This photo fascinates me and I finally figured out why A woman is going to have to be killed before this man wakes up I don’t know how Andy isn’t losing the will to live by now. Latest in his exchange with the reckless Aaron. Well, tie me to a radiator if Marilyn didn’t win this round
This attempted shaming of women by implying, and outright saying, we're creepy for wanting to look at genitals to determine a person's sex, is a new low in trying to break down our boundaries. The male tactic of shaming women in some way in order to break down our boundaries is nothing new, but this one of saying women are creepy because we want to inspect genitals - which we never said - is a new 'pond-scum' low. Genitals are one way of determining sex, but there are many more visual clues than that which we use to ascertain a person's sex. No, there are no rules about how we do that, so it's totally and entirely allowable for it to be up to our senses to determine. That's what we will continue to use, even if we get it wrong on rare occasions, which don't disprove the 99% of the time we get it right. So, suck it up you TRAs and MRAs - or just stay the feck out of women's spaces. That's what decent men do, whether they're in a dress or not. Only those who have messed up minds think otherwise.
For some reason, this is one of the most common tropes transgender advocates rely on to defend their idea of gender as a personal identity. But the problem with this line is obvious: Asserting that a group of people share a particular feature doesn’t reduce them to that feature. In essentially any other situation, this would be self-evident. After all, no one thinks it ‘reduces Black people to their melanin’ when we acknowledge that they have dark skin, or that it ‘reduces blind people to their eyes’ when we acknowledge they can’t see. Similarly, general statements like Women have uteruses or Men have penises don’t “reduce” anyone to anything. All they do is acknowledge that uteruses are a shared characteristic of women and penises are a shared characteristic of men. Those who have a knee-jerk reaction to these sorts of acknowledgments may want to examine why it is that they see the mention of female body parts as uniquely “reductive,” and whether this might be a result of patriarchal socialization that sees association with women’s bodies as inherently dehumanizing."
Yes this is so obviously a schooled attack method designed to put you on the defensive because who wants to be framed as someone advocating the inspection of people's genitals, however ridiculous the notion might be. Just like the old "when did you stop beating your wife?" gaslighting technique.
Obviously this Aaron Rabinowitz fellow who bills himself as a sceptic in debate with another sceptic, is no true sceptic at all. We need to be sceptical about that. He's a pure sophist, no doubt protecting his job and reputation by refusing the need to be sceptical about something which is in desperate need of a healthy dose of scepticism. Andy Lewis is the only sceptic in this meeting of sceptics.
The answer to his question is of course that there is no "proper criteria for challenging someone" (whom you suspect to be the wrong sex to be in a single sex space) other than the gut feeling that a certain person isn't what he (behaviourally) claims to be. Exceptionally - it is true - this may involve casting suspicion on someone who actually is the right sex, but this will rarely happen, mostly gut feelings are reliable enough. Not asking is tacit acceptance of a situation you feel to be wrong, and asking will of course give the person the opportunity to lie or play offended and refuse to reply, but in either case you have called their bluff and signalled that you do not accept the situation. That's what's important, because the approach of simply and brazenly taking what you want without asking is a long term strategy aimed at silencing opposition to effect normalisation.
Jane Clare Jones has also produced a brilliant list of rotten gender arguments.
I should clarify that I do know that shaming isn't specifically a male tactic, but just one that can be used by males when trying to break down women's boundaries. In this particular instance, handmaidens are using it, too, on behalf of males. It's a mystery why some women participate in their own oppression, eh?
Exactly. So much of this is about power play, tactics or dominance. And the signalling of that. Who often has dominance in our societies? Shaming is a way to gain power over someone, and girls and women do this when in single-sex group hierarchies in similar ways as men do. When we're all living in a soup of trying to know which social rules we're supposed to abide by and which shifting sands of acceptance seem enforced by people who somehow have taken or been given that power over us.
All the disingenuous TRA 'but why, you say how could we possibly know a man is a man without ripping his pants off' needs a very hard Paddington stare and time on the naughty step. Our bodies and brains are wired and evolved to know it. It's attempting to add doubt, confusion and dress that up as 'spectrums' and 'nuance' where there is none. They're using their own gender identity stereotyped signalling nonsense to refute reality. But women wear trousers, how was this allowed to happen? How did societies not fall over in a faint of confusion? Do we think they, or we, were men? No. It took a while, but no. I'd better go paint my nails just to reinforce the fact and to 'signal' I'm a woman ;-)
I think StillTish is an amazing, amazing woman and will be glad to donate.
And Baroness Nicholson has been a great support to me - endlessly curious and willing to accept all the bumf I have sent to her. She has got things moving in the Lords and I have no doubt is working away amongst MPs to try and build cross-party solidarity. Always so damned decent in the way she speaks to people. Don't swear though!
She is epic. I think it’s atrocious how she has been treated by some people on twitter. Her life experience is extraordinary. I remember looking her up on Wikipedia and being blown away by her history of activism for women and the underprivileged internationally.
That 17 letter exchange with Aaron (as in "What is a woman, Aaron?") is mind-blowing; a sceptic/philosopher gets offended at being asked to define biological reality. He gets evasive, defensive, does a tremendous amount of bull-shitting, gets passive-aggressive, gets openly patronising - anything but give the honest answer to a question on biological reality.
It's as if scientific consensus is the new blasphemy. There's a 'Life Of Brian'-style film to be made about all this (if anyone would dare to make it), although the reaction from the "true believers" would be way more OTT than the one the original film got.
Bloody hell that line from Aaron about it being an unsupported claim that people can reliably tell a persons sex in non-laboratory conditions is so bizarre it comes close to making me ashamed to be human. How has the human race managed to propagate this far without pretty damn reliable methods to discern sex at a glance. Don't we already have facial recognition software that can discern sex? What kind of skeptic is this guy? Is he the PoMo kind who believes there's no such thing as objective truth even as he types words into a computer that only works because of our collective human grasp of reality? If human's weren't good at discerning sex at a glance why do so many trans people undergo surgeries and hormone therapies to help them pass as the sex they aren't! If humans couldn't discern sex without examining peoples genitals first we'd either have a substantially more carefully sex segregated society or we'd have a society where showing your genitals of in public would be the norm and people who didn't would be the shifty ones with something to hide...
Oh Marilyn! HAHAAH, too good! Also re Noom: Diet culture is as toxic as gender ideology. No surprises their in bed together... both are a total sham! Btw, again, huge thanks for all your efforts and compassion for women, Graham. Truly ever grateful.
Reclamation of the word "slut", renunciation of kink-shaming, normalization of bdsm (I just cannot capitalize this term!), prostitution legitimized as "sex work" — what the hell has happened to real feminism? This is all handmaiden speak.
I hate that because one very, very small population of women are fine with a word that somehow means that professional healthcare organizations will adopt it. Do they not consider the 98% who would be hurt by that word being used flippantly? Are minors going to hear it being used or have it used against them? Will they be expected to ignore their feelings and to accept its use?
If you are into using that word, fine! But we can’t pretend that it’s not a big deal to a lot of us or that we should welcome it’s use if we don’t like it.
Regarding the young woman who died of cervical cancer, do women on here generally think they get good care from the NHS? Women in the U.S. get terrible care generally; they are dismissed, gaslighted, drugged, ignored. And I shouldn't say just women, but a goodly number of men as well. When my husband's blood pressure was 90/50, the physician's assistant acted like it was a good thing. No, he was suffering from adrenal issues.
Women on the NHS often do not get good service - like the US, they are dismissed, gaslighted, drugged and ignored. It has happened to me (and nearly killed me), it's happened to my sisters, it's happened to my mum and to some friends. And lord help you if you're overweight too!
I heard that only a few years ago, the carts selling newspapers, crisps, and candies were removed from the gastric bypass surgery units. I was watching a few episodes of an obesity intervention program from the UK and the head doctor of the specialist unit had a morbidly obese male patient that had been an inpatient for nearly a week, and hadn’t lost any weight. Surprise, surprise! The patient was purchasing crisps and candies from the newspaper vendor! I thought to myself, Lordy! They have a single-payer NHS, and yet there’s a shared brokenness common to both of our countries. The profit motive in capitalism is *so strong,* it’s getting in the way of our collective health!
This would be funny if it wasn't so tragic: I read a woman writing about her husband having walking pneumonia. He didn't get any treatment but was told to exercise -- he had a job where he walked about 7 miles a day -- and lose weight. Another woman wrote of having a broken leg and getting no treatment, just being told to lose weight.
My stupid M.D. sister is obsessed with weight. I was given a chronic infection by a surgeon (still have it after 20 years!) and according to my cretinous sister it's due to my being overweight. Not one surgeon I have seen since agrees with her, they all recognize it's due to infected hernia mesh. And thank god I saw one teaching surgeon and one infection control doctor who warned me about having any "reparative" surgeries. They had zero financial interest, which is why I think they gave me good advice.
“They had zero financial interest, which is why I think they gave me good advice.” BINGO! That’s why the bulk of the routine medical treatment in the U.S.A. post WWII has actually been unscientific. We have vested financial interests (corporations) telling us that the “treatments” they prescribe are informed/discovered by “science,” when it’s just controlled capitalism. We don’t have a competitive medical marketplace. Wonder why (with the internet and increased electronic communications) so many people are reversing their “incurable” conditions and putting “medications” (synthetic drugs) in the garbage? Because people who want themselves and others to be well are sharing information freely, with zero (or next to zero) financial interest involved. Keep up the struggle for reality, folks! We will prevail because the facts are on our side!
And this is why doctors hate the internet! I met a woman at the science museum in Portland whose daughter had been struggling for years with what they diagnosed as asthma, then mom started researching on the internet, found out what was wrong with her daughter, and enraged the doctor with her research.
I was at first incensed when I reversed some iatrogenic conditions I had. I think that’s why the obvious authoritarian moves are being made. Again, keep it up folks. We who are pro-reality will win this struggle if we refuse to submit to unreality!
I'm so sorry Susan. That's awful. I'm right with you. My mother was refused surgery for her knees for being overweight. They told her to join a gym - she was in her 60's in a wheel chair. My own issues, they blamed on weight gain and told me to join Weight Watchers when I was actually riddled with large fibroid tumours that were interferring with my life. They were dismissed as weight issues and women's problems. Eventually I nearly died from two pulmonary embolisms becuase of the lack of healthcare I received. Only afterwards did things move to address the tumours and I had no choice but to have a hysterectomy. Even then, I wnet under believing they were going to take everything but my ovaries if they were healthy and they left the Cervix. What right was it of theirs to decide that? UK doctors don't have profit as an interest, but they do have targets to meet and budgets to keep to.
You know the best thing I ever did about my weight? I stopped dieting! Before I was treated for hypothyroidism which nearly killed me, the only way I could lose weight was by starving myself and working outdoors 5 to 6 hours a day. Then of course your body protests and it all comes back.
Just to let you know PEs can be totally prevented by taking Vitamin E. I was shocked that Serena Williams's nutritionist did not know this (she had a serious PE), but just as people dismiss Hannah Arendt and Erich Fromm, they dismiss Adele Davis who did superlative work on nutrition, her being a biochemist and not a dietician.
Paul Campos's book The Obesity Myth is very good; he spoke to some very large people who also felt they would never have gotten that large without dieting.
When I read that article it really stuck out to me how the doctor was so flippant about saying that an examination would have no benefit. One 5 minute exam would have made the difference.
Doctors take the time to exam a 7 year old for gender dysmorphia but a grown woman couldn’t get the time of day from her doctor. It doesn’t make sense, like so many things surrounding the disregard of women's issues.
I’ve only had one doctor who I felt really listened to my questions and concerns and was proactive instead of reactive to my health. Unfortunately his practice was closed because of covid.
What I care about is having a practitioner who realizes I am intelligent and know what I am doing regarding my own health. I had a not-very-bright nurse practitioner (since retired), but he respected my knowledge and prescribed my natural desiccated thyroid even though that went against standard medical practice. His boss, a female M.D., called me up once (never met her, never saw her) and screamed at me that I was going to have a heart attack. That was many years ago and still no heart attack.
I have had consistently good service from my multi-doctor GP (malea and females) and from my local hospital. I'm in London and I think that's a factor. I am very lucky
And one can get much better care in the U.S. if one is not on the east coast where the medical schools such as Harvard, Tufts, etc, dominate. They are so out-of-date it's shocking.
If you find a doctor someone is willing to recommend -- at least in the northeastern U.S. -- the practice will be full. If a doctor is taking new patients you have to be wary.
This is part of what she writes at the start of the report in her letter of introduction:
...'We met and listened to over 700 people, mostly women, often accompanied by their partners, other family members and sometimes their children. We are indebted to all of them. Their dignity and courage in telling us intimate and harrowing details of their damaged lives has made a great and lasting impression on us. The patient groups, some of whom have campaigned for decades, have been invaluable to us; well informed, knowledgeable, and research based. They never failed to ensure we learnt from them and were up to date with emerging developments. They are outstanding communicators and expert in the subject matter.
We have found that the healthcare system – in which I include the NHS, private providers, the regulators and professional bodies, pharmaceutical and device manufacturers, and policymakers – is disjointed, siloed, unresponsive and defensive. It does not adequately recognise that patients are its raison d’etre. It has failed to listen to their concerns and when, belatedly, it has decided to act it has too often moved glacially. Indeed, over these two years we have found ourselves in the position of recommending, encouraging and urging the system to take action that should have been taken long ago'...
...'The system is not good enough at spotting trends in practice and outcomes that give rise to safety concerns. Listening to patients is pivotal to that. This is why one of our principal recommendations is the appointment of an independent Patient Safety Commissioner, a person of standing who sits outside the healthcare system, accountable to Parliament through the Health and Social Care Select Committee. The Commissioner would be the patients’ port of call, listener and advocate, who holds the system to account, monitors trends, encourages and requires the system to act. This person would be the golden thread, tying the disjointed system together in the interests of those who matter most'...
These are the plethora of women's (and men's) voices that have been pushed out and 'overlooked'. Perhaps if only a tiny percentage of the attention and funding Stonewall and translobbydiversity groups have been given over years had gone here. The women's health and patient groups are astonishing in their dedication and how they've been so sidelined.
The UK govt are still 'working on' the recommendation she highlights here. They're probably still working out how to focus this attention on women and girls without being accused of 'marginalising' men, or men who believe they are women and those who are still loudly demanding all focus, and always, be on them instead.
I hope they also have clear recommendations on the growth of young girls (and boys) taking hormones, having surgery and care for their (gender) dysphorias.
In Texas the state is suing the pharmaceutical company that makes the puberty drugs. The drug was approved and tested only to treat children that were diagnosed with a specific disorder that resulted in early puberty. It wasn’t not tested, nor had clinical studies for any other applications. It’s insane people would allow their children to be given a life altering drug that isn’t scientifically proven or vetted. Wild.
Disjointed, siloed, unresponsive and defensive. That describes doctors to a T. There is so much evidence regarding hypothyroidism, breast disease, Vitamin C (Linus Pauling who did so much work on it was mocked by his profession), etc, and it is all ignored because as Lynne Farrow put it, "medicine" is based on consensus not evidence. And what happens when you have a roomful of morons reaching a consensus?
I honestly think that Trump missed an opportunity....on his last day as President he should have come out and said he now identifies as a women which would have made Him the first Female President of American,jesus it would have made American great again.
I’ve just had a look at Marilyn’s Twitter feed and followed. As for Nimko Ali, I am a gender critical female who abhors violence against women and children. I’m sorry for what she went through and it’s great that she’s campaigning against it…..but there are reasons to dislike her. Breaking lockdown rules, her support for a corrupt government, her relationship with Carrie Antoinette, her appointment as a government advisor without any kind of advertising or recruitment process. It’s a conflict of interest. She was able to spend Christmas with and break lockdown rules with the Johnsons, while the rest of the country had to be apart from loved ones.
Boy George v Marilyn … in the day I remember George was jealous of Marilyn's looks! Both seriously you are now well into middle age, men cannot become women ( but hey go Marilyn).
What the fuck is George O'Dowd talking about? Transwomen have "respect for the goddess energy"? So it isn't so much that women actually exist as a physical reality, there is a pool of 'goddess energy' that anyone who thinks it should be theirs can dip into whenever they want, and do what they want with it. And he has the nerve to talk in terms of respect. What a clueless arsehole.
I remember in 2020 commenting on twitter and a man sent me a picture of his penis in a comment as a way to prove he was a woman . It was fine with the TRAs and they also kept saying all their threats of violence were justified.
Now they are taking over woman’s sports. As a former swimmer, this is just so awful. We would practice with the boys, which was absolutely fine. But even a mediocre boy could win against our top girl. Our top girls won the State Championship but some guy who wouldn’t even be in the top 20 for boys could win easily against them.
I also played Field Hockey. It was epic to have a full sport that we didn’t have to share with any guys. We could be ourselves and really thrive as teen girls. The boys who played Football(American) had a similar experience. They had their space for boy bonding and growth. It was ideal for both groups. It’s nice for boys and girls to have an protected opportunity to experience sex based competition. It’s fair and you can actually challenge each other and the results are earned and not taken.
Dear Boy George. Why do you think you can speak for women and what we find a threat? Also critical thinking is NOT just agreeing with your opinion. It's taking that, along with a truck load of other information from reputable sources and coming to a conclusion which may or may not agree with you.
This attempted shaming of women by implying, and outright saying, we're creepy for wanting to look at genitals to determine a person's sex, is a new low in trying to break down our boundaries. The male tactic of shaming women in some way in order to break down our boundaries is nothing new, but this one of saying women are creepy because we want to inspect genitals - which we never said - is a new 'pond-scum' low. Genitals are one way of determining sex, but there are many more visual clues than that which we use to ascertain a person's sex. No, there are no rules about how we do that, so it's totally and entirely allowable for it to be up to our senses to determine. That's what we will continue to use, even if we get it wrong on rare occasions, which don't disprove the 99% of the time we get it right. So, suck it up you TRAs and MRAs - or just stay the feck out of women's spaces. That's what decent men do, whether they're in a dress or not. Only those who have messed up minds think otherwise.
WOLF has a great new resource on their website: -"Bad Gender Arguments"..
here's one "
“Sex-based definitions of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ reduce people to their genitals or reproductive organs.”
Dec 22, 2021
Argument Submitted by: GenderArguments.com
For some reason, this is one of the most common tropes transgender advocates rely on to defend their idea of gender as a personal identity. But the problem with this line is obvious: Asserting that a group of people share a particular feature doesn’t reduce them to that feature. In essentially any other situation, this would be self-evident. After all, no one thinks it ‘reduces Black people to their melanin’ when we acknowledge that they have dark skin, or that it ‘reduces blind people to their eyes’ when we acknowledge they can’t see. Similarly, general statements like Women have uteruses or Men have penises don’t “reduce” anyone to anything. All they do is acknowledge that uteruses are a shared characteristic of women and penises are a shared characteristic of men. Those who have a knee-jerk reaction to these sorts of acknowledgments may want to examine why it is that they see the mention of female body parts as uniquely “reductive,” and whether this might be a result of patriarchal socialization that sees association with women’s bodies as inherently dehumanizing."
Thanks! That’s a good one to have in the ammunition box.
Yes this is so obviously a schooled attack method designed to put you on the defensive because who wants to be framed as someone advocating the inspection of people's genitals, however ridiculous the notion might be. Just like the old "when did you stop beating your wife?" gaslighting technique.
Obviously this Aaron Rabinowitz fellow who bills himself as a sceptic in debate with another sceptic, is no true sceptic at all. We need to be sceptical about that. He's a pure sophist, no doubt protecting his job and reputation by refusing the need to be sceptical about something which is in desperate need of a healthy dose of scepticism. Andy Lewis is the only sceptic in this meeting of sceptics.
The answer to his question is of course that there is no "proper criteria for challenging someone" (whom you suspect to be the wrong sex to be in a single sex space) other than the gut feeling that a certain person isn't what he (behaviourally) claims to be. Exceptionally - it is true - this may involve casting suspicion on someone who actually is the right sex, but this will rarely happen, mostly gut feelings are reliable enough. Not asking is tacit acceptance of a situation you feel to be wrong, and asking will of course give the person the opportunity to lie or play offended and refuse to reply, but in either case you have called their bluff and signalled that you do not accept the situation. That's what's important, because the approach of simply and brazenly taking what you want without asking is a long term strategy aimed at silencing opposition to effect normalisation.
Jane Clare Jones has also produced a brilliant list of rotten gender arguments.
https://janeclarejones.com/2019/11/25/the-tra-trope-almanac/
I should clarify that I do know that shaming isn't specifically a male tactic, but just one that can be used by males when trying to break down women's boundaries. In this particular instance, handmaidens are using it, too, on behalf of males. It's a mystery why some women participate in their own oppression, eh?
Exactly. So much of this is about power play, tactics or dominance. And the signalling of that. Who often has dominance in our societies? Shaming is a way to gain power over someone, and girls and women do this when in single-sex group hierarchies in similar ways as men do. When we're all living in a soup of trying to know which social rules we're supposed to abide by and which shifting sands of acceptance seem enforced by people who somehow have taken or been given that power over us.
All the disingenuous TRA 'but why, you say how could we possibly know a man is a man without ripping his pants off' needs a very hard Paddington stare and time on the naughty step. Our bodies and brains are wired and evolved to know it. It's attempting to add doubt, confusion and dress that up as 'spectrums' and 'nuance' where there is none. They're using their own gender identity stereotyped signalling nonsense to refute reality. But women wear trousers, how was this allowed to happen? How did societies not fall over in a faint of confusion? Do we think they, or we, were men? No. It took a while, but no. I'd better go paint my nails just to reinforce the fact and to 'signal' I'm a woman ;-)
I think StillTish is an amazing, amazing woman and will be glad to donate.
And Baroness Nicholson has been a great support to me - endlessly curious and willing to accept all the bumf I have sent to her. She has got things moving in the Lords and I have no doubt is working away amongst MPs to try and build cross-party solidarity. Always so damned decent in the way she speaks to people. Don't swear though!
She is epic. I think it’s atrocious how she has been treated by some people on twitter. Her life experience is extraordinary. I remember looking her up on Wikipedia and being blown away by her history of activism for women and the underprivileged internationally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Nicholson,_Baroness_Nicholson_of_Winterbourne
That 17 letter exchange with Aaron (as in "What is a woman, Aaron?") is mind-blowing; a sceptic/philosopher gets offended at being asked to define biological reality. He gets evasive, defensive, does a tremendous amount of bull-shitting, gets passive-aggressive, gets openly patronising - anything but give the honest answer to a question on biological reality.
It's as if scientific consensus is the new blasphemy. There's a 'Life Of Brian'-style film to be made about all this (if anyone would dare to make it), although the reaction from the "true believers" would be way more OTT than the one the original film got.
I can see it now: "Life of Brianna".
"She's not the Messiah; she's a very naughty boy"
Ha ha! Perfect tagline!
Bloody hell that line from Aaron about it being an unsupported claim that people can reliably tell a persons sex in non-laboratory conditions is so bizarre it comes close to making me ashamed to be human. How has the human race managed to propagate this far without pretty damn reliable methods to discern sex at a glance. Don't we already have facial recognition software that can discern sex? What kind of skeptic is this guy? Is he the PoMo kind who believes there's no such thing as objective truth even as he types words into a computer that only works because of our collective human grasp of reality? If human's weren't good at discerning sex at a glance why do so many trans people undergo surgeries and hormone therapies to help them pass as the sex they aren't! If humans couldn't discern sex without examining peoples genitals first we'd either have a substantially more carefully sex segregated society or we'd have a society where showing your genitals of in public would be the norm and people who didn't would be the shifty ones with something to hide...
Oh Marilyn! HAHAAH, too good! Also re Noom: Diet culture is as toxic as gender ideology. No surprises their in bed together... both are a total sham! Btw, again, huge thanks for all your efforts and compassion for women, Graham. Truly ever grateful.
Reclamation of the word "slut", renunciation of kink-shaming, normalization of bdsm (I just cannot capitalize this term!), prostitution legitimized as "sex work" — what the hell has happened to real feminism? This is all handmaiden speak.
I hate that because one very, very small population of women are fine with a word that somehow means that professional healthcare organizations will adopt it. Do they not consider the 98% who would be hurt by that word being used flippantly? Are minors going to hear it being used or have it used against them? Will they be expected to ignore their feelings and to accept its use?
If you are into using that word, fine! But we can’t pretend that it’s not a big deal to a lot of us or that we should welcome it’s use if we don’t like it.
Regarding the young woman who died of cervical cancer, do women on here generally think they get good care from the NHS? Women in the U.S. get terrible care generally; they are dismissed, gaslighted, drugged, ignored. And I shouldn't say just women, but a goodly number of men as well. When my husband's blood pressure was 90/50, the physician's assistant acted like it was a good thing. No, he was suffering from adrenal issues.
Women on the NHS often do not get good service - like the US, they are dismissed, gaslighted, drugged and ignored. It has happened to me (and nearly killed me), it's happened to my sisters, it's happened to my mum and to some friends. And lord help you if you're overweight too!
I heard that only a few years ago, the carts selling newspapers, crisps, and candies were removed from the gastric bypass surgery units. I was watching a few episodes of an obesity intervention program from the UK and the head doctor of the specialist unit had a morbidly obese male patient that had been an inpatient for nearly a week, and hadn’t lost any weight. Surprise, surprise! The patient was purchasing crisps and candies from the newspaper vendor! I thought to myself, Lordy! They have a single-payer NHS, and yet there’s a shared brokenness common to both of our countries. The profit motive in capitalism is *so strong,* it’s getting in the way of our collective health!
This would be funny if it wasn't so tragic: I read a woman writing about her husband having walking pneumonia. He didn't get any treatment but was told to exercise -- he had a job where he walked about 7 miles a day -- and lose weight. Another woman wrote of having a broken leg and getting no treatment, just being told to lose weight.
My stupid M.D. sister is obsessed with weight. I was given a chronic infection by a surgeon (still have it after 20 years!) and according to my cretinous sister it's due to my being overweight. Not one surgeon I have seen since agrees with her, they all recognize it's due to infected hernia mesh. And thank god I saw one teaching surgeon and one infection control doctor who warned me about having any "reparative" surgeries. They had zero financial interest, which is why I think they gave me good advice.
“They had zero financial interest, which is why I think they gave me good advice.” BINGO! That’s why the bulk of the routine medical treatment in the U.S.A. post WWII has actually been unscientific. We have vested financial interests (corporations) telling us that the “treatments” they prescribe are informed/discovered by “science,” when it’s just controlled capitalism. We don’t have a competitive medical marketplace. Wonder why (with the internet and increased electronic communications) so many people are reversing their “incurable” conditions and putting “medications” (synthetic drugs) in the garbage? Because people who want themselves and others to be well are sharing information freely, with zero (or next to zero) financial interest involved. Keep up the struggle for reality, folks! We will prevail because the facts are on our side!
And this is why doctors hate the internet! I met a woman at the science museum in Portland whose daughter had been struggling for years with what they diagnosed as asthma, then mom started researching on the internet, found out what was wrong with her daughter, and enraged the doctor with her research.
I was at first incensed when I reversed some iatrogenic conditions I had. I think that’s why the obvious authoritarian moves are being made. Again, keep it up folks. We who are pro-reality will win this struggle if we refuse to submit to unreality!
I'm so sorry Susan. That's awful. I'm right with you. My mother was refused surgery for her knees for being overweight. They told her to join a gym - she was in her 60's in a wheel chair. My own issues, they blamed on weight gain and told me to join Weight Watchers when I was actually riddled with large fibroid tumours that were interferring with my life. They were dismissed as weight issues and women's problems. Eventually I nearly died from two pulmonary embolisms becuase of the lack of healthcare I received. Only afterwards did things move to address the tumours and I had no choice but to have a hysterectomy. Even then, I wnet under believing they were going to take everything but my ovaries if they were healthy and they left the Cervix. What right was it of theirs to decide that? UK doctors don't have profit as an interest, but they do have targets to meet and budgets to keep to.
You know the best thing I ever did about my weight? I stopped dieting! Before I was treated for hypothyroidism which nearly killed me, the only way I could lose weight was by starving myself and working outdoors 5 to 6 hours a day. Then of course your body protests and it all comes back.
Just to let you know PEs can be totally prevented by taking Vitamin E. I was shocked that Serena Williams's nutritionist did not know this (she had a serious PE), but just as people dismiss Hannah Arendt and Erich Fromm, they dismiss Adele Davis who did superlative work on nutrition, her being a biochemist and not a dietician.
Paul Campos's book The Obesity Myth is very good; he spoke to some very large people who also felt they would never have gotten that large without dieting.
When I read that article it really stuck out to me how the doctor was so flippant about saying that an examination would have no benefit. One 5 minute exam would have made the difference.
Doctors take the time to exam a 7 year old for gender dysmorphia but a grown woman couldn’t get the time of day from her doctor. It doesn’t make sense, like so many things surrounding the disregard of women's issues.
I’ve only had one doctor who I felt really listened to my questions and concerns and was proactive instead of reactive to my health. Unfortunately his practice was closed because of covid.
What I care about is having a practitioner who realizes I am intelligent and know what I am doing regarding my own health. I had a not-very-bright nurse practitioner (since retired), but he respected my knowledge and prescribed my natural desiccated thyroid even though that went against standard medical practice. His boss, a female M.D., called me up once (never met her, never saw her) and screamed at me that I was going to have a heart attack. That was many years ago and still no heart attack.
Have mixed feelings on this … some have really good service, others for whatever reason no!
I have had consistently good service from my multi-doctor GP (malea and females) and from my local hospital. I'm in London and I think that's a factor. I am very lucky
And one can get much better care in the U.S. if one is not on the east coast where the medical schools such as Harvard, Tufts, etc, dominate. They are so out-of-date it's shocking.
If you find a doctor someone is willing to recommend -- at least in the northeastern U.S. -- the practice will be full. If a doctor is taking new patients you have to be wary.
The report and pages for the Independent Medicines & Medical Devices Safety Review 2018 is worth having a look at: https://www.immdsreview.org.uk/Report.html
This is part of what she writes at the start of the report in her letter of introduction:
...'We met and listened to over 700 people, mostly women, often accompanied by their partners, other family members and sometimes their children. We are indebted to all of them. Their dignity and courage in telling us intimate and harrowing details of their damaged lives has made a great and lasting impression on us. The patient groups, some of whom have campaigned for decades, have been invaluable to us; well informed, knowledgeable, and research based. They never failed to ensure we learnt from them and were up to date with emerging developments. They are outstanding communicators and expert in the subject matter.
We have found that the healthcare system – in which I include the NHS, private providers, the regulators and professional bodies, pharmaceutical and device manufacturers, and policymakers – is disjointed, siloed, unresponsive and defensive. It does not adequately recognise that patients are its raison d’etre. It has failed to listen to their concerns and when, belatedly, it has decided to act it has too often moved glacially. Indeed, over these two years we have found ourselves in the position of recommending, encouraging and urging the system to take action that should have been taken long ago'...
...'The system is not good enough at spotting trends in practice and outcomes that give rise to safety concerns. Listening to patients is pivotal to that. This is why one of our principal recommendations is the appointment of an independent Patient Safety Commissioner, a person of standing who sits outside the healthcare system, accountable to Parliament through the Health and Social Care Select Committee. The Commissioner would be the patients’ port of call, listener and advocate, who holds the system to account, monitors trends, encourages and requires the system to act. This person would be the golden thread, tying the disjointed system together in the interests of those who matter most'...
Baroness Cumberlege
These are the plethora of women's (and men's) voices that have been pushed out and 'overlooked'. Perhaps if only a tiny percentage of the attention and funding Stonewall and translobbydiversity groups have been given over years had gone here. The women's health and patient groups are astonishing in their dedication and how they've been so sidelined.
The UK govt are still 'working on' the recommendation she highlights here. They're probably still working out how to focus this attention on women and girls without being accused of 'marginalising' men, or men who believe they are women and those who are still loudly demanding all focus, and always, be on them instead.
I hope they also have clear recommendations on the growth of young girls (and boys) taking hormones, having surgery and care for their (gender) dysphorias.
In Texas the state is suing the pharmaceutical company that makes the puberty drugs. The drug was approved and tested only to treat children that were diagnosed with a specific disorder that resulted in early puberty. It wasn’t not tested, nor had clinical studies for any other applications. It’s insane people would allow their children to be given a life altering drug that isn’t scientifically proven or vetted. Wild.
Disjointed, siloed, unresponsive and defensive. That describes doctors to a T. There is so much evidence regarding hypothyroidism, breast disease, Vitamin C (Linus Pauling who did so much work on it was mocked by his profession), etc, and it is all ignored because as Lynne Farrow put it, "medicine" is based on consensus not evidence. And what happens when you have a roomful of morons reaching a consensus?
I honestly think that Trump missed an opportunity....on his last day as President he should have come out and said he now identifies as a women which would have made Him the first Female President of American,jesus it would have made American great again.
I thought 'car agora' had a certain poetic elegance - I was really disappointed when I found it was a typo.
Oh! I liked the sound of it too, what was it meant to be?
I love it too, car agora = category.
aw damn! let's stick with 'car agora!!', much more fun!!
I’ve just had a look at Marilyn’s Twitter feed and followed. As for Nimko Ali, I am a gender critical female who abhors violence against women and children. I’m sorry for what she went through and it’s great that she’s campaigning against it…..but there are reasons to dislike her. Breaking lockdown rules, her support for a corrupt government, her relationship with Carrie Antoinette, her appointment as a government advisor without any kind of advertising or recruitment process. It’s a conflict of interest. She was able to spend Christmas with and break lockdown rules with the Johnsons, while the rest of the country had to be apart from loved ones.
Boy George v Marilyn … in the day I remember George was jealous of Marilyn's looks! Both seriously you are now well into middle age, men cannot become women ( but hey go Marilyn).
What the fuck is George O'Dowd talking about? Transwomen have "respect for the goddess energy"? So it isn't so much that women actually exist as a physical reality, there is a pool of 'goddess energy' that anyone who thinks it should be theirs can dip into whenever they want, and do what they want with it. And he has the nerve to talk in terms of respect. What a clueless arsehole.
Yeah. All that means I that transwomen have some fantasy about women that's based on Hollywood, Supermodels etc. All surface.
I remember in 2020 commenting on twitter and a man sent me a picture of his penis in a comment as a way to prove he was a woman . It was fine with the TRAs and they also kept saying all their threats of violence were justified.
Now they are taking over woman’s sports. As a former swimmer, this is just so awful. We would practice with the boys, which was absolutely fine. But even a mediocre boy could win against our top girl. Our top girls won the State Championship but some guy who wouldn’t even be in the top 20 for boys could win easily against them.
I also played Field Hockey. It was epic to have a full sport that we didn’t have to share with any guys. We could be ourselves and really thrive as teen girls. The boys who played Football(American) had a similar experience. They had their space for boy bonding and growth. It was ideal for both groups. It’s nice for boys and girls to have an protected opportunity to experience sex based competition. It’s fair and you can actually challenge each other and the results are earned and not taken.
@Substack needs a #Gettr option in its sharing options.
You just know a lot of the twisted fantasy-cervix fuckwits will be envious of Porsche’s very premature death.
Probably. Just like they say if they were sexually assaulted it would be affirming of their womanhood.
Dear Aaron. You can.
Dear Boy George. Why do you think you can speak for women and what we find a threat? Also critical thinking is NOT just agreeing with your opinion. It's taking that, along with a truck load of other information from reputable sources and coming to a conclusion which may or may not agree with you.
Not buying it Wes. Lots of info on Wes this Mumsnet thread:https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4447315-Wes-Streeting-on-trans-rights