Chen Chen, From "Poplar Street"

entering this great new phase of my life where, when someone treats me like shit, instead of going "oh man I guess I'm a piece of shit" I can whole-heartedly go "christ alive, what is wrong with you? you can't treat people like that" and it may sound simple but it took a long time to get here and there's no fucking way I'm going back

the older i get the more i realize how unimportant it is to tell people my business

shaking six year old me by the shoulders YOU WERE RIGHT. YOU WERE RIGHT ABOUT LOVE AND ABOUT FAIRNESS AND ABOUT SHARING IS CARING. YOU WERE RIGHT. THE ADULTS DON’T KNOW ANY MORE ABOUT TRUTH THAN YOU DO. KEEP BELIEVING IN THE FAIRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GARDEN. NOTHING IS “JUST THE WAY IT IS”. I AM SORRY THEY EVER CONVINCED YOU TO FEEL SHAME. YOU ARE REAL AND A PART OF THIS WORLD. YOU WERE RIGHT.

FEMA is doing an emergency alert test on all TVs, radios, and cell phones on October 4, 2023, at approximately 2:20pm ET.

If you live in the US and you have a phone you need to keep secret for any reason, make sure that it is turned off at this time.

Yes, I'm doing this months in advance, and yes, my blog has very little reach, but I figure better to post about it more than less.

Please reblog and add better tags than mine, I'm bad at tags.

WHOA

The queer community is full of hurt people.

This can lead to a knee-jerk reaction when we hear someone else say "I am hurt". We look at them and say "shut up, you're not as hurt as me because you have X privilege".

This leads to femme afab queers being told "you can pass and hide as cishet, you're not as hurt as queer women who look queer, you're just complying with the patriarchy's ideals for beauty, you're hurting the queer community, you're anti feminist."

It leads to masc afab people, whether trans men or nonbinary or genderqueer etc, being told everything from "you're not as hurt, you can pass as a cis man" to "you have no desire to transition, you still look like a girl, shut up".

It leads to trans amab people who are nonbinary or genderqueer or agender etc, who still dress or look "masculine", being told that they are "unsafe" for queer spaces, that they don't belong at a "women and nonbinary meeting", that they are "basically just cis men trying to escape accountability".

It leads to asexuals being told "you don't even feel sexual attraction, the thing we're ostracized for! how could you possibly be oppressed? You're just straight and a prude" and aromantics being told "you're just straight and like casual sex, get over yourself" and both being told "you're just a cishet who wants to steal resources".

I have heard every single kind of queer person say "I have been harmed and ostracized by the queer community". Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and mspec people, trans people, aroace people - every single one of us has expressed feeling ostracized by our own community.

On the plus side, this means you're not alone. Your group isn't the only one facing this. You have allies!! Other queer people who have gone through what you've gone through!

We need queer unity. We need to stop attacking each other. If you feel the urge to say "shut up, my group has been hurt MORE", go take a walk. Remember that every single one of us has been hurt.

Some buttons from the Digital Transgender Archives

The first pride was a riot, more specifically a riot against police violence. Trans women like Miss Major and other people of colour paved the way for the celebration of pride today. You cannot celebrate your pride this month, or any month if you aren’t also supporting Black Lives Matter and the riots going on against police violence right now. Us white LGBTQ+ need to stand up for our black siblings and their rights, their struggles. We need to amplify their voices and show any support we can. (Edited to add links and make the image clearer)

Extensive BLM Google doc including places to donate to, education resources, etc

List of 75 things white people can do right now

Simple way to donate to the cause if you have no money to