I am a cis man who has had gender-affirming surgery, which really illustrates how gender-affirming care should not be controversial.
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Transcript:
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:20:06
Bennett Tomlin
I am a cis man who had gender affirming surgery. I had a condition called gynocemostia, where abnormal development of breast tissue in a male. For years this meant I had nicknames including nips, nipples, tits, titty tomlin, bentits, bennips, and some more. I honestly don't think many of the people who use these names intended to hurt me.
00:00:20:08 - 00:00:45:02
Bennett Tomlin
It is common for men to bond with this sort of talk, but it did make me feel worse about my body and did sometimes make me feel like my body was inadequately masculine. Eventually, my parents helped me find a plastic surgeon, and the plastic surgeon was able to do a straightforward breast reduction procedure. It was a several month recovery, but afterwards I did have much smaller breasts.
00:00:45:04 - 00:01:17:01
Bennett Tomlin
There's very little difference, except perhaps in the techniques the surgeon decides to use because of the extent of the procedure between my surgery and the top surgery a trans man might get. However, in many jurisdictions, bigots want to ban this simple and reasonably safe procedure for the trans men, but not for me. This is obviously fundamentally absurd. By what realistic justification can you say that one group of men can get this plastic surgery, but another group of men cannot.
00:01:17:03 - 00:01:38:22
Bennett Tomlin
Or consider a female who decides she is unhappy with the current appearance of her breasts, and seeks out a breast augmentation. That procedure will again be incredibly simple to a trans woman who seeks out a breast augmentation. But the bigots are only interested in banning one of those. Clearly, the danger of the procedure itself is not the differentiator here.
00:01:39:00 - 00:02:04:21
Bennett Tomlin
So what is the justification? The way it is justified is by being so embedded in the patriarchy in America that you must use state violence to enforce a very narrow depiction of gender. And if you are okay with using state violence to enforce a narrow depiction of gender, you are an authoritarian. You are a bigot. You are probably a fascist.
00:02:04:23 - 00:02:30:14
Bennett Tomlin
We cannot sacrifice trans folks to the fascist because that will not stop them. They will seek out other ways to control folks, especially females. They will limit the control these women have over their own bodies by banning abortion. They will limit their ability to freely move through the country, often using the anti-abortion laws as the pretext. They will try to limit women's participation in the workplace.
00:02:30:16 - 00:02:52:19
Bennett Tomlin
Falsely claiming that the women are only in the workplace because of smoke or diversity, or die. They will try to make it so that victims of sexual harassment or sexual assault are not believed, and cannot seek any realistic recourse against their abusers and rapists. They will try to limit women's participation in democracy, finding ways to limit their ability to vote.
00:02:52:21 - 00:03:22:11
Bennett Tomlin
Or like Peter Thiel, just explicitly arguing that women should not be allowed to vote. You might also note that most of these things are already happening and are likely to accelerate. Yet despite that fact, many in the so-called opposition party have been perfectly willing to support the patriarchy and its arbitrary conception of gender, believing somehow that sacrificing trans folks on the altar of gender essentialism will lead to election victories that will stop the advance of the fascist.
00:03:22:12 - 00:03:52:02
Bennett Tomlin
And yet, in doing so, they sacrifice a massive portion over the debate about how the world and society should be to the fascist and enable the fascist to accelerate through other policies by failing to resist this narrow conception of gender. They inherently enforce the patriarchal systems that you cannot separate from the history of America. The reason I am talking about my own gender affirming care today is because it's not controversial.
00:03:52:04 - 00:04:22:13
Bennett Tomlin
Elon Musk's hair plugs not controversial. Jeff Bezos, his stack of medications that supported his physical transformation. Not controversial. Which leads us to the obvious conclusion that trans folks seeking out gender affirming care should also not be controversial. Trans people are real. Trans people should have autonomy over their own bodies. And these threats of state violence must be condemned loudly and frequently.
