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Ignore Andrea Long Chu: You'll Do Fine

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by Pret Allez, Nov 24, 2018.

  1. Pret Allez

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    Andrea Long Chu said some crap in the New York Times. It was really catastrophically bad. Had this come in May of this year, I might not have started HRT. Among other things, she stated incredibly brutal things, like "there are no good transition outcomes." I'm here to tell you that is not true. It's not true. If you want to transition medically, you'll do just fine. I promise you will. Don't be scared away by her.
     
  2. beenthrdonetht

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    I saw that. WTF?!? I couldn't for the life of me figure out what exactly she was saying. I guess freedom of speech means freedom to let other people know how messed up you are. Hard to see what good that article will do.
     
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  3. Pret Allez

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    Yeah, I mean, she has valid experience, I won't question that. I won't question that she's trans either.

    However, she said a bunch of harmful things that will be used by people who want to restrict or eliminate access to transition care.

    My biggest beef is that she essentially is saying transition sucks, and that there's no good outcome. That's not true. Like, it is absolutely true that dysphoria never goes away. However, for her to represent the reality--that medical transition is complicated, messy, and not a silver bullet--in a general public forum for a vastly majority cisgender audience was damaging. It's one thing for her to stick to her Twitter account and talk about how taking estradiol makes her sad. It's entirely another for her to say it's "delayed-release sadness" on the pages of the New York Times, for all transdenialists to see.
     
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  4. beenthrdonetht

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    I hope it will stimulate other people — that's right, people: people! — to share their perspectives.
    It is frustrating that it will just give gasoline to people who shouldn't be holding matches.
     
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  5. weary

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    Let me start by saying I am not trans...

    I read the entire article as originally written. I did not get from my reading of it most of what you are saying. Yes if you read it in bits and pieces you can take out what you want, but altogether the main focus of the article was that people should have the right to medical treatments without the oversight of what health care associations deem right. Her article illuminates an age-old problem the medical community and patients have faced over countless issues. The arguments and suggestions she used was a way to shine a light on this fact. By allowing the medical communities to have the ultimate decision in this process gives them a power they should not hold. Her point in my opinion is that transition surgery should be given to those requesting it in a similar fashion as any cosmetic surgery just on the basis of the want and financial ability to pay. They, being the doctors and hierarchy, are not the gods they currently want to be and should have no authority over the procedure approval.

    I thought it was heartfelt and very well written to show her opinion.
     
  6. Pret Allez

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    I agree that she's not advocating gatekeeping.

    But here's the problem: she's universalizing her experience, and she's doing it in a way that will be deployed by people who want more gatekeeping and possibly even elimination of transition care.

    If she had stopped at "these are my experiences," I would have been fine. Instead, she made statements about the experiences of many other trans women that are completely off base: "People transition because they think it will make them feel better. The thing is, this is wrong." "There are no good transitioning outcomes."

    You can go to her Twitter (theorygurl) and find some incredibly gross stuff. She even posited that many people start transitioning in order to avoid male privilege.
     
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  7. weary

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    @Pret Allez
    I see what you are saying about her universalizing her experiences. In that respect yes, totally wrong. I think or I would hope her intention was well meant to help provide more opportunities for those needing surgery, but I have not read anything else by her just this article.
     
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  8. Pret Allez

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    @weary

    I think she does get some things right: in particular, transitioning is not all fun and games: it's a very complicated and sometimes messy process. Dysphoria doesn't completely go away. In some ways, it can even get worse. I won't lie and say that haven't seen more extreme emotional lows since starting estrogen. It's just that the emotional highs are more frequent, and my overall emotional baseline is better. Her experiences are valid. I wish, had I been in her position, I would have written about the importance of informed consent clinics, how everyone experiences dysphoria differently (her description is ALL kinds of goofy and nonsensical to me). Because of the multitude of stories of transness that exist, I would argue it's critical for transition care resources to be more widely available under the informed consent model.

    Begging psychiatrists is not fun, and I absolutely refused to do it.
     
    #8 Pret Allez, Nov 26, 2018
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2018