Hello Friends Who Are Better At The Specific Kind Of Research Than Me:

Micropenises and Early Life Medical Abuse

CW: discussion of genitalia, childhood surgery, medical abuse

What is a micropenis?

A micropenis is any penis which at birth is under 1.5 inches/3.8cm Stretched Length (length measured by gently pulling the penis to its maximum length), pre-pubescent age 2 inches/5.1cm SL or an adult penis of 3.65 inches/9.3cm SL.

What else is there to know?

A variation that occurs more often in people born with micropenises than the general population is Hypospadias, which is when the Meatus (urethra hole) terminates somewhere other than the tip of the glans.

It is more likely than not, regardless of the gender a person was raised, that a person with a micropenis and Hypospadias has been subjected to early childhood surgeries to move the meatus, among other possible surgeries.

What surgery? aka, paediatric urologists have earned my disdain

If assigned male the urethra is artificially lengthened and the meatus is made to terminate at the tip of the glans. (typically the option chosen today for children with true testes.)

Why is this done?: the assertion that it is better to subject a child to genital surgery, than risk the specific placement of the meatus interfering with standing urination.

If assigned female the meatus would be relocated to below the base of the penis to more aesthetically match a large clitoris.(the penis and clitoris are homologous structures, there is no significant difference between the two).

Why is this done?: this may be claimed to be necessary by medical professionals for a number of reasons, but it all ultimately revolves around enforcing a sex binary on a spectrum. The child may have a vagina or vulva, and this surgery is aesthetic. The child may have no vagina or vulva but because of the discovery of ovotestes, ovaries, streak gonads, or no gonads, it is decided that this child should undergo more radical "sex assignment", usually involving the removal of gonads often resulting in the sterilisation of children who were not born sterile.

In only recent decades it was still the norm for all children born with micropenises to be at risk of being forcibly assigned female, sometimes including penectomy (amputation of the phallus) because it was assumed their penis was not functional.

Change Society, Not The Child

The majority of the reasons given by doctors for you to consent to surgery on an intersex child are social. That the child will be bullied, or struggle romantically, or struggle sexually... And these procedures are "early intervention".

The only early intervention your child needs, is your advocacy... Advocate for their bodily integrity and autonomy, and once you've brought your baby home you can advocate for a better shame free world.

What can you do, day to day?

I was originally going to write a post on micropenises and sex, but I'll have to do that another time

Push back against the stigma associated with micropenises. Remember that there is no community where it is appropriate to use their physical features as knee-jerk assault on a person's character. The culture that uses intersex bodies as a way to cut at those they feel "deserve it", is the same culture that insists we raise the scalpel against those that possess them. These are two faces of the same coin.

i’m willing to believe some people are genuinely idiots who don’t know that 90%+ of polish jews were killed in the holocaust (and made up half of all poles killed in wwii), but. it’s almost like this shit helps nothing and no one

yadvashem.org

Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland After Liberation

Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland After Liberation

Some thoughts I wrote for Valentine's days about relationship anarchy and how no one really knows what romantic love means (alt text below)

As an asexual person who doesn't really understand the concept of romantic love I have discovered that aloalo people have no idea of what having romantic feelings is o feels like. I have learnt a lot more about what love means in the aro community and the polyam and relationship anarchy community.

And I thought it would be cool to show some of that stuff I have learnt that should be obvious but people usually forget, (which I understand, life doesn't come with a rules book).

1. Love isn't a limited resource. You can have romantic feelings for more than one people and it's okay and normal! The same way you can have more than one best friend and love them all as much. Romantic love doesn't have to be restricted.

2. Your love for your partner is not better or superior than the love you have for other people. Amatonormativity makes us all think than we all desire a relationship on top of everything else. Which is stupid. All kinds of relationships can be as much fulfilling and everyone is different. Your love for a partner, a qpr, a friend, your family, your community, all are equally important in their own ways.

3. Some people don't want or need to have a romantic relationship, or a sexual relationship, or any kind of couple-like relationship to feel happy with their lifes and that's great! Aromantic people are amazing and it's hard to navigate a world so much focused on romance.

4. The attraction split model was created by the asexual community as a way to help define their orientation more specifically. And though it may not be useful to everyone I personally think it's very useful to learn and do some introspection about how many types of attraction we can feel. Humans are not machines and not everything can or needs to be defined, but giving words to our emotions is fundamental to understand how we work.

5. Despite what I said in the last slide, it's imposible to reduce everything to closed boxes, and that's a good thing too, you don't need to restrict your feelings to fit into normative standards. Don't let anyone tell you how you should or shouldn't love.

To conclude: Just love your friends. Take care of everyone you care about, built a community, don't let anyone tell who you should and shouldn't love and how to do so and be nice to others.

Tell your friends how much you appreciate them, buy them chocolates, give your mother flowers, kiss your partners goodnight, fight against amatonormativity, listen to our aromantic siblings.

And enjoy this day, thank you if you have read all this bible until this end <3

(Image description: ten square pride flags with white text that reads "you'll never have the comfort of our silence again".)

The flags are the intersex inclusive progress pride, trans, leather, genderqueer, bisexual, pansexual, gay man, lesbian, intersex, and nonbinary flags.

These are inspired by this post, an image of a sign taken at an anti-Anita Bryant protest in 1978.

NIMONA HAIRCUT ACQUIRED!!!

+8 HEAT RESISTANCE

+8 SWAG

+8 GENDER FUCKERY

+8 ANARCHY

METAL!!!

What about the Jews?

If you're a Palestinian peace activist who advocates for the destruction of Israel, then let me give you a little history lesson.

In the late 1940s, after the UN partition plan was a guaranteed outcome for the territory. Many Arab nations in north Africa and the middle east went through massive waves of pogroms which were supported by the governments of these nations. They kicked out the native Jewish minority of their nations in the 100s of 1000s. These Jews are known as "Mizrachi" Jews, which is a name for the Jews who lived in the middle east and north Africa, they are descendants of Jews who had lived in the middle east and north Africa.

These are the nations which kicked out their Jewish populations, and how many they brutally expelled after massive waves of pogroms:

Morocco: 18,000 Jews expelled

Algeria: approx. 140,000 Jews expelled

Tunisia: 103,500 Jews expelled

Libya: approx. 35,000 Jews expelled

Iraq: 100,000 Jews expelled

Syria: 30,000 Jews expelled

Yemen: 62,500 Jews expelled

Oman: 5,000 Jews expelled

Iran: 150,000 Jews expelled (10 remain today)

Egypt: 75,000 Jews expelled

Pakistan: 2,000 Jews expelled

Afghanistan: 5,000 (only 1 left)

Why is it only "Zionist atrocities" which you all try to spread false news about? Why do you turn a blind eye to the atrocities which the Arab nations committed?

As of today, 50% of Israel's population are Mizrachi and are descendants of middle eastern Jews. Therefore making the stereotype that Israel is a white colonialist state false.

Don't blame Israel for simply existing. Blame the rest of the middle east and north Africa for making it necessary for Israel to exist.

Twitter thread by Melissa Caruso about a labyrinthine magical bookstore in Syracuse, NY. Link to the first tweet in the thread; most pictures have image descriptions! Now here are the screenshots of that thread:

And then a hero of the labyrinthine magical bookstores of the world put all the bookstores that people listed in the replies on a map! (Google Maps link)

UNRWA gets decimated by community notes, how long can they keep their mask on?

Links:

Reuters

Gaza headmaster was Islamic Jihad "rocket-maker"

By day, Awad al-Qiq was a respected science teacher and headmaster at a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip. By night, Palestinian milit

UN Watch

Report: U.N. Teachers Celebrated Hamas Massacre - UN Watch

Report PDF: UNRWA: Hate Starts Here WASHINGTON, November 6, 2023 — As war wages on between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, a watchdog group is rel

Washington Examiner

UN Palestinian agency looking into claim teacher held Israeli hostage in attic

The United Nations's agency in the Palestinian territories is aware of and attempting to get to the bottom of a claim that one of its teache