Period 20: Just say no to TERFs
When you write a book, all you can really do is hope it gets the kind of exposure that it will end up in the hands of the people who want it or need it. No book is for everybody. That’s totally fine with me! Personally I’m getting better at not finishing books I don’t like or have problems with, rather than feeling I must slog through to the end of every book I start. Unless I find a book expressly problematic, I don’t yuck other people’s yums because I’m not really part of the reviewing community, nor am I explicitly a book reviewer for some publication (I think those folks SHOULD absolutely offer their honest opinions and share their thinking).
It's been interesting being a first time author and making all the mistakes you aren’t supposed to make – like reading every single review. I think I’ve mentioned before that as an academic I am used to receiving reviews and for them to be negative – I am used, in fact, to just kind of being negged all the time. Academia is not a great place if you want validation (and we all deserve validation from time to time).
The weird thing is that the vast majority of reviews have been positive! Which is weird? I mean, you all liked the weird period book I guess? I keep waiting for something to happen, like for me to find out my sister has actually been writing all of these reviews under different pseudonyms or something.
However, when I read something like “I only believe in biological females and do not like inclusive language in my books” alongside a completely ascientific understanding of chromosomes and gonads, and that take is in a major publication, I think “I don’t think I will be linking to that review.”
Anyway, I’m delighted to share instead with you this review in Undark Magazine by Emily Cataneo which came out the same day and engages considerately with the book.
Tell your friends – TERFing isn’t cool, kids! In fact, as an extra link for you today, check out this new piece by Dr. Grace Lavery that was pulled from Think Pieces at the request of TERFs, The Gender Critical Movement Is Undermining Academic Freedom.
Links
You didn’t think I forgot about COVID did you? NOPE. Kimberly Prather recently shared this article she co-authored back in 2021 in Science. It shows, pretty unequivocally, that there is at least some airborne transmission in all respiratory viruses. Between this and particulate air pollution from Canadian forest fires and all the endocrine disrupting chemicals in our homes, schools, and offices – perhaps we should care more about air quality, filtering, and ventilation?
Speaking of TERFs, read Catharine MacKinnon absolutely kill it on the topic. It’s not so much that her comments are new but that she says them in such an exasperated, “how did we get to where up is down and down is up?” sort of way.
Honestly, seeing “women” as a turf to be defended, as opposed to a set of imperatives and limitations to be criticized, challenged, changed, or transcended, has been pretty startling. One might think that trans women—assigned male at birth, leaving masculinity behind, drawn to and embracing womanhood for themselves—would be welcomed. Yet a group of philosophers purporting feminism slide sloppily from “female sex” through “feminine gender” straight to “women” as if no move has been made, eventually reverting to the dictionary: a woman is an “adult human female.” Defining women by biology—adult is biological age, human is biological species, female is biological sex—used to be criticized as biological essentialism. Those winging to the Right are thrilled by this putatively feminist reduction of women to female body parts, preferably chromosomes and reproductive apparatus, qualities chosen so that whatever is considered definitive of sex is not only physical but cannot be physically changed into.
I missed this piece in Forbes by GrrlScientist when it first came out in April. She covers a recent Cochrane review that shows that cranberries really do reduce the risk of UTIs – and the important finding that the reduction of risk is variable depending on the susceptible population studied. This likely explains why the literature has seemed kind of all over the place on this. Unfortunately the quality of evidence is low enough that it’s not quite possible to tell how much cranberry juice, tablets, or whatever at-risk people should consume to reap the benefits. But it at least points us in a useful direction, with the hope that someone will design a randomized controlled trial to figure out the best dosage.
Weird period fact: voice can be impacted by hormones, but everyone’s being a weirdo about it
There are estrogen, androgen, and progesterone receptors on our vocal cords – like lots of other places on our body. As a result, there is some evidence that one’s voice can change through the menstrual cycle, during pregnancy, or after menopause.
This is interesting! And cool! And useful for people to know who give vocal performances or are in high vocal use industries! And yet the majority of the papers on the topic care, as usual, about only two things 1) whether it makes the ladies sexy and 2) whether it makes it possible to detect ovulation (which is related to point 1 because ev psych bros are forever obsessed with concealed ovulation and trying to coerce sex at the right time in someone’s cycle to get them pregnant). And as with TERFs I won’t link to the research since it’s easy to find if you really care!
Instead I’ll share with you the scant research that isn’t about ev psych bros’ reproductive strategies. First, it’s possible that this is more about perception of vocal changes, or about vocal changes that are not readily measurable. One study about ten years ago used objective, quantitative measures to perform acoustic analyses on the voices of sixteen women at all phases of the menstrual cycle. None of these measures showed any differences at any phase. However clinical and self-evaluations did show significant differences. Hard to say with so few subjects what is going on.
A slightly larger study from 2017 yielded stronger results: there were very mild cycle phase differences in pitch. During the late follicular phase participants had “higher minimum pitch” and in the luteal phase “voice intensity” was lower. The study design included testing for LH surge to confirm what phase they were in, and results were compared against oral contraceptive users. What’s interesting to me is that the stronger study design seemed to yield stronger results! (To be honest, the opposite can often be the case – initial findings in a tiny sample can be washed away once you collect more data.)
My thanks to Bethany Brookshire for asking me the question that led me down this rabbit hole.
Sources:
Çelik, Ö. et al. Voice and Speech Changes in Various Phases of Menstrual Cycle. Journal of Voice 27, 622–626 (2013).
Banai, I. P. Voice in different phases of menstrual cycle among naturally cycling women and users of hormonal contraceptives. PLOS ONE 12, e0183462 (2017).