goddammit this is my blog and I'm gonna say things

[sciatrix]

The anxiety weasels have returned, but I should manage a linkspam this week. It has not been a great mental health week for me, but I think I have identified the issues with my sound chambers for now (need more base-line microphone amps, peering at the chambers I )

Made the mistake of accidentally kicking off my own exclusionist trauma issues on a Metafilter post, and will be taking a break from there (have locked myself out of my account for the rest of the week). I am reminded why I tend to view lesbians with guarded suspicion until they demonstrate that they don't hold with the TERFy and SWERFy corners of queerpolitik, and regret bringing up both that particular article and tensions in queer-female-and-adjacent communities more generally.

No, seriously, the word lesbophobia is a dog whistle, and doubling down on it when I go "are you--are you intending to communicate this?" and insisting I'm speaking in bad faith is, ah. Fun.

Also today, I had a horrifically-ill student attempt to isolate his own DNA with a cheek rinse and fill it with so much phlegm that I couldn't figure out what the hell he was doing wrong when he showed me his sample. I did not, however, find this out before that student helpfully tried to dip a micropipette with no fucking tip into his cup of filthy sick spit-water and draw up a milliliter of fluid, and then get confused when the tip didn't fit on the micropipette afterwards. I think I got it dried out enough not to bleed everywhere, but I'm not sure. I definitely went back and splashed ethanol all over that sucker after he left.

I can only hope he had the same nasty bug I did a few weeks ago, so maybe I can fight it off before he infects everyone else.

Comments

[notasupervillain]

Ugh you have my sympathies all around

[sciatrix]

thank. <3 I'm trying to fight off the urge to try to crawl into a hole to die right now, not gonna lie.

[felinejumper]

I did not trawl the entire metafilter thread there, but that original article you linked to is SO INTERESTING AS AN EXPERIENCE and I'm so glad I read it; I'm sorry about the associated Bad Times On The Net :(

and omg omg omg @ your student, good grief I know hands on learning is important but what a brutal abuse of a pipette.

[sciatrix]

It is an interesting article! And some of the discussion is probably helpful; I'm just really upset by the way that one particular participant, uh, keeps insisting that people who don't agree with her take on things should "listen to women," or insists on hauling the conversation around to predatory straight women creeping on lesbians. There's a particularly useful comment in the MeFi thread that points out the Skirt Club in the profile is, uh, a venue specifically run by a bisexual woman to give women who are questioning or want to explore sex with other women a low-pressure way to do that without having to commit to a long-term emotional relationship. Which adds its own interesting framing to the conversation, particularly in terms of what the author is excluding or including in her perception of the venue, and particularly given the absence of discussions of bisexuality in the narrative.

I had to go and clean it in the prep room to stop myself from going "excuse me sir but what the actual fuck." I mean, he did this immediately after an instructional video on how to use micropipettes, in slow and boring detail, and also a pause from me on how you correctly identify which tip goes with which pipette. And then he pulled that within five minutes.

I really hope it's just illness making him brainfoggy and impulsive. I really do. I've definitely done shit like that when I'm sick--I called out sick on a class for the first time in my life for what I suspect is the same bug two weeks ago because I didn't think I could teach like that. And he generally seems like a hardworking and focused guy over the last two weeks. But. Dude~!

[notasupervillain]

Look if I'm not allowed to do that you're not.

[sciatrix]

but the hole is so dark and inviting and has very few obnoxious analyses in it!

<3

[notasupervillain]

I bet they don't let undergrads in the hole. Or grant committee members. Or fucking anonymous reviewers OUT OF THE HOLE WITH YOU

[sciatrix]

OH GOD IT'S A HOLE OF ANONYMOUS REVIEWERS, THE PETTY OLD ONES WHO DON'T BOTHER TO READ THE WHOLE PAPER AND ARE JUST TRYING TO GET THE REVIEW OFF THE SHELF AND/OR HAVE A TEMPER

IT'S A TRAP

[notasupervillain]

Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuun

[kaberett]

I really do not think this is you kicking off your own trauma issues. <3

also chILD DO NOT DO THAT TO THE PIPETTE DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW EXPENSIVE THEY ARE NO

[kaberett]

(I mean, I also think it's fascinating because I keep forgetting -- and I really need to write this up, ugh -- that sex is an activity people want to do in and of itself with very limited screening on the other parties, such that my gut reaction to the entire thing is ??????but how???????would that help??????? because Everything About The Setup Is A No for me! Which I think is also relevant to the discussion about perceptions and realities and so on! but yes.)

[silversandbea]

Yeah, logging out of metafilter after that post is probably the best for your mental health. After the last mod cleanup last night, I removed the thread from recent activities and am trying to use good old fashioned will power to avoid checking back in on it.

(I don't have an issue with lesbian identified folks until the conversation gets judgemental of other wlw or terfy, then I've got to back away)

Anyway, the link was interesting! I'm sorry the conversation didn't go better, and hope you feel better soon.

[glorious_spoon]

Ugh, as a bi woman I back-buttoned the hell out of there once I saw those particular comments, I was just so bugged by the dismissal of an experience that almost every bi/pan woman I know has had at least once as, like, some OTT lesbophobic lie. I'm impressed at your graciousness, tbh.

(I have several lengthy rants on this topic, but I'll keep them out of your comments section, lol)

Although that was a really interesting article, if a bit boggling to me, so I appreciate the link.

[aurumcalendula]

ugh that sucks

[siderea]

Has anybody in this conversation yet pointed out explicitly that characterizing bisexual women as merely straight women who are covertly predatory on lesbians is, like, the canonical gold-standard example of biphobia?

Because I haven't got the time to trawl through all that, but I do have this here bingo card.

ETA: Whoa, yeah, that comment does really change everything. This was an explicitly bisexual-run event for bisexual women, and the author of the original article, who, I would think it fair to assume understood that, repeatedly called the participants straight and basically characterized them as defective lesbians.

"Bisexual erasure" doesn't just mean failing to mention bisexuals. It means insisting – and acting in ways that demonstrate one believes – that bisexuality isn't a thing, that bisexuality isn't real, no one is actually bisexual, and that if someone tells you they're bi, the most charitable possible interpretation is that they're self-deluded, instead of actively deceitful.

[jesse_the_k]

I wanted to shower you with weightless, dustless flowers when I saw what was happening.

Thanks for posting an interesting thing!

(Some students aren't destined for lab life, after all.)

[hellofriendsiminthedark]

Oof. Here's to letting things settle down on their own and picking everything up again later with a fresh start.

[gentlyepigrams]

It never fails that every time I consider re-upping at Metafilter, someone reminds me not to. I'm sorry about your experience and even as a straight woman I give "lesbophobia" a side-eye. I don't have a lot of experience with openly SWERFY dialogue but I've heard enough TERFs talk about lesbophobia that I immediately thought the same thing when I read that post/comments.

[sciatrix]

I really hoped for better there, particularly given it wasn't just me going "wow this isn't okay." I just... Ugh. I think it got better after LobsterMitten's last mod note but things should not have been allowed to get that bad to start.

[sciatrix]

I mean... 80, 90% of the time it's one of my favorite spaces on the web. This kind of intra-queer shittiness is so integral to my experience of existing in queer spaces--I don't think I have managed to avoid it ever in any online space I've had access to, including LJ/DW.

But when it goes bad for me, it goes real bad, I think because I wind up trying to thread myself though impassable needles instead of snarling at people who are acting poorly to knock it off.

This is the first time I've buttoned over it, though. I'm not feeling real good about that, but I don't have the energy to spark a proper metadiscussion over it and that feels like a more safe for me way of expressing that I am hurt, upset, and withdrawing from the larger community for a while as a consequence. I've been spending a lot of time wading in over there, and forcing myself to stop feeling like I have to say something while also declaring that I'm not present right now feels like a good way to self-advocate quietly, without having to deal with a lot of other people's opinions.

[sciatrix]

<3

[sciatrix]

Thanks. That matters a lot to me.

(God I can't even remember what his career plans are. I really really hope it's just uncharacteristic sickness breaking his ability to brain.)

[gentlyepigrams]

Yeah, the reason I don't want to go back isn't the thing itself but the way the discussion about the thing (for any number of things) will be handled in MetaTalk. I'm really sorry you're feeling similar hurt feelings and I hope your time away lets you recover some peace.

But yeah, intracommunity fighting is awful. I wish for peace for you there too.

[sciatrix]

Yeah, not being able to comment and being able to say "I care strongly about this" has been a good state for me. I sent a pretty upset set of emails regarding the modding in that thread last night (and probably got the cleanup a little more carefully trimmed), but I don't have the fortitude or the energy or attention to bring to having this discussion over on the Grey. Especially because let's be real, outside communities of queer/lgbtq women observers wind up boiling all of it down to playing oppression Olympics, whether or not both sides are actually being equally insensitive to each other.

(I feel identically to you re your parenthetical, fwiw.)

[sciatrix]

I, uh, wow. Thank you for knocking that little bit of self belief loose: I tend to blame myself for not magically being able to navigate all conflicts, and also for bearing costs from those conflicts. I... had not caught that I was doing that before, and appreciate the knock at the bad mental framing.

HONESTLY I'M JUST SURPRISED HE CAME UP WITH IT