#Site Transition Services

[brandngraves]

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[lakemojave]

Happy Pride Month everyone! Remember 4 months ago when the CEO of this platform harassed and chased a trans woman off this website just for posting her transition timeline, then chased her to other social media platforms to continue harassing her, and threatened to call the FBI if she continued disputing the multiple dubious terminations of her blogs that did not violate tumblr's terms of service in any way? And despite tumblr staff insisting that the CEO was acting against their interests, the broad transmisogyny evident in the site's culture and moderation policy has still not been adequately addressed?

[cmondary]

LINITO : Une meilleure interface pour Google Analytics

📌 LINITO est une solution qui simplifie l'utilisation de Google Analytics grâce à une interface claire et facile à comprendre, offrant ainsi une vue d'ensemble de vos données, sans sacrifier les avantages de Google Analytics.

https://www.linito.io 📌 LINITO est une solution qui simplifie l’utilisation de Google Analytics grâce à une interface claire et facile à comprendre, offrant ainsi une vue d’ensemble de vos données, sans sacrifier les avantages de Google Analytics. En une seule page, vous pouvez visualiser le trafic de votre site web et appliquer des filtres et des comparaisons approfondies. 🔗 Intégration…

[photomatt]

You gonna do anything or make any statement about the rampant transmisogyny on this hellsite, especially in cases like predstrogen recently? Or yall gonna stay silent and keep letting/making us get pushed off of it.

I have a number of asks about this, so this is to address all of them, I won't do each individually.

We generally do not comment on individual cases, but because there seems to be mass misinformation around this, I will make an exception and comment on predstrogen.

First, Tumblr has a number of LGBT+ including trans people on staff, and they see things from the inside fully, and they're not protesting this case.

Why do we wrongly have a transphobe reputation? We did have an external contract moderator last year that was making transphobic moderation (and also selling moderation, criminally). As soon as we were aware that person was fired, and we later terminated the entire relationship with that contracting firm and have brought almost everything in-house (at great cost). I have previously commented on this publicly, several times.

I am not aware of any Automattician (people who work at Automattic and Tumblr) who has made any transphobic moderation actions. If it's reported it is investigated immediately, if anything were found that person would be terminated for cause immediately.

Predstrogen's account was suspended for:

Repeated mis-tagging of adult content against Tumblr's community guidelines. This has nothing to do with clothed transition photos, she had 20+ other blogs and multiple accounts with names so explicit I can't post them here without a mature tag.

Multiple cases of harassment of other Tumblr users, not just me.

Multiple threats of violence, not just the one I share below.

These represent a breach of our Terms of Service, and we've exercised our right to refuse service.

Threats of violence are never okay. Threats of violence are not protected speech. We will work with police and FBI where appropriate, though to be clear prestrogen's case hasn't warranted that so far. I'm referring to what we may potentially do for other threats. I just got a death threat yesterday from someone mad about predstrogen, and that account was immediately terminated.

So regardless of whether you still think Tumblr staff is somehow a bunch of transphobes, know that threats of violence or death are still not acceptable and will result in immediate and serious action. Know that when you rile people up, they can do dumb things with possibly permanent consequences.

(2 hours later update: I have changed instances of the pronoun "they" or "their" to "the account" because I am unaware of pronoun preference in this instance and don't want to misgender anyone. Thank you for the people who reported this as an issue. Update 2: "She" is apparently better, the post now says that. Sorry for the mistake.)

Here's one (of many!) examples of the harassment violations, this one targets me but there are others targeting other users on the site.

The second part seems to indicate she wanted to be suspended, I'm unaware of why, perhaps to create this sort of uproar. I agree the hammers feel silly, but the start, "i hope photomatt dies forever a painful death" is a violation of Tumblr's community guidelines and terms of service.

The car part did hit close to home as I have almost died twice in car accidents.

Update 2: Added this text to the adult content part: This has nothing to do with clothed transition photos, she had 20+ other blogs and multiple accounts with names so explicit I can't post them here without a mature tag.

[libraford]

Here's what's going on in Ohio right now. Heavy stuff ahead.

First, I want to apologize for the misinformation in my original post. I am still learning about legislative processes. To correct: the changes to ODH and OMHAS in regards to gender therapy are not a bill, they are changes in regulations.

This is important because citizens CAN affect rule changes. There is an open commentary period where your submissions get counted and can affect how they write new regulations.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, legal advocate, or medical professional. I'm just a dude who had to have it all explained to me.

The first one is Ohio Mental Health and Addiction Services. The rules proposed would make the already prohibitive process of gender transition even harder. In order to diagnose and treat gender dysphoria, a hospital needs to have a board certified psychologist per patient, a board certified endocrinologist familiar with the age group being diagnosed per patient, and a medical ethicist overseeing the hospital's plan for transition. 'Board certified' does not guarantee that the specialist is trans-friendly. It must include a detransition plan. Hospitals would have to report compliance annually. The professionals must have a contractual relationship with the patient, but do not need to offer in-person care. (In this instance, I'll get to that in the next rule change.)

This rule also deems it impermissible to prescribe gender transition care (this includes hormones, puberty blockers, or drugs) for anyone under the age of 21 without the approval of the professionals mentioned and 6 months of therapy.

There is an exception for intersex people, who may have their sex assigned to them without their consent.

The open comment period for this ends January 19 at 5pm.

Send an email to MH-SOT-rules@mha.ohio.gov with the subject title: "Comments on Gender Transition Care Rules."

The second one is Ohio Department of Health and it repeats a lot of the same as the first one. However, the focus is more on the regulation of doctors and paperwork. Anyone seeking transition will be put into a registry with their name redacted, but demographics like age, agab, specific diagnosis (difficult to achieve with the new regulations mentioned above), and any medications (not just related to gender transition, but any medications at all). Any cessation of care must be reported within 30 days.

This is a lot of paperwork and can overburden hospitals.

That 30 days cessation is important because if a person transfers doctors or if a clinic closes and the paperwork isn't filed, it may count as a 'detransition' when tallying demographics, even if that is not the case.

But what's curious is that the ODH regulations DO require in-person care. The rules are contradictory and vague.

The comment period for this ends Feb 5th.

Send a comment through the ODH website

Here are some important things that were mentioned at the meeting:

This is a good time to be personal with your statements. If this would disrupt your life in any way, please say so. "I fear that" "I believe this" "I worry that"- these are great ways to start your comment. An example one person gave is "I worry that this change in regulations would force me and my daughter to move out of state.'

With that being said, anything that you send to these sites will be public record, so be cautious about what you reveal about yourself in your comment.

If you are in need of help, please reach out to one of these resources:

Trans Ohio Emergency Fund Resource Page

Kaleidoscope Youth Center

If you are in need of legal advice on how to navigate all this, please call

888-LGBT-LAW

This is not everything. There is unfortunately more because Ohio decided to break a record this month with anti-trans motions. But today I'm focusing on things that we can take action on.

[so-i-did-this-thing]

FLORIDA TRANS PALS, IT IS TIME TO PLAN

Especially if you are on HRT!

HB1421 is a bill that severely affects access to gender affirming care, including for adults. It outlines goals to:

1) Prohibit changing gender markers on birth certificates

2) Require that gender affirming care only come from physicians (not nurse practioners) who take on liability insurance for 30 YEARS after they provide care to a patient

3) Require informed consent forms at every single appointment, including distributing literature to dissuade patients

4) Ban transition care completely for minors

5) Make it so providers who accept state funds cannot provide gender affirming services (this is the big one that stands to affect anyone who takes medicare/aid, is a university, etc.).

6) Make it so providers who accept state funds cannot reimburse for gender affirming services.

We are facing a return to the Harry Benjamin days, or worse, an effective ban unless you are fortunate/wealthy enough to find a willing provider.

If it passes, this bill would take effect July 1, 2023. That is not a lot of time.

I would not count on any Rx or refill request to be honored after this date if the prescribing and dispensing sources no longer are allowed to grant care or decide to drop care because of the penalties.

July 1, 2023. Unless we hear otherwise, that is your clock.

This sucks, but there is comfort in seeing a clear date to plan around and the worst case is no longer completely unknown. It begins July 1.

--------------------------------------------

YOUR HOMEWORK, DUE ASAP:

--------------------------------------------

1) Get any and all your HRT appointments in now, including picking up your meds and doing bloodwork promptly.

2) If you think you will be living in FL come July, start looking now for providers where physicians - not NPs - provide the care. Get an appointment on the books for July. Be prepared to go in person for everything after July 1, because I believe telemed will also be shit-canned. Here is a map of informed consent providers.

3) If you are an old like me, also dig up your HRT permission slip from your therapist. Fuck, make a packet of all your transition documents, including Rx history.

4) If you are on private insurance, start budgeting now to prepare to pay out of pocket.

5) Create a simple spreadsheet of all your HRT dates (pls forgive, my experience is with shots on a 2 week cycle, so this is pretty easy for me to do) and plan out how long your current supply will last. Then, forecast how long all your upcoming refills before July 1 will last. Update it every time you pick up and take your meds. Refer to it for decisions like moving or finding backup providers.

6) Subscribe to the bill to get notified of changes asap

7) Follow this site to keep tabs on other very scary bills happening in Florida, including a bathroom ban and a child custody bill that is effectively kidnapping

8) If you need to change your birth certificate, do it now, pay the rush fees and write RUSH on the envelope. The Department of Health has the most up-to-date forms. Processing time for rush I last saw was around 18 business days.

9) Now that your own oxygen mask is on, so they say, boost mutual aid and recruit allies to assist in any way possible.

-----

Do try to continue seeing your current provider as long as possible, as they likely will need your support. Talk to them frankly about their plans if the bill passes.

Now. I am just a little guy and not a legal expert, but the aggressive enactment date on this bill makes me feel like everyone should plan now instead of waiting to see if it passes.

Be safe, plan, and then get a little rest. Do not lose hope - this bill could still fail.

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #17

May 3-10 2024

Vice President Harris announced 5.5 billion dollars to build affordable housing and address homelessness. The grants will go to 1,200 communities across all 50 states, DC and Puerto Rico. 1.3 billion will go to HUD's HOME program which builds, buys, and rehabs affordable housing for rent or ownership. 3.3 billion is headed to Community Development Block Grants which supports housing as well as homeless services, and expanding economic opportunities. Remaining funds focus on building housing for extremely low- and very low-income households, Housing for people struggling with HIV/AIDS, transitional housing for those with substance-use disorder, and money to support homeless shelters and homeless prevention programs.

At the 3rd meeting of the Los Angeles Declaration group in Guatemala Security of State Blinken announced $578 million in new US aid to Latin America. The Los Angeles Declaration is a partnership between the US and 20 other nations in the Americas to address immigration, combat human trafficking, and support economic development and improved quality of life for people in poor nations in the Americas. The bulk of the aid, over $400 million will go to humanitarian assistance to the Venezuelan people. Inside of Venezuela over 7 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance due to decades of political and economic instability. Over 7 million more have been forced to flee the country and live in poverty across the Americas. The aid will help Venezuelans both inside and outside of Venezuela.

The Department of Energy lead an effort to get the G7 to agree to phase out coal by the early 2030s. The G7 is a collection of the 7 largest Industrial economies on Earth, the US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy. To avoid catastrophic climate change the International Energy Agency believes coal needs to be phased out by 2035. However this has been a sticking point with the G7 since 1/3rd of Japan and 1/4th of Germany's energy comes from Coal. This agreement to phase out represents a major breakthrough and the US plans to press for even wider agreement on the issue at the G20 meeting in November.

President Biden announced a major investment deal in Racine, Wisconsin, site of the failed Trump Foxconn deal. In 2018 then President Trump visited Racine and declared the planned Foxconn plant "the eighth wonder of the world.". However the promised 13,000 jobs never materialized and the Taiwan based Foxconn after bulldozing 100s of homes and farms decided not to build. President Biden inked a deal with Microsoft for the land formally given to Foxconn which will bring 2,000 new jobs to Racine to help replace the 1,000 job losses during Trump's Presidency in the community.

200 tribal governments and the US territories of American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, published climate action plans. The plans were paid for by the Biden Administration as part of a 5 billion dollar Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program. The federal government is supporting all 50 states, territories, DC, and tribal governments to draft climate action plans, which will be used to apply for more than 4 billion dollars in grants to help turn plans into reality

As part of marking Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), the Biden Administration announced a number of action aimed at combating antisemitism and supporting the Jewish Community. This included $400 million in new funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program. The Program has supported Synagogues and Jewish Community Centers with security improvements like bullet proof windows and trainings for staff in how to handle active shooter and hostage situations. The Department of Education issued guidance to all schools districts and federally funded colleges stressing that antisemitism is banned under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These actions come as part of the Biden Administration's National Strategy To Counter Antisemitism, the first ever national strategy addressing the issue by any Administration.

USAID announced $220 million in additional humanitarian aid to Yemen. This new funding will bring US aid to Yemen over the last 10 years to nearly $6 billion. Currently 18 million Yemenis are estimated as needing humanitarian assistance, 9 million of them children, and the UN believes nearly 14 million face imminent risk of famine. The US remains the single largest donor nation to humanitarian relief in Yemen.

The Department of Interior announced nearly $150 million to help communities fight drought. The funds will support 42 projects across 10 western states. This is part of the President's $8.3 billion dollar investment in the nations water infrastructure over the next 5 five years.

[loppsided]

e. mikaelson as your boyfriend

summary: headcanons for dating elijah mikaelson.

pairing: elijah mikaelson x reader

wc: 389

warnings: kissing, mentions of blood

a/n: another boyfriend headcanons! ik they get repetitive but there just a base to fill up my masterlist and practice writing! requests are still open so send something if you want! likes and reblogs appreciated.

very protective, always having to know where you are incase of danger

the possibility of being taken or hurt since the mikaelsons always have a target on there head

very noble obviously, doesn't make promises often but when he does he ALWAYS sticks by them

prefers to kiss you on the forehead and top of the head rather than cheek

love language is 100% acts of service or gift giving

a bouquet every week is a given when dating him

see's you taking care of hope sometimes and is filled with love and sadness since he wishes he could have kids with you

speaking of kids, i think he would adopt children with you, especially if you've been together for a while

would take you to where he used to play as a kid in mystic falls

probably keeps your existence a secret from his siblings since they can be dangerous

if your also an original and have known him since you were humans, hes so obsessed with you its crazy

being together for over 1000 years will do that to people

him holding you while you were going through your transition, shaken, seeing you all covered in blood from being stabbed by mikael

when you were humans he would always ask you to come with him to the watering hole and just talk to you for hours

after getting married he built you and his shared house, decorating it how you liked

him teaching you how to use a sword, sword fights leading to make out sessions

comforting him when his brother passed away

back to now

somehow always knows how your feeling? like hes just really good at reading you and your emotions

if your a younger vampire, he always teases you about how hes stronger than you

assisting him with dealing with the mystic falls gang and his family

still being starstruck seeing you in dresses for the millionth time, like at the mikaelson ball

traveling all across the world in your free time, seeing the most beautiful sites

always hears you out in arguments, taking your feelings and opinions into account

him being extremely loyal to you, not even imaging himself with someone else even after all these years

if he really loves you, he'll blood share with you

the sweetest, kindest most thoughtful boyfriend

[browserfreak]

I'd just like to say this is NOT about the President threatening to enact KOSA and delete TikTok. Stop celebrating that. Sure, taking down TikTok may be a "good thing" in your eyes, but as much as we hate it there are friends, communities, creators, on there. Them suddenly losing all their contacts and viewers with NO NOTICE would be very fucking evil. Plus, if they banned TikTok (which is mostly for it's amount of pro-left / queer content, by the way) then that's a gateway for them to ban other sites; tumblr, facebook, instagram, youtube... et cetera. Which would be HORRIBLE. Even if THAT doesn't sound bad, that means that no-one can create other social media sites because they would monitor the entire internet. Do you fucking want that. Do you want every fucking shred of content to be policed and controlled, every sentence, every profile, every word. No, you DON'T. You want free expression. So don't follow the cruelty of the morally immature, and you won't add to the problem.

TikTok isn't bad because it's "cringe" (which usually refers to minorities anyway), it's bad because it's a content-stealing, mind-wrecking, echo chamber that is usually filled to the brim with such pretentious pricks and content farms that when something becomes even slightly mainstream on there, no matter how intrinsically pure, it gets torn limb from limb. It's similar to watching one of those simulation videos where the organisms start fighting each other despite abundant resources due to their short-sighted, tunnel vision mind. Any horrible, discriminative, malicious content you can imagine is increased tenfold on that site. Not to mention the fact that it lowers people's attention spans with addictive short-form content, whittling down their brains until they can't research things for themselves. The nerd emoji, the yapping, the negligence of any sort of solid logic or fact. It's real. It's horrifying. It's a internet-ruining machine, along with the likes of AI and Meta. It's a mind-ruining machine. There have been so, so many counts of people's tarnished mental health improving after leaving that dumpster fire of a "social" "media". There's nothing fucking "social" about it, and there certainly isn't any content on there that I'd give the honourable name of "media".

Delete TikTok. Fucking do it.

[otherkinnews]

Republicans introduce a 7th anti-furry bill and work to undermine student freedoms on a wider scale

(This blog post was written by Orion Scribner and N. Noel Sol, originally posted on February 18, 2024 to the Otherkin News Dreamwidth, at this link.)

Content warnings: Rated G. An urban legend that describes an unsanitary situation. Sexism against transgender people, including attempts to prevent them from participating in sports and using facilities like everyone else, and attempts to stop them from transitioning.

Summary: In 2023, Republicans began to propose laws (bills) in the US that would be against people who identify as animals. They base these on an urban legend that says schools provide litter boxes for students who identify as animals. Republicans made up that legend in parody of transgender students asking to use school restrooms (Scribner and Sol, 2024). The newest of these bills is Missouri House Bill 3678 (MO HB 2678). It’s the third such bill in 2024, bringing the historic total of these bills up to seven. This bill was written as part of a Republican effort to undermine public schools (which can’t ban transgender students from using the right restrooms, and students have First Amendment rights) in favor of religious charter schools (where students aren’t protected in those ways). The following blog post is a seven minute read.

What the Missouri bill says

Missouri House Bill 3678 (MO HB 2678) has the title “Prohibits students from engaging in ‘furry’ behavior while at school.” You can read this bill and see the latest actions on its official site, the Missouri House of Representatives, or on a third-party legislation tracking site, LegiScan. This bill was introduced this week, on February 13th, and read a second time on the 14th. It would add a law into the Revised Statutes of Missouri (RSMo). It would go in the part of the state laws about education, in Chapter 167, titled “Pupils and Special Services.” It would say:

“A student who purports to be an imaginary animal or animal species or who engages in anthropomorphic behavior consistent with the common designation of a ‘furry’ while at school shall not be allowed to participate in school curriculum or activities. The parent or guardian of a student in violation of this section shall remove the student from the school for the remainder of the school day.”

The same as the other bills like it, this bill is based on an urban legend, not on anything that was done in real life by students, furries, and/or people who identify as animals (McKinney, 2022a). This bill's wording looks like it was based on a bill from another state, Oklahoma House Bill 3084 (OK HB 3084), or its predecessor last year, Oklahoma Senate Bill 943 (OK SB 943). It shares their inaccuracies: though there are real people who identify as animals, surveys show that most furries don’t, and the dictionary definition of the word “anthropomorphic” means resembling a human, not resembling an animal (Scribner and Sol, 2024).

Who wrote the bill, and what is its context with that author’s other motivations?

The Missouri bill’s only sponsor (writer) is Cheri Toalson Reisch (she/her). She is a Missouri Republican who has supported anti-transgender bills in the past. One of those is MO SB 39, which would ban transgender students from participating in their gender’s sports division (both in private and public schools, up to and including in colleges and universities). Another one is MO SB 49. It would bar minors from accessing gender transition related surgeries or medications, removes adult coverage of hormone replacement therapy and any gender-affirming or transitioning surgeries from the Missouri Medicaid program, and denies prisoners and inmates access to any surgeries related to gender transitioning. She described both these bills as a “great move in the right direction,” and has been vocally critical that they were not harsher (Central MO Info, 2023).

Reisch is familiar with the urban legend started by conservatives of students using litter boxes in school bathrooms. She has posted about it on Facebook, telling her constituents that it is actively happening in Missouri and accusing the Columbia school district of taking part in it, stating “This is happening in Columbia Public Schools also. Yes, the janitor has to clean the litter box” (McKinney, 2022a). That's never happened. Schools say they have not been providing litter boxes to students in this way, and even deny that they have had any students identifying or behaving as animals, according to reliable fact checking resources (Reuters, 2022; Palma, Snopes, 2023).

Reisch has a history of being especially critical of the Columbia school district, which is one of the largest and most successful school districts in the state (McKinney, 2022b). She’s used this urban legend to attack the district’s legitimacy. This may be because Reisch prioritizes independently-run charter schools over standard public schools. Earlier this year, she sponsored MO HB 1941, which would allow for charter schools to operate within the Columbia school district without the district’s sponsorship.

Why are Republicans criticizing public schools and favoring charter schools?

In the US, the normal types of schools for children up to about age 18 are called public schools. Families don’t have to pay for their children to attend them. They represent the ideal that everyone growing up in the country should have equal access to school, regardless of income, class, race, religion, or ability. Because public schools are government establishments, the US Constitution protects the students’ rights there. The First Amendment of the Constitution protects the freedom of speech and religion of everyone, and that’s for students in public schools, too. In the landmark 1969 case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, students sued because they had gotten suspended for wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court decided that it would be as tyrannical to prevent students from expressing political opinions within public schools as it would be in any other government establishments. The Court said students don’t “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” In 1948, McCollum v. Board of Education had decided that public schools can’t give religious instruction during the school day. In 1962, Engel v. Vitale decided they can’t make students pray (Pew Research Center, 2019). Public school dress codes often aren’t as fair as they should be, but for the most part, their students can wear what they want and what their parents allow.

In contrast, what are known as charter schools in the US are privately owned, so they’re allowed to have requirements or education goals which would be considered a violation of the First Amendment. Some of them have religious affiliations and may be owned or operated by religious organizations. This can affect the way the school is run. For example, Oklahoma charter St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School has planned Catholic religious instruction classes, and the school’s active and intentional participation in what it refers to as “the evangelizing mission of the Church” (Fitzpatrick, 2023). Charter school dress codes can be much more strict. They are often segregated by gender stereotypes, forcing girls to wear skirts and boys trousers, no exceptions. This has been challenged in some places against specific schools, such as in North Carolina earlier this year in a lawsuit against the Charter Day School Inc (Chung, 2023). These challenges are the outlier and not the norm, however; gender-segregated dress codes are still a very common practice for charter schools overall. Charter schools also require applications and choose students based on random lottery systems. However, studies find that charter schools are more likely to ignore parents inquiring about the enrollment process if the student has a disability or other special needs (Darville, 2018). Unlike public schools, they don’t welcome everyone.

The freedom of expression in public schools is important for transgender students. In 2020, the case ​​G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board decided in favor of transgender-friendly restroom policies in high schools. This precedent helps protect transgender students’ rights in public schools, but doesn’t apply to charter schools. During the course of the case, the Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund told the Court why to decide against transgender rights. In an effort to invalidate transgender people, the Fund compared transgender people to otherkin. The Fund used the word “otherkin,” and described them at length, mostly accurately but derisively (Brief Amicus Curiae, 2017, G.G. v. Gloucester Cty Sch Bd). This case was part of what inspired the Republicans to later make up the litter box urban legend. We don’t know if that particular brief inspired the legend too.

Republicans may be promoting charter schools because this would give them greater control over impressing their views about gender, religion, and politics on young generations. They may be undermining public schools because the separation of church and state limits their power to do so there. The urban legend and these bills are part of that.

Background about all of the furry bills and the urban legend that inspired them

To learn about this year’s first two anti-furry bills, read our post about them from last week (Scribner and Sol, 2024). That post also summarizes the four anti-furry bills last year, and the litter box urban legend. For further information about those aspects, you can watch our lecture about last year’s bills and what you do about bad bills (Chimeras, Scribner, and Shepard, 2023), and watch Chimeras’s lecture about the litter box urban legend (Chimeras, 2022).

What happens next with Reisch’s anti-furry bill?

The bill is at 25% progression toward becoming a law. The House heard the bill twice, but it hasn’t been voted on. At the time that we write this blog post, they haven’t scheduled the bill’s next hearing.

About the writers of this blog post

We are Orion Scribner (they/them) and N. Noel Sol (she/they), a couple of dragons. We never write articles with the assistance of procedural generation or so-called artificial intelligence (AI), and that type of content isn’t allowed on Otherkin News.

References

“Brief Amicus Curiae of Public Advocate of the United States, U.S. Justice Foundation, and Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund in Support of Petitioner.” Gloucester County School Bd. v. G. G. ex rel. Grimm, No. 16-273, 2017 WL 192454 (Jan. 10, 2017). http://files.eqcf.org/cases/16-273-amicus-brief-public-advocate-et-al/

Central MO Info (May 19, 2023). “Representative Toalson Reisch Disappointed in Senate’s Version of Trans Bills.” Central MO Info. https://www.centralmoinfo.com/representative-toalson-reisch-disappointed-in-senates-version-of-trans-bills/

Chung, Andrew (June 26, 2024). “US Supreme Court turns away case on charter school's mandatory skirts for girls.” Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-turns-away-case-charter-schools-mandatory-skirts-girls-2023-06-26

Darville, Sarah (Dec. 21, 2018). “Want a charter school application? If your child has a disability, your questions more likely to be ignored, study finds.” Chalkbeat. https://www.chalkbeat.org/2018/12/21/21106398/want-a-charter-school-application-if-your-child-has-a-disability-your-questions-more-likely-to-be-ig/

Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962). https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-supreme-court/370/421.html

Fitzpatrick, Cara (Sept. 9, 2023). “The Charter-School Movement’s New Divide.” The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/charter-schools-religion-public-secular/675293/

G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board. 972 F.3d 586 (4th Cir. 2020). https://casetext.com/case/grimm-v-gloucester-cnty-sch-bd-8

House of Chimeras (Aug. 12, 2022). "Litter Boxes in School Bathrooms: Dissecting the Alt-Right’s Current Moral Panic." OtherCon. https://youtu.be/WVjXOmN2IlU

House of Chimeras, Orion Scribner, and Page Shepard (2023). “Litter Box Hoax 2: Legislature Boogaloo.” OtherCon 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsXy_ctC4Jc&t=1425s

Legiscan. MO HB 2678. https://legiscan.com/MO/bill/HB2678/2024

Legiscan. MO HB 1941. https://legiscan.com/MO/bill/HB1941/2024

Mccollum v. Board Of Education, 333 U.S. 203 (1948). https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-supreme-court/333/203.html

McKinney, Rodger (Aug. 25, 2022). “State Rep. Cheri Reisch criticized for 'unwarranted' claim that CPS students use litterboxes.” Columbia Daily Tribune. https://www.columbiatribune.com/story/news/politics/elections/local/2022/08/25/state-rep-cheri-reisch-criticized-for-unwarranted-claim-that-cps-columbia-students-use-litterboxes/7895082001/

McKinney, Rodger (Feb. 6, 2022). “State Rep. Cheri Reisch states 'Columbia sucks' when referring to public schools in education hearing” Columbia Daily Tribune. https://www.columbiatribune.com/story/news/education/2022/02/06/cheri-reisch-states-columbia-sucks-when-referring-to-cps-in-education-hearing-mo-leg-basye/6662719001/

Missouri House of Representatives. MO HB 2678. https://house.mo.gov/Bill.aspx?bill=HB2678&year=2024&code=R

Missouri Senate. MO SB 49. https://www.senate.mo.gov/23info/BTS_Web/Bill.aspx?SessionType=R&BillID=44407

Missouri Senate. MO SB 39. https://senate.mo.gov/23info/BTS_Web/Bill.aspx?SessionType=R&BillID=44496

Palma, Bethania. (January 30, 2023). “How Furries Got Swept Up in Anti-Trans 'Litter Box' Rumors.” Snopes. https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/01/30/how-furries-got-swept-up-in-anti-trans-litter-box-rumors/ Archived on March 30, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230330232007/https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/01/30/how-furries-got-swept-up-in-anti-trans-litter-box-rumors/

Pew Research Center (Oct. 3, 2019). “Religion in the Public Schools.” https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/10/03/religion-in-the-public-schools-2019-update/

Reuters Fact Check (October 18, 2022). “Fact Check-No evidence of schools accommodating ‘furries’ with litter boxes.” https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-furries-rogan-litterbox-idUSL1N31J1KT Archived February 13, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230213110524/https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-furries-rogan-litterbox-idUSL1N31J1KT

Scribner, Orion, and N. Noel Sol (Feb. 9, 2024). “Will Oklahoma Call Animal Control on Students?” Otherkin News. https://otherkinnews.dreamwidth.org/92680.html Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969). https://openjurist.org/393/us/503

[brandngraves]

How to Successfully Complete a Site to WordPress Conversion: HireWPGeeks

Learn how to execute a flawless site to WordPress conversion with the expertise of HireWPGeeks. Our specialized service ensures your website's design, functionality, and SEO are maintained throughout the transition. Trust HireWPGeeks for a smooth and efficient conversion process that meets all your needs.

[artfight]

Theme Poll & More!

Hi all, we've got some updates for you in regards to common concerns, volunteer moderator apps, and the long-awaited theme poll! This is a basic overview of the information provided in the most recent newspost, so please read the update in entirety here to get the full picture:

Addressing the Annual Site Slowness

We have engaged with Loka, a service that helps in updating systems. Once this work is complete, we hope it will help in the site's performance for future Art Fight events.

$10,000 has already been paid upfront and server costs could increase.

Addressing Leadership Concerns

Takaia's involvement on the team is due to her experience with coding & site development. She is helping to facilitate site transition; this is only temporary. She is not involved in decision making or site finances.

Additionally, a new EIN [employer identification number] is being issued.

Volunteer Moderator Applications Open

Site and chat moderator positions are open. You must be 18 years or older to apply and should have participated in at least one Art Fight (minigames do not count).

Link to the app is included in the newspost.

Art Fight 2024 Theme Poll

Voting for this year's theme will be done by ranking the possible themes from favorite to least favorite. The poll will be open until December 10th at 5PM EST.

Link to the poll is included in the newspost.

With that, happy voting!

[rainbowcafelgbtqcenter]

RE: Missouri Trans Ban

As one of our immediate neighbors, we are appalled by the Missouri Attorney General's decision to ban ALL transitioning, including hormone replacement therapy, for transgender Missourians - including adults.

Even though HRT has been documented for decades to be life-saving and the best treatment for gender dysphoria, transgender adults in Missouri will be cut off from transition services beginning April 27th. All current transgender Missouri residents will have to undergo intense screening to continue their care - and will only be allowed to keep their medication routine if they show ZERO signs of mental illness, including depression, anxiety, autism, and "social media addiction." Missouri AG Andrew Bailey is now also enforcing a three-year waiting period, 18-month psychological assessment, and 15 YEAR medical supervision for anyone able to get past the screening process.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

1. SHARE THE NEWS AND TELL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES. Many news outlets that aren't explicitly focused on LGBTQIA+ issues have failed to cover how dangerous this decision is, and we know when anti-transgender organizations see something like this get approved in one state, they'll try to replicate it in others and nationally.

https://time.com/.../missouri-restrict-transgender.../

https://www.businessinsider.com/missouri-attorney-general...

2. SUPPORT PROMO, MO ACLU, AND LAMBDA LEGAL. These are the leading advocacy and legal LGBTQIA+ rights organizations that are already working on legal action.

3. SUPPORT C.A.R.E.

Also known as Carbondale Assembly for Radical Equity, a Southern Illinois-based collaborative on how to best support and assist incoming transgender refugees fleeing their home states for Illinois.

TRANS AND LIVE IN MISSOURI: RESOURCES

The Attorney General's decision goes into effect April 27th - so you have until then to pick up any prescriptions you have access to. If you are on feminizing HRT, you MAY be able to use this small time window to stockpile your prescriptions until either Bailey's decision is reversed or you are able to find alternate means of getting your medication.

Even AFTER April 27th, you CAN still get your HRT if you are able to cross state lines - Planned Parenthood and other clinics that offer informed consent are creating pop-up sites as an emergency response. Some of these clinics even offer telehealth or virtual appointments - although telehealth soon won't be an option for transmasculine HRT due to the DEA's decision to end telehealth prescriptions. Check this map for site locations: https://t.co/O6UBzyS4ue

Lastly, in the event you are unable to find any alternative ways to get HRT through conventional and prescribed means, an HRT DIY wiki has been made as harm reduction: https://diyhrt.wiki/

[yellowstone-national-park]

This is an update on the hydrothermal explosion that occurred just before 10 AM on Tuesday, July 23, in Biscuit Basin, Yellowstone National Park.

National Park Service (NPS) field crews have completed a preliminary assessment of the conditions following the hydrothermal explosion at Black Diamond Pool. For a map showing the locations of the features in that area, see https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/map-major-features-biscuit-basin-yellowstone-national-park.

What happened? The July 23, 2024, hydrothermal explosion at Biscuit Basin resulted from water suddenly transitioning to steam in the shallow hydrothermal system beneath Black Diamond Pool and was not caused by volcanic activity. Seismicity, ground deformation, and gas and thermal emissions remain at their normal background levels, and there were no detectable precursors to this event.

The explosion, which sent steam and debris to a height of hundreds of feet above the ground, destroyed a nearby boardwalk and ejected grapefruit-sized rocks tens to hundreds of feet from the source. Some blocks closest to the explosion site are about 3 feet (1 meter) wide and weigh hundreds of pounds. The explosion was largely directed to the northeast toward the Firehole River, and the largest blocks of debris fell in that direction. The dark color of the explosion was a result of mud and debris mixed with steam and boiling water. Although visitors were present at the time of the event, no injuries were reported.

Black Diamond Pool and Black Opal Pool were affected by Tuesday’s explosion, and while they remain distinct features, the shape of Black Diamond has changed somewhat. Both pools are murky due to debris, and the unstable ground around their edges occasionally slides into the water. Just after the eruption, Black Diamond Pool exhibited minor roiling and water spouting. The water level in the pool rose over the course of the day, and by Tuesday afternoon the roiling transitioned to occasional bursts of hot water that reached about 8 feet (2.4 meters) in height.

What is happening now? By Wednesday morning, July 24, the levels of Black Diamond Pool and Black Opal Pool had risen enough that both were overflowing and sending murky water into the Firehole River. No water bursts from Black Diamond Pool were witnessed Wednesday morning.

What are ongoing hazards? Given the recent changes to the hydrothermal plumbing system, small explosions of boiling water from this area in Biscuit Basin continue to be possible over the coming days to months. USGS and NPS geologists will be monitoring conditions, mapping the debris field, and sampling water to assess any changes in the shallow hydrothermal system over the next several days.

Hydrothermal explosions typically occur in the park one to a few times per year, but often in the back country where they may not be immediately detected.

Similar, although smaller, hydrothermal explosions took place in 1989 at Porkchop Geyser in Norris Geyser Basin, and on April 15, 2024, from the Porcelain Terrace Area of Norris Geyser Basin. A small hydrothermal explosion occurred from Wall Pool, in Biscuit Basin, in 2009. Significant hydrothermal explosions, probably similar in size to that of July 23, 2024, occurred in the 1880s at Excelsior Geyser, in Midway Geyser Basin.

Yellowstone National Park has closed Biscuit Basin for the remainder of the 2024 season for visitor safety. Grand Loop Road remains open to vehicles, and other nearby thermal basins, like Black Sand Basin, are open. Additional Yellowstone National Park information about visitor access can be found at https://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm.

More information Yellowstone Volcano Observatory monitoring website: https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/yellowstone

2022-2032 YVO Monitoring Plan: https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/sir20225032

Preliminary Assessment of Volcanic and Hydrothermal Hazards in Yellowstone National Park and Vicinity: https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/ofr20071071

Yellowstone National Park images from Biscuit Basin explosion site: https://www.flickr.com/photos/yellowstonenps/albums/72177720319112324/

[copperbadge]

Dear Mr. Badge, have you seen the news about Evernote's new owner, Bending Spoons, just now laying off the entire remaining staff after a series of layoffs this spring? Hopefully it's not the end, but considering your extensive collection on the site, it might be good to verify if it is true and, well. Sic transit memoria interretis and all that.

Well shit, Anon, I had not, thank you!

Evernote has been through this before and it appears the layoffs are because they're relocating to Europe, but instability on any platform is generally cause for concern. It's a good idea in general to back up any archive you maintain online. Sic transit memoria interretis indeed.

I really only use Evernote these days for archiving fanfic and tumblr posts that I want to save, but that's not an insignificant body of work. I'm in the middle of backing up all of my evernote notebooks and if you guys use Evernote, you should too. That said, if you want a desktop-side, local version of Evernote, it's basically a clone of Microsoft OneNote, which I use extensively in my professional life, since it's "notepad but you can tag it and also it autosaves". Do recommend if you can get your hands on a copy.

Otherwise, just remember: no website is eternal, and if the service is free, it's likely not permanent.

[mltshphq]

A Timeline and History of MLKSHK, MLTSHP

👋 Hi, I’m Brad Choate. Here’s a recollection of my involvement with MLKSHK and MLTSHP over the years. The following is pieced together from bits of email, Twitter, TypePad, Tumblr, database records, and aging neurons.

A timeline of mlkshk.com

Domain registration - 4/13/2008

Initial commit from Andre - 3/13/2010

First commit from Ivan - 10/1/2010

AWS database created - 10/20/2010

First posted file (“farrrrrt bird”) - 10/27/2010

First users created (82) - 10/28/2010

Opens to limited audience - 10/28/2010

First TypePad blog post - 12/29/2010

Opens to wider audience via invites, waitlist - ~¼/2011

First comment - 1/11/2011

Opens to general public - ~4/26/2011

First commit from Mark - 5/19/2011

Shutdown announcement - 5/1/2014

Andre is hired at Slack - ?

Shutdown averted? - 6/18/2014

Shutdown averted announcement - 6/30/2014

First commit from Brad - 8/3/2014

Good Web Bundle promotion - 11/19/2014

Subscription woes - 5/20/2015

More subscription woes - 7/9/2015

Subscriptions restored (delaying another imminent shutdown) - 3/24/2016

Final shutdown announcement - 2/22/2017

Enters read-only mode - 3/31/2017

Waxy.org post about MLKSHK’s closure - 4/13/2017

Closes - 5/1/2017

Lifespan from 10/27/2010 - 2,379 days, or 6 years, 6 months, 5 days.

Lifespan extended 3 years from 5/1/2014 shutdown announcement.

A timeline of mltshp.com

Continuation community assembles itself… on Facebook?! - 11/3/2016

mltshp.com domain registration date - 3/9/2017

Initial commit to Github by Brad - 3/17/2017

Fundraising - 3/24/2017

Gettin things done - 3/31/2017

MLKSHK user login support - 4/30/2017

GIF to Video feature - 5/9/2017

First Tumblr blog post and launch - 5/16/2017

Dropped Google Analytics - 5/10/2019

2019 State of the SHP - 8/29/2019

Site search introduced - 9/3/2019

4th birthday - 5/16/2021

Fastly CDN switch(back) - 12/22/2022

6th birthday - 5/16/2023

Happy 7th Birthday - 5/16/2024

Lifespan to date (as of this writing on 12/24/2024): 2,780 days, or 7 years, 7 months, 9 days.

Some personal history

I joined MLKSHK by invitation on January 6, 2011 as a regular user. I found MLKSHK to be a breath of fresh air compared to your typical social media site (which still holds true today). After the shutdown announcement in 2014, I tried to offer help and reached out again around July 2014 after the announcement that the site would not be closing. I had met Andre once before, but mostly knew of him through colleagues at Six Apart. Andre took me up on the volunteer help… remember, by this time he wasn’t running MLKSHK as a business, so the ~3 years that follow are maintaining the site as a hobby, particularly since it was still losing money.

Initially, I helped with site performance issues, including some query optimizations. As time passed, it became clear that the site was still in danger of closing due to the cost of services it was incurring, which was not offset enough by subscriptions. So Andre and I went through a cost assessment process and we identified a number of things that could be done. Switching away from Fastly to a cheaper CDN (KeyCDN at the time) shaved CDN operational costs by 66% (Fastly charges 12 cents per gigabyte of transfer and KeyCDN charges 4 cents) so we started there, since it was the easiest change to make and had the most impact.

I also helped with the site’s participation in the “Good Web Bundle” promotion which brought in a few subscribers and returning members. The following year (2015), we had to rebuild subscriptions from scratch since both Tugboat and Amazon payments had to be retired, and we replaced those with Stripe. Alas, the site was still just not able to sustain itself as it was, and a decision was made to close for good in 2017.

Before that happened, the MLKSHK community began a conversation with Andre to transition the site to a community-run operation. I wasn’t involved in discussions, so don’t have insight into the choice behind creating a new domain and brand instead of adopting MLKSHK outright (I suspect Andre just preferred a clean break). Andre agreed to share all data and source code to the transition team. I helped with transitioning the source code for MLKSHK; cleaning it up for the basis of the MLTSHP repository to become an open source project.

It was decided that it would be best to make MLTSHP more closed in nature… so much of MLKSHK was open to free users, even some allowance for post creation. The plan was to relaunch with a membership requirement, but also with two price plans - the regular $24/year membership (plus an option to specify any amount over $24/year if the member wants to), and a new $3/year membership which effectively was the same level of service that was provided for free registered users before. While posting was being restricted to members, we wanted to keep certain things open for all: our "Popular" page, and individual post links which can be shared anywhere.

There would be some downtime between MLKSHK’s closure and the launch of MLTSHP. We aimed to keep that downtime low, but it gave us some time to make some larger changes that would make for a more sustainable and cost-efficient service.

Switching off of Amazon AWS for web server and database service was a big one. I had wanted to do this for MLKSHK as early as 2014, but we never did. I took a snapshot of AWS expenses from January 2017 and costs for that month were $400 (just RDS + S3 + EC2 and outbound data transfer to our CDN). We switched these to use Linode. For CDN service, KeyCDN was more cost effective than Fastly was, but we decided to switch to using Cloudflare for CDN since it wouldn’t cost anything (ironically, MLTSHP has since switched back to Fastly after receiving an offer to operate at no cost). The only remaining AWS feature MLTSHP is using is S3 for block storage. There are some cheaper S3-compatible services available, but the potential savings have never justified the task of a migration. Operational costs today are less than half of what we were spending for AWS alone, and we pay nothing for CDN service.

We also set up a real deployment process, utilizing Buildkite (they offer a free account for us to use), making it easier to test and deploy community-led changes. This also included utilizing Docker which also makes it easier for contributors to run their own copy of the site locally for development.

Ahead of MLTSHP’s launch, a service was built that would transcode GIF images (a popular, but heavy file format) to video formats that those would serve instead of the original GIF file. This was a cost-saving measure, since popular GIFs lead to a lot of traffic, so the smaller the better.

Another must-have for relaunch was a process that would migrate a user’s MLKSHK data when they signed into MLTSHP. This required us to load all the MLKSHK data into the MLTSHP database (in a separate set of tables) and we also had permission from Andre to make a wholesale copy of the MLKSHK S3 bucket to MLTSHP’s S3 bucket so all images were preserved.

And we also had a full rebranding to do. Replacing all site design and assets so that it was different, but retaining the spirit of the original site.

There have been a lot of changes to the site since that time. We’ve added site-wide search, responsive design so the site works well for mobile devices, support for light and dark mode, an alt text field so images can be described, and many other things. Big feature releases are few and far between, but the site is stable which is a great feature.

Our Github repo has had 412 commits from 26 different contributors. There’s still a lot of stuff to do (patches welcome)! But the most important feature we’ve developed is a self-sustainable community. We don’t have to worry about closing.