I don't know who needs to hear this but you need to stop dehumanising people even if those people are "abusers" or "creeps" because you need to understand that you are not immune to doing something equally as bad
Abusers and creeps are not some species of especially heinous animal or alien or monster wearing the face of a human. They're people. And you NEED to drill it into your head that they are people because you NEED to remember that people are capable of doingn heinous shit. And you are a person. And your loved ones are people.
By emotionally classifying people who have done heinous things as subhuman filth incapable of thinking and feeling and acting just like you and me, and by using that emotional dehumanization as a reason to deny those people any compassion or support on a systemic level, you risk becoming blind to abuse/violence perpetrated by someone close to you or even yourself. Because if "abusers don't deserve rights", then you won't ever want to admit or accept that you or a loved one is perpetrating abuse, and that makes stopping the abuse or preventing further abuse much harder. This is how you end up excuaing abusive behaviour on the grounds that, since you don't see someone as a disgusting subhuman pile of garbage therefore they can't possibly be An Abuser, Trademark
And here'a the even harder pill to swallow: since the world isn't split into "abusers" and "good people", in the same way you or someone you love can inflict abuse/violence on others, the people who HAVE inflicted abuse/violence on others can, in fact, change and become better people
There is no bottomless chasm of moral uncleanliness that someone can run off and fall into and get stuck in forever. People can do better. Yes, even those people. You HAVE to accept this. Otherwise not only is there no motivation for anyone to try and do better (which is when people become stuck in a cycle of violence and abuse they don't want to escape), but your idea of a perfect justice system doesn't look any different from Literal Christian Hell. And I HOPE you understand that Literal Christian Hell is, to put it very lightly, not a good justice system.
it is genuinely so unbelievably annoying to be a child trafficking survivor and have to listen to people argue about shadows on the wall when it comes to children’s rights and child abuse prevention. the only true way to prevent child abuse is to take away parental control. give children rights. give them the education, resources, and rights to say yes or no to whatever and whoever they desire. i know what would have helped me. i’m so mind numbingly sick of all of this. everyone wants to feel like a hero, but nobody wants to help anyone.
there is not a pedophile cabal hiding in the shadows waiting to kidnap children. parents are the number one perpetrators of child sexual abuse. my kidnapper was my mother. my traffickers were all paid by her and had legal custody over me. i was forced thru constant manual labor and sexual humiliation in the name of “therapy” because parents are allowed to do whatever they want with the children they own. the end of adult supremacy is the only way to end child abuse.
Man at this point terfs just make me sad for/pity them.
Like. Just imagine spending so much of your limited time on earth willfully being miserable and hateful. It would take less energy and effort to NOT be full of hate.
They’re choosing misery, and for what? To be ridiculed and hated in turn? To what end? They’ll never be happy, even if they did somehow get everything they wanted. They choose to be miserable, and they don’t even realize they’re doing it :(
It’s just really, really pitiful
(In reference to this post, in which a TERF wasn’t even able to go off-script when I invited them to, instead deliberately turning and attacking what they believed to be a softer target: https://www.tumblr.com/elodieunderglass/784511337380397056/what-to-do-well-terf-politics-are-fear-based)
Because one of the main tactics of their ideology is to promise safety from fear and uncertainty, by giving their recruits like-minded friends, it’s worth pointing out these friends seem like really low-quality friends, and the ideology hasn’t produced anything.
My apologies! Here is your response! You’ll note that you’ve forgotten what you “literally” said. You were talking about an “advanced biology class,” but now you’re saying something else.
And this was your second response, which is not a response. My apologies for not considering that this added to the discourse.
You didn’t answer the question of whether you were sure of your ground, you just said the same thing twice. Repeating the same point is not actually an answer to a question. But! Presumably that means you’re happy, and the entire development of your thesis is “there is no advanced biology class that says there are three or more sexes.”
With the two mentions of “advanced biology”, you appear to be having a specific emotional response to this picture:
For an image ID, this is a picture showing a person in an “advanced biology class” with a sign saying “sex does not equal gender” and below it, a distribution, appearing to indicate frequency. At high points of the distribution are markings reading “m” and “f,” presumably “male and female.”
2. Is the image ID accurate? Please re-write if you feel it is inaccurate.
3. What do you think the distribution represents?
4. Can you explain why this makes you think of “three or more sexes” ? Was it something about the picture? Why three? What precisely is making you think of the number“three” and why do you keep repeating it?
And finally
5. What kind of evidence would you accept to counter your belief that “there is no advanced biology class that says there are three or more sexes” ? This is a statement that can easily be researched, and you’ve declined to bring any evidence; if an “advanced biology class” is found that does so, your statement will be instantly incorrect. You’re the one who has said that it doesn’t matter if the class is good or respectable or reputable or anything like that - you’re the one who made the statement as if it was a fixed observation. You said there are “no” classes, and confirmed that this is your entire thesis.
What would you allow to change your mind? Would you accept a syllabus of a biology class? Peer-reviewed biology publications from reputable journals that state the exact phrase “three or more sexes” in a research context? A post from a respected professor of biology stating what they cover in their class? What will you accept?
What makes you think of this “three or more” thing? And what piece of evidence would you accept?
(Edit: oh I’m sorry I forgot to add. 6. Are you sure of your ground? (What makes you sure)?) )
I repeated what I said because you did not offer an counter argument, all you did was patronise me. I did not feel the need to engage with that
2. Gender is not biological so it should be irrelevant to any ‘advanced biology’.
3. What distribution? Of the sexes? What are you referring to?
4. Because the implication is there are more than two sexes. I say three because it is more than two
5. Presence of a third gamete. Which does not exist
6. Fairly sure as I have had plenty of people give me what they believed was ‘evidence’ of more than two sexes, ‘evidence’ which did not prove such a thing at all. If I ever came across new information that actually proved that I would of course incorporate it into my understanding. But I’ve looked far and wide and not found anything so I assume such evidence probably does not exist. Sex is still binary. Believe me, I’ve been on your side of the argument. Searched for answers that supported it because I wanted to believe it. Came back with no evidence supporting it so I had to come to a different conclusion, one with actual evidence behind it
Thank you very much for your time, attention, and for participating. I appreciate this, and that you have genuinely been a good sport.
As I stated, this was a demonstration of TERF scripts. Not an attempt to change your mind - which seems to be operating exactly as you intend it to! Changing your mind is not my business, or of any interest at all to me! - or to “win” anything, but a little party trick to amuse my friends. You walked into my house and agreed to play, and my friends said they were ready for a laugh, so here it is.
For those unfamiliar with TERF chatbot scripts, this one is expected to go like this.l:
TERF: biologically, there are only two sexes.
Well-meaning person who knows about biology, and thinks this is an invitation to talk about biology: actually, there are more than that in all sorts of organisms! such as -
TERF: those aren’t humans.
Well-meaning person: but you said “biology,” you said “biologically, there are only two sexes,” and we’ve just said -
TERF: I am talking about human sperm.
well-meaning person: but - but no, we weren’t?
TERF: I am. You people can never produce evidence of three types of human gametes.
Well-meaning person: but that isn’t - even remotely - your first statement? Nobody was talking about “three” anything, or sperm, or humans, that’s not -
TERF: you never have any evidence.
That’s how this is supposed to go. You’re supposed to try to be helpful and educational while they think about sperm.
Instead, I played a little game. I pounced on the fictional “advanced biology class” and placed a few traps around it.
Me: What kind of evidence would you accept to counter your belief that “there is no advanced biology class that says there are three or more sexes” ?
This guy: Presence of a third gamete. Which does not exist.
WAHEY! Mission achieved.
We have now achieved my purpose of being Funny as Fuck, because, like I said, I’m not super interested in this guy - I was prodding for fuel to do various bits, and this one is 🫶
SCENE: a college advisory office
Prospective Student: hello, I’m wondering what we would cover inAdvanced Comparative Analysis of Moby Dick that’s different from the other similar literature classes in the course catalogue, but there’s no longer any information about what classes cover online. Do you have a copy of the syllabus?
Advisor: (hands them a cup of thick liquid)
Prospective Student: what is this?
Advisor: whale sperm.
Student: how is that relevant?
Advisor: sorry, gametes are our course catalogues and syllabi now. The new administration didn’t like people being able to interpret information, so…
Student: I guess it’s pretty cool that you have whale sperm on hand for Moby Dick? Whale sperm, sperm whale… thematically appropriate.
Advisor: yeah - please don’t ask for any other information about other classes, though.
Student: uh… well unfortunately for my major, it’s down a decision about this course, or the one about ALL the author’s works…
Advisor, wearily: are you really gonna make me do this?
Student: I’m sorry!
Advisor, pulling on leather gloves: CARINA! Yeah, we gotta go out back and milk Melville. YEAH I KNOW. God, it was better when we could just do this on paper.
(End scene)
Anyway, thank you for your time and sportsmanship. I appreciate your consideration, and thank you very much for the prompt. You can go, with my best wishes.
Everyone else if you could stay back and join me behind the cut real quick.
Oh my goodness guys. Did you see how I was pointing to the binomial (edit: bimodal, my apologies) distribution, asking if they understood it, and if we both agreed what it represented, and they were like “what distribution”.
Like this wasn’t even getting into the “are these ‘three sexes’ in the room with us right now? And where on this DISTRIBUTION did you think you saw three things? And what precisely were you reacting to on that graph?”
It was straight up a case of looking at my finger saying “what distribution” oh my goodness. Oh my goodness they didn’t know it was a binomial (edit: bimodal) distribution or that - I POINTED RIGHT AT it.
I’m making a mental whistling noise. PLEASE hold my hands and do a calming circle with me. I literally need this.
@ruinedrainbowpooka I like to tell TERFS that there are only two types of Atom in the Universe, Hydrogen and Helium, even combined all of the other atoms in the universe are only 1 or 2 percent.
In response specifically to point 5: Considering that human sex is not determined by a single gamete but a pair (or more) of gametes in combination with genetic "switches" (for lack of a better term), the requirement that a third sex be defined as the existence of a third gamete in humans is fundamentally misunderstanding sex in humans at even the most basic level. However, if the absence of something can be defined as a third something, then yes, humans have 3 gametes, because X- (where '-' is null) gamete-having humans are fully capable of surviving, even if they are not capable of reproducing at the rate of humans who possess paired gametes (XX, XY); additionally, XXY and XXX gamete-having humans are also capable of surviving to adulthood and even, in some cases, reproducing successfully. This, ofc, barely scratches the surface of the variety of naturally occurring intersex conditions in the human species (aka more than 3 sexes).
Fun addendum to this, if null doesn't "count" as a third gamete for the purposes of this spuriously academic point (#5), I will assume that the grounding assumption is that the only gametes that exist are X and Y, which is patently false within the animal kingdom. For example, birds' (and several other clades) sex is determined by their gametes Z and W, where females are ZW and males are ZZ. Look, I found not only a third but a fourth gamete!
Source: my two degrees in Animal Science and the biology, physiology, and endocrinology courses I took in my courses of study that taught me so, backed by peer reviewed evidence.
I made this post thinking about the people who used to be competent at basic digital tasks and everyday decision making, and then succumbed to learned helplessness by surrendering these tasks to Large Language Models like Chat-gpt.
Not being able to decide what to eat. Not being able to write simple email correspondence. Not being able to convert a document. Without the use of an AI subscription.
You can unlearn helplessness too and overcome digital dependencies (like AI and gambling), but there really is some Twilight Zone bullshit going on here.
I took a psychology elective last trimester, and one of the seminars was "Success at University: Using AI to Your Advantage". What this entailed was repetition of all the negatives of relying on AI (quicker burnout, opinions being rewritten, arrested development, cognitive offloading, etc) with nothing covering any potential benefits of AI. Props to that teacher, I could tell how much she fucking hated AI.
I made this post thinking about the people who used to be competent at basic digital tasks and everyday decision making, and then succumbed to learned helplessness by surrendering these tasks to Large Language Models like Chat-gpt.
Not being able to decide what to eat. Not being able to write simple email correspondence. Not being able to convert a document. Without the use of an AI subscription.
You can unlearn helplessness too and overcome digital dependencies (like AI and gambling), but there really is some Twilight Zone bullshit going on here.
I cannot believe degendering pregnancy is a controversial topic. idk how it is in the west, but when I went to a doctor, told her that I'm pregnant and I needed to do blood tests and many other things she laughed at me and said smth like: "you a 180cm grownass man pregnant??? honey, pregnancy is for those who are women. if you're a mentally ill trans then you can visit a psychologist instead", and I told her that I'm intersex but she was like "not pregnant, *h slurs* are sterile and can't get pregnant, especially if they're a man like you are." I saw 6 different doctors and I was mocked by all of them, until my partner somehow made one of them listen, and she saw that I really was pregnant and being intersex didn't make me "sterile." if pregnancy was degendered and was replaced with neutral language I'd have easier time accessing healthcare. and now that I did, the doctors are still confused and they're like "yeahhh, they never taught us how to treat defects like you so let us treat you like we would treat *normal pregnancy.*" first of all why are you calling a human being a defect, and secondly, do you treat EVERY pregnant woman you see the same way? there are different kinds of pregnancies. not every pregnancy is the same. different people have different complications and needs. why do you treat intersex pregnancy as something impossible that cannot be helped and monitored. especially for pregnant intersex men (or phenotypical "man", idk how to say it). the medical system makes you feel horrible for being intersex and pregnant intersex man. they'll either deny your healthcare or they'll abuse you and force you into womanhood even when you never lived it.
As if Joanne couldn't get any shittier, she misgendered and insulted a woman who called for support, all because the woman had PCOS/PMOS and "didn't sound feminine enough."
Fuck her.
Your shitty children's series isn't more important than people's lives.
It was the second vandalism incident of 2026 at the past and future site of Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center
When Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center held services in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, Chann and Christina An, who lived across the street, sometimes sat on their front porch and listened to the songs.
And when the Eaton fire flattened the PJTC campus last January — and the An home, too — the synagogue helped its next-door neighbors with food donations and gift cards.
“Ever since the fire, they’ve included us like one of their members,” Chann An said.
So when a vandal earlier this week spray-painted swastikas on a mural the synagogue had painted on its only remaining wall, it felt like an attack on them, too. On Thursday, when PJTC organized a community-wide solidarity event at the site, the Ans were among many non-Jewish residents in attendance.
“They’re part of our community, and they’re always welcome, and I want them to feel that way,” said An. “And I want them to feel that all the neighbors support them.”
What typically happens when a Jewish institution is tagged — an increasingly common story these days — is a familiar chain of events: Photos are snapped and posted online; Jewish leaders and local officials issue statements; the tag is covered up and people move on.
In Altadena, all of that happened. But so did something else: The synagogue was inundated with messages of support from surrounding faith institutions and Altadena residents, according to the temple’s executive director Melissa Levy. A few of those neighbors had offered to sand down the graffiti themselves.
That kind of support has been really beautiful in the wake of all of this,” Levy said.
The Eaton fire devastated Altadena, killing 19 people and leveling cherished community institutions, including the temple’s 75-year-old campus and several other houses of worship. Dozens of congregants lost their homes in the blaze. Where PJTC’s sanctuary, chapel and religious school once stood, weeds now rise five feet off the ground.
The mural had been painted in May in response to graffiti on the same wall earlier this year. At the mural’s center was a fire poppy — a native flower known to rise from ashes — adorned with a message intended to be universal: We are all responsible for each other.
“When we look at the mural,” Christina An said, it reminds them: “We’re all going to be back.”
But this week, those inspiring words were painted over with another. Vandals painted more swastikas alongside the message: “Zionism is not welcome.” No arrests have been made in either instance, and it is unclear whether the same person was responsible for both incidents. LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger has called on the county to offer a $20,000 reward for information on the culprit.
“There’s an increased feeling of vulnerability after the fire destroyed our home,” said Rabbi Josh Ratner, the synagogue’s senior leader. “To have any stuff happen after that compounds our vulnerability.”
Rising from the ashes
The stone wall abutting Altadena Boulevard was the only one on the complex that remained fully intact after the fire. But it didn’t become a symbol until after it was vandalized earlier this year, when passersby noticed on Jan. 13 that the charred stone wall had been tagged.
That graffiti read “F— Zionism” and “RIP Renee,” the latter message an apparent reference to Renee Nicole Good, an anti-ICE protester who had been killed the previous week in Minneapolis.
In response, synagogue leadership decided to cover it with art. Working with a local group called Art Against Hate, PJTC commissioned a muralist who invited synagogue members to contribute ideas — and recruited their children to help paint it.
The mural was sectioned like stained glass, with Stars of David in the corners and a border containing the animal symbols for the tribes of Israel. A peacock adorned one side — the birds have thrived in the area for more than a century — and while the children were painting it, one approached the scene, seemingly to admire it.
“It was for Altadena as much as the synagogue, and the neighbors appreciated it,” said Judy Callahan, a longtime PJTC member. “I think looking out and seeing it — they still see this vacant lot, but it just made things cheerier.”
Coming together
Many of those neighbors — and a phalanx of local officials — were on hand Thursday to condemn the latest graffiti and watch Miriam Hellmann, the muralist, apply the final touches for a second time.
Barger spoke, as did Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo, U.S. Rep. Judy Chu and others. But just as important to the temple members in attendance were the locals who braved the scorching heat to embrace them.
After Ratner spoke, he invited the Rev. Amy Aitken to the podium. Aitken leads the First United Methodist Church of Pasadena, where PJTC has been holding their services for the last year.
After joking that most other Methodist churches don’t have a “campus rabbi” — that is, Ratner — she asked other clergy in attendance to stand up. Nearly a dozen did.
One of them was the Rev. Michael David Lewis of Altadena Community Church, who said he wanted to assure Jewish community members that he considered them family.
“When they are attacked, I want to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them,” he said. “I want to stand against the hate that was expressed here and stand against the fear that was expressed here.”
Hellmann, who is not Jewish, said every muralist knows their work might get tagged — murals tend to be in prominent places, and vandals want their message to be seen.
But this target had broader resonance than other walls, or even other synagogues. “It’s not just about the Jewish community,” Hellmann said. “It was supposed to be a symbol of hope for a lot of people.”
When Hellmann first painted the mural, she applied a layer of anti-graffiti coating that prevents spray paint from bonding to the surface. But the graffiti was not cleaned off immediately, allowing it to set.
“I’ll keep repainting it every day if I need to,” Hellmann said.
This time, she added an olive branch, that ancient symbol of peace.
“I think that it’s important for non-Jewish people to stand with the Jewish community when there’s antisemitism,” she said. “So I’m happy to be a part of it. I think it’s a beautiful religion.”
Authorities are investigating a hate crime after a mural at the site of the burned Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center was vandalized with an an
The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center said artists created the mural to serve as a message of hope and solidarity after the Eaton Fire.
The temple was swept away in the Eaton Fire, and the same wall vandalized Friday was defaced by antisemitic graffiti in January.
The sheriff’s department condemned the antisemitic vandalism, adding hate crime has no place in the community.
I wish all the “religion is inherently bad” people who go on to describe issues exclusive to Christianity would understand that their idea of Christianity being analogous to all religion is a very glaring sign that they are still steeped in the Christian hegemony they seem to reject so vehemently
This is abundantly clear when people "criticize" Judaism (and especially the big scary Talmud, which they have never read aside from clipped and cherry-picked quotes) with the assumption that Jewish theology functions exactly the same as Christian theology.
Stop talking about my religion and culture if you know jack shit about it. Thanks!
"But AI can't do your job. It can help you do your job, but that doesn't mean it's going to save anyone money. Take radiology: there's some evidence that AIs can sometimes identify solid-mass tumors that some radiologists miss, and look, I've got cancer. Thankfully, it's very treatable, but I've got an interest in radiology being as reliable and accurate as possible.
If my Kaiser hospital bought some AI radiology tools and told its radiologists: "Hey folks, here's the deal. Today, you're processing about 100 x-rays per day. From now on, we're going to get an instantaneous second opinion from the AI, and if the AI thinks you've missed a tumor, we want you to go back and have another look, even if that means you're only processing 98 x-rays per day. That's fine, we just care about finding all those tumors."
If that's what they said, I'd be delighted. But no one is investing hundreds of billions in AI companies because they think AI will make radiology more expensive, not even if that also makes radiology more accurate. The market's bet on AI is that an AI salesman will visit the CEO of Kaiser and make this pitch: "Look, you fire 9/10s of your radiologists, saving $20m/year, you give us $10m/year, and you net $10m/year, and the remaining radiologists' job will be to oversee the diagnoses the AI makes at superhuman speed, and somehow remain vigilant as they do so, despite the fact that the AI is usually right, except when it's catastrophically wrong.
"And if the AI misses a tumor, this will be the human radiologist's fault, because they are the 'human in the loop.' It's their signature on the diagnosis."
This is a reverse centaur, and it's a specific kind of reverse-centaur: it's what Dan Davies calls an "accountability sink." The radiologist's job isn't really to oversee the AI's work, it's to take the blame for the AI's mistakes.
This is another key to understanding – and thus deflating – the AI bubble. The AI can't do your job, but an AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can't do your job. This is key because it helps us build the kinds of coalitions that will be successful in the fight against the AI bubble."
- Cory Doctorow, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI
I actually do think it’s better for abusers and abusive characters to realize the harm their past actions caused and seek to do better than be literally or metaphorically executed for their crimes
I think it’s better for abusers and abusive characters to realize the harm their past actions caused and seek to do better than be literally or metaphorically executed for their crimes.
I think it’s better for abusers and abusive characters to realize the harm their past actions caused and seek to do better than be literally or metaphorically executed for their crimes.
Something about how society cares more about punishing the wicked than about making the world a better place, and how many people really struggle to shake that.
"children need more safe space online" children have always had more than enough safe space online. what you're seeing is children deliberately coming into online space that is meant specifically for adults. and I am not saying they are not welcome by the way, as long as adult space is what they CHOOSE to be in and as long as they keep themselves safe (however, it is not an adult's job or responsibility to look after a random kid or what content they consume on the internet).
but YOU. you see children deliberately choosing to consume adult contents and say "oh no we need more children's space, and in doing so, we must ban and censor adult contents FROM ADULTS' SPACE that children deliberately choose to be in.”
and you know what else I know? you don't actually care about children by demanding more children's space online, you are just hiding behind the "we are protecting children" claim while actively trying to control people what they can or can't create/consume in their own adult space. you are just trying to push for censorship, the fascist tool that you love so much.
hey man. nice regional dialect. mind if i apply some baseless assumptions about your personhood to it? i was also gonna prescribe morality to it as well. if that’s cool with you
this too shall pass @temporarilypermanenturl - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
