Kitty has whisker fatigue! Please shake the bowl for the kitty, so their faces don’t hurt! Even better, kindly get your kitty a shallower, wider dish so they don’t need to cry!!
We really have harmed a whole generation of trans and gnc children by failing to communicate how serious a decision binding actually is, how there’s no ACTUALLY safe way to bind, how it permeneantly damages the body, how it can make top surgery more difficult in the future. I don’t think we should be keeping trans kids from binding (we let kids do all sorts of things they’re really not old enough to understand the potential consequences of) but we owe them the ability to make informed decisions at LEAST
So this is definitely an important conversation to have, but can you point me at some reading about “permanent damage”? I might just be lucky, but I had zero lasting effects from binding. I’d like to at least read up on it so I can have this conversation and be more specific than “be careful.”
Of course! I can’t easily source right now but I am more than happy to provide further info when I am not at work and on mobile. Unfortunately, like a lot of trans healthcare, a lot of what we know about binding is anecdotal and word of mouth. BUT permeneant damage can include:
-Musculoskeletal damage. Binders are indiscriminate compression tools; they can’t flatten the chest without applying pressure every other anatomical structure underneath including the spine, ribs, lungs and heart. Many people who bind experience chronic back pain, shoulder pain, sharp stabbing chest pains, permeneantly decreased lung capacity, literal spine deformation, etc etc.
-A continuation of the above but the ribs are actually jointed bones. Their ability to flex is absolutely vital to their ability to withstand trauma and protect your vital organs. Imagine the damage that would be done to your elbow if your bent your arm to full flexion and then tightly bound it closed like that, for six, eight, twelve hours per day, every day, for weeks or months or years. And you don’t NEED a functioning arm to live!
-Tissue atrophy. Forcing chest tissue to lay in an unnatural way can and will change the way that tissue looks, even to risk of atrophy. Some people who bind and only moderately dislike the way their chest looks find that they HATE the way it looks after binding for a period of time. Tissue atrophy can also make top surgery more difficult in the future, and increase the risk of complications like nerve damage.
-Worsened dysphoria. Once someone starts binding and becomes accustomed to seeing themselves with a flat chest, it can be much more difficult to see yourself without one, and dysphoria that much more intolerable. You can imagine the psychological feedback loop of binding more in response.
The typical safety measures passed around about binding are harm REDUCTION measures and should not be advertised as making binding “safe.” Binding is not safe. It is a very serious health decision with long term consequences and should be treated as such. That doesn’t mean it’s the wrong decision, but it should not be considered the DEFAULT decision for chest dysphoria which is frankly how it’s currently treated.
I went to the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference and went to a workshop held by a chiropractor who works with trans men (as well as being a trans man himself), so I’m going to pass on his advice to people who bind:
Stretch your chest, shoulders, and back everyday (at least)
This is a passive stretch where you place a foam roller at the bottom of your spine (to support your hips and lower back), and lifts your shoulders off of the ground, with your arms on the ground to balance you.
This stretch is meant to be held for a few minutes, open up your chest, and aid your everyday posture.
You probably don’t own a foam roller, he advised to wrap a towel or blanket very tightly and tied as a substitute. I use a layer of bed foam rolled up with two belts to keep it rolled. Whatever you use, it ought to have a bit of give and it needs to lift your shoulders off the ground.
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This is an active stretch. Stand in front of a doorway with your feet together (if the door way was not there, your toes would be touching the wall, not crossing through it). When you lift your arms up and put them against the wall, your feet, hips, and arms should all be in line with each other (your arms should not be behind you with your feet and hips in the doorway).
Make a “W” shape with your arms against the wall so that your elbows are the closest part of your arm to the ground, and take one small step forward.
You should feel a pull in your lower shoulders, but it should be comfortable to hold. Donot over stretch, you shouldn’t be leaning your weight into your arms to balance, your weight should be balanced by your legs. Do not judge yourself and think you are doing yourself a favor by thinking that you ought to have a bigger step. Sure, you could overstretch today, but you need to be able to do this tomorrow too! Hold this for 10-15 seconds. (Yet again. Do. Not. Overstretch.)
Bring your feet back together, and do it the other foot. There will probably be one foot that is easier than the other, stretch that step more often than the less difficult step.
Bring your feet together and bring your elbows up so that your upper arms are parallel to the ground and your elbow forms a 90° angle with your forearms. Take your small step forward and hold for 10-15 seconds and switch feet.
Now reach your arms up as high as you can. It doesn’t have to be much higher than the last stretch, if that is as high as you can go, then that’s it. If you can’t reach higher than the last stretch, put your arms down at your sides and then lift your arms up from your sides and put them against the wall (sorry he didn’t include a picture of this one in the slides, message me if this is unclear.)
Your goal is to be able to reach your arms up like in the picture so that you form a Y shape. Step forward and hold for 10-15 seconds, then switch feet.
His advice was to do this stretch as often as you use the bathroom at home (shoot for 3-5 times a day).
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The next two stretchs don’t have pictures! If you can do these stretches with ease and want a more intense version, try using dumbbells and incorporating it into your workouts.
If you’ve ever done snow angels? Put your heels, butt, shoulders, and arms up against a wall (as much of your body as you possibly can should be touching the wall) and lift your arms up as high as you can go like you are making a snow angel.
Alternatively, lay down on the ground instead of up against a wall if you need to work your way up to lifting your arms above your head.
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Again, with your body up against the wall, but this time with your arms in front of you, bring your arms up like Frankenstein’s monster, so that they are as high as your shoulders. Hold this for a few seconds.
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After trying these stretchs, it’ll probably be clear where your range of motion is most limited. For me, the most useful stretches are the W and 90° angle doorway stretch and foam roller stretch, bc I have the most trouble with my lower shoulders and chest. Try to maintain your range of motion where you have it, and use these stretches to improve your range of motion where you are limited.
Yeah, all of this.
Also don’t workout in a binder, and TAKE IT OFF AT NIGHT WHEN YOU SLEEP. DO NOT DOUBLE BIND. DO NOT USE ACE.
This is honestly the reason why I wear sports bras more often than my actual binders; which are generally only worn under like, formal clothing or if I’m gonna be around people who don’t know I’m trans. I can’t function in a binder for very long, and it’s uncomfortable. I’d rather be misgendered now, than not be able to have surgery later.
Sometimes people hit a place in their life where things are going really well. They like their job and are able to be productive at it; they have energy after work to pursue the relationships and activities they enjoy; they’re taking good care of themselves and rarely get sick or have flareups of their chronic health problems; stuff is basically working out. Then a small thing about their routine changes and suddenly they’re barely keeping their head above water.
(This happens to me all the time; it’s approximately my dominant experience of working full-time.)
I think one thing that’s going on here is that there are a bunch of small parts of our daily routine which are doing really important work for our wellbeing. Our commute involves a ten-minute walk along the waterfront and the walking and fresh air are great for our wellbeing (or, alternately, our commute involves no walking and this makes it way more frictionless because walking sucks for us). Our water heater is really good and so we can take half-hour hot showers, which are a critical part of our decompression/recovery time. We sit with our back to the wall so we don’t have to worry about looking productive at work as long as the work all gets done. The store down the street is open really late so late runs for groceries are possible. Our roommate is a chef and so the kitchen is always clean and well-stocked.
It’s useful to think of these things as load-bearing. They’re not just nice – they’re part of your mental architecture, they’re part of what you’re using to thrive. And when they change, life can abruptly get much harder or sometimes just collapse on you entirely. And this is usually unexpected, because it’s hard to notice which parts of your environment and routine are load bearing. I often only notice in hindsight. “Oh,” I say to myself after months of fatigue, “having my own private space was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a scary drop in weight, “being able to keep nutrition shakes next to my bed and drink them in bed was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a sudden struggle to maintain my work productivity, “a quiet corner with my back to the wall was load-bearing.”
When you know what’s important to you, you can fight for it, or at least be equipped to notice right away if it goes and some of your ability to thrive goes with it. When you don’t, or when you’re thinking of all these things as ‘nice things about my life’ rather than ‘load-bearing bits of my flourishing as a person’, you’re not likely to notice the strain created when they vanish until you’re really, really hurting.
Almost two weeks after reading this, and I’m still kind of blown away at what a ridiculously fruitful definition this is. Like I had no idea that load bearing things were a thing that needed to have a word for them, but now I’m like holy shit I’m so glad that there’s now a word I can use to refer to this really important class of Thing.
This is astounding. Load-bearing. Forget spoons, this concept is wonderful. I’m going to update my Spear Theory with this.
I feel like this and Spoon Theory could be used in conjunction with each other. You use less spoons if/when you have more Load Bearing things in your life to help take the pressure off.
Is having a partner who can cook for you, or buying easy-made frozen meals Load Bearing…? Does that leave you extra spoons because you don’t have to cook really?
Is having a shower chair Load Bearing and spoon-saving, because now you don’t have to be able to stand to get clean…?
I feel as though Load Bearing is something ANYONE can utilize to describe their lives, whereas Spoon Theory is MEANT to be for those with chronic ailments… but there’s no reason why those with chronic conditions can’t utilize both to describe what they experience
Even if you don’t have a cat please reblog this for all your followers who may have their own precious little baby.
I HAD NO IDEA ABOUT TUNA OMFG
If I remember rightly it’s the trace elements of mercury in canned tuna that is toxic to them. Their kidneys can’t filter it out like human kidneys can.
ok im gonna break this down a bit because some of these are BLATANTLY untrue and it kills me every time i see this.
alcohol: not very good for humans, either, but alcohol effects pets the same way it effects humans: targeting the brain and the liver. the issue? it takes way less to kill your cat than it does a human. you weigh, on average, at least 100 pounds (or 10x) more than your cat does. 3 teaspoons of liquour could kill your cat. don’t do it. alcohol WILL poison your cat.
chocolate:
theobromine (and to a lesser degree, caffeine) is the issue with this one. humans? we can break this down in our bodies. cats, dogs, birds, ferrets? they can’t. it usually takes a pretty big amount of theobromine to cause a pet to actually die, though. it’s present in cocoa, so the higher % of cocoa in a chocolate, the less needs to be ingested to cause serious, life-threatening effects. baking chocolate has a high concentration of theobromine and 1 square can kill a cat or small dog. white chocolate is a low risk, on the other hand. chocolate CAN poison your cat, especially DARK and BAKING chocolate.
caffeine: same story as alcohol: not that great for humans either, causes similar effects as in humans… just quicker and with less caffeine ingested. elevated heartrate, seizures, etc. can be seen. dogs and cats are more sensitive to the effects than humans are. caffeine WILL poison your cat.
dairy: cats are lactose intolerant and so their bodies cannot properly break it down– much like how we can break down theobromine and cats/dogs can’t. however, it’s not going to poison your cat, just give them diarrhea and other gastrointestinal upset. dairy WILL NOT poison your cat, but will cause gastrointestinal upset and diarrhea, so it is strongly recommended to not give dairy products to your pets.
fat trimmings: fat trimmings are just fat. if you feed fat to your cats, they will become fat and/or it will increase the level of lipids in the blood, leading to diseases and complications like chronic pancreatitis, which can be fatal. fat trimmings WILL NOT poison your cat, but will lead to disease that can be fatal, so it is strongly recommended to not feed fat trimmings to any pets.
raw meat: cats can eat raw meat. cats are obligate carnivores. cats are designed to only eat meat, and raw meat is not of serious risk to them. disease carried in raw meat? not a problem when you are a cat who has evolved over millions of years to eat raw meat. i hate hearing “cats can’t eat raw meat!” from people with outdoor cats. you realise your cats are eating raw lizard and bird, right? raw meat has more nutrients than cooked meat (which we eat veggies & fruits to compensate for– cats can’t digest these) and, obviously, there are some diseases and bacteria that cats aren’t immune to but cats are less likely to eat rotten meat than dogs are, anyway. treat the meat like you treat human meat and it’s totally fine. cats are DESIGNED TO EAT AND DIGEST RAW MEAT! IT’S PERFECTLY FINE TO FEED YOUR CAT RAW MEAT, but make sure that the meat is in-date and properly stored/cared for. rotten or spoiled meat CAN lead to disease and poisoning, but the same goes for 90% of the animal population!
eggs: its ok to feed your cat eggs. im not even sure why this is a question. raw eggs rarely carry salmonella and even humans rarely contract salmonella from infected eggs. your average cat will never contract salmonella from raw eggs, only in an immuno-compromised cat would this ever be an issue. cats can safely eat raw and cooked eggs, as salmonella is pretty much only a concern in an immuno-compromised cat in the first place.
fish: see raw meat above. fish, however, is a bit of an exception because of higher levels of mercury & low levels of taurine and differing balances of phosphate and calcium mean that it’s not a sustainable diet for cats and could lead to mercury poisoning or bone disease if it is the only protein given. when given ~1 time a week and with varied proteins there is no issue. again, cats are DESIGNED TO EAT AND DIGEST FISH AND OTHER MEATS! however, previous warnings about storing fish correctly still applies, and proteins should be varied due to fish having different levels of phosphorous, calcium, and taurine and mercury content. a primary diet of fish CAN lead to bone disease or mercury poisoning in extreme cases.
grapes and raisins: admittedly, this one is a bit of a wild card. some pets eat raisins/grapes without an issue, but in others, these can cause renal failure and death rapidly. we still don’t know why. animals with prior kidney issues are more likely to be effected by grape/raisin toxicity, and cats are more likely to have kidney issues due to many cats not getting adequate moisture in their diet. grapes and raisins MAY lead to poisoning in some cats and dogs, especially those with pre-existing kidney conditions.
onions and garlic: yes! all members of the allium genus (shallots, scallions, leeks, etc. are included) contain thiosulphate which, when ingested by cats and dogs, can lead to a serious condition in the blood known as hemolytic anemia. basically: their red blood cells burst. this can be fatal and a small amount of onion/garlic/etc. is needed to cause clinically significant issues. onions, garlic, and other members of the allium genus CAN and WILL poison your pet in even small amounts.
tuna: see fish above. canned tuna tends to be soaked in oil which leads to the same issues as fat trimmings in increasing lipid count in the blood. sashimi quality tuna will also have higher concentration of mercury and shouldn’t be consumed more than occasionally in the cat’s diet. canned tuna in oil is often too fatty and leads to the same issues as eating fat trimmings, however, tuna steak/sashimi/etc. quality tuna is the same as other fish: occasional inclusion in the diet is fine!
xylitol: relatively small quantities of this (an artificial sweetener) will cause a sudden drop in blood sugar in dogs, which can lead to comas, seizures, or death. many times, if they are not rushed to the hospital immediately, they will die, and even then, they may suffer permanent liver damage. however… cats are not adversely affected, and typically aren’t attracted to foods w/xylitol in it in the first place. xylitol is NOT likely to poison your cat, but small amounts can KILL your dog, moreso than chocolate!
This is an important thing and you should read it.
The corrected information will save lives and time.
Also cats can more easily eat small quantities of fermented dairy products (such as yogurt or kefir). It can be a good probiotic for a kitty who’s had a round of antibiotics or has had an upset stomach. The fermentation breaks down some of the lactose. Also greek yogurt has significantly less lactose in it than other kinds, so that’s a good one to pick. Make sure it’s plain and unsweetened, and only give a little bit at a time, but it’s ok to let a cat have some fermented dairy for a probiotic supplement.
Lilith steals my pistachio pudding, and bits of my fruit snacks if she thinks she can get away with it; among many, many other human foods. We make sure to use low-fat milk for those sorts of things, and I specifically buy fruit snacks without grape puree or artificial sweeteners. Because if she’s going to steal them no matter what I do… I’m going to do my best to make sure she doesn’t keel over from it.
I was at a flea market and people in robes were selling weird items like lost objects from kids, dreams, memories, food recipes, and other magical things. Then someone started accusing me of shoplifting and I woke up.
We must not look at Goblin Men We must not eat their fruits….
Yeah you found the Goblin Market honey, good job getting out when you did.
“If voting did anything they’d make it illegal” wow I guess gerrymandering isn’t a thing, I guess taking away all first nations peoples in a state’s right to vote isn’t s thing, I guess “accidentally” deregistering thousands of black voters isn’t a thing, I guess charging fees and closing early isn’t a thing etc. Etc. Et Fucking Cetera
@flowergirlrobichiko i want you to know that i fucking support your addition and that i appreciate your comment
Especially as someone who can’t vote yet… fricking vote please!!! ❤️
It’s important!!
VOOOOOOOTE.
PLEASE VOTE
I’m not 18. I can’t do anything except volunteer to register voters, and I’m trying to do that. But the administration is trying to legally erase trans people. I can’t vote, so I can’t tell my government what I want.
But you, that 18, 19, 20, 24, 28, 32, year old, reading this? You can. So please, register. Please, please, please, vote, for those like me that are too young, and for the thousands of minority group members that have been cheated out of their rights. Your vote counts, so, please, use it.
This Canadian is reminding her American followers to vote.
I don’t often get political… but something has happened
Trump. He and his administration are trying to change the law so that whatever gender you were “born as” is your unchangeable sex/gender.
[1.4 MILLION AMERICANS]
This is from a new New York Times article, regarding the technicalities of what has been said. They go even further to discuss what they accurately call “biggest battlegrounds” for transgender students: the bathrooms and locker rooms.
We can’t be quiet about this. They are trying to erase who we are. To make it so that we just DON’T EXIST. As a transgender male who lives in America, this scares the shit out of me.
As I said, I don’t normally get political on my blog, but you all need to know about this.
don’t let this happen
Please all my US followers this cannot be allowed to happen it’s disgusting and just so WRONG
This is fucking disgusting. @house-of-crows I have room for you to crash if you need to get the hell out of there.
There’s a lot they have to go through in order to make that happen. So, like the “trans ban” in the military it will most likely come to little more than bluster from the Ancient Orange Cheeto Puff. Hot air and posturing and an attempt to contort himself enough to pay himself on the back for all the “progress” he’s making.
This is a damned good reason to vote this November and to prepare the way for literally Anyone But Trump in 2020.
House Of Crows 