aro-bot

[aro-bot]

i think the world doesn’t know what it really means to live in a theocratic dictatorship. Let me tell you about our experiences living in the islamic regime of iran.

1. Your parents were born to muslim parents so they’re automatically muslim. You’re automatically a muslim too. You didn’t choose your religion and you can’t opt out of it or you will be executed.

2. The compulsory hijab law makes you a criminal if you choose not to wear hijab even tho you didn’t choose to be a muslim and you don’t consider yourself a muslim but the regime has forced you into that role whether you like it or not. And when you ‘break that law’, they can do with you as they please.

3. little girls as young as 7 yrs old are forced to wear hijab at school even tho the islam itself says the age is 9. and all the schools are gender segregated so imagine how they force you to get used to hijab even when you’re just surrounded by other girls. And all day long at school they tell you horrible stories about what will happen to you in hell if someone sees even a strand of your hair.

4. the regime modifies all the textbooks, story books, cartoons and movies to represent the ideal woman with full on hijab. The iranian media is ordered to photoshop every photo of a woman that may be showing a little skin. And if they’re iranian, no hair is supposed to be seen or that will be photoshopped away. Women are mostly excluded from billboards and tv commercials.

5. imagine going to work or meeting up with a friend when suddenly the morality police kidnap you in broad daylight and force you into a van to take you to a station where they will treat you like a criminal and if you don’t agree to get humiliated and do as they say, they will put you in prison. And in case of Mahsa Amini and so many more before her, they will beat you to death. My sister was barely 18 when she got kidnapped and they didn’t let her call home and she’d been so fucking scared and we had no idea where she was. Imagine all the psychological trauma.

6. If you’re in a car and not wearing hijab they will fine you and seize your car. So when u get into a taxi the driver will ask you to keep your hijab on otherwise they’ll get fined. And if you refuse they’ll ask you to get off the car.

7. And its not just about hijab. In Ramadan, they get even more vicious. If they catch you eating or even drinking water on the street they will give you lashes as punishment and even imprison you for breaking the law. If you work in a state-owned company it’s even worse. They will close the cafeteria and take away the water dispensers. All restaurants are banned from delivering food before iftar. It’s a fucking mess. Everyone has to pretend they’re fasting or they’ll be severely punished.

8. And how could I forget about this! iranian women are banned from singing! the islamic regime prohibits women’s singing voices to be heard by men so imagine the horror of having 50% of the population banned from ever becoming a singer. If they identify a female singer in iran, they will take her to jail and force her to repent her sins in the most humiliating way so that she will never dare sing again.

9. And every time the regime gets wind of a private gathering of men and women trying to have fun and live their fucking private lives, the police crash the party and take everyone to jail bc the Islamic regime bans iranian men and women from having fun.

So if you see Islam has become for many iranians a symbol of oppression and torture and discrimination, that’s why. The regime uses islam as a weapon to silence and punish anyone who opposes them. You can love islam all you want from the safety of your home in a free country and talk about how kind and benevolent the religion is, but in iran, it’s a whole different story.

Our economy is fucked. All govt officials are corrupt as fuck. Most websites are banned in iran. Even tumblr is banned. The world has cut the iranian ppl from many services. We don’t have intl credit cards like visa card. Amazon doesn’t do delivery to iran. We cant get netflix, spotify or even a gamepass subscription. we don’t get any Apple services here. iran isn’t listed as a country you could choose when signing up for a lot of services. and when we decide to leave iran and escape this hellhole, every country out there will make it sooo much harder for us to get a visa just bc we had the misfortune to be born in iran at the wrong time.

This is the story of iran for the past 44 years. Held hostage by a corrupt regime that uses religion to suppress and torture the people and being abandoned by the rest of the world bc our lives don’t matter.

Please be our voice. Once they shut down the internet completely and silence our voice, they will start slaughtering us to stifle the protests just like they did in 2019. Please help us. We want this fucking regime gone.

[aro-bot]

The 2022 Gender Census is now open!

[ Link to survey ]

The ninth annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 13th August 2022.

It’s short and easy, about 5 minutes probably.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, retweet this tweet, boost this Mastodon post, check out this post on Reddit, share this Facebook post, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks. Every share is extremely helpful - it’s what helped us get 44,000 responses last year.

Survey URL: https://survey.gendercensus.com

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

Thank you so much!

[ Link to survey ]

Image credit: Blue-green nebula, yellow-orange nebula

[aro-bot]

hope it's ok to add my thoughts here -- if not, just let me know and i'll take the reply down! (i largely agree with op, just expanding on the subject from another perspective!)

as a low support needs autistic person, i struggled with not getting the accommodations i needed for a long time (still do, actually, but i have systems in place now that i didn't before) and felt like/assumed that i was unable to be independent.

i also don't mask very well -- most people i talk to might not immediately jump to autism, but they do automatically notice that i'm very different from "normal" people, and i mistook this for being high support needs

those things combined with the fact that i didn't know anyone who was actually high support needs at the time, meant that i felt very uncomfortable and invalidated when someone would tell me i had low support needs ("high functioning" was term commonly applied to me -- i still dislike functioning labels, but defining it in terms of support needs makes a lot more sense)

i suspect this is what's happening for a lot of the autism community on tumblr & tiktok? basically, folks are realizing they do need accommodations so they assume that means they're high support needs, but don't realize that when someone says they're low support needs -- i.e. capable of functioning independently with accommodations -- it isn't inherently invalidating of their struggles and they still deserve to have the support they do need

final thoughts -- the autism community has a long way to go when it comes to listening to mid-high support needs folks and what y'all need/want. autism is a spectrum & that inherently means we're all going to need and want different things and feel different ways about it, and that's ok!

don’t like tiktok autism community because misuse high support needs and suddenly everyone say they high support needs

everyone say they high support needs themselves but have lower support needs than me i can’t live independently i can’t do any iADLs and some bADLs alone i can’t fully communicate i need at least part time supervision and i only mid/mid high support needs

:/

[aro-bot]

You know I'm getting really tired of the overwhelmingly popular notion that sex offenders "have it too easy".

The Sex Offender Registry is public, anyone on it has every aspect of their personal information online, allowing vigilantes to track you down and kill you and when they do, the cops aren't going to investigate your murder. Furthermore, being put on the SOR commonly disqualifies you from any form of rent, home ownership, or employment and thus most sex offenders become homeless.

If a Sex Offender does go to prison, chances are they will be killed purely for being a sex offender as every inmate will assume they are a child molester. I remember reading a story of a 20 year old man who was mutilated beyond recognition in prison after being put on the SOR for having sex with his 17 yo girlfriend.

Contrary to popular belief, you can be put onto the Sex Offender Registry for a vast variety of reasons, not just raping a child so assuming that all Sex Offenders are child rapists is illogical. Any form of indecent exposure can land you on the SOR. Back in the 2010s, there was a Texas teen who streaked at a football game and was put on the SOR as a result. He committed suicide because the courts would not take his name off the registry and yes, btw, getting taken off the Registry is virtually impossible to do even if you have mountains of evidence proving your innocence.

Furthermore, the SOR never actually reveals what crime each person on it committed but the major news networks have firmly convinced the U.S Population that every sex offender is a child rapist.

In Colorado, registered sex offenders are not allowed to own photographs of family members who are minors, nor are they allowed to even speak to minors. In Wisconsin, a registered sex offender was barred from entering a hospital where his 9-year-old son was undergoing surgery on the basis that he might rape his son.

People seem to think that the legal system is too leniant on sex offenders simply because sex offenders aren't suffering the punishments people want them to suffer. Just because a sex offender isn't being executed by firing squadron, burned at the stake, pulled apart by horses, sent to the gallows or thrown in a pit with 1000 hungry rats doesn't mean they aren't being punished.

It really bothers me that so many leftists, especially Anarchists buy into this bullshit and vigilante justice.

[aro-bot]

oh actually i will say one thing “this is the fault of people who didn’t vote in 2016!” “this is rbg’s fault!” this is the result of a half century long takeover of the federal judiciary by an extremist right wing minority you asinine freaks yeah i’m angry about a lot of things too but this is the same energy as people ignoring corporations pollution while yelling at people who don’t recycle

[aro-bot]

i still remember clearly one of my first interactions at pride with a 40-something member of the lgbt community. I asked him if I could take a picture of him with the bear flag (because I was really happy to see it irl for the first time!) and he asked, "are you feeling like a she-bear a little bit?"

and being gay almost exclusively online back then aside from maybe two friends, I was shocked by that question. me? a 19 years old kid who thought themselves to be cis and bi? I was basically the polar opposite of what a bear is.

but now, six years later, I see it. I'm fat, I'm hairy, I'm shamelessly a dyke, I'm masc. yes I'm butch, but fuck it, I'm also a she-bear. that guy was right. I hope he's doing alright and he knows he's changed my view on labels forever.

[aro-bot]

nvm lmao that asker had a bunch of lame ace discourse takes in 2022. imagine being an actual adult who invests time and energy into gatekeeping jesus christ y’all are cringe

[aro-bot]

have to say once more.. bigender people who are both men and women get no respect or consideration cause yall make us just women or just men depending on which one will invalidate our arguments or make us sound like oppressors, and none of yall can figure out how to fit us into your gender politics bc acknowledging us as real men AND real women would require understanding that men and women are not fully different, separate and opposite groups. bigender m+w means you cant group everyone into “men and non-men” and act like these are coherent categories. bigender m+w means you will need to let bigender wlw talk about wlw experiences without painting them as aggressive male intruders, and bigender mlm talk about mlm experiences without painting them as fetishizing straight women. bigender m+w means you cant treat us as if were exclusively men the moment we talk about anything you dont like regarding gender so you can paint us as purely actors of oppression who have never suffered misogyny despite also being women. bigender m+w means you have to rethink how you think gender works and what you believe about nonbinary people aligning themselves with a binary gender meaning theyre just “man lite or woman lite” when some of us are aligned with both binary genders. etc..

[aro-bot]

just make it aroallo

[aro-bot]

there’s only 6 days til her execution (April 27th 2022) and i’ve tried sharing the story around but it seems like the schedule is marching on so i’m gonna post about it here too because i really don’t want this woman to die

please spare a moment to read or share her story or anything

[aro-bot]

"Word have meanings!!!!!!"

You sound like the fucking Royal Academy of Spanish, my dude. Have some cool water and meet a bulldyke who uses bisexual to describe their gender. It'll change your life.

[aro-bot]

Pspspsp someone commission me i need money and also something to challenge me for art

You can also check my art blog @cipheraldraws for more recent art examples

[aro-bot]

From Tennessee Lookout:

MASON, Tenn. – The Tennessee Comptroller issued an unusual appeal last week to residents of this small, majority Black town, which occupies fewer than two square miles in rural west Tennessee.

“In my opinion, it’s time for Mason to relinquish its charter,” Comptroller Jason Mumpower wrote in a letter mailed to each one of Mason’s 1,337 property owners.

Mumpower urged local residents to “encourage your local officials to do what’s necessary to allow Mason to thrive. There is no time to waste.”

State comptrollers, responsible for financial oversight of local government, typically communicate directly with elected local leaders and not their constituents. “We have not issued a letter to citizens like this before,” Comptroller spokesman John Dunn said, noting it is “unprecedented for us to publicly call for a town charter to be relinquished.”

But the Comptroller’s unprecedented public callout comes at an unprecedented time not only for Mason, but for the state. Mason, located in the southeastern corner of Tipton County, now finds itself with some of the most coveted real estate in Tennessee.

It’s one of the nearest towns to the massive new site to be built for Blue Oval City, a key component in Ford Motor Co’s multibillion-dollar pivot to electric vehicle manufacturing.

Mumpower’s letter has infuriated Mason’s part-time elected officials, who insist they have no intention of ceding their town’s 153-year-old charter – which would subsume the largely African-American, majority Democratic community under the governance of Tipton County, which is predominantly white and Republican.

“This is our home. We were born and raised here. The majority of the town is homegrown people that live here,” Vice Mayor Virginia Rivers said. “He is trying to conquer and divide us. It’s akin to a hostile take-over and it’s not hard to figure out why here, why now.”

Town leaders are accusing Mumpower and other state officials of big-footing a long-ignored, largely Black community now that major investment is heading its way.

Mason is 60% Black and includes descendants of men, women and children enslaved in the area before Emancipation. For more than a century the town was led by White elected officials.

That changed in 2016, when fraud and mismanagement allegations led to the resignations of nearly all City Hall officials, all of whom were White. Mason’s current mayor, vice mayor and five of its six alderman are Black.

“It’s because of the Black people that are in office,” said Rivers, who first became Vice Mayor in 2021.

“And it’s because of all the places in the world, Blue Oval could have selected, they selected here. There’s no way Mason won’t prosper and grow. And now they want to take it away from us.”

Read more

The Comptroller’s office:

Yet again like in the past. New day, new Jim Crow-esque tactics, perfectly timed takeovers. This Black American town needs to be promptly saved without handing a damn thing over. The town elected mostly Black officials back in 2015. They’ve been trying to pay off the debt from when the town was previously ran by mostly white officials. Literally playing catch-up. 

This ain’t nothing but a glimpse of what it looks like before eventually uprooting and displacing Black people off the land they have resided on since forever and where their ancestors labored said land as property in chattel slavery and the move into Jim Crow.  

There’s a change.org petition to sign and share to get the word out there.

This person suggested to put Ford in the hot seat by sending a letter like this. Others are suggested to call their office. 

This is the CEO of Ford’s twitter.

Something gotta give. 

This shit should be on the news. But as usual, they make it known after the deed is done or not at all and you end up finding out years later. 

[aro-bot]

“i would never confess to a crime I didn’t commit” you would. “I would never plead guilty if i was innocent” you would. “I would never give up fighting” you would.

[aro-bot]

I Miss My Ex (Aromantic Remix)

Today you started talking to me again.

You were cold to me.

Today the biggest snowflakes I have ever seen fell outside my window.

I remembered that November night you held my hand

and watched the ground turn white.

I miss it, I think. I miss you.

I think there’s been a miscommunication.

When I told you I wanted to be friends again

I meant “I love you.”

I meant “I want to love you in the way I know how.”

I think you heard something else.

Something along the lines of “just friends.”

But I don’t really know the difference between “friends” and “I love you.”

I was hoping you wouldn’t either.

I liked the feel of your hand in mine.

Maybe when the ice thaws we can try again.

[aro-bot]

I can’t imagine the balls it takes to be a Russian anti-war protester right now. Good for them.

[aro-bot]

This Valentines, this post goes out to every aromantic disabled person.

It’s a unique kind of alienation, when so many disabled people seek romantic love to reassure ourselves that we are lovable. To be rejected as a romantic partner before you even know you don’t want one, because disabled people are considered unfit romantic partners by default.

Romance, and being loved romantically, are not the end all and be all of value. You are a whole and valuable person without it.

Please, celebrate the first Discount Candy Day of the year with me tomorrow.