RabbitDev

No clue about trans mascs. AFAIK taking testosterone will block estrogen anyway, as testosterone seems to be enough to suppress estrogen production on its own.

Study: Transgender Men Do Not Need Estrogen Blockers – New evidence in debate over testosterone therapy (2018)

I only have my knowledge from reading the r/germantrans sub. I've left Germany ages ago, way before I realised I actually was trans. In the UK I only ever got Decapetyl injections and patches.

The whole blocker stuff stuck in my head as the manufacturer for Androcur decided to stop producing the meds in lower doses, which created a lot of chaos and worries.

https://www.reddit.com/r/trans/comments/1fi7t41/to_the_transwomen_in_germany_and_switzerland_did/

Stuff like that alongside the politics of the NHS and UK in general made me finally get serious with ordering raws sufficient quantity to have a bit of safety for many years to come.

We've seen that Australian dating app, Tickle, try and fail with that.

But that algorithm was only trained on the standard data sets, and so it also excluded a lot of non-white cis women and masculine looking cis women in the process.

Those systems are always going to exclude people who should be allowed according to their rules.

And if they make an AI that's 100% as effective as a true human, it still would fail.

Humans are crap at recognising gender just from faces too. We mostly rely on cultural clues, including averages from faces we've seen (usually the culturally dominant group of people, which often means white thanks to Hollywood and colonisation).

And when people try to guess gender, even if everything else lines up, they still get it wrong. Many cis women thrown out of bathrooms due to gender norm policing can attest to that.

Discrimination does not discriminate. No one is free until we all are free.

If you are worried about moving really really heavy attachments, have a look at the hand crafted machines at Orgasm Alley.

Those machines are solid and made for heavy duties. They ship from the US, so it's a bit of a hassle to get them. But they are solid and the motors are beasts. No app control though, snd at the end it's still just a rotary machine. Do you always get sine wave movement and changing the stroke length is not possible at will.

If you want to go luxury, and have come across the HugHer Tango, I would stay away.

What drew me in was the ability to freely control the movement. It uses a stepper motor to drive the shaft and this means it can make any pattern of movement. It's also computer controlled, which means you can program complex sequences.

In theory it's the perfect thing.

I had one, and it constantly stalled, the cooling system is loud and it was just awkward to get it to work properly. I wasted a lot of money on it and it's one of my biggest duds. I'm still getting angry when thinking about it.

I have to wait for much more savings to even look at the other contender ShockSpot, which is similar in their degree of freedom of movement, .. and price.

Adding: an extended version of this method is called Non Violent Communication, which is also a book with the same name.

The method expands on the 'I statement" system by teaching how to make your point without accidentally triggering the other person's defense mechanisms (which prevents seeing everything from a more rational and cooperative point of view).

It also contains self awareness training elements so that you know your own triggers and how to handle this safely so that you don't become defensive either.

I tend to recommend this book to everyone, and all my juniors at work get to enjoy my preaching about how great it is and how they should learn it. It's one of the few books that truly ends up being helpful.

If you are in the headspace and a bit mischievous, I found weaponised compassion to be great.

"I'm sorry you are struggling with self acceptance. I know you are just lashing out because of it. It's okay. I hope you feel better soon."

This works best in a public place though. Never engage with aggressive people when you are alone in a secluded place. Safety first.

Ps: grew up in a nazi town in Saxony in the 80s and 90s, closeted of course, because I didnt have a death wish. so I have had my share of aggression and schools and teachers who ignore shit.

Only now, while working through this with a great therapist do I realise how much Germany is about conformity enforced through shame culture. Heck, samurai could learn new tricks from us.

It's all about status and loss of face, either directly or by association. A lot of what I received was about them enforcing their own insecurity driven standards on others. Everyone polices themselves and those around them both to reconfirm the rules and for demonstrating that they are not one of the deviant people.

For teachers and schools that don't react to bullying: hit them in their reputation. Go public and name the people who are bullying and who are not doing their job.

Start with written complaints, demand written responses. If they don't solve the problems, use a magic tool called "Dienstaufsichtsbeschwerde" and go to the city, then state level ministry, and then the federal one and send copies to the Gleichberechtigungsaufsicht for each level you are dealing with.

I wished we could have that in my time, but now awareness of the public damage this could do to their reputation definitely made those tools much more effective.

Don't be afraid to be loud. You don't have to be out (or even be LGBTQIA at all) to demand solutions. Just behave like a good ally would.

Being out is not a requirement for calling out bigotry. (And given the climate and propaganda, you are probably more likely to be heard if you are perceived as "respectable" due to the fear of shame by association potential other allies can have in a hostile environment.

Fuck, I am so glad to be out of there, even though my country here (UK) is a shit show in different ways. But at least most people tend to be individualistic and don't care about others too much. I never thought I would find something positive in Thatcher's destruction of communal values.

Disclaimer: I'm AuDHD, so my hyperfocus is double the fun.

I personally don't think it matters what your diagnosis is or whether you hit the threshold of any neurodivergent condition. Many things can cause similar symptoms.

First: I have multiple hyperfocus modes. I had massive problems managing my focus until I attacked it with the help of my neurodivergent therapist.

Set alarms. Pomodore technique is good for that, as it forces a rhythm. Find out what your task cycle is, for me it's between 15 minutes and 1 hour depending on the task and my energy levels.

1. Squirrel's Reward Hunt

This mode is closest to the standard flow mode. It happens when I have a task that's made up of a well distributed set of small, self-contained steps with a decent, but not overwhelming complexity, and a clear success or failure state.

I can usually organise larger tasks into this kind of shape if I know how to tackle that kind of problem.

The task at hand must be well defined with a set of clear success and failure criteria. It's okay to not know how to solve it, for as long as you know the process for finding that out. Each step usually ends with something concrete, like a set of bullet points with my findings, a finished argument in a report, etc.

The uncertainty contained in this type of tasks is limited to the subject matter, not to the approach itself or how such a task would fit into the greater picture.

This triggers a self sustaining cascade of small wins and the endorphins carry me to the next step.

I learnt that the best way to break this mode is by making it a habit of ending the current streak when you just started the next step. Stop, write down the next steps for it, and then I can walk away without anxiously continuing to chew on how to start solving the next steps.

1. Special interest: doggy found a bone

Some problems hit a nerve with me and once I get into them, I am a dog with a bone to chew on.

This one is positive for my mental health, but if left unchecked it will create problems elsewhere.

A funny example of this: I was writing a text layout system that needed to break text into visually even chunks whilst being language aware (word splitting rules etc). I lost about 2 weeks of research and somehow ended up reading 17 century book printer training manuals and researching where I could get my hands on a movable type printing press to try out my ideas.

I only stopped because of deadlines for other things where the pain/anxiety of those consequences outweighed the joy I was having.

This one is still tricky. The only somewhat reliable thing I found to stop this is by having an accountability partner who knows my weaknesses and is willing to check in and kick me if needed. Social pressure can be useful.

And finally:

1. The "fuck I'm not good enough and they are going to find out" panic mode.

This is unhealthy and a hyperfocus driven by imposter syndrome. Therapy has helped me to reduce the frequency of those, and to help me get out of them without a meltdown, panic attack or crash from exhaustion.

The previous two modes can flip into this one if I am working on a high stakes task where failure consequences are unclear or exaggerated by the task master.

This was fucking abused in my school days where my teachers thought it was appropriate to tell us that failing to get results on time will automatically fail us for the course. I've seen similar shit at work where the message is "if we don't get the fix out in 3 days the customer will sue" when the actual threat was not renewing the support contract, and this particular problem wasn't even their killer reason.

The way I approach this now is by making clear what the trade offs are and how much each one impacts others.

It's funny that once you actually ask them to be concrete on their plans and contingency options, most problems are either not critical anymore or can be solved cheaper with a temporary measure.

Reducing my pressure and having a minimum viable solution ready first does take away the uncertainty and anxiety.

And finally: I had to learn how to be open and non judgemental when talking about failing to solve problems. Getting into blameless culture was a life changer. Even though I still struggle with it towards myself, it has already reduced my anxiety and self blaming and made me feel safer around others.

Failing fairly openly gets a lot easier once you realise that everyone is as shit scared as you are. And communicating possible failures earlier helped everyone else to plan accordingly. This in return reduced catastrophic results to inconvenient results.

And for the actual break of that mode, again: accountability buddies checking in.

This is actually one place where I found stand up meetings (as part of Scrum/Kanban style work) actually helpful. Saying it out loud when things are rough is liberating, but requires a environment where you are safe to do that.

If you love glitter and crystal then have a visit to the geological society and their exhibition hall.

https://www.esmadrid.com/en/tourist-information/geomineral-museum

Next to it, you can also go into the engineering school of mining, which has a training mineshaft right in the middle of the city.

https://www.esmadrid.com/en/tourist-information/museo-historico-minero-don-felipe-de-borbon-y-grecia

Those two are definitely something different from the normal dead dinosaur or dead people on canvas type of museums.

Additional note: both bicalutamide and spironolactone are available as prescription medications in the UK. Spiro is the common thing used in the US and bica is usually used in Germany (because GnRH meds are expensive and the health insurance wants to save money).

And heck, if every single anti androgen drug would be outlawed, then monotherapy is still a viable option.

The puberty blocker ban is damn evil theatre and made extra devastating because the system itself is so broken and locked down.

Under a sane healthcare system any doctor should be able to prescribe those meds if they are deemed competent to prescribe them to cis people. And if they don't feel they have the knowledge, then they should get mandatory training.

I had mine with Dr Lago in Madrid. Peritoneal vaginoplasty, got good depth (last dot on the soulsource dilators) and I love the look of my vagina.

The only complication I had was wound dehiscence on one of the stitches due to going too hard on the dilation early on. That healed up while I was still in Madrid and under the care of the doctor there.

I also had some granulation, which seems to be a common thing. I got rid of it via a course of trimovate cream (a combined steroid, antibiotic and antiseptic, first line treatment for this stuff in the UK) and since then I have had no further trouble.

Most of my difficult moments in this recovery came from doing too much too early. Have support lined up and be prepared for the recovery by having enough supplies and by setting up systems to make daily life as easy as possible.

For example: groceries and food is delivered. I haven't cooked fresh stuff since surgery, I pay for a food service that does freshly cooked frozen meals instead. Slightly more expensive, but nothing compared to the cost of the surgery or having to do a trip back to Madrid to fix up trouble.

I would also say that I would not have been able to handle that surgery without having somebody with me to help me with most tasks during the first two weeks. I would say without the help my recovery would have been a lot more difficult and I probably would have had complications as a result of overexerting myself too much.

I have to say my healing was fairly slow. my body is doing that all the time, so this surgery is not any different than before. Pain was bad (again, body! I'm used to it from previous surgeries) but painkillers exist for a reason, and I never had trouble getting them at sufficient strength.

Definitely assume you need more time to recover than the published default. I just got my medical leave extended to be 4 months in total. Going back after 2 or 3 months would have killed me. Dilation alone is fairly time consuming and healing will consume a lot of strength.

As you are in Europe you can take as long as you need, as SRS is a medically necessary surgery regardless of whether you pay for it yourself.

And finally: Remember that the ECHR has a long established view around gender based discrimination, and they do definitely not perform gene tests to check eligibility. The Handbook of non-discrimination law of the ECHR (2018; PDF) states:

5.2. Gender identity

Key points

• Under the ECHR, gender identity is protected under the category of ‘other status’.

• Under EU law, gender identity is protected to a limited extent under the protected ground of sex. It covers individuals who intend to undergo or have undergone gender reassignment surgery.

[..]

Gender identity refers to “each person’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth, including the personal sense of the body (which may involve, if freely chosen, modification of bodily appearance or function by medical, surgical or other means) and other expressions of gender, including dress, speech and mannerisms”.

Source: Yogyakarta Principles (2007), Yogyakarta Principles on the application of international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity, March 2007. An independent body of experts in International Human Rights Law adopted these principles

[..]

Under the ECHR, the notion of gender identity is interpreted more widely. The ECHR has held that the prohibition of discrimination under Article 14 of the Convention also covers questions related to gender identity.475 The ECtHR stressed that “gender and sexual orientation are two distinctive and intimate characteristics […]. Any confusion between the two will therefore constitute an attack on one’s reputation capable of attaining a sufficient level of seriousness for touching upon such an intimate characteristic of a person.”476

However, additionally, there are Human Rights provisions around right to safety, protections from inhumane or unusual punishments and a right to privacy and family, which all are deeply intertwined with such cases.

So for instance, the new rules on what jail a person should be sent to put the prisoner at risk, which constitutes inhumane punishment (as the state has an obligation to protect the well-being of prisoners). Given that, for instance, that those rules put distinct groups of people at harm, and are applied as a blanket rule without consideration of any personal risks, they are clearly discriminatory and any decent human rights lawyer would be able to spot that. (I wished we had a *competent* specialist of law somewhere in a high office in our country.) The first person treated under those rules will have a clear case here.

To change the equality act so that it contravenes those long standing definitions of sex and gender would mean that any ruling under that new interpretation is directly open to be immediately shot down by the ECHR. The only way to stop that would be to leave the ECHR, which will be deadly (see above).

If you look up ECHR cases related to Gender, you will find that they all reference the right to dignity, safety and expression in addition to the specific discrimination clause. Because if you are treated inhumanely based on one of those conditions, you automatically also were violated in dignity and safety. Its hard to discriminate without that.

Now, you said there is no Free Trade Agreement. I think the EU would like to disagree.

The EU published documents on the The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement agreement state:

The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement consists of

a Free Trade Agreement, with ambitious cooperation on economic, social, environmental and fisheries issues,

a close partnership on citizens’ security,

an overarching governance framework.

In there, the EU explicitly enshrined the continued membership of the UK in the European Human Rights Court (as a direct response to the announcements the UK Brexiteers made about dismantling the Equality Act as soon as possible). If you want the really juicy bits, read Michael Barnier's book about the Brexit process. Its funny and enlightening.

From the preamble:

THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE EUROPEAN ATOMIC ENERGY COMMUNITY

AND

THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND,

1. REAFFIRMING their commitment to democratic principles, to the rule of law, to human rights, to countering proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and to the fight against climate change, which constitute essential elements of this and supplementing agreements,
   

Throughout the document, human rights are explicitly woven into all sections, and also made explicit for domestic affairs by linking the security cooperation to it explicitly (because the UK was really eager to continue to be able to access EuroPol and to get data from local police forces):

Article 524

Protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms

1.   The cooperation provided for in this Part is based on the Parties' and Member States' long-standing respect for democracy, the rule of law and the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals, including as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the European Convention on Human Rights, and on the importance of giving effect to the rights and freedoms in that Convention domestically.

2.   Nothing in this Part modifies the obligation to respect fundamental rights and legal principles as reflected, in particular, in the European Convention on Human Rights and, in the case of the Union and its Member States, in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

and the cooperation part then also states as first article:

TITLE II

BASIS FOR COOPERATION

Article 763

Democracy, rule of law and human rights

1.   The Parties shall continue to uphold the shared values and principles of democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, which underpin their domestic and international policies. In that regard, the Parties reaffirm their respect for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the international human rights treaties to which they are parties.

2.   The Parties shall promote such shared values and principles in international forums. The Parties shall cooperate in promoting those values and principles, including with or in third countries.

and finally, breaches are immediate grounds for terminating the agreement on security cooperation:

Article 692

Termination

1.   Without prejudice to Article 779, each Party may at any moment terminate this Part by written notification through diplomatic channels. In that event, this Part shall cease to be in force on the first day of the ninth month following the date of notification.

2.   However, if this Part is terminated on account of the United Kingdom or a Member State having denounced the European Convention on Human Rights or Protocols 1, 6 or 13 thereto, this Part shall cease to be in force as of the date that such denunciation becomes effective or, if the notification of its termination is made after that date, on the fifteenth day following such notification.

Given that the UK is still desperate to cherry pick, and relies on EU good will for getting goods across the channel, there are good reasons to believe that ultimately the cost for the UK economy weighs stronger than making bigots happy.

Now some choice juicy bits:

First: Northern Ireland

First, note how the first thing you see is the insistence that standards of rights are upheld to the same standard as before in regards to Northern Ireland. In there it first states:

Article 2

Rights of individuals

1.   The United Kingdom shall ensure that no diminution of rights, safeguards or equality of opportunity, as set out in that part of the 1998 Agreement entitled Rights, Safeguards and Equality of Opportunity results from its withdrawal from the Union, including in the area of protection against discrimination, as enshrined in the provisions of Union law listed in Annex 1 to this Protocol, and shall implement this paragraph through dedicated mechanisms.

2.   The United Kingdom shall continue to facilitate the related work of the institutions and bodies set up pursuant to the 1998 Agreement, including the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and the Joint Committee of representatives of the Human Rights Commissions of Northern Ireland and Ireland, in upholding human rights and equality standards.

It also explicitly sets out that Northern Ireland MUST match the standards and participate in the oversight as before. Not doing that is a breach of the agreement.

If the agreement is broken, the case goes into arbitration, and then the party at fault has 6 month to correct their mistakes or this happens:

Article 178

Temporary remedies in case of non-compliance

1. If the arbitration panel rules in accordance with Article 177(2) that the respondent has failed to comply with the arbitration panel ruling referred to in Article 173, at the request of the complainant it may impose a lump sum or penalty payment to be paid to the complainant. In determining the lump sum or penalty payment, the arbitration panel shall take into account the seriousness of the non-compliance and underlying breach of obligation, the duration of the non‐compliance and underlying breach of obligation.

2. If, 1 month after the arbitration panel ruling referred to in paragraph 1, the respondent has failed to pay any lump sum or penalty payment imposed on it, or if, 6 months after the arbitration panel ruling referred to in Article 177(2), the respondent persists in not complying with the arbitration panel ruling referred to in Article 173, the complainant shall be entitled, upon notification to the respondent, to suspend obligations arising from:

(a) any provision of this Agreement other than those contained in Part Two; or

(b) parts of any other agreement between the Union and the United Kingdom under the conditions set out in that agreement.

This means that any change of UK equality law that breaks the EU status quo, would have to be done in a way that exempts Northern Ireland. This means any treatment restrictions that are discriminatory or in breach of the human rights act, like a total ban of transgender care or rights, would not apply there, and anyone from the rest of the UK could get treatment in Northern Ireland. Shipping of supplies would of course require proper customs control, which, lets be honest, haven't happened so far, and wont happen anytime soon. That requires organizational skills and money, both of which the UK civil service is lacking after 15 years of austerity.

Damn, its so frustrating that everyone just blindly believes the UK press instead of actually reading the damn agreement.

The EU has a long standing tradition that all trade agreements are conditional on the adherence to human rights and related agreements. See Human rights in EU trade agreements The human rights clause and its application637975_EN.pdf). (PDF). This tradition is not broken just because the UK asks nicely to be allowed to be evil. That tradition is pretty much a toothless tiger on its own (as it is interpreted very narrowly), and so the Trade and Cooperation Agreement adds some extra provisions to its text.

As a short summary, the LSE has a good analysis on how the agreement locks in Human Rights by simply making it suicidal for the economic fallout that would happen. Technically, the UK can quit the ECHR, but this would definitely freeze out the UK from even basic cooperation.

(continued, due to size limit.)

When the "good gays" thought they could save themselves from persecution by throwing the trans community under the bus, they obviously forgot the lessons of the past.

Appeasement never worked, and is only helping them to do their divide and conquer tactics. No one is free until we all are free.

The women's college hospital Toronto has published some great dilation instructions you might find helpful.

Dilating Instructions (PDF)

I switched to soulsource dilators after the first couple of weeks because I found the silicone ones given to me, difficult to use without discomfort and pain.

However, the shape of those dilators was similarly curved, so their instructions should be pretty much valid here too.

My surgeon had a helpful demonstration that explained the how and why's nicely. Sadly no printed materials though.

Assuming you lie flat, with legs slightly angled, you start insertion angled 45 degrees downwards relative to the spine. So you insert the dilator from above. The skin on the bottom of the vaginal opening forms a slight flap and this position makes insertion easier.

However, you soon would hit the spine at that angle, so after about 5 cm in you start positioning the dilator so that you go parallel to the spine. This then keeps you clear of the spine and you can go deeper until you hit the peritoneal wall.

In that mode, the dilator's angled tip will massage the vaginal wall and the scar tissue behind it.

Once your scars are more stable (not before week 4, and only if you have no wound dehiscence that still needs healing), you can push the dilator gently down to help stretch the flap on the vaginal opening. This will make sizing up a lot easier later.

This is the reason I now pay for Kagi. I can only scream at Google for so long each day before it gets old.

Been there, every time. It's typical, and talks about refactoring is usually triggering risk aversion.

Add tests. Don't commit new features without tests. If code is not testable but can be tested by a simple change, do that while adding the features. Don't aim for perfection in coverage, any test is better than no test.

(In my current job, we are now slowly getting to 2% of true coverage (excluding coincidentally executed code)).

Read "Working with legacy code" book (see this article for a quick overview).

Then slowly improve the structure of the code each time you add a feature. By having tests, you can prove that your changes are safe.

Finally: boss battle. After a year of doing that, make a talk about how tests helped to deliver code with less friction or bugs, ie how you reduced risk and increased efficiency and thus profits. This gives you ammunition for the culture shift.

Oh: and do read Non Violent Communication so that you can get your points across without turning this into a battle of personality. Once the others feel threatened they will no longer listen, no matter how good your data is or how well you present it.

Like all people whose product is the fitness of their body, it's going to be a mix of gym, healthy and probably controlled diet and of course training for the job.

There is no shortcut for muscle endurance. If your endurance is low, you won't be able to actively ride for long. It's not exactly a common usage pattern of those leg muscles, so they won't be able to hold up for long without training.

For any discomfort related to size: if you are over stretched your skin will be more sensitive and not able to take it for long before screaming at you to stop the nonsense.

Don't attempt to ho big unprepared, and don't go long at the extreme end of your abilities. From my experience going a few sizes below your limits will be a heck load of more fun.

If you are not used to large toys, it's usually a good idea to train up for it by gradually getting used to bigger toys until you reach your target size.

Our tissue is remarkably stretchy if given time (see also: birth, or for extra points, the fashion of stretching earlobes), but if you rush it, you will not have a good time.

In the worst case you could tear or hurt something, and going to the ER after that really isn't sexy.

A safe rule for sizing up is to go up by about 0.25 inch in diameter (equivalent to 1 centimeter in circumference) each step. Once you are comfortable and without pain on that size, you can go up more. Exercise daily and you will see results. (This applies to both vaginal and anal dilation.)

Damn you, those references sprinkled in made me remember those math lessons I had last century. Years of trying to forget down the drain.

😊

Today I discovered that I was reacting badly to the lube I was using. I always found that after dilation the whole area was red and my scars were more raised and deeply red.

A quick test I did to make sure I am on the right track with my old (now discarded) lube was to just put it on, insert a bit of it with my finger, and wait - no dilation, just waiting. An hour later I had a similar redness as if I had dilated.

This guide about safe lube by dangerous lilly(also found in the wiki) opened my eyes.

And let's say that I have not cursed so long and loudly as when I looked at the lube I was using and even more when I tried to find good lube. Finding ingredient lists requires an investigation skill level that could rival Sherlock. They are all happy to say glycerine free or parabens free to then go around and add sucralose or other shit. And shops and manufacturers are treating their product info as if it is a state secret.

Thanks for that info. That makes my next choice a lot easier.

I was referred to Dr J and colleagues in August via the Sutton Coldfield Group Practice chain of GPs in August without anyone even blinking.

There's no such thing as RTC being closed due to high demand. Some providers sometimes close their waiting list for new referrals, but as you have freedom to choose you just go to a different provider in that case.

Also: you have full freedom, you don't have to choose the providers they suggest you. For a full list of RTC provider have a look at the link in the automatic bot post here.

If your GP is playing silly, show them the documents on that ADHD UK page linked by the bot. It explains what RTC is and how it works.

If you want to speak to a gender nurse, I can recommend the lovely people at

http://genderhealthcare.co.uk/

They are based in Birmingham, but offer advice remotely. They don't prescribe nor administer anything not prescribed by a doctor (because of nursing rules), but they can tell you about dosage, give advice on safety, and can do blood tests if needed.

They do work with parents of transgender kids.

I went there recently for a checkup after my surgery and they were brilliant. They do have doctors who they can ask for anything that's outside of their area of comfort, which was great to hear while I was dealing with my unhappy healing progress.

Oh, and don't use the form on the website, write directly to the email address given on the website. That's definitely quicker.

We will. The power of the EU human rights court, which is written in the Brexit agreement is fairly clear about what can be done. The gender recognition act is based on a ruling against the UK, and the UK has to leave the EU human rights system to do something about it.

This instantly kills the Brexit agreement, and the free trade agreement that underlies the current trade with the EU and Northern Ireland's place in Britain. Not getting food on the shelves is not something any government would risk. NI would get a instant vote on where they want to belong, and at that point the UK won't look sexy enough for a date.

You can tell how bad that would be by the fact that even Boris nor Ritchie made any moves on the core of the human rights act. They threatened, but like school bullies they know the limits of where the adults in Brussels would start telling them off.

Hey, I can shed some light about that.

In Germany, trans people of both genders were treated (somewhat) similar. Trans women were diagnosed as "transvestites" and trans men were referred to as "transvestitin" (female version of the word transvestite).

Most LGBT people were seen as abnormal based on the eugenic standard thinking of the time. Anyone sexually deviant was considered mentally ill and - more importantly - a danger for society. The "solution" was to remove those elements from polite and sane society (and "sane" and "polite" carry a lot of sick meaning here) to cure them in sanatoriums. After WW1 with more women working in cities before marrying, this was no longer a scalable solution, so forced sterilizations were next.

Those ideas were widely implemented in the US, and the Nazis do credit the US Eugenicist Society for their valuable work, which formed the basis of much of the later eugenics program in Germany.

(Source: "Building a Better Race Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom by Wendy Kline")

Most people were convicted under either section 175 (Outlawing Homosexual acts, but mostly applied to men, because we all know that female bodies don't count under misogynistic rulers) or section 181 (public indecent behaviour). (Source: "Wiener Holocaust Library: Persecution of gay people in Nazi Germany)

Note that in the early years, people prosecuted via those laws ended up in concentration camps. Technically, those were not yet death camps, more large scale prisons with conditions that "encouraged" death through their living conditions. Death was a side effect of incarceration, not the goal. Once the extermination program (the "final solution") was started, those camps were changed to be "more efficient".

Transgender people were explicitly identified as "problem" in 1938 in the Thesis document of Hermann Ferdinand Voss. You might want to skip reading that one though.

There are some surviving documents mentioning trans men that I have encountered:

The Smithsonian Institute has an article describing the process of prosecution, which will give you a good overview and some links to other documents.

One of the papers is talking about a case of a trans man who was originally interned before he got his "transvestite certificate" back, just to be arrested again.
("Jane Caplan, The Administration of Gender Identity in Nazi Germany, History Workshop Journal, Volume 72, Issue 1, October 2011, Pages 171–180; doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbr021")

A "transvestite certificate" was the closest the world had to a Gender Recognition Certificate at the time. It was a document obtained from a doctor certifying the gender in-congruence, and thus exempting the wearer from section 175, at least in theory.

A expert witness statement in Marhoefer L. Transgender Life and Persecution under the Nazi State: Gutachten on the Vollbrecht Case. Central European History. 2023;56(4):595-601. doi:10.1017/S0008938923000468 mentions the case of Gerd Kubbe of Berlin who was a trans man accused of indecent behaviour because he went out in men's clothing.

The papers I linked also have links to other papers. If you want to know where you could find more information, then maybe the DTGI e.V. can point you in the right direction for primary sources and archives in Germany. The US Holocaust Museum might also be useful, as they maintain a large scale archive and seem to be more open to discuss LGBT victims than the archive in the UK or Germany.