rm ([personal profile] rm) wrote2010-06-17 01:03 pm

one inch

I was going to chuck this into sundries, but then some of you might miss it, and it needs to be talked about.

Over at Cornell we have a case of gender and body policing, unnecessary surgery, and stimulating 6-year-old girls with vibrators in the name of dodgy science.

Really helps to confirm my suspicion that the only good girl is one who knows how to disappear, doesn't it? And if she can't figure out the skill of it, don't worry, someone will hold her down and do it for her.

I won't ask you what this fear of big clits is, since we can all figure it out, but did you know that women with larger clitorises are also more likely to identify as gay?

Yup, that's right, one of the many HORRIFYING implications here is all about trying to erase queerness, erase the existence of people like me (and let's note the particularities of this particular act of hate, since there is also a correlation between larger penises and men being gay, but no one is cutting into these suspect little boys).

Things that will never make any queer woman less queer: hair removal, makeup, self-hatred, dresses, boyfriends, surgery, "therapy." My mother used to buy me electric razors, over and over.

All of this speaks with terrible eloquence to the suspicion I often harbour that the most inherently queer thing about me is my unwillingness to disappear.

If you don't get how all of this connects, you should probably go read Valerie's Letter again and again and again until you do.

An inch.

One inch.

Get it?

[identity profile] valancy17.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 06:34 pm (UTC)(link)
this.

[identity profile] eac.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 06:34 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm glad you didn't come under the scrutiny of this guy...

I can't believe that Cornell would allow someone to do this to children. Normally I would now be trying to construct this as doctor as an outlying (horrible) case, but if Cornell's IRB didn't shut it down it's hard to think that...
ext_29896: Lilacs in grandmother's vase on my piano (wordless)

[identity profile] glinda-w.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 06:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Userpic says it all.

[identity profile] thunderemerald.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 06:41 pm (UTC)(link)
I can't ever read or listen to that letter without crying.

[identity profile] redstapler.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 06:41 pm (UTC)(link)
This x eleventy billion.

"Oh shit this is unconscionable...AND HAPPENED DOWN THE STREET WHAT THE HELL."
ext_3685: Stylized electric-blue teapot, with blue text caption "Brewster North" (Default)

[identity profile] brewsternorth.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 06:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, that pinged the same "danger Will Robinson" alerts to me, and I don't even live as close.

[identity profile] xtricks.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 07:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Has anyone contacted Cornell to ask about the ethics board's oversight of this thing? I seem to recall that was done for the Rule 34 guys.
ext_3685: Stylized electric-blue teapot, with blue text caption "Brewster North" (Default)

[identity profile] brewsternorth.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 07:12 pm (UTC)(link)
[livejournal.com profile] ontd_political and [livejournal.com profile] ontd_feminism have been contacting various of Poppas' superiors at Cornell, apparently.

[identity profile] arielstarshadow.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 07:13 pm (UTC)(link)
I am so sorry. There are no words for how awful... I'm sorry.

[identity profile] redstapler.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 07:14 pm (UTC)(link)
IIRC, that's the hospital where I was born.

::runs screaming::

[identity profile] heavenscalyx.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 07:17 pm (UTC)(link)
There are ways and means around IRBs. I'd be interested to see the difference between what he presented to the IRB and his actual practices.

[identity profile] usullusa.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 07:29 pm (UTC)(link)
This is horrific. What kind of idiot, what kind of monster, decides to mutilate their daughter's genitals because they're "too big"? What does that even mean?

The implication that this is an attempt to erase queerness is chilling.

[identity profile] eandh99.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 07:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, this story is going everywhere - I saw it at Jezebel this morning, not usually where I see serious news. Hopefully a big enough and hot enough s*&^storm of bad publicity will ensue that Cornell will have to react.
ext_3685: Stylized electric-blue teapot, with blue text caption "Brewster North" (reinforce your underpants)

[identity profile] brewsternorth.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 07:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Hopefully. Apart from Jezebel, and Dan Savage's article at thestranger.com, it's also been blogged at Psychology Today by one of the people who first found out these shenanigans.

[identity profile] st-aelphaba.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 07:42 pm (UTC)(link)
I would like to have a half hour in a locked room with the mothers who took their daughters to that doctor. It's unforgivable.

[identity profile] sparkindarkness.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 07:49 pm (UTC)(link)
I've seen this around but each time I read it I am boggled over again by the sheer evil of this. And not only the evil, but how much the number of forces around them must ahve agreed to this, supported this or at least looked the other way

[identity profile] tsarina.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 08:09 pm (UTC)(link)
I am an enigma onion, always ready to show another strange layer.

But yeah, my parents caught my first girlfriend and I in bed. My father put us in the car and drove her home, and on the way back to our house told me how much he wanted to shoot both of us.

[identity profile] lefaym.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 08:19 pm (UTC)(link)
How completely and utterly horrifying.
melebeth: (Default)

[personal profile] melebeth 2010-06-17 08:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Mentioned on twitter, but my (professional) feelings about why focusing on the vibrator part of this is a problem are here.

[identity profile] dr-is-in.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 08:29 pm (UTC)(link)
I have no words strong enough for how horrified I am at this story.

This is only an hour from where I grew up....and I thank god my parents never heard of it (especially after catching me with other girls a few times and trying to make me think it was wrong and bad).

[identity profile] austengirl.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 08:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Just posted a link to Dan Savage's article over at my LJ as well as a link to the FB group.

I really have no words, and I haven't been this outraged in a long time.
melebeth: (Default)

[personal profile] melebeth 2010-06-17 08:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, and one scientific comment, because someone just asked me "how does having a big clitoris make you a lesbian?" If there is a relationship between large clitorises and lesbianism (I haven't read the studies in ages) it is most likely because they're both related to prenatal androgen exposures, which can affect both clitoris size and brain development (and is loosely linked to sexual orientation and gender identity. Emphasis on loosely. The studies are not great.)

[identity profile] heron61.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 09:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Awesome news. Not only does this "study" need to stop, but this dude should at minimum never practice medicine again, and should likely be charged with child abuse.
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[identity profile] brewsternorth.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 09:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Very good point indeed.

[identity profile] stakebait.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 09:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Needless to say, this is totally appalling, and it would be no matter what, but there's an extra creepiness to the concept that girls' development will be stunted by their extra large clits when you consider that I never saw another woman's clit until several years after I came out as bi at 19. It's extremely likely that no one other than a sexual partner will EVER see these, and a substantial fraction of those will not have seen a big enough sample to even guess what "normal" would be -- not that if they did know they would necessarily care, or find it a negative if they did. Couldn't the women do something about it at that point, if they found it so debilitating? It's not like kids on the playground are teased about genitalia that don't show even in the locker room.

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