Category: Uncategorized

simon-nuncio:

gokuma:

transboysunited:

transadvicegroup:

spyhops:

stephrc79:

howler32557038:

Since joining Tumblr, I’ve met a lot of young queer people. Look, I’m a bisexual man in a gay relationship, and I’m approaching 30. I was still a kid when Matthew Shepard’s story was being covered on the news. I remember thinking, “I better keep my mouth shut about these feelings I’m having.”

And then I met Dominic when I was 12, and people could see how in love we were. And we got the shit beat out of us. The year I met him, some kids in the grade above me held me down against the bleachers in our gym and stomped on my hand until my fingers broke. Instead of sending me to the nurse, the teacher sent me to the assistant principal to explain the situation. She asked why the kids had beat me up. I said, “They were calling me gay.”

Her response was, “Well, are you?”

My, “I don’t know,” earned a call to my parents, and I was outed. Efforts were made to keep me from seeing Dom. Throughout high school, Dom’s stepmother intensified these efforts. He slept in the basement of the house. Although he was an incredibly talented student, he was prohibited from participating in any extracurriculars. He suffered a lot of physical abuse during those years.

The day he turned 18, he packed up everything he had and walked to my house, and we’ve lived together ever since. Things are better, but they’re not perfect. I’ve had trucks pull up next to me at stoplights and, seeing the pride sticker on my car, through old drinks and garbage into my window. I no longer speak to my dad’s side of the family. I haven’t been to see them for Christmas or Thanksgiving in years. One of my uncles had cornered me at Thanksgiving when I was 17 and said, “I’m not going to judge you, but I’d be happy to break your neck so God can do the judging a little sooner.”

I joined a support group for trans and intersex people. When I joined, 40 people attended regularly. Within the year, the group was half the size it had been. Some couldn’t make it anymore, because they were staying at the shelter, where their stay hinged on them agreeing to instead to attend homophobic sermons. Some were put in correctional therapy. Five of them died. Three of those, I didn’t know, but I knew Alex, the 19 year old who was fag-dragged in Kentucky and died a day later in the hospital, and I knew Stephanie, who went home to Alabama to care for her mom in hospice and was beaten to death with a baseball bat by her mom’s boyfriend.

Tumblr is not reality. The dynamic here does not reflect the dynamic out there. Here’s the part where I finally make a point, and it might be extremely unpopular – but guys, value your allies. Value each other. We are met with enough hate in our daily lives to enter an online safe-space and meet more hate from our own, over petty things. Don’t go after one another over every little thing you find problematic.

Learn to see nuance. Maybe the word “queer” bothers you, and you see a gay man using it as an umbrella term. Maybe someone called a trans man a trans woman because they’re confused about terminology, but the post where they did it was voicing support for the trans community. Maybe someone is just asking a question, wanting to learn more. Stop. Attacking. These. People.

Allies are being driven away. Members of our own community are being ostracized. Others are feeling nervous and estranged, and it’s largely because of places like Tumblr, where the social justice movement is quickly becoming violent and radical. I am begging you, stop nitpicking “problematic” things and start directing your efforts to create real change. When it comes to comes to your allies, forget the “social justice warrior” mentality and put down your torch. Educate calmly. Be respectful. Be understanding. Be forgiving. And I’m certainly not saying that your anger doesn’t have a good place – when you are met with bigots on the street, congress members who want to pass hateful laws, violent protesters, abusive parents, prejudiced teachers, that is when you need to be a warrior. That’s when it counts. In the real world. When you have the opportunity to protect people from real harm. Attacking your would-be allies via anonymous asks is just going to lose us ground in the long run. And we don’t have time for that, not when trans women of color are being murdered every day, not when states are still fighting against marriage equality, not when there are politicians in office who believe that trans people are possessed by demons, not when we’ve just lost 50 brothers and sisters to one gunman, not when the media won’t even admit that the attack was homophobic.

Please step back. Look at the big picture. Look at where we are, globally. Don’t just log on to your safe space and attack your allies over small missteps. That’s like washing the dishes in a house that’s on fire, kids. Let’s fight on the battlefield, and when we come home to each other, let’s just focus on bandaging up our wounds so we can go out and win the war.

Signal boost to this unbelievably important message.

I’d reblog this a thousand times if I could.

Stop attacking allies. Educate. Not hate. 

This is incredibly important. Please read!

Educate calmly. Be respectful. Be understanding. Be forgiving.

Gonna Reblog this every time

harlequinhatter:

weare-monk:

aspiringwarriorlibrarian:

lesbwian:

Superheroes that are like “if we kill them we’re just as bad as they are uwu” ? Micro dick energy

The only exception is Aang, whose whole “I’m not gonna kill him if i can find another way” thing is less false moral equivalency and more “I’m twelve and I have been through way too much bullshit this year to add ‘commit my first murder’ to the list.”

I do respect superheroes who don’t kill, and I really think “we’re as bad as they are if we do it” is a terrible oversimplification of why someone would come to that moral conclusion.

Three reasons why a hero might not kill:

1. They are not granted by their society a “licence to kill.” Many (not all) people accept that a soldier or a judge might need to kill a wrongdoer in the course of their duties. Those people (should) act under strict rules and processes to determine when a death is just. A society, to be peaceful, usually functions under a guarantee that people won’t on their own judgement decide to off people. Vigilantes don’t usually have state-sanctioned authority, but they do rely on public goodwill to be counted as heroes and not menaces or even villains. A hero, especially an independent, self-proclaimed one, may lack the authority or judgement to serve as executioner. Most just societies require a trial before delivering a sentence.

2. They don’t need to. Paradoxically, or maybe not so much so, the stronger a hero is, the less they need to kill. One of the most common defenses for a murder is “self defense,” the idea that the person making the plea was in so much danger from the deceased that killing them was justifiable. But once you’re a swordsman swift enough to cut bullets or a muscleman strong enough to lift trucks, who’s that big a threat? As your control over your power and your ability to master an opponent both increase (and barring completely wild or uncontrolled abilities, these two are very linked) the easier it becomes to hold back, to subdue with the minimal amount of damage and to render even the worst villains neutralized without going nuclear.

3. The power to kill is bad for their mental health. Not everyone can perform even a “just” killing with a clean conscience. A hero might fear the trauma of killing, and seek to avoid the damage. Or a hero might introspect, and realize that, should they kill today, tomorrow the choice will be easier. Killing an opponent, rather than subduing them, is often the easy way out, and a hero who comes to rely on that solution might find themselves killing more and more, Even if killing isn’t addictive, a hero might still fear that mindset.

Now, a common version of this problem is Batman, who wouldn’t kill the Joker even if the Joker is at maximum edge, dealing out huge terrorist acts and body counts. The best reason for Batman not to kill him isn’t “I am as bad as the Joker if I kill,” but more, “I am a man who uses superheroism as a trauma coping mechanism, and if I start committing extrajudicial killings my mental state and my loose alliance with the police will both deteriorate.” 

THANK. YOU.

antibioware:

antibioware:

Undertale made me realized years ago exactly how easy it is to include gay characters in videogames and I haven’t been the same since then

Trans characters too cause switching pronouns for characters? Explicitely using they/them for some of them? Having transgender ghosts and using them inhabiting a new body as a metaphor for transitioning? It was brilliant, and it was something that while it wasn’t the main focus of the story, it was well handled and a nice addition to the plot.

And again, gay characters that express their attraction towards the same gender explicitely! The fact that the only way to get the true happy ending in the story can be achieved by getting together Alphys and Undyne and making Alphys face her mistakes and accept herself so she wouldn’t be so miserable!! It’s good, it’s refreshing, and it makes me so mad that not many games (or any media, really) reaxhes Undertale’s level on this matter. I’m not calling Undertale a paragon of LGBT rep, it’s not! I’m saying it created a standard and that many much bigger videogames don’t even get close to it.

Writing LGBT characters that aren’t miserable for being who they are, caricatures or victims of homo/transphobic violence is EASY. Deciding to let LGBT people be happy in your content is EASY.

matt-the-blind-cinnamon-roll:

out-there-on-the-maroon:

thebibliosphere:

manicpixiesdreamdragon:

thebibliosphere:

Fam I am about to change your life:

https://www.vogmask.com/

They also have some on amazon I think, but I always buy from their site because I like to make sure my money is going into their charitable works too.

From their website:

VOGMASK is used for protection from airborne particles such as PM 0.3,
PM 2.5, PM 10, dust, allergens, post combustion particles, germs,
shavings, biologics, odors, scents, mold, mold spores, particles in
wildfire smoke, volcanic particulate pollution, and other airborne
contaminants. The benefits of particulate respirators are confirmed by
leading health providers worldwide.  Highly efficient filtering masks
help protect the mask wearer from particles as small as .254 microns.  

I can’t get through allergy season (so, the whole year round apart from the dead of winter for me) without mine, and it also helps to filter our scents and other stuff. I’ll even wear mine if I have to walk down the laundry aisle at the grocery store cause the scent of all that stuff in one place makes me wheeze and feel like my throat is closing.

You can also choose if you want one or two filers. They are sadly, not replaceable, but they do last a good few years. I’ve had mine for coming on four years no and it’s only just not starting to need replaced. I can tell because the ragweed hit my lungs like a tongue of bricks this year. But I do know it’s still working cause on the days when I don’t wear it it’s substantially worse.

Anyway, hope this is helpful!

How easy are they to breath with on? These sound like they might be useful for me but I can’t even feel like I’m breathing proper with a scarf over my face.

I don’t find them all that hard to breathe with on, though there’s a definite adjustment period of getting used to it being on your face.

Cause it definitely feels like there is something over your face, but I have found that sizing up helps with that. Also the two filter ones don’t cling us much cause the one filter one you’re sucking all your air in from one side and that can sometimes feel a little close for comfort for me. So yea. Two filters are easier to breathe through, I feel.

And for everyone asking me about perfumes and strong scents:

I use mine to filter out perfumes all the time. It doesn’t get rid of it 100% for me, but it reduces it from “like being kicked in the chest repeatedly” to a mild trace scent.

I actually used it at a candle making workshop not long ago where we were using a LOT of peppermint oils (fml) in an enclosed space (fmlx2) and once I had it on I was fine, no migraines, no wheezing or residual ill feelingness afterwards.

So. Yea.

I rarely recommend products lightly, but I’ll stan behind vogmask. Wearing it can mean the difference between being able to go outside and be social some days, and pair boning with my air purifier because the air hurts to breathe.

Got one when the fires got real bad out here and the smoke in the air was horrific. Surprisingly comfortable, took some adjusting but not bad at all. Also comes in many fun colors. 

Yup! Spoonie with terrible allergies here and man this thing is a lifesaver when I clean!