God i wish someone would sell me a haunted house. Ghosts aren’t real and I’d love to get a really nice house for like half the price that it should be.
People always gloss over how mentally damaging it can be to work in retail. I fucking hate that whenever I say “I could never work in retail again” someone has to reply “You snowflake millennials can’t take a starter job because you have to INTERACT with other people” No. Fuck you. I’ve worked as a planetarium host. I’ve worked as a public speaker. I’ve worked as a tutor and as a student teacher. I can work with people. I can work with crowds. Retail was fucking different. Retail was being treated as a subhuman. Retail was being treated so poorly that you have anxiety attacks before work. Having to work retail was a factor in my last suicide attempt. If I hear you say one fucking word about retail workers playing the victim I will personally break every bone in your body. Fuck You.
The holidays are coming up. Retail workers are going to be spiraling into a nightmare beyond human comprehension. If you’ve worked retail, you know this. If you haven’t, be aware of it. Please be kind to every retail worker you come across. Please be patient and understanding. It is misery out there.
sorry to burst your bubble but misgendering “bad” trans ppl is just as transphobic as misgendering any other trans person bc it implies being correctly gendered is merely a privilege that may be revoked by cis ppl so long as they dont like us which is an incredibly harmful mindset to promote.
As this week is Transgender Week of Awareness (12th – 19th November) I felt it was a good time to bring awareness to some of the more well-known transgender scientists that changed science. Trans people have always been apart of scientific discovery but like most minorities within STEM have struggled to gain recognition for their contributions.
Alan Hart (1890–1962) |
Epidemiology
A Yale-trained epidemiologist, radiologist and physician, Hart one of the first trans men in the US to undergo a hysterectomy and live openly as a man, taking testosterone treatments when they became available after World War II. Hart also become a prominent figure in the fight against tuberculosis, which at the time was the leading cause of death in Europe and the US. He graduated with a medical degree in 1912 and later in 1928 received a master’s degree in radiology. He eventually became an expert on tubercular radiology and published several articles on X-ray medicine and its use in the detection of tuberculosis and went on to gain another master’s degree in public health in 1948.
Hart then served as the director of hospitalization and rehabilitation at the Connecticut State Tuberculosis Commission and continued to dedicate his professional life to tuberculosis research.
Ben Barres (1954 – 2017) | Neuroscience
Barres was the first openly transgender scientist in the National Academy of Sciences in 2013 and talked openly about his experience of sexism pre-transition and advocated for better gender equality within science. Barres research focused on the interaction between neurons and glial cells in the nervous system. Barres showed that the gila, which at the time were often dismissed by neurologists as simple the support structure for the brain, had important functions in helping neurons to mature and producing connections between memory and learning functions. This discovery revolutionised neruobiologists understanding of the brain.
Barres also went on to mentor many young scientists and repeatedly spoke about the systemic barriers and biases that kept marginalised groups such as women, poc and LGBT people, from succeeding or furthering their careers and research within science.
Sophie Wilson | Computer Science
Sophie Wilson is a British computer scientist who is known for designing the Acorn Micro-Computer, the first computer sold by Acorn Computers. She also designed the instruction set of ARM processor
which is used in 21st-century smartphones
and is considered one of the most important woman in tech history.
Lynn Ann Conway | Computer Science
A pioneer of a number of technological advancements and inventions, Conway is an American computer scientist, electrical engineer and inventor. She first worked at IMB in the 1960′s designing a super computer and is credited with the invention of generalised dynamic instruction handling, now used by modern computer processors in order to improve performance. She was fired after she revealed her intention to transition and was denied access to her children.
After she transitioned she restarted her career and authored the Mead & Conway revolution in VLSI design, that was considered groundbreaking work that quickly become a standard textbook in chip design.
Joan Roughgarden | Biology
known for her critical studies on Charles Darwin’s theory of sexual selection and LGBT biology, Roughgarden is an American ecologist and evolutionary biologist, having published over 180 scientific articles and books. Roughgarden has carried out ecological studies on barnacles, Caribbean lizards but is most known for her published book critiquing Darwin’s sexual selection theory based on the fact it fails to answer and consider animals which do not follow traditional sex roles of intrasexual and intersexual selection. She was met with bitter and
vitrioli criticism from other scientists for publishing such views, to which she was not surprised.
Roughgarden went on to publish a second book further pointing out over 26 phenomena which the current sexual-selection theory does not explain, and instead suggests the social-selection theory. She continues to make analytical studies that social selection is a more credible explanation.
Honorable mentions to these transgender scientists:
I won’t not reblog this. Mateo is a personal friend of mine and this needs more attention than it’s been getting. He was dragged out of the room by his collar, the police wouldn’t let him use his wheelchair.
Mateo will not be silenced, and he will not be erased.
I’ve been seeing a lot of threat posts lately and honestly? Fuck that shit.
People could have made nice posts but no – y’all gotta go and give people anxiety.
No-one needs to reblog bupkis.
Excerpt from Kató Lomb’s “Polyglot: How I Learn Languages”
!!!!!!!!!!
We should learn languages because languages is the only thing worth knowing even poorly.
If someone knows how to play the violin only a little, he will find that the painful minutes he causes are not in proportion to the possible joy he gains from his playing. The amateur chemist spares himself ridicule only as long as he doesn’t aspire for professional laurels. The man somewhat skilled in medicine will not go far, and if he tries to trade on his knowledge without certification, he will be locked up as a quack doctor.
Solely in the world of languages is the amateur of value. Well-intentioned sentences full of mistakes can still build bridges between people. Asking in broken Italian which train we are supposed to board at the Venice railway station is far from useless. Indeed, it is better to do that than to remain uncertain and silent and end up back in Budapest rather than in Milan.
Big Gay Dracula Does a Shitpost 