hey netizens! i’m not sure how many people are aware, but youtube’s been slowly rolling out a new anti-adblock policy that can’t be bypassed with the usual software like uBlock Origin and Pi-Hole out of the gate
BUT, if you’re a uBlock Origin user (or use an adblocker with a similar cosmetics modifier), you can add these commands in the uBlock dashboard to get rid of it!
I feel so… down whenever I want to watch queer or trans videos because I know in the back of my mind that none of the current large queer content creators’ content or community is safe for people like me, intersex people.
I love their work otherwise, but it hurts badly to hear them toss around casual intersexism in their videos constantly when discussing queer and trans issues and nobody ever mentions it.
And because these are large, popular creators, nobody has ever listened when I’ve tried to ask they adjust their language. My dms go ignored or unseen and my public comments get drowned out by fans defending their intersexist comments. It’s emotionally draining and exhausting, I just want to be included in my own community.
Genuinely asking if you are comfortable sharing, but what are some examples of “casual intersexism”? I’m honestly less read up on it than I should as someone who is intersex. Feel free to ignore this though should you not feel like it or anything.
Stripping our intersex status when it fits an argument, ex. “Cis kids get put on hormones no problem while trans kids are denied them” (While they ignore that these are intersex children forced onto hormones)
Using us when it does fit an argument, but ignoring us entirely outside of that context, ex. Using intersex people existing to validate trans people existing, but never doing any sort of intersex advocacy unless it directly benefits/includes trans people as well
Erasing intersex issues while attempting to argue trans rights, ex. “No child is getting forced sex changes, that’s not a thing that happens” (It doesn’t happen to trans people, but happens all the time to intersex people)
Saying that sex is binary but gender isn’t (Neither of them are binary)
Reducing intersex people down to cis people with disorders, ex. “Cis people without uteruses” or “Cis people with gynecomastia”
In addition to the above point, generally acting as if intersex people are not oppressed or as though we have it better than trans people do, often by calling us cis and disordered rather than intersex, ex. “Cis women with high testosterone levels are allowed in sports but trans people aren’t” (Which is not even really a true statement) or by wishing that they were intersex or openly admitting to calling themselves intersex in their personal life in an attempt to avoid discrimination
Casual use of the word “Hermaphrodite”
Calling intersex animals trans/nonbinary
Ignoring blatant intersexism, never calling it out
Calling bills/laws or other issues which directly impact intersex people “trans bills” instead of “trans and intersex bills”, such as the recent Kansas bill directly targeting intersex people being called a “trans bill” - making these bills aiming to exterminate intersex people solely about trans people and ignoring the bills’ direct attack on intersex people
When these issues are brought up, saying that intersex people are “just caught in the crossfire/unfortunately affected by mistake but not intentionally, it’s about trans people not intersex people”
Saying that intersex people are not LGBT/queer (Not all intersex people identify as queer, but we have always been part of queer community and should not be pushed out)
Reducing intersex people down to a statistic
Common misinformation, such as saying that being intersex means “being born with both parts”
Using afab and amab as equal to “perisex female” and “perisex male”, ex. Talking as if all afabs are born with the same hormonal, genetic, or reproductive profiles
I recently discovered laundry stripping and y’all, no matter how much of a crock of shit you think fast fashion is, you’re underestimating.
[image ID: a screenshot of the notes on this post, featuring several people indicating they want to know more. End ID.]
OKAY SO. You know how we talk about how one way fast fashion has made itself “necessary” is that the clothing looks like shit and feels horrible after just a few washes?
Let. Me. Tell. You. Something.
Laundry stripping is a process where you load your laundry into a tub or bin (I’ve been using my bathtub) with warm water, half a cup of borax, half a cup of washing soda, and half a cup of laundry soap (not detergent, SOAP, there’s a chemical difference). Leave it there for at least eight hours. I’ve been going for 12-24.
What you will come back to is a tub full of nearly-opaque black-gray-brown water that absolutely REEKS. This is normal. You are looking at (and smelling) hard water buildup, body sweat and oils that were embedded in the fabric, dead skin, and just regular grime.
Wring out your clothes. Throw them in the washer. (I like to do a spin-only cycle before going any further, because I have one of those washers that determines by weight how much water any given load needs.) Wash as usual.
You will notice I didn’t suggest any further pretreatment, and that’s because 1) you don’t want to layer too many chemicals on top of each other but also 2) you may not even need it.
When your clothes come out, check each one as it goes into the dryer, and if anything else s still stained, set it aside to run again with a regular pretreatment. One of the sweaters I did this with apparently did need a second treatment…to deal with what appears to have possibly been a hot chocolate stain that was previously invisible due to “well, it’s old” dinginess. Iwasplanning to throw this sweater out. It looks almost new now. I need to wash it one more time for the probably-a-hot-chocolate stain, and then it needs to have the hem weighted to block it and bring it back to evenness, but dude. I wear my clothes to rags and I thought this thing was unfixable. “I need to reshape it” is nothing.
Remove clothes from dryer when done. Fucking MARVEL at the colors and how good the fabric feels. Give them a smell. Get righteously and royally angry that you can rejuvenate this stuff so easily, with a process that does take awhile but is 90% hands-off, but we’ve been trained to believe it’s all got to be binned once a year because discoloration and gross fabric is “normal wear and tear” and can’t be fixed.
It’s utterly unreal! I just pulled a seven-year-old work undershirt out of the dryer and this thing looks NEW!! It FEELS almost new!!! One of the shirts I hung up from the last load is older than some of the people on this site and it went from “I keep this to wear on laundry day, for sentimental reasons” to “I could actually wear this out of the house, it looks old but respectable”! The pajama bottoms I’m wearing were from Goodwill and they have BRIGHT YELLOW in them! I thought it was goldenrod!!
I do not know how often you’re supposed to do this (doing it every time can strip the dye out of your clothes, not to mention it’s way too much work to do every time), but once or twice per season seems respectable. I don’t wear white, so I can’t test the “it will make whites look almost-new as well” claim, but I’ve seen a lot of people on the cleaning subreddit attest that it works.
Just remember: WASHING soda. Not baking soda. I tried baking soda and a little bit happened, but not a lot.
Go forth. Rejuvenate your clothing. Strip your laundry.
Earlier I talked about people who don’t neatly fit within a cis/nonbinary/trans paradigm. It’s an expensive, sensitive topic a lot of academics and activists are already talking about. Here’s an inconclusive list of people to whom this may apply:
-Lesbians with no particular affinity to womanhood beyond being lesbians
-Same but for gay men
-Same as the first two points but with a big emphasis on butch lesbians and drag queens
-Cis people who have trauma, even dysphoria, with their AGAB, but can’t find another gender or label they’d like any better
-Cis people of color who are excluded from eurocentric norms of what it means to look, act, and be cisgender
-Immigrants who had different gender norms in their country or origin who no longer fit in
-Neurodivedvent people for whom gender is just another set of confusing social cues
-Nonbinary people who refer to themselves as their AGAB as shorthand in day to day interaction (similar to choosing a “Starbucks name”)
-Nonbinary people who partially identify with their AGAB
-People who view their gender, not as something essential to them, but as imperfect language to refer to a complex range of expressions and experiences
-People who change labels over time but have overlying experiences that transcend these changes
-People who grew up before nonbinary identity really proliferated and still use the nomenclature theyre used to (even if they’re not considered cis by contemporary standards)
-People questioning their identity
-People who don’t relate to western philosophical notions of “the self.”
-People for whom their gender is, well, kind of hard to explain.
Cis is still an important term when denoting power dynamics, especially on a broad sociological level. But on a personal level, this category very often falls apart. Language can only do so much. Anyway, there’s a lot I still don’t know but I just listened to an excellent episode of the Gender Reveal podcast with trans historian Jules Gill-Peterson where they discuss they question what it means to be cis (and how it applies to institutions vs individuals), along with so many other topics that I found fascinating. Give them a listen!
I don’t mean to be callous but when I talk about walkability/transit and someone says “what about people who live out in the country” I’m like yeah, what about them? What does that have to do with how people in cities get around?
I have a post very explicitly about pedestrian fatalities in disenfranchised neighborhoods and how people who can’t afford cars are treated as second class citizens and someone commented “tell me y'all don’t live 20 miles from the nearest town without telling me.” I’ve had an IRL conversation where the guy interjected “well there are starving people in remote West Virginia, that’s the REAL poverty.” And it’s worth asking, why do you valorize and sympathize with rural poverty but not urban poverty? JK, I know why.
you know everyone, in addition to what rthko is saying, in countries with functional transit, the people in rural areas ALSO can walk on to buses and trains. because the public transit goes to those places. walkability also means you can live in a farming community and catch a train to the city on the weekend. this is the reality in many places in europe and japan. a long time ago i accompanied my boyfriend-at-the-time to a series of techno festivals all over germany without a car and it was fine. the trains just went everywhere, even the smaller towns. for less dense areas there was a lot of support for biking as well.
obviously a Midsummer Night’s Dream, can you imagine? Kermit as Oberon, Miss Piggy as Titania, the non-fae characters are played by the only humans, when Bottom is transformed he physically becomes a muppet, Puck is naturally Gonzo with bonus Rizzo
I love Holga so much actually she’s obsessed with potatoes (as she should be) she has a thing for short guys she saw a man at his lowest and his baby daughter and decided she needed to look out for them she’s strong and fierce and tough and her best friend singing makes her laugh somehow she manages to contain perfectly barbarian class tropes while never once falling into stereotype she’s kind she’s loving she’s got the highest kill count of the entire party she’s a mother she genuinely likes Edgin it could have so easily fallen into the “competent person annoyed by irritating person yet keeps them around for some reason” dynamic but it doesn’t she likes him she’s sad and angry and fair and good and gentle and literally goes into a wild rage when she fights people. Chatacter of the century perhaps.
I heard that some people were worried about animated shows with LGBT+ themes being cancelled so i want to remind you all that the Nimona film is coming this summer to Netflix
This film was originally produced by Blue Sky studios and was later pushed back by Disney because of the LGBT+ themes. The production was taken later by other studio unrelated to Disney. The film is an adaptation of the comic “Nimona”.
The premise goes like this:
“Nimona, a teenager with the power to shapeshift, is targeted by a knight for assassination. The knight’s mission to kill Nimona becomes complicated when he is accused of a crime, and learns that Nimona may be able to exonerate him.”
So, if you happen to have Netflix and are interested, please check this movie out. Specially considering how it was treated by Disney.
trying to get people to play outer wilds is so funny because like. the whole point is you can’t tell them ANYTHING about it because EVERYTHING is a spoiler. the best possible way to go into it is to know NOTHING about it.
so you’re just like. listen. listen it’ll fuck you up so good but you just gotta TRUST ME because i can’t tell you why.
also it’s like. it’s a totally reasonable recommendation that you actually want someone in the backseat watching you play so that they can give you hints when you’re stuck without spoiling things like the internet will if you try to google a solution. which is just such an interesting dynamic
