I say this with my whole heart, please donate your clothes to women's prisons instead of thrift stores.
When these women are released, some have been incarcerated for like 16 years. Nothing fits them, they are released with no money, and something to know about incarcerated women is that their family members are more likely to cut ties with them in comparison to incarcerated men.
An incarcerated woman said to me today that she's so scared because she will have no real outfits when she's released. She doesn't know what she's going to do.
If you're a man even to you, please donate your clothes to women's prisons. The women will be so happy to wear your clothes. Especially things like workwear.
You can look up your nearby women's prison and give them a call. Some of them have programs like clothing closets that people can donate to. I recommend contacting women's prison camps and minimum security facilities because typically these are the facilities that women get transferred to when they don't have as much time left on their sentences.
I would rather see 1000 trans people easily access healthcare and 1 person regret transitioning than 1000 trans people having to endure gatekeeping processes with nobody regretting it.
TL;DR: Long rant by a middle-aged transwoman who's thought about this bullshit a long time and seen a TINY handful of regretful detransitions, most of which were, "Eh. Yeah, I'd rather not have done that," not wailing and eternal lamentation for My Lost Gender.
If fucking only we made "I'm going to try a new gender presentation to see if it works for me" emotionally low stakes. Especially considering that almost ALL of what happens for at least the first six months is reversible or inconsequential to live with.
Back when I ran support groups, before the WPATH was even called that, we used to say that a big part of the Standard of Care was just making sure you'd be healthy REGARDLESS of whether you had regret.
Care should be about strengthening and supporting you so you can handle anything, including stress or disappointment. The only reason someone should be, not even BLOCKED, but diverted or checked up on, is "We're building up your resources and support network to give you the best shot."
And even that ought to be rare. If your care team's there to stop you rather than help you find your path, they're utterly fucking it up.
Most of the "costs" and "risks" of transition or hunting for an identity that suits you are imposed from outside. If ppl could say, "I'm seeing if being enby is more 'me,'" and not be terrified of being shamed for it or yelled at for "making a fuss" if they later decide it wasn't, this shit could evaporate.
Nobody should rush into surgery, be it GCS or fuckin' hip replacement. But the kind of attention paid around hip replacement (make sure you know the options, have rehab lined up, understand the limitations and risks, etc.) is where *I* feel we ought to be. And that's ONLY for fucking bottom surgery.
“your rent should be a third of your income” well wouldn’t that be nice. wouldn’t it. lower the rent pussy
Casual observation from someone old enough to remember: in the year 2000 financial advice was that rent should be no more than 1/4 of your income.
Until the mid 80s, the advice was that if you must rent instead of owning, then that 20% of your monthly income (oh yes, only 20%) should include all your utilities too.
After all, rent costs more than a mortgage, so it should offer more too.
The housing market is a fucking travesty.
Hmm what happened in the mid eighties....
This is Sprite. He lives at chez @fishteriously and he likes to Ascend. His favorite activities are going Up and being picky about the temperature of his food.
The only dancer I go to see at the strip club
I don't see anything wrong with Sprite Ascending, I was just wondering what kind of snake he is
What a wonderful video of a beautiful snake! Sprite is a very handsome green tree python.
Isn't he lovely? Here's a better picture of Sprite's face showing some classic green tree python features like the lower jaw pit line -
and, of course, a baby pic!!! He was indeed lemon before he was lime :3
Here's one more set of baby pics: When I first got the lil fella: so small!!!!
He used to enjoy posing nicely for exactly one (1) photo
and then, nope! we're all done!!!
i used this as a reaction image for a while in groupchats 😂
Reposting so my wife sees it and feels The Happies. :)
mixed feelings about Tolkien making people of the east and south come to Aragorn for pardon like he's actual jesus christ on judgement day, but I really appreciate that Tolkien's idea of a good king is 1) realising that the true enemy is defeated, and not making the war last longer that it needs to last 2) sending free the people who used to be on the other side of the war, but now come to you in peace 3) freeing slaves 4) giving people their land (the woses's land is their own and no-one is allowed to enter without their permission, same for the shire, rohan does not become a part of the Reunited Kingdom, slaves of mordor get land of their own)
Reading Tolkien is a continual psychic whiplash because it shows what happens when you mix 1) a sincerely held belief in the importance of kindness, compassion, unity and caring for our fellow men, versus 2) the deeply entrenched racism of a white Englishman born in a Boer Republic
The vibes are a rollercoaster from start to finish
Do you ever wonder what happened to the weird girl from your middle school?
The change of pronouns here really seals the deal tbh
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES 2023, dir. Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Dale
Bonus:
I love the fact that EVERY PC in this film, you can immediately tell what their dump stat is. :)
demonology // angelology
names & bases in image description.
some sticker sheets I hope to have for MCM London later this month!
THIS
that ahistorical bullshit about "public schools existing to churn out perfect workers?" is in fact ahistorical bullshit
public schools were HARD-WON by people who didn't want working-class children to be railroaded into the same hardships their parents had known via lack of education (and therefore lack of opportunities for higher-paying jobs)
yes they have their issues. but they are absolutely NOT designed to be tools of capitalism
Both things can be true - the schools were a hard won fight and they have been corrupted by ever failing systems.
Children should not have to work. Schools need to do more than teach to test.
it’s hilarious to me when people call historical fashions that men hated oppressive
like in BuzzFeed’s Women Wear Hoop Skirts For A Day While Being Exaggeratedly Bad At Doing Everything In Them video, one woman comments that she’s being “oppressed by the patriarchy.” if you’ve read anything Victorian man ever said about hoop skirts, you know that’s pretty much the exact opposite of the truth
thing is, hoop skirts evolved as liberating garment for women. before them, to achieve roughly conical skirt fullness, they had to wear many layers of petticoats (some stiffened with horsehair braid or other kinds of cord). the cage crinoline made their outfits instantly lighter and easier to move in
it also enabled skirts to get waaaaay bigger. and, as you see in the late 1860s, 1870s, and mid-late 1880s, to take on even less natural shapes. we jokingly call bustles fake butts, but trust me- nobody saw them that way. it was just skirts doing weird, exciting Skirt Things that women had tons of fun with
men, obviously, loathed the whole affair
(1864)
(1850s. gods, if only crinolines were huge enough to keep men from getting too close)
(no date given, but also, this is 100% impossible)
(also undated, but the ruffles make me think 1850s)
it was also something that women of all social classes- maids and society ladies, enslaved women and free women of color -all wore at one point or another. interesting bit of unexpected equalization there
and when bustles came in, guess what? men hated those, too
(1880s)
(probably also 1880s? the ladies are being compared to beetles and snails. in case that was unclear)
(1870s, I think? the bustle itself looks early 1870s but the tight fit of the actual gown looks later)
hoops and bustles weren’t tools of the patriarchy. they were items 1 and 2 on the 19th century’s “Fashion Trends Women Love That Men Hate” lists, with bonus built-in personal space enforcement
Gonna add something as someone who’s worn a lot of period stuff for theatre:
The reason you suck at doing things in a hoop skirt is because you’re not used to doing things in a hoop skirt.
The first time I got in a Colonial-aristocracy dress I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The construction didn’t actually allow me to raise my arms all the way over my head (yes, that’s period-accurate). We had one dresser to every two women, because the only things we could put on ourselves were our tights, shifts, and first crinoline. Someone else had to lace our corsets, slip on our extra crinolines, hold our arms to balance us while a second person actually put the dresses on us like we were dolls, and do up our shoes–which we could not put on ourselves because we needed to be able to balance when the dress went on. My entire costume was almost 40 pounds (I should mention here that many of the dresses were made entirely of upholstery fabric), and I actually did not have the biggest dress in the show.
We wore our costumes for two weeks of rehearsal, which is quite a lot in university theatre. The first night we were all in dress, most of the ladies went propless because we were holding up our skirts to try and get a feel for both balance and where our feet were in comparison to where it looked like they should be. I actually fell off the stage.
By opening night? We were square-dancing in the damn things. We had one scene where our leading man needed to whistle, but he didn’t know how and I was the only one in the cast loud enough to be heard whistling from under the stage, so I was also commando-crawling underneath him at full speed trying to match his stage position–while still in the dress. And petticoats. And corset. Someone took my shoes off for that scene so I could use my toes to propel myself and I laid on a sheet so I wouldn’t get the dress dirty, but that was it–I was going full Solid Snake in a space about 18″ high, wearing a dress that covered me from collarbones to floor and weighed as much as a five-year-old child. And it worked beautifully.
These women knew how to wear these clothes. It’s a lot less “restrictive” when it’s old hat.
I have worn hoop skirts a lot, especially in summer. I still wear hoop skirts if I’m going to be at an event where I will probably be under stage lights. (For example, Vampire Ball.)
I can ride public transportation while wearing them. I can take a taxi while wearing them. I can go on rides at Disneyland while wearing them. Because I’ve practiced wearing them and twisting the rigid-but-flexible skirt bones so I can sit on them and not buffet other people with my skirts.
Hoop skirts are awesome.
Hoop skirts are also air conditioning. If you ever go to reenactments in the South, particularly in summer, you’ll notice a lot of ladies gently swaying in their big 1860s skirts – because it fans all the sweaty bits. You’ll be much cooler in a polished cotton gown with full sleeves, ruffles, and hoopskirt than in a riding jacket and trousers, let me promise you! (This is part of the reason many enslaved women also enthusiastically preferred larger skirts – they had more to do than sit in the shade, but they’d get a bit of a breeze from the hoops’ movement as they were walking.)
They’re also – and I can’t emphasize enough how important this is – really easy to pee in. If you’re in split-crotch drawers (which, until at least the 1890s, you were), you can take an easy promenade a few feet away from the gents and then squat down and pee in pretty much total privacy. It gives so much freedom in travel when it’s not a problem to pee most anywhere.
People also don’t realize that corsets themselves were a HUGE HUGE IMPROVEMENT over previous support-garment styles – and if you have large breasts that don’t naturally float freely above your ribcage (which some people’s do! but it’s not that common), corsets are often an improvement over modern bras.
They hold up the breasts from underneath, taking the weight of them off your back. Most historical corset styles don’t have shoulder straps, so you’re not bearing the weight of your breast there, either, and you can raise your arms as far as your dress’s shoulder line allows (which is the actually restrictive bit – in my 1830s dress, literally all I can do is work in my lap, but in my 1890s dress I can paddle a kayak or draw a longbow with no trouble. Both in a full corset). They support your back and reduce the physical effort it takes to not slouch, helping avoid back pain. They’re rigid enough that you don’t usually have to adjust your clothing to keep it where it belongs. They’re flexible – if you’re having a bloaty PMS day you just … don’t lace it as tightly, and if your back muscles are sore you can lace it a little tighter. And you can undo a cup (or, y’know, not have breast cups) to nurse a baby without losing any of the structural integrity of the garment.
I do educational/historical dressing and people are really insistent, like, “The corset was invented by a man, wasn’t it?” “Actually, women were at the forefront of changing undergarment styles throughout the 19th century!” “But it’s true that it was invented by a man.”
Uh, well, it’s hard to say who “invented” the style but it’s very likely that women’s dressmakers mostly innovated women’s corsets and men’s tailors mostly innovated men’s corsets, honey. Because those exist too.
I think people on EBT should be allowed to eat at a five star restaurant for completely free once a month minimum and I'm not joking. It should be a human right to have the roses not just the bread.
Etch this in marble and put it on my grave
"Bread for all, and roses too" is such a raw line that you'd think it came from like a famous women's suffrage speech or something bu
Imagine watching Voyager in the 90's and someone from the future pops up to tell you Seven of Nine ends up captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-G and also that she's gay and gets to dress like a regular person.
Oh and she once went on a revenge killing spree after her son Ichab is harvested for Borg components, left for dead and she had to put him out of his misery. And the woman who had him harvested was Seven's ex.
Oh oh and they use her human name as a deadnaming allegory. But then you probably have to explain deadnaming cos it's 1998 or whatever.
























