Doctor Treating Pregnant Women With Experimental Drug To Prevent Lesbianism

Didn't people stop trying to do this in the 1950s?

Nihilist wrote:

Quote :

“The challenge here is... to see what could be done to restore this baby to the normal female appearance which would be compatible with her parents presenting her as a girl, with her eventually becoming somebody’s wife, and having normal sexual development, and becoming a mother. And she has all the machinery for motherhood, and therefore nothing should stop that, if we can repair her surgically and help her psychologically to continue to grow and develop as a girl.”

Repair? Help? The problem is in peoples' attitudes, not the minds of these children.

I'm not surprised. Saddened, enraged, but not surprised. This is just what unwanted, unnecessary surgery to 'correct' intersex children's genitals (or really, the genitals of any child of whatever gender whose junk is deemed offensive and in need of slicing and dicing to make it "attractive" and "normal") does... "fix" something that may not even need to be fixed. She even admits that herself: "repair the child surgically".

Words cannot express my contempt.

Quote :

In the Q&A period, during a discussion of prenatal dex treatments,
an audience member asked New, “Isn’t there a benefit to the female
babies in terms of reducing the androgen effects on the brain?” New
answered, “You know, when the babies who have been treated with dex
prenatally get to an age in which they are sexually active, I’ll be
able to answer that question.”

Well, the question could always be answered with dozens of lawsuits from those enraged "female babies" when they can actually speak, have uncovered their medical records, and have figured out what the hell was done to them without their consent.

Color me horrified.

Like I said in chat, this brings me back to the radical feminist notion that femininity as a cultural practise is harmful to women and should be done away with. Because if a woman isn't prepared to be a demure little domestic servant, babymaker and cumreceptacle, she's defective. Fucking vile.

Nihilist wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Quote :

That's not fair, as Hanna Rosin at Slate will shortly point out. Pediatric endocrinologist Maria New—of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Florida International University—isn't just trying to prevent lesbianism by treating pregnant women with an experimental hormone. She's also trying to prevent the births of girls who display an "abnormal" disinterest in babies, don't want to play with girls' toys or become mothers, and whose "career preferences" are deemed too "masculine." Unbelievable:

How about the kids who played with girls' toys but instead of making them mothers or playing house, they'd re-enact the boulder scene from the Temple of Doom?

When I was a young child my favorite game was "cannibal princess." I used to pretend that all of my barbies were amazonian-esque cannibal princesses, and that my kens were fighter pilots whom managed to get themselves stranded on a tropical island. Incidentally I also used my toy kitchen frequently for this game...aaaanyway.... I grew up to become a healthy, well-adjusted computer programmer. Which given the traditional gender ratios in the field, and the fact that I am not really interested in becoming a barefoot housewife, makes me some sort of an abomination and disgrace to my gender.


Ugg.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Like I said in chat, this brings me back to the radical feminist notion that femininity as a cultural practise is harmful to women and should be done away with. Because if a woman isn't prepared to be a demure little domestic servant, babymaker and cumreceptacle, she's defective. Fucking vile.

That begs the question of what "femininity" or "masculinity" is, though. Beats me if I know.

Injecting an experimental drug of questionable effect and with unknown potential sideeffects into a fetus? What could go wrong there?!? [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

The whole idea is sad though.

Wait, what? [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] Color me massively confused.

I never played with girls' toys because they bored me. I had one Barbie that a neighbor gave me, and I dressed it up for a while. Then I cropped her hair, painted her with the red nail polish that I got in a Girl Scout Secret Santa giveaway, ran her over with a toy truck, and turned her into Car Accident Barbie. I am, as far as I can tell, a heterosexual female.

How about trying to eliminate psychopathic tendencies instead? I've dealt with those, too, and fixing that would probably do society a hell of a lot more good than trying to fix lesbians or whatever the fuck this person's doing.

Malganis wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

Like I said in chat, this brings me back to the radical feminist notion that femininity as a cultural practise is harmful to women and should be done away with. Because if a woman isn't prepared to be a demure little domestic servant, babymaker and cumreceptacle, she's defective. Fucking vile.

That begs the question of what "femininity" or "masculinity" is, though. Beats me if I know.

Well, take "femininity" as a social and cultural construct, a set of behaviours one follows if one presents as female. Here's how it's defined at one radfem blog:

Twisty Faster wrote:

Femininity is a set of practices and behaviors (boob jobs, FGM, beauty, the veil, the flirty head-tilt, pornaliciousness, BDSM, fashion, compulsory pregnancy, marriage, et al) that are dangerous, painful, pink, or otherwise destructive; that compel female subordination; that exist only to benefit Dude Nation; that are overwhelmingly represented by ‘girly’ feminists as a ‘choice’; and that are overwhelmingly represented by godbags and other irritating conservatives as ‘natural instincts’.

Keeping house, making babies, being sexually available to men, and aspiring to the combination of all three comes under that definition of femininity. That's why this depraved nutbar wants to inoculate female foetuses with dangerous experimental hormones - because heaven forfend the resulting little girls don't want that.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Twisty Faster wrote:

Femininity is a set of practices and behaviors (boob jobs, FGM, beauty, the veil, the flirty head-tilt, pornaliciousness, BDSM, fashion, compulsory pregnancy, marriage, et al) that are dangerous, painful, pink, or otherwise destructive; that compel female subordination; that exist only to benefit Dude Nation; that are overwhelmingly represented by ‘girly’ feminists as a ‘choice’; and that are overwhelmingly represented by godbags and other irritating conservatives as ‘natural instincts’.

Oh, those wacky radical feminists.

(as to the subject of the original post, I don't even want to touch it.)

I was going to post this earlier, but then I had a seminar and some other shit. This is basically one of the most hideous things I've seen recently.

Do you know what I'd want my theoretical* daughters to be? Happy and loved.

For this to happen, I wouldn't need to take steroids in my pregnancy.




*I say theoretical as I have an "abnormal disinterest" in babies and being a mother. I'm one of those awful queer women that treatment this could "cure".

Cyberwulf wrote:

Well, take "femininity" as a social and cultural construct, a set of behaviours one follows if one presents as female. Here's how it's defined at one radfem blog:

Twisty Faster wrote:

Femininity is a set of practices and behaviors (boob jobs, FGM, beauty, the veil, the flirty head-tilt, pornaliciousness, BDSM, fashion, compulsory pregnancy, marriage, et al) that are dangerous, painful, pink, or otherwise destructive; that compel female subordination; that exist only to benefit Dude Nation; that are overwhelmingly represented by ‘girly’ feminists as a ‘choice’; and that are overwhelmingly represented by godbags and other irritating conservatives as ‘natural instincts’.

The problem I have with that definition is

Quote :

that are overwhelmingly represented by ‘girly’ feminists as a ‘choice’

seems to be asserting that no woman would naturally choose to have a boob job, be a nullo or have her genitals modified in a way that is deliberately painful or impairs sexual sensitivity, marry, be 'fashionable' or 'beautiful' (however you define that, by whatever standard), be porny or flirtatious, be a sub or dom, etc; that every single one of these choices are externally forced on women as a whole.

Twisty Faster can air-quote the words 'girly feminist choice' all she wants, but... um, all of those things are choices, and if they are made with the individual's full consent and understanding then they are valid ones. It's like allecto saying that phallic objects are automatically rapey and should never be used by lesbians ever or that BDSM is completely horrible and rapey even if the people doing it want it and have established boundaries for it.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, I don't know.

Oh wow, look at this.

Quote :

CAH is a serious medical condition that needs to be treated
throughout the affected person’s life. Prenatal dex, however, does
nothing to prevent or treat the CAH. Instead, it is used to try to
engineer normal-looking genitalia. The justification for offering this
drug is that fully functional but atypical genitalia represent a
psychosocial problem requiring normalizing cosmetic surgeries in
childhood. Yet there is actually very little evidence that a girl is at
risk for increased psychosocial harm if she has atypical genitalia and
is allowed to grow up with her genitals intact. In spite of this and a major consensus
among physicians in 2006 calling for fewer cosmetic surgeries on
atypical genitalia, many surgeons still hasten to put such girls under
the knife.

Maybe that's because they get money for it? And because our fucked-up society keeps insisting that underage boys and girls must have "pretty" genitals?

Quote :

More than a few prominent clinicians have serious reservations about prenatal dex, and have had them for years. There is evidence from animal studies
that prenatal dex treatment leads to neurotoxicity – brain cell death.
Studies of children exposed to prenatal dexamethasone in utero also
indicate plenty of reason for concern. Evidence from human studies indicates an increased risk to the children of problems with working memory, speech processing, and anxiety.

Oh great, so it messes up their brains by, uh, killing off cells and shit. But darnit at least they have pretty genitalia!!!11!!11!

Quote :

Because the steroid is given before the sex of the fetus can be known, and because only some of the fetuses will have CAH, 87.5 percent of the pregnant women started
on dexamethasone for this use are not even carrying an affected child.
(In fact, half of the fetuses started on the treatment will be males.)
They will not receive the treatment past the point at which their
fetuses’ sex and CAH-status are accurately diagnosed; nonetheless, for
a period of fetal development (including, obviously, brain
development), almost 90 percent of those fetuses are being given a
steroid that might harm them and can do them no good whatsoever.

Uh.... pretty genitalia?

No, that's how I read it too, and I find it just as condescending as the "get back in the kitchen" stuff.

I can sort of understand why they might want girls to be born straight. I'm not condoning it - this is sick - but you can't deny that the life of a girl born heterosexual will probably be considerably easier and less traumatic.

On the other hand, trying to "treat" girls for being too masculine or not wanting baybeez? You'd have to be pretty fucking stupid to think that's a good idea.

Twisty Faster wrote:

Femininity is a set of practices and behaviors
(boob jobs, FGM, beauty, the veil, the flirty head-tilt,
pornaliciousness,BDSM, fashion, compulsory pregnancy,
marriage, et al) that are dangerous, painful, pink, or otherwise
destructive; that compel female subordination; that exist only to
benefit Dude Nation; that are overwhelmingly represented by ‘girly’
feminists as a ‘choice’; and that are overwhelmingly represented by
godbags and other irritating conservatives as ‘natural
instincts’.

OH GOD NOT THE PINK

I've really never understood why some of these traditional feminine practices are seen as bad. Okay, so a chick wears a pink, ruffly dress. How, exactly, is this BOWING DOWN TO THE PATRIARCHY? If she's having fun and dressing that way, not because her husband tells her to, but because she wants to...where's the issue?

Oh, that's dreadful. I do not have the words.

SCIENCE!!!!!!!

Yeeeah, considering we have no idea how much of sexuality is linked to actual biology or environment or just plain wtf.
If these pills do anything other than up miscarriages I'll be very surprised.

What would they do with someone like my niece, who plays with girls' toys, loves to wear dresses . . . and can bench-press her five-year-old cousin? Someone who likes girly things, but has the build and the strength of a linebacker? What then?

SlyChild wrote:

I've really never understood why some of these traditional feminine practices are seen as bad. Okay, so a chick wears a pink, ruffly dress. How, exactly, is this BOWING DOWN TO THE PATRIARCHY? If she's having fun and dressing that way, not because her husband tells her to, but because she wants to...where's the issue?

While I agree with you, I think the issue that people have with "pink ruffly dresses" is the fact that it represents the institution of patriarchy. There is a really fine line between dressing a certain way for your own amusement, and dressing a certain way because you are expected to dress that way. In the eyes of certain radical feminists, pink-ruffly dresses are the equivalent of a swastika -- not in what they symbolize, but in the fact that it's nearly impossible to separate the symbol (pink ruffly dresses) with the idea (traditional feminine roles). You can decorate yourself with swastikas because you think they look cool, but there will be people whom cannot dissociate the "fashion" from the symbol. Again, the comparison is more than a little bit extreme, but I think that this is the general idea behind why certain feminists bemoan the idea of "pink."

Since this dexamethasone stuff is given before the sex of the fetus can be determined, it makes me wonder how many boys who are treated with it will wind up wanting husbands, babies, and lives spent working in "female" occupations.

I would love it if all the babys born from this end up gay.

Let me get this straight: Parents are consenting to allow this doctor to inject them with a highly disputed drug that may cause brain damage on the off chance their fetus could possibly, maybe, be gay and this would prevent it, possibly, maybe, not bloody likely?

Because their little girls might like monster trucks instead of playing kitchen, or might want to be a firefighter instead of a princess, or because maybe, MAYBE, their daughters won't want to be mothers?

Do I have the gist?

Okay.




ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!

Are these goddamned motherfuckers fucking serious? They're injecting their fetuses with something that could HURT them so that they won't be different? And what happens if it doesn't work? What if they get a little girl who likes toy cars and soccer? Will they stop loving them because it's not what she's supposed to be? Or just repress her to the point where she's miserable for most of her childhood and adolescence?

What kind of people are so fucking selfish that they can't possibly take the chance of their children being different from them, to the point of injecting them with something while they're still in the womb?! These people do not deserve to be parents, not ever. They don't deserve to be within twenty yards of a child.

What in the everloving hell is wrong with these people?

And for that matter, what kind of doctor is this lady? What the fuck is she thinking?

This is frightening. Just because you don't like playing with girls' toys doesn't mean you'll become lesbian. Who's to define what a 'girls toy' is, anyway? Why is Barbie a girl's toy but G I Joe is not?

The drug won't change society. At best it will keep the girls from becoming lesbians when they become sexually mature. At worst it will give them brain damage and redefine their personalities so that they think their entire purpose on earth is to have babies.

Pretty much everything about a baby is defined from the moment that egg joins with that sperm. Their personality may adapt with nurture, but by the time it's a fetus, it's too late to change the baby's sexual preference.

And how are we supposed to tell if this drug works? You can't tell until the baby reaches sexual maturity. It could be that none of the test group would have been lesbian anyway. If there was a way to tell if kids would be homosexual before their birth, most of them would be aborted.

Am I the only imagining "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir" as the soundtrack for this article?

As a grown woman who spent as much time climbing trees and catching frogs as she did playing with dolls (I wanted to be a Doctor, so I tended to do 'surgery' on them with nail clippers), I call bullshit.

Yes, I married and had kids. I also worked full-time once the kids were old enough to go to school. I've hated the color pink my whole life (probably because my mother was fixated on dressing her daughters in pink ruffled dresses).

Assuming this worked, and someone had known before I had the twins that Morgan was going to be gay, but they could 'cure' it by giving me these injections, I would've likely said something extremely rude to them.

Which presents an interesting conundrum. What if the mother's pregnant with twins, and one's male? Is injecting him with this crap going to make him turn out gay? Or transgendered? Since we're apparently trying as desperately as we can to create the sort of little girls that haven't existed since the early 1960s, and since the drug was created for an entirely different reason than what it's being used for, what effect would it have on boys?

Malganis wrote:

Twisty Faster can air-quote the words 'girly feminist choice' all she wants, but... um, all of those things are choices, and if they are made with the individual's full consent and understanding then they are valid ones.

'Girly' feminist spotted.




The best part of radfem rhetoric is that it's unfalsifiable, just like my claim that all radical feminists crave massive amounts of cock (saying otherwise is denial).