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blaugust: dispatch from seattle's queer nude beach
hello and salutations. this past weekend my gf and i plus our extended polycule & friendgroup all took a trip out to denny blaine, seattle's historic queer nude beach. this was the third time i've been there (first time in 2025 though) and it's always such a wonderful and life-affirming experience. which makes it all the more nerve-racking that a not insignificant number of powerful people in this city want to see the beach closed for good, or at the very least see nudity banned on the waterfront.
this despite the fact that nudity isn't illegal in seattle.

some context. denny blaine is on the far-east side of the greater seattle area, on the shore of lake washington. it is ringed on all sides by extremely wealthy home-owners who have only ever been hostile to the generally low-income and extremely visibly queer frequenters of the park. seemingly every year (at least since i moved here in 2020) these prudish losers try to pull some shit to sabotage the park, under the banner of Denny Blaine Park For All (their opposition, Friends of Denny Blaine, has had a more successful track record). most notable of said losers is one stuart sloan, former owner of grocery store chain QFC, whose mansion is right next door to denny blaine. in 2023, sloan anonymously donated $1 million to the city for them to build a children's playground adjacent to the park. this was transparently an attempt to problematize nudity at the beach, and was roundly rejected. in 2024, sloan was caught personally texting seattle city mayor bruce harrell about the "problem" of nudity at denny blaine, who responded "if you are disgusted, i share your disgust."
earlier this year, police raided the beach and arrested a trans woman for being nude. the charges were dropped and police informed to not perform such actions in the future, but it set the tone for a year of spurious legal challenges. the current cause du jour is "sex and public masturbation," and denny blaine for all have taken it to court. a conservative judge ruled that the city needs to take steps towards mitigating the offending conduct and prove to the city that they're taking the issue seriously.
the problem is, obviously, that isn't happening. everyone who frequents that beach knows the environment they're in. to the extent that it might be happening, it's almost certainly at the same rate as anywhere else in a city as big (and full of deliberately abandoned surplus humans) as seattle. but that doesn't matter. rich people say it's happening and they have the phone numbers of people in charge and lots of money to throw around, so it's happening. how do you prove it's not happening? you literally can't. they keep coming up with these half-baked solutions, from planting a cop or a park ranger there full-time (tho tbh under the right circumstances a lifeguard might be a good addition), to creating "clothing required" zones around the park, to erecting a big wall between the road and the park proper so folks in the neighborhood don't have to see any disgusting female penises. and hey, you know, a divider doesn't sound like the WORST idea right? if naked people are just right up on the street and everything?
well let's zoom in on the picture from that capitol hill seattle blog i linked above real quick:

first of all, it cannot be overstated how small this park is. do you see how few parking spots there are? oh yeah, you bet the rich folks nearby grouse about on-street parking in their neighborhood in peak beach months (which wouldn't be a problem if more than one bus served the area [and even that one requires an extra ten minute hike to get there], but you know how much rich people hate public transit). here's what you need to understand. all along the top and bottom of the two outlined "zones" in the above image are very high walls that occlude visibility from all sides. that median grassy area where ZONE B is written is at the top of a relatively steep hill, meaning the whole park exists in a narrow corridor. add the many trees to the mix and you really have to get right up into the parking zone to see *any* bodies. now you see that wall between the left half of ZONE A and the part facing the water? yeah, that's even further down hill, probably another six feet. plenty of naked people chill in the let half of ZONE A but most of the nakedness occurs by the water. because it's. you know. a beach. and then if you look closer at the right side of that image, you'll see barriers that extend out into the water. those are very high walls built by the neighbors so they don't have to see any naked people on the beach! which is great for us because it means we have to swim waaay out to the edge of the beach's territory to see mt tahoma, the very landmark that makes lake washington such coveted real estate. thanks stuart!

all of which is to say: you really, really have to go out of your way to see naked people at denny blaine. the idea that it poses any kind of disruption to the community is laughable. it is also entirely a moot point. nudity is not illegal in seattle. being naked is not a disruption. if someone flashes you, that's already a crime. if someone is jerking off in public, that's already a crime. to say you have to restrict the entire region in order to prevent the hypothetical possibility of a few edge cases is absurd, but that's the logic behind every single conservative crackdown on queer self-expression. the rich people have money and the stooges in the seattle city council and the mayor's office have open pockets. if they keep getting complaints, then surely there must be a problem. if the queer people of seattle who vastly outnumber them make a stink about that problem not existing, well, they're just a "sub-group" from outside of seattle with different morals from the rest of the people in the city. we see the exact same dynamic playing out right now with payment processors cracking down on queer nsfw content on steam and itch, where a thousand suburban-fascist australian callers can get massive takedowns initiated but tens of thousands of queer callers just get shut out and dismissed (this is not to say calling payment processors is a lost cause, PLEASE keep calling them!!).
censorial prudishness disguises itself in a cloak of "public safety" but it's only ever about money. payment processors don't need to justify their actions because protecting their profits is common sense. you say "this is wrong" and they say "well that's neither here nor there." what the opponents of denny blaine want is to never have to see a poor person, same as every other rich donor. why not donate money to build a separate, larger nude beach that's more accessible by transit? no, of course not, that wouldn't benefit sloan's bottom line. no, they just resent having to share space. they want to own lake washington. they want to own denny blaine. they want to own seattle. they want to push all the unhoused and queer poors out and out and out until they're gone for good, in distant exurbs or shitty tinyhouses or in jails and prisons where they belong. they want to surveil and criminalize and minutely manage the visible social fabric of this city, and foreclose the possibility of it being for (or, god forbid, of) anyone else.
which is why it's essential to go to the fucking beach. i am very shy and historically had a lot of issues with my body. before i got on hrt i used to be covered head to toe in a thick dark coat of hair, my biggest source of dysphoria since adolescence. when i briefly went shirtless at a beach as a camp councilor (everyone else was shirtless), laughter and disgust spread among kids and adults alike. but i am a trans woman. i exist in the world. i am allowed to take up space. my body is my own and i should not be ashamed of it. denny blaine is a place where dozens of other trans people can get together, take off their clothes, and just be. i cannot express to you, if you haven't been yourself, how freeing it is, how enlightening and spiritually rejuvenating, to witness so many feminine penises and masculine vaginas in one place that they just seem normal.
because they are normal. our bodies are just bodies like anybody else's. we live in an excruciatingly prudish society that drills in all of us an overwhelming sense of terror at any possibility of exposure to anything remotely adjacent to sex. and then you spend a couple hours at the nude beach and that whole aura is broken in an instant. being there feels a little bit like being part of history, especially now. it's a site of physical equalization. a respite from our eugenic and bioessentialist nation. a communion for the fags and dykes and queers who have increasingly fewer places to call their own. the idea that people being "exposed" to our bodies "against their will" is inherently sexual and violating (at a beach that has been known for public nudity since the 80s) is just absurd. they're wrong, and everyone but their donors knows it. what the city needs to do is simply tell them, thanks but no thanks. money should not be the end-all be-all of this fight.
there is no epidemic of public sex at denny blaine. there is, however, an epidemic of unwanted voyeurs. and while the politics involved are highly specific to seattle, the power dynamics at play are all too universal.
don't let them fool you. your body is not a crime.
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GLOSSARY:
anima (n.) : the measurable soul.
borehole (n.) : (of chronotics) a narrow tunnel of eliminated chronal strata now occupied by undecided future spacetime with a new “present” layer at its bottom. This new layer is causally isolated from the rest of present spacetime.
cenote (n.) : a sinkhole in chronal strata.
compact (adj.) : (regardinrg noöses) a mind that wields a “life sized” scale of computational power, i.e. comparable to local wildtype brains.
chronal strata (n.) : sedimentary past spacetime.
chronotics (n.) : the study of the growing block universe.
colic (adj.) : possessing wetware.
large (adj.) : (regarding noöses) a mind that wields above a wildtype scale of computational power, such as via a tight network of compact minds.
mesh (n.) : a type of colic wetware that requires permanent encasement and life support.
mustard (n.) : a seedlet specialized in detecting and filtering semiohazards.
noösis (n.) : (plural: noöses) a mind with an anima.
nootics (n.) : the science of mental architecture.
seedlet (n.) : sapient artificial intelligence.
semiohazard (n.) : a set of information that, when encoded into a stimulus, may evoke a destructive response in a perceiver.
Throneroom (n.) : the coronal home planet.
wildtype (adj.) : (regarding genetic or nootic condition) occurring in nature.
Boytoy — Drafted US soldier. Future fodder.
Psychesoma — Struggling ex-model in neutral nation. Currently housed by Noumena while they financially, physically, and emotionally recover.
Noumena — Fortress of a person with an unknown job. Philanthropic streak. History of violence.
Intel — Nootically engineered info absorbtion agent. Gleefully passionate about dossier construction.
Molar — Lethal close quarters combat agent. Dozy until activated. Apathetic but easy to control.
MOUS — Heavily mechanically augmented reconnaissance agent. Hardly conscious.
Sunflower Florets 1 & 2 — Entwined mesh clones of a single genetic donor who was an esteemed pilot. Grown as expendable pilotware.
Sunflower Floret 3 — The permanent onboard seedlet overseer of Floret 1 & 2. Tentatively emotionally attaching to the meshes.
Balanceaban — War logistics and research manager for México. Dislikes human suffering so has prioritized weapon lethality.
GOSSIP RING — Surveillance satellite housing a dozen nootically linked meshes.
Cygnet — US tactical and civic health coordinator seedlet. Young (~3 years old) and panicking at its insurmountable task of saving the collapsing nation.
GOD’S FAVORITE — Cenote sensor with a seedlet-human mesh operator system. Designed to blast chronal strata with high energy particles to create boreholes.
Last Lamb — High-volume scientific testing mustard. Public figure known for their regular communication of semiotic research.
Little Bell — Software systems analyst for The Pursuit of Sleep superproject. Lost and vulnerable to addiction.
The Harvest — Senior magazine editor for the Ministry of Arts. Mother of Little Bell.
Five Summers — Wealthy nutritionist from the Department of Nourishment. The Harvest’s closest friend.
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i think being queer/person of color in the us military makes you worse than the white/cishet military people, because at least they never pretended to give a shit and always talked about wanting to be ghouls. you want to be a ghoul while trying to use your #minority status to get sympathy over it, showing that u dgaf abt the global south and especially dont care about OUR queer and communities of color
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with how much this site loves its writer ask games, im astounded ive never seen one for artists, soooo
ARTIST ASK GAME!
1. what medium do you use most (if applicable, what software)?
2. most popular piece?
3. your favorite piece(s)?
4. piece you wish got more love?
5. how would you describe your art style?
6. favorite thing to draw?
7. easiest thing for you to draw?
8. thing you struggle to draw?
9. whats something you always come back to when drawing?
10. how do you deal with artblock?
11. do you listen to anything while drawing?
12. describe your process while drawing
13. talk about a wip you like!
14. whats your favorite thing about drawing?
15. least favorite thing about drawing?
16. how do you motivate yourself to draw?
17. what is something youre confident about in your art?
18. something you feel like you need to work on?
19. where do you find inspiration?
20. is your workspace, digital or not, organized (not neat, organized)?
21. what do you think your artstyle would taste like?
22. do you have a favorite color palette to work with?
23. how many artstyles can you work in confidently?
24. whats a compliment about your art that has always stuck with you?
25. what size canvas/paper do you use?
26. what do you physically draw with (pencil and paper, tablet, etc)?
27. do you ever have multiple wips going at once?
28. whats a piece you would like to redraw at some point?
29. do you use a lot of references while drawing?
30. whats something youre proud of about your artstyle?
31. which fandom have you drawn the most for?
32. have you done a lot of collabs?
33. have you taken a lot of classes for art?
34. whats something you still like from your old art?
35. if you had one piece of advice to give your younger artist self, what would it be?
(remember to give the person you reblog from an ask!!)
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I think it's interesting how once you're marked as Bad Person™ you're absolutely open season to sexually harass. Like any time anyone, but especially a trans woman, is decided to be unfavorable to some group of people, they instantly sexually harass them and when it's pointed out they act like you're crazy for thinking sexual harassment is bad. Happened to predstrogen, it's happening to Patricia Taxxon, happens to like every trans woman.
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Saw these within a week of each other... which could mean nothing.
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i just realized that If toby fox Does come out as transfem the baby is you will go from “haha funny cursed toby fox thing” to “cancelable offense” overnight
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please repost your pop punk espresso video please i need it tony its all i have left
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i took a nap and had the most beautiful dream that nepeta and tenna were friends
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