The most ridiculous thing about this shit is that the idea that skeletal remains can be easily and unambiguously ‘sexed’ is absolutely bunkus
In 1972, Kenneth Weiss, now a professor emeritus of anthropology and genetics at Pennsylvania State University, noticed that there were about 12 percent more male skeletons than females reported at archaeological sites. This seemed odd, since the proportion of men to women should have been about half and half. The reason for the bias, Weiss concluded, was an “irresistible temptation in many cases to call doubtful specimens male.” For example, a particularly tall, narrow-hipped woman might be mistakenly cataloged as a man. After Weiss published about this male bias, research practices began to change. In 1993, 21 years later, the aptly named Karen Bone, then a master’s student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, examined a more recent dataset and found that the bias had declined: The ratio of male to female skeletons had balanced out. In part that might be because of better, more accurate ways of sexing skeletons. But also, when I went back through the papers Bone cited, I noticed there were more individuals categorized as “indeterminate” after 1972 and basically none prior. Allowing skeletons to remain unsexed, or “indeterminate,” reflects an acceptance of the variability and overlap between the sexes. It does not necessarily mean that the skeletons classified this way are, in fact, neither male nor female, but it does mean that there is no clear or easy way to tell the difference. As science and social change in the 1970s and 1980s revealed that sex is complicated, the category of “indeterminate sex” individuals in skeletal research became more common and improved scientific accuracy.
Cis transphobes, you too could have your skeleton miscategorised hundreds of years after your death, because neither gender nor sex are the clear binaries you want them to be. Which you would know if your view of science in these fields wasn’t perpetually stuck in the first half of the 20th century.
Anyway I just wanted to put this here to say that the assholes who go “when they find your bones” aren’t even correct, in recent decades that narrow approach has been challenged in the fields of archaeology and anthropology, and don’t let anyone invalidate the joy we feel in life.
seeing a lot of takes recently (and this was popular during john green’s time here too) that adults who make content targeted towards kids or teens are automatically, not just cringe, but suspect? which is such an insane thing to believe because like…..who else would be writing books for 8-year olds? other 8-year olds? learn to just admit you don’t like someone or their work without implying they’re a pedophile, my god
Fucking thank you!
Reminder that one way to isolate minors for more easy abuse is to teach them to fear and suspect all other adults. Because adults are supposed to be responsible for helping kids in trouble, and many of them will do so given the chance. So if you want a kid to “accept” (be unable to escape) abuse, then you don’t want them to have any other trusted people to describe what’s happening to, because then you risk those adults interfering.
Don’t trust anyone preaching this philosophy.
The safest kids have a wide, trustworthy, safe social net, with lots of options for someone noticing if something is amiss if something is infact amiss.
I’ve recently seen people say, across social medias, that they automatically distrust anyone who’s going into nursing, teaching, social work, etc. I’m starting to think that all of this “abusers gravitate toward positions over vulnerable people!!” talk may have done incredible harm without nuance.
Your big life and world philosophy cannot be unmitigated, completely unprocessed anxiety and trauma. You’ve just turned “all people of x type/group bad” woke. No good will come from always searching for ways to validate your crippling trust issues.
(CW grooming and csa)
I have a lot of feelings about the “minors should never have any kind of contact with adults they’re not related to” discourse point, because… I was the kid those people claim to want to protect. I was a minor who was groomed and sexually abused by someone older than me.
And in retrospect, you know what I wish was different about that situation? I wish I had had more adult friends. Because the reality is, there wasn’t really anything my parents could have done to stop me from being friends with this guy, and with how my relationship was with my adult family members at the time, there was literally a 0% chance I ever would have told them what was going on. Some of my friends my age knew, but they were just as inexperienced as me and thought that an older guy being interested in me was soooo coooool. But I often think to myself, what would have been different if there had been an adult in my life who I had trusted enough to talk about that with, and who could have said “Wait, how old is this guy? Whoa, that’s not okay”
I’m in my late 20s now, and I feel lucky to have friends who range from their late teens to their 60s. And I really enjoy having such a diverse array of friends! I can give my younger friends advice on stuff like college and entering adulthood and other things I have experience with that they don’t, and I can go to my older friends for advice on things like buying a house and managing a career and how to not be scared of getting older. And it brings me comfort to know that if my younger friends end up in a situation like the one I was in, they can talk to me about it and I can be the person I once needed for them.
If your concern in any situation is “a vulnerable person might be abused”, the answer is always going to be to give them more people who can help them, not fewer. And if your response is “they can get support from people in their family”, I have very sad news for you about who most children are abused by.
ALT
