Women's rights general conversations - Thread 2

[Kucingsparkles]

Continuation of Thread 1

There is so much excellent information and so many active discussions on FWR that I wondered if it would be useful to have a thread to sort of "cross-fertilise" between them - airing little thoughts or vignettes that wouldn't themselves merit their own thread, to highlight other posts/threads of particular interest or to point to notable developments on fast-moving threads so that casual observers know where to look.

(For example, "the X thread has meandered onto a fascinating discussion of Y" or "Poster P's amazing analysis on thread Z might have relevance to the scenario in thread W" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions, grr"- that sort of thing).

This shocked me. Have we all gone too far?

It's a mystery to me how women with endometriosis are fobbed off for years, without a diagnosis, then fobbed off with the minimum care.

When I was 19, my girlfriend had agonising periods and crazy mood swings. The doctor told her to have a lie down and take Feminax! There was an article in Bella, or Best, with a checklist of symptoms, first I'd ever heard of it.

She took a lot of persuasion to go and ask the doctor about it. I kept the article and she took it in and eventually, got a referral to a specialist.

It still wasn't a lot of use. She also developed POS.

Liverpool to Southport via somewhere between? That's a cispennine trail from my pov.

heh! very good, errol.

Being a bloke I'd never even heard of endometriosis until the other day, so thought I'd Google to get some idea. Found useful piece explaining it, (health line), but then it goes on to talk about estrogen production, and says

.... the hormone that’s mainly responsible for the development of sexual characteristics in people assigned female at birth.

Just what is it about the word 'woman' that's so hard to say?

Buying into a religion and telling people how religious they are.

Some don’t bother with anything anymore, but interestingly this one, despite not using the word woman, says:

‘If another person in your family — your mother, grandmother or sister — has endometriosis, talk to your healthcare provider about your risk.’

my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/10857-endometriosis

So bigoted.

@SinnerBoy smiling at the thought of you advocating for your then-girlfriend, and so pleased she got a referral in the end. I don’t know any women who haven’t had to fight for a doctor to take it seriously.

Going back to the stuff about TransAge, why is it that people (mostly women) with body dysmorphia are told they are mentally ill and must practise mindfulness and CBT while people with gender dysphoria are fast-tracked to receive hormonal treatments and encouraged to have surgery?

A quick google of the differences brings up helpful statements like this:

A significant difference between body dysmorphic disorder and gender dysphoria is that body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a mental health condition, where gender dysphoria is not.
^^
Gender dysphoria refers to a sense of unease that a person may have if their true gender identity and biological sex don’t align. Gender identity is the sense of gender that a person has about themselves, which may or may not be the same as their biological sex at birth.

www.betterhelp.com/advice/teenagers/dysphoria-vs-dysmorphia-whats-the-difference/

What if you see yourself as an ugly person but identify as a socially-constructed (!) image of a beautiful one? I can’t understand how the two things are different.

Cyan

smiling at the thought of you advocating for your then-girlfriend, and so pleased she got a referral in the end. I don’t know any women who haven’t had to fight for a doctor to take it seriously.

Well, I really loved her and found it upsetting firstly to see her in obvious agony and being of no use and secondly, her violent moods. I correlated that to her periods more or less immediately.

My sister was similar, as a teenager. She once chased me round the garden with a knife and stabbed me in the elbow and when I asked why, she said, "I like your fucking breathing." She had no memory of it.

My Gran had explained The Curse to me, she had it, as did my mother.

To be fair, Sis was rarely physical, just raging.

I think the first time I came across endometriosis was in Hilary Mantel's amazing book, Giving Up the Ghost, where her physical symptoms were loftily dismissed as being all in her mind. (why yes, by male doctors.) Resulting in her needing a hysterectomy at age 27, I think.

I understand that endometriosis is even less likely to be diagnosed in black women ( the only studies I've found have been across the Atlantic- but I used to have a black colleague who had all the symptoms,) but her doctor said it wasn't endometriosis, and I didn't believe it)

www.contemporaryobgyn.net/view/how-raceethnicity-influences-endometriosis

I seen to recall it’s thought to be because of a horrible myth that black women are more sensitive to pain than white women. Fibroids are more common in black women and are similarly dismissed, another massively overlooked issue.

On my third visit to my GP about it, some years ago now, he said ‘it can’t be endometriosis because you’ve got the mirena coil’. The sodding coil again, the magical pharma device and cure-all for women’s ‘down there’ problems. Unfortunately I didn’t know then what I know now so I just nodded my head and went on my way again.

My poor sister used to get appalling period pain. I think a course of mini-pill sorted it out.

This thread highlights the madness of TRSOH. Confused child, "BeKind" advisors offering up female wombs in service of the Worthy Actual People, that peculiar hypocritical ability to perfectly understand sex and biology when it suits BeingKind...

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4712996-childline-suggest-female-have-a-surrogate-mother-carry-the-baby-for-you

Yes, I saw that on another thread. I don't think that my mind can boggle any more, these days.

And yet I imagine the number of 12 year old boys who want to be girls is quite small, likewise 45 year old women wanting to be men. Does no-one wonder why that is? As a poster on the thread Kuc links to says, Under His Eye, indeed.

Uh! someone's set off the twatsignal.

Is that the school poster thread? Quite a ride.

I've just been reading through that one. Holy forking shirtballs! Yes, clearly stated, women should just put up and shut up.

<awakes from gin soaked stupor>

I believe it got worse, much worse, after I bailed.

I've been following that thread, it's quite something.

I have to say, posters like that one (whether genuine TRSOH-true-believers or arsehole wind-up merchants; in this case I suspect it's the latter) are actually doing great service in laying it all out, in a climbing-up-hills direction, for any undecided lurkers. And conveniently constantly bumping the thread into Active...

So I'm always a bit torn about whether to engage them or ignore them. Personally I err on the side of ignoring because I usually don't have the energy to deal with that amount of verbal knob-polishing anymore (JTT exiles will recall what I mean). However, I do have endless admiration for those posters who have valiantly engaged and explained, over and over. for all of them!

There are some threads which if I'm not on them near the start I don't bother with at all - I can assume there are others engaging and sometimes too many voices from the women's side can look like a 'pile on' (although of course there's no orchestration some people whine when they find they're the one with a minority viewpoint).

I've been reading (some of) the school poster thread. I suspect a wind up, but I used to have a colleague who could not back down on any discussion. He always had to be 'right' and would derail a conversation into absurdities rather than admit to being wrong. Definite narcissistic tendencies.

ErrolTheDragon · Today 09:41

There are some threads which if I'm not on them near the start I don't bother with at all

I do that, but if it looks interesting, I sometimes read the first few pages, then the last few.

I've been reading (some of) the school poster thread. I suspect a wind up, but I used to have a colleague who could not back down on any discussion. He always had to be 'right' and would derail a conversation into absurdities rather than admit to being wrong. Definite narcissistic tendencies.

Didn't want to derail that thread further, but it's possibly interesting to look at that poster's first MN post for context.