name than the one on their birth certificate.

31 percent have used hormone treatments, HRT or puberty-blocking hormones.

16 percent have undergone gender-affirming surgery or another surgical treatment to change their physical appearance.

Two thirds know by the age of 18

66 percent say they were younger than 18 when they began to understand that their gender was different from their sex assigned at birth, including 32 percent who became aware of it when they were 10 or younger.

Two thirds feel the force of discrimination and attacks

63 percent say they “sometimes” or “frequently” feel discriminated against because of their gender identity or gender expression, while 36 percent say this “seldom” or “never” happens.

64 percent say they have been verbally attacked because of their gender identity, gender expression or sexual identity, and 25 percent say they have been physically attacked.

In spite of all the Republican violence 55 percent thinks that the US is more accepting of trans people now than it was 10 years ago.

They are much more satisfied after transitioning

78 percent say that living as a gender different from the one assigned to them at birth has made them more satisfied with their lives. 45 percent say they are “a lot” more satisfied.

“Living doesn’t hurt any more,” said TC Caldwell of Alabama to the Post. “It feels good to just breathe and be myself.”

More here:

6 key takeaways from the Post-KFF survey of transgender Americans

Most trans adults say transitioning made them more satisfied with their lives

Experts and advocates on a new survey about the transgender experience in America

Majority of trans adults are happier after transitioning, survey finds

Illustration by Loveis Wise for The Washington Post.

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mintincense · 1 year

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World Athletics puts limit on testosterone in female athletes' blood

as you may have already heard, the World Athletics Council has issued new guidelines where female athletes' testosterone must be below a certain margin for them to be able to compete.

the statement explicitly mentions that this was done in the efforts to ban trans women "who have been through male puberty" from competing.

however, as the statement said "there are currently no transgender athletes competing internationally in athletics". so, despite the media's framing, this ban seems to affect cis women who are/may be intersex much more, at present, than trans women.

athletes such as Caster Semenya, Christine Mboma and Francine Niyonsaba, who are cis women that are intersex, have previously ran into issues with similar guidelines, as their naturally elevated testosterone levels have been framed as an "unfair" advantage.

it seems that natural advantages, such as height or producing less lactic acid than most, are okay or even celebrated as long as you're white (and/or a man).

sources/futher reading:

World Athletics Council decides on Russia, Belarus and female eligibility

World Athletics bans trans women from female sports

Namibian medallist Christine Mboma reopens athletics 'intersex' debate

“I am a woman and I am fast”: what Caster Semenya’s story says about gender and race in sports

We celebrated Michael Phelps’s genetic differences. Why punish Caster Semenya for hers?

#trans liberation #trans rights #trans women #sports #trans #trans people #testosterone #intersex #women #racism #feminism

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mintincense · 1 year

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"most trans kids detransition"

anti-trans actors will sometimes bring up supposed high rates of numbers of people who do not experience gender dysphoria once they grow up. while it is true that some people might mistakenly think that they are trans when they are younger, the rates are not as high as the transphobes think they are.

the study that i have seen brought up the most often is Psychosexual outcome of gender-dysphoric children. right off, we should note that this study was published in 2008 while the DSM-IV was still in effect. the children in the study have supposedly been diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder (GID) and not Gender Dysphoria, which is the current DSM-V diagnosis used to designate trans people's distress about their gender assigned at birth. this change seemed to have been needed as the study itself acknowledges that the DSM-IV diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder is too broad and includes gender non-conforming children who may not be trans:

"Some critics have expressed concerns that the DSM, criteria do not adequately differentiate the children with "true" (and probably persistent) GID from those who show merely gender nonconforming behavior and that, as a consequence, children who should not be classified as having a psychiatric disorder would be treated with various psychological interventions."

so, instead of 77 trans children, it seems that this study looked at 77 gender non-conforming children, who might be trans, but also cisgender and gay, bi or even straight. therefore, this study does not prove that "many" trans children end up desisting, as many children studied here might not even have been trans.

other critiques of the study include the fact that there were only 77 children involved, which is too small a sample size to make any important conclusions and the fact that a third of those children did not respond to the follow-up does not help either. the "most children" that the study refers to is only 43% of the participants, which is not even the majority.

to contrast this study with a newer study which takes into account the newer diagnosis for Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity 5 Years After Social Transition found that 97.5% out of the 317 youth studied kept their transgender identity an average of 5 years after their initial social transition. this study also has more than triple the number of participants than the first study, which shows that it is a better representation of the actual stats.

sometimes other studies might be brought up and other percentages of supposed "desisters", and as i don't have the energy to read them all, i suggest you check out the article Debunked: No, 80% Of Trans Youth Do Not Detransition by Erin Reed.

#detransition #trans #trans kids #trans youth #transphobia

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mintincense · 1 year

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There's people who claim that Harry Potter and its spinoffs aren't antisemitic because they're just using old fairy tale and folklore tropes.

Folks, I have some very bad news about a lot of fairy tales and folklore: it's antisemitic as hell.

This is because antisemitism has been present in Europe for hundreds of years. It's left an unfortunate impact on a lot of stuff.

Just because you unknowingly use an antisemitic fairy tale or folkloric element, doesn't mean it stops being antisemitic. Other people will recognize them for what they are. Some of those people will be victims who will feel hurt. Some will be people who agree with these ideas, and feel validated and welcomed.

"But if you see goblins as Jews, that means you're the antisemite-"

Well first of all, I don't see the goblins as Jews. That's a straw man.

I see the goblins as hateful caricatures of Jews. I see the goblins as what antisemites want gentiles like me to see Jews as, and are working very hard to make other people see Jews as. I see them as symbols antisemites use to communicate antisemitic ideas and signal mutual hatred of Jews among each other on social media.

Recognizing antisemitic tropes and symbols doesn't make me antisemitic. It makes me literate in the language of antisemites, which is not the same thing.

And since when has ignorance of hatred ever stopped hatred? It has never done so before, and it never will.

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mintincense · 1 year

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video essay recommendations

i am personally a big fan of video essays and have watched a great number of them. if you're looking to learn about trans people and issues relating to us and like the video essay form, see here my personal list of video essay recommendations grouped by topic

if you want all the videos in a small neat playlist click here! (the only exceptions are two series of videos who are instead linked in the list as playlists)

on transphobia:

The History of Transphobia by Mia Mulder

Transphobia: An Analysis by Philosophy Tube

Tracing the Roots of Pop Culture Transphobia by Lindsay Ellis

What Are Women? by Lily Alexandre

Response to BBC transphobia by Shaun

The Continually Escalating Anti-LGBT Rhetoric by Jessie Gender

The Anti-Trans Disinformation Pipeline by Jessie Gender

How PragerU Creates Transphobia (in Trans-Affirming Folks) by Jessie Gender

on Gender Criticals/TERFs

What Are TERFs? - How "Gender Critical" TERFs Harm Transgender Folks by Jessie Gender

Gender Critical by Contrapoints

Inside a Cult - Gender Critical - Recruitment by Caelan Conrad

Inside a Cult - Gender Critical - Conversion Therapy by Caelan Conrad

Inside a Cult - Gender Critical - Fascism by Caelan Conrad

Exploring The "Gender Critical" Radicalization Pipeline by Jessie Gender

TERFs and the Fascist Roots of Anti-Trans Movements by Jessie Gender

TERFs and False Consciousness by Rosencreutz

TERFs Are Wrong About Biological Sex by Lily Alexandre

The TERF AI App That Uses Modern Pseudoscience by Jessie Gender

on J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling by Contrapoints

I'm Done With JK Rowling by Jessie Gender

Hogwarts Legacy, JK Rowling, and Trans Advocacy by Ro Ramdin

An Over-Emotional Look at Why JK Rowling is Bad by James Somerton

Death of the Author 2: Rowling Boogaloo by Lindsay Ellis

"Separating Art vs. the Artist" doesn't work for Harry Potter by Kuncan Dastner

on trans people in sports

Should Trans Women Be Allowed In Womens Sports? by Mia Mulder

Are Transgender Athletes The End of Sports? by Jessie Gender

The Science of Trans Women in Sport by Jangles ScienceLad