सोच

feminism, films & fruits.

[newmiu]

these backstage shots from philosophy di lorenzo serafini ss17. so goooood. 

[bevsi]

made a tiny picture book for class. i wanted to challenge the idea that girls loving other girls is somehow adult/inappropriate

[mesogeios]

However bad life is, what’s important is to make something interesting out of it. And that has a lot to do with the physical world, with looking at stuff, snow and light and the smell of your screen door and whatever constitutes your phenomenal existence from moment to moment. How consoling—that this stuff goes on and that you can keep thinking about it and making that into something on the page.

Anne Carson explains an idea that she and Alice Munro have in common (attachment to the physical world and the details in life), from The Art of Poetry No. 88, Paris Review (via wethinkwedream)

[gulcayn2-deactivated20210101]

by richie talboy

[yoshikofukushima]

“transformation”

2011

oil on canvas 　 910 x 1167mm

yoshiko fukushima

[soracities]

But I    Have tamed        Myself–            I have stomped On the throat        Of my own song

Vladimir Mayakovsky, from ‘At the Top of My Voice’  (via soracities)

[unrar]

Gabon, Cap Lopez, near Port Gentil 1984. Fishermen repairing their nets, Bruno Barbey.

[ellebabymama]

[kauai-shawty]

[930814]

그렇게 있어 줘 (2016)

[jun-bin]

Breathe / Lee Hi

[dhrupad]

The eye symbolizes a society divided into warring classes. It is a society where the official laws are bent and twisted to serve the interests of the propertied classes. But the working class retains its fighting spirit and its determination to protest and resist. The passions that a dead man’s eyes arouse in the film symbolize the energy that the ideals of a struggling working class retain even after the physical death of a revolutionary worker.

Utpalendu Chakrabarty on his film Chokh, The Eyes (1982) in “Indian Cinema ‘82/’83″. 

[dhrupad]

IMAGE: Khayal Gatha, The Saga of Khayal (Kumar Shahani | 1989)

TEXT: Ruth Vanita – “MARRIED AMONG THEIR COMPANIONS: Female Homoerotic Relations in Nineteenth-Century Urdu Rekhti Poetry in India” in Journal of Women’s History, Vol 16, no. 1 (2004): 

—

The new move that Rekhti makes in Indian poetry is to sexualize explicitly the Sakhi (woman’s intimate woman friend). Rekhti inherits this important poetic figure not from the Perso-Urdu ghazal but from Sanskrit and Sanskritic literatures. 

[…] Female-female sexual relations are mentioned in the Kamasutra as well as in Arabic erotic texts such as the Thousand and One Nights, but they do not seem to be explicitly represented in Riti poetry. However, a suggestive female homoeroticism does appear in Riti poetry. In part, it arises from the ambiguity of the speaker’s gender. Commentators and translators ascribe gender to the speakers, and often do so on the heterosexist presumption that a speaker who praises the heroine’s beauty may be male or female, but when the praise is more eroticized, the speaker must be male. Thus, Krishna P. Bahadur, the modern English translator of Bihari, invents titles for every verse, which gender the speaker: “What he said to her companion,” or “What her companion told him.” 

The verses in the manuscripts have no titles—while the speaker is sometimes gendered, in many others she or he is not, and this allows for a playful ambivalence. Even the verses that commentators do attribute to female speakers often express an ardent admiration that has an erotic tinge. In one example, the narrator comments: “Heavens! / How much beauty has god given her! / Even I am bewitched by it, dear lad, / how much more / you!” The translator here has inserted the words “how much more, you.” The original says simply: “Looking at that unique girl, I am entranced. How much sweetness god has given to her beautiful form.”

[dhrupad]

Avishkaar (1974)

[whatmountains]

TRANS WOMEN: HERE'S SOME SHIT YOUR DOCTOR WONT TELL YOU ABOUT HRT

1. Progesterone: not for everyone, but for many people it may increase sex drive and WILL make your boobs bigger. Also effects mood in ways that many find positive (but some find negative). Most doctors won’t prescribe this to you unless you ask. Most trans girls I know swear by it.

2. Injectible estrogen: is more effective than pill or patch form. Get on it if you can bear needles bc you will see more effects more quickly.

3. Estradiol Cypionate: There is currently a shortage of injectible estradiol valerate. There is no shortage of estradiol cypionate. Functionally they do the same shit.

4. Bicalutamide: This is an anti-androgen that has almost none of the side-effects of spironolactone or finasteride. The girls I know who are on it are evangelical about it.

[naidje-deactivated]

@euryale-dreams

[joyeuse-noelle]

Are there HRT medications that don’t increase blood clot risk? I’m already at risk because of my blood pressure, and my doctor won’t prescribe HRT that increases clot risk while I’m on the medication - and I may never not be on the medication.

[euryale-dreams-deactivated20201]

Absolutely.

The concerns surrounding venous thromboembolic events as a side-effect of hormone replacement therapy can mostly be traced back to one particular study known as the Women’s Health Initiative. This study was an enormous undertaking which, unfortunately, demonstrated significant adverse effects of the hormone therapies studied. As a result of this the use of hormone replacement therapy in postmenopausal cis women was dramatically reduced as the medical community began to question whether or not the therapy caused more harm than good.

Naturally, trans women have been suffering from this fall-out ever since.

What physicians seem to fail to recognize is that the study examined a very specific hormone regimen which was, arguably, outmoded at the time the study was conducted: It examined the use of conjugated equine estrogen (Premarin) with or without the use of medroxyprogesterone acetate. Neither of these drugs is regularly used for the treatment of transgender women.

The estrogen most commonly used to treat transgender women nowadays is 17β-estradiol either in pill form or in the form of a sticky patch that you apply to your skin. Esters of estrogen (e.g. estradiol valerate) are also sometimes used either in a pill form or as an intramuscular injection.

Transdermal estradiol patches are the gold standard when it comes to treating women who are at high risk of a venous thromboembolic event. It simply does not increase the risk of developing a venous thromboembolism. The only thing you should keep in mind is that patches are not always well tolerated because of the lifestyle changes required to keep them from falling off and the fact that they tend to irritate the skin.

Fortunately, oral 17β-estradiol appears to be safe, regardless of the increased risk. At least one large study has shown that the use of oral estradiol in trans women is not associated with venous thromboembolic events. An individual woman’s risk would need to be substantial in order to contraindicate the use of oral estradiol.

For those who have significant risk of venous thromboembolism because they have had a previous thromboembolic event, because they are paralyzed, or because of some other factor it is good to know the relative risk between oral and transdermal estrogen. The latest research indicates that the use of transdermal estrogen lowers your risk of a thromboembolism to 80% of what your risk would be using oral estrogens.

It’s difficult to find hard numbers regarding the relative risk of venous thromboembolic events with regards to hypertension. The best I could find after an hour or so of searching was this study regarding VTE in lung cancer patients. Hypertension increased the risk by a factor of 1.8.

However, to put that into perspective being of African descent increases your relative risk for deep vein thrombosis by a factor of 1.3 when compared to Europeans. Europeans are, themselves, at increased risk when compared to Asians and Pacific Islanders by a considerable margin: a four-fold increase.

I should point out that being ‘male’ is also a risk factor for developing a thromboembolism and hormones are likely to be a contributing factor. Also, menopause is another serious risk factor. Given this information it is likely that the use of transdermal estradiol will lower your risk of thromboembolic events significantly.

As far as the anti-androgen is concerned: The primary use for spironolactone for cisgender people is as an antihypertensive.

Even if the risk of thromboembolism was truly significant with modern hormone replacement therapy it wouldn’t justify what your doctor is doing to you. The fact is that mortality in the transgender community from suicide–caused in part due to the lack of access to hormone therapy–is substantial. The quality of life lost when a trans woman is denied hormone therapy is substantial. The fact that your doctor does not appear to be taking this into consideration when they weigh the risk of thromboembolism against not receiving necessary medical care is deeply concerning.

I strongly recommend that you seek a doctor who is more sensitive to your medical needs as a transgender woman.

Edit: Fixed a minor, but embarrassing, error.

[whatmountains]

oh wow this is so helpful & good info

[blackthorn-and-iron-deactivated]

Everyone who cares about transfem people please reblog this

[thetolerantleft-deactivated2017]

this was really fucking helpful

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

Being alone has a power over me that never fails. My interior dissolves (for the time being only superficially) and is ready to release what lies deeper. When I am willfully alone, a slight ordering of my interior begins to take place and I need nothing more.

Franz Kafka, from “Diaries“  (via dostevsky)

[luthienne]

She moves inside a weather of her own / like an evening star which seems to grow more bright / the more it grows immersed inside the night.

Fred Dings, from Eulogy for a Private Man; “The Woman with Gravitas” (via dostevsky)