I just post my thoughts and experiences as an aroace! :) Asks open for questions and anything aro/ace you might want to get out šš Header by @r-i-v-e-r
in new zealand, our evil government are trying to legislate definitions of women and men, in ways that are legally incoherent but clearly trying to pave the way for more horrifically transphobic legislation. we have an election in a few months but our main opposition party, and all our mainstream news media, are so spineless and cooked that there's a good chance the ghouls will win reelection.
it took 2 whole months for local terf group 'speak up for women' to get 2,000 signatures on the petition that led to this new bill in our parliament.
it's taken five days for this pro-trans 'they don't speak for us' petition to get 17,000 signatures.
this is a show of support that is really heartening for a lot of trans people in our corner of the world.
cis/ish women, if you're from here but haven't signed yet, please do. and if you're not from here and you know any new zealanders, could you send them this petition? a full fifth of our population lives overseas, and there's a good chance they don't follow the news.
Although not going by the term "asexual" yet, asexuality was spoken about alongside homosexuality as far back as the 1890s. Asexual history is just as vital to queer history as any other term and I'm so tired of watching us being treated like a new thing
I'm seeing warnings about scammers trying to commission artists but the "reference sheet" for their character they want commissioned isn't an image but a .vbs file ("visual basic script"), and will run a script when you open it, probably to yoink your account(s), but I haven't seen this from anyone who's actually clicked it yet. Just be careful and never open a file like that, 'cause people suck.
Subscribestar quietly updated their TOS yesterday to ban a load of previously allowed content at the behest of payment processors. There are no safe platforms. This will keep happening and we have to fight back.
The government is asking for public comments on whether banks should be able to deny you from buying legal goods at their own whim (i.e. how they're cracking down on art, Substar, itch, Patreon, etc)
This is your chance to tell them directly that you don't want to be told how to spend your money:
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington DC.
āØ Guidance on submitting an effective comment per the Free Speeh Coalition via ECR News:
"YES it's a good idea to comment on this as ero creatives. the FSC is also submitting a comment. Summarized advice from the FSC (from their lobbyists) was that you should tell your story/explain why the issue is important to you, and ā most importantly ā clearly say what you want the Fed to do about it. In this case, eliminating "reputation risk" from the Board's supervisory programs."
Before anyone suspects this is only going to benefit republican institutions, remember that last year the OCC specifically named adult industries as a sector facing unfair debankment.
Please leave a comment as so many others have done already! Artists need you and you're going to need you too because they never stop with what you personally find distasteful. They are insatiable and you will watch your livelihoods, what you love, disappear too.
Corporate Glossary: every Friday, learn the secret meaning of common corporate words
āTheyāre trying to discharge her constructively. Do you know what Constructive Discharge means?ā She asked.
As soon as I heard the term āConstructive Discharge,ā I knew Iād never seen it on a vocabulary quiz.
āNo. What does it mean?ā I asked.
She explained.
āConstructive discharge is a fancy way of saying ābeing forced out.ā Itās not good. And if youāre not a lawyer or in human resources, youāll probably learn what it means when itās happening to you.ā
āOh my God. Iāve seen this my entire career and never knew it even had a name.ā I thought.
Youāve seen constructive Discharge too. You may have experienced it. Weāve all made choices to avoid it.
Constructive discharge defined
āWe canāt fire you, but weāll make you so miserable youāll quit, and then we wonāt have to pay your unemployment.ā
Then thereās the textbook definition:
āA constructive discharge occurs when your employer has made working conditions unbearable, forcing you to resign.ā
Or as one person put it.
āI didnāt get handed a pink slip, but when youāre not wanted, people have a way of letting you know.ā
HR isnāt always the secret police.
Employees arenāt always victims of evil-doers.
However, employers push employees out all the time to maintain and protect the, āWe didnāt do anything wrong, YOU did,ā power structure.
Constructive Discharge looks like this:
ā Meeting invitations slow to a trickle, and youāre excluded from emails and generally looped out of whatās going on.
ā People stop talking to you or stop talking when you walk in.
ā Your emails donāt get answers, or they arrive too late to be of value.
ā Suddenly, your work is not good enough, though nothing about your work has changed.
ā Reviews, once good or even glowing, are now mediocre or bad.
ā Instead of a bonus, you get a Performance Improvement Plan.
ā Warnings and write-ups start so they can justify your eventual termination with documentation of your āpoor performanceā
ā Your work, clients, assignments go away, or they overwhelm you with work.
ā The words āSet up to failā were practically invented to describe this scenario.
Constructive Discharge is illegal
It isnāt easy to prove youāre a target, and itās even more challenging if you donāt even know constructive discharge is a real thing.
If youāve ever experienced this and donāt fully understand whatās happening to you beyond knowing youāre in the process of being excommunicated, it can be hell. Itās not uncommon for the experience to leave long-lasting scars.
Talk to anyone whoās ever been through it. Theyāll tell you.
Knowing constructive discharge exists and how itās used gives you power to predict whatās coming and to protect yourself.
Seeing the endgame helps you in two ways.
You know what to expect.Ā Having a sense of whatās coming next is enormously empowering.
You can go on the offensive and protect yourself.Ā Constructive discharge works to crush your ego, making you feel you did something wrong and deserve this treatment.
Without strategy, you end up being a miserable pawn in your employerās endgame.
Remember, theyāre almost certainly building a case to fire you in the event the hellscape they create for you doesnāt persuade you to quit.
If youāre getting pushed out, and you know what to look for you can prove constructive discharge and you can get unemployment benefits, be released from payback obligations on a signing bonus, and protect your mental health.
Youāre not crazy, incompetent, or a failure. This is real and itās carefully executed to leave you holding the bag and feeling like you did something wrong.
If they force you out, in addition to feeling horrible, you lose your paycheck, benefits health insurance, and possibly owe them money.
YES-AND. IF YOU HAVE NEVER READ A SINGLE ADDITION I HAVE MADE TO A POST, READ THIS ONE.
In the US, you have A FEDERAL RIGHT to communicate to your boss that you see what theyāre doing, and by so doing, YOU RETAIN YOUR RIGHT TO UNEMPLOYMENTāEVEN IF YOU QUIT!!!
Hereās how it works.
1) go to work tomorrow and read the employee rights poster. By law, theyāre required to have one, and theyāre usually located in the breakroom. It looks something like this:
Usually, this will be posted next to a state labor laws poster, as well. (Also required by law, but I have seen them posted in two separate locations due to a building having a stupid wall layout, so if you donāt see both, do some poking.) There are a few different styles of these posters, but theyāre all basically variations on a theme, so you should be able to recognize yours from the image posted above. Iāve read them hundreds of times in the last eight years, just to keep my memory fresh. If you donāt see such a poster, contact your state labor board, because that is VERY ILLEGAL. The law is unambiguous on this: the poster must be posted in a highly-visible (to employees) location that is readily accessible. Not in your bossās office, not in HR, not on the back of the fridge. Highly visible, readily accessible, REQUIRED BY LAW. If you have to contact the labor board on this one, skip straight to step 2b while youāre at it, because your boss is up to some shady shit.
2a) now that youāve had the primer of your rights as an employee, if everything is good for you, great! Keep an eye out and revisit these from time to time to be sure youāre not missing anything, especially if things start feeling rough. If things are NOT good for you, progress to 2b.
2b) if you suspect youāre the target of constructive discharge, DOCUMENT. EVERYTHING. Dates too, if you can remember them, although if youāre trying to remember āas far back as you can goā when you begin to document, your dates might be a little hazier. Ask for personal hard copies of any consultations, write-ups, improvement plans, reviews, etc. and so forth that you receive. YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO THIS DOCUMENTATION. Keep all of this in a file. If any of your coworkers make comments on whatās happening to you, note those down too: āon 1 July I called to inform my supervisor Iād be late due to an unexpected flat tire. I arrived six minutes after my shift was due to begin. I received a corrective action form. My coworker Linda commented that she was surprised, because although this is my first tardy in over three years, other employees with repeated, significantly more severe tardies do not receive corrective action forms. My supervisor did not explain why he felt I required this form after a single incident of tardiness.ā If you know what youāre being asked to do is illegal, MAKE THAT CLEAR IN YOUR DOCUMENTATION. āAfter hearing me mention to Sarah that I was hoping for a raise, supervisor Paul asked to have a one-on-one and required me to sign a form stating I would not discuss my salary, in contravention of state and federal law.ā
3) when you feel you have sufficient evidence that Some Bullshit Is Afoot, itās time to write to your HR department. Instructions on how to do this will be on that poster (sorry, Iām home and getting ready for bed, I donāt have this part memorized), but basically youāre going to be telling them that conditions have deteriorated such that you may be forced to resign if they donāt improve. Note that the phrase āforced to resignā is IMPORTANT AS HELL. Make sure you keep a hard copy of this letter for yourself.
4) You now have to give them 10-14 days to read, respond, and implement changes (I forget the exact number of days but itās in there somewhere). CONTINUE TO DOCUMENT.
5) best case scenario, they realize they done fucked up, and things will change for the better. More likely scenario, you have to quit. HOWEVER, if you have followed all of these steps correctly, you can still claim unemployment.
6) now go contact the IWW for information on how to start talking union to your coworkers before it gets this far: www.iww.org
And finally, a note because this has happened to me and statistically either has or will happen to some of you:
If at any time the poor conditions should escalate to include sexual assault or harassment by a supervisor, DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200, CALL THE LABOR BOARD IMMEDIATELY. Make an EXACT record of what happened: write down statements verbatim, if you were touched inappropriately make note of exactly how and where, if you were offered any kind of quid pro quo (e.g., a promotion in exchange for oral sex; sex in exchange for continued employment) make note of EXACTLY what was offered and asked for. It is 100% okay to call the labor board and say āI donāt know what to do, my boss groped my breasts today and told me heād have a talk with his supervisor about my pay rate āif I was niceā. Please tell me what to do, Iām afraid if I quit Iāll lose unemployment.ā Someone will be able to help you. In cases like these, do not wait. This is also true if youāre blatantly racially or religiously discriminated against. Please note when I say āblatant,ā thatās a much higher standard than what Tumblr understands as blatant. If your boss says youāre pretty cool for an N-word, call. If your boss makes a disparaging comment about doo-rags, document and hold your horses for now. (Is that a microaggression? Yes. Is that something the labor board will find actionable? Not on its own.)
Stay safe out there. Donāt let the bastards get you down.
I have been through this, so let me add some tech-industry specific advice:
If youāve been placed on a Performance Improvement Plan, ask for digital and hard copies of the plan that have been signed by HR.
If you have the strength to do it, accept the PIP, and indulge in malicious compliance. Do everything exactly as itās outlined in the PIP document and nothing more. Overachieving against a PIP wonāt help your situation, but donāt quit.
Keep copies of every email and message related to your PIP on a separate USB.
Find your company handbook. It is probably hidden somewhere on an internal website. Save a copy to the USB so you can research it for ANYTHING that might help you negotiate with HR at the end.
Keep all of your notes on the same USB.
Always assume your work computer has spyware on it.
None of this will help you keep your job. Remember that. All of this is to help you negotiate with HR when itās time to review your PIP performance. WHEN they say you didnāt meet the goals that were outlined, refer to your stack of documentation and give specific examples of where you met those goals. Ask HR what the next steps are. Your ultimate goal is to make HR suggest that you and the company part ways.
DO NOT AGREE TO THAT MAGIC STATEMENT. Thatās when you start negotiating the terms of the company letting you go. The things I politely demanded AND GOT in writing:
3 months salary.
All remaining vacation time paid out.
Continued insurance coverage for 3 months.
A guarantee of a good reference if any potential employer asked for one.
A guarantee that the company would not contest my unemployment claim.
After all of that was signed and I had digital and physical copies of that paperwork, I told HR that my last day of work would be the following day. Remember that at that point, you donāt owe them anything, including two weeks notice. Say your goodbyes and walk away.
gosh, this would have been handy to know while I was still trying to maintain my sanity in an increasingly hostile workplace environment
I was lucky enough to have allies elsewhere in the organization who helped me transfer and keep doing the important parts of my job (and greatly expand the good stuff!), but at least a decade of hell wrought such psychic damage that I doubt I'll ever fully recover
like bitch why you care if I dont wanna get down with it with somebody or not wanna kiss 'em, that aint none of yo business. Ive got a lotta rage in place of where that sex drive went so come and get me motherfucka
Grim forensic accounting by Gazaās Civil Defence teams in Gaza have documented 2,842 Palestinians who have āevaporatedā (leaving behind no remains other than blood spray or small fragments of flesh) since the war began in October 2023.
Experts and witnesses attributed this phenomenon to Israelās systematic use of internationally prohibited thermal and thermobaric weapons. The investigation identified specific US-manufactured munitions used in Gaza that are linked to these disappearances.
Starting to notice that aro/ace people are only included in the queer community (at least from what I see on tumblr) like a little sibling being given an unplugged controller when the big kids are playing a video game and want to make the little one feel included without actually letting them play.
Sure, they include the ace and sometimes the aro flag, they mention us, but a lot of them don't actually want to hear from us. Aphobia isn't taken seriously, nobody actually wants to reconsider their worldview to fit aspec people in, aro/ace characters are either sidelined, or completely erased (and no this is not about them being interpreted as favorable because that's still aro/ace representation, full stop. This is about fans completely ignoring aspec identities), favorable people aren't seen as actually being aro/ace and repulsed people have to walk on eggshells lest they get called puritans, aro/ace headcanons are deemed "infantilizing", inclusion is just a headpat and some generic "you're valid" talk and we can't even express any frustration about romance and sex being everywhere without the risk of being called homophobic.
Signs of a heart attack are different for each gender yet we only really teach the male warning signs. Make sure youāre aware of both and spread it to as many other women as possible!
EVERY SINGLE TIME I HAVE TAKEN A CPR CLASS I have had to be that person who points out that the training videos ALWAYS frame theĀ āmaleā symptoms as the default universal heart attack experience, while theĀ āfemaleā symptoms are framed as though theyāre a deviation from the norm, rather than the primary symptom set that cis women experience.Ā
ALSO:Ā I just showed this post to my roommate, who is an MD at a clinic that specializes in care for the LGBT community in the Baltimore area. I asked herĀ whether hormones were responsible for the difference in theĀ āmale/femaleā symptom arrays. I asked how that would apply to her trans patients (which, she treats a LOT of trans patients). She said, basically, that the longer youāve taken testosterone the more likely you are to get the intense chest pressure and the arm pain, versus the upper back pressure and shortness of breath.
Obviously I am not a doctor myself, consult your own health care provider, etc.
Reblogging this comment because this is the FIRST TIME Iāve ever seen someone address what XYZ medical condition would look like in trans patients. Also this is partly why my great-grandma died: the (male) doctor dismissed her heart attack as basically indigestion, because she didnāt have the typical male symptoms.
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