June 2012
GOP Michigan Congressman To Run Write-In Campaign : It's All Politics : NPR →
npr.org
It takes a minimum of just 1,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot. McCotter’s campaign claimed to have turned in twice that number. But now Michigan elections officials say McCotter fell far short with only 244 legitimate signatures. The rest were photocopies. That’s right — copies of the same 244 signatures over and over.
LOLOLOLOLOL!
WHAT IS MY STATE RIGHT NOW
May 2012
Trans Etiquette 101: No Offense, But That’s Offensive
gqid:
1. Ask permission to ask questions. Even if you think you know they are comfortable answering, they may actually not be or maybe not in that setting, and it is just rude and pretty off-putting to not ask. Say, “Hey do you mind if I ask you some things about your transition? I’ve been a little curious – feel free to not answer or say no.”
2. Avoid private and personal questions. Even a so-called open book like me doesn’t want to discuss my sex life with most anyone. If you really want to know about trans men and sex, ask in general terms – i.e. “Are many trans men ‘stone butch’ in bed?” vs. “Are you stone butch in bed?” BIG difference.
3. Do not ask questions that in any way challenge the trans person’s gender identity or expression or could obviously lead to dysphoria. Do NOT, for example, ask if a trans man will grow to be ‘average male height’ or if a trans woman is uncomfortable with the size of her hands. I’ve gotten, “Are you ever going to look your age?” Ouch, honey.
4. Phrase your questions in a way that affirms a trans person’s gender. And avoid anything that defines the trans person in terms of who they once “were.” This is pretty simple, actually. Instead of asking if someone is “still legally female,” ask what the steps are to becoming legally male and if they have completed them.
5. Avoid comparisons to non-trans people and never use the term “real” in distinguishing between transgender and non-transgender people. “Cisgender” or “non-trans” are the only appropriate ways to signify non-trans status.
6. If it is a general question, try Google first. There is a lot of information on the internet and an open trans person should not be a stand-in for your own research.
7. Do not ask what the person’s birth name was. There is absolutely no reason for you to need to know this and it is likely something this person wants distance from. It is a particularly offensive question when phrased, “What is your REAL name.” After all, Sebastian is my real name and has been since I started asking people to use it.
8. Request specific permission to ask questions relating to genitalia, even if you’ve already received general permission to ask other personal questions. “Are you comfortable discussing your genitalia?” Chances are they aren’t. After all, do you want to talk about yours? But some people are and I acknowledge that there is definitely education needed on the topic so I am not opposed entirely to asking questions, as long as you get extra permission first.
9. Be wary of your phrasing. If you aren’t sure how to talk about trans issues, you need to announce that in the beginning. Be open to correction and don’t get defensive if a trans person is offended by something you say. As a heads up, don’t refer to a trans person as their previously-assigned gender – don’t say “when you were a girl” to a trans man for example. A more accurate and safer route is “before you transitioned” or “when you were living as a girl.”
10. Be aware of your setting. These are private conversations. Don’t approach someone at a crowded party or in algebra class and expect them to have a trans chat with you.
11. Be sensitive to the person’s comfort level throughout the conversation. If they’ve given you permission but are obviously growing uncomfortable discussing things, don’t press. Be grateful for the information you’ve gained and change the subject.
12. Respect the person’s privacy. Unless this person stated otherwise, the personal information they gave you is not for you to share with the world.
Another one I would add is “Don’t ‘out’ someone as trans* or genderqueer unless they’ve told you it’s okay if a specific person / people know.”
This is a very, very helpful list! The trans*/trans* ally group (I don’t think it has a name yet…) on my campus is having its first meeting next week, and I want to make sure I’m respectful. I’ve had very few trans* people in my life, so I’m still adjusting to using proper language. The most important part of this group is to create a safe space for people to talk about their experiences, and I want to make sure that I remember that my voice isn’t the one that needs to be heard.
Oklahoma Doctor Refuses To Provide Rape Victim With Emergency Contraception →
thinkprogress.org
ThinkProgress reports: “An Oklahoma emergency room doctor refused to provide emergency contraception to a 24-year-old female rape victim because the medication violated the health provider’s personal beliefs… ‘I will not give you emergency contraceptives because it goes against my believes,’ the doctor allegedly told the rape victim and her mother, Rhonda. ‘She knew my daughter had just been raped. Her attitude was so judgmental and I felt that she was just judging my daughter.’
Oklahoma law shields providers from offering the perfectly legal medication under a ‘conscience clause’ which could significantly hinder women’s access to contraception services.”
This is sick. You might have to carry your rapist’s child because MY beliefs say so? In what universe is that OK? Whatever happened to “first, do no harm” – and I mean the living, breathing patient in front of you, not a maybe baby conceived by a rape. The religious right whines about secularism intruding into their beliefs, but what is more intrusive than forced pregnancy?
This woman was luckily able to get EC at another hospital. Other people might not be so lucky.
I cannot stand that this is a reality for even one victim, and it kills me that it is true for so many. You do not deserve to be a doctor if you refuse to help patients.
If your religious views are more important than serving the public and doing what is best for the patient in front of you instead of the lump of cells that has not yet formed, then choose another profession. Otherwise, you are not helping people.
“It comes down to who is the patient. Is the woman the patient, or is the fetus the patient? One or other is the patient. I’ve never heard a fetus talk to me. I’ve heard thousands and thousands of women share their pain, their desperation, and their hopelessness.”
—
Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider from Wichita, Kansas, who was murdered on May 31, 2009. (via iamdrtiller)
*Not just cis-women
(via iamnotethan)
In media reports on women’s issues—abortion, birth control, Planned Parenthood—men are quoted around five times more than women, a new study shows →
thedailybeast.com
Shocker.
You can’t trust women to reliably comment on women’s health and rights. Obviously.
“Not being assaulted is not a privilege to be earned through the judicious application of personal safety strategies. A woman should be able to walk down the street at 4 in the morning in nothing but her socks, blind drunk, without being assaulted, and I, for one, am not going to do anything to imply that she is in any way responsible for her own assault if she fails to Adequately Protect Herself. Men aren’t helpless dick-driven maniacs who can’t help raping a vulnerable woman. It disrespects EVERYONE.”
—
Emily Nagoski. (via rapeisnotajoke)
#Oh my God #THIS #FUCKING THIS #I would like to print this out #and staple it to the forehead of every guy who’s tried to tell me that women ‘just need to be careful about where they go/how they dress/how they act/who they flirt with’ #because no #the only deciding factor on whether or not someone gets raped #is the presence of a rapist #and guess what #they are EVERYWHERE #including but not limited the local bar #your high school #your college dorm building #your workplace #your group of friend #your family #and if you’re telling me that laughing at a guy’s jokes is the equivalent of telling him I’ve given up my right to say no #then you are the problem #not me #YOU
(via madeofglass)
If you think that a woman deserves to be raped for any reason, you need to seek help from a professional. Truly.
Say it with me now:
- Dr. George Tiller’s killing was not justifiable homicide, it was murder.
- Blowing up abortion clinics is terrorism.
- Defacing and covering abortion clinics in graffiti is vandalism.
- Chanting “You’re next!” at doctors and clinic administrators is threatening them.
- Preventing patients from entering a clinic by shouting at them, distracting them, walking in front of them, blocking their way with your bodies, or preventing them from exiting their cars is harassment.
You’re not a good person if you in any way, shape or form support, defend, or ignore any of these actions. Stop deluding yourself.
Day two.
This morning was an especially difficult exercise in self-control and anger management. This post will be far shorter than the last one, because I really don’t want to talk about it more than strictly necessary because it is disgusting, but I feel like this nasty behaviour needs to be exposed.
Before we continue, while I didn’t include a trigger warning, anyone sensitive to miscarriages or anything along those lines may not want to continue reading.
Today I met one of the protesters, Mary. She’s a chaser, she’ll follow women out of their car, she’ll stand by the car door so it’s hard for them to get out. Well, the young woman in question today wasn’t brooking any of Mary’s nonsense, so when Mary pulled her standing-by-the-door shtick, she opened the door roughly against her. And as soon as Mary began talking, she hauled off and smacked her right across the face.
I heard about all of this through hearsay (and also about how the woman’s companion chased Mary around the parking lot) and while there was a tiny voice saying “Yay!” in my head, my heart also sunk—because I’m learning that any action you take against these people, even in the face of cruelty, will be used against you. I’m learning that as an Escort, it’s my job to hopefully try and calm these situations down—not encourage them. …But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t admire the family giving Mary a hard time.
Anyway, the young girl was with her mother and father, and the mother was screaming at all the protesters who nearly created a mob. Another Escort leaned close to me and said, “It’s a dead fetus.”
I was shocked to my core. The family, even the girl herself, had been yelling this to the protesters, that she wasn’t there for an abortion, but it was falling on deaf ears. Instead of listening to the heartache of the young girl and shutting up and letting her get the treatment she deserved, they treated her like a sinner—a murderer.
More concrete, real-life evidence that these antis don’t give a fuck about the people going into the clinics, about people PERIOD, they don’t listen, and they have absolutely no love or heart for anyone but themselves, despite how badly they want you to believe otherwise.
there we go again with men telling women how to dress for men's pleasure →
shopping.yahoo.com
fuck the patriarchy
i get that this is a fluff site but it’s still sickening how prominent and accepted this is in our culture. this shit is the front news article of yahoo!, what is that supposed to communicate to women?!
That our bodies serve a specific purpose, and it is the viewing pleasure of men. Obviously, you should be picking your swimsuit based on the male gaze and not on, y’know, what makes you feel happy and good about yourself.
If you're offended by the words 'white privilege', you are probably white and privileged.
“I hate when consenting adults do things with their own bodies that aren’t what I would choose to do with my body!”
—
- Signed Slut Shamers, Who Apparently Have Nothing Better To Do Than Police Other People’s Consensual Sexual Activities (via deviantfemme)
- Also, homophobic bigots. But this second group would also like to add that since they wouldn’t do it, they want it to be illegal for anybody else! Lovely!
I’m not even lying when I tell you that a few nights ago I had a dream that I was in a wig shop full of pink wigs. Every motherfucking shade of pink was there and I was just prancing around, running my hands through all of them.
“I’ve seen a ton on the facebooks about “thanking veterans for their service.” As a veteran let me just be very straightforward and honest with you. We didn’t “serve our country”; we don’t actually serve our brothers/sisters or our neighbors. We serve the interests of Capital. We never risked our lives or spent months on deployment away from our family and friends so they can have this abstract concept called “freedom”. We served big oil; big coal; Coca-Cola; Kellogg, Brown, and Root and all the other big Capital interests who don’t know a fucking thing about sacrifice. These people will never have to deal with the loss of a loved one or the physical and/or psychological scars that those who “serve”, and their families, have to deal with for the rest of their lives. The most patriotic thing someone can do is to tell truth to power and dedicate yourself to building power to overthrow these sociopathic assholes. I served with some of the most real and genuine people I’ve ever met. You’ll never see solidarity like the kind of solidarity you experience when your life depends on the person next to you. But most of us didn’t join for that; we joined because we were fucking poor and didn’t have many other options.”
—
An anti-capitalist veteran (via elitc)
Well heres a take on it not often uttered or shared
(via threezerooo)
“The man who is horrified at a woman’s “overly exposed” breasts will likely never have to worry about wearing one shirt—one shirt out of a lifetime of shirts—that happens to accidentally set off some random person’s slut meter, because of the way his body just is. And because my breasts are smaller, less visible, less imposing than other women’s breasts—because there’s less boob there—I can feel free to wear the more revealing top without attracting claims of public obscenity. It seems that some women’s bodies are just naturally sluttier than other women’s bodies—and all women’s bodies are naturally sluttier than men’s bodies.”
—
washingtoncitypaper.com (via ellielamothe, rawwomen) (via luminosiity) (via duexchatnoir) (via whimsyandmayhem) (via clarissa-dalloway) (via mygayshoes) (via lonelyresearcher) (via wretchedoftheearth) (via sociolab)
Exactly.
(via introspectivestardust)
“Depression is humiliating. It turns intelligent, kind people into zombies who can’t wash a dish or change their socks. It affects the ability to think clearly, to feel anything, to ascribe value to your children, your lifelong passions, your relative good fortune. It scoops out your normal healthy ability to cope with bad days and bad news, and replaces it with an unrecognizable sludge that finds no pleasure, no delight, no point in anything outside of bed. You alienate your friends because you can’t comport yourself socially, you risk your job because you can’t concentrate, you live in moderate squalor because you have no energy to stand up, let alone take out the garbage. You become pathetic and you know it. And you have no capacity to stop the downward plunge. You have no perspective, no emotional reserves, no faith that it will get better. So you feel guilty and ashamed of your inability to deal with life like a regular human, which exacerbates the depression and the isolation. If you’ve never been depressed, thank your lucky stars and back off the folks who take a pill so they can make eye contact with the grocery store cashier. No one on earth would choose the nightmare of depression over an averagely turbulent normal life.
It’s not an incapacity to cope with day to day living in the modern world. It’s an incapacity to function. At all. If you and your loved ones have been spared, every blessing to you. If depression has taken root in you or your loved ones, every blessing to you, too. No one chooses it. No one deserves it. It runs in families, it ruins families. You cannot imagine what it takes to feign normalcy, to show up to work, to make a dentist appointment, to pay bills, to walk your dog, to return library books on time, to keep enough toilet paper on hand, when you are exerting most of your capacity on trying not to kill yourself. Depression is real. Just because you’ve never had it doesn’t make it imaginary. Compassion is also real. And a depressed person may cling desperately to it until they are out of the woods and they may remember your compassion for the rest of their lives as a force greater than their depression. Have a heart. Judge not lest ye be judged.” —
It’s not an incapacity to cope with day to day living in the modern world. It’s an incapacity to function. At all. If you and your loved ones have been spared, every blessing to you. If depression has taken root in you or your loved ones, every blessing to you, too. No one chooses it. No one deserves it. It runs in families, it ruins families. You cannot imagine what it takes to feign normalcy, to show up to work, to make a dentist appointment, to pay bills, to walk your dog, to return library books on time, to keep enough toilet paper on hand, when you are exerting most of your capacity on trying not to kill yourself. Depression is real. Just because you’ve never had it doesn’t make it imaginary. Compassion is also real. And a depressed person may cling desperately to it until they are out of the woods and they may remember your compassion for the rest of their lives as a force greater than their depression. Have a heart. Judge not lest ye be judged.” —
Depression is not a synonym for being sad or having a bad day/bad week.
(via stuck-in-the-labyrinth)
My clinical depression is and was impossible to explain to someone because i struggle to change my thoughts in to words like these. But now, this post has made sense of it all and i will ALWAYS reblog this.
(via criesofinsanity)
“In the instances when POC say shit like ‘Oh I can’t stand white folk’ or ‘Damn white people’, they aren’t saying ‘Oh I think they are inferior, I want to humiliate them, abuse them, enslave them and wipe out their people!’, they’re saying ‘Damn, after a couple hundred years of white people thinking I’m inferior, humiliating me, abusing me, enslaving me, and trying to wipe out my people, I don’t wanna deal with them.’ The context is completely different.”
—
Briana (via absinthedisco)
Reblogging every time I see it.
(via dr—grumbles)
Thank you.
(via mehreenkasana)
If you say that a woman wearing revealing clothes deserves to be sexually assaulted, you are saying that a woman's body is inherently deserving of rape. That women are inherently deserving of rape. That women have to make sure their body is hidden in order not to deserve to be raped. That is misogyny in its purest form.
