#non american lgbtq+ problems

[write-stuff-if-you-wanna]

You wanna know whats fucked? I didn’t even know My pronoun’s of Xe/Xem counted as neo pronoun’s until today.

Because google said they weren’t when i first found out about options outside of She/her he/him they/them existing.

Another thing thats fucked is nobody has ever used them when referring to me, I’ve been going by them since either 2019 or 2020. At least some people use they/them for me, most use my birth gender.

And cause they were newer and more taboo i didn’t tell a-lot of people about my Xe/Xem pronouns but those i did just never used them.

Latest reblog reminds me of how much it pisses me the fuck off how every queer person alive has to adapt to the usamerican style of queerness lest we get shunned by the community for being too different. I bring this up a lot but bro that time I got death threats for having ele/dele in my bio bc "by using neopronouns I was making a mockery of REAL trans people" when those are literally just my pronouns in my native language, and when I said that I got hit w the "well you're on the internet so speak english" I HATE GRINGOS I HATE GRINGOS I HATE GRINGOS

[zhoufeis]

My news reported on the outfit Taylor Swift wore to the latest Chief win.

Side note: I live in Germany, rarely anyone here cares about American Football, I don't search for Taylor Swift news as I do not like her and I really don't think it is important to know what Taylor Swift is doing or where she is going to report on on the daily news when there's a genocide going on in Palestine, people drowning in Czech, Austria, Poland and Germany, and an explosion happening in one of our big cities this morning. But here we are, with me knowing that the Chiefs are a team featuring Travis Kelce who has won the second match this season, although it first looked like they were going to lose. Mind you, my phone gives me updates on American Football matches, only on the Chiefs games though. Despite me never having watched a game in my entire life. I tend to wonder how her fans would like to explain the overexposure...

Back to the point I was going to make. The outfit she wore apparently cost 5,100 euros (that's around 5,700 dollars), another very important thing to know. I just came here to drop this as a reminder why "eat the rich" is a beautiful statement. Do you know how many people could be given food to with this money that this billionaire wore on her body to a fucking Football game? Eat the rich, eat their clothes, eat their shoes, eat their hair, eat their skins. They are living in luxury and exaggeration, in bliss and happiness of expensive clothes and good skin, uncaring for the poor. She isn't a feminist, she isn't an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights or for non-white people. She is a capitalist doll, a mere player in a pre-determined game of Monopoly cause she owns the money of the bank. And for everyone who says she is just a woman with feelings behind her whole stardom - there comes a point when people have so much money and power in the world that it doesn't matter anymore who they are as individuals. They don't become part of the problem, they become the problem. She is there, she's been there for long. And she has the fucking power to decide who is going to be the next president - that isn't stanworthy, kind artist with feelings, that's goddamn dangerous. I don't care about who she has ever been, she's a dangerous woman to the world out there cause she holds power over things she shouldn't.

[gwenllian-in-the-abbey]

What do you think of Grrm's portrayal of religion?

Hi anon, this is a really interesting question, and it took me awhile to put together what I hope is a coherent answer.

For context, I think GRRM's background is important to keep in mind. George is almost exactly my parents' age and belongs to the same demographic of American anti-war ex hippies who aged into broadly liberal baby-boomers. Their radicalism has largely mellowed over the years, they may not be the most up to date on the appropriate terminology, and they tend to prioritize nonviolent solutions to systemic problems (my mom often tells me the younger generation needs to do another March on Washington). One thing liberal boomers also tend have in common is that often they grew up religious but, as they entered their 20s and went to college, broke away from the churches of their childhood. My family is full of ex-Catholic liberal boomers like George. They might have dabbled in Buddhism or Hinduism in the 70s, New Age mysticism in the 80s or 90s, and ended up settling into statements like, "I'm spiritual, but not religious." Almost invariably, they have a sort of disdain for organized religion, which they associate with a kind of yokel mentality, a place for anti-Choice anti-LGBTQ traditionalists. Although they will profess "to each his own," to the average liberal boomer, the church represents regressive values and they cannot imagine why anyone would willingly return to it. Even those who did remain religious take great pains to make it known they are not like those Christians. And to be fair, liberal boomers have a good reason to feel this way. The churches of their childhoods were not fun places for people whose own ideas and values went against post-WW2 broadly white middle class values. Unsurprisingly, SFF authors tend to fit into this category.

And this sort of bleeds into a lot of 90s SFF. You see a lot of worlds that have religion, but rarely do you have characters that are religious, and even more rarely do you have sympathetic young protagonists who are religious. You might have the occasional kindly priest or nun type, but far more often these characters will be abusive, mean spirited, or narrow minded (think of Brienne's childhood septas). Religion is often treated with the same disdain by in-world characters as it is by the authors themselves. You might even have worlds that are almost entirely secular, with vague references to "The Gods," but without any real religious traditions constructed around them (Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings series, which features two vague dieties, Eda and El, who seem to have no religious traditions surrounding them whatsoever). You might have cultish religions that are actively dangerous and must be stopped, or you might have Catholic church analogues, existing in opposition to everything cool and fun. Protagonists tend to be cynical non-believer types, or they might start off as true believers and lose their religion along the way. Rarely are they allowed to have sincere and abiding faith.

And you can see a lot of this in George's writing, in the way he portrays the Faith of the Seven and other religions, and the way the fandom receives them. The Faith of the Seven is Westeros' answer to the Catholic church, but there are also the Old Gods, the faith of R'hllor, and others, often presented in opposition to each other. George himself sees religion as a divisive force, and in ASOIAF, we see religions in conflict with each other, we see them weaponized to fuel vendettas, we see them used to drive prophesies and start wars. There's a clip somewhere, of George at a panel, where he's talking about religious conflict and his take is very reminiscent of George Carlin's-- you can tell he knows the bit. "Are you really going to kill all of these people because a giant invisible guy in the sky told you too? And your giant guy in the sky is different?" George asks, receiving a round of applause from the crowd. It's a very modern view on religion, which is fair, I think. He's writing for a modern audience who have modern conceptions of the church, and he is making a deliberate point about the harm religion can do. .

What I do think is missing, or at least downplayed, are the ways in which the medieval church was really a driving cultural and social force in medieval Europe. We live in a secular society, so we have the luxury of disregarding the church in a way that medieval people did not. This is one major way in which the worldbuilding of ASOIAF departs from the real world middle ages. To portray the medieval church as a primarily regressive institution that mostly drove conflict is too simplistic. The Catholic church is what culturally unified most of western Europe into what was known as "Christendom." The clergy served political functions, such as providing an important check upon the power of medieval kings, and when the power of the church declined, despotism grew. Socially, for most western Europeans, the church was also the center of day to day life. Insofar as medieval peasants had any opportunities for leisure time and celebrations, most of these revolved around the church. The church was for centuries a driving force behind art, music, literature, and architecture, and it also performed important social functions, such as operating poorhouses and leper-houses, and providing educations for children.

And all of this was just extremely normal. Most people prayed multiple times each day, and sincerely believed in heaven a hell. The state of one's soul after death was such a real concern that the sale of indulgences-- a way that you could pay to get your dead loved ones whose souls were in purgatory into heaven more quickly-- became a major racket for the Church. I've seen the HotD fandom react to Alicent Hightower's level of devotion calling her a religious "fanatic" and I cannot stress enough how absolutely normal Alicent would have been in medieval times. This is where I blame the framing of the show more than George, because it does set Alicent's faith in opposition to Rhaenyra's seemingly more modern values, but does it in a selective way. For instance, Alicent comes off as prudish, and modern audiences hate a prude, but we never see how her faith would have certainly inspired her, as queen, to take other more progressive actions such as giving alms to the poor or bestowing her patronage upon motherhouses. In another post about the fandom perception of Valyrian culture, I talked about how this modern view of devout belief, particularly Catholicism, tends to cast anything that is presented in opposition to it as an unequivocal good, and I see this sort of rhetoric slung around the fandom a lot, "why would you defend the pseudo-Catholics who hate women??" But the pseudo-Catholics are really just normal medieval people, and they didn't hate women, they simply lived in a patriarchal society and the material conditions did not yet exist which would allow them to challenge that in any meaningful way.

[morablackbird]

I’ve had time to think, and I want to make something clear to all.

Now more than ever we should go out and vote, not just for who’s gonna run this bitch but for seats and for government. Look into your local polling places to see what the next election is on and vote

Because it was never democrats vs republicans, it had always been democracy vs autocracy, freedom vs fascism. I’m not mad about republicans voting in their best interests, or hell if their had been just about any other sensible republican candidate, nor am I upset about those who question our democracy and its ability to give us the representation we want.

My hope is that democracy lives on past these four years, even if we the people lose our rights and our freedoms, we must never give up and never give in to hate and lies. Because if democracy survives we can always bring it back.

Do not lie down and die, do not let them win. It is time we come together as American citizens both Democrat and true republicans cause I know you are still out there, to fight like hell. Do not hurt yourselves that is what they want, if you are so beyond the point of no return then keep living, do not die because they won, die because you fought back, die gloriously! Die with purpose! Fight what battles you can at home and do what you must beyond the home, protect each other, especially our children who shall suffer the most.

And speaking of which, if you are a woman, cis or otherwise, non-binary born female, or a trans male that has yet to fully transition. It’s time to use their tactics against them. They want a nation of Christian ideals? This whole ‘your body my choice?’ Then it’s time to be maliciously compliant. Let us all take up a oath to never lie with another cis male. Let us become saints of virtue and celibacy. Let us be pure and free of the ‘sin’ that is sex then.

No more sex, no more babies, no more shall we give them factory workers and no more shall we give our bodies to them. We are choosing to be pure in the eyes of ‘their’ god then.

I don’t know about you but irl cis men are really unattractive to me right now, and if I really want kids I can adopt.

And for those of you who are LGBTQ and so on. Fear not for I believe in the promise of a better tomorrow. I believe in it, and we have fought for many years to get this far. If you are a adult you understand these hardships and hiding has never been easy but we managed. The kids however need us more than ever, they need to know we are there for them and we should protect them even at the cost of our own personal freedoms.

To all my friends with immigrant parents, who were born here and raised up under the ideal of freedom of choice. We have failed you and we shall never forgive ourselves for it. This nation was built by immigrants for immigrants, and it should continue to be so. Yet we choose to blame you for our problems.

My grandpa used to tell a joke, that was less of a joke and more of a upsetting truth.

There is a room in which three men live

In this room is a feast fit for several

One man is a businessman

One is you

One is a immigrant

The businessman looks at the feast and scoots the majority of it to his side of the table and begins to eat while the other two starve

But being ‘generous’ he tosses you a leg of the smallest fowl and says

‘Better grab it quick, lest the enemy take it from you’

As he point to the immigrant with none.

So you hold on to your scraps in fear of having none when in reality it’s not the enemy coming from elsewhere, but the liars who tell you it is so.

Immigrants were never your enemy and they never should’ve been, because unless you are 100% purely Native American I don’t want to hear it, cause not even I am.

I come from a long line of preachers and speakers, I come from a ancestry of natives and pilgrims, I come from two sides of the same coin when it comes to the civil war, I come from many Puritans, Catholics, Christians, and so on, and no matter what their stance was in our government there was one thing they all clearly desired.

Freedom

Liberty

The pursuits of happiness

Democracy

Do not let them win, do not give up, do not lie down and die because they say you should.

Fight to live another day, keep going even when shit sucks, don’t give them what they desire,

never give up!

Do you hear me?

NEVER GIVE UP!!

Sincerely

Dove

[reformedowo]

Vote Like Lives Depend on It.

The Republican party wants you dead. Trump is calling people who don't openly support him "the enemy within." He has called immigrants "vermin" who are "poisoning the blood of our country." This is straight out of the Nazi playbook and is one of the key steps in enabling a genocide in the eye of the public: dehumanization.

I know this is an intense introduction, and I apologize, but those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, so just take a moment to remember before we look to the present, if you'll indulge me.

Thank you.

Starting on just page 5 of Project 2025, the whopping 900+ page guide about how to dismantle the American democracy and install Donald Trump as the authoritarian emperor with no guardrails, lies the first topic so innocuously titled "PROMISE #1: RESTORE THE FAMILY AS THE CENTERPIECE OF AMERICAN LIFE AND PROTECT OUR CHILDREN", and is all about and explicitly mentions the banning of pornography while continuing on to include "woke," queer, and transgender ideologies within that definition, stating those "who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders." Page 5, as in you literally just opened this thing, skimmed through the table of contents, and it's already calling for the direct and express prohibition and marginalization of the entire LGBTQ+ community, to be placed alongside real criminals while further muddying the waters for justice to be served against actual abusers. Now if you will, jump 549 pages forward. To the death penalty. Yes, the death penalty, where it states under new Republican rule the government should enforce capital punishment against sex offenders. Now, maybe your brain has melted after reading or being passively exposed to 554 pages of intensely racist, dangerous, hateful Fascist rhetoric thus far, but I think the book practically opened with something about that quite intently. Do not be mistaken: this is not a coincidence. This is not poor wording. This is a direct threat, and as it says in the title, it is a promise. The first, #1, most important promise, apparently. I truly insist that you look at it with your own eyes to believe it, if you're willing to be exposed to the political equivalent of toxic waste.

Trans or queer folk, of any kind, as well any vague notion of "immigrants" in particular are a few of the main talking points of the Republican party and their ads this election season for a reason: Fascism needs an enemy, preferably a minority for its followers to target and be whipped into a frenzy over to keep their following alive. If you'll note, this follows the same logic Trump used when making a call to Senate Republicans, while out of office, to kill the bipartisan border bill, a bill that would have solved an issue Trump was planning on running on, while simultaneously expanding access to legal immigration to begin with. That logic being: you can't sell a solution if there's no problem. Now maybe to you this isn't your cup of tea regardless, legislation and whatnot. But that's not what's important to them, what is important is that they want problems. Any non-white, non-straight, non-Christian, non-Trump loving, non-cis-man is always going to be up next on the chopping block to feed the machine of hate. They want you, or your family, or your friends, or your neighbors to be that problem. Where do you draw the line? However, zooming back out for a moment, this is just skipping 5 pages in, plus some forward for full context, and we've seen only one of the many insane, Fascist concepts concealed within the pages of Project 2025, and it's already a beyond thinly veiled call for genocide. Though Trump denies his connection to the project, the document was penned by over 140 people who have previously worked for him, several members confirmed to be returning, has a running mate who penned a foreword to an architect's book, not to mention he already implemented many of the concepts in his first term. With a second Trump term he will make the rest of this doctrine a reality, with the help of the Supreme Court he installed, without any proper government authorization mind you, the same court who stripped women across the country of their rights to life saving medical treatment, and under that reality you or somebody you know can and will be made their next problem.

Now, sidestepping to an extremely important note, there are horrible things happening in Gaza right now as you read this, and I implore you to please send any donations you can afford to the countless families afflicted, and feel free to go and express your right to protest from now until the Palestinian people are free of Israeli occupation. The right to protest and your right to speak against the government is one of the truly undeniable great things about living here, whether you realize it or not. Donald Trump and Project 2025 want to take away those rights. His illegal use of the National Guard against peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters, American people exercising these very rights, during his previous presidency speaks volumes to this regard, amongst others such as his blatant hatred toward non-white Americans having said rights. Now with that I say this: please do not think, even for a second, that Donald Trump is the solution to the conflict in Gaza. This is a man who has openly admitted, himself, to having met Netanyahu multiple times in violation of the Logan Act to kill the Biden administration's ceasefire agreements, the same man who when asked if he was "on board" with the way Israel was “taking the fight to Gaza” responded: “You’ve got to finish the problem." Do not award Trump the presidency for making Palestinians suffer, do not act like willingly sitting this one out in protest gives you the moral high ground, because in actuality it makes you complicit. Netanyahu is counting on disinformation and the suffering of the Palestinian people to convince you to not vote for the people doing everything in their power to end his invasion, and if Trump loses, he has no ground left to stand on. However, if Trump wins, he will allow Netanyahu to continue his genocide and you could very well have no voice left to speak up for the Palestinian people.

Do not think that it is a choice between anyone other than Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. The broken and antiquated electoral college established ensures a two party system, whether we like it or not, and we don't since despite losing the popular vote in 2016 we were still subjected to the first unfortunate Trump term, it is the system. And while that may dissuade or discourage you from voting, even a whisper is better than sitting in silence when it's time to let yourself be heard. Hell, if it makes you feel any better on the matter, vice-president candidate Tim Walz is on the record wanting to abolish the electoral college for any future elections, which would not take place under Project 2025. And while Harris may not be your personal perfect dream candidate, we've worked with and fought through worse than imperfect for over 200 years, and she's miles better than a number of the people we've had in charge then, and an unimaginable degree better and more qualified than a second Trump term. Her website has a list of policies and she has appeared on many news networks talking about her vision for the country, if you're at all inclined or inspired to look, please do, and compared to what Project 2025 has in store for both the American people as well as its disturbing foreign policies, it's a breath of fresh air.

Do not let democracy backslide, do not let years of blood, sweat, and tears be in vain because you took that democracy for granted. It's much easier to make progress one step at a time than trying to course correct in free fall. This is the Republican party's last chance to steal everything from you and the American people, and they've been giving it their all because they know that the mask is off and there's no going back for them. You can no longer say "both sides are the same" to convince yourself it's okay that you're not voting. From the world's richest man openly giving millions of dollars away to bribe voters after announcing his support for Trump to stay out of prison, to complex voting disenfranchising schemes on both the state and federal level, to rampant disinformation being blown out of control by the unregulated use of AI by foreign nations with only yours and others worst interests at heart, even if Harris wins the electoral vote they will do whatever it takes steal the election any other way they can. But if you or anyone you know is not willing to take the first, easiest, most crucial step in fighting to preserve and grow your rights, and the rights of others, can you trust they'll be willing to fight for those rights when things get ugly, when it's time to fight? And if Donald Trump is elected to the White House, it's only a matter of time before things get ugly, and we'll have to fight like Hell.

And to all those who are still not convinced, my last and final plea is simply this: Only one of these people will win. Clench your fist, grit your teeth, hold your breath if you need to, but please vote for Kamala Harris. If not for her, if not for yourself, for everybody else whose lives depend on it. Don't be on the side of history that kills us.

Vote like lives depend on it, because they do. Thank you.

[olderthannetfic]

I do think a lot of the problem and the reason that more people (like the ones who seem to think that "top/bottom as myers-briggs personality types" jokes are exclusively coming from female-centric fandom spaces rather than gay male offline culture - which, btw, ignores that a whole bunch if not most female fanfic writers are themselves queer and there's a similar set of jokes and stereotypes in the lesbian community, but I digress) don't seem to understand what offline queer culture is like on here is that way too many of the people setting the tone for this in The Discourse on Tumblr are very young people who are newly out. In particular, a huge amount of the gay men on here who are telling people how very Problematic this is (when they're getting it from gay men and not circular discourse among other women in fandom who are claiming to speak on gay men's behalf) is coming from young gay men who don't have much of a community offline, and especially young gay trans men who often aren't yet presenting as male outside of the Internet. It's really hard to talk about, because it so easily risks saying those people's identities aren't valid - and like, we've seen TERFs weaponize that discourse to suggest that gay trans men involved in fandom are just straight women who identified too hard with their blorbos or something, as well as the endless use of "passing privilege" to suggest that bi people in F/M relationships are "basically straight" - but I think one thing people need to understand better is the difference between "your identity is valid, your personal experiences with homophobia/transphobia/etc. are valid" and "your judgments about the larger community that your identity makes you a member of are valid." Like, you do actually have to participate in a community to be able to be able to talk about what the consensus in it is, what the cultural norms are. You have to actually look up the history in order to know that history. If you're going to speak on behalf of All Gay Men you probably should know some beyond yourself - including ones who are not Very Online and/or aren't active in fandom - and that goes for both cis and trans gay men. (And the same is true for every subdivision of LGBTQ+, I've seen similarly bizarre takes about "lesbian culture" from 17-yro lesbians who clearly haven't talked to any outside of Tumblr and insular, dramatic Discords.)

Like, to use an analogy here to another kind of oppression: say you have a black person who was adopted by a white family very young and lived in an exclusively white neighborhood and doesn't know any other black people. Obviously, they are still black, and obviously they still experience racism (probably especially because they're an outlier in that community). Obviously, their own understanding of their identity and their experiences with racism are valid. But they aren't necessarily going to have any better of an understanding of the broader black COMMUNITY - cultural traditions, history, etc. - than a non-black person who was similarly not exposed to that community. They can only speak for themselves. And someone who isn't black but grew up near/in black communities (for instance, perhaps another transracial adoptee who was adopted by a black couple? or even just a non-black person who grew up in a heavily black neighborhood) might actually have a better sense of that broader community/culture than they do.

And this isn't a hypothetical. I've heard stuff like that about feeling like outliers in black American culture from everyone from the aforementioned transracial adoptees; to multiracial black people who were raised primarily by their non-black family; to black people who are recent immigrants from Africa rather than descendants of slaves; to black people from Europe or other parts of the Americas, who have some similarities in their culture but it's not completely 1:1. And especially from people who are some combo of the above. They have an understanding of themselves as black and of their relationship to race and racism, of course, but don't really feel like they have a particularly strong understanding of The Black Community or The Black Experience as we understand it in the USA.

I think what a lot of people don't understand is that newly-out queer people are often like that. A lot of other marginalized identities - like being a cis woman (this applies less to trans women unless they've known from early on) or being a POC - are ones where you grow up with an understanding of what that means and often a connection to a broader community that gives you some kind of consciousness of what it means to be A Woman or Black or Asian or whatever. But with queerness, it's usually not something you fully understand about yourself until adolescence or adulthood, and even when you do, you don't necessarily have access to a "community" around that until that age because you're probably being raised by cis straight people. You have to take time to discover that community and learn about it, and the culture and history that goes with, and when you start out you're going to be just as ignorant as a straight cis person who is similarly isolated from queer communities. (And frankly, a straight person with a lot of gay friends might know better than you do at first! As a lesbian with a lot of gay male friends, most of whom couldn't care less about my slash fanfic hobby if they even know about it, that's precisely why I know that these takes on Tumblr are so bizarre)

(Disability is the interesting one because it sometimes overlaps with this, sometimes doesn't - and one of the big divides in the community IME is around people who have lifelong understandings of themselves as "disabled" vs. came to it more recently, whether because the disability itself is a new thing or just their diagnosis of it. A lot of people in the second group can have very similar experiences and act in similar ways to newly-out queer people, and I know because I've lived both myself, lol.)

I think people have taken the idea of "everyone is the best expert on their own experience with oppression and their own identity" and distorted that into some weird essentialism where being gay or bi or trans or whatever gives you automatic understanding of "queer culture" or "queer history" without having to do the actual work of talking to people, participating in that community, studying history, etc. but that's just not true. Anyone can study that history and get to know those people. And yeah, as a queer or trans person you'll have a better opportunity to really deeply know and be part of that community than straight cis people with queer friends ever will, but you still have to like. Actually put yourself out there! You're not going to find it by just discoursing in a vacuum of ignorance.

--

Sadly, to all the Olds, this is very, very obvious, but there's no way to make it obvious to the people doing it. It's a matter of experience.

[camlannpod]

Yet another re-listen, yet more questions:

1) Did Gwaine have to *walk* back from the Alps?

2) Was Gwen winding a heavy worsted or bulky weight yarn, or is she just really fast at winding? (The last yarn I wound for my own knitting was a fingering weight (also known as sock yarn, if you are unfamiliar), and that took a fair chunk of time)

3) Is that how CB radios work, or is it story logic in play?

4) On the topic of story logic: is food governed by story logic of it's fine unless it needs to not be or is it more that I, being American, have no idea what a supermarket in Wales is likely to have or not have regarding perishables?

5) Did the Cataclysm happen during a specific time of year or just a nebulous nine months before episode one?

5a) How long *were* they in Anwn in episode 7?

Feel free to cherry-pick or ignore as needed, especially if I've accidentally landed on something plot-relevant, I am mostly just full of happy babble.

Thank you!

Hi! Omg!! No it makes me SO happy people are still relistening and caring enough to ask these questions! I know it's quiet on our end right now, but it's always a nerve-wracking kinda period of quiet where you just really hope people still care and are still finding the show.

SO in answer to your questions:

Great question, which raises the other one: did he walk to the Alps? There's a bit where Gwaine says the Green Man led him through a moss-covered old stone arch, and then he was in deep snow and mountains. Gwaine says he thinks he's in the French Alps but he doesn't actually know exactly what happened. Realistically there's no way he could've gotten there through ordinary means - as Gwen alludes to, London is a mess and he'd have had to backtrack past Glastonbury and the knights. The mechanics of this are supposed to be an open question for you, the listener - though I can say the trick to it is something important that will come up in season 2.

Straight up this one is mostly just cinema magic - in that we couldn't spend too long on her doing it but I wanted the intimacy at the start of her telling Morgan what to do. I do think there's an element where it probably is a bulky yarn though! She wants / needs to make four (and after Gwaine arrives, five) jumpers really fast - she's got about 3 months before they're in deep winter. To my, admittedly amateur, knitting knowledge - using a heavier yarn would let you make something much quicker, if of a lower quality, and in this case Gwen wants speed.

It is how CB radios work! I have an older gay friend (who presents the LGBTQ+ non-fiction podcast, ShoutOut Radio, check it out) who told me about how he and other gay people used to use this as a way to find each other in the 70s and 80s. So basically you'd give a location, like a high street, and agree on a frequency, then drive in circles in your car with the radio on trying to find where the signal was stronger until eventually you found who you were looking for. The problem is that, as Morgan says, it only works at like 2-3 miles away at most, so it wouldn't have worked with Gwaine. That was just Dai pulling them to try anyway.

Food is going to become a bigger and bigger plot issue as the story goes on. Right now, the gang are in the first nine months - so the supermarket didn't have any edible fruit or vegetables etc, but did still have canned and some dry goods that were workable. The big things for Camlann are a) the apparently tiny number of survivors, which means most places have been left untouched and not raided by anyone, and b) the cottage itself - which had an unusually high amount of canned and dry goods, which has helped the gang a lot.

Uh, it's kind of nebulous (I want to leave it open for myself for plot reasons) - but I've got a pretty strong idea the series starts in Autumn. If we put the beginning somewhere in September, then we're talking January, maybe December for the Cataclysm.

/ 5a. Similarly left nebulous for plot reasons, but if the series starts in November and we assume the first few episodes take just over a month, then they're there for about 4-8 weeks. The leave in mid-October and come back in late December (skipping Samhain, luckily for them).

Again, sincerely, your happy babble gives me so much joy, thank you so much for caring about the show enough to ask so many questions! <3

[mariacallous]

If you’ve been paying even the slightest bit of attention, you know that the American Experiment took some gut punches over the last week.

Joe Biden – long considered the best hope for preventing another disastrous Donald Trump term – had a shockingly bad debate performance, looking and sounding every minute of his 81 years.

The tainted supreme court then declared, in essence, that a president is above the law, at least when acting in an official capacity. And that came on top of other high court decisions that have blasted away at the foundations of democracy in the United States.

And much of the mainstream news media continued their campaign of false equivalency – treating the president’s age as a worse problem than Trump’s criminality and authoritarian intentions.

But on this Fourth of July, I haven’t given up hope that we will right ourselves. And I’m far from alone.

There is encouraging news in every one of these troubled spheres – politics, justice and media.

I asked one of my favorite thinkers, the author and scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert in how democracies can wither under authoritarian rule, for some help. I talked to others, too, especially those who are protecting the vote, fostering good journalism and working for justice.

Here’s what Ben-Ghiat told me: “Part of the reason for so much aggression from the GOP and the courts to take away our rights, including the right to free and fair elections, is because America is becoming more progressive, and Republicans cannot win without lies, threats and election interference, including assistance in that area from foreign powers.”

She sees the US participating in “the global renaissance of mass nonviolent protest against authoritarianism” and notes that, in 2017, we saw the biggest protest in the nation’s history – the Women’s March against Trump, which was then surpassed in 2020 by the Black Lives Matter protests, which involved more than 20 million people in multigenerational and multiracial demonstrations.

“These mass protest movements had electoral consequences in the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections,” she added, as many women, non-white and LGBTQ+ people were elected to office.

Ben-Ghiat is convinced that we are ripe for another round – and the stakes are higher than ever.

On the justice front, I’m not suggesting that we somehow set aside the terrible and hugely consequential decision that gives a president – guess who in particular? – immunity for his official acts.

But at the same time, the courts, including the jury system, are often functioning admirably, if not flawlessly. Just over a month ago, Trump became the first former US president convicted of felonies. Trump allies who wanted to charge that the courts have been weaponized found it harder to make that argument less than two weeks later when Hunter Biden, too, was convicted in a jury trial.

Mainstream journalism, as noted, often disappoints. The moderators of the CNN debate clearly should have been empowered by their network bosses to challenge Trump’s barrage of lies in real time. The stunning New York Times editorial calling for Biden to set aside his campaign for the good of the nation may have been well-reasoned, but it struck me as another example of targeting the president and letting Trump off the hook. To my knowledge, only the scrappy Philadelphia Inquirer has written a similar editorial about Trump.

Too much of the politics coverage is out of whack with reality. The media is baying for Biden’s head, but – with some exceptions – seems mostly bemused by Trump or at least habituated to how dangerous he is.

But there’s good news in journalism, too. Consider ProPublica’s essential reporting on Justice Clarence Thomas’s rotten ethics. Or the way many news outlets have revealed the threats of Project 2025 – the alarming and detailed plan by Trump allies to dismantle democratic norms should their leader win a second term.

I’m also heartened by young journalists who are making their way in a difficult career field.

“No matter what problem we’re talking about, good journalism is part of the solution,” said Jelani Cobb, the dean of Columbia Journalism School (where I run a journalism ethics center). “The young journalists whom we have the privilege to work with here are some of the sharpest, most committed and talented that I’ve ever seen.”

Their work “will be a ballast for democracy”, Cobb told me, “even amid the giant challenges in front of us right now”.

Most of all, I’m moved by the valiant efforts of many ordinary citizens. One friend, active in voter protection efforts, praised “all of the grassroots volunteers working to preserve democracy who I am sure will continue in all the ways possible if Trump wins”. She mentioned the flood of small-dollar donations that followed Biden’s debate debacle, and credited “the courageous judges, court personnel, jurors et al who are working, despite the risks to themselves, to see that justice is served in the cases against Trump”.

Will any of this matter when so much is going wrong and when the threats are so great? The screenwriter and former journalist David Simon offered a dour view this week: “Our American experiment is so over.”

More aligned with Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s big-picture view and the others quoted here, I remain hopeful, if not optimistic about the future of the United States.

On 4 July, at least, let’s remember that we’ve come a long way, and the journey isn’t yet complete.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jay Kuo at The Big Picture:

Most of us know someone on the left who is dug in against voting for Joe Biden because of U.S. policy toward Israel and Gaza. For them, the continued support of Israel and the flow of weapons is a dealbreaker, and they say they can’t support a president for reelection who would back a genocidal campaign against the Palestinians.

No amount of “but he’s a good man” or “the alternative is an even worse nightmare” reasoning seems to move them from their position. And it appears they are not alone. As protests emerge around the country on college campuses and in some cases turn ugly, many wonder whether the damage will deal a mortal blow in November.  After all, if blue voters, particularly young voters who have formed such a key part of Democratic electoral victories in the past three elections, stay home instead of voting to reelect Biden, it could usher in another Trump win. This is particularly worrisome in key battleground states like Michigan, where there are large numbers of Arab Americans who cannot see themselves voting for Biden. So how do we talk to our fellow Democrats for whom Gaza is a huge, seemingly insurmountable hurdle? And how worried should we be about the war in Gaza keeping voters, particularly college-age voters, home on Election Day, or even causing them to lodge protest votes with one of the spoiler candidates? At the risk of sounding like a political advice columnist, I take these two questions on below.

When they don’t want to hear about voting for Biden

I was at a gathering in San Diego recently, where I’d met with around forty local readers of my newsletter. I’d opened the floor up for a general discussion about the state of our politics, and a gentleman in the audience told me about a friend of his. That friend is a volunteer in the LGBTQ community and has solid progressive views, but is so disillusioned with Joe Biden over Gaza that he can’t ever see himself voting for him. He even rails daily about “Genocide Joe.” 

What can we do to reach people like that, the gentleman asked me. I replied that I have the pleasure of serving on the board of an organization devoted to human rights, and we had just held lengthy, internal discussions about what the best approach is when the subject of Gaza and Joe Biden comes up. Here are some key takeaways. Don’t dismiss their anger and pain. For people who consider themselves progressive, the war in Gaza with its high civilian casualties can create a strong sense of turmoil, disillusionment, frustration, and even stronger emotions like fury and disgust. Most Democrats I have spoken to fall somewhere along this spectrum, myself included. While it may feel good in the moment to grow indignant, it is ultimately unhelpful to question anyone’s passion, commitment, and emotional investment in the Gaza crisis. Instead, we should acknowledge it and give it the respect it deserves.

Don’t tell them they are only hurting the ones they want to help. A common response to those who say they can’t support Biden or the Democrats ever again is to attempt to move to a logical, cost/benefit style analysis. The thinking goes something like, “If you really care about Gaza, then you’ll vote for Biden and the Democrats, because a vote for anyone else, or any non-vote, will hurt the very people you purport to care about.” There are a couple of problems with this approach. First, this is basically telling them that they don’t have a real choice in who to cast their votes for, when in fact they do. Second, such logic forces them to be complicit, at least in their minds, with something they abhor. It’s not a strong starting point.  Don’t make this a choice about the “lesser of two evils.” Another common approach is to argue that this is about making the choice that is less evil or harmful than the other. But this rarely works because 1) in their mind, nothing could be more evil or harmful than genocide, and 2) foisting a choice of a lesser of two bad options often results in apathy, meaning folks stay home or vote third party. So how could this delicate issue be approached instead? Here is a summary of some thoughts that others, who have spent significant time in the political trenches on this, shared with me:

Say you feel conflicted, too. Forming a bridge of understanding with those who are suffering anguish at the role our country and this administration are playing in Gaza is foundationally critical to having any kind of productive discussion. Expressing your own emotions—whether it’s frustration, horror, pain, sorrow, confliction—will open a patch of common ground on which real dialogue can happen. It is an invitation to share more, not shut down. And talking with someone who also hates what’s happening in Gaza but arrives at a different result on how to act on it can be illuminating. Talk about other issues that matter to you. This is a key point. When someone is stuck on the narrative that “Joe Biden is bad,” you should move away from talking about the candidates (Biden v. Trump) and talk instead about all the issues that matter to you. This election is about Gaza, yes. But it’s also about many other things:

Reproductive freedom and a right to abortion that was stripped away from millions of women overnight;

Threats to democracy and rule of law from autocratic leaders and their enablers in the Republican party;

Reducing the use of fossil fuels and addressing the global threat of climate change;

Supporting our allies in NATO and Ukraine fully against Russian aggression;

An economy that focuses on the needs of the people at the bottom and the middle, not those at the very top;

Reducing gun violence and the need for sensible gun safety legislation, all currently opposed by Republicans;

A humane and functional immigration policy that doesn’t demonize vulnerable migrants;

Compassion and full equality for the LGBTQ+ community, particularly trans youth in need of gender-affirming medicine;

and many more. I have found that most people who demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the end to U.S. military support for Israel also will agree with me on the need to protect and press forward with all of the above, and not allow Republicans to seize control and move us backward or toward authoritarianism.

[...]

According to Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist who was one of the few to predict the failure of the vaunted “Red Wave” in 2022, there were three key takeaways from that poll:

Vote intent right now is where it was in the spring of 2020, a very high turnout year for young people. Young people are engaged, paying attention.

Biden is close to 2020 results with likely 18-29 year old voters. Work to do, but we can — if we do the work — hit our 2020 numbers with 18-29 year olds in vote share and overall turnout. This is good.

Israel-Palestine is not a major issue for young Americans right now, and is in my view very unlikely to be one in the fall. This finding is confirmed in other polls. It’s an important issue, of course, but for young people there are many issues which matter much more. Note the top 6 issues for 18-29 year old self-identified Democrats: 

women’s reproductive rights

gun violence

healthcare

housing

inflation

climate change

Of course, I’m one of the last people who would say we should put our faith in polls. They are simply information points, and not generally predictive of election results this far out. That means a lot could still change, and sentiment could shift, for or against the Democrats. We have much to do.

Jay Kuo wrote In The Big Picture Substack on the impact of Joe Biden's position on the Gaza Genocide and Israel Apartheid on voters who are dug in on opposing him and how to respond to their pain and asking them what other issues could motivate them to cast their vote for Biden.

[feminist-space]

From Laura Robinson:

"In the US we have a really hard time caring about problems unless they involve perfect victims.

This has been called out about a million times about abortion (it's easy to imagine unborn babies as perfect, silent, innocent angels, but the drop-off rate for people who also care about those babies when they're 5 or 10 and acting up in school is enormous), but I think it's also pretty easy to see in human trafficking.

People get outraged and want to act when we imagine trafficking victims as innocent prepubescent children snatched from their homes randomly to be victims of fully-othered monsters, and want to act to help them.

But it's hard to get those same people to feel the same way about, say, 16 year old girls who are taken across state lines by their 17 year old foster sister because they both want a handbag and they heard that a kid who aged out of care knows how to make a lot of money really fast. Or we're quick to victim blame girls who make porn because their manipulative boyfriends manipulated them into it.

Or we have a lot of questions about the gay teenager who ran away from home because his parents wouldn't accept him and trusted the wrong guy for a place to stay on his couch. We want to help the REAL victims, the utterly unsexualized, non-choice-making nine-year-olds, and we want to return them to their parents who are certainly looking for them.

Here's the problem.

The perfect victims? The ones who got kidnapped by the cabal?

Yeah, they don't exist.

This just isn't how trafficking actually happens. The staggering majority of trafficked people, for one thing, are involved in labor trafficking. But even among sex trafficking cases, these emerge from a morass of other social issues -- poor and overwhelmed parents, foster care, drug addiction, LGBTQ marginalization, abusive relationships. This is how most kids end up trafficked - not stolen in the middle of the night from families that desperately want them back.

And this poses a problem for people, because now we're putting our Deserving Victim goggles on. Did the kids deserve it? Did their parents deserve it? How much care is it going to help this kid who was trafficked now, if we can't return them?

Are they going to get a good job and pay their taxes? Wait, they're addicted to heroin? Damn. Do we have to help with that? So we go back to rooting for fictional heroes fighting for fictional perfect people, and ignore or wave off very real high profile trafficking incidents that are actually happening.

But it doesn't help anyone.

I mean, it helps you, it helps you feel good.

But it doesn't help anyone else.

*also, particularly in the international world:

I strongly suspect it is easier to sell Americans a story of trafficked kids who want to go back to their homes in Central America and stay there.

But a lot of sexual exploitation starts with undocumented immigration. You were trying to come to the US, you made it as far as Mexico, now you’re out of money, and you’re vulnerable to traffickers who say they can get you to America."

[girlactionfigure]

To #Israel haters trolling me: I don't know you, so your insults don't bother me. I've heard it all, Uncle Tom, sellout, etc. If you want a response, speak substance.

To substance debaters, please understand: 

1- Issues like apartheid or ethnic cleansing assume that one country with one set of nationals, two ethnicities. But here we have two nations: A sovereign Israel and two Palestinian governments in West Bank (minus Area C and EJ) and Gaza. 

2- Nature of Palestinian governments (democracy or not), rights of Palestinians, are determined by Palestinians, not Israel. If Israel must grant Palestinians rights, they'd have to pledge allegiance to Israeli state/flag. But Palestinians don't want to be Israelis. They want their own national identity. So please, think before you make nonsense Apartheid assumptions. Apartheid assumes one nation, and these are clearly two.

3- Liberty of Palestinians is granted by their own governments. If you are Palestinian and cannot eat publicly in Ramadan, or harassed for being LGBTQ, or suffer honor killing if you are a girl dating a boy, or thrown in prison or killed if you express opinion that disagrees with the rest (such as calling for peace with Israel), all of these rights are repressed by Palestinian rulers of Palestinians and there is nothing that Israel can do to grant Palestinians such liberty.

4- Freedom of movement of Palestinians in West Bank is hampered by frequency of Palestinian attacks on Israeli non-combatants. In 1987, before attacks started, a Palestinian could drive from Ramallah to Gaza uninterrupted. If Palestinian militants ever surrender their arms, Israeli checkpoints will disappear.

5- We all agree that Palestinians deserve a better life than the one they have now (which is better than Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia). What we disagree on is "whose responsibility it is to give Palestinians such better life?" If you’re Arab native, you’d know that problem is within. In Palestinian case, maybe start by convincing Fatah and Hamas to talk to each another for first time since 2008. If Palestinians cannot live together in one government, how do you think a binational state with Israelis is possible? Also, except for Palestinian-Americans, no Palestinian wants a binational state, most Palestinians want one state, Palestine, which means destroying Israel, and this is the problem.

[vintageseawitch]

i hear about this:

& all i can think of are a few things: for one thing, the Uncommitted Movement, various Muslim community leaders throughout the US, other Palestinian Americans, etc have been PLEADING with people to not vote third party because while it would hurt Harris, it would in turn help trump, & CERTAIN THIRD PARTY VOTERS ARE IGNORING EVERYONE ANYWAYS.

second, while it's great they said something, i wish it wasn't less than a week before Election Day, but maybe it would help some people who haven't voted yet reconsider... maybe.

third, HAHAHAHAHAHA at the way they give the impression they believe jill stein has any integrity, decency, empathy, or anything we would like to have in a potential leader (if she was serious, which she is not). i admire that they are giving the impression they believe the American Green Party has any inclination to pursue its noble goals when their mascot (stein) has index funds with XL Pipeline, has received funds from Lockheed Martin, has stated some anti-vaxx stances, etc while pretending they're pro-environment, pro-human rights (even though she only JUST started "caring" about Gaza this election cycle as though what's happening over there has only been going on since October 7th & not for literal decades), & so on. stein's running mate is also massively anti-lgbtq & anti-abortion but hey he's Palestinian so he understands your genocide hard line!!!!! anyways i have a feeling the European Green Parties are very aware the American Green Party has become a sick joke but i admire their alleged belief in it being on the same page as them.

finally, there's this particular story:

& what it makes me think of is all these LARPing revolutionaries will never, NEVER EVER EVER, have the same courage or backbone the way Liz Cheney has displayed in the wake of real-life fascism. i don't hear jill stein or other members of the Green Party calling out this heinous bullshit. stein is too busy pretending to get that fucking "5%" while trying to make noise in key swing states only instead of blue states where reaching that 5% is more in reach, further proof of her bullshit.

it infuriates me that third party voters & non-voters, ESPECIALLY ones who are encouraging & SHAMING people to do the same, are doing all this bullshit while pretending 2016 didn't happen & so many of these folks are not just white but also INCREDIBLY anti-black even though many of these folks were on the BLM train a few years ago but now black people especially women are also talking about how they're voting for Harris & y'all are CALLING THEM PRO-GENOCIDE FOR IT. y'all are just as complicit as the rest of us because of our tax dollars & i'm not seeing any of you go to jail because you're refusing to pay for them over this. only CERTAIN kinds of genocides count to you & while those who actually have skin in the game, like actual Palestinians, are begging you not to vote third party & to vote for Harris, y'all shit on them & think you know better because you've been on a high fucking horse for a year. you claim to care about climate change but you're working harder to make sure Harris loses which means trump will win. WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING PLAN FOR THIS.

Liz Cheney & other Republicans like her & Muslim Americans who have family & loved ones affected by what our government is helping netanyahu do & are STILL going to vote for Harris & are encouraging others to do the same because they're pragmatic & know what's at stake are braver than any of you accelerationists. you all sound like maga because of your unending love for red flag McGee jill stein. y'all don't think Russia is a problem & that amongst a myriad of things makes you sound fascist as fuck. you make me sick. there's so much at stake. please listen to those who have been doing the actual work longer than you've pretended to give a damn.

i can't get over hearing about the video of a voter writing in the flashy "arms embargo now" instead of voting for PRAMILA JAYAPAL who is up for re-election. do you even know who she is?? do you know how our government works??? your emotions are making you STUPID & encouraging you to "vote" in a way that is just cutting off your fucking nose to spite your fucking face. y'all are UNSERIOUS.

try to be as brave as Liz Cheney & as pragmatic & aware as the rest of the fucking world who knows that third party voting only hurts the Democrats. being an Ernst Thälmann in this election is fucking EMBARRASSING.

[djwaglmuffin]

NOW HIRING: Colorist/Background Artist

Hello, DJW here:

I am actively seeking a COLORIST/BACJGROUND ARTIST for my webcomic 'Descendant'.

More info UTC.

You must have the following:

A good, fundamental grasp on color theory and the elements of design. Anyone who is also demonstratively improving their basics are also welcome to apply. Good grasp on lighting is also preferred, please.

MUST have a stomach for horror/Lovecraftian designs/mild gore/mild sexual content.

You MUST NOT be adverse to coloring People of Color, LGBTQ+ characters, (This is a very diverse story) as well as the problems they faced in the time period. This story can be very sticky but I do NOT want to traumatize a community for the sake of the story. These various -isms won't be tolerated.

You probably should enjoy some form of "Old Western"-style media: saloons, wagons, horses; etc. etc.

You should also probably enjoy occult stories: vampires, angels, demons, etc. etc.

You must be respectful of my story and how it progresses and have faith that I have control over my narrative.

This will be (hopefully be) a partnership so please do not apply if you don't want to commit to a serious comic endeavor. I've been working on this story for over 20 years.

You MAY build and/or use 3-D models but AI Generated content will NOT be tolerated whatsoever.

Even better if you're a Black or Native American artist so YOU can crack the whip if I'm not representing POC correctly or enough.

You MUST be okay with a 50/50 payment split, meaning: I ALWAYS PAY FELLOW ARTIST HALF UP FRONT AND HALF WHEN THE WORK IS DONE. (<---EVERYONE should be doing this. That way you still get paid for the work you did, and your payee doesn't lose out on hard work.)

MUST be willing to enter into a non-disclosure agreement, as well as a theft-protection agreement meaning: I will absolutely pursue legal action if, for some reason, we part ways and I find out you're using my characters or story ideas in your own works.

MUST have Clip Studio Paint or a program that allows you to work with the CSP files. Clip studio has a STUDIO option where I can add you, and you can open the pages from a cloud service, which really cool once I figure out how to set it all up.

Currently, I am offering $100/page (in reality, it's more like 1 or 2 panels, but we can discuss that later) in webtoon format (vertical form comics). You will not be required to draw much beyond backgrounds and only on select panels to be discussed with me as they come into play. I will specify through conversations what I'm looking for. I am not looking to micro-manage anyone, either. I will let you have your creative freedom, as long as it falls in line with the theme. <--this will be discussed during the planning phases of each chapter.

I will have a tryout period beginning on September 7th where I will pass along something that I drew, and you will color it to demonstrate your skills. I am paying $50 per person (up to 4).

For the work I'm doing: I will be writing, sketching, inking, lettering, paneling...pretty much everything but backgrounds and color.

I am open to different coloring styles, as long as we agree on an inking style and stick to it. I am pushing hard for quality but I understand I am not paying much right now. As time goes on, if this turns out well, I fully intend on upping that payout more and eventually setting up a Patreon which I will be using to pay YOU as well as my editor, and any beta readers I may need before posting. (you can also be that beta reader if you'd like; get that money, baby!)

Also, if this goes well, I am very open to also helping YOU create your own comics, especially on any downtime on my own, FREE OF CHARGE!!

And, if this goes SUPER-DUPER well, I've got a really great idea for a companion project to go along with this story.

If you are interested, please send me a DM on Tumblr, Instagram, or Deviantart along with a little blurb about yourself and a few examples of your best work:

https://www.instagram.com/djwaglmuffin/

Thanks in advance for the interest and I hope to see people apply!

PS: If y'all could reblog and share this on various places to drum up interest, that'd sure be swell.

Here, have a sticker!

[themagicfolf]

Hi, I'm Stella A college student at SWIC this is the first paper I worked on while attending It covers Transphobi and mainly how it affects Trans Youth. I hope you all get something out of this ^w^

See my Citations and supplementary material here

The Rise of Transphobia in the U.S.A and the Effects it Brought

______________________________________________________________________________________________________First I would like to preface this by stating my biases. I support the rights of transgender people

| I also feel the need to mention that I myself am a Trans woman. Meaning I support Trans rights_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

In recent years there has been a noticeable rise in anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation and hate crimes, particularly targeting educators, health care providers, trans-youth, and transwomen of color. Though harmful, this legislation and these attacks are only the surface of the deeper issues within our society. We as a people have a fear of the unknown. This fear has historically been weaponized by those seeking to gain or maintain a level of control. By demonizing people they don’t understand, politicians, religious leaders, and “activists'' are able to gain an audience and turn a group into a problem rather than a people.

I want to explore this and show the corrupting nature of these actions tracing them back to the source. In my research, I discovered many activist groups, businesses, and political organizations have disguised their close-minded views and hateful rhetoric as beliefs grounded in scientific study and the harmful actions they take as well-intentioned actions taken to defend the defenseless. They claim to be informing the public when they are both denying scientific studies and attacking the defenseless for their own personal gain. To more effectively combat this we need to understand when and who set these events into motion.

My analysis starts in 2015. The House had just passed the Mariage Equality Act, anti-LGBTQ+ groups were airing homophobic advertisements more than they ever had before, and Barack Obama's second term was about to end. This was a year of both celebration and protest. It is my belief that during this year due to homophobia becoming less socially acceptable, anti-LGBTQIA+ groups began to lean harder into opposing the right of transgender and non-binary people to live as the gender they identify as. Because of this, these groups began introducing new policies dubbed “Bathroom Bills” ' meant to restrict transgender and non-binary peoples' usage of public facilities such as restrooms and locker rooms.

These “Bathroom Bills” on the surface appear to be only a minor inconvenience but in areas where they were signed into law proved to be detrimental to the physical and mental well-being of transgender and non-binary students in the area.

These bills had a multitude of negative effects, the most prevalent of these is increased stress, anxiety, and depression due to the uncertainty of finding a restroom they are legally allowed to use and the abuse they may face when using the restroom corresponding with the sex they were assigned at birth. Another effect was an increase in UTIs due to transgender individuals “holding it” due to a lack of or inconvenient location of appropriate facilities. These claims are corroborated by an American Medical Association report which can be found here.

Another type of bill that saw an increase in recent years is the banning of trans women from women's sports. For more information on the topic see the TUE Physican Guidlines as presented by The World Anti-Doping Agency. As I am not qualified to speak on this I will only be speaking on the effects these bills had on LGBTQIA+ individuals. Banning Trans athletes from competing in sports aligned with their gender identity harms the mental health and safety of transgender athletes. For many, these bans can be dehumanizing, and isolating, also putting those who swap teams in danger. These bans can make people feel isolated because they separate friends from each other and lower the visibility of transgender athletes thus making it harder for transgender individuals to find other athletes they can relate to. These bans can also put transgender athletes who decide to stay in sports by joining a team not congruent with their gender identity in danger due to a raised risk of bullying, harassment, and assault as shown by this study from the American Psychology Association

More recently the U.S. has seen an increased push for a total ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors. This push has been mainly made by Conservatives, Religious Organisations, and Politicians of the Republican Party. A common claim by these groups and individuals is that “Most children who think they are the opposite sex will grow out of this delusion before adulthood” stating “By mutilating children with these chemicals and surgeries you will be ruining their lives” citing this outdated and heavily contested study.

Another common claim made that focuses on gay youth is that “Most trans kids aren't trans and just suffer from confusion or internalized homophobia.” Another is that ”Kids with Autism aren’t mentally capable of making such a drastic and irreversible decision.” This claim disregards the autonomy and mental capabilities of neurodivergent people. They also tend to cite the heightened risk of suicide in trans youth. To back this up they don't normally cite any specific studies but many of the statistics they use and claims they make come from these studies.

Most studies that back their claims up are old, outdated, rescinded, or debunked. Even when the studies don’t line up with their claims they bend the truth, misinterpreted the data, and use it out of context. An example of this is one study from Sweden.

This study focused on the results of Swedish citizens post-SRS over the course of 10 years. It does show a heightened mortality rate for transgender individuals. The main problem with this study is a lack of a control group containing individuals suffering from gender dysphoria. This study also lacks vital context involving environmental factors such as transphobia, financial hardship, discrimination, and political discourse and is mainly used to attribute the increased risk of suicide directly to transitioning rather than the social stigmas around it.

When making their push to ban Gender Affirming Care for Minors they also appeal to a sense of urgency and responsibility in their arguments claiming “Gender-affirming care for minors is child abuse.” In many cases, these arguments have convinced a large enough number of people to support such bans. Since 2015, a number of states have banned gender-affirming care for transgender minors such as Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, and Florida while Arizona has enstated a ban on any gender-affirming surgery for transgender minors. Recently Michigan *among others, have begun their fight to ban Gender Affirming Care for transgender minors as well

These bans and claims are harmful and go against The World Health Organisations' recommended treatment plan for gender dysphoria. In the states where these bans have been enstated courts were able to temporarily block investigations of families supportive of their transgender child. But many living in these states still feel as though a dark cloud is looming overhead, and that it’s only a matter of time before these bans take full effect. This feeling is echoed in these quotes. As shown by multiple studies, withholding access to gender-affirming care from gender-diverse youth has a long-lasting detrimental effect on their mental and physical well-being.

These individuals see increased rates of anxiety, depression, feelings of hopelessness, fear, stress, self-harm, and attempted suicide. This can be caused by a multitude of factors. Gender-diverse youth who are denied gender-affirming care are a majority of the time forced to watch their bodies change and morph into something that ‘on a deeper level’ feels wrong while knowing these changes could have most likely been prevented. Due to these changes, they are also more likely to be bullied for physical characteristics not typical of their gender identity. They may also feel hopeless as though they may never gain access to gender-affirming care. Most of all, gender-affirming care has been proven to be an effective treatment of gender dysphoria so without gender-affirming care it is left for the most part untreated.

These consequences are primarily why I find it important to understand why and how these events take place. The rights and Lives of LGBTQIA+ Children, Teens, and Adults all over the U.S. and The World are at stake. The best way to combat hate is through knowledge and in the knowledge we find truth, I urge you if this topic interests you look into it further and speak out.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________Paper written and researched by: Stella Cox

For questions and inquiries contact me at TheMagicFolf@aol.com________________________________________________________________________________

Testimonials

Parental Testimonials on The Fear of Anti-Trans Legislation ______________________________________________________________________________________________________

“It would mean that my son would go back to hating himself every month when he began to menstruate again. The thoughts of hurting himself would return.”

(Mother of a transgender son from Illinois) Source ______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Without hormones and surgery, my teen would probably have committed suicide.

(Mother of a transgender son from Connecticut) Source ______________________________________________________________________________________________________

“My daughter tried to harm herself at an early age due to her misery of having male parts. She only got hopeful when her doctor told her she wouldn’t go through male puberty. Male puberty would kill my daughter.”

(Mother of a transgender daughter from Ohio) Source______________________________________________________________________________________________________

“If she had been younger, and been told that she couldn’t get the hormones, the medicine that would help her overcome this problem, she would have been devastated. The message would have been that she is so very wrong, disordered, hopeless that she isn’t even worth treatment. And that leads to profound mental health issues and suicide.“

(Mother of a transgender daughter from Ohio) Source______________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Even if they don’t pass, just the news cycle letting him know that people hate him, despise him, and have no larger concerns than to dispose of his very existence is a very trying experience.“

(Father of a transgender son from South Dakota) Source______________________________________________________________________________________________________

“The very existence of these laws, regardless that they are in other states, renders my child less safe. They encourage and legitimize hate. The idea that the government can raise children better than the parents is absurd. “

(Mother of a transgender daughter from New Jersey) Source

Testimonials From Gender-Diverse People on The Fear of Anti-Trans Legislation

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Kids, or just people supportive of trans youth, see the news reports and understand some of the content, and think that if this passes the restrictions will immediately go into place. They’re going to immediately close up, stop talking to counselors, etc. That’s where the harm begins — where the unhappiness begins.” “My main question to people trying to pass this bill is: How can you make decisions for trans people when you don’t even know us? We live in communities everywhere — as students, coworkers, friends, family — and deserve to be heard just like anyone else.”

(Jeremiah - age 17 from Alabama) Source

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

“The issues they’re making laws to protect against don’t exist; instead, they’re creating problems where there are none. These bills will have a really bad effect on kids like me everywhere and are just going to hurt people if passed.”

“It’s hard enough being a trans kid, not knowing if you’ll be bullied at school, but to have politicians who supposedly have the good of the people at heart do this is so upsetting.”

“Know that we’re here for you, I’m here for you — I hope everyone finds that person who will always listen to and believe in you no matter what.”

(Adam - 8th grade from Tennessee) Source

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

“I’ve met so many of my close friends by playing basketball and they’ve really become a support system for me throughout middle school.”

“To all the parents out there, my main advice is to listen to your kids. When we share something with you, it’s because we want to be seen and heard. It’s important for trans people, and

especially trans kids, to have our stories heard so that others can get to know us for who we are.”

(Daniel From Arizona)Source

[metropolitianmania]

Okay so…Did anyone ever read a history book? Or ever get to learn what empathy is? Because these tags/reblogs on this post are HORRENDOUS and dumb.

Before I say anything: I want to clarify I am a Mexican + Salvadoran American, Nonbinary and nblm, and I probably have DID. Meaning, I do have experience in a lot of different communities! I’m speaking as someone who has seen this first hand and am actually taking courses in college on this. Moving on…

A big part of what irked me about these particular reblogs is the ‘reminder’ that white girls wouldn’t need to add on minority identities to have an opinion - because that’s based upon the idea that people who scream the loudest about being marginalized are NOT the white girls with minority identities themselves!

As I said on that post, white people are STILL the poster children of most other marginalized groups besides race. Y’all only have it worse than other white people. Marginalized groups that aren’t predominantly known to affect white people are deemed UNSAFE and DISGUSTING (such as single mothers, addiction, and other ‘stereotypical poc’ issues) UNLESS lo and behold, there’s a white woman or man dealing with that issue. You will always get help first.

Mental Illness Awareness online is predominantly White and AMAB.

LGBTQ Spaces are predominantly White.

Disability safe spaces are predominantly White.

And there’s nothing WRONG with being white and having minority identities. The thing is, it’s a problem y’all created for yourselves that you blame people of color for. Y’all think white people need to be oppressed in some way in order for them to even be an ALLY to marginalized groups. This is white guilt at its finest. This is the idea that you’re all stuck washing away the blood off your ancestors hands- which only leads you guys to NEED to be coddled by excessive labeling to make yourselves feel like you’re even allowed to have an opinion on something. You can, the only thing is, you just need to know that

1. You are not your ancestors. Whatever they did in the past, learn from it. Even if they WERE bad people, what they did does not mean you’re ‘tainted’ forever.

2. LISTEN. You can have opinions on things that include minorities and marginalized groups, but at the end of the day, you do not have the privilege to speak OVER (as in, negate) their own experiences. And if they say something is racist - maybe it is. If they say you don’t understand completely, it’s means you…

3…. Need to check your privilege. You are always going to be white first before anything. Copying from my last post, the difference between being white and a minority vs being POC and a minority is the fact that whiteness gets to stay ambiguous (no one will demand you to clarify what ‘type of white you are) and have the luxury of being able to say “I’m nonbinary/gay/have adhd/autism/am disabled/yada yada ya.” whereas for POC, their ethnicity is their most defining characteristic, and is NOT allowed to be ambiguous.

Latinos/Hispanics (in my personal experience) are often asked by other latinos/hispanics and non-latinos/hispanics alike what ‘type of latino’ they are. It's almost as if people of color are demanded to explain who they are to white people in order for them to be relatable in this day and age. It's almost as if we have been forced to wear our ethnicities out and about, getting harassed or worse because we are not white.

If you didn’t know, racism derives from religious beliefs- certain people who looked a certain type of way were considered “unholy” and “unfit in the eyes of God”. If you had a big nose, or a certain hair texture, you were deemed ‘Not Christian enough’. They would look for any reason to deem people ‘Not Christian Enough’, or not ‘white enough’ when talking about modern day racism.

I fucking despise white people who try to use their marginalization as a way to garner sympathy and support from minorities. We understand that you are and can be oppressed too, but that doesn’t fucking get rid of your MOST DEFINING FACTOR: YOUR WHITENESS. At the end of the day, you will always be able to hide your oppression behind your whiteness. Your whiteness is your shield. It can blind you. We cannot hide behind our ethnicity. We cannot be ambiguous. That’s the harsh fucking reality.

But that’s were EDUCATION comes in! Learning about your privilege actually helps you understand people a LOT better. I don’t blame you guys at all for being uninformed. But you only become an oppressor when you’re purposefully ignorant.

Don’t do that.

YES, you can be biased towards white people, but they’ve been the majority for a LONG TIME, meaning white people cannot and will not experience racism for a very, very long time. Unfortunately because of this, a lot of POC teach their children to be afraid or to hate their oppressors, and are also taught to cater to the majority’s gaze. This is where that whole “evil majority” shit comes from - and funnily enough (and again), is a term that y’all came up for yourselves.

We have our own issues inside our own communities (not to discredit anything that happens for white communities) that we really don’t need white input on too. Just felt like I needed y’all to hear that. If you really think we POC are curating an intricate way to discredit/discriminate against White people, perhaps those places that you feel left out in ARE NOT places for you at all! Think of it as a bathroom- do you really think a lock on the bathroom door means you’re not allowed to use it ever or does it mean when it’s unlocked and open, you’re free to use it?

TL;DR: White people whining about not having a voice is ironic because they’re the ones creating these barriers for themselves.

[jechristine]

I think a key part of the Florida school library shitshow that may be hard for non-Americans to understand is the context of Republican politicians at the moment.

Many many Republicans in Congress are simply auditioning to be the next cable TV host, the next Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity. That kind of position pays very well in (a certain kind of) prestige and money and requires nothing. In Congress that works because our political system is broken and can’t govern. Matt Gaetz is probably the prime example. He can spout off and fearmonger and demagogue, and it’s all of little governing consequence because he can’t ultimately act on his dangerous ideas. He needs to get other people to vote with him, and there’s not much evidence he cares about that when it comes to legislating. He just wants to get on TV.

But ooops Ron DeSantis thinks he’s living Matt Gaetz’s life but he’s a governor and has much more power and ability to act. He fearmongers and demagogues and it has actual legal consequences that quickly get away from him.

I don’t think he intended to have librarians and teachers clear off book shelves. I think he just wanted to pretend there was some problem with pornography in schools that there clearly isn’t, and to use his platform to bully LGBTQ+ people and POC. But his most hateful acolytes jumped on his demogoging to actually fuck shit up.

Basically I think DeSantis is a complete fucking idiot in addition to being a bully. But that’s not a great combination, I guess.