#ideology eschewed

[loving-n0t-heyting]

I keep going back and forth on whether this is precise enough to be more than insight porn

Theres a common line of thought about how a) an implicit threat of violence (note the very vague term!) undergirds basically all social interaction and ii) therefore, personally eschewing violence and regarding it with distaste is morally hazardous bc it just lets you mask yr reliance on violence to yrself and others. How exactly this sentiment is articulated will differ depending on the broader worldview of the speaker, but the sentiment itself still finds expression across ideologies and cultures

I think, more and more, that this is just a bunch of bullshit, and is more than any deep insight into the truth of the world a reflection of

Locating an excuse to vent yr most sadistic impulses with a clean conscience

Grooming a mark into moral injury as a tactic for obtaining their loyalty

A visceral distaste for weakness and peacefulness

Part of it is that, in order to make claim (a) remotely plausible, you have to in effect frame passive existence as a (distally) violent act; but if you start taking up and tolerating (proximal) violence in yr own personal life you are not going to stop existing, so you are just adding proximal violence to the already established distal violence, which is more violence than otherwise. Part of it is that (contrary to (ii)) the scariest ppl i meet, who are most willing to rely on threats of socially sanctioned violence by others to enforce their wishes, are not very averse to violence in their immediate vicinity at all. (This is perhaps clearest in how they often treat insects and other small animals in their surrounding environment, and from internal propaganda by and for various brutal dictatorships)

The obvious intuition that (a) and (ii) are trying to counterintuitively undermine is that personal tenderness, kindliness, and squeamishness about irl violence are usually and for the most part indicators of a benevolent moral character. I think a more parsimonious and otherwise plausible explanation for this obvious intuition than a sophisticated mechanism for whitewashing ones inescapable complicity in slaughter and threats of force is that this connection is constantly borne out in our daily experience of the world. Its the reason we all react suspiciously towards ppl who are permanently willing to escalate disagreements into physical confrontation

In conclusion, firearm culture bad

[theblissfulstars]

The Hoodoo That You Do

Hoodoo first and foremost is a closed practice.

Within a western audience, the concept of a closed practice can be rather challenging for many, as it runs entirely contrary to the notions we are brought up believing surrounding religion in the West.

Socio-culturally, religion in the West has evolved under the mantle of Christendom. This evangelizing religion characterized by its soteriology(savior ideology) , ease of access, and proselytizing habits is open to all, radically so. All you need is to accept Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, and live righteously according to the Bible to secure eternal salvation. In many respects, Christianity uniquely conquers the mystery religions of old, characterized by their distinctive intimacy with the divine, secrecy and ritual, and subverts it, by making it universally open to all and actively telling you about it.

This line of thinking regarding "closed practices" can also be difficult with many western minds that have had extensive influence from movements such as the “New Age” movement, which seeks to bring together unrelated material spiritual identities under one umbrella.

Many people in the “New Age” movement have been largely influenced by the writings of the Theosophical society, which were some of the first writings on Dharmic religions available to a broad audience in accessible languages in western countries. This means that many of these individuals ideologically do not believe in the idea of culture since they eschew the cover of self, many believe we reincarnate across familial lines, species and even galaxies, fall prey to solipsism and claim that they themselves are the only real thing that exists, therefore everything is open to them, or purport an intrinsic universal connection through the Jungian collective consciousness that makes all things open to them. Having a unique gnosis dependent on your religious affiliation is normal and expected, using it to harm others is not.

Similarly, Christianity undermines the concept of ethnic religions and cultural religions which are predicated upon being born into them, or having immediate access into certain respective belief systems for validity in practicing them. Finding Divinity in the Christian tradition has nothing to do with where you were born, who you are or how you were brought up, but rather, is entirely up to ideology, practice, and a consistent theme of universalism.

However, as stated prior, due to ethnic and cultural religions being experiential, they are much more tied to a way of life, being, and a contextual identity in order to operate within the cosmological framework. This can be ancestral; do you descend from the founders of the tradition, are you connected by blood in some significant way in recent history? Land-based, i.e venerating a particular river, mountain, cave etc. And lastly, communal, do you speak the liturgical language of the religion, do you eat the same foods, do you understand the offerings? Many ADRs fall into the aforementioned pattern above. Many Hougans and Manbos will tell you that there are Lwa(Intercessory divinities in Vodou/Voodoo) that can only be summoned on Ayiti, making it a uniquely land based practice, and while in Santería, Boromú, an Orisha associated with the desert,and dryness, all but disappeared in lush and tropical Cuba. Most, if not all religions do start as ethno-religions, and many of them still have vestiges of these ideas present within them, and despite the open and universal evangelism of Christianity, even its spiritual practices fall into some of the land specific beliefs and functions mentioned previously.

It is in this contextualization of land, self and identity, that we begin to understand Hoodoo as not merely a “folk magic” practice, but a Magico-Religious tradition uniquely conjoined with the cosmological spiritual experience of Soulaani people in the United States. Hoodoo, like many American ADRs, is plantation religion, and as with the mentioned ADRs above, Vodou and Santería respectively,is syncretist in nature and a highly Africanized interpretation of the Christian faith which was violently enforced upon the enslaved.

Hoodoo historically is a belief system that was foundationally built as a form of resistance to European oppression, violence and abuse. With an emphasis on ancestor veneration, figures such as Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass are heralded as elevated community ancestors, whilst figures such as High John The Conqueror, a mythic African king who could outfox any Slaver or false master, is deigned a powerful, worthy, and venerable Spirit.

The cosmology of Hoodoo, while being deeply Christian, is Animistic in nature and boasts a large host of Land and Place spirits with whole identities and person-hoods. Some of these spirits are “Elevated Ancestors” similar to the saints of Orthodox and Catholic traditions, while some of them are entirely natural in origin such as Simbii or Samunga.

Hoodoo, similarly to the American south from which it originates, exists equally in a Protestant and Catholic context, and also incorporates Native American wisdom and land knowledge into its Theological foundation because of Indigenous admixtures in Black populations, and vice versa, as can be seen by the Florida Seminole tribe with it's high afro-indigenous population to this day and many more.

With its context, it is no wonder that people feel that Hoodoo is an open practice, by its very origin, it is an act of black labor, meaning, it's meant to be exploited. All black labor, be it intellectual, physical, emotional or in this case, spiritual, is an open and free resource that can be cheerfully parasitized from by a broader audience, without acknowledging its history, origins or foundations. This unfortunate reality extends even beyond the Black American experience and universally unites the Black diaspora in imperialist or colonial states worldwide. When researching the origins of certain foods, dances, customs and ideas, it will be difficult to find the genuine full hearted acknowledgement of the enslaved and their contribution to broader knowledge and culture, this is the case in Latin America as well in both material and spiritual culture.

The colonial state chooses what is “Everyones” or rather, “American” and what is “Black” at any given time, and can choose to revoke and review these designations at will. A particularly clear example is Jazz music.

What once started as the herald of reefer madness, debaucherous devil music and depravity, has become the backdrop of urban luxury, sophistication and wealth. This is of course after the domestication of jazz at the hands of predominantly white musicians, who made it more palatable to the broader audience and it's popularization among the rich and famous.

Another example is soul food. What many consider to be “southern cuisine” is uniquely Soulaani in origin, however, due to the overall positive reception, accessibility and good reputation of soul food it became subsumed into the greater American identity not as a black invention, but an American one.

Similarly, Hoodoo received much of the same treatment in the late 80s- 90s. Instead of the lowbrow superstitions of slaves, Hoodoo was rebranded as a distinctly American “hodgepodge” practice, meant to appeal to aesthetics surrounding pastoralism,the rustic rough and ready, and a peculiar edginess, ethnic enough to bite but close enough to home not to leave a scar, after all, Hoodoo was never African according to Ross, and Hoodoo “Authorities” such as Yronwood “The earliest usage of the word “hoodoo” is connected with Irish and Scottish sailors, not African slaves, and may be a phonetic pronunciation of the Gaelic Uath Dubh (pronounced hooh dooh) which means evil entity or spiky ghost. In the mid 19th century, cursed, abandoned “ghost ships'' were called hoodoo ships or were said to have been hoodooed.”(2021,Ross).

The ability for the colonial machine of the U.S to change and claim things from being one thing, and subsume it into a greater American identity without any of its former history, or identity, is one of the things that makes colonial nations so distinctly villainous in the continued exploitation of marginalized identities. Such as Britain's National dish being Chicken Tikka Masala without even acknowledging the incredibly dark history of the East India Company and its dark impact on the whole of the Indian subcontinent. This consumption of identity is the reason why the black American appears to be “without culture”, and why Black Americans themselves can occasionally feel bereft of a unique identity. Often noted by others across the Black diaspora, Black Americans are often the butt end of everyone's jokes from the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa itself. This “stateless” identity sometimes displayed by Black Americans is by design by the colonial state, and a symptom of religious displacement and spiritual abuse at the hands of said colonial powers.

This powerful and calculated form of psychological warfare and its effects can be seen in the likes of Hebrew Israelites who claim to be the original Jewish diaspora, Kemetics who claim to be the original Egyptians and those who claim to be the original Native Americans. This speaks to a desperate longing to belong to something that goes back centuries, that is ancient, and worthy and powerful, none of them wanting to claim the legacy of slavery and its ramifications. With many Black Americans struggling to accept the lived history of chattel slavery, who will proudly embrace this “plantation religion”?

With these contributing factors, Hoodoo can come across as being either a failed attempt at reconnection conceived in the minds of desperate African Americans, a made up ahistoricism (as is often asserted in the case of Voodoo in Louisiana) or a genuinely all American folk practice open to all with no authority, order, or true history.

In fact, referencing a broader global view of African Americans, their customs, practices and identity,a global audience inverts the name into American Africans. A culture and identity that is a product of the eurocentricity and whiteness around it. America appears to be the land of “The Whites” and a “Second Europe” in public perception. However, many of these narratives come from individuals who have either; A. Never set foot in America or B. Decided that they would base all their perceptions off of an experience they had on a trip they took to Greeley Colorado in 2009, and movies. Neither of these are accurate as the American identity is not homogenous.

Hoodoo, while originating in the American South, is a land-based spiritual practice. Subsequently, it has evolved tremendously as it made its way Westward and North among the black diaspora itself. All spiritual practices, particularly land based practices, are beholden to regionalism. Regionalism is the antithesis of homogeneity. It is reflexive to categorize the gamut of all things with “American” origins as one homogenous mass, but this is both intellectually and materially disingenuous. All ADRs are regionalist, and this alone creates a dramatic difference in said practices.

Take for instance the various emanations of Palo, with four major denominations, Monte, Kimbisa, Briyumba and Mayombe. These four distinct Theological traditions evolved separately, largely in part because of geographical differences and different leadership. These seemingly subtle differences evolved overtime into hallmarks of an identity in how each sect handles spirits, the spirits they venerate, language(s) used, and major beliefs pertaining to cosmology and world structure. Notice however that all of these originated on the Island of Cuba. Cuba is roughly 750 miles long and 60 miles wide, driving from Denver Colorado to Billings Montana is 693 miles and takes around 10 hours to drive, while it typically takes only one hour to drive around 60 miles. The variety of spiritual beliefs in one tradition in a stretch of 750 miles is profound, and this isn't even taking into account the other traditions on the island, so why would we expect it to be different in the United States?

Which leads me to the question, what is the Hoodoo you do? Do you know its region, its history, its spirits? Just as there isn't a generic “Palo” tradition, or a Generic Vodou/Vudú/Voodoo, which also boast a robust number of lineages, most notably Tcha Tcha and Asogwé, there is not a “generic” Hoodoo, and the question becomes less about whether or not it's closed(it is), and more about it's cultural relevancy. The Hoodoo of a third generation New Yorker is going to look wildly different from the Hoodoo we see from a third Generation Californian, and let's add a caveat, the Hoodoo you see from a third generation Californian in the Bay area is going to be different from the Hoodoo from a Los Angeles Hoodoo, because of admixture, geography, and exogenous and endemic cultures in the region. In that same vein of inquiry, do you draw your lineage from the Baptist tradition of Churches, AME, Catholic, African American Spiritual tradition? All of these differences make for a different practice, and different structure.

Among the variations and differences in the Hoodoo tradition of the U.S also comes differing and various cultural attitudes to Hoodoo itself. In the broad Americas(the Caribbean and LATAM Included) the practice of banning and criminalizing Black and Indigenous spiritual practices was incredibly common and could be as dire as even leading to an individuals death “After emancipation, many countries in the Western Hemisphere passed new legislation attempting to suppress the religious practices of the formerly enslaved under the guise of “civilizing” their populations. Countries like Brazil, Jamaica, Cuba, and Haiti enacted laws that prohibited persons from engaging in “superstitious” rituals, fortunetelling, vagrancy, and similar practices. In the United States, African American herbalists and sages (whom the media described as “voodoo doctors”) were also arrested for providing medico-religious and divination services. However, once again, the U.S. government deployed generally applicable laws to suppress these practices; they did not craft new legislation to target the “superstitions” of the formerly enslaved. These individuals were charged with contravening laws against obtaining money by false pretenses, mail fraud, practicing medicine without a license, and related offenses.”(Boaz, 2017). Because of this, black America did their best to disassociate with “superstitions” and “barbaric” customs to avoid further discrimination and being targeted. If you went up to a black elder and asked them what “Hoodoo” was, they'd probably slap you in the gums and call down Holy Ghost fire upon you and yours. It wasn't until 1996 that the American Indian religious freedom act was codified into law after years of indigenous communities enduring the same discrimination as Black ones for alternative spiritual customs and traditions could finally safely practice their own religious and spiritual customs without fear, and these attitudes still linger in both communities respectively.

With all that being said, the question remains. Why must it be Hoodoo that you do? Were you adopted into a family that lovingly shared it with you from the time you were young to now? Did you break bread with these people, do you fight for their liberation with every breath? Do you really think being black in a “past life” grants you access to the trauma you most likely care very little about in this present one?

Magico-religious folk customs are a dime a dozen, many, open! Some closed. Hoodoo however, is contingent upon the social memory of slavery, oppression and a fight for justice. When putting the spirits to work, do you do so with a spectral whip in your hand, and the entitlement to Black bodies and Souls of those who came before you? The joy of learning and spiritual specificity is that you can find a practice you resonate with out of the multitudes that litter the masses of the American continent that may be socio-culturally relevant to you. Such as Italian stregheria which is prominent in some parts of upper Appalachia and New York, Ozark and Appalachian granny magic, Cajun Traiteur, Spanish American Brujería of the Southwest (as in SPAIN),Pennsylvania Dutch Braucherei, there are even Cunning folk practices associated with the Mormon church and Utah. Some of these despite being of European American Origin, are also closed because they are experiential.These are all uniquely American in nature, this is excluding places outside of the U.S who also have a multitude of open mystical practices, such as Ancient Egyptian Heka, or Hellenic Göetia, none of them with the baggage of Indigenous and Black trauma as an aesthetic.

Ultimately, everyone will do what they want and that's just a fact of life, I however hope this helps you stop and think of the damage you do to your Black and Brown siblings whose ancestors died for the right to pray to a God that looked like them when you insist on the right to access to BIPOC labor spiritually,mentally and physically.

[nereiids]

Vivienne Westwood | Portrait, A/W90

The corset was first revived by Westwood in 1987, named by her the ‘Stature of Liberty’ because of its effect on the posture. Its conical shape, rounded front and heaving embonpoint spilling slightly over a low-cut décolletage are all reminiscent of the 1700; its shape directly derived from original 18th-century stays. The style was updated physically, with the addition of lycra sides and a zip up the back; and ideologically, in that it was worn as outerwear, often with very little else. What was once a symbol of patriarchal control over women’s bodies became a third-wave feminist symbol of a re-embracing and recontextualising of previously eschewed overt female sexuality.

Alexander Fury, “Bust, Boucher and Black Monday: Vivienne Westwood’s Contrary Corset”, AnOther Magazine, Aug. 1 2018

[racefortheironthrone]

As someone with your history of labor activism and knowledge of labor history in the U.S., do you have an opinion on the modern IWW? Quite a lot of calls for unionization I see on line include links to the IWW website. However, as a dues paying member, it's always seemed to me like the IWW could stand to do (much) more than it does currently. Do you think that they are a good part of the drive to improve labor conditions, or a distraction?

Oh man, you're just determined to get me in trouble with a very vocal group of terminally online folks, aren't you?

To be honest, I think it's a bad sign that a lot of the high profile strikes and organizing drives of the past couple years - including in areas where the IWW used to have a presence like the Starbucks campaign - have happened outside the IWW's auspices, often showing that traditional unions like SAG-AFTRA or the WGA or the UAW or UFCW (in the case of the REI organizing drive) can combine the same spirit of grassroots militancy with an actual commitment to running their unions like unions.

That's not to say that the modern IWW is a bad organization per se, but in looking through their website for recent campaigns, it all seems a bit small ball. I think they may have gotten lapped in recent years.

[joyfulapostate]

Matthew 4:4 Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

The Christian god should eat his words-- if he finds them so nourishing-- and leave us be.

Maybe this is saltier than I usually am, but hear me out. Strict Christian ideology disrupts so many essential systems of human life which makes it incredibly dangerous. Fear, love, goodness, truth, bodily autonomy, hunger, thirst, and more are vulnerable to being rewritten or written out entirely.

Fundamentalist Christianity abhors the human body and its desires. Verses like this one ask followers to eschew the physical reality of their bodies. People are easier to control when separated from their vital instincts. But the good news is that our bodies are stronger and more real than any doctrine. I believe it's possible to undo the separation and heal the relationship with our bodies.

[fcble]

THE PROBLEM WITH FABLE is a video essay uploaded to YouTube on November 19, 2023. Despite being the channel’s only video, it was quickly picked up by the recommendation algorithm and gained nearly half a million views in its first week. The half-hour video examines and critiques Fable’s concept. Sentiments in the comment section were almost evenly split between agreeing with the video’s premise, and 2000-word essays about how it's wrong. Three days after the video was uploaded, the comment section was disabled.

CHAPTERS AND SELECTED EXCERPTS

THESIS STATEMENT [00:37 - 1:04] … The problem with Fable has always existed. It’s built into their concept—the very foundation of any group. A single concept doesn’t have to be a bad thing, if a group can properly execute and then push the boundaries and truly explore their concept. Fable does none of that. They get on stage in their hanboks only to perform pop song 8265734—now with gayageum.

THE ONLY GOOD PARTS (WHEN THE QUALITY IS BAD?) [03:42 - 6:29] … Before we get further into the bad, there are two—and only two—parts of their Korean concept that make sense. First, Korea has become such a large part of their image that all of their endorsements and brand deals are with South Korean companies. Hell will freeze over before a single Fable member represents a Western brand or product. Second, their dedication to Korean song titles is unmatched. In a surprising power move, Zenith Entertainment usually refuses to provide English translations.

PROBLEM #1 [6:30 - 15:44] … The greatest problem with Fable's concept is their inconsistency. It's been five years and they can't make up their minds about what they want to represent. They cherry pick what they want to represent. An instrument here or an outfit there. Slap a traditionally significant symbol—tiger, magpie, persimmon—on the album cover and call it a day.

For Fable, Korea exists in a bubble, which is obviously not the case, eschewing centuries of cultural mingling throughout East Asia. Their album titles are sajaseongeo—four character idioms—with roots in Chinese chengyu and similar to Japanese yojijukugo. Far from unique. For another example, Confucianism plays a major role not in their music, but in their variety shows and other content. As the state religion and governing philosophy throughout the Joseon dynasty, it was obviously highly influential on traditional Korean culture and eventually Fable. But in their promotion of the ideology, they miss out on swaths of history. While Confucianism’s five constant relationships permeated every social class, philosophy and learning were restricted to the upper class yangban. Which of course, Fable loves to represent themselves as. They’re always kings and noblemen and scholars—without a single mention of the common people. 

Aside from ignoring social class, they also ignore half the population—women. It was, for lack of a better word, shitty to be a woman in Confucian society, and it continues to be shitty to be a woman in a society still strongly influenced by Confucian values. And yet Fable glorifies this past, where women were subservient to fathers and husbands and sons and not much more than property. To make matters worse, they do this all in front of an audience of teenage girls and young women. It’s doubtful that the people in charge of Fable’s creative direction and marketing have ever felt the touch of a woman.

PROBLEM #2 [15:45 - 22:39] … While Fable hasn’t figured out what they’re representing, they’ve certainly figured out who’s doing the representing. The treatment of their two diaspora members—gyopo, dongpo, whatever term you want to use—stands out from the treatment of the rest of the group. Andrew has expressed his frustration with not being able to participate in the group’s music as much as he wants to. And then there’s Mingeun. It’s impossible to talk about Fable without talking about Mingeun’s scandal at the peak of their career, when it was revealed that he had pretended to be a South Korean national for two years. That supposed secret alone should make it obvious that when it comes to the two of them, something is different. It speaks volumes about their goals as a group—fully Korean, for Korea, to the point where even diasporan Koreans don’t belong.

In an ironic twist, their refusal to entertain anyone other than “pure” Koreans becomes even more representative of contemporary Korean society. As the nation’s economy becomes increasingly more globalized, its social attitudes still remain firmly in the past. In Fable’s single-minded focus on Korean history, they continue to perpetrate such ideas. While one kpop group is not going to solve racism in South Korea—an issue deeply entrenched in their hermit kingdom past and the years under Japanese occupation—it becomes hypocritical for them to work so hard to export their culture while being intolerant of others.

CULTURAL REPRESENTATIVES [22:40 - 27:03] … No exploration of Fable’s concept and marketing would be complete without a mention of their nickname. In 2021, they became known as the “cultural representatives of kpop” by netizens. They've seemingly embraced the nickname since, if the way they've never switched up their concept is any indication. Which begs the question: why are they so intent on this direction? Kpop—with its idol culture inspired by Japan’s idol industry and the very industry inspired by the American one—is distinctly un-Korean. Kpop is instead a hybridization of cultures, with musical genres invented by Black Americans and its commodification of art invented by American capitalists. If Fable is really so intent on representing traditional Korean culture, then where’s the pansori song or sijo lyrics? Being the nugu face of the tourism industry—next to much bigger groups like BTS and Blackpink—is not enough. They need to do something other than appear in a Korean Air commercial and gush about how nice Jeju Island is at this time of the year.

SMASH THAT LIKE BUTTON [27:04 - 29:12] … The inconsistency and hypocrisy of Fable’s concept does more harm than good. They promote a glorified version of history completely inaccurate to the actual past to impressionable young people and kpop stans incapable of thinking for themselves.

If you enjoyed this video and want to see more, make sure to like, comment, and subscribe.

[palant1r]

something i've come to realize about the "contradictory logic" or "hypocrisy" of the USamerican right is that there rarely is a contradiction present. usually those two seemingly incompatible positions result from the same underlying belief, and calling out that hypocrisy doesn't actually address that belief

for example: why do conservatives care so much about "groomers" and protecting kids when it comes to restricting trans rights but are silent on the catholic church or the boy scouts of america?

a potential answer might be that they don't care about kids at all, that they'll say whatever preserves existing power, but...i dont think that's quite right.

the christian far right cares a great deal about children. but to them, children are not small humans with autonomy and rights. they are symbols of the future and seeds of what the political and social landscape of america will develop into. the right of the parent to control the child represents not just choices for a child's personal welfare, but choices regarding the exposure of the child to certain influences, because they believe that preserving the right to control children is the only way to make sure those children grow up Good and in turn make america Good. there is a very real anxiety there about society and their children turning out Bad, and the right to act on that anxiety trumps any rights a child might have, which are usually not considered.

the fear of children being harmed by "trans ideology" and "groomers" is a very real one, but the fear does not stem primarily from actual concern over the violation of a child's autonomy and safety. the fear is the imposition of the Other, the Degenerate, on the "blank slate" of a nation's future. while sexual assault by established institutions of power may cause outrage on an individual level, it does not galvanize the american far right because, even if only subconsciously, they view the Established Christian Moral Order as having a right to the bodies and minds of children that is essential to ensure its continued supremacy, so they downplay, deny or justify the abuse it commits. if this sounds fascist...yeah it is lol.

similarly, it is not a contradiction that recent gender affirming care bans for minors call surgery and hormones "experimental" then turn around and carve out exceptions for intersex children regardless of medical necessity and informed consent. gender essentialism is a foundational ideal of the right wing. the idea that there are two sexes, gender is meaningless, and those sexes are meant to have monogamous relationships with the opposite sex that engage in sexual conduct procreatively after marriage. any extant deviation from this is an existential threat. transition care for transgender people violates this doctrine, so it must be fought. intersex people do not fit into this paradigm, and because this paradigm is The Right And Good Way Of The World, that means they must be disabled or disordered. medicine must be used in service of enforcing this paradigm.

this is also why conservatives are going after asexual people. the far christian right doesn't hate sex, per se. in this worldview, sex has a very specific role and position that must be enshrined as absolute. eschewing sex altogether, or any other variance in sexual attraction that makes up the ace spectrum, is a rejection of the sacred position sex holds. it's not actually a separate justification from homophobia, just two manifestations of the same worldview.

anyway. the takeaway here is that exclusionism or any form of label separatism/policing is a psyop

[pattern-recognition]

re:the brutalism post, what do you mean when you say "the landscape" of the US? My interpretation is that you're talking in terms of literal landmass and how populations are dispersed, so I'm confused about why that'd present a more significant barrier to successful socialist organizing in the US than it did in other, larger countries like China or Russia that have seen successful large-scale socialist/communist movements. I don't mean this as a gotcha - I really don't feel that I'm educated enough to know why it might be notably different in the US.

Where i was going with that post before it evolved into a discourse about brutalism, which i never really intended, was towards the atomization of American social life. More so than any aesthetics of architecture form and what they mean, I was motioning towards the ways in which the built landscape in the US is specifically designed to isolate people, dehumanize them, and make living as hard as possible for people without the privileges of wealth. The most obvious example is the homelessness crisis and car based infrastructure. it’s true that there are more empty homes in the US than there are homeless people, but even then those homes are of the most deleterious type, even compared to other capitalist nations like Francs, Britain, etc. American zoning laws, in most cities, eschew affordable high-rise apartment buildings for single family, two story at most, housing that forces people into having a vested interest, wether they like it or not, in capitalist real-estate speculation through mortgages and whatnot. The phenomenon of suburbia in the United Stated was specifically an anti-communist one and heavily parallels the Wehrbauer system in Nazi Germany. The latter, should it have come to fruition fallowing Gerneralplan Ost (the mass genocide of all eastern european peoples and subsequent resettlement of eastern europe by Germanic colonizers) would have been structured around a system of semi self reliant small business owners and peasants (and I use this word in the Marxian sense, as in small land owners in control of their own means of production) who would act as a bulwark against both physical reprisals by freedom fighters (the Wehrbauers were intended to be heavily armed) as well as an ideological one because communities where everyone is a petit bourgeois would be resistant to Marxist agitation. The parallels to contemporary American suburbs, as well as the settlement and colonization of the west through manifest destiny, should be obvious.

[gale-in-space]

“But it’s censorship!” No, it’s asking people to not support JKR. It’s asking people to not subscribe to her hateful ideologies. It’s a boycott. Censorship is trying to ban books in order to erase history and oppressed voices, eschew important moral lessons, and discourage critical thinking in order to promote purist culture. The Harry Potter series is rife with hateful content—as endorsed by its author—that inspires hate in turn. It’s different.

[to2llynottoby]

I'm convinced that the only reason public schools do sports so well is that Americans are willing to eschew all ideology and preconception in the face of a good competition. If we could apply this principle to actual school subjects we'd be kicking the Asians' asses in a matter of months. Teachers as coaches for competing math teams that get axed if the kids don't win enough, same with English and all the other subjects. America would be breeding a generation of renaissance men if we'd only apply our desire to COMPETE and WIN at literally anything for any reason

[mariacallous]

The scale and sophistication of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks have led many counterterrorism analysts to revisit their assumptions about the group’s intent and capabilities. And one of the biggest questions many have is whether the group, which has never launched a successful attack abroad in its 36-year existence, could transform into a global threat, rather than simply remain a regional one.

On Thursday, seven individuals were arrested in Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands on suspicion of preparing to carry out terrorist attacks against Jewish institutions in Europe. Three suspects detained in Berlin and another in Rotterdam are alleged Hamas members with links to the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing. According to German authorities, the suspects were tasked with locating a preexisting weapons cache, which would facilitate future attacks. The orders allegedly came from Hamas leadership based in Lebanon.

In the United States, FBI Director Christopher Wray has warned since the Oct. 7 attacks about the elevated terrorism threat level, stating before the U.S. Congress: “We assess that the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration the likes of which we haven’t seen since [the Islamic State] launched its so-called caliphate years ago.” The Europeans are also worried. EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson recently stated: “With the war between Israel and Hamas, and the polarization it causes in our society, with the upcoming holiday season, there is a huge risk of terrorist attacks in the European Union.”

From its inception, Hamas has always been something of a duality. The group is both a nationalist movement dedicated to establishing a Palestinian state and a violent Islamist resistance movement, with an ideology derived from the Muslim Brotherhood, originally dedicated to destroying the state of Israel, according to its founding organizational charter. (The charter was revised in 2017 to allow for the possibility of a two-state solution, but the group remains committed to “the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.”) So while its ideology is infused with references to jihad, it was not the global jihad embraced by al Qaeda, the Islamic State, or their respective affiliates worldwide. Accordingly, the Islamic State has repeatedly denigrated Hamas as apostates, criticizing the group for its involvement with elections and for depending so heavily on Shiite Iran for support and patronage.

Though Hamas has never launched a successful attack abroad, there have been several disrupted plots tied to Hamas. In 1997, three individuals arrested in New York City for allegedly planning an attack on the subway were investigated for possible links to Hamas. In November 2003, a Gaza-born Canadian citizen named Jamal Akal was arrested by Israeli authorities as he attempted to leave Gaza and travel back to Canada, where he was allegedly plotting to carry out terrorist attacks against Jewish communities in the United States and Canada. Akal pleaded guilty and served four years in prison in Israel before being released back to Canada, though he maintained that he had been tortured into signing a confession, and his lawyer said Akal accepted a plea deal because he believed conviction was unavoidable. Israel denied that Akal was mistreated.

Hamas does not have a prohibition against killing Westerners—its indiscriminate suicide attacks have killed citizens of Western countries before—but it has mostly eschewed targeting Western interests in favor of focusing on attacking Israel at home. Hamas has maintained long-standing fundraising and propaganda dissemination networks in the West, though, including in the United States. The Holy Land Foundation was a Hamas-linked charity based in Texas that was convicted in 2008 of providing material support to Hamas, funneling more than $12 million to the group over the years.

As a member of Tehran’s “axis of resistance,” Hamas enjoys Iranian largesse in the form of financing, training, and logistical support, provided by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force. Since the early 1980s, Iran helped build Lebanese Hezbollah into a comprehensive terrorist organization with global reach and top-tier capabilities that has launched terrorist attacks in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Tehran could now choose to do the same with Hamas, even assisting the group with developing an external operations attack network, as it did with Hezbollah.

There seems to be growing support in the Arab world for the Iranian regime on the heels of Oct. 7, with a recent Arab Barometer poll showing that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, enjoys approval ratings that matched or exceeded that of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed. Popular support in the Arab world matters, especially when it crosses sectarian lines, because it can provide cover for the Iranian regime if it decides to begin turning Hamas into the next Hezbollah.

For years leading up to the horrific attack on Oct. 7, the conventional wisdom was that Hamas was content with reaping the financial benefits of its arrangement in Gaza—where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and others encouraged and facilitated Qatari cash infusions for economic development—and thus that it had little interest in attacking Israel.

But Oct. 7 may have been a turning point for the group, and it could begin shifting its attention to targets outside of its immediate environs. Speaking in early December on Al-Aqsa television, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri called for attacks against Israel’s allies, specifically the United States and the United Kingdom. “We need violent acts against American and British interests everywhere, as well as the interests of all the countries that support the occupation,” Zuhri said.

As terrorism scholar Tore Hamming recently observed, there is a range of factors that are likely to contribute to the trajectory of the terrorism threat posed by Hamas in the West: the length of the conflict between Israel and Hamas; the scale and intensity of Israel’s offensive in Gaza; and the degree of support that Western nations provide to Israel. These factors will be considered alongside the daily images of suffering and destruction streaming out of Gaza each day as the civilian death toll continues to climb.

Hamas seems to be hoping that its ideology, its cause, and its brand will go global in much the same way the Islamic State’s did. Its propaganda is resonating with broad swaths of Western publics, especially younger generations and many university students who have turned out in large numbers at anti-Israel demonstrations and protests. Even if just a small fraction of these individuals become radicalized, it increases the likelihood of a lone-actor attack.

Hamas is a different organization after the Oct. 7 attacks, and intelligence officials and security services should adapt accordingly. As the holiday season enters full swing, a range of soft targets—from synagogues to Christmas markets—will remain vulnerable to potential attacks either inspired or directed by Hamas, which has openly declared its desire to ensure that the war does not remain contained to Gaza but also threatens Israel and its supporters worldwide.

[partisan-by-default]

White supremacist movements are rising worldwide, and they come with heightened bigotry against many groups. While full of hatred, white supremacy also thrives on fear about birth rates of white people and the weakening or “pollution” of the white race. This concern is one reason that white supremacy isn’t just about race, it also manifests itself through bigotry against gay and trans people who are cast as sexual deviants polluting the white race and eschewing their duty to continue natural white reproduction.

This narrative fuels the “great replacement” theory, which is a conspiracy that Jewish people are trying to lower the birth rate of white people so Black and other nonwhite groups can take over and usher in the extinction of the white race. While this may seem convoluted to those of us who aren’t bigoted transphobes, linking antisemitism and transphobia unfortunately makes perfect sense to those who are.

At its core, transphobia is a conspiracy theory—and so is antisemitism. Both Jews and trans people make up a miniscule number of the population but constitute an outsized threat in the minds of white Christians. Non-Jewish white people are convinced Jews are making white people trans to lower the white birth rate. Obviously, we know trans people can easily have children, but transphobes and antisemites aren’t big on accurate science.

Those who know very little about the process of gender reassignment, or trans people in general, connect taking hormones and gender reassignment surgery to preventing trans people from reproducing. These people claim Jewish doctors are pushing “gender ideology” as a plot by the ​​“transgender-industrial complex” to encourage white people to be trans and lower the white birth rate. Antisemitic flyers blaming six Jewish individuals for the “rise in transgenderism” have been distributed in Atlanta. Elon Musk is so concerned with birth rates and a supposed population crisis that he reportedly donated $10 million to fertility research and links his concerns about fertility to other far right causes, like eradicating abortion care and transphobia. Musk has also been accused of allowing antisemitism to spread on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter and for sharing antisemitic posts himself.

[brookheimer]

other speculation about tonight's episode for those interested (aka throwing shit at the wall, seeing what sticks, etc. the usual. also i'm bolding the TL;DR stuff bc it's long):

jimenez lead, ATN/roys [do something], then mencken wins. (talked about this here)

connor splits the vote for a bit but eventually drops and endorses mencken

mencken agrees to block the deal, jimenez refuses to work with the roys. i feel like this is pretty clear already but i think it'll be made explicit. the election will be not just ab ideological issues but the company, obviously, and anti-deal anti-ideology roman just sees mencken as their best option and doesn't give a shit about any political beliefs, shiv is the least anti-deal of the three which helps her because she wants jimenez anyways bc she's the Liberal Good one (sure, shiv, sure), and ken is trapped in between the two. basically, roman pro-mencken, shiv pro-jimenez, kendall unsure (jimenez will not block mattson deal/work with kendall and mencken will, but ken's performative liberalism makes it difficult for him to back mencken). i think ken will end up backing mencken anyways because he cares far more about his own success than america's, and i also think he would justify it to himself by saying, like, 'look if i'm in charge at waystar i can make actual change, i can't do that if i'm not CEO, so i gotta back the person who will make that happen so that way i can help society' or whatever it is he tells himself lmao

there's gotta be something with shiv pregnancy. the two biggest threads left dangling rn are shiv pregnancy and kendall-sanctioned logan smear campaign, and i'd be v surprised if the latter doesn't make some sort of appearance in the funeral episode, and idk if they'd try to work in both those threads in the same hour when so much else is going on. i also don't think they'd mention the pregnancy in ep4 and never again until the finale which meaaans something happening with it this episode. idk if it means reveal or not (because frankly it will not be shiv's fucking focus rn lmao) but it's gotta come up somehow

honest to god no fucking clue what the shocking thing will be. i don't think it'll be the election outcome itself (either mencken or jimenez, both expected) so i feel like it has to be in either the way it plays out or some sort of roy-related reveal. something i can see happening, maybe, is some sort of ATN fuckup -- they call it too early, they send out false information, some minions get the wrong order, idk -- that they have to scramble to either fix or lean into. like, their action decides the election, but it was a fuckup. it could work, i think, because it would show how unstable american 'democracy' is -- it rests in the hands of people like the roys and companies like waystar and news media like ATN, and one mistake could quite literally decide the future of america. that's how unstable things are. idk, maybe an anchor misreads a prompter and says something that's taken as an incitement to violence, maybe a phone call cuts out and orders are misheard then followed, just something that shows how terrifyingly flimsy our entire political process actually is. again this is literally ALL JUST SPECULATION i have no fucking clue how things will play out i'm just trying to figure out how things could maybe go

i think the election will be a backdrop for other huge developments in roy family life but not to the extent that con's wedding was -- i think there are probably big things that happen that are unrelated to the election, but i do think it's going to be election focused, mostly just bc i would be kind of disappointed if it wasn't lmao. but seriously though succession is such a political show (even when it's not explicitly about politics) that i'd be very very surprised if they eschewed it entirely to focus on family matters, especially bc so much of succession is about the interrelation of familial abuse, capitalism, and political fascism. this episode is the perfect fucking storm for them all to come together.

rome/ken fight from the teaser possibly this ep? just looks like they're wearing the same clothes/in the same room based on the episode trailer. not sure though

again really don't know what the Shock will be. i can see a nailbiter but a Shocking Twist? we shall see...

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Queering the medical ethics of pregnancy to problematize a desire for “normal fetal outcomes” is an abandonment of evidence-based medicine and the principle of “do no harm.”

By: Jennifer Lahl MA, BSN, RN and Kallie Fell, MS, BSN, RN

Published: Jul 18, 2023

In recent years, a striking paradigm shift in medical ethics has emerged, driven by progressive political ideologies purporting to champion “Social Justice.” This shift has precipitated a surge in initiatives centered around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The resulting effects have varied considerably; they include the introduction of explicit racial bias in treatment protocols in a quest for “health equity,” and an unsettling disregard for biological sex as an important variable in both medical research and patient care. Instead, the new radical movement favors categorizing individuals based on their self-identified and medically irrelevant “gender identity.”

Even more alarmingly, we are witnessing a direct assault on the language associated with women’s health in medicine. Terms traditionally used in clinical settings, such as “mothers,” are being replaced with neutral alternatives like “birthing parents.” Similarly, the term “women” is frequently substituted with “individuals with a cervix,” even though nearly half of women don’t know what a cervix is and such language may therefore cause a significant number of women to forgo important routine cervical screenings.

This trend of overlooking biological sex as a critical medical variable stems from an ideological drive to “queer” the natural world. The proponents of this view resist categorization, arguing that such practices are instruments of oppression wielded by the powerful against the less powerful. According to this perspective, medicine must eschew not only biological categorization of patients, but also traditional notions of what is deemed desirable or adverse patient outcomes.

These ideological shifts have raised substantial concerns regarding potential harm that such denial of biological realities could inflict on patients. However, recent academic discourse has escalated these concerns to new levels. A provocative new paper in the journal Qualitative Research in Health titled “Medical uncertainty and reproduction of the ‘normal’: Decision-making around testosterone therapy in transgender pregnancy” by Pfeffer and colleagues propels us further down the road of medical malpractice.

The authors, a group of transgender sociologists and enthusiasts, and healthcare activists, with not one medical degree among them, argue to dramatically move the goal posts of medical ethics, choosing to completely disregard the health, safety, and well-being of the developing fetus, all in the name of “trans” inclusion. Abiding by their paper’s guidance would land us in a vacuum devoid of medical ethics and a seismic shift away from the importance of scientific research and medical evidence in favor of activist directed healthcare.

The authors argue that “gendered” pregnancy care is too focused on helping women have healthy babies, and that it might be okay for transmen to continue taking testosterone during pregnancy despite the known health risks to the fetus and effects on its normal development. The desire for “normal fetal outcomes,” according to the authors, is rooted in a problematic desire “to protect their offspring from becoming anything other than ‘normal’” and “reflect historical and ongoing social practices for creating ‘ideal’ and normative bodies.”

This is, quite frankly, insane.

In the paper, Pfeffer et al. maintain that:

[L]acking and uncertain medical evidence (HRT with testosterone during pregnancy and chest feeding) in a highly gendered treatment context (pregnancy and lactation care), both patients and providers tend to pursue precautionary, offspring-focused treatment approaches.

We argue that medical ethics exists to guide medical providers and protect both the expectant mother and her future offspring.

The authors of the article strive to underscore the prevailing power dynamic and expertise discrepancy between medical professionals and their pregnant patients. They also highlight “lack of training on trans pregnancy care,” and the failure of the current “precautionary approach” within a “highly-gendered space of pregnancy care.” However, conspicuously absent is any robust, concrete data to substantiate their claims. Instead, they bolster their argument by cherry-picking quotations from their study involving a pool of 70 international “trans” individuals and 22 “health care providers who self-identified as focusing their practice with trans populations.”

Before continuing, we must point out the obvious flaw in the article: pregnancy care isn’t “gendered,” it’s sexed. Only the biologically fertile human females of our species possess the physical attributes necessary for pregnancy and childbirth. This is a simple biological reality.

Let us now turn our attention to the role of a physician in caring for a pregnant woman and the developing fetus.

The doctor-patient relationship is sacred, considered to be the core element in the ethical principles of medicine. Medicine’s practice, at its heart, is a moral undertaking, thus conferring upon the physician the fiduciary duty of ‘primum non nocere’—first, do no harm. In the seminal work Principles of Biomedical Ethics by Tom Beauchamp and James Childress, they delineate the four fundamental principles of medical ethics, often known as the “Georgetown Mantra”:

Beneficence: the duty to “do good”

Non-maleficence: the duty to “not do bad”

Respect for Autonomy: respecting a patient’s right to self-determination

Justice: the principle to treat all people equally and equitably

In the context of pregnancy, the physician must uphold these principles towards both the mother and her unborn child(ren).

The authors of the new paper are quick to point out the power and expertise imbalance between doctors and patients. This is neither a new nor concerning arrangement. Firstly, it is expected and indeed desirable that our physicians possess deeper knowledge and expertise in the field of medicine. We seek their counsel precisely because of their expertise, and in matters of pregnancy, we particularly rely on those with training in midwifery or obstetrics and gynecology. When complications arise during pregnancy, we consult specialists trained in managing high-risk cases or practitioners of maternal-fetal medicine.

Secondly, women are keenly aware of the potential power disparities, or injustices, that exist in medicine, notably in obstetrics and gynecology. This field, with historical roots in unethical practices and racism, often compels women to forego modesty and disclose their vulnerabilities. But one doesn’t need to enter a maternity ward to understand the difference between how men and women are treated in medicine. Generally speaking, women are often not accorded the same degree of seriousness as men in healthcare, particularly concerning pain. Research has shown that women’s pain and suffering are more frequently dismissed or misdiagnosed, especially among women of color. Instances of women being prescribed sedatives instead of pain medication, and misdiagnoses during heart attacks, are sadly commonplace.

A recent episode of The Retrievals, a podcast by The New York Times, titled “The Patients,” unveiled startling experiences of women at the Yale fertility clinic who underwent intense, unexpected pain during egg retrieval procedures. These women recount how “their pain was not taken seriously” and “they were not believed.” It emerged that a nurse at the clinic had been illicitly swapping fentanyl for saline. Even after this revelation, the center seemed to downplay the harm and pain suffered by these women, who had endured excruciating medical procedures with saline salt water as a substitute for anesthesia. These imbalances and injustices are not isolated to “trans” patients and should not be co-opted as a rationale for altering medical guidelines or evidence-based care, especially regarding the most vulnerable among us—the unborn child. Rather, these disparities should move medical professional societies, such as the American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) and the Endocrine Society, to uphold the highest standards of medical practice, grounded in empirical evidence and biological fact, irrespective of a patient’s sex.

The cornerstone of a patient’s trust lies in their belief that their physician’s recommended treatment plan will consistently be informed by these four core principles of medical ethics outlined above.

The concerns raised by Pfeffer and colleagues focus on the modern treatment approach physicians take, which they deem excessively “precautionary” and “offspring-focused.” Fortunately, caring for the child and the mother are neither mutually exclusive nor zero-sum. In situations where a woman aspires to become pregnant and commits to motherhood, physicians can provide care that optimizes outcomes for both parties while minimizing potential harm. If a woman chooses to continue a pregnancy, doesn’t the developing fetus also have a right to the four principles of medical ethics? In such cases, the physician is duty-bound to care for both the child and the mother. There will of course be circumstances when the mother may need to cease a particular medication or treatment to safeguard the fetus, and the physician must provide comprehensive counsel to the family, elucidating the risks and rewards involved for both the mother and the vulnerable life developing in utero.

One doesn’t have to look hard to find a list of drugs and substances that are known to be harmful to a developing fetus. Yet, for numerous other substances, safety remains indeterminate due to insufficient research. Pregnant women participating in clinical trials present intricate ethical challenges, potentially subjecting unborn babies to an array of unanticipated iatrogenic issues. Further, scientists might be hard-pressed to find a mother who would be willing to risk the health of her unborn child to advance scientific or medical understanding. Given the nature of the type of research that would be needed to satisfy the safety threshold for women remaining on their high dose testosterone throughout their pregnancy and breast-feeding period, we can again imagine a very small subset of pregnant women who would be willing and eligible to participate in this research endeavor.

This raises serious questions: Should we allow unborn children to be the subjects in medical research? Should we allow breastfeeding, newborn infants to be subjects in clinical trials? This concern is highlighted in the statement of a participant from the study under scrutiny, who pondered, “If I take testosterone, will that reduce my milk production? Will it transfer to my kid? I don’t know. Again, we don’t have any information on that because nobody lets cis women take testosterone and breastfeed” (emphasis our own).

Current research is already probing the effects of testosterone on breast milk production and its impact on breastfeeding infants. One unsurprising preliminary finding suggest that elevated testosterone levels adversely affect milk production. The La Leche League notes that “testosterone interferes with the hormone necessary for lactation (prolactin) and can cause a significant decrease in milk supply” and may shorten the the length of time a baby is able to breastfeed and increases the amount of formula supplementation.

Presently, testosterone is classified as a teratogenic, US FDA pregnancy category X drug, suggesting it can induce birth defects. It is labeled as such because “studies in pregnant women have demonstrated a risk to the fetus, and/or human or animal studies have shown fetal abnormalities; risks of the drug outweigh the potential benefits.”

It is well-established that prenatal exposure to androgens, such as testosterone, can cause genital defects in females. Androgens act as masculinizing hormones, guiding the formation of male genitalia and inhibiting the development of a vaginal opening in males. Consequently, medical practitioners are not displaying “cisnormativity and judgement” in their handling of “trans” patients regarding testosterone “therapy”; they are fulfilling their ethical duties of beneficence and non-maleficence. Given the known effects of testosterone on a developing fetus, a conservative, precautionary approach is duly warranted.

Before moving on, we would like to provide a direct quote from a woman taking testosterone that Pfeffer et al. highlight in their article:

There’s a bunch of research around androgen exposure in utero and intersex conditions…I did have a little bit of a complex feeling around working hard to not have an intersex child… As someone who is gender ‘other,’ to work hard to not create a different body that is gender ‘other,’ it feels weird. It feels a little hypocritical. But it kind of came down to wanting the child I created to have the most options in their own body in their own life which most intersex folks don’t have fertility open to them.

It’s essential to differentiate between being intersex and being transgender. Intersex variations or differences in sex development impact an individual’s chromosomes, genitals, hormones, reproductive system (including the gonads), and their entire life. Research shows that intersex adults experience significantly more health issues and are more likely to report physical health limitations than those without intersex variations. These are serious considerations for both expecting mothers and healthcare providers.

When considering the experimental nature of women who are on high-dose testosterone while pregnant, we concur with the authors that there is a scarcity of evidence and studies, but this is largely because this is unchartered territory. Safe and ethical methods to study, track, and monitor this demographic are lacking, as is a substantial sample size necessary to collect meaningful data. Putting the fetus aside for a moment, we currently have no data on the effects of testosterone on the pregnant woman herself, specifically a pregnant woman with gender dysphoria.

For those who wish to become pregnant, taking testosterone can be problematic. As indicated by Planned Parenthood, “some trans men’s ability to get pregnant might decrease after taking testosterone for a while,” in some cases halting ovulation entirely. In such instances, stopping testosterone may be necessary to conceive. For those who managed to conceive while still on testosterone, the NHS website recommends pausing testosterone usage during pregnancy and that pregnancy itself could trigger mood fluctuations and exacerbate feelings of “gender dysphoria.”

Pfeffer and colleagues write that most participants in their study use testosterone “as a critical medically managed component of their transition” and that there are concerns and fears about pausing testosterone prior to or during pregnancy and the postpartum period. Specifically, pausing testosterone would make “public recognition as a man more challenging” and might increase body dysphoria and depression, including postpartum depression. We have to stop here, rub our eyes, and shake our heads. Why would someone wanting to pass as a male desire to take on the very female task of pregnancy? Not only that, but none of the stated concerns or fears of stopping testosterone during pregnancy, postpartum, or while breastfeeding are life-threatening or permanent conditions. There are ways to safely manage depression and body dysphoria that don’t involve potentially harmful compounds.

Pregnancy, postpartum, and breastfeeding are stages known to be associated with dramatic hormonal shifts. Physicians must consider these factors when counseling a patient who is also taking exogenous hormones, like testosterone. The effects of external testosterone on the female body during pregnancy, postpartum, and breastfeeding remain unknown.

It seems that at least one of the the doctors interviewed agreed:

I think if you choose to have a pregnancy and your female hormone levels would be already so high that testosterone probably wouldn’t even mentally help… if you’re producing breast milk and you couldn’t be without testosterone for mental health… if you couldn’t deal without testosterone, then you probably shouldn’t be pregnant.

Upon reviewing the treatment approach proposed in the article, it’s clear that the authors lack a nuanced understanding of medical ethics and the principles of evidence-based medicine. They offer a distorted interpretation of the four basic principles of medical ethics and their application to patient care. If a “trans man” seeks to conceive and bear a child, the physician is obligated to safeguard both patients—the parent and the fetus.

The authors’ suggestion that medical providers should deviate from the principle of “do no harm” to follow paths where the evidence indicates harm is quite shocking. This perspective, driven more by ideology, emotions, and personal desires than by evidence, conflicts with the foundations of evidence-based medicine.

==

By: John Ely

Published: Jul 20, 2023

Fury over 'insane' call to let pregnant trans men take testosterone despite risk to babies - as woke, Government-funded researchers claim gender-affirming care is more important than having a 'normal' kid

Controversial study was funded by a £500,000 grant funded by the UK taxpayer

Pregnant transmen shouldn't be pressured to stop taking testosterone despite the risks it poses to babies, researchers have controversially claimed in a Government-funded study.

Current maternity care guidance for transmen — biological women who identify as the opposite gender — recommends they stop hormone treatment in pregnancy.

The NHS warns it could 'affect the baby's development', with some studies linking exposure to the male sex hormone in the womb to genital abnormalities. 

Testosterone is listed as a 'category X' substance in pregnancy in the US because of the dangers it poses to a foetus.

But a panel of experts, including three from Britain, said the current advice centres too heavily on preventing babies from developing birth defects. 

Objections against the use of testosterone in pregnancy are too focused on creating 'normal' babies, they argued. 

Instead, the team — given a £500,000 grant by a subsidiary of Britain's UK Research and Innovation to conduct research on trans male experiences — suggested NHS guidelines should be shifted to better support trans men to live out their gender identity. 

The three British experts were sociologists hailing from the universities of Sheffield, Westminster and Glasgow.

American bioethicists Jennifer Lahl and Kallie Fell called the findings 'insane'. 

Writing for the website Reality’s Last Stand, they said: 'Abiding by their paper’s guidance would land us in a vacuum devoid of medical ethics and a seismic shift away from the importance of scientific research and medical evidence in favor of activist directed healthcare.'

Testosterone is considered teratogenic, meaning that it has been linked to birth abnormalities.

Female foetuses are particularly vulnerable to the effects, scientists believe. 

High levels of the hormone in the mother's body have been linked to problems with genital development, a process called masculinisation.

Studies suggest this can lead to incontinence and infertility, and trigger subsequent psychological consequences later in life. 

Writing in the journal SSM - Qualitative Research in Health, the researchers, which consisted of experts from the US, Australia and Italy, argued such concerns should take a backseat compared to the harms trans men might experience from not taking their hormones. 

'Both patients and providers tend to pursue precautionary, offspring-focused treatment approaches,' they wrote. 

'These approaches reinscribe binarized notions of sex, resulting in social control in their attempts to safeguard against non-normative potential future outcomes for offspring.

'These offspring-focused risk-avoidance strategies and approaches are, we argue, part of the gendered precautionary labour of pregnancy and pregnancy care itself, and not without potentially-harmful consequences for trans people.' 

They based their arguments on a survey of 70 trans people, as well as answers from 22 health care providers who worked with trans people. 

Most trans men they quizzed had fears about ceasing testosterone treatment during pregnancy, it was claimed. 

Worries included the fear of losing facial hair, change in voice and being mistaken for a woman.

Other feared being misgendered, which could result in 'increased levels of body dysphoria and depression'. 

Some volunteers described their opposition to ceasing testosterone while pregnant, explicitly stating they had wanted to be a 'pregnant man'. 

Healthcare providers offered mixed answers in what guidance they provided.

But most offered a 'precautionary' approach, warning trans men about the potential risk testosterone posed to their baby. 

The authors were critical of this approach, writing stating such advice 'may not take into full consideration the degree to which some trans people’s sense of self and wellbeing is linked to continuing testosterone therapy'. 

A UK Research and Innovation spokesperson told the MailOnline the project was funded by its its Economic and Social Research Council.

They added: 'The Economic and Social Research Council invests in a diverse research and innovation portfolio. Decisions to fund the research projects we support are made via a rigorous peer review process by relevant independent experts from across academia and business.'

[ Continued... ]

==

Jesus Christ...

we find that health care providers reinscribe their status and authority, in the context of uncertainty, by prescribing caution as they advise their trans patients to pause testosterone therapy,

What they're trying to say here is that in the absence of 100% certainty, then any medical guidance is just entirely a guess (just as "assigning sex" is just a "guess"; this is how postmodernism deconstructs), and no better than any other guess by anyone else, including the mother. And any advisory given is simply the medical professional enforcing the power granted by their institutional positionality, and not anything to do with years of medical training and experience.

center normative development of trans offspring, and cast trans patients' pursuit of testosterone therapy during pregnancy as illicit or selfish.

"Sorry you're sterile and have deformed uterus or testicles, but it was all worthwhile because mommy really needed to grow in her beard."

Worries included the fear of losing facial hair, change in voice and being mistaken for a woman. Other feared being misgendered, which could result in 'increased levels of body dysphoria and depression'. 

Well, being accurately perceived as a pregnant woman certainly is far worse than having life-long medical complications because your mother was a rampaging egomaniac who couldn't put her vanity aside for 9 months to give a shit about her own baby. Because eating an unwashed apple and having a few sips of wine make you irresponsible, but injecting unnatural levels of powerful mood and body-altering hormones for cosmetic purposes is just being a good parent. /s

There's nothing more uniquely female than being pregnant. You're going to be perceived as a woman. Because you are. If you can't get over that, why are you pregnant?

If you actually had clinically significant dysphoria, the entire idea of getting pregnant should have triggered you in the first place. And if you proceed anyway, then you already accepted the consequences of this choice and forfeit the right to whining about being "misgendered."

explicitly stating they had wanted to be a 'pregnant man'. 

Creating a baby as a prop for a fetish is an absolute gutter-trash low.

These same people would stare daggers at a pregnant woman smoking, while being narcissistically as dismissive of their own baby's wellbeing.

When your pregnancy is all about you and not your baby, you're an gaping, prolapsed asshole and an unfit mother.

[creature-wizard]

While researching Cisco Wheeler, I came upon a blog post that not only provides some context about her and Fritz Springmeier, but also how the idea that a global satanic conspiracy was implanting dissociative identity disorder into people developed.

In 1991, a couple of psychotherapists claimed that they'd found evidence of "sophisticated external implantation." It wasn't long before the idea got mixed up in with the Satanic Panic, and into the myth of Project Monarch - an alleged subprogram within MK-Ultra that incorporated satanic rituals. (Note that MK-Ultra is very much known to be real, but there is not a shred of evidence that Project Monarch ever existed.)

In the mid-90's, Cisco Wheeler and Fritz Springmeier published they They Know Not What They Do: An Illustrated Guide to Monarch Programming Mind Control. This would be followed by even more books, and uh. It's A Lot of Material.

Looking through it so far, it appears that Svali is taking a lot of her information from this pair. However, Svali's e-books are much shorter, eschewing the elaborate details and sentimentalism in favor of sticking to what one might regard as the "essentials." In doing so, Svali's account manages to avoid making some of the more obviously ridiculous - and hateful - claims as Wheeler and Springmeier. Where Svali makes the broad claim that fairy tales were used to program children into mind control, Wheeler and Springmeier assert that the Jewish story of the golem is actually a coded story about trauma-based mind control. Svali claims that all kinds of spiritual groups are being infiltrated by the Illuminati, but she doesn't specifically assert that Raymond Buckland's books espouse genuine Illuminati ideology.

Again, all of this stuff about the Illuminati inducing DID in people via color/metal/jewel programming and fictive programming cannot be separated from these people, nor from the hateful claims they made. It's a package deal, because that's the whole point - the purpose of the conspiracy theory is to demonize anyone who isn't the right kind of Christian, while scaring anyone who might think of leaving this Christianity into staying where they are.

Or to put it another way, the conspiracy theory is the trauma-based mind control mechanism.

[aint-love-heavy]

The Dobbs ruling has already led to a nascent surveillance state designed to enforce laws against abortion. Being in a relationship with someone who thinks a woman should not be able to decide whether to end a pregnancy is, for women in some states, a newly risky proposition. Social conservatives have also set their sights on outlawing no-fault divorce, which would make ending marriages even more difficult, and potentially trap people in abusive and dangerous relationships.

It is not irrational for women with socially liberal values to avoid dating people who think that they should be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, that they should forgo their career once a child is born, that women’s suffrage was a bad idea, or that they should not be allowed to get divorced if the relationship does not work out. These are not trivial concerns, or simply partisan disagreements. They are central to fundamental questions in marriage, such as where to live, whether to have children, how to divide responsibility within a home, and whose career is prioritized when. Women may reasonably choose not to date men whose ideal society does not grant them the same rights as their would-be spouse.

Obviously, conservatives are also entitled to reject partners who don’t share their values. But although a conservative woman dating a liberal man may disagree with him about whether abortion should be legal, his views are unlikely to align with a legal, state-enforced compulsion to adopt them or conduct her life according to those preferences. No laws in blue states compel women to have abortions, to work instead of staying home, to eschew regular attendance at religious institutions, or to divorce if a partner fails to keep up with household duties.

[...]

A discrete but related issue is the rise of what the Post calls “manfluencers,” who “promote outright misogyny.” To get more specific, these figures have grown popular by espousing a worldview in which woman are subservient and sexual assault and domestic violence are socially acceptable. It is—to put it mildly—unreasonable to expect women to bear the social responsibility of bringing men who have succumbed to this ideology back from the brink by dating them.

The leftward drift of single women has coincided with a conservative effort to demonize them—“single woke females” in one hilarious coinage—because they tend to vote for Democrats. As with Black voters or Latino voters, anytime a particular constituency becomes important to the Democratic Party, the conservative movement comes up with convenient explanations for why this group of people is responsible for all of the country’s problems. But as with those constituencies, the reason for this leftward shift is conservative policy—they are turning away from the party that wants to take their fundamental freedoms away from them. Calling single women “woke” for doing so is simply an attempt to pathologize a rational choice.

A much-needed answer to that deeply tone-deaf Washington Post op-ed lamenting that liberal women are less willing to date conservative men these days