#to amsterdam

[debdarkpetal]

1974.

Via deakycheaky on Instagram.

[communistkenobi]

A newborn baby girl will have to go through life with the wrong sex on her birth certificate after a registrar’s error, which her parents have been told they cannot change. Grace Bingham and her partner, Ewan Murray, were excited to register their first child at the Sutton-in-Ashfield Registration Office in Nottinghamshire last week. But, after nights of broken sleep, they failed to notice the registrar had written the wrong sex on the birth certificate until after it had been submitted. “We were horrified but assumed that, as we saw the mistake just a few seconds after it had happened, correcting it would be an easy matter,” said Murray. “But although the registrar apologised for her mistake – and the area manager also apologised – it turns out that birth certificates can’t be changed.”

this article is interesting because it demonstrates that cis people can very easily apply structural thinking to sex assignment - this couple immediately identifies that their daughter, having mistakenly been assigned male at birth by the registrar, will have administrative problems in employment, education, travel, and so on. they pretty adeptly identify the foundational role that sex assignment plays in the administrative and civil functions of a state, and how incorrect sex markers effectively produce a ‘rational’ reason for discrimination within these administrative and civil arenas:

The General Register Office (GRO), which is responsible for administering all civil registration in England and Wales, and the Home Office have both confirmed that Lilah’s birth certificate cannot be reissued, although an amendment can be made in the margin of the original document. But Bingham said this is not enough. “People reading a birth certificate might easily miss a tiny note in the margin – which means that Lilah could be regarded as male when she applies for school, her passport, for jobs – for everything that she needs a full birth certificate for.”

And given that this was published in The Guardian, this article makes zero mention as to why it’s impossible for this couple to receive an updated birth certificate with correct information (something the author notes was possible to do a year ago), but the reason is obviously transphobia. 

Now one might ask why there’s no exception for cis people whose birth certificates were recorded incorrectly at birth, but this reveals the instability of cissexualism. How would you determine who is a cis person with a mistaken birth certificate, versus a trans person who wants to change their mistaken sex assignment record? Sure, you could say well, this is an infant, of course she’s “really” “biologically” female (something the parents argue in the article as grounds for having their child’s birth certificate re-issued), but 1) that certainly can’t be argued for in all cases, 2) 'biological sex' is understood by medical doctors as alterable through hormones and surgery, which trans people are often required to undergo in order to change their records, and 3) binary sex assignment is already imprecise and discretionary, particularly if infants have sex characteristics that don’t conform to binary F/M assignment standards (which is part of how the category of intersex emerges, framing this failure to conform to state census categories as a biological defect - and in fact, many intersex people do not discover they are intersex until the onset of puberty or later, at which point they are even less in luck if they want to change their sex assignment - and if they don’t, if they are cis but have sex characteristics that do not conform to cis standards, they will be discriminated against anyway). 

Even setting aside the issue of transgender and intersex people for a moment, states fuck up all the time in administration! you've probably either experienced this directly or know someone who's had some kind of record fucked up by the government at some point in their life. If you get married they could fuck up changing your last name, fuck up your disability status, record your social insurance number wrong, print the wrong address on your driver’s license, fail to acknowledge you as a dependent when filing taxes, incorrectly mark you as having graduated when you’re still a student, fuck up your immigration paperwork, record your name wrong during immigration, etc etc into infinity, and this is not even getting into errors that occur when different levels of government pass information between one another. This level of administrative rigidity is purely to punish people who fail to perform cissexualism correctly, and in the case of this couple's child, the administrative error of the state is imputed to them as a personal failure that she and her parents will now have to deal with for the rest of their lives. 

I think the ultimate analysis is not that transphobia will become less precise and hit more "wrong" targets as it expands its reach, but that this is the exact same operational logic as all other liberal state measures - if you encounter a systemic issue, it’s your fault for not avoiding it, fuck you, go away. You’re poor because you’re lazy, you’re unhoused because you’re lazy, you’re disabled because you’re lazy, and your daughter is now administratively transsexual because you’re lazy. In this case, we don’t even need to assume the intentions of the state - they outright say it:

The family complained to the GRO but was told the mistake was their responsibility and could not be fully rectified. “The duty to ensure that information recorded in any particular entry is true is the responsibility of the person providing the information and not of the registrar general or the registrar recording the birth,” the GRO said.

[sillyfroggremlin]

watching/rewatching a show when you already have an established favorite character is great because every time they come on screen it's like

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[kropotkindersurprise]

November 6 / 7, 2024 - Far-right Israeli hooligans of Maccabi Tel Aviv came to Amsterdam for a match against Ajax, and went around singing their fascist songs about killing arabs and destroying palestine, attacking random people's houses, ripping down and burning palestinian flags and attacking random people for looking like palestine supporters, feeling untouchable. After an evening of this, with Amsterdam police just letting it happen, people had had enough and mostly Moroccan dutch people organised to hunt down Maccabi hooligans throughout the city. One of the Maccabi hooligans jumped in the canal to escape a beating. Passports were confiscated showing that several of the hooligans were IDF soldiers.

The Israeli government has responded by calling this a pogrom and sending two planes to Amsterdam, presumably to bomb a hospital or school in retaliation.

[queeranarchism]

For those wondering what's happening in Amsterdam right now and hearing media bullshit about 'pogroms', let me break it down for ya:

Sunday, November 3rd: During the weekend, Israeli fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv arrive in Amsterdam in advance of the soccer match against Ajax to take place on Thurday. On the first night, a man wearing a kufiya is attacked and beaten up so bad that he is hospitalized. The incident is ignored by the media and the police.

Wednesday, November 6th: Maccabi fans remove Palestinian flags from buildings, burn the flags and intimidate the inhabitants. A taxi driver is attacked with metal chains. The police watch and do nothing. Fellow taxi drivers have to come to the victim's rescue. The incidents are ignored by the media.

Thursday afternoon, November 7th: Maccabi fans hold a pro-IDF rally, carrying IDF emblems and shouting 'destroy the arabs' and 'we will fuck the arabs'. Fans also return to further intimidate the inhabitants of buildings that they had targeted on Wednesday. The incident are ignored by the media and the police.

Thursday evening, November 7th: Maccabi fans are shouting the same slogans and intimidating people of color while moving through the Amsterdam metro, while other fans simultaneously disrupt a vigil for the victims of the floods in Spain. The incidents are ignored by the media and the police.

Thursday night, November 7th: Amsterdam youths successfully fight back against the Israeli's that have been terrorizing their city. Maccabi fans that had gathered for another night of violence are driven off in all directions. Some find shelter with the police.

Friday morning, November 8th: Ignoring everything that has happened before, the city council and the media go wild, declaring that a 'pogrom' has taken place against 'Jews' and that 'violent antisemitism' is making Amsterdam unsafe. Maccabi fans that were shouting 'death to arabs' a few hours ealier are giving teary-eyed interviews claiming they were afraid for their lives and were targetted for being Jewish. The city council bans all forms of protest for 3 days.

Saturday morning, November 9th: a group of Amsterdam antizionist Jews is forced to cancel their Kristallnacht/Novemberprogromme 1938 commemoration because of threats of violence from Maccabi fans. This is ignored by the media and the police.

[scottstiles]

Dear God, did you have to send me news like that, today of all days? I know, I know we are The Chosen People, but once in awhile, can't you choose someone else?

[paintsandquests]

An evening in Ketterdam

[angstflavoured]

I'm sorry, brother. I'm sorry I let you down.

[gluten-free-lap-dances]

Cuypers Library, Amsterdam

[allthingseurope]

Amsterdam, Netherlands (by Ilia)

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Jan van Huysum (Dutch, 1682-1749) Still Life with Flowers and Fruit, ca.1720

[debdarkpetal]

Flying to Amsterdam, 1974.

First picture via deakycheaky on Instagram.

[communistkenobi]

“It’s so crazy JKR is misgendering a real cis WOMAN who was raised as a GIRL her whole LIFE what a dummy” is such a dogshit argument lol stop ceding ground to the idea that cis women have a more legitimate claim to womanhood because they were “born and raised” a woman and that’s why it makes this misgendering “more” ridiculous somehow. transphobes being constantly wrong about who is “actually transgender” is not their trans clocking radar ‘misfiring,’ they are proudly, openly, and successfully terrorising the public into accepting a very narrow & particular white suprematist notion of gendered divisions in society. JKR is not ‘mistaken’ she’s a fucking white supremacist who hangs out with other white supremacists & advances white supremacy through the language of transphobia. why is anyone still acting like she’s “making mistakes” where have you people been

[bessonitsa]

Huge shoutout to these two people in front of me at Miku Expo today who were recording with a ds and a psvita respectfully

[kropotkindersurprise]

November 7, 2024 - Far-right supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv get their asses handed to them after a day of them ripping down Palestinian flags, attacking people for wearing a keffiyeh, and singing songs mocking dead Palestinian children. [video]

[architectureofdoom]

Cold War era shelter, Weesperplein metro station, Amsterdam