#it's one thing to be against restricting abortion

[fictionadventurer]

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[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Before the 1960s, it was really hard to get divorced in America.

Typically, the only way to do it was to convince a judge that your spouse had committed some form of wrongdoing, like adultery, abandonment, or “cruelty” (that is, abuse). This could be difficult: “Even if you could prove you had been hit, that didn’t necessarily mean it rose to the level of cruelty that justified a divorce,” said Marcia Zug, a family law professor at the University of South Carolina.

Then came a revolution: In 1969, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan of California (who was himself divorced) signed the nation’s first no-fault divorce law, allowing people to end their marriages without proving they’d been wronged. The move was a recognition that “people were going to get out of marriages,” Zug said, and gave them a way to do that without resorting to subterfuge. Similar laws soon swept the country, and rates of domestic violence and spousal murder began to drop as people — especially women — gained more freedom to leave dangerous situations.

Today, however, a counter-revolution is brewing: Conservative commentators and lawmakers are calling for an end to no-fault divorce, arguing that it has harmed men and even destroyed the fabric of society. Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers, for example, introduced a bill in January to ban his state’s version of no-fault divorce. The Texas Republican Party added a call to end the practice to its 2022 platform (the plank is preserved in the 2024 version). Federal lawmakers like Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and House Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, have spoken out in favor of tightening divorce laws.

If this sounds outlandish or like easily dismissed political posturing — surely Republicans don’t want to turn back the clock on marital law more than 50 years — it’s worth looking back at, say, how rhetorical attacks on abortion, birth control, and IVF have become reality.

And that will cause huge problems, especially for anyone experiencing abuse. “Any barrier to divorce is a really big challenge for survivors,” said Marium Durrani, vice president of policy at the National Domestic Violence Hotline. “What it really ends up doing is prolonging their forced entanglement with an abusive partner.”

In the wake of the Dobbs decision, divorce is just one of many areas of family law that conservative policymakers see an opportunity to rewrite. “We’ve now gotten to the point where things that weren’t on the table are on the table,” Zug said. “Fringe ideas are becoming much more mainstream.”

REPUBLICANS IN MULTIPLE STATES ARE EYEING DIVORCE RESTRICTIONS

Pushback against no-fault divorce dates back decades. In the 1990s and early 2000s, three states passed covenant marriage laws, allowing couples to opt into signing a contract allowing divorce only under circumstances like abuse or abandonment. Some backers of the laws intended them to send a larger anti-divorce message, the Maryland Daily Record reported in 2001. Speaker Johnson, then a lawyer in Louisiana, was an early adopter of covenant marriage, entering one with his wife Kelly in 1999. 

More recently, high-profile conservative commentators have taken up the anti-divorce cause. Last year, the popular right-wing podcaster Steven Crowder announced his own unwilling split. “My then-wife decided that she didn’t want to be married anymore,” he complained, “and in the state of Texas, that is completely permitted.”

That could change. As Tessa Stuart noted in Rolling Stone, the Texas Republican party controls both chambers of the state legislature and the governor’s office, and could likely make its platform — the one calling on the state legislature to “rescind unilateral no-fault divorce laws” — a reality if it chose. The Louisiana and Nebraska Republican parties have also considered or adopted similar language.  

And Ben Carson, secretary of housing and urban development under President Donald Trump who has been floated as a potential VP pick, wrote in his recent book that “for the sake of families, we should enact legislation to remove or radically reduce incidences of no-fault divorce.”

ENDING NO-FAULT DIVORCE WOULD HAVE MAJOR CONSEQUENCES

Opponents of no-fault divorce argue that it is hurting families and American culture. Making divorce too easy causes “social upheaval, unfettered dishonesty, lawlessness, violence towards women, war on men, and expendability of children,” Deevers wrote last year in the American Reformer, a Christian publication. “To devalue marriage is to devalue the family is to undermine the foundation of a thriving society.”

It’s worth noting that though the no-fault laws initially led to spikes in divorce, rates then began to drop, and reached a 50-year low in 2019, CNN reports. But today, an end to no-fault divorce would cause enormous financial, logistical, and emotional strain for people who are trying to end their marriages, experts say. Proving fault requires a trial, something many divorcing couples today avoid, said Kristen Marinaccio, a New Jersey-based family law attorney. A divorce trial is time-consuming and costly, putting the partner with less money at an immediate disadvantage. It can also be “really, really traumatizing” to have to take the stand against an ex-partner, Marinaccio said.

There’s also no guarantee that judges will always decide cases fairly. In the days of fault-based divorce, courts were often unwilling to intervene in marriages even in cases of abuse, Zug said.

No-fault divorce can be easier on children, who don’t have to experience their parents facing each other in a trial, experts say. Research suggests that allowing such divorces increased women’s power in marriages and even reduced women’s suicide rates. A return to the old ways would turn back the clock on this progress, scholars say.

“We know exactly what happens when people can’t get out of very unhappy marriages,” Zug said. “There’s much higher incidences of domestic abuse and spousal murder.”

It’s unlikely that blue states would ban no-fault divorce, Marinaccio said, but if red states do, their residents would be stuck. Divorce laws generally include a residency requirement, which would make it difficult for people to cross state lines to get a divorce the way they sometimes do now to obtain an abortion. “Your state is the only access you have to divorce,” Marinaccio said.

Divorce is extremely common — more than 670,000 American couples split in 2022 alone. Any rollback to no-fault divorce would likely be politically unpopular, even in red states (some of which have higher divorce rates than the national average).

But perhaps emboldened by their victory in overturning Roe v. Wade, social conservatives have gone after other popular targets in recent months, from birth control to IVF. The drive to increase restrictions on divorce is part of the same movement, Zug said — an effort to re-entrench “conservative family values,” incentivize heterosexual marriage and childbearing, and disempower women. “They are all connected,” Zug said.

[supreme-leader-stoat]

Response to your reblog before I peace out.

The argument of the immorality of abortion is built on the assumption that life inherently has value. Lives do not have any inherent value, because they are the result of millions of years of naturally occurring processes. These natural processes do not have any inherent moral value; attempting to assign one would involve invoking some sort of "god" that exists beyond the material, observable, provable world we live in, rather than some logical, clear, and distinct notion such as the one attempted to be shown. For these reasons, abortion is morally neutral.

On that note, the morality and legality of abortion are thereby a human notion, with a logically valid -though not logically sound- argument in either direction. The argument presented says that "no human life should be purposefully ended by another human being. Because that's murder." In short, they believe that murder is necessarily and inherently immoral. That's all it is though, a belief: There is no wholly logical ground to stand on with regards to murder being universally bad in all scenarios, because of its' moral neutrality as I proved above. In other words, the morality and legality of aborting a fetus is wholly subjective.

"Do you actually have an issue with my argument that a fetus is a human being with the right to life, and ending their life is murder[?]"

Yes I do. A fetus is not survivable beyond the confines of the womb for quite some time; in fact, not until right before the fetus is due to become a baby and be born, that ever-reliable 8 month mark after insemination. As such, considering the fetus is unable to survive without constant connection to the pregnant person, it stands to reason that this is an extension of their body at this point, rather than a separate entity. If one intended to claim it still was at the stages before a fetus can survive independently, then consider this implication: Parasites rely on being attached to living beings in order to survive. This includes humans. Therefore, following the earlier claim that "a fetus is a human being with the right to life, and ending their life is murder," a parasite attached to a human is also a human being with the right to life, and ending their life is murder. Therefore, it is more reasonable to claim that for most of the pregnancy cycle, a fetus is not a separate entity from the pregnant person, and by extension, "ending its' life" is not murder.

"Babies are people, too, and have the same right to life as an adult."

This is true! Because babies are not fetuses.

Just thought you would want to read this, because anti-choice rhetoric can be very harmful in shutting down the agency of pregnant people and their ability to dictate their own lives. Knowing the direction that restrictions of this kind have gone in the past, those restrictions will not stop after the illegalization of abortion. Please consider who this harms and who this helps before spreading closed-minded rhetoric of that kind.

Either morality (God-given or otherwise, because there are many secular arguments against abortion) exists or it doesn't. There is a line in the sand or there is not. If you truly intend to argue that lives have no inherent value beyond what we assign them, then not only are the two of us operating in completely irreconcilable ethical frameworks, but yours collapses under its own weight; harm, agency, all these things mattering hinges on the idea that humans and (to a lesser extent) other forms of life have inherent worth, inherent dignity, that causing the former and undermining the latter are wrong in and of themselves.

If there is no objective standard on which to hang our arguments, then everything becomes subjective; all that matters is what we value on a social and individual level. And if that's the case, why would I ever bother to value the opinions of you, a stranger on the internet, over my own? It would be unfair and wrong of me not to consider other positions, to try to see things from another person's point of view, but why should I care about fairness or rightness?

Equating an embryo or fetus to a parasite is fallacious and incorrect. Ignoring that by the scientific definition parasites have to be a different species from the host, and that a pregnancy is a two-way street that also provides benefits for the mother, embryos and fetuses are simply living out the natural development cycle that literally every other human being on the planet has gone through. The biological principles at play in parasitism and human reproduction are fundamentally different.

I could keep going. I could match your arguments with my own about how anti-life rhetoric is a slippery slope to eugenics, about how I could just as easily twist your arguments around to make social parasites out of the elderly and disabled; but in this case it's pointless, because I can't even get you to sit down and agree upon simple principles like "human lives have value" and "murder is bad" or even "there is such a thing as objective morality."

[so-i-did-this-thing]

Hey trans Florida folks - things suck, but I want to make sure y'all have more info so you can better gauge the urgency and expected risk for a new bill.

This is another long post, but please read because a lot of folks are in a huge panic at some misleading info.

You've probably seen this by now:

This is misleading. Be incredibly concerned at the path we're on because it is bad, even plan to leave the state (I am), but drag isn't punishable by the death penalty:

From the Twitter screencap: "Florida has now: 1) made drag in public illegal as a 'sex crime against children'."

Misleading. SB 1438 censors drag in front of minors w/vague, subjective language and threatens misdemeanors, fines, and license revocation for violations. This is meant to scare businesses, and even cities. We are already seeing Pride parades canceled in Florida in response:

From the Twitter screencap: "2) made sexual crimes against children punishable by death"

Too broad. Sexual battery against a child is being made into a capital felony (aka, punishable by death) in the currently proposed SB1342 .

The bill says:

"A person 18 years of age or older who commits sexual battery upon, or in an attempt to commit sexual battery injures the sexual organs of, a person less than 12 years of age commits a capital felony".

If we want a definition of "sexual battery" itself, we can jump to Florida statues at:

https://m.flsenate.gov/statutes/794.011

"Sexual battery” means oral, anal, or female genital penetration by, or union with, the sexual organ of another or the anal or female genital penetration of another by any other object; however, sexual battery does not include an act done for a bona fide medical purpose."

Also of note in this statute:

"Serious personal injury” means great bodily harm or pain, permanent disability, or permanent disfigurement."

I am not a lawyer, but to me, this looks like less of an attack against trans people for existing (via conflation with anti-drag bills), and more a way to target those providing gender affirming care -- healthcare providers or even a child's affirming guardians.

Many states are already trying to set up "aiding and abetting" laws (from the anti-abortion playbook) to punish anyone offering any kind of gender affirming care (from general therapy to vocal coaching) to a trans kid.

Florida might be hoping someone applies the "injures the sexual organs of" component of SB1342 to gender-affirming puberty blockers. Yeah, it's a stretch, but I would not be surprised to see someone try it.

Because we are already seeing the HHS committee consider sending subpoenas to gender-affirming clinics:

"House Speaker Paul Renner said he wants the House to examine how the organizations adopted their recommendations. He questioned whether the guidelines were the result of scientific analysis or whether “the integrity of the medical profession has been compromised by a radical gender ideology that stands to cause permanent physical and mental harm to children and adolescents.”

Emphasis mine. Again, I am not a lawyer, but I would not be surprised to see someone try to hold a gender-affirming clinic accountable for "sexual battery" against a child.

All these separate actions paint a grim picture.

Back to our Twitter screencap: "3) Began allowing death penaltymsentencing at at 8-4 vote instead of a unanimous vote"

Yes, true. This one is scary all on its own because it makes it that much easier for the DeSantis administration to target political enemies.

Everyone should be terrified of this:

Back to making child sexual battery a capital felony & SB1342:

Could we eventually see bills proposed that further broaden - via deliberately vague language or otherwise -what kind of "sex crimes" are punishable by death, thus fully targeting trans people?

For sure, we will absolutely see fascists try to get away with whatever they can and I hope we see more resistance against what is happening now to prevent the escalation towards genocide.

But this specific bill isn't targeting drag and it's important we understand the current threat landscape so we can plan accordingly.

Like. I'm still working on my own plan to flee Florida asap (I am a trans man) but I don't feel at risk of the death penalty just yet, so my "leave asap" is "sell the house in a month" instead of "grab the bugout bag and get in the car NOW".

It is very, very important to understand the threats we face so we don't make rash decisions that could have permanent consequences for already vulnerable people. We need to plan and act on plans with haste, but afford ourselves every opportunity to make decisions with as much accurate information as possible.

What's the status of SB1342?

As I type this, still with the senate, but check for updates at the link below. If passed, it would enact October 1, 2023.

In closing

Again, be careful, be safe, be informed. I am not a legal expert; I'm just a little guy, but the risk landscape has enough threats trans people need to respond to without us thinking drag is currently eligible for the death penalty.

Every trans person in the United States, not just Florida, should be watching what is going on across the country and noting how all these bills connect and escalate. And what could become blueprints at the federal level.

Keep hope, but plan for contingencies that could threaten your job, your housing, your liberty, and possibly even your life. Watch the news, watch your local bills, and do your best at figuring out when you need to break that emergency glass.

My biggest advice to be better informed is to learn where your state posts bills and look them up when they hit the news:

Get used to reading bills and noting when they would take effect

Learn how to follow a bill on its way into law - the stages are usually through various committees, then both the House and Senate can file amendments and ultimately vote in separate sessions to approve, then the governor signs it into law

Understand that a lot of reporting on bills can make it sound like it has passed into law, when it might still just be in a committee.

Not all bills pass, and when they do, not all pass as originally proposed. (This can work for or against us.)

Follow trans political commentators like Erin or Alejandra for more context

Again, it all sucks right now and I don't want to underscore the danger so many transgender Americans are already in (and lord knows I am very lucky to be able to leave Florida). But knowing what we're up against is one of the few defenses we have right now.

I have more advice for trans Floridians here.

[sunlightmurdock]

My Future in You | 2.3 | Bradley Bradshaw x Reader

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Masterlist

Synopsis: Bradley’s twenty-two years old and not where he’s supposed to be. He’s supposed to be out of the academy by now. Instead, he’s retaking his senior year of college and praying to god that he gets into flight school. Mav’s gone, his mom’s gone. He’s mad at the world. Then, a hook up at a Halloween party changes his future even more than he could have imagined.

Warnings: accidental pregnancy, references to abortion in a few chapters, angst, will be fluff eventually, enemies to lovers kinda thing, mentions of pregnancy / birth complications, mentions of not eating frequently, lack of hunger

…

The drive home in silence just gives Bradley’s anger time to multiply, growing until he’s so restless that his car door is open before the engine is even off. He slams it behind him, knuckles white around the strap of his bag as he walks around to the front door. That slams too.

It startles you, making you flinch and almost drop the mug in your hand. The now lukewarm coffee that you’ve been trying to sip at for an hour spills down onto the white of your sweater. It’s just a small mark, easy enough to ignore.

His brows knit together slightly as he catches sight of your face from the other end of your open living space. The whole way here, it had felt like he practically had steam coming out of his ears. His palms are still reddish and warm from how tightly he was grabbing the wheel. But, he sees it in the way you’re looking at him and knows that his thing — all of the anger, resentment, blinding rage that Mav brings up in him — it doesn’t matter.

Immediately, he lets his bag, and everything that seeing Mav had just stirred up within him, go.

“What’s wrong?” He’s already rushing forwards, heading for you.

You had promised yourself that you wouldn’t do this and that you wouldn’t freak him out by crying. It just happens. A soft, heartbroken squeak as he reaches you and you throw yourself against his chest.

“Did something happen at the appointment?” He breathes out, wrapping his arms around you and squeezing.

“It’s — it’s not that bad, but he…” You have to pull back and force yourself to breathe to even attempt at the words. “He’s smaller than he should be, and the doctor gave me this pamphlet, and I’ve just been freaking out all day.”

Bradley secures you against him with one arm and turns his attention to the little orange leaflet on the counter with a smiling baby girl with glasses on the front of it. He presses his lips softly to the top of your head. With his free hand, he cautiously opens up the front page.

Your hands curl into the fabric of his khakis, breathing him in, pulling him closer to you. It takes him a few moments, to read what it says and to process it. He never once lets you go.

Just giving a small shake of his head, he exhales and squeezes you closer. “Okay. What did the doctor say we need to do?”

“I need to go for a blood test on Friday and another ultrasound on Tuesday. She said that I should be eating healthy, and more frequently, um — eight hours of sleep, rest. If it’s fetal growth restriction then he could have issues during birth or even after.”

Bradley cups your face in his hands and nods slowly. You can feel his heartbeat in his chest and it just doesn’t make sense that he’s able to appear so calm when you know that he isn’t.

“Okay,” He nods, his voice low. “Alright. When was the last time you ate?”

“I had a sandwich for lunch but I just don’t feel hungry, I’ve been crying all day.” You mumble out as he presses closer to you, smoothing a large palm down your back. You nuzzle your cheek against his shirt, exhaling slowly.

Both of you stand in the kitchen, holding each other close, shit scared of what this means. This future that you have committed absolutely everything to, this little thing that you’re so ready to love, and the fear that there could be absolutely no way of protecting it.

Bradley closes his eyes and turns his face towards yours, hugging you closer. His memories of his dad are fuzzy. His memories of his mother back then are fuzzy too. He doesn’t remember her crying much. He remembers them laughing a lot. Standing here, he wishes he had at least one clear memory left — just so that he’d know what to do now.

Most people probably get to share these worries with their parents, to ask them these questions. You’ve just got each other.

He doesn’t know what to do. The silence is setting in and the orange on that pamphlet feels like it’s becoming more obnoxious by the second.

“Well, I’ll cook tonight, and I’ll be really offended if you don’t finish what I make you.” It’s half playful, he presses his lips to your cheek and pulls back to look at you, fingers trembling against your sides, “It’s just been a stressful couple of months, you just need to relax these last few weeks. ‘M gonna take care of you.”

Crowded against the kitchen counter, you take a few seconds to just be held by him, tucking yourself back in against his chest.

You imagine your mother, probably staring at those six missed calls and feeling smug with herself — knowing that you’d have come crawling back for help eventually. You’re an idiot for thinking that she would’ve been able to help. You tug Bradley closer and press your face into his shoulder. Maybe she’s not really doing that. Maybe she’s sitting there and wondering if she should call you back. Either way, it doesn’t matter.

Everything you’ve given up and gone through, this new family that you’ve scraped together, it’s all that you need.

“You wanna come to the store with me or you wanna take a nap?” Bradley asks you, smoothing his hands down along your middle.

Your answer is immediate, filling the air before silence has a chance to set in.

“I don’t want to be on my own.” You admit, exhaling softly into the warmth of his chest. Bradley nods and kisses your temple. He keeps it to himself that he’s pleased with your answer. After the mood he was in and the day that you’ve had, he just wants you where he can see you.

So, the two of you take your car. It’s easier to get into than trying to haul yourself up into the bronco these days. It’s more of a family car. It’s crazy, actually, how much you’re starting to look like a family. Him, in his uniform and an arm draped around you, your hand resting on your swollen stomach.

He drives with his hand on your thigh, your arm looped through his. Then, once you’re in the store, he pushes the cart with you at his side.

“I could ask you what you want, or I could surprise you. What are you two in the mood for?” Bradley asks, leaning down to kiss the top of your head as you hug his arm.

“I’m not hungry, I don’t know.” You shake your head softly.

“Surprise it is.” Bradley decides, taking his arm out from the loop you’re holding it in and draping it around your shoulders instead. He pulls you in against his side and presses his palm over both of your eyes, covering your vision with a sudden darkness.

“Bradley, I’m seriously going to fall break my face!” You gasp, grabbing at his hand. You don’t even notice it. He beams with pride as you smile, finally.

He nudges you in front of him, between him and the cart, laughing softly as he guides you forwards, blind. “Have a little faith in me, I’m not gonna let anything happen to you. Just can’t risk you seeing my ingredients and ruining my surprise.”

“You’re an idiot,” You giggle, grabbing tightly onto the cart to steady yourself. He grins, kissing your cheek. “I’m so scared right now.”

“Scared? — C’mon, Mama, you’ve gotta start trusting me. I’ve got you.” Bradley teases, pressing his mouth to you jaw, pressing his chest into your back and making your laugh harder. He slows you, then stops. “Stay there, I’m grabbing something. Don’t open your eyes.”

Your heart flutters as his hands briefly leave you. There’s a chill in the supermarket without his body crowding around you to keep you warm. He’s back quickly anyway, something clatters into the cart.

“What a beautiful family you are!” The voice is soft, pleasant sounding. An older lady. You peek one eye open and find her beaming at you from a few feet away.

“Thank you.” Bradley answers, surging with pride as he puts a polite amount of space between you and him, still close enough to keep you bracketed between him and the cart.

“You’ll do just fine, making each other laugh like that,” Her eyes as crinkling at the corners, a smile spreading across her aged face. She looks fondly between the two of you, then nods. “Congratulations on the little one. How lovely. Your first?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Bradley answers. You almost sigh in relief that he’s not choosing now to try to make funny jokes.

“How lucky they will be, to have parents so in love.” She smiles. Bradley’s hand covers yours over the top of the cart, knitting his fingers through yours. Neither one of you says a word, at first. You’ve not said that yet. Technically, you’ve only been together for a few weeks. “You two have a lovely day.”

“You too, thank you.” Bradley remains polite, smiling at her softly. She looks the two of you over, fondly, almost reminiscent, and then she walks away.

Bradley catches you off guard, tearing you back away from your own thoughts as he covers your eyes once more. His lips press to your earlobe as he growls playfully, “You better not have checked out my ingredients, Seresin.”

“You’re paranoid.” You tell him, blinded under his palm, grinning dumbly as you let him guide you forwards again.

He hums playfully, pressing a gentle kiss to your neck, “Mm, I just know what Seresins are like.”

“Your baby’s going to be one,” You point out. He chuckled behind you. “You’re gonna be outnumbered.”

He uses his hold on your face to turn your head, leaning over your shoulder and kissing your lips. “Can’t wait.”

So, like the love-sick fool that you are, you let him lead you blindly around the grocery store, whispering jokes into your ear and planting playful kisses onto your neck. Your heart’s swollen and you’re so confused about how it could ever have been hurt by this same person.

Finally, after making you promise not to look several times, he uncovers your eyes and hands you the keys. Your feet are sore and there’s no point waiting in the checkout line with him. He watches you waddle out of the store with a dumb grin on his face.

It makes him want to grin as big as he can, watching the changes that come with your pregnancy. Not being able to tie your shoe laces anymore, knocking things off of the bathroom counter with your belly — waddling is a new one. It’s a special type of adorable, he’s certain that he’ll never grow tired of seeing it.

Loading your items onto the checkout, he pulls his phone from his pocket and waits, unaware of the eyes on him.

It was made abundantly clear earlier, that Bradley had no desire to speak to Maverick. He had turned, looked, and swiftly walked away. That familiar red flush covering his face and neck. He’s had that since he was in diapers, blushing a deep shade of pink whenever he was upset about something.

But now, for Maverick to be standing in a grocery store, staring at the kid that he hasn’t seen in almost two years, for the second time in the same day — it feels like fate.

He drops his items down onto a random shelf and silently walks towards the checkout as Bradley loads his groceries back into the cart.

“Bradley?”

Bradley looks up, finding Pete staring at him again. His face goes blank, and he straightens up like a cat raising its heckles. Pete doesn’t move. Bradley turns swiftly and walks out of the store without a word.

You get out of the car as you see him coming, your smile fading slightly as you notice the look on his face. That hardened, terracotta flushed look.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, let’s just go home.” Bradley practically tears open the trunk. Your brows draw together as you watch him load the groceries into it.

There’s a feeling, something in your peripheral that makes you turn your head. There’s a man standing by the edge of the parking lot, the colour drained from his face, staring right at you.

Pete’s head spins, heat flooding his nerves.

Looking at Bradley already feels like he’s got to be eye-to-eye with a ghost. Now, he’s standing there and suddenly it’s the summer of 1984, and his best friend’s about to have a kid. The picture’s fuzzy now, as it sits in Pete’s wallet, but it’s clear as day in his mind. Goose and Carole on the end of the Santa Monica boardwalk. She’s so pregnant that she could barely walk, but she was beaming — she had demanded to go to the beach that day.

He studies the crystal clear image before him now. Bradley in his khakis from work. The pregnant girl who’s smile has just faded, staring back at him.

Bradley takes one look at your face and then turns, following your gaze.

“Do you know that guy?” You ask gently, glancing up at Bradley.

“Wait in the car for me.” He answers you, slamming the trunk shut and turning. His pace is purposeful, storming across the parking lot until he’s almost nose-to-nose with Pete.

“What do you want?” Bradley spits.

“You… You’re having a kid?” Pete breathes out, confused, shaking his head. The reality of it hasn’t quite set in yet.

“I said: what do you want?” The same angry kid as he knew before stands in front of him again. Pete shakes his head again.

“You’re not ready to be a parent.”

“Just like I wasn’t ready to be a pilot?” Bradley answers back. You watch from beside the car as he steps closer to the older man, squaring his shoulders like he’s about to hit him.

“Think about your future! I mean — have you even thought this throu—“

“Don’t talk to me about my future after what you did.” He barks, loud enough for you to hear finally, eyes ablaze, shoulders squared. Maverick always forgets how much Bradley has grown. He looks up slightly as Bradley walks closer to him.

Maverick looks now to you, with one hand on your stomach and a confused look on your face.

“This isn’t what I wanted for you.” Maverick admits quietly. He’s not sure what makes him say it, it’s already too late, you look pretty far along. But, he says it anyway. When it comes to Bradley, there’s this intense need to do the right thing that usually propels him into doing the wrong thing.

“I didn’t mean — I shouldn’t have —“ Maverick stutters, shaking his head. It always ends like this. He always does the wrong thing. He sees the worry in your eyes. He always upsets Bradley without meaning to. “I’m sorry. Can we talk about this?”

“I don’t give a shit what you want, Mav,” Bradley shakes his head, disbelief. He stops walking finally and points a finger into Pete’s chest, deadly serious — less emotional than last time. “Stay the fuck away from me, stay the fuck away from my family.”

Blue eyes widened, serious, Maverick stares back at the boy before him. Bradley’s always had a temper, that’s nothing new. The sincerity in his tone is. He’s serious about you, it seems.

“Bradley?”

Both of them turn their heads to look at you at the same time. You swallow. His mouth sets into a hard line and it almost makes you wince. You’ve seen this before; it almost always winds up with you getting hurt.

It’s growing colder now that the sun has set. After the day you’ve had, you miss the days when you could take a hot bath. Going home and crawling under your covers would be enough at this point.

“I’m serious,” Bradley says slowly, giving his uncle a quick once over, and then taking a step back with a shake of his head. “You will never be family to me. Leave me alone.”

Without giving the man who had raised him time to argue, Bradley turns and walks back to the car, grinding his jaw.

“Who was that?” You frown.

“Come on,” Bradley sighs, shaking his head as he tugs open the passenger side door and motions for you to get in. “I’ll tell you later. I just want to go.”

You’ve seen Bradley angry — you’ve seen him being an asshole just for the sake of it. This isn’t that. You’ve never seen him rattled like this. So, you get in the car and you let him take you home, pretending not to see the way that the dark haired man watches you car pull out of the lot.

You let him cook for you and tell you about his week. You eat everything he makes you and he grins, proud of himself. After that, he insists that you spend the rest of the evening in bed. So, you do.

You spend it laying sideways with your head resting on his stomach and your legs dangling over the edge, his fingers toying with stands of your hair.

“So, who was that guy?” You ask finally.

And so, he tells you about Pete Mitchell for the first time. The man who raised him. Uncle Pete who let him stay up late and eat pizza, who came over on the days that Bradley’s mom just couldn’t stop crying. Uncle Pete who sometimes forgot that he promised to come to baseball games or pissed off an admiral and wound up in the middle of the ocean for a couple of months, so couldn’t come to that birthday party anymore.

The let downs and the wonderful memories weigh each other out. For every upside, there’s a downside with Maverick. And then it gets to Bradley’s senior year of high school, when Mav betrayed him. They hadn’t spoken since, other than at Carole’s funeral, briefly. That had gone worse than today had.

You squeeze his hand softly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Bradley says quietly. He smooths his hand down across my stomach. “I’m sorry that I did that in front of you. I’ve been trying to—“

You turn your head, pressing your lips gently to his knuckles. “I know.”

He exhales slowly. You know exactly how hard he had been trying for you.

“I love you.” You decide finally, leaning your head back so that you can look at him. Bradley raises his eyebrows. He’s had a couple of girls say it to him before, he’s never felt inclined to say it back. He would’ve never told them about Maverick, about his mother. He wouldn’t have ever been lying here with them, like this.

“I love you too.” He takes his hand away from your hair and strokes it along your jaw instead. You push yourself up, turning slowly towards him, kissing his lips chastely.

“We’re going to be alright. Right?” You ask quietly, resting your hand against his bare chest. His eyes soften just slightly as he gives you a calm nod.

…

@chaoticweirdogeek @alanadetigy @itsmytimetoodream @oldnatgwenaccount @khaylin27 @bioodforbiood @luckyladycreator2 @mizzzpink @cherrycola27 @unordinare @shanimallina87 @marvel-f1-and-more @heli991113 @pauv-0414 @ghxst-heart @momc95 @asteria33 @lilyevanswhore @diamond-3 @galaxy-moon @jostyriggslover96 @forgiveliv @shawnsblue @little-wiseone @lovemesomevesey @alm334 @averyhotchner @diorrfairy @thedroneranger @batdanceq @wkndwlff @littlemissobsessedwitholdermen @sunflowerziva @cassiemitchell @himbos-on-ice @bradshawseresinbabe @damrlovq @fudge13 @xoxabs88xox @mak-32 @slutfordw

[odinsblog]

Yeah, so I got to thinking about the fuckery in Arizona. They just passed an anti-abortion law from 1864, right? At that point in time, Arizona wasn’t even a state, however they did provide troops to fight in the Confederacy. It’s like they really want to “take America back(wards)” to the good old days of patriarchy on steroids + white supremacy

Anyway, it got me to thinking about what other archaic laws are on the books that Arizona might want to selectively enforce? Being Black, my first thought was, is slavery off the table or nah? What about laws against interracial marriage? Same sex marriage? What about laws restricting who could and could not vote??

There are a lot of outdated laws that are still on the books in Arizona (and other states too), but nobody on the Arizona Supreme Court is really tryna make things like adultery illegal, right? Why pick and choose or be selectively outraged about one and not the other? (answ: hypocrisy. misogyny. racism.)

Any law that was on the books before a territory became a state should be repealed, or at the very least, they should have to be reconsidered or voted on again

[cazort]

I have seen a post circulating that talks about US politics and basically insinuates that in the upcoming presidential election, Biden is "99% Hitler" and Trump is "100% Hitler" and it makes me so frustrated that people can't see this as the disinformation and anti-vote propaganda that it is.

I'm intensely frustrated with Biden for how he has acted too little, too late on the Palestine issue, and how the U.S. continues to send billions in arms to Israel. And yet I'm going to be voting for him, and the analogy above is hugely dishonest. There is a massive difference between Biden and Trump:

The Biden administration and Democrats have strongly and unambiguously protected abortion rights, whereas Donald Trump appointed three supreme court justices who overturned Roe vs. Wade, and Republicans have across-the-board passed draconian abortion restrictions far more conservative than even their base.

Biden and the Democrats are strongly pro-LGBTQ rights including trans rights, at a time when Republicans are threatening trans rights in every state they control, and when even mainstream, "center-left" publications like the NY Times have been publishing transphobic drivel.

The Biden administration continues to expand healthcare access and work to control costs whereas the Trump administration worked to undermine much of the coverage we had.

The Trump administration was hopelessly corrupt and dysfunctional, with turnover in most appointed positions, scandal after scandal. Trump committed crime after crime in plain view, and incited an insurrection when he lost the election and has continued to back conspiracy theories undermining the very foundation of our democracy. Biden has been a relatively straightforward, "what you see is what you get" politician over his whole career, with a sort of level of flaws and corruption that is more typical of politics.

Trump had unprecedented anti-immigrant stances and under him, life became much more difficult for immigrants to the US as well as for non-citizens living here legally. Biden's administration has tried and worked against tough resistance to reverse many of the worst immigration changes made under the Trump administration, including doing things like giving 320,000 Venezuelans temporary protected status as refugees, trying to halt the border wall construction, and increasing legal immigration across-the-board.

Biden's rhetoric has become more critical of Israel over time, Biden has called for regime change and the ousting of Netanyahu, and under Biden the US Ambassador finally stopped voting against a ceasefire resolution and only abstained. Whereas Trump and the Republican's rhetoric has retained entirely critical of Palestinians and not at all critical of Israel, and Republicans have consistently supported draconian restrictions such as bans on BDS and some even introducing legislation banning referring to the region as Palestine. And weeks back, when public sentiment was not as anti-Israel as it is now, several Democrats voted for scrutiny to the Israeli military aid, whereas only one Republican did.

I am highly critical of Biden and I too am appalled that he's still running and that we don't have a better candidate who even ran in the primary. But it's far from truthful to say there is only a 1% difference between Biden and Trump, and even more dishonest and inaccurate to call Biden "99% Hitler", that's crazy talk and it serves only one purpose: to demotivate people and suppress voting.

There is a huge difference between these candidates. They will affect my daily life and your daily life and they will affect the whole world and they will affect Palestine.

Do you want a better candidate? Do you want to vote for an idealistic third-party candidate as a protest vote?

Support ranked choice voting first. Then, if you are in a state like Maine or Alaska that allows ranked choice for the president, vote for your ideal candidates and place Biden however low you want and then omit Trump entirely.

But if you do not have ranked choice in your state, especially if you live in a swing state, vote for Biden. And make sure to also join a movement that advances ranked choice, ideally Total Vote Runoff (TVR) as that is the best system for ranked choice.

[hyperions-fate]

Maybe, just maybe, some American liberals were actually upset by the 2022 Ohio child-rape and Indiana abortion case, blame Trump'e supreme court nominees for what happened in the case, and therefore want to keep him out of office again if at all possible? 

That's just one of many, many things and it's deeply bizarre the way you assume that they only dislike him because he's "uncouth" or something. 

On the face of it, this seems true and fair. And yet, the same people do not express similar opposition or horror towards the actions of the Biden-Harris administration, which has facilitated the slaughter of tens of thousands of children in Gaza. It has also perpetuated domestic abuses and crimes, like the brutal detention of migrant children at the US border. This suggests that liberal opposition to Trump - justified as it is - has less to do with his destructive policies and more to do with how he presents those policies. If your criteria is stopping the murder of innocent people and children, a principled stand against the likes of Trump also requires repudiating Harris and the Democratic establishment, who are equally covered in blood and have signalled no intention to restrict the US's military support of the Israeli state and its enabling of the IDF's genocide in Gaza. Honestly, I'm not trying to be a prick. All I'm asking is for some moral consistency and a move beyond superficiality.

[tobiasdrake]

I've never liked Hypocrisy Gotchas in political discourse. First, because it doesn't really matter. "He said we should kick all the illegal immigrants out but his company employs undocumented migrant labor!" Uh. Yeah. He's a fascist who hates minority races but enjoys slave labor. There may be a semantic contradiction between his words and his actions but there is no contradiction with his values.

The thing about the Right is that they don't really care about integrity of values or whatever. They're just making sound bytes. They want to cut taxes for the rich, restrict voting rights to the oligarchy, control women, reduce minorities to a slave labor class, etc. and they do not care what they have to say or do to make that happen.

They do not care if you catch them being inconsistent with their words. Because the words are just marketing. Their words are the juicy hamburger on the billboard that looks 10x better than what they're serving in the diner. Cool, you pointed out the hypocrisy. They're still gonna say it anyway.

But what really gets me about hypocrisy gotchas is that. Like.

So much of the Right's platform exists in opposition to the Left. Much of what they want is to claw back the victories that the Left has won. What we like, they hate. What we seek to create, they want to destroy. So on a certain level, trying to catch them in a Gotcha is, itself, a Gotcha back at us.

Because when we point and jeer at them for saying one thing and doing another, we're pointing and jeering at something we're supposed to be for.

"Republicans hate sex work but they routinely hire prostitutes! SHAAAAME!"

Uh. We're supposed to be pro-sex worker. Why are you shaming people for hiring sex work?

"Republicans want to kill abortions but this Republican got three abortions! SHAAAAME!!!"

Uh. We're supposed to be pro-abortion. Why are you shaming people for getting abortions?

"Republicans want to destroy LGBT rights but this Republican had an affair with a man! SHAAAAME!!!"

Uh. We're supposed to be pro-LGBT. Why are you shaming people for being gay?

Trying to score zingers off of Republican failures to uphold conservative values is not just politically inconsequential, it also necessarily accepts the premise that conservative values should be upheld. Shaming them for doing things they speak against casts those things they are doing as shameful.

I don't believe in going high when they go low. The Right is up to a lot of shady shit, and they should be called on it. But being gay or indulging in sex work or getting abortions, this stuff isn't shady. And we shouldn't treat it like it is, because then we're accepting their premise as a foundational belief for our argument.

In my opinion, speaking out against the very people we're supposed to support, potentially making people feel unsafe or unwelcome within the party, for the sake of scoring zingers against the enemy side? That's as much of a Hypocrisy Gotcha against us as it is against them.

And we're supposed to be the ones who actually mean what we say.

[phoenixyfriend]

Suggested topics to call your reps about today, 1/30/24!

I’ve been doing two subjects per call recently; one is almost always about the events in the middle east, and then one is domestic policy. I’m including a bit of verbiage you can use as basis for what you say (if you agree with me), for a few of these.

BOTH SENATE AND HOUSE:

Foreign Policy: Reinstate funding for UNRWA. While the claims made by Israel that employees of the relief agency were involved in Oct. 7th are troubling, this arm of the UN is currently providing food, water, shelter, and medical care to the 2.3 million displaced peoples of Gaza. It is especially disturbing and concerning that the many children of Gaza, who are already suffering due to this conflict, are now having this support revoked.

Warn Congress to reaaaaally think about whether a strong response to the incident in Jordan, currently attributed to an Iraqi group backed by Iran, if we're truly looking to avoid a wider regional war as claimed. There is already growing unrest in Yemen and the threat of another civil war, fire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and now the situation with the Islamic Resistance. Caution them against an overreaction of the kind that the US has a tendency towards.

FOR THE SENATE: Urge your senator to put their support behind Bernie Sanders and his motion to restrict funding to Israel until a humanitarian review of the IDF’s actions in Gaza has been completed.

FOR THE HOUSE: Urge your representative to put their support behind Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s petition for the US government to recognize the IDF’s actions in Gaza as ethnic cleansing and forced displacement, and put a stop to it.

Domestic Policy

House of Representatives:

Expansion of the child tax credit. The House of Representatives is currently voting on whether or not to expand the child tax credit that was instated during COVID-19. This credit offers a return on taxes for individuals with children, but currently does not apply to families that are too poor to qualify. During COVID, this tax credit was expanded to include those families, and child poverty fell to record lows, but as it was a temporary measure, those children are getting left behind again. Given the effectiveness the expansion of this tax regulation showed in the past, it would be a net positive for the country as a whole to codify it more permanently.

Other things coming up in the next week if you think your rep might be receptive:

H.R. 6976: Protect Our Communities from DUIs Act: Vote no. This act is discriminatory and enforces harsher penalties on immigrants than in legal citizens. While DUIs are a significant issue, enacting stronger guidelines on a small portion of the population that is already at risk from discriminatory police action is not a solution.

H.R. 6679: No Immigration Benefits for Hamas Terrorists Act - Vote no or dismiss if possible. Terrorism is already considered a reason to reject immigrants. This bill is pointless peacocking. You have better things to do with your time.

H.R. 6678: Consequences for Social Security Fraud Act - Vote no. This proposed act is discriminatory and enacts unduly harsh sentences against minorities. The system already has punishments for fraud; this specific act is unnecessary.

H.R. 5585: Agent Raul Gonzalez Officer Safety Act - Are you sensing a pattern? It's discriminatory! Evading law enforcement on a motor vehicle is already illegal, you do not need to ADD IMMIGRATION PENALTIES.

Senate:

Abortion rights. Domestically, for the senate, push for abortion rights.

Specific things coming up in the next week if you think your Senator might be receptive:

H.R. 6914: Pregnant Students’ Rights Act - Call to ask that the resolution EXPLICITLY include abortion access, or otherwise vote against. This passed the house on strict party lines; other than a handful of abstentions, the vote was all republican for and all dems against. The text of the proposal is explicitly anti-abortion.

H.R. 6918: Supporting Pregnant and Parenting Women and Families Act - same as above, it was very partisan in the house vote, though less explicitly anti-abortion in the text. Nonetheless, it focuses explicitly on protecting funding to "pregnancy centers," which are often anti-choice and dedicated to pushing patients towards keeping a baby they don't want.

DOMESTIC POLICY, BOTH BRANCHES OF CONGRESS: Border policy is currently being hotly debated and negotiated. A very strong policy in favor of the Republican party is the status at the moment. Even some democrats are in favor of it due to small border communities being ill-equipped to handle large numbers of migrants, and states usually removed from the situation getting migrants bussed in from Texas despite telling Texas to knock it off. Despite some Republicans saying that they have gotten everything they could want out of the current deal, the party at large is refusing to pass it as the politics of the debate are more useful to the coming election than actually passing policy. This is also causing delays in passing the federal budget.

I... don't actually want to tell anyone WHAT to think of the border policy since I do not have any real knowledge on the budget impacts and resources dictating the actual problems (nor the racism or xenophobia, that part is obviously bullshit). I can recognize that too some degree, there is a genuine issue of manpower and budget restriction impacting the ability to house and process immigrants.

However, DREAMers are not being considered in the current deal, the delays in the deal are impacting the federal government and threatening a partial shutdown, and people are STILL getting hurt and even dying at the border.

I would focus on protection for DREAMers, chastising the Republicans for deliberately delaying the budget in order to use the border as a reelection premise instead of actually working on the policy they claim to want (emphasize that they are going to lose votes for focusing on reelection at the expense of their people), and protection for children, parents with those children, and nonviolent migrants in general.

[sexhaver]

i wanna prod at ur catholic confession post actually. like yes, murder and child rape is obviously bad and there is an inherent problem with how the catholic church shields abusers. but i think removing some of the restrictions of what a priest can or cannot say about a confession could cause some problems. like, for example, how a lot of priests considerer LGBT people to be child abusers/predatory! hypothetically if the cath church made it so preists could openly condemn confessions guilty of child abuse, and if the church considers identifying as LGBT as child abuse, then that could cause problems if someone confessed to IDing as gay/trans. or alternatively, what if someone confesses to killing a rapist/sexual abuser. a priest could use that confession to testify against them and get them imprisoned. is it ok to imprison people for murdering their abusers? idk, but i dont like the idea of the catholic church having that power having a blanket statement that priests cant mention ANY confessions makes it *slightly* more immune to corruption IMO. obviously i dont think this solution is perfect, but my alternative would be to dissolve the catholic church entirely, and i dont think thats happening anytime soon.

well as you point out there isn't really a good solution to this, and that is because the idea of confession is inherently dumb as fuck. everything the catholic church considers a sin falls into one of three categories:

failing to be pious enough (forgetting to pray, missing church, taking the Lord's name in vain). keeping these secret is fine because they aren't, like, actual crimes, and in small + devout enough communities there are definitely priests who would gossip about to their neighbors if not for the confessional seal.

really cool and good activities that are only an issue if you were raised to believe that they would send you to eternal neverending torture after death (jacking off, being gay, having premarital sex, getting/considering an abortion). these should obviously be kept secret because they're embarrassing and potentially dangerous. however, this is kind of a moot point, because any decent person (priest or otherwise) would understand this without needing a confessional seal making it official. so these need the seal to stop the average priest from tattling to a kid's parents when they confide in them.

actual literal crimes with prison sentences and everything (rape, murder, manslaughter, assault). you should not be telling anyone about these if you can help it. what the fuck guys. this isn't even an ethics thing, this is a "don't be fucking stupid" thing. if you murdered your abuser and got away with it, good for you! now shut the fuck up about it because murder is still illegal. is the guilt eating you alive so badly that you need absolution from God about it (cringe)? do what Protestants figured out centuries ago and cut the middleman out of the equation by talking to the J.C. directly via personal prayer! yes i am aware this is heretical. if you care about heresy more than getting caught you are stupid.

so looking at the three points above, the best argument in favor of confessional seal that i can formulate is "sure, it allows murderers and abusers to literally have their actions condoned by God with the explicit guarantee of never being held legally accountable or even changing their behavior (just say a few Hail Maries), but think about the consequences of removing it! priests would be even MORE bigoted than they already are! some of them might even GOSSIP!" like hm, okay, i hear you, you make some excellent points, i think we should nuke the Vatican

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Amanda Marcotte at Salon:

Republicans know that their war on legal, accessible birth control is unpopular. But that's not stopping them because, as they learned from convicted felon Donald Trump, the way to hide what you're up to is simple: Lie. Lie a lot. Lie every time you open your mouth. Lie with a straight face, and have faith that the weak "fact checks" offered by the mainstream media don't matter. The Republican comfort levels with lying are sky-high in the era of Trump. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., does it with a smirk, satisfied that no one can stop him. It is somehow still staggering how much they lie about birth control and their nefarious intentions toward it. The good news is that Democrats are taking action to cut through the GOP's thick forest of falsehoods.

On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., held a vote on the Right to Contraception Act, which guarantees the right of an individual "to obtain contraceptives and to voluntarily engage in contraception." The legislation also protects the right of licensed health care providers "to provide contraceptives, contraception, and information, referrals, and services related to contraception." Despite loudly insisting they have no desire to take away birth control, all but two Republicans voted against the bill. This follows a 2022 vote on the bill in the House, in which all but 8 Republicans voted against the right to use contraception.

Republicans' excuses this week ranged from obvious lies to obfuscation tactics which ultimately amount to lies. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., called the vote "phony" because "contraception, to my knowledge, is not illegal." But of course, no one is saying it's illegal — yet. The point of Wednesday's vote was preventive, to ensure the right to birth control in the face of overt calls, including from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to "revisit" the legality of contraception now that the right to abortion is no longer federally protected.  Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., whose State of the Union response introduced the nation to what a strange and dishonest character she is, went in for an appropriately weird lie. She falsely claimed the bill would "offer contraception like condoms to little kids." It does no such thing, though I have a lot more questions for Britt about how she thinks puberty works, and if it's induced by the sight of condoms instead of the natural process of growing up. 

Dishonest actors like Cornyn are being empowered by Trump, whose lies are even more hamfisted. Trump was recently asked by a reporter if he plans to restrict birth control and he simply said, "Some states are going to have different policy than others." Journalists know this is his way of avoiding a straight answer while letting the religious right know he supports any law they pass. Trump's campaign staff, clearly panicked that he'd let his anti-contraception stance slip, immediately took to Truth Social to claim he had "NEVER" and would "NEVER" support restrictions on birth control. This, however, is a blatant lie. During his time in the White House, Trump passed policies to cut off contraception coverage on health insurance, appointed health advisors who would like to see most methods banned completely, and ended federal funding for birth control at about 1,000 family planning clinics. 

Republicans use two big, interlocking lies to conceal an anti-contraception agenda from the public. First, they deny they intend to take birth control away, by limiting their definition of "birth control" to condoms and the rhythm method. To justify that shell game, they lie about how the most popular and effective forms of birth control work, claiming they are "abortion." They ping-pong between these two lies, so that the fact-checkers can never keep up. 

[...] So many lies in such a short sentence! Plan B is not an abortion. As the Washington Post noted, "Emergency contraceptive pills such as Plan B and Ella work by inhibiting or delaying ovulation, thereby preventing sperm from fertilizing the egg." The second lie is her implication that if folks "consider" something to be true, that makes it the equivalent of a fact. But many people also "consider" the Earth to be flat or believe Ernst is a hobgoblin in a lady suit. Doesn't make it true! Then there's the dishonesty of focusing only on Plan B, which is a drug stigmatized because it's taken after intercourse. What Ernst fails to mention, however, is that emergency contraception and the birth control pill are the same drug, just different doses. They work identically, by suppressing ovulation. The Christian right opposition to Plan B is a stalking horse for banning all hormonal contraception. Ernst's failure to admit that is a lie by omission. 

The Right To Contraception Act vote in the Senate laid bare the GOP’s hypocrisy on contraception: They seek to wage war on contraception and birth control by deceiving the people, including falsely equating most common forms of birth control and contraception to “abortifacients.”

[chryza]

Presidential debate SICK ASS REACTIONS.

“The microphones will only be turned on during their turn to speak” thank the lord they finally learned

“VP Harris you and President Trump (sic.) were elected four years ago” I hope to god that it was a slip and not an omen.

Harris coming right out and attacking project 2025 is pretty pog anyway I hope she kills him. I’m still skeptical about her in a lot of ways and I’m not a fan of the continuing imperialist military industrial complex ie genocide. but fuck me she’s not a raving lunatic or a decrepit dude with dementia so like. Fuck man I’ll take it.

he keeps saying “as she knows” to try and ruin her credibility which might be effective if he didn’t immediately then verbally veer off the road and crash into a tree

WHY DID THEY TURN HIS MICROPHONE ON. THEY SHOULD HAVE JUST LET HIM FUCKING TALK TO AN EMPTY STUDIO IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO FUNNY.

I hope Kamala kills him. I’m obsessed with the way she keeps laughing at him. KILL HIM.

“She’s a marxist” this is the only time in my life I wish trump was right I fucking wish Kamala Harris was that cool.

[on abortion] “When the baby is born they will decide what to do with the baby and they will EXECUTE the baby” i don’t even have a quip to add the quote speaks for itself

Live Kamala Reaction your opponent just said Tim Walz wants to “Execute Babies”

The MODERATOR being like “there is no state where it’s legal to kill a baby after it’s born” is KILLING ME

Harris does sound legitimately incensed about abortion rights which is a massive W for her, I fully believe she would crack down on restrictions to women’s healthcare

Harris “I invite you to attend one of trump’s rallies and what you’ll hear is him talking about fictional characters like Hannibal Lector, how windmills cause cancer, and you’ll see people leaving early out of exhaustion and boredom” YES. BLOOD. BLOOD.

SHE KNEW EXACTLY WHAT SHE WAS DOING HE IS NOW SOOOO MAD SHE IMPLIED PEOPLE WERE BORED OF HIM AAAAAAHAHAHA I AM MAKING TRIXIE MATTEL SEAGULL NOISES RN

Shown: watching Trump take the bait hook line and sinker

My mom sent me memes so I knew about this beforehand but

“THEYRE EATING THE PETS OF THE PEOPLE OF OUR COUNTRY”

*further trixie bird noises*

[Harris] “This is why I have the endorsement of former Vice President Dick Cheney” that’s NOT A GOOD THINGGGGG I don’t know if it’s like trying to be bipartisan but girl this is NOT the way

I need them to stop turning on Trumps microphone. Just leave it off

I TOOK A BULLET TO THE HEAD BECAUSE OF THEM

KAMALA I SUPPORT FRACKING HARRIS EVERYONE

WHAT ARE WE EVEN TALKING ABOUT ANYMOREEEE THIS IS SUCH A SHITSHOW

“Strength as a leader is not about beating people down it’s about lifting people up” Bold words from a woman who is actively delighting in mocking her opponent, to be clear I think it is an objectively good thing, I simply think this is a hilarious thing to say ten minutes post Live Kamala Reaction

“NOW SHE WANTS TO DO TRANSGENDER OPERATIONS ON ILLEGAL ALIENS IN PRISON”

Most of what trump says is just bloviating nonsense but I am noticing that Kamala Harris is very good at making her words sound nice while not actually saying much of substance. This is not a specific indictment against her because it’s a very Politician thing, but she isn’t actually saying much here.

[moderator] So do you acknowledge now that you lost the 2020 election

[trump] No it was obviously sarcasm

[moderator] I did watch all of the videos where you said that and I didn’t detect the sarcasm.

Trump, on Biden: I’ll let you in on a little secret, [Biden] hates her *pointing to Harris*

Okay so Harris is a proponent of a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine and is opposed to civilian mass-murder. I don’t even know how to begin to touch that with a ten foot pole and the whole situation feels so confusing to me in general. Overall she seems Anti-Civilians-Being-Slaughtered in the name of self-defense but then in the same breath assures that Israel needs support to defend itself from Iran so. Wow sounds like a whole mess of colonization practices that have deliberately destabilized a region that can’t easily be nuanced in a single answer

[Trump] “If she becomes President Israel won’t exist within two years” God I wish Harris was half as cool as he makes her out to be.

“I WOULD GET [PUTIN AND ZELENSKY] ON THE PHONE AND GET THE WHOLE THING SETTLED.”

Kamala Harris PUTIN WOULD EAT TRUMP FOR LUNCH put that on a check and take it to the bank I love national television

I love Harris essentially dishing the hot goss on Trump negotiating with the Taliban. Is this the platform to do it? No. But this is practically kayfabe at this point anyway. Do I even care

What a shitshow. Harris has zero high horse here, she refused to answer basic questions about position in an attempt to remain bipartisan, Trump endlessly blathered about nonsense. Kamala Harris won the debate, but to be frank, trump could lose to a mildly literate dog.

[richincolor]

Interview with Seema Yasmin

We are please to have Seema Yasmin today, author of Unbecoming, a novel about the fight for body autonomy, which arrives on bookshelves on July 9th. I remember seeing Seema speak at NCTE22 when she was promoting “What the Fact?” Finding the Truth in All the Noise”, and she hinted at this book. I was so intrigued about the premise as it had only been 5 months since Roe v. Wade had been overturned and the wounds were still raw. I was so happy to get an ARC of this book and to ask Seema all about what went into bringing this moving novel to life. 

Also…slight warning as I’m going to try to do this interview without spoilers but just in case I let one slip….

K. Imani: I actually started reading Unbecoming on the day the Supreme Court ruled against a ban on mifepristone, which was a huge (albeit temporary) relief. At the beginning of Unbecoming, mifepristone has already been banned. What are your thoughts on the court’s ruling? 

Cautious relief, but greater amounts of concern. Some of the Court’s decisions have been based on fraudulent and flawed science and I worry about how this might pan out in the future. There are also the personhood laws that are disturbing and fly in the face of science. Georgia, for example, is offering $3,000 tax deductions to people who are six weeks pregnant because they count the pregnancy as a person. (This is even if the pregnancy later ends in miscarriage.) I could go on and on but we should be aware that the overturning of Roe v. Wade was just the beginning.

K. Imani: No lie, the world that you created for Laylah and Noor was terrifying but also could be our very near future. How did you approach creating this world and how did you practice self-care while writing it? 

It is our present in so many ways. At least six things I wrote in the novel have already come true, including the attack against IVF, the inability of doctors to provide emergency abortions in some states, criminalization of those helping a person get an abortion, and the fact that the overturning of Roe v. Wade led to the proliferation of state laws banning abortion. The novel mentions that Texas is soon to make abortion a criminal act punishable by the death penalty. Just a few weeks ago, we learned that the Texas GOP has just this punishment in mind.

I began to write the novel in 2019, three years before the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade.  But it wasn’t difficult to imagine the world of Unbecoming. Margaret Atwood famously said the heinous acts of torture against women in The Handmaid’s Tale were inspired by real life. Every sadistic punishment, from forced births to mandated monthly pregnancy tests, had been invented by politicians somewhere. Someone on Twitter asked her: :How do you come up with this shit?” Atwood’s response: “As if I invented it.”

It was easy for me to imagine a dystopian, post-Roe America. Inspired by Atwood, I looked to countries where abortion was banned to learn how desperate people act in desperate times. And I looked closer to home, to Texas, the most dangerous state in America to be pregnant, a state in which I had worked as a science journalist covering abortion. I sought inspiration from other states with abortion laws so restrictive they might as well have enacted bans.

I remain hopeful because of community organizers and movement lawyers; and my friends, many of them poets and artists who remind me a different world is possible. That better future begins in our imaginations. That’s why I write fiction. 

K. Imani: You have an impressive resume of non-fiction books published, but Unbecoming is your first fiction book. How was the writing process different for this novel versus your other books?

It wasn’t that different! I did a lot of research, took a lot of notes, wrote by the seat of my pants and then started to outline when I hit roadblocks. So, pretty much how I write non-fiction!

K. Imani: Throughout the novel Laylah and Noor are writing a guide for teens and comment many times on their research. What type of research did you have to do, if any, for this novel?

Yes, the novel contains a self-help guide! I talked to activists and asked them to imagine what they would be doing if they were teens. I looked into how younger people were organizing since they are not the apathetic monolith that people claim them to be. And I imagined what I might do if I were a student journalist, like Noor, who was stuck in a world where agency and autonomy were being ripped away from people with uteruses, and where young people felt powerless and voiceless.

K. Imani:  What are you hoping teens come away with after reading your novel?

Hundreds of thousands of teens become pregnant each year in the U.S. By some estimates, the number is close to 700,000. I want pregnancy, abortion and abortion care to be part of our stories since they are part of our lives. I want Laylah and Noor’s story to disrupt perceptions of Muslim teens, of queer teens, of Texans, of religious leaders, of politicians, even! Laylah and Noor learn some lessons during the course of the week in which this novel takes place: chief among them are that you have to turn up as your whole, messy self in order for your friends to fully love you and be able to support you; and while you’re worrying about how others might perceive or misperceive you, you might be misperceiving them.

K. Imani:  What was the hardest scene or chapter to write? 

There’s a part where Noor has to make a decision: does she save Laylah or does she save her friendship with Laylah? I won’t say which way she goes, but it was hard—and fun—to write about this friendship dilemma. She feels stuck between a rock and a hard place, and whether we’ve supported a friend through pregnancy and abortion, or not, we can all relate to that.

K. Imani: Can you share what you are writing right now? 

I’m writing a novel about a teenaged girl, climate change and mental health. And I’m working on a middle grade series called Muslim Mavericks which will be published by Simon and Schuster in the next year or so.

Thank you Seema for sharing with us all about the novel and your writing process. I really enjoyed the novel so look for more in my review of the novel in July.

 Pre-order Unbecoming today so you can have it in your hands on July 9th.  https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Unbecoming/Seema-Yasmin/9781665938440

__________________________________________________________

DR. SEEMA YASMIN is an Emmy Award–winning journalist who was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, medical doctor, professor, and poet. She attended medical school at Cambridge University and worked as a disease detective for the US federal government’s Epidemic Intelligence Service. She currently teaches storytelling at Stanford University School of Medicine, and is a regular contributor to CNN, Self, and Scientific American, among others. Her other books include What the Fact?: Finding the Truth in All the Noise, The ABCs of Queer History, If God Is A Virus, Viral BS: Medical Myths and Why We Fall for Them, Djinnology: An Illuminated Compendium of Spirits and Stories from the Muslim World, Muslim Women Are Everything: Stereotype-Shattering Stories of Courage, and The Impatient Dr. Lange: One Man’s Fight to End the Global HIV Epidemic. 

[transvarmint]

On Transmisandry and Related Issues

How we define Transmisandry:

Transmisandry describes an intersection of transphobia, misogyny, and the marginalization of non-hegemonic masculinity & manhood.

Anyone, regardless of birth assignment, gender identity, gender presentation, etc, can experience transmisandry at any point. However, it is primarily targeted as transmasculine people and adjacent groups.

Similarly, transmisogyny is the intersection of transphobia and misogyny that is primarily targeted at transfeminine individuals and adjacent groups. It can be experienced by anyone, but it is largely targeted towards transfems.

The same goes for exorsexism (oppression directed at nonbinary people) and intersexism (oppression directed at intersex people).

[More talking points below the cut].

"How are manhood and masculinity marginalized under the Patriarchy?"

Any expressions of manhood and masculinity that do not strictly adhere to white, Christian, colonialist, abled, cisheteronormative, allonormative, (+etc) standards can be harshly marginalized under the Patriarchy.

This is because for the Patriarchy to function, rigid enforcement of these standards is mandatory. Any sort of subversion of the status quo must be punished to maintain White Christian Hegemony. There is no room for self-expression, because that is a challenge to the Patriarchy, and may allow room for other people to challenge it as well.

Some examples of marginalized masculinity include Black men, whose manhood is demonized. They are often viewed as inherently violent or aggressive, especially if they display masculine qualities. This often results in police violence, which is usually justified with the fear that police felt simply by being in the presence of a Black man.

Disabled men, conversely, often experience having their masculinity entirely diminished. This relates to the phenomenon of "degendering" in which those who do not fit into certain standards will have their ability to access manhood entirely revoked.

As for transgender men and transmasuline people, our entire experiences of manhood and masculinity are marginalized. The fact that we express these things at all is a slight against the patriarchy, and our masculinity is transgressive by default.

"But trans men have male privilege"

Having male privilege means that one benefits from misogyny on both an interpersonal and systemic level. Because trans men are unilaterally oppressed by misogyny, this means that we cannot benefit from male privilege, regardless of how well we pass.

Some trans men who pass may receive interpersonal male privilege (i.e. being treated with more respect by strangers), but this is extremely conditional. It is conditional upon staying closeted and that nobody ever finds out you are trans. Because the moment that happens, the supposed "privilege" evaporates, and he is now immediately subject to potential violence.

This is very similar to the argument about trans women experiencing male privilege. A trans women who stays closeted and attempts to adhere to patriarchal standards of manhood may receive conditional benefits, but she will always be oppressed by misogyny on a systemic level. So she does not actually benefit from male privilege systemically.

"Saying that trans men face misogyny is misgendering / it's only misdirected"

Saying that trans men face misogyny is a demonstrable fact, and it only appears to be misgendering because of the assumption that only women face misogyny.

However, trans men deal with misogyny on a regular basis, both interpersonally and systemically. Having our reproductive rights controlled is a key example of this, as even a trans man who passes is still impacted by anti-abortion laws and other reproductive restrictions.

It cannot be misdirected when we are the direct targets of it. People often see us as failed women who need to be corrected and put into line. They very much see and acknowledge us and are disgusted by us, and wish to use violence to correct us.

"Misandry isn't real"

Transmisandry is not simply "transphobia + misandry". As described above, it is the intersection of multiple things. Words do not just mean the literal definition of their roots. By the same logic, cissexism would mean sexism against cis people, rather than the assumption that everyone is cis.

And besides, marginalization of some forms of manhood and masculinity is very real, as elaborated above. The hatred and fear of our masculinity is an essential aspect of our oppression.

"Trans men oppress trans women / transmisandry implies trans women oppress trans men."

Trans people cannot oppress each other (on the basis of being trans) as they do not have the systemic power to do so. There are no (or very, very few) trans people in positions of power that are creating and perpetuating the system structures used to oppress us.

Trans men also do not materially benefit from transmisogyny in any way. We do not gain anything from the oppression of trans women - and in fact, any attack on the trans community harms trans people as a whole.

Lateral aggression is absolutely a real thing within the trans community, but it comes from every part of the community, not just one group to another.

"What trans men face is just transphobia, not some special category"

Every trans person faces unique intersections of oppression based on the demographics they occupy.

The argument frequently made is that trans men only face oppression for being trans, and not for being men. This is false, and is incongruent with the experiences of many trans men. We are targeted specifically for being transmasculine / trans men. People notice our masculinity and manhood and are disgusted by it, and choose to use violence to suppress it. To say that people only hate us for being trans, is an attempt to separate us from our manhood / masculinity (which coincidentally, is exactly what transphobes do as well).

Also, the idea that gendered violence against trans men is "just" transphobia, while other types of transphobia are more specific, wrongly centers men's experiences as the default, and all others as deviations.

By creating a word to describe this specific type of transphobia, it now puts everyone on an equal playing field where no experience is treated as the default. Transphobia now becomes the umbrella term that trans people are unified in our fight against, and all the other more granular terms are useful labels to describe overlapping types of oppression.

"Why don't you call it transandrophobia or anti-transmasculinity?"

Explained here in this post:

[anamericangirl]

Honestly, I'm pro-choice to an extent (rape, incest, mother's life at risk, or the fetus is confirmed to not be viable with life and would only suffer being born), but MAN do I hate that I'm in the same group as a lot of the pro-abortion types. I think it's irresponsible and not ok that some women use abortion as birth control. I think we do need certain restrictions and not just 'yeah anyone can abort anytime for any reason' because that leads to dark roads (like eugenics, aborting any disabled fetus).

I see it as killing the fetus, but I'm not sure I'd call it murder, at least not in the cases I mentioned above. But I think abortion is being pushed as a solution so much that people forget there ARE other options. And with the demonization some people give any non-abortion crisis centre (I dislike ones that lie, as rare as that is).

Like idk. I still don't particularly think it's my business, but that doesn't mean I won't judge someone. Or advocate for things to reduce the rates of abortion (like comprehensive sex ed, places to get condoms and b/c for free or cheap, no strings drop offs for unwanted babies, financial support for new parents, etc.). It's a hard issue for me to put a line on it, but I know my line is a lot closer to "no abortions ever" than most pro-choicers. Partly because pro-life blogs (and a pro-life friend) have taught me a lot of shit about the abortion debate and "industry" that I didn't know, no one on 'my' side discussed it. So like, I guess thanks, because I'm more confident in my stance and can actually explain it better.

Well you certainly have more sense than most of the people I call pro-aborts and they do really give the whole movement a bad name.

It's a sad reality that the pro-choice movement, that claims to care about women, just ignores and lies about the ways abortion harms women just to prop up their own narrative.

You're a testament to the fact that their behavior and disregard for human life and decency are working against them and pushing people away from their cause. And you are also a testament to the truth I say all the time that the more educated a person is on abortion the more pro-life they will be.