Pronounced /ˈʃɪ.vəʊ.æ/

Various links and commentary (expect a queer/trans feminist focus) with  some pop media (often games), tech, and even software engineering. I post more links/RTs on Twitter if you want more. I occasionally doodle at [inactive]. I write about games/tech here.

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going crazy seeing one cis woman saying “i now compulsively try to find out who is trans in all circumstances by staring at their bodies and transvestigating their bodily leger” and another cis woman respond “yes! im a tall/broad woman and i worry people think im a male. this is all the trans fault that other cis people are doing this” and its like. maybe if people weren’t so hung up doing the exact behavior you are agreeing with, it wouldn’t be something that you had to worry about. in fact, you are agreeing w the person who is creating the tightening conditions that you are mad abt, and if people didn’t make a huge division between cis and trans people of their respective genders in terms of treatment and approach, you … wouldn’t have to care which one people thought you were? like, being mad at trans people because cis people are trying to become professional gender detectives seems like you might just be motivated to be mad at trans people as an a priori situation

[birlinterrupted]

had my first tweet used as embedded content without request or notice in one of those buzzfeedified articles that the author just puts a bunch of tweets on a topic and all that’s whatever but more importantly the author is some nonbinary you couldn’t pick out of a line up of one, who starts out the article shit talking jenny schecter which is a hatecrime like dont include me in that just because you only like the rapist characters

[shivoa]

The first time this happened to me, my Tweet ended up embedded in a (similarly devoid of real internal editorial content) article on The Guardian UK of all places, under a headline about feminism. It wasn’t an article dunking on social media, just straight up “please enjoy these good Tweets on something trending right now”.

And if there’s one thing we can be quite certain of, the editorial board of The Guardian and I do not agree about feminism (because my feminism isn’t about carrying water for the most reactionary politics imaginable & actively courting literal fascists due to some shared hatred of queer people).

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something really interesting going on while conservative positions kinda switch argumentation gears is that you still have christians refer to “gay/homosexual activists” and like transmisognistic feminists refer to trans people (and women in particular) as “transactivists” as this way to like, make an argument that their claims to legal recourse aren’t based upon their attributes or demographics as much as their ‘political beliefs’ (as a way to try to argue against their legal protection) but at the same time start arguing that one’s deeply held activist or ideological beliefs (whether christian/’religious conscience’ or ‘gender critical’) constitute some sort of legally protected class that allows you to otherwise not follow best practices or sometimes even laws

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People w advanced degrees (esp in academia) promoting “trade schools” as an alternative to college w like no acknowledgment of like the differential physical toll and danger level is… suspicious! Why don’t you go become an electrician if you think it’s so fuckin awesome

[shivoa]

But being a PhD with a practical vocational qualification wouldn't help push down labour costs unless they actually practised that vocation. How is an academic meant to gripe that, effectively, “these damn plumbers are paid too damn much” without sounding like a classist bigot unless they can endlessly talk about how much pressure should be applied to force everyone not going into higher ed to get dumped into various vocational courses (which, side-benefit, boost trade school enrolment that acts as another sink for anyone with a teaching qualification, helping to reduce the quantity of competitors for the academic roles they want).

[creaturey]

terf logic is literally nonsensical like…excuse me?? “i can’t wait to abolish gender so we can continue to separate everyone out by their chromosomes just like it was under patriarchy”……….alright

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me waiting in the line for the bathroom to get my karyotype tested every single time so I can be approved to go into whatever restroom, post Gender Abolition

[marginalutilite]

The Racism of Decriminalization

Since I began writing this piece, both Scarlet Alliance and SWOP NSW have issued an apology to migrant sex workers for their part in the SEXHUM research. This is an unprecedented move in the right …

PLEASE SHARE–TITS AND SASS, THE ONLY US MEDIA SITE BY AND FOR SEX WORKERS, HAS RELAUNCHED!

Now that decriminalization of sex work is being considered seriously in several states in the US, we need to ask: whose decriminalization is it? For Tits and Sass’ relaunch, we’re proud to have new contributor but longtime friend of ours Nada Zenith DeCat point out the exclusion of migrants baked into the much-lauded New Zealand model, which falls far short of “full decriminalization”: 

The global sex workers’ rights movement heralds decriminalization at all costs, while often overlooking the racism involved in its partial implementation. The argument is that decriminalization of sex work will end stigma and benefit *all* workers equally. However, POC migrant sex workers (PMSW) still experience stigma, raids, and racism within the purported decriminalized sex worker heavens of New South Wales, Australia and New Zealand. 

…The sex worker activists’ rallying call “nothing about us without us” currently applies only to white workers.

…Under the leadership of Catherine Healy, The Prostitutes Collective accepted criminalizing migrant workers as a condition of partial decriminalization of sex work in New Zealand. Nothing in the subsequent review of the legislation, publicly available on the Collective’s website, shows that any effort have been made to reform this section of the law. In a news article, Healy is quoted minimizing the problem by stating,”We’re not talking about significant numbers of people in this situation [migrant sex workers].” And yet while Healy was accepting the neo-colonial “honor” of damehood from the British queen, the raids, arrests, and deportations of migrant workers in New Zealand continued. Our numbers aside, the mistreatment of migrant sex workers in New Zealand is an issue when this model of decriminalization is promoted throughout the world, especially at a time when trafficking hysteria and racist anti-migrant panic are still on the rise. Rather than being held accountable for advocating for this flawed model, Healy enjoys the uncritical acceptance of her stance by most of the sex worker community. In a recent video recorded at a UN discussion on sex work, Healy again fails to correct a description of the NZ model as “full decriminalization”. Although she mentions that migrants are “discriminated” against, she does not explicitly explain that it is her Collective’s model which criminalizes us.

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The fact that the organization Morality In Media changed its name to the National Center on Sexual Exploitation kinda marks a certain sea change both in the approaches of conservative organizations but also how immediately non-conservatives should trust that people claiming the mantle of “anti exploitation” will have goals and worldviews that align w ours

[shivoa]

Drones ground flights at Gatwick

About 10,000 passengers are hit and others warned not to travel as planes are grounded and diverted.

So recently I've been wondering why governments and corporations aren't slightly more concerned that we've got 12 years to do something or global warming will be, at best, the genocide of a significant percentage of the world’s population in an endless chain of "natural" disasters (although ultimately disasters in nature, their cause will be us and greenhouse gasses) interleaved with constantly escalating conflicts (over resources and as people escape disasters and are blocked from safety by the horrors of borders).

If we know that clock is running, people can just stop industry operating. We’ve seen this as refineries are blockaded for fuel protests. We've seen more significant disruptions than that previously with widespread strike action. Greenpeace direct action etc is a thing and, as all signs point to what will happen in the next 50-100 years, self-preservation is a Hell of a motivator.

If this is the action of a few activists then it makes very clear how brittle our infrastructure is. If flights are not managed in a way compatible with reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we can just stop people flying. The margins for safe flight are pretty strict and you can ground a massive airport by ensuring it is known that safe flights are not currently possible.

This sort of thing could become common in a decade if there is not action to remove billionaires from their positions in power, begin prosecuting the top corporations who have knowingly polluted the planet "for free", and radically restructure the corridors of power that have completely failed to respond to this existential crisis.

[shivoa]

NY Times Columnist Nick Kristof Led The Charge To Get Facebook To Censor Content, Now Whining That Facebook Censors His Content

We've talked in the past about NY Times columnist Nick Kristof, who is a bit infamous for having something of a savior complex in his views. He is especially big on moral panics around sex trafficking, and was one of the most vocal proponents of...

Man who campaigned for Leopards Eating People's Faces never thought leopards would eat his face:

Hey, Nick, you were the one who insisted that Facebook and others in Silicon Valley needed to ban "sexual content" or face criminal liability. You were the one who insisted that any collateral damage would be minor. You were the one who said there was no slippery slope.

Yet, here is a perfect example of why clueless saviors like Kristof always make things worse, freaking out about something they don't understand, prescribing the exact wrong solution. Moderating billions of pieces of content leads to lots of mistakes. The only way you can do it is to set rules. Thanks to laws like FOSTA -- again, passed at Kristof's direct urging -- Facebook has rules about nudity that include no female nudity/nipples. This rule made a lot of news two years ago when Facebook banned an iconic photo from the Vietnam War showing a young, naked, girl fleeing a napalm attack. Facebook eventually created a "newsworthy" exception to the rule, but that depends on the thousands of "content moderators" viewing this content knowing that this particular photo is newsworthy.

And, thanks to FOSTA, the cost of making a mistake is ridiculously high (possible criminal penalties), and thus, the only sane thing for a company like Facebook to do is to take that content down and block it. That's exactly what Nick Kristof wanted. But now he's whining because the collateral damage he shrugged off a year ago is himself.

[shivoa]

Over three and a half years ago I wrote,

Due to the wishy washy way in which Google have talked about their interest in retaining Blogger as an open platform for personal expression, I’ve decided to start crossposting content to Tumblr.

Recently it has become more and more obvious that the current management of Tumblr are no better and possibly significantly worse than the Google of 2015 regarding allowing marginalised voices to have a platform (and a way of surviving under capitalism).

Removing speech (especially things like the political speech of sex worker rights orgs) while claiming to be purging illegal content is a monumental failure of systems. You cannot correct a failure to catch illegal content uploaded by users in the past by wiping out vast swathes of genuine speech today - that’s not fixing anything.

[shivoa]

Ye, fuck that noise.

Not sure there’s much point sticking around considering how many people I interact with here are going to get vanished on the 17th of this month. Hell, this blog has basically just been political topics and links out to political speech but who knows if someone might find something I’ve posted/reblogged that breaks the new rules.

real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples

Ye, because a nipple in isolation is gendered?! It's depressing that they obviously started from the policy (extremely traditional censorship of adult content including the exceptions for very old lewd pics [ie “art”] and anything in text form [because who under the age of 18 can read?]) & then engineered wording to "justify" nonsense like which nipples are deemed lewd under patriarchy.

It’s such a waste of a platform (that was already getting worse and worse). It’s another attack on sex workers (and associated workers who make adult content of all sorts) and the ability to promote/earn a living online.

[shivoa]

Gender Critical Feminism is Fascism

Meghan Murphy, a Canadian feminist writer who has spent at least five years on this site waging misogynist harassment campaigns against sex workers and trans women, as if it were all she had…

Meghan Murphy as an individual human person is a complete joke, having edited Feminist Current for nearly a decade, a site consisting of random pepperings of George Soros conspiracy theories muddled together with the language of feminism. Nonetheless, her “gender critical” ideas are gaining traction among so-called feminists and fascists alike, and that’s the part that worries me.

Many “gender critical feminists”—aka TERFs and SWERFs—have aligned themselves with violent allies, proclaiming, much like the alt-right does, that “men aren’t women” and “sex work isn’t a thing.”

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I just learned yesterday abt this existing and it’s so baffling to me that healthcare determinations wrt CA state law are able to be sent by a state govt agency to a private corporation in VA

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Ah yes, part of the genocidal corporate cooperation in far-Right governments killing off their disabled and unemployed citizens. Just a perfectly normal company who are doing nothing more than helping facilitate assessments of various welfare programmes (while trying to hush up their catalogue of errors under the veil of “commercial interests”). If I ever meet one of their executives, I’ll just have the one question:

But Ms George pressed on: “One of the standard questions in the Work Capability Assessment for people with serious mental health conditions who’ve had suicidal thoughts is ‘why haven’t you killed yourself then’.

I doubt they have a good answer, but we are told that we should just keep repeating it. *shrug*

Their bloody hands will never be clean.

[shivoa]

Over three and a half years ago I wrote,

Due to the wishy washy way in which Google have talked about their interest in retaining Blogger as an open platform for personal expression, I've decided to start crossposting content to Tumblr.

Recently it has become more and more obvious that the current management of Tumblr are no better and possibly significantly worse than the Google of 2015 regarding allowing marginalised voices to have a platform (and a way of surviving under capitalism).

Removing speech (especially things like the political speech of sex worker rights orgs) while claiming to be purging illegal content is a monumental failure of systems. You cannot correct a failure to catch illegal content uploaded by users in the past by wiping out vast swathes of genuine speech today - that’s not fixing anything.

[shivoa]

Indonesia 737 crash caused by “safety” feature change pilots weren’t told of

737 Max safety bulletin revealed changes to system that pilots never knew about.

The Lion Air aircraft lost in the accident was virtually brand new, delivered by Boeing in August; this was the first accident involving an aircraft touted for its safety. But Boeing never told pilots about one key new safety feature—an automated anti-stall system—or how to troubleshoot its failure. The manual update raised an outcry from pilots in the US.

A new system that means the computer takes over control of the plane, based on sensor input that (as is always the case) can malfunction, and most critically that the pilots were never informed of.

So a plane computer flew them straight into the sea with the loss of all 189 lives while the pilots unsuccessfully attempted to lift the nose against the computer's input (having not been instructed about the possibility of this system taking over control and needing to be disabled to recover reliable pilot control).

[shivoa]

This tells me that cis people would rather I languish than be myself.

If anything has been made apparent by the response to a leaked memo reportedly circulated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services months ago, it’s that cis people know next to nothing about trans people.

The laxness with which cis people have told trans people not to be afraid of these proposed changes is as concerning to me as the potential results of such rollbacks. They traffic in the same lolling misinformation as the HR manager whose hippy-dippy advisement cost me hundreds of dollars in medical bills and hours on the phone with medical and insurance providers. They seem to think that transition is as easy as checking a box—that the world has bent towards trans rights and equity, and so there is no longer a need to protect trans people.

It is not. It has not. And if cis passivity in the face of major threats to transgender people’s right to exist stays as pervasive as it is today, then the only allies trans people have are ourselves, our wits, and our resilience.

[shivoa]

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News writes:

Brazil's new president elect, Jair Bolsonaro, is a right-winger who leans towards more open markets. This could mean fresh opportunities for Canadian companies looking to invest in the resource-rich country.

Rich people in rich countries will cheer on fascism if they think they can make some money from it. Their concern is not of genocide but for “the markets”, not of climate change policies but the “business climate”. Someone who does business with a fascist is just another fascist. You’re either against fascism or complicit.

Those in power are going to continue to try and get even richer and more powerful as we all die on this burning planet with a rising tide of violent fascism.

[shivoa]

So I’ve always said that I’ve (eventually) gotten on top of every addiction I’ve had and caffeine has never even been in the picture as needing to be managed (which certainly matches where it is in the public consciousness as uncritically promoted).

But as I look at this £20 (~US$26) weekly budget for all my food and drink, £5 of that is for drinks and they’re basically all caffeinated (from cola to tea and coffee). And I’m reluctant to cut it, despite knowing that the money could probably be better used elsewhere.