olive

J: Like a Gameboy!

G: But Jerry, Gameboys are plastic! Waffle irons, they-they heat! They’ve gotta be made of metal. The plastic would melt!

J: I don’t know, George. Technology these days! They got them space-age polymers. They could make a waffle iron outta polymers-

G: Polymers, polymers! What do you know about polymers?

J: I know things!

G: You wouldn’t know a polymer from an amorphous metal!

J: What are you talking about?

G: I don’t know, I read an article.

J: Of course. An article.

(KRAMER enters. Audience cheers.)

K: You talking ‘bout that new NASA article? It’s disgraceful the things they’ve been doing with carbon these days. Disgraceful!

G: Jerry thinks waffle irons should be see-through.

K: Why?

J: They seem unsupervised! I wanna know what’s going on in there!

most, but not all, ethnically slavic people are able to slav squat.

most balkan people are also able to

any slavic and balkan people who can't slav squat are ashamed at the fact

the ethnicity with the highest ability to slav squat seems to be ashkenazi jews, with many responding and only 1 or 2 being unable to

people are confusing the slav squat with the asian squat - afaik, the slav squat has a wider stance, with your knees pointed outwards. the asian squat is narrower stance, with your knees tucked under your chin

nevertheless, most east and southeast asian people seem to be able to do both, and were astonished that other people find it hard

most americans don't seem to know what an ethnicity is, with lots of them just responding 'american' or 'white' (one of those is a nationality, the other is a race)

most european americans cannot slav squat, but those who could almost universally answered that they are largely ethnically slavic

the numbers were around 50% for native american respondees, though lots of european americans seemed to claim they have native friends who can

a lot more people in the world have ehlers danlos syndrome (hEDS) than I would have imagined (I have it too)

a lot of people in the notes claimed that the ability to slav squat came from flexibility in childhood, which is an interesting theory. however, I have serious issues with the external rotator cuff on my hip, and I can still do it easily

very few southern europeans or arabs answered, so numbers still inconclusive there

south americans (people with mixed indigenous and iberian heritage) seem to be able to do it more often than not

the numbers are around 50% for ethnically british and irish people

It was an article about a woman who had thought she was a trans man, had gotten top surgery and gone on testosterone, and then realized that it wasn't actually making her happy and that she wasn't actually a trans man. Reading this I felt nothing but sympathy, as someone who has struggled with mental illness his whole life I know how hard it is when you think something is going to "fix you" and then it doesn't. She talks about how she saw trans people expressing joy after transitioning and she thought that it would do the same for her. I was a little uncomfortable with that line of thinking but the alarm bells weren't going off quite yet.

But then she goes on to say that she thinks she was given access to transition care far too easily and quickly. That her informed consent wasn't really informed. That's when I started getting really uncomfortable. She started talking about how she thinks it's too easy to transition and that a lot of people "don't really know what they're doing" when they transition. She then advocated for making it harder for people to transition. That's when I stopped reading the article.

There is a reason a lot of trans people are uncomfortable around detransitioned cis people, and it's because of people like the woman from this article. You can tell from the way she talks about the trans community to the way she talks about transition that she did not do her due diligence and is now refusing to take responsibility for that. She saw people talking about how transitioning made them happy and took it at face value. She thought it would be a magic fix that would cure her depression and when it didn't she felt betrayed, like she had been lied to. But she never understood why transitioning was making these people happy.

Based on her comments about informed consent it's obvious she also didn't bother researching the actual transition care that she was getting. That is the whole point of informed consent, you have to do the research yourself. I mean hell I feel like I know more about how testosterone affects the body than my general practitioner does because I've spent so much time researching it to make sure that's what I wanted. It's not the trans community's fault that she didn't educate herself, it isn't like the resources aren't available.

To me all of this is indicative of a larger issue. It isn't just about transition, it's about the way society as a whole treats mental health. Mental illnesses have been commodofied and healthy coping mechanisms have been abandoned. People think that watching tiktoks about depression are a stand in for therapy. Trauma is worn like a badge of honour and the mere idea of unpacking it is seen as ableist. People build communities around suffering and then act surprised when people get hurt. Nobody is expected to take responsibility for their own mental wellbeing anymore so nobody knows how to.

That woman transitioned because she thought it would magically get rid of her mental illnesses. She saw trans people finding relief after finally being able to live in a body they were comfortable in and misunderstood what was going on. She was viewing them through a lens of her own suffering because she didn't see the difference, she assumed her experiences were universal. When it didn't work out she decided that trans people must have been the issue and not her own ignorance.

It's the constant refusal to take responsibility for your own actions that really bothers me as both a trans person and a disabled person. Getting better takes work and you have to be ready to fuck up and feel bad sometimes. Getting to the root of your mental illnesses and doing something about them is hard and uncomfortable and exhausting but it's worth it. Quick fixes aren't real and there are no magical cures. Transitioning is a journey of self discovery, not just a medical treatment. We will keep seeing detransitioned people acting and thinking like the woman above unless we change the way people talk about and treat mental health.

Trans people existing and being happy in their trans bodies isn't "making" anyone do anything. Us being ourselves isn't "pressuring" anyone. Trans people being nice to you on the internet have no control over what YOU do with YOUR body.

If you are mentally ill and find some comfort and solace in the trans community then I'm happy for you! I'm glad you found kindness! But if you have such a surface level understanding of us and our experiences that you think transitioning is a magical cure that suddenly gets rid of all of our mental illnesses over night, then sorry but that's on you. Transitioning makes many trans people feel better specifically because it treats their dysphoria. If your mental illnesses aren't related to gender dysphoria then yeah, transition isn't gonna fuckin help! You cannot blame trans people for your own ignorance. There are more than enough resources available for you to educate yourself, not just about trans people but about mental illness too. Trans people aren't responsible for educating you, even though many of us will if you ask!

I'm so tired of hearing story after story after story of someone who saw trans people being happy after transitioning, decided that surely transition would cure their depression, and then got pissed off at trans people when it didn't work. I mean every single story I have heard about detransitioners who were mad at the trans community and felt "pressured" to transition is like that. As a trans guy who has spent a decade of my life in pyshciatric care it frustrates me.

I have had severe pain in my feet when standing and walking since I was a child. In 2020 I went to a doctor who diagnosed me and told me we could try conservative efforts like physical therapy and custom orthotics, or surgery was an option.

I chose surgery. If I wanted to meet my deductible and maximum out-of-pocket, I needed to have both surgeries in the same year, or I would have to pay for both myself. So I said "ok, let's do it."

It's been two full years. My pain is worse. I regret getting the surgery, it made everything worse and now I have to use a wheelchair. That was always a possibility. My doctor had me sign a waiver saying that I knew the risks. But I need to emphasize that I walked into that doctor's office for the first time and walked out 45 minutes later with a surgery scheduled for the next week. Just like that. The surgery quite possibly ruined any hope of me walking without pain for the rest of my life, I cannot undo it, and I cannot overstate how simple it was to decide I was getting it and have it done the next week.

Nobody made me go through months of therapy to prove I was prepared for it. Nobody gave me a pamphlet of horror stories from people who had the surgery and regretted it. Nobody told me that I was being too rash or hasty about a huge decision that I might regret for the rest of my life. Nobody tried to make it harder for me to get the surgery because they regretted getting theirs.

They just scheduled the surgery.

My regret is my problem, and nobody else's. Nobody told me I needed the surgery, my doctor mentioned it as an option. Am I bitter that I'm worse now than before? Of course I am. Would I advise people against getting the surgery? No. I would advise them to try less invasive treatments first if they could. I would advise them not to rush into surgery without considering the possible consequences. But I would also know that grown ass adults don't need me to hover over their shoulders and give them medical advice.

Two minutes of googling found me this and this or if you don't like clicking through and reading -- these are two studies, one showing the post surgery regret for gender affirming surgeries is below 1%, the other that the post surgery regret for abdominal and thoracic surgery is 8% for severe regret.

Insofar as trans culture accumulates across time, it is through us each teaching one another how not to lose a grip on ourselves. How to revert to our original inversion."

Music is an excellent example but even more simply every time we cross the road and judge whether or not a car’s far & slow enough to be safe that’s kinematics, every time you’re in a vehicle next to another and your brain has that momentary confusion when that one moves away that’s an instinctive understanding of the Galilean principle of relativity, hell there’s a headache’s worth of maths involved if a person jumps to catch a ball.