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

Thanks for this. I think I read it when it was first published, but I was very new to the whole issue back then and almost overwhelmed by the amount I was reading. Having reread it and picked up my jaw, I'm left wondering how these journalists are dealing with all the changes that have happened since, including changing attitudes to "gender-affirmative" medicine in more and more countries.

I recently saw for the first time in real life a person who had had her breasts removed in the name of trans ideology. It was on a beach in Italy and the scars were horrific. It was one of the most upsetting and disturbing things to see, that a woman had voluntarily mutilated herself. My lovely DSis died of breast cancer a few months ago, so I found it extremely upsetting.

There then followed the most surreal encounter. Me and DH were in the water, he had been snorkelling. This person was standing at the water's edge, and the beach was not busy. The woman who this person was with swam out to us and asked if she could borrow DH's mask and then told a very unconvincing story about wanting to borrow it to search for her wedding ring which she had dropped in the water, and then pointed at the breastless woman and said this was her husband. She made a couple of half hearted attempts to look at the sea floor, in an area she hadn't even been in, and then gave the mask back. Both me and DH were convinced that there had been no lost ring, and that she contrived to get strangers into conversation to try to validate her and her 'husband'. It was very odd and I felt violated that we were being drawn into their psychodrama.

I find it hugely irresponsible of the Guardian to be promoting the mutilation of women's bodies like this, and I agree with the pp who asked what's next, articles about FGM? I see very little difference in the two practices.

I'm so sorry for the loss of your sister @NigellaAwesome

The weird validation thing is a thing I think. I remember someone recounting an odd encounter where they were at the next table to a MTF and GF (a woman obviously) - the GF ordered for the MTF just so she could say "she'll have a latte" or whatever it was because otherwise there was no need to use pronouns or validate the "gender".

So sorry for your loss of your sister @NigellaAwesome . 💐

So sorry for your loss of your sister @NigellaAwesome . 💐 I lost my sister to cancer when we were in our 20s, it's just the most awful thing. Not breast cancer, but like I said my friend and my MIL has had breast cancer a number of times, and MIL has had a double mastectomy which causes her a lot of pain. The memories of that time (for me with my sister) and for MIL are very hard.

Edited; post went a bit funny! Sorry for double mention I can't get rid of it

"It’s also a complicated, intense and invasive process that requires navigating a maze of insurance paperwork, and from which it can take years to heal." Years to heal from having to do administrative. FFS