Stuff I Hope My Parents Never See

OK, so- my partner was adopted by a rich woman when he was a baby. She's from a prominent family, practically royalty where we're from. She certainly had the means to send him to fancy private school, give him good food, nice clothes/toys, premium healthcare... she chose not to. According to her he was lucky to be "adopted out of poverty" at all and should have been content with what she deigned to give him. And she reminded him of this constantly, all through his childhood.

She dangled the promise of uni in exchange for good behavior and good grades- with terms and conditions, of course. And filling her laundry list of demands was something like pulling teeth whilst jumping through hoops. In the end, did he get to go to uni? Of course not. (And certainly being queer/trans on top of it all did not help things whatsoever).

He cut her off after high school, and when I met him a year ago he had been working as (the equivalent of) an UberEats driver for a living for the last few years, including through the pandemic. (Sixteen hours a day for the equivalent of $6 (six) USD, not including the gas for his shitty rundown scooter; caught COVID twice, suffers from chronic fatigue to this day).

And to this day he still has to be selective about which of our ~leftist anarcho-commie~ friends he divulges this part of his background to- cos all they hear is "raised rich" and then suddenly he's not One of Them because "well teeeeechncially :^) you're from the oppressing class...". Like.... shit, man!

Social rules don't mean shit when it comes to abusive parents. Even rich ones.

like we understand "the ruling classes get and maintain their wealth through cruel exploitation of those less powerful" and we can't wrap our heads around "a lifetime of this cruel and merciless behavior being valorized by your peers probably doesn't predispose you to suddenly changing gears once you have a helplessly dependent child that's totally under your control."

But her parents' income was still counted when she tried to get help from the government for her college classes.

What happened to David Reimer was due to a botched circumcision that burnt his entire penis to a little crisp that fell off like an umbilical cord. Then he was forcibly raised as a girl and terribly abused by John Money.

But when you speak on circumcision, people get wrapped up in the religious aspect of it, ignoring that circumcision is done regardless of religious status in the USA and is standard practice outside of any religion here. It's about "I don't want my sons penis to be ugly" with WASP Americans.

I absolutely get that people use the argument to be antisemitic. But how can I as an intersex person talk about how uncomfortable altering an infants genitalia is in ANY context without the wrong people saying yeah! And fuck that entire religious and ethnic group too! Cuz that's never where I'm coming from - it's all tied in to "I have genital scarring, I know David's case, and I don't think touching infant genitalia in this way is acceptable, we should let people choose what procedures happen to them."

My kind thing was tipping my broke friend's Ko-fi $3CAD because it comes out to $2.25 USD which is a little more doable than a full $5 right now because I am low on money and already donated $5 to the food bank on the 5th (I have a monthly donation set up).

but you deserve to give informed consent to that process.

the lies around pregnancy - that it's inherently safe, that it doesn't do you permanent damage, that it's only extremely rare for people to die of pregnancy complications, etc like

all of these are lies constructed so that more people will get pregnant w/o knowing all that

there needs to be more talk about the impact of miscarriages and how common they are, how different abortion processes are and how accessible they are

but also like. talking about how pregnancy fucks your body up should not be taboo

this is a process that permanently changes most people's bodies, and that's even if the pregnancy doesn't do them like. severe illness or injury

and i just think everybody should have a right to KNOW that

When I was pregnant I was in a million forums for pregnant people because (cough adhd hyperfixation) and I had something called SPD (Symphysis pubis dysfunction) (not Sensory Processing Disorder though I also have that) which is where your pubic bones separate early (more or less) because they get all loosey goosey as your body gets ready to crank that baby out.

Except my pubic bone got confused and got misaligned at like 3 months pregnant. I could barely walk. I couldn't roll over in bed. Doing something that required me to shift my weight from one foot to another like opening a door knob was like an excruciatingly painful knife being stabbed into my pubic bone, I can't express how intense and blinding it was.

So I am in one million baby forums like "am I dying what is happening why is there a knife in my pubic bone" and all these people are like "I have that too! my doctor says it's normal and not to worry because it doesn't hurt the baby. I just deal with it by laying in bed for months in excruciating pain and think about how lucky I am to be having a little miracle growing in my body."

So lol nope. I went to my midwife and they are like, "Oh squeeze a can between your knees look up a physical therapy youtube on SPD" and I did that can-squeeze thing and it CURED THE PROBLEM in ONE DAY. I had been SUFFERING, y'all, it felt miraculous.

And I was so full of rage (flames, flames on the side of my face) that people are being told "Oh, it's NORMAL just deal with it" "It doesn't hurt the baby." Like, look, yes it's NORMAL but it's 100% treatable!!! SPD (again, not Sensory processing disorder) affects 1 in 5 pregnant people.

I was lucky to have amazing midwives (need a gender neutral term for that profession, but they see pregnant men and women)(side note highly recommend midwives if you are gender nonconfirming/a man/etc) and I have DOZENS of examples of shit like this.

At one of the orgs I worked at a life time ago I was a sex ed teacher for middle school girls so I had to answer so. many. questions. they brought up that I learned more than I ever even wanted to about pregnancy. Fast forward like 16 years later everyone and their sister is pregnant around me and I fairly frequently hear my real life currently pregnant friends and family fully unaware of things that can occur like preeclampsia, lightning crotch, sciatica, Braxton Hicks, prolapse, etc.

Bitch, I blacked out twice from the pain of the cervical balloon and that was with nitrous. It hurt more than my 7.5 pound baby tearing a two and a half inch hole in my vagina and perineal wall.

reblog for bigger sample size!!

which, I do not accept. I have seen humans. I would like to propose an alternative explanation.

Cooking is the result of an early scientific experiment entitled "Does Meat Burn?"

Our government sucks. Our economy sucks. Capitalism sucks and people who take advantage of the elderly doubly suck.