Page 17 | Elliot Page undergoes “lifesaving” “top surgery”

OnWednesdaysWeWearMink · 2021-05-25T14:41:07+00:00

BBC R1 news beat has just reported that Elliot page has undergone “life saving” “top surgery”. Here is the related web article: [[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-57239448]] This reporting perpetuates the narrative that people will commit suicide if they don’t get the right sort of treatment. I find it deeply irresponsible. Does anyone know if Samaritans are tackling this sort of coverage in their media guidelines? I’d hope work is going on behind the scenes as they are a fantastic charity. (I assume they are not captured?) A double mastectomy is usually lifesaving when it comes to breast cancer... so I find calling an elective cosmetic procedure lifesaving pretty insulting. But that’s just me being petty and not the main point.

Erikrie · 27/05/2021 14:32

Well it's awkward isn't it, when someone says they are published, cites that work as evidence to back up their claims, but then can't provide that evidence in case it outs them. Probably best not to say they have been published at all then if they can't share those findings. 🤔

CuriousaboutSamphire · 27/05/2021 14:35

Yep! The kind of common sense the rest of us use!

JustcameoutGC · 27/05/2021 14:37

To be fair I don't think she ever claimed to have published in this specific arena, just in neuroscience which is a big old field.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 27/05/2021 14:51

You're missing the point. She used her publication as a kind of full stop. An academic Top Trumps.

That is what many of us are sniggering about! It's not considered to be good form in real life, let alone on an anonymous forum! She has manufactured a 'put up or shut up' situation for herself.

SoMuchForSummerLove · 27/05/2021 14:52

Yes I didn't think she was citing her own work (although she could under a NC if it was her work) but just citing the studies she referred to would also be great.

JustcameoutGC · 27/05/2021 14:55

I didn't interpret it as, "I am a published author dontchaknow.. Now do toddle on dears" type comment. I think she was being sloppy rather than condescending or gainsaying, but I can see how others might think differently

MindTheBumps · 27/05/2021 15:00

My boyfriend had just had Top surgery, he wouldn't describe it as life saving. He had to save up £8k for it and he says he now feels complete but he didn't feel like it was necessary for life. He was a boy before and now the outside matches the inside.

Erikrie · 27/05/2021 15:07

Well they said this:

I’ve literally published papers on neuroscience… I’m always happy to read more because I’m a nerd but I hope I’d know my stuff at that point.

Which indicates that they consider themselves to be an expert, presumably in this area, otherwise, why say it?

CuriousaboutSamphire · 27/05/2021 15:09

It's that literally isn't it?

It seems to mean different things to different people. I see it as a Top Trump. Every time it is used it is used to 'prove' something that is uncorroborated!

Literal violence etc!

SoMuchForSummerLove · 27/05/2021 15:15

Wow, that's food for thought. That you can remove your breasts to feel complete, but seek to remove your leg/arm/ear/any other body part and you'd be under psychiatric care.

Tibtom · 27/05/2021 15:18

@Erikrie

Well they said this:

I’ve literally published papers on neuroscience… I’m always happy to read more because I’m a nerd but I hope I’d know my stuff at that point.

Which indicates that they consider themselves to be an expert, presumably in this area, otherwise, why say it?

"To answer your point about retrospective searching - I don’t keep every article I read. This isn’t my area of specialism"

Erikrie · 27/05/2021 15:23

"To answer your point about retrospective searching - I don’t keep every article I read. This isn’t my area of specialism"

Yes you're right. They did say that. A WHOLE DAY later after posting the original point that they were published and being pressed for evidence on that. 😂😉

ohnomesandwiches · 27/05/2021 15:28

I don't see the problem with the use of 'life saving' in the article.

The BBC hasn't said it. It's a quote attributed to Elliot Page, who is entitled to comment on their own experience, whether people agree with those comments or not.

Nonmaquillee · 27/05/2021 15:36

“Top surgery” has to be the biggest euphemism ever.

Leafstamp · 27/05/2021 15:40

@ohnomesandwiches

I don't see the problem with the use of 'life saving' in the article.

The BBC hasn't said it. It's a quote attributed to Elliot Page, who is entitled to comment on their own experience, whether people agree with those comments or not.

If you RTFT you’ll see that the original headline described it as “lifesaving”. I can’t remember if it was in quote marks or not, but it certainly wasn’t obviously attributable to have being EP’s words.

The BBC then changed the headline (presumably after complaints and/or a ticking off from The Samaritans).

ohnomesandwiches · 27/05/2021 15:42

If they put that in their original headline without quotation marks then that is shoddy.

SoMuchForSummerLove · 27/05/2021 15:59

@Nonmaquillee

“Top surgery” has to be the biggest euphemism ever.

Maybe not quite as bad as bottom surgery - we cut off your existing genitals and leave a sort of dead-end hole down there instead. And all the feelings you have about hating your body will be gone!

CardinalLolzy · 27/05/2021 16:20

@MindTheBumps

My boyfriend had just had Top surgery, he wouldn't describe it as life saving. He had to save up £8k for it and he says he now feels complete but he didn't feel like it was necessary for life. He was a boy before and now the outside matches the inside.

Hope he's feeling ok after the surgery. Can I ask (nicely and genuinely!) why a male gender "matches" a body without breasts? A lot of trans people say that male or female gender has nothing to do with whether you're biologically male or female or what you look like or sex stereotypes, and that you can be just as male if you look like Pamela Anderson as if you look like a non trans man.

Yet it seems like it does have something to do with stereotypical bodies, because lots of trans people want to change their bodies.

People use the word term "gender matching their body" so would you say that a male gender 'matches' a "cis" man's body but not a trans man's body as they were born?

I get really confused by all of it. It seems like you can't say male = biologically male body but that's what the aim seems to be to replicate for many trans men (and vice versa for women)?

Hope this doesn't seem rude. Your boyfriend seems fairly sensible in knowing it wasn't necessary for life.

PurgatoryOfPotholes · 27/05/2021 16:30

MindTheBumps

I wish him well. I hope recovery went/is going well, and he is happy with the results.

MindTheBumps · 27/05/2021 16:33

@CardinalLolzy I'm not really qualified to answer, I don't understand the whole trans thing , I don't have any personal experience of it.

What I can kind of gather from talking to my boyfriend about how he feels is that it's about other people looking at him and recognising that he is a man which is what he feels he is. So he had chosen not to have bottom surgery because what's in his pants is between us, where as he couldn't go swimming in just shorts or wear a male vest in the gym or be too less in summer without his breasts on display which make people see him as a woman.

I can't say it's the same case for all trans people and I'm not even sure I understand his reasons correctly but that's how I perceive it.

CardinalLolzy · 27/05/2021 16:40

Mind Yes, that makes sense - it's that you're 'read' as a man. I wonder if we will always see people in this way - there are lots of people who swear they believe 'trans women are women' even if that woman looks like a very stereotypical male with beard etc - I wonder if it's possible to be genuinely open to the idea that male/female is an invisible thing rather than a bodies thing, as some insist.

I suspect we will always be able to tell sex and therefore people who deeply want to be the opposite sex will always need to change their appearance in some way to be 'read' as such. I don't know though!

MindTheBumps · 27/05/2021 16:41

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

MindTheBumps

I wish him well. I hope recovery went/is going well, and he is happy with the results.

Thank you, he is pretty much recovered now, he was out of the gym for 6 weeks but back to normal now.

MindTheBumps · 27/05/2021 16:44

@CardinalLolzy

Mind Yes, that makes sense - it's that you're 'read' as a man. I wonder if we will always see people in this way - there are lots of people who swear they believe 'trans women are women' even if that woman looks like a very stereotypical male with beard etc - I wonder if it's possible to be genuinely open to the idea that male/female is an invisible thing rather than a bodies thing, as some insist.

I suspect we will always be able to tell sex and therefore people who deeply want to be the opposite sex will always need to change their appearance in some way to be 'read' as such. I don't know though!

I would have a hard time believing that a stereotypical guy with a beard is a woman and a feminine woman was a man. Maybe that makes my transphobic but I think we read what is right in front of us.

I think part of being trans is wanting to "pass" for others to see you as the gender you feel you are so it makes no sense to me that a big butch person with a beard would be declaring themselves a woman.

Tibtom · 27/05/2021 16:48

I wonder if it's possible to be genuinely open to the idea that male/female is an invisible thing rather than a bodies thing, as some insist.

Nothing has changed about reality. Someone born a woman will always be a woman, will never be a man. A man will always be read as a man and have the advantages that brings so would be unfair to take part on women's sports. We also know that identifying as a woman or taking cross sex hormones does not change the rate at which a man commits crime - he retains male levels of criminality. Biology does not change.

The only change you are actuly advocating is the changing of the meaning of language. Though by corrupting language we corrupt processes in place to protect the oppressed (women).

CardinalLolzy · 27/05/2021 16:49

I think part of being trans is wanting to "pass" for others to see you as the gender you feel you are so it makes no sense to me that a big butch person with a beard would be declaring themselves a woman.

I think a lot of us thought that in the past! I can totally accept people wanting to be the opposite sex. To have a certain body. But we seem to have gone past that with some very vocal trans people insisting gender is fixed, sex is fluid, gender is real and should be prioritised over sex. I think this is to support 'self-id' and the idea is to de-medicalise it (so no need to have a diagnosis of any dysphoria, another thing I can't get my head around, even if that diagnosis is grossly founded in sex stereotypes like the toys you play with).

But we have no way of knowing if a very masculine-appearing person with a beard in female spaces has a female gender and it's seen as transphobic to want to know how we can or be worried about it.