#assaulting a woman

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"STOLEN TIRES FOUND UNDER PILE OF COAL," Toronto Star. May 11, 1943. Page 31. --- John Wheeler and Frank Dunn Admit Stealing Soldier's Property ---- "SERIOUS," SAYS CADI ---- County Police, Court, County Buildings, Magistrate Keith. "This is a very serious offence," said Magistrate Keith, remanding in custody until Thursday for sentence, John Wheeler and Frank Dunn who pleaded guilty of theft of four-car wheels, tires and tubes and a car radio.

Sgt. Wilfred McLellan of the Scarboro police said the accused men removed the tires and radio from a car owned by Ralph Butwell of the Canadian Army. The car was parked in the yard at the rear of the owner's mother's home. Two of the tires McLellan explained were sold for $25. but have since been recovered. The other tires and radio were found covered by a pile of coal in a garage at the rear of a house occupied by one of the accused men, the officer said.

A PUBLIC MISCHIEF ---- B Police Court, City Hall. Magistrate Browne Appearing before Magistrate Browne. George Gosden, 30, of Merriton. Ont., pleaded guilty to a charge of being a public mischief.

"Accused, from out of town, visiting at 238 Queen St. E., loaned his car to three men staying at that address on May 2 and the following day when they informed him they had been chased by police and the car wrecked in Rosedale ravine, he went to No. 4 police station and reported it stolen," said Detective A. Morrison,

"Why did you do this?" asked His Worship.

"I wanted to get back home to work without any trouble." said Gosden. "I am married and have three children to support. I only Icarned since this happened what. kind of people I lent the car to."

"I will remand you to May 18 for further investigation." said His Worship.

"You will go to the penitentiary for two years," Magistrate Browne told Walter Cummings when he appeared for sentence on a charge of theft of cash and cheques the property of National Grocers. "You have a bad record," said the court.

"I was in the army for two years." said Cummings. "And were in jail 10 days in 1942," added the bench.

"It takes no brains to make a fool of yourself," Magistrate Browne told John Tomlinson, 17, to whom he gave suspended sentence and probation for one year on a charge of auto theft.

Tomlinson was jointly charged with a juvenile who was also given suspended sentence and probation for a year.

Roy Frederick Winterfield, charged with having burglars' tools in his possession, and the theft of a license marker, elected trial by jury and was committed for trial.

Constable Cavanagh testified that early on May 3, with Constable Graham, he saw accused sitting behind the wheel of a car at Yonge St. and Castlefield Ave. Investigation disclosed a U.S. license plate in the car and an Ontario license on the car. Winterfield claimed the ear was his father's and that "jimmy" found in the trunk was used by his father at work. He was wearing a pair of gloves, Cavanagh testified.

L. J. Lambert. Jr., a United States citizen, living in Hamilton and travelling on war work between the two countries, testified that his car had been stolen the previous evening when he had left it for less than two minutes to buy papers. He had recovered it from Toronto police the next day. The bar found in his car was not his, he testified.

L. H. McKay, York township, testified that his license plate, later found on Lambert's car, had been stolen that night from outside his home.

"That will be sufficient for a committal," ruled the court.

LEFT, BUT CAME BACK --- "D" Police Court, at City Hall, Magistrate Woodliffe.

Before Magistrats Woodliffe in "D" police court today, Samuel Donerchowski pleaded not guilty of careless driving and failing to remain at the scene of an accident, and guilty of having liquor in an illegal place.

"I saw the car leave the scene. of the accident and took the license number." said Clayton Lang. "Police went away because the car and driver were gone. Accused came back and so did the police."

"The second time we arrived," said P.C. Wheeldon, "accused's car was parked about 60 feet from the scene of the accident. We found two bottles of beer in his car."

"I feel that this man can be given the benefit of the doubt in regard to the failing to remain charge," said Magistrate Woodliffe. "I am imposing a fine of $25 and costs or 30 days for careless driving and recommend that his license be suspended. On the liquor charge he will pay $10 or one month."

WAS TOO FORCEFUL --- "C" Police Court, City Hall, Magistrate Prentice Ben Rosenberg pleaded not guilty to a charge of assaulting Margaret Nelson.

"My girl friend and I were looking at a car on Spadina Ave.," complainant told Magistrate Prentice. "This man looked out of a window and called me a name. Then he came down and hit me in the face."

"They looked suspicious to me," said Rosenberg. "I had a flag and doo-dad on my car, and the Nelson woman stood on the running board and tried to pull down the doo-dad. I came down on the street and they came at me and tore my shirt to shreds. I got socked in the eye. I hit the Nelson woman and pushed them away."

"I think more force was used than necessary," said the court, convicting and fining accused $10 or 10 days.

[companion-showdown]

Who had the worst time aboard the TARDIS?

TOURNAMENT MASTERPOST

[bbygirl-aemond]

rhaenyra was so wrong for looking alicent hightower, ALICENT HIGHTOWER, in the face and telling her "still you imagine you can have all you want"

i mean it definitely makes sense from rhaenyra's standpoint though. i took it to be referring to the time that alicent married viserys and still wanted to keep her friendship with rhaenyra as it had been before. obviously, we as the audience know that alicent didn't choose to marry viserys, but rhaenyra was a grieving teenager and it was easier to focus her betrayal towards alicent than towards her own father. this is even more true now, since rhaenyra is clinging to this idea that viserys was right to choose her and anything that undermines viserys's goodness also undermines that idea. (alicent very much also whitewashes viserys, which i've already talked about here.)

right now, alicent is futilely trying to find a way that she can have her cake and eat it too, based on the current situation. she wants to keep aegon alive, while also sparing helaena and jaehaera and herself and the realm future losses. but these things are only proxies for her true desires, which have been battling one another since season one.

from the beginning, alicent has wanted her suffering to have meant something, symbolized by putting aegon (the literal fruit of her suffering) on the throne; she wants the reward within the patriarchal system for what she has endured. simultaneously, she wishes to find actual happiness and freedom, symbolized by her younger self before the suffering took place (her childhood friendship with rhaenyra, her childhood freedom, even helaena is a proxy for alicent's younger self). this is the larger message about the patriarchy that hotd is telling; no amount of working within the system for whatever reward it grants you will actually be fulfilling to you. you cannot gain the freedom and happiness you desire while still perpetuating the system, because the system itself is what takes this from you. alicent's choice here is a daughter over a son, but it is also her happiness over the patriarchal system she's always been trapped within. and rhaenyra is right that she can't have both.

[coochiequeens]

There's something satisfying about when an abusive man is called out by other men. Or at least one man.

Rest In Infamy, You Haunted Castle

Why I believe the Neil Gaiman accusations

By GRAHAM LINEHAN JUL 19, 2024

I only met Neil Gaiman once, at an upscale dinner party where Derren Brown had been hired to do magic tricks like in the old-timey days. Between astonishments, Gaiman and I withdrew to a quiet corner where I pretended to be pleased that he was giving me a signed copy of ‘Sandman’. One of the unexpected advantages of being cancelled is telling people who took part in my harassment what I really think about their work, but this was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, so I said the right things and we went back to being bamboozled by Brown’s invisible craft.

To give credit where it’s due, I later read Gaiman’s ‘Coraline’ to my kids which had them simultaneously terrified and hooked, and thanked him for it. Whatever my feelings about his earlier work, he was a real writer, practising his own invisible craft. From the evidence of that book, I thought he was probably a decent person too, an impression that continued until 2022, when we started to get into it over The Issue.

I may have asked why he wasn’t speaking out on behalf of JK Rowling, who was undergoing one of her regular cancellations for refusing to pander to the spoilt brats who loved her books but missed their meaning. A big name like his might have shifted the conversation and given her some much-needed support. He might perhaps have persuaded some of his fans to give the matter another look. This was when I assumed people like him acknowledged biological reality but worried about ‘coming out of the closet’, as it were. It took me years to realise that almost every celebrity mate of mine believed, or was pretending to believe, in the fashionable, American mind-cancer of ’gender’.

But back then, I was still astonished to find that he was a carrier of the virus, the mass delusion that by sheer coincidence, turned up after the arrival of the Internet. Whether it was Bill Bailey or Neil Hannon, Robin Ince or Matt Lucas, Arthur Mathews or Jimmy Mulville, it was always the same story. A sudden cloud of amnesia would form around my celebrity mates, a real peasouper, from which they suddenly could not see why we need female-only spaces, or why unhappy teenage girls will not find a miraculous cure for their woes in a double mastectomy. Far from sharing any of my urgency in the need to stop children from being irreversibly harmed in gender clinics, they instead downplayed, deflected and dismissed. “I never ask you to join in with my animal activism” grumbled Neil Hannon on one of the occasions I begged for his support.

“Couldn’t you pretend women and children are animals?” I thought.

My usual trajectory during these conversations saw me shifting from gobsmacked disbelief to fury and despair. The disloyalty made me angry, but knowing my friends did not care about their own daughters, wives, sisters and mothers was, and continues to be, destabilising in the extreme.

Gaiman went one step further. I can’t find the tweet, so I may be paraphrasing, but he said

"I hope you're kinder if your daughter ever hopes to transition."

I can think of no uglier thing to say to a parent. For girls, ‘transition’ means double mastectomies in their teens, hysterectomies in their mid-twenties, early menopause and a four times greater chance of having a heart attack than males of the same age. To have this decaying goth wish that horror on my daughter was more than I could bear. I wanted to rip his throat out.

Like a pair of grappling cowboys falling off a rooftop, our fight spilled into email. I sent Gaiman this article about the Tavistock. It was clear when he wrote back that he hadn’t absorbed it Like most celebrities in this fight, he appeared to have lost the ability to read.

“As I said before Graham, I hope that you'd be kinder if it was one of your kids who wanted to transition. “

He actually said it again. The piece was right there, detailing exactly what was happening to the children unlucky enough to wander through the Tavistock’s doors, and he chose to repeat that disgusting thing. Why?

That same year, just months before Gaiman was advising me on the value of kindness, a 22-year-old woman (‘Scarlett’ in the podcast) arrived at his Waiheke Island home in New Zealand for a babysitting job. Upon her arrival, she discovered that Gaiman’s wife of the time, Amanda Palmer, had suddenly remembered a sleepover, an appointment the child was apparently eager to attend.

So she and junior drove out of view, leaving the 23 -year-old Scarlett alone with Gaiman for the night. Within a few hours the 61-year-old man, without warning or invitation, appeared fully naked and slipped into the other end of her bath. Scarlett alleges that over the next three weeks, they embarked on a semi-consensual relationship, where Gaiman routinely ignored the boundaries she set. She alleges that he became angry when she would refuse these demands, used a belt to beat her, insisted she call him ‘Master’ and once sexually assaulted her so violently that she lost consciousness.

“… (the sex) was so painful and so violent that I fainted. I passed out, lost consciousness, ringing in the ears, black vision, the pain was celestial, you know, which is a strange word to use, but I couldn't even describe it in language. And when I regained consciousness and I was on the ground, I looked up and he was watching the rehearsals from Scotland of whatever they were filming, I don't fucking know. And he didn't even notice that I was passed out. And you know…there was blood. It was so so, so traumatic, and I asked him to stop. I said it was too much.”

Scarlett is a compelling witness despite, or because of, her contradictions. Certain things paint a picture of consent—she sexted Gaiman, to which he would send careful replies—and she laughs nervously when she talks about the alleged abuse. But when Gaiman’s side of the story is put to her, she turns cold as a knife and shows flashes of fury that she—in her telling—young, inexperienced and dazzled by Palmer and Gaiman’s fame and lifestyle, was used so casually and so brutally.

A few years back, I wrote about becoming a sort of Jessica Fletcher figure on Twitter. ‘Murder, She Wrote” but with paedophiles and predators. “Just as murderers seemed drawn to any location Jessica presented herself, “ I said. “My opining about women's rights and safety on Twitter appeared to attract the kind of men who can't sit still during a spelling bee.”

Among my adversaries was Peter Bright, the Ars Technica writer now doing twelve years for trying to buy two children to abuse. Luckily the children didn’t exist and the parents were actually FBI agents. Our exchange was brief and concerned safeguarding. I’m sure you’re all astonished to discover that he was against it.

Then there was ex-Labour MP Eric Joyce, who argued with me about the safety of mixed-sex loos in schools and was done for possessing the worst kind of child abuse images. More recently, I tangled with ‘Lexi’, who is now serving time for rape.

They all had one thing in common. They couldn’t leave alone those of us who were actively opposing the trans movement's assault on safeguarding, an assault that chimed nicely with their plans for the future. Each was returning to the scene of a crime not yet committed, each picking at a scab on their own character.

In 2018, at the height of #MeToo, Gaiman tweeted “On a day like today it’s worth saying, I believe survivors. Men must not close their eyes and minds to what happens to women in this world. We must fight, alongside them, for them to be believed, at the ballot box, and with art, and by listening, and change this world for the better.”

Well said. I certainly believe the women in ‘Master’. During my Jessica Fletcher period (a period which continues) no-one except Gaiman ever mentioned my kids. I think he knew it would cause me distress, and the second time he said it was just a twisting of the knife. Many of my colleagues in the media joined in with the trashing of my reputation, but Gaiman went that extra mile. I believe this is because he is a sadist. I think he is a man who finds pleasure in the suffering of others, and a man who does not see women and girls as fully human.

This was my final letter to him.

Dear Neil

I notice you’re still pretending you can’t read the Tavistock story. If you ever try and lay that curse on my kids again I will certainly share our exchange. Your privileged beliefs are harming children so to paraphrase Will Smith, keep their names out of your fucking mouth.

Thank you for giving me one last chance to say that JK Rowling will be remembered as a hero and you as a traitor to the kids who loved your books.

Rest in infamy, you haunted castle.

All the best,

Graham.

[babbelswoofominides]

Your daily reminder JK Rowling sucks.

[rizzlegukgak]

oh my god what do i gotta do to get everyone on earth talking about the video game tactical breach wizards that came out a few days ago bc it’s spectacular and i can’t stop thinking about it

[amarriageoftrueminds]

Can't stop thinking about the idea of CATFA as a propagandised version of the Captain America story which exists in-universe and Steve seeing it and being absolutely livid about how 90% of it represents him.

.

Examples: being furious that it doesn’t mention his mother (his moral compass) anywhere, or his socialist politics pre-war, implies he only wants to fight to be like one of the guys and get a girlfriend?! (barely mentions Nazis),

implies he simply cannot have had any romantic attachments before serum, yet skims right over his disabilities as if his only problem was just being short, posits that Bucky would’ve spent his last night in Brooklyn off on a double date with two total strangers rather than with his own friends and family, (no mention of the Barneses anywhere?), 

has Steve scoffing at the idea of working in a factory (when he’d consider himself lucky to get a job in the times he grew up in), almost his whole relationship with the Howlies relegated to a single silent montage, none of the details of their missions shown except one, not a single girl in his USO tour gets a mention or name, ditto none of the women of the SSR/Army/that the Howlies met in the field, and wastes most of the screen time on that creepy violent nepotism-hire who was convinced Steve had given her some kind of secret signal he wanted to date her (at the time he just thought she’d taken the hint and was trying to beard him??), 

also puts her, Stark and Phillips in places they never went (why would a scientist, an old CO and an intelligence analyst be in Italy, or in the middle of a battle?? that’s not their job!), 

says Steve would waste his last precious moments of contact talking to a woman he’s not dating rather than saying goodbye to the men who’ve been fighting beside him for over a year?? 

And that he wouldn’t even bother to look for Bucky’s body?? (Only thing it got right was how much Bucky mattered to him / being a big part of why he wanted to fight!)

[carlyraejepsans]

Uh, context?

someone said people calling themselves bi lesbians are the reason lesbians get sexually harassed by straight men in bars and it was so painfully cruelly stupid and victim blaming that i saw red. and then i was like you know what fuck y'all, I'm not staying in this tar pit, because twitter had already been making me miserable for a while

can y'all stop showing me people gossiping about me behind my back. it's rude that they're doing it in public, but it's their business what they think of me & I don't want to see that either.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"BEFORE THE MAGISTRATE," Winnipeg Tribune. January 28, 1943. Page 13. ---- By V.V.M. AT 12.45 am. today a policeman saw Mike walking east on Logan ave., near Main st., with a woman walking a short distance behind him.

Suddenly Mike whirled around, called the woman a lot of vile names, walked up to her, knocked her down, then kicked her in the ribs.

The policeman decided things had gone far enough, so he ran up and placed Mike under arrest. Today Mike appeared in city police court, pleaded guilty to being disorderly on the street, and was fined $5. No explanation was given as, to who the woman was, or why Mike had assaulted her.

An elderly gent appeared before the court for sentence, after having been convicted of two charges of receiving stolen goods.

Magistrate R. B. Graham evidently had known the accused for some time. This was indicated by his remarks when passing sentence.

"Ever since I've known you," said the magistrate, "you've been trying to get into jail. And, were it not for your advanced age, and poor health, I would have no hesitancy in sending you there."

The magistrate then imposed a fine of $100 on each charge, with an alternative of two months in jail. The fines were paid.

[antigonenikk]

me and my mutuals would have killed stephen ambrose with hammers i can tell you that much

[sarafangirlart]

No but it’s actually crazy that Poseidon sleeps around more than Zeus yet Zeus is the one ppl call the man whore of the family lmao

[tariah23]

This is such a harmful sentiment to push considering that you don’t necessarily have to be “attractive,” (beauty is subjective, yada yada) in order for men to want to harm you in the slightest… like man, what…

[coochiequeens]

“I did assault her and I will do it again,” he said. “And if I need to be 10 years in prison I’m happy to be 10 years in prison.” Says a man fled anyway.

The trans activist who threw tomato juice on a women’s rights campaigner during a free speech event in Auckland has been charged with common assault and appears to be fleeing from New Zealand authorities as a result.

Eliana Rubashkyn, also known as Eliana Golberstein and Eliana Rubinstein, is a male who identifies as transgender and intersex and uses “they/them” pronouns. On March 25, Rubashkyn attacked women’s rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen during what was supposed to be a peaceful women’s rights demonstration. 

Keen, also known by her moniker Posie Parker, had arranged for a speaking tour of New Zealand centered around giving women the platform to express their thoughts on gender ideology. But she was forced to cut the tour short after being met with extreme aggression at her first stop in Auckland at Albert Park.

As Keen approached the bandstand in the park, where she was set to speak to a crowd of approximately 200 supporters, Rubashkyn dumped a liter of tomato juice onto her and her security detail. Videos of the incident have since circulated on social media, and Rubashkyn told a local news station that he was able to approach Keen because he lied about his identity and pretended to be a supporter of hers.

Following the event, Rubashkyn gave an interview where he claimed that he targeted Keen because “her words are blood because they are killing our people.” He continued: “That tomato juice represents the blood of the people she is trying to kill.”

Rubashkyn also addressed the crowd after Keen was escorted away from the park by police, and stated that he wanted Keen to be “full of blood … because she’s advocating for our genocide.”

Information on Rubashkyn’s charge was first reported by Newsable, which received a statement from Rubashkyn where he again claimed the assault and suggested he was comfortable facing justice.

“I did assault her and I will do it again,” he said. “And if I need to be 10 years in prison I’m happy to be 10 years in prison.”

But despite his words, Rubashkyn fled New Zealand shortly after being made aware that police were planning on issuing a warrant for his arrest on charges of assault.

His latest travel-related post suggests he has now left Australia and is en route to the United States.

A fundraiser has been launched to support Rubashkyn, citing support for a legal defense fund as well as “personal security needs.” It has since raised just over $1,300 as of the writing of this article. The fundraising campaign is currently under review by GiveALittle, and some on social media have noted it is likely against the platform’s terms of service to be fundraising for a known fugitive.

Rubashkyn is originally Jewish-Ukrainian from Colombia, but currently lives in New Zealand. He has worked with the UN and as a Program Officer at ILGA World (the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association). Much of his origin story and gender identity has come into question after a March 28 Twitter space wherein Rubashkyn appeared incoherent at times while addressing a live audience for almost 8 continuous hours.

During the space, Rubashkyn made a number of anti-lesbian, racist, sexist, and violent remarks, including that trans-identified males were the “first victims” of the Holocaust.

“Trans women were the first victims of Nazism. Trans women were killed before the Jews were sent to concentration camps,” he said, continuing: “In the 1930s, Nazis relied on TERFs to promote hate… TERFs became holders of concentration camps for females. TERFs were quite instrumental in the system that the Nazis built for making more babies… to keep Nazi Germany growing.”

Rubashkyn claims to be Jewish and says he can speak fluent Hebrew, but seemed to be unable to understand a Hebrew speaker who challenged him on his assertion.

In addition to the marathon space, Rubashkyn also uploaded a video to his Twitter account in which he was seen sobbing while claiming there was a “trans genocide” occurring, and that “Nazis” were trying to murder him.

“I am so full of joy because I am trans, but I am so scared because they want to kill me. The Nazis, they are– they just really want to get you.”

The March 25 event was part of an international Let Women Speak tour hosted by British women’s rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen. Keen has hosted rallies across the UK, USA, and Australia encouraging women to use her platform to speak about how gender ideology has impacted their lives.

While Keen’s events are often met with hostility, the New Zealand rally descended into violence so rapidly that it had to be cancelled before it could even begin. 

As she arrived at the Albert Park venue, Keen went live on her YouTube channel as she usually does to provide her supporters updates from the event. 

Immediately, the scene was chaotic as police did not appear to be present. Those watching from a distance through the YouTube stream were able to see Keen being led by her security though a braying crowd of trans activists. Once she managed to make it to the stage, Keen could immediately be heard expressing concerns about the lack of police presence. 

Keen and her supporters were quickly surrounded by an increasingly aggressive mob of trans protestors. The activists broke through established barriers, and didn’t take long before the decision was made to cancel the event and leave for the safety of all involved.

In addition to Keen having been assaulted by Rubashkyn, an elderly woman who had attended the demonstration in support of Keen was battered in the face by a male trans activist.

The woman, who is said to be in her 70s, was left with a darkly blackened eye after being both head-butted and punched in the face. Videos of the assault went viral on Twitter as multiple angles of the altercation between the elderly woman and the male trans activist began to leak in the aftermath of the rally.

[wimpy-imp]

I remember many times when my grandmother would make off hand remarks about how testosterone would make me look like a joke. that it would be funny and unnatural for someone like me to have a beard.

before that i remember my mother outing me to my grandparents without my knowledge or consent. and then having to sit with both of them on different occasions for a year while they tried to tell me i was just a masculine woman. One where they thought it was okay to ask if I'd get pregnant if a potential partner "really really wanted it 🥺" (Which. sidenote. what the actual fuck??)

i remember the day after one of those conversations my mother took me into town for a "suprise" from my grandma. and they tried to make me get my ears pierced. even when i said i didn't want to. the only reason they stopped was because i had an autistic shutdown in public and they were too embarrassed to keep trying to force me into it. That happened 2 years ago. i have very real trauma from that day.

They never cared about my gender nonconformity until i came out.

They still seem to believe that I'd only be a man if i actually secretly hated myself.

[silver-dragonborn]

Draft: Right Hook

please do not repost or reblog

This is just a little something I concocted because I wanted to write Rhaenyra going absolutely feral and snapping. I'll probably have the final version done by next week.

Rhaenyra did not hesitate under the shadow of the dagger and punched Alicent on an instinct with her right hand (just like how Daemon taught her), gasped as her knuckles jarred against the Queen's delicately soft cheek, and sent a jolt of pain to her shoulder. Chaos erupted as Alicent collapsed in a heap of green skirts with a squeal, dagger clattering, and hair twisting across her cheek now bloodied by the full set of rings on Rhaenyra's fingers. Alicent looked up at Rhaenyra in a daze, blood leaking from her nose and her split lip, and for an instant, she had this strange expression. Hurt, yes. Angry, of course. But more afraid than either one. Like the look Rhaenyra had herself, maybe, when that horrid woman had commanded that Joffrey be brought to her.

"RHAENYRA!" Viserys was roaring now, face red, eyes bulging with outrage, but Rhaenyra was miles away, eyes never leaving Alicent's, she bent down and slowly picked up the dagger, fingers curling around the hilt. Hard. "No, father," she said, her tone an eerie calmness that cut through the chaos. "She attacked me, your heir, with a knife and I was given no choice, but to defend myself and my sons." Alicent was trembling now, the bloody smear Rhaenyra's rings left behind now fully bleeding. 'It will scar,' she thought distantly feeling a curl of satisfaction in her gut. 'Was this how Alicent felt when she insulted me again, and again within the walls of my own home?'

Rhaenyra's eyes slowly slid across the stunned faces of her father's Kingsguard, taking note of their reactions before stopping on Aegon himself, face pale and trembling. It was time to put an end to this. "You have a choice, brother. Family," she pointed to herself, "Or treason," Rhaenyra pointed the blade's tip at the fallen Queen who was still too stunned to scream and demand punishment. They were Ladies of King Viserys' court and Ladies did not fly at each other with knives or throw punches like brawling soldiers, but it would seem Driftmark had unpeeled the hidden layers of the Hightower's savagery and Rhaenyra's carefully hidden fire.

"Viserys, please, our children," Alicent bleated, but Rhaenyra would not be swayed by her tears. Even the most pitiable posed a threat and her old friend had proven time and time again that she would not stop until House Targaryen was torn apart.

"Family or Treason. Choose now, little brother."

"I-I.."

"CHOOSE!!"

Whether it was the realization that his mother had gone too far or the unnatural fire in his sister's eyes, Aegon practically scrambled to Rhaenyra's side and pointed a finger at Alicent, shrieking, "It was her! She spread the rumors! She and Ser Criston! It was them! It was them! They wanted to make me King! Her and Grandfather! They committed treason! It was them!"

Visery's cane clattered, Otto swayed and Alicent wailed.

It would be a long night indeed.

[tinystepsforward]

ngl it makes me want to die a little bit that it's so often trans people who feel that sex is mutable but oppression is always-forever based on asab in ways that allow them to demand that information from other trans people. like it feels fucking bad. it feels bad when it's people holding up someone who posts a lot of selfies as transition goals to a degree they have to clarify what they have or haven't done or what "direction" they're going in, it feels worse when people are out there like "caster semenya is not tma" or whatever the fuck. i am, as always, not a trans woman, but here's a sentiment echoed by many of the trans women around me who log the fuck off, quoted directly from one: "people who draw a clear line where they say that semenya or khelif are tme and then call me tma are just calling me male at this point".

like i get it. i really do. we seek community and shared experiences, and we feel betrayed when people have less in common with us than we thought they did. [*more on this later.] but that's not those people's faults and my god in the case i'm seeing play out on twitter rn this poor person did absolutely nothing to intentionally mislead people, just posted pictures of their actual kid self. who looks a lot like i did, because shockingly enough "we can always tell" doesn't fucking work for trans people either!

on the one hand i move in intersex circles which are unapologetically welcoming in cis "dyadic" people with pcos, because it serves nobody to draw a clear line where mutilation or genetics or some ineffable childhood suffering are what make somebody intersex, especially when most of us (esp in places like nz) have never been karyotyped and are being treated for symptoms without a pinned-down cause anyway. the more of us there are the stronger we are, the more pressure we can exert on a medical profession which doesn't like to consider how common outliers are, how uneasy sex is at all. and then on the other hand there's dyadic trans people on the internet who've yelled me out of spaces because a couple of traumatised incarcerated trans women i worked with as a prison abolitionist assumed i was also a trans woman and i didn't immediately tell them my entire csa-involved history of being sexed in varying ways as an infant and child and/or exactly how big my phallus was at birth or where in my junk config my urethra lives so they could decide i was tme or whatever.

returning to the * for a related but not identical thought: i think presuming shared experiences leads to some fucked shit in general! "oh we all had a radfem phase" or "oh we all were channers" no we fucking weren't and it's particularly obnoxious when me & mine are trying to build trans community locally to organise and resist the growing wave of far-right backlash against our existence, and there's just white people in there on a spectrum from "straight up being antisemitic and trying to get the n-word pass" through "handwringing about how they need to make space for people who aren't politically correct" to "handwringing about how brown people are right to be mad at them but doing shit fuckall". and then the other fucking brown people in the space are on some identity politics shit where they're like "trans joy inherently excludes those of us who could get deported" or "big city white queers are killing us by being visible instead of going stealth bc it stirs up the discourse" or whatever the fuck i've heard pulled out this year. there's a bunch of reasons i primarily organise outside of trans spaces and that's one of them. i've never felt more alone in spaces where people claim we're all the same than being left as the brownest moderator or organiser in a space full of people to whom "this is a safe trans space" apparently means they get to abdicate all other responsibilities not to lapse into presumed shared patterns that are fucking racist or otherwise alienating. i've never felt more alone than surrounded by exclusively trans people who sort people into boxes and assume everyone in those boxes has the transition goals they have. like i was on cypro until it disagreed with me to the point of endocrine crisis and now i'm on t and at both those points people were so fucking presumptive or entitled to my reasons or journey or personal relationship w my body

literally just submitted on (and was invited to consult on) the nz law commission's review of the human rights act and like. it's straight up fucked how many nz trans people fully do not comprehend that any "sex assigned at birth" type definitions fundamentally exclude migrants who have no way of proving it and many intersex people who happen to have been reassigned later or many times or never assigned at all as a baby. we can't make law with this shit and that's why we have to have symmetrical protections for all genders/sexes/expressions/presentations, bc naming and defining a protected class here often leaves the people who already are left out from those shared experiences of marginalisation out in the cold when they face violence