Short version: You make a valid point but I’m gonna go on for awhile about why I made that controversial language choice at length for a few paragraphs below. Feel free to disregard those, however.

Long version: The intended audience for this piece was cis people, actually, so I stick by my wording since if you give them an inch in support of not transitioning cis people will deny you access to transition and respect for transitioning.

I feel for you about not being able to use hrt and I know plenty of trans women who aren’t interested or aren’t ready for hrt but they are a minority and politics sometimes requires using specific language for a specific audience that you would never use amongst your peer group.

I also call into question the “testosterone isn’t poison” argument in general since it’s often an exclamation of cafab trans people trying to make trans women feel bad for being happy about starting hrt. I really don’t care what cafabs think about anything I have to say so in general I’m conditioned to be ambivalent to this argument given who usually brings the issue up.

But I don’t intend to make calling testosterone poison an issue I’m gonna die on the hill of, either. It’s language I actually rarely use outside of my “I Survived Testosterone Poisoning” T-Shirt I like to wear to pride events and it’s probably something you’ll never see pop up again in my writing.