Three Silly Kitties

message to cis allies: buying your trans friend lunch will do much more good for the trans community than debating transphobes who will not change their minds publicaly on social media and making all your trans followers see how much people hate them over and over again

if you base your trans allyship more on fighting with idiots than supporting and loving the trans community you may want to rethink things a little. bc i tend to get sick of when my cis friends want to talk more about how many people hate me than anything else about my transness.

Hey, please don't take this the wrong way, but. . .

Obsessing with making sure that everyone you interact with online is "good" and shares in all your beliefs and ideals, that you only have "good" hobbies and interests, that you condemn anything and everything even slightly dubious both internally and externally, that you stay away from all "bad" things in case they taint you, and similar behaviors are actually seriously unhealthy and may be a sign that you're developing or living with moral scrupulosity OCD or a similar condition.

I'm saying this as someone with OCD. It's not healthy to see everyone around you as corrupt filth and a threat to your own morals. That's an extremely dangerous mindset to have and to encourage in other people and if you're falling into those kinds of cycles, please get help from someone.

Actually no, as the trans op, I am going to say that you can't actually go on my post and say this shit. Moral purity and OCD are entirely different from warning people that a person is a violent bigot and that their bigotry puts the things they say, about gender especially, in a completely different light. Hope this helps!

"The trannies should be able to piss in whatever toilet they want and change their bodies however they want. Why is it my business if some chick has a dick or a guy has a pie? I'm not a trannie or a fag so I don't care, just give 'em the medicine they need."

"This is an LGBT safe space. Of COURSE I fully support individuals who identify as transgender and their right to self-determination! I just think that transitioning is a very serious choice and should be heavily regulated. And there could be a lot of harm in exposing cis children to such topics, so we should be really careful about when it is appropriate to mention trans issues or have too much trans visibility."

One of the above statements is Problematic and the other is slightly annoying. If we disagree on which is which then working together for a better future is going to get really fucking difficult.

I think this is something young people in particular are confused about. My dad has always had a slightly off color sense of humor, he always feels the need to privately ask me “boy turned girl or girl turned boy?” if I mention a friend and stress said friend’s pronouns, and yet when we had repair work done in the house and the worker was listening to a podcast discussing the evils of transgender people and how to cleanse society, he went out of his way to contact the owner of the business to discuss his disappointment with that worker’s conduct and stress the negative effect that could have had if there had been trans kids in our home.

Our allies will never be perfect. They will never use the perfect language or have the perfect politics. But we have to appreciate those allies and meet them where they are, especially if they are willing to learn.

Genuinely and unironically my philosophy abt music has expanded to “stop writing off music because it’s from a specific genre” and I think that could be applied to most mediums actually

Is country music really all bad or are you only catching snippets of christonationalist propaganda on the radio? Are horror movies always shallow torture porn or are you just thinking of trailers you saw for slasher movies? Are fantasy novels only for kids or was the last one you picked up Harry Potter? Is anime always fan service or are you just running into ecchi clips online over and over and over? Are you looking for good media or are you finding bad media and considering it representative?

Cannot believe I am seeing people getting their tits bent out of joint about a man taking his daughter into a women's room. That shit was like, completely normal when I was a kid. We really have taken a flying leap backwards as a society into the Cootie Zone

"Men don't belong in the women's room" is in fact a subordinate social imperative to "children should be kept an eye on so they don't get hurt" and especially when you're talking about a toddler, most men's rooms don't have changing stations or suchlike. Morons

It should really not go without comment that afaik this is a black man taking care of his daughter, racism is a factor in people making a big stink about this and I'm not really gonna let the ~daughters of the witches you couldn't burn~ forget that their actual grandmothers probably got pissy about integrated washrooms

This is your sign to change your Harry Potter URL. This is your sign to edit your house out of your bio. Trans people are going to see you in their notifs and worry you’re a terf or block you. Edit your blog description. Come up with another handle. Thank you.

tbh they are being transphobic if they haven’t done these things. not worrying about “if” anymore, it’s on them

While I agree with the general idea, in the spirit of respecting the original intention of this post— I have had a fair number of people in the tags of this post go “oh fuck”, I have seen people edit their URLs in real time, I have seen people go “oh shit I haven’t even looked at my bio in years”. While I respect blocking on sight— it’s smart to be cautious— I would like to generally err on the side of assuming the best of my fellow human beings. This post is a courtesy call and final warning for everyone who hasn’t gotten to it yet to Do It Now.

I rarely open my actual blog page and so for a while I was unaware that I had a Harry Potter house scarf as part of the CSS thing. I’d had it in there for years and unless you open the blog in a new tab then it’s not something you really see. So yeah, it’s possible for people to not realise that there’s something they’d honestly like to remove on their blog because they just don’t see it.

Yeah, and you are Far from the only person who’s responded to this post with something of the kind. I had someone earlier who was worried about breaking their CSS and that’s why they hadn’t edited it!

That being said, it’s important to get it cleared out now, because TERFs are using that as a calling card now, and I have learned that the hard way since making this post by the TERFs who have found this post and reblogged it to tag their house and harass me. I got an anon informing me someone was going to add it to their bio to scare trans people. We’ve reached the Point here where a lot of trans people need to block on sight to protect themselves. So I can’t honestly say I’m against assuming the worst. I’d just like to warn allies that this is already happening so nobody else who’s well intentioned gets caught up in it. Nothing personal! But. Get Your Shit Sorted, Folks.

having to explain very extremely basic concepts of harm reduction to internet puritans is so bizarre. like Yes there are some kinks that will always carry an inherent risk of injury, Yes people should be made fully aware of that as part of informed consent, No that cannot be accomplished by you telling everyone how yucky icky awful terrible kink is and how it's inherently patriarchal and evil and should be morally mandated out of existence

Honestly!!! This is just psychological trauma in the making

THANK YOU

I’ve asked parents about this and they always say they are teaching the child responsibility and “respect for other people’s things.” If I point out that the child accidentally broke their own toy they always say “I bought them that toy” or “my sister gave that to them.”

The problem is that parents view all possessions as not really belonging to the child. A part of them always seems to think that the adult who provided the money is the real owner

If a parent breaks a dish they see it as breaking something that already belonged to them, but if a child breaks it they see it as the child breaking something that belonged to the parents

People raising children need to realize that household possessions belong to the entire household. If everyone has to use that plate then it belongs to everyone and anyone can have a forgivable accident with it. It’s okay to deem certain possessions as just yours and ask everyone in the house to respect that, but extend the same respect to your child’s belongings

Big mood. I know most of these are talking about little little kids, but here’s a tale from middle school. I had forgotten to charge my phone one night, and this was back when cell phones used to beep loudly when they were low on battery. I kept hearing the noise throughout the afternoon and not recognizing what it was because I’d never heard it before. When I finally did realize what it was, I was in science class and my fellow classmates were making presentations. I reached into my bag to try to turn off the phone, and then the low-battery sound went off, loud enough for the teacher to hear it. She confiscated my phone in front of everyone, and I didn’t get it back until after the weekend because it was a Friday. I was really embarrassed, especially to tell my parents.

When I got my phone back that Monday, my teacher said it was important for me to learn this lesson now since in college they wouldn’t tolerate phones going off. Fast forward to when I was in college, any time someone’s phone went off, either the professor would tell them to turn it off, or they would say, “Oh, my bad,” and turn it off themselves, and everyone would move on. I even had a professor who danced around while someone’s phone went off, and it was a welcome moment of levity during the lecture.

I say all this to say, one of the worst aspects of being a child/teen was adults assuming my intentions were malicious.

God I’ve been reading these posts for a while and each time I am struck with the realization that certainly not all parents were supposed to be a parent

“I say all this to say, one of the worst aspects of being a child/teen was adults assuming my intentions were malicious.” YES this

The problem is, even if families are forgiving the culture around children still effects the child. I use myself as proof of that.

A few times between the ages of 4 and 18 I broke things. I broke my grandma’s favorite Christmas ornament. Her first question was: “Are you hurt?” and when I apologized profusely she said “I’m just glad you weren’t hurt.”

I broke a few plates. I broke a couple glasses. Every time my dad’s first response was “Did you get cut?” the second step was cleaning up the broken bits, and the third was a discussion of what led to me breaking it and how I could avoid doing that in the future.

Same with spills. Same with stains. My biggest “punishment” from my immediate family was being taught how to clean up the mess I made and being shown in detail how to avoid the same mistake in the future if it was avoidable. There were consequences for my actions, but they were the direct result of those actions and nothing much beyond that.

My family tried so hard to teach me how to deal with accidents in a healthy way. They were patient. They treated every slip-up as a learning opportunity. They showed me a lot of love. The other adults still got to me. Teachers still punished and publicly shamed me and other students for our mess-ups. Extended family members outside of my small supportive circle still yelled at me. My friends’ parents still got mad.

To the point where whenever I messed up my first instinct was that my dad or grandparents were going to punish me, or yell at me, or hit me, even though they never did. They just didn’t. They always responded with patience and an attitude of “I’m glad you’re safe and I want to help you learn from this.” And I was still afraid of messing up. Mortified. Expecting the worst every time.

It’s like… we need to change the culture around this, man. Completely.

Also, not entirely related but this shit exposes one of the biggest things I habitually point out about the hypocrisy of the pro-hitting children moral framework: it’s generally would be seen as morally wrong to physically harm an adult for messing up the same way.

Like if an adult guest (adult, fully capable of defending themself from me) came to my house and accidentally dropped one of my plates and I started trying to beat the shit out of them everyone would agree that it’s assault and morally wrong for me to do. But if it’s a child (easily physically overpowered, can’t stop me from hitting them) then suddenly some of those same people would think that beating them for that same mistake would be not only okay but, in fact, a moral imperative. All justifications for why it’s okay to hit children are ultimately fronts for their actual reason, which is simply “i think beating children is okay because I can do it and they can’t stop me”

During a live audio session on Twitter, owner and chairman Elon Musk said his new AI startup, xAI, will use Twitter data for training the "maximally curious" artificial intelligence systems and products he hopes to build there.

Article here

Ok this might be my limit. I haven't been posting on Twitter but I hadn't deleted my acct because I was hoping he'd sell it and things would return to normal. I have a shit ton of stuff over there but I think I have to delete it now.

just saw a job listing that requires a masters degree in accounting and they want to pay $14/hour. good luck with that

i told my girlfriend about this and she said "they do know those guys can do math, right?"

completely enamoured with this thread

yeah im sold

Do Not Let HR do this to you. It is not illegal to talk about wages in the work place. I did and got a 12% raise!

True info. Now let me add something: The power of documentation. (I was a long time steward in a nurses union.)

Remember: The "'E" in email stands for evidence.

That cuts both ways. Be careful what you put into an email. It never really goes away and can be used against you.

But can also be a powerful tool for workplace fairness.

Case 1: Your supervisor asks you to do something you know is either illegal or against company policy. A verbal request. If things go wrong, you can count on them denying that they ever told you to do that. You go back to your desk, or wherever and you send them an email: "I just want to make sure that I understood correctly that you want me to do xxxxx" Quite often, once they see it in writing, they will change their mind about having you do it. If not, you have documentation.

Case 2: You have a schedule you like, you've had that schedule for a while, it works for you. Your supervisor comes to you and says "We're really short-handed now and I need you to change your schedule just for a month until we can get someone else hired. It's just temporary and you can have your old schedule back after a month." A month goes by and they forget entirely that they made that promise to you. So, once again, when they make the initial request, you send them an email "I'm happy to help out temporarily, but just want to make sure I understand correctly that I will get my old schedule back after a month as you promised." Documentation.

[Image ID: Text reading: In the middle of a busy clinic at our practice, I got pulled in by my manager to speak to HR, who must have made a special trip because she lives several states away, and told I was being 'investigated' for discussing wages with my other employees. She told me it was against company policy to discuss wages.

Me; That's illegal.

Them: (start italics) three slow, long seconds of staring at me blankly (end italics) Uh...

Me: That's an illegal policy to have. The right to discuss wages is a right protected by the National Labor Relations board. I used to be in a union. I know this.

HR: Oh, this is news to me! I have been working HR for 18 years and I never knew that. Haha. Well try not do do it anyway, it makes people upset, haha.

Me: people are entitled to their opinions about what their work is worth. Bye.

I then left, and sent her several texts and emails saying I would like a copy of their company policy to see where this wage discussion policy was kept. She quickly called me back in to her office.

HR: You know what, there is no policy like that in the handbook! I double check. Sorry about the confusion, my apologies.

Me: You still haven't given me the paper saying that we had this discussion. I am going to need some protection against retaliation.

HR: Oh haha yes here you go.

I just received a paper with legal letterhead and an apology saying there was no verbal warning or write up. Don't even take their shit you guys. Keep talking about wages. Know your worth. /End ID]

At one of my old (shit) jobs my boss would continually come have these verbal discussions with me and would never put anything in writing so I took to summarizing every discussion we had in email. Like “just to confirm that you asked me to do X by Y date and you understand that means I won’t be able to complete the previous task you gave me until Z date - 2 weeks later than originally scheduled - because you want me to prioritize this new project.

The woman would then storm back into my office screaming at me for putting the discussion in writing and arguing about pushing back the other project or whatever. At which point I would summarize that conversation in email as well. Which would bring her storming back in, rinse and repeat ad nauseum.

Anyway I cannot imagine how badly that job would have gone if I hadn’t put all her wildly unreasonable demands in writing. Bitch still hated me but she could never hang me for “missing deadlines” because I always had in writing that she’d pushed the project back because she wanted something else done first.

Paper your asses babes. Do not let them get away with shit. If they won’t put what they’re asking you to do in writing then write it up yourself and email it to them.

i always find it weird when people describe children as worry free because most of my childhood memories are of me worrying

this, and they apparently don't remember actually being a kid

the saddest sight in the world is a married couple at a musical and the wife is super excited and happy and the husband looks like he was dragged along and he’s making a big deal about how much he doesn’t want to be there and the wife gets embarrassed or ashamed. this isn’t a funny post, it’s actually heartbreaking and i see it happen at like every other musical i attend.

Yeah, as an usher what makes me sad is when I see wives clearly dressed in their Sunday best, beaming and buying merch and smiling at me as I hand them a program, toting some guy dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt who declines a program. And that’s at least a quarter of the couples who come in or more. Like come on man, she really loves this stuff, can’t you try to enjoy it for her at least?

About as bad as when you see a big-eyed kid who looks like this is the greatest day of their life, all excited to see this show, and their parent/grandparent/aunt/Cousin/Friend/whoever they convinced to take them keeps making fun of them and saying how dumb or ridiculous they’re being. For Gods sake, this is a person you care about and this is a thing that means a lot to them. Smile, get off your phone, and be happy for them.

This goes for ANY loved ones’ interests. Doesn’t matter the interest, doesn’t matter the loved one. Example: my hubby loves airplanes. He works in the aviation industry. He basically has avgas flowing in his veins. No matter where we go on trips, he’ll find an aviation musuem. I don’t mind aircraft museums, but he will literally stop and take photos of rivets. Seriously. One time I was with him at the National Air and Space Museum and I had my nice DSLR camera and he asked if I could take some photos of the seams of the SR71 with “your good camera,” and you know what? It wasn’t my favorite subject to photograph, but I gladly did it because it made him happy.

BTW, we’ve been doing this for the 30+ years we’ve been together. He comes with me to symphonies and art galleries and lets me have the remote during hockey season to the point where he’s now a fan. I know he’s daydreaming about airplane engines a majority of the time, but he’s there and trying and I love that about him.

So yeah, be present for your favorite people and make an effort. It will pay joyful lifelong dividends you can’t begin to imagine.

I do not give a shit about yoga or education. My sister loves yoga, my mom is in love with her teaching job with her whole self. You better believe I will get excited about that shit. Least I can do for the amount of times they’ve listened to me fangirl various media properties.

There’s something quite special about going to something you’re not that into, that someone you love absolutely LOVES. Like, I think it helps you see the world differently.

And anyone who can’t see that, who doesn’t feel like that, I think maybe doesn’t love that person much at all really. And that is sad indeed.

also if you absolutely cannot be excited and fun with it… dont go? why arent you encouraging them to take a friend who shares that interest? my beloved loves films and going to the cinema, i do not. its not something I can pretend to be interested in. we go to the cinema together very occasionally, for things we already know I’ll like, but if he wants to see a niche indie folk horror about a woman being maybe dead, maybe not in a thick Cornish accent, he goes with his friend who loves that stuff too! and when he comes home and tells me about it, that’s when I’m able to listen and care - actually care, not fake it - and get excited about him having a lovely time doing something he loves.

you dont have to be everything to your partner or any other loved ones. let other people do what you cant so that the person you love gets the best people for the situation!

You know. Some people could really stand to get more comfortable with the idea of “you shouldn’t say that because it’s mean”. Especially with really common body shaming and straight up bullying lines.

“You shouldn’t make ugly bald jokes because what if a transman on T sees it!”

“You shouldn’t make virgin jokes because what if someone who’s asexual sees it!”

How about you just don’t make them because they’re mean. How about people can be balding or a virgin for a number of reasons and also don’t deserve to be routinely made fun of. How about saying that the reason you shouldn’t make x joke because it spares x specific identity’s feelings also let’s them know that you actually have no problem saying or thinking bald people are ugly or virgins are stupid or etc but you’re just not saying it in front of them. How about you understand this kind of body shaming and bullying especially in a very public setting online are always going to have way more unintended damage to people who did nothing wrong than damage to the person you’re upset with.

Sometimes the best reason to not make a bad joke like that is because it’s fucking mean.

Something funny about a cis man telling a trans woman that she doesn't understand how much it sucks to be a guy

Like, no, I agree, it sucks to be a guy. That's why I stopped. I thought you guys were supposed to like it.

If you're a cis guy and you think it sucks to have as little gender expression as you do, you either need to talk to some transfems about whether there's a better gender for you, or talk to some transmascs about how to get joy out of masculine expression.

[Image ID: Tumblr tags reading: #so like give us a fucking break #your average man doesnt have access variety in color and styles #and even if he does he was never taught how to use them #you dont understand how sad a man's wardrobe is until you wake up one day and all your tops are black tshirts and whipe button ups /End ID]

every time i see slur discourse i think about this post

The Environmental Protection Agency approved a component of boat fuel made from discarded plastic that the agency’s own risk formula determined was so hazardous, everyone exposed to the substance continually over a lifetime would be expected to develop cancer. Current and former EPA scientists said that threat level is unheard of. It is a million times higher than what the agency usually considers acceptable for new chemicals and six times worse than the risk of lung cancer from a lifetime of smoking.

Federal law requires the EPA to conduct safety reviews before allowing new chemical products onto the market. If the agency finds that a substance causes unreasonable risk to health or the environment, the EPA is not allowed to approve it without first finding ways to reduce that risk.

But the agency did not do that in this case. Instead, the EPA decided its scientists were overstating the risks and gave Chevron the go-ahead to make the new boat fuel ingredient at its refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Though the substance can poison air and contaminate water, EPA officials mandated no remedies other than requiring workers to wear gloves, records show.

ProPublica and the Guardian in February reported on the risks of other new plastic-based Chevron fuels that were also approved under an EPA program that the agency had touted as a “climate-friendly” way to boost alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. That story was based on an EPA consent order, a legally binding document the agency issues to address risks to health or the environment. In the Chevron consent order, the highest noted risk came from a jet fuel that was expected to create air pollution so toxic that 1 out of 4 people exposed to it over a lifetime could get cancer.

In February, ProPublica and the Guardian asked the EPA for its scientists’ risk assessment, which underpinned the consent order. The agency declined to provide it, so ProPublica requested it under the Freedom of Information Act. The 203-page risk assessment revealed that, for the boat fuel ingredient, there was a far higher risk that was not in the consent order. EPA scientists included figures that made it possible for ProPublica to calculate the lifetime cancer risk from breathing air pollution that comes from a boat engine burning the fuel. That calculation, which was confirmed by the EPA, came out to 1.3 in 1, meaning every person exposed to it over the course of a full lifetime would be expected to get cancer.

Such risks are exceedingly unusual, according to Maria Doa, a scientist who worked at EPA for 30 years and once directed the division that managed the risks posed by chemicals. The EPA division that approves new chemicals usually limits lifetime cancer risk from an air pollutant to 1 additional case of cancer in a million people. That means that if a million people are continuously exposed over a presumed lifetime of 70 years, there would likely be at least one case of cancer on top of those from other risks people already face.

When Doa first saw the 1-in-4 cancer risk for the jet fuel, she thought it must have been a typo. The even higher cancer risk for the boat fuel component left her struggling for words. “I had never seen a 1-in-4 risk before this, let alone a 1.3-in-1,” said Doa. “This is ridiculously high.”

Another serious cancer risk associated with the boat fuel ingredient that was documented in the risk assessment was also missing from the consent order. For every 100 people who ate fish raised in water contaminated with that same product over a lifetime, seven would be expected to develop cancer — a risk that’s 70,000 times what the agency usually considers acceptable.

When asked why it didn’t include those sky-high risks in the consent order, the EPA acknowledged having made a mistake. This information “was inadvertently not included in the consent order,” an agency spokesperson said in an email.