I'll Show You There's No Proof

Men of your kind gave her chocolates and brandy but I gave her a war

[tlirsgender]

I think it'd be really funny if you could be honest when applying for jobs though. Like hi I'm so fucking autistic. I hate standing up for long periods of time and I don't work well in groups. I resent your establishment and all it stands for but I need money to live. Hire me please god hire me I can't keep living with my parents. Because I'm transgender. Okay fuck you email me back. God bless

[unknought]

There’s a phenomenon where a lot of feminist and queer spaces will talk a lot about supporting trans women, and view trans women as one of the most oppressed groups there are, while at the same time being pretty inhospitable to actual trans women and more willing to ostracize and punish them for infractions which they’d forgive others for. And downstream of that, they’re rendered a lot more vulnerable to abuse by the precarity of their place in the community.

Some of what’s going on there is just, well, talk is cheap, and it’s easier to get people to say the right slogans than to actually unlearn transphobia. But I think some of it is this:

A common form of transmisogyny is the idea that a trans woman, as a man pretending to be a woman, is something threatening pretending to be nonthreatening. (Julia Serano’s “deceptive transsexual” is basically this.) Now the people in these spaces don’t think trans women are men, oh no. They’ll say “trans women are women” and fully believe it. But it’s one thing to think that trans women are women in the abstract, when the word “women” is right there in the subject of the sentence to guide you. When you’re dealing with an actual trans woman in front of you… maybe she’s got masculine features and you kind of think of her as a man even if you wouldn’t say it. Maybe she’s half a foot taller than her partner and if there’s abuse going on there, there’s no question in your mind who’s abusing whom. Maybe she said something you disagree with and well, would she really have said that if she hadn’t spent most of her life being treated as a man? Maybe she’s taking up more space than you’d like her to and that feels pretty masculine to you. And you’re not saying that she’s faking her identity or anything, but it sure is convenient for her that she can accuse people of transphobia if they point out how she’s exhibiting toxic masculinity.

So sometimes without explicit misgendering (although explicit misgendering definitely also happens), people and groups can pretty easily be convinced that trans women are wolves in sheep’s clothing, dangerous and deceptive and untrustworthy. “Trans women” in a lot of these people’s eyes, are great, but actual specific trans women not so much.

[solarpunkcast]

The Panopticon will arrive in America through gift boxes and be opened with a smile. We can't let it.

While our privacy is willingly eroded all through the name of ""convenience"" there will be op-eds and Serious Discussion Panels on how China's open surveillance state is The Worst Thing Ever, but your own privacy should come second to tech advancement.

The American media will lament how capital-d Democracy can never come to China, and then tell you to ask your smart speaker to queue up their new podcast.

They'll pearl-clutch about the "rise in porch pirates" then send you to the local PD for a free Amazon ring.

If you want to learn how racism and fear is being used to sell these products, check out the Citations Needed "Porch Pirates" episode

So what the hell can you do right? Besides smashing smart speakers and convincing loved ones to never use them?

Well one easy step for protecting your digital life is switching off Chrome (yes on your phone too). Firefox is the easiest change from casual users to advanced ones, and their upcoming update will turn DNS on by default--which means Comcast and the like have a much harder time seeing your internet history. It also includes the amazing Facebook Container if you absolutely have to be on Facebook.

uBlock Origin is the king of adblockers, with no ad program so nothing gets allowed. It's available on most browsers.

Electronic Frontier Foundation has privacy tools that can be easily handled by casual users.

Not doing any online quizzes, especially ones that use account connections and/or require emails, is also a big step.

This can take time and effort, but it's worth doing to protect your data privacy.

[the-transfeminine-mystique]

A lot of British responses to Brexit, particularly around suddenly being subjected to lengthy customs waits during travel in and out of Europe, come down to a people having fallen for their own lie, that certain ways of life exist because that’s just how things are in the “civilized world” rather than being maintained and propped up through the clear demarcation and exclusion of the other, the truly foreign. The EU and other political bodies like it are greatly invested in obscuring the maintenance of its realm of peaceful coexistence to the point that it became transparent to the majority of voting Brits, it didn’t even process that this close peaceful coexistence could be lost because it stopped processing that it was built or maintained and didn’t just naturally develop because they, and the rest of Europe, were just more civilized and advanced than the rest of the world

[anarchopuppy]

I'm glad you're speaking up about how the idea that shoplifting hurts the workers seems a little suspicious. Everywhere I worked retail, unless I guess there was suspicion that you were in on it, was "just let them go, maybe try to get a description so we can kick them out next time"

And it’s exactly the kind of thing that some bourgeois would seed online and all the woker than thou tumblr kids would eat it up and spread it as far as they can. Every time I bring this up I get several people telling me this - that they’ve never even heard of a first-hand account of this, that it’s inconsistent with how retail chains view shoplifting, etc

I mean, I’ve never had a job even train me on how to stop shoplifting! Most of the places I’ve worked have never even talked about it, and they definitely don’t expect the cashiers and stockers to be making like, citizen’s arrests lest they lose their bonuses. Oh, and you better believe that if I accused someone of lifting when they weren’t I’d be fired immediately for bad service. That’s not the behavior they want to encourage

Again I’m not going to outright say that it never happens or that the idea itself is propaganda, but at worst it’s such a negligible effect that it’s far outweighed by the benefit you get from lifting + the damage to the company

[sonnendrache-deactivated2020030]

We get people shoplifting pretty often. We’re not even allowed to stop people from shoplifting by force. We have a security guard, and even they can only make police reports after a thing already happens. The most any of us can do, that we ever do, is approach a shoplifter and tell them to leave. Most of the time they leave with the items, because we can’t touch them or rip things out of their hands or bags. That’d be a legal nightmare. You can’t arrest nor can you physically confront anyone unless your store has it’s own legal precedent for detaining people (like actual cops in shopping malls).

Management can’t, and doesn’t, make us responsible for this. And we’re a small local grocery that actually feels the pinch when people shoplift. It comes out of our budget though, not our paychecks, because every business has insurance that covers these things, not to mention an acceptable amount of loss that’s accounted for. If someone steals some orange juice, the sales-to-purchase logs I make every week lump it right in with the yogurt I opened to give out a free sample. Loss is loss and it’s part of business. Unless you’re selling TVs or something like that, you can’t always even be sure of how much you’re losing - since, again, you can’t just grab and shake em down to find what they stuffed in their bag.

If your boss tries to intimidate and make you and your coworkers feel responsible for shoplifters, it’s all hot air. You’re only screwed if you’re the one doing it and you get caught.

(hot tip though: with tiny business like us, you can actually get lucky by just asking for day-olds. It can’t hurt to try. We give food out constantly. I probably give away at least $1000 or more in food per month. Steal from Walmart)

[the-golden-summer-rose-archive]

Holy shit holy shit shut the fuck up???

You know what they do when there’s a high theft in stores? Cut hours

Cutting hours is basically, functionally, the exact same thing as cutting your wagea to the employee. All store has “theft discouragement training” so if your area has a high amount of thdft they will ABSOLUTELY cut the hours of the people working in those areas! Like this is an actual thing I have had to deal with. There’s theft in your department? It’s becaude you didn’t smile enough to make the shoplifter uncomfortable and stop? Because you didn’t pay attention to every customer that you saw nd if you had been you could’ve stopped it because then they would know you were aware of them! And if that happened that MUST mean you’re giving poor customer service!

I have actually seen this. I have worked for MULTIPLE large chains and this basically how they “make up for lost income” because cutting hours when profits are down, or because they aren’t providing good customer service, is perfectly legal. I have literally dealt with this shit before personally.

Stop saying nothing happens to employees when shoplifting occurs, that is blatantly untrue and only allows shoplifters to feel even more enabled to steal and fuck over some poor employee.

Stop.

[anarchopuppy]

Bad news friend: Walmart doesn’t give their employees hours out of the kindness of their own heart. Large chains always stay as understaffed as logistically possible at all times, because that’s how capitalism works. They’re incentivized to exploit you as much as possible so they do that, regardless of the circumstances

If your management tells you they’re cutting hours because of shoplifting, they’re either using it as an excuse to fuck you over even more while making you think it’s your fault, or trying to get you to work harder and betray other poor people for free by convincing you it’s in your self-interest to do so. But the best deterrent for shoplifting is a well-staffed store and they know it, they know that cutting hours due to shrinkage would be counterproductive, but they do it anyway because that’s not their motivation for doing it

I’ve worked for multiple large chains too you know, and so have dozens of people I’ve seen saying this excuse is bullshit (check the replies for more!). What I’ve learned is that it’s impossible to determine the source of shrinkage, whether theft or miscounted/damaged/lost/underdelivered inventory. I’ve learned that some amount of shrinkage, including from theft, is always expected and accounted for. I’ve learned that it’s virtually always way too much of a liability to have employees on the floor try to stop shoplifting, and most of the time the only training on the topic I received was to not do anything. I’ve had jobs where I stole something almost every shift and no one ever caught on or brought it up - I mean do you guys really think lifting is such an unexpected and uncommon thing that they have to go into panic mode every time it happens? Please

Your enemy isn’t the single mother lifting baby food, it’s your boss. These retail chains can afford to give you the hours and the pay that you need, but they don’t - not because you’re doing a bad job, but because you let them get away with it. You and your employer have an inherently adversarial relationship, and the best course of action isn’t to bow down to their demands and attack other poor people who are just trying to get by, it’s to fight back. You should be supporting the lifters, looking the other way, covering for them - joining them! - not blaming them for your boss’s abuse. Stop swallowing their propaganda

[somethingaboutsomethingelse]

In the past I have literally worked for a grocery chain that was making increasing annual profits year after year. That same branch, let alone chain, continued to severely understaff the sales floor, resist giving out due raises, had a policy against ever coming close to overtime, and literally prevented every single cashier from being anything more than part time.

Shoplift. Shoplift to your heart’s content. Because I’m telling you that the guff they give low level/minimum wage workers is 100% bullshit. They’re feeding you lies in order to take the onus off of the bosses and owners for leeching off of your labour. They want you to despise both your fellow workers (“More workers steal than customers do”) and the poor and working class masses.

A franchise does not suffer from petty theft, even en masse. Unless we all unanimously rose up to tear these fuckers down, they have an intricate system of protections from banks, insurance, other company ventures, hoarded wealth of the owners, the state, etc that will protect the owners from ever taking a real hit. If they lay you fellows down it’s to boost their own salaries and year-end bonuses.

Don’t peddle their crap for them.

[perkwunos]

I don’t think it’s likely that most establishment dems are consciously trying to nominate candidates that they know are likely to lose to Trump, but it almost definitely has to be the case that they, consciously, know they’d rather lose to Trump than cede even the slightest ground to the left.

[newurllllllllllll]

Someone said it

[against-stars]

my father said to me once that one of the things he deeply regretted was not putting music on for his father while he was fading away. he told me that grandpa would just sit in his old armchair in the quiet, and not until after he’d passed did my dad think of how he could have played of his favorite classical music tapes for him so grandpa could listen to something while he still could. i was very young when this happened and not much older when my dad told me this, but it always stuck with me as something important.

my mother died at home in a hospice cot, slowly shutting down over the course of about a week. when she had stopped responding, i remembered what dad told me about wishing he’d played music for grandpa, and i put the radio on her favorite country music station and kept it on for her until she died.

daddy died in hospital. no cassette players, no decent radios. the day after he was brought in, i thought again of what he told me, and i bought a little portable bluetooth speaker. even though he never woke up, was never aware, i played music for him too.

there’s no real significance to sharing this, not really. my motivation is selfish, again: i just want to hope that someone might think of this when their loved one is stuck in silence somehow, and maybe they’ll play music for them, and they won’t have to regret not doing so. i want to hope it helps someone. and i want to hope that someone will remember my dad with me, even in just a “story i read on the internet” way.

[eirianerisdar]

Hey, OP, you actually might have done a very significant thing for your parents indeed. Hearing is the last sense to go when someone is passing away. It’s why palliative care doctors tell patients’ relatives to continue speaking even if the patient stops responding. So even if your mother and father could not wake or respond to you or those around you, they perhaps could have heard the music they so loved, and perhaps were comforted. So what you did wasn’t selfish at all, and I’m sorry for jumping on to your post, but it’s likely that playing music for your parents as they passed away did much more for them than you might have known at the time.

[autcore]

Shoutout to polyam aros with a complicated relationship to relationships

[ntfresca]

No 40 hour work week for kids! The standard amount of time autistic children in ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) is 40 hours per week–the same amount of time an adult worker can be paid, full time, without having to get overtime pay. BCBAs, in addition to be abusers, are THIEVES–just like the capitalists in 1910 Lowell Massachusetts. Organize to end ABA! Ban the 40 hour work week for kids! [image is an advertisement by the Industrial Workers of the World or IWW, a revolutionary union which organized so-called unskilled laborers, in the early 1900s before modern child labor laws. It shows children around the age of 8-12 working in a very dangerous textile plant (presumably in Lowell Massachusetts) while the owner in a suit and top hat looks over smoking a fat cigar with giant bags of money next to him. In bold letters at the top it reads “THIEF!” and the rest is captioned with “The worst thief is he who steals the playtime of children.” Join the IWW and help put the thieves to work. end description]

[shiftymitch]

A mood board ahead of today's super Tuesday results.

[queen-mabs-revenge]

Joe Biden is the reason you’re in student loan debt. Like, him. Him personally. He did it.

By writing and campaigning for the bankrupty bill that exempted student loans from bankrupty, he gave universities a free pass to jack up tuition, and allowed loan companies to offer loans without fear of risk.

Over 1.5T of student loan debt is on Biden’s head.

[adhd-alien]

“My whole day was taken over by one small message - by the thought that someone might think less of me. By this point, my apologies feel like empty promises.”

[thebibliosphere]

Vogmask have been out of stock for months and came back in stock this morning, and sold out within minutes, again, cause of all the healthy and able people bodied panic buying them, even though vogmasks will do exactly zero to protect them from coronavirus.

Meanwhile, I’m not going to be able to go outside at all without one. I’m going to be trapped in my own home, unable to breathe the air outside as soon as the pollen hits. Which from the look of the rapidly melting snow outside, is going to be pretty fucking soon.

So just in case I’ve not made this clear in multiple posts by now: Stop 👏 Panic 👏 Buying 👏 The 👏 Equipment 👏 Chronically ill 👏 And 👏 Disabled 👏 People 👏 Need 👏 To 👏 Live

You selfish assholes.

[ruffboi-mags]

I'm immunocompromised and so is my wife and we've been wanting paper masks to deter us from touching our faces to reduce our chances of getting sick, hand sanitizer bc it dries our hands out less than soap, vogmasks bc cold air sets off my asthma and pollen is coming for both of us soon.

Paper masks are never in stock. Hand sanitizer is never in stock. They are obscene prices online rn. I was hoping with the restock I'd have a chance to at LEAST get the vogmasks for us to help with respiratory stuff so we have as little risk as possible for it getting really serious should we get covid or the flu.

I logged in as soon as I could andthey were already out of stock for the same reason I can't get basic supplies at the drugstore.

STOP HOARDING THE FUCKING SUPPLIES THAT SOME OF US NEED FOR REASONS OTHER THAN IRRATIONAL PANIC OVER A VIRUS THAT WON'T EVEN IMPACT MOST OF YOU VERY BADLY IF AT ALL!!!!

FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!

[alyksgardenofmisfits]

PTSD: A Layman's Guide

Let’s talk a little about PTSD. Since this will be a theme on this blog, I want to dispel some misconceptions and myths. Hopefully this will help people understand such a complex disorder.

–

1) PTSD not what you think. It is not what the media thinks. You can have it and not know it.

2) Trauma is not what you think it is. Trauma is not what the media thinks it is. Trauma does not have to be a death; it does not have to be explosions; it does not have to be cancer; it does not have to be a near death experience, and it does not have to be witnessing a horrific thing such as gang rape. Trauma can be someone yelling at you; trauma can be someone ignoring you; trauma can be intense humiliation; trauma can be deep rejection, and trauma can be horrible betrayal. Trauma is that which wounds us so profoundly that we are permanently changed creatures.

3) There are two types of PTSD: Complex PTSD and PTSD. C-PTSD results from multiple traumas or multiple forms of abuse. PTSD is typically centered around just one event. C-PTSD is an accumulation. 4) You can get PTSD (or C-PTSD) from emotional abuse. This is possible. There are studies backing this up. Just because you weren’t “abused as badly” or “it was just words,” it doesn’t mean that you aren’t at risk or possibly suffer from PTSD. You can get it without being physically hurt.

5) Flashbacks don’t really work the way most people think they do. Every flashback is different. Sometimes you see things and sometimes you hear things. Sometimes a traumatic memory is played on a loop in your head, and the thoughts and feelings consume you for days. Sometimes you just feel like you’re emotionally re-experiencing the traumatic event. A lot of survivors of traumatic events don’t recognize those feelings as a flashback and therefore do not process upsetting events very well.

6) One of the most prominent symptoms of PTSD is avoidance. This can manifest as avoiding a single person or location. This can also be doing things like constantly distracting yourself so you don’t have to dwell on very upsetting memories or developing unhealthy habits such as constant drinking. This can lead to things like agoraphobia or other anxiety disorders.

7) PTSD develops because you experienced a very real threat to your safety and your brain wants to protect you from experiencing that again. It’s trying to remind you so you can avoid being in harm’s way again. This is your body’s attempt to save you. Don’t resent it too much. It’s trying to help.

8) People with PTSD startle easily and are hyper-vigilant in seemingly benign situations. This is because, as stated above, your brain is trying to protect you. Don’t get too upset or frustrated with yourself when you experience this. Respect your body. It wants to help.

9) Respect your trauma. Respect. Your. Trauma. So many people feel guilty bringing up something “benign” because “someone has it worse.” That is a normal reaction. People - and the media - tend to minimize things like emotional abuse or neglect. Those have scientifically been proven to be very traumatic. Respect your trauma. Just because someone has had a shittier situation, it doesn’t mean that yours isn’t shitty as well. Respect that. Know that your pain is real and your trauma is real. This is how healing from PTSD begins.

10) You don’t have to be a soldier to have PTSD.

If you constantly think about a traumatic encounter, constantly /avoid/ thinking about that encounter, have triggers such as seeing someone or going to a certain location, have anxiety or panic attacks when thinking about the event/person, feel unsafe all the time, or are easily startled, please see a mental health professional. You might have more than “just” anxiety. Your quality of life can be improved with treatment and medication. Respect your body. Respect your trauma. Respect your healing. Respect your worth.

[noroithecurse2005-deactivated20]

literally nobody is calling buttigieg an assimilationist because he has a monogamous marriage or isn't fem or flamboyant or whatever he's an assimilationist because he has a track record of institutional violence against black people and wants to expand US military hegemony globally- both of which reinforce not only white supremacy but homophobia and transphobia as well oh my god PLEASE interact with our criticisms in good faith for once in your life

[birlinterrupted]

I think the thing that gets me or like feels frustrating abt the Pete Buttigieg "if I could take a pill" speech (which is from his autobiography i guess) is that like, beyond the way his husbands face is kinda darkly comedic like... it just feels so dated for where shit is at now. And the problem isn't that it's something that someone might have felt but its the way that this framing of gay identity/angst gets disseminated and praised in straight culture - its a narrative that str8 people want to hear.

and like, the thing abt it is, it's coming from a candidate who like *clearly still* has issues w his relationship w gayness or gay culture or whatever you wanna say there. The like sort of drive that he has to distance himself from gay culture (whether that's like pushing off of the idea that he would watch gay media to cancelling a fundraiser at a gay bar w a dancing pole to like talking abt how much he doesn't fit in w gay communities)... these are all moves that many of us have seen again and again. Like, we shouldn't have ot have a First Gay Candidate (at all, but whatever, you know what i mean) who like feels the need to like desperately push back against being seen as a 'typical' gay.

And like, even still, during that speech, he gives the reason that he is happy he didn't cancel being gay is because of his husband. Like, that's clearly kinda a move towards a 'just like you' framework, and it seems like a lot to put on a partner but like more to the point - would being gay not have been worth it to Pete if he were single? if he didn't get married within the year he came out? It presents some kind of troubling issues when this is the way that one of the most prominent gay people talks abt coming to terms w his sexuality - the salvation of a gay identity comes from *getting married*. It's not healthy and moreover its a message of gayness as a sad state of lonely affairs until its saved by love in the form that str8 people understand and empathize w. And once again, from a candidate who in many ways seems uncomfortable w certain kinds of gay people and gayness, it leaves some of us cold.

To me, this "if i had a way to be straight I would" as a way of talking to straight people has always seemed so... pitiful. And like, It's really just a reflection of what so many gay people heard from our 'allies' who were uncomfortable w us in decades past "we have to accept gays because who would ever *choose* to be like that?" I dunno, the somewhat maudlin display of gay self-hatred seems compulsory for 'respectable' gays and it just never fit for me - it fit more often for people who thought I was 'messing it up' for the rest of them who wanted to be normal and gender conforming and whatever. I didn't ever want to be more masculine and I didn't want to be straight (this was also obviously complicated by the fact that I wasn't even not into women! but i wouldn't have ever fit in a normal str8 relationship, ya know?) i just wanted other people to not treat me like shit for being the person I was, for talking and moving like I did/do and being into the people I was and having the interests I had. But that presents a challenge to an audience - why did you let it be that way? that I think a gay candidate probably couldn't raise if they wanted to, and tbh i don't even think Pete wants to.

it is just like... to me it's weird to start voicing one's feelings around being gay as like this thing that was only shameful but now you are on the level w normal str8 people because look, you got married or whatever. being gay and growing up gay and trans for me wasn't abt wishing i could be different but abt the world being different, but more than that like I got some valuable things out of growing up this way - i had to create my own sense of ethics and it gave me a critical eye towards just accepting things the way they were. I had to stand up for myself, i had to believe in something, i had to fight for other people (even if just my partners and friends) and be willing to know that whatever i do some people are just gonna hate it and that's not necessarily my problem. I dunno, I just wish at some point that if we were forced to watch gay politicians talk abt this shit that they would be talking abt the value of their gayness, the things a gay/trans experience has given them, and like not seem so uncomfortable w not only that aspect of themselves but by implication w other more visible/'stereotypical' gay people. we should be getting a Prior rather than a 2020 version of Joe Pitt

[noping-out-deactivated20241117]

Twice when flying I have had Flight Attendants repeatedly insist I needed a wheelchair pusher - for my POWER CHAIR - because they couldn’t imagine I could possibly find my next gate to make my connection.

Despite the fact I had obviously found the gate for my first flight without any help.

Both times they called someone over my protests only to be hugely offended when I headed off without them.

The infantilization of disabled people is a huge issue.

[noping-out-deactivated20241117]

One of those times I was even traveling with someone. Apparently traveling with a disabled person makes you both incompetent because fuck Ableds.

[noping-out-deactivated20241117]

I just realized this is a violation of the ACAA.

“§382.11 What is the general nondiscrimination requirement of this part?“

(2) You must not require a qualified individual with a disability to accept special services (including, but not limited to, preboarding) that the individual does not request.”

I had a similar incident on another flight within the last six months. Guess who’s going to be filing another complaint with the DOT?