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As someone who writes positive news for a living, here are my thoughts and tips for anyone who wants to get more good news in their life to balance out the bad:

Charities are your #1 source of good news. Read their impact reports, follow them on social media, sign up for their newsletters. I don't mean campaign groups - I mean charities that directly support people and communities.

Look for news on topics you care about the most. Generic "positive news" feeds cover too broad a scope to actually interest us, and positive news generally doesn't engage us as much as negative. So pick the topics nearest and dearest to your heart. maybe something you've been through, a health condition you or a loved one has, something that touches you deeply. And look for positive news about that specifically. Find an organisation that focuses on it and follows them for updates.

Think local. What are charities and community groups doing in your suburb, town, neighbourhood? If it's closer to home, it'll have a more significant impact on your wellbeing to read the positive news. It's easy to feel like the whole world is rotten, but you might find that there are little bubbles of goodness closer to you than you realise.

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Guys check out my dumb ace little worm on a string scarf

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On the issue of the ‘q slur’...

So, yesterday, I got into a rather stupid internet argument with someone who was peddling what seemed to me to be a rather insidious narrative about slur-reclamation. Someone in the ensuing notes raised a point which I thought was interesting, and worrying, and probably needed to be addressed in it’s own post. So here we go:

The word ‘queer’ itself seems to be especially touchy for many, so let me begin to address this by way of analogy.

Instead of talking about “queer”, let’s start by talking about “Jew” - a word which I believe is very similar in its usage in some significant ways.

Now, the word “Jew” has been used as a derogatory term for literally hundreds of years. It is used both as a noun (eg. “That guy ripped me off - what a dirty Jew”) and as a verb (eg. “That guy really Jew-ed me”). These usages are deeply, fundamentally, horrifically offensive, and should be used under no circumstances, ever. And yet, I myself have heard both, even as recently as this past year, even in an urban location with plenty of Jews, in a social situation where people should have known better. In short – the word “Jew”, as it is used by certain antisemites, is – quite unambiguously – a slur. Not a dead slur, not a former slur – and active, living slur that most Jews will at some point in their life encounter in a context where the term is being used to denigrate them and their religion. 

Now here’s the thing, though: I’m a Jew. I call myself a Jew. I prefer that all non-Jews call me a Jew – so do most Jews I know. “Jew” is the correct term for someone who is part of the religion of Judaism, the same way that “Muslim” is the correct term for someone who is part of the religion of Islam, and “Christian” is the correct term for someone who is part of the religion of Christianity. 

In fact, almost all of the terms that non-Jews use to avoid saying “Jew” (eg. “a member of the Jewish persuasion”, “a follower of the Jewish faith”, “coming from a Jewish family”, “identifying as part of the Jewish religion”, etc) are deeply offensive, because these terms imply to us that the speaker sees the term “Jew” (and by extension, what that term stands for) as a dirty word.

“BUT WAIT” – I hear you say – “didn’t you just say that Jew is used as a slur?!?”

Yes. Yes, I did. And also, it is fundamentally offensive not to call us that, because it is our name and our identity.

Let me back up a little bit, and bring you into the world of one of those 2000s PSAs about not using “that’s so gay”. Think of some word that is your identity – something which you consider to be a fundamental and intrinsic part of yourself. It could be “female” or “male”, or “Black” or “white”, “tall” or “short”, “Atheist” or “Mormon” or “Evangelical” – you name it.

Now imagine that people started using that term as a slur.

“What a female thing to do!” they might say. “That teacher doesn’t know anything, he’s so female!”

Or maybe, “Yikes, look at that idiot who’s driving like an atheist. It’s so embarrassing!”

Or perhaps, “Oh gross, that music is so Black, turn it off!”

Now, what would you say if the same groups of people who had been saying those things for years turned around and avoided using those words to describe anything other than an insult?

“Oh, so I see you’re a member of the female persuasion!”

“Is he… a follower of the atheist beliefs? Like does he identify as part of the community of atheist-aligned individuals?”

“So, as a Black-ish identified person yourself – excuse me, as a person who comes from a Black-ish family…”

Here’s the fundamental problem with treating all words that are used as slurs the same, without any regard for how they are used and how they developed – not all slurs are the same.

No one, and I mean no one (except maybe for a small handful of angsty teens who are deliberately making a point of being edgy) self-identifies as a kike. In contrast, essentially all Jews self-identify as Jews. And when non-Jews get weird about that identity on the grounds that “Jew is used as a slur”, despite the fact that it is the name that the Jewish community as a whole resoundingly identifies with, what they are basically saying is that they think that the slur usage is more important than the Jewish community self-identification usage. They are saying, in essence, “we think that your name should be a slur.” 

Now, at the top I said that the word “Jew” and the word “queer” had some significant similarities in terms of their usage, and I think that’s pretty apparent if you look at what people in those communities are saying about those terms. When American Jews were being actively threatened by neo-Nazis in the 70s, the slogan of choice was “For every Jew a .22!″. When the American Queer community was marching in the 90s in protest of systemic anti-queer violence, the slogan of choice was “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!” Clearly, these are terms that are used by the communities themselves, in reference to themselves. Clearly, these terms are more than simply slurs.

But while there are useful similarities between how the terms “Jew” and “Queer” are used by bigots and by their own communities, I’d also like to point out that there is pretty substantial and important difference:

Unlike for “queer”, there is no organized group of Jewish antisemites who are using the catchphrase “Jew is a slur!” in order to selectively silence and disenfranchise Jews who are part of minority groups within Judaism. 

This is the real rub with the term queer – no one was campaigning about it being a slur until less than a decade ago. No one was saying that you needed to warn for the word queer when queer people were establishing the academic discipline of queer studies. No one was ‘think of the children”-ing the umbrella term when queer activists were literally marching for their lives. Go back to even 2010 and the term “q slur” would have been basically unparseable – if I saw someone tag something “q slur”, like most queer people I would have wracked my brains trying to figure out what slur even started with q, and if I learned that it was supposed to be “queer”, my default assumption would be that the post was made by a well-meaning but extremely clueless straight person.

I literally remember this shift – and I remember who started it. Exclusionists didn’t like the fact that queer was an umbrella term. Terfs (or radfems as they like to be called now) didn’t like that queer history included trans history; biphobes and aphobes didn’t like that the queer community was also a community to bisexuals and asexuals. And so what could they possibly say, to drive people away from the term that was protecting the sorts of queer people that they wanted to exclude?

Well, naturally, they turned to “queer is a slur.”

And here’s the thing – queer is a slur, just like Jew is a slur, and no one is denying that. And that fact makes “queer is a slur so don’t use it” a very convincing argument on the surface: 1) queer is still often used as a slur, and 2) you shouldn’t ever use slurs without carefully tagging and warning people about them (and better yet, you should never use them at all), and so therefore 3) you need to tag for “the q slur” and you need to warn people not to call the community “the queer community” or it’s members “queer people” or its study “queer studies” – because it’s a slur!

But the crucial step that’s missing here is exactly the same one above, for the word “Jew” – and that step is that not all slurs are the same. When a term is both used as a slur and used as a self-identity term, then favoring the slur meaning instead of the identity meaning is picking the side of the slur-users over the disadvantaged group! 

If you say or tag “q slur” you are sending the message, whether you realize it or not, that people who use “queer” as a slur are more right about its meaning than those who use it as their identity. Tagging for “queer” is one thing. People can filter for “queer” if it triggers them, just like people can filter for anything else. Not everyone has to personally use the term queer, or like the term queer. But there is no circumstance where the term “q slur” does not indicate that you think queer is more of a slur than of an accurate description of a community.

If I, as a Jew, ever came across a post where someone had warned for innocent, positive, non-antisemitic content relating to Judaism with the tag “J slur”, I would be incensed. So would any Jew. The act of tagging a post “J slur” is in and of itself antisemitic and offensive.

Queer people are allowed to feel the same about “q slur”. It is not a neutral warning term – it is an attack on our identity.

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Medical mistreatment for intersex individuals is not solely found in reproductive health. It is found across every medical practice there is, including our general practitioners.

If I am being told that any of my unrelated medical concerns are being caused by “anxiety from existing as intersex”, “not being accepted by society”, or “not having the usual hormones/anatomy” ; That is disgusting medical negligence and dismissal.

Standing up for ourselves and telling Doctors that they are, in fact, wrong about their assumptions does nothing but write us down as anxious about health! No shit we are anxious about our health, DOCTORS KEEP DISMISSING IT!

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Reminder to Request Queer Books from your Local Library

If you're panicking about the state of the world, one of the easiest ways to make a difference right now is engaging with your library.

There is a reason that libraries are targetted by fascists. They are sites of immesurable power. Both just on their own, and also because of their patrons. So first step is, if you haven't, sign up for a library card ASAP.

Next, find out how your library takes requests (almost all libraries do), and start filling out the forms. Make it a ritual, go through queer books that interest you (here is an affiliate link for 165 queer books to get you started), and request as many as you can. It also helps if you take queer books out. Both digitally and physically.

Many libraries have a system in place where they have to rebuy the rights to a digital copy of a book after a certain amount of borrows. This is not contingent on you reading every single book you check out. No one will know if you read it or not. Though, I will admit that reading the books is also a good strategy to keep you invested in this very important discussion.

Regardless of your personal reading habits, you have space to make real change in your community with just a small amount of effort. Borrowing and requesting queer books backs up the irrefutable fact that queer stories are worth telling, and it pays queer authors for their work. I will say it until my face is blue, request queer books, read queer books, and engage with your local library.

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Some thoughts.

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Real Actual People(TM) cannot be stereotypes. If you're an alt neurodivergent evilgender 14 yo who uses nounself pronouns you're not a stereotype of xenogender people, you're just you. If you're a loveless aro/ace, flirty polya bi, etc etc. you're not a stereotype, you're just you. The opposite is true, too- if your experiences don't match with most other people's, or anyone else's, you're still you. You're still valid.

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hot things to say during sex

inventory is full

I’m out of range

I can’t carry any more

that spell isn’t ready yet

I need to target something first

it’s too far away

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being on the aro spectrum would be a lot easier if being single wasn’t made to feel like a literal death sentence

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I feel like, as an alloaro talking about alloaro stuff, I'm not allowed to tag my posts "aspec" despite the fact that I am aspec and being alloaro is an aspec experience

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june is too late for pride month! give me it now!! Pride hearts pt.1! reqs open for more :3

Check ALT text for flag names if you're curious :3c

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hey shoutout to the nonaesthetic aces. who have to put up with alloaesthetic aces saying they still "have eyes" and can obviously tell when someone is pretty. you dont need to find people pretty to be ace! go live your best nonaesthetic life.

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I made this quick info post about using no pronouns bc there’s not a lot of resources on it! Reblogs appreciated :D

[Image ID: Simple blue and white graphic. First slide is titled “Guide to Using No Pronouns” and has a figure waving with a speech bubble that says “Hi, I’m Bee! I prefer using my name in place of pronouns.” The second slide is titled “Reasons to use No Pronouns” and the bullet points read “When no pronouns seem to fit. Sometimes you just don’t vibe with any of them! Avoids misgendering someone who’s not out yet. For fun!” An additional bubble reads “you don’t have to have a reason!” The third slide is titled “Introductions” and reads “Introducing yourself: “Hello, my name is ____. I use my name instead of pronouns.” or “My name is ____. I don’t use pronouns.” Introducing someone else: “This is ____. ____ doesn’t use pronouns.” or “This is ____. You can use ____’s name in place of pronouns.” I find that stating that you use your name in place of pronouns makes your introduction more clear. I would also include a quick example of how to use your name: “So instead of using they/them/their, you can say “Bee is calling Bee’s parents.”““ The fourth slide is titled “Examples” and reads “Here’s some examples using my name! Instead of: “Bee is working by themself.” Do: “Bee is working alone.” Instead of: “They are proud of their work.” Do: “Bee is proud of Bee’s work.” Instead of “I went with them and they were amazing!” Do: “I went with Bee and Bee was amazing!”“ The fifth slide reads “Thank you for reading! Have a good day!”]

Quick FAQ/additional notes under cut:

Keep reading

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bitches just want us all to be perfectly perisex more than anything

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i reblogged a post with a bunch of them if you wanna dig thru my blog!

hey fellow aspecs!! I’ve seen the aro, ace, and apl flags before, but not a flag for the “a-spectrum” in general- like for all of us. Do we have one and I just haven’t seen it? Or is there not one at all for a reason I don’t know about?