A rather belated Open Thread for Personal Stuff. As always, no trolls, MRAs etc in these threads. Email me if someone starts acting obnoxious.
Categories
Open Thread for Personal Stuff, 12/16 Edition
We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
@Scildfreja
Happy Birthday!
@Brony
There is no contesting the need for two letters. The SoC (currently v7) is the standard used for trans* care. I do have a couple of thought on it though. First, I see several of the requirements, such as multiple letters required for bottom surgery and the RLE (real life experience) component as gatekeeping ass-covering bullshit; And the letter requirement for (breast) augmentation strikes me as completely farcical.
Second, what I find ‘interesting’ (read: sad, pathetic and depressing) is that the SoC is the immutable law/procedure bible for trans*-care except for when my (or most) province(s) wants to deny funding for various surgeries. The SoC says all trans-related surgeries should be considered medically necessary. My province (and most, if not all of them) prefers to disagree with that and defines everything other than bottom surgery (and top surgery for trans-men) as being completely unnecessary. In other words, unless you can afford at least some of the “optionals”, it’s perfectly fine if a trans-woman has facial hair/beard shadow, tiny breasts on a larger/wider more male typical torso and a noticeable ‘adams’ apple’ because none of those procedures are deemed necessary.
Sorry for the rant, that was a bit more than I really intended to say.
So, I made it through the whole day at work not hearing anyone defending the football player rapists at the U of M and the team who is rallying around them to get home and hear my dad do it. Gaaaahhh!!!!! He pulled out the whole “the DA decided not to prosecute” bullcrap and the “innocent until proven guilty” horseshit. I argued against all the points with the usual 3% of rapes end in conviction, false accusations are rare, cops don’t seriously investigate rape etc. but after the shit week I’ve had I was getting a little too emotional to do it properly. I told him I lost a lot of respect for him and said he’s engaging in rape apologia and everything. He claims he usually believes victims but wants to wait and see. Ugh. I eventually decided to put a pin on it. I emailed a link to the Yes Means Yes blog “Meet the Predators” entry and told him that I sent it, there are citations and I won’t discuss it any further until he reads it.
It’s so fucking frustrating that again and again men who identify as progressive and anti-misogyny let us down. They’re allies until it’s inconvenient but when being an ally means actually listening to women who know a lot on the subject or gods forbid turning against a favorite sports team, then they’re nowhere to be found.
@Scildfreja
Happy Birthday!
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.
@Jesalin
All my commiserations for dealing with that bullshit.
Yup. My state’s the same way. And if my aunt hadn’t decided to be a shithead about my credit rating, I’d be doing a lot better on a few of those fronts.
@WWTH
Fuck indeed.
@Scildfreja,
Thank you so much for your kind and inspiring (and understanding) words. Do you always give gifts to other people on your own birthday?
@Dali
Much sympathy to you! The only thing I’m managing is a little bit of electro, and that’s only possible due to slashing our grocery budget to the bone. It’s been over a year now and the top half of my face is getting close(ish) to clear, haven’t even started yet on anything below my chin. At this point anything other than electro is a pipe dream.
Thank you for all the happy birthdays, everyone! And yes, Karalora, I do try to 😉 No one really treats my birthday as anything special, so I treat myself a little bit, and I try to extend it to other people too, ’cause it’s one of the better ways to feel better.
Much love and sympathy to both Jesalin and Dali. I hope everything works out better than you expect.
@ Brony,
Late in, but add me to the list of those enthusiastically consenting to inclusion in analysis.
I try to tailor my participation according to what actually works to achieve my goal, and often forget that the zero-th law of goal reaching is goal identification.
@ Scildfreya, above paragraph is one reason why you are a role model to me. You always try to deal honestly with uncomfortable topics. You will always have to deal with admiration for that.
@ everybody else, my fingers are crossed for you.
@Scildfreja
Happy belated birthday! How the fuck did I miss that up above? I hope it was a good one.
@Jesalin
No apologies for the rant necessary.
1) If I was able to give you the opportunity to express something important I am glad.
2) I take writing as therapy so seriously that I have no problems pointing out that you have taken those things that you feel strongly about and objectified them in a social context. Now you can mentally make room for new things related to them that can help you.
I guess I was hoping that the system you must work within had a process for challenge. If so maybe there could be creative thinking here that could simplify that for you. Many minds planning an attack. What sort of places/people are able to provide you the letter?
I’m curious, would you feel comfortable giving me a link to the wording related to justifiability of the different parts of the process you mentioned? I’m interested in the differences.
@Croquembouche
Thank you. It’s useful to look at a trolls responses to different people as individual differences in strategy, tone and more can reveal interesting things. I won’t feel badly about anyone that does not say yes due to the potential for angry social predators looking for something to direct thier anger at.
Good news. My dad looked more into the football player story and now sides with me! I still wish he had listened to me instead of waiting for the newspaper to get around to finally printing the victim account I had already read, but I’ll take it.
@weirwoodtreehugger
I’m glad to hear that you have had some success with your father. Family conflicts over politics and society are among the hardest because they trigger the deeper feelings of threat to social bonds. I can’t be sure how the things I post affect my family on that specific a level. I’ve been hammering the posts my parents make that have to do with the issues discussed in places like this in equally indirect language so they can’t accuse me of being personal. It’s an approach that tends to have long term benefits. For example pointing out that they have no idea how to identify a social threat based on the issues they complain about. If they truly cared about people being sexually victimized in bathrooms they would be looking at the characteristics of predators, not prey. Bathrooms have been places of abuse for longer than society has been discussing trans people.
In my own family it is difficult to have these kinds of disagreements because we do the “lobbing bombs approach”. We make really general characterizations of sensitive things that we know other people will feel strongly about. We use very feelings based language and we shame one another indirectly (positive messages too). It’s a long term strategy and involves encouraging introspection.
@Scildfreja
A birthday?
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Belated Birthday Scildfreya, fellow December baby!
Nowhere else to put this and I have to at least get it out of my head.
TW for suicidal depression.
I live in a tiny rural community of less than 2,000 people in North Dakota. It is a good hour’s drive to get to a town of any significant size or resources.
Last night a man we all knew (because when you live here, you simply know everyone), a man whose young son plays football with my own young son, a man who had his own business and supported his wife’s efforts as a photographer, a man who recently celebrated the birth of his first grandchild, a man I had often talked to while our sons were playing sports, a man whose darling and loving mother I knew before her death.
Last night he killed himself.
I don’t know if it hits us harder out here, or if it just happens more often (it does happen more often) but I can’t help feeling so bad for his family, and bad for him – that he was in so much pain and none of us knew. Of course, people are very good at hiding their suicidal depression, it’s hard to find adequate help out here, it’s isolated particularly in the winter, and of course there is still an enormous stigma against mental illness particularly for men here in the more traditional rural red-state.
I just feel so sad for him, for his wife and especially for his son, and I am not looking forward to having to explain it to/discuss it with my own son. His school has only about 40 students per grade, this hits all of us hard.
Anyway, just wanted to put it down somewhere, it’s hard to talk about.
@dreemr,
Much love and hearts to you. It’s often that the thing we have to talk about is the one thing we can’t talk about. Winter’s hard in many ways, this is one. I hope that you, his family, and your community can all pull together on this, and maybe even start talking about the things that you have to talk about.
Thank you so much for your kind and compassionate thoughts, @Scildfreya.
Just so much collateral damage.
I wish he hadn’t felt so alone, but those of us who deal with depression and anxiety know how it can feel, how your depression tells you such cold and inhumane things.
So many never realize how many open hearts there really are for someone in pain.
@dreemr
Best wishes to you.
Thank you very much, @Ooglyboggles.
I always feel much better just getting the opportunity to express some of these things here.
Now I can concentrate on helping to lower the stigma in my community instead of just grieving and feeling bad. And maybe someone won’t feel as alone.