The angry goat on a roof who only respects one man

I'm Max, and I'm an autistic queer trans dude (he/him/his), proud freak, I'm a giant nerd and mildly exhausted. Millennial.

[copperbadge]

It’s been the kind of day that culminated in my telling someone moments ago that the date was the fifth of Wednesday.

I hope you all have a really good fifth of Wednesday. 

[latveriansnailmail]

you fool

you just created another tumblr holiday

[copperbadge]

Bold of you to assume that was not my intent!

[jacyevans]

Happy Fifth of Wednesday everyone!

[sorryimamagpie]

Omg I almost didn’t see this in time

[mnemonicpneumaticknife]

Running any cheap sex holoprogram featuring Starfleet knock off characters:

"Oh no, I'm from a society that's abandoned currency based economics! is there any other way I can pay for this?" 🥺👉👈

[mnemonicpneumaticknife]

The two types of reactions you get from Starfleet types:

wow, that is inaccurate and offensive. I can just ask my government to wire me local currency and they'll give it to me.

I do this all the time. One time I did it to get parking validation on a shuttlecraft I landed on official ship business.

[kathartic-kat]

There was something that a trans masc friend told me that truly hit me so deep in my gut that I can't ever forget. This was before I interacted much with the online trans community or even other trans people much at all (outside of close uni friends).

It was that his whole life being seen as a women, he was never taken seriously, ignored, called whiny and dramatic. And now as a trans men, he gets the exact same treatment but from within the community as much as without. And he's expected to just put up with it because if he gets angry and fights back, he's immediately portrayed as the angry man who takes the angry hormone (testosterone). But up until that point, he's a whiny, insecure little bitch every time he dares to ever speak up about his experiences and problems.

[sentimentalslut]

crazy that cats enter Absolute Baby Mode milliseconds before enacting swift and fatal death upon their enemies

[sentimentalslut]

pov: you are a mouse or perhaps some sort of varmint and you are about to Meet Your Brutal and Gruesome Demise

[sentimentalslut]

she bit me .1 seconds after these photos were taken btw. i have met a varmints fate. if u even care.

[70sscifiart]

Taglines from science fiction covers

[hyperlexichypatia]

If making kids do things is a violation of autonomy does that mean my parents shouldn’t have been making me brush my hair, even though I hated it but I also let the knots just clump on my head to the point of pain? For the record, I look back on that and see my child self as in the wrong. What’s to stop kids from refusing to bathe or take basic care of themselves if they have that level of autonomy so young?

Okay, let me go from the general to the specific, here.

An important concept in discussions of law, public policy, etc. is the distinction between something being generally permitted and generally forbidden. The key difference is between something people are generally permitted to do, with specific exceptions and regulations, and something people are generally forbidden from doing, with certain exceptions. Right?

So in the U.S., and in most countries, parents and guardians doing whatever they want to their children is generally permitted. Unless there is a specific exception carved out (a specific law, or a specific court ruling, or a specific challenge to those parents by social services), parents can do whatever they want to their children. By contrast, children exercising bodily autonomy is generally forbidden. Children have no general right to their own bodies except under specific, narrow circumstances.

That's a problem.

Now, a recurring theme that I talk about with youthlib, psych abolition, radical liberal socialism, and other stuff I believe, is that coercion is inherently harmful, even if it's necessary.

Like, sometimes a decision has to be made for someone who can't communicate (a baby, an unconscious person, etc.), and that's necessary -- but it's still harmful. And it's important to know that. That's just an important starting point. Because knowing that coercion, even in limited circumstances where it's necessary, is still harmful, means that it's important to minimize it.

What I'm longwindedly saying is that I want to flip the script around children and coercion.

Instead of "Is it justified to coerce a child in XYZ circumstance?" I want to ask "How can a caregiver meet a child's need with minimal (or if possible, no) coercion?"

So. To get at your question. What are some alternative ways to prevent a child from getting knotted hair that don't involve coercing them? Explaining the dangers of knotted hair so they understand it? A wide toothed comb that hurts less? A short haircut?

[nitpickspot]

And if the child won't agree to any of those even broadly no matter how often or patiently you explain it to them? Some (most) kids would just respond

"It won't hurt" 8000 times in a row

[hyperlexichypatia]

I strongly disagree about "most" kids, but also, I answered that question (check the youthlib tag).

[standwithdaanes]

as an autistic person (unrecognized as a child) who frequently had knotted hair as a kid because i didn't brush it regularly, having adults in my life actually seek to understand my sensory needs and my struggles with executive function, and also my struggles to communicate my actual experiences in ways that were immediately easy for them to hear, would've helped immensely with so many issues. it’s not always entirely a parent’s fault as an individual because many are never equipped with the kind of skills or perspective needed to navigate these issues without coercion. but that’s why we need to talk about it being possible and necessary.

my mother was told by soooo many people that she simply HAD to force me to eat foods i didn't want to at against my will, otherwise she was a TERRIBLE mother who was letting her child be a picky brat and malnourished and it was for the best. as a child i asserted in the ways I could that I knew what I would like and dislike and that I physically could not eat certain things, and I was traumatized over and over again by my family. and now my mom is really pissed at all those people because she contributed to that unnecessary suffering for years based on people INSISTING that she just HAD to violate my autonomy for “my own good” based on their perceptions of what children are like and what you “need” to do to them.

we spent all this time and energy focused on how to force your children to do certain things, and how you just have to disregard their autonomy and experiences and perspectives for their own good, and we spent a fraction of that energy (if that) on teaching people how to talk to and engage with their kids like they are people, and solve problems that arise with caring for young people in non-coercive ways.

everyone should read colonial reports written about indigenous people in the eastern woodlands of North America, whose culture of freedom was such that they were extremely “permissive” with their children & with people who broke the law) and yet even colonizers who viewed their liberty-centric culture as demonic and barbaric described that “somehow” their societies functioned better than the coercive, hierarchical societies of Western Europe:

In 1642, the Jesuit missionary Le Jeune wrote of the Montagnais-Naskapi: "They imagine that they ought by right of birth, to enjoy the liberty of wild ass colts, rendering no homage to any one whomsoever, except when they like. They have reproached me a hundred times because we fear our Captains [rulers, kings, chiefs], while they laugh at and make sport of theirs. All the authority of their chief is in his tongue’s end; for he is powerful in so far as he is eloquent; and, even if he kills himself talking and haranguing, he will not be obeyed unless he pleases the Savages." In the considered opinion of the Montagnais-Naskapi, however, the French were little better than slaves, living in constant terror of their superiors. Such criticism appears regularly in Jesuit accounts; what’s more, it comes not just from those who lived in nomadic bands, but equally from townsfolk like the Wendat. The missionaries, moreover, were willing to concede that this wasn’t all just rhetoric on the Americans’ part. Even Wendat statesmen couldn’t compel anyone to do anything they didn’t wish to do. As Father Lallemant, whose correspondence provided an initial model for The Jesuit Relations, noted of the Wendat in 1644: "I do not believe that there is any people on earth freer than they, and less able to allow the subjection of their wills to any power whatever – so much so that Fathers here have no control over their children, or Captains over their subjects, or the Laws of the country over any of them, except in so far as each is pleased to submit to them. There is no punishment which is inflicted on the guilty, and no criminal who is not sure that his life and property are in no danger …" [...] Wendat ‘captains’, as Lallemant then goes on to describe, ‘urge their subjects to provide what is needed; no one is compelled to it, but those who are willing bring publicly what they wish to contribute; it seems as if they vied with one another according to the amount of their wealth, and as the desire of glory and of appearing solicitous for the public welfare urges them to do on like occasions.’ More remarkable still, he concedes: ‘this form of justice restrains all these peoples, and seems more effectually to repress disorders than the personal punishment of criminals does in France,’ despite being ‘a very mild proceeding, which leaves individuals in such a spirit of liberty that they never submit to any Laws and obey no other impulse than that of their own will’.

(from The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Wengrow and David Graeber)

this way of life is not some entirely modern abstract hypothetical that has never been tested against human reality. we have lived this way, by these values, before, and we can live this way again.

[booksandchainmail]

is there anything as good as lying in a sunbeam

[gobusto]

telling the truth in a sunbeam #honesty

[computationalcalculator]

[mikkeneko]

AI tool use is becoming mandatory for more and more roles at my company, unfortunately including mine, so I've spent the last week or so undergoing training courses and practice exercises for Claude Cowork, and here is my conclusion:

Congratulations, you made a computer that cannot successfully count to ten.

[mikkeneko]

claudd Cowork perfec t size for put personal financial data inside for a\nalysis! inside very Safe and Convenient financ data consume put data in Claude Cowork. Put Personal Financial Data In Claude Cowork. no problems ever in clode cwork because Anthropic is Friend who will take sososo good care of your data trust <3 Cowwork yes a place for a data health data put financial data in cowok mouth can trust claud for giveing good work to data. friend cowork

[appendingfic]

so as someone who isn't required, how do they know you used ai to do work?

[mikkeneko]

Each person's account is given 'credits' which are centrally tracked and if you aren't using any they ask why not.

[canuckerrant]

[fleshdyke]

currently thinking abt ted or whatever his name is

[fleshdyke]

one of the most important posts ever i believe

[rimonoroni2]

what people don’t understand about how adhd is disabling is that it’s not just getting temporarily distracted from, like, school work or hobbies. it’s getting distracted/being unable to motivate yourself to go to the doctor, eat regularly, do hygiene tasks, etc. it’s not knowing when or how long it will take you to do something, ANYTHING, and in many cases that thing is taking a shower or keeping your house from turning into a biohazard. it’s about being fundamentally incapable of controlling your attention and focus on anything, even and especially things you need to do to survive.

[pangur-and-grim]

pigeon that looks like a seagull btw

[velvetvexations]

"but Vicky you identify as a sissy and fakegirl"

And would I still, in a world where completely ordinary binary women were allowed to look like me? I don't think so. It took a very long while to develop that. The only people telling me I'm stuck being ugly and undesirable forever are the ones who insist I have something to be insecure about in the first place. Persnaps if I were not put into a position where my traits are inherently considered masculine I would not have felt the need to embrace that fact to the extent which I have. Maybe if people had more often told me what I look like is perfectly womanly on it's own I wouldn't be calling myself anything other than a woman.

[anti-transmisogyny-hub]

A moment of silence to the trans women & transfems who never got to live authentically.

(PT: A moment of silence to the trans women & transfems who never got to live authentically. /end PT.)

To the ones who spent their entire lives in the closet.

To the ones who were out, but existed before the time of modern silence, and spent their lives unsatisfied yearning for a physical transition.

To the ones who were out, but too poor to access the resources needed to live happily, or lived in a country where it was illegal.

To the ones whose lives were stolen from them due to transmisogynistic violence before they had the chance to spread their wings.

To the ones whose lives were lost due to other forms of violence, accidents, or illness before they had the chance to soar.

To the ones who never felt safe enough or hated themself too much to accept their transness, and died in denial of who they were.

[3liza]

for years, the game Project Zomboid has pissed me off because approximately half of the female zombies i kill and loot have a "strapless bra" in their inventories. i believe this is casually misogynistic (in a negligent way, not a malevolent one) because most normal women in real life wear strapless bras maybe 4 times in their entire lives, generally to rare events like weddings or prom, and at almost no other time. ie, i will never just be hanging out in my house in a tshirt and jeans with a strapless bra on. never. so i am making this poll to email to the devs when i submit my second complaint about the strapless bra loot table drop rate. you can assist me by voting and reblogging. i added a bunch of options just for fun but the bra/no bra/strapless bra are the big three.

if YOU were turned into a zombie right now, and I caved your head in with a shovel, what kind of bra would i find on your corpse?

WOMEN: what kind of bra or chest undergarment are you wearing RIGHT NOW?

no bra, nothing under my shirt, or entirely topless

"NORMAL" bra: cups, shoulder straps, rib band, underwire or no underwire

STRAPLESS bra

sports bra

binder

bralette or similar item

binding tape, ace bandage or wrap

nipple tape or pasties

compression shirt or bodysuit

tank top/undershirt/bodysuit/leotard of some kind but no "bra" per se

i am not a woman but it's important that i get to participate

i dont have a torso, i am the Fresno Nightcrawler but i want my vote to be count

Remaining time: 5 days 21 hours

i am only half serious about this, but i am going to email the devs anyway. politely. because it does bother me. vote Fresno Nightcrawler for “none of the above”

[cassili]

[thegayneapigs]

taking a break from their daily shenanigans to enjoy a treat and some lap time 💞

[cloudabserk]

i know adrian is widely headcanoned as green. but they could really be any color