Women's rights general conversations - Thread 5

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 4.

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 "Has anybody noticed this recurring theme that keeps coming up??" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions, grr"- that sort of thing).

My mum died of Ovarian cancer.

Unsuorisingly it was Cancer Research referring to women as ‘cervix havers’ that pushed me from gender sceptical to ‘Mumsnet terf’ (circa 2018).

It really is a bastard disease @NicolaSturgeonsSOGIbottom with its late presentation. Don’t know if there are any screening programmes or trials yet, although it’s good to see lung cancer screening will begin soon - women are set to overtake men in the number of lung cancer diagnoses next year.

Nope, no screening for OC, only increased monitoring (and/or prophylactic surgery) if you have family history/ BRCA gene mutation.

My mum was BRCA2 but thankfully neither my sister or I inherited it. I’m now participating in a research programme because there is potentially an elevated risk of breast cancer in daughters of BRCA2 women who are negative for the gene mutation themselves (I’m having yearly mammograms from 35-50).

This means that yes, I have had my chromosomes tested, thanks very much, TRAs! The X my mum passed on to me was the X that didn’t have the gene fault (she got that X from my grandad and it ended with her).

Good news re: lung cancer screening!

I can’t complain about the additional monitoring I’ve had, I’ve had very good care so far - although I suspect that’s largely due to living near a particular NHS research department, my sister (a hundred miles away) hasn’t had nearly as much attention!

Trials are so important, I have enormous respect for those who volunteer/participate. Even if the outcome doesn't benefit a participant directly, it might benefit others in the future. I had a friend who eventually died of melanoma, but she did so many clinical trials in between her diagnosis and death that she survived a LOT longer than she might have done, and one of her trial drugs is now used as standard treatment of melanoma.

Quick name change for this I'm currently in a holding pattern with a suspect ovarian cyst having gone from a normal cyst to septated cyst in a matter of months. It's infuriating because they know it's doing something, and whilst my doctor has overridden them to do the blood marker test again the hospital are dragging their feet over the next scan. It's driving me nuts knowing somethings going on and just having to wait. I'm sure in the long run it would just be cheaper to remove the thing now before anything happens. My nerves would be less shredded anyway.

Oh that really is frustrating, @Dodgycyst . The not knowing is often worse than the finding out. Fingers crossed the wait won’t be much longer and that all turns out well.

LGBA won their case, and thus Mermaids lost.

I just saw that on the other thread, fabulous news!

That's wonderful news! And it's the only judgement that makes sense.

Links please!!

https://twitter.com/AllianceLGB/status/1676882216763240448?s=20

The link to their full statement isn't working yet but the Tweet says:

We are delighted that the tribunal found in our favour and that Mermaids and the LGBT Consortium have failed in their bid to remove our charitable status.

The LGBA website has been overwhelmed and can't be accessed at the moment, but looking forward to the longer statement.

bignosebignose · Today 10:14

LGBA won their case, and thus Mermaids lost.

Well, isn't that cheering? I hope that the LGBA have their costs paid by Weremaids.

That's good news.

The Tribunal said, “the fundamental rationale of the democratic process upon which our society is founded is that when competing views, opinions and policies are publicly debated and exposed to public scrutiny, the good will over time drive out the bad and the true will prevail over the false. Only when differing views are expressed, contradicted, answered and debated will the legislature be able to obtain the fullest picture of the views held by those they represent.”

Well, quite.

Excellent news! I wonder if they will appeal, as they said they would if they lost...

I just read (the beginning of) the I Think I'm Pregnant. Fuck' thread, having just read the thoroughly dispiriting story of the feminist (!) group standing up for the 'rights' of that male 'chest-feeder'. Kinda highlighted the sometimes brutal decisions that women sometimes have to make, compared to, well, the options open to men these days.

Interesting essay on queer theory and medicine

https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/a-pediatricians-manifesto-for-the

talks about pre-modern, modern and post-modern medicine.

An interesting article and I agree with most of it although I think she has grossly oversimplified postmodernism in some respects - and created a straw theory in response to this.

My main concern is that she has missed the impact of the commodification and marketisation of medicine as a result of late hyper-capitalism - the profession is profit-driven and the patient is always right. A section considering the similarities between plastic surgery and gender medicine would have illuminated this. A discussion of the resulting ethical issues would also have been interesting as would positioning her own critique in light of previous critiques of 'modern medicine' - some of which are feminist and call out its misogyny.

There's a thread on AIBU that I'm frankly astonished hasn't been shunted over here. I've not read all of it but there are some doughty posters making excellent points

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4843559-radio-4-right-now-is-freaking-me-out?page=11&reply=127469110

I don't think it's a Radio 4 problem, it's a media problem and I've found that Woman's Hour try to be as terfy as they can without falling foul of so-called objectivity.

Just parking this here, so I can read it later

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12278551/Calls-girls-eating-disorders-offered-HRT-prevent-osteoporosis.html

My initial take from the headline is the NHS seems unable to decide whether or not it wants girls to have brittle bones.

I've not completely read the thread but based on the others, could I explore a thought I have been having here?

Have at it!

It took a little longer than I thought but the AIBU has been moved <sigh> Still it was in the wild for a time, perhaps it spread the word a little.