Miracle on Eleventy Seventh Street
Biology according to Pink News:
Trans fems have periods too!
It’s true! Many trans-feminine people on estrogen experience menstrual cycles similar to that of people with uteruses due to gender-affirming treatment.
Because of the shift in hormones, several trans people on feminising doses have reported that they experience hormonal cycles consistent with premenstrual syndrome.
Symptoms have been noted to include feelings of anxiety, changes in appetite, mood swings, cramps, fatigue, and more. Bleeding is not part of the cycle for those assigned male at birth (AMAB).
You don’t say. If bleeding were part of the cycle, where would it come from and where would it go? Would it be chunks? Because, news flash, menstrual bleeding isn’t like bleeding from a knife cut; it has chunks. If men could bleed as “part of the cycle” then where would the chunks come from and what would they be?
And for any TERFs still reading – no, just because trans-feminine individuals don’t bleed doesn’t invalidate the factual things that are happening to their bodies.
Sure, bro, but just because trans-feminine individuals are sucking down the estrogen ≠ they are menstruating.
Dude, it’s not your “menstrual cycle” – it just you fuckingwithyourbody.™
Sounds wonderful! Who wouldn’t want to take drugs to induce such feelings?
No, no they don’t.
At the most basic level: a menstrual cycle is the uterine cycle, driven by the ovarian cycle. It’s not “people with uteruses” (excuse me a moment while I gag at that euphemism for women) who are relevant here, it’s women and girls with functionally mature ovaries who experience the hormonal cycles they’re referring to. The uterus is required for the uterine cycle response (including menstruation), not for the hormones. Maybe learn some human physiology before you go encouraging people to screw with it, you git.
For the slightly more advanced: taking estrogen in a pill or patch does not an ovarian cycle make, and hence cannot drive a menstrual cycle. It’s not cyclical, for one. For two, people without ovaries (including all “people with testes”) however they want to claim they “identify”) lack the normal feedback mechanism to regulate the hormones and response; they don’t have any ovaries so the normal feedback on the ovarian hormone release influenced by the hypothalamus and anterior pituitary response to those hormones just can’t occur. Testes are not just confused ovaries, ffs.
Would it be over-simplistic to suggest that what they’re experiencing are what will be described on their drug information sheets as ‘side effects’?
Good detail, Ibbica. I might add that women who have had their uterus removed will no longer have periods, even if they still have their ovaries. Both of these need to be present. Trans women have neither.
What I’d like to know is how you get your endometrium to slough when you don’t have a uterine lining?
As noted above, not a period and not a menstrual cycle. Hormones are powerful things, so also possibly some level of side effect going on. Tell you what though. This is just screaming out for a double blind trial to determine the level of placebo effect.
As AOS points out, these are side effects. They could be side effects caused by many medications. If someone receiving a cancer treatment or taking a drug for multiple sclerosis, fertility, or weight control experiences some combination of feelings of anxiety, changes in appetite, mood swings, cramps, fatigue — “and more” — are they also experiencing a menstrual cycle?
Ooo ooo ooo, I’ve got this, this one’s easy! *Clears throat*. Ok stay with me here: The endometrium is a type of epithelium. The epidermis of your skin is a type of epithelium. Ergo: your skin is a uterus. Your skin sheds, voila, menstruation! QED.
…Yeah no, I don’t get it either O.o
… I can’t even, with this. Jumping off a cliff with a glider does not make you a bird. Technologically aping some specific aspects of another class of being does not make you part of that category.
A cramp is only a menstrual cramp if it is associated with menstruation. Otherwise, it is just a cramp. Repeat for “feelings of anxiety, changes in appetite, mood swings, fatigue, and more”.
I love the “and more” by the way. If the author had more examples, they’d have been included.
Cramps have nothing to do with estrogen. Cramps are triggered by the release of prostaglandins in response to the breakdown of the uterine lining. The thicker the lining, the more prostaglandins are released. That is why the Pill helps women with severe cramps. The Pill reduces the build up of the uterine lining; the less there is to break down, the milder cramps will be. So no transwoman is having estrogen-induced period cramps.