#youth health

[neuroticboyfriend]

while aging and growing older isn't a bad thing, it's okay to mourn the youth you could have had. it's okay to feel sad or angry about not being free as a youth. it's okay to be afraid of spending the rest of your youth dealing with things that are painful, scary, and unfair. you deserve better, and it makes sense to be upset that you don't or didn't have that. you can accept your aging self and feel robbed at the same time. feel and process your experiences as you need. just remember to give yourself the grace you deserve, too.

[frameacloud]

Zinnia Jones (May 31, 2021). "Early use of masculinizing steroid oxandrolone in trans boys can add 2 more inches of height compared to testosterone." Gender Analysis. Live link. Archive.

The above blog post is about a study about looking for more suitable sorts of puberty blocking and hormone therapy for transmasculine youth. It found a treatment that is more effective for letting them grow up to be a couple inches taller, if they start it early, at age thirteen or fourteen. It's about this study:

Grimstad, F. W., Knoll, M. M., & Jacobson, J. D. (2021). "Oxandrolone Use in Trans-Masculine Youth Appears to Increase Adult Height: Preliminary Evidence." LGBT health, 8(4), 300–306. https://doi.org/10.1089/lgbt.2020.0355

[tofumarinado]

it's so funny to me when i see pearl-clutching articles about how "teenagers are diagnosing themselves with mental disorders via tiktok" because like. this is not happening in a vacuum. teenagers are severely and i mean severely medically neglected. i cannot stress this enough. teenagers do not have free access to medical care. those same news outlets would be clowning on women with housewife psychosis in the 1950's.

i sometimes go pale when listening to some of what my friends have gone through in their childhoods and teenagehoods. they talk about it so nonchalantly, things that would be considered straight up torture if done to an adult, can't fathom the effect this has on children. they are on multiple anti-psychotics and several antidepressants and anxiety meds now that they are adults. medical neglect has legally and effectively disabled them. a timely diagnosis and intervention could have saved them. of course teenagers are self-diagnosing using tiktok. if your knee-jerk reaction is to scoff at the idea and dismiss it as dumb teenager shit instead of being radicalized because the best shot young people have at attaining the mental health support they need is a fucking dancing videos app, you're categorically a political enemy of the youth.

[ecoamerica]

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[townpostin]

Inner Wheel Club Launches Cervical Cancer Awareness Campaign in Jamshedpur

Local Organization Promotes Prevention and Vaccination Among Young Girls Jamshedpur’s Inner Wheel Club spearheads an initiative to educate youth about cervical cancer risks and prevention methods. JAMSHEDPUR – The Inner Wheel Club of Jamshedpur has initiated a health awareness campaign focused on cervical cancer prevention among young girls in the city. President Sarika Singh led the organization…

[hyperlexichypatia]

As I keep shouting into the void, pathologizers love shifting discussion about material conditions into discussion about emotional states.

I rant approximately once a week about how the brain maturity myth transmuted “Young adults are too poor to move out of their parents’ homes or have children of their own” into “Young adults are too emotionally and neurologically immature to move out of their parents’ homes or have children of their own.”

I’ve also talked about the misuse of “enabling” and “trauma” and “dopamine” .

And this is a pattern – people coin terms and concepts to describe material problems, and pathologization culture shifts them to be about problems in the brain or psyche of the person experiencing them. Now we’re talking about neurochemicals, frontal lobes, and self-esteem instead of talking about wages, wealth distribution, and civil rights. Now we can say that poor, oppressed, and exploited people are suffering from a neurological/emotional defect that makes them not know what’s best for themselves, so they don’t need or deserve rights or money.

Here are some terms that have been so horribly misused by mental health culture that we’ve almost entirely forgotten that they were originally materialist critiques.

Codependency What it originally referred to: A non-addicted person being overly “helpful” to an addicted partner or relative, often out of financial desperation. For example: Making sure your alcoholic husband gets to work in the morning (even though he’s an adult who should be responsible for himself) because if he loses his job, you’ll lose your home. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/codependency-addiction-recovery.html What it’s been distorted into: Being “clingy,” being “too emotionally needy,” wanting things like affection and quality time from a partner. A way of pathologizing people, especially young women, for wanting things like love and commitment in a romantic relationship.

Compulsory Heterosexuality What it originally referred to: In the 1980 in essay "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/493756 Adrienne Rich described compulsory heterosexuality as a set of social conditions that coerce women into heterosexual relationships and prioritize those relationships over relationships between women (both romantic and platonic). She also defines “lesbian” much more broadly than current discourse does, encompassing a wide variety of romantic and platonic relationships between women. While she does suggest that women who identify as heterosexual might be doing so out of unquestioned social norms, this is not the primary point she’s making. What it’s been distorted into: The patronizing, biphobic idea that lesbians somehow falsely believe themselves to be attracted to men. Part of the overall “Women don’t really know what they want or what’s good for them” theme of contemporary discourse.

Emotional Labor What it originally referred to: The implicit or explicit requirement that workers (especially women workers, especially workers in female-dominated “pink collar” jobs, especially tipped workers) perform emotional intimacy with customers, coworkers, and bosses above and beyond the actual job being done. Having to smile, be “friendly,” flirt, give the impression of genuine caring, politely accept harassment, etc. https://weld.la.psu.edu/what-is-emotional-labor/ What it’s been distorted into: Everything under the sun. Everything from housework (which we already had a term for), to tolerating the existence of disabled people, to just caring about friends the way friends do. The original intent of the concept was “It’s unreasonable to expect your waitress to care about your problems, because she’s not really your friend,” not “It’s unreasonable to expect your actual friends to care about your problems unless you pay them, because that’s emotional labor,” and certainly not “Disabled people shouldn’t be allowed to be visibly disabled in public, because witnessing a disabled person is emotional labor.” Anything that causes a person emotional distress, even if that emotional distress is rooted in the distress-haver’s bigotry (Many nominally progressive people who would rightfully reject the bigoted logic of “Seeing gay or interracial couples upsets me, which is emotional labor, so they shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public” fully accept the bigoted logic of “Seeing disabled or poor people upsets me, which is emotional labor, so they shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public”).

Battered Wife Syndrome What it originally referred to: The all-encompassing trauma and fear of escalating violence experienced by people suffering ongoing domestic abuse, sometimes resulting in the abuse victim using necessary violence in self-defense. Because domestic abuse often escalates, often to murder, this fear is entirely rational and justified. This is the reasonable, justified belief that someone who beats you, stalks you, and threatens to kill you may actually kill you.

What it’s been distorted into: Like so many of these other items, the idea that women (in this case, women who are victims of domestic violence) don’t know what’s best for themselves. I debated including this one, because “syndrome” was a wrongful framing from the beginning – a justified and rational fear of escalating violence in a situation in which escalating violence is occurring is not a “syndrome.” But the original meaning at least partially acknowledged the material conditions of escalating violence.

I’m not saying the original meanings of these terms are ones I necessarily agree with – as a cognitive liberty absolutist, I’m unsurprisingly not that enamored of either second-wave feminism or 1970s addiction discourse. And as much as I dislike what “emotional labor” has become, I accept that “Women are unfairly expected to care about other people’s feelings more than men are” is a true statement.

What I am saying is that all of these terms originally, at least partly, took material conditions into account in their usage. Subsequent usage has entirely stripped the materialist critique and fully replaced it with emotional pathologization, specifically of women. Acknowledgement that women have their choices constrained by poverty, violence, and oppression has been replaced with the idea that women don’t know what’s best for themselves and need to be coercively “helped” for their own good. Acknowledgement that working-class women experience a gender-and-class-specific form of economic exploitation has been rebranded as yet another variation of “Disabled people are burdensome for wanting to exist.”

Over and over, materialist critiques are reframed as emotional or cognitive defects of marginalized people. The next time you hear a superficially sympathetic (but actually pathologizing) argument for “Marginalized people make bad choices because…” consider stopping and asking: “Wait, who are we to assume that this person’s choices are ‘bad’? And if they are, is there something about their material conditions that constrains their options or makes the ‘bad’ choice the best available option?”

[railyardfitness]

The future of fitness is in our schools today!

[your-queer-dad]

Hey you. Yes you. You have been through enough, you hear me? You. Have. Been. Through. Enough.

The world has treated you shittily, you go through enough, don't do that do yourself too. Be decent to yourself, kiddo. We've only got one of you and it's the best one we have :]

I love you, I'm proud of you, go make yourself a beverage of your choice and be a little more decent to yourself today <3

- dad x

[floral-ashes]

With Alberta and other Canadian provinces passing laws against trans youth, you may be curious about how much autonomy the law actually gives to children.

I recommend this article that just came out:

[election2024-2028]

Some things to do if you live in the United States as a queer person or a woman:

Learn self defense. You don't know whether someone will harm you. The idea that someone might is not far-fetched.

Stock up on contraceptives. Shelf life of plan B is four years. See this list for information about condom shelf life. These may become banned.

Buy queer books. As many as you can afford, starting with trans books. These may be banned soon.

Stock up on HRT medication if possible. This will likely be quickly banned when Trump becomes president. HRT meds have a shelf life of 1-3 years depending on the kind; check on the container! Read about DIY HRT here.

Read about what Trump and his followers are planning to do about abortion and other reproductive healthcare (i.e. contraception, etc.).

Read about what Trump and his followers plan to do about trans healthcare and rights for same-sex couples (I say same-sex instead of same-gender because they don't care about gender).

Teach your children (if you have any), siblings, friends, family, and especially other queer people and other women around you.

If you are too afraid to remain in danger, register for a passport as soon and look into countries you could move to. Look at what you'll have to do for jobs, living, a visa, citizenship, etc.

You may want to stock up on educational materials about prejudice, slavery, Native people, and other materials that may be censored.

As a reminder: This won't necessarily become a necessity. But based on the many things Trump and his supporters have said about the issue mentioned within this list, these actions will, unfortunately, probably be needed. Don't avoid taking these actions until it's too late. Do these before it's too late. Start now.

[clownrecess]

You are not gross, or bad, if you struggle with hygenine. Its okay! Last night I brushed my teeth, which was a big achievement for me! Whatever achievement you made, I'm proud of you. And if you didnt make an achievement, I'm still proud of you. I love you so much, and your ability to take care of yourself is irrelevant to that love. /p

[frameacloud]

Jones, Z. (2017, July 21). "Four low-cost alternatives to puberty blockers for transgender adolescents." Gender Analysis. Live link. Archive.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, and this is not medical advice. Do not take any medication without appropriate medical supervision.

[bounded-accuracy]

lmao at the preview where Porter is trying to convince them that their school isn’t worth saving

my dude, you sent literal dragons to their polling location. they may not be able to fix everything, but you clearly think they can fix something

[ecoamerica]

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[urfavcrime]

dsmp is still SO insane to me. still not completely convinced it wasn't a social experiment. it is something that can never be replicated again due to the really specific circumstances that attributed to it's creation and popularity

[carriejenkinsstar]

I had a dream about a hot tub last night. 🛁