"[...] Understanding the world as a collection of aesthetics, of brands, instead of a series of philosophies and power struggles means focusing on how things appear, and not how or why they work. It’s bad enough to think about art this way, but thinking of yourself this way is a real disaster, [it] means neglecting what drives you, what fulfills you, what makes you human. The invented lifestyles of these aesthetics offer no path to embodiment, because they aren’t designed for entities with bodies. They’re designed for TikTok, and hashtags, and the wiki."
Ahmad Aldany is a disabled teenager living in Gaza. He was born into this world already a victim of the Israeli occupation, with lifelong health conditions impacting his bones from exposure in utero to gas from a phosphorus bomb fired in 2008.
Two years ago, his home was completely destroyed, and his family was displaced, like so many other Palestinians, moving from place to place in search of safety. He witnessed horrific scenes no child should ever see: destruction, and constant fear.
Ahmed is now suffering from a very difficult psychological condition. He wakes up at night to the sound of explosions and screams at the top of his voice because he is afraid. The healthcare infrastructure was decimated, leaving him unable to receive the treatment he needs for his disability. Now, the famine has become so severe that he goes long days without eating.
Ahmed has raised €4,567 so far, but he needs much more to be able to secure afford food for his family, get the treatment he needs, and eventually get to safety.
He needs visibility on his campaign. Please donate what you can, share this message, and if you can, offer to write him a post to share his story with others.
My name is Ahmad Aldany. I am reaching out to you from the heart of the daily suff… Ahmed Aldany needs your support for Help Ahmed and his f
VETTED: @gazavetters in line (#198) and @a-shade-of-blue
serious contender here for best video essay ever made
Lily was tear gassed by the cops in the course of making it, and that's not even the bit that hits the hardest. Seriously, check it out, it's incredible
Since I've gotten a couple anons about this situation that, frankly, I don't have the energy to answer, I will just share Lily Alexandre's video on it. It is exactly my take on the whole situation, all the way down to her opinions on Knight's writing being barely feminist, anti-community, the AI hallucination Dworkin quote etc. etc. and the nuances surrounding how we discuss harm caused by other trans people.
If you don't follow Lily Alexandre's channels already I highly recommend you do. I've been following her for several years and really love the way she presents her ideas.
But thinking about trans communities all over the world, if there's one thing we have in common, it's that we find a way to make it work. If this level of adversity feels new to some of us, well, it's not. These are the conditions that we faced 99% of the time, and they're the conditions that most of our cultural practices emerged under. DIY hormone therapy has allowed our community to survive for the past 90 years; if we didn't have it, we wouldn't have the community we have today: resilient and pragmatic and big enough to keep each other alive. There is no trans community as we know it without DIY'ing. It may not be perfect as, like, an individual healthcare regimen, but as a survival strategy, it is remarkable. It's incredible. To deny it would be to deny everything.
Not to be that unbearable "I always had a feeling about them" person but I kinda started making a stink face at Lily Alexandre when in her big TWERF video essay she seemed genuinely more scandalized and disgusted by someone reading smut about teenagers than all the actual TWERF shit she talked about.
