Let’s Bust Some Myths!

It’s too late after puberty, hormones won’t change xyz

While yes, many adult trans people dearly wish they’d been able to medically transition before going through the “wrong” puberty, the truth is that a lot of changes will still occur later… even to “unchangeable” things like the skeleton.

The body is remaking itself throughout life, and hormones tell it how to do that. Some parts are just quicker or slower than others. Also: the skeleton is pulled-on constantly by our muscles, and in a battle of muscle vs bone, muscle will always win over time.

Examples of this include:

• trans men building bigger bones to support their bigger muscles
• trans women getting smaller, with wider hips and a pelvic tilt

Trans people have sporting advantages

Assuming at least a year’s cross-sex hormonal treatment, there is no useful advantage to being trans when engaging in a sport. There are small advantages and disadvantages (which goes for any person’s body, really). For example:

• Trans women will tend to be taller than cis women on average…
  • …but that larger frame is now being powered by smaller muscles, because they shrink much quicker than the skeleton.
• Trans men taking T are the only athletes allowed to take testosterone…
  • …but they will still often be smaller than their fellow male competitors, for example.

Read: Do Trans Women Athletes Have Advantages? (A rather balanced expert overview, which does also cover trans men)

There’s a trans population explosion; it’s a social contagion epidemic!

Source for figures: The Overall Rate Of Left-Handedness (Researchgate)

Left-handed people used to make up around 3% of the population… Until the 1920s, when that figure jumped sharply upwards, before plateauing at around 12% in around 1960, where it’s stayed since. What happened?! Simple, schools stopped forcing children to use their right hand.

Today, people ask for trans healthcare because they know it exists! Decades ago, it wasn’t such common knowledge.

The same explanation can be applied to other “population explosions” such as for autism and ADHD.

Fun fact: Mt. Everest was “discovered” in 1852, but scientists suspect it probably existed long before then! People whose ancestors were living on it long before 1852 also agree. Sometimes something exists for a long time, and only comes to wider public awareness later.

Transgender healthcare is too readily available, especially to children!

To believe some press outlets, you’d think:

• HRT is available from school vending machines,
• kids can get a walk-in top surgery at recess,
• and there’s an after-school sterilization club.

In reality, while availability varies from place to place, trans healthcare is heavily gatekept. Even adults have trouble getting it, often having to wait years and/or pay large sums of money… and get permission from a flock of doctors, psychologists, and the like. For those under the age of 18, it’s almost impossible in many places, even with parental support.

Puberty-blockers shouldn’t be given to teenagers, as the effects are irreversible

Quick question: who do you think should be given puberty-blockers? For whom do you think they were developed? Not adults, for sure! They were not developed for trans teens either, but for cis pre-teens with precocious puberty, to keep puberty at bay, to do it correctly later. Nobody argues they’re unsafe for much younger cis children, and only object when it’s trans teens.

They’re not only safe and reversible, but also self-reversing. Stop taking them, and the normally scheduled puberty promptly ensues by itself. For trans kids, the desired effect is to buy the kid time to make an informed and well-considered decision. After all, the effects of the wrong puberty are really difficult to undo!

A lot of people rush medical transition and regret it!

Trans people wish it could be rushed! It’s a lot harder to get gender-affirming care as a trans person, than it is to get the same (or comparable) care as a cis person. Yes, cis people get gender-affirming care, from hormones to surgeries, and have done for a long time.

As for regret… Medical transition has around a 1% regret rate. For comparison, hip replacement has a 4.8% regret rate and knee replacement has a 17.1% regret rate.

A medical procedure with a 99% success rate would generally be considered a miracle cure!

Can we drink to good health?

We asked you for your thoughts on alcohol and heart health, and we got quite an even spread of results!

If perchance that’s too tiny to read, the figures were:

• 32% voted for “Alcohol is a relaxant, reduces stress, and can contain resveratrol too. It’s good for the heart!”
• 32% voted for: “Moderate alcohol consumption can be at least neutral for the health, if not positive ⚖️”
• 36% voted for: “Alcohol is bad for pretty much everything, including heart health ✋”

One subscriber who voted for “Alcohol is a relaxant, reduces stress, and can contain resveratrol too. It’s good for the heart!” added the following thoughts:

❝While it isn’t necessary to consume alcohol, moderate amounts can be beneficial and contribute to well-being through social activity, celebrations, etc.❞

That’s an interesting point, and definitely many people do see alcohol that way! Of course, that does not mean that one will find no social activities, celebrations, etc, in parts of the world where alcohol consumption is uncommon. Indeed, in India, wedding parties where no alcohol is consumed can go on for days!

But, “we live in a society” and all that, and while we’re a health newsletter not a social issues newsletter, it’d be remiss of us to not acknowledge the importance of socialization for good mental health—and thus the rest of our health too.

So, if indeed all our friends and family drink alcohol, it can certainly make abstaining more of a challenge.

On that note, let’s take a moment to consider “The French Paradox” (an observation of a low prevalence of ischemic heart disease despite high intakes of saturated fat, a phenomenon accredited to the consumption of red wine).

As it happens, a comprehensive review in “Circulation”, a cardiovascular health journal, has suggested the French Paradox may not be so paradoxical after all.

Research suggests it has more to do with other lifestyle factors (and historic under-reporting of cardiovascular disease by French doctors), which would explain why Japan has lower rates of heart disease, despite drinking little wine, and more beer and spirits.

So, our subscriber’s note may not be completely without reason! It’s just about the party, not the alcohol.

One subscriber who voted for “Moderate alcohol consumption can be at least neutral for the health, if not positive ⚖️” wrote:

❝Keeping in mind, moderate means one glass of wine for women a day and two for men. Hard alcohol doesn’t have the same heart benefits as wine❞

That is indeed the guideline according to some health bodies!

In other places with different guiding advisory bodies, that’s been dropped down to one a day for everyone (the science may be universal, but how government institutions interpret that is not).

About that wine… Specifically, red wine, for its resveratrol content:

While there are polyphenols such as resveratrol in red wine that could boost heart health, there’s so little per glass that you may need 100–1000 glasses to get the dosage that provides benefits in mouse studies. If you’re not a mouse, you might even need more.

To this end, many people prefer resveratrol supplementation. ← link is to an example product, but there are plenty more so feel free to shop around

A subscriber who voted for “Alcohol is bad for pretty much everything, including heart health ✋” says:

❝New guidelines suggest 1 to 2 drinks a week are okay but the less the better.❞

If you haven’t heard these new guidelines, we’ll mention again: every government has its own official bodies and guidelines so perhaps your local guidelines differ, but for example here’s what that World Health Organization has to say (as of January this year):

WHO: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

So, whom to believe? The governments who hopefully consider the welfare of their citizenry more important than the tax dollars from alcohol sales, or the World Health Organization?

It’s a tough one, but we’ll always err on the side of the science.