Elliot Page undergoes “lifesaving” “top surgery”

[OnWednesdaysWeWearMink]

BBC R1 news beat has just reported that Elliot page has undergone “life saving” “top surgery”.

Here is the related web article: 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.

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).

I'm not advocating anything. I am querying whether the people who insist TWAW really don't draw any conclusions whatsoever (about whether they are male/female) from someone's physical appearance and instead wait to find out their gender. I am dubious that anyone really performs those mental acrobatics. But this is what we are being told to think and that we're transphobic if we don't.

No one believes transwomen are women.

I can't tell if they do or not, but there are powerful people who act as if they do, and that is what affects me and other women.

@CardinalLolzy

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.

That makes no sense to me at all. Again I am no expert, the only trans person I know (my BF) is desperate to pass as the gender he feels he is. He hates being called trans because he simply wants to be seen as a boy.

So using him as my reference I don't get the whole looking like a bloke but calling yourself a woman. Maybe I am transphobic but that doesn't add up to me at all.

Well, if you hear ppl on Twitter call Mumsnet "transphobic" it's because of stuff like that

@CardinalLolzy

I can't tell if they do or not, but there are powerful people who act as if they do, and that is what affects me and other women.

I haven't seen powerful people act as if they do. I've seen them insist transwomen be validated by women carefully prioritising the feelings of the transwomen without giving a thought to the feelings or safety of women. I've seen them insist than transwomen rapists should have access to women where other transwomen will not suffice. Or saying 'not for relationship purposes'. If they thought TWAW then they would treat them like women but they don't.

Good point.

I saw one gentlemen attack Maya Forstater for accidentally misgendering a third party, and saying he found it implausible that she could have made genuinely made a mistake, while misgendering the same person, in the same way, in the same tweet!

There's got to be a variant of Muphry's Law for that.

Very interesting thread. Cant wait to see WeavingWandering studies, as someone who claimed to 'know her stuff'.

Because, as far as I know, the only similarity was based on sexual orientation. Similarities disappeared entirely when the sexual orientation was heterosexual.

Showing that there are some similarities between some women's brains, and some men's brains, just demonstrates that they are not exclusively the characteristics of female brains!! Not that you've got a female brain in a male body. It's just ridiculous spin to make a theory work that patently doesn't.

And apart from anything else, even if a Freaky Friday concept was possible, it's still irrelevant because sex is a description of one's body not one's brain.

As someone whose friend recently died of breast cancer, despite an attempt as actual life saving surgery with a double mastectomy, leaving 2 young children and partner bereft and devastated - I find this, him and the twitter TRAs fucking offensive.

Nodal

@Fernlake

Very interesting thread. Cant wait to see WeavingWandering studies, as someone who claimed to 'know her stuff'.

Because, as far as I know, the only similarity was based on sexual orientation. Similarities disappeared entirely when the sexual orientation was heterosexual.

Showing that there are some similarities between some women's brains, and some men's brains, just demonstrates that they are not exclusively the characteristics of female brains!! Not that you've got a female brain in a male body. It's just ridiculous spin to make a theory work that patently doesn't.

And apart from anything else, even if a Freaky Friday concept was possible, it's still irrelevant because sex is a description of one's body not one's brain.

This!

Sorry Nodal, I hadn't seen your post when I posted that. I'm so sorry that happened to your friend.

@Nodal

As someone whose friend recently died of breast cancer, despite an attempt as actual life saving surgery with a double mastectomy, leaving 2 young children and partner bereft and devastated - I find this, him and the twitter TRAs fucking offensive.

It really is Nodal. I'm so sorry to hear about your friend.

I’m very sorry to hear as well about your friend, Nodal.

Top Surgery. FFS.

Nodal, I'm sorry to hear of your friend.

The phrase 'top surgery' gets right on my tit as it is belittling a major surgery in the same way we don't call amputations a trim.

I'm so sorry, Nodal.

I am sorry if I have offended anyone with the phrase top surgery. That is what it is commonly referred to in terms of transition.

I feel like it differentiates it from actual medically needed cancer surgeries and I think that's quite important as for these people it is a choice and I don't think they should be regarding it in the same way as people who desperately need life saving treatment.

I am not articulating it very well here but cancer treatment is very serious and shouldn't be demeaned in anyway by being lumped in with people who are choosing to have the surgery for essentially cosmetic reasons.

@QueenOfPain

Why don’t we call lip fillers or Botox or garden variety breast augmentation lifesaving procedures/surgeries? Some of those people might have killed themselves too if they hadn’t been able to correct their perceived aesthetic failings?

It’s totally manipulative to be telling people you’ll kill yourself if you can’t have certain things.

You pegged it - its emotional manipulation. If you question the dogma, you are "killing children". You don't want to kill children, do you? No one questions why millions of children weren't killing themselves for unknown reasons in years past, since you are "born this way" and cant change it and "there have always been trans people", except this is a brand new phenomenon and suicide rates have increased, not decreased, especially in teens.

@CardinalLolzy

Well, if you hear ppl on Twitter call Mumsnet "transphobic" it's because of stuff like that

Who cares what idiots on twitter say?

We should call it what it is. Cosmetic mastectomy. That doesn't minimise the complicated nature of the surgery and differentiates it from mastectomy to excise a tumour.

Thank you all for you kind words. I know it's out there, I know twitter is filled with narcissists and I know many of them have trauma in their pasts and mental health issues that might explain some of this and I do feel a degree of sympathy for people who can't be happy. But when I look at these privileged, rich celebs going on about their "life saving" cosmetic operations, that just make them look ill, and compare it to my bright, happy, confident friend who was very content in her life and body and yet had to endure the absolute horror of cancer eating away at her and taking her breasts, hair and then life away, it does sting I'm afraid.

Nodal