Yall wanna hear a kinda funny, kinda sad story about my grandmother and hetero-normativity?

Ok, so... when my grandmother was in her 50s (I was an infant), she met a woman at the Unitarian Church. And, as can happen when you meet your soul mate, this event made it impossible for her to deny parts of herself that she had fiercely hidden her whole life.

All the drama- their affair being found out, the divorce with my grandfather, the court battle over who got the house, happened while I was a baby. Even in my earliest memories, it's just Mama Jo and Oma, and my grandfather lived elsewhere (first his own apartment, then a nursing home, then with us.)

But here's the thing- no one ever explained any of this to me. No one ever sat down and was like "hey, Rosie, so do you know what a lesbian is?" It was the 90s. It was Texas. I think my mom was still kinda processing all this, and just assumed that like... I was gonna figure it out. Don't mention it, let it just be normal. Like I think my mom thought that if she explained the situation, she would be making it weird? I dunno.

But like. In the 90s, in all the movies I had seen and books I had read, do you know how many same sex couples I had seen? Like. 0. Do you know how many "platonic best friend/roommates" I had seen? A lot. I had no context, is what I'm saying.

I literally thought this was a Golden Girls, roommates, besties situation until I was like...I dunno, 11? 12?

It was actually their parrot, an African Grey named Spike, imitating my grandmothers voice saying "Johanna, honey, it's getting late", that triggered the MIND BLOWN moment as I realized that *there's only one master bedroom and it only has 1 waterbed* when all the pieces finally clicked.

Anyway. I think it's a real important thing for kids to know queer people exist, for a lot of reasons, but also because kids can be clueless and it's embarrassing to have your grandmother be outted by a parrot because everyone just thought you'd figure it out on your own.

Anyway, here is my grandma and her wife, my Oma, after they moved to Albuquerque to be artsy gay cowboys and live their best life. They helped run a "Lesbian Dude Ranch" out there (basically just with funding and financial support. As Oma has explained "traditionally, most lesbians don't have a lot of money" so they wrote the checks and let the younger ladies actually run the ranch.)

Other facts about Spike Jones the parrot, for those who were wondering:

I loved that bird, and he convinced me that I should never, ever, own a parrot. (You want to own a wickedly smart toddler with wings and claws that will live to be 50+ and never stop being a toddler? No. No you don't.)

tags via @maraeffect

The pharmacy got some of my ADHD meds in!

After weeks!

I took ONE full dose and 20 minutes later was uncontrollably yawning and had to take a nap.

More respect for us please.

Especially now as we are facing rolling shortages of meds for the next few weeks or months. Your ADHD friends are struggling. Be patient.

Cosigned by the pharmacist with ADHD.

All the information in this post is important and all of it is true, but I want to especially belabor the point that WE DO NOT GET HIGH FROM OUR MEDICATION. Even when non-ADHD people WOULD if they abused it. Stimulants affect the ADHD brain differently.

Forcing us to jump through humiliating hoops for our medication because OTHERS might abuse it, because someone might lie about having ADHD - as though it’s easy to fake, as though getting a diagnosis is easy or free! - is nothing less than a violation of our human rights.

opens box that reads "i wanna draw again". inside lies a note. the note says, "mental illness and difficult circumstances have taken years of interest, accessibility, and skill away from me. i want to forgive myself for that. i want to heal my relationship to my hobbies. i want to feel connected to something that once made me feel good, but the cyclic discouragement is difficult to overcome." i turn over the note. on the back it reads "wannta drawe sexy bodies awooga"

I’ve seen people complain about Gwen saying to her dad “you’re a good cop” but I don’t think they understand what that scene actually means. Gwen’s dad is supposed to represent the “good cop”. It’s like Gwen says: he puts on that badge everyday so someone worse than him doesn’t. Pre Gwen’s reveal, he SEEMS like a good person, advocating for bringing peter’s killer to justice. But then he finds out, and in that moment, values the law over his teenage daughter. He even shows it in their reconciliation scene, even after not seeing his daughter for MONTHS, by arguing against Gwen being a vigilante despite the all the good shes done. When Gwen says “you’re a good cop,” she’s not saying “youre a good person” or “youre a good dad”. She’s saying “youre a BAD person. You’re a BAD dad. you value the law over my life, no matter what I do. You’re willing to sacrifice me for what you assume is the greater good, but it’s not even that.”

So he decides not be a good cop anymore.

A feitian photoshoot

English added by me :)

References to “the Seven Seas” are found throughout history, but the exact list varies by time and culture. Here are three of the most popular lists

Children saying "I'd rather be dead" is not normal. Children crying "is this a dream?" is not normal. Children wondering "am I being taken to the cemetery?" is not normal.

We can all reckon the lasting psychological effects of this genocide on these children, but also remember that to many of the children of Gaza, this is the second, third, or even fourth Israeli aggression they had to live through.

Almost 50% of Gaza's population are children, over 10,000 of which have been murdered by Israel since October of this year.

art + lemony snicket

x x x x x

Some of you need to realize that a woman doing something kind for a male partner is not always a sign of her own oppression wtf

Me: hey babe I picked up coffee for us on my way home

Someone who has literally never touched grass: QUEEN HE DOESNT DESERVE IT - YOU ARE NOT HIS SLAVE - THE FACT YOU CANT SEE THIS MAKES YOU A TRADWIFE - GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN

Some of you are falling for the radfem rhetoric that because the patriarchy exists no individual man could be a decent human being or deserving of kindness

The same way that housewives who CHOOSE to be housewives while their husbands work DO exist and are NOT traitors or opppressed

This is actually really important to me so I’m going to keep talking about it. My mom was a stay-at-home mom for my entire childhood. She chose to drop out of her master’s program to raise me, even though my father and her entire family had offered to come together and raise the baby so she could finish out her degree.

After I was born, she talked to a close friend about if she’d made the right choice - she felt like she was relegating herself to a life without importance - she felt that society had told her that to be important she has to go get her degree and “change the world.” Her friend told her that if she is raising her children to be good people, she’s changing the world by being present for them and helping them live their fullest potential.

My mom believed in this principle so strongly that she followed it for most of my life and dedicated long hours to schooling us at home (at least 3 of us kids were neurodivergent - I can confidently say I wouldn’t have survived as my authentic self in a public school).

My mom and dad have one of the best relationships I’ve ever seen - it’s one I aspire to and admire all the time. My father has overwhelming respect and love for my mom, which she has for him as well. They like to sit on the patio or in the living room and have a drink while they just talk for long hours alone together. They miss each other when they’re gone. I once found a love note from my dad to my mom the day he left on a business trip and at the time I was embarrassed but in retrospect who doesn’t want the kind of partner who writes love notes after being together 10, 15, 25 years?

To assume my mom was oppressed, conservative, didn’t make her own choice, didn’t think about the implications of her choice, or didn’t have a relationship that was both equal and loving makes you look stupid and to a certain degree sexist yourself.

People will be rude as hell to stay-at-home moms for no damn reason. Even if you haven’t seen it happen I guarantee it’s happened.

It's also a form of misogyny to devalue what is seen as traditionally feminine work — the raising of kids, housework, cooking, etc. Any feminism that places value only on women occupying typically masculine roles — having careers, etc — is actually just perpetuating this misogynist tradition While it's important to give women options, it's also important to remember that there's a reason why we look down on this kind of typical "woman's work", and it's not (just) because we're afraid of oppression — it's because patriarchy has devalued and minimised it to the point of poisoning it in our minds. We don't see it as important, and yet it is one of the most important roles you will ever perform. And its one that should be enthusiastically performed regardless of gender. Otherwise all we're going to do is raise children who will perpetuate these patriarchal ideas

I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to stay home for the first 3 years of @mistresskabooms life -- I wasn't oppressed by the patriarchy, I made that decision and I think it's one of the best ones I've ever made.

You cannot be ACAB then call for the banishment of kink at pride

Who the fuck do you think the bank of america type pride orginizers are going to call to enforce this shit you dumb fucks

No teacher is turning or grooming kids.

Indoctrinated adults are using 'groomer' and 'pedo' indiscriminately against their opposition because they were told to.

The parents project because they got groomed.

y'all wanna see a horror story in 2 pictures?

i need well meaning cis people to stop attemping to steelman trans healthcare conversations because it basically always ends with them just lying about easily checkable things "no minors are getting irreversible treatments" wrong not true "no minors are having surgery" also false, like instead just say the truth: currently some minors (few, but some) are able to access hrt that will have some irreversible changes on their body, some (even fewer) minors are able to access surgery.

the counter to transphobes screaming "these kids are being irreversibly changed" isn't "no children are accessing this care" it's "puberty is also an irreversible change" and "i think under 18s and even under 16s should be able to make medical decisions actually"

"no minors are accessing this care" means that transphobes can easily point to the examples of minors who are accessing that care, which just make us look like liar. sometimes teenagers and children need to make medical choices on their own. i think a 14 y/o should be able to get an abortion. i think trans kids and teens should be able to have the approriate care, which for some will just be like, picking a new name or haircut, and for some, sure, could be surgery.

And here's the thing.

Saying "No minors are doing X!" is you attempting to convince the TERF that the thing they're screaming about isn't something they should personally be worried about.

But you're never gonna convince them of that.

Because, like, first of all, as OP said, there are cases where kids are getting care. And to a TERF, even a single trans kid going on HRT is the fucking apocalypse.

Your job was never to convince the TERF.

Your job is to spread the truth and explain why these treatments aren't the end of the world to everyone else. But you can't do that if you're lying.

Some good news to add onto the scores of judges blocking the ban and families and teens suing for illegal discrimination.

You can’t say you’re protecting kids when 1) the healthcare is backed with decades of proven research it’s safe and effective and 2) you know this because you will allow cis children to access this medical care, just not the children you dislike.

The thing about testosterone being a controlled substance means that acess to it for hrt is restricted. While it makes access a significant issue for many people and an easy and effective way to prevent trans men and mascs from transitioning (as we've seen terfs campaign for and succeed at doing in Britain) it also means that is very easy for health care professionals to be able to take it away from trans men/mascs arbitrarily. This is most aborant in cases where trans men/mascs are forced to detransition to gain access to abortions after being raped. However, the first sign of an issues tangentially related to hormones a gp, without any training in trans people or hormones, can and will stop a person's testosterone. Apart from how stressful it is to know that for the rest of your life you'll be dependent on the goodwill of a random person, this has measurable negative consequences for a trans person subjected too it.

Going off t fucking sucks at the best of time, but being forced off t will most likely result in depression and worsening mental health for a trans man/masc, who are already one of the most likely groups to attempt suicide. It can also put a trans person at risk if they suddenly start being visibly trans again, especially if they're closeted in, say, a work place environment. Trans people, including trans men, are already one of the most targeted groups of harassment and violence and sexual assalt and forcibly reducing or stopping t can out people and risk their safety. And a gp won't see this or care about this, or attempt to treat a trans man/masc first or ask for their opinion or situation.

Ultimately, testosterone is seen as entirely optional and so the first resort when something goes wrong it to take it away, when it should be considered the last resort, and is considered the last resort for cis men. And as long as testosterone continues to be a controlled substance it will remain like this.

HEADS UP, DO NOT DOWNLOAD MODS OR MODPACKS FROM CURSEFORGE RIGHT NOW, CURSEFORGE HAS BEEN COMPROMISED

BE SAFE GAMERS PLEASEEE

an update direct from the curseforge twitter regarding this:

key points to note:

(accurate as of June 7th, 1pm GMT).

Looking through your Ao3 bookmarks and seeing that little “This has been deleted, sorry!” is like finding a gravestone, but the writing’s too worn down to read what it was standing for anymore.

What were you, Bookmark #336… What stories did you tell? Which words were it that once left a mark on my soul?  *touches my laptop screen like it’s text from an ancient ruin*

Cowabummer.