Monday, November 07, 2011

Lili's thought for the day

It appears that there has been a rumour doing the rounds that Julian Assange has or had "six fingers", presumably on each hand. So what if he did?

2 comments:

Justthisguy said...

Well, it might make him a badass piano player.

I have known at least one cat with extra digits, and find that interesting and amusing, and not the least bit alarming.

Humans are born with extra digits from time to time, but Normalizing Mommies tend to collaborate with surgeons to cut off the perfectly harmless and possibly beneficial extra digits.

I believe that you are not a Normalizing Mommy, judging from what I have seen of your writings.

Snork!

Lili Marlene said...

Actually, I've witnessed that kind of dilemma first-hand, and I think you are right that the medicos tend to tell the parents what to do, but with a degreee of anxiety, as they know that the parents do have to sign a consent form for surgery for their child. It would be interesting to see what kind of trouble the parents would get into if they refused an op to lop extra fingers off their infant. I reckon the hospital might call in the child psychologists and social workers. Parents really have little respect in the public health system. Extra toes do cause issues with fitting shoes for sure. I know because I once had a friend with an over-endowment in the toe department. It's a bit like wisdom teeth, just useless things that get in the way.

I was listening to the radio today and there was a story about improved treatment of intersex and transgender people. Apparently there is a push to remove the question about gender from official forms, as it can force people into unsuitable decision-making about gender identification. For example, parents are obliged to register their child as one sex or the other by 6 weeks I think, but for some babies their gender is uncertain, so the poor parents are forced to make an important choice for their child prematurely. Society is full of situations in which we are forced to comply with expectations of standardization, and parents are often the suckers who have to sign off on this.