Theresa Verity
@theresaverity
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GIDS kid referred in 2000. Treated with Puberty Blockers decades before you knew they existed. We've always been here! #ProtectTransKids
Joined December 2012
All trans people deserve the chance to live joyful lives. Regardless of their age. Regardless of the path they walk through life. Not just to survive - but to thrive. Don't let the bastards grind you down. Hate always eats itself in the end.
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It warms the cockles of my heart that two of the nastiest people on earth spent vast amounts of time and effort to build secret alt identities to dramatically reveal in showers of self-importance - but both had their grand reveals spoiled before they'd gathered any steam.
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Rowling's first Galbraith novel sold fewer than 500 copies in its first three months. It barely gathered any buzz and dropped to only 43 copies a week until an AI analysis of it found it was written by Rowling - which was then 'accidentally' confirmed by a lawyer. Whooops.
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Hey gang look, new bigotry just dropped. It's illegal for us to have sex!. Yup, you heard right. It was kinda ambiguously illegal for us to have sex in the UK since 2013 but it's just been clarified to be very definitely explicitly illegal for us to do so now. Merry Christmas!.
The legislation that is quietly being implemented by the UK Establishment against trans people right now by this Labour Government is truly horrific. Trans people in the UK must now declare their birth sex to a partner before sex - or face prosecution for rape. Outing themselves
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I was prescribed Puberty Blockers a quarter of a century ago by the NHS's GIDS team. There are so many things I am able to do today that I could not have been able to do without them. I have never experienced a health complication from taking them. They. Saved. My. Life.
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More recently, Elon Musk created a bizarre alt identity of 'Adrian Dittmann', claiming to be a ??Belgian?? native German speaker with the apparent intention of boosting his influence in German politics and gamer culture.
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She'd planned to pull a Bronte sisters but instead humiliated herself with a complete damp squib. We don't actually know whether it was accidentally or 'accidentally' leaked in order to save it, but either way her smug secret pseudonym only lasted a couple of months. Sad trombone.
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A couple of days after this steam, after he'd gone viral and absolutely destroyed any chance of ever being taken seriously, he finally admitted to being Elon Musk. He'd wanted an 'I Am Iron Man' moment of smug revelation, but instead made an absolute ass of himself.
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One notable low point was when, with mastubatory glee, he used his 'Adrian Dittmann' account to tell himself on Twitter that he is a great father. He was clocked very quickly since his speech patterns and accent make his identity incredibly obvious.
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Nonetheless, he continued to maintain the Adrian Dittmann identity beyond the point of reason when he joined a Fortnite steam and endured three agonising hours of abject humiliation from the host live in front of millions while being unable to respond without dropping the facade.
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He went to an enormous amount of effort to set this identity up, including using voicemod and pre-recorded streams to make it appear that both were publicly active in different locations at the same time.
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Oh, by the way:. I was prescribed Puberty Blockers a quarter-century ago as a trans schoolkid. They had a huge positive impact on my life and I am hugely thankful for the opportunities I've had due to them. Gender affirming care works. Stop torturing children. #ProtectTransKids.
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Hi @Keir_Starmer. I was treated with Puberty Blockers 24 years ago by the NHS under a Labour government. I am physically and legally a woman. I have been using NHS single-sex services and accommodation all my life without issue. Why are you throwing me under the bus now?.
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It is your moral duty to steal this flag from bigots immediately
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The UK Supreme Court ruling was so unpopular that central London just ground to a complete standstill and a static protest had to become a march to St James' Park for crowd safety reasons!. I was stood at the entrance to the park for an hour and the march was still flooding in!.
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This incredible man did my surgery 17 years ago in a world that was very different to the one we live in today. Not a day goes past where I don't give thanks to him for performing the final step of a journey I started nearly a decade before with the Tavistock GIDS.
"I haven't read [JK Rowling's] books. I'm not gonna try and write a children's book tomorrow. I rather wish she'd stick out of what I do and not comment on stuff she doesn't know much about either.".
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"We were just living our lives peacefully, blending into society, until those TRA's made unreasonable demands which pissed people off and ruined everything.". I want to talk about this sentiment. It's a seductive refrain isn't it? Shall we examine what it actually means though?.
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If you aren't yet convinced of the efficacy of adolescent Gender Affirming Care then perhaps take a look at the most recent research on the subject:.
This should be the end of The Cass Review. Taken alongside my paper showing the harm the puberty-blocker ban has caused, this shows clear benefits from gender-affirming care. Will @wesstreeting and @Keir_Starmer take note…? Will they…?
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@jk_rowling @PeterTatchell It is a source of immense grief that you've chosen to dedicate so much of your time (and considerable talent) these last few years toward vilifying and abusing a marginalised minority who have been quietly living our lives, harming nobody, for decades.
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It's 2024 and it's illegal for us to have sex if we don't resemble our assigned sex at birth. Let me say that one more time. It's 2024 and we're banned from intimate relationships.
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So which toilets am I using tomorrow, you disgusting fucking fascists?.
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I visited America to stay with family for a few months before university. A circuit breaker; an opportunity to recalibrate and start afresh before my new life began in earnest. I imagined I would find a forward-thinking, progressive and compassionate country. I was not ready.
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If you're trans and you have sex and there is a chance you might pass as c!s while doing so then. You're breaking the law!. You could go to prison. With a sex crime conviction. Because you didn't realise you were fucking a secret terf. Ho ho ho what a fucking country.
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This is the result of decades of stochastic terrorism. Of course this poor young woman wasn't going to out herself all over again - she'd already been enduring that misery for years and was desperately trying to escape and just live her life.
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Wellp, just outed myself to over 200,000 people. I couldn't stay quiet any longer - not in the face of such utter bullshit. I know many of us never get the opportunity to make this choice. Time to suck it up and enter the next phase, I guess. Hopefully some good will come of it!.
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In conclusion, women are only women if they have:. -Low adult testosterone levels WAIT NO.-Female socialisation WAIT NO.-46 XX karyotype WAIT NO.-Having an innie at birth WAIT NO.-Differentiated gonads WAIT NO.-Not undergone 'male puberty' WAIT NO.-Literally given birth WAIT NO.
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reminder:. Do not comply in advance. The law has not changed. Providers may declare services to be 'single sex' if they can prove it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. (This has always existed as an exception within the Equality Act.).
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Do you want to humiliate and dehumanise me by walking back on everything that Labour has represented throughout my life? Am I - a person your party's policies allowed to be created - now just a necessary sacrifice to appease the braying mob?.
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@jk_rowling @PeterTatchell Your words, once beloved the world over, have caused so much harm. Your endorsement of reactionary populism has polarised the political landscape and emboldened those who care nothing for the safety of any women, trans or otherwise.
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Thousands of trans children and their families - the people this treatment is relevant to and who are adversely affected by this ban - have desperately tried to get those in power to actually listen to them. Nobody is listening. They reject all evidence they are shown.
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@jk_rowling It's a strange world indeed when a multi-millionaire who lives in a castle quotes renowned humanitarian Václav Havel, of all people, in order to claim that her ongoing efforts to exile marginalised people back away from public life are brave and daring acts of resistance.
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@jk_rowling @PeterTatchell You have the influence and the talent to do so much good in the world, and this is what you chose to rant about? Saying you don't want to have to see the gross yucky faces of trans women on a hospital ward?.
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They reject the testimony of those who have actually been prescribed and benefited from this treatment. They reject the warnings of those with decades of experience treating gender incongruent youth. They reject international best practice. They reject decades of evidence.
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That's the 'blending' - the assimilation - that people are talking about when they invoke a blessed past which never existed. I *actually* lived that life for decades. It's incredibly lonely.
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When I became a legal adult 22 years ago, I'd already been socially transitioned for a long time. I deleted my past in its entirety the moment I was able to do so. I meticulously erased every single identifiable connection I could find.
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Forcing me to use male-only accommodation and services or be bundled off into a single room that could be issued to someone who actually needs it will cause me a great deal of harm for no identifiable benefit whatsoever.
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This ban just provoked the largest two trans-specific protests in history and. nothing. Barely even a whiff in the media. Cowards. Nothing but craven, spineless complicity in the wholesale failure of an entire generation's worth of a marginalised minority group.
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55,000 people marched in protest on Saturday. 40,000 the weekend before. Including many of the people directly affected by it, and those who are living evidence of its efficacy. It got a single throwaway line comment which failed to even mention any relationship to the ban.
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I was the same age as Brianna Ghey when I was referred for treatment. I remember what it was like to feel like the whole world is arrayed against you; I remember that fear and danger so starkly. The NHS had my back then. It helped me feel safe and gave me what I needed to thrive.
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Your statement sends a very clear message to every trans person in the UK, young and old. It tells us you are turning your back on us; on decades of epistemic justice that made us a shining beacon of hope on the world stage. Please don't abandon us.
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I urge you to reconsider your recent statements regarding NHS single-sex services for trans people. Please do not allow yourself to be intimidated into capitulating to the rising tide of anti-trans rhetoric across the UK.
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It was also incredibly lonely. I always felt like I had to put up a wall between myself and every person I met, knowing that if my past was revealed, it would destroy the life I'd built. I couldn't talk to anyone - not about the important stuff. I couldn't let them in.
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I closed accounts; re-applied for everything it was possible to do. We didn't have formal legal recognition under the Gender Recognition Act in those days, but you could get fairly close at obfuscating your paper trail if you were prompt and careful.
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@jk_rowling @PeterTatchell You have not just become a passive vector of harm; you have actively embraced it. It has become your entire personality. It has dominated your life; transformed you from a beloved children's author into someone who tells people to fuck off for advocating for minority groups.
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@lsatterfield Did you watch the stream? Honestly - watch the stream.
i'm crying man he genuinely thought he was fooling people, you can hear his confidence shatter in real time
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Arguably too well! I was an attractive, charismatic and increasingly confident young woman who looked exactly like my mother did when she was at university, and this meant I was regularly fighting off romantic overtures from people who had absolutely no idea about my past!.
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I started a new life, in a new part of the country, with nothing to link me to my past. I 'blended' in - the Deepest Stealth it was possible to achieve at the time. Nobody knew my past. I told nobody. I was absolutely meticulous and incredibly careful, and it worked.
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@onceamiller Speaking as one of said trans kids who transitioned decades before you even knew we existed, has been Theresa for 150% of the time she has not, whose breasts are as old as the war on terror and whose vagina is almost old enough to vote:. Nah.
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You meet an average of 1.4 women with CAIS in your life. These women have XY chromosomes but a female phenotype and usually a female gender identity. Odds are, you have absolutely no idea. What 'Biological sex' are these women?. Do you want to ban them from toilets too?.
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Brianna would have been forced to use male-only accommodation as well under the proposed change you are endorsing. I remember exactly what that is like, as a young trans person, to have to negotiate that kind of situation. It is terrifying and traumatic.
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I had no support network; nobody I could discuss this massive defining event of my childhood with. It was far too dangerous to do so - 'trans panic' legal defences were well known, and we'd only just won legal recognition.
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I finished university and entered the workplace - still deep stealth. Not a soul knew, and nor could I tell anyone about my past at this point. I had a huge group of friends I knew for years - I'd built an entire life for myself, and it was more than I could have possibly dreamed.
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I'm glad I did it and wouldn't take it back - the life I've been able to live has been incredible in so many ways, and I've been able to do things I'd never have been able to do if I hadn't. It could have been so much better, though. So much safer. No need for decades of silence.
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If the worst had happened, I'd have just disappeared off the face of the earth and nobody would have ever known why. When I woke up from the anaesthetic, drifting in and out of wakefulness, I apparently sang 'Daisy Bell' badly for about an hour. Only my parents were there.
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When I went to Charing Cross for surgery, I couldn't tell anyone where I was actually going. I quit my job and moved back to the other end of the country. Luckily my father was working abroad, so I was able to be a little creative with the truth and frame my convalescence.
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I found love and happiness; found partners who I didn't need to disclose my past to, and some who I felt safe enough with that I could. It was wonderful, but I never imagined a day would come where it would have been safe to disclose my past to everyone I knew.
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Hi @BorisJohnson! In a recent interview you mentioned the 'novel' nature of treatment for trans kids. I was recieving treatment from the Tavistock and Portman Gender Identity Development Service before you had even started your Parliamentary career. Our treatment is hardly novel!.
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What's most galling of all is that the removal of this callous, unjustified and irresponsible ban, when it eventually happens once the media cycle has faded and short memories have forgotten the betrayal, will be presented as a great, noble and progressive act of benevolence.
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as moving to stay with him for a few months - something I did actually do, but not for as long as I had said. I had no support group. No friends came to 'see me off' or say goodbye to in case the surgery didn't go well.
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I couldn't even joke about this life-defining event to anyone. My recovery occurred in complete secrecy, and when I'd recovered, I slipped back into my former life as if nothing had happened.
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And we'll, as always, be so brutalised; so desperate for even the faintest shred of compassion, that we'll celebrate and cheer and profusely thank whoever it is who uses the decades of pain they inflicted on us to get their campaign boost. And we'll have no choice.
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We started appearing in news headlines every couple of days, and then every day - and I found that I had no voice on a subject that had defined my entire life. Initially it was extremely hard to deal with. I hated seeing those headlines.
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I also saw other trans people finding the courage to be their authentic selves. I saw the joy; the sadness; the immense relief. The tears; the laughter, the awkward flailing attempts to learn social rules that didn't get programmed in during childhood.
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I hated hearing people talking about trans issues. I raged, briefly, that something I'd managed to successfully weld into a sealed container and drop into the abyssal depths kept coming back to haunt me.
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When the time came that things started to change for the better - when it became something other than unimaginable daily horror to publicly be trans - I was still so terrified of outing myself that I couldn't even discuss my own existence.
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I despaired over people realising that young transitioners existed; I braced myself for the moral panic and took cover as it rolled over. It was only a matter of time before they discovered us.
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I'm just so fucking tired of all of this. Tired of pretending we're going to win this with only the 98,000 of us who give a fuck because it's personal and, for some, existential. Tired of empty fucking platitudes. Tired of being told to stay positive.
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@jk_rowling It's lovely to see you supporting a band who is so heavily in favour of trans rights!.
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@marahmadeit Shall we start with how she has spent the last five years targeting trans people for abuse and campaigning to remove their healthcare and legal protections?.
Five years ago, during Rowling's 'I'd march with you if. ' masking phase, I analysed the language that she used in her 2014 novel The Silkworm to describe the young trans woman Pippa Midgley. Let's revisit the subject now, shall we, in the light of her recent statements?.
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I'd always known, just from the conversations I'd had during my teens and early twenties, that there were way more of us out there in a 'latent' phase, and now finally, we were starting to see that truth express itself at its own pace.
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@jk_rowling @PeterTatchell You paint us as predators; as twisted monsters bearing some unforgivable and irredeemable 'original sin' written into the very fabric of our being on a genetic level. You disqualify us from humanity and then clothe your true intent in benign-sounding, beguiling platitudes.
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@jk_rowling @PeterTatchell This is the person you chose to become. You rant and rage and seethe and hate at people who have found the courage to tackle complex and often highly traumatic personal challenges by taking a leap of faith and placing their trust in politicians; in clinicians and policymakers.
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@jk_rowling @PeterTatchell I've lived among you for so many years; I've heard how you talk about us when you don't think we are around to hear. It's ok. I understand. I know we can be strange and unsettling and difficult and awkward. But we are humans, just doing our best. Asking for a little humanity.
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Did they ever actually 'blend in'? Look at some of those who are shouting loudest about this. Look at the lives they have built. Look at the platforms they have, and why they have it. Did they get it by 'blending in'?. Or did they do the exact opposite?.
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If you see a (frequently older) trans person talking in wistful or bitter tones about 'just blending in' and how those extreme TRA's ruined everything with their unreasonable demands, take a moment to examine the life *they* have actually lived.
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You know why things got better? For all of us, not just for a tiny chosen few? People had the courage to actually try and change things for the better. They had the courage to raise their heads above the parapet and campaign for their entire lives to have safety and stability.
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It became much safer to be 'publicly trans' after the awakening of the mid-2010's, and unsurprisingly, people transitioned. This was a positive change, even if it made things a little harder for some of us old-timers who'd developed specific (and oft-unhealthy) coping strategies.
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@jk_rowling @PeterTatchell This is the person you chose to become. You've dedicated your life to punishing people who never wronged you for daring to take a more active hand in making the world a better place, using the sins of a tiny fraction of a tiny minority as justification to damn us all collectively.
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@jk_rowling @PeterTatchell Who bow and scrape and beg for even a shred of compassion and tolerance; who scrabble in the dirt for the faintest whisper of a chance to live their lives with dignity and respect. "Fuck off", you say, to those who advocate for us to be treated with a modicum of basic humanity.
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It did mean I had to be extra careful - I'd gotten somewhat comfortable and complacent in my life as a Secret Trans Woman and now suddenly there were a lot of people with a lot of knowledge about trans stuff out there.
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During my early transition, I'd gotten quite a bit of prickliness from people who knew the path I was walking, and several other trans people I'd disclosed my past to in the years since had not reacted well to the revelation, which made me deeply wary about general disclosure.
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I made sure to interrogate my feelings regularly and never turn frustrations into resentment against other trans people for daring to walk the path I had stumbled along in secret decades ago. It's critically important to never lose sight of this.
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@legaltweetz @LAFitness I am quite familiar with the software that runs LAF's club management system (or at least, used to) and unless they have significantly changed it, it should have been absolutely trivial to amend these details.
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I remembered what it was like to be an awkward trans kid in the UK in a tiny community that was very much configured toward adults in the US, and always made sure to try not to become part of the problem.
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People knew our 'tells' now. Our stealth shield was less effective. It would have been so easy to become resentful; to fall into the trap of holding it against other trans people for also daring to exist.
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@jk_rowling @PeterTatchell You drive us into an impossible corner, weaponising our pain against us, dehumanising and vilifying us, attacking the provisions and protections we fought tooth and nail to achieve long before you gave even the slightest whiff of consideration toward our existence.
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@jk_rowling @PeterTatchell You just have 'reasonable concerns'. Reasonable concerns that have led to a dramatic increase in suicides among the youngest and most vulnerable among us. Reasonable concerns that now see us denied the dignity of services we have used innocently and without issue for decades.
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I could hardly hold it against anyone else for transitioning once they discovered it was even an option, though - I just figured it meant I needed to stay out of the way and let them get on with it, providing advice through oblique and/or deniable means if it seemed necessary.
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Here's to tomorrow; may it be a better place than today.
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It did get harder in some ways. It started to wear heavily - a lot of old scars built upon even older scars suddenly got re-opened. I did find myself occasionally lamenting having to be a lot more careful about infosec than I'd had to for over a decade.
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Don't trick yourself into believing that trans people are to blame for the rising tide of concerted, overt, reactionary bigotry we face; that we somehow brought it upon ourselves by daring to ask for something we should have had all along.
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That's a smokescreen. I 'blended in' for twenty years. I did exactly what they're talking about. It was fucking lonely, utterly terrifying and frequently deeply traumatic. It was the best shot I had; I took it and it worked beyond my wildest dreams.
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@jk_rowling @PeterTatchell And then you have the gall to say that we deserve it; we deserve to lose everything we have struggled for decades to achieve; that the righteous punishment for trying to make the imperfect just a little bit better is to lose it all?.
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@TracycCoyle I know right, you can practically hear the deranged screaming from insecure men from here. But what if. There was a trans woman. And you found her hot. And you fucked her. Would that. Oh my god. Would that steal all your REAL SUPERSTRAIGHT MAN points 🤔.
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Imagine if all the hiding and the paranoia and the loneliness hadn't been an integral part of it?. What happened to practicing what you preach, my loves? If you'd walked in my shoes for twenty years, you wouldn't be decrying the loss of a supposed golden age that never existed.
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@jk_rowling @PeterTatchell You have the power to stop being that person. You can walk away whenever you want. You are not bound to this course in any way and you lose nothing by disengaging. I urge you to consider the harm you have done and the good you could be doing, and find an off-ramp.
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