how lucky we are to live in a world where tiramisu exists

Psychologists out there saying things like "I only give medicine to people I would bang" and they just get away with it.

Like, think about how important HRT is for the average trans person. It's completely life-changing and unmatched as a medical intervention for that population's mental health.

And these people are withholding it based on "would I fuck that?" standards.

I was a patient of Zucker's; he was very much like this. He explained his very conservative verdict on HRT (a tentative prescription of blockers after years at the clinic) by citing my lack of femininity; in particular, that I was still wearing pants. I noted that my mother, and his research assistant (a much younger woman, like all of his research assistants I saw over my treatment), the only two other women in the room, were both wearing pants. He mumbled something about "different styles." He always felt entitled to me like that, thinking nothing of asking a high schooler about my fetishes during appointments for reasons he never decided to give. The judgment only goes one way.

When I was referred to an endocrinologist, he not only took Zucker's cautious prescription at face value but also recommended I see an aesthetician about my eyebrows. When I showed myself not especially grateful for this treatment, he expressed an unwillingness to increase my very low dose of HRT, since most trans women would be excited about this. He referred me to another doctor and washed his hands of me.

I had been excited and hopeful, but that considerably faded after several years of being sexually demeaned by Zucker and then him. I wasn't a wide-eyed girl anymore, I was a bitter, broken shell of a woman, twisted both physically and mentally. So excitement and hope rotted into cold hatred. Let me have my hormones and I'll let you have all ten of your fingers. I could hide it, but I couldn't make it look like gratitude.

They want to be your judge and, if they wish, benefactor, a pediatric Pygmalion letting only the sexiest of minors transition. They are nothing more than petty tyrants of the endocrine system, bullies all grown up who have found an easy and lucrative source of bodies to hurt and control.

This is what people demand to go back to when they want transitioning to be even harder.

Some other horror stories from the notes.

This needs to be considered some form of malpractice for real.

Trans medicine, both historically and in the most current WPATH standards of care (to varying degrees, of course), has been preoccupied with limiting the number of trans people that transition via extensive gatekeeping.

Ostensibly this is for their own good (What if people reject decisions they make about themselves? Best to not let them make any decisions! Think of the detransitioners!) but really feels more like an effort to hide trans people away from society.

These psychologists demanded that trans people seeking to transition prove themselves by paying for months or even years worth of appointments with them, where you must not only convince them that you are not too traumatized or autistic to be graciously allowed to change your own body but also persuade them that you are miserable about said body.

They demanded that trans people be attractive to the psychologist, gender-conforming, heterosexual, middle-class, and generally "normal".

Even when they know that transition is extremely helpful to trans people, they still play this power game where they get to diagnose who is Truly Trans and restrict transition like it's a last resort option. Never something people should do just because they want to but rather something that is permitted only if you're deeply sick and able to prove it.

And of course conservative media acts like you can transition essentially by accident. Like they just give you hormones immediately if your parents think you like the wrong toys or if you go get checked for anxiety.

They say big pharma is eager to create more trans people to get lifetime patients.

I wish they were actually that eager to let people make decisions about their own bodies, but often they seem to take pride in strict gatekeeping instead.

This might sound radical to some but I think you should be able to transition on demand without having to convince anyone you really really need it or anything.

lets appreciate geese ok? i love geese

nēnē

egyptian goose

canada goose

swan goose

barnacle goose

emperor goose

red breasted goose

If I may add the very hardcore Pink-footed Goose

ヒレンジャク

"A century of gradual reforestation across the American East and Southeast has kept the region cooler than it otherwise would have become, a new study shows.

The pioneering study of progress shows how the last 25 years of accelerated reforestation around the world might significantly pay off in the second half of the 21st century.

Using a variety of calculative methods and estimations based on satellite and temperature data from weather stations, the authors determined that forests in the eastern United States cool the land surface by 1.8 – 3.6°F annually compared to nearby grasslands and croplands, with the strongest effect seen in summer, when cooling amounts to 3.6 – 9°F.

The younger the forest, the more this cooling effect was detected, with forest trees between 20 and 40 years old offering the coolest temperatures underneath.

“The reforestation has been remarkable and we have shown this has translated into the surrounding air temperature,” Mallory Barnes, an environmental scientist at Indiana University who led the research, told The Guardian.

“Moving forward, we need to think about tree planting not just as a way to absorb carbon dioxide but also the cooling effects in adapting for climate change, to help cities be resilient against these very hot temperatures.”

The cooling of the land surface affected the air near ground level as well, with a stepwise reduction in heat linked to reductions in near-surface air temps.

“Analyses of historical land cover and air temperature trends showed that the cooling benefits of reforestation extend across the landscape,” the authors write. “Locations surrounded by reforestation were up to 1.8°F cooler than neighboring locations that did not undergo land cover change, and areas dominated by regrowing forests were associated with cooling temperature trends in much of the Eastern United States.”

By the 1930s, forest cover loss in the eastern states like the Carolinas and Mississippi had stopped, as the descendants of European settlers moved in greater and greater numbers into cities and marginal agricultural land was abandoned.

The Civilian Conservation Corps undertook large replanting efforts of forests that had been cleared, and this is believed to be what is causing the lower average temperatures observed in the study data.

However, the authors note that other causes, like more sophisticated crop irrigation and increases in airborne pollutants that block incoming sunlight, may have also contributed to the lowering of temperatures over time. They also note that tree planting might not always produce this effect, such as in the boreal zone where increases in trees are linked with increases in humidity that way raise average temperatures."

-via Good News Network, February 20, 2024

Reblogging to show the temperature maps that are featured in the original study (and the Guardian article about it), because the visual difference really is so striking and so encouraging.

As you look at these maps of forests vs. temperature trends, remember that the temperature map is showing large-scale, very long-term averages, especially on the temperature map. Because of that, the map data doesn't reflect how very, very big a difference it can make on a local scale, e.g. those 9°F summer temperature conditions. And those local scale changes are the changes that people actually live in.

This is hugely

Forest Age vs. Warming Maps

Pictured: Guardian graphic. Source: Barnes, et al, 2024, ‘A Century of Reforestation Reduced Anthropogenic Warming in the Eastern United States.’ Note: Forest age data from North American Carbon Program. Age estimates as of 2019 at 1km resolution. Temperature data from Delaware Air Temperature & Precipitation Dataset.

Source: The Guardian, February 17, 2024. And the original study is here, from the journal Earth's Future, first published February 13, 2024.

This is huge.

Even the small pockets of new reforestation elsewhere in the country are usually correlated with small pockets of cooling. (And of course correlation by itself does not equal causation, but that's what the rest of the study is for.)

This is genuinely strong evidence that the massive tree planting campaigns of the last 25 years are going to pay off dramatically much sooner than we thought.

The study found that the coolest forests were ones planted planted 20 to 40 years ago.

That means that trees planted in the 90s through 2004 are in that stage and causing the most cooling right now.

It also means that the ongoing, absolutely massive recent reforestation efforts are going to pay off a lot between now and 2050.

That means campaigns like China's 2022 pledge to plant or conserve 70 billion trees by 2030. Or India's annual tree-planting drive, which in 2021 saw 250 million trees planted in just one day. Or Kenya's new tree-planting holiday, started in 2023, to plant 100 million trees each year.

This study also gives strong evidence that newer forests don't have vanishingly few benefits compared to old growth forests - they do have benefits (if not as many), just different ones. It also, I would argue, suggests that tree planting efforts don't have to be ecologically perfect to make a real difference. They certainly were not nailing native plant biodiversity and ecological best practices in the US in the 1930s!

And as we learn (and actually implement) more and more about how to do reforestation right - more biodiversity, native plants only, actual forests and not just tree plantations - the benefits of reforestation will only increase.

@becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys

Im curious.

America is absolutely disconnected to meat

I think I realized this when I had went to see my dad and stepmom one day and asked if I could place my hawk’s food. (A rabbit leg) in the freezer. My step mom was disgusted by the idea that a leg from an animal was in the freezer meanwhile an entire chicken was sitting in the fridge.

Your rotisserie chicken is an entire chicken.

Your pork chop is a hunk of pig.

Your rack of ribs are from a cow’s rib cage.

It’s like Americans view meat as colorful red and pink hued shapes that just exist and come into the world packaged.

You see so many people getting harassed or even having their content flagged for showing how to process or field dress meat when it’s at it’s freshest. Right after culling. For some reason this is considered “gore” by many folks when in reality it’s no more different from plucking a processed chicken after cull.

You also notice that Americans have an idea of what’s normal meat and what isn’t normal meat and there’s racist undertones that I’ve noticed in a lot of these comments left on foreign cooking videos

You have people that claim a video of a man in a different country preparing something like this is “eating a dog.” Meanwhile this is roasted goat.

You have people who’s only perception of an edible fish is in fillet or fish stick form and they call something like this nasty because “Eww there’s a head!” Yeah.. most animals have heads..

Some of ya’ll need to realize what your meat looks like prior to processing and that it’s prepared in different ways. We also need to erase the stigma behind non traditional meats.

Truly, genuinely, as an indigenous person I talk about this exact thing a LOT! Like, don't get me wrong I get a bit squicked when dressing a chicken or gutting and cleaning a fish, lord knows I had really mixed feelings the first time I saw a deers throat slit (I thought it was cruel, until my elder asked me if I would have preferred to let it suffer instead) The truth of the matter is that animals and humans are intertwined. We are food to one another, that's the way of the world and I think people forget that when we champion for humane treatment of animals and when we rail against factory farming we need to remember that removing death is not the goal, removing undue suffering it.

obviously there's a difference between prisons and callout posts, but they have a very similar underlying logic, which is that people who have done harm must be punished and that ideally part of this punishment should be removing them from social life.

the idea behind prison abolition is that punishment is not an effective remedy to harm and that the way that we punish "criminals" in fact often perpetuates systemic violence--through disrupting people's lives and families, through making them legally vulnerable, through deliberately traumatizing them--and that you cannot achieve justice through violence, that punishment does not right wrongs.

if you truly do believe these things and you're not just parroting what other people have told you, why would you believe that this logic only applies to the criminal justice system and not the way that we live our lives and interact with other human beings? why would you think that it's okay for you to punish people you perceive as having done harm (regardless of whether they actually have) but it's not okay for the government to do so? is it because you think that your intentions are pure? because you don't think you're capable of doing violence? or are you just full of shit?

it is both interpersonally valuable and politically necessary to decouple transfeminine beauty from thinness, and to investigate the roots of these sentiments and what larger phenomena animate them.

sorry I can word this like an "actual tumblr post"

every time you make a joke about Lanky Trans Girl Stereotype and her Waifish Boyish Frame an angel loses her wings and a beautiful fat trans woman you know trusts you less.

some of y'all need to learn how to accept hospitality. stop assuming people are only offering to look after you out of twisted obligation that they don't actually want to do. when you assume that, you are often denying someone the opportunity to genuinely show a friend or stranger love. even if you don't really care about what they're offering, it's respectful of their desire to be kind to accept it anyways.

i had a bunch of girls i've never met over for a women's group. every single one of them denied my offer to make them tea (despite already making myself a mug anyways), get them water, a scone, etc.

i can tell when people refuse to let me be a good host because they "don't want to be a bother". like no!! please be a bother!!! i want to serve you and make you comfortable in my home!

not to be like "we live in a society" but really do live in a modern culture than emphasizes individualism to the point where people will reflexively deny any help or kindness from others for fear of treading on their independence. newsflash: dependence on each other is what makes a community. next time someone offers you kindness, accept it instead of making excuses for why you don't need it. otherwise you've robbed both yourself of being loved and someone else from showing love.

One of the things that really helped me make friends as an adult was learning that people want to be wanted, they want to be useful

Accepting help and offering help in return was key to deepening acquaintances into fully-fledged friendships

What up everyone Jack's talking about the croissant thing again:

In 2019, I was very mentally and physically ill, and I was recommended to an IOP program, or, as I often called it, Suicide Prevention Daycamp For Grown-Ups.

It was technically a 4-6 week program, but I was not in a place where the counselors and I agreed that I was safe to graduate the program until about week #22 or so. So I was going to intensive group trauma therapy (to say nothing of all the other doctors I had to see), for 15+ hours a week for 5 months.

And one of the things that helped me regain and strengthen my will to live more than anything was going to the nice little bakery beside the hospital in the mornings before session started; buying 3-4 pastries, a banana, and a Lara bar (a gluten-free vegan* snack bar); taking one pastry for myself; and then walking around the morning meeting room at IOP giving away everything else.

I did this once on a whim after about a month at IOP, and I liked doing it so much that I then continued to do it every single day I was there for the next 4 months. (I didn't have a lot of extra money, but it was some of the best spending I've ever chosen to do in my life, and I have never regretted it.)

There were about 12-20 of us there in the mornings, depending on the day, and the interactions generally went like this:

---

And I like this post because it made me remember how grateful I am that those folks let me be kind to them because just by taking a banana from me and saying thank you, they literally helped me build up the will to live and to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

It was also a great way to remind a lot of thoroughly abused, invalidated, and neglected people [read: generally, most of us that end up at mental hospitals] that someone gives a fuck about them in a tangible way, and that at least SOMETIMES people offer help without secretly expecting guilt or repayment.

More than once, someone told me that when they came in on their first day, terrified and not knowing what to expect, they felt instantly more at ease after seeing me bustling about giving people high-quality snacks! And in a suicide-prevention program, feeling safe to stay in and be vulnerable in a space means a LOT.

- Comments like that one changed my entire self image tbh. The "croissant thing" gave me a tiny sense of control over my own life when I was close to death, and it showed me how just the tiniest amount of kindness and consideration can mean SO MUCH to people.

And none of that would have happened for me if all those folks hadn't believed me when I said I really wanted to make sure they had something to eat! What a kindness it is to be allowed to do a kindness!!

my apologies if this has already been posted here but im sharing this. here is what someone said on twitter along w this image:

the central image text reads: “@everyone I HAVE BEEN RELIABLY INFORMED GUARDIAN JOURNALISTS ARE SNOOPING AROUND ASKING FOR TRANS PEOPLE TO TALK TO THEM ABOUT DIY HRT. THEY ARE PARTICULARLY LOOKING FOR UNDER-18S DOING DIY. SHOULDN'T NEED TO BE SAID, BUT DO. NOT. ENGAGE. SPREAD WIDELY. DO NOT ENGAGE. WE NEED THIS NOTICE SPREAD OUT VIA EVERY GRASSROOTS SUPPORT GROUP AND SOCIAL CIRCLE IN THE COUNTRY.

URGENT. IF THEY GET EVEN ONE TO TAKE PART IT BECOMES A NATIONAL CONVERSATION. TOP ALERT.

- https://x.com/TownTattle/status/1781045092049928551

I was originally planning on holding off sharing this until June, but then decided to hell with that; why wait?

FURTHER RESOURCES:

Please feel free to reblog with more suggestions, if you have them!

Just as a note, the people who were massacred by Balboa probably are better described as transfeminine people or trans women, rather than homosexual men. In the original text, they were described as (roughly, I’m not looking at it rn) “men in women’s clothes” (but in Latin ofc) which was only altered to refer to sodomy in the English translation. Might seem small but it’s an important part of the history of colonial transmisogyny.

If I feel like it tomorrow I’ll add more resources—just a note that the Gilley book, while not bad necessarily, is now VERY old and there are probably better more recent books to check out. MJ (Marie) Laing’s book is great but expensive, but they do have a zine version of it available for free online which is cool.

@wigwamcore Thank you for this correction - that's something I did not know as I've only ever seen the English translation! I definitely agree it's important to share the most accurate information we're capable of understanding.

And please feel no rush on sharing more resources, but know that I'd be very grateful for whatever else you can recommend!

(Link for Urban Indigenous Youth Reframing Two-Spirit by Marie Laing)

(Link for free Zine)

"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops."

(Stephen Gould, "The Panda's Thumb")

When ever people talk about Einstein's brilliance and genius in this way this is part of me that feels like sand has gotten trapped inside of me.

Because they all seem to be so willing to ignore that Einstein was Jewish. And that matters. Einstein did not get to where he got easily. He had to face antisemitism including academic antisemitism. He face systemic antisemitism.

The man had to flee Europe because of the Nazis because he was Jewish. Even once he came to America he still dealt with anitsemitism.

Einstein reflected about what him being Jewish meant in regards to his theories.

As he famously said “If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare me a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German, and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.”

You can not ignore that Einstein was Jewish and what that comes with.

Because you know what I would like you to contend with just how much genius has been lost, how much potential has been lost, how much hope and change that could made a positive impact on our world that has been lost due to antisemitism.

Because if you are going to have that kind of conversation and you are going to bring up Einstein then you have to bring up just how many Jews have been murdered over the millennia for being Jews and what has been lost because of their hate in their killers hearts.

Also the ignorance of Einstein dedicating his post war years to the advancement of African American Education and his position a vocal/politically active opponent of racial segregation,

This position being founded both in Jewish values and his own experiences of academic discrimination in America on the basis of being a Jew.