#medical racism tw

[enoughbykelela]

My other post lost traction, but Brittany Delaney, a young Black single mother from Minnesota, is fighting for her life against cancer and lupus. Her first two rounds of treatment were unsuccessful and she has spent a lot of time in and out of the hospital, all while suffering from medical racism. Her need for support grows more dire with each day that passes. Her c@sh@pp is $survivinglupus30 and v3nm0 is Brittany-Delaney-3. Her gofundme is linked in the article, and you can also find more details about her situation. Please spread. Thank you!

#medical racism tw #tw medical neglect

[uncanny-tranny]

Medical racism isn't important to address just because it's mean to be racist to patients (I mean, it is mean), but because medical racism kills people. It contributes to systemic suffering of those deemed non-white, and the disinformation that spreads about non-white people.

#politics #racism #racism tw #medical racism tw #i've noticed my modern medical textbooks are trying to be more explicitly includive (objectively good)... #...but i don't think it should stop there. in fact i worry sometimes that people will see broad inclusion... #...as the only goal to achieve when i think more active measures should be taken to address and fix the inherent problems of racism #medical racism isn't the only kind of racism obviously but man... hearing the stories about those who faced it terrify me #it's a nightmare to think about and i can't express just HOW important it is to vehemently oppose letting it fester #something i've noticed because again my textbooks make more of an effort... #...but then i got to a lab and only one of those expensive human models weren't white and like. it's a little thing but it makes me think

[ahundredhundredheartbeats]

“Whether in the 19th century or today, it should be no surprise that vaccines, more than other medical advances, require trust and conversation, and sometimes inspire intense resistance.

“People are healthy when you give it to them, and it’s asking them to accept this to protect them from a danger that may or may not happen to them,” Colgrove said. In some ways, communication around vaccines encapsulates the problem of public health as a field: “The benefits that it promises are invisible,” Colgrove said. “When it succeeds, you’re not aware of it.”

The challenge, then, is to convince people to trust the public health system enough that they will accept a treatment whose benefits they may not see right away — or ever. History shows such trust is possible, but it has to be earned. And when that trust is broken, it may take generations to repair.”

#vaccines #vaccination #anti vax movement #health #medical abuse tw #medical racism tw #ableism

[genderkoolaid]

In my gender studies class today we were talking about immigration and asylum specifically in regards to trans women, and it was a very interesting topic, but when someone asked if we had any data or stories about the struggles trans men faced when seeking asylum, the teacher said no. This isn't the teacher's fault, I don't expect her to go out and personally collect data, but it's sad to me. We never talk about trans men or transmascs when talking about trans issues. The one time trans men were mentioned was the briefly say that they got periods, and that was just a sidenote.

This is not to say that trans women aren't important, it's important to hear about these issues, it's just something I noticed. idk

I don't know of any studies on immigrant transmascs (or abinary people for that matter), but I do know of some specific situations that may be relevant:

Yuen "Chin" Tzu is a diabetic Chinese trans man who was held in solitary confinement by ICE for 19 months and denied medical care; the article talks about imprisoned trans people are specifically targeted by solitary confinement.

A Ukrainian trans man talked about how he had to detransition while fleeing the country with his mother

Possibly less relevant but there is also Chriton Atuhwera, a trans man and Ugandan refugee who was killed in a refugee camp in a suspected hate crime and a Tunisian refugee who was stabbed to "make an example out of him"

I would send these to your teacher as things she can talk about alongside the information on trans women.

#m. #ask box #examples of transandrophobia #murder tw #hate crime tw #medical abuse tw #racism

[zilodak]

Hey I was wondering if Maggie's injury/eyepatch was inspired by Anatoli Bugorski, the Soviet scientist who had a particle accelerator beam accidentally go through his head but survived? Their injuries are on the same side of the face, but Bugorski lost his hearing, not vision (tbh tho I'm kinda hoping...Maggie does in fact have some cool trick under there like, a fake eye made out of Uranium glass or smth). Anyway, I get hyped any time you post abt Sim Spring I can't wait for the comic!

She was inspired by him, yes! There will be instances in Sim Spring where I use real life incidents such as Bugorski's to explore how states and healthcare systems fail on people disabled or affected by nuclear incidents or inproper disposal of nuclear waste, and how often history forgets about them in a way (i hope) that respects victims in real life.

Bugorski is a better known case of a state completely failing to compensate and recognize victims of nuclear accidents. But there are many others such as him who don't get the publicity that he got because they are not considered "fascinating" enough, so many people lost to history, which i can only hope to shed some light upon. Downwinder towns, Indigenous people who were and are still being displaced, their rivers poisoned, their land irradiated, women (most notably WoC) working in plutonium production lines without any protective gear.

The very core of nuclear history centers around how states, governments and people in charge view human life as expendable for a greater imperial goal. And unfortunately, you cannot separate nuclear energy from its colonial and imperial roots.

If you read me rambling about this topic and want to know more about Anatoli Bugorski's incidents here are some links to get you started:

Kyle Hill

Wired Article

The article I quoted:

Toxic Workplaces, Nuclear Homes, and Irradiated Landscapes

#asks #tw colonialism #tw racism #tw misogyny #tw nuclear colonialism #sorry tumblr user aristaresident for rambling #tw medical malpractice

[fatliberation]

would you be willing to share some of the survey results on this blog? not necessarily people's personal experiences, but just overall findings/conclusions/trends?

Yes - I received over 200 responses, so here are some of the (unfortunately) common experiences I found:

(Big TW for medical abuse here.)

Of course "LOSE WEIGHT!" was by far the most common one, in other countries too - even for things like sinus issues and migraines. in one instance a doctor even suggested weight loss to cure anxiety and depression... without any prescribing medication.

There were multiple reports of outright verbal abuse and public humiliation towards fat patients, including refusal to help a patient get up from falling

Misogyny, misogyny, misogyny. Women and AFAB individuals reported their symptoms being downplayed and receiving incredibly sexist and false information from male doctors

An AFAB person's fertility is valued more than their quality of life

There was a trend of doctors/psychiatrists claiming they can “cure” autism by selling vitamins

"You're too young to have pain / X problem" was VERY common

A lot of pain / breathing problems were blamed on anxiety, even when patients did not have an anxiety diagnosis

Doctors dismissing symptoms as the patient being drug seeking because of assumptions based on race

Quite a few participants shared with me that they were taken seriously ONLY after posing a threat to themselves

Gaslighting, saying that someone's past trauma never actually happened to them

And the number one thing I saw the most of - participants expressed that they no longer wish to seek medical care (to the point where their symptoms progress) because they are afraid of experiencing more trauma.

To the 200+ people who filled out the survey and shared their experiences with me: THANK YOU. I read every single entry. Some of them kept me up at night. You all deserve justice. I believe you. Keep fighting.

#medical gaslighting #medical gaslighting survey #tw medical #tw medical abuse #fatphobia #racism #misogny #ableism #inbox

[dailyhistoryposts]

On This Day In History

October 4th, 1951: Henrietta Lacks dies of cancer.

Henrietta Lacks' cancer was the source of the HeLa cell line, the first immortalized human cell line. HeLa cells are incredibly important in scientific research around the world. However, they were taken and used without permission, and the cell line is now incredibly lucrative while Lacks' family saw none of the profit.

#history #world history #science #science history #oncology #tw cancer #tw death #tw racism #medical racism #johns hopkins

[trans-axolotl]

Sorry that this topic is heavy, but your posts are always very well thought out and I value your insight and antipsych perspective. What are your thoughts on some countries (now possibly including canada) allowing medically-assisted euthanasia for young mentally ill people if they request it? There was a story recently about a belgian terror attack victim being euthanized at 23 at her request. I personally believe that committing suicide is a right that every person should have because I think that punishing suicide attempters is the worst thing you can do for them, and ultimately, it’s their life and they deserve ultimate autonomy over it. Not that I think suicide should be encouraged, either, and having a specific government-endorsed suicide program seems sort of bad…? Like euthanizing young people comes with a lot of ethical complications — but I don’t know how to express why it feels weird given my personal beliefs about suicide being a right. (additionally, it feels even weirder because I do support these types of programs for the elderly (although i know what an ethical minefield those are too)). What are your thoughts?

Hey, anon. Thanks for bringing this up!

I have a lot of mixed thoughts about MAID (Medical assistance in dying) and also about what it means to consider suicide a right and in what ways I think that should play into mad organizing.

Firstly, I think the way that Canada's bill C-7 was written and the way it's being put into practice is just blatant eugenics. The rhetoric while legislators were debating and passing the bill made it clear the way they saw disabled lives as unworthy. In a context where many disabled people are forced to live in poverty, where treatment is often impossible to reach, where accessible affordable housing is often nonexistent, where the medical system is filled with ableism and stigma--it is incredibly fucked up to add suicide as an option on the table when there are so many coercive factors at play. Instead of working to make society more accessible and do things that improve the quality of life of disabled people of any age, the government and doctors are using MAID as a way to completely ignore structural ableism and spread narratives that disabled lives are not worth living. I am incredibly, incredibly infuriated about the way MAID was expanded in Canada. I would recommend that people check out the amazing work of the Disability Fillibuster to learn more about MAID in Canada.

Although I don't think every instance of MAID is inherently unethical, I am VERY wary of any bills that expand MAID like Bill C7 because I think that in the context of an ableist society that already doesn't consider disabled lives worth living and tells marginalized people every day millions of reasons why they wish we were dead, MAID bills will come with dangerous levels of coercion that cannot be safeguarded against. For example, the American medical system, with a long history of eugenic sterilization, medical experimentation on Black Americans, and widespread institutionalization, is not a system I ever trust to be able to handle the power of MAID without treating marginalized people's lives as disposable. (Link to read more about the history of medical experimentation: content warning for antiblack racism, sexual exploitation, slavery, and medical abuse of many types. )

At the same time, I am deeply invested in noncarceral approaches to suicide, and I believe that in order to effectively fight against psychiatric incarceration, we have to expand our understanding of the right to autonomy. The psych system, like many institutions of total control, weaponizes a fake concept of safety to justify depriving people of autonomy. In the context of prison abolition, Mariame Kaba and Andrea J. Ritchie use the phrase "carceral safety" to talk about the ways that police use the rhetoric of "safety" to continue perpetuating a violent system of incarceration:

"The state’s carceral safety robs our communities of the conditions and nutrients that would allow true safety to grow, forcing us into the position of constantly reaching for more security from the very institutions that make us collectively less safe." (from Reclaiming Safety, August 2022).

Similarly to police and prisons, the psych system wants us as mentally ill people to believe that the only way safety and suicide prevention can occur is within institutions where autonomy is deprioritized and any kind of abuse is acceptable if it can be explained as a "life-saving" measure. So part of noncarceral suicide prevention involves rethinking the way we think about autonomy, and prioritizing autonomy and freedom as inherent rights, regardless if people are making risky or harmful choices about their own wellbeing. Suicide should never be criminalized and I think that a step towards decarcerating suicide requires us to embrace the importance of autonomy.

Rethinking autonomy to include the right to harm ourselves is something that I think is an important topic to grapple with in noncarceral suicide prevention, but I think it's one we also have to be careful with and approach with a lot of nuance when talking about it publically. Approaching suicide prevention with a bodily autonomy framework does not mean that we need to support government-sanctioned suicide, does not mean we need to advocate for eugenic policies, does not mean that we should advocate suicide for marginalized people who are already so used to being told that the world wants them dead. Suicide prevention is incredibly important to me, and it will never feel liberatory to me if I'm using my understanding of bodily autonomy to promote suicide in any way. Liberatory suicide prevention includes more than just noncarceral crisis response and helping people map through their distress. It also includes advocating for the material conditions we need to survive in our everyday life, and in my mind, that includes things like advocating for disabled people to have our basic needs met so that we don't have to live in poverty, inaccessible housing, and aren't coerced into suicide through eugenicist bills like Bill C7 in Canada.

Definitely think there is a LOT more to say on this topic and that my opinion is not the only way of looking at this, so I absolutely encourage followers to jump into the discussion.

#personal #psych ward tw #antiblack racism mention #suicide tw #euthanasia tw #medical assistance in dying tw #eugenics tw #ask to tag #antipsychiatry #antipsych #mad pride #psych abolition #prison abolition #i don't even know what to tag this as

[gillianthecat]

I had somewhat forgotten what it was like to take classes that are emotionally challenging. The "hard" sciences can be intellectually difficult, but we weren't covering material that breaks my heart or enrages me.

Anyway, I'm off to finish a documentary about the horrific racism and medical cruelty of the decades (!) of Tuskegee syphilis "research."

#gillianthecat goes back to school #psychology #tw racism #medical ethics

[januscorner]

I know I said that I didn’t want to talk about my stay in the hospital but I have to mention how funny it was trying to explain BRCU to my friends. Like “she’s a queerphobic racist murderer who kidnapped a baby and married a terrorist, she’s also my amazing wife and I love her so much” and then the kid who tried to kill three people looks at you like you’re insane.

#That said attempted homicide kid was one of the nicest people ever #Brcu #bryce tankthrust #tw medical trauma #tw hospital #tw psych ward #tw murder #tw hospitals #tw kidnap mention #tw queerphobia mention #Tw racism mention #personal post #Janus’s Corner

[ilhoonftw]

at least 105 kids died because of her and now she's given a platform??? what about the unaccounted deaths

i bet the hbo documentary will be just another propaganda piece for evangelicals

#tw white supremacy #tw racism #tw antiblackness #Youtube #medical malpractice

[sigynpenniman]

well this is gonna be a semi disturbing post but it’s in my head so. woe horrible medical knowledge be upon yee all I guess

#abuse tw #medical tw #medical abuse tw #medical trauma tw #racism tw #there aren’t enough tws in the world honestly #but I do think this is a thing everyone should know about

[xxlovelynovaxx]

When you say that me accepting and even feeding my delusions that cause me no distress or dysfunction is "unhealthy" and "self-harm" (despite it not harming me and acceptance of them actually helping me heal from a lot of internalized hatred), and that I need to be (often forcibly) medicated and put in therapy*, what you're really saying is:

"I am uncomfortable with people being visibly and happily delusional. I think that gives me the right to remove people's autonomy and medically abuse them in order to make them more 'normal' and force a homogenous nondelusional experience on everyone. I think that not only are delusions an inherently disordered experience but that medical suppression is the only valid treatment even for distressing ones. I think that eradicating delusional people is okay."

And yes, this is eradication, full stop. It is not directly killing us (though for many of us, both the forced medical "treatment" and the rhetoric that it's not okay to be happy about being delusional DOES indirectly kill us), but it is eradication in the same way that saying "I don't want trans people to be killed, I just want them to not to transition" is. "Just be happy as a 'normal' (cis/nondelusional) person".

While there are happy non-transitioning trans people - just as there are delusional people happy to seek traditional medical treatment - it should be each individual's CHOICE and neither choice should be talked about as lesser or wrong. Though one is active (transition) and the other is passive (non-medicating/going to therapy), forcing medical treatment on someone is just as much a violation of autonomy as denying it.

It is also functionally no different from ABA being applied to autistic people, particularly ones who can't or don't mask/pass for neurotypical.

And in all cases, the people that say these things claim it's "for your own good" and that we are "incapable of making these decisions". That's massively condescending, and more importantly, infantilization. Y'know, the classic tool of bigots?

Note: I am saying the above AS AN AUTISTIC TRANS PERSON.

It is forced compliance to a standard of neurotypicality - in this case, nonpsychosis/nondelusionality. It is also an example of healthism - the conflation of health with morality and, in many cases, subsequent labeling of things that are neutral or positive health-wise as unhealthy to discourage them. (Even unhealthy things/choices are morally neutral, but the mislabeling of things is still an extension of healthism.)

This hurts ALL delusional people. It hurts those who don't want medication/therapy because they like their delusions. It hurts those who don't want medication/therapy because they are victims of medical abuse - which, by the way, the rates are extremely high for delusional people. It hurts those that don't want or can't take medication because of allergies/side effects/other health conditions. It hurts those that don't want to or can't do either for financial reasons. It hurts those who don't want to or can't do either due to other forms of bigotry.

And it hurts even those who want one or both because it contributes to the demonization of delusional people by giving them only conditional and partial acceptance on the basis of them managing to maintain a state (or veneer) of conformity to a standard of nondelusion.

Demanding delusional people pass as or be nondelusional for you to accept them means you don't accept them. Period. It means you accept people you believe to be or view as NONdelusional.

I am not anti-medication or therapy, for those who want it. See above: denial of care is just as much a violation of autonomy as forced medical "treatment". I strongly support the right of people to access treatment, and to have many of the access barriers in our current system (one of which is the demonization of certain disorders) torn down. I fight for the right to medicate and go to therapy just as ardently as the right to refuse it.

*Note: Throughout this post I speak of medication and therapy together as treatment to suppress delusions. This is not because I believe therapy will do so or even that medication is fully effective at such. This is because the people that say these things believe that medication is a magic normalization pill; and don't believe that only a BAD therapist would try and SUPPRESS delusions rather than giving you coping skills to RESPOND to them with.

There's more I could say about this topic, like:

that a lot of the idea of not "recovering" being harmful has to do with symptomology that can prevent someone from being as "productive" in capitalist society and therefore diminishes their worth as a capital-generator for companies/rich people

that there is a often component of colonialist white supremacy to this too - both in the deification of western medicine as the most advanced understanding of what constitutes a "disorder" and as a solution for those conditions - and in the focus on white western psychotic experiences to the exclusion of other culture's

in regard to the above point: like how in many other cultures, schizophrenic delusions and hallucinations in particular are often nondistressing and even comforting, and may also be integrated into the beliefs systems of those cultures

also in regards to that: how US racism (and possibly elsewhere as well) both strengthens and is strengthened by this - as black civil rights activists were frequently diagnosed with schizophrenia specifically in order to both turn the public against them and forcibly institutionalize them, especially when they refused treatment for their nonexistent delusions

subsequently, how racism was used to change in view of schizophrenia from primarily a hysteric (white) women's disorder to a "violent/dangerous" one for this reason, and how people of color and especially black people are far more likely to be labeled noncompliant and aggressive if they refuse treatment

the idea that consensual encouragement of delusions is not just harmful but abusive to the delusional person and the inherent removal of the delusional person's autonomy in stripping them of the ability to consent and how this is an extremely prevalent form of ableism that is used to deny everything from the sexuality of disabled people to recognition of their gender identity to their ability to refuse other medical care

in that same vein, the infantilization that leads to denial of physical medical care on the basis that their very real symptoms of another illness/condition are "all in their head", or mental healthcare on the basis that they can't differentiate between a delusion and other symptoms, especially in regards to delusion people with dissociative disorders, autism, and ADHD

just generally how this is just one of many ways delusional people of all kinds are demonized, some of which are subtle and some of which are obvious, but many of which are rooted in multiple forms of bigotry, many of which feed other forms of bigotry, and all of which are harmful and dangerous

As an added note, while I largely use psychosis and delusions interchangeably, delusions exist outside of psychosis (and psychosis exists outside of schizo-spec experiences). This is also because bigots often conflate the two.

#psychosis #delusions #schizophrenia #ableism #sanism #infantilization #demonization #transphobia #autismisia #(idk the specific word for anti-autism ableism or if there is one but that works) #healthism #medical abuse #psychiatric abuse #racism #pluralmisia #white supremacy #colonialism #ABA mention #ask to tag #ask to tw

[quoteablebooks]

"But," as the late naturalist Stephen Jay Gould mused, "why should the violent behavior of some desperate and discouraged people point to a specific disorder of their brain while the corruption and violence of some congressmen and presidents provokes no similar theory?"

Stephen Jay Gould Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington

#stephen jay gould #Medical Apartheid #TW: Racism #TW: Medical Abuse #Harriet A. Washington

[ava-does-dumbassery]

So since the Dracula Daily entries with Renfield in them are getting more prevalent, I thought I’d make a post about some of the ways people can try to avoid being ableist about the character.

First off, there are a lot of scenes in the novel (like the one we just saw where he eats the fly, although that’s probably one of the less egregious ones) where the book frames Renfield’s behaviour as creepy or disgusting. The book doesn’t want to us to sympathize with him or see him as a human being in these parts, it wants to use his mental illness as a way to shock and disgust the audience. The book wants us to see Renfield as gross, creepy, and subhuman, (similar to how it wants us to see the Romani as barbaric, subservient, and subhuman). When you make posts or art that frame Renfield as disgusting, scary, or animalistic, you are perpetuating the ableism of this 100 year old novel.

Another thing is that lots of people will have done things similar to Renfield because of they’re own mental illnesses/conditions, so calling him creepy might make them feel pretty shitty. For example, there are going to be parts later on in the novel where Renfield starts attacking people. When a mentally ill person is “violent”, that’s not their fault, and it does not make them a bad person or mean they deserve any abuse that happens to them. If you make a post that says Renfield is evil or deserves the way the asylum abuses him because he attacks people, that’s going to make people who have attacked people as a result of they’re mental illness feel really bad and guilty for something that’s not their fault. 

There are some parts in the book that imply Renfield does not have a “real world” mental illness, but is simply under the possession of the Count. This does make being ableist about him okay, since the story frames him as and treats him like a mentally ill person.

The asylum Renfield is at is abusive in the way most all institutions of the time were, and while some of those practices and problems have gone away in the modern day, many of them are still around in modern institutions. For this reason, saying things like “I’m glad that things like this no longer happen today” when something abusive happens in the novel is often incorrect, and can come off as ignorant.

Also, because those things still do happen today, there are going to be people with trauma related to those things, so if you’re going to discuss those parts of the novel you’ll probably want to put a trigger warning on there so psychiatric and medical abuse victims can avoid seeing that potentially triggering content.

This post is in no way intended to come off as condescending or guilt tripping, I just wanted to inform people of some common things I’ve seen in the wider Dracula fandom and have started to see in the Dracula fandom, so people could be more aware of why they’re bad. I hope everyone who reads this has a lovely day, thank you for listening to me!

#tw ableism #tw racism #tw psychiatric abuse #tw medical abuse #rm renfield #dracula #renfield #r.m. renfield #r m renfield #r. m. renfield #dracula daily #dracula book #dracula novel #gothic lit #gothic literature #gothic fiction #classic lit #ableism

[cyanocoraxx]

in light of roe v wade - before you post seriously about "sterilizing all men", remember the history of marginalized people forcibly being sterilized. it would do good for us to step back and think about the implications of wishing this treatment on other people. joking about, or genuinely discussing encouraging voluntary vasectomies is one thing - genuinely advocating for people to be forcibly sterilized is another and crosses into eugenics. now, i am white and afab/trans, correct me and tell me to sit the fuck down if i’m wrong going forward. i will not speak over you.

forced sterilization has been used on indigenous men and boys of america, mexico and canada in residential schools and hospitals. many intersex people are still forcibly sterilized at birth. sterilization is a requirement for legal recognition of gender/sex-reassignment in some countries. if you don't want it weaponized against marginalized people then it needs to not be allowed for anyone. point blank period. the whole point of the pro-choice movement is being pro-choice. that means no forced pregnancies, no forced births, no forced sterilizations. it means bodily autonomy for all.

calling for forced sterilization wouldn't affect the rich white men you're mad at. it would hit the vulnerable, disabled, native, and men of colour first. yes, encourage voluntary vasectomies, but never, ever force people. yes, have a conversation with your cis male partner about whether it may be right for your relationship, but don't pressure them. there is a very long and real history of this being forced on people and it's important that we move forward rather than continue backward.

rather than reacting to someone’s rights being stripped away by wanting to take other peoples' rights away, revolt instead. there's more nuance to the conversation than just "all men need vasectomies." target your outrage towards the system because responding to injustice with more injustice always fires back at other marginalized peoples.

#eugenics tw #forced sterilization tw #medical trauma tw #racism tw #txt