Should puberty be optional? - Victoria Smith in the Critic

[DomesticatedZombie]

thecritic.co.uk/should-puberty-be-optional/

' The ascription of “cisness” (that imaginary state of identifying with the sex role stereotypes imposed on one because of one’s sex) sanitises the idea that adolescent girls don’t care what the world throws at them. If those basic cis bitches didn’t want to be objectified, they’d have put it away, “it” now being their growth, their health, their entire female presence.'

This is just extraordinary. Who can get this on the school syllabus?

Yes!

Oh my gosh it took me back to my teen years and my body changing and how hard it was for different reasons at different stages.

All the surgery I planned at different points for different parts.

None of which I had. And now am so glad I didn’t.

This was a really good read 👍

When my girls were young teens, there seemed to be a plethora of American films with teenagers that were automatically savvy with all the right clothes and make-up as soon as they stopped being the perfect child.

A brilliant article that articulates my own experience so well. I didn’t go the anorexia route I just disguised my body in dark baggy clothes. Tried to disappear.

Victoria Smith is consistently excellent on this.

A 2019 medical ethics paper explores “the ethics of ongoing puberty suppression for non-binary adults”, proposing that there be such a thing as a body remaining forever in “a “genderless’ state”. Finn MacKay, a self-identified radical feminist, likens encouraging “normal” puberty in those who don’t identify with femaleness to encouraging lesbians to have heterosexual relationships. A recent article on stopping “the puberty apocalypse” compares puberty itself to a life-altering medical procedure.

Great article. I too wore a lot of baggy clothing and tried to hide through my teen years.

What a fantastic read. Victoria Smith is Glosswitch, isn't she?

"Female puberty, we are increasingly being told, is only for those who identify with it. A 2019 medical ethics paper explores “the ethics of ongoing puberty suppression for non-binary adults”, proposing that there be such a thing as a body remaining forever in “a “genderless’ state”. Finn MacKay, a self-identified radical feminist, likens encouraging “normal” puberty in those who don’t identify with femaleness to encouraging lesbians to have heterosexual relationships. A recent article on stopping “the puberty apocalypse” compares puberty itself to a life-altering medical procedure."

This is the dialogue NOW. Can't they see how misogynistic it is?

Yes, that's Glosswitch. I highly recommend her newsletter.

t.co/K4EMpyLJKX

Okay, tin foil hat time!

The first thing that occurred to me reading this was that there's a group, somewhere, that is funding the line "puberty is optional" as the solution in the West to controlling population numbers.

There, I said it.

I shall now remove my tin foil hat.

Brilliant as always: "the real gender non-conformists are the girls — and that’s most girls — who refuse to accept stunted growth as the price of their personhood".

Maybe it's time we start emphasising the non-sex-based aspects of puberty to teenagers: that it makes you smarter, taller, stronger, and not just "reproductively mature" as one guide for teens puts it.

I nearly didn't read this thread because of the title but spotted that is was by Victoria Smith so thanks OP! It took me back to going through puberty at school, which was a horrible experience. Brilliant article, but hard to read some of it.

The sentences preceding the quote the OP picked:

Conversations about gender identity and puberty suppression revolve around the inner lives of trans-identified individuals. That we’re not so interested in the girls who stick with their female bodies, braving the patriarchal storm, is testimony to the very belittlement that others flee.

THIS is exactly what is happening with the new gender ideology. The 'cis' -terms is part of the belittlement of the female sex, to tell us that we are 'comfortable' with the sex roles and norms and stereotypes attached to our sex.

And this is why it is now acceptable even on the feminist side to see ordinary girls and women as always privileged people (except when something such as events in Afghanistan produce a momentary reality check).

I remember very clearly feeling enraged about my menarche when it happened. The idea seemed preposterous (thirty-plus years of monthly bleeding)! Whoever or whatever created human bodies was either incompetent or a misogynist.

And I also remember with disgust the changed behaviour of some 'family friends', middle-aged and older men who would suddenly try to grope my budding breasts or worse. I was twelve.

come to think of it, when I was a teen I wanted surgery because I thought my ladybits where too big, as I got older I stopped being self conscious about them, all lady gardens are different and camel toes are normal.

Anorexia, in many ways, might be linked to what is happening now with the idea that we can avoid female puberty and the negative social consequences it has. Being very thin did save me for a while, but the cost of that was enormous.

Are things worse now for young girls? I am not sure, but the way pornography consumption has been mainstreamed might make things worse, especially as teenagers seem to consume it without the understanding that it is play-acting, marketed for a largely male population, and largely uninterested in what female people actually might enjoy in sex.

@Torunette

Okay, tin foil hat time!

The first thing that occurred to me reading this was that there's a group, somewhere, that is funding the line "puberty is optional" as the solution in the West to controlling population numbers.

There, I said it.

I shall now remove my tin foil hat.

I wear the same hat, my brothers been going on about the great reset for years, about how they want to reduce the population. this ideology that encourages kids to make themselves sterile while at the same time telling adults they can have lady dicks, seems very convenient in its hypocrisy.

@drhf

Brilliant as always: "the real gender non-conformists are the girls — and that’s most girls — who refuse to accept stunted growth as the price of their personhood".

Maybe it's time we start emphasising the non-sex-based aspects of puberty to teenagers: that it makes you smarter, taller, stronger, and not just "reproductively mature" as one guide for teens puts it.

This is what I did when my child came home from secondary school PHSE, asking about going on puberty blockers like the "trans kids", in order to stay a child forever.

After a bit of discussion, we've agreed growing up and having fully functioning bones sounds better than staying small but with a crumbling spine.

Twitter TRAs will be going mad screenshotting that post, I bet.

Bump