PickleMeThis

kiriamaya:

A trans woman is not “really a man”.

A trans woman is not a “guy in a dress”.

A trans woman is not “in drag” when she’s merely presenting as herself.

A trans woman is not a “trap”.

A trans woman is not a “deceiver”.

A trans woman is not a “privileged sexist appropriating womanhood”.

A trans woman is not an “ersatz woman”.

A trans woman is not any more a “constructed woman” than a cis woman is.

A trans woman is exactly what the fuck she says she is: a woman. Everything else is irrelevant, transmisogynist noise.

bittergrapes:

mooglets:

 

Cyproterone Acetate, better known as Androcur, is an anti-androgen medication taken by both male and female intersex individuals. A change in Australian health care policy, though, means that intersex people—those born with both male and female biological can only get Androcur by signing themselves onto a potential sex offenders’ list.  The same is true for female-indentified transsexuals, who take the drug to suppress male hormones.

The problem is that the government only approves the drug for two reasons:  for prostate cancer, and for registered sex offenders, since the androgen prohibitor reduces one’s sex drive.

According to the Australian affiliate of the OII (Organisation Internationale des Intersexués):

Some intersex individuals need anti-androgen medication. Because those medicines are not recognized treatments for the specific diagnosis the only path to that medication is to register the intersex person in question as a potential sex offender at the Therapeutic Goods Administration in Canberra. That register also contains the names of numerous transsexual individuals who can only gain access to anti-androgens because of this inappropriate medication protocol. This is an outrage against those who are different!!

In order to get the medication, the doctor must ask whether you’re willing to on the offenders’ registry, and those who say no might be denied the prescription.  Then, in order to get it, the doctor has to call the Therapeutic Goods Administration to see whether or not they approve.

The Dawn Chorus is a feminist Australian blog with some of the more technical info, if you’re interested.

From here

…WHAT. I have no way to respond to this without falling into coherency issues.

WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT?!

THIS IS FUCKED UP BEYOND MEASURE.

I hate everything. In addition to the oppressive cissexism here, I’m on a (v v similar but different type) anti-androgen, so O_o is my face right now.

 What. The Every Loving. FUCK.

craftastrophies:

mymilkspilt:

The link with poverty also is imbedded in the argument about deprivation. There is evidence that the closer a generation is to eating either a hunter-gatherer type diet, or to chronic food shortages, the more susceptible they may be to weight gain in an environment where processed food is abundant. This applies to, for example, Indigenous people. There is also evidence that dieting (or starving) during pregnancy increases the likelihood of offspring putting on lots of weight in a food abundant environment. Our bodies are smart. If they expect to be born into hungry times, they make conserving energy a major priority. It makes sense to me. Talking about this stuff can be kind of squicky though, because there are so many damn reasons why an individual might be fat and, well, do you need an explanation? But this is some of the stuff that irritates me about calories-in calories-out garbage: body weight and it’s relationship to generics and environment is incredibly complex and nuanced and individual and frequently not at all controllable. It’s also tied up with social and cultural factors and you can’t just pretend like any of this happens in a vacuum or like the ‘war on obesity’ is some kind of neutral conflict which impacts equally on all types of people. It clearly is not neutral and it clearly falls more heavily upon some folks, like women.

picklemethis:

Wut 4 commented:

Hmm. How does this work with the correlation of obesity and poverty, though?  I haven’t got a specific counterexample yet, still digesting… I mean, for me growing up there were plenty of times with limited food and my mom telling us kids to stop eating and leave second helpings for my dad, since he was the family’s sole income and worked a demanding physical job.

And how about fat men?  I assume the rate of obesity in men is increasing similarly to that of women (I have no numbers to back that conjecture up).  What explains them getting fatter, since men were not subject to food withholding and rationing in this theory?

I guess I don’t think about the “obesity epidemic” as being a peculiarly women’s problem, though women seem to bear the brunt of judgement more often.

Some interesting points there. I will say I was soley focusing on women. Men’s reasons for changing size will intersect and also be slightly different - historic exclusion from the kitchen (fear of emasculation), changing energy expenditures (types of jobs being done are different between now and half a century ago), changing caloric counts in food.

Regarding poverty and obesity, I will say there are some harmful stereotypes around poverty+obesity which are used to other and marginalize. Though I’m not an expert on nutrition/science/economics, my guess is that some (note I said some) poor people deal with size issues because they only have access to and time for cheap, high calorie food. This is because of the price and accessability of fresh produce (food deserts, storage, transporting that food to their home), and they are often working long hours so they do not have the time or energy for fussy food preparation. There may also be the intersection of disability (limiting their movement to/from shops, around a kitchen etc). There will also be men and women of particular races historically denied food for various reasons of their marginalization.

What you said about your experience growing up pretty much reiterates what I say about food denial. I know that one of the ways I eat now is informed by the way males and older people were given more than me as a child, or I was denied certain foods because they were “bad” for me. I finish my plate and make a point of enjoying every bite in front of people who may think about policing it (“that’s really piggy eating that huge plate!” “women have smaller stomachs, you don’t need all that”). Maybe when people, even poor people, have more control over what they eat as adults they try to make up for what they were denied as children or in policed situations.

To be clear I don’t think there’s an obesity epidemic, for the simple reason people are not thinking about these historic factors behind food denial. I DO think of obesity epidemic PANIC as being a particular female problem for the reason you state - judgment. Yes, men do get shamed, but the focus on women’s bodies and the space (they’re not supposed to) take up in public, advertising, entertainment, sexuality, their fuckability…it’s all about the historic attractiveness of woman’s body.

This made me think of this:

Of course, there’s a long history of associating masculinity with meat, with poor families often reserving meat and other foods considered particularly nutritious for men, since they were believed to need it most in order to perform hard physical labor. Writing about the British working class during the late 1800s in his book Sweetness and Power, Sidney Mintz argues, “…wives and children were systematically undernourished because of a culturally conventionalized stress upon adequate food for the ‘breadwinner’” (p. 130). Men’s privileged access to meat actually spurred the consumption of sugar: “…while the laboring husband got the meat, the wife and children got the sucrose…” (p. 145). Sugar provided a relatively cheap source of calories for women and children’s diets to make up for the fact that they got less of other foods. Of course men also ate sugar, but historical evidence indicates that their diets were made up of more protein and less sugar compared to women and children. Sugar provided an energy boost and source of calories for women and children, but at the cost of providing little nutritional value.

From ‘For men only’ at Sociological images

My goodness, all those stereotypes about women being a “sweet tooth”, and how making dainty cakes/desserts/sweets seem like such a feminine “job”!

Wut 4 commented:

Hmm. How does this work with the correlation of obesity and poverty, though?  I haven’t got a specific counterexample yet, still digesting… I mean, for me growing up there were plenty of times with limited food and my mom telling us kids to stop eating and leave second helpings for my dad, since he was the family’s sole income and worked a demanding physical job.

And how about fat men?  I assume the rate of obesity in men is increasing similarly to that of women (I have no numbers to back that conjecture up).  What explains them getting fatter, since men were not subject to food withholding and rationing in this theory?

I guess I don’t think about the “obesity epidemic” as being a peculiarly women’s problem, though women seem to bear the brunt of judgement more often.

Some interesting points there. I will say I was soley focusing on women. Men’s reasons for changing size will intersect and also be slightly different - historic exclusion from the kitchen (fear of emasculation), changing energy expenditures (types of jobs being done are different between now and half a century ago), changing caloric counts in food.

Regarding poverty and obesity, I will say there are some harmful stereotypes around poverty+obesity which are used to other and marginalize. Though I’m not an expert on nutrition/science/economics, my guess is that some (note I said some) poor people deal with size issues because they only have access to and time for cheap, high calorie food. This is because of the price and accessability of fresh produce (food deserts, storage, transporting that food to their home), and they are often working long hours so they do not have the time or energy for fussy food preparation. There may also be the intersection of disability (limiting their movement to/from shops, around a kitchen etc). There will also be men and women of particular races historically denied food for various reasons of their marginalization.

What you said about your experience growing up pretty much reiterates what I say about food denial. I know that one of the ways I eat now is informed by the way males and older people were given more than me as a child, or I was denied certain foods because they were “bad” for me. I finish my plate and make a point of enjoying every bite in front of people who may think about policing it (“that’s really piggy eating that huge plate!” “women have smaller stomachs, you don’t need all that”). Maybe when people, even poor people, have more control over what they eat as adults they try to make up for what they were denied as children or in policed situations.

To be clear I don’t think there’s an obesity epidemic, for the simple reason people are not thinking about these historic factors behind food denial. I DO think of obesity epidemic PANIC as being a particular female problem for the reason you state - judgment. Yes, men do get shamed, but the focus on women’s bodies and the space (they’re not supposed to) take up in public, advertising, entertainment, sexuality, their fuckability…it’s all about the historic attractiveness of woman’s body.

Key met with visiting charge d’affaire Glyn Davies and told him National could not adopt conservative policies because a “socialist streak” runs through all New Zealanders, the cable said.

You say that like you think it’s a bad thing, Mr Key. Glad to know the will of the people still makes itself heard, despite how much it must irk you.