folks i think it is actually politically expedient to stress that "gender affirming" and "confidence building" are contiguous and similar but *not identical*.
gender affirming care is *life-saving* - on a scale of thousands and thousands across years. the same cannot be said of hair transplants for cis men - not matter how prohibitively expensive they are.
torrey peters once said in interview (and i am paraphrasing, poorly) that many of the experiences of transness are not unique to trans people and that the work ahead is to remind people of our commonalities in this regard. and i agree. wholeheartedly.
hormone use, for instance, is now routine, normalised and even aggressively advertised to people cis and trans alike.
but to make an argument in the public sphere that, say, a cis hair transplant is the same as *gender affirming care* is to undermine the terms that require us to make a plea for trans rights to gender affirming care in the first place.
yes, they are similar. no, they are not the same. what we are demanding when we demand dignity and care for trans communities is a demand for an end to barriers and cruelty that render gender-affirming care life-saving *in the first place*. the same is not true of veneers.
Oct 17, 2025 10:23
