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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Guardian hits new low

133 replies

justawoman · 30/04/2021 18:14

Glorifying a double mastectomy and claiming kids will kill themselves if they can’t get one too. My mother and other women I know have had mastectomies and I know how disfiguring they can be and how much nerve pain, lymphoma etc can happen afterwards. Now it’s presented, in the headline, as a ‘lifesaving’ choice, and no, they’re not talking about cancer:

www.theguardian.com/film/2021/apr/30/elliot-page-happiness-top-surgery-oprah-winfrey-interview

OP posts:
MabelPines · 30/04/2021 20:03

I'm sorry but that doesn't seem like someone who is happy and free. That is someone who is deeply troubled. It's very upsetting to watch

Agreed- I posted earlier about how thin Elliot looks, but it’s more than that, Elliot looks very much like they are unravelling fast

HecatesCatsInFancyHats · 30/04/2021 20:06

Its incredibly uncomfortable to watch. I hope there are people who genuinely care for him around.

ListeningQuietly · 30/04/2021 20:06

I am actively avoiding commenting on how Page looks
because the weight pressures in Hollywood are gruesome

my concern is that somebody who only switched from lesbian to trans a few months ago
has already undergone major life changing surgery
even Bruce Jenner only went under the knife after long periods of life as
what WERE the surgeons thinking ?
Did they not train in ethics?

ListeningQuietly · 30/04/2021 20:09

"not" missing from first line !

PomegranateQueen · 30/04/2021 20:10

I couldn't watch the whole video, very uncomfortable viewing Sad

justawoman · 30/04/2021 20:14

I’m afraid I couldn’t watch the video at all. I was just utterly horrified by the Guardian’s reporting of it.

OP posts:
PerditaNitt · 30/04/2021 20:17

Agree with the earlier poster who asked why the producers didn’t challenge the statement about “kids will die” (unless they have access to a mastectomy, etc). Normalisation of suicide as a likely outcome in an interview with two such big stars is irresponsible. EPs view could have been expressed in a more responsible way.

It doesn’t seem as though EP was comfortable in this interview - why do it all, I wonder? If you have been through so much turmoil, change, surgery, why not recover in privacy and go on tv when back at full physical and emotional strength....

IvyTwines2 · 30/04/2021 20:18

Crowdfunding sites are now being heavily used to raise money for hormones and surgery. There are hundreds of young people raising thousands and thousands of dollars on there. I suspect these sites have been a game changer for the private surgery industry and perhaps one of the drivers behind this current trend, given the way it enables youngsters below serious earning age to get hold of money and proceed with hormones and surgery without the sort of assessments and checks the NHS or medical insurers would provide, or the support of parents for their surgery.

IsThePopeCatholic · 30/04/2021 20:24

How can it be right to chop off bits of people’s bodies? Self-mutilation is no answer to psychological problems .

Wandawomble · 30/04/2021 20:25

It’s going to get worse before it gets better. An acceleration of events will culminate - the more outrageous they are the more people will wake up - it’s a shame that people, especially young people, are the collateral. I hope Page can find peace in themselves eventually. What did Hollywood do to them that they felt this was the answer?

ProfessorInkling · 30/04/2021 20:26

EP looks terribly unhappy and fragile.

MondayYogurt · 30/04/2021 20:29

A quick search shows people patting him on the back for this interview - then criticising his hair.

Most people aren't aware of how testosterone impacts hairline and baldness. Would a balding EP tick the sexy trans actor boxes?
These responses just underline show how toxic living in the public eye can be. And EP has been doing it for a long time.

EmbarrassingAdmissions · 30/04/2021 20:39

Toby Sinbad Walker - I recall TSW for the ill-thought through #WontDieWaiting

Aetna, amongst other insurers in the US, provides gender affirming surgery

www.aetna.com/cpb/medical/data/600_699/0615.html

I know other insurers do and a number of employers provide this as an additional benefit.

MissBarbary · 30/04/2021 20:41

I've never really watched Oprah, certainly not at any length apart from the Harry and Megan interview but I've come to the conclusion I dislike her deeply.

She's dangerously manipulative and comes across as very insincere.

NecessaryScene1 · 30/04/2021 20:45

Crowdfunding sites are now being heavily used to raise money for hormones and surgery.

According to Bev Jackson of LGB Alliance in , there are 40,000 girls and women on GoFundMe raising money. Sad

(I'd be interested in more detailed info on that analysis).

FloraFox · 30/04/2021 20:46

EP exudes misery in this interview, in the cover photo shoot for whatever magazine that was and on screen. In The Umbrella Academy, I thought the character was supposed to be miserable but EP is just a personality void on screen.

NiceGerbil · 30/04/2021 21:00

The thing that has leapt out at me for ages around this, and continues to do so. In brief.. (I'll try!)

An artful lot of things with this seem to be about breasts.
Binders/ mastectomies
For males, the surgery that seems to be the main one is implants. For those on hormones like that person in the ? Telegraph, their chest growing is inordinately exciting.

What I know is that
Growth of breasts whatever age you are is the sudden point at which men start looking at you differently. Society starts treating you differently. It's when the leering starts and the ideas like you need to cover up (unspoken, because your own growing body puts you at risk). For right or wrong, that's the message. And the breasts are the most obvious thing.
Men in our society utterly fetishise breasts. That what would you do if you were opposite sex for the day, the first thing lots of men would do is play with their tits.
Breasts are to feed babies but that's really gross to much of society because they're for show for men, not for feeding.
Loads of girls have forever tried to hide their chest shape to stop the way it means they are treated.
Breast ironing is a horrendous thing that is done with the aim of holding off the behaviour of men towards girls once their bodies start developing.

So we have.
Girls especially when breasts start growing and through maybe secondary school age actively wishing they would go away.
From a practical pov even if larger they are a PITA. if you are into sport gymnastics etc they get in the way.
In general one way or another many girls and women are not keen. Ambivalent. Would be comfier in many ways without them.
Meanwhile males who are non binary/trans this seems to be a common number 1 wishlist item.

That puts it in a different context. Where do you want to be in the sex class order? Looker or lookee? Able to walk down the high street with no attention or with eyes subtly or not so subtly up and down up and down? That sort of thing.

And of course implants can be removed. A double mastectomy is a much larger operation removing healthy tissue permanently.

Finally. Why is it seen as not a big deal for girls/ women? Is it because society is used to girls and women trying to alter their bodies to fit in with the male gaze? And girls and women understanding that as they live in society too? Restrictive clothes, uncomfortable shoes. In the past foot binding tight corsetry. Having pubic hair ripped out and the idea of an appt at beautician is 'pampering'. (Yes I know some men do it too).

If you don't want the attention discomfort unpleasant things to do with breasts that happen because, men will be men. Then have them cut off.

Yes obviously some people have sex dysphoria.

This focus on the breasts for both male and female without any analysis or attempt to understand if there's something going on. It's obvious to me.

I suppose it's easier not to think about it too much?

CardinalLolzy · 30/04/2021 21:36

The article talks about him coming out as gay but I didn't think he was same-gender attracted? Not that it really matters, I just thought he was famous for fancying women? The article emphasises that "sexual orientation and gender identity are “completely different things”." which I fully agree with.

IvyTwines2 · 30/04/2021 21:41

@NecessaryScene1 yes, I think this whole aspect of it has gone under the radar in mainstream coverage of what's happening with teenagers right now - they now have the means to access to huge sums of money, some donated by other youngsters who are constantly being told by celebs and certain organisations that it's a matter of life or death, like it's this generation's more Western-centric 'Live Aid'.

CardinalLolzy · 30/04/2021 21:41

I still am baffled about why body dysphoria, to the extent of removing parts of your body, so often goes hand in hand with being transgender which everyone (e.g. partners of trans men who have posted on here) insists is nothing about appearance and you can be completely male while looking like Kim Kardashian.

Is gender actually linked to biological sex characteristics in some way - I can't reconcile this with the insistence that it's an innate feeling not at all to do with masculine/feminine stereotypes?

NiceGerbil · 30/04/2021 21:46

As per my pp I honestly think it's mainly about boobs.

Biscuitsanddoombar · 30/04/2021 21:48

I loathe the euphemism “top surgery” for a mastectomy

Defaultname · 30/04/2021 21:52

[quote IvyTwines2]@NecessaryScene1 yes, I think this whole aspect of it has gone under the radar in mainstream coverage of what's happening with teenagers right now - they now have the means to access to huge sums of money, some donated by other youngsters who are constantly being told by celebs and certain organisations that it's a matter of life or death, like it's this generation's more Western-centric 'Live Aid'.[/quote]
No so much We Are the World as Me,Me,Me,I am/is/are The World.

NotBadConsidering · 30/04/2021 21:54

Such irresponsible reporting. Here is a group of clinician from a world-respected Children’s Hospital:

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/26344041211010777#.YIc_RaJBvsE.twitter

The second theme concerned the way in which the gender affirmative model—the dominant sociopolitical discourse—shaped the expectations of the children (and families) presenting to the service (see Section 4.2). It appeared to us that a large subgroup of children equated affirmation with medical intervention and appeared to believe that their distress would be completely alleviated if they pursued the pathway of medical treatment. Very often, we the clinicians felt that our efforts to work from a biopsychosocial perspective, along with our therapeutic efforts to discuss different aspects of the medical situation, fell on deaf ears.

ListeningQuietly · 30/04/2021 22:18

@Biscuitsanddoombar

I loathe the euphemism “top surgery” for a mastectomy
This

I have friends who have had full mastectomies
it cuts into the pectoral and intercostal muscles
it affects the whole lymph system
it risks lifelong nerve damage

and the fact that healthy young women are being bounced into it
frightens me