A timeline of the Biden administration’s pro-LGBTQ+ actions: https://www.hrc.org/resources/president-bidens-pro-lgbtq-timeline

A platform may be empty words, but you can also look at what actions have been taken. It’s hard to feel satisfied by the Democrats, but to be fair they don’t have control of the House or Senate.

Transphobia in the US is closely aligned with American neo fascism.

Not all transphobes are fascists or alt-right, there are many centrists who are transphobic and I would guess a not insignificant portion of the Democratic party are transphobic. The famous anti-trans website 4thwavenow explicitly refuses to collaborate with anti-trans people on the right and are liberals. The Dems in the Senate recently passed anti-trans legislation.

The Dems are aware that the election outcome depends on the way a few swing states vote, namely: Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin (as well as North Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia). The voters in these key races are often white, working-class and are exactly of a demographic who might be put off by a party putting trans rights in the center stage (not just due to the common disgust people feel towards trans folks, but there is also an unfortunately common perception that LGBTQ+ support is a sign of cultural and economic elitism, something university-educated people care about but not something rank-and-file workers care about, a bit like climate change and environmentalism).

The Harris v Trump debate and DNC speeches emphasized the strategy the Democrats seem to be taking: to distance themselves from less popular Progressive policies in those Rust Belt states and appeal to neoconservatives by emphasizing Harris’s support for fracking, her suddenly hawkish rhetoric about creating a “most lethal fighting force”, and so on.

This is just what it means for trans rights to be a political football, when it is politically convenient the Dems will use the issue to rally support, and when it is a political liability they will distance themselves or even back anti-trans positions. This is realpolitik and pragmatism, a “ends-justify-the-means” thinking which neoliberals are inclined towards.

I think it’s smart for LGBTQ+ activists to motivate action and support for our rights, but there is a question of how to best do this. Even within LGBTQ+ activist and lobbying organizations, trans people have been snubbed traditionally (even as we played a pivotal role in gay liberation and rights movements):

A striking example of how transgender interests diverged from legal activism related to sexual orientation can be found in the debates about transgender inclusion in the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act that took place in late 2007. First introduced for consideration by Congresswoman Bella Abzug in the 1970s, ENDA, as the bill is known, aimed to prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. The proposed legislation didn’t make it out of committee for a full congressional debate until 1994, when the measure failed to pass by a single vote. At that time, the transgender movement did not have sufficient political clout to have gender identity or gender expression provisions added to the language of the bill—indeed, ENDA’s primary lobbyist, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), actively undermined transgender activists who were just then beginning to lobby Congress for transgender inclusion within the bill.

Eventually the HRC came around, but a similar calculus is happening with the Democrats, they ask themselves whether the risk of alienating certain voters by prioritizing trans rights as a part of their rhetoric right now is worth it. The approach Walz has taken is to act like it’s weird to be so obsessed about trans people, and that means prioritizing a message of “let people live their lives” and not harping on the issue the way the Republicans do.

The extreme version of this pragmatic approach is to do what the Labour party did in the UK by flipping on the trans issue (since popular opinion had turned so against trans people) and taking an anti-trans position, which arguably has allowed them to win elections, but certainly at the costs of trans rights.

Trans rights aren’t a side issue for trans people, but it’s certainly a side issue for most voters, and for the Democrats. Hopefully the combined pressure from LGBTQ+ activism and lobbying will keep up enough pressure that we don’t get dropped like in the UK, but it is sometimes hard to tell when to unify and when to withhold support and demand more.

Thanks hot Wario in my area! 😊

I inject estradiol valerate and found my appetite increased significantly pretty much immediately. I gained 15 - 20 lbs over 6 months, and now I’m back to the weight I was before I started transition.

Considering you are underweight, don’t underestimate the importance of fat in feminizing a figure. Even if just temporarily it might be good to see this as a time where you intentionally want to put on extra weight (assuming you are suppressing testosterone and maintaining estrogen dominance), because that will help develop breast growth (which are fat stores), and hips and butt (which are also fat stores). Even fat in the face seems to play a big role in feminizing it.

When starting estradiol for the first time it seems to increase appetite, I found this to be especially true in the first 3 - 6 months. Even if estrogen generally is associated with decreased appetite, it’s contextual how it impacts appetite, and in the case of estradiol initiating puberty it increases appetite (even without progesterone).

yeah, during COVID the mayor became famous for running attack ads against the health department, and as a result of his leadership the state legislature stripped the health department of their ability to implement any policies or directives

Well, your OP was about how resolvable your libido is now on HRT, but you didn’t really talk much about how resolvable it was before or what you think accounts for the difference.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like there are many barriers in place that complicate sex for you, and maybe as you have transitioned there has been a shifting nature to the libido that makes it harder to satisfy.

Where before maybe libido was more visual, impulsive, and dissociated from the rest of you and your needs, maybe the HRT has shifted the nature of the libido, from mere craving for sex in isolation to something more like desire for intimacy with all the emotional needs associated with it.

This shift in desire might lead to increased feelings of loneliness, and increased desire for a sexual partner more than pre-HRT. That shifting desire might then create much more distress because of how inaccessible the fulfillment of those needs feels to you, not just because of bodily dysphoria and the inability to embody the kind of sexual person you would want to be with someone else, but also because the libido is now more connected to you and your feelings than the were pre-HRT, so maybe it’s harder to be as indifferent or detached.

This is all highly speculative, though - I don’t really know you, I’m just trying to make sense of what you have told me.

preach

I wish someone IRL was there to give her a big hug

How does it compare to pre-HRT?

oh, yeah - I wish I could have ovaries, that would be amazing; I also wish I could have a uterus, but I guess in some ways it is convenient not to have one (no menstruating). I also like the control I have over hormones by injecting them, rather than ovaries that follow a fertility cycle that would be mostly irrelevant to my needs.

I am sorry for what you have been through, I hope you are able to prioritize your needs and take care of yourself 🧡

yeah, I wasn’t thrilled by the prospect of constant discharge either, but I think I would also just live with it if I felt I felt self-lubrication was a priority. For me the bigger reasons are about the surgery going well, the technique being well-practiced and established, etc.

You missed me with the full swap, though - do you mean you wish they could give you ovaries?

yeah, I agree with this fully - I thought sky’s photo was of a AFAB person, the estrogen is clearly working

and I also agree that cultivating self-love is a good solution here, though I think she has to feel motivated to do that first

This advice seems to assume the person is going to be unhoused because of their family, which may be reasonable, but I couldn’t tell from the OP whether that was actually the case.

yeah, I am opting for penile inversion as well, mostly because that’s what my surgeon is good at, and because it is more of a “tried and true” method with less risk and faster recovery than the other methods.

Though I also might have less motivation than some trans women to have a self-lubricating vagina, namely I’m not young and potentially in situations where I would want to be able to have penetrative sex on demand (not wanting to plan and bring lube, etc.).

My life is much more boring. :-)

lol, living up to your username

I didn’t use a particular recipe, if you search around there are plenty of recipes, e.g.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHKolyIqLWQ
• https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018278-patty-melts

Basically a patty melt is just a hamburger with Swiss cheese and caramelized onions on rye bread with mayo.

I used Beyond Beef, Violife slices, vegenaise, and melt butter, and I made a loaf of white bread instead of rye bread (just didn’t have time to source rye flour, etc.).

For the hamburger adding onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper, and a little vegan Worcestershire sauce works well.

If you want to spruce up the sauce a little instead of just mayo, you can add a little ketchup, dijon mustard, a little garlic powder and cayenne pepper.

Personally I would have enjoyed this more with some grilled broccoli rabe or pickled peppers, but that would have gone even further from being a patty melt.

sorry, yes - can’t believe I mixed these up, lol

The county mayor describes himself as a Rothbardian, and the government here sometimes feels openly hostile to people, but especially to bicyclists. I received a lot of harassment for cycling, it is not supported culturally, and is even viewed as though I am a political enemy of the people. Huge, lifted emotional-support trucks are pretty common here.

I pretty much agree. I tend to be a bit more critical and nit-picky about things, but on the whole I agree that for a queer show, this one is well done. Butler is definitely a presence on-screen, and a welcome one. I hope this show launches his career a bit.

I just need to finish the last episode, but it took me a minute to warm up to it, somewhere around half way it started to have my attention.