9 hours ago
Showing posts with label Hate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hate. Show all posts
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Trans People and Civil Rights
An actual argument I have seen persist among Evangelicals and Trump supporters is this one: Trans people are only .01% of the population (or .03% or whatever number they've been given by Fox News that morning), so why should the rest of us have to accommodate them?
It's an argument I can't believe anyone thinks is legitimate, but let's say you do.
What percentage of the population does a given group have to reach before you'll agree they should have civil rights? The deaf are only .38% of the population. Jews are less than 1%. Filipinos are less than 2%. Do we strip away their civil rights as well?
The USA doesn't base civil rights on how big a group is. Or at least we didn't used to do so.
Friday, August 12, 2016
Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin
And, as you know, Bob, we live in a Red State, and in a severely conservative area, and deeply Evangelical Christian area, of that state.
All this by way of saying that her adolescence has been rough.
Just recently, and once again, she was treated to another adolescent informing her, piously, that while he didn't have anything against LGBTQ people himself, and while he certainly believed that they should have equal rights, nevertheless he believed, due to his religious convictions, that what they did was a sin.
Friday, May 13, 2016
Oh My God, Tear This Guy Apart
The Far-Right Conservatives promptly lost their nut.
On my FB page, students I respect, who are intelligent and well-read, good-hearted, but who are conservative Christians, are likewise losing it over this. Apparently respecting the rights of trans children, well, it's just a step too far.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Fat Americans!
Here's one everyone should read.
...when I was about 11 years old, and Mom went to see her doctor because of some problem she was having, and he scathingly told her that her problem was she was fat, and not to come back to him until she’d lost 50 pounds...
This one makes me seethe for several reasons -- one is that mr. delagar is a fat guy, which I don't know whether I've mentioned that here; and this is what he gets whenever he goes to see his doctor, and I mean no matter what his issue is -- he could have a damn pimple on his ass, his doctor would say, well, what do you expect, of course you get zits, you need to lose ninety pounds.
This is the same doctor who told him that being overweight was a moral issue.
Right. People are fat because they have poor moral fiber.
Why mr. delagar keeps going to this guy, hey, good question.
Nor is this attitude unique in our fine country -- I cannot count the number of sweet friends and family who have pointed out to me that mr. delagar has a weight problem ("No! Really?") , or who have informed me that he really "should" do something about it ("Magic unicorn dust, maybe?"), or who dismiss every other feature of his life and character as irrelevant: he's nothing else to them. Just fat.
It is, of course, a prejudice like any other: "He's nothing else to them: just black." "She's nothing else to them: just a Jew." "He's nothing else to them: just queer."
People feel freer to indulge in this one, same as they do in the one against gay folk, some of them, because they reckon fat is something people choose. Just put down the ice cream if you don't want to be 90 pounds overweight! Get up off the couch one time!
Because that's all there is to it, right?
Don't we wish. As the NIH tells us, diets have a failure rate of 98%. Tell me some other "cure" with a failure rate of 98% that anyone would endorse. Not to mention that this cure, in fact, often causes harm: many diets increase the risk of stroke, raise the blood pressure, cause organ damage -- you name it.
Exercise? It helps fitness. It doesn't help much with weight loss, in and of itself.
Do doctors know these things?
Ha! Wouldn't that be nice. I've known these things for about 15 years. In that time, I've found, I guess, about 2 doctors who did.
Do doctors need to know these things?
Do you need to ask? A doctor that sees a fat patient and says, oh, it's your weight causing the problem -- and looks no further? Is that an issue?
And will fat patients push the issue?
Most won't. I used to have to go with mr. delagar most of the time, because he had been smacked too hard and too long by our fat-hating soctiety. He'd been taught he was a second-class citizen and he deserved what he got. He fights back now -- well, except he won't quit this doctor and his whole "moral issue" crap -- but I think he's hoping to educate the dude.
Mostly fat patients believe it when their doctors say it's their own fault. Everyone else has always told them the same thing -- why wouldn't they believe it?
...when I was about 11 years old, and Mom went to see her doctor because of some problem she was having, and he scathingly told her that her problem was she was fat, and not to come back to him until she’d lost 50 pounds...
This one makes me seethe for several reasons -- one is that mr. delagar is a fat guy, which I don't know whether I've mentioned that here; and this is what he gets whenever he goes to see his doctor, and I mean no matter what his issue is -- he could have a damn pimple on his ass, his doctor would say, well, what do you expect, of course you get zits, you need to lose ninety pounds.
This is the same doctor who told him that being overweight was a moral issue.
Right. People are fat because they have poor moral fiber.
Why mr. delagar keeps going to this guy, hey, good question.
Nor is this attitude unique in our fine country -- I cannot count the number of sweet friends and family who have pointed out to me that mr. delagar has a weight problem ("No! Really?") , or who have informed me that he really "should" do something about it ("Magic unicorn dust, maybe?"), or who dismiss every other feature of his life and character as irrelevant: he's nothing else to them. Just fat.
It is, of course, a prejudice like any other: "He's nothing else to them: just black." "She's nothing else to them: just a Jew." "He's nothing else to them: just queer."
People feel freer to indulge in this one, same as they do in the one against gay folk, some of them, because they reckon fat is something people choose. Just put down the ice cream if you don't want to be 90 pounds overweight! Get up off the couch one time!
Because that's all there is to it, right?
Don't we wish. As the NIH tells us, diets have a failure rate of 98%. Tell me some other "cure" with a failure rate of 98% that anyone would endorse. Not to mention that this cure, in fact, often causes harm: many diets increase the risk of stroke, raise the blood pressure, cause organ damage -- you name it.
Exercise? It helps fitness. It doesn't help much with weight loss, in and of itself.
Do doctors know these things?
Ha! Wouldn't that be nice. I've known these things for about 15 years. In that time, I've found, I guess, about 2 doctors who did.
Do doctors need to know these things?
Do you need to ask? A doctor that sees a fat patient and says, oh, it's your weight causing the problem -- and looks no further? Is that an issue?
And will fat patients push the issue?
Most won't. I used to have to go with mr. delagar most of the time, because he had been smacked too hard and too long by our fat-hating soctiety. He'd been taught he was a second-class citizen and he deserved what he got. He fights back now -- well, except he won't quit this doctor and his whole "moral issue" crap -- but I think he's hoping to educate the dude.
Mostly fat patients believe it when their doctors say it's their own fault. Everyone else has always told them the same thing -- why wouldn't they believe it?
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