The Guardian again; Celebrating double mastectomies, filing it under "health and wellbeing"

[AstonsGerbil]

This just makes me feel sad; with a close family member who died of cancer, a friend who can't breastfeed due to breast cancer and who carries that sadness and pain and a MIL who had a double mastectomy due to aggressive breast cancer and who is in extreme pain with it every day, that these young women have elected to do this to themselves because they worship at the alter of gender ideology is just really depressing.

If these women are truly, truly happy, then I do hope they can cope with the pain they will carry now, but I just can't see why this would be filed under "wellness" and health and wellbeing in the newspaper. The Guardian really have sunk deep into the ideology now. I don't think there's a way back for them.

https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2024/nov/19/trans-nonbinary-top-surgery-scars

Oh I didn't see that @Mittens67 , was it about the baby whose sex was written wrong? What did they say, "assigned at birth" by any chance? It's just depressing how low the guardian has sunk. No more for me either. I wish there was a left wing paper I could read but sadly not.

They made the point that as their daughter’s birth certificate stated male in error and a correction was only allowed to be made in the margin people might think the child was transgender and which would “of course” be ok.

"I wished that I didn’t live in a world that has these very binaristic standards of what kinds of bodies are masculine"

To return to this phrase again - as a 50+ battleaxe who was a young feminist in the 80s and 90s - what the hell happened to trying to change society and fight sexism? How have we got to a point where so many young women see sexist expectations of masculine and feminine as something they have to fit into instead of question - to the point of thinking they have to change their bodies to “not female” (according to their view of it) if they don’t fit? Just because someone told them this approach to being female is cool and progressive? It’s mindblowing. Should be a model for marketing courses and brainwashers everywhere how gender ideology has achieved this.

I don’t actually even understand how a young female person who considers herself left wing and progressive can think “society has sexist gender roles and expectations” and then from there go straight to “and I have to go along with them, not challenge them”.

The birth certificate story is just beyond insane. If that’s true, good on them for making a public fuss. Of course it should be corrected if it’s wrong FGS.

Perhaps it arises as part of the cuture that suggest that "you can be whatever you want to be - no limits"; combined with a rampant bio-medical -pharma model of society in which drugs and/or surgery can deliver everything you need or desire and can prevent all suffering.

Of course all of this costs too.....has a price tag......and as such has arisen out of consumer culture. Everything can be bought. Lifestyles. Looks, Identities.

I don’t actually even understand how a young female person who considers herself left wing and progressive can think “society has sexist gender roles and expectations” and then from there go straight to “and I have to go along with them, not challenge them”.

Because the statement:

"I wished that I didn’t live in a world that has these very binaristic standards of what kinds of bodies are masculine"

is just a cover for deep-seated body dysmorphia. If it was actually about railing against gender expectations, saying “fuck you gender expectations” would be cheaper, less painful, and more (actually) progressive.

Instead these platitudes are repeated by the person themselves and reinforced by non-progressives around them as a denial of the reality of their body distress. It’s incredibly sad, really.

This is it. The terrifying result of left-leaning Utopianism and big pharma joining forces.

When I saw that the Guardian published this I just realised it's the end of the line for me. I haven't subscribed to the online version for years but have still bought the Saturday Guardian most weekends. Have done that for 30+ years. Not any more. Very sad.

What the fuck are they going to do next? An article celebrating female genital mutilation?

The Guardian sickens me to the core. They are vile. Just vile.

I'm a bit agnostic about The Guardian, I was never a regular reader, partly because I try to dip into several different news sources rather than depending on one, and now that I live in Ireland again, it's not on my local newstand, lit or fig.

I've picked up from here that it takes a very TWAW line, with some particularly irritating columnists.

All that said, I'm still amazed that they published this article.
It's so way out there in terms of transgenderism, 'out there' to the extent of celebrating seriously altering your body for demonstrably invalid reasons. I think many Guardian readers - yes, even them! - will shudder at the thought of this, and will look away in horror from the accompanying photos.

I don't suppose comments were open on this article? I wonder how many people would be praising it if they were. I must have a look to see if it's being discussed in the other sections of MN..

This may be an example of 'Let them speak', it might actually demonstrate to lukewarm or wavering trans supporters that this is what #bekind can look like.

I wish I could UNsee those photos...

I wish I could unsee those photos too. I find it highly hypocritical that (for example) the entirely reasonable Naomi Cunningham's statement that sex is immutable on her BlueSky account is framed as "intolerance" as if it's a horrifying thing that needs to be hidden behind a sensitivity screen for the general public yet genuinely horrifying images of body mutilation like this are just presented without any sensitivity warnings.

This was a bit upsetting to see and I imagine if my MIL saw this she'd revisit all the pain she has daily (she doesn't like to look at her cancer mastectomy scars). No consideration for anyone else's feelings at all from the guardian here.

I'm deliberating about whether or not to show this to DH and say, are you still happy to send them money? Tbh I fear his answer will still be yes and I don't know if I can bear to hear him say those words. He just won't see what I see. I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall.

C & P your OP, and send it to the Guardian as a letter.

A reference board?

'The video didn't turn me trans'

But I don't think the Graun would publish an article about cutting, including lots of medical details and glamorous photos hoots. Or other kinds of obvious self harm. Because of the risks of social contagion of harm.

Te thing is, I'm not even sure that they are being honest about what society does consider masculine or feminine.

Yes, it is true that there are people who are considered kind of ideal forms of attractive men and women. Beyonce, and whatever male actors are considered attractive these days.

There are beautiful people and most of us don't and can't live up to that.

However - there are actually huge numbers of normal men and women who are not beautiful people, who may be women who have thick waists or don't like dresses or keep their hair short, or men who are slender and have no hair on their faces and like long hair.

Every one of us seems many people like this every day and these people have normal lives.

It's really this tiny bubble that is focused on everyone adhering to very narrow stereotypes and beauty standards. And they have to be deliberately not looking at the world around them.

However - there are actually huge numbers of normal men and women who are not beautiful people, who may be women who have thick waists or don't like dresses or keep their hair short, or men who are slender and have no hair on their faces and like long hair.
Every one of us seems many people like this every day and these people have normal lives.

Totally agree - identifying as trans/NB almost always seems to involve massively misrepresenting or denying the range of gender expression, gender non-conformity and ignoring of strict stereotypes by most normal people. Often the come out with outright lies like that NB poet who famously moaned about not being able to get a haircut because hair salons and haircuts are all either super-feminine or super-masculine. Just sheer, obvious nonsense. And surprisingly for a movement that's hitched itself to the LGB, they're not very good at noticing they include large numbers effeminate or flamboyant gay men and butch lesbians who have been rejecting gender stereotypes for decades without denying their own sex. I mean

Nora Ephron wrote a very very scathing piece on Jan Morris' book Conundrum. About 10 years ago you could still find it online. Not anymore.

Back in the early 2000s Jenny Boylan (previously Jim Boylan) wrote a book about transition which could not be published today (and probably worries Boylan as it is still in print) It says all sorts of things about transition that are not acceptable to say at all now.

And surprisingly for a movement that's hitched itself to the LGB, they're not very good at noticing they include large numbers effeminate or flamboyant gay men and butch lesbians who have been rejecting gender stereotypes for decades without denying their own sex. I mean

Of course, It's just such obvious bollocks, which defies the evidence of the last few decades. But, when you're propagandising, keep telling the same lies over and over again..

Thanks for flagging this OP - it is sad and awful and so massively irresponsible of a national newspaper to publish it. I think one other problem with The Guardian is the fact that it's ‘self-regulated’ (ha!) I believe this came about following the total mess that was the leveson inquiry and the closure of the old Press Complaints Commission. This definitely had its flaws - like most regulation in this country- which came into the spotlight due to the phone hacking scandal. But what has replaced it seems far worse. IPSO is a voluntary regulator and the Guardian didn’t sign up to them. Which means if you have any legitimate complaints about their content, your only recourse is to complain to … that’s right, The Guardian. Brilliant.

Jay Rayner just quit The Observer because of the blatant anti semitism. His mother would be turning in her grave over The Guardian.

Back in the early 2000s Jenny Boylan (previously Jim Boylan) wrote a book about transition which could not be published today (and probably worries Boylan as it is still in print) It says all sorts of things about transition that are not acceptable to say at all now.

I think this person was to be found railing at JK Rowling that she'd made their adult children cry because their childhood of loving Harry Potter had been ruined.

It's depressing that people can, as you say duc748, defy the evidence of the last few decades. Also defying the personal experience of what many of us have actually lived through, and winding back the hands of the clock on the bits of progress that women had made in the last few decades.

Women's Aid in Ireland recently did a study of attitudes and opinions among Irish men. It showed that what they called 'traditionalist' [insert your own word here, e.g. sexist..] views are highest amongst the youngest cohort of men - 30% of men aged 60 and over were in the 'traditionalist' category, whereas 67% of 18-29 year old men expressed opinions which many of us thought had been successfully challenged decades ago.
Evolving-Manhood-Core-Research-and-Womens-Aid.pdf

There's no let-up, there's no guaranteed progress, nothing can be taken for granted, it's a constant struggle that each generation of women - like the incredibly brave Nikita Hand - has to take up anew.
Depressing but true.

This is Guardian US which is totally captured, as is Guardian Australia. It was the American staff who took such umbrage at Suzanne Moore's articles that they started a petition against her. I agree that this article is deeply disturbing.

They also produced this jaw dropping piece when the U.K. Guardian had the temerity to produce a balanced article about our own equality law.

amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/02/guardian-editorial-response-transgender-rights-uk

"The Guardian in the US is committed to covering this important civil rights fight, but when the time came for us to report on Trump’s attacks, we encountered problems. Some trans people wouldn’t talk to us.
That’s because, days earlier, the Guardian published an editorial that we believe promoted transphobic viewpoints, including some of the same** assertions about gender that US politicians are citing in their push to eliminate trans rights. Guardian journalists in the US had no input in the editorial, which we felt was misplaced and misguided, and nearly all reporters and editors from our New York, Washington DC and California offices wrote to UK editors with our concerns.
The editorial was an attempt to make sense of a growing debate about trans rights in the UK. While focused on the Gender Recognition Act, the editorial and resulting conversations have exposed some of the fundamental divides between American and British feminism and progressive politics – and highlighted for us an alarming intolerance of trans viewpoints in mainstream UK discourse.
The editorial used a UK legal debate about IDs to argue that trans rights “collide” with cis women’s rights; that equality for trans women “could adversely affect other women”; and that allowing trans women to access public spaces threatens cis women’s “safety”. These arguments were met with particular dismay in the US as they echo the position of anti-trans legislators who have pushed overtly transphobic bathroom bills."

The author of that piece also spread fake news about the Wi Spa incident and subsequent protests.

Appalling - I used to read the Guardian year ago but over the years their stance on this issue has meant I no longer read it or wish to hear its views.

I remember a friend at university - 20 odd years ago - he had a condition where he had small but notable breasts. Not “man boobs” but actual breast tissue. Back then we were all very progressive and saw it as irrelevant to his character or status as a man. I wonder how he would be treated now, I fear he would be pushed towards “gender affirming surgery” as the current teen-twenties generation seem to have set gender expectations in concrete in a way that I just cannot understand, nor see as progressive.