I'm really gonna need people who claim to care about gender inclusion on sports to stop saying "trans people" or "trans kids" when they mean trans women and girls.

Just for example before anyone gets annoying about this:

These are direct from the WKF (world karate federation) "Transgender Rules" document.

Here are there requirements for trans men to compete in men's divisions:

Obviously annoying but basically they're asking for a doctor's note that says go for it and that's it.

In contrast, these are the rules for trans women:

(yes it spans 2 pages) They are demanding that any trans woman who ever wants to compete at any level have transitioned hormonally before the age of TWELVE. They're looking for invasive information about someone's puberty stages (which if any girl was able to transition that young, what are the odds she can prove it??). They require regular testosterone testing and require you to be at a level under that of some cis women FOR YOUR ENTIRE LIFE. This policy clearly is designed to make sure that trans women will never be able to compete in women's divisions; these standards are simply unrealistic and absurd. And I didn't even include all the rhetorical justifications earlier in the document about all the biological advantages "males" supposedly have.

By the way, this doesn't only apply to the sparring competition (which is "skin contact" not full contact fighting), but also to the kata (forms) competition which is entirely non-contact and truly has no need to be gender divided in the first place. And this isn't even a professional league—it's all amateur except for an handful of people with sponsorships. It's not even an Olympic sport except for once in 2021.

If you truly cannot see a disparity here or you feel like justifying this in any possible way then you are not an ally to trans women and you don't actually believe in gender inclusive sports. This is what structural transmisogyny looks like, and this is why we need to be fighting specifically for trans women and girls and not just "trans people" generally.

They don't even ask the men for a doctor's note, from the way it reads. They just want a letter saying "Yes I am a man" written in the format they accept it, signed by the trans guy himself.

Vs complete surveillance of transfems, mandatory blood testing wherever you may be at least 4x a year, and a complete medical history they will reject you for if it is not an inconceivably lucky one.

Let's have the conversation about UBI.

Let the actual data and facts end the bad faith arguments.

I was a participant of the now cancelled UBI pilot in Ontario Canada. I was happier, safer, was able to move and work at better jobs.

And oops there it is. Better jobs.

Better jobs

It's a class barrier. They need a poverty class to function

#people being able to leave jobs that maltreat them is a threat to capitalism

Being able to force every last job in existence to make itself sufficiently respectful, acceptable, and worthwhile to the worker that someone will choose to do it when NOT goaded by the threat of starvation is probably both the greatest positive effect UBI would accomplish AND the real reason it faces so much opposition.

#people being able to leave jobs that maltreat them is a threat to capitalism

and there it is.

Capitalism needs an underclass. It's not that these jobs are less valuable - in fact, many of them are necessary for society to function. (thank you, sanitation workers!) It's more that capitalism needs these jobs to be seen as less-than so that they can get away with treating these people like shit - bad wages, bad treatment, etc.

If everyone got UBI, a lot of jobs would stand empty. Not because people don't want to do them, but people don't want the bad treatment that comes with them. Employers would be forced to change their methods if they wanted to hire and retain staff, and they don't want to do it.

#honestly you could probably hire retail workers at like $5 an hour under UBI#but you wouldn't be able to schedule them for a clopen on a weekend and threaten their livelihood if they're five minutes late#would that be worth it? probably to like normal people. megacorps... well.

The second you start talking about some mysterious "they" that are controlling society in some fashion, you are engaging in dangerous conspiratorial thinking even if you're being woke about it. "They" did not institute the 40 hour work week specifically so you would be too tired to revolt. "They" did not invent the sleek minimalist aesthetic in order to crush the spirit of art in the common people. "They" are not pushing mediocre media into the mainstream in order to poison people's critical thinking skills.

Your best case scenario after that is you talk to someone who actually knows what the fuck they're talking about and you get embarrassed because you can't answer basic questions about your own ideology because you never learned anything past "the ruling class/capitalists/politicians are making things bad and if we got rid of them the bad things would all go away!"

Your worst case scenario is obviously the woo-to-fascist pipeline and you end up believing Jews are poisoning American food supplies with GMOs in order to turn us all into beta cucks, so like . . . maybe just stop blaming "them" before you fall down that route.

Obligatory round of disclaimers: Yes, sometimes people do bad things. Be specific about exactly who is doing what instead of ascribing it to some vague group of shadowy elites. Yes, sometimes things in society are bad. Learn to identify the root causes of complex social issues instead of assuming that they're actually extremely simple to fix and we're just not doing it because of some vague group of shadowy elites. Yes, minimalism isn't for everyone. Learn that some people don't share your tastes and get the fuck over it for the love of god.

Also, before you blame a vague "they" for a contemporary social norm or law or policy you think is bad, look up what the norm was before it. What did it replace?

"They created the 40-hour workweek to --" QUERY: What was the average working-class person's weekly workload before the 40-hour workweek was standardized?

"They created credit scores to --" QUERY: How did banks determine who was and wasn't worthy of a loan before credit scores?

"They promote bad media to --" QUERY: What was the average working-class person's entertainment before this era of "bad" media?

"They invented schools to crush children's creativity and --" QUERY: What was the average working-class child's daily life like before universal public schooling?

To be clear. Before someone accuses me of pissing on the poor.

I AM NOT SAYING "Stop opposing current social practices because Things Used To Be Worse, stop complaining about a 40 hour workweek because great-grandpa worked 90 hours a week uphill both ways in the snow --"

We should advocate a shorter workweek, actually! We should advocate abolishing credit scores, actually! We should advocate non-authoritarian schooling, actually!

But we should do it from a place of informed historical perspective that doesn't quickly become romanticizing the past and perpetuating the idea that Things Were Great Until They Took Over.

why is this framed all cutesy??

ohhhhhhhhh

I love you Thai trans women dodging the draft

Ice cold takes from a Transgender Woman:

Edited the wording on the first point because too many terfs keep thinking I'm their friend.

woop there it is

as someone who works in publishing, specifically in marketing--100000% agree.

@importantdogimages

anyone else feeling the Effects lately. due to all the Things

This is how the movie went right

I know everything is shit fucked sixteen ways before lunch time, but it remains a fact that you should not trust anyone who wants you to feel like the whole world hates you all the time. That's a person trying to sell you something, swallow you whole, or bleed you dry. Especially those times when it feels like they're right.

No one wants anything good from you who wants you always feeling scared and hated. They will wear you out and leave you in the bin the second fashions change. Things are extremely high levels of fucked, but you are not hated like that. It's scary and isolating but you are not alone like that. Worst case, come and shiver like a wet dog with me, I won't say anything and we can dry out.

I think this is being taken as a generic positivity post, but it is very much meant to be cautionary. Now more than ever we are easily manipulated by our own justified anger, which is reason enough to always force yourself to pause a minute, five minutes, to consider if something is worth your anger, if it's even true or just upsetting.

”This portrayal of a marginalized group was wrong then and is wrong now” and “This portrayal of a marginalized group was very progressive for the time period and paved the way for more representation while likely limited by factors outside of the creator’s control” are two statements that can and should ABSOLUTELY coexist and be kept in mind when interacting with older media

I hope it isn’t distracting to also bear in mind “this portrayal of a marginalized group was done in ways or uses words that were considered correct by that group at the time, but are now considered offensive” is also something that should be thought of when looking at older media

rlly embarrassing when ppl act like topping/bottoming has any bearing on anything beyond how you like to fuck. grow up

you’re like, inches away from asking who’s the man and who’s the woman lol

i don’t know how to explain to my non-jewish audience what it means that two torah scrolls were destroyed in an arson attack but what i can tell you is that during the los angeles wildfires, three staff at the synagogue in pasadena made 4+ trips each back into the building to rescue torah scrolls while the fire was close enough that ashes were falling in the parking lot.

what i can tell you is that we have a holiday once a year where we hold the scrolls and hug them and dance around them. what i can tell you is that they are written with love by hand by trained scribes who take exquisite care to make sure each word, each letter, is perfect. when we read from them we do not touch the parchment directly so that it won’t be harmed by the oils from our fingers.

we make beautiful clothing for our torah scrolls, embroidered cloth coverings and shining worked metal crowns to sit atop them or carved wood cases plated with gold and silver. the torah is to us the words of the living God, the tree of life, the record of who are and where we’re going, and the torah scroll is our most holy ritual object.

the torah scroll never touches the floor. if it is dropped accidentally, everyone in the room must fast for forty days in mourning. the desecration of a torah scroll is the utmost level of desecration that can be done to a jewish community, short of killing its members. nazis burnt and destroyed torah scrolls as part of their campaign of terror against the us even before widescale mass deportations began. in ancient times, the romans wrapped the rabbis who led our community in torah scrolls when they burnt them at the stake.

this past shabbat, in the middle of the night, a synagogue in jackson, mississippi was intentionally set on fire. the library was burnt to ashes and five torah scrolls were damaged, with two of completely destroyed.

i don’t know how many books were burnt, how many jewish holy texts and how many stories of jewish life and philosophy and love and resilience flew up with the smoke. i do know that the library was where the congregation had shabbat services and torah study. it was a sacred space. this is not the first time that people who hate us have destroyed our sacred spaces and our holy texts and our torah scrolls in order to terrorize us. i dearly wish it was the last.

@rosesonkittens They tend to last a long time because of how carefully they are stored and used. Also, scribes will touch up the lettering on old Torah scrolls to keep them kosher (ie, intact enough to be used for ritual readings). There are Torah scrolls that are hundreds of years old.

Often, very old or historic ones are not used or are used only for special occasions, and many synagogues have Torah scrolls that were rescued from the Holocaust. The synagogue in Mississippi that was set on fire had one of these; thankfully it was unharmed because it was in a glass case. There’s a painful irony to that too, though.

But to actually answer your question — when a Torah scroll is worn or damaged beyond repair, it is ceremonially buried in a cemetery, like a deceased person. Old and worn printed holy books are also buried, sometimes in a grave with a deceased person.

Thank you. That's fascinating and sad. The painful irony article made it even sadder.

I'm sorry for their loss even more than I was when my brain was seeing it like if my childhood church, a historical building since 1812, was burnt down by people against protestants suddenly... And feeling sad at the loss of all that history and a beloved building.

But the way the scrolls are talked about it seems almost like whatever monster did this did succeed in killing something living even if they killed no one alive.

I'm sorry for Jackson, Mississippi's loss.

Somebody on another post--not Jewish--commented on the financial cost of losing a Torah scroll. I want to make it clear that when we hear about a tragedy like this, that doesn't even cross our minds. The reaction is something visceral, like hearing about the death of a loved one: This wasn't supposed to happen.

It genuinely does sort of feel like that in a way that im not sure i am capable of describing. I could tell you about the years spent handwriting them, or the torah I carried at my bar mitzvah (a scroll that people went through unimaginable effort to rescue from the holocaust, a scroll that I held in my arms after hundred and something years of people carrying that scroll like a precious delicate gift). I could tell you torahs cost thousands of dollars but it feels absurd like someone's asked me to ascribe a monetary value to my cousins. But it doesn't really explain it.

We have books that have the text of a torah printed in them the regular way books are made, but the sacredness of a torah scroll is just a different thing entirely from how modern society engages with written things and with holy texts.

A couple of years ago, at Rosh Hashanah, someone almost dropped a Torah scroll. The *gasp* that went through the room and at least four people surged over from their seats to help the rabbi and the man who almost dropped it to make sure it didn’t fall. The relief in the air when it was righted and put down was absolutely palpable.

When I finished my conversion and was welcomed into my community as a Jew, my rabbi placed a Torah scroll in my arms and I chose to sit for that moment. Because I know I’m clumsy. When she placed it in my arms, against my chest, I felt its weight. At that moment I knew just how precious this object was. Both symbolically and literally.

What happened in Mississippi is a tragedy.

I still remember the weight of the Torah from my bat mitzvah. You hold it up, barely a teenager, gangly limbs and all, and it's a physical embodiment of the weight of the tradition and community and family that you are now fully a part of. This is a tragedy, but I am glad no one lost their lives because of this hateful act.

saying cats don't contribute to the household is slander: they do have a job and it's going into mystery crevices and collecting all the cobwebs on their stupid little head