Click Clack Gorilla’s “ode to spaghettieis” celebrates a German ice-cream dish that looks like spaghetti Bolognese. The noodles are extruded white ice-cream. It was invented in 1969, and remains popular.
I’m sure this has been posted elsewhere, but I feel it bears repeating.
Extremism is not a function of mental illness.
Someone who is mentally ill in any manner is not more likely to be an extremist. They’re not more likely to be a dangerous extremist. They’re not more vulnerable to the ideologies; they’re not in any way special.
Someone being mentally ill and an extremist, are two completely unrelated facts.
Their mental illness may interact with the extremism, in the same way mental illness interacts with every facet of someone’s life.
Most extremists are average people in a socially vulnerable position that extremist ideologues can exploit.
People who feel disenfranchised (legitimately or not.) People who are socially isolated. People who are scared, or angry, or feel cheated.
This isn’t mental illness: this is a social problem.
This is exactly what happens every time social change comes to a head.
It becomes violent when someone feeling threatened by the changes decides it’s time to put the social change back the way it “should be.” It becomes violent because these people are told by their extremist social group that the world is getting out of line because they haven’t stopped it.
And the way they’re told to stop it is violence, and that violence is their right.
This isn’t a broken chemical signal in the brain. There isn’t some miraculous stop-catch we have as a species against violence. We are all capable of violence if we can justify it, and justifying it is a function of social norms.
What’s lacking in violent extremists is the social norms against violence have been thrown out, and blamed for the loss of everything they’re told they deserve by their extremist social group.
This is not mental illness, and blaming it on mental illness is blaming a social minority for a problem that has nothing to do with them and it needs to fucking stop.
Binding is not safe. Long term, it is detrimental to your physical health. While the social and psychological benefits might outweigh the physical risks for many people, the choice to bind should be made with the understanding that the risks cannot be eliminated even with great care to ensure good fit and avoid overuse. Tightly compressing a large part of your body with many complex skeletal and muscular connections on a regular basis damages your body over time. Take off-days, wear the proper size from reputable makers, don’t sleep or exercise in them, and take them off as often as possible – all good advice that you absolutely must follow to be as safe as possible, but it’s impossible to guarantee that there will not be complications.
People tend to downplay the physical risks of binding because the payoff for self-confidence can be so profound. But seriously – even responsible binding is likely to cause complications ranging from sharp pains, nerve damage, dramatically decreased lung capacity, fluid buildup, skin issues, and back injury. Do not take it lightly just because it’s a piece of clothing that can be removed and does not need a doctor’s approval or informed consent to use.
If you must bind, be gentle with yourself. On your off-time, or if you choose not to bind at all, puffer vests are your new best friends. Seriously. Get your Marty McFly on. Not your style? Your loss, you unfashionable fool, but scarves, loose-fitting button-downs, and bomber jackets can help as well.
Okay shut the fuck up.
If it’s a decision between hurting myself but feeling confident, or killing myself because I don’t feel like I belong in my own body, I think I’d choose the former.
That’s your prerogative. I never told anyone NOT to wear a binder. However, it’s a major medical decision, and minimizing or dismissing the very real and common side-effects is not good for anyone, especially young people just beginning to transition. Like I said, sometimes the psychological benefits outweigh the physical costs – if not wearing a binder makes you suicidal, then clearly continuing to wear a binder is the correct decision for you.
The problem lies in presenting binders as a miracle solution that everyone can and should try if they are distressed by the appearance of their chest, or that only “incorrect” binding (as with ace bandages) poses any dangers. Some people may develop complications that make it impossible for them to continue binding. It is vitally important that people are aware of the potential harm before they begin and are able to make informed decisions by weighing their own priorities and exploring alternatives.
Unlike surgery or hormones, binders are not medically regulated and don’t require you to understand what you’re getting into. That means we have to look after each other, and in this case, that means being honest about safety.
I would also really appreciate if we worked on respecting people who can’t bind anymore because of complications, and not treating them as not “really” trans or continuing to use their assigned gender to refer to them.
Like, it’s an issue with gatekeepers, but it’s also an issue within the trans community.
To add to the last remark: Assuming that people who can’t bind for medical reasons would bind (even if life-threatening) if they were really “trans enough”. Assuming there’s only one way that trans people feel about their bodies, that this way never changes over time and can’t ever be changed in any way by anyone, and that those who have (or can behave as if they have) the most agony around their bodies are the most genuinely trans people… all of these assumptions are false and harm a lot of trans people both directly and indirectly. Some of them are specific to assumptions around transness while some of them have ties to the way people think about membership in oppressed groups in general (even groups where dysphoria isn’t considered an integral part of their identity, seem to have a thing where the most genuine group membership is asserted by showing the most signs of severe suffering in a public way). That’s the other thing, not everyone is public about how we feel about our bodies, assuming you know how we eel on that basis isn’t cool. Assuming there’s only one “real” way trans people feel about their bodies is also not cool. These are responses to things I’ve seen over the past 15 years or so, not just things on this thread or something. Also there’s trans people and gender-atypical people who don’t think about the world through the same concepts that the mainstream trans community uses to describe both transness and gender in general and that’s not well-known and certainly not well-respected. Why people have to always form hierarchies like this is anyone’s guess.
Binding is not safe. Long term, it is detrimental to your physical health. While the social and psychological benefits might outweigh the physical risks for many people, the choice to bind should be made with the understanding that the risks cannot be eliminated even with great care to ensure good fit and avoid overuse. Tightly compressing a large part of your body with many complex skeletal and muscular connections on a regular basis damages your body over time. Take off-days, wear the proper size from reputable makers, don’t sleep or exercise in them, and take them off as often as possible – all good advice that you absolutely must follow to be as safe as possible, but it’s impossible to guarantee that there will not be complications.
People tend to downplay the physical risks of binding because the payoff for self-confidence can be so profound. But seriously – even responsible binding is likely to cause complications ranging from sharp pains, nerve damage, dramatically decreased lung capacity, fluid buildup, skin issues, and back injury. Do not take it lightly just because it’s a piece of clothing that can be removed and does not need a doctor’s approval or informed consent to use.
If you must bind, be gentle with yourself. On your off-time, or if you choose not to bind at all, puffer vests are your new best friends. Seriously. Get your Marty McFly on. Not your style? Your loss, you unfashionable fool, but scarves, loose-fitting button-downs, and bomber jackets can help as well.
Okay shut the fuck up.
If it’s a decision between hurting myself but feeling confident, or killing myself because I don’t feel like I belong in my own body, I think I’d choose the former.
That’s your prerogative. I never told anyone NOT to wear a binder. However, it’s a major medical decision, and minimizing or dismissing the very real and common side-effects is not good for anyone, especially young people just beginning to transition. Like I said, sometimes the psychological benefits outweigh the physical costs – if not wearing a binder makes you suicidal, then clearly continuing to wear a binder is the correct decision for you.
The problem lies in presenting binders as a miracle solution that everyone can and should try if they are distressed by the appearance of their chest, or that only “incorrect” binding (as with ace bandages) poses any dangers. Some people may develop complications that make it impossible for them to continue binding. It is vitally important that people are aware of the potential harm before they begin and are able to make informed decisions by weighing their own priorities and exploring alternatives.
Unlike surgery or hormones, binders are not medically regulated and don’t require you to understand what you’re getting into. That means we have to look after each other, and in this case, that means being honest about safety.
I would also really appreciate if we worked on respecting people who can’t bind anymore because of complications, and not treating them as not “really” trans or continuing to use their assigned gender to refer to them.
Like, it’s an issue with gatekeepers, but it’s also an issue within the trans community.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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