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Kara Zatara

@karazatara

She/Her. Interests include: Languages & Cultures, LGBT+ issues, Film/Pop Culture/Disney, Food. Very occasionally I make Disney edits. 

[image description: a tweet by user @indigenousAI saying

"fun fact: as a DV survivor i cannot register to vote because doing so makes my address public. anyone who is fleeing or hiding from an abuser is automatically disenfranchised from the political process and this is a feature, not a bug"]

I don’t know of the original poster might not be aware

but!

if you’ve been a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, you can enroll into the address confidentiality program (free of cost!) and be registered to vote as an absentee voter and your name and address will not be made available for the public

it is super easy to get enrolled - the application takes like 5 minutes, but it has to be with someone who is certified to do it (most likely an advocate! try going to a family justice center in your area or calling the Attorney Generals office in your area!!!!)

ALSO : 

you don’t need to have any police reports or have a protection order to qualify!!! you just have to sign stating that you’ve been a victim of one of the aforementioned crimes.

Reposting as Primaries and General Voting are coming up.

It should 100% be illegal for companies to make you give them your payment information when you sign up for a free trial version of their product. It is not necessary and there is no good fucking reason for them to do it. It’s blatantly just so they can steal forgetful customers’ money.

oh hey, thanks for reminding me to cancel a free trial i had going on.

Reblog to save an unnecessary charge cause it also reminded me to cancel a trial lol

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I was just told by guest services in target that service dogs in training are not required to be under control of the handler, and that my concerns about my safety and my SD’s safety were irrelevant despite the hound mix on a 20’ long line was in training and that I can’t make people leave if I don’t like them.

The service dog in question? A barking and lunging hound mix on a long line that was trying to drag the handler to my dog. They had to be over 30’ away from me before the dog calmed down. At no point was the dog closer than 10’ to the handler. This dog was clearly not under verbal or physical control of the handler. I told the handler to please control their dog, and they told me my dog was doing the same thing (pulling) by preforming forward momentum pull, on a hands free leash, in a heel. But ok.

I called the location and told the staff member that the ADA requires the dogs to be under basic control of the handler and a dog lunging and pulling on a long line is not that. She said the dog is in training and I have to understand that training takes time and the dog is young. I said if a dog is lunging and barking at me, it is endangering me and my dog. If I have a cardiac event and my dog is too distracted to alert, I could fall and hit my head. On tile? That could be a concussion or worse. It’s happened to me before. The representative hung up on me.

I called corporate immediately after and I think I heard the corporate equivalent of “oh god oh fuck”. In under 2 minutes I was connected to a guest experiences manager who basically comped my purchase in gift cards and said they are very concerned about this behavior from their staff. I offered to provide educational materials to the store that educates them about their rights as employees and how to handle poorly behaved service dogs.

The gift cards are nice, but they don’t fix the problem. I would rather be assured what steps will be taken to correct this in the future.

Service dog laws exist to prevent my dog from missing alerts by educating the public what may be disruptive to a dog’s ability to work.

When you fail to protect service dog laws, public spaces can become very unsafe for the disabled very quickly.

Please boost this, people need to understand that fake service dogs and untrained dogs presented as service dogs are dangerous to people who rely on task trained service dogs for their safety every day.

Per federal service dog laws in the USA from the ADA FAQ.

SDITs Do not have the same protections as fully trained service dogs. If your dog struggles with polite and predictable behavior in public, your dog is not ready for PA

some people were asking for actual advice and i can never pass up an opportunity to procrastinate so here’s just a couple of things i always need to remind myself of…now back to my paper :(

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adhd gothic

- your alarm rings but you are too tired. you set an alarm for five minutes later and go back to sleep. when you wake again, it is light outside and the alarm never went off. it was set for five hours later. you could have sworn you set it to five minutes later.

- your clothes are organized in piles on the bedroom floor. occasionally a shirt moves from one pile to another. you do not remember moving it.

- your desk at work is organized but not. “i have a system” you tell yourself. you are worried someone will discover the truth. you must not let others know you are struggling. your desk at work is organized but not.

- you did not take your meds. your brain is static. you did take your meds. your brain is accelerated static. last week your meds worked well. are they working well today? did you remember to take them? did you even refill your prescription last month?

- your assignment is due in november. it is september. your assignment is not due soon. it is end of october, but your assignment is not due until november. it is november 15th. where is your assignment? you go to bed, it is now november 27th. why do you turn in work late?

- you go to work to make money. you know you make money because you are told you do. your bank account doesn’t change much. you spend more because you are told you make money. you haven’t looked at your bank account for a few weeks now. it makes you anxious.

- there was something you were supposed to do. you didn’t do it, and you disappointed someone. you do not know who. it will come to you eventually, perhaps.

- you trip over a half-knit scarf. one of the needles is missing. you tried to learn knitting a year ago and forgot about the scarf. how long has this been on the floor? where is the other needle? you do not remember how to knit.

- you find yourself growing bored and unconsciousness slips into your periphery. you throw yourself into your work. if you are busy you will not sleep. if you are bored you will sleep. fight the sleep as long as you can. you cannot sleep at night.

- you do not eat and you eat too much. 

- your friends ask why you do not reply to their messages. it is overwhelming and you are so tired. you send too many messages at once and are filled with guilt. your friends keep texting you and you do not know why.

- your eyes blur when you read. you skim the words and do not retain. you skimmed this post and did not retain. you do not remember what the first bullet on this post was. you might not have read this last bullet, either. you will still tag the post as though you read it. you understand its essence, and that is okay.

Now that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and The White House have finalized new nondiscrimination provisions under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, it is more important than ever to know your rights and what to do if you face discrimination. 

To better explain what these protections mean, Out2Enroll partnered with trans comic artist, Dylan Edwards, on a series of illustrated discrimination situations. 

The latest CDC guidelines!

Yep, I still won't be going to an exercise class indoors.

(Mostly because I HATE WEARING A MASK while exercising. I can barely manage 30 minutes in the fitness center at work with only 3 other people in the whole area)

This is up to date as of April 27 2021. If by chance you are seeing this and not sure if this information is still the latest, check here for updates.

oh wow I didn't realize this would get picked up so quickly.

Thank you for including the date!

Ramadan Mubarak to all of my fellow Muslims, especially those who cannot fast. Just because you cannot fast does not mean this is not an important month ❤

Op is denying us the fucking golden replies to this tweet omg

When i had breast reduction surgery, i got into the OR and got put on this table that looked like a flat crucifix (arms out so they could get to the girls), and i said ‘god, don’t nail me down’

they put the mask on my face and the nurse said ‘no jesus treatment today’

and the last thing i said to her was ‘jesus with some big ass titties’ and then passed out. 

hi! so i just found out that youtube is adding a new source of revenue to videos, “applause”. on every video there will be an ability to donate money directly to the channel.

major issue! youtube takes 30% of the cut. now they’ve been doing that with superchats for years, no big surprise. however you should know that if you donate through mobile, it takes an additional 30%.

so only 40% of your donation may reach the creator.

just support them on patreon, kofi or streamlabs. youtube is garbage

From facebook; mic drop.

So that last line punched me in the face so hard I hit the reblog button. Oh well.

Shout the last part louder. With a megaphone. On every channel.

[transcript]

X-Men is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get X-Men.

Black Panther is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Black Panther.

Captain America literally fought Nazis. He is the embodiment of fighting the alt-right. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Captain America.

The Empire in Star Wars is fascist. The Rebel alliance are Anti-Fascist. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Wars.

The Punisher isn’t meant to be a role model for police or armed forces. So much so that the writers of The Punisher made him actively speak out against it in a comic. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get The Punisher.

Deadpool is queer. He’s pansexual. Fact. If you didn’t get that you didn’t get Deadpool.

Star Trek is about equality for all genders, races and sexualities. As early as the mid-60s it was taking a pro-choice stance and defending women’s right to choose. One of its clearest themes is accepting different cultures and appearances and working together for peace. (It’s also anti-capitalist and pro-vegan). If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Trek.

Superman and Supergirl (and a whole host of other superheroes) are immigrants. The stance of those comics is pro-immigration and pro-equality and acceptance. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Superman or Supergirl.

Stan Lee said “Racism and bigotry are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today.” If you’re bigoted or racist, you didn’t get any of the characters Stan Lee created.

The stories we grew up with all taught us to value other people and cultures and to treasure the differences between us. Only villains were xenophobic, or sexist, or racist, or totalitarian. I can’t understand how anyone can have missed that.

If you’re upset that there’s a black Spider-Man, or a black Captain America, or a female Thor, or that Ms Marvel is Muslim, or that Captain Marvel was pro-feminism, or any of the other things right wing “fans” say is “stealing their childhood” - you never got it in the first place. The things you claim are now “pandering to the lefties” were never on your side to begin with.

If you consider yourself a fan of these things, but you still think the LGBTQ+ community is too “in your face”, or have a problem with Black Lives Matter, or want to “take the country back from immigrants”, then you’re not really a fan at all.

Geek culture isn’t suddenly left wing… it always was. You just grew up to be intolerant. You became the villain in the stories you used to love.

I may have reblogged this before. I don’t care if I have. It’s worth repeating at full volume.

[ID: A picture of Spock with text that reads “Infinite diversity in infinite combinations”]

Another woman utterly failed by our society’s devaluation of women’s reproductive health. We can’t wait around for male doctors to decide what we need to know. This is why we need to take control and educate ourselves about our own bodies.

and here’s some comments i saw under the post. why is this a pattern?? why is this a recurring theme?? why is this information not common knowledge? what the fuck are doctors doing??

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This is news to me so let’s share it so people will know!

Gross tmi: but i passed a pretty big clot after having my daughter. It was about the size of a baseball. It actually hurt worse because while 15 hours of labor opened my cervix, i passed the clot in 30 minutes. I knew it was a possibility because of my midwife and reading, but everyone Ive told after this (mostly other pregnant women) were shocked that this could happen.

In our culture, it’s much more common to do deep research about what family cars we want to buy than we do about childbirth when we ’re pregnant.

Tmi: I passed a huge clot after birth in the bathroom of my hospital room and called the nurse sobbing because I didn’t know it was normal. She treated me like an idiot, but NO ONE told me it was a possibility. And the pain associated with healing for the first couple of weeks after birth was worse than the labor imo. Again, I had no idea. They didn’t tell me a thing besides “sitz bath regularly and change your pads.” Before discharging me from the hospital.

I was most definitely told about this in school. Fucking hell, 4-6 weeks of bleeding? My periods were/are bad enough, why the hell don’t we get told this?

I didn’t know it could last so long, wtf? Is the bleeding inevitable after birth? 

Bleeding is inevitable after birth - your uterine wall is shedding a fuck ton of lining. It can last from three to six weeks (possible longer) and it tapers off.

More TMI - I passed a MASSIVE clot after my fourth birth. At this point I already knew this could happen - it’s normal. What I DIDN’T know, was that I had caused it.

My post birth contractions were so bad after the birth that it felt like full transition labor. And they don’t give you anything for the pain. So I used a hot water bottle, without the nurses knowing, and it caused me to bleed even more. I lost so much blood that by the first time they sat me up to go to the bathroom, I fainted. It took three more tries until I could sit up.

Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, the next morning I passed a clot the SIZE OF ANOTHER PLACENTA I KID YOU NOT, and I know what is and is not normal. So I called for the nurse and through the door told her I had passed a huge clot, and her response was - “It’s not big. I know what big is.” She hadn’t even looked. So I rolled my eyes and said, “Yeah, no. It’s big, I’m telling you.”

So, sounding extremely put upon, she asked me to open the door. I did, and after a long pause she goes, “Okay, yeah, that’s a little big.”

YOU DON’T SAY.

The point I’m trying to get across is that this shit is so common - women not knowing this stuff is so expected, and it keeps getting reinforced. People don’t expect you to know anything, don’t teach you anything, and then make you feel like you’re totally ignorant and a burden for your lack of knowledge when THEY WON’T SHARE.

Fucking learn EVERYTHING you can when it comes to childbirth, girls. It is the single most empowering thing you can do for yourself. And if you missed something, that’s okay. But the more knowledge you arm yourself with, the more in control of your situation you’ll be.

A few post partum tips:

  • DON’T use a hot water bottle - lol.
  • ONLY pads - NO tampons. Tampons can cause severe infection, not to mention, you probably don’t want to be shoving anything up there any time soon.
  • If you’ve had stitches, sitz baths DO help relieve the pain. Another great pain reliever? Dampen some pads and freeze them. Let one thaw slightly and use it on top of another pad. This will help with the pain as well as reduce swelling. Change the pad out as soon as it’s thawed completely. This REALLY helps on the first couple days after giving birth.
  • If you pass a clot, don’t sweat it. Even the one I passed, which was fucking massive, just required that we keep an eye out to make sure it didn’t happen again. If it does, talk to your doctor.
  • Take a pain killer half an hour before nursing. Because YES - your uterus is contracting after you give birth, to get back to its original size, and nursing causes much stronger contractions. Taking nursing-safe painkillers won’t prevent the pain, but it will reduce it. 
  • Buy disposable underwear for the first few days after birth. They will get VERY dirty. Or use your ratty old pairs that you’re ready to get rid of. Double up on pads - line them all the way up your ass-crack. I am so serious. And wear dark pants.
  • Pee in the shower. You do NOT want to wipe down there right after birth because ow. Peeing in the shower lets you just rinse afterwards. Especially if you’ve had stitches, peeing in the shower, with the shower-head rinsing AS you go, keeps stinging to a minimum. And fuck everyone else - keep on peeing in the shower until you feel ready to move back to toilet paper. Middle of the night and need to pee? Get your pants off - get in the shower and just go.

This is just a few things, but PLEASE feel free to send me an ask if you have any questions about ANYTHING childbirth/pregnancy/nursing related. I have four incredible kids. I’ve done it all - c-section, vacuume birth, episiotimy, stitches, with an epidural, without an epidural. I’m here.

….I know I keep reblogging this but people keep adding super important information.

I feel like no one tells women this stuff because if a woman was even a little on the fence about having a baby before this would kinda make them run for the damn hills.

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…..you are correct, typing.

300% EXTRA SURE I’M NOT HAVING BABIES. 

peri bottles, witch hazel or anti-pain anticeptic spray are your friends. Also passing large clots after birth is a WARNING SIGN. Bigger than a half dollar is a sign that you have not passed your entire placenta (this is most common in hospital vaginal births where the mother is not allowed to naturally birth the placenta and instead has it ripped out by the doctor) if there is any placenta left in your uterus you can get extremely ill. This happened to both myself and my mother in law

WOW I didn’t know any of this and I’m terrified of what more I’m unaware of about my own body :( Honestly when will we fucking abolish this taboo about the female body…

I had pretty great sex ed in school (lots of contraceptive information, and totally acknowledged that teenagers might have sex) and all of this is news to me.

And, as a 28-year-old person with a uterus, I’m extremely appalled I’m just learning this.

Long, but very important information, even for those who don’t plan to have children, because you will almost certainly know someone who will, and you might be able to to help them. Or at least increase your level of empathy for them.

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…HOLY HELL. REBLOG TO SAVE A LIFE, SERIOUSLY.

people loooove to make out like pregnancy and childbirth are this beautiful thing that a woman’s body is made to do, and leave out all this incredibly important and scary info.

the healthcare system fails women in so so many ways, especially around sexual and reproductive health, and it needs to stop.

More TMI but no one told me what pregnancy discharge was and it was horrible. Like it’s a greater quantity of liquid coming out of you than on the heaviest day of your period. Sometimes I would stand up and a bunch would just run out of me. I was so scared and unprepared. Also, tampons are a VERY bad idea when your cervix is still dialated.

We are, as a culture, *amazingly* reluctant to talk about pregnancy and childbirth and recovery unless there’s a punchline involved.

Friendly reminder to wait at least one hour after you eat or drink to do anything that requires you to bend at the waist after giving birth because you can and will just puke by accident since your cardiac sphincter will probably never be the same

Stop worshipping English and teach your kids your mother tongue. They will learn English at school naturally but they won’t learn your language. You will cut them off from their roots

oh hey, stealth and closeted trans people! i keep forgetting to mention this and idk if everyone already knows but there's this free app called transtracks (android + iOS) that acts as your standard transition tracking app (medical transition, social transition, surgical transition, whatever you're tracking) except it has a stealth mode!

just change your passwords settings to "train tracks"...

... and voila! the app has become for train schedules.

this is what the new decoy password screen pulls up:

it isn't exactly safe for me to be out IRL so i've been using this app for a while now! it's mostly helpful for my peace of mind and in case somebody needs to use my phone because i'm out to my family- but anybody living at home who isnt out or who has nosey/transphobic parents- maybe give it a shot!