In light of @staff ‘s recent post, let me remind you of the absolute irony of this piece about censorship of trans identities and bodies getting hit with a mature label

Which I cannot seem to be able to appeal 🙃

In light of @staff ‘s recent post, let me remind you of the absolute irony of this piece about censorship of trans identities and bodies getting hit with a mature label

Which I cannot seem to be able to appeal 🙃

yep yep yep

A woman whose epilepsy was greatly improved by an experimental brain implant was devastated when, just two years after getting it, she was forced to have it removed due to the company that made it going bankrupt.

Specifically, because she couldn't afford to buy the implant from the company. They basically took her implant back to recoup their losses. This is what happens when you privatize healthcare and health research. The group providing her with this implant should not have been able to go bankrupt in the first place, let alone repossess her implant to pay off their debts.

This is what disabled people mean when we say that cyberpunk horror is just a reality for us. This woman was literally forced to undergo a surgery because she couldn't pay to keep the implant already inside her brain. How long till companies start repossessing pacemakers and transplants?

ANATOMY (2016)

Tripod fish (Bathypterois grallator)

this is the chocolate guy’s wario

Couldn't see his name anywhere but he is Ronn Lucas!

Have you ever seen the Spectacled Eider (Somateria fischeri)? During breeding season, males sport green plumage in a pattern that's reminiscent of glasses. While this doesn't make their vision sharper, it does help males stand out from the crowd.For the rest of the year, they revert to mottled-brown plumage, similar to females, which have more subdued spectacles year-round. This duck is unique in that it lives in the frigid high Arctic. It sustains itself on a diet of mostly mollusks and crustaceans, diving to pluck prey from the ocean floor.

Photo: Olaf Oliviero Riemer, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons 

/vent

obsessive thoughts, tired mind

"Long Adolescence" and Disability Liberation

Cultural discourse around infantilization of young adults, particularly when justified with spurious "brain science," is a disability issue.

Even in disability spaces, I see the argument made that 18-25 year olds aren't "real adults" yet, because "science proves" that "the brain doesn't fully mature" until age 26. This concept harms not only young adults, but also disabled and neurodivergent people of all ages.

To get the basic facts out of the way: The brain does not "fully mature" at age 26, or any other age. The human brain changes continuously throughout the lifespan. There is no point at which the brain stops changing until death. There are certain brain changes that commonly occur in the mid-twenties, but declaring these changes "full maturity" is completely arbitrary.

So why has the "Brain fully matures at age 26" myth taken off, and what is the impact of it? Mostly, to justify economic and cultural norms. It just so happens that this myth of "brain maturity" happened to take off during a period of economic downturn, especially for young people newly entering the workforce. But it's okay, mainstream media outlets tell us, that young adults are increasingly unable to afford to move out of their parents' homes, to access healthcare independently of their parents, to get married, or to have children of their own -- in fact, it's a good thing, because young people are too neurologically immature for these things anyway.

A context in which I've recently had a lot of arguments on this topic is the claim that young adults are too young to consent to romantic relationships with older adults, or that such relationships are "pedophilia" or inherently unethical. This is an argument that has a lot of traction in social-justice-minded spaces, because it's ostensibly about sexual abuse but it's actually about infantalization, and it has deeply harmful implications that go far beyond your squick at May/December relationships.

"BUT HYPATIA, YOU HEARTLESS LIBERAL, older people who preferentially date younger people (especially older men who preferentially date younger women) often ARE fetishistic and abusive!"

Yes, they are. So are lots of people from privileged groups who preferentially date people from marginalized groups. It's a problem that needs to be addressed, but the assumption relationships that are "mixed" along a privilege axis, or that marginalized partners cannot consent, is still far more harmful, because it has implications beyond relationships.

"BUT HYPATIA, YOU HEARTLESS LIBERAL, we're protecting young people from abuse!"

No, you're not. Young people often enter unwise relationships -- relationships they KNOW are unwise -- because it's their only recourse for escaping the control of their parents. Normalizing the idea that young adults should still be under protection and control of parents or guardians ensures that young adults have fewer safe options for escape and autonomy. This creates a ripe opportunity for abusive, manipulative, and exploitative people to offer young people freedom from parental control. The harms done to young people by attempting to "protect" them from their own decisions are far greater than the harms young people can cause themselves by making unwise decisions.

"But people don't magically become mature adults on their 18th birthdays! Shouldn't there be a transitional period for young people to gradually assume more adult rights and responsibilities, with support, guidance, and scaffolding, and protection from predators who would take advantage of youthful inexperience?"

Yes, that's exactly right! There should be a transitional period! That is, in fact, the purpose of childhood. And adolescence. The fact that an 18 year old is not significantly different in maturity from a 17 year old is not an argument for giving the 18 year old fewer rights; it's an argument for giving the 17 year old more rights.

Adult rights and responsibilities should be gradually rolled out, over time, with support and guidance, and special protections in place due to the inherent vulnerability of youth. But the 18th birthday should be the end point of that transition, not the beginning. Because although the brain never stops maturing, rights are important, and the allotment of them should not be delayed any longer than absolutely necessary.

What does all this have to do with disability?

A lot. First of all, any time the argument is made that a group of people should be denied rights based on the structure of their brains, neurodivergent people are affected. The argument that young adults should be denied full autonomy because they're often financially dependent on parents/family also has implications for disabled people -- many disabled people will never be "financially independent," no matter how old we are. There are more specific ties to disability, too. Part of the justification for restricting the rights of young adults is that certain psychiatric disabilities are, or are presumed to be, more prevalent in, or originally manifesting in, young adults. Forcing young adults into involuntary psychiatric treatment is justified because, after all, they're too neurologically immature to realize that they're neurologically defective.

Another premise in the argument that young adults aren't fully "real adults" is that young adults are often college students, while "real adults" are out of school. This is, first of all, factually untrue -- colleges are increasingly recruiting students of all ages, and students older than 26 are far from rare. When I was arguing with someone who claimed that a romantic relationship between a young adult and an older adult was wrong because the younger adult was "probably still in school," I pointed out that most college classrooms are a melting pot of ages, and, in fact, many older/younger couples meet in the same college class! More specifically to disability issues, though, the assumption that "student = still basically a child" disproportionately harms disabled people who, for a variety of reasons, may take longer than "average" to graduate. The entire framing of higher education as a "life stage" is a centering of a class and ability experience that is far from universal.

And look, I don't really care if you're judgmental of May/December romances. Fine, judge them. No one is making you approve.

I care that universities consider it appropriate to notify students' parents about health information, and that states are making it easier to involuntarily commit 18-26 year olds, and that underpaying or not paying at all younger workers is justified because "They're not really old enough to be independent anyway," and that people with fallopian tubes aren't allowed to have tubal ligations until they're 25, and that transgender people aren't allowed to access gender-affirming surgeries because of "brain maturity," and that disabled adults are denied civil rights because they supposedly "have the mind of a child." And all of those rights violations are enabled by this pervasive myth that people can't become "real adults" until they've financially succeeded in a bad economy, or until they've graduated an inaccessible higher education system, or until they reach some arbitrary level of "brain maturity" that some neurodivergent people will never reach. That's a harmful premise, no matter how well-intentioned.

More photos from this weekend’s geomagnetic storm!

Caves are weirder and more varied than you think