Grabbing people by their shoulders and shaking them until they can prove to me they know what “twink” means
I was listening to a bunch of LGBT+ ppl from Louisiana as a guest for a podcast and the topic of “twink” came up and they more or less were like, “yeah nowadays cishet ppl know saying ‘f*g’ raises eyebrows so they just say 'twink’ when they want to say 'f*g’ but it’s obvious what they want to say when they say the word,” and like, that’s basically it, right. Also they talked about lubed up jockstrap wrestling at a gay bar and how there was a cishet guy that participated because he just wanted to wrestle.
Nodding thoughtfully at this until you say “lubed up jockstrap wrestling” at which point I get so horny I think I hauve Covid
The biggest male privilege I have so far encountered is going to the doctor.
I lived as a woman for 35 years. I have a lifetime of chronic health issues including chronic pain, chronic fatigue, respiratory issues, and neurodivergence (autistic + ADHD). There’s so much wrong with my body and brain that I have never dared to make a single list of it to show a doctor because I was so sure I would be sent directly to a psychologist specializing in hypochondria (sorry, “anxiety”) without getting a single test done.
And I was right. Anytime I ever tried to bring up even one of my health issues, every doctor’s initial reaction was, at best, to look at me with doubt. A raised eyebrow. A seemingly casual, offhand question about whether I’d ever been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Even female doctors!
We’re not talking about super rare symptoms here either. Joint pain. Chronic joint pain since I was about 19 years old. Back pain. Trouble breathing. Allergy-like reactions to things that aren’t typically allergens. Headaches. Brain fog. Severe insomnia. Sensitivity to cold and heat.
There’s a lot more going on than that, but those were the things I thought I might be able to at least get some acknowledgement of. Some tests, at least. But 90% of the time I was told to go home, rest, take a few days off work, take some benzos (which they’d throw at me without hesitation), just chill out a bit, you’ll be fine. Anxiety can cause all kinds of odd symptoms.
Anyone female-presenting reading this is surely nodding along. Yup, that’s just how doctors are.
Except…
I started transitioning about 2.5 years ago. At this point I have a beard, male pattern baldness, a deep voice, and a flat chest. All of my doctors know that I’m trans because I still haven’t managed to get all the paperwork legally changed, but when they look at me, even if they knew me as female at first, they see a man.
I knew men didn’t face the same hurdles when it came to health care, but I had no idea it was this different.
The last time I saw my GP (a man, fairly young, 30s or so), I mentioned chronic pain, and he was concerned to see that it wasn’t represented in my file. Previous doctors hadn’t even bothered to write it down. He pushed his next appointment back to spend nearly an hour with me going through my entire body while I described every type of chronic pain I had, how long I’d had it, what causes I was aware of. He asked me if I had any theories as to why I had so much pain and looked at me with concerned expectation, hoping I might have a starting point for him. He immediately drew up referrals for pain specialists (a profession I didn’t even know existed till that moment) and physical therapy. He said depending on how it goes, he may need to help me get on some degree of disability assistance from the government, since I obviously shouldn’t be trying to work full-time under these circumstances.
Never a glimmer of doubt in his eye. Never did he so much as mention the word “anxiety”.
There’s also my psychiatrist. He diagnosed me with ADHD last year (meeting me as a man from the start, though he knew I was trans). He never doubted my symptoms or medical history. He also took my pain and sleep issues seriously from the start and has been trying to help me find medications to help both those things while I go through the long process of seeing other specialists. I’ve had bad reactions to almost everything I’ve tried, because that’s what always happens. Sometimes it seems like I’m allergic to the whole world.
And then, just a few days ago, the most shocking thing happened. I’d been wondering for a while if I might have a mast cell condition like MCAS, having read a lot of informative posts by @thebibliosphere which sounded a little too relatable. Another friend suggested it might explain some of my problems, so I decided to mention it to the psychiatrist, fully prepared to laugh it off. Yeah, a friend thinks I might have it, I’m not convinced though.
His response? That’s an interesting theory. It would be difficult to test for especially in this country, but that’s no reason not to try treatments and see if they are helpful. He adjusted his medication recommendations immediately based on this suggestion. He’s researching an elimination diet to diagnose my food sensitivities.
I casually mentioned MCAS, something routinely dismissed by doctors with female patients, and he instantly took the possibility seriously.
That’s it. I’ve reached peak male privilege. There is nothing else that could happen that could be more insane than that.
I literally keep having to hold myself back from apologizing or hedging or trying to frame my theories as someone else’s idea lest I be dismissed as a hypochondriac. I told the doctor I’d like to make a big list of every health issue I have, diagnosed and undiagnosed, every theory I’ve been given or come up with myself, and every medication I’ve tried and my reactions to it - something I’ve never done because I knew for a fact no doctor would take me seriously if they saw such a list all at once. He said it was a good idea and could be very helpful.
Female-presenting people are of course not going to be surprised by any of this, but in my experience, male-presenting people often are. When you’ve never had a doctor scoff at you, laugh at you, literally say “I won’t consider that possibility until you’ve been cleared by a psychologist” for the most mundane of health problems, it might be hard to imagine just how demoralizing it is. How scary it becomes going to the doctor. How you can internalize the idea that you’re just imagining things, making a big deal out of nothing.
Now that I’m visibly a man, all of my doctors are suddenly very concerned about the fact that I’ve been simply living like this for nearly four decades with no help. And I know how many women will have to go their whole lives never getting that help simply because of sexism in the medical field.
If you know a doctor, show them this story. Even if they are female. Even if they consider themselves leftists and feminists and allies. Ask them to really, truly, deep down, consider whether they really treat their male and female patients the same. Suggest that the next time they hear a valid complaint from a male patient, imagine they were a woman and consider whether you’d take it seriously. The next time they hear a frivolous-sounding complaint from a female patient, imagine they were a man and consider whether it would sound more credible.
It’s hard to unlearn these biases. But it simply has to be done. I’ve lived both sides of this issue. And every doctor insists they treat their male and female patients the same. But some of the doctors astonished that I didn’t get better care in the past are the same doctors who dismissed me before.
I’m glad I’m getting the care I need, even if it is several decades late. And I’m angry that it took so long. And I’m furious that most female-presenting people will never have this chance.
This is, by the way, why the anti-vax movement is mostly women. Why women are the most outspoken voices, most active in protest.
Because they know damn well the medical industry lies to them, ignores their questions and complaints, and when they have real serious issues - tells them to lose some weight.
So along comes this thing, this kinda-sorta “cure” for a disease (that we all agree is an Actual Fucking Problem), and they ask: What are the side effects? How common is it to have real problems from the vaccine?
And the answer is: *pat her on the head* never you mind all that, little lady; this is what you need, what your family needs, what your children need… we promise. Well. Not “promise” in the sense of “you can sue us if we’re wrong; not that kind of promise. But we’re doctors and you’re not, so, just listen to us and do what we say.
And at some point, it doesn’t matter how much truth, how many facts, are behind their statements - there are women who are not buying any of it anymore.
The anti-vax movement also has plenty of wacko conspiracy theorists and people who believe in mind-control chemicals and just plain "I break all rules” assholes. But the core of the movement, the reason it’s got political power and isn’t just a blip of weirdos, is not wingnuts; it’s women who distrust the entire medical industry. Because. Well. The entire medical industry has been ignoring them and lying to them for a very long time.
You can’t reach them with facts. You have to give them a reason to trust doctors.
does every1 know about how every font in Pentiment was custom-made for the game and different characters speak in different fonts depending on their standing in society. theres no voice acting but theres a pen-scratching sound that accompanies dialogue. peasants/townsfolk speak in a handwritten script. the monks all speak in intricate blackletter script. the town printmaker’s dialogue has its own font and makes a clunking sound like wood blocks or a printing press. Sometimes someones font will change mid dialogue as you learn about them and their life. the dialogue writes itself out and looks like wet ink for a second before setting into dry. there are even intentional imperfections. sometimes there will be typos that sit there for a sec before being scratched out and corrected. the ink visibly bleeds a little bit where the correction was made. did you know this
A response written to a thread doing the same thing as spoken about a few months ago, “I want a doberman service dog because I want to train it to growl at people and make them back away from me while I’m out shopping”.
did everyone just forget the time tumblr went scorched earth on a blog for making fun of a staff member for being an hp fan
To be more specific, it was saying “Maybe the Harry Potter fan on staff has something to do with the transmisogyny”, to which they did the not at all suspicious response of using never before seen moderation tools to silence said blog and post.
Thinking back to the good early days before my skin grew back when people could shake their heads at me and say “masks are a government conspiracy” and instead of navigating the bullshit like a normal person I could pull mine down and say “I have chemical burns on my face”
things people expect in a political confrontation:
Facts
Logic
Emotional outbursts
Things they are never prepared for:
Open sores
This post: “Thinking back to the good early days before my skin grew back”
All that effort just to guzzle Christopher Nolan’s cum like it’s a milkshake and you’re a rabid chimpanzee at the zoo lmao just lmao
“No! The movie was deep and I left the theatre hating America”
Because you have outside context that most Americans do not have about that period of time and while YOU came to that conclusion, most did not. It would be the #1 hated movie in America if it actually was the anti-imperialist criticism you thought it was.
Most people left the threatres unthreatened by that movie and continued to hold their pro-war crime opinions. Those people should at least have left the theatre thinking it was anti American propaganda and the fact that they didn’t tells you everything you need to know about how “deep” or “radical” this film is.
People who enjoyed the movie as an object of cinema but were critical about its contents at least had the honesty to admit that the film is largely antipathetic to the lives of the victims of the bombings and doesn’t even portray the life of a single Japanese character. So don’t lie to me that this movie is radical lol
