schoolofpracticalskills

[schoolofpracticalskills]

“On Human Dignity.”  Blackness, Gender & Sexuality

Two things:

As usual, there’s historical and social context that I need explain! This lesson is not what sexuality is, or ‘how to write being gay while Black’. That’s… not that different from you. What this lesson is, is context on how Blackness plays a role in our presentation and understanding of gender and sexuality (as well as your perception of it), and how that’s something you should consider in your characterization, writing, and character design.

I DO NOT KNOW EVERYTHING! The reason this took so long was because I read multiple books and wallowed in my remaining lack of understanding. I cannot join The Tumblr Discourse so do not ask. I tried to be as inclusive as I could, but I learn something new on this app every day, so if I miss something- and I’m bound to- I apologize in advance. Please have grace with me.

TW: Sexual assault mention, homophobia, misogynoir, cannibalism, misgendering

“That’s that White People Shit"

I’m putting the hardest part first; walk with me, you’ll be fine!

I will be honest: this section here, while I do think you should know, I don’t really expect nonblack people to incorporate it in depth. Not because it cannot be done, but because it is a sensitive topic that we ourselves are still struggling with. If you have struggled with anything else while writing Black characters up to this point, this one certainly isn’t for you to touch. Just keep in mind!

There’s an idea I’ve heard before on both sides that Black people are more likely to be homophobic, that queerness itself is white. That is a ridiculous belief, but the root of it ends up right back where you think it would: slavery! I’m sure that you saw me post while I was reading The Delectable Negro by gay Black author Vincent Woodard. I shared those increasingly uncomfortable quotes on purpose! If you have a desire to understand Black culture and Black thought, that means being willing to acknowledge Black pain. How can you avoid stereotypes if you avoid learning their source?  

While I will be using quotes from the entire book, the specific chapter of “Eating Nat Turner” is a succinct explanation of why admitting to the presence of homosexuality, gender fluidity, and queer identity within the Black community is so difficult for my people. While I highly, HIGHLY recommend reading this chapter yourself, it essentially comes down to how admitting to such a potential vulnerability in the armor of Blackness, in gender identity and particularly Black masculinity, would allow white supremacy to destroy us as a people, to do validate doing even more cruel things to us when in a position of power over us. It’s a defensive reaction based in trauma that disregards and discards the queer members of our own community as a threat, a liability when it comes to fighting against the ubiquitous presence of white supremacy.

“Intuitively, Black gay men understood the issue of homosexuality during slavery as a complex phenomenon shaped by a number of factors, including the nation’s unresolved relationship to the legacy of slavery, Black liberatory ideology dating back to slavery, and, most importantly, the maintenance of traditional notions of family and community that originated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The legacy and memory of slavery had a powerful effect that left many Black gay men feeling isolated from and rendered invisible within Black communities.

Joseph Beam said it first and best: “I cannot go home as who I am. . . . When I speak of home, I mean not only the familial constellation from which I grew, but the entire Black community: the Black press, the Black church, Black academicians, the Black literati, and the Black left… I am most often rendered invisible, perceived as a threat to the family, or am tolerated if I am silent and inconspicuous.” … As Philip Brian Harper has noted, the Black homosexual functioned in the twentieth century as an index for Black masculine anxieties. These ranged from the very personal and painful anxieties of lynching, castration, and the denial of civil rights to a larger set of anxieties rooted in historical erasure and cultural genocide.”

“Sex and gender they also conflated with homosexuality, made out to equal effeminacy. Many Blacks linked homosexuality to castration and the recent history of Black men who had been lynched and Black women who had been raped in the Jim Crow South and in the North. Homosexuality, in its metaphoric power, had an exhaustive function: It is equated with the absence of family, hatred of Black people, estrangement from one’s kin and culture, and all of those horrific aspects of Black experience about which Black people would rather not speak.”

An example of why nonblack people should consider the depth of such a topic- and their place to do so- before incorporating it into their story comes in the form of Styron’s Confessions of Nat Turner, and the backlash he faced from the Black community for such a sensationalized story from a white author.

“The ten Black male contributors [who wrote Ten Black Writers Respond] coupled cannibalism (overtly and covertly) with homoeroticism and effeminacy. For these Black men, homoeroticism became a way of circumventing and projecting their experiences and pain onto certain “effeminate” Black men: the consumed Black man these Black men equated with the homosexual man. Homosexuality served as a means of containing certain unwieldy and historically difficult topics pertaining to Black masculinity, such as the need for intimacy, gender variance, sexual and emotional vulnerability, and violation. It was as if, in this very powerful and discursive moment, threads that had been all along winding through history wove together in a manner that illuminated the past as much as they clouded and blocked full access to its complicated meaning.”

“On the surface, at least, I do not disagree with these Black men and women. I think their analysis regarding historicity and the diminishment of Black communal ties was mostly correct. Styron’s novel was historically inaccurate, depicting Turner as raised by whites rather than the Black parents and grandmother Turner spoke about in his original “Confessions.” Styron depicts aspects of Turner’s sexual life that are not validated in any documentation coming from the time period, and Styron’s exhaustive probing into the racial hatred and self-hatred of Turner clearly reflected something in his own psyche and white identity that he felt compelled to project onto Turner. Black men were put on the defensive by both the novel and by the institutions (literary production, the media) and individuals who supported Styron as an authentic interpreter of Black historical experience. Many Black men, like Bennett, felt that Styron was waging a literary war that paralleled the contemporary political and police state war against Black men…”

The problem with this mindset and approach within the community is that, while it attempts to protect our community, it silences both the prosperity and the pain of an entire section of it, as well as shutting down important conversation that needs to be had even by nonqueer members. And it’s doing it all to fight against a force- white supremacy- that is going to commit violence against us regardless! Respectability politics forces many Black people to stay silent, to not speak up on things that may rock the boat- but the boat needs to be rocked! Blaming fellow victims of racism is not going to save us!

“That was the irony of this moment. Black people invoked the cannibal discourse that could have freed up and complicated Black male perspectives on everything from social consumption to homoeroticism only to defend Black masculinity and Black culture. Black men were not interested in, nor capable of dealing with, the complex legacy of cannibalism and homoeroticism that so powerfully shaped their responses to Styron’s novel.”

But that does NOT mean that it’s a nonblack person’s place to make that argument! While I cannot stop you, I do want you to keep in mind that- as always with sensitive topics- you may have to face Black people who may rightfully be offended by your depiction if not done with care. Styron studied James Baldwin himself- who faced backlash on his end for saying that it was time for the Black community to face such a conversation- and even then, he still projected his white pathology and opinions onto the story of such a prolific hero in our history. Tread lightly!

“Well they don’t seem gay to me.”- A Eurocentric Standard of Passing

How many times have you heard this about a Black character? And if you’re Black and LGBTQ, how often have you heard it about people (or maybe even yourself?) How do we ‘not seem gay’? What is gay supposed to be? There’s this denial, almost, of Black LGBTQ folks, based in a complete disconnect of understanding of our own forms of gender expression and sexuality.

It’s extremely bizarre, because so much of pop gay culture as we know it is from Black LGBTQs (please refer to my infamous AAVE lesson), but… when we imagine an LGBTQ person, they're white.

If you’re Black and queer, you have to be this stereotypical, flamboyant RuPaul-esque figure. Can’t be regular degular. If you’re gay, you gotta be Uber Gay™. If you’re trans, you better pass with Complete Gender and Pizzazz. If you’re nonbinary, you’re not ‘androgynous’ enough. If you’re intersex or asexual, you’re practically not real. If you don’t fill this (white, western) mold, you must not be right. When all you have to be in order to be gay… Is be gay.

I shouldn’t have to put on extra performance to qualify as queer in your eyes! Do you know what looks are considered “androgynous” in my community? What behaviors are deemed “masculine” versus “feminine”? Do you know anything about my queer culture, or are you subconsciously comparing it to your own?

I want you to recognize that whatever image of queerness you have in your mind for your favorite or original characters, if Black people of all shapes and sizes aren’t included, there’s a problem! Because what are you seeing in others, that you’re not seeing in us? Is that, perhaps, a you problem? And why are we not worth the added effort of queer layering that others are?

THAT SAID!

“Oh I know what that’s like, I’m gay-”

This one mostly- if not always- comes from white queer folk. I’ve linked The Last Interview with James Baldwin. It’s so short. PLEASE take the time to read it. I’ve always adored how James Baldwin expresses himself, and while I could never stand so close, I have studied how he conveys his thoughts. But there’s almost nothing I could say that he doesn’t say better.

“A Black gay person who is a sexual conundrum to society is already, long before the question of sexuality comes into it, menaced and marked because he’s Black or she’s Black. The sexual question comes after the question of color; it’s simply one more aspect of the danger in which all Black people live. I think white gay people feel cheated because they were born, in principle, into a society in which they were supposed to be safe. The anomaly of their sexuality puts them in danger, unexpectedly. Their reaction seems to me in direct proportion to the sense of feeling cheated of the advantages which accrue to white people in a white society.”

The idea that “I know what it’s like to experience this oppression as a Black person because I’m gay” is not true. It’s like saying “oh look at my tan, I’m as Black as you now”. Stop it. Think back to that first section on history we discussed- no, you and I are not the same. We can discuss our existing connections, our intersection and have sympathy and empathy with one another on human dignity. We don’t have to act like we’re the same to do that! So don’t go headstrong into your writing (or life) saying “oh I get that completely, it’s because I’m queer”. There are more tactful ways to express your intent of solidarity.

'Queer' vs 'The N Word'

We’re gonna nip this one in the bud, because we’re leaving that argument in 2024. You know the one- “saying queer is like using the N-word- as a reclamation/slur!” What this argument reveals, used by EITHER SIDE, is how y’all don’t actually have community with Black people.

It implies that either “we don’t like it” or “we do”. Yet another binary that does not exist! There are plenty of Black people that despise that word, regardless of context. That think it brings us down. And then there are those that use it as a reclamation of an identity that was used to demean and dehumanize. Either way, one party is not going to walk up to a stranger and force it on them- that would cause an actual fight! It’s not improving your argument. As a whole, I would say stop using Black politics in general to improve your arguments when you are unaware of the overlap, or maybe the lack thereof, between Blackness and queerness in your argument. It shows. I’m not your tool; I’m not your Negro!

I’m not here to tell anyone whether queer is a slur or not. I don’t use it as one, but I recognize when people are uncomfortable, when it is being used as one, and I will use different language when I am speaking directly to someone who says “I do not like that word, describe me as __”. I am just here to say that we’re leaving that argument behind.

Black =/= Gender

Blackness and the concept of Gender have a fraught, confusing history. Not human enough to have rights, but human just enough to fail to meet Eurocentric standards of gender.

One example of this is the term “stud”. Studs are an example of Black women traversing gender presentation, the origin of which is because Black people are perceived as having “lesser sexual dimorphism”- i.e. you can’t tell who’s a woman or not. It’s an in-community joke that doesn’t make sense spoken outside of its historical context (thus, no, your white butch is NOT a stud within this context).

Another example: Megan Thee Stallion is one of the most stunning, feminine women I have ever seen… And her entire career, people have called her a man. Because she’s brown-skinned, Black, confident, loud, and openly sexual, she’s deemed manly. I can’t stand it. Plus her height- and mind you, Taylor Swift, of the same height and probably a higher number of bodies over the years, has never once been called a man or lost any of her “feminine” charm despite it. Why is that? If one of her men had shot in the foot, trying to kill her, there would be an uproar. Why is that?

There is an internal contradiction that being a Black woman is being inherently “gender nonconforming”. The first reason is that I will never be allowed to truly be a “woman” because to be a woman is to be white while doing it. White Tears, Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad is an excellent book on this dynamic in all women of color, and Black activists like Angela Davis and Kimberle Crenshaw have written and discussed the topic as well.

The second reason is I have to play the role of whatever ‘gender’ is expected to get me through this life. I have to be more ‘masculine’; strong, assertive, and proactive, a hard worker willing to sacrifice it all every day, in order to protect my family and myself in a world where a lack of resilience might kill me. I cannot allow weakness to stop me from taking care of my community, because Black women are supposed to show up and save the day. Find a Black woman! they say. She’ll fix it! And odds are, I do know how to fix it because I’ve probably had to address it before.

But then I’m acting ‘out of a woman’s place’ by being so ‘hard’ and expecting people to listen to my authority. So in order to play a Black woman’s place, I have to balance that with… Somehow not intimidating people by being more ‘feminine’, submissive, vulnerable, sweet and motherly (because if I’m not a good breeder and mother, I am a bad woman). I scare people if I don’t. If I don’t do that, then I’m not a good Black woman. But if I don’t harden myself and be strong and assertive to protect everyone, and tough through everyone’s problems with infinite sacrifice, then I’m not a good Black woman… You see how the cycle gets confusing! (The Delectable Negro and Black on Both Sides also speak on this, and how this is rooted in the creation of the Mammy!)

I spoke about it earlier, but that same inability to be defined as a human, defined as white, haunts many Black men in their goals to be seen as ‘equal’ to white men and receive equal treatment. By seeking to fit a standard of whiteness, they are never going to attain it (and often, that comes back home in not-so-good way)! E.g.: this is the original issue that Louis had in AMCs' IWTV- Louis never actually wanted to be a vampire, Louis wanted to be treated like an equivalent human- and that was unattainable to him not because he wasn’t a human being, but because he wasn’t a white one!

The Racist Counterproductivity of TERFs

Sigh. If you are of this belief, but here to better your writing, I feel like I should say this to you. I want you to listen to me. (TBH, I’m going to delete anything asking me for opinions on this because I don’t want to potentially entertain even a singular troll). Besides, my argument is pretty simple and resolute.

The gender binary is rooted in bioessentialism, and bioessentialism is rooted in white supremacy. You know what else benefits from white supremacy? The white patriarchy.

How are we gonna escape from the patriarchy and white supremacy… if the ideology you believe in… is rooted in white supremacy and patriarchy?

And it’s not just the TERFs- look within yourselves as well! How are we going to make the world safer for trans people, including white ones, if you aren’t willing to confront your own racist biases? If you are unwilling to release the shackles of gender essentialism and the benefits of whiteness, none of us are getting out of here. You are reinforcing the very walls you wish to dismantle!

To offer another side of the conversation, Black On Both Sides by C Riley Snorton has been an interesting read! Essentially, the conversation is on how Blackness and transness intersect, how being Black in and of itself can be and is a transitional, gender fluid experience. It, along with The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould and Medical Apartheid by Harriet A Washington, goes into the history of how the Black body was seen as a different species altogether, and how phrenology, biological essentialism, and examples of sexual dimorphism were treated as an example on how we are an inferior group. Yet, this lack of understanding of our bodies (despite the constant access to it) allowed for us to maneuver within such a system.

An example, of how Blackness has an effect on our perception of gender:

"Cobb suggests that this blackening may have been an anticipatory gesture; when James Norcom (Jacobs’s enslaver) published a description of her in the 1835 issue of the American Beacon, he presumed that she would be “seeking whiteness and dressing as a free woman, not accentuating her Blackness” and finding a “cross-dressing” and ungendered mode for escape. Although the description of sartorial arrangements seems to conform to passing’s logic of movement for protection or privilege, Jacobs’s use of charcoal to darken her complexion tropes—by inverse logic—on more commonly held beliefs (and fears) about racial passing.

As “passing” became a term to describe performing something one is not, it trafficked a way of thinking about identity not only in terms of real versus artificial but also, and perhaps always, as proximal and performative. Like a vertical line with arrows on either end, passing is figuratively represented by moving up or down hierarchized identificatory formations. This articulation of vertical identity also coordinates with forms of binary thinking, typified, for example, by the language of “the opposite” sex. …Brent/Jacobs’s blackened blackness gives expression to her condition as fungible within the logic of U.S. slavery, in which the system of colorism, as Nicole Fleetwood has argued, “produces a performing subject whose function is to enact difference . . . an act that is fundamentally about assigning value.”

As it relates to the scene of Jacobs’s brushing past Sands, her status as “it” also indicates how blackness-as-fungible engenders forms of nonrecognition, as Jacobs’s performance elucidates how blackness and going blacker become an embrace of the conditions that might allow one to pass one’s friends and lovers undetected. In this encounter, fungibility sets the stage for gendered maneuvers on a terrain constituted by modes of viewing blackness, in which Jacobs’s blackness and going blacker color her gender as well as her face."

The Black Trans/Nonbinary/Genderqueer Experience

Rather than try to summarize opinions on something I had not lived, I wanted to platform some Black trans, intersex, and genderqueer opinions for you all to consider! I asked three questions, and I’ve typed out the responses and placed them as their own post for the sake of space. I don’t care if it’s long- read them! You want to write these characters; you should hear the perspectives of the people you wish to write about!

The Black Intersex Experience

Nothing I could say that someone that is actually Black and intersex couldn’t say better!

Here is a page on Tumblr that compiles resources on the intersex community and its history that I found; while it’s not Black-specific, I have seen the page post topics related to.

The Black Aspec Experience

An interesting thing about identifying as asexual or aromantic while Black is that from all angles, people will simply not believe you because Blackness itself has been sexualized. I talked about this in my lessons on stereotypes, but one of the ways that the sexual assault and violation of Black bodies was dismissed, was to emphasize that not only were we incapable of being r*ped, but that we were naturally inclined to being hypersexual beings and that if we weren’t controlled, we would bring it onto ourselves. Black women were jezebels; Black men were mandigos, vicious savages that would assault pure white women if not chained like beasts.

Here is a page for Black people (!!!) with these identities to gather. Again, BLACK PEOPLE with these identities. Here's another!

The Bit You Actually Showed Up For

So! Given all that historical and social context: really, it’s just about application! You have to ask yourself certain things to catch when you’re about to dip into a bias or stereotype while you’re writing.

Black Queer Joy- A Conclusion

I know I’ve shared a lot of history here, and it’s not been the happiest stuff. THAT BEING SAID!

I must personally say- I am honored to be Black and bisexual. There’s nothing else I’d rather be. I am so happy to be who I am. It’s hard as hell living at the intersection, but the intersection is lit! There’s so much love, history, culture, creation, and so much power here; I’m standing on the shoulders of cultural GIANTS and my chest is full, my chin is high with pride. I love it here!

Being Black and queer itself is not a miserable experience! Your characters should feel joy, because we feel joy! There’s so much that we have to offer the world, it’s practically blossoming from us. I don’t want anyone to walk away from this going “let me go pity the next one I see and tell them how hard their life is”. We don’t need you to feel sorry, we need you to have solidarity! Either show up and do the work, or leave us alone. You can’t join the party at the intersection and then flee when it’s time to fight for it!

Listen to Black queer people in your spaces- dear god, it never fails how conversations of queerness and gender and feminism will leave Blackness completely out, and then be shocked when none of us want to show up. Like I said before- you will never dismantle the walls barring you from your own freedom until you address ours.

Support Black queer creatives, content, perspectives, and people- when you tag on that “support Black trans women” bit at the end of your posts, don’t just speak lightly- understand what that means, and stand on it! Because it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!

[schoolofpracticalskills]

Happy pride month specifically to folks on the asexual and aromantic spectrum who oftentimes feel isolated and left out of the conversation. You belong here as much as the rest of us and I hope that you are all loved in a way that is comforting to you.

[schoolofpracticalskills]

"In Northern California, a Native American tribe is celebrating the return of ancestral lands in one of the largest such transfers in the nation’s history.

Through a Dept. of the Interior initiative aiming to bring indigenous knowledge back into land management, 76 square miles east of the central stretch of the Klamath River has been returned to the Yurok tribe.

Sandwiched between the newly-freed Klamath and forested hillsides of evergreens, redwoods, and cottonwoods, Blue Creek is considered the crown jewel of these lands, though if it were a jewel it wouldn’t be blue, it would be a giant colorless diamond, such is the clarity of the water.

Pictured: Blue Creek

It’s the most important cold-water tributary of the Klamath River, and critical habitat for coho and Chinook salmon. Fished and hunted on since time immemorial by the Yurok and their ancestors, the land was taken from them during the gold rush before eventually being bought by timber companies.

Barry McCovey Jr., director of the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Department, remembers slipping past gates and dodging security along Blue Creek just to fish up a steelhead, one of three game fish that populate the river and need it to spawn.

Profiled along with the efforts of his tribe to secure the land for themselves and their posterity, he spoke to AP about the experience of seeing plans, made a decade ago, come to fruition, and returning to the creek on which he formerly trespassed as a land and fisheries manager.

“To go from when I was a kid and 20 years ago even, from being afraid to go out there to having it be back in tribal hands … is incredible,” he said.

Part of the agreement is that the Yurok Tribe would manage the land to a state of maximum health and resilience, and for that the tribe has big plans, including restoring native prairie, using fire to control understory growth, removing invasive species, restoring native fish habitat, and undoing decades of land-use changes from the logging industry in the form of culverts and logging roads.

“And maybe all that’s not going to be done in my lifetime,” said McCovey. “But that’s fine, because I’m not doing this for myself.”

The Yurok Tribe were recently at the center of the nation’s largest dam removal, a two decades-long campaign to remove a series of four hydroelectric dams along the Klamath River. Once the West Coast’s third-largest salmon run, the Klamath dams substantially reduced salmon activity.

Completed last September, the before and after photographs are stunning to witness. By late November, salmon had already returned far upriver to spawn, proving that instinctual information had remained intact even after a century of disconnect.

Pictured; Klamath River flows freely, after Copco-2 dam was removed in California

“Seeing salmon spawning above the former dams fills my heart,” said Joseph L. James, chairman of the Yurok Tribe, the leaders of the dam removal campaign along with the Karuk and Klamath tribes.

“Our salmon are coming home. Klamath Basin tribes fought for decades to make this day a reality because our future generations deserve to inherit a healthier river from the headwaters to the sea.”

Last March, GNN reported that the Yurok Tribe had also become the first of America’s tribal nations to co-manage land with the National Park Service under a historic memorandum of understanding involving Redwoods National Park.

The nonprofit Save the Redwoods bought a piece of land adjacent to the park, which receives 1 million visitors annually and is a UNESCO Natural Heritage Site, and handed it over to the Yurok for stewardship.

The piece of land, which contained giant redwoods, recovered to such an extent that the NPS has incorporated it into the Redwoods trail network, and the two agencies will cooperate in ensuring mutual flourishing between two properties and one ecosystem.

Back at Blue Creek, AP reports that work has already begun clearing non-native conifer trees planted for lumber. The trunks will be used to create log jams in the creek for wildlife habitat.

Costing $56 million, the land was bought from the loggers by Western Rivers Conservancy, using a mixture of fundraising efforts including private capital, low interest loans, tax credits, public grants and carbon credit sales.

The sale was part of a movement called Land Back, which involves returning ownership of once-native lands of great importance to tribes for the sake of effective stewardship. [Note: This is a weirdly limited definition of Land Back. Land Back means RETURN STOLEN LAND, PERIOD.] Studies have shown around the tropics that indigenous-owned lands in protected areas have higher forest integrity and biodiversity than those owned by national governments.

Land Back has seen 4,700 square miles—equivalent to one and a half-times the size of Yellowstone National Park—returned to tribes through land buy-back agreements in 15 states." [Note: Since land buyback agreements aren't the only form of Land Back, the total is probably (hopefully) more than that.]

-via Good News Network, June 10, 2025

[schoolofpracticalskills]

Idk who needs to hear this but bisexuality includes trans people. Not "it can" include trans people or it "sometimes" includes trans people. It does. It always has. Any bisexual who says there's doesn't is just a transphobe and doesn't fucking represent what we're about.

[schoolofpracticalskills]

being queer and seeing historical queer love is like a punch to the gut in a good way every time

[schoolofpracticalskills]

@historyinmemes

The Dublin Arm was invented in 1921, It was a significant advancement in artificial limb technology. It operated using a Bowden cable mechanism, where cables connected to the individuals residual limb enabled hand or hook movements. By contracting specific muscles, the user could control the cables, allowing them to grasp objects and perform various tasks with improved dexterity. This pioneering prosthetic limb set the foundation for future advancements in the field.

[schoolofpracticalskills]

The infantilization of having restricted eating is crazy, I get treated like a kid on a regular basis by people who were treating me normal five seconds earlier just because of my sandwich order.

I have sat at a restaurant meeting while I was a hostess where all my coworkers laughed at how plain the food on the kids menu was and how kids had no taste and they were so glad they weren’t like that anymore. At the same job people questioned my orders when I got food at the end of a shift saying it was barely even the same thing anymore and wouldn’t I like something else? If I had wanted something else I would have asked for it, you don’t need to double check and use baby voice with me I’m fully capable of deciding what I eat.

I get judgmental looks and questions from people who take my food orders in public more and more often as I get older and it’s less socially acceptable for me to say no vegetables on things without being treated like a spoiled child who’s inconveniencing them. People look at me in surprise and ask if they heard right, scoff, roll their eyes etc. on a pretty regular basis.

When I need to send back food after someone makes a mistake on my order and I can’t eat it my family acts like they’re embarrassed of me and sometimes when I’m not paying they refuse to let me. I will go hungry every time and have been made to often as well.

For years school trips and meals with other peoples families were a terrifying ordeal and still give me anxiety. I was denied desert and sometimes the meal as a whole for not eating even though I asked what was being made ahead of time so I knew if I should eat before hand or bring something else and even knowing this people ignored it and changed meal plans to try and pressure me into eating more variety.

The worst part of all of this is that I wish I could eat everything other people can but sometimes the smell or look of food I don’t like on someone else’s plate is enough to make me feel sick, the thought of putting it in my mouth for any reason is unimaginable.

And maybe the whole “they’ll eat if they’re hungry enough” thing works at a certain point but I lived off beef jerky, raisins, and half a bagel for four days on a school trip where no one bothered to accommodate my eating restrictions and I would’ve gone much longer before eating what was offered.

I had a teacher who kept me in for six recesses in a row over me not trying a bite of food we cooked in class in third grade purely because they were annoyed and took it on themself to step into something that wasn’t their business.

I regularly get guilted and called out on my unhealthy diet and it hurts because I would do anything to be able to eat more foods, I hope that maybe I will in the future, but right now it’s not an option. I’m hoping if I find a good smoothie recipe I can get more fruits and vegetables in my diet but even then I won’t ever be in a position to just eat what is served and I shouldn’t have to endure judging and being treated like a child by random strangers who have no business in what I want the food I’m paying for to have on it.

It’s valid for adults to have restricted eating too, it doesn’t make us children, and it’s not a moral failing. It’s also not anyone else’s business.

[schoolofpracticalskills]

some nurses I work with and get patients from give me the impression that they think a patient is opioid addicted and they need to be weaned off, and like even if that is the case 1) I'm not a addiction specialist, I'm their night nurse and their doctors have prescribed pain medication to be available to them, 2) day nurses I think can be more flippant about pain at times because during the day you have things that can distract you while at night, all you get to do is lie in bed and think about how much pain you're in, 3) I don't think a hospital stay for like heart failure is the best time to detox someone, 4) pain is incredibly subjective and I trust patients who've been living in their body for their whole lives more than I trust myself who has been talking to them about their body for five minutes, and 5) some nurses will be like "I don't offer pain medication unless the patient asks for it" and then the patient will ask for it and then it's all "this patient requested pain meds..... drug seeking behavior" like okay wtf are they supposed to do then? Stoically cry one tear down their cheek when I come to check on them so I can benevolently grant them 5 mg of oxy? 6) enduring pain doesn't make people better people, it actually makes people angry and tired and sad, so good luck building your therapeutic rapport while you make them beg for pain medication, maybe all your patients wouldn't be so mean to you if they weren't all suffering the entire time you're responsible for them, 7) if you aren't gonna give opioids and you're also not gonna page the doc for other meds and you're not gonna get ice packs and you're not gonna reposition your patient and you're not gonna ambulate them when they say that helps their hips and you're not gonna talk to them for a while to distract them and you're not gonna get them a jello cup to eat if they want, then literally how are you better than a little roomba with a med cup full of Lipitor scooting into their room?

I'm aware of the risks of opioids, I don't give them when it isn't safe or indicated, and I'm also aware that opioids aren't even good for all types of pain, but they can be an absolute gift to patients who need them. They aren't inherently evil. We don't have to make people suffer to improve their character. Even if suffering did that (it doesn't), improving character is outside my scope of practice. Here's some morphine.

[schoolofpracticalskills]

[schoolofpracticalskills]

I feel so... down whenever I want to watch queer or trans videos because I know in the back of my mind that none of the current large queer content creators' content or community is safe for people like me, intersex people.

I love their work otherwise, but it hurts badly to hear them toss around casual intersexism in their videos constantly when discussing queer and trans issues and nobody ever mentions it.

And because these are large, popular creators, nobody has ever listened when I've tried to ask they adjust their language. My dms go ignored or unseen and my public comments get drowned out by fans defending their intersexist comments. It's emotionally draining and exhausting, I just want to be included in my own community.

[schoolofpracticalskills]

Hey, friends with poor memory. This is a sign to go ahead and learn anything you want, even if you're afraid you're going to forget it all. Read Wikipedia articles, watch documentaries, take free classes, and delve deep into books and lore. Maybe I'm the only one who has this fear, maybe not. But learning for pleasure is just as much--if not moreso-- about the joy of the experience as it is about memorization.

[schoolofpracticalskills]

hey everyone! apologies if the blog & tags seems super chaotic lately! I've been trying to overhaul my tagging system for consistency & wording for a few weeks now, and just when i thought i was done the other day and posted the master list, i realized I had a lot more things i wanted to add, so the overhaul continues!

I'm also working on loading the queue up with all kinds of posts on everything from recipes & housecleaning, to mental health tools and sex ed. I'm looking for more sources of information to share as well.

If anyone has any particular topics they'd be interested in learning more about, or resources they'd like to share, my asks are open, or feel free to drop a comment below as well!

~Keep striving!

[schoolofpracticalskills]

Something that is SORELY overlooked when talking about purchasing second hand leather is that you should be Actually Using And Taking CARE Of your items. Use your nice coat often! Use that leather bag you've been worried about damaging! Wear the cool shoes! It's important to take care of your leather goods because that extends the longevity of your stuff, but what good is taking care of stuff you never use? What good is taking a nice quality leather find out of your local thrift if you're not going to use it ever? I'm not the boss of you but I would love to see more obviously worn and loved and utilized leather things so I hope this encourages you to go fourth and. Look super hot and kick ass whist avoiding feeding into the harmful practices of both the leather/meat and fashion industries <3

[schoolofpracticalskills]

Ok so I like boys and I might be a trans dude but I’m really attracted to the lesbian label idk why but aaa isnsuhsuwnsus Idk what to do what is wrong with me please help me

I have the same problem with the term ‘butch’, I really like it but I’m not a lesbian so I can’t exactly use it

so instead I just call myself a sparrow stag (meaning a sorta low-maintenance masculine nb)

[schoolofpracticalskills]

This made me think of something I saw on social media somewhere, they make these gloves you can wear in the shower specifically to wash with?

They're meant for exfoliating, so I'm not sure if that would be a help or not in terms of skin-picking and textural sensitivity or triggers.

But I think, a glove or mitten made with terrycloth like towels/washcloths are, could be used to wash, but also help put a barrier between fingernails and skin, and to avoid skin to skin contact.

I found a lot of options on Amazon, Walmart, and other stores that carry hygiene supplies, and they're not too expensive. I bet they'd be a good sustainable option as well, especially if you can find some made with natural fibers.

Do you have any advice for someone who skin picks in the shower? Like any idea of how to keep my hands busy while showering? My body is littered with hundreds of scars and I’m so ashamed.

First of all, sending you all the love and I'm sorry that you were taught to be ashamed of your scars when actually, they tell the story of all you've gone through and how resilient and strong you are! I know this is waaay easier said than internalized and it took me a long time to accept my own scars too (I still am very much in the process) but it helps to remind yourself time and time again - someday it will stick! 💗

As for picking in the shower: totally got you, the shower is one of my "danger zones" too because you're suddenly exposed to so much skin. Here's some of the things I've found to be helpful:

- Listen to music or a podcast while showering (I have a little waterproof speaker for that!), simply to put your focus somewhere else.

- Set a timer to shower and give yourself the challenge that you have to be done and out of there in x amount of time! It also forces you to focus and not get distracted. (This can also be combined with the music like "By the end of this song I need to be done.")

- Use one of those shower puffs to apply the soap to your body so your hands aren't in direct contact with your skin - if you can't feel all the bumps and blemishes you might feel less need to pick at them!

- Shower with reduced lighting!! I often shower in the morning and the bathroom light can feel like quite the attack in its brightness right after getting up (I actually have a post I want to make on the influence of lighting soon) so if you have any way to dim the main lights or to only use a smaller lamp so you can't see every skin detail in the shower, try that!!

I hope this helped :) if anyone has any other tips on showering, please feel free to add on! 💗

[schoolofpracticalskills]

Heya everybody! Time to check in.

How's your body feel? Do you need to move, stretch, stop clenching, or change positions? Have you fed and hydrated yourself? Taken care of your bathroom needs? Cleaned up, showered, or changed your clothes as you're able? Taken any applicable medications?

How does your mind feel? Are you stuck? Do you need to change activities, talk (or stop talking) to a particular person, or listen to a different playlist? Have you done something to nurture peace in your heart? Have you seen the sky and breathed some fresh air (even through a door or window)?

I love you, and I hope you have a better day tomorrow!

[schoolofpracticalskills]

My philosophy on showering:

- getting in the shower, even if I just stand there, is better than not.

- getting in is half the battle, so once wet, I’m more likely to grab my body wash even if it’s only in the sweatiest body areas. Showers don’t have to be perfect or full body.

- there are different showers for different days.

- showers are great for resetting. Feeling bad, wash it away. Feeling sick, wash it away. Feeling stuck, wash it away.

I love this. Thank you for sharing!