An Adult in Disguise

my dad and I just finished listening to a fascinating (and really pretty alarming) podcast about American literacy education recently—Sold a Story by Emily Hanford—and it got me wondering what my peers’ experience was, so here's my first poll! This pertains to people who learned to read in the U.S. specifically, so even if one of the other options matches your experience, I'd politely ask you to refrain from picking one (presumably you guys have better school districts than we do anyway). 

(the most horrifying part out of the entire thing was the fact that dubbya was the one to realize something was wrong. even a broken clock, I guess...?)

i don't remember it, because it was before i was reliably forming long term memories, but i was definitely taught by my parents to sound things out. they also made labels to stick on stuff around the house so i could see how the words corresponded to the world around me.

this worked so well that when my best friend/neighbor got through kindergarten without learning how to read, i just. taught her.

i don't remember this either, although i do remember being outraged that she had been in school for a whole year and they hadn't even taught her to read.

I taught myself, as the readers around me did not want to spend each waking moment reading me new books, the lazy bastards

I have not listened to the APM story linked; however, if you want to be flabbergasted, their other story on the methodology of teaching kids to read is very good and very infuriating https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading

There is so much more I could say about this, but there is not enough room. Remember to check with reality rather than believing conspiracy theories promoted, supported, and funded by white nationalist hate groups.

Missouri is proposing 20% of the nation’s anti-trans legislation this session. Gender-affirming care for young folks is on the edge of being criminalized (so much love to trans friends in states where that has already happened).

Please keep up with the anti-trans legislation in your state and combat it. There are lives at stake.

Transphobes do not touch this post.

Image ID: a 10-image cartoon comic featuring Joey, a boy with short hair.

Image 1: Joey, upset, gesticulates towards an open laptop. Text reads: The reality of St. Louis trans kids. Last week, a former (non-medical) employee of Washington University’s Pediatric Transgender Center was featured in a viral article about how the clinic was “rushing” kids into medical care and “mutilating” us. Every single thing she said was a lie, but the media loves it. Footnote reads: I wouldn’t give any more attention to this, but it is immediately endangering the lives of trans people. Missouri has launched a state investigation and is actively attempting to criminalize gender-affirming care based on conspiracy theories.

Image 2: Joey points to a map of the United States where Missouri is singled out, and a map of Missouri where St. Louis is indicated with a star. The text reads: The Transgender Center, located in St. Louis, Missouri, has been the target of hateful attacks from the far-right state legislature for years. It is part of Washington University Hospital, a branch of a prestigious private university.

Image 3: A younger Joey injects his T shot in his leg while someone takes a photo. Text reads: I can tell you that everything in the article is false because I received care at the Transgender Center beginning at 16 years old. My medical transition has brought me nothing but joy. What a gift it is to be trans!

Image 4: A younger Joey sits on a couch and stims with a tangle fidget toy. Text reads: No one is “rushed”. I sat on many waitlists, had to have 6 months of specialized gender therapy and a diagnosis of gender dysphoria before even being referred to the Center, and I was denied as “not ready enough” by an endocrinologist the first time I finally got an appointment. Footnote reads: If you’re curious about what it looks like to be a trans kid, I did another piece on that! Check out tinyurl.com/transkidscomictumblr.

Image 5: A colorful map of the United States shows how many states have a Negative Gender Identity Policy Tally and how many states have criminalized gender affirming care. Joey holds a credit card. Text reads: St. Louis’ Pediatric Transgender Center is the only one in the region, meaning the waitlists are extremely long. Plus, no one in the only industrialized country without free healthcare is getting medical care for fun. Many American trans folks have to fundraise for our care.

Image 6: Joey, distressed, sits on a couch while talking on the phone. The person on the other end says: “That’s me!” Text reads: This former employee spoke about specific cases, and patients have been able to identify themselves. She shared our private medical info and called us horrifying.

Image 7: This is split into two panels. In the first, Joey holds up a box of condoms and a packet of birth control pills. Texts reads: She especially hated trans men such as myself, saying that trans ideology was destroying “girls”. She lamented about hormones making us “sterile”, which is a complete lie. We trans mascs have to actively prevent pregnancy. In panel two stands a doctor. Text reads: Every time I had an appointment at the Center, doctors reminded me: Remember: testosterone is not a contraceptive! Footnote reads: The wonderful Erin Reed wrote a breakdown debunking all the lies in the article. See tinyurl.com/erinreedmissouri.

Image 8: Joey, masked, sits at a circular table with his brother, an unmasked boy with fluffy short hair. Joey’s brother is showing him his phone. Text reads: Major newspapers continue to platform these complete lies because they bring in engagement and money. The Washington Post tracked down my little brother’s personal cell phone number to try to get in contact with our mom – the president of an organization supporting trans kids in Missouri. Freaky, right?

Image 9: Joey, looking disgusted, leans against a door frame while talking on a cell phone. Text reads: But no one wants to talk with me, the adult who medically transitioned at this clinic as a minor and has not “desisted” in six years. The Washington Post reporter, who didn’t know anything about trans people, talked with me for 20 minutes and used a sentence of mine in an article about “both sides of the debate”. She didn’t mention that this former employee is being legally represented by a recognized anti-LGBT hate group, nor that all of her claims are unsupported by reality or science.

Image 10: Joey looks angry and gesticulates. Beside the drawing are two photos of Joey, one of him happy in front of a trans flag, and the other of him drawing up testosterone to take his first T shot. Text reads: There is no debate. There are trans people, and there are people who want us dead. There is truth and there are conspiracy theories. Where is my viral article in a major paper?

Published Feb 16, 2023. End ID.

Heyo! This is the least amount of circulation one of these comics has gotten recently, and I’m trying to combat all of the virulently anti-trans media from almost all major publications in the US right now.

If you see this, please consider reblogging! It helps a lot!

i want to be asked to come over and help put my friend’s kids to bed as casually as they might text their spouse and ask them to pick up milk on the way home

i want to stop and pick up milk for another friend because i know their spouse hates the grocery store

i want to buy fruit that i dont like because it’s on special and i know people who do

i want to pass lemons over the fence and to take my neighbours bins out when the forget

i want group chats instead of rideshare apps, calls in the middle of the night because someone’s at the hospital, lonely or hungry or both

i want to do the dishes in other people’s houses, extra servings wrapped in tinfoil and tea towels so it’s still warm when you drop it off, a basket of other people’s mending by my couch

i want to be surrounded by reminders that ‘imposing’ on each other is what we were born to do

Good morning! I’m salty.

I think we, as a general community, need to start taking this little moment more seriously.

This, right here? This is asking for consent. It’s a legal necessity, yes, but it is also you, the reader, actively consenting to see adult content; and in doing so, saying that you are of an age to see it, and that you’re emotionally capable of handling it.

You find the content you find behind this warning disgusting, horrifying, upsetting, triggering? You consented. You said you could handle it, and you were able to back out at any time. You take responsibility for yourself when you click through this, and so long as the creator used warnings and tags correctly, you bear full responsibility for its impact on you.

“Children are going to lie about their age” is probably true, but that’s the problem of them and the people who are responsible for them, not the people that they lie to.

If you’re not prepared to see adult content, created by and for adults, don’t fucking click through this. And if you do, for all that’s holy, don’t blame anyone else for it.

This needs to be reblogged today.

Consenting to see adult content doesn’t mean you should have to see a bunch of shit romanticizing incest and pedophilia you walnut

Except this is the last line of consent before the actual work. So if you’re at this button you have already done the following:

1) chosen to go onto AO3 in the first place

2) chosen the fandom you wish to read about

3) had the chance to filter for the things you do want to see like a specific pairing or a specific AU

4) had the chance to specifically filter out any tags you don’t want to see like, oh I don’t know, incest and non-con and dub-con and paedophilia

5) had the chance to set the rating level if you wish to remove any explicit content at all

6) have read the summary of the story, which aren’t always great but are the only indicator of what the story will be like writing wise so something about it was good enough for you to click on it.

7) have read the tags of the story which will tell you what is actually in the story. If you have used filters to remove stories with things you don’t want then there shouldn’t be anything in here that’s a shock to you but maybe there is. That’s why the tags are there for you to check for yourself.

8) Then you have to actually click on the story. You cannot see anything other than the summary or the tags without personally deciding that you are going to open and read this story.

9) Only here, at step number nine, do you get to the adult content warning pictured above. You have been through eight different steps, the last six of which have also been opportunities for you to see that this has adult content. And AO3 has *STILL* stopped you to ask one last time “are you sure you want to read this because it has things that only adults should see in it”.

If after this point you are reading incest and paedophilia then it’s probably because you specifically went looking for it.

You walnut.

This is the most beautiful thing that I have seen about ao3

Yknow what while I’m here I know we as a website agreed to oppress the business majors but all the bullshit that comes around every April over ao3’s business practices makes me think we should’ve kept at least one to explain to people how nonprofits, despite their name, still need money to function and do not in fact run on rainbows and dreams alone

Woo! It’s a good thing y’all didnt oppress accounting majors because we understand this stuff better than business majors. (We were around before capitalism and we’re already set up for after capitalism.)

First things first - I dont regularly use or donate to AO3 but I have made an account to see what the fuss was about. Fanfiction just isnt my thing but I see why people like it.

AO3 is a 501©(3) organization. What that means - No Profit for owners or investors. What that does NOT mean - no cash at year end or not paying employees a livable wage/salary. If you’re contrivance with a non-profit is that they allow their employees to survive under capitalism, then you need to rethink your priorities.

That being said, AO3 has no employees. All work is volunteer based. ABSOLUTELY ZERO people are making money from this site. (Outside of contractors and professionals who are vendors and not affiliated with AO3.)

I’m going to break down the 2019 Audited Financials because that’s the most recent. And compare them to the budget and notes:

The auditor’s opinion is “unmodified.” That means these are as accurate as they get.

Their assets: $1.3M in cash. $197k in the value of the servers. (That’s the price they bought the servers minus depreciation. Depreciation is a tool we use to slowly devalue fixed assets over time. Without it, companies would recognize huge losses at year end when they sell old assets. That’s not reliable information when you’re trying to analyze the financials.) Why would a non-profit need a million dollars in cash? Partly to fund the next year’s work - it looks like they’re trying to bring on new servers which can cost upwards of $400k each time. They also have a history of protecting fans from people like Anne Rice who wants to sue them into debt and oblivion. We’ll talk about the legal stuff later. But in the case they would lose an expensive case, they need funds on hand to pay that out.

Revenues - this is the money in. They received $733k in donations and the like. Their expenses are about 37% of these. Which tells me, they are focused on managing their cash balance, and doing well. Again. No organization would survive if they had no cash at year end.

You might see the “In-Kind Revenue” and not know what that means. $190k is a big amount. But if you look at their expense statement on page (4) you’ll see “In-Kind Expenses” for the same $190k. In-kind means services in kind of cash. Or services instead of cash. So they had $190k of pro-bono (donated) legal work in 2019. They mention it in the budget and later in the audit footnotes. There are other “professional fees” for about $28k. That’s also legal/audit work but they had to pay cash for. It wasn’t donated.

Cash expenses:

Server fees = $79k (these are higher than 2018 because they installed a new server.)

Transaction fees = $27k (these are charges from your banks/credit cards/paypal to process donations. They are roughly 3% of donations which is about correct.)

Contractor fees = $15k (the budget noted they paid for a security test - this is actually a pretty low cost for something like this.)

Supplies = $14k (I couldn’t find notes on this but it’s similar to 2018, so it’s probably just normal business things.)

Postage = $12k (This is high compared to 2018, but I hazard a guess it’s related to sending out promotional items for donations.)

Advertising = $10k (looks like a new cost this year, but is related to fundraising efforts. And might be related to those promo items.)

Other non-cash expenses:

In-kind = $190k (those donated lawyer fees we talked about earlier.)

Depreciation = $74k (again this is an accounting process that every company with fixed assets does.)

The cash flows statement just confirms which expenses were and weren’t cash. And it shows us that they have $1.3M available for the next year. Glancing at the 2020 budget they planned on spending a third of that to upgrade servers. And they have another $400k budgeted for 2021. Honestly to me, the cash looks low considering some years (2018 in particular,) their legal work was valued at half a million. There is a risk that they would have to pay that amount out of pocket the same year they plan to bring on a new server upgrade.

So all in all, if you want to donate to AO3, this looks like a reliable organization to donate to. There is no evidence in the financials that they don’t deserve the donations. (And if you do donate, remember it is a tax credit!) I also don’t see any verifiable reasons not to donate. If you have other places you would rather place your donation, that’s fine! Do that! But there doesn’t seem to be a reason to campaign against their fundraising efforts.

outsiders and boring normal people and fandom newbies always think that buckwild kinky porn fanfiction is the strangest fandom hobby but they are wrong.

the strangest fandom hobby is plotty fanfiction, the kind that requires research, because engaging in this hobby makes no goddamned sense.

it doesn’t even give anybody masturbation material, which is at least a logical and admirable goal that contributes to the betterment of society, or at least society’s solitary orgasms.

in other news i hope the cia spyware monitoring my internet usage understands that i’m googling information about smuggling drugs in thailand because i want the details to be right in a single paragraph in a 10,000 word story about a gay mafia guys.

this post has been making the rounds again and i just want to state for the record that it is a fucking delight to read in the tags all the random things people research for their fanfic and art. fandom, i love you. i love you with your flood maps and medical procedures and tentacle biology and historical fashion and traditional handcrafts and conlangs and urban geography and literally everything else. i am completely sincere about this. the enthusiasm with which people embrace detailed, deep, and often obscure research, just because they want to get it right, because they want to create something rich and interesting, it makes me feel better about the world. i adore it.

Listen I understand that's he's a tyrant and that Ankh Morpork is like the Gotham of Discworld (except Lord Vetinari would never let AM be declared a no-mans land unless everywhere else was even worse off) but I truly would love to sign up for the Havelock Vetinari career placement program.

Sure I would only really have a choice about my final career path in the same way a boat does a choice about whether to go over a waterfall or smash itself on the rocky banks.

But it would be so nice to have someone look at me, understand all my drives and flaws and then place me in a position most suited to the weird quirks of my particular brain chemistry.

Joanne

MBTI & Politicians Stacey Abrams: ENTJ

“Stacey Yvonne Abrams (born December 9, 1973) is an American politician, lawyer, and novelist who served as Minority Leader of the Georgia House of Representatives from 2011 to 2017.

A member of the Democratic Party, she was her party’s nominee in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election.

Abrams was the first black female major-party gubernatorial nominee in the history of the United States.

In February 2019, Abrams became the first African-American woman to deliver a State of the Union response, in reaction to President Trump.”

Sources: video, wiki/Stacey_Abrams

apropos of my last post—this is what I was talking about. Stacey Abrams made a point to meet people where they were—not by validating views she disagreed with, but finding some common ground on which to get action done.

I know this makes the anti-voting fandom big mad but this is only happening because Murphy was re-elected by a thin margin in November 2021, bucking a 40 year trend of Democratic governors losing re-election in NJ, because enough people voted for him

People only think their votes don’t count because they only think about presidential elections. Vote local.

so, this is what i’ve done all day apparently

Ok, I'm going to try to work through some thoughts for a moment here, so forgive me for being a little... disorganized. But I'm trying to work through why the "people SAY they want to adopt, but there's 400,000 kids in foster care!" Rhetoric just feels... off.

Ok, so...

Foster care, largely, is *not* intended to be a mechanism for adoption. That's not really its goal. *Some* kids do get adopted out of foster care, yes, and the "I'll adopt your baby" people are definitely turning a blind eye on those kids. BUT.

Foster Care is *supposed* to, for the majority of kids, be a temporary placement until reunification with their parents is possible. Something at home isn't safe, so the kids are put somewhere safe until the parents can fix that problem. (There are a LOT of issues with the system, don't get me wrong. Its underfunded and a mess. But this is the intent.)

So, foster care isn't a "build a bear" for couples looking to add to their family. Foster care is really hard work, helping kids in crisis. Often traumatized kids. Kids with very specific emotional and physical needs. Kids who *want to go home* a lot of the time, and a foster parents job is supposed to be giving them safety and stability until that is possible. Taking kids to mandated visitations and court dates and counseling until you say good bye to them is the job.

So it feels really *weird* to just present these children, again the vast majority of whom aren't eligible for adoption and are still working towards reunification with their parents, as a solution for infertile couples, or as a "gotcha" to prove that these couples are hypocrites.

Adoptive parenting and foster parenting are inherently different situations, and while SOME foster kids get adopted, and some foster parents adopt- that generally isn't the norm, nor is it actually the goal for a lot of them.

And I don't think it's actually a bad thing that some *prospective adoptive parents* don't want to foster- it's a very different gig, it requires different skills, and it isn't going to have the same end result most of the time. And an adult who's GOAL is to adopt isn't going to be the best foster parent a lot of the time- it's a conflict of interest. The goal of a foster parent is to help keep the child safe until reunification if possible, which is not the goal of a prospective adoptive parent.

(Edit: And again, there are a lot of problems with the current foster care system. As has been brought up in replies, reunification can be rushed or overprioritized to the detriment of the kid. It's not a perfect system by any means. But whatever changes should be made, those kids aren't a resource for infertile couples. They arent waiting to be taken to their forever home like puppies at the animal shelter. Foster care is for kids in crisis, not for people who want to adopt.)

Foster care, and adoption out of foster care, are not tools for infertile couples. They are services for children in crisis, and what those kids need isn't always what those adults want.

So. I dunno. I guess my feelings are just that we should stop using the foster care system as a rhetorical weapon against pro-lifers. The "we will adopt your baby" people shouldn't feel entitled to making another person carry a baby for them against their will, regardless of the state of the foster care system, ya know?

WELP, IT’S BEEN A YEAR

Are you tired of trying to look on the bright side, and to keep faith?  Cause I sure am.  But also – the alternative is far less helpful in making the changes that we need.  So: to tiny steps in the right direction, to voting and all the million other things we do to bend the long arc of history.

8 previous years’ on tumblr and AO3. 

(I guess I also have it in booklet format, too.)

@potofsoup thank you for this. So much. I needed it today and I am sure so many others do as well.

Performative. Intrusive. All ego. Me, me, me.

—

Curious Georgiana (via grrrlstudies)

I know I’ve reblogged this before, but it bears re-reblogging (?).  This is how you respond to abuse, this is how you give people control over their bodies/uteruses, this is how you act as a generally non-judgmental and compassionate person.  I love this story so fucking much.

(via coffeewithants)

And THIS is one of many reasons why we need to safeguard access to birth control.

Anti-voting rhetoric will be the death of the left. Literally.

Not a single fucking Republican voted to protect roe. It was fucking overturned in the first place bc trump got three Supreme Court appointments.

Every fucking thing wrong in this country is almost certainly the result of Republicans being in power. In 2020, Texas cut half of the polling places in black neighborhoods, and doubled them in white ones, regardless of population. It was Republicans bitching about mail in voting, and constantly, constantly fearmonger about voter fraud. Literally, their platform is about making civil rights harder to practice.

Would you like to know why? It’s because Republican politicians know better than anyone that higher voter participation means higher republican loss.

But what do I see from the online left, champions of the oppressed?

“Voting doesn’t do anything, the parties are the same, the system is rigged, etc, etc”

Don’t sit here and tell me you give a fuck about marginalized people if you aren’t ready to march your ass to the voting booth and vote out the party actively stripping their rights away.

Protest, donate, community build, unionize, and vote, vote, vote.

The thing about midterms is that abortion bans or maintaining rights are now up to the discretion of states.

Everyone is talking about Republican state officials putting bans into effect.

State Democrats can do the opposite.

My home state is EXPANDING abortion rights, setting up legislation that will shield protections from outside interference.

Forget Biden*. He isn’t up for re-election in 2022. Do you have an on-the-record pro-choice Governor? Senators? House reps? Local judges? How about proposed legislation?

THOSE are the people you’re going to be voting (or not voting) for now, this year, 2022. The people who you will need to demand action from.

There are Democrats out there at lower levels (state & local) who are far more committed to maintaining reproductive rights than Joseph R. Biden. Do you know who they are? Look them up!

Even if you firmly believe the two parties are not meaningfully different in general (which I personally don’t, but that’s irrelevant), one difference is that Democrats do not vote a perfect partly line against abortion rights. Find pro-choice people in your state and lobby the shit out of them. And if you find people who are on your side? Yes, fucking vote for them.

Things are fucked at the federal level right now, but they’ve been passed to the states. Republicans are rushing to control states rights and keep their stranglehold on power. Resist, do it actively, because the bullshit voting rights restrictions mean we need every last one that people can manage.

*Not as in “don’t hold him accountable”, as in “don’t refuse to look at your state and local candidates because he’s fucking up”.

Fucking vote.

The right got here by voting.

If it wouldn't work, they wouldn't be trying to stop you.