a place for posts I want to look back at later to reference. some things may seem contradictory. that is because many issues have multiple points of view and I want to digest them in my own time. while most of the stuff I reblog to here I do agree with, a decent amount is also stuff I don’t know enough about to have a solid opinion on and I want to learn more.
I have to add that gender euphoria for cis people doesn't always come from like, conforming to your gender in a "stereotypical" way
I've always been very comfortable with my gender but I didn't Really Like being a woman until I cut my hair short and started dressing/presenting more "masculine."
When i realized that I could look "manly" as a woman I truly felt comfortable and really...more "like" a woman. I enjoy being masculine and it strengthens my connection to womanhood and it's just kinda cool
witnessed this in real time after giving my then-3-year-old daughter a pixie cut. Once people started assuming she was a boy, because at the time she was neck deep in a spiderman phase, she started having symptoms of gender dysphoria. Both of her moms being under the trans umbrella, we could recognize it very easily. She started wearing exclusively pink and dresses after that and she's never looked back. She still loves short hair but opts for a bob instead.
Redditor "Mags_Smash" recently complained about seeing McAfee pop-up ads on his PC despite never having installed the antivirus suite. He ev
Redditor "Mags_Smash" recently complained about seeing McAfee pop-up ads on his PC despite never having installed the antivirus suite. He eventually traced the ads back to another app that his new LG monitor had installed without his knowledge.
After connecting one LG UltraGear 27GP83B monitor and two 27GN800s, Mags_Smash found that at least one of the panels had installed an "LG Monitor App Installer" via the Microsoft Store and Windows Update.
LG monitors are now installing unwanted ad-driven software via Microsoft Store & Microsoft Update. Basically, Windows auto-recognizes the new device then 'helpfully' installs drivers to make the thing work.
But the manufacturer is building ads into their stuff, which Microsoft blindly passes along. I bet if you read the LG TOS you "agree" to this behavior when you buy the monitor.
Note that it's not the monitor phoning home, it's a byproduct of how Windows self-updates its drivers. The monitor itself has no wifi or internet connection. There is nothing to block. It's also not Microsoft explicitly being dicks, as they're simply installing the manufacturer's recommended software.
There is a man in my neighbourhood. He doesn’t live here, he owns a building that his wife runs a business in. He lives in a more affluent city outside this one. This man fights *daily* against the community fridge, saying that it draws homeless people to the area. For context, I live in this neighbourhood, and work at a business two doors down from his wife's. This area has homeless people *regardless*. They were here before the fridge, and they'll be here after. Food-based businesses in the area love the fridge, it helps us not have waste and lets us help people in our community - win/win.
The city is currently building affordable housing down the street. These units are for people who have been homeless, and are putting their lives back together. They aren't *just* off the street - say that's level one of rebuilding. These units are for people around level four. They have found jobs, they are working to have normal lives again. This man is fighting against this with every breath in his body, lobbying the councillors, reps, endlessly screaming at the BIA (Business Improvement Association) meetings, canvassing other businesses on the street - he won't stop yelling about how this is just going to be a crack den. It isn't. It's supported housing that works with the city and programs. Everyone else knows this. But this cis white man, every time no one agrees with him, screams louder. He doesn’t want homeless people to be visible, and he does NOT want them to be helped to get homes.
The people who are gonna move into the building thus far are lucky that the majority of us in the neighbourhood are not like this man. But it's just luck. There are lots of neighbourhoods full of people like this man.
Once in a BIA meeting someone asked him if he'd be happier if the community fridge was moved two blocks down. He said emphatically yes.
Way to admit you just don't want to look at people you deem less than you. Oh and this guy also keeps arguing that the landlords in the neighborhood should have more say in decisions, that their opinions should outweigh mere residents'.
Y'all, I effing hate this guy. I want *him* to leave. Ugh.
don’t argue with or challenge the delusion—attempting to disprove someone’s delusions is not helpful at all and will result in that person not trusting you
assure the delusional person that they are safe; be open and honest at all times
encourage them to verbalize their feelings and offer protection to prevent injury to themselves or, possibly, others
start building a trusting relationship with them rather than acting on a desire to control their symptoms
do not confirm or feed into the delusion by asking questions about it when the person is not experiencing a psychotic episode
what it does not mean:
insisting to a psychotic person experiencing psychosis that what they’re experiencing isn’t real
I don’t mean to trivialize psychosis by making a weird comparison, but this guide also serves as a handy checklist for helping someone through a bad drug trip. In both cases your number one priority is to get the person through whatever they’re dealing with unharmed.
i don’t think it’s trivializing at all, nor a weird comparison—as a psychotic person who has had psychotic episodes inadvertently triggered by drug use and/or worsened while trying to self-medicate with drugs, i think this is an important addition.
"hey y'all HRT actually does change many of the characteristics we associate with the sweeping concept of 'biological sex' from the cellular level up and it's important to your health, self image, and understanding of your own body. Your body won't completely overlap with a cis body but your overall physiology will be way more similar to cis people with your dominant hormone than it will be to any previous sex of your body"
CHOOSE YOUR RESPONSE
[transphobia] fucking delusional tranny, this has gone way too fucking far. We need to ban all of this fucking chemical mutilation. Ban this gender healthcare crap.
[reasonable centrist] but gender and sex are different? You can't change your sex? *Throws hands up* I just don't get it anymore!!!! We just need to ban this gender medication stuff until we figure this all out.
[average person] okay but I wouldn't fuck a tran. In fact they're lying by existing. We just need to ban those hormone things so they stop lying about themselves.
["ally"] we need SO much acceptance in our society, so that these poor, misguided souls don't turn to HRT. I know that HRT is the absolute LAST resort before killing yourself, so it breaks my heart to say this, but you need to accept reality, sweety: you'll always be a biological male. If this is making you think this way, maybe we just need extra precautions on giving these nasty hormones out, like banning it until we can sort this whole thing out.
["trans affirming"] okay but this is kind of bio essentialist, are you saying that people only become their gender when they take HRT? You're just trying to affirm yourself using bioessentialist constructs, we all know that the REALITY is that gender and sex are different and you can NEVER change your sex! You'll always be an AMAB and nothing you can do can change that. In fact, it's kind of problematic to be suggesting experimental and dangerous medication to people. We really just need to ban HRT because it's stealing all of our men AMAB women with diverse expressions!
[actually understands my fucking point] yeah, you don't need HRT or medical intervention to be trans, but it's worrying how much the queer community has internalized essentialist rhetoric It's really a shame that medical literature leaves trans people behind in so many ways. Sex and gender are two separate things, each made of thousands of components that are often malleable. Essentialism has taken its root deeply in the queer community and it's a damn shame. It also poisons so much of the rhetoric, because maintaining a sense of "biological sex" that is binary and not malleable allows people to disguise anti-trans laws using AGAB language and/or "biological male". It's also worrying that people excuse this as a petty issue or a source of "validation", because this is the actual language being used by lawmakers across the world to justify transphobic laws, destroying both intersex and trans people's futures. This applies beyond HRT, acknowledging that people not on HRT may choose to change individual components of their sex or may have attributes generally associated with one sex or the other. It's a complex problem, but the first step is acknowledging that "biological sex" is way more complicated and dynamic than anyone wants to admit
[Cis man you matched with on a dating app] okay that's cool but can I have a picture of your dick. Also ban those hormone things but only after I see your tits
I mean yeah I'm strawmanning in the moment and these aren't based on specific people but I've seen some variation of all of these multiple times. So uh. yeah.
God I hate the complete and utter lack of understanding of how HRT and how sex works amongst cis people.
It's like even if I could magically swap my sex chromosomes right now it wouldn't actually do anything as far as medical transitioning as it wouldn't change my hormone production to estrogen.
I would still need to take hrt to see those changes happen as it's what tells the cells to change the instructions they are following.
Trans people don't even understand this. If there were extensive genetic technology to give you your desired set of sex characteristics, they wouldn't change anything.
What DOES cause changes? Well, your entire life is a series of signaling pathways, telling genes to turn on and off in sequence as you develop. Everyone already has the full set of genes to make "male" or "female" stuff, it's just a matter of grabbing the right signaling molecule, and applying it as a way of shutting on or off those genes, and then gene expression causes cell changes causes body changes and...
Hey. If people aren't aware, Microsoft admitted they know who you and where you are at all times and will give your info to the police.
They have a Global Device Identifier (GDID) Tracker that functions as a fingerprint for your PC that can surpass VPNs, proxy servers and countries. Although it can't survive a clean reinstall of Windows (it can survive updates), because Microsoft forces you to go to the internet and log in into a Microsoft account, they will be able to get to you.
Microsoft kept it secret and it was only found out when the FBI tracked a hacker thanks to the information Microsoft gave them.
You should be paying attention to this, and possibly consider moving away from Windows. If a government, especially the US government, doesn't like you for some reason, this could be seriously concerning.
This article specifically notes:
For journalism, activism, or domestic abuse situations, skip Windows and use Linux routed through Tor instead of a commercial VPN. A GDID doesn’t care which VPN you use, only that it’s still the same Windows installation.
GDID is the persistent Windows ID that helped FBI trace a Scattered Spider hacker despite VPNs. Here's how it works and how to limit it.
Other important quotes:
What has researchers uneasy is everything else the case reveals. Costin Raiu, a well-known malware researcher, asked on the Three Buddy Problem podcast how much of this exists on other platforms, and whether it is linked more permanently to hardware. Matthew Hickey, another security researcher, called Windows “surveillance software”.
Two things back that up:
There’s no consent screen. A GDID gets assigned when you sign into a Microsoft Account. Apple’s advertising identifier needs an App Tracking Transparency prompt and a visible reset; Android’s works the same way. GDID has neither, and a Windows reinstall only gets you a new number Microsoft can still get back to the same account.
Then there’s activation. Massgrave, the group behind Microsoft Activation Scripts, notes that Windows setup sends hardware info to Microsoft and gets identifiers back, the same tokens later used for Store access and licensing: “It’s impossible to prevent Windows from getting a GDID without breaking activation and UWP app[s].” Anyone who lost a license after swapping a motherboard has already met a smaller version of this.
There's this notion that being able to stream professional theater shows will hurt the industry, because people won't go to the effort to support live theater anymore, and this is based on the anxieties of the film industry, but live theater isn't a film. The better analogy is sports.
Look me dead in the eye and tell me that people being able to sit at home and watch The Game -- the fandom that encourages, the ongoing investment over the years, the memories and traditions of Watching the Game with family and friends -- harms the ticket sales of real live go-to-the-stadium sports. Of course it doesn't. Of course all that *is the reason* that people care so much about sports they'll invest a small fortune on not only tickets but often travel costs to be part of it all in person. And the people who aren't doing that *can't* do that and weren't going to regardless, but their at-home participation and investment still boosts the profile of pro and NCAA sports as cultural institutions.
Maybe it's possible to fall in love with film and be immune to the romance of Going to the Cinema such that you'll just freely choose the same film in the comfort of your living room. It's not possible to fall in love with something that happens live and not want to be there to experience it. The consequences of procasts, for theater just like for sports, can only be A) more people motivated to make live theater part of their worlds, aka more money, when theaters everywhere could desperately use more money, or B) more love. Which is worth arguing for because reasons I assume I don't have to defend.
“The common-sense racist imagery of the white working class which we have illustrated here was shaped by their involvement in Britain’s imperialist expansion. Without wishing to prejudge the issue, there are a number of areas where we feel that further research might yield valuable information on this history. Certainly those periods in which race becomes a salient feature of British politics require further investigation. (We are thinking here, for example, of Elizabeth I’s 1596 communiqué telling her Lord Mayors to send ‘blacks forth of the Land’ and the repatriation of some blacks to Sierra Leone in 1787.) Similarly, the various histories of the working class that have been written, have been written largely without reference to black people. At the moment, then, it is not clear whether white workers merely colluded in racist practices at work, or whether they actively instigated them. As we have seen white workers were, by the beginning of this century, quite prepared to organize against blacks; but how were they implicated in the order of ‘The Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen’ of London (October 1731),[57] which stated that ‘no Negroes shall be bound Apprentices to any Tradesman or Artificer of this City’? What was their reaction to this piece of news? The contradictory outcomes of the eighteenth-and nineteenth-century struggles for popular education must also have a bearing here. Obviously, the mere fact that the expansion of ‘schooling’ was carried out under bourgeois rather than proletarian hegemony, would not of itself explain the prevalence of racist ideas amongst the working class. Nevertheless ‘schooling’ is an important site in which relations of dominance and subordination are reproduced,[58] and as such would be one more place where racist ideologies coming ‘down from the top’ could become embedded in working-class common-sense. How many generations of little white children, for example, have been encouraged to pity or despise the ‘poor little black children’ at the other end of the Empire? and what would they have made of the ‘little black Sambo’ stories with which they were entertained?”
—
Errol Lawrence - Just plain common sense: the ‘roots’ of racism
Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies - The Empire Strikes Back Race and racism in 70s Britain (1982)
for those unaware today india experienced one of its biggest protests in half a decade. there were protests all over the nation for various causes but the major one was in delhi. all we asked for was the resignation of the education minister because he's failed the students of this nation time & time again. but we were met with brutality, the police had barricaded the main site of protest (jantar mantar). metro stations were shutdown, the public was restrained from reaching the protest site and all the adjoining areas had signal jammers to make sure the crowd had no access to constant updates. they had us blocked from all the sides. they were lathi (baton) charging students from one side & releasing tear gas from the other. you couldn't walk 100 m on streets without having a tear gas shell thrown at you. there were many students, women & kids bleeding — some from their head. some couldn't walk anymore. the police had removed their nameplates & acted with full impunity to resort to unprecedented levels of violence. they were pelting stones at us, beating up people for no reason, forcefully detaining them and attacking us constantly with tear gas & rubber bullets. they wouldn't let you exit either. the crowd was peaceful & looking out for each other yet they were met with violence. i made a friend who was all alone & she asked to join me & my friend because a policeman wouldn't leave her alone. he constantly prodded her for personal info, invited her back to the jeep saying they have food there, wouldn't stop following her around. you couldn't call or ask anyone for help, we were left to fend for ourselves & be on a constant lookout if you did not want to be beaten up to death by police. all for what? asking a resignation? shame on this country.
Responding to the crackdown on protestors in New Delhi demanding accountability in the Indian education system, Aakar Patel, Amnesty Interna
The protesters, led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a youth-led movement, are demanding accountability over alleged examination paper leaks that affected millions of students.
While on hunger strike in support of the protest, activist Sonam Wangchuk was forcefully shifted by the Delhi police to a hospital on 18 July. He was on his 21st day of hunger strike when he was admitted to hospital against his wishes.
On 20 July, protesters marched to the Parliament of India to demand the resignation of Union education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan.
Social media users have shared videos and accounts alleging that Delhi Police threw stones at protesters, used excessive force by beating demonstrators with batons, and fired tear gas grenades at peaceful protesters.
In May 2026, allegations of a question paper leak in the NEET-UG examination (India’s medical school entrance test) led the testing agency to cancel the exam results, requiring more than two million students to retake the test. The decision sparked widespread protests, and local media reported that several students died by suicide amid the intense stress and uncertainty.
The protesters are also seeking INR 1 crore (USD 104,050) in compensation for each of the families of students who died by suicide allegedly following examination related distress linked to the leaks.
seeing news about the fallout remaster announcement feels like cruel irony to me
microsoft games are a bds boycott target, and because both bethesda + obsidian are owned by microsoft, this includes the games published by them.
microsoft is gonna further profit from a new virtual playground of ~post-apocalyptic bombed out towns in the desert~ while contributing to creating bombed out apocalyptic conditions in gazan towns, by collaborating with israel on so many fronts that bds calls microsoft the most complicit company in palestinian genocide.
and nostalgia-baited fans will still buy it bc playing pretend in a virtual world thats a knockoff of what real life people are currently facing – a virtual world funded by that very suffering of those real life people – is more important to them than simply playing a different game
Supporting your local food bank doesn’t just help your community — it helps the planet.
From the article:
Their metrics showed that — in addition to providing over 1.7 billion meals to 40 million people in need globally — food banks also diverted an estimated 1.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
By intercepting unspoiled food destined for the landfill, and redistributing food from local farms and wholesale produce markets, the 2023 report offered evidence that community-led solutions to addressing global hunger can also help protect the globe itself.
“Nearly a third of the world’s food is lost or wasted at the post-harvest, retail, and consumer levels, never reaching the people who need it,” the GFN team wrote in the report.
“Food loss and waste proves costly for producers, takes up space in landfills, and emits harmful greenhouse gases, intensifying climate change.”
Reading this was one of those "oh duh!" moments for me. Despite being aware that food systems and food waste are major sources of fossil fuels, I had mentally placed food banks in a "addressing non environmental problems" category. But of course, food banks make our food system more efficient and less wasteful by making the most out of the food was have already produced.
This is just another example of so many of our problems being connected. Donating to a food bank doesn't just address food insecurity, it's also a powerful force for reducing food waste and carbon emissions.
and this isnt even an english phenomenon, it is worldwide
The connection between football and domestic violence isn’t uncommon. A study shows that police receive increased calls reporting domestic violence every Sunday during football season [iii]. Researchers analyzed over 700 cities and counties using data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) of police reports, revealing that these spikes are linked to teams losing a game [iii]. In fact, domestic violence incidents rise by about 10% on days when NFL games are played, usually occurring in family homes and most of the time affecting women [iii]. This shows that the outcomes of football games can have a real impact on people’s lives off the field. It’s important for fans, teams, and communities to recognize these patterns and work together to raise awareness and prevent domestic violence from happening, especially during football season.
NFL games bring people from all over the United States together to show their love for the game, creating an atmosphere where diverse cultur
when i say the sports-industrial complex should be destroyed im not indulging in goofy hyperbole
prev tags: #okay but like you get that this isn't the sports fault right#this is just very clear evidence that men have been trained to beat their partners in place of any other form of emotional self-regulation
“Because the truth is, tech doesn’t have an image problem. It doesn’t have a message problem. It has an intention problem. What’s wrong with the axe murderer who broke into my house is not that he hasn’t successfully persuaded me to buy into his narrative. What’s wrong is that he’s trying to kill me with an axe. Similarly, when you launch a product that’s designed to put millions of people out of work, block access to sources of verifiable truth, replace human creativity with slop, and lower the barriers to every sort of atrocity, the problem isn’t that you haven’t told the public a good story about those things. The problem is that you are trying to do them.”
NPR has learned that the Department of Health and Human Services will not be finalizing its most aggressive attempt to end gender-affirming
"The Trump administration is abandoning its most aggressive attempt to end gender-affirming care for youth nationally, according to an official document obtained by NPR.
The document shows that the Department of Health and Human Services will not be finalizing a proposed rule that would have blocked all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide pediatric gender-affirming care."
I think about The Man of the Hole so often. 27 years alone. 27 years with no one to speak to but strangers to wave to. Survived a genocide, a massacre that killed everyone he had ever known and later, an assassination attempt. He still tried to warn researches about the traps he built. He was only about 60 when he died in 2022. The people who tormented him in life later desecrated his grave.
I do think it is important to share the stories of the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island and Ishi and the countless other indigenous people who experienced the profound trauma of being the last survivor but it is important to remember that the last Aboriginal families in Australia to be contacted by Europeans were resettled in the 1980s and the Indian government has proposed a plan that will mean total genocide for the Shompen people. The total eradication of indigenous peoples, their cultures, their languages, their ways of life, is not something which occurred in a distant ugly past but an ongoing process.
