alchemistdoctor

It's a very *distinctive* blog

queer chemist with a lot of hobbies


DiscoDeerDiary
@DiscoDeerDiary

For young/newly out trans people worrying about the worsening social climate and fearing they'll never feel safe again, I recommend taking up illegalism. It won't necessarily make you feel safer but it'll change your relationship to danger.


Gwen
@Gwen

Tangential but one thing I've noticed with a lot of younger transfolks is a like... terrified reticence to self-med when the legal avenues fail or turn against them.

It feels like something as simple as self-medding that was well known to be common SOP and knowledge amongst trans people a decade ago is now seen as risky and dangerous by the kids coming in now who've never had to do it. Transpeople as a community are largely the ones who helped figure out how to safely administer HRT to ourselves and monitor ourselves and we TAUGHT most of the medical establishment this until they caught up.

Those resources still exists and you can still access them, people in the UK and other countries have to still use them a lot of the time. You can learn how to obtain and use HRT and monitor your hormone levels yourself if the system fails you, this is not some shady, risky action. This is basically down to a science. Do not let fascists prevent you from living your life. Do not let hateful and pointless rules and laws prevent you from doing what you need to do.


DiscoDeerDiary
@DiscoDeerDiary

It is kind of an interesting side effect of trans healthcare becoming more aboveground that you're gonna have more trans people who are not used to disobeying the medical system. And I'd consider the whole situation to be, on the balance, mostly a good thing: my guess is we're seeing people coming out as trans who probably would have died mysteriously otherwise. But yeah it does mean we're gonna have to compassionately guide them through how to do their own medical care.



JhoiraArtificer
@JhoiraArtificer

I strongly lean nonfiction, especially history/sociology/science, but I'm open to whatever if you think it's neat!

Also accepting recommendations for print nonfiction bc I am a footnotes sicko, so if you think a book really benefits from the footnotes and should be read in print I am all about that too!


JhoiraArtificer
@JhoiraArtificer

I am entirely sure this is an exaggeration, but so many of the nonfiction science and even history books are "here is a topic and a memoir of someone who cares about it, intertwined". you don't actually have to have a memoir to get me to learn about a topic. I promise.

I came across the book Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone, which sounds interesting. I mean, jellyfish! I've studied them some and I would be interested in an evolutionary perspective on them. But wait!!


alchemistdoctor
@alchemistdoctor

I don't know how the audiobook is (I am an easily overstimulated person when it comes to audio, so audiobooks aren't my thing) but if you want a fascinating read, Venomous was a truly enjoyable read.

It's not a memoir, it's an 'animals make batshit crazy stuff and then humans do batshit crazy stuff to study it' story. The writer does have a few personal anecdotes but they're mostly about how they found/met the crazy person doing the research, since they were a tox student.

It's just. I fucking love me a nutso scientist, dude.