In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

A grey rabbit jumping an obstacle at a Rabbit Show Jumping

Open Thread with Bunny Race

tigtog

A fluffy bunny jumping a hurdle as part of an obstacle race features for this week’s Open Thread. I felt the need for fluff. Please link to more fluffy stuff as you natter/chatter/vent/rant on anything* you like over this weekend and throughout the week.

Kaninhoppning-king of joyride
By sv:User:Wikkie (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

So, what have you been up to? What would you rather be up to? What’s been awesome/awful?
Reading? Watching? Making? Meeting?
What has [insert awesome inspiration/fave fansquee/guilty pleasure/dastardly ne’er-do-well/threat to all civilised life on the planet du jour] been up to?

* Netiquette footnotes:
* There is no off-topic on the Weekly Open Thread, but consider whether your comment would be on-topic on any recent thread and thus better belongs there.
* If your comment touches on topics known to generally result in thread-jacking, you will be expected to take the discussion to #spillover instead of overshadowing the social/circuit-breaking aspects of this thread.

32 thoughts on Open Thread with Bunny Race

  1. So recently I went to a clinic to get my HRT prescriptions renewed. Apparently the doctor had learned that I haven’t had my blood work done for a while, and that my last scheduled blood work was in October. I guess I just totally forgot. Anyway, he suggested that I set up an appointment for Friday to get it done, and I accepted this suggestion because I wasn’t up for getting my blood drawn. I hate needles and the feeling of my blood being taken and more than anything else, the feeling of being super dizzy and on the verge of fainting.

    But when I went to the front desk to make the appointment, they asked me to just sit down in the lobby. I thought that I was just waiting to see someone to set up an appointment, so I decided to stand outside the clinic and smoke weed for a bit. Since it was taking a while for one of the people there to call my name, I decided to back inside, not really realizing how much I had smoked until I sat down.

    When my name was called, I was so high that it took me about 10 seconds to realize that someone was looking at me and saying “Aaliyah? Aaliyah? Hello???” Then I snapped out of it and followed the nurse into this examination room. I was really anxious because I thought that everyone in the clinic knew I was stoned, so I tried making an excuse like “I spaced out cuz I’m just anxious about medical stuff” (which technically isn’t a lie).

    And then he drew my blood, with very little heads up. He just told me he was going to do it and then I was starting to panic, fearing that maybe my state of being high would affect my blood pressure adversely somehow. I tried to calm myself down by talking about how I’m probably going to be ok and won’t feel dizzy like last time for all sorts of reasons, but right before he was done drawing the blood I felt myself on the verge of falling off of the chair. I felt super dizzy and weak and asked for some water and candy, which fortunately did end up helping me, and later on I felt totally ok.

    I mean, I’m glad that my prescriptions are now renewed, but that wasn’t a very pleasant experience at all. X_X

    1. That sounds thoroughly unpleasant, but I think you handled it as smoothly as a person could. I’m glad you’re able to continue HRT, and it makes me really happy to know that people are calling you by your proper name!

      1. Eh, the clinic is okay with trans stuff, but it has a lot of work to do. Like actually using she/her pronouns for me rather than referring to me as Aaliyah and then using he/him pronouns for me in the same sentence. I’m a bit more appreciative of the trans women I know who gender me properly, to be honest.

        And it is nice that my prescriptions got renewed. I just wish that I had the money I needed for hormones and, for that matter, that I could actually use my damn health insurance in the first place.

        1. You might want to check to see if you can get your prescriptions filled more cheaply at an online pharmacy — that’s often the case, although you’d probably need a credit card, or a friend who’d let you use their credit card information.

        2. I definitely recommend the online pharmacy option. Only issue is having to fill things way in advance, because it takes a while for them to arrive. But if you’re someone who can plan ahead, it can save literally hundreds of dollars.

        3. Oh, that’s stupid of them. You’d think a clinic that does hormone prescriptions would know better.

          I’m sorry I was overly positive; I guess I keep comparing your posts to the ones you were writing not too long ago and marveling at the positive changes you’ve made in your life. I don’t mean to efface the real difficulties you still face.

        4. No need to apologize. Nothing you said bothered me. I appreciate the consideration, though. :>

          And yeah, going to another pharmacy is a good idea. Apparently hormones are way cheaper at Costco. Like literally 8 times cheaper than the place I currently get prescriptions from.

          I need to get a fucking job. X_X

  2. TW: nudity, revenge porn

    I thought this was awesome. It’s an article about one women’s encounter with naked pictures of herself that were put on the internet without her consent, and how she regained her feeling of ownership over her sexuality.

  3. I see that Jeffrey Tambor won a best actor award at the Golden Globs for playing the trans woman who’s one of the main characters of subject of Transparent.

    I can’t help feeling somewhat conflicted — and even a little bitter — that yet another cis person is rewarded for playing a trans woman. It’s hard to think of a single performance like that in the last couple of decades that hasn’t received, or at least been nominated, for an acting award. I guess it must be that we’re such foreign, exotic, and alien creatures that pretending to be one of us in any remotely convincing way is so incredibly difficult that it’s inherently an amazing achievement.

    Of course, on the rare occasions when trans people are allowed to play themselves, I don’t notice them getting any awards.

    2. I feel that this phenomenon is related to the male privilege that male cross-dressers have have over us. Even though people conflate trans women and male cross-dressers all the time, the ways we experience the world are very different. Of course drag queens have suffered from bigoted violence and I don’t want to minimize that, but I have seen violence against drag queens taken way more seriously than transmisogynistic violence, drag queen survivors of violence gaining much more sympathy than trans women survivors. And I’ve also noticed that drag queens have so much privilege that they are even more likely to be gendered as female than trans women.

    3. By the way, this is a list I came up with for cis actors who’ve been nominated for and/or won acting awards for playing trans people:

      Jeffrey Tambor (Transparent), Jared Leto (Dallas Buyer’s Club), Felicity Huffman (Transamerica), Hilary Swank (Boys Don’t Crye), Jaye Davidson (The Crying Game), Chris Sarandon (Dog Day Afternoon), John Lithgow (The World According to Garp), Tom Wilkinson (Normal), Cillian Murphy (Breakfast on Pluto), Vanessa Redgrave (Second Serve), Lee Pace (Soldier’s Girl), Terence Stamp (Priscilla Queen of the Desert — the one transsexual character), John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) (although I suppose there’s a question about whether Hedwig was “really” trans), Chloe Sevigny (Hit & Miss).

      A bit out of proportion as a percentage of all cis actors playing trans roles, don’t you think? It’s not a guarantee, but it seems to me that if you’re a cis actor playing a trans role, particularly a trans woman, you’ve got almost a 50-50 chance of getting nominated, at least.

      1. Not arguing with the point, but as a positive, Laverne Cox was nominated for an Emmy for her work in Orange is the New Black.

  4. Well, I managed to move the two cats 3500 miles, and they are absolutely loving it! Here are Brooke and Beezly looking happy in their new environs. They will love it even more when the weather clears up and they can enjoy the patio! (We had no outdoor space in Brooklyn.)

    2. Holy crap, FS, that was fast! I feel like you just announced the move–are you seriously already in London?

      And hey, a question: given that my ability to go out is going to be severely curtailed in June, any local NYC bands you think I should see before it’s too late?

      1. Yes, I’m in London, but I have a month overlap (i.e. lease in UK started Jan 2 and I still have my NY apartment until Feb 1,) so I moved the cats and some stuff last Tuesday. Mrs. FS is in New Orleans working, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to get the place ready in terms of buying things we need and setting up all the utilities and whatnot. We’re meeting back in NY in two weeks, chucking our NY stuff in storage and then flying to London for good(ish.)

        As far as bands, the last band I saw that I really liked was, Hunters, (or The Hunters, not sure…) before that Outernational. Both of these bands could be broken up by now, but if they’re not…worth checking out.

        3. What area have you moved to Fat Steve? I can give you all the insider recommendations 🙂

          I’m in Fulham. It’s the perfect location for us, not too central, but not too remote. Only downside so far is that the only place open to eat in the vicinity at 6am is McDonalds!

    1. I’ve heard of this — I started reading it but couldn’t even finish the first page; it’s too upsetting. Sickening is quite correct.

      1. I read a synopsis on buzzfeed, and then had the same reaction when I got to the study itself. It’s frankly a little terrifying.

    2. TW: sexual assault

      I’ve read the study. Its findings seem pretty accurate, judging by the other literature I’ve read. The findings in the study are also consistent with my own personal experiences with men who have sexually assaulted me or joked about me being raped by them.

    3. It is sickening and it speaks volumes about the campus environment. I certainly hope the researchers shared their findings with the school administration. I do also note that it is very small sample size at it only included one school. I would be hesitant to apply those finding across the board until a lot more research finds similar results in various schools.

    1. I find it hard to believe that there aren’t children actually suffering abuse and neglect within this CPS’s purview that could benefit from this attention. This is what happens when we live in a society hyper-focused on managing individual parents’ decisions instead of actually, you know, systemically making sure all children are fed, housed, educated, and cared for.

      That is what I have to say about it. When I was 10, I was walking home alone from the school bus stop and going to movies with friends.

    2. Quick answer: I don’t really see anything so very wrong with what those parents let their kids do (a 10- and 6-year old walking a mile home from school). It’s a bit far, but they did work up to it. And I’m a little shocked that CPS is still investigating after the parents gave an explanation.

      I certainly used to walk around Manhattan, by myself, for at least a mile (20 north-south blocks) when I was 10; by the time I was 11 I took the subway by myself for an hour each way every day. And I was very small for my age. And crime rates were higher then. And I once walked more than 20 blocks one summer when I was five, when I decided to go home from play school. Nobody gave me a second glance.

      On the other hand, my son, growing up in a New Jersey suburb, never did anything of the kind until he was at least 12 or 13.
      Largely because we were afraid that he would be hit by a car crossing the streets, since cars went very fast sometimes in our neighborhood. And he was in fact hit by cars, twice, when he was a little older; fortunately, he wasn’t seriously injured either time. That’s what worried us, not the risk that he would be kidnapped.

      I suspect that if the 10 year old had been by himself, and not with a 6-year old, the authorities wouldn’t have made such a fuss.

    3. Yea, I was really torn upon reading it. I’m getting a master’s degree in psychology and volunteer in child welfare. I spend so much time hearing, reading and talking about really neglectful/abusive parenting choices. Yet, it’s all legal because the laws just aren’t focused on the actual types of dangers kids face. But these kids who were fine are picked up by the cops.

      On the other hand, there is a large difference between 10 and 6. I’m not sure it was developmentally appropriate to have him responsible for her even if he’s capable.

      Oh, I think the reason the CPS is still investigating is because the parents were so angry, they weren’t cooperating. Privilege is the only reason they weren’t arrested. The McDonald’s mother was arrested despite having her kid a lot closer to her and in playground (a place designated for children).

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