For All The Non Dutchies: Yes, Watskeburt Is In Fact Our National Anthem

I had a colleague ask a few days ago about how I felt living in the US and being trans considering all of everything - and I had to explain that right now has been the weirdest time to be transfem because so many people in my personal and day-to-day life are so much more educated on trans issues, and are active and good allies of trans people, than I have ever seen before. My bible-belt grandma can handle the singular 'they' now, which she wasn't for the six years I was out as an enby. Strangers in public compliment my hair and my makeup even when I'm not at all passing. Politicians are becoming much more actively hostile while even the rural areas I grew up in are growing kinder to trans folks.

It's such an intensely strange feeling. And it wasn't one I was able to effectively communicate to my colleague. I don't know that this change will be enough or quick enough. But there is a change happening in the communities I live in.

Me: oh yeah, if you think school photography is hard now, try imagining doing this with film.

The new girl: what’s film?

Me: … film. Like… film that goes in a film camera.

New girl: what’s that mean?

Me: … before cameras were digital.

New girl: how did you do it before digital?

Me:… with film? I haven’t had enough coffee for this conversation

no matter how terrible my day is. i can always end my day in bed imagining fictional characters making out sloppy style and fucking raw. and that's beautiful. there's some good in this world mister frodo and it's worth fighting for

hey uh so I haven't seen anyone talking about this here yet, but

the amazon river, like the biggest river in the fucking world, in the middle of the amazon fucking rainforest, is currently going through its worst drought since the records began 121 years ago

picture from Folha PE

there's a lot going on but I haven't seen much international buzz around this like there was when the forest was on fire (maybe because it's harder to shift the narrative to blame brazil exclusively as if the rest of the world didn't have fault in this) so I wanted to bring this to tumblr's attention

I don't know too many details as I live in the other side of the country and we are suffering from the exact opposite (at least three cyclones this year, honestly have stopped counting - it's unusual for us to get hit by even one - floods, landslides, we have a death toll, people are losing everything to the water), but like, I as a brazilian have literally never seen pictures of the river like this before. every single city in the amazonas state is in a state of emergency as of november 1st.

pictures by Adriano Liziero (ig: geopanoramas)

we are used to seeing images of rio negro and solimões, the two main amazon river affluents, in all their grandiose and beauty and seeing these pictures is really fucking chilling. some of our news outlets are saying the solimões has turned to a sand desert... can you imagine this watery sight turning into a desert in the span of a year?

while down south we are seeing amounts of rain and hailstorms the likes of which our infrastructure is simply not built to deal with, up north people who have built everything around the river are at a loss of what to do.

the houses there that are built to float are just on the ground, people who depend on fishing for a living have to walk kilometers to find any fish that are still alive at all, the biodiversity there is at risk, and on an economic level it's hard to grasp how people from the northern states are getting by at all - the main means of transport for ANYTHING in that region is via the river water. this will impact the region for months to come. it doesnt make a lot of sense to build a lot of roads bc it's just better to use the waterway system, everything is built around or floats on the river after all. and like, the water level is so incomprehensibly low the boats are just STUCK. people are having a hard time getting from one place to another - keep in mind the widest parts of the river are over 10 km apart!!

this shit is really serious and i am trying not to think about it because we have a different kind of problem to worry about down south but it's really terrifying when I stop to think about it. you already know the climate crisis is real and the effects are beyond preventable now (we're past global warming, get used to calling it "global boiling"). we'll be switching strategies to damage control from now on and like, this is what it's come to.

I don't like to be alarmist but it's hard not to be alarmed. I'm sorry that I can't end this post with very clear intructions on how people overseas can help, there really isn't much to do except hope the water level rises soon, maybe pray if you believe in something. in that regard we just have to keep pressing for change at a global level; local conditions only would not, COULD NOT be causing this - the amazon river is a CONTINENTAL body of water, it spans across multiple countries. so my advice is spread the word, let your representatives know that you're worried and you want change towards sustainability, degrowth and reduced carbon emissions, support your local NGOs, maybe join a cause, I don't know? I recommend reading on ecological and feminist economics though

however, I know you can help the affected riverine families by donating to organizations dedicated to helping the region. keep in mind a single US dollar, pound or euro is worth over 5x more in our currency so anything you donate at all will certainly help those affected.

FAS - Sustainable Amazon Fundation

Idesam - Sustainable Developent and Preservation Institute of Amazonas

Greenpeace Brasil - I know Greenpeace isn't the best but they're one of the few options I can think of that have a bridge to the international world and they are helping directly

There are a lot of other smaller/local NGOs but I'm not sure how you could donate to them from overseas, I'll leave some of them here anyway:

Projeto Gari

Caritás Brasileira

If you know any other organizations please link them, I'll be sure to reblog though my reach isn't a lot

thank you so much for reading this to the end, don't feel obligated to share but please do if you can! even if you just read up to here it means a lot to me that someone out there knows

also as an afterthought, I wanted to expand on why I think this hasn't made big news yet: because unlike the case of the 2020 forest fires, other countries have to hold themselves accountable when looking at this situation. while in 2020 it was easier to pretend the fires were all our fault and people were talking about taking the amazon away from us like they wouldn't do much worse. global superpowers have no more forests to speak of so I guess they've been eyeing what latin america still has. so like this bit of the post is just to say if you're thinking of saying anything of the sort, maybe think of what your own country has done to contribute to this instead of blaming brazil exclusively and saying the amazon should be protected by force or whatever

love this dude and his lace code ideologies (funnily enough I wore my yellow and purple laces to watch this) Yellow= Anti-Fascism/Anti-Racism (its region dependent), Blue= Killed a Cop

also

GWEN

YGWEN I LOVE YOU GWE-

Do non Brazilians/Filipinos know about Brazilippines…. Brazilians and Filipinos randomly decided that we were two sides of the same coin and have now become besties

For the chicken lovers out there <3

It just occurred to me that people do not know about what some people make chicken coops out of and it’s a Shame

i always mean it when i say i love you btw

little thingy from the other week, stuff on my mind