reading a kinky comic and this panel comes up and I think "mm that must be nice" and as I sit on that thought my mind wanders back to reality and I notice the feeling of a collar around my own neck and just
anxiety attack regarding us pol, transphobia, antisemitism, health
Totally beyond overwhelmed right...
Moves wildly overwhelm me in the best of times, but now I'm: * getting over being sick, still losing sleep from coughing and occasional debilitatingly painful coughing fits * still exhausted from recent overwhelming emotional labor a couple of weeks ago * massive anxiety over being hyper aware of increasing threats to my safety from !the fucking government! for being trans and how it's even fucking with my ID and ability to legally drive (I literally have no valid photo id right now, and terrified that'll block me from moving in) * next month is an election that determines whether this country continues its descent into mirroring Nazi Germany * nevermind that sickness and anxiety kept me from attending The High Holy Days at synagogue! * or the fact that said synagogue still has the persistent reminder of being firebombed back in 2021 and anti-semitism is only getting worse so I'm always a little afraid when attending
I just... can't... but I still have to keep moving somehow...
As someone who doesn’t see ads (no TV, no Facebook & such, ad blocker firmly in place) and is not in a swing state, I had no idea the ads elsewhere were so transphobic:
I can only begin to imagine how scary this must be for all the trans folks out there. And all of us who care about them are horrified, too. I sure hope our votes show that we support the trans community wholeheartedly.
@Jeri Dansky I thankfully due to ad blockers and no TV avoid 99% of the ads, and the few that get through are usually tuned toward me which avoids it... but even before that I'm deeply terrified.
I can't update my license or car registration safely because the DMV has become a place of danger.
@Jeri Dansky for the record if you've missed it, they've made a policy in which they're refusing to accept court orders that involve changing gender markers (they won't even process the name change portion) and send all such documentation to a central list for "review", notably our attorney general has in the past attempt to get lists of all transgender people in Texas from the DMV but couldn't because the system didn't track reason for the correction. Even worse, they're currently discussing investigation previous changes and reversing them.
So I can't get my ID updated, and because the whole system of putting people on a list isn't a clean cut thing, it's entirely possible for just one transphobe at a DMV office to put me on said list regardless of my actually trying to update my ID. And that's before getting to the fact that my federal ID now no longer matches my state ID. (Which also means I risk messy consequences if I try to vote)
After so many expenses and so much struggle even managing expenses, on top of this, I'm considering just giving up my car altogether.
At the very least, I have the ability to pursue a passport so I have a federal id going forward and I'll just stop interacting with Texas specific systems.
@shiri Yeah, I'd heard this news from Texas, and worried about all the people this will harm. I'm really sorry for all the problems this has caused for you.
my "electric field is within state limits, alternative crossing at fernbrook lake" t-shirt is prompting a lot of questions already answered by my t-shirt
@pluralistic I try to avoid crossing the Whitnall Highway power lines in North Hollywood in winter, otherwise my bike will very helpfully try to ground me every few seconds
@BudsofStone If you want to stick with Mastodon I strongly recommend lgbtqia.space great admin ( @🌸🇪🇺 Dreamy Mia 🏳️⚧️🌸 ), plus (last time I checked) a raised character limit.
At ER with a POTS flare - heart rate is 180 at triage.
Nurse: “Are you fighting with your boyfriend sweetie?”
Me (somewhat indignant) “I don’t have a boyfriend. I have POTS.”
Doctor: “Single? At your age? How come? You don’t want to be married?”
This is misogyny in medicine. I had a cardiac issue which is clearly documented in my chart/medical history.
I showed up alone - having been brought in by paramedics after fainting from low blood pressure and high heart rate.
There was absolutely no reason to make it about my marital status, boyfriend or lack thereof.
Can you imagine if a man showed up at the ER after passing out and his heart rate was 180? Do you think for a second they would ask if he was fighting with his girlfriend?
It’s a rhetorical question - since studies have shown that men are treated faster and more seriously in healthcare settings.
POTS is particularly challenging because it can make a patient appear anxious. It causes high heart rate, shortness of breath, sweating and dizziness. It’s all too easy for healthcare workers to see those symptoms and psychologize the patient.
That was my reality for YEARS. Going to the ER because I had passed out somewhere - and being treated as though I was simply hysterical. Given IV fluids to placate me but never referred to cardiology and properly worked up.
Even once I finally received a diagnosis (more than a decade later) I would continue to encounter hurdles like the one described above.
We must do better. Patients deserve to have their issues taken seriously and their health protected. If you don’t know what’s wrong - admit it. Refer them to someone else. Don’t slap an “anxiety” label on them and send them on their way.
The amount of times I was either gaslit, misdiagnosed or mistreated in healthcare settings is a huge part of why I decided to start advocating. I want to raise awareness about the conditions I have so that patients might better recognize the symptoms within themselves.
I also want to try and change the culture of medicine. The default should be to believe patients. To protect them. To wear a mask around them during an airborne pandemic. It should NOT be to pry into their personal life, psychologize and dismiss them.
Now that I know and understand what’s wrong - I live my life upside down! Almost all my writing is done horizontally and/or with my legs up the wall - because it’s the only way I get enough blood flow to my brain.
POTS can be incredibly debilitating - but there is hope. Treatments and lifestyle modifications CAN help.
I’ve just finished part one of a three part guide into all things POTS/Dysautonomia. It’s my hope these articles will help patients lean into their condition, adapt and accommodate it so that they will suffer less than I did.
I live my life horizontally thanks to a condition called POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome). It's poorly understood, often misdiagnosed and can be devastating to quality of life.
☭ ☭ ☭ ATTENTION COMRADES ☭ ☭ ☭ wokeness will be EQUALLY DISTRIBUTED please form an orderly queueb to receive your government-mandated CRITICAL RACE THEORY violators will be sent to PRONOUN GULAG
i don't care if the doll uses it/its pronouns, or says it's a traumaqueer. you gotta ask it for its boundaries before just assuming it's another one of your playthings. this applies to everyone not just dolls, like genuinely don't just go up to someone you don't know on fedi and just assume they're going to want to interact with you in that way. i don't even fucking do that and i have people i tease on fedi here and there (mostly on my lewd accounts) we consented, we respect each other's boundaries.
people should not be having to explicitly state "do not interact with me lewdly" it should be implied that unless stated otherwise you don't just run up to someone and make lewd jokes towards them, you don't flirt with them, you don't send unsolicited pictures of yourself etc. cmon.
Judge dismissed lawsuit filed by Disability Rights New York on behalf of two disabled individuals opposing Nassau County mask ban.
Reason? “There’s a medical exemption - you’ll be fine.”
If they thought they would be “fine” we wouldn’t need lawsuits!
This belies logic. We all know that not everyone will be considered “legit enough” to be masking. It’s not right to allow law enforcement to determine who can and can’t wear a mask.
This will also give police yet another reason to stop and harass people of colour.
Defendants of mask bans point to medical exemptions as proof that disabled people have nothing to worry about. They're wrong. A look at why bans are ableist, discriminatory and dangerous.
NYT BREAKING: kamala harris saves drowning child, but did she consider how this affects the lucrative child-sized coffin industry? our op-ed board weighs in
I was recently accused of posting "engagement bait" on here. I'm hurt. I'm offended. I wouldn't do that. I would never stoop so low.
Repost if you believe me. If you don't believe me, tell me why in the comments. If you're indifferent, send this post to your friends, family, and coworkers. Maybe they have an opinion to share.
🥥 Attention noobs: Mr Low Quality Facts just gave you your first precious lesson in the 3 simple steps of social media marketing: 1 ) Cast the bait 2 ) ???????????? 3 ) PROFIT!!! Eye'll be in the garden wearing a pointy red cap and sorting underwear. 🥥 #SocialMedia #ThreeSimpleSteps #InternetMarketing #UnderpantsGnomes #LowQualityFacts #TuckersBalls
I'm here for the snark. I'm not sure if this is over-the-top or sincere, but that's not what I'm here for. If you're gonna do sarcasm, you gotta do it boldly, shamelessly, and take the accusatory hits.
So, no I don't believe you--and I love you because I can't. I'm here for the low quality. That I can be is absolutely brilliant. Please run with it!
I don't believe you because your message wasn't written in poor, scrawling cursive. So there. What is this "engagement bait" anyway? Is it, like, trawling the Fediverse for a potential spouse?
If you’re chronically online like me or you just keep up with the constantly evolving meme culture, you’ll be familiar with the “demure” meme that was all over Tiktok & Instagram this summer. buff.ly/4erlcZC
A lot's been said on this already, but I'll add my piece: **Fedi will not survive if it remains this harmful to server operators.** Admins constantly burn out, and servers close on an almost weekly basis. It's happening faster now, too. Staff burnout has shifted from a rare, unfortunate event to a frequent occurrence. By now, I've read dozens of these posts and they always include the same basic complaints: - Lack of support. - Bigotry, harassment, and generally unwelcoming behavior. - Unsustainable workloads, even with good staff and a healthy community. - Gradual loss of enjoyment and eventual burnout. Each time, the problems get discussed but nothing actually changes. We *have* to fix this. #Fediverse #FediAdmins #Fedi
We're stuck in this catch 22. There’s two types of fedi administrators, the first type is the one who is active in their community, well respected and is aware of what happens on their instance. This is the most common to burn out, but this is also the most desirable because you want to see your admin engaging and being on top of things as they happen. Keeping up this public appearance is exhausting to put it lightly, do I have to say that I fall under type one? It can be a real nightmare sometimes because I’m fed a lot of information rapidly, and I have to triage it accordingly.
There’s the second type, the more laid back. The admin who occasionally comes around but mostly uses their account as a personal account. Gargron@mastodon.social is a good example of this. While Gargron does sometimes talk or respond to users (remote and locally) I notice it’s mostly an account for himself. He posts some updates here and there but not much in terms of administration. Now, there is a significant size difference between our instances but I can only assume admins of the first type hit a breaking point on instance size. There’s only so many people you can actively engage in before it gets overwhelming and you feel distant from some.
The problem with the second type of administration is that they don’t feel approachable. You don’t immediately go "oh, I can just dm them and they’ll respond!" You think "oh I don’t want to bother them I’m sure they’re busy". This can lead to instance users feeling isolated from the administration, and this can lead to frustration on either side. Say that he’s super active behind the scenes (I suspect this is the case, he’s a developer and he has work to do. Probably does sysadmin stuff as well like dealing with scaling), he has only reports and his team to get a feel of what’s happening on the instance. You end up in a bad spot here as there’s the potential for things to be missed or lost in translation.
Personally, I believe the solution is to be a mix of both. Take breaks from public facing administration (I have been known to disappear from fedi for a couple days as work & school gets busy). Just don’t go all out on isolating yourself to the point you don’t recognize your instance (see: Amelia). I think the solution is a collection of resources, and so insert the line shilling my cooperative idea that hasn’t gotten off the ground yet due to everyone involved having really busy lives and limited spoons. I don’t know how to end this post off, because there’s not really a big fix to this but there’s a bunch of tiny adjustments one can make to better balance the life of being a public facing fedi administrator.
but things don't *have* to end up with instances closing down.
i'll give a case study: polyglot.city. i ran this instance alone for four years, from 2018 to 2022. about two years ago i decided that i can't keep it up, so i announced that the instance is going to close down soon *unless* some of our reputable member(s) will step up to become the new admin.
in the end, several people stepped up, and now we've had a good mod team for two years.
@David's Alias :heart_ace: ah yes, warning that this post might contain anything, absolutely anything is possible to be present in this post and you should be warned that there is in fact content here...
👏 if 👏 you 👏 have 👏 ADHD 👏 medication 👏 will 👏 work 👏 better 👏 then 👏 psychotherapy 👏 or 👏 anything 👏 else 👏
This is scientific conses and part of the AWMF guidelines.
This is because ADHD is not a mental disorder, it is a neurodevelopmental disorder aka. "your thinking meat is not build right" ADHD Medications help your brain to function more normal.
Neither Psychotherapy or anything else can heal ADHD.
Psychotherapy can only lower your level of suffering by helping you to handle this disability better, so do it.
Go get your medication and do not listen to the pieces of shit that cannot comprehend your suffering and have no fucking idea what they talk about and think ADHD is a fashion or that it is a "Invention of the pharmaceutical industry" - fuck them. And Do not listen do ppl that say that ADHD is a "gift" or some other bullshit that tries to deny your experienced suffering.
ADHD medication is life saving, safe and non addictive.
That being said, make sure to actually get Vyvanse / Elvanse and don't accept doctors telling you that "Venlafaxine or Duloxetine also help with ADHD as well as depression" because oh my fucking god that stuff is addictive as shit and indeed won't help properly with ADHD.
I knew that my Daily Express reading gammon of a husband wouldn't bother reading our joint will before signing it, so he doesn't know that 25% of our estate is being left to a well known UK refugee charity. I'm far too old for divorce, but not too old for a bit of shithousery.
Great. We’re having a another presidential debate tomorrow. I predict it will be a debacle. I won’t predict who will win, because that is going to be shaped by people’s subjective…
I look forward to reading about the hot takes afterwards when Trump (inevitably) shits in his pants: "pant-shitting shows magisterial command of the debating stage" (New York Times), "Trump's pant-shitting a classic alpha male primate dominance display" (Washington Post), "Is 2025 the year of pant-shitting terror?" (The Guardian), etc.
Lists of surgeons, not just in the USA (or not just North America either), with no BMI limit or a higher than 30/35 BMI limit for gender affirming procedures.
I might submit my top surgeon because I have a BMI of 38.7 or so and I was able to get top surgery no problem, in fact I didn't even hear about BMI limits from anyone during the process.
But yeah I have seen a transfem with BMI over 40 seeking a surgeon who would do vaginoplasty and like, I think they were USA based but I see a Canadian surgeon on the list with no BMI limits in BC who does vaginoplasty (among other gender affirming surgeries.) So I hope this post reaches them, too.
So I figure this would be a really good resource for many people.
This website is no longer being updated.
The FEDUP Collective is maintaining a list that serves this same purpose and is inclusive of all of the information on this site, which you can find here: https://fedupcollective.
re: Resource for Fat Trans people seeking gender affirming surgery
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I sure am glad so many folks like the resource and want to boost! I came across it on Tumblr and knew instantly I should share it there and elsewhere. :3 But I must mute the convo now, it's flooding my notifications. Keep going!
A judge has forced Elon Musk to disclose who helped him buy Twitter.
And to no one's surprise: Two rich Russians from Putin's inner circle were part of the deal. Their names are Petr Aven and Vadim Moshkovich, and allegedly they are related to companies on the list.
And clearly, EU parliamentarian Guy Verhofstadt is not having it.
Time to sue the hell out of this Russian asset and his right wing platform the whole purpose of which is to agitate and divide. Unacceptable. Time to wake up indeed and take action.
it was ground down by the merciless yet polite feedback loop of ‘civilized’ society in the way a key starts out with defined edges and ends up rounded anywhere that made contact. Still functional but no longer mistakable for the original? In a word: ablation.
Always fun those polls. I wonder what the Instagram results are. The most current one i have seen on Fedi was interesting. Only 1% Bought their gender.
My favorite answer was found in a tumblr post. Gender is like a coin, 2 sides... But mine I put into one of those penny presses and now it has a cool dionosaur
a friend showed me in this new fandangled place called the cyberspace. Tried to copy it, but in that process found that working my own was much more fun 😎
I don't think it's talked about enough tbh. When my egg cracked, there was a sense of dread... because once I knew there was no going back. My life would never be safe again. Do I regret it? Not one bit, I'm genuinely happier now, but I do miss safety...
In an uninspiring story out of Chicago, 28-year-old Shelly Deichman would actually rather be safe than lauded as brave for simply existing as a trans woman.
I got a new math problem: there are 3 trans lesbians all sitting looking at eachother. They have just started to get to know eachother. How long before one of them is on top of the other. Solve for x where x is if they are a top, bottom, or a switch.
this is a crisis created by private equity firms who’ve spent hundreds of billions hoovering up every kind of housing stock across the country, as well as trailer parks and apartment complexes
Then, they’ll do what they always do: squeeze every last dollar out of the asset — then they’ll leave hollowed out towns/neighborhoods with destroyed housing stock when they’re done and then demand huge tax breaks for their ill-gotten gains.
Unregulated capitalism is social darnwinism writ large
yer we have the same issues in NZ as well. I woud also limit short term rental (airBNB) to only permit if the freehold title owners live on sight and are onsite during the stay. (Eg a farm can have an airBnB cabin but a townhouse or apartment in a city can’t be an AirBNB, a room within a home can be though)
sure, do all that. But also: build more effin' housing. Build it sustainably: full walkability & bikeability, dense enough to support local shops & services for daily needs within walking distance, dense enough and with a structure to make quality transit a real thing, and with parks etc.
This isn't "truth," this is NIMBY bullshit masquerading as social policy. He's proposing taxes on rentals, but not on home ownership, so renters will end up paying more than homeowners. Then he repeats the canard about vacant housing, when American housing vacancy rates are low; New York has a regular housing survey with a line item for units that are vacant because they're held for occasional or recreational use, and they're 1% of the supply. Less NIMBYism, more housing construction.
this is really thought-provoking. all my life, I've been a die-hard "limited government" kind of guy. this gives me a peek into the idea that "the other side" might have a point. thanks for sharing.
I think he's basically talking about a vacancy tax, which is one tool in the toolbox, but there is no single magic bullet. We need to build much more housing -- I know the area where I live needs to build about 15,000 units per year to keep up with growth.
Over in California, a legal organization that has backed housing reforms has a tracker for cities throughout the state showing whether they're in compliance or not. Most places need to build build build cities.fairhousingelements.org…
I agree with one exception. Could you please let the "poison pill" exempt people who are housing relatives. I bought my SIL a house in the midwest when she couldn't afford to live on her retirement. I am not rich enough to buy her a house in California, but she is living in a lovely bungalow in Indiana.
Bill Clinton signed a law preventing the number of public housing units from increasing more than the number that existed on October 1, 1999 He'll be honored at the Democratic convention this week. nurseledcare.phmc.org/advocacy…
@Angle Allowing houses to become distributed hotels via "vacation rental" use (or "STR", short term rental) has locked up a significant share of existing dwelling units. Some communities have tens or hundreds of thousands of units no longer available for permanent housing. Why build new at enormous cost when the supply already exists?
Reminds me of whole neighbourhoods getting demolished after the GFC. In a desperate attempt to reinflate the housing bubble, and keep prices artificially high, by reducing supply. Like the house hoarding the “chocolate rain” dude talks about, this is absurd. It's no way to run an economy, and the only people who benefit are the financialist aristocracy and their running dogs.
There is no American "housing crisis" — there's a supply-hoarding crisis to rig local market prices above the liquidity of local buyer capital.
The policy solution is simple: poison-pill tax all non-occupant-owned housing to force immediate sale to local buyers at actual market rates.
Allowing unlimited non-local capital to supply-hoard vacant housing is simply anti-resident eugenics. Current residents are too poor, so replace them with richer ones— even if it causes widespread homelessness, forced migration and absurd energy costs for the displaced to commute. It's as discriminatory as Federal Housing Administration redlining of black neighborhoods in the 1940s.
2 months into a relationship and god I love her so damn much. There's a lot of passion, but there's also that steady comfort and safety... God I already can't imagine life without her.
How do y'all process the lesbian uhaul instinct? lol
“Under conditions of terror most people will comply but some people will not… No more is required, and no more can reasonably be asked, for this planet to remain a place fit for human h…
@KarenStrickholm I know with unsold books at book stores they have to remove the cover (to make them unsellable) and technically destroy them, to prove to the publishing company that they didn't sell them. But in this case they want them not to exist.
Orthogonally, when there was a huge Moms for Liberty (functionally, the proud boys women's auxiliary) convention recently somewhere, Virginia? Pennsylvania? an organization fighting them had a huge giveaway of books that had been banned in schools in states where they almost active, outside the venue.
@KarenStrickholm I have completely convinced my homeschooler that social justice is a worthy cause and racism and sexism and homophobia are worth fighting, physical and neurological diversity are perfectly reasonable parts of general human diversity, and that Trump is absolutely unfit to lead his own household, let alone the United States. Call it propaganda if you will.
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luna after dark
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