herstory. poetry. recipes. rants.
“A common galvanizing trope among progressives claims the good and open-minded among us are in a constant battle against the evil right, who wishes to stamp out the struggling and marginalized. This holds true in the trans debate.”
Murphy goes on to prove why it’s women who are struggling & marginalized, not trans-people, who are the darlings of the moment & very well funded. She also points out that feminists have been fighting this fight for many years.
An article from The Critic, by writer Helen Joyce
Two pick excerpts:
“I’ve heard opposition to “gender-affirming” care analogised to conversion therapy many times, and it’s absurd. This is the treatment pathway involving giving puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones to gender-distressed children, often as a precursor to surgery that will leave them sterile and lacking in sexual function. Most children sent down this path would have grown up gay if left to do so in peace; when they identify as the opposite sex, they become nominally straight. It’s the gender ideologues, in other words, who are the modern-day conversion therapists.”
And:
“The spread of victimhood culture has helped popularise novel gender identities (non-binary, agender) and sexual orientations (aroace, pansexual) since they allow people to claim membership of oppressed groups without experiencing any actual hardship. It is also driving the self-diagnosis of mental illnesses, from quotidian conditions such as anxiety and depression, to boutique ones such as multiple-personality disorder or a novel form of Tourette’s transmitted by TikTok.
“More generally, this is a culture that encourages young people to regard themselves as traumatised. According to Jonathan Haidt, co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, US schools and universities have started to promote three pernicious falsehoods: that what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; that feelings are a good guide to reality and action; and that life is a battle between good people and evil ones.”
Do read the entire article. It’s well worth your time & it won’t take very long.
link here ~~~~~> https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/april-2023/hard-lessons-in-life/
(this is one of my favorite poems)
McGinley, Phyllis. “The 5:32”. No More Masks” An Anthology of Poems by Women. Edited by Florence Howe & Ellen Bass. Garden City, NY: Doubleday/Anchor, 1973. poem is found on page 85.
A thoughtful essay by Jamie Reed, a queer woman married to a transman, bringing up five children, who worked with children wishing to transition.
As she writes, politically she is “left of Bernie Sanders”, like so many of us are, but this issue is really not a left/right issue, it’s a human rights issue, a children’s rights issue, which transcends political posturing.
Normally, I would put this on Aunt Polly’s rants, but I wanted to reach a wider audience. Let me state that I am not anti-trans (far from it) but I am quite worried about what is happening to vulnerable children. Transitioning is a decision that ONLY adults should be allowed to make. Even then … the question should be asked … who is benefiting from all this? Big Pharma? The plastic surgery industry? Who else? Why is the push to transition exploding now?
link here ~~~~> https://www.thefp.com/p/i-thought-i-was-saving-trans-kids
“This user is blocked from commenting on Scotties Playtime. The person has been asked not to comment on this blog. This person deleted my comments on her blog and refused to answer questions why, but this person left up their replies under a prior comment attempting to make me look stupid and uneducated on the subject. When I asked her why she did that she refused to answer. This person continuing to comment here and not addressing my question on her behavior to me shows contempt for me and a lack of respect for my blog. I have now gone to the step of blocking this person. Bye”
At least Scottie had the courtesy to tell me why he blocked me, although he’s totally wrong. I’ve never tried to make him look “stupid & uneducated” on any subject. & I don’t have a contempt for him or any other person, nor do I have a lack a respect for his blog. I stopped following his blog because he posts too much & I can’t take all the email in my inbox. I have too much email as it is.
My beef with Scottie is that we disagree on trans-ideology & instead of “agreeing to disagree”, like reasonable people do, like friends do, he kept trying to argue with me. Some of his arguments, especially those concerning the transing of children & the education of young children concerning trans-ideology seemed to me just like the arguments that abusers use, especially child abusers. I am giving Scottie the benefit of the doubt here & I don’t think he knew what he was saying. But as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I am really tuned to this kind of thing & I am all about keeping children safe from predators, ALL predators.
As to “refusing to answer”, I did what I do with all people who continue to hound me when I say I do not wish to continue the conversation … I walk away. Which is what I did with Scottie. I am very sad that it’s come to this. I really like Scottie & I am going to miss him. This argument has rippled through WordPress & now I am finding myself no-platformed on several other blogs that I follow. I won’t list them here but it’s really getting to me. & it’s all because of the stupid trans-ideology political crapola.
I will state it here & I will state it clearly. I do not hate anyone. I have fought for the civil rights of all people, including transgendered people & I will continue to do so for the rest of my life. However, I do not & I will not fight for an ideology that is toxic & is obviously the patriarchy on steroids … that is removing sex-based protections for girls & women … that is teaching gender ideology to children too young to understand what it means … that is weaponizing BOTH the Republicans & the Democrats in their war against each other & the American people. An ideology that is based on kink & porn & should be left in the adult sex industry where it belongs. As a former sex worker, I know what I am talking about.
This is an ideology that should NOT be taught to children. Honestly, no ideology should be taught to children. Leave the kids alone! You don’t give kids alcohol & cigarettes or drugs … you make them wait until they are adults. This ideology is the same damn thing. But for some reason, it now OK to put children on life-changing drugs & even mutilate their bodies, all in the name of being “trans inclusive”.
As a mother & soon-to-be-grandmother, I find this absolutely egregious.
I have no doubt that there are children that think they are the opposite sex. When I was a kid, I thought I was a deer. For a while I thought I was a horse. & yes, I thought I was a boy. I was a tomboy & I am still a tomboy. But I am a woman & I am SO FUCKING GRATEFUL that I don’t live in today’s world because I still have my beautiful breasts, I wasn’t ever put on puberty blockers, I have experienced orgasms & still do. I think of all the children who will NEVER have an orgasm because of the drugs they are being fed, because nobody is making them wait until they are old enough to know what’s going on in their growing minds & bodies. Nobody has the strength to tell them NO. Like parents & the adults in their lives are supposed to do. Like mine did. Yeah, I hated my parents sometimes. You’re supposed to hate your parents. Now I am so thankful I had parents who loved me enough to be “mean”. They weren’t mean … they LOVED me.
As for puberty blockers … you’re supposed to go through puberty! & you’re supposed to hate it. I know I hated my period, especially back in the 1970s, when I wasn’t allowed to wear a tampon (my Catholic mother forbid it) & I had to wear this awful belt with the pad & the metal clasp bit into my skin. It was TERRIBLE. When I hear young girls complain about their periods now, I think, gee you just don’t know. But yeah, I get it. Puberty sucks & periods suck & boys being boys suck. & all the changes suck. It’s called growing up. It’s what all animals do & humans are animals.
Stop trying to fuck with reality. Reality is humans come in two types, men & females. You cannot change your sex. You can change your gender but not your sex. Gender is not sex. I know that most people now think that gender & sex is the same thing but that is not true. I am a WOMAN, that is AN ADULT HUMAN FEMALE.
Transwomen are not women. They are men. Transmen are not men. They are women. This is reality. The prefix “trans” has meaning, it’s not there for nothing! If transwomen were really women & transmen really men, why is the “trans” there? Because they’re not. & everyone knows this. It’s only ideology that says they are.
I live in the real world. Not in some transgendered magical world. This does not mean I hate transgendered people or that I’m “transphobic” or “hateful” or any other stupid thing. It means I am living in REALITY.
Goodbye Scottie. I’ll miss you. But that’s the way it goes in war.
The Quarrel
You know I said to Mark I’m furious at you.
No he said are you bugged. He was drawing Brad who was asleep on the bed.
Yes I said I’m pretty god damned bugged. I sat down by the fire and stuck my feet out to warm them up.
Jesus I thought you think it’s so easy. There you sit innocence personified. I didn’t say anything else to him.
You know I thought I’ve got work to do too sometimes. In fact I probably have just as fucking much work to do as you. A piece of wood fell out of the fire and I poked it back in with my toe.
I am sick I said to the woodpile of doing dishes. I am just as lazy as you. Maybe lazier. The top of my shoe was scorched from the fire and I rubbed it where the suede was gone.
Just because I happen to be a chick I thought.
Mark finished one drawing and looked at it. Then he put it down and started another one.
It’s damned arrogant of you I thought to assume that only you have things to do. Especially tonight.
And what a god damned concession it was for me to bother to tell you that I was bugged at all I said to the back of his neck. I didn’t say it out loud.
I got up and went into the kitchen to do the dishes. And shit I thought I probably won’t bother again. But I’ll get bugged and not bother to tell you and after a while everything will be awful and I’ll never say anything because it’s so fucking uncool to talk about it. And that I thought will be that and what a shame.
Hey hon Mark yelled at me from the living room. It says here that Picasso produces fourteen hours a day.
–Diane DiPrima (c) 1961
Taken from No More Masks: An Anthology of Poems by Women
Asks Eric George Tauber. The answer, of course, is NO.
Of course, we feminists have been making these points FOR YEARS. Since the Hyde Amendment in 1976, abortion has been too expensive for many women, even as it remained safe & legal. The sad truth is that in the United States, when something is “legal”, i.e., when we are granted certain rights, this means that we have the legal right to purchase whatever it is the government says we can. A gun, a marriage, healthcare. Even rights like freedom of speech often means having to buy something – get a permit for a protest or else you’re not “allowed” your First Amendment right to free speech.
In this case, we are talking about the right to be able to purchase an abortion if we are a pregnant woman who needs one. If we can’t afford it, well, that’s our problem. Very few health insurances cover abortion; Medicaid certainly does not. So if you’re a poor woman, your right to an abortion is no right at all, it’s a privilege & one that hasn’t been available to many women for a long time now. This is truth. This is what it’s like living in a wholly capitalist society, one that has never fully embraced the concept of “Separation of Church & State”. At this point in time, it seems that this concept has been relegated to the trash bin completely.
As to our rights – or if you prefer, privileges – being tied to affordability, health insurance is a good example of this. They’re taking away abortion today; say goodbye to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) tomorrow; or at least be prepared to look at spikes in premiums, so that the name is rendered obsolete (let’s face it, it’s already a misnomer). Seniors, look out for your Medicare & your Social Security. If you don’t have some other form of retirement income, life might be getting much more difficult in the next ten years – maybe sooner! It’s already tough! I don’t know about you, but getting by is much harder than it was just a few years ago! If you’re disabled & on SSD or SSI, these might be on the chopping block, too. Get set for your case to be reviewed. & of course, other landmark cases will be overturned. Voting rights have already been pushed back.
This leaked memo shows that SCOTUS is OK-FINE with taking away rights.
The radical right has been wanting to take away all these rights for as long as I can remember. They hated the New Deal; they utterly despised the Great Society. They aren’t going to be satisfied with abortion; they don’t care about anyone but themselves.
Are they really pro-life? The answer is NO. They are all about cruelty, hatred & death.
link here ~~~~~> https://themoderatevoice.com/are-they-really-pro-life/
Jokes I’ve Told That My Male Colleagues Didn’t Like by Ali Kelley, Kate Herzlin, Danielle Kraese, and Ysabel Yates.
Published on McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.
link is here ~~~> https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/jokes-ive-told-that-my-male-colleagues-didnt-like
ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS !!!
reblogged (cut & pasted) from feminismandreligion.com
Isis is one of my favorite Goddesses!
Written by Karen Tate
the link is here: https://feminismandreligion.com/2019/07/24/happy-birthday-isis-isis-isis-ra-ra-ra-by-karen-tate/#more-44906
silverapplequeen 