cis privilege
Cis woman: hey so I would like bigger tits in order to feel more comfortable in my own skin
Doctors: oh hey yeah no problem hop on the table we’ll rig you right up
Some trans women/ some genderqueer people: hey so I would like bigger tits in order to feel more comfortable in my own skin
Doctors: where is your therapist’s note? how long have you been on estrogen? where is the tangible proof of your innermost feelings?? are you SUURE?!??
Some trans men/ some genderqueer people: hey so I would like no tits in order to feel more comfortable in my own skin
Doctors: where is your therapist’s note? how long have you been on T? where is the tangible proof of your innermost feelings?? are you SUURE?!??This is utterly inaccurate and erases one of the most important privileges CAFAB trans people enjoy over CAMAB trans people.
Under the WPATH Standards of Care which are followed by Western medicine, the rule is that CAFAB trans people (“female-to-male patients”) are entitled to have top surgery right away when they begin the transition process, whereas CAMAB trans people (“male-to-female patients” are not allowed to have top surgery at all unless “the physician prescribing hormones and the surgeon have [both] documented that breast enlargement after undergoing hormone treatment for 18 months is not sufficient”.
In other words, trans men and CAFAB genderqueer/nonbinary people only have to have a psychologist “double check” if they’re sure, whereas trans women and CAMAB genderqueer/nonbinary people have to have the same psychologist check and a minimum 18-month wait and written permission from a doctor AND a surgeon.
I did not know this.
How do they even decide what’s ‘sufficient’? I mean that seems like total nonsense, what’s sufficient for one person might be nowhere near enough for another.
I suppose it’s probably based on some kind of BS-y ‘passability’ criteria…
The exact wording used by the SOC 6 is that breast implants may be authorized if breast development is, “not sufficient for comfort in the social gender role”. In practice, this is a passability standard under which the psychologist gets to decide whether a CAMAB trans person “needs” bigger breasts or not.
The French court ruling is exceptionally concerning because France had been steadily moving towards the standard set by England, which allows legal transition on the basis of personal autonomy and not requiring surgery at all. If you follow the entire court case, it’s very clear that the judge is grasping at every possible straw in order to police CAMAB trans people despite EU human rights rulings to the contrary.
If you look at historical and ongoing practice in the West, you see mostly-male psychologists playing out a downright fetishistic mania for strictly controlling and policing CAMAB trans people, which is pretty specifically tied to the way CAMAB trans people’s existence challenges male supremacy. Psychological gatekeeping of CAFAB trans people is pretty much just collateral damage from generalizing the rules and procedures laid down against CAMAB trans people.
it’s really weird how in england you can legally transition really easily (apply for id, include a note from a gp saying “yes this person is trans and has no intentions of detransitioning” and also include a deed poll for name change) but trying to medically transition on the nhs often results in being made to go “full time” for literally years without hormonal intervention
(to, you know, prove that you’re ~sure~ [yes, that is what happened to me. i’m lucky in that i “passed” pretty well without hormones, but they didn’t make me do that because of that. they would’ve made me do it anyway. and have done it to my friends who do not “pass” nearly as well {who are fucking beautiful but very obviously not cis and living in an area where there is more physical intolerance, vs the mainly verbal intolerance of my shitty middle class town}])
(nevermind their shitty-ass timescales when it comes to actually having hormonal intervention)
[oh and of course the legal precedent is that a trans woman is still legally male regardless of id or even if she has a “gender recognition certificate” when a judge is allowed to decide on it even if it’s not really relevant at all to the case]
Source: somnipath
