the inbox page should have a mark all as read button, try that

if you’re trying to leave other things unread, you’ll probably have to manually mark them unread after, if boost supports that feature (i’m actually not too sure)

can we at least get a content warning on this shit

actually yk fuck it the mods here suck anyways, come join us at onehundrednintysix instead, i should have unsubbed here already

i don’t want to volunteer rn, but i think i’ll spin up an account on lbz. then maybe down the line i can help out if the workload increases

felt that brother

i’m (probably) not as old as you are (>5 years on T/in my thirties) but i cannot imagine stopping testosterone would help you at this point

the target is on, essentially, “people who look trans” (so, including non-passing trans people, as well as gnc cis folks or folks who tend towards androgeny in genetics or hormones). we have always existed, and there have always been, passing trans people. part of our survival has just been… passing, and only engaging in intimate relationships with trusted people

you would, in my opinion (without seeing you), more likely “fail to pass” as a woman instead of as a man. you didn’t really talk about this much in your post, beyond implying you’ve been on testosterone a long time, but if you pass consistently as it is…

holy fuck, NO, DON’T DE-TRANSITION!

presumably, you have facial hair, you might have top surgery, you probably have the muscular and fat distribution of a man! why would you spend probably two years, endangering yourself as you detransition, for something that will (hopefully) at least be tempered in four years?

if anything, my bigger concern is just staying supplied with testosterone until the end of the term. if i run out and start detransitioning, not only am i going to be depressed as fuck, but also i’ll likely be in much more danger that way, especially 6/12 months in

(and i don’t want to downplay the trouble that chenical dysphoria invites either, good mental state is absolutely a boon in surviving dangerous situations)

if anything, now is the time to figure out how to secure your testosterone supply. if your papers all have your updated gender, and your current supplier is on your side, see if they can adjust your diagnosis from gender dysphoria to hormone imbalance. at least on paper. otherwise, see about securing local sources of testosterone from your supportive community, or do some reading into crypto and finding an online source for it (which will always be around, albeit expensive)

i’ve also lived a hard life and i also would detransition if i had to, to survive. however, my assessment is that, given that i already pass completely, it would be a huge mistake to try to preemptively detransition. and honestly, i’m grateful for that. those of us who are earlier in their transition, or whose presentations lean more non-binary, have a much harder assessment to make

and, as fucked up as it is, we can use our powers as cis-passing men to speak up for those of us in more vulnerable positions. it does everyone good to have more of us in those positions of power

i think you might have some decent thoughts surrounding what happened with ellen, OP, but good lord did you pick a terrible short to present them

cause hey, yeah. it turns out that you should be nice to people. EVEN IF YOU’RE A GAY ICON. i don’t think that’s an incorrect thing to worry about, and portraying people who do as “babies” reeks of what’s possibly the same insensitivity that got ellen here in the first place

i also don’t see why you think this is smart or funny, you’re going to bat for a tremendously powerful person on the basis of… comedians shouldn’t have to be nice? that doing one good thing for the world means you shouldn’t be subject to scrutiny about your actions going forward? he honestly makes terrible points and his humor is painting moral standards as immaturity, like, idk what you see in him

anyways, there are a lot of intelligent, interesting discussions we could have about ellen. we could talk about how maybe she was subject to higher standards or increased scrutiny because she’s a woman / gay / a gay woman. there’s a lot to look at with regard to the allegations surrounding her show. it speaks highly of her that she took responsibility for those things when they happened, and that none of them implicated her

but, i mean, she also helped a handful of celebrities clean up their image when maybe she shouldn’t have. there were a handful of things that showed, not that she’s necessarily a bad person, but she’s a rich person. hiring a non union crew for her show, getting buddy buddy with bush… like, i don’t want to go to bat for her. you can be kind to people without being friendly, and the company you keep says a lot about you

and again, she’s ungodly wealthy, and that has some known effects on the psyche. from someone who didn’t really have a horse in this race, that’s what it kind of seems like to me. she’s not really a bad person, but needs to be liked really desperately. maybe that came about after the money, not before, idk. but at the end of the day, idk if i can say you can be rich and be kind. even if you give a lot to charity. at some point, it just becomes unethical to have more than a certain amount of money

but no, we can’t have those discussions bc your “comedian” here made it all about how people criticizing ellen are babies for being concerned for being nice 🙄

sourcing mostly https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/ellen-degeneres-show-ending-allegations-b1846389.html, this seemed like a reasonably fair take on the situation

again, in the quote, it says they did mitigate it and that it just “never entirely went away”

i’m not saying that they couldn’t have done more, or that it didn’t add to ada’s workload. but they did at least do something about it. it was acknowledged, it was addressed (albeit poorly)

it sounds like it was kind of irritating for ada and it’s probably not very convenient to constantly remember to swap to your alt, so i understand how this conflict is happening. i think it’s more an issue around the nuances of federation and maybe even how the lemmy codebase itself handles it and possibly sucks in this case

but mostly, it seems like an issue between ada and the mods, not… the community and the mods. there’s plenty to rag on them about here without including this issue. they still have clear ideological differences about moderation, they still obviously thought the community belonged to them and it was their choice to migrate it and where. those are still VERY problematic and more than enough to dislike them and call for them to stand down

ada’s post was literally to clarify that the mods of c/196 were doing things, there’s just some issues with federation that led to them experiencing friction with their differing moderation styles

i agree that she probably had a hand in influencing the culture and vibe of the community, but to say that she was doing the heavy lifting seems like you’re missing the entire point of her post

it’s good to have that additional context. it’s interesting to see how federation affects moderation and the issues that can present and how it aggravated the differences in moderation approaches

that said, even rescinding my argument about whether they were moderating, we’re still left with obvious ideological differences that would be bad to disastrous for the community in a place as active and ideologically unaligned as lemmy.world, nevermind the clear contempt that the mod team has shown for the community’s own preferences and safety

as an aside, thank you for the moderation work you do on this instance. while my interpretation that the c/196 mods were doing nothing was incorrect, it seems plain to me that your moderation style was still a good influence on the community (albeit at the cost of extra workload for you). it’s always good to see you around and i appreciate your presence and effort

thank you for providing the link to the source

it’s really incredible how the more i learn about the situation, the more the current mod team just seems like a complete mess

i’m from beehaw and i support our decision to defederate from lemmy.world, and honestly, i agree with ada’s moderating decisions. i don’t come to 196 to deal with people “just asking questions” or getting transphobic trolls coming in and CERTAINLY not cis people whining about how they don’t get their good boy ally points

especially if the post about you leaving 196 reports to languish unattended to is accurate (it’s from another user on this post who i can’t see while on beehaw, i’m guessing they’re from a defederated instance. they quoted ada, but i couldn’t find her comment as a source, so i don’t know if it’s real)

if that’s real, we barely know what your moderation style is, and i’ve been giving you false credit for ada’s good moderation

so we have reason to doubt where your moderating priorities are, you disagree with noted Good Judgement Admin ada, and you unilaterally decided both to move and where to move the community without consulting anyone first

from my vantage, you couldn’t even protect us on world if you wanted to, and it really doesn’t seem like you want to, either

i think the actual respectful thing to do at this point is to just step down. y’all have disrupted this community enough. there are mods who are interested in, and understand the values of, this community. values that you obviously lack

let them take over and have things return to normal. make a /c/196 on world if you want, it sounds like there won’t be a lot of content to moderate anyways

🙌🙌🙌

the lack of response to this is telling

yeah i’m tending to agree with this, especially as i’m skeptical that the culture will remain the same on lemmy.world. would be nice to have a fallback plan; and, indeed, this whole plan seems to have been orchestrated without consulting the community much at all

yes, there is something you can do about it! dr. will powers has made a pretty good hair restoration formula and you can get the formula online, take it to your doctor, and have them prescribe it for you. it’s probably not covered by insurance and is most likely expensive, though https://www.reddit.com/r/DrWillPowers/comments/rvc309/pharmacy_to_get_my_compounds_made_and_shipped_to/

the link is about where to get it made, but it also links to the formula itself

you should be able to check the subreddit itself for proof it works; he posted pics of someone with very bad hair loss, and the new regrowth of hair

note that the formula does contain minoxidil, which CAN be safely used around pets, as long as you take care to keep them from ingesting any of it

you could try researching charities that help trans folks get surgeries. i think that would probably be the most direct method (even if they can only get you part of the way, you might be able to backfill the rest, either with the following methods, or with even a gofundme)

otherwise, advice for this is country specific, but i think US is a good guess, so i can at least speak to it. the main things i can thing off are, getting insurance that would cover it, either through your state’s health insurance marketplace or through changing jobs. the other thing is to look into taking out a personal loan and seeing if you can get that amount covered over some amount of time at a decent interest rate, for something you’ll actually be able to afford to pay back

i don’t know your situation, and it certainly sucks for us that a necessary surgery like this is uncovered and essentially the equivalent of the money you’d put into a cheap car. but it’s a very obtainable amount, so don’t give up. you’ll find a way to get it, one way or another

if i get around to talking about the science stuff, i’ll do it in a separate comment. but i don’t wanna promise anything because i’m really busy lately and honestly, it’s not something i’m super interested in getting into the nitty gritty over… sorry…😅 (it’s also why i took so long to respond, my apologies)

so basically, the point i was trying to make, is that it seems like your post was trying to educate (which is fine and a noble goal by itself), but also, if i read into a little more, that it seemed like it was a little more personal to you. and when it comes to persuasion, especially in places like this, where we’re pretty much here to have conversations with our fellow people, i think it’s nice to be able to speak your personal truth, which can easily get muddied in the goal of educating (well, really, you just have to be explicit about what parts of your post are educating, and what parts are your personal experience)

for example, you might have said, “i feel like it can be invalidating to hear that gender is a social construct. gender roles and expectations can be harmful at times, but it’s also possible to find a great sense of joy and belonging in them, especially as a transgender person who had to fight for that for a long time. it can also feel especially invalidating because, due to both science and my personal experience, i feel that my gender isn’t just a social construct, but an inherent part of my being that’s dearly important to me” obviously, it’s still a little sterile because… this isn’t my personal experience. but the cool thing about speaking your personal experience, about speaking your truth, is that it allows other people to know you a bit more. and, for you to know you a little more, since trying to explain something helps you understand it… and yourself is no exception :)

additionally, i think it would help with that sense that you need to bite your tongue about the subject. it’s OK to speak your truth, even in a meme sub. that’s the cool thing about spaces like these, i think, especially where they’re smaller and explicitly trans-friendly. that’s what they’re here for, for people like you and i to share our genuine, lived experience

fwiw, i did read the articles, but i think the issue with articles, or just citing someone else’s words, is that they’re not your words. that’s why i asked for elaboration in the first place. everyone has a unique way of viewing things, and i was curious what your views were, not the people you were citing (and i mean, it wasn’t PURELY curiosity, i was a little concerned too; but that’s the cool thing about asking for elaboration, you can do it if you’re curious or worried, haha)

just some other thoughts: i think it would have been cool to hear about your personal connection to the links you posted, as well. how you came across julia serano, what her work means to you, or if/how it helped you along your personal gender journey. i still have no idea if this is about something personal to you, or if it’s just something you’ve heard from other people, and are advocating for in their place. this isn’t to say that any of your points are less valid for not presenting your personal stance; but it confuses your motivation, and knowing the motivation you speak from helps me understand the broader point you want to make better

and then, idk, a little about me because i feel weird having written this much without sharing: i’m a transgender man who experienced very little dysphoria in his life. i feel a little insecure about being trans in this regard, so i tend to let others talk and share their experiences. i would honestly say that biological/hormonal dysphoria is the worst dysphoria i deal with, and i didn’t even realize it until i got my first testosterone shot because… how would i? so that, along with a lot of self work i’ve done to internalize that i’m a legitimate man, regardless of how others view me / how my body looks / how i view myself / etc etc etc, has led to me being very comfortable and confident in myself, which i feel like is (unfortunately) somewhat rare amongst us as transgender folks. plus, hormonal transition has been kind to me, so i rarely get misgendered… and in the event i do, people are super apologetic, like IMMEDIATELY, because… they see me as a man. so in a lot of ways, i feel like my experience being trans isn’t really universal, and it’s also very binary, so i try to listen more than i talk

all of this to say, while i might, individually, feel like my experience of my gender is very biological / innate… i don’t feel strongly about it, and in fact, i feel rather privileged about it, to be so confident and secure about my gender identity. and i don’t know that every trans person would describe their identity in the same way. maybe someone out there feels that their gender is a social construct, or they’re not sure where it comes from, or… any number of things that i might not be able to imagine. right? (i thought of a good example while washing dishes, actually; you know how a lot of trans girls say, “everyone knows girls have it easier”? when they’re still in egg mode?..) so my position is more or less that, regardless of what the actual basis you’re claiming (and that you don’t NEED to have a basis for it, at all), your gender identity is valid, however you claim it

and that uncertainty, and that belief, is the heart of the reason i pressed you about your point earlier, haha. so thank you for elaborating and putting my mind at ease, and allowing us to have this very pleasant conversation, instead

the two genders: dick and ass

i guess? we talk a lot about the consequences of being in an information bubble but i think we’ve experienced it very little. and it’s hard to imagine the consequences are going to be worse than… this waves hands at the current state of things

i tend to think that the internet, up to this point, has been relatively forceful in exposing you to opposing viewpoints, which, from a mental health perspective, is quite taxing on individuals (we’re not really wired to constantly be confronting really fundamental disagreements all the time). so i think that an internet where people are less constantly thrown into friction with each other will be a net benefit, even if there are some consequences for the otherwise information bubbling