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.

I’m thinking about how my grandma had this guy who was super into her, enlisted in the army and sent her pictures of himself laying on his bunk staring at her picture moodily. She was not into him in the slightest. But it’s the funniest fucking picture of all time. Teenagers do not change. He’s someone’s Pappaw now. That’s crazy to me. He probably thinks of my grandmother as the foxy one that got away.

The fact that she kept it for 58 years is even funnier. I was like “Who the hell is this?” and she let out an exasperated sigh and was like “That was [NAME]. He was in love with me.” Feelings very much not reciprocated for soldier boy.

I think this incident is so funny to me because it reminded me of girls my age screenshotting cringy conversations with horrible horny men and posting them in the group chat for everyone to see. I think of all those extremely horny and verbose historical love letters in museums dating back as long as humans have been able to write. I wonder if there was a caveman who made cave art to impress a possible mate but it was so bad she made a point of visiting the cave every year to show her friends and laugh at it.

Before my grandmother passed away, we were going through some old pictures and there was a man there that I had never seen before in a photo with my grandmother and then another photo of this man in a military uniform. I asked her who it was and she laughed, and said "Oh! That's a boy I knew in school! He wrote to me when he joined the service." She then leaned in conspirator style: "He would tell people I was his girl so they would leave him alone. He had a boyfriend you know." My grandmother was someone's beard back in the day.

That last addition made my day.

thinking about how my history teacher was talking about the french revolution one time and he wrote "bourgeoisie" on the board and said raise your hand if you think you can pronounce this and i raised my hand and he looked at the hammer and sickle pin on my backpack and said "ill come back to you"

people who are just finding out about internet tracking and data mining in the year 2025 and that your special robot friend does not respect your privacy lol

uses him to scroll on tumblr for 2 hours

so so many fictional characters i love i know i would HAAAAAAAAAAAATEEEE as people. but when they are within the context of their little worlds and dealing with people that are not me i luv them

The greatest minds of this generation are putting all their creative energy into writing pornography for 50 hits on ao3

you bottle Miette??

You crush Miette like the grape?

brick up mother in basement for ONE THOUSAND YEARS

even saying cost of living leaves something bitter in my mouth what kind of fucking phrase is that. vile

people who only interact with white middle class people: hmmmm I'm getting a lot of white middle class vibes from this whole trans woman thing

slightly worried by how many people seem to have been taking the things they see online at face value before genai was a thing

"it sucks that genAI means i have to verify everything i see online now!" you shoulda been doing that anyway though

My father is a classic layabout lazy bastard. He's the guy that people try to stereotype people on benefits as when they call them "dole bludgers". Sits in a filthy house all day whining that his wife won't clean it up, gets a great idea for a new business every few months and gives up after two weeks when it becomes clear that starting a business is hard, does everything he can to avoid doing a single scrap of work in life, uselessly drags his feet when the government forces him to actually do some.

Or at least, he was, until about three years ago, when he was sent off to do mandatory Work for the Dole at a volunteer organisation. He'd done a lot of Work for the Dole in the past, of course, and like most people who are forced to do a shitty job under the threat of starvation, was neither enthusiastic nor particularly useful. But in this particular place, he was given a job that he could do better than anyone else (he was one of 2 men working with a legion of elderly women, and the only person able to easily haul around the heavy goods that the organisation works with). He quickly found himself with a job he could understand, he could see the clear utility in, and that his coworkers greatly valued him for. He started arriving on time every day, putting in the effort, getting shit done. He started caring about the results. And when his Work for the Dole time was up, he kept volunteering.

He's one of two people paid to work in that warehouse now (the other person being the manager), and he's a lynchpin of activity there, their sole regular and reliable source of physical labour. When he takes holidays, they have to plan around it, because his consistent hard work has become such a critical asset to their work. And he's not taking nearly as many holidays as he should -- he works extra unpaid hours, lifts loads that are somewhat heavier than he should be lifting, shoulders the work of others when they need breaks, and we all have to urge him to take more days off for his health since he's not a young man any more. For my entire life this man has been a pile of old mud in the shape of a human, and the instant he found a job that fulfils his needs, he won't fucking stop. He's gonna die in that warehouse and die happy.

btw if youre young and scared of doing adult things without your parents ive learned that like 90% of the time you can just tell the doctors office or the dmv "haha sorry ive never done this without help before... can you show me how to do this?" the employee will not care. if that means anything to you

the biden administration has just announced they're changing the national bird from the eagle to a dragon with fucking massive tits