#disabled people are not defective

[wandering-wolf23]

Anyway, your glorious revolution means that marginalized people are going to die horribly.

[softstuffs]

"Acne just means you don't shower" "Just get whitening strips!" "Yellow teeth are disgusting" "stretch marks are gross though :(" "invisalign" "*unasked for comments on weight and dieting advice*"

That's cool! But by the way, how do you treat people with actual deformities? Not just a mole or a crooked nose. How do you treat people with visible birth defects? Burn victims, cleft palettes, craniofacial deformities? People's whose deformities are clear and visible? People with visible reconstruction scars, People with visible medical implants?

"Ugly" people do not owe you change. They do not owe you pretty faces or bodies. Your comments and jabs at "gross" traits just says the quiet part out loud.

[irregularbillcipher]

DO YOU KNOW WHAT SPAWNED YOUR EXISTENCE?

[ID: Two lineless, digital paintings, both with warm, dark gray backgrounds. Both canvases are shaped like exact squares.

Painting one shows an adult Bill Cipher, a bright yellow triangle with a top hat, bow tie, cane, singular eye, and long lashes, reaching out to shake hands with the Axolotl, a pink axolotl with an electric blue tail. Bill is looking at the Axolotl casually, and his outstretched hand is engulfed in blue flames, while the Axolotl is smiling at Bill gently, reaching out to take his hand. There are stylized stars, similar to sparkles, in the top right and bottom lefthand corners of the painting. The painting is textured so that you can see the gray of the canvas very faintly through the brush strokes.

Painting two consists mostly of a short passage from Edwin Abbott Abbot's Flatland, written in light gray over the dark background. The passage is the beginning of chapter 7, and reads as follows:

"7. Concerning Irregular Figures

I for my part have never known and Irregular who was not also what Nature evidently intended him to be-- a hypocrite, a misanthropist, and, up to the limits of his power, a perpetrator of all manner of mischief..."

Below the quote, near the very bottom of the page, is a tiny illustration of a very young Bill Cipher. He is drawn completely in grayscale, and is looking down at the ground angrily, fists clenched. He is wearing a pauper's cap and has bandages wrapped around his rightmost angle, which is noticeably longer and more acute than his other angles.

End ID]

[ophanim-vesper]

Personally always hated the 'mouthbreather' insult. Having a cleft lip and palate meant my upper respiratory system makes it harder to breathe through my nose. My nasal passage is literally distorted and sometimes I can't even breathe at night while lying down, because my mouth instinctively closes while my nose is completely blocked. So, I had to resort to mouthbreathing, and that has been belittled and ridiculed and associated with being 'retarded' or generally stupid. Being born with a physical defect that literally makes it harder to breathe through your nose shouldn't be an insult. Having a chronic illness that makes it harder to breathe shouldn't be an insult. Needing to have a less socially accepted adaptation in order to LIVE shouldn't be an insult. Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

[cripplepunkfag]

god i wish i could stop fuckin thinking this i feel like such a dick i KNOW people with more obvious and more serious disabilities dont "have it better" but i cant stop thinking about it i just wish i could collapse dramatically and get rushed somewhere and magically diagnosed i feel like such a fuckin drama queen because i feel awful all the time but its just like dizziness and pain do i even have the right to claim im disabled? its not like im diagnosed. its not like i know whats wrong. its not like its serious. maybe i am just fuckin faking it.

[pynkhues]

I'm really sorry you and your sister are dealing with that

(no pressure to publish this, not that there should ever be pressure to publish an ask if you don't want to, of course, but just wanted to say I hope you're doing okay)

Ah, thank you, anon, it's okay. It's been a while now (court moves slooow), but we're getting hopefully close to the end. She filed in Family Court December 2022, and we've had about five interim hearings with final trial (finally) scheduled over four days next month, so fingers crossed! But yeah, it's been A Time. He's financially and emotionally abusive against my sister, and both those things as well as medically negligent against their children (who are only six and eight and both have special needs), so it's been....rough. To say the least.

But on a lighter note, have one of my new favourite photos I took of my nephews at the jellyfish enclosure at the aquarium last month!

[ryukisgod]

It’s easier to say “I hate kids” than ‘I don’t enjoy the company of children’

The thing about people talking about how much they hate children is that I've never seen any correlation between "openly expressed loathing of children" and "support for policies that actively harm children."

In contrast, when people go out of their way to tell you how much they love children and want to protect children, it's at least a 50/50 chance that you are about to hear support for the most actively evil assault on children's rights and dignity that you can possibly imagine.

[determinate-negation]

yeah it is actually insane that literally millions of people have been murdered by the united states in the name of anticommunism, just for daring to want a socialist society, people are permanently disabled or traumatized, children are born with birth defects from us bombs to this day, many countries are still under crushing economic sanctions or still living in the aftermath of us backed right wing coups, and it really is insignificant to most americans

[ducksoup17]

hey now that it’s disability pride month can you please remember to include people with Down syndrome and other chromosomal defects into your activism. they’re so often left behind. I literally never see anyone spreading Down syndrome awareness that isn’t close family of someone with Down syndrome. They exist and they’re living breathing humans who deserve just as much activism as every other disabled person

[hyperlexichypatia]

As I keep shouting into the void, pathologizers love shifting discussion about material conditions into discussion about emotional states.

I rant approximately once a week about how the brain maturity myth transmuted “Young adults are too poor to move out of their parents’ homes or have children of their own” into “Young adults are too emotionally and neurologically immature to move out of their parents’ homes or have children of their own.”

I’ve also talked about the misuse of “enabling” and “trauma” and “dopamine” .

And this is a pattern – people coin terms and concepts to describe material problems, and pathologization culture shifts them to be about problems in the brain or psyche of the person experiencing them. Now we’re talking about neurochemicals, frontal lobes, and self-esteem instead of talking about wages, wealth distribution, and civil rights. Now we can say that poor, oppressed, and exploited people are suffering from a neurological/emotional defect that makes them not know what’s best for themselves, so they don’t need or deserve rights or money.

Here are some terms that have been so horribly misused by mental health culture that we’ve almost entirely forgotten that they were originally materialist critiques.

Codependency What it originally referred to: A non-addicted person being overly “helpful” to an addicted partner or relative, often out of financial desperation. For example: Making sure your alcoholic husband gets to work in the morning (even though he’s an adult who should be responsible for himself) because if he loses his job, you’ll lose your home. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/codependency-addiction-recovery.html What it’s been distorted into: Being “clingy,” being “too emotionally needy,” wanting things like affection and quality time from a partner. A way of pathologizing people, especially young women, for wanting things like love and commitment in a romantic relationship.

Compulsory Heterosexuality What it originally referred to: In the 1980 in essay "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/493756 Adrienne Rich described compulsory heterosexuality as a set of social conditions that coerce women into heterosexual relationships and prioritize those relationships over relationships between women (both romantic and platonic). She also defines “lesbian” much more broadly than current discourse does, encompassing a wide variety of romantic and platonic relationships between women. While she does suggest that women who identify as heterosexual might be doing so out of unquestioned social norms, this is not the primary point she’s making. What it’s been distorted into: The patronizing, biphobic idea that lesbians somehow falsely believe themselves to be attracted to men. Part of the overall “Women don’t really know what they want or what’s good for them” theme of contemporary discourse.

Emotional Labor What it originally referred to: The implicit or explicit requirement that workers (especially women workers, especially workers in female-dominated “pink collar” jobs, especially tipped workers) perform emotional intimacy with customers, coworkers, and bosses above and beyond the actual job being done. Having to smile, be “friendly,” flirt, give the impression of genuine caring, politely accept harassment, etc. https://weld.la.psu.edu/what-is-emotional-labor/ What it’s been distorted into: Everything under the sun. Everything from housework (which we already had a term for), to tolerating the existence of disabled people, to just caring about friends the way friends do. The original intent of the concept was “It’s unreasonable to expect your waitress to care about your problems, because she’s not really your friend,” not “It’s unreasonable to expect your actual friends to care about your problems unless you pay them, because that’s emotional labor,” and certainly not “Disabled people shouldn’t be allowed to be visibly disabled in public, because witnessing a disabled person is emotional labor.” Anything that causes a person emotional distress, even if that emotional distress is rooted in the distress-haver’s bigotry (Many nominally progressive people who would rightfully reject the bigoted logic of “Seeing gay or interracial couples upsets me, which is emotional labor, so they shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public” fully accept the bigoted logic of “Seeing disabled or poor people upsets me, which is emotional labor, so they shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public”).

Battered Wife Syndrome What it originally referred to: The all-encompassing trauma and fear of escalating violence experienced by people suffering ongoing domestic abuse, sometimes resulting in the abuse victim using necessary violence in self-defense. Because domestic abuse often escalates, often to murder, this fear is entirely rational and justified. This is the reasonable, justified belief that someone who beats you, stalks you, and threatens to kill you may actually kill you.

What it’s been distorted into: Like so many of these other items, the idea that women (in this case, women who are victims of domestic violence) don’t know what’s best for themselves. I debated including this one, because “syndrome” was a wrongful framing from the beginning – a justified and rational fear of escalating violence in a situation in which escalating violence is occurring is not a “syndrome.” But the original meaning at least partially acknowledged the material conditions of escalating violence.

I’m not saying the original meanings of these terms are ones I necessarily agree with – as a cognitive liberty absolutist, I’m unsurprisingly not that enamored of either second-wave feminism or 1970s addiction discourse. And as much as I dislike what “emotional labor” has become, I accept that “Women are unfairly expected to care about other people’s feelings more than men are” is a true statement.

What I am saying is that all of these terms originally, at least partly, took material conditions into account in their usage. Subsequent usage has entirely stripped the materialist critique and fully replaced it with emotional pathologization, specifically of women. Acknowledgement that women have their choices constrained by poverty, violence, and oppression has been replaced with the idea that women don’t know what’s best for themselves and need to be coercively “helped” for their own good. Acknowledgement that working-class women experience a gender-and-class-specific form of economic exploitation has been rebranded as yet another variation of “Disabled people are burdensome for wanting to exist.”

Over and over, materialist critiques are reframed as emotional or cognitive defects of marginalized people. The next time you hear a superficially sympathetic (but actually pathologizing) argument for “Marginalized people make bad choices because…” consider stopping and asking: “Wait, who are we to assume that this person’s choices are ‘bad’? And if they are, is there something about their material conditions that constrains their options or makes the ‘bad’ choice the best available option?”

[irregularbillcipher]

start of 2022 to june 2023 was the longest streak i ever went without going to the hospital outside scheduled appointments and not even a year later i have a nearly three week stint in the hospital and am back to being on a feeding tube 16 hours a day for the first time since i was a toddler. i usually joke about being disabled and stuff but this shit sucks. i hate that my health has just been insane since i’ve been in the womb and there’s absolutely no stability in terms of knowing how well i’m doing. stopped having hospitalized pneumonias when i was ten, then had one when i was 17 and like it’s been almost ten years but who knows!!! hopefully the next time i need heart surgery it’ll be a cardiac cath instead of open heart b it who’s to say!!! we never thought I’d be on a tube again but here i am at 26 and I’ve had two types just this month!!! all the doctors talking to me tell me how well i’m handling things and how complex my case is and how they hope they get me “back to normal” because i’m “just so young” and then just look sad when i say I’ve gotten used to this since birth. i’m just so fucking tired. this shit just doesn’t end y’know, you think you’re finally something close to normal and healthy and then you realize you were just going through a quiet period

anyway sorry for the vent post have a picture of my dear sweet friend pim pimling

[oneshortdamnfuse]

I don't disagree with you. I made this post with the awareness that public bathrooms will be used by all kinds of people, but I am talking specifically about disabled and chronically ill people here because I am one and I frequently struggle with bathroom access.

Yes, even the way public bathrooms are designed should serve homeless people. I also believe everyone has a right to public transport, and any criticism I have for it as it exists now is not intended to see it disappear. It is to enhance it.

With that said, I am dependent on my car because the public transportation available to me where I live is not accessible to me as a chronically ill person who needs immediate access to a bathroom. It can take me a really long time to get to a bathroom if I am stuck on a bus, and then a long time to get back on a bus going to my destination.

I am not saying get rid of buses, but I'm in trouble if cities become much less accessible to cars if they don't address the bathroom issue.

I am saying there should be more public bathroom locations along bus routes, and other modes of transportation. There could be a day when I can no longer drive, and if the public transportation available to me isn't in close proximity to public bathrooms then I will simply be stuck at home like many other disabled and chronically ill people.

I am once again explaining that in order for walkable cities and public transit to work for disabled people, there also need to be more public bathrooms available in and around those areas. Not just places to sit down or rest. Bathrooms. We need accessible, clean bathrooms. With sharps bins. With multiple wheelchair accessible stalls. With an area to set down supplies needed to maintain one’s body. Even if it’s not being used to get rid of bodily waste, bathrooms are one of the few spaces disabled people have to maintain some sort of privacy when they’re in the middle of a flare up or they need to take medication or what have you. Designing a public space? Include bathrooms.

[identitty-dickruption]

sorry, any disability movement that tries to have me say that I DON’T have deficits or that I’m NOT defective will always end badly. endlessly trying to reframe disabled traits as superpowers will only ever exclude the most vulnerable. it will only ever shove aside other disabled people in an attempt to normalise the limited symptoms that CAN be reframed as “benefits”. and that’s not a movement I can prescribe to

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Holy CRAP the UN Cybercrime Treaty is a nightmare

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If there's one thing I learned from all my years as an NGO delegate to UN specialized agencies, it's that UN treaties are dangerous, liable to capture by unholy alliances of authoritarian states and rapacious global capitalists.

Most of my UN work was on copyright and "paracopyright," and my track record was 2:0; I helped kill a terrible treaty (the WIPO Broadcast Treaty) and helped pass a great one (the Marrakesh Treaty on the rights of people with disabilities to access copyrighted works):

https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/marrakesh/

It's been many years since I had to shave and stuff myself into a suit and tie and go to Geneva, and I don't miss it – and thankfully, I have colleagues who do that work, better than I ever did. Yesterday, I heard from one such EFF colleague, Katitza Rodriguez, about the Cybercrime Treaty, which is about to pass, and which is, to put it mildly, terrifying:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/07/un-cybercrime-draft-convention-dangerously-expands-state-surveillance-powers

Look, cybercrime is a real thing, from pig butchering to ransomware, and there's real, global harms that can be attributed to it. Cybercrime is transnational, making it hard for cops in any one jurisdiction to handle it. So there's a reason to think about formal international standards for fighting cybercrime.

But that's not what's in the Cybercrime Treaty.

Here's a quick sketch of the significant defects in the Cybercrime Treaty.

The treaty has an extremely loose definition of cybercrime, and that looseness is deliberate. In authoritarian states like China and Russia (whose delegations are the driving force behind this treaty), "cybercrime" has come to mean "anything the government disfavors, if you do it with a computer." "Cybercrime" can mean online criticism of the government, or professions of religious belief, or material supporting LGBTQ rights.

Nations that sign up to the Cybercrime Treaty will be obliged to help other nations fight "cybercrime" – however those nations define it. They'll be required to provide surveillance data – for example, by forcing online services within their borders to cough up their users' private data, or even to pressure employees to install back-doors in their systems for ongoing monitoring.

These obligations to aid in surveillance are mandatory, but much of the Cybercrime Treaty is optional. What's optional? The human rights safeguards. Member states "should" or "may" create standards for legality, necessity, proportionality, non-discrimination, and legitimate purpose. But even if they do, the treaty can oblige them to assist in surveillance orders that originate with other states that decided not to create these standards.

When that happens, the citizens of the affected states may never find out about it. There are eight articles in the treaty that establish obligations for indefinite secrecy regarding surveillance undertaken on behalf of other signatories. That means that your government may be asked to spy on you and the people you love, they may order employees of tech companies to backdoor your account and devices, and that fact will remain secret forever. Forget challenging these sneak-and-peek orders in court – you won't even know about them:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/un-cybercrime-draft-convention-blank-check-unchecked-surveillance-abuses

Now here's the kicker: while this treaty creates broad powers to fight things governments dislike, simply by branding them "cybercrime," it actually undermines the fight against cybercrime itself. Most cybercrime involves exploiting security defects in devices and services – think of ransomware attacks – and the Cybercrime Treaty endangers the security researchers who point out these defects, creating grave criminal liability for the people we rely on to warn us when the tech vendors we rely upon have put us at risk.

This is the granddaddy of tech free speech fights. Since the paper tape days, researchers who discovered defects in critical systems have been intimidated, threatened, sued and even imprisoned for blowing the whistle. Tech giants insist that they should have a veto over who can publish true facts about the defects in their products, and dress up this demand as concern over security. "If you tell bad guys about the mistakes we made, they will exploit those bugs and harm our users. You should tell us about those bugs, sure, but only we can decide when it's the right time for our users and customers to find out about them."

When it comes to warnings about the defects in their own products, corporations have an irreconcilable conflict of interest. Time and again, we've seen corporations rationalize their way into suppressing or ignoring bug reports. Sometimes, they simply delay the warning until they've concluded a merger or secured a board vote on executive compensation.

Sometimes, they decide that a bug is really a feature – like when Facebook decided not to do anything about the fact that anyone could enumerate the full membership of any Facebook group (including, for example, members of a support group for people with cancer). This group enumeration bug was actually a part of the company's advertising targeting system, so they decided to let it stand, rather than re-engineer their surveillance advertising business.

The idea that users are safer when bugs are kept secret is called "security through obscurity" and no one believes in it – except corporate executives. As Bruce Schneier says, "Anyone can design a system that is so secure that they themselves can't break it. That doesn't mean it's secure – it just means that it's secure against people stupider than the system's designer":

The history of massive, brutal cybersecurity breaches is an unbroken string of heartbreakingly naive confidence in security through obscurity:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

But despite this, the idea that some bugs should be kept secret and allowed to fester has powerful champions: a public-private partnership of corporate execs, government spy agencies and cyber-arms dealers. Agencies like the NSA and CIA have huge teams toiling away to discover defects in widely used products. These defects put the populations of their home countries in grave danger, but rather than reporting them, the spy agencies hoard these defects.

The spy agencies have an official doctrine defending this reckless practice: they call it "NOBUS," which stands for "No One But Us." As in: "No one but us is smart enough to find these bugs, so we can keep them secret and use them attack our adversaries, without worrying about those adversaries using them to attack the people we are sworn to protect."

NOBUS is empirically wrong. In the 2010s, we saw a string of leaked NSA and CIA cyberweapons. One of these, "Eternalblue" was incorporated into off-the-shelf ransomware, leading to the ransomware epidemic that rages even today. You can thank the NSA's decision to hoard – rather than disclose and patch – the Eternalblue exploit for the ransoming of cities like Baltimore, hospitals up and down the country, and an oil pipeline:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EternalBlue

The leak of these cyberweapons didn't just provide raw material for the world's cybercriminals, it also provided data for researchers. A study of CIA and NSA NOBUS defects found that there was a one-in-five chance of a bug that had been hoarded by a spy agency being independently discovered by a criminal, weaponized, and released into the wild.

Not every government has the wherewithal to staff its own defect-mining operation, but that's where the private sector steps in. Cyber-arms dealers like the NSO Group find or buy security defects in widely used products and services and turn them into products – military-grade cyberweapons that are used to attack human rights groups, opposition figures, and journalists:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/24/breaking-the-news/#kingdom

A good Cybercrime Treaty would recognize the perverse incentives that create the coalition to keep us from knowing which products we can trust and which ones we should avoid. It would shut down companies like the NSO Group, ban spy agencies from hoarding defects, and establish an absolute defense for security researchers who reveal true facts about defects.

Instead, the Cybercrime Treaty creates new obligations on signatories to help other countries' cops and courts silence and punish security researchers who make these true disclosures, ensuring that spies and criminals will know which products aren't safe to use, but we won't (until it's too late):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/if-not-amended-states-must-reject-flawed-draft-un-cybercrime-convention

A Cybercrime Treaty is a good idea, and even this Cybercrime Treaty could be salvaged. The member-states have it in their power to accept proposed revisions that would protect human rights and security researchers, narrow the definition of "cybercrime," and mandate transparency. They could establish member states' powers to refuse illegitimate requests from other countries:

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/media-briefing-eff-partners-warn-un-member-states-are-poised-approve-dangerou

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/23/expanded-spying-powers/#in-russia-crime-cybers-you

Image: EFF https://www.eff.org/files/banner_library/cybercrime-2024-2b.jpg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

[gryficowa]

You know what's fucked up? The law assumes that only Jews were the victims of fascism, which is why we now have the absurdity that if you are a fascist but also a Jew (Zionism in short), you go unpunished because you are a Jew, and those who are against you are anti-Semites

So yes, the anti-fascist law turns out to be a perfect loophole for fascists as long as they are Jews (And in Germany it's so absurd that Jews were beaten and attacked by the police for anti-Semitism, so yes, such a loophole in the law was used for this shit)

The law assumed that other victims of fascism do not exist, so they do not have to be as protected as Jews (And before anyone gets outraged, the point is that every discriminated group should be treated under the law in the same way as Jews, i.e. Queerphobia, racism , Islamophobia etc… were treated as seriously as anti-Semitism, and not treated as a "Joke") and this shows how defective our law is, unfortunately, the status quo will probably also be preserved, i.e. they will add another group and ignore the rest, and then the same loop will occur (It is a gloomy thought, but since they erase other victims of the Nazis such as Poles, LGBT+ people, Roma and people with disabilities, because they consider them less important than Jews in the fight against discrimination, then I'm sorry, but it sucks and this anti-fascist policy works shit)

So yes, the anti-fascist law has so many loopholes that it hurts, it just hurts on many levels, and the absurdity that Jews are beaten for anti-Semitism is proof of this, simply assuming that fascism is only swastikas and hating Jews is harmful on many levels, no, fascism is behavior, it is discrimination, dehumanization etc… The victims are not only Jews, and even then they were not the only ones

Zionism has exploited loopholes in the law to silence its opponents, and it's so disgusting it's nauseating

If the fight against fascism doesn't work because the fascist is a Jew, then you know that this anti-fascist policy is so full of loopholes that it doesn't care about fighting fascism, and it can just be exploited by fascists and people shoot themselves in the foot in this law, yes, we should fight fascism, but we should fucking teach what fascism is and how it works, not teach that only Jews are its victims, damn it

Because we have made Jews victims of anti-fascist law because they are anti-Zionists

If this is how the fight against fascism works, you know something has gone fucking wrong

Today, fascists choose easier targets (Because Jews are better protected by law, because attention, anti-Semitism is taken seriously, not as a "Joke" and that's the fucking difference) like LGBT+ people, immigrants, Muslims, black people, etc… because the law is full of loopholes and society continues to ignore the fact that this discrimination is a serious problem

It just sucks, you can be from a group that was a victim of the Nazis (I'm from Poland, specifically Kashubian, I'm aroace and I'm a person with ASD), and you will still be fascist in the eyes of the law because you are anti-Zionist, the law doesn't care about you because you are not a Jew who wants the genocide of the Palestinians and it is sick, it is simply sick

It's simply such a huge loophole in the law against fascism that now it is showing before our eyes how badly it was made and how people concluded that the victims of the Nazis were only Jews, so now that there is anti-fascist law, it only cares about Jews and so , about those who are Zionists, because they treat anti-Zionist Jews like shit (Germany, I remind you)

It's just sick, the whole law is so flawed and against the victims of fascism, even if they are not Zionist Jews, that it's insane

We would have to destroy the law and build it anew, but the question is whether this would not cause problems for future generations, because we would have to do it damn well and analyze everything, and there would probably be a fucking risk that fascism will find another loophole to its own advantage anyway

The very fact that this loophole was ignored for so many years is also terrifying, because what the Zionists did to the Palestinians from the very beginning is an indication that the law even then closed its loopholes and we are only seeing them now because we have greater access to information

The law also showed that this applies to white Jews, because Arab Jews are not taken as seriously, so don't expect anyone to care about anti-Semitism when you are not a European Jew, because you are an Arab and your being a Jew means nothing, and the law doesn't care about Arabs, so you're fucked

So yes, the loopholes in the law are most visible today and well, the very fact that they were ignored for many years is a long-term problem, and the Zionists have been taking advantage of this loophole for years to their own advantage

[candyskiez]

so, you've heard shows be recommended because they had gay characters. you don't really know what they're actually about though, and don't know if they'd be something you'd be into and are worried about spoilers. here's spoiler free plot summaries of em!

The Owl House

The Owl House starts out as a typical teenage girl goes into a fantasy realm story, but with a twist. Actions have consequences. The protagonist is a girl named Luz Noceda, who was being sent to a camp to make her behave normally by her mother after causing too much trouble at school. She ends up finding a place she's always dreamed of: a fantasy world. A world where everyone's so much weirder than she is. And she thinks, maybe if I don't belong out there, maybe people will like me here. Maybe I can be special here.

It's a story about found family, propaganda, erased history, living with disability, religious trauma, and neurodivergence. It's fundamentally a show about people who's brains work differently finding each other and making a family that treats them right. Definitely my favorite of the ones on this list. It's about people who've been oppressed being pissed about it and about finding yourself again after giving up on everyone around you for so long. It's basically a show about being a minority and trying to be understood and to understand yourself in the process. It's about growing up neurodivergent and how isolating it feels and figuring yourself out. It's about repairing broken relationships and parents who fuck up. And it's just. Such a love letter to anyone who was the weird kid in school. It's sad and heartbreaking and also so hopeful, and it's wonderful.

Content warnings: Abuse, Death, Grief, Animal Death, Suicidal thoughts, Vague suicide attempts, Depression, blink and you'll miss it s/h, body horror, religious trauma

She Ra and the Princesses Of Power

Adora was raised in the Horde since she was a baby, being fed propaganda about how cruel the princesses were. After learning how the horde actually was, though, she defects. But there's one problem. Her best friend, Catra, stays behind. Adora finds a sword that can transform her into She Ra, and might be the key to figuring out who she really is, while Catra takes her place as force captain.

It's a story about abuse, at the end of the day. Adora and Catra were stuck in a golden child and scapegoat dynamic, despite how much they care about each other. This leads to them knowing everything about each other but not understanding it. There's a fundamental disconnect between them, because both of their traumas are completely different. They have complete misconceptions about each other. Even in their initial split, they both have completely different perceptions of what's going on and why the other is upset. It's not a story about magic princesses, it's about the cycle of abuse and what makes it so complicated. Does it have flaws? Yeah. But ultimately I really really enjoy it, and when it does something right it does something RIGHT. Get through season one, it starts kids show-y but it gets very good during later s1.

Content warnings: Abuse (obviously), body horror, gaslighting (and I mean actual gaslighting, not what the Internet thinks gaslighting is), suicide, depression, flashing lights and eyestrain during the finale

Steven Universe

Steven Universe is a sins of the father story. Steven is the son of the leader of the rebel group The Crystal Gems, who's name was Rose Quartz. He navigates the confusion of being half gem and half human, as well as trying to figure out the mess of the rebellion and what his mother left behind. He's constantly in her shadow, for better or for worse.

It's a story about grief. How it impacts relationships, how it taints history, how it impacts family. It has some definite flaws, but ultimately it's about very flawed people who have lost so many people in their life trying to cope with it. Trying to handle what they lost and trying to adjust to life without them. It's about how expectations fuck a kid up and about agency and just a show about complicated relationships in general, at the end of the day. Also, it has some FANTASTIC music.

Content warnings: Grief, Abuse, body horror, very creepy people I don't know how to tag, heavy allegories for homophobia

Nimona

Nimona is a story about a guy who gets framed for murder. His name is Ballister Boldheart, a commoner who hoped to become a knight. It seemed everyone was waiting to watch him fail, so it was no surprise when he was the immediate target. Heavily injured and away from the man he loves, he's left alone trying to figure out a way to prove his innocence- until a strange kid comes into his life. This kids name is Nimona, and while he is intent on proving his innocence, she gave up on being anything but a villain a long time ago.

It's about deconstructing the model minority myth, trans rage, propaganda, and with a healthy dose of "FUCK the police".

Content warnings: Heavy injury, on screen suicide attempt, flashing lights

feel free to add more shows! just remember to keep the summaries as spoiler free as you can and add content warnings!