Are_Euclidding_Me

My mom has had two melanomas and various other less cancerous skin growths removed and she's doing fine, she just has pretty frequent dermatologist appointments. My grandpa had quite a few patches of skin cancer removed over his life, he died at like 87 from something completely unrelated to the skin cancer, I think it was a liver thing? My aunt and dad have both had a cancerous skin growth removed each, my dad is totally fine, my aunt was an alcoholic, so unfortunately the alcohol killed her, but that didn't happen until years and years after she got the cancer removed from her nose.

Skin cancer will very likely not kill you, especially since you went and got your dodgy looking mole checked out rather than ignoring it and hoping it goes away. If they have to remove it they will and you'll have a bit of a scar but you'll be fine.

I know just telling you you'll be ok won't actually necessarily help with the anxiety, but really and truly, you'll be ok. Take it from someone who has family history of skin cancer, it's easily survivable if caught early, as you have done. Also, it could very well be benign. My mom has something biopsied like once a year, and it doesn't always get removed afterwards.

Regardless, good luck with surviving the next two days, and I hope the biopsy goes smoothly!

Noooooo!!!!! My favorite hate-reading/self-harm substack went private between yesterday and today! I'm certainly not going to give them an email address, so apparently I'm doomed to have one less transphobic website I read religiously. This is probably a good thing, all in all, but some of their stuff was really funny sometimes. A lot more of it was absolutely awful, sure, but where else will I read about how minecraft makes kids trans?!?

Tofu cheesecake sounds pretty normal to me. You'd want to use silken tofu, of course, but I bet a tofu cheesecake would be amazing. It's all in how you flavor it, just as it is for a cow titty juice cheesecake.

One quick google brings up this recipe: https://myquietkitchen.com/tofu-cheesecake/, which looks quite good. (I'm tempted to try it actually, it's been awhile since I had cheesecake!)

The important thing is that it uses silken tofu, which is a totally different texture from the tofu you'd usually use in a stir fry or scramble. I've had silken tofu chocolate pudding and it was one of the best desserts I've ever experienced. I have no doubt it would make a great cheesecake.

Gravy is one of the laziest foods ever! I've made gravies while blackout drunk. I've made gravies while too high to function. It takes a little time (like 10 minutes, maximum) and some pretty constant stirring, but for the amount of tasty it adds to a dish, it's well worth it. It often feels like the gravy makes itself while I just stand there waiting for it to come together.

Oh, it's a pretty straightforward, very lazy gravy! I make a roux with flour and oil, then add in broth while whisking vigorously to get rid of any clumps. Then I add a can or two of canned mushrooms and I season it with salt, pepper, soy sauce, maybe some msg, and herbs. Lots of herbs. Rosemary, sage, thyme, parsley, usually dried because that's what we have sitting around, but I bet fresh would be even better. We also have some, like, mushroom stir fry sauce (I don't exactly know what it is) that we found in an asian market, so I usually add some of that to get it more mushroomy.

And yeah, I've done fried onions on a green bean casserole. In my mind that's different than a tater tot hot dish. I do love green bean casserole though!

They have this thing they call "hot dish" which is they dump green beans and cream of mushroom soup in a casserole dish and put tater tots on it.

I've made this! Well, a vegan equivalent with mushroom gravy I made myself. And I used frozen mixed veggies, not just green beans. Oh, and I seasoned it. And put some (vegan) cheese on it. But it was really good! Sure, it's not something I'd serve to anyone or even admit I enjoy (except anonymously on the internet, I guess), but like, it's almost a shepherd's pie situation, except with tots instead of mashed potatoes. Surprisingly good for a lazy meal, and lots of leftovers!

Ah, I had totally missed that you're injecting stuff you made yourself, that changes things! Your worry is more about what you're injecting than how you're injecting it, and for that, my response is extremely, entirely unhelpful. Well, I'm hoping for good things for you, hopefully in a few weeks you'll know that your hormones are working and you brewed them correctly!

Hey, I know anxiety isn't always rational (usually not, in fact), so what I'm about to say might not actually help you at all. Still though, I'm going to say it.

HRT injections are pretty idiot-proof. If they weren't, it wouldn't be so common for people to self-administer them. If injections were easily messed up and dangerous, quite a few of us would have weekly appointments at clinics to have professionals do them, but we don't. My sister didn't even get any training on how to do her injections, she was literally handed a pamphlet with instructions and diagrams and told "go for it".

Injections are absolutely scary, I don't like doing them, but I always remind myself that there's nothing that can go seriously wrong. Some weeks hurt (or bleed) more than others, but that's the extent of it. There's nothing I can do to actually cause injury or to cause the hormones to not work or something.

I sort of agree in that I very much would like to abolish gender, I don't think it's a super helpful framework to have so heavily embedded in society and in how humans interact with each other. On the other hand, I'm wary of equating manhood with shittiness, because there are (a) non-shitty men and (b) people who actively choose manhood. I'm simply unwilling to say that a trans man is actively choosing to be a shitty human by virtue of choosing to be a man. That doesn't seem right to me, there's something drawing trans men to manhood, and I do not believe it's as simple as wanting to be a misogynist.

I understand your frustration! Patriarchy is extremely shitty and misogyny is so often ignored and downplayed, it's really infuriating.

There's not a man alive who doesn't think women are beneath him.

Please, we can talk about how men are shitty without saying that they are literally, all of them, to a man, irredeemable. Because that's obviously not true, there are plenty of men who see women as their equals. Yes, there's "male socialization" or whatever and men are often taught to be extremely shitty, but their shittiness is not a necessary part of manhood and they can be educated out of it.

In fact, I would argue that saying stuff like this, that "there's not a man alive who doesn't think women are beneath him" actually gives men a pass to be misogynistic assholes. If part of being a man is viewing women as lesser, then we can't hold any man accountable when he views women as lesser. But we can hold them accountable for this, and furthermore, we need to if we ever want to build a better society.