Pregnant Transgender Man Gets Backlash Over Glamour UK Pride Issue: “I’m A Pregnant Man, And I’m Trans” — msn.com He’s going to have a hard time pushing the baby out his dick. Is an OB/GYN involved in the process? Why would a man go to an OB/GYN? “My dog identifies as a cat. You know what that means?” “No, what?” “A cat can have puppies.” It’s just a silly word game . . . Abraham Lincoln used to ask “How many legs does a dog have if you call a tail a leg?” The answer is four. As Abe would point out, calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg. And calling a woman a man doesn’t make her a man. Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Doctors
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Gender-Affirming Care
Is gender-affirming care the same thing as gender-affirming therapy? I’m sick of both phrases but it seems like gender-affirming therapy obviously involves a therapist. I thought the job of a therapist is to get at the true cause of whatever is keeping the patient from moving forward in life, not to give patients a pat on the head and affirm whatever self-diagnosis they present with. And I’ve always taken gender-affirming care to mean that a doctor is involved. When I visit a doctor, I expect the doctor to gather the evidence and provide a diagnosis. I don’t expect to have my intestines removed because I “feel” like I have colon cancer. What does affirmation have to do with the job of a doctor? Read more →
Mirrors and Mirror Holders
Inviting Chaya Raichik, the woman behind #LibsofTikTok, to CPAC is "a gesture of contempt towards every teacher, every medical provider, and every other American who cares about making the world a kinder and safer place,” @AriDrennen told me.https://t.co/4ZzMJXEm8T — David Gilbert (@daithaigilbert) March 1, 2023 Doesn’t LibsOfTikTok just repost other people’s videos? It holds a mirror up to people who don’t like what they see and all they can think of to do is to hate mirrors and the people who hold them. As I post this, the tweet is getting ratioed at more than a 10-1 clip. I’d like to think this means that many people are getting as sick as I am of this “I hate you because you’re not as kind as I am” mental malfunction. Also sick of “People who cannot be expected to parrot opinions I hold myself should not be allowed to speak.” Now… Read more →
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Assigned at Birth
As in, “He was assigned male at birth.” It sounds like other options were available, doesn’t it? Like a child being assigned a name or a house at Hogwarts. Is there any plausible scenario where the child would be assigned anything other than male at birth? Suppose the doctor said, “I assign this child as female.” And then the parents freak out and say “Are you fucking nuts?! He’s not female, he’s got a penis.” “Hmmm,” says the doctor. “Well . . . you’ve got me there.” If it wasn’t so easy to determine the sex of a newborn at a glance — it doesn’t require a medical degree — you could go with a DNA test, since every cell in the human body is marked male or female. That never changes, no matter how many hormones you take or how many surgeries you have. It’s biological and permanent. In… Read more →
Another Difference Between Men and Women
Breaking: USC has agreed to pay more than $1.1 billion to former patients of campus gynecologist George Tyndall, the largest sex abuse payout in higher education history. https://t.co/ipEtrsLGRc — Los Angeles Times (@latimes) March 25, 2021 My condolences to everyone involved in this painful case. Am I allowed to observe that men also have their genitals examined by medical professionals, who may be doctors, nurses or others, who may identify as male or female, straight or gay, but I’ve never heard of a man filing a lawsuit because he felt there was something wrong with the way the examination was conducted. Other than every single examination of male genitals being conducted in a way that was unquestionably above reproach, which seems unlikely, I don’t even want to speculate on the reason for the discrepancy. Also, my doctor, who identifies as female, once stuck her finger up my ass as part… Read more →
Closer to Fine
And I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains There’s more than one answer to these questions Pointing me in a crooked line And the less I seek my source for some definitive The closer I am to fine — Indigo Girls, “Closer to fine” Read more →
If I Were a Cardiologist
I drove through Carl’s Jr. for lunch . . . “Would you like to try a Triple Bacon Cheeseburger?” the girl asked. Triple?! A triple bacon burger!? The burger itself is 1,300 calories. If you go with the combo, it’s well over 2,000 calories. If I were a cardiologist, I’d be sending a thank you note to whoever thought this up . . . Read more →
Stop Screwing Around and Cure Something!
A doctor asked me if I watch Game of Thrones . . . “No,” I said. “Shouldn’t you be spending your time reading medical journals instead of watching mindless entertainments?” I feel like this is what gives disease the upper hand, medical professionals wasting their time watching television shows. Stop screwing around and cure something! Read more →
A Nest, a Haven and Calm Place
The low trolley on its cushiony rubber tyres luxuriously bore the corpse away down the middle of the ward. There was speed and secretiveness and deftness in its movement. Over the dead man’s face was a blanket, so that age, torture, ugliness and fear, all were hidden. Instead of looking on this covering, this careful manipulation as an hypocrisy and cheat, I saw it for what it really was, a desperate effort to make life bearable and sane. I admired the doctors and the nurses. I admired every human being in the world who, on top of a million, million horrors, yet built a nest, a haven and calm place. — Denton Welch, A Voice Through a Cloud Read more →
Oh by the Way, Doc . . .
I walked by a TV playing a pharmaceutical advertisement . . . Before taking [drug name], be sure to tell your doctor if you’ve had a liver transplant. Shouldn’t your doctor know if you’ve had a liver transplant? Read more →
EppsNet Book Reviews: Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Death on the Installment Plan is a fictionalized coming-of-age story based on Céline’s youth in pre-World War I France. Absent are heroism, transcendence, love and the possibility of love. Instead, there is a lot of human action that comes to nothing. Death is not ennobling. That said, hopelessness has never been described with more wit, energy and imagination or more droll, breathtaking language. Here’s a sample of the black comedy, as the narrator remembers a local physician (all ellipses in the original): “The most exquisite deaths, remember that, Ferdinand, are those that attack us in our most sensitive tissues . . .” He had a precious, elaborate, subtle way of talking, like the men of Charcot’s day. His prospecting of the Rolandic, the third ventricle, and the gray nucleus didn’t do him much good . . . in the end he died of a heart attack, under circumstances that were… Read more →
Some Things You Never Get Used To
Our whole family has been seeing the same doctor for about 15 years. I had an appointment with her today and she was a nervous wreck. She told me she’s flying to Houston tonight with her son, who’s starting college at Rice University. I’ve already had a child move away for college so she asked, “How did you handle this? I feel like I have a rock on my chest.” “Well, it’s a challenge when you love someone so much and they leave. Maybe prescribe yourself some Xanax.” “What do you do at the end? How do the parents leave? Does everyone just hug and say goodbye?” “You probably have to follow your heart on that. My goal was not to cry in front of the boy and I did accomplish that. I hugged him, I said ‘I love you, I’m proud of you,’ he walked into the dorm and… Read more →
See You In Hell
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Doctors are right to give transgender kids puberty-blockers and hormones at younger ages. https://t.co/DcNgjUTXj7 pic.twitter.com/UFziAAZwQC — NYT Opinion (@nytopinion) April 9, 2017 I just wanted to let everyone know that Joseph Mengele is down here kicking himself because he didn’t think of this first. See you in Hell . . . Read more →
It’s Not Your Head
I’m telling my doctor about these shooting pains that I get near the back of my head, behind my left ear. Sometimes they don’t happen for months and sometimes they happen several times a day. She says it’s likely to be caused by stress and tension. “You don’t think it’s a brain tumor?” I ask. “No, because a brain tumor would hurt all the time and the pain would get worse over time.” “OK . . . that’s good to know because I didn’t want to deal with a brain tumor right now.” “I’m not worried about it. And if I’m not worried about it, you shouldn’t be worried about it.” “That’s what my wife said this morning. She said she wasn’t worried about it. I said, ‘Of course you’re not worried about it. It’s not your head.’ She said she wouldn’t worry about it even if was her head.”… Read more →
Kidneys for Coders
George Washington Died on this Day in 1799
On this date, Dec. 14, in 1799, George Washington, the American revolutionary leader and first president of the United States, died of acute laryngitis at his estate in Mount Vernon, Virginia. He was 67 years old. That is according to History.com. Acute laryngitis is not something that’s likely to kill you today but in 1799, medical “science” was still so medieval that doctors believed that diseases were caused by an imbalance of fluids in the body. In particular, they believed that fevers were caused by an excess of blood and they treated fevers by bleeding the patient. Not surprisingly, draining off almost half of Washington’s blood not only didn’t cure him, it probably killed him. The moral of that story is: When you don’t know what the heck you’re doing, just leave well enough alone. Read more →
See You in Hell, O Ye of Little Faith
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Greetings from the underworld! I was catching up on Facebook this morning and saw that a woman is going in for brain surgery and her family and friends are asking for prayers for her recovery. Isn’t that overkill — prayer and brain surgery? Why not just pray for her recovery and if she doesn’t make it, you chalk it up to God’s will? Some “true believer” religions, e.g., the Christian Science church, do that. They believe more in prayer than in medicine. They decline medical care because they believe that God can heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, etc. as he did in the Bible. These are the folks you hear about when they come up on criminal charges after refusing medical care for their seriously ill children and the… Read more →
Another Smoking Gun on “Keep Your Coverage”
The conversation below took place more than four years ago — June 23, 2009 — at a congressional hearing on Obamacare. The topic was the keep-your-coverage promise, and the participants were Christina Romer, then chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Rep. Tom Price, who is also a doctor. The conversation plays out like one of those word puzzles where you start out with one word and change one letter at a time to get a completely different word. Watch Romer’s responses on keeping your coverage go from “Absolutely” to a stammering “I’d have to look at the specifics.” It’s also yet another reminder of what a pig in a poke Obamacare was. Even the people advocating for it had no idea what was in it. REP. PRICE: You also mentioned, as other folks have, that the president’s goal — and it’s reiterated over and over and over —… Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Alternative Medicine Advocates
Alternative medicine is not a real thing. You don’t have a choice between medicine and alternative medicine. You have a choice between medicine and Things That Have Not Been Proven to Work. Alternative medicine that works is called “medicine.” Some people tell me that regular doctors don’t know about alternative medicine because they don’t teach it in medical schools. They don’t teach it in medical schools? If I didn’t know anything about my job beyond what I learned in school 25 years ago, I’d be in bad shape. I’d be unemployable. If there are any doctors out there who’ve never learned anything outside of medical school, those are not the doctors you want to be going to. Read more →