actually while I think about it, I want to give a shout out to every congenitally disabled person whose disability was not discovered until they were a teenager or adult, and spent their entire lives up to that point being told they were lazy, stupid, uncoordinated, or not trying hard enough

shout out to all of us who should have been helped from the day we were born, and instead were just made to feel like we were worthless for not being able to perform like our abled peers

Hey, guess what? You're allowed to identify as something and then later identify as something else. It doesn't make you a liar or a fraud or an idiot. It's fine. It's okay. People change and grow and their understandings of themselves change and grow too. That's life. Don't sweat it.

It's okay to identify as gay and then later as bi or as bi and then later as gay. It's okay to identify as aro and then later realise you do experience romantic attraction. It's okay to change what name you use or what pronouns you use three hundred times. It's okay and you're always welcome in my community. Be kind to yourself and give yourself grace.

sometimes people go to dentistry school and become a dentist then realize they hate it and become a standup comedian. doesn't mean being a dentist wasn't real or part of your journey, or that you can never be anything else.

if your friend asks you to misgender them in front of their family, do it. if your friend asks you to refer to their partner as their roommate or friend, do it. if they ask you to deadname them, do it. allyship is about prioritizing the safety of marginalized people, especially when it comes before your desire to fight their oppressors.

When I was a (unmedicated, undiagnosed ADHD) kid, like, under 12, my room was a mess all the time. Not shocking.

I struggled keeping it clean.

I struggled getting it clean.

I would sincerely put in quite a bit of effort and be really proud of the progress I made. Then one of my parents would come check and see how I was doing.

"Well, you've still got a long way to go."

That sentence. I was like, 11 when my parents were saying that to me. It was crushing. All my pride and satisfaction with my work was completely gone. All my effort was worthless to them. All they saw what everything I didn't do.

At the age of ELEVEN, I knew that wasn't right. That wasn't fair. I swore to myself I would never invalidate someone's work like that.

Now, at 30, I catch myself thinking 'I cleaned up, but my apartment is still so messy.' and I flashback to standing in my bedroom as a child, hearing those fucking words from my parents.

'No. I wouldn't invalidate someone else's work. I'm not going to invalidate my own. I did good. I made progress.' and I'll list the things that I DID get done to myself.

You deserve credit for all the progress you make.

You deserve credit for all the work you do.

It doesn't matter how much work you have left.

What you accomplish, no matter how small, counts. Even when what you accomplished was taking a day to rest and recharge and give yourself a break.

Never let anyone invalidate your work. Not even you.

i've said it already probably but ppl who don't use mobility aids. especially doctors. stop trying to get rid of other ppls mobility aid. stop making that a priority. stop it with the "we gotta get you off that [mobility aid]" "you shouldn't need to be using a [mobility aid]" "let's focus on getting you to where you don't need [mobility aid]" "a [mobility aid]? but have you tried [herb]/[medicine]/ [exercise]/[facebook hack]/[pseudoscience]/[meditation] instead?" "but you look old/cringe/weak/sick". shut up

i don't know why so many of y'all think my end goal is to stop using the thing that helps me. and i KNOW most of y'all wear glasses or contacts but you're not running around trying to find the solution to make you stop needing them. so quit doing it with every other aid just because it reminds you of old or sick people.

especially bc most of y'all don't want to have that reaction when it comes to chronic pain, fatigue or discomfort. i say "my joints hurt" you say "oh well :/". i say "i feel lightheaded all the time" you say "just push through it". i say "my stomach is at least a 7/10 on the pain scale every day" you say "are you sure it's actually that bad? maybe you're exaggerating".

but as soon as i pull out a cane, or a shower chair, or a spinny chair for when im cooking in the kitchen, and i say "finally, im getting really good help!" . that's when you care. and all you want to do is take that away as soon as possible.

you just don't want to fucking see disabled ppl be disabled.

you don't want to have to look at it. you don't want to have to listen to it. you don't want to have to be reminded of it.

but too fucking bad !! i don't care !! im naming and decorating my canes !! they will be the loudest part of my outfits !! the same will go for a rollator if i'll still need one in the future !! i'm going to talk about how i'm disabled regardless of if anyone else can hear me !! because i am !! why should i hide just because YOU don't like it !! close your eyes !!!!!!

you know i don’t think we often talk about how difficult it actually is to suddenly realize that a belief you thought was good and moral and correct was actually really fucking toxic. how you have to look at something and go ‘oh shit, oh i fucked up. oh this is going to take probably years at minimum to deprogram from my brain because of all the little ways this shit pervaded the rest of my beliefs’

so. to all the people picking up all the pieces of a recently shattered world-view and trying to figure out what is safe to keep and what has to be thrown away and started over

to all the people having to relearn how to even listen to other people

to all the people putting in the work to do better while struggling with the guilt that comes from finding out you were the asshole

i’m proud of y’all.

it’s hard to admit being wrong and even harder to change in the aftermath. just keep doing the best you can and just know that the effort is appreciated. everyone can change. everyone can do better. keep fighting.

the reason intersex people need to be visible and at the forefront of every queer's activism is because we are completely devoid of autonomy when it comes to identifying ourselves. no matter how hard we try to speak up on how we are treated, how we are dehumanized, how we are refused our right to say who we are, it falls through the cracks because of how many people continue to diminish our issues, and espouse intersexist beliefs.

when i speak up about being transfemme, and a trans girl, it's not because i'm trying to step on people's toes or speak about something i don't understand. i speak up about it because this is the life i've lived. it doesn't matter if strangers see me this way or not, this is how i've been my entire life. whether or not someone knows i was technically born AMAB and then had my gender "corrected" shouldn't matter.

trans people do not only come in binary sexes- just like gender, physical sex is also not a binary. i am an intersex trans girl , even if my agab didn't stay AMAB forever. I would be an intersex trans girl regardless of whether or not they assigned me male at birth, because my experience with womanhood and femininity is that they've always been held away from me, way farther than it would ever be possible for me to reach.

i've had to take estrogen & progesterone HRT in the past in order to "correct" my masculine features in order to look like and be a girl "correctly". the subject of my body and my gender has never been something i've been able to control. my whole live i've just been told that i'm a girl wrong, and that i need to "Fix" it.

boyhood or manhood weren't options either, that was held away from me with a 10 foot pole as well. i've had to transition into gender, itself, because i was forbidden to be a boy or a girl. i was always too sensitive or soft to be a real boy. gender as a concept has been a source of control and degredation for me. i had to transition into both manhood and womanhood in order to have control over how i identify. even now when i talk about manhood and being a man, people tell me that i'm not a trans man because of how i look. i'm routinely denied manhood, I "have" to be a trans woman only to some.

due to my intersex condition, i'm a trans man and a trans woman, transfemme and transmasc, but people struggle to accept this. there's no reason for people to give me hell about these parts of myself, and yet people still do. intersex awareness matters because we fight to be seen as the people we are. we struggle to have our identities be addressed correctly. we are in the same fight as trans individuals, and we owe it to intersex trans men, women, and people to help people understand that trans folks come in all different types of bodies, and that biological sex is not a binary, either.

we have to fight for each other's autonomy. for all of us. together we are stronger, louder, and braver.

Bad news...

Since the AO3 fundraising drive is coming up, this is your friendly reminder that AO3 has zero ads. That’s right, zero – even if you turn off your ad blockers. There are zip. Zilch. None.

There are vanishingly few places these days that don’t sell you. If you’re sick of being sold, and if you have the means to do so, then maybe you should consider supporting those sorts of sites.

Here's to the people who weren't abused by their parents, but whose parents sucked anyways. Here's to people whose parents fucked up raising you out of ignorance and not malice. Here's to the kids whose parents didn't know what to do with you so they did nothing at all. Here's to people whose parents are getting better and growing as people but still hurt you. Here's to every mean comment that wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't come from your mom; here's to awkward family dinners because you're all trying to forget;

here's to you, survivor of a thousand 'not as bad as it could have been' hurts. I see you. You aren't alone.

Look. Politicians. I’m gonna be real with you. If you want people to make more babies you need to make the work week shorter and minimum wage higher.

You don’t need to be wealthy and never busy or whatever to raise kids but ideally or arguably at bare minimum you do need the time to find someone to boink and the income to have at least a 2 bedroom apartment. And currently a large chunk of having child age people do not have either of those things.

People don’t have the time to be making babies. People who would happily have four kids can’t afford the space or childcare. People who would want to be homemakers and stay at home parents need to be working as well as their partner to feed two people let alone three to six.

I wanna have kids someday. Idk when I’ll have the money for a big enough apartment, potential adoption or fertility clinic costs, healthcare for dependents, childcare, etc.

Why aren’t young people having children? Uh, how? In this economy?

There’s a lot of ultra-rich people exactly like him. He’s just really visible. If you dig into how these people think even a little bit you stop thinking they should be in charge of anything. Having a lot of wealth changes peoples brains. It makes them wildly overestimate their own abilities and become less charitable. Partially because the only people they socialize with are other rich people. Which leads to them having similar beliefs to freaking eugenicists and quiverfull fundamentalists.

umm yikes ok OP of the post you just reblogged believes in nuance and grey areas so i'd delete that if i were you

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Sometimes ur fat bc u were born that way. Ur parents are fat, ur cousins are fat, u always have been fat.

And sometimes, you become fat. Something happened (puberty, change in diet, change in ability, anything) and someone who was once skinny is now fat. This doesnt make you a failure. It just means ur fat now. Its okay. You didnt do something wrong.

No matter how you are fat, its okay to be fat

it/its because there's no separation between me and the rest of the universe. it/its because I am part of the same machinations of reality as the ocean and ink and soda and love and all the neat rocks. it's all the same do you feel me. I'm not "lowering myself" to the level of objects, it's more like I am raising objects up. it's all a big beautiful tapestry. do you understand

fun fact if you refer to children as "things" and use "it" when referring to children and are happy to see children cry and get hurt im stealing something from your house

"what did he think was going to happen" i dont know considering the fact that this four year old boy literally cannot properly comprehend consequence

"and NOW she's acting like a victim *laughing emoji*" this six year old girl doesn't know anything about the world let alone how to process her emotions

like these are literal CHILDREN. they don't know shit about anything. hop off this cruel and edgy "i hate kids" train and go see a shrink asshole.

Oh my fucking god, this. So much this.

I’ve had to fucking explain this to parents. Why can’t the baby stop crying? Because that’s the only way the baby knows how to communicate -- they’re trying to tell you something. Why is this child acting like the world is ending because they lost their favorite toy? Because they’ve never experienced loss before -- this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to them in their lives

Children have all the emotional capacity of adults and none of the experience in learning how to cope with it. A knee scraped for the first time is the worst pain a child has ever felt. Not getting to go to the park is the greatest injustice ever.

They’re responding proportionally to the event from their life perspective. Children actually don’t over react, like ever. They just feel everything so much and have so little reference to weigh it against.

Facebook deleted this almost immediately. It's almost like the ultrawealthy don't want us knowing or talking about what's at stake.

Just want to add one thing:

In countries with universal healthcare, this is a non-issue during a strike. Our access to healthcare isn't tied to working. It's an unconditional right for each and everyone of us.

The US system screws workers over in oh so many ways.

This is exactly why US companies fight so hard against universal healthcare; even if single payer healthcare is cheaper on a per-person basis and takes the cost away from the employer, it also takes POWER and leverage away from the employers... and they don't ever want to give that up.