Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on August 4, 2012 at 1:26pm

There is no evidence that intersex state, per se, is harmful.  There is plenty of evidence that so-called "medical" interventions, and social interventions, that attempt to assign gender to intersex fetuses - and children - and adults - can be very, very harmful. 

There is enough knowledge regarding intersex status now, that we can legitimately consider anti-intersex attitudes and anti-intersex actions as nothing more than medicalization of yet another form of bigotry.  Shame on those who do that.

One of the most important and basic concepts in medicine is "First Do No Harm" - and the hippocratic oath includes the promise to abstain from doing harm.  Those who harm innocent people, via useless, dangerous, and cruel interventions, are commiting crimes.

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on August 4, 2012 at 2:34pm

Shades of Alan Mathison Turing. Did that episode not teach us anything?!  

A very loud, public, support of GLBT, using blunt terms such as lies, obscenely bigoted, ignorant, to make clear opposition, and especially coming from "religious" people. 

I complain and moan and criticize because of the way females continue to be oppressed, but I/we don't have it nearly as bad as homosexuals or bisexuals or transexuals and whatever term I am not yet aware. 

Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on August 4, 2012 at 4:19pm

Joan, there are so many ways that human beings have abused one another, i would never rank one form of discrimination or abuse above another. 

In recently reading about the mostly untold history of Africans and African Americans, from slavery, to post-Emancipation Neoslavery / peonage / Jim Crow, and knowing the history of oppression of women, and a zillion other ways that humans divide themselves into "worthy us" vs. "unworthy, demonized, inhumanized, them", it's hard not to scream and shout and stomp around.  I literally cried at times reading this book.  Some of which was still happening within my lifetime, in my country.  How did I not know this?  So fast forward to today, even with an African-American president, the effects reverberate through generations, and millions of lives remain worse for the heritage of abuse; while how many others still live with the inherited advantages from their parents', grandparents, and great grandparents? 

Then throw in other great crimes of human history - the Holocaust, Rwanda, Cambodia, Russia, China, USA/erasure of Native Americans and their culture, Mexico / South America erasure of Mayan/Aztec/Inca and their culture....  how do we prioritize?

None of that is to say that the effects of prejudice and bigotry against LGBTI...  people are trivial, and that possibly millions of lives have not been taken, or made harder, or ruined, or are undergoing persecution now.  But my perspective is that any human being that undergoes abuse, especially for who or what they are, is getting an undeserved unfair shake.

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on August 4, 2012 at 10:39pm

S.B. You write wisely, as usual. 

Permalink Reply by Tammy S on August 4, 2012 at 2:04pm

That is disgusting. I'm at a loss for words...

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on August 4, 2012 at 2:25pm

"Like" does not apply. It is an obscene claim ...

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has indicated it cannot stop advertising of this off-label use as "safe for mother and child" because the advertising is done by a clinician not affiliated with the drug maker."

What is a government's purpose if not to keep citizens safe from lies and deceptions of advertising? This is a phony reason ... what is the real reason USA has not stopped this chemical from being administered with its known side-effects?