βNHS to end practice of back rubs for Godzillaβ
If you think the NHS was ever actually giving trans children puberty blockers, then Iβm afraid you have fallen for a TERF fairy tale. The NHS has never actually done decent treatment for trans children. news.sky.com/story/children-toβ¦
The decision follows a review after a sharp rise in referrals were recorded at the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) run by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, which is closing at the end of March.
One of my best friends has a trans daughter, who is just on the point of being prescribed blockers after a battle of about five years. We don't at this point know whether she's sufficiently far along that this will 'only' make it harder to find a sympathetic GP, or a final last-minute defeat after so long waiting.
So yes, even within an awful system, this will make things materially worse for some trans people.
@David Matthewman they’ve always given these drugs to adults. They gave them to me in my 30s.
The issue is that they have pretty much never, as far as I know, given them to trans children for the purposes of arresting puberty.
I think the media narrative of referring to GnRH agonists as “puberty blockers” here is probably not helping any attempt at comprehension. It makes people think that’s all they do. They’re gonadotropin inhibitors, and they are useful after puberty for transition to allow HRT to work unopposed by endogenous hormones.
Now trying to stop them being prescribed for that is their next target, and without invading the privacy of the person you mention, you say it’s been a five year battle.
There’s no point prescribing these drugs before the initial onset of puberty because … well, they don’t do anything.
So five years … puberty is mostly done by then, and you’re
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@David Matthewman theyβve always given these drugs to adults. They gave them to me in my 30s.
The issue is that they have pretty much never, as far as I know, given them to trans children for the purposes of arresting puberty.
I think the media narrative of referring to GnRH agonists as βpuberty blockersβ here is probably not helping any attempt at comprehension. It makes people think thatβs all they do. Theyβre gonadotropin inhibitors, and they are useful after puberty for transition to allow HRT to work unopposed by endogenous hormones.
Now trying to stop them being prescribed for that is their next target, and without invading the privacy of the person you mention, you say itβs been a five year battle.
Thereβs no point prescribing these drugs before the initial onset of puberty because β¦ well, they donβt do anything.
So five years β¦ puberty is mostly done by then, and youβre looking at a young adult transition type situation.
For reference, the daughter in question turns 13 soon. And it's not that anyone was trying to give puberty blockers to an eight-year-old, but the battle was to get her the possibility of having them when they would help.
@David Matthewman Ok. Credit to her parents for fighting that battle, and maybe the Tavistock might have considered possibly doing it on a trial basis at some point (βmaybeβ is doing a lot of work there), but they basically donβt do that, and never have. Their standard mode of operation is to just keep talking until people age out of their service and can join an adult GIC waiting list.
The headline is literally just a reaffirmation of the way the NHS has always behaved. Itβs giving the impression that itβs ending a practice of medical intervention for trans kids.
But to end something, it has to have started in the first place.
I was watching the Portuguese election coverage last night. Ignore the Chega TV banner in the top left; they were just rebroadcasting RTP3βs coverage. What struck me was where in the UK we report turnout percentages, in Portugal the media report the opposite: the percentage of voters who stayed at home (abstenção in the bottom right). I wonder if thereβs something about the political history of Portugal that makes this so.
@Alisdair Calder McGregor Ooh, that's a good point; I hadn't noticed whether the numbers actually were %ages of the total electorate rather than of those who voted... And annoyingly they're not doing the UK thing of election coverage continuing well into the next day.
Portugal is in the news after the "success" of Chega, the Portuguese far-right party. A lot of friends are talking about this.
Now I'm not deeply embedded in Portuguese politics the way I was in the UK, but I do have some observations as someone "observing" (I can vote in local elections, but not national ones yet).
Chega is the personal vanity project of Andre Ventura, a former TV pundit who ragequit the centre right Social Democrat Party (ignore the name, there are historical reasons it's called that). His entire thing is that he is an adult man throwing a temper tantrum against "the system".
This may sound very familiar, but Ventura is not, to my mind, any kind of Trump. He's not Farage either. He is riding a wave of discontent about the state of the Portuguese economy, and a population that has real grievances about housing and wages, which he is blaming on the usual suspects (immigrants, but not the rich sort, ethnic minorities, LGBT people, etc).
He is portrayed as "far right", but frankly he's probably slightly to the left of the Tories in the UK rig
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Portugal is in the news after the "success" of Chega, the Portuguese far-right party. A lot of friends are talking about this.
Now I'm not deeply embedded in Portuguese politics the way I was in the UK, but I do have some observations as someone "observing" (I can vote in local elections, but not national ones yet).
Chega is the personal vanity project of Andre Ventura, a former TV pundit who ragequit the centre right Social Democrat Party (ignore the name, there are historical reasons it's called that). His entire thing is that he is an adult man throwing a temper tantrum against "the system".
This may sound very familiar, but Ventura is not, to my mind, any kind of Trump. He's not Farage either. He is riding a wave of discontent about the state of the Portuguese economy, and a population that has real grievances about housing and wages, which he is blaming on the usual suspects (immigrants, but not the rich sort, ethnic minorities, LGBT people, etc).
He is portrayed as "far right", but frankly he's probably slightly to the left of the Tories in the UK right now, or would be if he were a serious politician, which he is not.
Chega just came third on 18%. This is disturbing, but it's in-line with what you would expect for a "protest party" after the fall of the previous government due to a corruption scandal (and the details of said corruption are such that, again, were the Tories doing it, it wouldn't even register as something they were supposed to cover up, but the previous prime minister resigned over it anyway), and I suspect most of the people voting for Chega don't actually want or expect them to be in government. They're angry and they want people to know that they're angry.
Now Brits know first hand how dangerous this can be, after our own little electoral temper tantrum in 2016 resulted in us imposing economic sanctions on ourselves, but as I sad above, I don't think Ventura is any kind of Trump, or Farage, or Johnson. I don't think he has some sort of long term plan. He's a man child throwing a tantrum who likes to see his face on big billboards proclaiming himself some sort of knight fighting "the man".
If he actually got into government (and PSD are saying they won't work with him, but I don't see how they could form a government otherwise and we may be seeing a new election sooner rather than later), I don't think he would know what to do with it. Unlike Trump, I don't think his personal "angry man throwing a tantrum" brand would survive the transition to power. He'd end up like the Liberal Democrats did who, after getting 22% of the vote in 2010 (4% more than Chega just got), entered coalition and promptly destroyed themselves because they could no longer be that idealised opposition party that people protesting against the system felt able to vote for.
Chega and Ventura (and let's be honest, Chega is Ventura) are repulsive stains on civil society, but they are not indicative of a collapse in Portuguese democracy and a slide into fascism, nor is Portugal about to go the Hungary route.
This is not to say that we should be complacent, but I don't think that the sky is falling.
Anyway, that's what I think. I could be wrong, and frequently am when it comes to my read on politics, so this analysis is probably worth what you paid for it π
thanks for this pithy description of Brexit: "imposing economic sanctions on ourselves". I have a feeling this will be my go-to description for recent UK political history
When Costa was speaking last night he was basically saying that Chega was a protest vote and itβs worth looking into the reasons for that, but ultimately itβs just a protest.
There was something on the election coverage about the Presidentβs discretionary powers but I didnβt quite follow it.
@Alexandra Lanes I mean heβs right. The Lib Dems were in 2010 too, but unlike Chega the Lib Dems actually had real policies and real politicians. Still got shafted.
World press: Far right surges on Portugal elections!
I mean, yes, as someone who lives in Portugal, it's scary as hell, but in the ongoing love affair that the western press has with fascists, let's not lose sight of the fact that this "surge" is actually them coming third, and not a particularly close third either.
What's worrying is that there's no stable coalition without either them, or the centre right and centre left joining forces.
Every election so far people have been saying itβs their high water mark and then they triple or quadruple their voting. Iβm not optimistic. 1.1M people voting for these fuckersβ¦ Iβm still in disbelief. And some of the regions I love the most and the worst. The world is really turning to shit.
@Miguel Arroz They’re a receptacle for angry people to project anything they want onto. They can do well as a perpetual party of opposition, but they are, ultimately, bullshit merchants with nothing to offer beyond that piece of shit, Ventura, ranting about “gypsies” and nebulous “corruption” (presumably he’s angry that any potential backhanders aren’t coming to him).
Thing is, while parties of protest can do well when people are disillusioned with mainstream politics, if they do well enough to get any kind of power (say as a junior coalition partner), it’s … difficult to maintain that vote when people can no longer believe that you can be whatever they want you to be.
I was a member of the Liberal Democrats in the UK. In 2010, we picked up 22% of the vote as a party of protest, although unlike Chega we were coming at it from the centre left.
And it got us into coalition.
And ever since, the party
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@Miguel Arroz Theyβre a receptacle for angry people to project anything they want onto. They can do well as a perpetual party of opposition, but they are, ultimately, bullshit merchants with nothing to offer beyond that piece of shit, Ventura, ranting about βgypsiesβ and nebulous βcorruptionβ (presumably heβs angry that any potential backhanders arenβt coming to him).
Thing is, while parties of protest can do well when people are disillusioned with mainstream politics, if they do well enough to get any kind of power (say as a junior coalition partner), itβs β¦ difficult to maintain that vote when people can no longer believe that you can be whatever they want you to be.
I was a member of the Liberal Democrats in the UK. In 2010, we picked up 22% of the vote as a party of protest, although unlike Chega we were coming at it from the centre left.
And it got us into coalition.
And ever since, the party has been stuck on about 7%.
If PSD and PS form a grand coalition, then Chega can keep their status as βthe plutonic opposition partyβ and will probably go higher.
It will be uncomfortable as fuck if they end up in some sort of power sharing arrangement with PSD though. As you so rightly note, they are fuckers.
But I think it will basically end them. Trump and Johnson managed to pull off the βplucky outsiderβ con while still being in power, but I donβt think Ventura has that in him. I donβt think he can survive his fans seeing him become everything he claimed to hate.
Or at least I hope so. The alternative is scary as fuck, and I already had to flee one country where these arseholes got unchallenged levels of power (although even in their case, itβs about to destroy them. Still, the damage is done)
Iβm not sure if PS and PSD will form any sort of coalition. The history on that isnβt great. Iβm not sure how long the next government will last but my guess is, not much. Iβm still hoping the emigration ridings will repeat the result of last election, causing a tie in MPs and (hopefully) more votes for PS, forcing the president to invite the left-wing βmajorityβ to power.
honestly, Iβd rather have news media freaking out and overreacting about fascists than their usual normalization and hagiography of extreme right politicians
Oh. Light bulb moment. I thought I'd managed to catch an atypical cold despite all the making and hand washing. This makes more sense; I'm 11 days in and been feeling off for about the last 5.
@Alisdair Calder McGregor I guess it depends which way it initially tumbles. Could generate a pretty violent lift vector taking it either towards or away from the tail.
βSo sometimes my roommate, with whom Iβve been paying a mortgage for 10 years and looking after a herd of cats, does me against the wall with a strap on. Do you think I should risk telling her I have feelings for her? Iβm pretty sure sheβs straight.β reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdβ¦
Dental surgeon just tried to fit my new crown to the implant.
Turned out it has to go back to the lab because it's too big, but it took 3 attempts with a bit of on-site drilling before he gave up.
Screwing it down deforms the gum and crushes it between the crown and the bone, which hurts. He told me to tell him when it got too much and he would pause, which I did, but a long time after he seemed to be expecting me to.
He's like, "waiting for your feedback..." and I just gave him a thumbs up, and his face is kinda like, "This should be hurting. Why aren't you yelling?"
I think trans women get kinda messed up pain thresholds, you guys.
Anyway, it has to go back to the lab for a resize, because it's too big. Also the wrong colour, because they did not account for UK and Ireland levels of tea consumption.
Today was uncomfortable but it didn't last long. Having the implant put in is a bit of a slog, but it didn't hurt. Hope all goes well. It's a bit of a process.
Exactly 4 years ago today I had what can only be described as an utterly brutal extraction of half an upper molar by a dental surgeon (the other half had been removed by my regular dentist 2 weeks prior).
My plan was to replace the tooth, which had died from an internal crack, just a freak accident from biting something hard, with an implant.
And then the world went into lockdown.
On Wednesday, 4 years and 2 days since the original was removed, I get my new tooth installed.
Hereβs why the NHS were happy to vaccinate me with MMR the other day. From UK govt advice from 2019:
β’ individuals born between 1970 and 1979 may have been vaccinated against measles and many will have been exposed to mumps and rubella during childhood. However, this age group should be offered MMR wherever feasible, particularly if they are considered to be at high risk of exposure.
β’ individuals born before 1970 are likely to have had all three natural infections and are less likely to be susceptible. MMR vaccine should be offered to such individuals on request or if they are considered to be at high risk of exposure.
Tl;dr: younger GenX and older Millennials in the UK were likely given inadequate protection against measles and none against mumps and rubella: vaccinate on sight.
Older GenX and boomers: just give them the vaccine if they ask for it.
I recall that you had whooping cough many months ago, which I was reminded of because I also got it last autumn. Somebody on here told me recently that it was included in the tetanus booster. Research done some years ago shows that people don't need to the tetanus boosters, but I guess whopping cough wasn't part of the study? Anyway, I haven't had that shot in 20 years now and I'm guessing virtually no others adults have either.
Boomers: Talkin’ ‘bout my generation things my parents said to me…
GenX: What sort of things?
Boomers: Awful, cold things.
GenX: Such as?
Boomers: Er … um … tax the rich to build a welfare state?
GenX: And?
Boomers: Something about minorities …
GenX: Go on…
Boomers: I think it was “don’t put minorities in death camps”
GenX; You know you’re kind of an asshole?
Millennials: Oh hey dad, big bro. Wassup?
Boomers: Your brother was just leaving.
GenX: Well I do need to go get some overtime. My mortgage is fucking killing me and apparently someone ran away with my pension fund.
GenX: Asshole
Millennials: Wow. What was that about?
Boomers: Oh, music tastes. Anyway, let’s go into the city. There’s a matching band and something I want to talk to you about.
…
Boomers: Cool band! Anyway, in the unlikely event tha
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Boomers: My generation! My generation!
GenX: Hey dad, what you doing?
Boomers: Talkinβ βbout my generation things my parents said to meβ¦
GenX: What sort of things?
Boomers: Awful, cold things.
GenX: Such as?
Boomers: Er β¦ um β¦ tax the rich to build a welfare state?
GenX: And?
Boomers: Something about minorities β¦
GenX: Go onβ¦
Boomers: I think it was βdonβt put minorities in death campsβ
GenX; You know youβre kind of an asshole?
Millennials: Oh hey dad, big bro. Wassup?
Boomers: Your brother was just leaving.
GenX: Well I do need to go get some overtime. My mortgage is fucking killing me and apparently someone ran away with my pension fund.
GenX: Asshole
Millennials: Wow. What was that about?
Boomers: Oh, music tastes. Anyway, letβs go into the city. Thereβs a matching band and something I want to talk to you about.
β¦
Boomers: Cool band! Anyway, in the unlikely event that I die soon after plundering the healthcare system your grandparents built and laying waste to the environment, will you defeat the plans that they, and by they, I mean βIβ have made? I know things are shit and itβs my fault, but I canβt be arsed to clean up after myself and the beach bar is open β¦
Millennials: My older brother was right. You are an asshole.
@Ghost of Hope The single dose measles vaccine they used in the 70s was not as effective as theyβd hoped long term, but to be fair the thing was on the verge of being eradicated and they didnβt think it needed to be.
@Alexandra Lanes Dupuutren's appears to have gone into remission overnight. I guess my body is too busy doing measles things to worry about fucking my hands.
So you have a service like Tailscale. Could actually be Tailscale.
You can install it on a barebones Linux SBC with Wifi. (Raspberry Pi zero W or equivalent). These things will run off a public USB port or a USB power pack for many hours.
Set it down somewhere with public wifi. Set it as an exit node. Go elsewhere.
Some hours later, do bit torrent, or whatever.
Some days later, if you are so minded, go back and collect it. Or not. These things can be cheap enough to be disposable.
It's traceable via Tailscale, were someone to do forensics on it, but you could set it up to wipe its Tailscale installation after a certain time period if you were paranoid. It probably wouldn't ever get that far.
Hell, in a lot of places with public wifi, cable tie a random box in place and people will assume it's part of the scenery for a very long time. Your only issue is power, and there are wa
So you have a service like Tailscale. Could actually be Tailscale.
You can install it on a barebones Linux SBC with Wifi. (Raspberry Pi zero W or equivalent). These things will run off a public USB port or a USB power pack for many hours.
Set it down somewhere with public wifi. Set it as an exit node. Go elsewhere.
Some hours later, do bit torrent, or whatever.
Some days later, if you are so minded, go back and collect it. Or not. These things can be cheap enough to be disposable.
It's traceable via Tailscale, were someone to do forensics on it, but you could set it up to wipe its Tailscale installation after a certain time period if you were paranoid. It probably wouldn't ever get that far.
Hell, in a lot of places with public wifi, cable tie a random box in place and people will assume it's part of the scenery for a very long time. Your only issue is power, and there are ways to address that.
You could easily make one that looked like, and functioned as, a USB mains power adaptor.
Random VPN exit nodes, everywhere. Just need a way of getting wifi credentials onto it.
A lot of wifis want you to log in via a website, so the work around for that is that you can record a lynx session and play it back, which is essentially automating a headless interaction with a website. Then put that a cron job.
I've done this in real life to keep a raspi authenticated on a pub wifi. It worked for several days.
Have been alerted to the existence of an MMR drop in centre. Going to attend on Saturday to see if theyβll give me one to top up my 49 year old single measles vaccine.
I queried my GP about shingles and MMR and had twin punctures in my arm that afternoon. But, since I'm to old to have any of the MMR vaccines, it's a full course not a booster. I have the impression they are keen to get them done. Achey and cross the next day, but just a bit tender in the upper arm the day after.
@anubis2814 I don't know when it changed, but the eligibility is simpler now than it used to be; between 70 and 80 instead of the tighter cohort it used to be. I'm sorry to hear about your co-worker. It's miserable at any age, though not, I think, infectious in its own right. In
It was noted that Farage is seen as βvulgarβ by the people who inhabit the Tory back rooms, and my response was, β I mean, come on. Looking at him you just KNOW heβs walking around in 1970s nylon y-fronts that he only changes once every 4 days.
The guy is basically every Sid James character from Carry On, but unironically.β
gz
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •It's a disgrace that the NHS has stopped giving backrubs to Godzilla. I'm going to write to someone else's MP in protest.
Re the puberty blockers: it's good to hear they'll stop doing what they weren't doing. π€
Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •Alexandra Lanes likes this.
Bethan M. Jenkins
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •way, way down in the BBC report of this :
"Fewer than 100 young people in England are currently prescribed puberty blockers by the NHS."
I doubt many will read that far though π
Sarah Brown
in reply to Bethan M. Jenkins • •David Matthewman
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Well, yes. But.
One of my best friends has a trans daughter, who is just on the point of being prescribed blockers after a battle of about five years. We don't at this point know whether she's sufficiently far along that this will 'only' make it harder to find a sympathetic GP, or a final last-minute defeat after so long waiting.
So yes, even within an awful system, this will make things materially worse for some trans people.
Alexandra Lanes likes this.
Sarah Brown
in reply to David Matthewman • •@David Matthewman they’ve always given these drugs to adults. They gave them to me in my 30s.
The issue is that they have pretty much never, as far as I know, given them to trans children for the purposes of arresting puberty.
I think the media narrative of referring to GnRH agonists as “puberty blockers” here is probably not helping any attempt at comprehension. It makes people think that’s all they do. They’re gonadotropin inhibitors, and they are useful after puberty for transition to allow HRT to work unopposed by endogenous hormones.
Now trying to stop them being prescribed for that is their next target, and without invading the privacy of the person you mention, you say it’s been a five year battle.
There’s no point prescribing these drugs before the initial onset of puberty because … well, they don’t do anything.
So five years … puberty is mostly done by then, and you’re
... show more@David Matthewman theyβve always given these drugs to adults. They gave them to me in my 30s.
The issue is that they have pretty much never, as far as I know, given them to trans children for the purposes of arresting puberty.
I think the media narrative of referring to GnRH agonists as βpuberty blockersβ here is probably not helping any attempt at comprehension. It makes people think thatβs all they do. Theyβre gonadotropin inhibitors, and they are useful after puberty for transition to allow HRT to work unopposed by endogenous hormones.
Now trying to stop them being prescribed for that is their next target, and without invading the privacy of the person you mention, you say itβs been a five year battle.
Thereβs no point prescribing these drugs before the initial onset of puberty because β¦ well, they donβt do anything.
So five years β¦ puberty is mostly done by then, and youβre looking at a young adult transition type situation.
Which theyβve always done anyway.
David Matthewman
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to David Matthewman • •@David Matthewman Ok. Credit to her parents for fighting that battle, and maybe the Tavistock might have considered possibly doing it on a trial basis at some point (βmaybeβ is doing a lot of work there), but they basically donβt do that, and never have. Their standard mode of operation is to just keep talking until people age out of their service and can join an adult GIC waiting list.
The headline is literally just a reaffirmation of the way the NHS has always behaved. Itβs giving the impression that itβs ending a practice of medical intervention for trans kids.
But to end something, it has to have started in the first place.