thistle | adult | they/them, he/him, it/its | nonbinary femboy | anti-assimilationist queer -------------------------------------------- heyo, this is my personal blog so expect a little of everything here. -------------------------------------------- i'm a baby anarchist, i'm still learning about anarchism. i believe in radical inclusivity, intersectional collective liberation; black liberation, indigenous peoples' liberation, women's liberation, queer liberation, disability justice, indigenous led environmental stewardship, youth liberation, prison abolition, state abolition, family abolition, decolonization, and more.
no but jokes aside this is actually really great. malicious compliance in the best way.
here's a quote from a Pink News article about this that really stuck with me:
Elia Bonci, who also spoke to la Repubblica, said: “I took courage, used my deadname and signed up for Miss Italy because fighting transphobia is intersectional and even though I’m not a trans woman, I’ve decided to fight for their rights.”
the whole point is to show how "afab" being used as a replacement for woman is fucking stupid and fundamentally incorrect and. whatever else. and it gives me hope to see the community rising up like this. solidarity and unity and peace on planet earth.
rent went up last month and i’m trying to survive while being my own manager, my and my own support system irl.
i am almost never paid for anything i’ve done as a model, a dj, a creative, and an “influencer” when i have been one of the most influential curve models for alternative fashion.
i have been very sick and just pushing through it because i have no choice but to keep going but i need a break from being online.
i deserve rest and i deserve support & my flowers from my community.
The more I get back into liking, loving and lusting on people, the more I'm reminded what a sanitized, segregated lie queers have been built into.
I've met the sweetest, prettiest queens who tell me "Well, I'm a transsexual. Sometimes I call myself a transman because both my trans self and my manhood are me."
New friends tell me about the sexcapades their closed polycule gets up to that they just watch because they're a kinky ace.
There's staunch lesbians who helped the love of their life transition as a transmasc, gay men begging to be topped by trans men with the fattest tits.
Older queers don't hesitate to shout "oh, like Prince!" when I tell them I'm androgyne. Vanilla questioning men will text me day after day before shyly confessing I'm their dream guy. Closeted trans women ask to kiss me because I'm their dream girl. Doms and subs who melt when they realize I'm both and neither, and they didn't know somebody like me existed.
There's vanilla lesbians on Grindr and acearos who have shown me love deeper than I thought possible and guydykes kissing girlfags and MtFtMtX elders and throuples that have so much affection that they just collectively parent babygays who got disowned.
Everybody is so beautiful! There is so much love! It is no wonder a cruel world has a vested interest in suppressing queerness when humanity is so expansive to us.
I also want to make it explicit that not only are these real people, but like. This is explicitly about people I know across the spectrum of race, ability, and more. Including me, a fat cripple!
Queerness is not the exclusive domain of the thin, the white, and the ablebodied. If you are any of those things and can only picture queer people like you? You need to ask yourself why.
That's why I'm making this addition. It is on me as a white person to make the room for queer BIPOC that is vehemently, violently denied. And I did not make that room in the original post.
Intersectional and lateral aggression kills. There's no "community" without U and I.
This article documents the severe and ongoing specimen neglect I witnessed over 12 months working at Florida State Collection of Arthropods. FSCA actively solicits donations, then picks and chooses what specimens to care about based on individuals' personal favorites. The rest are left to rot.
Please take a look and consider sharing this, it's extremely important for people (especially in science, taxonomy, natural history, museum curation, etc) to know how and why scientific material is being lost.
According to sources familiar with the Florida State Collection of Arthropods, many specimens are deteriorating.
tumblr puritans have never spoken to a kinky person and you can tell this because they talk about ~scary~ kinks like a child who thinks their teacher sleeps at school. they have a 1700s "actors cannot be trusted for they engage in obscene behavior" mindset. yes lil buddy people can in fact roleplay situations and then exit that roleplay and have different thoughts and actions 🤗 adding sex to performance does not actually cast a magic spell that turns you into a monster incapable of morality <3
If I say "Nooooo don't kill me!!!" while LARPing, my friend is still gonna whack me on the head with their foam battle axe bc that's what I want them to do. If I actually didn't want to get hit on the head, I'd say "WHOA WHOA WHOA TIME OUT TIME OUT" so they'd know I'm serious.
In the same way, if I say "Nooooo don't spank me!!!" and my partner still spanks me, THAT'S FINE. I want to get spanked, and I'm just playing along. It would only be a real problem if I were to say the agreed-upon safe word, the word that actually means no, and still get spanked.
Your friend enjoying pretending to kill you in a safe and consensual enviroment where they know you are also having a good time does not mean they actually want to axe murder people.
And in the same way, your partner enjoying safely spanking you in a safe and consensual enviroment where they know you are also having a good time does not mean they actually want to beat you up
so many professors have thee worst fucking complex about their jobs bc they have fully bought into the fantasy of the university as some kind of noble enlightening force and this is often why they're such cunts to undergrads lmao. condescending to students, refusing to take late work, acting like they're teaching some grand life lesson by failing students who will now have to pay more tuition to make it up. and half the professors aren't even good teachers because it's not even what they wanted to be doing as a career; they're just researchers with a nasty attitude. you can often see this outright glee pervading posts they make on social media for example, bemoaning, like, the fact that student no. 8474 didn't care about the topic of today's lecture and is only here to get a degree. and it's like uh yeah, you work at the class barriers degree institution lmfao. like these people truly think they're god's gift to The Youth and that they're performing some kind of essential social service by enforcing cultural hegemony and class division. and btw when grad TAs have this attitude all of the above applies and also they're class traitors lmfao
this is why i don't care if undergrads use chatgpt to write essays btw. you are a bootlicker for real if you see that behaviour as some kind of deviation from the noble social goals of the academe. and it's sooo clear the actual reason many faculty care about this is because they perceive anything that makes a degree easier to get as a threat to their own professional prestige!
"i wish i could do something 😔 / i wish the wga had a kickstarter or a gofundme, i would throw money at it" good news! it's amazing how you can literally go onto the wga strike website or the wgawest linktree from their twitter and find links to support writers and other workers affected by the strike
I just contributed to THE SNACKLIST to support Entertainment Workers!
PPSA is a nonpartisan group of U.S. citizens who advocate for greater protection of our privacy and civil liberties
in government surveill
Hey! Please sign this petition against KOSA or Kids Online Safety Act. This bill will endanger children and teens instead of protecting them. It will grant state attorney generals too much power over the internet, and it will do more harm to the youth and the internet as a whole
The Hertiage Foundation has also openly stated they will use it to censor all queer and trans content
It allows right-wing AGs to censor LGBTQ+ content in the name of "protecting kids".
This doesn't protect kids. This actually hurts kids even more.
It will snuff out LGBTQ+ spaces and makes the internet more of a dangerous place for them, more or less...
"Of course, like so many of these “bipartisan” anti-internet bills that have bipartisan support, the support on each side of the aisle is based on a very different view of how the bill will be used in practice. We went through this last year with the AICOA antitrust bill. Democrats supported it (falsely) believing that it would magically increase competition, while Republicans were gleefully talking about how they were going to use it to force websites to host their propaganda."
"Now, with KOSA, again you have Democrats naively (and incorrectly) believing that because it’s called the “Kids Online Safety Bill” it will magically protect children, even though tons of experts have made it clear it will actually put them at greater risk."
KOSA will also undermine privacy in the name of "protecting children".
"This bill would effectively place many internet services behind an age verification wall, prevent anonymous surfing, and would require all users – adults or teens – to verify their age before they can access information or content.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association supports the enactment of comprehensive privacy legislation at the federal level, but has concerns about KOSA’s duty of care, vague requirements that would prevent teens from accessing critical information, and compliance provisions that conflict with current trends toward data minimization."
Age verification technology is just not secure enough for usage at the moment, leaks are likely to happen, it will be especially dangerous if the leaked Age verification information has a government ID linked to it. That would mean that malicious individuals may get a hold of personal addresses, bank details, basically you'll get doxxed by the government...
You may be asking, "well is there anything to do about it?"
Of course there is, but we really need your help spreading awareness around, because the bill is most likely to pass this June!
This website was put together by Fight for the Future. It has everything, from petitions to calls scripts. It's very easy to understand and use and one of the best links to spread. I urge you to use this when calling your members of congress. All you need to do is put in your phone number once and read off the script provided and it does the rest for you.
https://www.badinternetbills.com/
Signable petitions and open letters;
Thank you for signing onto this open letter to stop KOSA and ensure the privacy, online safety, and physical, digital, and mental wellbeing
KOSA is a censorship bill that won’t make kids safe. Instead, it'll put all internet users at risk, especially youth. If you believe in a fr
The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) would censor the internet and would make government officials the arbiters of what young people can see on
KOSA is a censorship bill that won’t make kids safe. Instead, it'll put all internet users at risk, especially youth. If you believe in a fr
KOSA isn't what you think it is.
If you live in the states, call your state representatives;
Call Script on Page 2! Resources For Learning about KOSA 2023: KOSA bill itself: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/1
Joinable Discord server;
Check out the Stop Internet Censorship community on Discord - hang out with 1109 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.
More information;
Linktree. Make your link do more.
I have to say again and I am not exaggerating, this is URGENT the bill could be passed THIS MONTH!
one thing to miss about porn on tumblr is how ridiculous people acted like. there was this one catfish on here who would steal other people’s dick pics and pretend they were all him. he’d post circumcised one day and uncut the next like… sir.
URGENT: Congress about to pass a mass censorship and surveillance bill under the guise of "protecting children"
May 13 2023
The Senate has been in a "do something!" mode regarding children's online safety. They're using this as an excuse to push for widespread internet censorship and surveillance. The EARN IT Act, has a slimmer chance of passing with widespread opposition and some senators saying they won't vote for it. TLDR;The real threat is actually KOSA (s.1409), the Kid's Online Safety Act, which will mass censor and surveill the entire internet by giving all 50 state attorney generals the power to remove content that is "harmful" for kids, and force you to upload your govt ID online to access the internet. I'll explain how it works below the action items but it's absolutely urgent that anyone who likes having a free and open internet fights back. It's all hands on deck, because this has so much public support it's insane:
HOW TO FIGHT KOSA
CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES & THE COMMERCE COMMITTEE
This is a link to the Senate Commerce Committee phone numbers and a call script to read off of. (202) 224-3121 connects you to the congressional hotline
Opposition is getting drowned, and these upcoming weeks will be heavy for lobbying and they're using young people to do it. We NEED to show these senators that young people are actually opposed to this and don't want it.
2. Sign these petitions
Open Letter Against KOSA
Petition 1
Petition 2
Petition 3
Petition 4
Resistbot: Text PHJDYH to 50409
3. Spread the word.
The opposition is getting absolutely drowned online. Dove has nearly 100k signatures to push for KOSA. Influencers on tiktok are pushing for this without ever having read the bill. Fucking Lizzo is sponsoring it. If you have twitter, reddit, tiktok, are in any community, SPREAD THE WORD, PLEASE.
Here is a linktree with all the above petitions for easy shargin: Link to linktree
HOW KOSA WORKS
First, KOSA pressures platforms to install filters that would wipe the net of anything deemed “inappropriate” for minors. This means instructing platforms to censor. We saw how these filters impacted websites firsthand with tumblr in 2018, with not only blocking all adult content but also sfw queer content such as suicide hotlines, art archives, wiping out entire blogs because they had queer fandom related posts, etc. Places that already use content filters have restricted important information about suicide prevention and LGBTQ+ support groups. KOSA would spread this kind of censorship to every corner of the internet. And who gets to decide what is and isn't harmful for minors? Oh don't worry, just every single state attorney general and the FTC, which is appointed by the president. You know, the same attorney generals that just banned gender-affirming healthcare under the guise that it "ruins mental health" of minors. This is why the Heritage Foundation was one of the first to sponsor the bill because they can use it to censor trans content, and Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee is it's co-author.
Second, KOSA would ramp up the online surveillance of all internet users by forcing websites to use age verification and parental monitoring tools. Yup, that's right. Now every single person who wants to access the internet has to upload their govt ID online to third party apps that get hacked all the time. You queer in a red state? You undocumented? You an activist? Have fun getting all your online activity and metadata attached to your govt ID.
Over 90+ human and LGBT rights groups agree that KOSA is dangerous and updates to the 2023 version won’t and can’t address the big problems with the bill. This bill has MASSIVE bipartisan support, and the authors Blumenthal and Blackburn (yes, that Blumenthal that's pushing the EARN IT Act, and who also sponsored the RESTRICT Act and SOPA/PIPA if you remember) are using the tragedy of mothers who lost their kids to online harassment and young adults who've been traumatized online to lobby for it, and got Dove the company to use a bunch of influencers to push for this under the guise it prevents eating disorders...I wish I was lying. There are already 30 co-sponsors.
It is all hands on deck. I'm dead serious when I say if this bill is passed it is the beginning if not end of the open and free internet.
USAmericans: This pride month, talk to the queer people who actually live in all those bad evil icky red states and find out what it's actually like, how we actually feel about it, and who here is actively fighting against it. No more telling us to "just leave" or reducing us to innocent victims who are "trapped" here. There are so many of us and we live here for so many reasons, none of which should be justified. We are resilient, we are powerful, and we are fighting against the fascist laws working to eradicate us or scare us away. Being trans in a red state right now is in and of itself an act of resistance. That being said, pay attention to the brave souls on the front lines, pushing against the laws, making good trouble, and refusing to be silenced.
I won't let myself be talked about like I'm stupid to live here.
I won't let myself be talked about like I'm a helpless victim who's trapped here.
If you can't join the fight by standing beside us, then the least you can do is empower us, amplify our voices, and pay more attention to the ones who are FIGHTING AGAINST THESE LAWS than you are to the chucklefucks trying to pass them.
It's really wild to me how little fireflies have been studied, with how charismatic they are. I can barely find photos online or any information at all on most species, and videos? Forget it.
They barely even get any attention from conservation public outreach.
A staggering number of people who grew up without them actually don't know that they're real. I don't know why on earth they think media set in real life just completely invents glow in the dark insects, I guess maybe they just don't even stop and question how weird that would be??
But even among the average person who is familiar with fireflies, relatively few know the basics of what they are, that they're beetles, that they're carnivorous and that the larvae depend on a diet of snails.
I have not seen them in a long time. I used to see them every summer. I live in the same town as I grew up in. It's possible there's something in this exact spot that noms on them or something, but I'd think I'd see them now and again. So I worry that they're gone.
I hold out hope that someday I'll see a few, like I used to.
Don't despair. Since I got started with my meadow gardening, I've been seeing more than I ever remember. That's what inspired this post—I've been seeing lots of lightning bugs in weird colors and flash patterns that I don't recognize, and it's boggling my mind because I'm certain I would have remembered seeing them before.
They like shrubs and bushes, big trees, ponds, tall grasses and flowers, and fallen leaves on the ground. I've heard light pollution is bad for them, but in areas with plenty of shady trees, they seem to do all right even with traffic and stuff nearby?
I'm not sure but I think the fallen leaves are really important.
