AIBU to think Snapchat and pink news should not be promoting "top surgery" to vulnerable teenage girls?

[2fallsfromSSA]

I am really shocked by this. Pink News and Snapchat are trying to paint "top surgery" for "trans youth" (ie, the removal of young women's breasts) as an aspirational and beautiful thing.

Girls who have dysphoria are often girls who have experienced trauma, are ASD or have internalised homophobia.

The targeting of vulnerable children is sinister and dangerous - where is the safeguarding, accountability, responsibility? Children would not be targeted with any other kind of cosmetic surgery or medical procedures, why is this any different? Why is nobody scrutinising this? Snapchat is probably the most important social networking platform for teens.

It's always about the breasts.

This obsession is not new but it seems all consuming now. They're no longer treated as an organ with a function but a pair of "fun bags" that need to be removed or enlarged/exposed in order to gain "validation"

PN are no better than Pornhub in promoting the idea that women's bodies are here for public/male consumption.

Oh god the photo on thr twitter feed us awful. The chest looks defined as the scar tissue must be pretty tight as it doesn't stretch and its almost bunching the chest up

How can this be what they want for kids. It's a sure fire what to inhibit them from sports or exercise and ti am extent even sone jobs if they can't breathe or raise their arms properly.

If they truly believed in it they wouldn't need to recruit this way

Deformed. Not defined

Autocorrect..

PinkNews has more than 3 million followers for its main channel on Snapchat and 17 shows on there including one called the Queer Catch up. twitter.com/benjamincohen/status/1500090243021783040?s=21

For context, could someone link the promotion of top surgery by pink news ? Just want to understand how it’s being promoted.

oops just noticed the link above takes me there in a couple of hops. My google fu is not good !

How would teens even afford plastic surgery?

They wouldn't. And presumably some of the parents a not coughing up..hence the crowd funders

All of this let me to quite a lot of Google searches. I think that a lot of us have missed how big PinkNews is on Snapchat
www.journalism.co.uk/news/pinknews-ceo-ignore-snapchat-at-your-peril-/s2/a879114/

For balance, here's one of the episodes from the Nolan Podcasts (on BBC sounds) with Dr David Bell who used to work at the Gender Identity Clinic at the Tavistock speaking clearly about the appalling harm being done to teenagers / young people where their "gender identity" is prioritised rather than all the other mental health challenges this vulnerable cohort face. It's well worth listening to:

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09yk7dh

Daisy - @ DMchandra, on twitter, is a detransitioned woman.

She's currently pregnant and dealing with the fact she'll never be able to breastfeed.

PenisCentringNews is publishing and glamorising mastectomies when women are policed online and in real life for daring to breastfeed.

Preventing a woman from breastfeeding is classed as sexual abuse.

Misogyny.

lilymaynard.com/wielding-the-sidhbh-gallagher/

I read this article the other day - about an Irish surgeon who works in America and specialises in double mastectomies and other ‘gender reassignment surgery’. She talks about ‘yeeting the teets’ (cutting off breasts) and the photos are significantly more disturbing than the one Penis News glamorises. The article spells out just how much these surgeries are marketed at adolescents - lots of cutesy language peppered with emoticons. Largely done via tweets and social media. There appears to be a disturbing lack of rigorous assessment done before these surgeries.
There will undoubtedly be women waking up from being swept up in a social contagion in a few years, with mutilated bodies, unable to experience full sexual pleasure or to breastfeed their babies. These girls and women are being let down on a massive scale.

@Duchessfloofy

They are disgusting, misogynist groomers.

Absolutely 100%

Pink News promoting mutilation … to young girls… and selling it as a fun route to trans…and worse, there are therapists and medics who collude with this! It’s a public health catastrophe that will end in billions of dollars of lawsuits that will do little to compensate these ruined lives

[quote JessHopeThinks]All of this let me to quite a lot of Google searches. I think that a lot of us have missed how big PinkNews is on Snapchat
www.journalism.co.uk/news/pinknews-ceo-ignore-snapchat-at-your-peril-/s2/a879114/[/quote]
Thanks for sharing this, I hadn't realised quite how connected pink news and snap chat had become

It's horrific what they're grooming young girls to believe and do to their bodies.

The detransitioners' stories are heartbreaking. And there will be so many more of them in future.

@VaddaABeetch

It’s a radical mastectomy not top surgery. All surgery carries a risk, let’s call it what it is.

I’m also interested why non binary people get mastectomies. Why is the default male?

Surely to be truly neither male, nor female, non-binaries should have a single mastectomy.

It's truly horrific. Poor, poor girls being groomed to think they're better off removing their breasts.

I had a single mastectomy two years ago just before my 60th birthday. I don't think I was fully aware of what to expect. I wanted it off as "it's done its job", no reconstruction, just as little surgery as possible. Then I regretted my haste and felt I should have given much more Consideration to reconstruction as I have one massive boob and nothing on the other side. It's so unbalanced although I don't care about how it looks and whether people can tell I'm one-titted , it's just uncomfortable because I either go without any "padding" or use the full prosthetic. Then a close relative had a mastectomy and reconstruction recently and I felt I should have done what she did and felt some regret, except it was really hard going, she had infections and other issues and then I was very glad I didn't have the reconstruction. I have been offered another mastectomy just to balance me up. I don't think I want that surgery unless essential, it's fairly horrible. How can some young, idealistic, optimist make that decision? I feel I made a bit of a bollix if it and I'm over 60, I've had plenty of surgery of other sorts, I know what it's like to be in hospital etc. at least I can say my decision, however it could have been, kept me alive

@Echobelly

I actually am all for trans rights and surgery when it will help and when someone is competent to decide, but I do have a bit of a problem with teenagers seeing this - I'm not convinced they're 'aiming it at teenagers' per se, but obviously it's likely they'll see it.

Top surgery can be the right decision for a small number adults who have had time to reflect and made an informed decision. But I do think anyone who can't legally be living on their own can't be in a position to make that decision.

My oldest is identifying as non binary and I do worry a little about all these 'Yay, Top Surgery was the answer to all my problems and I am happy now stories' and have explained to them that they will see lots of affirming stories about interventions but to bear in mind that's not the whole picture or necessarily the answer to one's own problems. That said fortunately my teen seems happy with their body, not dysphoric or wanting to bind breasts etc. But I can see that kids with more problems in their life, or who are experiencing dysmorphia (or think they 'should' have dysmorphia) finding this idea very appealing.

In America a certain dr is happy that shes doing 4 "top" surgeries a day. She has a tiktok account and has her own strapline "yeet the teets" Not even kidding.

There is pushback here and in the USA but itll be far too late for many many girls.

I’m struggling to link to the tweet, but Benjamin
Cohen has now called the people expressing concern at this ‘transphobes’.

This is the real danger of anything related to transgenderism - it’s supporters seem to think that basic safeguarding doesn’t apply.

Yes it does appear that many believe safeguarding is transphobic. I wonder whose interests the removal of safeguarding serves? It's not kids that's for sure.

I think that in reality a lot of the kids calling themselves non-binary are not looking to be neutral so much as revert to the pre-pubescent body they were comfortable in.

@MangyInseam

I think that in reality a lot of the kids calling themselves non-binary are not looking to be neutral so much as revert to the pre-pubescent body they were comfortable in.

Yes. Or, to just not sign up for stereotypes - which is actually included within what feminists and ‘gender critical’ people want - to get rid of outdated stereotypes.

Jesus Christ, are there no laws governing this? The promotion of adult surgery on a platform that targets kids. From aged 13.

The cynicism is un fucking believable.

And yes, look at the poster transman, Freddie McConnell, who was an adult in their 20s, making a bloody documentary about their overwhelming desire to transition. Who, two kids later in their 30s, is desperately upset that they can't fucking breastfeed. And yes, blames the medical profession! They went through that, and still didn't know that you can't breastfeed without breasts and nipples??

I wonder if Freddie McConnell would support pink News now.

And that picture. Romanticising radical, irreversible surgery to children is just the lowest of the bloody low.

God I hope these people get their comeuppance.