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Go, Violet! Go!

@govioletgo / govioletgo.tumblr.com

Michigan-based queer femme. Acrobat. Writer. Plant lover. Intuitive. Teacher.
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‘President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has asked the State Department to list its workers who focus on gender equality and ending violence against women, in what’s being seen as an echo of an earlier request for the Energy Department to list employees who work on climate change.

In a brief email that was sent Wednesday morning, the Trump team asked the State Department’s bureaus and offices to list any programs or activities that “promote gender equality, such as ending gender-based violence, promoting women’s participation in economic and political spheres, entrepreneurship, etc.”

The email was acquired and published by The New York Times, which reports:

“Although the wording of the memo is neutral and does not hint at any policy change, it rattled State Department employees, even those at senior levels. Some officials said they feared that the incoming Trump administration was trying to determine what programs were focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, though the memo did not refer to them.” The team also asked the department offices to “note positions whose primary functions are to promote such issues” and to highlight any funds for the current financial year that are “already allocated to such programs and activities.”’

holy shit

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neutrois
The US Dept. of State states that your physician determines “what appropriate clinical treatment is according to acceptable medical practices, standards and guidelines.” Surgery is absolutely not required.
Treatment can vary from hormone replacement therapy (HRT), to reassignment surgery, to simply regular therapy sessions with a therapist. You can find treatment methods outlined in the World Professional Association for Trans Health Standards of Care. Details of your specific treatments do not have to be included in your physician’s letter.
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I sat on the floor and tried to write and chopped my hair instead. The things I thought would happen didn’t. The things I never anticipated unfolded.

Patti Smith, Just Kids (via blue-vespers)

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Librarians must resist trumpism

Radical librarian Jason Griffey (previously) wants librarians to continue their 21st century leadership in the resistance to surveillance and persecution – a proud record that includes the most effective stands against GW Bush’s Patriot Act – by pledging to make libraries safe havens from trumpism and its evils: electronic surveillance; racial and gender-based discrimination; and the assertion that ideology trumps empirical reality.

Neutrality favors the powerful, and further marginalizes the marginalized. In the face of the current political climate, with the use of opinions as bludgeons and disinformation as the weapon of choice for manipulation and intellectual coercion, it is up to those who value fact and believe in the care of those in need to stand up and positively affirm that to do otherwise is evil.
For libraries and librarians, that means:
1. Making the physical space of the library safe for those that need it by publicly stating your stance on the targeting of marginalized communities and then following up with actions and policies that back up those statements
2. Protecting your patrons from targeting and oppression, even in the face of possible governmental pressures, by resisting calls for information about your patrons at every level
3. Making your digital spaces safe for you patrons by limiting the data you collect, eliminating the data that you store, encrypting your communications at all levels and importantly insisting that your vendors do the same
4. Running programs that actively provide support for your at-risk patrons, whatever that looks like in your community
5. By being the voice of reason and compassion when dealing with your city or county government, and by modeling the same by advocating for those at risk
These things are vital and necessary. Especially now.
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seabois
I want a trouble-maker for a lover, blood spiller, blood drinker, a heart of flame, who quarrels with the sky and fights with fate, who burns like fire on the rushing sea.

Rumi  (via thatkindofwoman)

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betweenpoems

I'm Going Back to Minnesota Where Sadness Makes Sense | Danez Smith

O California, don’t you know the sun is only a god if you learn to starve for him? I’m bored with the ocean I stood at the lip of it, dressed in down, praying for snow I know, I’m strange, too much light makes me nervous at least in this land where the trees always bear green. I know something that doesn’t die can’t be beautiful. Have you ever stood on a frozen lake, California? The sun above you, the snow & stalled sea—a field of mirror all demanding to be the sun too, everything around you is light & it’s gorgeous & if you stay too long it will kill you & it’s so sad, you know? You’re the only warm thing for miles & the only thing that can’t shine.

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