stop doing wlw cop characters society has moved past this. do something else

Before we continue, is this a personal moral failing or a mental illness? I need to know whether I should treat you like an evil monster or a helpless child when I unperson you.

Despair is easy, hope is hard. And brother, I like to stay hard

you can think someone's an idiot and not hate them. anyone who doesn't understand this has never had a coworker

i love being t4t. i love building genders in relation to each other i love creating connection and intimacy and desire in ways that increasingly veer away from the paths people are expected to walk i love tearing it all down and starting again i love making something that actually works for us instead of wedging ourselves into personhoods not worth living i love being t4t

i love long distance / online friendship specifically. very much. like there are... patterns and ways that distance creates bubbles of understanding and knowledge and intimacy... wanna be able to tell when you're on your way to work because you backread on your commute and i see you in my notifs. 2 of my friends put their feet in the opposite sides of the atlantic ocean on a phone call once. love getting people's flight numbers so i can see on the tracker that they're delayed on tarmac and text them to cheer em up. love a shared playlist love a spotify jam love streaming. getting a goodnight message while you're making lunch and knowing how time is passing for someone halfway around the world... love making dinner and getting ":V :V :V" reactions in the chat and having to figure out what dinner emoji to reply with. when you get to hear all the little things... you know? sometimes you are actually closer to someone when you are riding around in their pocket all day.

Pangur has a hard time opening her eyes in direct sunlight, but she still has fun on the catio!

i've been a hooker most of my adult life in new zealand where we do have decrim. stigma is still a huge thing, but it really does make things better.

a few months ago, i sat in on a meeting with worksafe, which monitors occupational health and safety. decrim has been in place for twenty years, and worksafe was finally in a position where they thought that maybe they could train their staff to be comfortable inspecting brothels and other sex work establishments for health and safety regulations.

worker after worker, anonymous or activist or academic or none of the above, told stories at least as bad as the ones i've had myself: being locked into rooms or buildings, not being allowed off shift, having pay withheld, and of course worse. and what struck me was that the worksafe people invariably understood most of the ways brothel and strip club owners abuse their workers as the same hazards they saw in agriculture or factories: detaining people is a fire hazard. not paying them, or plying them with alcohol on the job to convince them to work overtime, is illegal everywhere.

and with the law in place — with twenty years of proof that sex work decriminalisation so drastically reduced violence against sex workers that it impacted the overall nz statistics for violence against women — worksafe finally felt comfortable with the idea of going into workplaces that still frequently violate absolutely every nz employment law.

fired up strippers is an organisation here that began as unionisation from a single strip club. it's grown since then to do the things that the increasingly complacent parts of leadership at the new zealand prostitutes' collective, founded pre-decriminalisation, cannot do: name the whole system as still broken, and call for structural change that doesn't stop at technical-legal acceptance. they've set up stripper poles outside parliament and had supportive MPs pose with it. they've called for people to show up in the streets and had crowds, ranging from older white professionals in coats through young queers breaking out the sluttiest gear they have in support, come through.

one of the most toxic instincts in brothels is when people see new workers as "stealing money from my family's mouths", as competition. owners encourage that perspective because it makes it a race to the bottom where we'll accept that they don't wash towels or the degrading pleather is giving everyone contact dermatitis or they're pressuring people into providing specific services. solidarity is the answer, on a level more profound than the natural "brothel mom" dynamic that often pops up.

decriminalisation — not legalisation, because if you make something legal the police still get to decide who falls outside that legal box, and their presence still creates fear and violence — is the only solution.

if sex work was legal the workers could unionize

So a few months ago there was the discourse about would you rather meet a man or a bear in the woods. I didn't want to touch it while the discourse was hot and everyone dug in hard because those are not good conditions for nuance, but I waited until today, June 1st, for a specific reason.

I'm not going to take a position in the bear vs man debate because I don't think it matters. What is really being asked here is how afraid are you of men? Specifically, unexpected men who are, perhaps, strange.

People have a lot of very real fear of men that comes from a lot of very real places. Back when I was first transitioning in 2015 and 2016, I decided to start presenting as a woman in public even though I did not pass in the slightest.

I live in a red state. I knew other trans women who had been attacked by men, raped by men. I knew I was taking a risk by putting myself out there. I was the only visibly trans person in the area of campus I frequented, and people made sure I never forgot that. Most were harmless enough and the worst I got from them was curious stares. Others were more aggressive, even the occasional threat. I had to avoid public bathrooms, of course, and always be aware of my surroundings.

I know how frightening it is to be alone at night while a pair of men are following behind you and not knowing if they are just going in the same direction or if they want to start something - made all the worse for the constant low level threat I had been living under for over a year by just being visibly trans in a place where many are openly hostile to queer people. You have to remember, this was at the height of the first wave of bathroom law discussions, a lot of people were very angry about trans women in particular. My daily life was terrifying at times. I was never the subject of direct violence, but I knew trans women who had been.

I want you to keep all that in mind.

So man or bear is really the question "how afraid of men are you?", and the question that logically follows is "What if there was a strange man at night in a deserted parking lot?" or "What if you were alone in an elevator with a man?" or "What if you met a strange man in the woman's bathroom?"

My state recently passed an anti trans bathroom bill. The rhetoric they used was about protecting women and children from "strange men", aka trans women.

Conservatives hijack fear for their bigoted agenda.

When I first started presenting as a woman the campus apartment complex was designed for young families. The buildings were in a large square with playgrounds in the center, and there were often children playing. I quickly noticed that when I took my daughter out to play, often several children would immediately stop what they were doing and run back inside. It didn't take me long to confirm that the parents were so afraid of "the strange man who wears skirts" that their children were under strict instructions to literally run away as soon as they saw me.

"How afraid are you of a strange man being near your children?"

I mentioned above that I had to avoid public bathrooms. This was not because of men. It was because of women who were so afraid of random men that they might get violent or call someone like the police to be violent for them if I ever accidentally presented myself in a way that could be interpreted as threatening, when my mere presence could be seen as a threat. If I was in the library studying and I realized that it was just me and one other woman I would get up and leave because she might decide that stranger danger was happening.

Your fear is real. Your fear might even come from lived experiences. None of that prevents the fact that your fear can be violent. Women's fear of men is one of the driving forces of transmisogyny because it is so easy to hijack. And it isn't just trans women. Other trans people experience this, and other queer people too. Racial minorities, homeless people, neurodivergent people, disabled people.

When you uncritically engage with questions like man or bear, when you uncritically validate a culture of reactive fear, you are paving the way for conservatives and bigots to push their agenda. And that is why I waited until pride month. You cannot engage and contribute to the culture of reactive fear without contributing to queerphobia of all varieties. The sensationalist culture of reactive fear is a serious queer issue, and everyone just forgot that for a week as they argued over man or bear. I'm not saying that "man" is the right answer. I am saying that uncritically engaging with such obvious click bait trading on reactive fear is a problem. Everyone fucked up.

It is not a moral failing to experience fear, but it is a moral responsibility to keep a handle on that fear and know how it might harm others.

today's update: te whatu ora put out a clarification that vaccine criteria aren't changing. it looks like nz twitter managed to yell them into actually putting shane reti on tv to get grilled, and he's been forced to commit to continuing to fund RATs as well.

as for how the email that was posted yesterday came about, they're apparently still trying to find that out — pharmac is saying it's false, but TWO (who apparently sent the email) are being much more vague. we shall see if it's a rogue email to some primary care practices or something, if they decide to tell us! either way, it speaks to how terrible this govt's comms and policies have been. with the overnight changes to disability funding leaving thousands of families in the lurch, nobody's surprised by anything any more.

what we DO know: the changes to sick leave are still just as horrific as ever except they're saying "it's easier for workers who found the last system confusing". fuck off how is 10 days not easier than pro rata.

if you haven't been boosted since the xbb1.5 vaccine came out this easter, go get it anyway before this winter gets any worse.

also: i've seen a couple of notes on this post from people <30 who feel like they're fucked this winter. if you're rural, it's for sure especially hard. if you're not, for real, try every pharmacy that does vaccinations in your area — not the big vax centres where they're more likely to follow the rules, the pharmacies where individual pharmacists who are pissed off may make an exception. i can confirm that my pharmacist had no issues logging my vaccine in the system despite me being 28.

and if you are a nz citizen and have a lot of money for some reason, or are headed for australia anyway, i hear that you have to call around to find australian pharmacies who will do the paperwork to vaccinate nz citizens who don't have a local residence but some can and will for free.

good luck! for real, good luck. and wear a mask on public transport.

[aotearoa] if you're over 30 and haven't gotten the xbb1.5 booster try to do it THIS MONTH

our piece of shit fascist moneylover government is likely cutting funding to covid vaccines for the great majority of people on july 1.

someone who has access to te whatu ora emails posted this on twitter — it hasn't hit the news yet, but others working in healthcare appear to be confirming it's quite likely, so keep that in mind. we knew a month ago that they were revisiting changes to funding as of the new budget. they're also fucking changing the way sick leave works so that part-time workers will get a hell of a lot less. this winter.

if you're under 30 like me, go ask your pharmacist anyway! mine gave it to me and my wife, and i know there are others around the country who will. ask around until you find someone who will give it to you.

we're entering the biggest covid wave since dec 2022, this government is generally destroying the ministry of health and disability funding, you deserve to do what you can to secure any modicum of protection now. it's worth a shot, pun not intended.

To a homophobe, even the most chaste kiss on the cheek between gay people is exactly as disgusting and degenerate as a hardcore BDSM orgy hosted in the town square, so you may as well ally with the BDSM orgy enthusiasts to throw bricks at the cops who are going to try and arrest all of you together anyway.

[aotearoa] if you're over 30 and haven't gotten the xbb1.5 booster try to do it THIS MONTH

our piece of shit fascist moneylover government is likely cutting funding to covid vaccines for the great majority of people on july 1.

someone who has access to te whatu ora emails posted this on twitter — it hasn't hit the news yet, but others working in healthcare appear to be confirming it's quite likely, so keep that in mind. we knew a month ago that they were revisiting changes to funding as of the new budget. they're also fucking changing the way sick leave works so that part-time workers will get a hell of a lot less. this winter.

if you're under 30 like me, go ask your pharmacist anyway! mine gave it to me and my wife, and i know there are others around the country who will. ask around until you find someone who will give it to you.

we're entering the biggest covid wave since dec 2022, this government is generally destroying the ministry of health and disability funding, you deserve to do what you can to secure any modicum of protection now. it's worth a shot, pun not intended.

Hello everybody with summer fast approaching here is your regular reminder that:

Everyone needs to wear sunscreen

SPF 50 is pretty much the best protection you can get, an SPF higher than that will have the same effect

Melanin does not protect you from skin cancer

Tanning is caused by exposure to ultraviolet radiation

Spending the majority of your life receiving regular large doses of UV radiation without any skin protection is a good way to get skin cancer

Don't use tanning beds, and don't go sun tanning

Wear your fucking sunscreen

there's a massive cadre of people on here who can best be described by the phrase "be gay do war crimes"

Happy Pride! Woke up to find that tumblr termed another TS woman without telling her (me) why!

For the past few months, Tumblr has been the source for the majority of my income through people sharing my leatherwork, and uhh pretty stressful to have that taken away.

I have so much I'd like to say on the ways TS women in particular are treated disposably, but I'll keep this short and say it would mean a lot both like emotionally and like materially if u shared this post so I could regain my friends and audience

My leather can be found at Pansy-Leatherwork.com. My entire shop is run on sliding scale, and I do my best to price things accessibly for the people I'm actually in community with

damned if you’re employed damned if you’re not