Discussions of trans women in sports often focus on elite/professional sports which honestly I find it hard to care about but the more common scenario of “we’re going to legally ban a high school girl from playing sports with her friends because she’s trans” is just profoundly evil
i remember when utah’s (republican) governor ended up vetoing a law banning transgender students from playing high school sports when he looked at the numbers, and there were only four trans students in the state playing sports at all. he released a clumsily worded but surprisingly compassionate statement about the decision.
I must admit, I am not an expert on transgenderism. I struggle to understand so much of it, and the science is conflicting. When in doubt, however, I always try to err on the side of kindness, mercy, and compassion. I also try to get proximate, and I am learning so much from our transgender community. They are great kids who face enormous struggles. Here are the numbers that have most impacted my decision: 75,000, 4, 1, 86 and 56.
75,000 high school kids participating in high school sports in Utah.
4 transgender kids playing high school sports in Utah.
1 transgender student playing girls sports.
86% of trans youth reporting suicidality.
56% of trans youth having attempted suicide.
Four kids and only one of them playing girls sports. That’s what all of this is about. Four kids who aren’t dominating or winning trophies or taking scholarships. Four kids who are just trying to find some friends and feel like they are a part of something. Four kids trying to get through each day. Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few. I don’t understand what they are going through or why they feel the way they do. But I want them to live.
of course, it didn’t amount to much. they overrode his veto. it’s just so cartoonishly evil. an entire state’s political body so desperate to terrorize this one little trans girl.
the average person with bad taste can be into some extremely banal garbage but when you get close enough to someone with otherwise good taste that they start a recommendation by going off on a preamble about how they don’t necessarily recommend it you know you’re seconds away from hearing about some real torturously wretched dogshit
friend from work will have you watch a two hour movie where you can feel every second as it passes by, but enemployed movie mutual will put you on the kind of shit that feels like crawling on cobblestone until emaciated
people are reading this as the latter friend recommending dry, pretentious cinema. that’s not the case. not that kind of situation. you’re getting no enrichment out of this. I need you to understand they’re making you watch Gooby because “it’s kinda good”
Not to insert myself here but as someone who owns Ghost Rider 1 and 2 on DVD I do actually need everyone to watch it right now because in the second one a kid asks Nick Cage as Ghost Rider how he pees and Nick Cage says “it’s like a flamethrower” and then they hard cut to a CGI skeleton in full black moto leather pissing a jet of fire and then it does a shoulder check at the camera and nods like “hell yeah brother”
Guys if you want queer shit written by queers on our own terms you’re going to have to start seeking out weird independent media. I’m sorry that’s the only place you can regularly find it idk what to tell you, we can’t keep acting like there’s nothing if we’re not getting blockbusters and triple A titles or whatever it is we’re waiting around for. The thing you keep saying you want is already being offered for free by one person making a passion project on the internet and you would both benefit enormously if you interacted with it instead of lamenting that the only options we have for representation are pandering afterthoughts from corporate shit
I say this with so, so much care: Real queer shit written by real queers can and will sometimes make you uncomfortable. That’s one of the defining features of weird, independent queer media. And weird independent media more broadly. Art that comes from true individual passion and authenticity has edges and bite to it that mass market corporate products intentionally do not. Has a rawness that can offend.
You are allowed to feel uncomfortable about it. But don’t ask for queers to self censor for your comfort.
i got a 100% on this bostonian-to-english quiz but i grew up near boston….. i’m curious what you guys get. there’s a couple things in here i didn’t even know are regionalisms + a couple things i hadn’t heard before but could parse pretty easily from context. tag/reply with what you got and if you’re familiar with the area or not!
GENUINELY before today i thought fluffernutter and american chop suey were part of National American Culture ™. i was so puzzled by those questions that i googled both bc i was like “ohhh, this quiz maker thinks some american things aren’t as widespread as they are….. they’re assigning regional markers to things that aren’t regional…… every american will instantly recognize these….”
and then i discovered both of these things are, in fact, particular to the new england region.
& went. What.
This summer, I will have been married to a man from Massachusetts for 25 years. You learn things.
I…know a lot of people from Boston?
…I spent 3 summers in Mass while my mom lived in Worcester.
Hate it when TikTok farm cosplayers and cottagecore types say stuff like “I’m not going to use modern equipment because my grandmothers could make do without it.” Ma'am, your great grandma had eleven children. She would have killed for a slow cooker and a stick blender.
I’ve noticed a sort of implicit belief that people used to do things the hard way in the past because they were tougher or something. In reality, labor-saving devices have historically been adopted by the populace as soon as they were economically feasible. No one stood in front of a smoky fire or a boiling pot of lye soap for hours because they were virtuous, they did it because it was the only way to survive.
Taking these screenshots from Facebook because they make you log in and won’t let you copy and paste:
