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UPDATE TO TRANSGENDER STYLE GUIDE: AVOIDING INVALIDATING LANGUAGE TRAPS

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Title: The Radical Copyeditor’s Style Guide for Writing About Transgender People: 2.8-2.11: Avoiding Invalidating Language Traps

Speech bubbles contrast the following phrases under the headings “Invalidating language” versus “Validating language”: “Women and trans women” versus “Cis and trans women”; “Students who consider themselves ‘non-binary'” versus “Non-binary students”; “Zed, who identifies as agender” versus “Zed is agender”; “her secret was exposed” versus “her history was publicized”; “closeted,” “stealth,” and “passes” versus “private” and “nondisclosure”; and “an out trans man” versus “openly trans” and “public.”

hedgehog-o-brien

I’ve been on a Discworld re-read for about a year now, and it just struck me how Pterry gets progressively angrier and less subtle about it throughout the series.

Like, we start out nice and easy with Rincewind who’s on some wacky adventures and ha ha ha oh golly that Twoflower sure is silly and the Luggage is epic, where can I get one. Meanwhile Rincewind just wants to live out his boring days as a boring Librarian but is dragged along against his will by an annoying little tourist guy and honestly? Fuck this.

We get the first view of Sam Vimes, and he’s just a drunken beaten down sod who wants to spend his last days as a copper in some dive but oh fuck now he has to fight a dragon and honestly? Fuck this.

The first time we see Granny Weatherwax, she’s just a cranky old woman who has never set foot outside her village but oh fuck now she has to guide this weird girl who should be a witch but is apparently a wizard all the way down to Ankh Morpork and honestly? Fuck this.

Like, these books deal with grumpy, cranky people. But mostly, the early books are a lot of fun. Sure, they have messages about good and evil and the weirdness of the world, and they’re good messages too, but mostly they are just wacky romps through a world that’s just different enough that we can have a good laugh about it without taking things too much to heart.

But then you get to Small Gods, in which organized religion is eviscerated so thorouhgly that if it was human, even the Quisition would say it’s gone a bit too far while at the same time not condemning people having faith which is kind of an important distinction.

You get to Men at Arms and I encourage everybody with an opinion on the Second Amendment to read that one.

You get to Jingo, Monstrous Regiment, Going Postal (featuring an evil CEO who is squeezing his own company dry to get to every last penny, not caring one lick about his product or his workers or his customers or anything else and who, coincidentally, works out of Tump Tower. I’m not making this up).

And just when you think, whew, this is getting a bit much but hey, look, he wrote YA as well! And it’s about this cute little girl who wants to be a witch and has help from a lot of rowdy blue little men, this will be fun! A bit of a break from all the anger!

Wrong.

The Tiffany Aching books are the angriest of all. But you know what the great thing is?

The great thing is that Pterry’s anger is the kind of fury that makes you want to get up and do something about it. It upsets you, sure. But it also says It’s up to you to change all of this. And you can change all of this, and even if you can’t. Do it anyway. Because magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.

It’s the kind of anger that gives you purpose, and it gives you hope. And that concludes my essay about why the Discworld series is so gloriously cathartic to read when it seems like all the world is going to shit.

So go. Read them, get angry and then get up and fight. Fight for truth. Justice. Freedom. Reasonably priced love and, most importantly, a hard-boiled egg.

GNU Terry Pratchett.

malasnakkata

“When a man claims that he would be delighted if the roles were reversed in harassment, he is not actually thinking of what it is like to be a woman walking down the street–he is thinking of what it is like to be a man walking down the street, with all the physical security and social privilege that comes with being a man, enjoying the compliments of what must surely be, in the scenario, women he does not find repulsive or threatening. In other words, a man with this response to street harassment is imagining only a formal reversal of roles, holding constant everything about his experience of being a man except for the fact that he is the object of sexual attention.”

— Mary Anne Franks, How to Feel Like a Woman (via phoebebishopwright)

favedump

Mr. Rogers had an intentional manner of speaking to children, which his writers called “Freddish”. There were nine steps for translating into Freddish:

“State the idea you wish to express as clearly as possible, and in terms preschoolers can understand.” Example: It is dangerous to play in the street.

“Rephrase in a positive manner,” as in It is good to play where it is safe.

“Rephrase the idea, bearing in mind that preschoolers cannot yet make subtle distinctions and need to be redirected to authorities they trust.” As in, “Ask your parents where it is safe to play.”

“Rephrase your idea to eliminate all elements that could be considered prescriptive, directive, or instructive.” In the example, that’d mean getting rid of “ask”: Your parents will tell you where it is safe to play.

“Rephrase any element that suggests certainty.” That’d be “will”: Your parents can tell you where it is safe to play.

“Rephrase your idea to eliminate any element that may not apply to all children.” Not all children know their parents, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play.

“Add a simple motivational idea that gives preschoolers a reason to follow your advice.” Perhaps: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is good to listen to them.

“Rephrase your new statement, repeating the first step.” “Good” represents a value judgment, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them.

“Rephrase your idea a ﬁnal time, relating it to some phase of development a preschooler can understand.” Maybe: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them, and listening is an important part of growing.

Mr. Rogers Had a Simple Set of Rules for Talking to Children - The Atlantic

mswyrr-deactivated20181203

Rogers brought this level of care and attention not just to granular details and phrasings, but the bigger messages his show would send. Hedda Sharapan, one of the staff members at Fred Rogers’s production company, Family Communications, Inc., recalls Rogers once halted taping of a show when a cast member told the puppet Henrietta Pussycat not to cry; he interrupted shooting to make it clear that his show would never suggest to children that they not cry.

In working on the show, Rogers interacted extensively with academic researchers. Daniel R. Anderson, a psychologist formerly at the University of Massachusetts who worked as an advisor for the show, remembered a speaking trip to Germany at which some members of an academic audience raised questions about Rogers’s direct approach on television. They were concerned that it could lead to false expectations from children of personal support from a televised figure. Anderson was impressed with the depth of Rogers’s reaction, and with the fact that he went back to production carefully screening scripts for any hint of language that could confuse children in that way.

In fact, Freddish and Rogers’s philosophy of child development is actually derived from some of the leading 20th-century scholars of the subject. In the 1950s, Rogers, already well known for a previous children’s TV program, was pursuing a graduate degree at The Pittsburgh Theological Seminary when a teacher there recommended he also study under the child-development expert Margaret McFarland at the University of Pittsburgh. There he was exposed to the theories of legendary faculty, including McFarland, Benjamin Spock, Erik Erikson, and T. Berry Brazelton. Rogers learned the highest standards in this emerging academic field, and he applied them to his program for almost half a century.

This is one of the reasons Rogers was so particular about the writing on his show. “I spent hours talking with Fred and taking notes,” says Greenwald, “then hours talking with Margaret McFarland before I went off and wrote the scripts. Then Fred made them better.” As simple as Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood looked and sounded, every detail in it was the product of a tremendously careful, academically-informed process.

witchyfaekin

That idea is REALLY worth learning to talk to the kiddos. Mr. Rogers still has a lot to teach us–especially for our own kids.

lovelustquotes

forestfaewitch

The universe is chaos. Being neat is like herding cats. It’s futile and you’ll only end up exhausting yourself. But neatness can be your calm in the face of chaos.

fandomsandfeminism

I really think hospitals and doctors that work with pregnancy and pediatricians need to make more literature available for how to, ya know, work with kids? Because the more conversations we have about spanking (and how it’s ineffective and harmful and does more bad than good), the more I realize that a lot of people don’t know the alternatives. Or like, anything about child development or where misbehavior stems from.

So, as someone who went through childhood development classes in college, works with kids for a living, and knows multiple people who specialized in childhood education, here are some pointers when you are working with kids:

1. Model emotional response for kids. Children are learning how to recognize and respond to their own emotions. All the way up through high school, children’s brains are still developing, and the emotions they are learning to process become more complex. So with really young kids, the easiest way to help them with this is to model emotional self awareness and self care.

“Oh wow, mommy is feeling angry because the cat made a mess. I’m going to clean this mess and then go sit in my room in the quiet for a short break so I feel better.”

“You know, I am feeling very sad about not going to the park because it is raining. I bet some hot chocolate and a book would make me feel better.”

”Huh, I’m feeling kind of cranky and hungry, but daddy won’t be home for dinner for another hour. I bet I’ll feel better if I eat a little piece apple while we wait.”

2. Understand what causes child frustration and work to preempt it.

-Transitions (from one activity to another, getting in the car, etc) can be stressful, especially if the activity or location they are leaving is fun. Give kids a warning when this is going to happen. With young kids, give them about 5-15 minutes of warning (”10 minutes until we are going to leave the park and go home. Do your last thing.”), with older kids, just give them a time frame. (We are can play at McDonalds for 30 minutes, but then we have to go grocery shopping, ok?)

Not being able to communicate what they want to is frustrating. Babies can learn simplified baby sign language months before they are verbal. Kids may not know the words for what they are trying to say. Be patient and help them find the right words. On a similar note, don’t ignore kids. If you really can’t respond to their question right away because of something else, at least tell the “Yes, I heard your question. I’ll answer you as soon as I’m done talking on the phone.”

Not being able to make choices or having too much choice can be overwhelming. Give kids a limited, reasonable selection of choices. “Do you want apple slices or juicy pears on the side for lunch?” is much better than “What do you want with your sandwich?” or just giving them apple slices. “Do you want to give grandpa a hug or a high five?” is better than demanding they hug grandpa right away.

3. Understand that kids are people to. They will get hungry, tired, an annoyed just like adults do. Sometimes you have to be flexible and give them time to self care. Talk to them, explain things to them, let them be people and not just dolls. “Because I said so” is really unhelpful for a growing kid. “We can’t buy Fruit Loops today because we are already getting Frosted Flakes. We only need one cereal at a time.” is going to do you a lot more favors. “Don’t pick up the glass snow globe. It belongs to grandma and can break easy. She would be sad if we broke it on accident.” is better than “don’t touch that.”

And look, no parent is perfect. No baby sitter, no teacher, no care taker is going to be awesome all the time. And no kid is going to be perfect. They will cry and have tantrums, and not be able to tell you what they need, and be stubborn sometimes. Sometimes they need space, or quiet time. Sometimes they need attention and validation.

But kids learn from every interaction they have, so adults need to make the effort to show all the love, and patience, and empathy, and thoughtfulness we want them to learn.

yesterdaysprint

St. Joseph Saturday Herald, Michigan, April 4, 1891

bogleech

For decades, the medical community has ignored mountains of evidence to wage a cruel and futile war on fat people, poisoning public perception and ruining millions of lives. It's time for a new paradigm.

“Diets do not work. Not just paleo or Atkins or Weight Watchers or Goop, but all diets. Since 1959, research has shown that 95 to 98 percent of attempts to lose weight fail and that two-thirds of dieters gain back more than they lost. The reasons are biological and irreversible. “

chrisco90

Fatsplaining at its finest. I don’t give a fuck when someone chooses to not be healthy, but don’t sit there and make bullshit excuses and blame anything other than yourself and your lack of self control. Take responsibility and own up to it, you’re not fooling anyone.

bogleech

I’m sorry other people’s shapes make you so angry that you pretend science is wrong

mschaos

Obviously this person must think climate change is wrong and vaccines cause autism

runcibility

Author posted some great follow up tweets: https://twitter.com/RottenInDenmark/status/1043141336239497217

end0skeletal

Look at these birbs

constable-connor-deactivated201

R O T U N D

#birbs

thehighpriestofreverseracism

so guys

I just discovered a film.

I didn’t know I needed in my life.

thehighpriestofreverseracism

are you sitting down?

thehighpriestofreverseracism

A Movie.

A coming of age story actually.

a 17 year old Black american girl.

she is muslim.

trying to make sense of it all.

an all Black american cast.

written/produced/directed by a Black american muslim woman (Nijla Mu'min)

Independently produced.

Black love.

Here is the trailer

Jinn (2018)

thehighpriestofreverseracism

Muslim representation that isn’t arab or asian

thehighpriestofreverseracism

Look at the director and the main cast <333333

listen to them talk about the film here

oh-glasgow

Scotland are going to the World Cup!

So proud of our women’s team!

#scotland

watercolourstorm

my problem with a lot of body positivity / progressive beauty culture stuff is that it focuses on expanding the definition of beautiful rather than deconstructing the idea that physical beauty indicates worth. my difficulties with living in a body (and therefore with living, period) often come back to the fact that no matter how tightly i control my body, i am viewed as either object of disgust or object of desire (occasionally both simultaneously). i can never be neutral. i can never be subject. my difficulty with existing would not be assuaged, at least not for long, by winning the game of “beautiful.” winning is not the same as having agency or personhood. we don’t need to change the rules of the game. we need to stop playing.

niknak79

moving-assbanditkirk-blog

whoa canada

someone needs to turn down that sass level

truthandglory-deactivated201409

Two things to know about Canada!

We are smart enough to know hot things should be hot.

We are sorry if you don’t

anotherpapercut

fun story about the reason they do that (at least in America)

once this lady spilled her McDonald’s coffee on herself and ended up getting like 3rd degree burns and since there was no warning on the cup she was able to claim she didn’t know it would be hot (or at least that hot) and won a lawsuit against McDonald’s for $1 million

prokopetz

That’s what the media smear campaign against her would have you believe, anyway. The truth of the matter is that the McDonald’s in question had previously been cited - on at least two separate occasions - for keeping their coffee so hot that it violated local occupational health and safety regulations. The lady didn’t win her lawsuit because American courts are stupid; she won it because the McDonald’s she bought that coffee from was actively and knowingly breaking the law with respect to the temperature of its coffee at the time of the incident.

(I mean, do you have any idea what a third-degree burn actually is? Third-degree burns involve “full thickness” tissue damage; we’re talking bone-deep, with possible destruction of tissue. Can you even imagine how hot that cup of coffee would have to have been to inflict that kind of damage in the few seconds it was in contact with her skin?)

bogleech

Yeah I’m tired of people joking about either the “stupid” woman who didn’t know coffee was hot or the “greedy” woman making up bullshit to get money.

She was hideously injured by hideous irresponsibility, it was an absolutely legitimate lawsuit and the warning on the cups basically allows McDonalds to claim no responsibility even if it happens again. Every other company followed suit to cover their asses.

So they can still legally serve you something that could sear off the end of your tongue or permanently demolish the front of your gums and just give you a big fat middle finger in court. “The label SAID it would be HOT, STUPID.”

elfyourmother

obligatory reblog for the great debunking of the usual ignorance spouted about this case

obligatory mention that the media smear campaign to twist teh facts on this case and get public opinion against the victim was deliberate and fueled by the right wing tort reform movement

it was seized upon to limit the rights of consumers to hold giant corporations accountable for wrongdoing

watch the documentary Hot Coffee, it lays out all of the facts and examines the response to this case and explains why everything you think you know about this case is bullshit, and explains why tort reform is bullshit in an entertaining and informative manner

thepoisonroom

The woman injured in Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants was 79 years old at the time of her injuries, and suffered third-degree burns to the pelvic region (including her thighs, buttocks, and groin), which in combination with lesser burns in the surrounding regions caused damage to an area totaling a whopping 22% of her body’s surface. These injuries that required two years of intensive medical care, including multiple skin grafts; during her hospitalization, Stella Liebeck lost around 20% of her starting body weight.

She was uninsured and sued McDonald’s Restaurants for the cost of her past and projected future medical care, an estimated $20,000. The corporation offered a settlement of $800, a number so obviously ridiculous that I’m not even going to dignify it with any further explanation.

The settlement number most often quoted is not the amount that the corporation actually paid; the jury in the first trial suggested a payment equal to a day or two of coffee revenues for McDonald’s, which at the time totaled more than $1 million per diem. The judge reduced the required payout to around $640,000 in both compensatory and punitive damages, and the case was later settled out of court for less than $600,000.

Keep in mind that at the time, McDonald’s already had over 700 cases of complaints about coffee-related burns on file, but continued to sell coffee heated to nearly 200 degrees Fahrenheit (around 90 degrees Celsius) as a means of boosting sales (their selling point was that one could buy the coffee, drive to a second location such as work or home, and still have a piping hot beverage). This in spite of the fact that most restaurants serve coffee between 140 and 160 degrees Fahrenheit (60 to 71 degrees Celsius), and many coffee experts agree that such high temperatures are desirable only during the brewing process itself.

The Liebeck case was absolutely not an example of litigation-happy Americans expecting corporations to cover their asses for their own stupidity, but we seem determined to remember it that way. It’s an issue of liability, and the allowable lengths of capitalism, and even of the way in which our society is incredibly dangerous for and punitive towards the uninsured, but it was not and is not a frivolous suit. Please check your assumptions and do your research before you turn a burn victim’s suffering into a throwaway punchline.

gaylormoons

#don’t fricking get me started on Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants the level of misinformation floating around is staggering#I know that it’s an older case but it still makes me really mad that people treat it as this big dumb thing?#the fact that the media took a serious case and turned it into what it is to us today should piss people off#the level of distortion of facts is astonishing and upsetting and nobody seems to hear about it?#sorry I’m done I just#it upsets me when a legal travesty like this is just dragged out for some#’haha americans are sOOOOOOOo dumb!!1!’ humor#I MEAN GODDAMN IF YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE FUN OF AMERICANS AT LEAST MAKE FUN OF US WITH FACTS OKAY

bregma

jesus, i actually didn’t know about any of this, thanks for clearing that up

okayto

Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants at the American Museum of Tort Law

The McDonald’s Hot Coffee Case: Know the Facts at Consumer Attorneys of California

marthawells-deactivated20181223

Always reblog. The deliberate misinformation/corporate propaganda about this case is misogynist and ageist as FUCK.

aquilarios-deactivated20180610

Liebeck v. McDonald’s made companies quake in their boots, which is why there was a mad dash for ‘tort reform’ afterwards. Interest groups paid by company dollars lionized against the made up threat of frivolous lawsuits, when in reality the public is actually pretty good at not suing unless the offense is grievous enough. This was a calculated attack to weaken consumer laws. If your state now has laws capping damages, you can thank interest groups funded by companies scared that they could be sued for faulty products.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmEYWCg0J7Q

Here’s a link to Hot Coffee, the documentary mentioned above.

chosenofyffre

This is so catchy. *heart eyes*

(Also, the ladies are gorgeous, whoops I’m gay.)

#bagpipes

dragoni

Scotland United Against Trump #Edinburgh

Trump’s Turnberry golf course was surrounded by well wishers as Dear Leader played golf. #TrumpToo #FreeTheChildren #RacistInChief #FascistInChief

“The police estimated that 9,000 people joined the Edinburgh demonstration. Organisers said they believed some 60,000 had taken to the streets”, BBC

#ScotlandAgainstTrump

#edinburgh #trump #protest

oh-glasgow

Some of the Trump protest signs in Glasgow:

oh-glasgow

All excellent work by everyone involved.

Thank you, Glasgow. ✊❤

tranarchist

The 8th was Anne Ruzylo

Just a tiny minority of the usual suspects, a hardcore terf clique well known for harassing trans people and pulling transphobic publicity stunts.

Julia Long (red vest in the centre) I’ve heard was the organizer of the pride sabotage and it’s not the first time for her.

She along with other terfs picketed the Lesbian pride march 2014, handing out transphobic literature and harassing a trans woman speaker (x)-

She was also an organizer and speaker at the transphobic event last year in Hyde Park corner, where it was reported by the conservative media that trans activists had attacked a woman, despite video of the event showing the terfs antagonizing the protesters and the terf who was supposedly “attacked” grabbing one of the smaller protestors in a headlock and punching her.

Somehow she is a lecturer at Anglia Ruskin university, the thought of her being in a position of authority is extremely disturbing

queeranarchism

You’re in the UK and want TERF-free spaces? Learn these names. Keep them out of your communities and bars. Challenge journals and blogs that publish their works.

#terf #uk

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