xtlou

I don’t have a question but a small story to let you know your research is making an impact on younger generations.

While babysitting a friend’s nearly 4 year old son, he piped up and asked me and my husband “Do you want to be on my team?” “What sort of team?” “We will work in the Everglades and return lost pets to their owners. We will be rescuers.” “Oh yeah? Tell us more.” “Well, we’re going to rescue Burmese pythons that got lost by their owners because they’re not supposed to be there.”

See, he’s addicted to watching National Geographic. He saw a show ep regarding the Everglades where they talked about dumping of snakes and the impact on the ecosystem. He understood the snakes are a problem and they’re there because of people but in his mind, the snakes were lost and not abandonded. He just turned five and he still wants to be part of an Everglade rescue team.

The difference is in perception: for intersex infants, parents were often told the procedures will help normalize their children and need to be done to prevent future medical issues. Historically, we weren't as open to the concept of sex and gender identity so parents believed if they "chose" for their intersex child to present as female, she'd "be" female. Parents believed they were making the right choice to bat help their child and are supported by medical professionals.

The Western world believes this makes sense and can understand and support the concept of trying to give a child a "normal" life.

The Western world can not wrap its head around FGM because it doesn't see any positives to it. This is most obvious, I think, when the Western world still promotes circumcision because "we want our baby boy to look like his daddy." I've seen arguments that the difference between the two is the age (as if something done to an infant is somehow better because they can't remember it?) but I can't get behind that.

I am heavily biased. I don't even like seeing infants with pierced ears.

And yet stylistically more sensible than the original.

I will say, more often than not, when I see drivers talking or texting while driving, it is not a teenager or younger driver. It makes me think all the awareness efforts for teens lends belief that older drivers are perhaps capable of multitasking while driving. It's a shame, too, because holy cow are they bad at it.

I work with diet and nutrition as it relates to autoimmune disease and other health issues like PCOS. I am not a scientist or a doctor but I can tell you in my practice, when I work with RA patients and their doctors, the top triggers for an RA flare up are normally wheat, dairy or nightshade plants (specifically peppers, tomato and white potato, in that order.) I have found generally people with autoimmune issues report they feel better on lower carb diets, as well.

It’s important for me to mention this because people will say “go to an allergist and get tested for food allergies” but what seems to trigger an autoimmune flare up isnt always histamine response. Science and medicine haven’t figured out the cause of autoimmune diseases and there’s not conclusive studies which prove or disprove any dietary correlation or causation of flare ups. Still, when I help people through elimination diet processes and they figure out a food sensitivity or issue and they manage to reduce their antibody markers while avoiding those foods, they’re too busy being happy they feel better than having a science journal behind them.