Boots magazine - repeating suicide stats and pronouns…

[KittenKong]

I’ve seen screenshots on twitter (so not the actual thing).

The article is all about why we need to use preferred pronouns (and the stats that people are 50% less likely to attempt suicide if you do - in ‘a recent study’ which isn’t named).

We can literally save lives by sharing our pronouns and asking others for theirs. “Literally”

This is Boots. Boots the high street Chemist.

Has anyone seen a copy - I’m hoping it is a Moley
joke?

Boots have been on my personal boycott list for a while. Although yesterday I was walking past my local Boots store (where I’ve spent too much money in the past) and I was trying to remember the specific reason I’d dropped them as I wanted something they would sell but could only remember an extreme reluctance to going in. I remember now it was a combination of the inspirational ’women’ article and their pricing of the morning after pill.

@BootyMacBootface

This is interesting because I’ve worked for them in the past and everything had to be medically sourced to the nth degree from trusted sources, using peer reviewed studies etc etc. Looks like there has been a huge shift.

The writer is a beauty editor and does not have the health/psychology background required to write a piece like this for a major health brand and certainly gives no signs of trying to.

The word ally gives me the shudders now because I know ‘cis’ is just around the corner.

The piece uses the word 'cis' too: "even if you're cisgender, displaying your pronouns normalises the idea that..."

It’s propaganda and it’s highly damaging to the kids it purports to help - that’s what I find so horrifying about this stuff. You are sacrificing the health and bodies of children to push an agenda through emotional blackmail and lies.

Awful.

www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/media-guidelines/10-top-tips-reporting-suicide/

I have no idea if it will help, but I have emailed the link to the samaritan's head office......

Good. So this is the fashion writer who produced this rather unprofessional and harmful piece of fluff? Uhuh…

This is where I have a follow-the-money moment.

Once upon a time Boots were a Quaker company founded on Quaker values. They are now part of wallgreens boots alliance.

Somehow I can’t image them publishing an article about how people with anorexia feel so much less suicidal if they’re just allowed to keep chasing their Perfect Weight. And how their families & friends should support their diet & exercise plans. Anorexia is, after all, the MH condition with the highest mortality rate…

They could even use it to flog vitamins/minerals/supplements. Winner.

Or how to care for family and friends with dementia (or how to spot early signs). Miscarriage, menopause, prostate cancer or brain tumours.

But I guess you can’t jauntily slap a rainbow on any of these.

@Cuck00soup

This is where I have a follow-the-money moment.

Once upon a time Boots were a Quaker company founded on Quaker values. They are now part of wallgreens boots alliance.

The wikipedia page on Walgreens makes for some interesting reading. There's a whole section on 'controversies and legal issues' including:

In November 2021, a federal jury found that Walgreens, along with CVS and Walmart, "had substantially contributed to" the opioid crisis.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walgreens#Controversies_and_legal_issues

@BootyMacBootface

It’s propaganda and it’s highly damaging to the kids it purports to help - that’s what I find so horrifying about this stuff. You are sacrificing the health and bodies of children to push an agenda through emotional blackmail and lies.

Awful.

It is. It's a magazine that will be read by parents (more likely mothers) and emotionally blackmailing them - agree to whatever this ideology demands or you'll have a dead child on your hands and you'll be the one to blame. And the whole language of 'ally', taken from wartime! Because when you start using divisive wartime language like this, if a parent is not an 'ally' agreeing this ideology, they become, what, the 'enemy'? The 'other side'?

Yet more schlocky US statistics used to prop up this nonsense.

Wallgreen are preparing to sell Boots off.
This beauty editor could soon be out of a job.

OldCrone it’s very interesting isn’t it?

Have not used Boots in years not since they got bought by USA same goes for Lloyds. thers plenty of alternatives out there.

Just to say as someone who attempted suicide and had 2 suicidal mates (one of which tried 4 times and got sanctioned), none of us talked about it to others who wouldnt understand, we didnt really know why we were fed up with life and wanted out, it was just everything and we were tired of it all.

the only people I know who go around shouting about suicide and are exact about the cause of their ideation, as in you dont use my pronouns I'll kill myself for example, are what is normally referred to as bullies, threatening suicide if others dont do what you say is classed as abuse under the law and those people rarely kill themselves its just another tool to frighten others into submission.

I have treated one person who went on to commit suicide. It’s not a bloody joke and should never be parroted/coached like this until it becomes a just words in this culture (oh I almost died laughing, I could have dropped dead with embarrassment, I could have killed him…).

The whole drama and victim is flipping dangerous.

To wrap it up as a bullying technique, to normalise it and make it part of the rainbows and ‘q’ is really distasteful.

It's the dodgy stats that give it weight, though.

I could say I want a yacht and if I don't get one I'll kill myself. Nobody would take me seriously. Or I want to be five inches taller or I'll kill myself. Or whatever.

Because I'm a woman over 30, hence nobody really gives a monkey's, and because nobody really thinks I'll kill myself.

But with trans people, the dodgy stats have been flying around for so long, I'm sure plenty of people can't be sure the trans people they meet won't kill themselves, so it's a very effective way to get people to comply.

The flip side of it is that those people with a choice of whether or not to interact with a trans person (i.e. generally people outside their immediate family or circle of friends) then completely avoid interacting with these ticking time-bombs which means trans people are both more isolated and more likely to exist in an echo chamber. It doesn't actually help people co-exist peacefully in mutual understanding does it?

Why keep someone as a friend or acquaintance when if you say the wrong thing, you could be responsible for their death? Who needs that kind of pressure when there are millions of other people to have conversations about the weather with? I can't imagine it makes the average person more likely to want to have a relationship with a trans person either. So as a tactic it's very short sighted.

@FlyingOink

It's the dodgy stats that give it weight, though.

I could say I want a yacht and if I don't get one I'll kill myself. Nobody would take me seriously. Or I want to be five inches taller or I'll kill myself. Or whatever.

Because I'm a woman over 30, hence nobody really gives a monkey's, and because nobody really thinks I'll kill myself.

But with trans people, the dodgy stats have been flying around for so long, I'm sure plenty of people can't be sure the trans people they meet won't kill themselves, so it's a very effective way to get people to comply.

The flip side of it is that those people with a choice of whether or not to interact with a trans person (i.e. generally people outside their immediate family or circle of friends) then completely avoid interacting with these ticking time-bombs which means trans people are both more isolated and more likely to exist in an echo chamber. It doesn't actually help people co-exist peacefully in mutual understanding does it?

Why keep someone as a friend or acquaintance when if you say the wrong thing, you could be responsible for their death? Who needs that kind of pressure when there are millions of other people to have conversations about the weather with? I can't imagine it makes the average person more likely to want to have a relationship with a trans person either. So as a tactic it's very short sighted.

its coercion pure and simple and they themselves must know they are doing it, or atleast getting caught up in it, No one can go through life not noticing that people are frightened to say boo to a goose round them and that people change their behaviour round them.

which means either they interject and say it doesnt matter I am not bothered by pronouns etc, I am not like that which you have read on twitter.

or they are control freaks loving it and that control and elevated level above others is probably why the numbers of transgenderist has exploded in recent years.

Would boots advocate outsourcing care to everyone else besides the dr/pharmacist ?

My rabbit is sick should I take him to my dentist?

Can my postie fix my car?

How about I get a repeat prescription from the window cleaner ?

Or are people responsible for their own health and well being?

What other " treatment " is reliant on strangers and great aunt maud u see only every Xmas ? Is that a stable basis fir medical.care boots? Relying on others?

"LGBTQ youth who had access to spaces that affirmed their sexual orientation and gender identity reported lower rates of attempting suicide."

does that include lesbians that arent subjected to being called transphobes for refusing "girl dick"?

Your mental health isn’t my responsibility. Why is the onus of the mental health of strangers being put on others?

Me validating you by using certain words does not replace therapy and getting help to not commit suicide.

I don’t like this being held over the heads of society .. say they then or else I might kill myself. Get help! Please because if you’re mental health is they fragile then ppl being “nice” to you isn’t going to improve your mental health.

Ive emailed a complaint to Boots

@VelvetChairGirl

"LGBTQ youth who had access to spaces that affirmed their sexual orientation and gender identity reported lower rates of attempting suicide."

does that include lesbians that arent subjected to being called transphobes for refusing "girl dick"?

Don't be daft. It also won't include young lesbians and gay boys/men who have religious homophobic families either.

It's a further conflation of LGB with T.

There's another issue with this. The first child to change pronouns and name at DD's school (primary school) showed signs of sexual abuse (I reported, I don't know if anything happened), neglect (which I actually saw and reported, I don't know if anything happened), has a mother who has all sorts of challenges which manifest in really traumatising ways. Medicated since about 5 yo.

This child has all the typical behaviour (manipulative, violent, sexual) and I don't doubt that without extremely expensive and ongoing care through youth and adulthood, will struggle and have terrible outcomes possibly including the risk of self-harm and/or suicide. The behaviour is also the cause of trauma in other children.

I despair at the thought that Boots' solution is using pronouns. How about we reduce risk by skilled and ongoing support, great services, good paid respite, support for mum, professional and caring eyes on until this poor kid can manage? How about we actually care for children, reduce CSA which actually harms them a great deal, male violence in the home, and all the other things we throw up our hands at?

It seems to be a way to completely ignore safeguarding and avoid consideration/ investigation of any possible of abuse (emotional/sexual).

It seems to be a way to completely ignore safeguarding and avoid consideration/ investigation of any possible of abuse (emotional/sexual)

It also completely ignores the need for impartial care. Creating this bubble of staff with involvement in the medical field all with financial gain to be made and all able to refer amongst a circle of affirmative care givers. That doesn't always benefit the patient. It creates an US vs Them situation. Care becomes political. Meanwhile there's a patient in the middle.of all who's needs could well be being neglected.