sundries

[rm]

Patty and I have not been having the best luck this week with feeling well, tolerating the heat, etc. But the heat has broken and today will be different. I'm working early to finish early and yesterday pretty much taxed me out on the Internet for the week, I think. So y'all get to talk amongst yourselves while we try to be productive and have quality time before we leave on our respective trips.

Did I really see an ad on my way to my morning tasks for a film called: Dogs and Cats: The Revenge of Kitty Galore????!?!?!? Yes, apparently I did. (Warning for Patty: contains creepy hairless cat).

A new high school and some oysters may be the key to saving New York's waterways.

Italy is fighting in European court a ban on crucifixes in its classrooms.

Soon same-sex partners will be eligible for bereavement leave in NYS. How depressing is it that there needs to be a law or shit won't happen?

Meanwhile, this made me cry in a good way. Repentance and reconciliation at Pride and probably not in the way you'd expect. via pecunium.

Apparently, a doctor is treating pregnant women in Florida with hormones to prevent the possibility that their daughters with be lesbian or bisexual and/or display habits and career interests that are deemed too masculine.

In case you missed that, let me say this again: pregnant women are being treated with experimental drugs to prevent birth defects such as homosexuality and non-traditional gender roles.

I feel unsafe. The steps from the desire to prevent to the desire to eradicate what's already here are very small.

As Dan Savage notes: "Gay people have been stressing out about a day arriving when scientists developed treatments to prevent homosexuality ... well, here we are—the day appears to have arrived. Now what are we going to do about it?"

Comments

[elisi]

Did I really see an add on my way to my morning tasks for a film called: Dogs and Cats: The Revenge of Kitty Galore????!?!?!?
Yes. Yes you did! (Saw a trailer for it last time we took the children to the cinema. I'd forgotten about it until now...)

In case you missed that, let me say this again: pregnant women are being treated with experimental drugs to prevent the birth defects such as homosexuality and non-traditional gender roles.
Hello Brave New World. *shudders*

(I'm here and have been reading btw. Life's just busy.)

[rm.livejournal.com]

We're getting back to Buffy tonight, we swear!

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

pregnant women are being treated with experimental drugs to prevent the birth defects such as homosexuality and non-traditional gender roles.

What the everloving hell? D:

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Did I really see an ad

Yes, yes, you did. I saw the same ad on the side of the Regal cinema over by Union Square. It seems to sum up the state of Hollywood right now; sequelitis, CGI, (probably) 3D, and horribly sexist jokes.

Dear grief re: the medico in Florida. And this comes under the banner of "do no harm"? (And valid question from Mr Savage. What *are* we going to do about it?)

[saomigray.livejournal.com]

Homosexuality as a birth defect?

I just can't even fathom how this came to pass.

[bitsyrant.livejournal.com]

A way to prevent queerness of any kind? I'm not really sure you can stop, you know, *nature* but, if they can (and maybe it's enough that they are trying at all) then I would consider that to be an open act of war against me and mine. I'm not sure what we should "do about it" but being well fucking pissed off is certainly where I'll start.

In completely unrelated (and less dire) news, did you hear this rumour about Johnny Depp playing the Doctor in an American film version of Doctor Who as written by RTD?

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

rm tweeted it yesterday. As I replied at the time, I'll take it with a grain of salt. Depp's got the Ichabod Crane chops for the role, but we've heard these sorts of stories before and they've never come to anything.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Apparently, a doctor is treating pregnant women in Florida with hormones to prevent the possibility that their daughters with be lesbian or bisexual and/or display habits and career interests that are deemed too masculine.

What flaming bullshit. Clearly, we need a lockup for crazy sociopathic abusive god-complex MDs who use experimental hormones, surgeries, etc, on fetuses, babies, and young children as a means of furthering their publishing careers. How is this woman still practicing medicine? ARGH.

[logospilgrim.livejournal.com]

~a doctor is treating pregnant women in Florida with hormones to prevent the possibility that their daughters with be lesbian or bisexual and/or display habits and career interests that are deemed too masculine~

Un-frakkin-believable.

I believe I shall add another suit to my collection of masculine clothing. And more cassocks (you know, I once came across a website where the priest described Anglican cassocks made for women as "pornographic." I thought, what the heck???).

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Regarding cassocks, I suppose the priest's objection was to the fact that cassocks tailored for women are tailored around a woman's figure. But surely, depending upon the way they're worn, *all* cassocks will reveal something about the wearer's figure?

[lonebear.livejournal.com]

How the !#3$%=+ does that ill concieved bastard still have his license. This might get me to send a letter to the AMA. Not that it would do any good. Need to forward to Olbermann.

[rm.livejournal.com]

The doctor's a woman.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

There is something deeply bizarre about being told, 20 years in, that my entire career is a birth defect.


(Yes, of course, being told that your sexuality is one is every bit as bizarre and appalling. I suspect that few gay people who've grown up in this society find hearing that as shocking as I did because of having heard it so many times before. Which makes it less surprising, but even sadder.)

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize there is a school operating on Governors Island. That's so cool!

...pregnant women are being treated with experimental drugs to prevent birth defects such as homosexuality and non-traditional gender roles. -- Great. We've found the Sarah Palin of pediatric endocrinology. D:

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

Sarah Palin, with a dash of Dr. Mengele, if you ask me

[matthewwdaly.livejournal.com]

In case you missed that, let me say this again: pregnant women are being treated with experimental drugs to prevent birth defects such as homosexuality and non-traditional gender roles.

But is anyone working on a cure for teh stupid?

[tlatzomia.livejournal.com]

D: Even if you push aside the "no more gays!" thing(although really how can you?) for the briefest of seconds, experimentation on pregnant women is a BIG NO-NO.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

And apparently so far there has been insufficient follow-up, so they can't even be sure what the side effects are! MASSIVE FAIL.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

Hey, did you know that the London Museum of Film will be hosting "Ray Harryhausen - Myths and Legends" while you're there?

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

DES daughters and granddaughters all over the nation are going OMGWTF.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

No kidding. I have a friend of mine who is big on advocating midwifery, and between reading the literature she passes along to me, and my own research on women's health, I notice that any discussion of women and hormones seems to be more focused on "keeping up appearances" than on any concern for women's health and well-being.

Then again, few things seem to scare the Good Old Boys Club more than hale, healthy women...

[thought-ribbons.livejournal.com]

ok that's pretty screwed up. Giving your baby "hormones" so they won't be lesbian/bisexual/whatever... It's not even hormones it's a steroid!! And it's highly risky to administer this drug as it could cause untold HARM to the fetus... It's been know to affect children in several ways including growth retardation!

God and the "results" of this experiment won't be known for 18 odd years... (because what are you going to do ask a 3 year old if they're homosexual or not?) ha!! AND! it's Estmated that only 1/3 of women who identify themselves as Lesbian/Bisexual have been potentially exposed to prenatal androgen. So you could go through a highly risky treatment that could HARM your baby, and she could still be Lesbian/Bisexual.

Just doesn't seem like it will be main stream anytime soon/ever

[4hour-ramona.livejournal.com]

i was just about to go off all tongue-in-cheekly about how it's hard it must be to be a female doctor in a man's world, being all smartypants in a sciencey way and and being all assertive and generally displaying other "unfeminine" traits, but the article did it for me:

"It seems more than a little ironic to have New, one of the first women pediatric endocrinologists and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, constructing women who go into “men’s” fields as “abnormal.” And yet it appears that New is suggesting that the “prevention” of “behavioral masculinization” is a benefit of treatment to parents with whom she speaks about prenatal dex."

[weirdquark]

I was thinking pretty much the same thing. But possibly it's okay because she's a special snowflake to whom these birth defects do not apply she works with pregnant women and children.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

Being born with holes in both septums of my heart? BIRTH DEFECT.

Being born non-heteronormative? NOT A BIRTH DEFECT.

Jesus Christ.

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

And this is why I've been virulently opposed to the whole 'it's not a choice! It's biology!' fad going round the last decade or so.

The vast majority of studies about biologically determiend homoseuxality are shaky at best (another way to describe the example quoted in the article about lesbians and hormone levels is: "about 60% of lesbians show no elevated hormone levels and those that do, show only a moderate difference from the norm"). Written that way, it doesn't sound like hormone levels are the 'cause' of lesbianism (not to mention the fact that the study was of about 200 total women, only 24 of which were a 'control group' and there was no attempt to recruit lesbians from outside family members of the CAH study group to see what their levels were).

I understand that there seems to be some imaginary moral weight to the idea that people 'chose' to be queer, and if – instead – it can be proven that it's bioligical than the moral weight of chosing will be removed. Little attention seemed to be paid by queer folks to India or China where socially undesirable persons (girls, in both cases) were eradicated in huge numbers due to changes in technology, as if that wouldn't happen to queers.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I am so with you on this, and I feel like such a voice in the wilderness about it.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

So, the "scourge" of tomboys is being "treated" by this twit, while folks are dying from cancer, or living lives burdened with chronic pain, etc.

Oh, and in Florida no less... What, were they feeling upstaged by Arizona and South Carolina?

I am assuming that you are also following the media hyperventilating of Shiloh Jolie-Pitt's scandalously short hair, love of wearing pants, and eschewing of all things pink and sparkly? Gender police going apeshit over a kid who's age is in the single digits...

This quote had me both rolling my eyes and shuddering:

"That's not fair, as Hanna Rosin at Slate will shortly point out. Pediatric endocrinologist Maria New—of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Florida International University—isn't just trying to prevent lesbianism by treating pregnant women with an experimental hormone. She's also trying to prevent the births of girls who display an "abnormal" disinterest in babies, don't want to play with girls' toys or become mothers, and whose "career preferences" are deemed too "masculine."

1) Not interested in kids? Check.

2) Had more Legos, Hot wheels cars, and Playmobil toys than Barbies? Check. (Although my sister and I had a small herd of My Little Ponies)

I've always suspected that I was regarded as a freak of nature by more conservative types... the vindication, while chilling, does settle a few things. As I get older, I am starting to realize what a blessing it was to be born in the "Free to Be You and Me" Era, and just how fleeting that time was.

Is this Dr. New even *vaguely* aware of the Nuremberg Trials? Is she willing to hand over her driver's license, any bank accounts that she has in her own name, her medical degree, and refrain from voting in all future elections? If so, why not?

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Shiloh Jolie-Pitt's scandalously short hair,

I hadn't explicitly followed it, though ONTD does appear on my friendsfriends and so I'd by happenstance caught a picture of her in her tomboy mode. I thought little Shiloh rocked the look, and I was happy she was being given the freedom to exercise it. I didn't look at the comments, precisely because of the risk of gender-policing fail as you mention.

I once built a miniature tank (more like an APC, since it didn't have a gun) out of Lego, and I wasn't criticized for masculinity so much as for glorifying violence.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

Just a reminder about the SPLC film.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

How it is even remotely possible that this sort of medical experimentation is allowed, and yet stem cell research is not?

Hell, I'm feeling unsafe as well. If they can find a "cure" for this, then they might find a "cure" for other things considered undesirable as well.

This is just wrong.

[brilliant-snark.livejournal.com]

I can't even begin to appropriately express how much this information about experimenting on pregnant women bothers me. Angers me. Infuriates me. Disgusts me.

There are just SO MANY things wrong with this scenario, I don't even know what I'm upset about most.

Being who I am, and my daughter being who she is (whoever that ends up being...she's currently super-girly but loves being in Pirate sword fights and wants to marry her best friend) is NOT a birth defect.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

This endocrinologist is conflating gendered behaviors with lesbian sexuality, and then proclaiming it a birth defect? I'm sorry, but what? Has she never met lesbians with children? Lesbians who dress and comport themselves in culturally typical feminine ways? Lesbians who do so-called "women's work" gladly because that's where their passions lie?

As others have said, does she not see the conflict between her own experience and the experience she's attempting to design?

It's strange, because the only place in the LGBTQ community I've encountered the idea that a birth defect is the root of someone's experience is within the trans community. I've never been comfortable with it -- actually, I've never found a comfortable way to get from point A to point B -- but when an FTM guy uses that language to describe why he's a man, I rather think he means it the other way around. Their masculinity isn't the defect. It's their body's failure to get all the way there before they were born that's the problem for them.

But this isn't about that either. It's about making female babies who grow up to conform with a cultural standard, not a natural one. Nature, last I checked, is what gives us babies who grow up to have a variety of sexual and gender identities. And while some congenital features may be rightly pathologized and regarded as needing treatment, matters of culture and taste are not among those.

I suggest what we do is start declaring a spade a spade. In this case, eugenics meeting misogyny in the hands of a hypocrite in violation of obvious bioethical standards is probably a good start. Challenging the institution allowing these tests is another.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Seriously, am I the only one having "international human rights court, please" as a response to this?

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

Nothing bad can come from experimenting on fetuses with hormone cocktails. Just like nothing bad comes from trying to cure grown people of their gayness.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

If Dr. New's work causes these women to miscarry, will the violent wing anti-abortion crowd try to burn her house down? Can the cosmos handle that much irony?

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Homosexuality as a birth defect?

...
...
O.O

I can't even comment on this... it hits way, waaaaaayyyy too close to home! Eugenics, misogyny and medical experiments are just not something I can think about without getting nightmares later.
Fuck.