young artist posting your work online, heed my warning. im holding your face so gently in my hands, you have to stop caring about numbers right now and start caring about making the weirdest and most self-indulgent art you possibly can
i posted about this elsewhere but you guys can see it too—i made this quilt (with an assist on the actual quilting in the interest of getting it done quick) to help a local student with her fundraiser for her family fleeing gaza. dm me a screenshot of your contribution receipt to get your name in the digital hat once for every $10 CAD; the random number generator will choose a winner on april 7th at noonish MDT, and i'll ship it anywhere. grateful for any help you can offer her.
You can donate to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund for as little as $1.00.
There is a fee you can choose to apply to cover processing.
Which if you choose to do leaves you with a total of ~$1.35 (USD) depending on the type of card you have.
PCRF has a score of 97% on Charity Navigator.
Adults and children alike are currently dying in Palestine due to starvation. (World Health Organization Link)
The Gaza Strip is one of two places in the entire world that is categorized as Phase 5 (the highest phase) on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification scale.
So even if you think it isn't enough, remember that donating even as little as $1.35 helps! It's $1.35 they wouldn't have had otherwise. So donate if you can. 🇵🇸
I wish I knew about men like these growing up, I wish I knew that trans men could be successful after a lifetime of never seeing anyone ‘like me’ excelling in life. So here are some trans men - some that you may have heard of, some that you may not - that are successful in a range of careers. Never let being trans hold you back, never think you can’t do something, never think there is not a place for you.
Ben Barres
American neurobiologist for Stanford University and advocate for women in science. Barre’s research on the interactions between glial cells and neurons changed the way that we understand the brain and opened up a whole new field of research.
Stephen Whittle
Professor of equalities law. Founder of FTM Network in 1989 and Press for Change in 1992. Whittle has been heavily involved in trans activism since joining the Self Help Association for Transsexuals in 1979. His research and activism has been instrumental in ensuring the rights of trans people in the UK.
Michael D Cohen
Actor, teacher and coach. Making his break in award-winning Nickelodeon sitcoms Harvey Danger and Danger Force he was the first series regular actor to publicly come out as transgender. Cohen has a BSc in cell biology and a masters degree in adult education, teaching at his own acting studio and providing workshops.
Chris Mosier
American triathlete and award-winning coach. Six time member of Team USA in both duathlon and triathlon, Mosier also won two national championships in racewalking and was the first transgender athlete to qualify for the Olympic trials to compete against other members of his gender.
Yance Ford
African-American film producer and director. Ford received an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and was nominated for an Oscar for his part in producing and directing the documentary Strong Island which follows the death of his brother.
Kael McKenzie
Canadian judge. Serving in the Canadian Armed Forces for several years, McKenzie later attended law school and and worked as a lawyer before being appointed as a judge to the Provincial Court of Manitoba in 2015.
Shane Ortega
Native American former flight engineer in the US army, former marine and professional bodybuilder. Throughout his career Ortega has served in Iraq and Afghanistan in over 400 combat missions. He has a long history of advocating for the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the recent banning on transgender service members in the US army.
Drago Renteria
Chicano photojournalist and deaf and LGBT activist. Renteria founded the Deaf Queer Resource and is CEO of DeafVision - a webhosting and development company run by deaf people and the founder of the National Deaf LGBTQ Archives. Renteria has been instrumental in both creating and hosting many online deaf/queer spaces online along with being heavily involved in real-world activism for decades.
Phillipe Cunningham
Elected city councillor for ward 4 Minneapolis and previous special education teacher, Cunningham holds a masters degrees in Organizational Leadership & Civic Engagement and in Police Administration and is passionate about tacking inequalities in his community.
A little advice from someone studying extremist groups: if you’re in a social media environment where the daily ubiquitous message is that you have no hope of any kind of future and you can’t possibly achieve anything without a violent overthrow of society, you’re being radicalized, and not in the good way.
If you feel ashamed of getting government provided assistance
whether that's Snap, or cash assistance or housing or insurance or WHATEVER.
I just want to say- I am a tax paying middle class person.
For the love of whatever you find holy, TAKE THE HELP. Seriously. Please. I am paying these taxes, and I am begging you to use that money to make your life better.
I find it tremendously depressing when my tax money goes to tanks for cops or subsidies for billionaires or general colonizing bullshit.
I want my tax money to improve your life. I do not give one single shit what you do with your cash assistance. I don't care if you think you maybe possibly could have gotten by without SNAP. If you can qualify TAKE IT. Eat as well as you can. Live as well as you can.
If you feel bad, picture me, cheering you on with every single choice you make that brings you comfort, stability or joy.
You are not a burden. You are my neighbor. There is enough to go around and I want us all to thrive.
When I was in ninth grade I wanted to challenge what I saw as a very stupid dress code policy (not being allowed to wear spikes regardless of the size or sharpness of the spikes). My dad said to me, “What is your objective?”
He said it over and over. I contemplated that. I wanted to change an unfair dress code. What did I stand to gain? What did I stand to lose? If what I really wanted was to change the dress code, what would be my most effective potential approach? (He also gave me Discourses on the Fall of Rome by Titus Livius, Machiavelli’s magnum opus. Of course he’d already given me The Prince, Five Rings, and The Art of War.)
I ultimately printed out that phrase, coated it in Mod Podge, and clipped it to my bathroom mirror so I would look at it and think about it every day.
What is your objective?
Forget about how you feel. Ask yourself, what do you want to see happen? And then ask, how can you make it happen? Who needs to agree with you? Who has the power to implement this change? What are the points where you have leverage over them? If you use that leverage now, will you impair your ability to use it in the future? Getting what you want is about effectiveness. It is not about being an alpha or a sigma or whatever other bullshit the men’s right whiners are on about now. You won’t find any MRA talking points in Musashi, because they are not relevant.
I had no clear leverage on the dress code issue. My parents were not on the PTA; neither were any of my friend’s parents who liked me. The teachers did not care about this. Ultimately I just wore what I wanted, my patent leather collar from Hot Topic with large but flattened spikes, and I had guessed correctly—the teachers also did not care enough to discipline me.
I often see people on tumblr, mostly the very young, flail around in discourse. They don’t have an objective. They don’t know what they want to achieve, and they have never thought about strategizing and interpersonal effectiveness. No one can get everything they want by being an asshole. You must be able to work with other people, and that includes smiling when you hate them.
Read Machiavelli. Start with The Prince, but then move on to Discourses. Read Musashi’s Five Rings. Read The Art of War. They’re classics for a reason. They can’t cover all situations, but they can do more for how you think about strategizing than anything you’re getting in middle school and high school curricula.
Don’t vote third party unless you can tell me not only what your objective is but also why this action stands a meaningful chance of accomplishing it. Otherwise, back up and approach your strategy from a new angle. I don’t care how angry you are with Biden right now. He knows about it, and he is both trying to do something and not doing enough. I care about what will happen to millions of people if we have another Trump presidency. Look up Ross Perot, and learn from our past. Find your objective. If it is to stop the genocide in Palestine now, call your elected representatives now. They don’t care about emails; they care about phone calls, because they live in the past. I know this because I shadowed a lobbyist, because knowing how power works is critical to using it.
How do you think I have gotten two clinics to start including gender care in their planning?
Start small. Chip away. Keep working. Find your leverage; figure out how and when to effectively use it. Choose your battles, so that you can concentrate on the battle at hand instead of wasting your resources in many directions. Learn from the accumulated wisdom of people who spent their lives learning by doing, by making mistakes, by watching the mistakes of their enemies.
Don’t be a dickhead. Be smarter than I was at 14. Ask yourself: what is your objective?
In case the esim process confuses you or you aren't able to buy them yourself for any other reason, crips for esims for Gaza is collecting donations, they've almost met their goal of $150,000 raised. Donating allows them to buy esims in bulk which allows them to obtain more than individuals would be able to. I just donated and it was super easy as you can use paypal.
you can click on this button once daily to help palestine and support other causes in the middle east for free. it takes literally 5 seconds and could help save lives so please take the time to click and share this link.