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Trans Rights petitions in the UK

Following the ridiculous and inhumane news out of the UK yesterday, two out of the top 3 petitions on the UK parliament petition site relate to trans rights:

Let me point you in the right direction!

1. Legally enshrine the right of adults to physically transition using NHS services

Sign here

See graph of signatures here

Deadline: 28 July 2025

Signatures so far: 24,709 of 100,000

2. Allow transgender people to self-identify their legal gender

Sign here

See graph of signatures here

Deadline: 12 June 2025

Signatures so far: 22,107 of 100,000

Who can sign?

Anyone living in the UK, regardless of citizenship

UK citizens living anywhere in the world

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Some strategic voting resources for those looking to check their ridings

I know most people don't care about anything unless it has to do with the U.S. but can we please start talking about the Canadian election.

Please don't vote for Poilievre. He's basically the Canadian Trump and plans to put in place laws that harm trans youth, and lots of other shit.

Please vote istg this is the only way anything will get better. Poilievre has been kissing millionaires and billionaires asses. He'll make life even harder, and he loves Trump.

Reblogs are appreciated, especially if you aren't Canadian.

This post is about Canada, do not derail or say that "it's worse in America." Canadians are very scared, we deserve to talk about our issues without Americans talking over us.

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Are you an American? Do you love our nation's national parks, our libraries, affordable health care, and essential checks and balances? DO YOU NOT WANT TO GO TO WAR WITH CANADA?

Fuck, are you just a European and you're highly emotionally invested in what's going on?

Well good news, help spread the news. Special elections April 1st and this is going to help break down the narrow majority Republicans hold on Congress.

Florida has two congressional seats up for election April 1st, and Wisconsin has a highly televised race for their supreme court Court that Elon Musk has invested millions into.

If you're Floridian, check to see if you're eligible to vote in either of the elections listed here.

If you're a Wisconsinite, for some ungodly reasons about half of your election information is buried in Google and hidden amongst government websites but, find your polling place now.

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So I watched War of the Rohirrim

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"unlikable protagonist" and it's just a woman who's a regular human being with flaws

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Mouse MD

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👀 i would be interested in hearing the deviantart points rant

Alrighty, the deviantART points rant. For context, I had a dA account from the time I was 12 and used it steadily until I was about 20. I was also a volunteer moderator with them for about a year, and they even offered me a job at one point. (But there was no way in heaven or hell they could've paid me enough to move to southern California, and god forbid they offer remote work.)

dA was one of the original social media behemoths. Never quite to the level of Twitter or Facebook, but if you were an artist you were on deviantART. It was a fantastic site back in its heyday. Artists got their start on there, recruiters were on there, art directors were on there, the community building features were fantastic. Yeah, it had its share of weird shit, but point me to a website that doesn't.

Multiple famous artists got their start on deviantART. Back then, it was a place you got real, legitimate work from. A place you could use to build a real, legitimate audience. The titans of early 2000s digital art that pretty much everyone knows (in the West, anyway), the ones who still have a massive effect on art styles today, basically all got their start on deviantART. It influenced the entire western culture of what art looks like on the internet, and that bled out into what art looks like everywhere else because these people made beloved shows and comics and movies and books and everything else.

But one of the best things about deviantART was that it was created at a time before everyone decided social media had to be slimmed down to its barest bones. It was a complex site, and there was a lot to it. That made it really easy for all levels of artists (and just plain art enjoyers) to use, and easy for them to make it function in a way that worked for them. This fostered a great environment where people of all skill levels could interact, share knowledge, and just absorb skills from one another.

Now, one area deviantART didn't initially cater to people was built-in payment options. They had a print shop you could upload your work to, but it was like Redbubble or Printful; merch selling, not custom work selling. So if artists wanted to offer commissions, they'd have to take payments elsewhere. (Usually Paypal.) Which was fine! That worked great!

But, well. Corporations gonna corporate. I forget the exact year, but one day they launched a new feature called Points. Points were a site specific currency, and they were one of the first (if not the first) to have such a thing. There were also some other things launched with it, including the ability to accept commissions with points as payment. You could also use points to buy site subscriptions, badges, stuff from the print shop, etc., or you could gift them to other people. You could also cash them out for real currency, for a fee (I wanna say the fee was 10%, and less if you were a subscribed user, but I can't remember exactly).

The conversion rate for Points was 1 Point=1US cent. Which seems fine on the surface! But the problem was psychological, because what they didn't do was actually make it look like that. Points instead looked like dollars, because there was no equivalent to actual CENTS in the Points ecosystem. So, for example, lets say you want to charge one dollar for something. That would look like this:

$1

P100.

Or ten dollars for something:

$10

P1000

Or a hundred dollars for something:

$100

P10000

See the problem? They're the same VALUE, but points just look massively bigger. This was especially a problem for people who didn't know what the conversion rate was because they just didn't know, or they were from other countries and REALLY didn't know because it wasn't related to their own currencies at all. (I think there was also a max amount of points you could charge for a commission, like a couple hundred dollars worth maybe? It was low when you converted it to real currency, if I'm remembering correctly.)

It devalued the art market like a knife to the gut. People were suddenly taking commissions for literal pennies just because the numbers LOOKED bigger. And because deviantART was such a hub for the art community, it bled out elsewhere. Prices started to dip other places too, because people who DID understand the conversion rate knew they could go on deviantART and get shit for super cheap from the people who didn't know or care. Which made other people lower their prices to compete, and it just resulted in a spiral to the bottom.

Would the art market have still tanked in the same way without the introduction of Points on dA? Maybe. But Points were the first domino to fall, and they were a massive one. The art market has never recovered even though deviantART has been 90% dead for going on a decade.

So yes. There's my internet history rant on Points and art values. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

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I hope it's still okay to reply to this! I have a lot of thoughts about dressage. It's a very hot topic, and there is no shortage of horses with pain faces, gaping mouths, and blue tongues receiving top scores at the grand prix level.

I believe it raises an interesting discussion about individual actions vs the culture that normalizes and enable unethical practices. There were a couple of good posts shared in the comments already about how the image of dressage has evolved to put pressure on riders to have their horses perform extremely exaggerated and unnatural movements in order to win iirc.

The FEI has faced a ton of criticism for their role in perpetuating treatment that is no longer socially acceptable. However, they've continuously dodged and weaved around addressing many of the most pressing issues.

This article provides an overview of the immense controversy surrounding dressage, the uncertain future of the sport's social license to operate, the tension between stakeholders, and how the horse world has attempted to address it over the past year.

The 2025 FEI Sports Forum is scheduled to start in a few days (March 31), where the working group they appointed to create an action plan specifically for dressage will present for the first time. It will be interesting to see what comes of it, and if it will lead to any real change.

horsethoughtbarn 1 dressage

what are everyones thoughts on dressage ive been very interested in it as late as i enjoy the classical approach to biomechanics and harmony and balance and have been very discouraged by the state of modern dressage vs classical what are your thoughts on the sport and its status and its ethics and also what are your favorite cool ethical dressage moves and routines and riders or your thoughts on the sport as a whole or anything really i just want to learn more about it and talk about it

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Psychedelic Neopets plot poster graphics ~ https://ko-fi.com/snowy_822/shop/plotposters

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DOGE just froze funding to vital Federal and Indigenous conservation programs devoted to supporting the very delicate and tenuous existence of the black-footed ferret.

I fell in love with these animals as a kid traveling to our National Parks. Their rarity and ferocity made me sharply aware, even as a child, of just how much of a responsibility we have toward our environment. I can't bear the thought of them being a fucking casualty of Trump and Musk.

Look at them! They do war dances.

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Hey guys

I know I am asking a lot but

Things are really bad in Syria nowadays, and I’d like to ask you to commission me or donate some money

My parents are still there and I’m trying to bring them to UAE asap but that might take a little time

I need your support, financial wise because I’m really afraid I’d end up without a place to stay and that they’d end up getting hungry

Please guys.. I know I keep asking.. but I’m so so scared and worried and I’ve never needed help as much as I do now.. don’t forget me please

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The Wound by welderwings

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oh boy i wish someone would notice my cries for help! [someone actually notices] noooo i'm fine don't worry about me