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Elijah, 27 / 🐊 🐶 🏖️ Trans man. College student. Future nurse. I started testosterone May 24th 2016. I got top surgery May 2nd 2017. Hysto and SRS someday. [this is a sideblog]

[hiveswap]

listen i am not american. i understand that even democrats fucking suck and its a genuinely shitty situation to be in. im so sorry. but hey, hey look at me. why are you guys bullying people for saying "you should still vote blue?" Like im curious about the alternatives youve got. voting red? firebombing walmart? tumblr user catboyssepticbutthole, i know you will not be firebombing walmart.

[hiveswap]

you guys are falling into the "the revolution will fix everything" mindset and then not even occupying tv buildings or organising the coup or anything. youre just posting. Don't encourage being complacent under the guise of encouraging revolution

[pelicanhypeman]

‘You are not here for a doping test. You are here for a gender test’: athlete Caster Semenya on how her life changed for ever

In this extract from her autobiography, the South African runner reveals what went on behind the scenes at the 2009 world championships in B

The day I returned home from the championships, the blood report was leaked to the press, alongside the results of a second test conducted while I was in Berlin. There it was. The things I did not know about my body. I found out, along with the rest of the world, that I did not have a uterus or fallopian tubes. The newspapers reported I had undescended testicles that were the source of my higher than normal levels of testosterone. They went on to call me a hermaphrodite. In my culture, this term does not apply to people like me, but the world media forced that label on me and that is what I am called to this day.

It was as if some kind of bomb had exploded … and the fallout just kept getting bigger and bigger. I couldn’t escape it. My face and story was plastered across television screens and newspapers all over the world. It was as if the entirety of humanity had discovered some kind of alien that had been living amongst them. I remember thinking: “Now what? Am I going to run again? OK, so this explains why I haven’t gotten a period. All right. If these people are saying I don’t have a womb, then this means I will never be able to carry a child. I want a family.”

[…]

I kept thinking: “This thing can never be undone.” The girl I had been before I got on that plane to Berlin – happy, joking, innocent, eager, hopeful – she’d been disappeared on the way back. And in these early days of my exile, there was nothing to put in that empty space. Imagine you are told one day that because of some medical this or that, you are actually not a woman. Think about it. In the eyes of the entire world, you are now something other than what you know yourself to be. And the entire world will not stop talking about you. Ever. Until the day you die, you will be the punchline of a joke about genitals or gender or sex or whatever.

Caster Semenya found out she was being gender tested when she showed up for the test, she thought it was a doping test. She found out the results - that she’s intersex - on the news with everyone else. She was 18 years old.

What they did to this woman is evil. She’s handled it with so much grace but she shouldn’t have to. It’s so awful. I’m never going to stop being mad about this.

[homunculus-argument]

The human body's response to HRT is actually admirable in the sheer indifference. Just pure I Don't Give A Shit, I Just Fucking Work Here compliance to the new instructions. You can get testosterone injected straight into your body and it doesn't even question where that shit came from, coming back from a coffee break and just going

"Okay, everything seems to be in ord- oh fuck now what? Oh huh. Alright fine. New orders came in, cancel the menstrual cycle. Dig up the genetic balding patterns from somewhere, I don't fucking know they're buried somewhere in the dna. I'm greenlighting the growing-hair-on-your-toes thing. Yeah just cancel the ongoing maintenance processes, new orders came in so this is apparently what we're doing now."

[p1xelpc]

if you defense for why eugenics bad is " maybe our disabilities helpful actually " you part of problem

[p1xelpc]

those of us who not able do anything " helpful " still deserve live we not next step of evolution we just people stop worry if people disable could be good in future and just help keep alive in present

[editoress]

It's very possible that the only way to ensure you don't become a conservative old person is to keep checking whether you're wrong. Every time. Genuinely mull over the opposing viewpoint even and especially when it's uncomfortable. You absolutely cannot a) consider yourself safely incapable of terrible principles because you're a good person, or b) treat a your disgust reaction to something as a moral truth. You can't get comfortable. Tiring! But you'd rather be tired and choose the right path, you know?

[jezabatlovesbats]

[transalligator]

I used to have a really black and white view of gender affirming surgeries because I thought any cis person who got them would develop dysphoria like many trans people have. Seeing cis women who got top surgery and are happy as fuck about not having boobs anymore helped change that.

You don't want to have boobs? You go girl. Do what makes you happy. Do what improves your life. If I was a cis lady and not FTM I'd probably still want top surgery or at least a super aggressive reduction to like a tiny A cup because they flopped around and made laying on my stomach annoying and were just a hindrance in general.

[animentality]

[memecucker]

Science Stopped Believing in Porn Addiction. You Should, Too

What does it mean that religion, not porn use, predicts porn-related problems?

Now, researchers have put a nail in the coffin of porn addiction. Josh Grubbs, Samuel Perry and Joshua Wilt are some of the leading researchers on America’s struggles with porn, having published numerous studies examining the impact of porn use, belief in porn addiction, and the effect of porn on marriages. And Rory Reid is a UCLA researcher who was a leading proponent gathering information about the concept of hypersexual disorder for the DSM-5. These four researchers, all of whom have history of neutrality, if not outright support of the concepts of porn addiction, have conducted a meta-analysis of research on pornography and concluded that porn use does not predict problems with porn, but that religiosity does

[ms-demeanor]

If the concept of pornography addiction were true, then porn-related problems would go up, regardless of morality, as porn use goes up. But the researchers didn’t find that. In fact, they cite numerous studies showing that even feeling like you struggle to control your porn use doesn’t actually predict more porn use. What that means is that the people who report great anguish over controlling their porn use aren’t actually using more porn; they just feel worse about it.

Having moral conflict over your porn use (PPMI) does turn out to be bad for you. But that's not because of the porn. Instead, higher levels of moral conflict over porn use predict higher levels of stress, anxiety, depression, and diminished sexual well-being, as well as religious and spiritual struggles. In one study by Perry and Whitehead, pornography use predicted depression over a period of six years, but only in men who disapproved of porn use. Continuing to use porn when you believe that it is bad is harmful. Believing that you are addicted to porn and telling yourself that you're unable to control your porn use hurts your well-being. It's not the porn, but the unresolved, unexamined moral conflict.

This is a really good writeup.

[canadianwheatpirates]

Something it leaves out, which I think is very important and a major nail in the coffin of “porn addiction”, is that researchers did brain scans of “porn addicts” and found that they have the opposite response to the brains of people addicted to drugs, alcohol, and gambling:

When studying addictions, there are known relationships between certain stimuli and reactions in the brain. These reactions have, in some instances, become the benchmark for what constitutes an addiction and addiction-based behaviors.  There has been heated debate over the very existence of porn “addiction” and what that addiction would look like when studied. In the largest neuroscience study of porn addiction to date, research conducted at UCLA found a clear reversal of the brain’s typical addiction response in study participants when they were shown sexual images. With the use of brain wave monitoring, participants who reported major problems controlling their viewing of sex films showed decreased brain reactions when shown the sexual images, rather than heightened activity as having a “porn addiction” would suggest. The study shows that the brain does not react the way an addict’s brain would react to cues for their drug of choice. In fact, the study shows that the hypothetical “sex addict” brain reacts in the opposite way that a drug addict’s brain reacts, questioning whether sex addiction actually exists. “This finding is important, because it shows a reversal of a part of the brain response that has been consistently documented in other substance addictions and gambling disorder,” Prause said. She also noted that this was consistent with their previous study, in which participants served as their own control and no relationship existed between the severity of their sex film problems and their brain response. Many self-identified “hypersexual” people say they have an uncontrollable urge for sexual stimuli, and that it has resulted in negative life consequences such as loss of jobs or loss of relationships. For this reason, many clinicians have suggested that "sex addiction" be diagnosed much like drug addiction. “While we do not doubt that some people struggle with their sexual behaviors, these data show that the nature of the problem is unlikely to be addictive,” said Prause.

This matters because a) the treatment for someone with an addiction that has affected their brain is different to people who are having problems that don’t have those effects, and b) the belief that porn is addictive like alcohol is a major plank in conservative attacks on it (and on sex workers). The reason that this has come back up now is that both Republicans and Democrats in Texas are trying to force porn websites to post disclaimers about porn being “biologically addictive” when it isn’t.

[tooies]

this website's moderation sucks ass and it has a terrible bot problem and there are an enormous amount of bugs but thankfully we have a staff team hard at work not addressing any of these but instead making shitty ui changes that nobody wants

[our-queer-experience]

we DO grow old and happy. btw.

[imconfusedallthetimehelp]

And you find love and it stays with you.

[homoidiotic]

Steve Dain (1940 – 2007) was an FTM who transitioned in the late 70's and lost his teaching job, he was a gym teacher in Union City. Although the court would eventually decide in his favor, and allow him to go back to teaching, he was not able to find a school that would hire him.

"Later, I would meet Steve Dain. Steve had been Lou Sullivan's hero. In those days, most trans men in the Bay Area went off on a pilgrimage to meet him as we entered medical transition. Lou had met with Steve years before when he began his transition, and Jamison Green would meet him a short time before I did. It was nearly a ritual, a rite of passage to meet with Steve. There were no trans men that we knew of who had come before him. Steve was nearby and our most visible example, and someone who each one of us hoped would confer wisdom, and a kind of blessing or validation. I think we all were a bit awestruck. And, Steve didn't let us down. I know he didn't let me down. I still remember meeting him in Union City, he picked me up and I was taken with his easy and total masculinity. He was hirsute, and handsome, confident and kind. He was sensitive to each question I asked and his answers would influence me for the entirety of my transition." -Max Wolf Valerio (quote from his blog) (photos by Mariette Pathy Allen 1980s)

[nothorses]

extremely fucking weird to have to convince leftists that fighting for a better public education system & better wages for teachers is not, like, the Lame Establishment Dem take or whatever.

It is not Cool and Radical to advocate for the dissolution of the entire public education system in favor of Everyone Doing Their Own Thing. what you're describing is libertarianism, and a system that directly and dramatically benefits fascist right-wingers and child abusers.

the community-centered child rearing yall love to talk about exists. it desperately needs to be improved, but the bones are here, and they're already doing a lot of legwork in the fight against aggressive nuclear family isolation.

it's called public school, you fucking dweeb.

[disgusting-fucking-jester]

Eradicating the school system and everyone "doing their own thing" is literally just more individualist bullcrap and this is coming from someone who was home educated and is very pro home education.

Educating children is a community task, that's WHY public schools exist. and a lot of people that currently take their child out of schools and home educate them either do that for the wrong reasons (like those not wanting schools to teach them the wrong things like evolution is real and racism is bad) and a lot that fall into the trap of being hyper-individualist with their education.

The school system currently fucking sucks but there is proof that the solution isnt to get rid of the system itself.

kind of off topic, but the right way to home educate by the way is to basically do it as a community with several other parents and people who are experienced in certain teachable things. this is how i got my education, and if you noticed, this is also how public schools and the school system works.

The school system works, it just needs massive improvements.

and until those improvements happen, i suggest looking into home education and unschooling in a communal way if you have kids. (again ive literally been educated in this way and cant recommend it enough)

[todaysbird]

why are people still so vehemently opposed to indoor only cats

[mortalityplays]

the way people on here talk about the porn ban makes me completely fucking insane honestly.

yes I would love a return to the old ways.

no that isn't something staff have control over, it's a systemic issue with puritanical groups intentionally strangling online infrastructure to make adult content impossible to platform.

no that doesn't mean the ban was value neutral and I will fucking kill you with my mind if you start going on about how 'it just meant all the annoying people left'

sex workers left, and so did the high spending customers who made tumblr a viable platform for a lot of other small creators

a lot of sex educators and queer outreach groups also left, and nobody seems to remember that they were a huge part of the landscape here

you have to take the eradication of sexual content from online spaces seriously as an issue that affects more than whether you personally can post catgirl balls on one specific platform

there is no 'good social media' in 2023 that will ever be equipped to solve this problem until the financial/cultural issue is addressed. decentralisation is your best bet. sorry.

[mortalityplays]

btw there is no getting away from the fact that a lot of the Types of Guys you sneer at on twitter and reddit and talk about scaring off with your crazy loco posting are the same types of guys who pay sustainable dollars for the pornography you say you want back. it's a whole separate issue but you have to make peace with the fact most SWers cater to a lot of cringe middle class normcore freaks. the weird dads who comment on feet subsidise porn for the commune.

[mkeanarchytect]

If you are thinking about it on paper, the bus running every half hour doesn't sound so bad, until you're waiting at the stop and you miss a bus or it's delayed. Then you're waiting a very, very long time. To people who never take transit, that's probably fine. Why do you care. To people who only take transit, they're expecting it, it's baked in their lives. But the important part, what really impacts our cities, is what happens to people for whom transit is an option.

The spiral goes like this. You go to take the bus instead of driving, thinking "I'm going to o have a couple drinks" or "I don't want to worry about parking where I'm going." So you take bus. First bus is right on time. But then you transfer from your neighborhood line to the line that takes you where you actually want to go. And your bus is delayed. And it only comes every 30 minutes. And then you're waiting, 40 minutes later, wondering where your bus is, knowing you could have driven there in 20 minutes.

Why would you ever chose to take a bus again? The bus made you waste precious time on your day off just sitting there. So next time you drive. Ridership goes down. When the transit authority asks for more money for more buses and more drivers, people point to the ridership numbers and say "why should we pay for this instead of paying for our schools/police/baseball stadium/parks/police again (let's be real that's who's taking all the money)?" If we want to increase ridership we need to actually design and fund functional transit networks. If we want people to actually ride the bus we need to make it a better option than driving, which means reliable service, which you don't get with a bus every 30 minutes.

Every 15 minutes, everywhere, all of the time.

[genderoutlaws]

why are you using he/him and still calling yourself a lesbian

to spite you, specifically,

[respectissexy]

It feels taboo as a childfree person to admit this but I actually do have concerns about who is going to take care of me when I'm old. The elder care system in our nation relies A LOT on the unpaid care labor of adult children. I just don't think that's a good reason to have kids.

"But you'll have more money!" does not completely put this to rest for me. Neither does "Buy care insurance!" Even if I can afford direct personal care, who is going to advocate for me to get it? Who is going to navigate bureaucracy for me when I'm 80?

"If you do have kids, there's no GUARANTEE that they'll take care of you when your old!" That's true, but doesn't solve my problem.

I think childfree people get very defensive about this question because its used as a kind of "gotcha!" against us, but I actually do not feel we can afford to be in denial about this reality. Based on current trends of more people in their 30s stating they intend to be permanently childfree, we are going to see a huge wave of childfree adults hitting the eldercare system at once in a few decades. Childfree people in their 30s should be advocating around eldercare NOW.

[drtanner]

We desperately need to cultivate a society in which everyone, even the most bitter, unlikeable, miserably lonely person in the world, has a social safety net that they can rely on from the day they're born to the day they die, and that includes their elder care.

We are not going to achieve this meaningfully under capitalism. :')