vincentvangodot

[vincentvangodot]

the year was Two Thousand and twenty-four. I took a puff of my Electronic-Cigarette, inhaling the vapours. my mobile terminal buzzed in my pocket, a flat slab of microchips and glossy touchscreen. I ignored it....... probably another Electronic-Mail

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happy pride! this dragon is gay <3

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personally i’m a fan of when a story is like. the love was there. unfortunately. this all could have actually gone a lot easier for everyone if the love hadn’t been there but here we are

[vincentvangodot]

brought to you by the greatest image i have ever seen

meanwhile, in the Hinterlands:

[vincentvangodot]

i dont have to wear a binder. i have a flat chest i can inhale as deeply as i want and i never look like i have breasts. im not aware of my chest when i go down steps, im not aware of my chest when i put in a seatbelt. when someone hugs me it's like a flat board for them. i can wear a towel around my waist around my house and go shirtless to the beach. i was subconsciously avoiding half of my closet for years until one day i realized; i DO love these shirts, and they look *so good* now that i dont have a chest. im not paranoid at my job that my coworkers will find out the truth if i reach too high or tuck in my shirt. i dont stare at my chest every time i put on an outfit any more. i dont catch myself in a mirror at a department store and hunch my back. i stand up tall. i lie shirtless in bed every night and nothing stares back at me.

these are my experiences with top surgery if anyone is debating whether or not they want it. for me, every day i lie shirtless in peace. greatest decision ive ever made

[vincentvangodot]

People online (white) will create so many conspiracy theories that just boil down to "Asians aren't complete human beings with their own thoughts and autonomy" like maybe Chinese people are just going about their day to day life. Maybe a video of a North Korean person like chilling is just a person chilling, who isn't going to power down like a robot once the video is over. Stop being a fucking creep.

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[vincentvangodot]

As a wheelchair user I'm trying to reframe my language for "being in the way."

"I'm in the way," "I can't fit," and "I can't go there," is becoming "there's not enough space," "the walkway is too narrow," and "that place isn't accessible."

It's a small change, but to me it feels as if I'm redirecting blame from myself to the people that made these places inaccessible in the first place. I don't want people to just think that they're helping me, I want them to think that they're making up for someone else's wrongdoing. I want them to remember every time I've needed help as something someone else caused.

[vincentvangodot]

sometimes instead of “why can’t they just be friends” i think it should be “why can’t they also be friends” because sometimes shipping feels much too much like forcing two pretty characters to kiss and be intimate without actually being interested in the dynamic the two people have. what about hanging out together. what about why they like being in each others company. what do they argue about. how do they patch things up. what do they laugh about.

[vincentvangodot]

Holy Grail 🦁🗡️✝️

[vincentvangodot]

Anyways when I was sixteen I wrote a story about a spaceship's communications officer (think Uhura) who was given a brain implant when he was a baby that automatically translates every language in the universe, but which interferes with his ability to perceive and process subtle changes in tone. He hears an emotionless automated translator voice inside his head rather than hearing the real voices being physically carried by air vibrations. So he has the ability to interpret every word in every language, but he can never interpret tone of voice. And the ultimate message of the story is that understanding every possible text isn't enough -- if you don't understand subtext, you'll be isolated. The "communications officer" actually struggles to communicate more than anyone else on the ship.

You'll never guess what they diagnosed me with a year later.

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this manatee looks like it’s in a skyrim loading screen

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there is this annoying trend where for example someone will like. reinvent phrenology and someone will point out " you know the nazi's believed in that" and then response they'll go "oh so i should make sure my phrenology isn't racist or anti-sematic!" because they don't understand that assigning physical traits to intelligence or morality is still bad no matter what, not just because "people who i know are objectly bad share those beliefs for the wrong reasons" and this happens everytime.

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There are cathedrals everywhere in Chicago

[vincentvangodot]

My colleague and I masked up a few weeks ago and went to Steelworkers Park on the south end of Chicago.  It’s the site of what used to be major steel factors, with canals where barges brought the ore up via Lake Michigan. it’s all demolished now except for the big ore walls that held the ore in, and a few token pieces of infrastructure and machinery. Especially in the winter, the overall vibe is very Fallout/post-apoc, which seems….fitting, this year.

Even cooler (and dubiously permitted? Signage was unclear), there’s an area where you can enter one of the hallways going through an ore wall and there’s some phenomenal graffiti and weird stuff on the walls in there.

Also some striking poetry in a very, very unexpected place.

[vincentvangodot]

Chicago. 1958

Photo: Vivian Maier

[vincentvangodot]

Perisex allies: stop this shit

CW: intersexism

Came across this infographic during some google image searching and I'm still kind of a state of despair about it because it's not just offensively wrong about what intersex is, it was used to teach university students about queer issues:

Alt text: LGBTQIA+ are defined one by one. Intersex is defined erroneously as "These are people who were born with genital organs of both sexes (male and female). It is a genetic condition."

It's one thing for your rando perisex person to be getting this wrong on social media. It's another thing entirely when it's professionals getting this wrong in an educational setting. 😩 And that this infographic appears in a peer-reviewed publication. 😩

It's even worse to know the students that were taught with this infographic were medical students, who will be the ones traumatizing intersex people for decades to come 😩

It's so wrong in so many different ways:

Intersex is not limited to people with genital differences. Most intersex people have intersex variations that are not apparent at birth, with puberty being the most common time of life for variations to present. Many people find out in adulthood having no outward physical differences.

Of the intersex people with genital differences, they do not have two sets of genitals. Most genital differences are still recognizably female or male (e.g. spadias), and those who have ambiguous genitals have one set.

Intersex is not "male parts + female parts" or even "intermediate male/female parts", it is an umbrella term for anybody whose primary/secondary sex characteristics don't line up with what is expected for male and female bodies. Some intersex variations make women look more feminine, or make men look more masculine.

Defining intersex by genital differences doesn't just exclude most intersex people, it also sets the tone that we are defined by our genitals. To be publicly intersex is to have non-stop DMs about your genitals. This sort of framing sets up openly intersex people for invasive questions and harassment, and it keeps large numbers of intersex people from coming out.

Many intersex variations do not have a known genetic basis. Many intersex variations are caused by exposure to certain hormonal levels in the womb. Certain medications when taken during pregnancy can trigger intersex variations.

While bodily variation is necessary for being intersex, the social experience of stigma, discrimination, isolation, hyper-medicalization, and hyper-sexualization are all just as much a part of being intersex.

📣 Perisex allies: this is shit you can stop. When you see other perisex people parrot this sort of misinformation, correct them. Direct them to look up resources written by actually intersex people.

Here are some starter resources to give:

Intersex explained by Hans Lindahl

Media and style guide by IHRA

FAQ by intersex-support

A recent post I did compiling information for trans people who want to be better intersex allies