prentissss-blog1

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My partner and I are both disabled homeless transwomen struggling to get a foothold. I drive rideshare stuff for work and can usually afford to keep us in a hotel but this week has been especially difficult. I worked myself straight Into a full emotional breakdown, with the literal breaking point being my phone breaking. I've managed to keep things somewhat together so far this week thanks to friends and family, and I'm working again but there was a banking miscalculation and now I probably won't be able to pay for tomorrow with how much I have to earn to cover the bank thing AND the room. Thank you if you can help and try to not worry if you can't. I'm trying raise about 80$ and I'll try to keep things updated as the day goes on.

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if you’re not committed to antiracism, you’re not a good doctor. 

I remember when I had pneumonia I was so sick and exhausted and in pain that I couldn’t get out of bed for *days* — I eventually pushed myself to walk across campus to the doctor’s office (it took me literally 45 minutes to walk there bc I had to walk so slow) and when I got there…the doctor made it seem I was only trying to get out of writing an exam lol. I was too embarrassed to tell her that I was going to be withdrawing from the class anyway bc I hadn’t had the energy to get to lectures at all that semester. She lectured me about how she sees students do this all the time and she can’t take a risk in trusting me when the only thing that was wrong with me was exhaustion. “We all have off days” is what she said lolol. 

I was so humiliated at her insinuation that I eventually just nodded when she said it “didn’t seem like I had any issues” and went back home. It wasn’t until I fainted walking down the hallway like 4 feet outside my apartment that I started panicking and called someone to take me to the hospital. When I got there even the receptionists looked genuinely pale to see how hard it was for me to walk and how much it hurt to breathe or talk.

It would take *6* different antibiotics for the really advanced pneumonia to finally die out, the last of which was delivered intravenously in my arm for 10 continuous days — I still have the scar where the initial IV was and I have another mark on my wrist. I *literally* couldn’t walk or lay on my back for 8-9 weeks. I would sleep sitting up with pillows on a chair and when my breath would involuntarily deepen as I started to fall asleep I would jerk awake bc of the sharp pain my lung where the pneumonia was.

That same doctor who thought I was lying about being sick would then call me like 34 times in a row when my blood test results came to her office and the hospital sent her my chest x rays lolol, obviously worried about looking bad and having called me a liar and sending me home when I had such a serious bout of pneumonia.

In the 3rd year of my premed degree I would learn that doctors in North America — and specifically white women in nursing lol — often see south Asian women as malingerers who exaggerate their pain. In a UK study there were neonatal nurses who went so far as to say that south Asian women also lack maternal instincts, care more about their pain meds than their child and “can’t handle” child birth.

Yosif al Hasnawi — an Iraqi Canadian teen — died at the hands of two paramedics who did not believe he had been shot and claimed he was “acting” when he was actually internally bleeding. They made him walk to the ambulance with a bullet in his stomach, from which he would later die after not being transported to the hospital for 38 minutes.

Just yesterday My cousin, totally healthy, just died of a brain hemorrhage and often complained about ongoing migraines that could’ve been telltale signs of hypertension that were totally ignored by her doctor for years.

and just a day before that Kim porter who was otherwise healthy just died of pneumonia while having expressed her symptoms and pain to doctors for days — I would say that I’m shocked by this but the implications faced by brown people and racism in the healthcare system is 10x worse for black women who are often seen as liars and in it for the meds as a result of historical anti blackness and systemic rejection of black patients’ pain.

doctors are literally trained to perceive racialized people as malingerers who are trying to scam for meds or medical attention instead of people in pain. It’s 100% systemic and actually integrated into medical education.

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Trump's threatened ICE raids are back on for this Sunday 7/14/19.

Protect your communities. Tell any immigrants you know to go to WeHaveRights.US for videos in their language.

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During the 1980s, more gay men died in New York City during the AIDS crisis than all recorded deaths of American soldiers in Vietnam. You need to know that.

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) confronted a CEO Thursday for pricing a drug designed to reduce the risk of HIV transmission at $8 in Australia but over $1,500 in the U.S.

“You’re the CEO of Gilead. Is it true that Gilead made $3 billion in profits from Truvada in 2018?” Ocasio-Cortez asked Gilead CEO Daniel O'Day.

“$3 billion in revenue,” he clarified.

The current list price is $2,000 a month in the United States, correct?“ she asked, referring to Truvada.

“It’s $1,780 in the United States,” O'Day responded.

“Why is it $8 in Australia?” Ocasio-Cortez countered.

“Truvada still has patent protection in the United States and in the rest of the world it is generic,” O'Day explained, adding, “It will be generically available in the United States as of September 2020.”

“I think it’s important here that we notice that we the public, we the people, developed this drug. We paid for this drug, we lead and developed all the patents to create Prep and then that patent has been privatized despite the fact that the patent is owned by the public, who refused to enforce it,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

“There’s no reason this should be $2,000 a month. People are dying because of it and there’s no enforceable reason for it.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/444091-ocasio-cortez-confronts-ceo-for-nearly-2k-price-tag-on-drug-that-costs-8-in

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I'll never forget my first pride.

I can't remember my actual age, but it was in the range of 10 to 13 I think. my parents had dragged me to a Pride festival, and walked across the street from the main event, across where the lines were drawn, to where a sea of people in red shirts that read "god has a better way" tried to drown out the celebration with speakers blasting christian music, and shouting and loud praying.

the leaders pulled all us kids to the side and gave us the spiel. they told us how the rainbow had been stolen from us, and that these people were tricked by the devil and just needed prayer, but that if we didn't save them, they were going to hell.

I rolled my eyes because I already didn't believe in god, and although I barely knew what being gay was, I knew my parents were usually on the Wrong side of things, and I shouldn't be siding with them.

"We aren't allowed over there if we're wearing the red shirts," the leaders told us, "so we're sending people over in secret without them so you can pass out tracts and pray for people. they won't talk to us, but they'll talk to the kids. does anyone want to volunteer?"

the people in red shirts disgusted me. the people on the other side of the line were cheering and having fun. I raised my hand.

we were supposed to go in groups with young adults, to make sure we were doing what we were supposed to be. I wandered off the minute I could and stood nervously at the edge of a crowd, watching on as people went by, happy and unbothered by the protests across the street. I felt a little pride myself in tricking the protestors into giving up a witness spot to me, when I was going to smile on and think profanities at god instead.

there was an older woman standing outside the crowd too. she asked if I was here with anyone, a girlfriend maybe? I said no, my parents were across the street. she nodded, and said she was here with her kid. a daughter, that she came to support, but couldn't keep up with in the crowd.

I almost cried. I told her how amazing that was, because I couldn't imagine my mother showing support like that to me over anything, much less something as serious as Being Gay. I imagined if I was gay, and at a pride event just like now, but this time because I Belong.

I knew automatically that my mother, without a doubt, would still be in the same place, across the street.

I got hungry after a bit, and tried to find a good food truck. I had a little money and I was unused to being on my own like this, but I didn't want to go back to the Other Side. I knew now without a shadow of a doubt, this was the Good side and that was the Bad side.

as I was eating the gyro I got, there was a stream of red shirted protestors trickling through; I had reached the end of the boundaries, and the protestors were allowed in here. I backed up a little, spotting my dad among them. I didn't want him to tell me to go back.

there was a line of women closing ranks around the Pride attendees, separating them from the protesters as they walked through. they spread their arms out and told every person the protesters spoke to that they were not obligated to respond, they could walk away and not engage.

my dad spotted me back, and made a beeline over. he couldn't cross over because a butch lesbian stood between us. I didn't know what those words meant, but I never forgot the buttons she was wearing.

he tried to tell me that it was time to go. "you're not obligated to speak to him," the butch said, cutting him off and edging further between us. I smiled at her, a little in wonderment. no one had ever told me that I didn't have to speak to my parents, or do anything other than blindly obey them. I watched my dad get held behind a line by a woman half his height, with no intention on letting him get to me, and I smiled and walked away.

I didn't have a clue who I was then, and I wouldn't for a good few years to come. but I never forgot the supportive mother, who symbolized to me everything a mother should be, that mine, for all her religious self righteousness, would never hold a candle to. I never forgot that she was the person I wanted to be, and my mother was the person I did not want to be.

I never forgot the butch who stood between me and my dad, and for the first time ever, put the idea in my head that I was ALLOWED to make my own choices in my beliefs, and made me feel protected in a way I hadn't known I needed.

the image of her standing between me and my dad, being a physical barrier to protect me against any potential threat, that inspired the image of who I admired and wanted to become. it inspired the version of me who could stand up to my dad - to the point that I could hold my ground and educate him enough that over a decade later, he walked side by side with me at a pride festival, with no intent of witnessing to or condemning anybody.

pride month may be over, but the impact this month and these events can have is so damn important. I became who I am because of two people I met at a pride festival. I'll never forget.

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Sebastian + reactions to being complimented pt.1 (pt.2/pt.3)

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Friendly reminder that…

you’re allowed to disagree with psychiatric professionals

you’re allowed to say no to psychiatric professionals

you’re allowed to correct psychiatric professionals when they get something about your experiences wrong

you’re allowed to say “this treatment/medication isn’t working for me, I want to try something else” to psychiatric professionals

you’re allowed to say “this treatment/med is making me feel worse, I want to stop now” to psychiatric professionals

you’re allowed to say “I don’t want to try that treatment/med” to psychiatric professionals

you’re allowed to say “no, you’re misunderstanding me” to psychiatric professionals

you’re allowed to say “no, you’re wrong” to psychiatric professionals

you’re allowed to say “that makes me uncomfortable, don’t do/say that” to psychiatric professionals

You should always have the last word according your own treatment - and any professional who makes you feel like doing any of the things listed above is unacceptable or inherently wrong should be fired.

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And this is how religious people should react when someone comes out to them

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villanelle // 2.06

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You don’t owe anyone long hair

You don’t owe anyone shaved legs

You don’t owe anyone a makeup-ed face

You don’t owe anyone docility

You don’t owe anyone “a chance”

You don’t owe anyone femininity

You’re allowed to exist in your natural state. You’re a person—a real, whole, person. Don’t forget that. Don’t ever let anyone try and make you forget that.

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Hey guys. I feel horrible for asking you guys this, but my family and I are in a real tight spot right now after this hurricane. So I set up a Venmo, you of course don’t have to give anything at all. You guys keeping me in your prayers is enough. If you feel like you can, of course I’d be grateful if you donated. But anyways, here’s the link.

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“You tried to kill me!”  

“But did you die?!?”

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Killing Eve 2018