Feminist Pub X: Regulars and new faces welcome, consciousness raising is a possibility.

[CaptChaos]

The old pub now has less than 10 posts to go, so I thought I'd start a new one. The old one can be found here

This is a place for feminist pom pom waving and talking about stuff which might not need a thread for itself.

Fill your boots.

Ooooh, what did you do, Buffy?

Mad and brave and wonderful sounds fantastic, as does telling the bad day to fuck off :)

can you give us any clues buffy?

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04grm6j the lost women of british jazz

i don't know very much about jazz at all, but i caught the end of this programme and it was very interesting

I found this piece on delaying puberty in teenagers with body dysphoria very interesting. It's not particularly in-depth but it made e think of something. I know we often say that an excessive display of "performing" the gender they identify with is one part of the trans movement we struggle to reconcile with as feminists. But according to this piece, just being able to stay gender neutral (fluid) is of huge benefit to the mental health of these young people. Perhaps if you don't feel like you need to overcompensate for having the "wrong" secondary sex characteristics, there is less pressure to conform so strongly to gender stereotypes of the gender you identify with.

I'm sure your last sentence is true. It's certainly true of plenty of non-trans people I know.

But it worries me. They're not 'gender fluid' any more than anyone else - they're delaying puberty. Gender isn't just about what happens in your teens, is it?

I have heard there is a risk of sterility with this, too. I don't know if that's out of date now.

I am possibly having a fuddy-duddy kneejerk reaction here.

that's very interesting annie. this is the original paper pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/09/02/peds.2013-2958.abstract (blimey but mainstream media cite appallingly)

it would be interesting though if they had compared with those who had had puberty suppressed and who then decided not to go ahead with the surgery, or those who gave up altogether and decided to allow puberty to go ahead naturally, if any such people exist. it looks as though this only studies 55 people who went all the way through to surgery

i think it's inevitable that if your (clothed) appearance remains more gender neutral then the distress that comes with gender dysphoria will be reduced in particular because of the way that others will respond to you. and that's good from a MH POV of course.

but it feels like there is something in there about fear/phobia of puberty that maybe needs getting to the bottom of, iyswim? i don't know whether i've described that correctly, and apologies if any offence to anyone

My worry would be what it would be doing to their body long term and also if it is that easy to just change their mind once they've made it known to family and people have become used to the idea. DO you just say, nah changed my mind?

I just also find it interesting that a 14 year old girl who is so much in turmoil with herself would have the strength to one come out to everyone at that age, start transitioning and sue the govt for the right to use the toilets she prefers.

Most teenage girls I knew that were struggling with their bodies and looks kept their heads down and tried their best to be invisible. But they never had the never of being raised a boy.

Buffy... Really sorry about your crap day. Mad and wonderful is intriguing though, hope it pans out brilliantly for you.

DH was told to have a word with me today by one of his army mates. Oh! How we laughed! He called him out on it though, which made me very happy.

That's good buffy

www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/sep/15/oscar-pistorius-free-compete-south-africa

Can I just state, totally and completely, fuck this.

The International Paralympic Committee has already said he could resume his career once he has served any sentence, describing him as “a fundamental ambassador of the Paralympic movement”.

Unless the Paralympic movement includes no women he is not an ambassador for it.

Just popping in to raise awareness of a demo to support a legal challenge to the domestic violence legal aid cuts. link to thread here

Hopefully he will be too old to compete when released!

There was a piece on Radio4 where the leader of the ruling body for the Paralympics was saying that OP would be fine to compete, even if he does no time for killing RV.

I thought being accused of VAWG was supposed to harm careers?

my interpretation was that they're basically saying there's nothing they can do if he is selected by the SA olympic team. not that that's not problematic to say the least, obviously

in all these things (OP and the IPC, ched evans and the FA/his football club) there's basically a lot of "well he did a bad thing, but what can we do?" handwashing

LRD who has a new name We've watched half of Nausicaa and it's awesome. :)

And does anyone read Ursula Le Guin? What a writer!

(Sorry not participating in proper topics. Brain really sluggish and zombified atm.)

It's just... Doping, drugs, anything like that. Ooh life time ban.

But kill a woman, rape her, drag her across the floor.

Our hands are tied

i read lavinia at your recommendation lordc!

I'm re-reading the Earthsea books. The Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind - turns the patriarchy right round.

Okay Opaque what's with the name change .

Buffy if it's any consolation I also had a shit day. It's the first week of term at Uni and you can tell because people are expecting us to do jobs at the last minute despite the fact some numpty decided to arrange a change 'freeze' at the busiest time of the year. So I'm stressed out and just getting it from all angles. And if anyone mentions Subject Access Requests or Freedom of information i think I might cry. And I got pissed off with a member of my team who just argued with me one time too many . I can tell I'm getting stressed because normally I'd just let it wash over me. But he just wouldn't give it up. All I was doing was asking him for a single paragraph as a brief business case for us getting 20k worth of training. His argument was that management should be asking us what training we need . Because yeah we have a limitless pit of money for training so we should all just get what we want. Male sense of entitlement.

And I really should be writing a report for a case study I need to present next week. Instead I'm arguing with a tosser who can't tell when they've raped someone and ranting on here . I love my job really. Just not this week!

And don't get me started on the Paralympic Committee and OP. It's awful. Really shit. VAW just doesn't rate at any level.