& that 1% regret rate is almost entirely “Yes I’m still trans but the surgery was bad, or the transphobia i encounter is so much worse than anticipated, or I was pushed towards a specific treatment by my binary-oriented doctor when I wanted a non-binary transition” etc.
Actual ‘whoops, I don’t identify as trans anymore” cases are closer to 0,02%.
people absolutely get to detransition and retransition and whatever (I personally know about six people who "detransitioned" from being binary trans people, and then transitioned again later as nonbinary people, for example) but the idea that a small number of people going "oops got this wrong" somehow justifies gatekeeping everyone else is criminal, and mostly a deliberate ploy to block us from getting what we need
Friendly reminder as we head into tax season (for US Americans), that the major tax preparation companies are fully prepared to lie and mislead you into paying for their tax preparation software when you might qualify for free software through the IRS.
Don’t fall for their bullshit. Visit IRS Free File and see what services are available to you. The requirements vary depending on your household status and income, but if you make less than $79,000/year (which is nearly everyone I know), you probably qualify for something.
Hey you know what sucks is predatory companies that make you enter your email address so that they can harass and advertise to you to access resources you might need to keep track of expenses after a disaster. So, uh, fuck them.
If you need to track the cost of things like hotel stays, pet kenneling, medical care, etc. after a disaster you can use this worksheet.
If you need to create an inventory of your home for an insurance claim (and if you'd like to do this to keep someplace safe before a disaster) you can use this worksheet (two pages, instructions on the first page, worksheet on the second).
And here's a FEMA document with numbers for disaster relief groups and a checklist of documents that you may need to have replaced as well as a description of what to do if you had cash in your home that was destroyed and can possibly be replaced.
Bringing this back because there are a ton of people who are going to need it. A lot of stupid bullshit disaster recovery companies will be reaching out to people whose homes burned down. A lot of people whose homes burned down will be searching for resources that come from websites that require them to give up personal details in order to get worksheets and tools.
These are free documents you can download to keep track of disaster recovery expenses or make a list for insurance claims.
I know people are exhausted and frightened and not thinking about stuff but start a folder in your email for receipts for things you're paying for right now so that you can fill out these forms later.
Don't enter your info on a random website or you're going to start getting calls from scammy companies.
And here's a story from the LA Times with advice for people who lost homes or businesses during the fire; one of the primary pieces of advice is DON'T RUSH. Take your time to make decisions and look over any paperwork that anyone wants you to sign.
If you need to send people a link to these documents that isn't a tumblr post they're collected here on my website with links to archive.org instead of gdocs.
Demand the Telegraph Remove This Ableist Article Defaming Disabled Influencers
Hey friends, if I can ask for a moment of your time and ask you to sign this petition.
The Telegraph recently posted a horrifically ableist piece about chronically ill “influencers” (most people involved would consider themselves advocates), blaming chronically ill people for dropping employment numbers by “normalizing worklessness” and insinuating that visibly disabled and chronically ill people online are only doing so for monetary gain.
I’m not going to link to the article because I don’t want to give it any more views or clicks but you can feel free to look it up yourself. There are also excerpts from the article included in the above petition.
The journalist involved, Natasha Leake, intentionally lied to the influencers involved, claiming she supported what they were doing and wanted to raise awareness about their conditions. Needless to say what was printed was not supportive and the people involved are devastated.
And if you’re thinking this sounds like a rehash of something the BBC did a few years ago when they tried to pit disabled people against chronically ill people and made insinuations about “sickfluencers” being in it for the money, you’d be right.
Same old shit, different media outlet.
There has been a huge push back in media against chronically ill and disabled people over the last few years, in part because our governments are moving more toward fascism and they want you to feel apathy towards the neglect and suffering their policies cause. The media is a tool of this.
Please don’t let us be the only ones fighting back against it. No matter how healthy and abled you currently are, you are just one bad accident, one unexpected illness or fluke of genetics away from joining us.
Please spread and sign demanding that the Telegraph remove this defaming and ableist article and issue a public apology. Thank you 💖
This is called the "analog loophole" and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it. They can encrypt and copy-protect all they want, but eventually the file has to be sent to a speaker and/or screen, and it has to get there in a human-readable form because that's the whole dang point
The simplest way to exploit the analog loophole is just pointing a camera at a screen or a microphone at a speaker, but direct recording is also always possible and always will be. Anything that can be displayed can be saved and displayed again
Back in the day, people also used to share software over the radio with this technology. Because computer programs and files are really just sets of binary code, and that code can be turned into audio tones.
The resulting audio file can be played over the radio (sounding a bit like the old dial up noise, as it's just two quickly oscillating notes) and recorded to a cassette tape, which you can then give to your computer to "decode" back into 0's and 1's, which gives you the program file. You can then run it as if you'd installed it from a disk.
my favorite thing about this post is all the people who chose to use the default icon defending themselves in the notes like no stop it just put a picture up
"someone who really has pOCD would be disgusted and horrified at their intrusive thoughts" or maybe i'm in therapy & am going by the books, being radically ambivalent to my intrusive thoughts instead of wasting energy mentally washing my paws of sin. i'm not going to perform my rock bottom for you for the sake of being believed.
The health insurance industry has a term for this sadistic practice. It's called "step therapy." If the choice is between a more expensive medication that works and a cheaper one that doesn't work as well and might have worse side effects, the insurance company requires that the cheaper drug be used first.
One benefit to the insurance company is that the patient on the cheaper drug might die before they get a chance to use the drug that works but is more expensive. That's money in the bank for the insurance company.
Or, the patient might be so worn down and harmed by the cheaper drug that they just give up the fight to get the drug that will help them. Again, that's bank for the insurance company.
Can't even describe how many times the latter has occurred to me. It's fucking exhausting.
You CAN get exceptions sometimes but the insurance company can just...decide to change their mind, or not honor it, randomly. Or force you to renew it.
My BF gets monthly harassing letters from United pressuring him to go on a medication that doesn't fucking exist. "Friendly" of course, very "Oh heyyy bestie, we're your cute little gatekeepers, tee hee, and we noticed you were on this dumb little druuuug, so icky and expensive. But how about this other one, the generic? Yeah. It hasn't actually been made available yet or anything, this has been an issue for moooonths but it'd be great if you could swiiiitch. We just enjoy making sure you make the best decisions and would love it if you just, like, became unable to hold the job that gets you insured with uuuuuus." *Intense vocal fry*
Good news for people in Illinois, step therapy will be banned starting Jan. 1, 2025! And prior auth for mental health crisis inpatient stays, and junk insurance. It’s the first state to ban step therapy, and won’t be the last (I hope).
lllinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed into law measures to block insurance companies from shortchanging consumers on their medical needs.
And in 2026 will require insurance to cover a name brand medication if the generic is experiencing a shortage.
SPRINGFIELD – Relief from drug shortages is coming soon for Illinoisans with prescription medications, thanks to a new law championed by Sta
If you're facing step therapy rejections for needed medication, tell your provider about steptherapy.com, which is an organization connected to the National Psoriasis Foundation, one of the conditions that deals a lot with this. They provide state by state breakdowns of protections against step therapy requirements that don't help you or don't make logical sense. They also provide forms tailored to each state's specific protective law if one exists and give your provider a straightforward way to state why you need a therapy over its bullshit alternatives. It's concise, to the point and very strongly worded.
I use this at work daily and it's improving our hit rate in fighting step therapy requirements for diseases where a failed step in step therapy means permanent, degenerative harm to their body (not even including mental anguish from having to go through a failed therapy to receive necessary care). If you're faced with shit like this, advocate for yourself as much as you can and go down swinging in the appeals process (every insurance in the US is required to provide an appeals process for denials, you CAN win in there with your doctor's help) if you gotta.
