I could be yours if you write me a letter

[sovay]

Me, eating the object in question: "A rice cake covered with prune jam really feels like a Depression-era snack." spatch: "You could've just chewed on a sugar beet."

(Technically speaking, the prune jam is lekvar left over from Purim, which was so early this year it was still normal. It's just every holiday since that's been strange. Have some links.)

1. Sign of the 2020: I forgot it was only this April that I watched the first season of Homecoming (2018) and therefore need not feel like an idiot for taking so long to realize that my feelings about Shea Whigham's Thomas Carrasco are closely aligned with my feelings about William Daniels' Albert Amundsen, even though one is a pen-pushing gift of a co-protagonist and the other a two-scene wonder. I genuinely thought it had been at least a year.

2. Mildly edited from the swearier textbrick with which I hit selkie when I heard about the UK's high court ruling on puberty blockers, which I had previously missed:

The thing about the furor over blockers that I find silliest, by which I mean the most transphobic, is that it's not as though the human body doesn't have a complicated relationship to sexual maturity to begin with. I had a childhood friend who effectively went through puberty in a matter of months because until then she'd been an Olympic-track gymnast and the intensity of exercise had held her body at a ten-year-old shape even when she was thirteen. I imagine a significant percentage of children who train seriously for sports have similar experiences. We can argue about the pros and cons of the global sports-industrial complex, but the fact is, it can stop your clock even if you didn't ask it to. Anorexia will do it on purpose, malnutrition by accident—Audrey Hepburn's celebrated gamine figure was pure hunger winter. As far as we can tell, my late onset was strictly genetics. But that's all fine, that just happens naturally. A person makes a decision for themselves—even if that decision is simply to buy time to consider further decision-making—and oh, God, won't somebody think of the children. Well, not those children. The other children. You know. Choir, preaching, but it's so stupid. I hate stupidity on general principle and it should not be permitted when it isn't even real stupidity, just malice playing dumb.

3. I had either forgotten or never properly made the connection that Louise Fitzhugh was one of the creators—the other being Sandra Scoppettone—of Suzuki Beane (1961). It never occurred to me as a child that the book was a parody of Kay Thompson's Eloise (1955), but I loved it. It was my introduction to Beat slang. I will have to tell my mother that her crumbling paperback copy is rare.

My current music comes courtesy of aurumcalendula's "What Could've Been." I recommend the vid not just because the song is stuck desperately in my head, but because I have never seen either Supernatural (2005–2020) or Warehouse 13 (2009–2014) and the parallels were still very clear.

Comments

[moon_custafer]

Another thing about the (wilful) stupidity is that puberty blockers, as you note, are to buy time to make up one’s mind, you know, that mind that the people who oppose puberty blockers insist one is too young to know yet? They don’t change anything in themselves. You know what *does* make permanent changes to the body? Yep, puberty.

[sovay]

Yep, puberty.

Extremely true. And by sixteen it has made most of its changes.

[cmcmck]

Or hormonal intervention.

And there are those of us because of these silly attitudes way back (I transitioned in the late seventies) went through puberty twice in four years.

Can you imagine?

Fwiw, I knew when I was five, transitioned at fifteen and had to wait until 18 for corrective medication and that appears to be what they want to take these poor kids back to.

And electrolysis isn't available on the NHS................

[minoanmiss]

I want to print this comment and laminate it onto a 2x4 and go smack some people.

My chief roommate and I currently live with two people dealing with puberty. This execrable court ruling sparked a wistful discussion of puberty blockers yesterday.

[sovay]

My chief roommate and I currently live with two people dealing with puberty. This execrable court ruling sparked a wistful discussion of puberty blockers yesterday.

I wish everyone luck with their changing bodies. Mine has been doing things in midlife which are very were we not supposed to be done with this in the '90's? and it's stressful.

[asakiyume]

Hadn't seen the news about the UK ruling on puberty blockers but 100 percent agree w/ your text block. How stupid.

Re: your Depression era [COVID era] snack, sometimes what the situation calls for is something that reinforces the general sense of misery. "THIS is what the world feels like right now," etc. In comparison, chewing on a sugar beet seems to be rounding the corner and taking things upward again?

[sovay]

Hadn't seen the news about the UK ruling on puberty blockers but 100 percent agree w/ your text block. How stupid.

I believe there is a further court that can be appealed to. I don't know the odds, but I still hope for them. This is such a destructive decision otherwise.

In comparison, chewing on a sugar beet seems to be rounding the corner and taking things upward again?

I like prune lekvar! It's my favorite hamantashn filling after apricot. It just struck me suddenly.

[davidgillon]

There are two further layers of appeal - to the Appeal Court, and then the Supreme Court. It's possible there might be an opening for a further appeal to the European Court.

The irony is the type of consent being discussed - Gillick Competence - originated with an anti-contraception activist parent, Victoria Gillick, trying to have contraception for under 16s ruled illegal as it was 'encouraging sex with a minor'. She lost the case when the court ruled children could be competent to consent to contraception whatever their parents said. It's worth noting that she lost at the High Court, won at the Appeal Court, but then lost in the House of Lords (now the Supreme Court).

(She must absolutely loathe that the competence to do the thing she wanted to block is known by her name.)

[sovay]

There are two further layers of appeal - to the Appeal Court, and then the Supreme Court. It's possible there might be an opening for a further appeal to the European Court.

Thank you for the information. I'm glad to know there are avenues of recourse.

an anti-contraception activist parent, Victoria Gillick, trying to have contraception for under 16s ruled illegal as it was 'encouraging sex with a minor'.

Oh, I remember when we had that around the HPV vaccine! Fun times.

(She must absolutely loathe that the competence to do the thing she wanted to block is known by her name.)

I do think that's hilarious, so long as the irony of agency is preserved.

[edit] Do you mind if I ask, if it's an answerable question, how the current wave of transphobia got its foothold in the UK? It feels from the outside like a sudden worsening upsurge in the last few years, but I haven't been tracking from the inside.

[davidgillon]

" Do you mind if I ask, if it's an answerable question, how the current wave of transphobia got its foothold in the UK? It feels from the outside like a sudden worsening upsurge in the last few years, but I haven't been tracking from the inside."

Absolutely no objection to you asking, I just don't think I'm competent to answer. I've enough trans friends I almost certainly pay more attention to it than most, but I'm very much shouting support from the outside.

[sovay]

I've enough trans friends I almost certainly pay more attention to it than most, but I'm very much shouting support from the outside.

Understood.

[tree_and_leaf]

The other worry, of course is that despite most of the noise coming from the (rad)fem end of the transphobic pool, some of its backers, including the law firm that was involved, have been itching to erode Gillick competency for *years*. I don't understand why the radfems haven't spotted what they're enabling.

[sovay]

some of its backers, including the law firm that was involved, have been itching to erode Gillick competency for *years*.

So this is a foot-in-the-door case, weaponized against trans youth for terf support but designed to end with minors stripped of reproductive rights, not to mention a host of other social-medical safety nets. That is worse than I had understood. I truly hope it gets squashed in appeals.

I don't understand why the radfems haven't spotted what they're enabling.

I'm left concluding in situations like these that people just hate [marginalized group] more than they really care about [group they claim to protect and/or belong to]. They'll take the hit to themselves if it gives them the chance to hurt. So much of the support for the man still in the White House has struck me as the same kind of self-sabotage, and that's the only way I can explain it. You just have to hate someone else more.

[davidgillon]

So much of the support for the man still in the White House has struck me as the same kind of self-sabotage, and that's the only way I can explain it. You just have to hate someone else more.

That's pretty much how all the far right orgs work, give people someone to hate/feel superior to, even if they won't acknowledge that's what they're doing. "I'm not racist, I just voted for UKIP to win back our sovereignty"

[sovay]

That's pretty much how all the far right orgs work, give people someone to hate/feel superior to, even if they won't acknowledge that's what they're doing.

I don't think that I came into the 2016 election with a surfeit of political naïveté, but it has continued to impress me ever since how much more of politics than I had thought is based on punching down against one's own interests. It's the last part that interests me. See also: Stephen Miller is an idiot.

[davidgillon]

Just found a link to a Pink News article giving the lawyer's background, he's a serial litigant on abortion and 'Christian rights' cases, so it's pretty easy to spot his real agenda. https://t.co/35RzmKU4vG

[sovay]

Just found a link to a Pink News article giving the lawyer's background, he's a serial litigant on abortion and 'Christian rights' cases, so it's pretty easy to spot his real agenda.

I hope they get crushed.

[davidgillon]

That's a particularly interesting point I hadn't heard.

[asakiyume]

I like prune lekvar! --fair enough! I have never had it (I don't think; when the healing angel's SO made us hamantashn it was with apricot filling (some) and strawberry-rhubarb filling (others).

... Maybe it's the rice cakes that lend the air of desperation. Even though rice cakes, too, are objectively not bad.

[lilysea]

is that it's not as though the human body doesn't have a complicated relationship to sexual maturity to begin with. I have a friend who effectively went through puberty in a matter of months because until then she'd been an Olympic-track gymnast and the intensity of exercise had held her body at a ten-year-old shape even when she was thirteen. I imagine a significant percentage of children who train seriously for sports have similar experiences. We can argue about the pros and cons of the global sports-industrial complex, but the fact is, it can stop your clock even if you didn't ask it to. Anorexia will do it on purpose, malnutrition by accident—Audrey Hepburn's celebrated gamine figure was pure hunger winter. As far as we can tell, my late onset was strictly genetics.

Also, a high-fat diet can bring on puberty earlier than is typical;

and not having a close relationship with a father can bring on puberty earlier than is typical[1].

And yet, no one is saying fathers should/shouldn't leave home in order to hasten/delay their children's puberty.

[1] Father-Daughter Relationship Crucial To When Girls Enter Puberty, Researchers Say
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/09/990927064822.htm

[sovay]

and not having a close relationship with a father can bring on puberty earlier than is typical

*blink*

And yet, no one is saying fathers should/shouldn't leave home in order to hasten/delay their children's puberty.

No, curiously, there seem to be a great many factors people aren't making a fuss about, but I suppose you can't hurt other people the same way with them.

I like your icon.

[selkie]

....I was 11, if we’re keeping statistical score, and I don’t think “relationship” and “father” are somewhere closer than the bottom of the Doggerland core samples...

[sovay]

....I was 11, if we’re keeping statistical score, and I don’t think “relationship” and “father” are somewhere closer than the bottom of the Doggerland core samples...

I found a piece of antler alongside one of the last fucks you gave!

[selkie]

I wondered where I left that! Thanks!

[sovay]

I wondered where I left that! Thanks!

*passes piece of antler over, wishes good fishing*

[starlady]

That court decision is just pure evil, but the real problem is the NHS order halting treatments that goes above and beyond the decision--which shows that there are transphobes in the mix somewhere. Obviously the States is no paradise, but it shows why we've got to fight hard to keep this TERF bullshit from becoming any deeper ensconced here than it already is.

[sovay]

That court decision is just pure evil, but the real problem is the NHS order halting treatments that goes above and beyond the decision--which shows that there are transphobes in the mix somewhere.

That was actually the drift of conversation by which I found out about the court decision in the first place. As if they had just been waiting for the decision to come down so they could pull the bridge up.

Obviously the States is no paradise, but it shows why we've got to fight hard to keep this TERF bullshit from becoming any deeper ensconced here than it already is.

Amen. There are people waiting similarly in this country.

[dewline]

Insisting upon their phobia being enforced as royal policy...eurgh.

[cyphomandra]

I hadn’t realised Louise Fitzhugh died so young. I’ve never encountered Suzuki Beane; we do have a copy of Eloise but nobody loves it. I should reread Sport and The Long Secret as an adult and see what they’re like from that viewpoint.

[sovay]

I hadn’t realised Louise Fitzhugh died so young.

I hadn't until recently, either, since I did all my reading of her work in elementary school where I was barely aware of authors as separate from their books except in extraordinary cases like Jane Yolen or Lloyd Alexander.

I’ve never encountered Suzuki Beane; we do have a copy of Eloise but nobody loves it.

I was raised on and fond of Eloise, so the relationship is funny to me. I was delighted when I discovered a vintage store in Somerville called Suzuki Beane; they had a reproduction of one of the illustrated pages on the front door. I believe they have since gone out of business, which is less cool.

I should reread Sport and The Long Secret as an adult and see what they’re like from that viewpoint.

I would love to hear back if you do.

[ashlyme]

I'm furious about this. My partner's kid is trans - she and so many other kids are being told they have no right to make decisions that affect them. That in fact they don't own their own bodies. This is hateful bullshit.

[sovay]

This is hateful bullshit.

It is entirely that. If it's not presumptuous, tell your partner's kid that I send love. Strength to her arm.

[minoanmiss]

It is utterly hateful bullshit. And I second sovay's offer of love and support from a random internet person.

[selkie]

We’re just going to have to start a transatlantic resistance movement.

[ashlyme]

Thanks to all three of you. Sending love back. <3

[cmcmck]

I blew my top yesterday over the hormone blockers judgement as you'll be aware and then descended from fury to emotional collapse.

However, on doing a bit more deep research, this may provide a reality check.

https://wordpress.aber.ac.uk/law-and-criminology/2020/12/01/bell-v-tavistock-a-quick-explainer/

[sovay]

I blew my top yesterday over the hormone blockers judgement as you'll be aware and then descended from fury to emotional collapse.

I saw the aftermath post, not the original—I have been intermittent on DW in the last few day. It looked from comments as though you had people who supported you against the terf/troll, which I was glad of, but it is still garbage that you had to deal with them at all.

However, on doing a bit more deep research, this may provide a reality check.

I appreciate the additional information. *hugs* if useful or desired.

[landofnowhere]

Agreed on the puberty blockers. My understanding is that dysphoria can sometimes cause anorexia -- in which case puberty blockers are the safer option.

[sovay]

My understanding is that dysphoria can sometimes cause anorexia -- in which case puberty blockers are the safer option.

I think of blockers as being safer than most of the things that dysphoria can cause in people!

[landofnowhere]

A very good point!

[moon_custafer]

This sort of thing gets discussed a lot on websites I frequent, so another detail I’ve come across is that the TERFs do a lot of claiming that the long-term effects of hormone-blockers are unknown, and also that they’re statistically linked to cancer—and that the first of these is a lie, and the second true but in reverse, because they’ve been used for decades to slow the growth of certain cancers, so it’s kind of like pretending we don’t know much about Vick’s Vape-O-Rub but it sure does seem to be associated with people who have colds or ‘flu.

[sovay]

the first of these is a lie, and the second true but in reverse, because they’ve been used for decades to slow the growth of certain cancers, so it’s kind of like pretending we don’t know much about Vick’s Vape-O-Rub but it sure does seem to be associated with people who have colds or ‘flu.

Yeah, I was wondering with spatch last night whether the term "puberty blockers" has itself become loaded, because there are all of these uses that have nothing to do with adolescence or even with the possibility of transitioning. Endometriosis is the one that always comes first to mind for me. (And, yes, it's not exactly flailing around in the dark with no data.)