* Personal scent is intimately linked to identity. The body products, fragrances, laundry products, etc. that people choose create a collective effect even if someone does not also use a signature scent or varying mood-selected scents to create a specific effect. - Denying this can cause or increase dysphoria, the feeling of not being at home in one's body. This discomfort can impair their interactions with others. - This is much worse for people with sex/gender differences who may need to use products to accomplish things their body does not furnish naturally. In those cases it amounts to denying them a necessary means of rectifying a health condition. - Less obviously, if someone fails to pass and a bigot clocks them, they might get beaten to death. That happens frequently to gender-variant people. Cosmetics, including fragrances, that are "nice to have" for cisgender people can be survival needs for transfolk.
* Almost all cleaning products smell. The stronger industrial ones reek. This is more than enough to affect most people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, and often it's enough to affect people with asthma, allergies, or other issues. - It is possible to find unscented cleaning products for some but not all purposes. They tend to be weaker than stinky harsh chemicals. They are often more expensive and not always available. - It is possible to make many cleaning products from less smelly, less dangerous ingredients. However, this requires extra time and skill, which not everyone has. - It is against regulations, or in some cases laws, to use weaker cleaning agents or avoid using them where stronger ones are required. - It would be helpful to make unscented, natural cleaning products more widely available and affordable but this is not very compatible with current business practices or some regulations.
So that one, simple-looking rule can create a whole host of negative outcomes only some of which quickly become clear as related to it (e.g. "I'm sorry, but I have to quit, my arthritis medication stinks and I can't move without it.").
The sensible version is "Don't douse yourself with perfume like a French whore." That's enough to avoid activating most health problems. The people with MCS or severe asthma? They're fucked anyway and there is no way to get around it, because people have saturated literally every inch of the planet's surface with numerous chemicals of questionable safety, and that is why we are having more problems with respiratory and other issues.
Now, if you have an office that treats those conditions, or a business run by people who are all sensitive, then you can try to make it as safe as possible for those people by minimizing less-necessary fragrances. But how are you going to deal with the laws that require health facilities to be cleaned with extremely harsh chemicals? What if a worker acquires a condition that needs smelly medication?
And how do you deal with public places like courthouses where people must go, but their needs are incompatible? The blind person needs their service dog but the asthmatic cannot breathe around a dog; the legally required cleaning chemicals cause the MCS sufferer to break out in hives and need an ambulance. Not necessarily all conditions can be accommodated in public places, and sadly, MCS is one that basically shuts people out of society. I would say, let people conduct their business from an environment that is safe and healthy for them, but that accommodation society is unwilling to make. (I would also say that saturating the Earth with chemicals was a poor life choice on humanity's part.) Another approach would be making scent-free trailer modules available for critical facilities such as courthouses or medical offices, but that would be expensive, and you'd need to provide a scent-free shower facility for employees to use before entering it. Nobody would go for that either. This makes me disbelieve the claims about inclusivity and respect, and suspect that people just go after what they see as desirable per usual.
The thing is, people are different and they have different needs. Whenever you force everyone to do the same thing, it will work well for some people, adequately for others, and badly or not at all for some. The questions you have to ask are: Who decides what will be done? Who is affected, and do those people have a say in the decisions made? Whose needs are accommodated and whose are erased? Who gets shut out or harmed? Is that number smaller, the same, or larger compared to those who were shut out or harmed by the previous situation? Is there a way to accommodate different needs, by using diverse methods or locations, rather than trying to force everyone into the same approach?
One size does not fit all, and pretending that it does can have nasty consequences. It is frequently impossible to find one solution that works for everyone, but it is usually possible to find a set of options from which most or all people can select one that works for them. The greatest flexibility occurs when people are free to solve their own problems, not restricted to solutions foisted on them by others; although it is very helpful to have a list of solutions known to work for some people, so that folks can try those instead of having to start from scratch.
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dancing_serpent
Re: Well ...
Date: 2021-10-03 04:48 am (UTC)- Denying this can cause or increase dysphoria, the feeling of not being at home in one's body. This discomfort can impair their interactions with others.
- This is much worse for people with sex/gender differences who may need to use products to accomplish things their body does not furnish naturally. In those cases it amounts to denying them a necessary means of rectifying a health condition.
- Less obviously, if someone fails to pass and a bigot clocks them, they might get beaten to death. That happens frequently to gender-variant people. Cosmetics, including fragrances, that are "nice to have" for cisgender people can be survival needs for transfolk.
* Almost all cleaning products smell. The stronger industrial ones reek. This is more than enough to affect most people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, and often it's enough to affect people with asthma, allergies, or other issues.
- It is possible to find unscented cleaning products for some but not all purposes. They tend to be weaker than stinky harsh chemicals. They are often more expensive and not always available.
- It is possible to make many cleaning products from less smelly, less dangerous ingredients. However, this requires extra time and skill, which not everyone has.
- It is against regulations, or in some cases laws, to use weaker cleaning agents or avoid using them where stronger ones are required.
- It would be helpful to make unscented, natural cleaning products more widely available and affordable but this is not very compatible with current business practices or some regulations.
So that one, simple-looking rule can create a whole host of negative outcomes only some of which quickly become clear as related to it (e.g. "I'm sorry, but I have to quit, my arthritis medication stinks and I can't move without it.").
The sensible version is "Don't douse yourself with perfume like a French whore." That's enough to avoid activating most health problems. The people with MCS or severe asthma? They're fucked anyway and there is no way to get around it, because people have saturated literally every inch of the planet's surface with numerous chemicals of questionable safety, and that is why we are having more problems with respiratory and other issues.
Now, if you have an office that treats those conditions, or a business run by people who are all sensitive, then you can try to make it as safe as possible for those people by minimizing less-necessary fragrances. But how are you going to deal with the laws that require health facilities to be cleaned with extremely harsh chemicals? What if a worker acquires a condition that needs smelly medication?
And how do you deal with public places like courthouses where people must go, but their needs are incompatible? The blind person needs their service dog but the asthmatic cannot breathe around a dog; the legally required cleaning chemicals cause the MCS sufferer to break out in hives and need an ambulance. Not necessarily all conditions can be accommodated in public places, and sadly, MCS is one that basically shuts people out of society. I would say, let people conduct their business from an environment that is safe and healthy for them, but that accommodation society is unwilling to make. (I would also say that saturating the Earth with chemicals was a poor life choice on humanity's part.) Another approach would be making scent-free trailer modules available for critical facilities such as courthouses or medical offices, but that would be expensive, and you'd need to provide a scent-free shower facility for employees to use before entering it. Nobody would go for that either. This makes me disbelieve the claims about inclusivity and respect, and suspect that people just go after what they see as desirable per usual.
The thing is, people are different and they have different needs. Whenever you force everyone to do the same thing, it will work well for some people, adequately for others, and badly or not at all for some. The questions you have to ask are: Who decides what will be done? Who is affected, and do those people have a say in the decisions made? Whose needs are accommodated and whose are erased? Who gets shut out or harmed? Is that number smaller, the same, or larger compared to those who were shut out or harmed by the previous situation? Is there a way to accommodate different needs, by using diverse methods or locations, rather than trying to force everyone into the same approach?
One size does not fit all, and pretending that it does can have nasty consequences. It is frequently impossible to find one solution that works for everyone, but it is usually possible to find a set of options from which most or all people can select one that works for them. The greatest flexibility occurs when people are free to solve their own problems, not restricted to solutions foisted on them by others; although it is very helpful to have a list of solutions known to work for some people, so that folks can try those instead of having to start from scratch.