#I’m doing research 🧐

[geryone]

Reading the Bible before bed lmao my mother would be so excited

[honnelander]

WHAT THE FUCK DO U MEAN SANJI HAS A PIERCING

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CxZGcCmK7Da/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

“allegedly” 👀👀👀😏😏🙈

[sunmisbf]

they had them whoring out in matching outfits help me

[herdaz]

I do have this, like, overwhelming urge to learn how to dye yarn that I can’t get out of my head so we’re gonna learn I guess lol

[ozzgin]

Ozzgibz my lord may we have just one more crumb of pickle content pls pls pls🙏🙏🙏

Like I have an idea, reader as pickles mother🧐 like like like U wake up together after many many years

Not just a crumb, but an entire loaf! :D I will use this chance to finally finish all of the Pickle related requests I currently have. (At least I hope I haven’t omitted anything). So you may consider this a Pickle megathread, containing multiple requests put together.

Pickle Headcanons: A collection

Featuring Pickle and Reader: Pickle’s Mother! Reader, Pickle trying modern treats, Pickle and his newborn, Pickle x Student! Reader and Pickle x OP! Reader.

Pickle’s Mother! Reader

You wake up surrounded by heavy, intricate machinery and at a certain point it occurs to you just how long your slumber has been. Ah, that explains the peaceful, uninterrupted rest. You can’t recall the last time you slept this well. And, like clockwork, you hear the humans scream mere seconds after you stretch your rusted bones. A familiar growl jolts you back into action. Being frozen for millennia sadly doesn’t strip you of your motherly role.

With a groan, you rip the medical cords away from your body, indifferent to the frightened stares of the scientists currently unsure of your intentions. They needn’t be afraid for long. With the calculated movements of someone that has been doing this one too many times, you walk towards the source of ruckus and return with Pickle under your arm. It’s almost as if you’re wearing an invisible hero cape: the research team can finally relax knowing Pickle’s fearsome mother is here to keep him under control.

This arrangement now poses an interesting dilemma: how will the fights unfold under the watchful gaze of a protective, Jurassic mom? Should the fighters be worried about a vengeful counterattack if they’re too hasty with your son? The first one to test the waters is Retsu, and before he enters the arena you place a heavy hand on his shoulder, briefly guiding him aside. He nervously watches your gestures as you pretend to beat up an invisible opponent. Are you showing him potential punishments? Then you give him a friendly nudge and point to Pickle. Realization sinks in and he stares at you, wide eyed. You’re giving him advice on how to give Pickle a proper beating. Well, obviously. If they’re going to challenge your menace of a son, they should at least make it worthwhile. Rough him up a little. At the end of the day, it’s less work for you.

Pickle tries modern treats

Pickle would probably lose his mind with any carbonated drink or sweet flavor. He never had access to this amount of sugar, so I’m wondering if he’d think it’s poisonous once he becomes agitated from the abrupt intake. Nice, exquisite smell and a vibrant color that tempts him enough to give it a try. Next thing you know, the liquid sizzles in his mouth and he panics, but eventually settles down. Then his heartbeat increases and he’s squirming under the confused stares of the fighters (who initially offered him the drink), until Professor Payne points out his body might not be accustomed to our levels of sugar. The real trouble starts once he can handle the unhealthy snacks, because someone will have to stop him from overeating. (To be fair I’ve also never had a Baja Blast, seems less popular/available in Europe but it looks nice.)

Pickle unable to care for his baby

They say your life flashes before your eyes as you die and you certainly gazed upon a delectable bunch of recollections when the prehistoric man swung his massive body towards you, growling threateningly. They were hoping the fighters could keep him entertained long enough for you to feed the baby, but it seems his fatherly instincts (that he’s otherwise lacking) trumped his need for battle. Thankfully, he stops right before his clawed hand touches your frightened face. For the first time he sees his newborn eating, the puffy cheeks expanding with each gulp of the mysterious bottled liquid you’re providing.

Well, if all you’re doing is feeding his child, he might as well keep you around. You certainly don’t look like a threat, even less so than the men he just faced in the Arena. To the relief of everyone witnessing the spectacle, you get to live and handle the baby. Not like you have significantly more experience when it comes to taking care of infants, but with the help of the scientists you manage to ease Pickle into his parenting role.

All this time spent together has reminded Pickle just how much he misses the presence of a second parent. The baby likes you, you seem to be rather knowledgeable about these matters, and you’re extremely cute if he is to be fully honest with himself. The Jurassic man can’t help the faint smile gracing his features whenever he pictures it: you make a nice family, wouldn’t you agree?

Pickle x Student! Female Reader

You’ve learned to ignore the bewildered stares. Thankfully, this time, the only unusual sight consists of Pickle’s gargantuan size and nothing else. He’s dressed in modern attire and has since learned to behave better in public. You recall the first encounters, where an almost naked Jurassic creature kept following you around and wouldn’t take no for an answer. It took you several weeks to figure out he’s interested in you, and you eventually relented. Naturally you couldn’t have gone outside with a wild jungle beast donning a fundoshi and nothing else. So you did your best to instill modern customs into your new boyfriend.

And, for the most part, it worked. He’s sitting with you on a campus bench, politely waiting for you to finish your rough sketch. He enjoys watching your drawing process, especially if he’s the subject of the piece. A giddy feeling overwhelms him, almost as if he’s being physically touched with each stroke of the pencil. The fact that you observe him so carefully, and then somehow reproduce the image so accurately on paper…It entertains him greatly. Sadly he can’t return the favor. You’ve offered him drawing tools before in case he wanted to join your creative hobby, but there was no dormant Botticelli in his soul waiting to be awakened.

While he may not share your artistic inclination, you can at least be assured that no threat will ever reach your proximity again. His hands were built for battle and he makes sure you witness this truth on every occasion. No fight begins without your presence in the Underground Arena. As much as you feel for his battered opponents, the whole ordeal results in very neat action frames. You leave the matches with brand new batches of doodles. Who would’ve thought you’d find your muse in a prehistoric man? Additionally, if you ever need some extra cash, there’s always the option of delving into erotic art. After all, you have access to any reference you could ever need and Pickle would be most eager to help you.

Pickle x OP! Reader

@mariahvilla569

So this was a little difficult because I wasn’t sure whether Reader is overpowered in relation to someone in particular or just the whole Bakiverse. I went for a Reader who’s stronger than everyone else.

Pickle was very confused when he met you for the first time, standing in the audience of the Underground Arena to observe his match with Retsu. He was instantly smitten and was about to discard any intention of a fight to immediately pursue you instead, but he was stopped by multiple men forming a barrier before you and an angered Retsu demanding his undivided attention. He assumed you must be someone’s partner and therefore he’ll have to win his way to you. He couldn’t have guessed in a million years that you were politely allowing everyone else to have their fun before you swiftly cashed in your victory.

You did have enough grace to take your time with the prehistoric man. He doesn’t doubt that if you so desired, you could’ve ended the battle within mere moments; but just like the rest of the men, you wanted your fair share of entertainment. This way Pickle was also offered a sample of your exquisite skills, which made all the fighters before you fade into nothingness. Truly astonishing that a human half his size would tower above him in terms of raw power. He was left beyond impressed and his initial crush has avalanched into a full blown obsession.

Just because you’re stronger doesn’t mean he can’t fulfill the duties of a protective partner. Consider it a way to efficiently save time, as whoever isn’t strong enough to get past him isn’t worth your precious time. Not to mention that Pickle has come to view your sparring sessions as a special form of intimacy reserved for him and you only. If you need to train, he should suffice as an opponent. There’s no one else as sturdy as him, and you’re always in a great mood after a proper fight, so he’d be an utter fool not to take advantage of it.

[intersexbookclub]

A lot of thoughts about Cripping Intersex

On 2024-09-29 we met to talk about Chapters 0 and 7-9 of the 2022 book Cripping Intersex by Celeste Orr. This was a book that numerous people had requested we read, and we wound up with deeply mixed feelings about it. 😬

Overall reactions:

Michelle: I found the concept of “hauntology” incredibly compelling. I’m here for some shitposting. 🍵

Apollo: I loved the concept of compulsory dyadism. I found the downplaying of “perisex” as a term to be weird, and the lack of divulging intersex/disability status was weird. 

Elizabeth: the lack of diverging intersex/disability status wasn’t just weird, it was anathema to standpoint theory, and so every time Orr cited standpoint theorists, it made me seriously doubt Orr’s understanding of the theoretical basis that they actively chose to use 🧐. I was disappointed by this book. I agree with its central premise, so I should have been an easy sell. Instead I came out shaking, upset, feeling like Orr was a voyeur to our community, that Orr does not actually view intersex studies as a serious research area, that we’re just a theoretical fascination.

Remy: There were a lot of good points about how disability is socially constructed, but how Orr used “bodymind” detracted from their arguments for me. This book had a lot of uncomfortable conversations, some of them I was happy to read, some I need to come to terms with myself, while others I felt were treated a little too artificially equally such as the section with the phrase "the future is female" and the intersex community being involved in the queer community. 🤔

Bnuuy: it's really jarring how they approach the topic. There are a lot of pieces for a good theory here, but it’s kinda like Orr is just like the completely wrong person to go try to assemble them 🫤

As a collective, we generally were receptive (if not enthused!) about the central message that intersex benefits from disability studies/rights/justice perspectives, and that our community would benefit from more interaction with the disability studies/rights/justice communities! 💜

At the same time, we all agreed that Orr felt like a voyeur to our community. Rather than engaging with the intersex community, they seem to have a one-sided relationship where they read a bunch of things by intersex people but never actually conversed with intersex people. Whether Orr is intersex or not matters a whole lot less to us than whether Orr is actively participating in the community. 

We made a lot of (unflattering) comparisons of Orr’s book to Envisioning African Intersex by Swarr, an intersex studies book by a perisex author. The latter is a great example of how a perisex scholar can do right by the intersex community: Swarr is clear about being perisex, clearly lays out her motivation for writing the book (she saw medical photography of intersex people, thought it was fucked up, later became friends with intersex activist Sally Gross, and then wanted to honour Gross’ memory after Gross died tragically.) Swarr was clearly connected to multiple African intersex organizations and made an explicit, deliberate choice to publish her book as open access so that the work could actually be read by the African activists she has been working with. Swarr’s perisex status matters a lot less than the fact that Swarr writes in a way that demonstrates personal investment in advancing intersex rights/justice.

Orr may or may nor be intersex. We don’t know. We don’t really care, because Orr doesn’t demonstrate personal investment in the intersex rights/justice/studies communities. That’s what actually matters to us, and it's what a lot of this post is going to talk about.

Underneath the cut we're going to go into a lot more detail about the book. There were things we liked about the book, and want to be fair in our assessment. Some of the complaints we had about the book hinge on an understanding of sociological theory and academic practices, so we'll give some context on those issues.

What we liked

This book had a bunch of things going for it.

The one thing this book did better than Swarr was its use of hauntology. Swarr invokes hauntology in her book, but not nearly as effectively as Orr does. Orr gets a lot of effective mileage out of how the spectre of intersex haunts people’s bodies. Not just intersex people’s bodies, but also the bodies of pregnant people who are called upon to exorcise the spectre of intersex through selective abortion should a foetus be identified as possibly intersex.

The haunting metaphor rung true for talking about how we intersex people are haunted by past surgeries, forced treatments, medical trauma, and so on. Even when we’re “done” with receiving gender-altering “treatments” we live with their ghosts every day.

We liked the explicit connections that Orr drew between intersex and disability studies. Elizabeth in particular was warmed by the shoutout to how Garland-Thompson explicitly includes intersex in her disability studies work. We felt that Orr perhaps underestimates how receptive many intersex people would be to their central argument - Orr takes on a tone of “hey bear with my crazy radical argument” that we weren’t sure was really necessary.

Orr is not the first to make the argument that intersex organizing and scholarship would benefit from more alignment with the disability world. This gets into criticisms, but Orr isn’t the first to make this argument yet seems unaware of how regularly the argument comes up. Indeed there’s a whole chapter in Critical Intersex (2009) arguing that intersex is better off allying with the disability community than the queer community. It’s not hard to find intersex people on this very website arguing similar things. Intersex-support even has a whole section on it in their FAQ, though it does cite Orr (lol). Orr does at least seem aware of Koyama’s work making this argument.

We appreciated Orr calling out ableism in a lot of intersex organizing. When intersex people and organizations insist that intersex is NOT a disorder or disability, they conflate disorder and disability. This is an ableist conflation: disability activism tends to start from a place of resistance to the medical model of disability, whether it be by the social model or more recent ones like the political/relational model. 

Intersex activists insisting that intersex is “NOT a disability” reinforce the idea that disability is a negative, tragic thing. It’s the “I’m not like the other girls” rhetoric: putting down people who experience the same oppression you do in an effort to gain some credibility. It holds our movement back, because ableism is a very potent part of how we intersex people are oppressed. Orr does an effective job of laying this out, and we recommend reading the first chapter for this.

Orr coins a term, temporary dyadism, to talk about how people can learn at any age or time that they have had intersex traits all along. (Another way in which intersex can haunt!). For Elizabeth, this helped zer understand why perisex people can be *so* insistent in defining intersex as something visible at birth: because if intersex is something you can become at any age, this threatens perisex people with the possibility that they too could find themselves on the minority side of the tracks.

Other terms that Orr uses were big hits with the group. Elizabeth loved “curative violence” and ze expects to get future mileage out of the term. Ze also liked the framing of IGM as medical malpractice. Apollo praised “compulsory dyadism” as a concept. Remy shared that the cyborg stuff in the book gave them a lot to think about.

The book features a takedown of eugenicist rhetoric by a bioethicist by the name of Sparrow. We all agreed that Sparrow’s arguments sucked, were grossly eugenicist, and welcomed that Orr had put in the work to rebut his hateful messaging. Michelle praised how they invoked Sparrow’s lists of undesirables that Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis is supposed to prevent: for xem, it evoked monstrosity identification theory and ideas of the abject.

Elizabeth liked Orr’s argument that genital differences are a threat to the heterosexual (perisex) imagination: there’s so much porn out there that incorrectly presents intersex as “typical fully-developed penis plus typical fully-developed vagina” that really reflects how perisex people have a serious lack of imagination about genitals.

Fact Checking

There are a number of things that Orr says that we felt warrant an explicit fact check.

Orr presents the terms “perisex” and “endosex” as though they are contentious within the intersex community. They are not. The general consensus that one’s choice of perisex/endosex/dyadic is a question of personal preference and familiarity.

Orr clearly prefers the term dyadic, and makes a show of casting aspersions on “perisex” and “endosex”. They make it seem like their origins are disputed, and selectively cite Tumblr posts to make this argument. “Perisex” is actually the most common antonym to intersex on this very website, so it feels surreal that they're publishing the rare anti-“perisex” posts on this platform. Orr does correctly cite the Tumblr which coined “perisex”, the issue is they try to discredit it as a means to make it seem like this is not a term embraced by the intersex community.

Orr makes it seem like the origin of “endosex” is a suspicious mystery. It’s not. the term was first used in German in 2000 by Heike Bödeker. Bödeker is controversial for supporting autogynephilia 😬, but we've never seen anybody doubt Bödeker having mixed gonadal dysgenesis. 

Orr clearly prefers the term “dyadic” and makes zero attempt to source the term, and the most minimal attempt at covering its controversy. This term actually does come from outside the intersex community! The term came from gender studies, popularized by 1970s radfem Shulamith Firestone. And it’s controversial for more than just being a laundering of “sex binary”. 

Nobody calls it “ipso gender” anymore. It was coined as “ipso gender” but in actual usage has been “ipsogender” from basically as soon as the term was coined.

Orr uncritically repeats a quote which romanticizes home births in Black & Indigenous communities as that intersex-at-birth babies were accepted and cared for in a way that wouldn’t happen if the baby were born in hospital. This, sadly, is deserves scrutiny. We’re not saying it never happened: one can find stories supporting it. But the historical and sociological evidence show that infanticide of intersex infants has been widespread globally, and this includes traditional Black and Indigenous birth attendants. Collison (2018) as quoted in Swarr, reports that 88 of 90 traditional South African birth attendants they interviewed admitted to “getting rid” of a child if it was born intersex. That very story we just linked to about a Kenyan midwife saving intersex babies made the news because infanticide was the norm. In North America, some First Nations had similar traditions, e.g. the Navajo would leave intersex babies to die in arroyos, and the Halq’eméylem would leave them to die on a specific mountain. 😢

Michelle was visibly upset when talking about Orr’s  repeated comments which insinuate that LGBT marriage equality was an attempt to fit in + liberalism + conformity. In Michelle’s words: “AIDS activists did not watch their lovers die for you to say that marriage equality is conformist bullshit. As a [polyamorous] person who is not legally married to xer spouses, I really felt that one, and I was intensely angry about how Orr was dismissing those activist efforts and the importance of them.”

The Voyeuristic Vibes

The consensus in the group was that Orr’s writing came off as voyeuristic of the intersex community. There were several points in the book where Orr seemed strangely disconnected from the intersex community. Sometimes it was small things, like spelling ipsogender as “ipso gender”, or favouring the term “interphobia” when “intersexism” is actually more popular in the community (it also avoids the potential casual ableism of framing bigots as clinically insane! Which you’d think a crip theorist would be sensitive to…. 👀) 

Other times, it felt like a deeper, conceptual thing. For example, Orr’s top priority in future work was to apply their interpretation of intersex issues to critique how LGBT marriage equality was a homonormative, neoliberal, conformist movement. Not only was this viscerally upsetting to Michelle, for Elizabeth it was galling that this is what Orr seems to think intersex perspectives are good for: pushing down other queer groups. 😬 It added to the sense that Orr saw us as a nifty theoretical lens, and wasn’t particularly interested in advancing the intersex cause.

Another disconnection that was noted was in how Orr rebutted Sparrow’s claims that genital differences are disgusting and will not elicit sexual desire in others. Despite detailed rebuttals to other appalling comments from Sparrow, Orr does not bring up the intense fetishization of intersex genital differences which is uncomfortably familiar to all of us. Objectifying medical photography of intersex people with genital differences are shared widely and known to be used for sexual purposes.

Bnuuy was annoyed that Orr seemingly didn't try to talk to or otherwise get input/feedback from any disabled intersex people for their thesis, given that disabled intersex people are not actually that hard to find! (Indeed, four out of five of us are both intersex and disabled.) Given Orr’s emphasis on intersectionality, it’s notable that when they sought intersex texts to analyse, they focused on texts from nondisabled intersex folks.

Orr does not reveal if they are intersex nor if they are disabled. It sticks out. Whether they’re actually intersex or not isn't actually that important to us. We’ve previously read intersex studies works by perisex authors which we loved, and we believe strongly that it is possible for perisex authors to do right by the community if they take the time to engage WITH the community. (See Swarr as an exemplar!)

What we had major problem with is the faux “objective” tone that the book takes on. Orr seems to be trying to hide behind academic language, the “view from nowhere”, and an expensive paywall. This was noticeable to everybody. But Elizabeth, as the only academic in the call, came in with a lot more context as to why it felt gross.

The Misuse of Standpoint Theory

For Elizabeth, Orr's “view from nowhere” became egregious when Orr cites standpoint theorists like Donna Haraway, Nancy Hartstock, and Pat Hill Collins. In a surreal move, Orr explicitly points to Haraway’s famous paper “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”. This paper is an evisceration of the “view from nowhere”, “objective” approach to academic knowledge production. Every view is a view from somewhere, and pretending otherwise feeds into the history of how science has been violently used to gaslight and oppress minority groups.

In short, Haraway says:

Elizabeth explains that as result, feminist methodologies accept subjectivity as part of the process: the researcher is expected to articulate their own standpoint, to be transparent about their subjectivity rather than to hide it behind a pretense of “objectivity”. There’s an emphasis on reflexivity, the fancy word for when scholars reflect on how their own social position affects how they do their research.

Feminist disability studies and crip theory both build on feminist standpoint theory, and Orr claims to be using both. Both frameworks understand disability as socially constructed, and that this social construction is entwined with other social forces such as capitalism, sexism, racism, and so on. Feminist disability studies scholars like Wendell (who Orr cites) clearly position themselves and how their disability (or lack thereof) affects their research. 

Crip theory builds further on feminist disability studies, and acts to subvert ideas of ability. It began in the arts - cripping performance art by having wheelchair users perform as dancers, blind people doing photography, Deaf people making music, etc. It spread into other domains, such as crip technoscience. Crip theorists also inherit the tradition of reflexivity, whether it be Eli Claire writing about their personal experiences of disability or Sami Schalk talking about how being nondisabled affects her work as a disability studies scholar.

We provide all this exposition to emphasize how unusual it is that Orr provides absolutely zero information about their positionality nor their personal motivations to this research. 🧐 They provide zero reflexivity as to how their position may have affected their work. Yet their personal biases and subjectivity seemed obvious to us - we were all, in varying ways, set off by Orr trying to pass off subjective opinion as “correct”. As an example, we mentioned how Orr clearly prefers the term “dyadic” and manufactures controversy about the origins of “endosex” and “perisex”, while at the same time conveniently leaving out the unsavoury origins of the term “dyadic”. 

Elizabeth pointed out that the ironic thing is Orr didn’t even need to invoke standpoint theory to make the argument that intersex studies would benefit from a disability studies lens. Plenty of intersex and disability studies is done using different frameworks.

Indeed, Elizabeth was surprised that this kind of error made it through a PhD thesis defense. In the department where ze teaches, if a student displays a major misunderstanding about their chosen theoretical framework, the student would be asked to redo the relevant thesis checkpoints (e.g. candidacy paper, thesis proposal/defense) until they get it right.

Some background on academia

Elizabeth brought up a structural problem with the book: it looks like it had zero intersex studies scholars review it prior to publication. 💀

This book originated as a PhD dissertation, which anybody can read for free here. A typical PhD programme is structured as a master-apprentice model of education, where a PhD student apprentices to one (sometimes two) professors. These are known as thesis advisors. The culmination of the PhD is a thesis (aka dissertation), which presents original research done by the student. 

To graduate, the thesis needs to pass examination by a committee of professors. The committee acts as a secondary source of support to the student, providing guidance or perspectives to complement the advisors.

Elizabeth explained that when ze assembles a thesis committee for one of zer graduate students, the goal is to ensure any area that the student is venturing into has at least one committee member who is well versed in it. So, let’s say you propose you’re going to do a thesis on “intersex studies meets disability studies” but your thesis advisors are both gender studies people (as Orr’s were). Elizabeth would expect that Orr’s thesis committee would then include at least one disability studies scholar and at least one intersex studies scholar.

Instead, Orr’s thesis committee doesn’t have a single intersex studies scholar on it. Neither the book’s acknowledgements nor the thesis’ acknowledgments acknowledge any intersex studies scholars. Even though Orr is citing intersex studies scholars like Georgiann Davis, Morgan Holmes, and Cary Gabriel Costello, there's nothing to indicate that Orr has ever gotten feedback from any intersex people. This is HIGHLY unusual: normally, intersex studies books have acknowledgments which acknowledge several publicly intersex people, and often one or two intersex organizations. 

Research is a highly social activity: researchers are expected to go to conferences, to be in conversation with people working on similar topics. And Orr is clearly social about their research, acknowledging the feminist/gender studies communities they have been a part of. It just seems like intersex studies scholars weren’t a priority for Orr’s academic socializing. 🙃

Orr’s acknowledgments doesn’t even contain the word intersex, which is unprecedented in our collective experience of intersex non-fiction. This is why Elizabeth says that ze was left with the impression that Orr doesn’t think intersex studies is a serious field of research. It appears that Orr views intersex literature as something to be consumed for their benefit, and not a community worthy of participation and a bi-directional relationship.

Early in the book, Orr points to Lennard Davis’ work with the Deaf community on reframing Deaf activism away from the “we’re not disabled we’re a linguistic minority” rhetoric. It’s a great example of disability studies scholars having an impact. Thing is: Davis openly talks about how he grew up in a Deaf family that was part of the Deaf Community. While Davis is not little-d deaf, he took on the project as a member of the capital-D Deaf community. His writing (including book acknowledgments) reflect this.

Elizabeth also pointed out that there are scripts and precedent in academia for how to handle positionality and reflexivity when you’re questioning or closeted. If Orr were closeted or questioning, they would have an excellent way to talk discreetly about it through their very own concept of “temporary dyadism”: Orr could write they don’t know they’re not perisex, frame it around how few perisex people actually know they’re perisex, and retain plausible deniability. 

Other notes

Bnuuy was frustrated with the implication that disability studies is The Only Right Way to analyse intersex. It’s a useful lens for understanding intersex, but at times it felt like Orr was arguing it was the only appropriate lens rather than one of a collection of suitable lenses. Theories are analytic tools, and social phenomena are complex and fluid - it’s a matter of finding a suitable tool for a given research question, rather than there being One Correct Way to understand things. 

Orr’s use of “bodymind” didn’t quite land. The term was created by Margaret Price to subvert the idea that body and mind are dichotomous: many disabilities cannot neatly fit into “mental” vs “physical”. It’s a term that’s had productive use in disability studies. But Orr’s use of it got a negative reaction. Remy pointed out it felt like it instead it actually reinforced the body-mind distinction. Intersex is, after all, a physical thing, and the idea of “brain intersex” is very poorly received by the intersex community - it’s seen as a way that perisex trans people appropriate intersex and/or live in denial about being perisex. It felt like Orr was using the word on autopilot rather than thinking about when and where it is actually subversive.

Bnuuy was concerned that Orr was reading OII Australia’s information on intersex in bad faith. Orr criticizes them for discursively distancing intersex from disability. Bnuuy points out that OII Australia is not writing for an academic (disability studies) scholarship. This is an advocacy organization speaking to a general audience that understands disability through the medical model. Bnuuy read the quotes from OII Australia as them just distancing themselves from a medicalized understanding of disability.

Elizabeth brought up that Orr’s manufactured controversy of “perisex” may have a classist element.  While endo- does make sense as an antonym to inter- if one has formal science background, the term peri- is not conventionally an antonym to inter-. Elizabeth has personally noticed a resistance from zer fellow academics to perisex on the grounds that it’s “using scientific terminology incorrectly”, and thinks that’s a classist take. 

Michelle brought up that “it also didn't sit great with me that they [Orr] were very condescending about Tumblr like, ‘aww, look at the baby activists trying to do a scholarship," whereas what I'd describe as ‘folk scholarship’ on Tumblr has been very valuable to me. It's not always correct and there can be misinformation, but it has worth.” Remy was unimpressed with how limited/selective Orr’s engagement seemed to be with intersex Tumblr, as well as Orr’s centrist take on “the future is female”.

Closing thoughts

This was a deeply imperfect piece of scholarship. Orr came across as disconnected from the intersex community, and uninterested in working with the community. The work still has some merits: Orr’s first chapter provides an incisive discussion of how ableism is detrimental to intersex advocacy and that trying to distance intersex from disability only adds to societal ableism. Ableism is a serious force in intersex discrimination and we’re stronger off understanding this and explicitly resisting it.

We hope that the stink of Orr’s voyeurism does not sully the important central message of their book. Work needs to be done to teach more intersex people about disability studies. Disability does not mean disorder. Disability does NOT mean medical problem. The disability rights and justice movements are FULL of disabled groups who, just like the intersex community, are actively seeking de-pathologization, bodily autonomy, patient-led care by respectful and well-informed physicians, and fighting neo-eugenics. We are in good company with groups like the Deaf, neurodiversity, and little people communities. 

[astromancy-divinare]

I just discovered that you can look for the Upapada Lagna in your D30 Trimsamsa chart (this chart reveals the misfortunes you’ll experience)

And it’s ACCURATE AF.

I looked at mine and it accurately and straightforwardly showed how we met and why/how each relationship ended.

I’m going to do more research 🔬🧐

[aeide-thea]

thinking abt like. how hostile this website makes us to one another, and to good-faith discussion—

someone i follow fact-checked a post and was like ‘actually the murdered relative in question was her great-uncle, not her father,’ which, fine, yeah, precision abt stuff like that is good and respectful!

but then in tags they were like ‘that’s a really weird claim to have made, OP, especially when everything else here was basically accurate???’ and i just thought to myself—isn’t the best-faith assumption here also the likeliest, namely that they simply misremembered?? why jump straight to characterizing the situation as a ‘weird claim,’ and implying something ambiguous-but-negative abt their motives and/or character?

and like. a while back i did basically the same thing myself: someone had posted a photograph of a gay family that cropped out their visibly disabled daughter, and i was like 🧐 and went up my ladder about it; and then later i saw they’d been like ‘i just saw the cropped version somewhere and thought it was sweet and wanted to share it, i didn’t know it wasn’t the original!’

and like. yeah, it’s good to do a little research on things before you post them, and maybe tineye would have turned up the original for them, but. their intent hadn’t been what i’d indignantly implied it might be; and i felt (and feel) bad about the tone i’d taken wrt their post, and abt having potentially directed third-party vitriol their way because of how i’d framed things—which was, frankly, the result of my failing to do enough research before posting, or at least to think through whether i had any actual evidence for what i was claiming?

anyway, i’m sure i still make unfair assumptions—we all do! but i do try to take a beat and make a little extra effort to think: is the most likely scenario here actually that this person is deliberately misrepresenting things? do they deserve my casting aspersions to that effect? or is it just that they don’t know what they don’t know, and they haven’t thought to double-check themself, and they’re human…

because the thing is, being kinder and being more intellectually rigorous actually go hand in hand here? it’s good not to ascribe motives to people that you have no active evidence of, both because reflexively doing that is a hostile approach to the world that makes you pricklier and less patient, and because it’s exactly the same sort of sloppy unsupported assertion we fact-checkers are supposed to stand against!

anyway. longer post than intended, but. some Food for Thought maybe. <3

[katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Never have I ever everlark on the prairie

Sooooo I’m just gonna summarize this one because in just a few minutes of thinking about it I came up with intricate backstories and am just… nope. I do not need another WIP, especially not an historical AU where I’d fall down a deep rabbit hole of Research! 🧐 lmao I’ll probably wind up saving this in a doc and thinking about it too much anyway

Thanks for the ask, Anon.

❤️ kdnfb

Never Have I Ever

Peeta married young, to the pretty girl on a neighboring farm in Ohio. They had twin daughters and a few happy years of marriage before a string of bad winters and failed crops end with his leg permanently injured, and his wife being pregnant and ill. She and their third child both die during childbirth. Devastated and financially strapped, Peeta packs up his girls and moves out west, to a small mining town where he’s one of the few farmers. He grows wheat and also does work as a blacksmith for his neighbors because the town blacksmith is usually overwhelmed working for the mines. That way, Peeta’s not solely dependent on crops for income.

Katniss the daughter of a Tejano miner and a Boston girl who fell in love with him while she was in Texas with her father for a year. They eloped to the more northern prairies and raised two daughters nearly to adulthood before he died in the mines. Katniss’s mother never officially went to medical school, but she works as a midwife and doctor, and everyone in town calls her Doctor. In an attempt to heal the breach caused when Mrs E eloped, her family back east offers to help put both girls through school, and Katniss returns west after graduating to become the school teacher.

Katniss meets Peeta when her stagecoach breaks down on the road along the boarder of his farm. He fixes it, and offers food to the travelers, which Katniss finds endearing since he looks like he could use a couple dollars extra, a bath, a shave, and a new shirt. She’s already curious about the kind farmer she met when she sees him again a few days later, dropping his twin daughters off for school before he heads into town for supplies.

She’s smitten within weeks but tries not to show it because she doesn’t want to have a reputation. What would the parents of her students think if she started shamelessly flirting and throwing herself at Peeta Mellark?

Peeta’s daughters suspect their Papa might be sweet on their teacher when he keeps getting tongue tied around her. They absolutely 💯 get in trouble just so that Ms Everdeen has to talk to their papa as often as possible.

Peeta is embarrassed, thinking Ms Everdeen will believe he’s an awful father, but he’s really not. Also, she doesn’t think that at all. She thinks his daughters are just desperate for motherly attention.

Primrose comes home after medical school, takes one look at them together and asks when is the wedding.

It’s about four weeks after the first time they kiss. And that’s only so her cousin Gale can be present to give her away.

[lukola4evs]

It’s a fact that relationships work only if man wants to make it work more than the woman. So if you think Luke is the one who doesn’t want Nic then you’re basically off the ship bc that would mean it’s probably not going to happen according to your logic.

Y’all didn’t read what I said.

I said I don’t think Lukey is the one waiting this year.

I think he already waited last year.

I’m still on the ship because I think it’ll come back around.

Some of y’all are new to the ship and it shows. 👀

Go back and do the research. 🧐

[childrenofcain-if]

Loving this work but just worried I'm not/ won't be smart enough to fully understand, get, or relate to the mc/ros (I know I'm not as smart as them, but I'm more worried just about being smart enough, bc they're really smart.)

Eh, I'll get over it. The very introduction outside of the letter was amazing to, of the poor staff being that afraid of it all. I don't want to insinuate that Elias is an unreasonable man...well actually that's what I'm doing. Firing an employee just because they may have inconvenienced mc is wild. This isn't criticism of the writing, just noticing a character flaw and my heart goes out to them. And the letter from Persephone was amazing, I very much loved all the little tiny pieces it gives us. Fitting it into the lore has been great, and I'm sure as the other nonnies have pointed out, Persephone may be mc's mom, and Hades is probably just Elias.

It was entertaining seeing mc fret over the application. I know your Yale is different from this worlds Yale and is about academic merit, but goddamn, I'm sure less qualified students got in.

The customization was absolutely insane and fun to go through. Just sat there for several minutes clicking on and off options and envisioning it.

Genuinely can't wait for more, and can't wait to simp.

thank you, dear bonnie 😌 i was waiting for people to kind of realise that firing an employee for slightly disturbing your child’s peace, or even the being in the realm of possibility to do so, is unhinged 💀 but hey, we’re all clapping and cheering atp cause dear father can do no wrong.

i got so many people telling me about persephone (proserpine) and hades (pluto), being MC’s parents but... are they? because how would that work 🧐

as for this universe’s yale, the only way someone academically average got in would be through a sports scholarship. yale is not playing when it comes to only bringing in the students they see a huge potential in. this works since no yale alumni has ended up working a less than stellar job and companies are notorious for immediately preferring their graduates than any other ivy league, aside from harvard.

don’t worry about not understanding it as i’ll be very happy to explain the points that you can’t grasp. i didn’t want to spoonfeed my audience all the things cause y’all are smarter than anyone can give you credit for. but if you don’t get it, it’ll also be partially my fault for making it too complicated. i have concepts that i don’t understand either and half the time i’m researching for M’s dialogues, i have no clue what they’re talking about in my head.

point is that you don’t need to feel stupid or ashamed for these things, nor should anyone make you feel bad about it.

i hope chapter two and three will be up to your standards! there probably would be more answers than questions when it comes to MC’s family tho 💀

[geryone]

Double texting a coworker to remind him that I need him to return my Bible that I lent him 2 years ago

[007-nightfire-yakuza-agent]

I’m sorry about your parents’ cat passing :( do you have any nice memories of her? Alternatively what are some cool/interesting creatures you’ve seen on your travels 🧐

his name was bastard and he was a feral cat, born in the wild and not handled by humans before, he was the sweetest most affectionate cat, followed you around like a dog but also extremely playful/violent lol, hence his name. he was a voracious hunter and once killed and ate a whole squirrel. nuts. i miss him, he was like my shadow, i still expect to see him come into the living room or whatever.

as for interesting creatures...

well ofc in antarctica i saw a lot of cool fauna. penguins, elephant seals and skuas were the usual scumbags but we did have a research aqaurium filled with anenomes, jellyfishes, seastars, crabs, all sorts of weird n wonderful things. also we had orcas spotted once. i saw them. theyre YUGE. at sea ive seen soooo maanyyy seabirds, flying fish, dolphins, whales too. turtles n stuff in tropical areas. when i was in brazil earlier this year i saw capys and monkeys and in south africa i saw baboons and other cool S.A fauna.... possibly the most impactful creature i saw was a northern gannet from when i was working in the mexican gulf..

(not my pic) he looks kinda small but his wingspan can be up to 185 cm, much taller than me lol, and he flew next to me as i walked along deck and looked me right in the eye. wonder what he thought of me. they followed us all the way to sweden. such a beautiful travelling companion, i was particularly fond of their aerial acrobatics that they used to signal to their friends that they saw a fish, before proceeding to dive bomb into the water.

thank you for asking btw, losing him was v sad :(

[jamesontheoutside]

you're argument is so fucking stupid because a) nobody who understands the characters and ships jily is pro-snape. Snape is as disgusting as regulus and actual intelligent people know that and b) the marauders fandom is not by nature anti-canon or whatever the fuck you said. it is derived from canon and has been thriving since PoA came out. and no, not everyone ships wolfstar and in fact tonnes of people don't because it's NOT CANON. and the new fans who clearly haven't even read the books and dont understand the characters at all are shitting all over remus and sirius routinely with atrocious, disgusting characterisations like the one in atyd.

you new fans are ruining the fandom by turning beloved characters (the ACTUAL marauders and Lily - not the fascists you freaks simp for) into pathetic OCs.

if you don't like this canon get the fuck out of this fandom and find a different one to ruin. james potter would never date a blood supremacist and youre a fucking idiot for acting like he would

Okay so first things first , if your gonna be such a horrible person be brave enough to say it with your chest 😂😂 posting its as anonymous is embarrassing and shows that you have no dignity😂😂 at least I spoke my opinions without shame😘😘

Two, you are proving my point of people taking it too serious 😂😂

Three, I have read the books, multiple times as have most of the fandom, and I have said before that I believe that not reading the books and then hoping into the fandom is weird, so let’s not be ignorant, if ur gonna come for me do your research babygirl😘😘

Four, I said in my post that people hating on other people’s head canons is messed up, thank you for proving my point once again love 😘😘😘

Five, there is no such thing as ruining the fandom which again I said in my og post once again do your research 🫶🏾🫶🏾🫶🏾

Six, you are also furthering my point by hating on characterization 🫶🏾😍

Seven, the new fans are evolving the fandom, which i said, in my previous post (starting to wonder if your reading comprehension is up to par🧐)

Eight, I’m not gonna argue abt hcs w a person who has such strong hateful opinions. Invest in therapy💋

And lastly don’t play with me, calling me a “fucking idiot” just shows your lack of vocabulary and your ignorance so if you want to have a civilized conversation my inbox is always open if you want to try again.

Have a good day🫶🏾🫶🏾

[bbirdy]

I must say that for me Great didn't wake up from 4minutes (?) he died (?) bec I remember the woman said that her boyfriend's voice brought her out of trance, follow me here 🤲then Tyme heard his doc bestie and came out of his trance, but Great who could he hear? They were both supposed to be on the verge of death at the same time. And Great was alone in a hospital room with unknown people who would have no power to bring him out of 4minutes room💀🤔🧐🤗

Honestly this was my idea as well the first time I watched it, and it’s still one of the theories I think work. This, along with the final scene (potentially the afterlife), and that one scene where he’s working and the neon pink angel wings are on either side of him

are my biggest indications that you could be right !!

Although, after rewatching and noticing more and more things, I think that it’s possible Great and Tyme were actually both present in each other’s 4M’s! My main example of this is that in G4M Tyme talks about the diary that his mother wrote, at around 11:02. But Tyme only remembered this diary in his own 4M!

There are tons of examples of this but I do not wanna bore you, but I really do think that this sort of implies that they’re both in there somewhere. Like, in G4M, there’s a little bit of Tyme actually in there, and vice versa.

All this to say, Great could’ve heard Tyme yelling screaming crying throwing up for him at 11:03, if there was a bit of Great’s subconscious that actually was behind the bathroom door in T4M! To me, that’s what woke him up. At the end of G4M we see him learn about the four minutes and the near death experience thing, but he never would’ve learnt this IRL - so my only explanation is that it’s Tyme’s memory of Den talking about his research!

I don’t know. I’m still half convinced Great died, and when I first watched it for the first time I really felt like that it was supposed to be perceived as the afterlife. (I spent hours sobbing!😭) But Sammon did confirm that the characters lived (even though I feel like I have to do mental gymnastics to understand how).

Hope this sums up my thoughts in a comprehensible way and I’ve made sense. I’d love to hear more of your thoughts and ideas !!! (and i’m so sorry this is obscenely long) 🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🤍

[vivianbernadetteaurora]

The Kennedys

Almost as we go back in time, in the beginning, the Kennedys were like the American Royal family, and we praise and liked by a lot of people, they had this liking and following, they obviously also had the other side, this happens with politics all time and we’re always given a certain agenda.

So I think you have to go do your own research, and find something in between the narrative you can see both, in one saying which I like to say is two things can be true. So what I wanted to talk about was the Kennedy curse.

The Kennedys were a big family who grew up in around Long Island, and the East coast of America, Jack Kennedy had a few sisters, one of which could rosemary, who then you could not be any sort of crazy, and it was all sort of branded is the same kind of, they were either schizophrenic or hysterical, hysteria.

Where is there is more labels which is a good and bad thing, but I think more of a good thing because, things get treated for different ways, if I’m being honest, a lot of mental health has not improved as well. Help with your mental health seems to be really hard.. Rosemary Rosemary, not acting how a Kennedy should, she skipping school, meeting with boys, and just doing normal teenage things. You’d probably call her nowadays, autistic or BPD.. but nothing out of the ordinary. anyway the father secretly has his daughter a lobotomised and this is another sad fact, ladies is 80% of lobotomy patience were women. so the evil dad gets her lobotomised for these behaviours that weren’t even that you know, for that time, maybe for that class also.

Anyway, he keeps it a secret from the family  years later to come ! But they talk about the Kennedy curse , two of the Kennedys , died in praying crashes along with JFK’s son his mother didn’t want him to die and wish was for him not to get on an aeroplane of course , like every other story . They must have deep family trauma that didn’t get solved in their lifetime ,,,,, and then two of the brothers to get assassinated . So this thing is real .

So as per usual lobotomy failed of course . And then the family didn’t visit her from many years later and until because I were kept in it it was kept a secret even the mum didn’t know .

But they were all about keeping up appearances , and very popular in there , establishment , and obviously . I can’t even imagine how the mum must’ve felt like where has my, the same time I’m thinking and I’m bombastically side eyeing the mum, she must’ve known. unless he said I’ve sent her off to a camp and only I can talk to her because that’s what those generations were like back then.😭🧐🤨😫 poor rosemary though, I hope she had a better life in a care home. Then around those sick fucks.

Then JFK Junior, he had a tumultuous relationship with his lady friend, were on an off for many years, soulmate kind of relationship, like very heavy karmic, which led them both, being killed in a plane crash, with him his wife and her sister. I even think how good-looking JFK Junior is when his parents weren’t that good looking, but he got the. Best Both of them. But their relationship was very erratic and they have arguments in the street and he have his dog and his bike..