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

[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.

[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

[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

[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.

[jezunya]

I skimmed through the comments on that page and just… yikes. So much yikes. Your comments were characteristically thoughtful & even-handed, and it kind of seemed like some people – or just one person – were up in arms & looking for a fight from the get-go. I'm sorry you had to deal with that, and especially sorry that what read to me as you trying to explain your position & the reasons behind your reactions instead seemed to be interpreted as blame-throwing or assigning motivations to others, or something. That's always so shitty to deal with >:/

Also sorry about the gross undergrads, lol *shudder* Here's hoping your immune system is still working hard after the last bug! ♥

[sylvaine]

Oh no I should not have clicked that link. Right, this is why I don't like lesbians despite me being functionally one myself.

(NotAllLesbians etc)

Augh, student, no! *shudder*

[havocthecat]

I am reminded again why, even in fandom spaces, I am not particularly involved in discussions of queerness as a bisexual woman married to a man, because I have run into that sexuality-policing bullshit over and over again. Sometimes even in the femslash spaces where I thought I was, well, safer to be a bisexual woman married to a man, but whoops, nope, sometimes you trip and stand up and discover it's all LESBIANS ONLY up in this femslash arena, and you just have to say fuck you and the lesbian horse you rode in on.

It's honestly just exhausting and offensive. This is why I tend to keep my fandom activities concentrated to people who don't give a damn about questioning my sexuality or my relationships. Do I deserve to be where I say I am? Yes. Can I and should I write what I say I want to write? Yes. It's just so much healthier and less exhausting that way.

I hope your Metafilter break does you good - and I hope you don't catch anything from your student. I am certain he screwed up because he was sick. Probably the boringness of the film was not holding his attention because of the tiredness from the sick? I hope.

[sebenikela]

This is one of several reasons why I am terrified of trying to date women. I have zero way of ~proving I'm gay enough~ and I already have enough trauma about relationships of all kinds so I'd like to avoid collecting more, thanks.

<3

[writerkit]

This is why I've been staying the heck out of queer spaces more generally; people like that... well, there's no reasoning with them. They have always been the most wounded in the world. It's the same with the lesbian parties at Pride; half of them are using it to mean women who like women and half them are using it to mean "NO BIS EITHER!" and I have no way of knowing which half. (I'm reminded of an apartment advertisement I saw recently that included "no men no straights", which I was staring at thinking "most of the people who phrase it like that with no qualifiers probably think I'm straight and also what about straight trans people?")

For what it's worth you seemed like you were being pretty reasonable, and the writer of the article seems very judgy about the whole thing-- though to me that judginess read as much coming from the kink part of things as the lesbian part; there are a lot of people in the kink community who think it's somehow "realer" sex, especially near the end when she starts getting judgy about them not wanting to use strap-ons.