Article about 'non binary'

@NeurotrashWarrior a person who is transgender or transsexual

@NeurotrashWarrior I am a trans man so take that as you will

That Rain Dove story is fake as fuck.

@NotTerfNorCis so are you saying trans people should be made to go against everything they feel? Or are you saying trans people do not exist?

The trouble is that once an binding option has been discovered and generally accepted as an ok solution, a girl knows she just has to hang in there and it will be provided. It changes the girls outlook if it's not presented as a harmful option of last resort . You have already messed with her mind

The framing reminds me of giving a toddler a restricted choice about what to wear ("do you want the blue shirt or the red shirt?") rather than whether s/he wants to get dressed. Can't believe the fucking cheek of talking to parents amd adults that way. The dangerous arrogance, too, insisting that it will happen, willy-nilly. Rejecting one's body or sex is not inevitable.

How can therapy be the first part of call when therapists aren’t permitted to do anything but affirm that dysphoria — a term, by the way, that’s grown ever so expansive in its meaning — means that one is indeed born in the wrong body?

In any event, in the US, no therapy required for anything trans. Hormones and surgery available on demand. In some states, parents permission not required if 15 or older.

After all, the girls are going to do it anyway, right?

I suppose one could argue that it’s better the hormones are prescribed by someone licensed rather than bought from the kid at school, who also sells Adderall and molly.

And I suppose one could argue that it’s better the girl get a double mastectomy in an actual hospital instead of in a hotel room from the kind of plastic surgeon who does face lifts in hotel rooms, or worse at one of those shopping center dental clinics that also does liposuction and tattoo removal.

This is the state of medicine in the US, where Buzzfeed and Rain Dove are located.

There are no ethics at play here. There certainly isn’t anything one would call evidenced-based medicine.

There is a marketplace, and, as ever, in a patriarchal society, the unhappiness of girls at learning they will have to negotiate their second class status with newly and obviously sexualised bodies delineating their very worth ad human beings creates a need for the marketplace to fill, at profit.

The profit aspect is key: exploitation of the female body is a tale as old as time, and takes many forms.

I said it was quite true that methadone was safer - the point is that even if you accepted your child needed to take methadone, no one would say you shouldn't be trying to help them stop. But parents are supposed to step back and say sure that's fine if a child wants to bind their breasts, on the basis that it could be worse, so long as they're doing it a slightly safer way? Although later you say that you think therapy should be the first port of call, which seems to be saying the opposite, and does make sense. What's scary about some of this (out in the wild, rather than in this thread particularly) is the idea that anything other than total acceptance of a child's desire to bind their breasts is a rejection of their fundamental identity, uncaring, transphobic etc. It should be something parents can challenge (kindly, thoughtfully, and via therapy if necessary) just as much as they would challenge a child's decision to starve themselves.

@TheLevellers but methadone is safer. I’m very much in favour of harm reduction practices for drugs. I think that’s a good example really - every year people are still dying, especially at festivals, because they don’t know the strength of/what’s in their pills. Surely having somewhere to test their drugs would be safer. With kids it’s hard - obviously with the body still developing it’s more prone to damage but if there’s a dialogue between parent and child it would be safer. Also the child would feel more supported which could alleviate some of the mental side of it. Knowing how to do something safely is much better than being told not to do it and then doing it unsafely.
And @NotTerfNorCis, it can be impossible to accept. Dysphoria is a fucking dickhead. It’s not as simple as just accepting your body, though I do think therapy should always be the first port of call

A professional binder might well be safer as an emergency measure but isn't that like saying it's safer to have methadone from a pharmacy than street drugs? It's true but if your child was taking either you'd be considered quite reasonable to work hard to help them stop doing so!

This person looks really good but I find it a bit sad that the picture of them with unbound breasts shows them in a skimpy dress ('bound' into conventions of femininity), and the one with them in ordinary t-shirt and jeans shows them with physically bound breasts. Always bound one way or another.

Here's another utterly convincing account of how Dove's amazing nice words can cause an instant personality change in GC women:

I like their approach in that they're not dickheads to worried parents but I can't stand this "it's happening anyway so just buy the right binder" solution. There is no amount of kind social media interaction that will convince me that the correct response to a kid struggling with their body to dangerous extent is not first and foremost the suggestion that they seek help. Medical and psych help. Lives depend on it.

I can't process the fact that we know internet is great in many ways, dangerous in many others, and yet so many just ignore that when faced with an increase in identity issues. "Oh it's just greater awareness" - no it fucking isn't. A combo of hypermasculine and hyperfeminine trends plus greater awareness of dysphoria symptoms means our kids are confusing standard difficulties with adolescent body changes with something completely different. And what's worse is they're being told it's a reason to seek / can be alleviated by surgical and chemical alterations to the body. Alterations with life long consequences.

When they smashed up the requirement for a proper dysphoria diagnosis, they ushered in a dangerous trend. While they ignore that, I simply can't find it in me to sympathise with meaningless internet kindnesses. Sorry.

ACatWhoBinds a better option would be to encourage girls to be comfortable with their bodies and the biological fact of being female. Make things better for women in society, then girls won't want to deny what they are.

This 'follow our beliefs or your children will die' talk is the mark of a cult.

Why is it so bad for a parent to let their child bind safely? If the alternative is bandages or another more dangerous method then surely it’s safer? Especially if a dialogue is opened up and the child feels it’s a safe space to talk about their feelings without being shut down. My parents were very strict with me drinking but by the time I was 17 I was brewing cider in my room and drinking every day, not telling them obviously. You can’t stop someone from doing something when they have their mind made up. They’ll find a way and they won’t feel comfortable talking to their parents.

@breakfastpizza and what idears would they be?

Also - the only people sharing/commenting on this on my FB list of friends are 'woke' white men.

Fake. And hilariously so. Let's do one where we get a trans person to admit the misogyny of their ideas!

I read that exchange this morning on FB, and it really didn't ring true to me. I may be mistaken but I thought it read as a set up, whether or not the people who are promoting it realise it. And maybe I'm wrong.

But I really do not understand how it is seen as the appropriate response to talk about changing the appearance of a perfectly healthy body, even if there were no health concerns. ( Or why that would be something you'd take advice from random people about, though plenty of doctors are giving crap advice about this as well.)

And SO quick with the "give your child a binder or they will DIE" blackmail.

And yet the introduction tells us that Dove has a unique policy of responding with kindness to the people who message them

I don't call emotional blackmail kind. What would be kinder would be to suggest a therapist to work with a child who is distressed by their own body. What caused it? What other conditions might that child have?