Do You Or Your Followers Have Any Thoughts On That New Book By Abigail Shrier? I'm Not Sure If To Make

Henriëtte Ronner-Knip (Belgian-Dutch, 1821-1909, b. Amsterdam, Netherlands, d. Ixelles, Belgium) - Playing Cats, 19th c. Paintings: Oil on Canvas

requested by ziraangel

I often see more gatekeeping presented as a way to prevent detransition. And while this wouldn’t necessarily be useless, it’s a bandaid solution. Working harder to root out the “right” people to transition from the “wrong” people to transition isn’t going to eliminate transition regret. To get at why we have to ask, who are the “right” people? Are they the ones are suffering the most or who have been suffering the longest? Are they the most gender non-conforming ones? Are they the ones persistent enough to pass through checkpoint after checkpoint? None of these things insure that transitioning is going to work for someone: that it’s going to improve their quality of life.

When I walked into gender therapy I was suicidal and had been off and on since I was old enough to understand what death was. I was already being regularly mistaken for a boy. I was adamant that I needed this. My therapist called me a “classic case” and still we talked for almost a year before I socially transitioned. I then spent another year living “full time” before starting testosterone and spent my first six months of testosterone on a low dose prescribed by a fairly paranoid pediatric endocrinologist. I met every requirement. I passed every checkpoint. I didn’t take any shortcuts. And still, here I am: a woman, a butch dyke, further from normality than ever, bitter about what happened to me. Because none of those measures addressed my underlying problem.

What we really need if we want potential regretters to not be certain that they need this is a shift in culture. We need environments without misogyny that are affirming of lesbianism and gender non-conformity. We need girls to grow up free from abuse, supported in their mental health and knowing that they can be anything they want to be and anything they are. We need to encourage them to love and live in their bodies and provide immediate solutions if they find that they can’t. Because by the time that many girls step into a gender therapist’s office they’ve already made up their minds, for good reason, that they can’t live this way. 

This seal relaxing halfway under water 

(via)

The Culture Conversation: Guru Jagat x Ayishat Akanbi

New lino print! Based on an old poster that I saw online but the source of which I couldn’t track down. They’re up in my shop if anyone’s interested! (shop link in tumblr header)

Ive spent the past few months reading some radfem and detrans related stuff, just curious and trying to educate myself. Then quite recently Ive basically started to feel like "oh shit maybe i actually should detransition" and its freaking me out. Im not sure if im just going crazy being in quarantine and making rash decisions, or if all the time as home gave me time for introspection to come to this conclusion. i feel so lost lol

tbh, this is how i found myself on a path to full detransition, not just stopping hormones. i just wanted some perspective—what i found was a full paradigm shift.

you didn’t ask for advice, so take or leave this: you don’t have to figure it all out right now. give yourself permission, space, and—importantly—time to see how you’re feeling, to understand what you believe about gender and sex and all of this messy shit. and if you get a handle on how you feel about that, then see what you want to do. you don’t even have to DO it yet, just see what you want. and if you continue wanting it, take small steps toward that thing, then pause and ask yourself how it feels. do you feel more authentic? do you feel less confused? are you afraid, and if so, what of? are these fears realistic? are they worth confronting anyway?

the time in quarantine has absolutely given you time for introspection, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to reach a conclusion just yet. there are actually no rules to how your life must go. that’s entirely up to you. all i can suggest is, spend the time asking the questions that come up for you, and try to answer them. try to figure out what YOU believe and why you believe it; am i living a life that satisfies me? am i living in a way that excites me? don’t worry about anyone else, what they might think of you, how they might react to your questioning or any conclusions you draw—the only person for whom those questions and answers matter is you. ultimately, you’re the person who is guaranteed to be with you your whole life—so that’s the person whose opinion matters most.

people should view reading as a developed skill in the same vein of artistic ability. i think most people on this website understand that artistic ability is cultivated - it's largely a skill. a trait that is the consequence of effort and practice. not some mystical gift of innate talent bestowed by the gods upon certain gifted individuals, rigid and unmalleable.

attention span and reading comprehension are the same!! they are malleable. and you just have to consider, which way are you molding them? and are you doing so purposefully or inadvertently?

you are not unique in having an attention span destroyed by social media. you are not unique in having adhd. or many other extenuating circumstances. and this is good news! this means that you too can improve and develop your attention span, via deliberate practice. successive approximation and clear contingencies work for people, too.

try reading just one page a day. or just one article a day. or listening to an audiobook for ten minutes a day. or whatever! ANYTHING that helps strain the muscle of your attention span, anything that gets you consuming heftier chunks of information than a tweet or tumblr post. set a small and achievable goal, and create a strategy to get yourself to do it. and then incrementally increase the goal.

consider how you can arrange your environment and antecedents for success. you can have a specific spot where you sit solely to read. or you can relegate a delicious drink to when you read, or you can have a special scented candle you only burn when you read. read a page or an article while you are waiting for the kettle to heat up or the microwave to ding. schedule it for the same time each day. whatever specific iteration works for you - whatever encourages you and creates a clear contingency.

you know how dogs can learn, "this is my walking harness," and "this is my pulling harness," and so on? so that they know what to expect and will easily fall into the practiced ritual? WE ARE THE SAME... you just have to choose and condition yourself to a contingency (and the options are beautifully customizable), and over time it gets much much easier.

personally, i focus better when both my hands are occupied. specifically, when they are both grasping the book, or i'm clutching a pen for underlining. i don't know why, i just know that this is so. it helps me when i am reading a book to have my phone in a completely different area. it helps me to sit outside (though Happy is not always helpful when she interrupts my concentration for a ball throw).

when i read ebooks, it helps me to sit in a hard chair and have my phone propped up in front of me (and thus create a dissimilar situation from when i scroll social media). or to pace as i read. i read an article on my phone when i am brushing my teeth and it is hard to scroll. i rotate among books. coffee drinking is relegated to reading for me. i like to save and share quotes from what i'm reading, and discuss it with friends. the social aspect creates a further layer of motivation for me.

those are just my specific contingencies! while my attention span isn't where i wish it was, yet, i've gotten much better than i used to be. i used to struggle to stay focused for a page, and now, time permitting, i read a couple hours every day. it is WORK to develop your attention span - it is a muscle like any other. but by straining it regularly, your endurance and ability WILL increase.

if you are not consuming in-depth information, you can't have in-depth understanding. when you get most of your information from bite sized chunks, it creates a real danger you are being told what to think! vs actually understanding and agreeing with concepts yourself - developing your own takes and opinions. not to mention, you are missing out on SO MUCH. the world is just BETTER when you are engaging with in-depth information.

i truly believe it is damaging to accept "oh i just have a shitty attention span" and use that to justify forgoing any deeper interaction with material. it is a disservice to yourself! you may have to set goals so small they seem silly. you may have to brainstorm and testrun concentration mechanisms that are odd. but the average person on tumblr and twitter can ABSOLUTELY raise their focus. i have faith in you.

now since tumblr apparently loves to support non-american authors, but is surprisingly mum about this, imma tell you.

you see, everybody's favorite evil corp, Amazon, bought Indian publishing house Westland some six years ago. Now Westland is a very famous and reputed publishing house in India, and has put forth some of the best titles the country has seen. It didn't shy away from controversial and uncomfortable topics, and some of its books quite vocally criticise the current government, which has been responsible for the current state of india as a pseudo-democratic, pseudo-secular, economically ruined country, the most notable one being The Price of the Modi years by Aakar Patel. It also produced Amish Tripathi's pathbreaking Shiva Trilogy.

Now here's the thing that got me nuts.

AMAZON. SHUT. IT. DOWN. A WEEK AGO.

JUST OUT OF THE BLUE, IT IS CLOSING DOWN WESTLAND FOREVER. NOBODY KNOWS WHAT IS TO COME OF THE HUNDREDS OF TITLES PUBLISHED BY IT, OR OF THE AUTHORS ITS CONTRACTED, OR THE PEOPLE EMPLOYED BY IT.

It has triggered a buying surge in India, as people go on shopping spress to get their hands on the titles they want from this house. Short on supply and high on demand, bookstores across India are showing solidarity and moving surplus books around.

here you go with a few links that i think sum up the problem quite nicely, and please guys. just. please support westland.

here they talk about how this is becoming a trend with global corps.

here they talk about the future of indian publishing houses.

this one talks about a bleak future for literature and how it feels like we're living in a dystopian novel

spread this around. jeff bezos continues to be evil, and will be. he is quite literally, irredeemable.