The way you consume art doesn’t make you a bad person, or a good one. You’ll have to find some other way to accomplish that.

Claire Dederer, Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma

So I just posted my first reels on Insta recently and it made me wonder about the fear that so many people, particularly women have about being perceived.

I've heard it called "the witch wound", and especially female content creators relate to this a lot. It's basically a hidden remnant of trauma from being your authentic self, for fear of some form of punishment or being judged by society. This also ties in with the dark feminine movement that is now becoming more popular, as people realize that you feel most empowered and confident when you step into your truth and honor your boundaries and standards.

But basically I felt anxiety at the thought of sharing my content with certain people in my personal circle. For a moment I even thought of removing them from followers list but I decided to simply sit with the feeling and analyze it a bit.

And I realized it's not that deep. Whether in real life or online, anything you do can be scrutinized or judged, and you can't please the entire world no matter what you try. So what if you get judged, or someone doesn't like your post? Or leaves a disgruntled comment or shares with their friends? More engagement for your account. And if they don't like the content, they can always click unfollow.

It's literally that simple. As women I think we need to push ourselves out of our comfort zone and become more and more of our authentic selves. The world certainly needs more authentic voices, relatable content and actually seeing and hearing about genuine things that you're passionate about.

Seeing only the "highlight reel" only goes so far, and it's always when you stop caring what they think and do what you love and talk about the things you love that you shine brightest and attract your true tribe.

Some of the biggest creators and artists in my area made it the same way - by simply continuing to create what they enjoy and not caring about what people think.

Mary Oliver, from Long Life: Essays And Other Writings originally published in 2004

absolutely enraptured rn

Arundhati Roy, ‘Our country has lost its moral compass’

@heavensghost // Erin Moran, "940 Main Street" // Jason Schneiderman, "Little Red Riding Wolf" // @mah_hirano on tw // Adrienne Rich, "Planetarium" // Richard Siken, Editor's Pages: Black Telephone // Molly McCully Brown, Places I've Taken my Body: Essays // @loputyn // Mason O'Hern, "You Are Not Just Anything" // Friedrich Nietzsche, Good and Evil

An Asexual's love letter to Good Omens 2

There's an infamous quote by Neil Gaiman going around, regarding the general vibe of season 2, and many people (I believe humorously) yelling that it could not be further from the truth. Particularly in the last episode, where that happens.

I disagree.

The final episode of season 2 was deeply, deeply comforting to me. 

I am asexual. Have been my whole life. Even before I had the words to describe what that was, child-me had this feeling in their gut of being an outlier, that everyone was exaggerating, or in on some joke, that I wasn’t privy to. Because I was bombarded on all sides by shows and movies and books, telling the same story of love, again, and again, and AGAIN. It’s drilled into our brains with the same fervor as the days of the week, or the quadratic formula. Meet-cute -> misunderstanding ->declaration of feelings ->kiss. More or less steps can be added to account for runtime or complexity of narrative, but that’s the basic structure that a relationship follows. It MUST be, because that’s the formula every character who's ever been in a story goes through, often times when it even feels like an add-on, like it’s only there because this is a story, there HAS to be a romance. And it has to follow the steps.

For a long time, I felt love wasn’t for me, because if there’s only one way to be in love, I sure as hell wasn’t feeling it. 

Instead, the relationship I ended up in looked a lot like what Beezlebub and Gabriel go through. Meeting someone routinely until it starts to feel comfortable. Getting to know them and slowly growing more attached. Eating chips and listening to music.

We like to joke whenever someone asks us how long we’ve been together, because the answer is we just sort of slowly fell into it, and we honestly don’t know when the line got blurred between ‘friends’ and ‘partners’. And, at least for me, a good deal of that confusion, that hesitancy to label, came from the fact that what I was feeling, what we were, couldn’t be love. It couldn’t be romantic. 

We were just quiet and gentle.

And that wasn’t love.

Because it was slow, because it wasn’t physical, because there was no structure aside from consistency and companionship. Because it didn’t follow the Rules.

Then I found myself in stories, and it felt like a revelation.

Beelzebub and Gabriel aren’t the first time I’ve seen a love like I feel represented in a narrative, but it never stops feeling special. And I don’t know if I’ll ever stop celebrating it.

Throughout the sequence in the pub, I kept expecting them to “confirm” Gabriel and Beelzebub. A dramatic line, a kiss, a whatever. That’s what I’ve been taught to expect, after all, that’s the only way a relationship is “real”. Of course, this doesn't mean Crowley and Aziraphale sharing a dramatic kiss is wrong, or that I can’t see why it resonated with so many people, but for me. Those moments in the pub are worth so much more.The last scene might have been literally showstopping, but those handful of moments between the duke of hell and an archangel were the beating heart of the season for me. A simple love story in four scenes. No kisses. No ‘I love you’s. Not even any definition of what. The love Gabriel and Beelzebub have is strong enough for them to both want to shatter their worlds and flee their lives and it's just. 

It's just that. 

Two people in a pub, playing the other's favorite song, giving a little gift, buying a packet of crisps. 

That sequence means far more to me than any kiss ever could.

Love isn’t only real when it's hot and sudden and ephemeral, it can also be

Quiet.

And gentle.

And still romantic.

Still real.

Regretfully, I had to leave all my books behind. I couldn’t bear to make the choice between my beloveds, so I left them all.   Give them back. Give us back our beds. Give us back our offices. And give us back our books.

Nabil S., from "It Was All Songs: A Letter From Gaza" translated from the Arabic by Sarah Aziza, published in Mizna on February 12th, 2024. You can read the entire essay here.

The Price of Being 'First' I made modeling history. Then the internet made me wish I hadn't. By Paloma Elsesser

The reality hit me the next morning on my way to the airport. The hate had sprawled across thousands of comments on TikTok, Instagram, and X, tearing apart my body, my face, my walk. People were having full-blown conversations in the comments sections of my own posts. Comments like “She’s a diversity pick” and “Real models work so hard to have the bodies that they have. You get to just sit around eating cheeseburgers” flooded my phone, and the onslaught of negativity didn’t come just from faceless trolls. In a TikTok that was liked 219,000 times, Kanye West fueled the fire, alleging I was part of a vast conspiracy to “push obesity to us.” This narrative has long followed me and many in the public eye whose bodies aren’t thin. Yet over the last few years, fatphobia has become acceptable again. Representation in media has become less alluring to folks, and its purpose is being reduced to “woke ideology.”

It's always fascinating to see the day-to-day effect of a woman in touch with her divine feminine. Whenever I wear my pink dresses in my "barbie retro housewife" aesthetic with heels and my Dior perfumes I get such a strong reaction that I do wonder why.

"Women aren't so feminine nowadays," is the popular response. So when people do see a very feminine woman, it's first of all surprising because it's a rarity, and second of all it's always stunning to see a woman shining bright in her sacred feminine energy. She just has a certain glow that everyone flocks to, like a moth the the flame.

And this reminded me of a discussion I had with a friend some weeks ago - she mentioned how girls/women in 2024 dress in such a masculine way, with baggy pants and baggy shirts and sports shoes. And indeed, both in my city, my country and abroad while traveling, I found this to be true.

She saw it as a "them" issue. I think it's easy to say that girls these days have lost touch with their femininity, and essentially shift all the fault on them. But nothing is that black and white. I empathize with these girls because I was there too, before I stepped out of my shell and felt more comfortable and safe being feminine.

Yes, it's social media and fashion and whatever celebrities and influencers are turning into a trend at each given time. But it's also the undeniable fact that, most likely, these girls grew up in school, highschool, college etc. facing situations and environments (or maybe even their childhood upbringing/home setting) that made them feel unsafe, their every choice and habit and outfit was criticized, maybe they even got harassed or bullied.

Maybe they did dress in cute outfits and skirts at some point, and then got criticized for showing too much skin or dressing indecently, even though it was a perfectly normal outfit. And then getting criticized for dressing like men, but at least they feel safe(r) because either way people will judge them.

I think it's important to accord more grace and understanding, and instead of being judgemental, actually hold space for other girls and if possible, offering guidance in reconnecting with their femininity. It can be such a gift when you tap into your intuition, your healing energy, your empathy and nurturing energy. But not everybody knows how to get there, or has the resources for it, or even wants to. And that's okay too - everyone has their own choice.

OP deactivated, and some of the links were broken/marked unsafe by Firefox, so here's a new compilation post of Leslie Feinburg's (She/her, ze/hir) novels and essays on being transgender:

Stone Butch Blues official free source directly from Author's website:

Stone Butch Blues, backup on the webarchive:

Transgender Liberation: A movement whose time has come, on the web archive:

Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman, on the web archive:

Lavender and Red, PDF essay collection:

Drag King Dreams, on the web archive:

(Also, if anyone ever tells you that the protagonist of Stone Butch Blues ""ends up with a man""........ they're transmisogynistic jackass TERFs who are straight up lying)

Please also check out your local public libraries for these books and see if they carry them, to help support public libraries! If you have a library card already you can checkout Libby and Overdrive to see if your public library carries it as an ebook that you can checkout :)

EDIT: another not included on the orignal masterpost-- Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or blue !

annnnnd in light of the web archive losing it's court case, here's a backup of both PDFs and generated epubs a friend made:

5/26/2023: hello! I am adding on yet another book of queer history, this time the autobiography of Karl Baer, a Jewish, intersex trans man who was born in 1884! Please signal boost this version, and remember to check the notes whenever this crosses your dash for any new updates :)

6/24/2023: Two links to share!

Someone made an Epub version of Memoirs of a Man's Maiden Years, which you can find Here , as a more accessible version than a pdf of a scanned book if you're like me and need larger text size for reading--

And from another post I reblogged earlier today, I discovered the existence of "TransSisters: the Journal of Transsexual Feminism", which has 10 issues from 1993-1995, and includes multiple interviews with Leslie Feinburg and other queer feminists / activists of the 90s!

Here's a link to all 10 issues of TransSisters, plus a 1996 "look back at" by one of the writers after the journal ended, you can find all 10 issues on the Internet Archive Here !

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8/28/2023:

"Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out", can be found on the web archive Here, for the 25th Anniversary Edition from 2015,

and also Here, for the original 1991 version.

Each of the above can be borrowed for one hour at a time as long as a copy is available :D

This is a living post that receives sporadic updates on the original, if you are seeing this on your dash, click Here to see the latest version of the post to make sure you're reblogging the most up to date one :)

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October, 25th 2023:

"I began to dawdle over breakfast during shift changes, asking both waitresses questions. After weeks of inquiries, they invited me to a demonstration, outside Kleinhan's Music Hall, protesting the Israeli war against Egypt and Syria. I was particularly interested in that protest. The state of Israel had been declared shortly before my birth. In Hebrew school I was taught "Palestine was a land without peo-ple, for a people without a land." That phrase haunted me as a child. I pictured ears with no one in them, and movies projected on screens in empty theaters. When I checked a map of that region of the Middle East in my school geography textbook, it was labeled Palestine, not Israel. Yet when I asked my grandmother who the Palestinians were, she told me there were no such people. The puzzle had been solved for me in my adolescence. I developed a strong friendship with a Lebanese teenager, who explained to me that the Palestinian people had been driven off their land by Zionist settlers, like the Native peoples in the United States. I studied and thought a great deal about all she told me. From that point on I staunchly opposed Zionist ideology and the occupation of Palestine. So I wanted to go to the protest. However, I feared the demonstration, no matter how justified, would be tainted by anti-Semitism. But I was so angered by the actions of the Israeli government and military, that I went to the event to check it out for myself. That evening, I arrived at Kleinhan's before the protest began. Cops in uniforms and plainclothes surrounded the music hall. I waited impatiently for the protesters to arrive. Suddenly, all the media swarmed down the street. I ran after them. Coming over the hill was a long column of people moving toward Kleinhan's. The woman who led the march and spoke to reporters proudly told them she was Jewish! Others held signs and banners aloft that read: "Arab Land for Arab People!" and "Smash Anti-Semitism!" Now those were two slogans I could get behind! I wanted to know who these people were and where they had been all my life! Hours later I followed the group back to their headquarters. Orange banners tacked up on the walls expressed solidarity with the Attica prisoners and the Vietnamese. One banner particularly haunted me. It read: Stop the War Against Black America, which made me realize that it wasn't just distant wars that needed opposing. Yet although I worked with two members of this organization, I felt nervous that night. These people were communists, Marxists! Yet I found it easy to get into discussions with them. I met waitresses, factory workers, secretaries, and truck drivers. And I decided they were some of the most principled people I had ever met. For example, I was impressed that many of the men I spoke with talked to me about the importance of fighting the oppression of gays and lesbians, and of all women. Yet I knew they thought they were talking to a straight man" Transgender Warriors (1996) Leslie Feinberg

“The most important part of my job is to make the library a safe space. One where kids burst through the door and go running with glee to the children’s area so they can say hello to whoever is at the desk. One where a patron can have a full metal meltdown about the state of the world and still be given resources to find housing, a shower, a meal. One where someone can come in blasted high for years and then return the next day sober and clean, ensconcing themselves in the safety of the books to stay that way.”

Lisa Bubert’s Instagram bio reads "Public librarian who has seen some 💩," and her latest piece makes clear just how much “some” is. When so much of our society has seemingly turned its back on its neediest members, public libraries have never been more important. To read “Safety Net,” head to Longreads.

Clement Gelly, "Graffiti, Through Grief and Discovery", pub. Hazlitt [transcript in ALT]

ya know everyone’s laughing at how hunter’s experiencing being possessed by belos and losing flapjack all while wearing a Goofy Silly Handmade Wolf Shirt but i honestly think it makes the scene ten times more heartbreaking. like it’s horrid already but like… just earlier in the episode you could see him enjoying… life

he has a huge interest in wolves, has fun making costumes and hanging with gus. and there’s multiple moments in the episode where he’s finally happy. he’s proud of himself. he’s happy with himself.

i think that if hunter was an adult, while the scene where The Stuff happens would still be devastating, it would hit a little less hard. i feel like the fandom seems to forget sometimes (even me sometimes) that hunter is a child. he’s just 16! you know what regular 16 year olds do? they mess around. they do dumb things! they live their life! but hunter had to endure years of not having a normal childhood due to being treated as royalty.

which makes what he says feel heart wrenching.

of course he also wants belos to not commit witch genocide for the 16,000,000th time, but he wants to just be a kid. he wants to be with willow and gus and play flyer derby like the rest of hexside. he wants to connect with other people his age to make up for lost time.

but belos of course, doesn’t care. he’s the one that’s still controlling him, and while hunter may seem intimidating when belos was possessing him, with the wolf shirt on? it just makes this all the more tragic.

basically hunter did not deserve this and i think dana knew what she was doing and she made hunter wear this shirt on purpose. that’s all