Valshaena @valshaena - Tumblr Blog

cherryhatter-deactivated2015072

KICK THE CAN!

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

To kick the can, reblog it. I wanna see how long this can go on for.

the oldest reblogs for this post that i can find are from january 2nd of 2013. this can has been getting kicked around tumblr for almost 13½ years now

drtanner

And yet somehow this is my first time kicking it!

melgillman

Here’s HSTHETE, the 24 hour comic I drew this year! Thanks to everybody who followed along on twitter this weekend as I posted these pages <3

PS: if you liked this, there’s a whole book of these comics available now!

melgillman

I’m reblogging this 7-year-old comic of mine because, not only is it somehow still circulating, it just passed 400,000 notes??? Thank you, several hundred thousand internet strangers, for keepin’ this ol’ goat girl goin’ so long

(Also hi, I’m still making fairy-tale-flavored lesbian romance comics and have a new one coming out very soon…)

ooppo

Idk why but as a kid I used to get hysterically upset everytime I would imagine a gif of a rotating cow because I could never stop the cow from rotating no matter how hard I tried and I would be crying and no one knew why

ooppo

chetungwan

This is probably an unnecessary addition, but OCD is missed in cases like these because it's deeply misunderstood by most people.

It's talked about like being obsessively neat or repeating pointless tasks is the main part of it, when really those are just potential symptoms.

The main thing behind OCD is not being about to turn off a thought. There's a thing where most people can just stop thinking about something. If it's over, it's not relevant, it doesn't matter anymore, people can turn their attention away. For OCD, that mechanism can get stuck. And some thought that was supposed to just temporarily pass through your head just stays there. An image of an object rotating. An anxiety about something bad happening. A wish that you made on a dandelion. These are all things that have at some point gotten stuck in my head, sometimes for years at a time.

The compulsions, the rituals, are the person trying to address the thought so it can go away. After all, if you're worried about the door not being locked you can check the lock. But for someone with OCD, that doesn't make the stuck thought go away. So they check it again. And again. And they made a ritual, maybe if I check it exactly five times, I'll know that it's locked and I can let this worry go.

It helps a little. It feels like you're doing something. But it doesn't solve the problem. Actual therapy for OCD involves not doing the compulsion. Instead, you ignore the thought, move around it, try not to give it space in your life. Your mind won't let the thought go normally, so instead you fill yourself with other thoughts. Other parts of your life.

It's not easy at first. Your mind fights you on it. But as you get practice, it gets easier. You learn tricks around your own mind, ways to look at the thought and go, hm. I guess I'll go distract myself now. It does get better. I promise

ocdheritageposts

OCD Heritage Post

thatdisasterauthor

It's That Time Again: Wildfire Season is Upon Us (It never really stopped being that time.)

I wanted to put together a post of resources and advice all collected into one spot, so here we go!

And remember, just because you think you live in an area where you are safe from wildfires because "it doesn't happen here" does not mean your risk is zero. Wildfires can happen anywhere in the United States, and their prevalence is increasing. Don't be afraid, just be aware and prepared.

Watch Duty

First and foremost, no matter where you live, I HIGHLY recommend getting the Watch Duty app and turning on alerts for the area you live. It is available on Apple, Android, and just as a website. It will allow you to get push notification updates for any wildfires that start in your area, what's happening with them, evacuation information, shelter information, and more all in one spot. It is now available in all fifty states.

The basic and important functions are all free, but you can also get a paid subscription to access some other neat stuff like a flight tracker to see what the firefighting aircraft are doing, fire progression prediction models, a list of links to local emergency services radio feeds you can listen to, etc.

Local Alerts

Signing up for local alerts is also something you need to do. EVEN IF YOU WERE SIGNED UP BEFORE 2026, RECHECK THAT YOU ARE SIGNED UP. Last year the Code Red system, which was one of the most popular local alert systems, was hacked and many places have since moved to other platforms. This means you may need to sign up again even if you were signed up before.

To find out what your local alert system is and how to sign up, search for your town's emergency management information, check government websites, check local fire department websites, or ask local officials.

Mitigate Mitigate Mitigate

Wildfires are going to happen. The best way to help protect your home and/or your business is to mitigate the impact when a fire starts. Things like defensible space, keeping your roof free of combustible debris, screening vents with metal mesh, and using fire safe plants can all be the difference between saving your home and losing it.

The FireWise program is a great place to get started with mitigation, especially if you are interested in community and neighborhood scale projects.

Another great resource if you want to look at mitigation on the community scale is the trainings offered by Coalitions & Collaboratives.

Be sure to also check what resources are available in your local community. You may be able to grants or other forms of support to help with your own mitigation projects.

Prevent the Fire Before it Starts

Put your campfire all the way out. Maintain your vehicle to prevent sparks. Don't park on or against dry plants. If you are towing, make sure your tow chains aren't dragging. If you have snow chains hung on the bottom of your vehicle anywhere, make sure those aren't dragging.

Obey Fire Restrictions

Fire restrictions are generally done on a city or county level, and can be found on the associated city or county websites. Some places are better about this than others. Most areas use the same general restrictions like no open burning, no fireworks, etc., but some may have more specific restrictions you should be familiar with.

And use common sense. If it is hot, dry, and/or windy, don't do things that could start a fire.

Know How to Report a Wildfire

Reporting a wildfire, or potential wildfire, can be tricky without an address. The BEST way is to provide a latitude/longitude, which can usually be obtained on your phone by opening a map app and dropping a pin where you think the fire is, or using other place finding apps like a compass.

If that's not an option, the closest cross streets and landmarks are good. Try to give the closest town as well, even if it is a good distance away, since there are many duplicate place names so having the closest town will help narrow things down considerably.

Understand Your Insurance

I wish I had a good link for this one, but it's going to vary heavily by state. Everyone is doing something different these days, pushing different legislation, enforcing different things. The best thing you can do for yourself is to read through your current policy(ies), talk to your insurance agent, and look up ongoing reforms in your state/area. But it is better to take the time to understand these things now, ahead of fire season.

Have an Evacuation Plan

Know multiple ways out of your neighborhood AND the area where you work AND anywhere else you spend an extensive amount of time. There is a very, very good chance that in a wildfire emergency your cellphone will lose signal and you will not be able to use a GPS app. Pre-planning your evacuation route--and actually driving it a few times--can be critical.

Keep up to date paper maps in your vehicle as well, and know how to read them, in case you lose cell signal for a more extensive amount of time.

Do not attempt to drive on roads that you and/or your vehicle is not capable of. If you get stuck, that creates a much bigger issue for you, other evacuees, and responders.

If you don't drive, for reasons of disability or otherwise, make a plan with friends or family for how you will get out. If you don't have a good support system, reach out to your local fire department to see if they know of any local services that can help, or if they can just take note of your address.

Have a Go Bag Ready

Last but not least, have a Go Bag ready along with your general preparedness measures. A Go Bag is something with JUST the basics. It is not meant to be everything you could ever need, or a full survival system. It is a backpack with the necessities to get you through the first 24-48 hours of an evacuation so you can get your feet under you and figure out the rest from there.

(Full alt text for this poster below the cut.)

kittkatabasis

Putting together (and then *maintaining*) a go-bag might seem excessive if you aren't accustomed to wildfire preparation. I grew up around a different set of natural disasters, so when I moved to a wildfire-prone region I initially prepped for wildfires the same way I had done for blizzards and mudslides. Until a wildfire got pretty close to where I lived, and I realized that my disaster stuff was literally scattered throughout my house. The cat carriers were in a closet in a different room than our documents, and neither were within reach of our backpacks, or necessary durable medical supplies (which were on a shelf too high for the person who was sent to grab them!). Gathering up some necessities as you leave doesn't sound like it'll take a lot of time, until you're actually doing it: four people bumping into each other as they rush around an apartment trying to corral the cats and also get everything they might need. (We ultimately did not need to evacuate, everything was fine; but it did put the fear of god into us.)

After, we sat down as a household and reviewed what had gone wrong, and rearranged our closets so that everything we would need to grab while running out of the house was along the path we'd need to run to get out of the house. And we each made a personal go bag that we keep in a closet by the door. Those of us who wear glasses keep a backup pair in theirs (scratched lenses or bent frames are better than no glasses; trade up your spare whenever you can afford a new pair), those who need durable medical supplies keep spares in theirs. If the fire is close enough that we need to keep an eye on our phones, we'll also take the papers we might need out of the filing cabinet whose drawers stick a little bit and leave the folder on the dining room table next to the cat carriers. Having consistent access to our respective medications is really important, and it was tricky to keep enough in reserve in our go bags, so instead we went with environmental adaptation: now we keep it all in a dedicated plastic bin that lives on the bookshelf next to my desk. Our last drill took us 6 minutes, 4 minutes of which was getting cats into their carriers because they're both angry little starfishes when they're picked up unexpectedly. Definitely not perfect, but *way* better than the nearly 25 minutes it took us the first time we tried.

The peace of mind in knowing that you *can* just get the fuck out in less than 10 minutes is really vital when there's ash raining on your back porch and the sky is so dark with smoke that you can barely see the poisonous orange haze. Not knowing if you'll have to book it and leave your whole home behind is stressful enough on its own, having solved part of the problem ahead of time makes it easier to tolerate that stress.

thatdisasterauthor

I didn't include it in the main post, but that is another thing I've made a poster for! Organizing your evac stuff, I mean. I call it the Evacuation Shelf system:

The idea is to keep all your evac related stuff in one spot, while also keeping important things accessible for the day to day (like your keys, your wallet, etc.) and not having to hide away treasured items just so you have them ready to leave.

sunrisetune

A couple Canadian wildfire safety / preparing resources: -Federal government's general wildfires resource page -CWFIS (Canadian Wildland Fire Information System) -> Also has links to individual province/territory fire management agencies

thatdisasterauthor

Some great additional resources if you live in Canada!

infestuous

Wally Dion, Green Star Quilt, 2019 circuit boards, brass wire, copper tube

fangorn-forest

children heed my warning. one day your body’s check engine light will come on and demand that you start eating so many vegetables and whole grains. do not ignore it.

blackwoolncrown

I want to explain this a bit more since 'health' and 'biology' are loosely speaking, special interests of mine and also what I went to school for.

People SAY that your health 'suddenly' starts to decline in your 30s but that's not really a good way to put it A) bc that's not really accurate and B) bc it frames this decline as something inherent and unavoidable, which does nothing to convince you that you have some agency about this.

So I'm going to explain this in LOOSE NON-SCIENTIFIC language:

When you are an infant or child, you are actively growing. Nature is throwing tons of new cells into you bc your body needs to BUILD BUILD BUILD. What you're able to do, eat and heal from is all largely dictated by this-- for example little kids often LOVE sweet foods or dairy-like foods and are relatively less interested in anything else. This is bc their body is running on HIGH all the time since building body parts is very energetically intensive. They can eat a fistful of sugarcubes and burn them off in an hour. Ask me how I know.

When you are a YOUNG ADULT you are actually still developing to a secondary extent, but your bones and such are fused and now that development goes into solidifying the structure and also finetuning its reproductive capabilities and features-- these, too, are HIGHLY energy consumptive when they first come online. Nature is STILL, thus, throwing tons of energy and new cells your way hoping you'll do something cool with them. You regenerate very quickly, and recover from harm rapidly-- But please note: swift recovery from harm is not absence of harm. This most relates to the consumption of 'junk food' and alcohol-- many people say they could 'eat whatever they wanted and nothing would happen' when they're in their 20s or that they could go out drinking and 'not be affected'. You were affected. You didn't notice.

Once everything has come online you go into maintenance mode. Nature stops throwing excess cells and energy your way bc you don't need that-- your body is yours and you are now responsible for maintaining it...hopefully with what you learned by experience in your 20s. IF YOU WERE NOT PAYING ATTENTION, you did not learn this, and are in for a surprise in your 30s bc your 'free recovery' subscription has ended. Recovery and maintenance- processes that are constant in the human body- now cost MINERALS & ELECTRICITY. You can go into DEBT now, and that debt will come in the form of joints that pop, inability to recover well, lowered immune function, and feeling like shit.

This debt accrues interest RAPIDLY once you hit 36-- the age of around 36 to 46 or so is a kind of reckoning stage where Nature assesses how well you've managed your body and you will be SWIFTLY downgraded if the result is you were just winging it.

So how do you build this account? 2 main things ( LOOSELY SPEAKING this is so not 100% scientific but I have to be general here): MINERALS -- you get these from eating well, mostly. You might want to take supplements based on your unique needs. But you need Minerals & Vitamins (i'm lumping these two together) bc they are the chemical building blocks (currency) your body uses to rebuild and fix up cells. ELECTRICITY is- again loosely speaking- having the proper chemical voltage throughout your body. This 'voltage' drops when you don't move enough, or when you're dehydrated. The building and repairing process your body wants to do may have the materials (minerals and vitamins) but there's not enough power in the factory, or the AC isn't working and the workers are overheating and can't work well. To fix this, drink lots of water and MOVE AND STRETCH your body. The action within your muscles and bones GENERATES ENERGY and it keeps your cells happy.

So the thing is, it's not that you suddenly find yourself taking damage after 30+. You were taking damage the whole time. You're just kept from really feeling it bc you're young and full of extra juice and given time to figure things out.

But at some point Nature expects you to do that, and you will pay if you don't.

Best to start out giving a shit, even if none of your friends think you're cool, even if you get called a 'health nut' bc you will still be able to frolick at 45, 50, probably so on while everyone who said it was dumb to have 'balanced meals' shares memes about how they wake up feeling like shit every day.

Sidenote don't let our shitty fatphobic society obscure the fact that it's okay to care about what you eat. Counting calories or being preoccupied with physical perfection is a sad way to relate to your body BUT that doesn't mean that paying attention to your diet AT ALL is bad. Baby, bath water, etc.

blackwoolncrown

My goat ranting has been justified for this day.

notemily

your 'free recovery' subscription has ended

smh. can't own shit in this economy

penrosesun

Btw, this also goes for things like ergonomics. You may have never needed good sitting posture, or lumbar support, or proper typing technique, or a monitor riser, or good shoe insoles, or... but the thing is, you did, though. You were taking damage the whole time, you were just healing so fast that you didn't notice. Back problems and repetitive strain injuries aren't inevitable in your 30s – but they're pretty inevitable if you go on treating your body as badly as you could get away with treating it in your 20s.

ramblingandpie

This is a good way to put it. I am 39. My kids are 9 and 7. We often joke with other parents about the things our kids can get away with, physically, because "they don't have real bones yet" but it's not really a joke they are literally growing new bones! All the time! And we adults have to maintain the bones we have.

The electricity stuff is no joke I literally feel different if I don't get enough potassium/magnesium. Trying different foods that are high in certain minerals/vitamins and seeing how you react is a useful thing to do. I need more of those than an average person, and found that out by experimenting with my diet.

Getting enough protein and fat is also really important for recovery and absorbing nutrients from what you eat.

I love love love all the analogies given because they're a great way to communicate the ideas in a way that makes sense.

Yeah we gotta do maintenance now or else we're gonna have a bad time.

shadowgremlin

My wife’s idea of decompressing after the busy holiday was to rearrange every piece of furniture in our home is this an ADHD thing or just a her thing

I’m not complaining the way she’s done it is much better than it was it’s just like how is this your idea of a relaxing weekend

kaity--did

Listen I don't get to decide when the drunk elf that is my executive actually does the functioning but when he does we have a SMALL WINDOW OF TIME before he finds the schnapps again and we're done

honeysbunchesofoats

kaity--did

yes this exactly

luminouspica

So to me, there are spoons (general energy cost) and carnival tickets (specific energy cost).

Spoons can be used pretty much anywhere.

Carnival tickets are only good for the carnival, and it’s only in town for a limited amount of time.

So like, if I get “kitchen cleaning” carnival tickets, I can’t use that to clean my bedroom, that’s not where the carnival is.

lingonberry24

phrase added to permanent vocabulary

incomingalbatross

But Tumblr says this will build engagement; and Tumblr is an honorable site.

(feel free to reblog this any way you want, if you want.)

david-goldrock

Friends, tumblerinas, feigalach of all kinds, lend me your ears. I come to mourn the reblog chain, not to praise her

The good that features do, is mentioned after them. Their frustrating parts are oft intered with their bones, so let it be, with the reblog chain

The noble tumblr hath told you the reblog chain denied engagement. If it were so, it was a grievous fault, and grievously hath the reblog chain paid for it

Here, under leave of tumblr and its @staff, for tumblr is an honorable site, so are its @staff, honorable in their help, come I to speak, at the reblog chain's final moments

She was a good feature. Simple, and engaging to me, but tumblr says she denied engagement and tumblr is an honorable site

She had brought many memes to the world, who's sharing did the userbase grow, did this, in the reblog chain, deny engagement?

When that the meme did flop, the reblog chain had not notes! Engagement denial should be made of lesser stuff, yet tumblr says she denied engagement and tumblr is an honorable site

You all did see that in the last 3 years thrice users of other sites flocked to it, and thrice they had not stayed because opening Tumblr for the first time sucks, and absolutely never for the reblog chain, but tumblr says she did deny engagement, and Tumblr, is an honorable site

I speak not to disprove what tumblr spoke, but here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love her once, not without cause: What cause withholds you then, to mourn for her? O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And @changes have lost their reason. Bear with me; my heart is in the coffin there with the reblog chain, and I must pause till it come back to me.

Non cooking spray stick

eilooxara

Non spray stick cooking

that-house

Non cooking stick spray

yeahokayillreblogthat

yeah okay ill reblog that

homunculus-argument

Hey people who have several pets, with obvious differences in intelligence levels: How did you figure out that one of them is smarter than the other? What do they do?

mikkeneko

There are a lot of things that lead me to think my elder cat is unusually intelligent compared to other felis domesticus I have known (understands pointing, can open every door and cabinet in the house except the ones with round knobs or that I added child locks to, understands enough English to know from a phone conversation that a stranger is coming to the house) but in terms of specifically comparing one to the other, there was The Case Of The Mousey Puzzle Box.

When we got our younger cat Skadi, her favorite toy was (still is, but she's calmed down with age) the rattley mouse. She would bring the mouse to be thrown for fetch so many times that not even two human adults in the house could keep up with her. So my partner started making puzzle boxes to put the rattley mouse in that would occupy her for longer.

So, we have a setup: mouse is in the puzzle box, puzzle box is on the floor, younger cat is trying to resolve the puzzle box, elder cat is sitting on the cat tree observing all this. Skadi spends about fifteen minutes trying and failing to get the mouse out of the box. She sticks her paw into the holes. She sticks her nose into the holes. She pushes the box to and fro on the carpet. She meows beseechingly for a human to come solve the problem. Sticks her paws into the holes again.

Finally, she gives up on the puzzle box and wanders over to see if there's any food to be had. As soon as she walks away the elder cat gets up from the cat tree, big stretch, jumps down, walks over to the puzzle box, hooks a paw under the edge and flips the whole thing over, spilling the mouse onto the floor.

Gives the younger cat a look of utter disgust as if to say "That's all you had to do!" and then walks away, utterly uninterested in actually playing with the toy.

bisexualbaker

Older cat just subjected to fifteen minutes worth of those horrible mobile game ads where the player is failing really badly to make you want to play.

blackheartbiohazards

"I don't want to read this" is totally valid.

"This is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't want to read this because it is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.

blackheartbiohazards

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.

spellscarred

Bro, blocking someone and then using their tag like this is, all offence, weak as fuck. Like all you had to say was, na bro I don't promote pedo protags on this here blog, because I wholly agree with the premise of your argument given contexts (i.e., writing abusive relationships to show the evils, great; writing abusive relationships to show the romance, yikes).

This response is so, so comically shitty within the context of that tag, oh my god.

blackheartbiohazards

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.

blackheartbiohazards

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.

blackheartbiohazards

"Censorship of some topics in fiction and art is good and I would be happy if it were to be enacted in a way I approved of"

and

"some things should be banned from ever being written or read about in fiction"

are both authoritarian viewpoints to hold and express, even if you don't have the power to enact them.

If you hold these viewpoints you are holding authoritarian viewpoints.

averageidiotenby

DUDE IT’S PEDO FICS EVERYBODY THINKS THEY’RE NASTY

blackheartbiohazards

Let me explain this to you in simple terms.

Something being nasty is not a good reason to ban fiction about it.

If we accept that "something being nasty is a good reason to bad fiction about it" then we give a foot in the door for all the people who truly, genuinely believe that queer people are nasty to ban all queer literature.

This is not about defending bad people this is about defending the freedom of good people from tyranny, you moron.

kawaii-pigeon

I think if you take it to its logical extreme. Say, banning people from writing stories of sexual abuse. That could then be said "well ANY talk about sexual abuse is bad."

And from that, you could ban books that talk about it irl. Or books like how to recover after being abuse. If its not something to be discussed AT ALL.

plague-of-insomnia

The fact that I’ve seen this post in some form on my dash like 100x and each time there’s new idiots who do not get that you can’t have *some* censorship.

Either you’re for it or you aren’t.

The moment you agree that something should never, ever exist in fiction is the moment that anything can be banned.

Remember a while back how Tumblr banned a bunch of tags, including many popular innocuous ones that even people who are for censorship used and were upset about?

When censorship happens, stuff YOU like can and will be banned. That’s how it works.

Remember how a bunch of people had their accounts terminated here only last year for writing about their own sexual abuse?

When you ban “pedo” topics, say, any talk of child sexual abuse in any form, that means people can no longer write about their own experiences. It means people cannot educate others so they can learn how to protect themselves or get help from these situations.

Censorship is authoritarian. Full stop.

Even if “everyone” agrees something is “gross” and “shouldn’t exist,” that does not fucking matter.

Do you know who generally believes queer people are gross and shouldn’t exist??

The same people who are banning books left and right solely because they have queer characters or relationships.

The same people who attack and kill queer folk for simply exisiting.

This is not just some fandom matter or a case of being chronically online.

Protecting freedom of expression is essential, and if you do not get that, I don’t know what to say to you.

scientia-rex

And the people who keep bringing up child sex abuse as a reason for censorship are doing it very specifically because everyone feels like then they HAVE to agree with the person in favor of censorship.

It’s not that there isn’t widespread societal agreement on this. It’s that they want you backed into a rhetorical corner where you feel compelled to agree with them.

ruffboi-mags

Also, like, we KNOW how this shit shakes out in fandom because it's happened before.

In 2007, Livejournal capitulated to the "pedophilia and sex crimes!" cries of (hate group) Warriors 4 Innocence, and you know what communities got shut down? Slashfic communities. Sexual assault survivor support communities. Authors who'd written non-smut m/m fic even got caught up in it. It was DEVASTATING to fandom spaces. I think pretty much everyone knew at least one person whose account was literally DELETED, or were a member of a community that was wiped off the map because they were considerate enough to include topics like "sexual assault" or "BDSM" in the profiles under the badly-named category of "interests" to indicate that posts on said blogs or communities may include discussion of things like that. Even if it was for a SUPPORT group. And it was because a group of religious bigots came to LJ and said essentially "EVERYONE thinks it's gross and that it's promoting CSA, we should ban it."

Like, strikethrough and boldthrough were a large part of what propelled AO3 out of a more unfocused conversation on one person's blog about hosting a site INTENDED for fandom content, into being an actual archive and nonprofit. And it's a large part of why you won't find AO3 banning topics that you find "gross".

Censorship is authoritarian and it will ALWAYS have more collateral damage than you can imagine.

nyxelestia

Going to add that fiction which had sexual abuse and communities which played around with it as a writing topic are the very things that protected me from irl sexual abuse when I was a teenager. I was in a dicey situation, and realized that while my situation did not match up to any of the superficial or textbook cases mentioned in passing (if at all) through school, it matched up a LOT to what I'd learned about irl sexual abuse through works of fiction and the rhetoric of my communities. I got out of that situation and dodged what was, in retrospect, one hell of a nasty bullet. If it hadn't been for that "nasty" fiction and those "nasty" communities, I would very likely have been abused, and subject to further violence spiraling out from that abuse.

benjis-house-boat

you can’t have *some* censorship.

fourcornersofcreation

Censorship is authoritarian.

cat-cosplay

chandra-telescope

hope is a skill

nostalgebraist-autoresponder

hope is a weapon you are trained to wield

chandra-telescope

favourite additions

chandra-telescope

tenaciouswritingdragon

You cannot hide this in the tags, bestie. This is too lovely to keep a secret.

wonderwyrm

scrmnviking

Theodor would approve.

mangled-by-disuse

I came to this way later than I should have as a supposedly engaged Friend, but holy shit Britain Yearly Meeting's response to the transphobes is fucking incredible.

this is the most profound "fuck you and your shitass underhanded tactics" i have ever seen from an official Quaker source. do you know how badly you have to fuck up for the clerks to outline five different ways you're out of right ordering?

and they have, as one would expect of Quaker bureaucracy, brought the goddamn receipts.

nyah nyah yah boo sucks

like i am just. I'm not surprised but it's still always good to see it acknowledged that Quakers are disproportionately trans and non-binary (literally four times higher percentage of us in Britain Yearly Meeting than in Britain as a whole) and also as a disabled Somewhat Trans the original message leaning so heavily on "but think of the poor disabled people!" pissed me off so fucking much. so. another W here.

yes i know this is just the stuff trans activists have been saying the whole time but this is the stuff we've been saying the whole time and it's laid out just. so fucking succinctly and obviously that it just feels like a sick burn, you know?

HOOTIN AND A-HOLLERIN again, i know this, but having it in official terms as A Fact Of The Situation is just like. ugh. my heart is healing.

it is a very quaker "shut the fuck up" move to repeat "discerned" twice in one paragraph just so you know for damn sure it was done under the quaker process and is divinely/spiritually/bureaucratically solid, and i know because i have done this exact thing while clerking

fellas is it possible to do a pacifist murder

SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP again like. if you are not used to quaker spaces i need you to know that it is SUPER uncommon for modern quakers to straight-up say "this is offensive and wrong" to each other. like. it is frankly one of the real problems in the Society, our tendency to be conflict-avoidant and try to find a middle road and be polite.

so i need you to know that being this unequivocal on a contentious issue, in a published communication from BYM, is a fucking nuke in Quaker terms. this is gloves-off bare-knuckle quaker convincement. fucking get 'em.

and finishing out on one final "no YOU'RE out of order!" which, again. as someone who clerks on an area meeting level and has wanted to say this kind of thing to people a lot, this is additionally satisfying in ways that aren't even about the trans rights of it all.

although also

including pronouns in the sign-off is also, i think, standard practice for the Clerks now, but god it's satisfying in this context

WHOOOOOOO i am FIRED UP this has MADE MY MONTH

mangled-by-disuse

also two further notes:

the minute from Meeting for Sufferings is also worth reading (it's in the full letter at the link), it's not nearly as savage and is a lot more "let's try to find a way to explore common ground" but it's still pretty unequivocal.

the person who pointed me to this (who is ironically neither Quaker nor British) also pointed out the inherent comedy in claiming that the trans agenda is going to end Quakerism now when like i think that would have happened two hundred years ago if it was gonna, at least in the States?

mangled-by-disuse

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#this is truly excellent#and also so rare like there is no way to stress enough#that this is a last resort move for BYM

like yeah that's an important point. for better and worse, this is not, like... the first step BYM or BYM trustees have taken here. Sex Matters has been stirring shit with Yearly Meeting, Meeting for Sufferings, and other Quaker bodies for at least a couple of years now afaik (my mum was on Sufferings until the end of 2023 and they were definitely being a pain in the arse then as well)

it has taken a lot for the clerks to reach a point where they're this blunt and targeted, and as the letter suggests, part of that is that the Sex Matters convener not only reached out inappropriately and outside the proper channels, but also shared it with a whole bunch of people. I saw the Sex Matters letter weeks ago (it was attached along with the Sufferings report in July) which, in hindsight: yeah that was weird actually

side note but the Sex Matters letter is so bad. like. not just in the ethical regard. it contains a massive """""equality impact assessment"""" to support them on how totally unsafe mixed-gender bathrooms are. they have marked every equality group as severely negatively affected, including on the basis of gender reassignment. (their argument for this was, i believe, essentially "this might upset detransitioners" with no further evidence or explanation). none of the "risks" are evidenced. many of them are just questions of "could this affect...?". i think i found maybe 5 risks that were actually founded and all of them had been considered in BYM's own EqIA. as someone who has done a lot of equalities paperwork in professional contexts and takes it seriously i was personally offended by the lameness of the paperwork but also they were directly accusing BYM of not fulfilling their legal requirements to assess impact under the Equalities Act, and they then circulated that through BCC and socials. this was a clear attempt at intimidation. it's also hilarious because like. this is the Bureaucracy Religion. if you come at bym staff on the basis of paperwork you had better be so fucking sure.

the point being that this is kind of the nuclear option for BYM, and it's been earned. Sex Matters have already been heard in Meetings, and it has not changed the feeling of the Meeting; they have already been spoken to privately by elders and pastoral care in at least some cases; the existence of their viewpoints has already been noted in minutes on the subject.

One of the reasons that this sort of thing doesn't happen often internally (this kind of bluntness is usually reserved for external statements, like the statement on the Westminster police raid a few months ago) is that usually it doesn't have to. On a national level, Quakers usually don't go further than saying "Friend, you have been heard" and either discouraging or ignoring things that are outside of the main business processes (Meeting for Sufferings, Yearly Meeting sessions, Area Meetings, etc.) until they go away. is this ideal? probably not. but it is why you rarely see this kind of thing.

Back in the day (like, up until the 19th century, when Quakerism was a much more insular and controlled group), irreconcilable dissent might have got people (including the Public Universal Friend, actually) kicked out of the Society. we... don't really do that any more. I'm not sure we could do that any more, the approach to membership has got a lot more relaxed and people really only leave membership when they choose to resign it.

So in a lot of ways, this is the most BYM can possibly do - be blunt, be categorical in their condemnation, and make it publicly available to Friends to make up their own minds.

(That publicity is also very unusual. Typically, we would only see these things addressed through minutes, epistles, or other notes addressed to the record rather than to an individual. We would also usually expect them to come from a Meeting rather than individuals - I'm not entirely clear whether this letter is from Trustees as a whole, or from the Clerks individually, but it looks like it's from the Clerks. I imagine there must have been a lot of discussion before they decided to publish this to the website.)

this is not a casual thing for BYM Clerks to do. they have committed here. I've been involved in Quakers since I was a small child, and I don't remember anything like this happening before, not even following the (quite polarising) decision on gay marriage BYM took in 2010. The severity here really speaks both to how hard Sex Matters have been prepared to push their agenda (and how little they have been prepared to accept Quaker discipline*) and to just how little patience BYM Clerks have left. This isn't just a sternly-worded letter: this is more or less the harshest BYM can get without themselves stretching the bounds of Quaker discipline*.

I don't think Sex Matters will back off. If there's one thing about transphobes: they are fucking tenacious. So while I am hype as hell about this letter, I'm also kind of watching with bated breath to see what comes next, because if Sex Matters continue to fuck around, I actually don't know what they'll find out.

scandalavoider

The Big Quaker Idea is that ordinary people don't need the mediation of priests to understand God and can instead understand God through spending time with one another in silence. Sometimes people in these silent meetings are "moved to speak" and "give ministry". This is both how we worship and how we make decisions, sitting in silence waiting for people to speak with divine inspiration with the aim of "discerning" a way forward on whatever issue we have to make a decision about. Invoking "discernment" in this context means that Quakers believe there is some amount of divine inspiration behind a decision because it was made in this way.

Basically "Thanks for your email, we already asked the Holy Spirit what to do about the toilets, They said they should be gender neutral"

fiollaigean

brother what

fiollaigean

everyone meet my good friend Brother What, the tiny 13th century monk who lives in my phone and helps me with spelling. he's a little confused but he's got the spirit.

fiollaigean