The Burger still gets made, even if you go Vegan. If you don’t buy it, it just winds up in the trash. If you want to do something meaningful about waste, you need legislation: It must become a crime to waste food in those ways.
If you care about Animal Cruelty in Factory Farms, you need to get legislation passed. It must become a crime to mistreat animals in those ways, and when malfeasances occurs, the onus of responsibility for those crimes must fall upon wealthy shoulders. That, also, requires legislation. It requires regulations, and regulators.
The largest source of Microplastics is wear and tear on automobile tires. It doesn’t matter what brand of shampoo you buy. It doesn’t matter which company you support with your dollar. The issue of Public Transit is too large-scale to be handled at anything less than the municipal level.
It’s not enough to just not participate in society
If you want the world to Change, you must leverage the mechanisms of political power.
you tell a psychiatrist you feel a lack of control and autonomy in life and it makes u want to harm yourself and they go “100 years of the lack of control and autonomy place for you” and its like. considered a good thing by many.
so cool how advanced the algorithm has become, it literally only takes like a decade or more of spying on all my internet activity and then it can expertly curate a selection of 15-20 youtube videos that i don't really want to watch, and then keep showing me those videos over and over again for a week so i can scroll past them again. the future is now
so do people know that multiple trans people across the US have reported that their pharmacists have arbitrarily denied them testosterone prescriptions, either because "you need authorization" or "company policy" or, in states where its legal, because they don't feel comfortable giving it to them.
i wouldn't be surprised if its also common for this to happen with estrogen, i found one news story on a trans woman experiencing this, but looking it up there seems to be a LOT of cases of this happening with testosterone. which makes me suspect people feel empowered to do this with T in particular because of its criminalized status. regardless, i do not see this brought up much! and i think we should discuss it more, at the very least to prepare people in case they experience this, so they know how to handle the situation.
examples below the cut for length:
Walgreens says pharmacist was uncomfortable with injection method
For Tristan Martin, a 34-year-old trans man living in North Austin, that fear became a reality last week when a Walgreens pharmacist refused to fill his testosterone prescription.
Martin says his pharmacist’s explanation for not filling his prescription was that she was uncomfortable with the doctor’s instruction that the medicine be administered subcutaneously, meaning as a shallow injection under the skin. But, as Martin explained to the pharmacist, he’s taken the same meds for four years, with the same method, and never heard such an objection. Plus, Martin said that the pharmacist was only being asked to provide the testosterone itself, not the equipment necessary to administer it. He later attempted to reach Walgreens’ pharmacy department and store manager to ask about the situation but wasn’t able to reach anyone and never got any calls back.
A store employee told the Chronicle they could not address the dispute. Tristan’s wife, Hayden Martin, said she received an apology from a Walgreens regional healthcare supervisor, after the supervisor contacted her on May 23. “He said there was absolutely wrongdoing and that it’s going to get figured out,” Hayden said. “He said he was going to reach out to the higher-ups and he’s going to let me know by Friday what happens.”
Hayden Martin told us she was able to contact the pharmacist in question two days after the refusal to fill the prescription. “She would not give a reason as to why she felt the doctor was wrong,” Hayden said. “And she said, ‘I’m not comfortable filling it for ‘her.’ So automatically the assumption is that it’s just an issue of her not being comfortable with the fact that it’s testosterone for a trans man. So I, of course, asked her if this was the reason – because he’s a trans man – and she got very defensive and denied it. And then I tried asking for her name and her license number and she said, ‘Well, that’s not important information.’”
Walgreens Pharmacist Denies Gender Affirming Meds, But Other Options Exist
Recently, one of our readers, who wishes to go unnamed, sent us the following email:
On the 24th when I went to pick up my testosterone prescription at the Walgreens on Lomas & Carlisle, I was asked by the pharmacist why I took it, and when I told him it was gender affirming, he told me he wouldn’t fill it going forward… I want other trans+ folks in our neighborhood to know that this is not a safe pharmacy (I don’t regret reacting by sobbing loudly in the middle of a Walgreens, but I don’t want anyone else to have to go through that), and I want all our cis neighbors to know that this is a thing that is happening.
We reached out to the Walgreens location, and the person who answered (and who we will keep anonymous) confirmed that there is a pharmacist on staff who refuses to fill prescriptions for gender affirming medication due to their beliefs. However, they clarified that other pharmacists at the location would fill a gender affirming prescription if they were on duty, or the prescription could be filled at other Walgreens locations. Unfortunately, they were not able to provide further information as to the pharmacist’s name or when their shifts might be.
A year after KC investigation, another trans customer turned away from Costco pharmacy
The city’s Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity Department launched an investigation in October 2022 after a Star report about five transgender and nonbinary people who said they were denied their prescribed testosterone at the pharmacy. Costco denied the allegations. [...]
Dave, whose name has been changed in this story to protect his identity as a transgender man, was grocery shopping at the Linwood Boulevard Costco on Monday when he decided to pick up some syringes.
Dave has used insulin syringes for years to take his prescribed testosterone — their thin needles make his regular injections less painful.
These small syringes don’t require a prescription, making them easy to obtain — and Costco offers a bulk pack of 100 at a nice discount compared to other pharmacies.
At first, the transaction was painless: Dave asked for a pack of syringes and an employee asked him his preferred size and gauge. But when he mentioned that he uses them to inject testosterone, the tone of the conversation shifted abruptly.
“They got weird about it,” Dave said. “The pharmacist, I guess, overheard and she came out and she’s like, this won’t work for testosterone.”
Dave explained that he has used these syringes for his testosterone injections for years — and has even bought the same syringes at that Costco pharmacy before for the same purpose.
Insulin syringes are regularly used to inject low doses of testosterone. But despite being an over-the-counter product, the pharmacist insisted that Dave needed a prescription before she would sell them to him.
“She’s like, well, we won’t sell it to you unless you have your doctor call it in,” Dave recalled. He stepped aside to call his doctor’s office, but they were closed for Monday’s holiday. “I didn’t feel like arguing (with the pharmacist). So I just left.”
An assistant general manager at the Linwood Costco said Wednesday that he was not aware of the incident and couldn’t comment on it.
A pharmacy employee said that she and her coworkers are not authorized to speak to the media. A request for comment from Costco’s corporate office was not immediately answered.
Dave called the Missouri Pharmacy Board Tuesday and was told that syringes only require a prescription if they bear the label “for Rx only,” which his syringes didn’t.
Beyond that, he said he was told that the state gives pharmacists discretion over what they choose to dispense, as long as they don’t violate federal anti-discrimination laws.
On a Saturday night two years ago, Stann Fransisco was driving back home to New Mexico after visiting their parents ...
“Criminalization has made it easy for pharmacists to deny my [testosterone] prescription, which has happened to me many times,” Artemis McGettigan, a trans student in Dearborn, Michigan, told Filter. “[Pharmacists] have told me in the past that ‘It’s corporate policy, they’re not allowed to fill that type of prescription … but I knew that was false because other CVS locations, for example, were able to fill it.” A CVS media representative told Filter that its policies “do not prohibit our pharmacies from filling testosterone prescriptions.”
CVS Pharmacist refused to fill my T
I have been on T for coming up on 3 years. I’ve never had any problems with any pharmacy I’ve gone to. I recently had to switch pharmacies and for over two weeks this pharmacist at CVS has given me the run around. “I need to talk with your doctor about why you need it” (which I’ve never had happen before). And then the next day would say “I need prior auth”. It’s been so long without my T that my period came back today and I am freaking out. So I sent a very frantic message to my doctors office. They called me about an hour later telling me the pharmacist sounded fishy and said “I’m not comfortable filling this prescription.” Ok? Your job isn’t to judge my prescription your job is to give me the medication my doctor decided I needed. The doctors office was nice enough to transfer everything to a different CVS close by and even apologized for not getting the pharmacists name. We did call to get his name. My partner is very nice and called corporate to file a complaint and the corporate pharmacist on the phone said that they do have grounds to deny a prescription only if there is not enough info or it’s fake. So they reported it as discrimination. Unfortunately I can’t take legal action or I would. Sorry this is more of a rant than anything. This should be illegal and nobody should work in healthcare if they’re going to gate-keep health. I truly hope this man gets fired. I’m trying to file a report to the state board of pharmacists because he can have his license revoked for discrimination. Thanks for listening.
My pharmacy tried to deny me my testosterone
So I called in my prescription on the 2nd and they told me that it would be ready on the 5th. It’s the 8th today so I called and asked if it was ready yet and the pharmacist told me I needed prior authorization and that my insurance wouldn’t cover it. Thing is, my insurance has covered it for the past two months, which is when I first started T. The pharmacist told me to call my doctor and get the authorization so I did and my doctor said that there’s no issues on her end, no authorization needed, and that my insurance still covers my prescription so she’s not sure why he would say that. I end up calling them back and end up speaking to the lady who took my original prescription and she was like “Oh my god. I don’t know why he said that to you. I’m seeing a refill request but nothing that requires an authorization. I’m gonna send this in today and it should be ready by Friday”. I think it’s hilarious too that when I told him my name, he was like “oh you’re (my grandparent’s names) granddaughter!”
CVS for years refused to sell me the needles I need for my T injections (prescription was not required, but they lied and said one was), would say they were out of stock (not when I see the box right there), loudly asked why I need my T when other patient convos were done quietly or not at all, deliberately gave me insulin needles (I need much larger) or sometimes only 1 needle for a multi-dose prescription. (Even for 1 dose, you should have at least 2 needles -- one to draw with and one to inject.) They also "dropped" my vial a few times.
Any one of these could be ignorance/accidents, but these each happened multiple times from 3 locations.
If your clinic does its own dispensing, I highly recommend switching to that for your prescription. If you are worried about needles, get your provider to include the needle info on the scrip. And if you *really* have issues with the needles, buy them in bulk online.
An autistic man with a special interest in the Harry Potter series has made the decision to value the lives and dignity of his trans friends more than a book about a wizard who grows up to be a cop, leaving you with no excuse whatsoever to keep wearing that Hufflepuff scarf, sources have reported.
Jack Harrington, 38, grew up reading the popular children’s stories, and soon developed an intense fascination with the world of the books, including knowing all about the suspiciously depicted money-hungry goblins, and that one time it was revealed that slavery is commonplace and accepted in the wizarding world.
In spite of this, however, Harrington has recently worked to redirect his interest towards media created by someone less troublingly focused on his friends’ genitalia.
“It was hard to do,” Harrington said. “I really love collecting things, and there’s so much merchandise to collect! But once I realised that it’s possible to collect things in a way that doesn’t make it harder for my mates to go for a piss when out and about, it really was a no-brainer.”
At the time of publication, Harrington was marvelling at the sheer amount of fiction available in the world that doesn’t actively contribute to material harm, and questioning whether you specifically really need that copy of Hogwarts Legacy for your PS5.
call me crazy but I think it'd be easier if surgeons learned how to operate on fat bodies instead of expecting every single fat person to lose weight before getting surgery
I tell a woman with a 9 to 5 office job about the slightly niche speculative fiction novel I just finished and she goes "Oh, that's...interesting. I hadn't heard of that."
I tell a grungy chick I met at a dive bar about the same book and she kinda scoffs and goes "Okay" like I said my favorite show is Sesame Street
why do americans think everyone on the internet lives in the same place as them. just saw someone say honeybees are "not native". not native to where????? the entire planet?????
saw a photo of garlic mustard somewhere on the internet once and americans in the comments were like "fun fact this plant is invasive so you should definitely tear out any you see, WITH THE ROOTS so it won't spread!" whole fucking time i'm living in garlic mustard native range. i don't think i will be doing that.
This drives me absolutely up the wall in r/birdfeeding. Every time there's a picture of a house sparrow, the entire comments are filled with americans talking about them being invasive and how they should be basically killed on sight. But often OP has not provided a location, and house sparrows have a HUGE native range. Here in the UK they're not only native birds, they're on the decline, they need our help and protection.
Me every time I see a post saying that you should destroy your lawn and cram a bunch of native plants as closely together as you can instead. Look, I'm not saying lawns are native to Australia because they're not, but our native plants evolved to burn; they are dry, their leaves are dry, and they're full of oils. If you plant native plants the way Americans tell you to that's a fucking fire hazard and you are endangering yourself and your neighbours next time we have a Black Summer.
tapping onto this, Ry's guide is for a specific part of NSW. Australia is a very very big place and there is a lot of biodiversity. So don't take one guide as The One True Guide because I used to be a ranger and lemme tell you, trying to stuff native plants in terrains they are unsuited for just creates a mess for everyone. Honestly, just google "native planting <your council> " and they will have a guide that is specific to your area.
but on the real though, here is your guide to assyrian rice preparation from your friendly neighborhood assyrian:
start wanting rice. (or, if you are traditional, simply recognize your constant desire for rice.)
measure out two cups of rice. then one more. then two more. then another. this seems fine. you love rice. there is no way that this will backfire on you.
remember that your great-great-uncle’s recipe says it should be soaked overnight.
become consumed with despair.
decide to soak it for half an hour instead, acknowledging that the final product will be inferior and anger your ancestors but will still satisfy your now almost-overwhelming need for rice to be inside your body much faster.
remember that you should have set the water to boil when you soaked the rice. goddammit.
once the water boils, put the rice in until it is half-cooked. the eyeballing or intuitive method is less effective than a timer but that’s how your aunt does it so you feel compelled to meet her standards.
now that the rice has fluffed up, realize how much rice six dry cups really is. holy shit. you’ve fucked up immeasurably.
take a minute to dwell upon your failings.
grease a baking dish with butter. this will never be as elegant as you want it to and your fingers will get greasy, but the slightly shameful, self-indulgent joy of licking your fingers afterwards will make up for it.
pour the rice into the dish. wonder immediately if you actually buttered the dish beforehand and if you’ve just fucked up.
melt approximately one thousand pounds of butter in the microwave and pour it over the rice, pondering your imminent death from rapid-onset arterial clogging. put a small pat of butter on the top to properly gild the lily.
put your pan into the oven, which you have absolutely preheated after your previous lack of foresight. shake the rice once or twice while it bakes to make sure the butter is well distributed. resist the impulse to climb into the oven with the rice. for the last ten minutes, sit next to the oven and count the seconds until it’s done.
remove the dish from the oven. shed a tear or two at the perfection laid before you. if you are dining with others, this is the time to serve the rice while making passive-aggressive statements about how oh no, you don’t need any help, you just made dinner all by yourself, you can serve everyone as well. (this is still fun if done alone, but optional.)
CONSUME THE RICE.
realize that you have eaten half of the dish in one sitting. no matter how much rice you made, this will always happen.
put the leftovers away, if there are any, and enjoy a cup of chai while marveling at the amount of food you have just eaten. if possible, fall asleep in an armchair, sitting up, head tilted slightly back, like a grandpa.
for the rest of the evening, think fondly of how much rice you have in the fridge now and how many meals it will supplement, refusing to acknowledge that you will almost certainly eat the rest of it in a few hours for a midnight meal.
8 tbsp / 1 stick butter (you can reduce this if you don’t want to have a heart attack)
Put the rice in a pot and cover it in cold water and salt. Let it soak overnight. (If you don’t have the time to soak it, rinse the rice with cold water until it runs clear.)
Edit: The reason you want to soak basmati and other aromatic rice before cooking is to preserve more acetylpyrroline, the compound that gives aromatic rice its characteristic scent and flavor. Soaking rice allows the grains to absorb water, which reduces the cooking time, which means less time for the acetylpyrroline to cook off. It’ll still taste pretty good if you can’t do this, but you don’t want “pretty good”, you want mind-blowing, so for that perfect flavor you’ll want to soak your rice overnight. The soaking process also washes away the layer of starch on the outside of the rice, which allows the grains to separate rather than sticking together; this is why you want to rinse your rice thoroughly if you don’t have time to soak it.
Preheat your oven to 325°.
Boil three quarts of water in a separate pot. Once it’s at a fast boil, drain the rice and add it to the water. Boil for 5-7min or until one grain tastes half-cooked, but not soft. Pour the rice into a colander and rinse with cold water.
Edit: This step also helps get rid of any remaining starch on your grains, for perfectly separated rice. If your colander or strainer has large holes, you can put a paper towel/cheesecloth/clean dishcloth on the inside in order to drain your rice. Pour carefully if you’re using a paper towel, though, and put a bowl underneath your colander; I once lost a heartbreaking amount of rice when my paper towel got oversaturated and tore open.
Liberally grease the bottom of your baking pan with some of your butter. Pour the rice on top. Melt the rest of the butter in the microwave and pour on top of the rice.
Bake for 45min. (If you like, cover the rice for part or all of the baking time, but I find it gets less crispy on top if you do this.) Shake the pan a couple times during baking to ensure that the butter distributes throughout the entire dish.
Eat.
Serves four. Can easily be scaled up if needed (or down, but why would you do that?). Best enjoyed with a nice cup of chai.
the start of the confrontation always fries me because of COURSE javert is here to ruin an emotional moment. its his favorite hobby. cant you SEE im crouching over a CORPSE here JAVERT
prguitarman
romaincrisis
theartofmadeline
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