#top 10 health center

[shaktikrupa]

Shakti Krupa Trust | Associates Recognizing Partnerships

Shakti Krupa Trust is a social welfare & sustainable development initiative that leverages partnerships in healthcare, education & other sectors to transform lives

[maarga12]

[assumptionprime]

"I Just Don't Think That's Going To Happen"

Good news: I finally made a new comic!

Bad news: It's about something that sucks! If the good news here outweighs the bad, maybe support me on Patreon.

In the midst of talking about how much this sucks, I am extremely fortunate to even be able to move to somewhere safer. Please support those who can't, or who need a helping hand to go somewhere they can be themselves. (Give trans people money)

[Image description: Comic, sixteen panels. Panel 1: Robin speaking on her phone, clearly distressed, tears in her eyes: "I'm telling you that I'm scared. These people-- the kind of people you vote for-- want to take my health care, my rights away from me. I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave my home." The voice from the phone answers: "Well," Large dialogue text in a large white space between panels: "I just don't think that's going to happen." Panel 2: Robin, wide eyes still tearing up, stares in disbelief at her phone. Panel 3: A website heading "Home > News" above a headline that reads "Utah just banned gender-affirming healthcare for transgender kids. These 21 other states are considering similar bills in 2023." Panel 4: Another headline reads "Health care for transgender adults becomes new target in 2023 legislative session." sub heading continues: "Lawmakers prefiled many anti-trans bills ahead of state--" Panel 5: Robin looking at a tablet screen, concerned. Panel 6: Robin siting on a couch, watching TV. A speaker on the TV says: "After the anti-LGBTQ+ campaign prompted several protests and bomb threats made against the Boston facility, the group has now turned its gaze toward the Gender Health Program at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville." Panel 7: Several headlines: "New Tennessee bill banning 'male or female impersonators' in public could criminalize drag performers and trans people" "Missouri lawmakers ban transgender care for minors, restrict coverage for adults" "Tennessee has passed a ban on gender affirming health care for trans kids. The bill's exceptions may only exist on paper" They headlines are accompanied by a map showing the severity of anti-transgender legislation in different US states. Panel 8: Robin's spouse Jordan sitting on the couch, looking up from her laptop toward Robin. Robin is gripping her arm tightly, a look of distress and sadness on her face, tears welling in her eyes. Jordan says "That's it. We're leaving." Panel 9: Robin taping the top of a cardboard moving box, looking over her shoulder toward Jordan, who is saying something as she walks away holding another box. More boxes are stacked behind them. Panel 10: Robin sitting at a table with a large stack of paperwork and holding a pen. She is leaning back and groaning: "Eughhhhhh" Panel 11: Robin standing with three friends, embracing as one of them speaks "I'm glad we got to see you before you left. We'll miss you." Panel 12: Jordan and Robin standing by the open trunk of their car. Several bags and suitcases are loading into the back. Jordan is shoving things in tighter and grumbling "It WILL fit!" Robin, holding a vacuum compression bag of full of clothing that has yet to go in the trunk, looks unsure. Panel 13: Robin and Jordan standing in the empty house, lights off, with sunlight coming in from the windows in the back doors and lighting them from behind. Robin looks upset, Jordan has a comforting hand on her shoulder. Panel 14: Jordan and robin sitting in the very full car, their dog in the back seat. Jordan is driving, Robin in the passenger seat looking out the window. Panel 15: Robin, still in the passenger seat of the car, now propping her head up with her hand on her cheek. She is looking down, seeming morose. Large dialogue text in a large white space between panels: "I just don't think that's going to happen." Panel 16: closer shot on Robin. Her gaze has shifted outside the window, her expression is now bitter, with tears gathering in her eyes.]

[duckytree]

can i have teenage dirtbag dick grayson hcs pls?? my parents are getting divorced i want to relate to him

in high school, dick was… interesting

1. he went to a prestigious private school with uniforms and never wore it properly. sometimes he would wear his gymnastics jacket over the summer dress shirt to hide the bruises and bandages that would peek through when he sweats. other times he would lie and say it was a sports accident

2. always red eyes. could have been weed, insomnia, or his daily breakdown in the bathroom

3. literally never shows up on time and comes up with increasingly wild excuses for why. still the top of the class

4. dyed his hair and wore jewellery even tho it was against code. they still let him keep it cause he was captain of the mathletes team and they couldn’t afford to lose him to win nationals

5. carries a pot and portable stove in his bag so he can make hangover ramen in class

6. hands always had bandages and sports tape

7. they made him get rid of his sneakers and wear dress shoes, so he started wearing weird socks instead. the worst was when he wore the grippy socks he stole from the mental health center

8. would pick up jason from book club and scare the shit out of everyone

9. got into fights a LOT. bruce sent a lot of gift baskets to the rich parents of the kids. but he secretly thought dick was in the right so all the gifts consisted of things he knew the family hated or were allergic to

10. regulated inconsistently between “energetic popular guy who is witty and fun to be around” and “dead inside” many times throughout the day

11. once borrowed a wax pen thinking it was a vape and was SO high for a geology exam that he resorted to licking the rock samples to identify them. he got a 98% on it, 2% off for spelling his name wrong

12. once stabbed himself with an epipen to stay awake long enough to study, nearly pissed himself

13. set the back of his hair on fire during patrol in sophomore year and had a reverse mullet for a few months (see picture)

[hupcflcompany]

Best Psychiatry , Psychiatrist , Psychiatry in Clearwater | Psychotherapy in Clearwater

Best Online Mental Health Clinic in Clear Water Florida, Best Psychiatrists in Clear Water Florida, Top 10 Psychologists in Clear Water Florida, Best Therapists in Clear Water Florida, Bipolar Treatment center in Clear Water Florida, Depression Center in Clear Water, Treatment for ADHD, PTSD, Anxiety in Clear Water, Online Psychotherapy, Online Counseling,  Medication Management in Clear Water

[femmefatalevibe]

Femme Fatale Guide: Small Ways To Elevate Your Life

Fashion & Beauty:

Wear coordinated lingerie (bra and underwear) under your outfit daily

Keep at least one pair of shapewear/sculpting underwear in your closet to streamline your look under form-fitting clothes

Invest in high-quality socks and hosiery (I love everything from HUE!)

Curate a collection of basics tanks, tees, and long-sleeves that pair well with each type of jeans/trousers/skirt/outerwear option you wear on repeat throughout the week/month

Invest in a timeless black boot (one short and one tall or mid-calf), loafer/flat, pump, and white sneaker that pair well with nearly any outfit

Apply products in the order: liquid, cream, then powder (you can top all of them off with a setting spray if desired)

If you're confused about what your YLLB (your lips but better) shade is, try to match it to the darker portion of your nipple

Switch off eyes in between mascara coats when applying more than one coat

Apply lip balm before you start doing your makeup so it can absorb into your lips and ensure your lipstick/gloss/tint doesn't dry out your lips

Health & Wellness:

Get a pill box to house your daily vitamins & supplements; Fill it up on Sunday evening to have all of your supplements in your sight, sorted, and simple to take every day without a second thought

Always take your supplements with food, not coffee, to optimize absorption

Drink a large glass of water within 5-10 minutes of waking up

Invest in beautiful, large salad bowls and/or juice & smoothie glasses to inspire you to eat more salads and greens-filled meals throughout the week

Ensure you're breathing normally/not stressed when eating to avoid excess bloating; Don't use straws when possible if you're prone to trapped gas

Try the diagram breathing technique to calm your nerves when you wake up, when you're trying to sleep, wind down, or anytime you're stressed (Place one hand on the center of your chest and the other in the middle of your stomach right below your rib cage)

Learn how to give yourself a sinus massage and an abdominal self-massage to relieve everyday congestion and pain at home

[mostlysignssomeportents]

When private equity destroys your hospital

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW in PHOENIX (Changing Hands, Feb 29) then Tucson (Mar 9-10), San Francisco (Mar 13), and more!

As someone who writes a lot of fiction about corporate crime, I naturally end up spending a lot of time being angry about corporate crime. It's pretty goddamned enraging. But the fiction writer in me is especially upset at how cartoonishly evil the perps are – routinely doing things that I couldn't ever get away with putting in a novel.

Beyond a doubt, the most cartoonishly evil characters are the private equity looters. And the most cartoonishly evil private equity looters are the ones who get involved in health care.

(Buckle up.)

Writing for The American Prospect, Maureen Tcacik details a national scandal: the collapse of PE-backed hospital chain Steward Health, a company that bought and looted hospitals up and down the country, starving them of everything from heart valves to prescription paper, ripping off suppliers, doctors and nurses, and callously exposing patients to deadly risk:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-02-27-scenes-from-bat-cave-steward-health-florida/

Steward occupies a very special place in the private equity looting cycle. Private equity companies arrange themselves on a continuum of indiscriminate depravity. At the start of the continuum are PE funds that buy productive and useful firms (everything from hospitals to car-washes) using "leveraged buyouts." That means that they borrow money to buy the company and use the company itself as collateral: it's like you getting a bank-loan to buy your neighbor's mortgage out from under them, and using your neighbor's house as collateral for that loan.

Once the buyout is done, the PE fund pays itself a "special dividend" (stealing money the business needs to survive) and then starts charging the business a "management fee" for the PE fund's expertise. To pay for all this, the PE bosses start to hack away at the company. Quality declines. So do wages. Prices go up. The company changes suppliers, opting for cheaper alternatives, often stiffing the old company. There are mass layoffs. The remaining employees end up doing three peoples' jobs, for lower wages, with fewer materials of lower quality.

Eventually, that top-feeding PE company finds a more desperate, more ham-fisted PE company to unload the business onto. That middle-feeding company also does a leveraged buyout, pays itself another special dividend, cuts wages, staffing and quality even further. They switch to even worse suppliers and stiff the last batch. Prices go up even higher.

Then – you guessed it – the middle-feeding PE company finds an even more awful PE bottom-feeder to unload the company onto. That bottom feeder does it all again, without even pretending to leave the business in condition to do its job. The company is a shambling zombie at this point, often producing literal garbage in place of the products that made its reputation. Employees' paychecks bounce, or don't show up at all. The company stops bothering to pay the lawyers that have been fending off its creditors. Those lawyers sue the company, too.

That's the kind of PE company Steward Health was, and, as the name suggests, Steward Health is in the business of stripping away the very last residue of value from community hospitals. As you might imagine, this gets pretty fucking ugly.

Steward owns 32 hospitals up and down the country, though its holdings are dwindling as the company walks away from its debt-burdened holdings, after years of neglect that have rendered them unfit for use as health facilities – or for any other purpose. Tcacik's piece offers a snapshot of one such hospital: Florida's Rockledge Regional Medical Center, just eight miles from Cape Canaveral.

Rockledge is a disaster. The fifth floor was, at one point, home to 5,000 bats.

Five.

Thousand.

Bats.

(Rockledge stiffed the exterminators.)

The bats were just the beginning. One of the internal sewage pipes ruptured. Whole sections of the hospital were literally full of shit, oozing out of the walls and ceiling, slopping over medical equipment.

That's an urgent situation for any hospital, but for Rockledge, it's catastrophic, because Rockledge is a hospital without any hospital supplies. Steward has stiffed the companies that supply "heart valves, urology lasers, Impella catheters, cardiac catheterization balloons, slings for lifting heavier patients, blood and urine test reagents, and most recently, prescription paper." Key medical equipment has been repossessed. So have the Pepsi machines. The hospital cafeteria had its supply of cold cuts repossessed:

https://www.reddit.com/r/massachusetts/comments/1agc1j4/comment/kolicqo/

It's not just Steward's nonpayments that reek of impending doom. Its payments also bear the hallmarks of a scam artist on the brink of blowing off the con. The company recently paid off a vendor with five separate checks for $1m, each drawn on "a random hospital in Utah" (Steward recently walked away from its Utah hospitals; its partners there are suing it for stealing $18m on their way out the door).

This company – which owns 32 hospitals! – has resorted to gambits like sending photos of fake checks to doctors it hasn't paid in months as "proof" that the money was coming (the checks arrived 22 days later).

Steward owes so much money to its employees – $1.66m to just one doctors' group. But the medical staff keep doing their jobs, and are reluctant to speak on the record, thanks to Steward's reputation for vicious retaliation. Those health workers keep showing up to take care of patients, even as the hospital crumbles around them. One clinician told Tcacik: "I watched a bed collapse underneath a [patient] who had just undergone hip surgery."

Rockledge has nine elevators, but only five of them work – the other four have been broken for a year. The hospital's fourth floor has been converted to "a graveyard of broken beds." The sinks are clogged, or filled with foul gunk. There's black mold. Nurses have noted on the maintenance tags that the repair service refuses to attend the hospital until their overdue bills are paid. The fifteen-person on-site maintenance team was cut to just two workers.

Steward is just the latest looting owner of Rockledge. After the Great Financial Crisis, private equity consultants helped sell it to Health Management Associates. The hospital's CEO took home a $10m bonus for that sale and exited; Health Management Associates then quickly became embroiled in a Medicare fraud and kickback scandal. Soon after, Rockledge was passed on to Community Health Systems, who then sold it on to Rockledge.

Steward, meanwhile, was at that time owned by an even bigger private equity giant, Cerberus, which then sold Steward off. That deal was performatively complex and hid all kinds of mischief. Prior to Cerberus's sell-off of Steward, they sold off Steward's real-estate. The buyer was Medical Properties Trust, who gave Cerberus $1.25b for the real-estate: three hospitals in Florida and three more in Ohio. Steward then contracted to operate these hospitals on MPT's behalf, and pay MPT rent for the real-estate.

This complex arrangement was key to siphoning value out of the hospital and to keeping angry creditors at bay – if you can't figure out who owes you money, it's a lot harder to collect on the debt. The scheme was masterminded by Steward founder/CEO Ralph de la Torre. De la Torre is notorious for taking a massive dividend out of the company while it owed $1.4b to its creditors. He bought a $40m yacht with the money.

De la Torre was once feted as a business genius who would "disrupt" healthcare. But as Steward's private jet hops around "Corfu, Santorini, St. Maarten and Antigua" as its hospitals literally crumble, he's becoming less popular. In Massachusetts, politicians have railed against Steward and de la Torre (Governor Healey wants the company to leave the state "as soon as possible").

Florida, by contrast, is much more friendly to Steward. The state Health and Human Services Committee chair Randy Fine is an ardent admirer of hospital privatization and is currently campaigning to sell off the last community hospital in Brevard County. The state inspectors are likewise remarkably tolerant of Steward's little peccadillos. The quasi-governmental agency that inspects hospitals has awarded this shit-and-bat-filled, elevator-free, understaffed rotting hulk "A" grades for quality.

These inspectors jointly represent a mismatched assortment of private and public agencies, dominated by a nonprofit called Leapfrog, the brainchild of Harvard public-health prof Lucian Leape, who founded it in 2000. Leapfrog likes to tout its "transparent" assessment criteria, and Steward are experts at hitting those criteria, spending the exact minimum to tick every box that Leapfrog inspectors use as proxies for overall quality and safety.

This is a pretty great example of Goodhart's Law: "every measurement eventually becomes a target, whereupon it ceases to be a good measurement":

https://xkcd.com/2899/

But despite Steward's increasingly furious creditors and its decaying facilities, the company remains bullish on its ability to continue operations. Medical Properties Trust – the real estate investment trust that is nominally a separate company from Steward – recently hosted a conference call to reassure Wall Street investors that it would be a going concern. When a Bank of America analyst asked MPT's CFO how this could possibly be, given the facility's dire condition and Steward's degraded state, the CFO blithely assured him that the company would get bailouts: "We own hospitals no one wants to see closed."

That's the thing about PE and health-care. The looters who buy out every health-care facility in a region understand that this makes them too big to fail: no matter how dangerous the companies they drain become, local governments will continue to prop them up. Look at dialysis, a market that's been cornered by private equity rollups. Today, if you need this lifesaving therapy, there's a good chance that every accessible facility is owned by a private equity fund that has fired all its qualified staff and ceased sterilizing its needles. Otherwise healthy people who visit these clinics sometimes die due to operator error. But they chug along, because no dialysis clinics is worse that "dialysis clinics where unqualified sadists sometimes kill you with dirty needles":

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-dirty-business-of-clean-blood

The bad news is that private equity has thoroughly colonized the entire medical system. They took hospitals, fired the doctors, then took over the doctors' groups that provided outsource staff to the hospital:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-mind-forever-voyaging/#prop-bets

It's illegal for private equity companies to own doctors' practices (doctors have to own these), but they obfuscated the crime with a paper-thin pretext that they got away with despite its obvious bullshittery:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/21/profitable-butchers/#looted

The financier who decides whether you live or die depends on an algorithm that literally sets a tolerable level of preventable deaths for the patients trapped in the practice:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/05/any-metric-becomes-a-target/#hca

Private equity also took over emergency rooms and boobytrapped them with "surprise billing" – junk fees that ran to thousands of dollars that you had to pay even if the hospital was in network with your insurer. They made billions from this, and spent a many millions from that booty keeping the scam alive with scare ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/21/all-in-it-together/#doctor-patient-unity

The whole health stack is colonized by private equity-backed monopolies. Even your hospital bed!

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/05/hillrom/#baxter-international

Then there's residential care. Private equity cornered many regional markets on nursing homes and turned them into slaughterhouses, places where you go to die, not live:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/23/acceptable-losses/#disposable-olds

The palliative care sector is also captured by private equity. PE bosses hire vast teams of fast-talking salespeople who con vulnerable older people into entering an end-of-life system before they are ready to die. Thanks to loose regulation, the nation is filled with fake hospices that can rake in millions from Medicare while denying all care to their patients (hospice patients don't get life-extending medication or procedures, by definition):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

If you survive this long enough, Medicare eventually tells the hospice that you're clearly not dying and you get kicked off their rolls. Now you have to go through the lengthy bureaucratic nightmare of convincing the system – which was previously informed that you were at death's door – that you are actually viable and need to start getting care again (good luck with that).

If that kills you, guess what? Private equity has rolled up funeral homes up and down the country, and they will scam your survivors just as hard as the medical system that killed you did:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/09/high-cost-of-dying/#memento-mori

The PE sector spent more than a trillion dollars over the past decade buying up healthcare companies, and it has trillions more in "dry powder" allocated for further medical acquisitions. Why not? As the CFO of Medical Properties Trust told that Bank of America analyst last week, when you "own hospitals no one wants to see closed." you literally can't fail, no matter how many people you murder.

The PE sector is a reminder that the crimes people commit for money far outstrip the crimes they commit for ideology. Even the most ideological killers are horrified by the murders their profit-motivated colleagues commit.

Last year, Tkacic wrote about the history of IG Farben, the German company that built Monowitz, a private slave-labor camp up the road from Auschwitz to make the materiel it was gouging Hitler's Wehrmacht on:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

Farben bought the cheapest possible slaves from Auschwitz, preferentially sourcing women and children. These slaves were worked to death at a rate that put Auschwitz's wholesale murder in the shade. Farben's slaves died an average of just three months after starting work at Monowitz. The situation was so abominable, so unconscionable, that the SS officers who provided outsource guard-labor to Monowitz actually wrote to Berlin to complain about the cruelty.

The Nuremberg trials are famous for the Nazi officers who insisted that they were "just following order" but were nonetheless executed for their crimes. 24 Farben executives were also tried at Nuremberg, where they offered a very different defense: "We had a fiduciary duty to our shareholders to maximize our profits." 19 of the 24 were acquitted on that basis.

PE is committed to an ideology that is far worse than any form of racial animus or other bias. As a sector, it is committed to profit above all other values. As a result, its brutality knows no bounds, no decency, no compassion. Even the worst crimes we commit for hate are nothing compared to the crimes we commit for greed.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/28/5000-bats/retaliation#charnel-house

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a message from Yahya Sinwar (the Hamas leader inside Gaza) was passed to Hamas leaders who live outside of it, and the essence of that is not to worry, because Sinwar believes they have Israel exactly where they want it. In other words, when Hamas is estimated by Israel to have at least 12,000 of its terrorists killed, and despite the fact that they could stop the death of Gazans by releasing the Israeli hostages and surrendering, Sinwar doesn't see any issues with where the war is at. I think the most important part is this: "According to the report, Sinwar also told the Hamas officials that the terror group is prepared for Israel’s expected operation in Rafah, the Gaza Strip’s southernmost city, and is relying on the high civilian death toll reported by the Hamas-run health ministry to cause enough global outcry that Israel is forced to withdraw" (my emphasis). At what point do people realize that they are serving the interests of Hamas' mass murderers, kidnappers and rapists?

A few days ago, I wrote about the attempt to allow aid trucks into northern Gaza directly from Israel, instead of bringing it to the south, and waiting for Gaza-based elements to deliver it to the north. This means an escort of Israeli soldiers is accompanying the trucks. This is the route the aid trucks cross:

Today, these aid trucks were stormed by a huge crowd, and according to the IDF, many people died from pushing and trampling (at the link you can see aerial video footage of the stampede), not an unheard of phenomenon when a huge herd of people all rush in at the same time. On top of that, some Gazans were also advancing at the soldiers securing the aid trucks. The soldiers felt undr threat, and they opened fire at those charging at them, but according to their estimate, this accounts for only 10 of the dead. Still, you can count on the anti-Israel crowd to adopt a narrative that, immediately and without investigation, calls this a massacre and blames every single death on Israel, not on Hamas, which started the war that made even aid supply into a dangerous and complicated situation.

Here's a reminder that even in the middle of the war, when no one is paying attention to it, Israel continues to demolish illegal homes built by Jews. But you're never gonna hear about it, not even during more normal times, because it doesn't fit the anti-Israel narrative, so anti-Israel sources will only ever tell you about it, when Israeli demolishes illegal homes built by Arabs.

As threats to British Members of Parliament (MPs) are rising due to threats from the anti-Israel crowd, the UK has allocated bodyguards to some of them, along with 31 million pounds designated for the security of British democracy. If some of the most powerful people in Britain are that scared, what do you think Jews there are going through? Indeed, today we heard that 72 million pounds are meant to help secure Jewish centers and institutions in the UK. The problem is that until the root of the problem will be tackled, this is just taking care of the symptoms, instead of curing the disease.

Israeli security forces have stopped two Palestinian cousins, one 17 years old and the other 29 years old, from carrying out an independent terrorist attack. I refer to such attacks as independent in order to point out that they're not a part of some greater plot, unlike every single terrorist attack on Oct 7, which were all interconnected, and rocket attacks since, which are launched as a part of the war that Hamas started waging against Israel. However, some of these attacks ARE connected to Hamas. Apparently, these two cousins contacted Hamas in Gaza to get help in committing their intended crime.

This is 59 years old Michel Nissenbaum.

He made alyiah on his own from Brazil when he was 13 years old. Friends say that coming to Israel saved him. He worked in hi-tech, as well as a tour guide, and volunteered with Bedouin kids. Here he is with one such group:

On Oct 7, Michel heard that the Re'im IDF base was under attack from Hamas terrorists. Knowing that his granddaughter was there, visiting her dad, Michel decided to go there and get her out. While he was making his way to the base, he stopped responding to messages. His granddaughter was rescued from the place hours later, but Michel himself had disappeared. He's believed to be kidnapped in Gaza, but his family is scared, because he wasn't spotted in any of the pics or vids released by Hamas.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[nerdygaymormon]

A survey of more than 90,000 transgender people in the U.S. — the largest nationwide survey of the community ever — found that trans people continue to experience workplace and medical discrimination. However, the overwhelming majority of them still report more life satisfaction after having transitioned.

Among the key findings released Wednesday, the survey found that trans people continue to report experiencing discrimination and mistreatment because of their gender identities and/or expressions.

More than one-third of adult respondents, or 34%, were experiencing poverty at the time of the survey, and 18% were unemployed. More than 1 in 10, or 11%, of respondents who had ever held jobs said they had been fired or forced to resign or had lost jobs or been laid off because of their gender identities or expressions. And, in line with previous survey findings, 30% of respondents had experienced homelessness in their lifetimes.

Of adult respondents who saw health care providers in the previous 12 months, 48% reported having had at least one negative experience because they were transgender, including being refused health care, having staff members use the incorrect pronouns for them or having providers use abusive language or be physically rough or abusive while treating them. Fear of mistreatment prevented 24% of respondents from seeing doctors when they needed it in the 12 months before the survey. 

Despite those negative experiences, the vast majority of adult respondents, 79%, who lived at least some of the time in different genders from the ones they were assigned at birth reported that they were “a lot more satisfied” with their lives. An additional 15% reported they were “a little more satisfied.”

Respondents who received transition-related medical care reported similarly high rates of satisfaction. Of respondents who were currently receiving hormone treatment, 84% said receiving such treatment for their gender identities/transitions made them “a lot more satisfied” with their lives, and 14% said it made them “a little more satisfied.” Just 1% said hormone treatment made them neither more nor less satisfied, and less than 1% said hormone treatment made them a lot less satisfied.

Of respondents who underwent at least one form of gender-affirming surgery, 88% said it made them “a lot more satisfied,” and 9% said it made them a little more satisfied. Less than 2% total said surgery made them a little less or a lot less satisfied. 

Nearly half of respondents to the latest U.S. Transgender Survey said they had thought about moving to other states because their state governments considered or passed such laws that target transgender people, and 5% — about 4,600 people — said they had actually moved to other states because of such legislation. 

The top 10 states where trans respondents most often reported moving from were, in alphabetical order, Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

[shaktikrupa]

Shaktikrupa | Empowering Lives | Inspiring Change

we are dedicated to empowering individuals and communities, igniting positive change through our impactful initiatives and unwavering commitment to making a difference

[corazondebeskar-reads]

Febuwhump 2024 Masterlist

hey, y'all! I'm participating in @febuwhump this year.

most will center on either joel miller x f!reader or din djarin x f!reader and will be short, probably under 1k each.

warnings: as implied by "whump," these fic will ALL contain physical and/or mental hurt. some will not have comfort. please read the warnings on each individual story before proceeding.

I will not be tagging anyone from any of the taglists for this to avoid spamming y'all. This list can be found at the top of my masterlist if you're looking for all of the works in one place. I won't add them to individual character lists until March.

dividers by @saradika-graphics

Key: 🏴 = dark 💀 = dead dove do not eat

Febuwhump Schedule

UPDATE: due to a health issue, I fell way behind. as such, the ones crossed out on this list are not guaranteed (they may still happen but I make no promises).

1: helpless - I'll take care of you - dark!Din x gn!reader 🏴💀

2: solitary confinement - no one could save me but you - dark!psychologist!Joel x f!reader 🏴💀

3: "bite down on this" - only to hurt, never to hold - gladiator!Din x f!reader (a drabble for "live to rise")

4: obedience - everyone breaks - werewolf!Joel (a drabble for "of rage and ruin") 🏴

5: rope burns - keep it caged - werewolf!Joel x f!reader (a drabble for "of rage and ruin") 🏴

6: "you lied to me" - was it worth it? - jackson!Joel xf!reader

7: suffering in silence - stuck in a lonely loop - Din x f!reader

8: found footage - remember what you're staring at is me - jackson!Joel x f!reader 🏴

9: lightning strike - seasons don't - jackson!Joel 🏴💀

10: killing in self-defense - no quiet on this earth - Joel x f!reader

11: time loop - gen, Tommy & Joel 🏴💀

14: blood-stained tiles - nobody is coming to save you - bounty hunter!Din x f!bounty!reader

17: hostage situation - no loyalty in the apocalypse - dark!Joel x f!reader 🏴💀

18: too weak to move - save your tears - Joel Miller x f!reader

19: "please don't" - better run - dark!Joel Miller x f!reader 🏴💀

[astriiformes]

Yesterday the TA for my history of health and the environment course got up in front of the class to say we'd be getting our prospectuses for our final paper back today, and that about a third of the class really needed to refine theirs because the ideas they'd turned in were too broad or undefined for a 10-page paper.

Which made me nervous, because she specifically mentioned folks proposing covering 200 years' worth of history, and I'd focused mine on both the 16th and 17th centuries. So I was convinced I'd gotten a poor grade on the assignment and would need to talk with her about my plans.... until I actually got mine back today and saw she'd given me a perfect score on it, because I'd explained my research plans thoroughly enough. So now instead of having to grapple with doing poorly on an assignment (the worst), I'm grappling with my TA apparently thinking my research skills are refined enough that I can tackle things other students maybe can't (strange, baffling).

And then, on top of all that, at the train station I ran into one of the folks from the center for premodern studies at school who said I should send them an email because they're inviting a few undergrads to come along to a printing event they're doing at a local book arts place and they apparently want me to be one of them?

All of which is really kicking my imposter syndrome in the gut, which given that I was really feeling it yesterday is nice, but also a little jarring if I'm being honest. What if I was good at things and people recognized that I was good at things. What then.

[doobea]

bllk college au

a/n: my personal headcanons of how some of the bllk guys would survive in uni ゜✧*̣̩☽⋆゜

isagi

most likely majoring in exercise science

generally an average student all around, his strongest classes being anatomy and weakest being chemistry. surprisingly balances his soccer practices with his studies quite well!

definitely likes studying in groups - whether that be with his classmates or friends. though probably the type to also cram a few days before the finals. (pre test anxiety helps) he has a favorite study location at a small local café on campus

wouldn’t necessarily join a fraternity but wouldn’t say no to a party if a friend invited him - refrains from excessive alcohol drinking if it’s an unfamiliar crowd (last time it ended up with him waking up to a 'no ragrets' tramp stamp)

developed a small growth spurt after the first year - now standing at a gracious 5'11 height

rin

honestly, maybe majoring something in the STEM field like bioengineering

super strict about studying habits - he follows the pomodoro technique and generally averages around an A/A- in majority of his classes

likes to keep his distance and doesn’t have many close friends. keeps texts and convos super curt with classmates and refuses to give out his social media handles if they ask (he has like 10 followers lol)

after classes he tends to either go back to his dorm or the library to study. if he has soccer practice he usually finds himself doing assignments during small breaks. can totally seeing him studying to like edm (secretly a rave boy awakening?)

got to study abroad in Italy and France for a semester

nagi

combining both his interests of gaming and desire to not work as hard, he finds himself majoring in computer science (its def a hard major to others but in terms of working remote/hybrid in the future he takes it lol)

students are envious of him, the type to have photographic memory so all his test score are high marks without him really trying

probably accidentally got himself on the e-board of the video game club after beating everyone in a valorant tournament

like a cat, he likes to take naps and sunbathe during warmer weather. when its winter, you'll find him knocked out in the student lounge booths

he longboards to his classes - maybe even the type to have a remote controlled longboard if he's feeling extra lazy to move his legs

reo

he's the biggest business major stereotype you'll see - but in a good way. probably double majors in accounting and business admin, goes the extra mile and gets an MBA after undergrad.

loves hosting monthly parties at his apartment and often sends out over the top email invitations with an RSVP notice (he spends like all morning making it on canva)

is the type to always have an internship lined up for winter or summer break. by the time he graduates, his resume will probably be over two pages (the average student gets depressed after looking at his linkedin)

aside from soccer, he most likely picks up a water or winter sport on the side - something like water polo or skiing would be fitting

always surrounded by other finance bros (minus nagi), its like a never ending conversation of stocks and the state of the economy (gets irritated if asked but why cant we just print more money)

chigiri

he's def planning on going to physical therapy school! like isagi, he'll probably major in exercise science but with a track to PT school.

likes to pick out fun artsy classes for his electives - such as calligraphy, a ballroom dance class, and cooking (college doesn't have to be suffering)

spends most of his weekends working part-time as a physical therapy assistant at the campus health center. when he's not working, he likes to decompress with a sci-fi novel at the local café

adopts a black cat at the end of his first year, he tries to hid them under his bed whenever the floor's RA (resident assistant) does their monthly check-ins (he says the distressed meows are a new ringtone)

his music taste is bedroom pop and this dorm is def decorated as such. polaroids of his friends and family are pinned directly above his desk, fairy lights are attached on the ceiling in a zig-zag formation, and owns a record stand with tons of vinyls

bachira

probably comes in undecided and then picks a major after taking some required classes. he ends up majoring in cognitive science. (lowkey i feel like he would make a good therapist or researcher)

big mama's boy - weekly hour long facetimes with his mom, recalling what he's eaten, who he's hung out with, how classes are kicking his butt, etc. (leaving out the crazy stunts at parties)

frat guys love him, he's always down to pull a crazy hat trick whether that'd be jumping from the second floor window, trying to steal a traffic cone with campus police nearby, and just filming the latest wild tiktok trends (grimace shake? hes on the ground gurgling that shit out)

was so excited at the beginning of the year of potentially joining different clubs and organizations, ended signing up for like 50+ that he doesn't even remember (his email notifications go crazy)

one outdoor club activity he does commit to, aside from soccer, would be extreme frisbee (those are a thing yes!), sometimes would go overboard and he crashes into other students on the grass field while trying to catch it

[the-moon-devi]

🍨What flavor Cookie are you based on the BAKER ASTEROID? PT.1 🍡

🧁🧁BAKER ASTEROID◇◇ 《2549》🧁🧁

🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰

DESCRIPTION: The baker asteroid is said to be the bakers asteroid for things like cookies and baked goods and even bakers. However in this post I'll be focusing more so on cookies.

○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○

Baker in aries/1st house: a very fast baker, your baked food could taste hot/spicy or maybe very health yall are the type to bake ginger spiced cookies or something like that if that exists. Maybe even Nutritional baked foods. If in the 1st house this could actually be what your known for!

Cookie: spicy Chai molasses cookies / Gingerbread

https://pin.it/6K3b4Pd: gingerbread

Baker in Taurus/ 2nd house: your baking is very good and warming to the senses. I feel like people really feel comfort and secure with your baking. This placement wouldn't be the type to try anything too risky when it comes to baking. Baker in the 2nd could make you spend alot of money on baked goods/ maybe even earn $ through baking. Yall baking could be very beautiful and pleasing to the eyes as well. Yall like sweet and soft but flavorful

Cookie: rich&gooey Butter pecan chocolate chip cookies/ oatmeal cream pies 《 ik ik it's not a cookie well kindaaaaaa🤔🤭》

Baker in Gemini/ 3rd house: I feel like if you have this placement you have potential to be a great baker I think there's a lot of versatility in your baking. If your not a baker then you could have siblings who can bake. You could talk about baking or teach people how to bake even create baking recipes and stuff like that maybe even a baking blog. (ESPECIALLY 3rd house people) I feel like yall might might be a little picky or you just like a lot of different flavors or you don't mind putting in something different in your baked foods.

Cookie: Neapolitan Cookie/ lemon crinkle cookies

Baker in Cancer/4th house: baker here yall goodddddd. Like mama's famous poundcake type good. Of course depending on the aspects. But yall like cooking for your kids/ loved ones. You guys definitely would be the type to either make recipes for future generations or follow recipes from your ancestral lineage. You could also come from a line of women who bake really well. Yall baking is sweet,soft,moist. ***"It's like a reward 😇🤤" *** do yall know that tik tok sound that's going around saying that? Anyways if this is aspect by your 10th house ruler or by planets in the 10th house/Mc you could easily be a professional baker. Once you become a mother your baking could get better or you might bake more (ik wierd I just channeled that, take it or leave it)

Cookie: chocolate chips ofc this is the original/ biscoff cookie butter cookies

Baker in Leo/5th house: possibility of being famous for your baking. Your baking could look very appealing to the eye or it just stands out. Baking could be a way of expressing yourself it could even be a hobby. I feel like yall baking taste very flavorful that's all I can say but I know it's good. You may have learned how to bake at a young age. Cooking could be a creative outlet. Your child could be a great baker.

Cookie: lemon cheesecake cookie

Baker in virgo/ 6th: virgoss yall the type to cookie healthy cookies or raw vegan cookies stuff like that. I feel like y'all would do diary free/ cleaner options when baking <<This could even go for Pisces>> this could be your occupation or your co-workers may know how to bake very well. Since Virgo is mercury ruled you could be very analytical about what you cook. Baking may be a stress reliever or apart of your daily routine. Definitely gluten free sugar free diary free perservative free placement for baking. Yall Could bake for the homeless or less fortunate.

Cookie: matcha sugar cookie/date cookies

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𝓓𝓲𝓿𝓲𝓷𝓮 𝓓𝓮'𝓛𝓾𝔁𝔁𝓮 (masterlist)

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©𝓟𝓻𝓮𝓽𝓽𝔂 𝓒𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓶𝓮𝓵

[glittter-vamp]

Wax Strips | C.E

THIS IS A REPOST FROM MY OLD ACCOUNT.

Warnings: Explicit Language. Mentions of Blood. Kissing. Pain Inducing (?) Mostly funny and fluff! Sorry for any grammatical errors.

Summary: Chris goes to reader for some help manscaping for a new role.

Word Count: 1,114

" Can you you come here and tell me if the pasta sauce is too sweet?" Scott asks me. I was writting a work email on my laptop in our shared apartment. " Yeah, give me a minute" I say finishing up the email and hitting send. I get up from the dining table and taste the sauce from the hot spoon. " It's perfect, don't add anything else" I shake my head. " And my mom says I can't cook" Scott says. " The only one who can't is Chris, remember the meatloaf he made when we went over for dinner' I say and he starts laughing. " It was like a brick, I almost chipped a tooth!" Scott says and I start laughing. " That shit was a health hazard, I wouldn't even let poor Dodger sniff it!" I giggle. I went back to the to the table but before I could sit there was a knock on the door. " Were you expecting anyone?"I ask Scott as I walk to the door. " Oh yeah, Chris texted me saying he was going to come over because he needs help with something" Scott says as I unlock the door and I was met with Chris.

" Hey Y/n" Chris says giving me a hug. " Hey Chris, come on in" I say letting him in the apartment. " Smells amazing in here!" Chris says taking off his coat, he had a brown paper bag in his hand. Chris goes to say hello to his brother and I go sit down where I was. " So what did you need help with?" Scott says and Chris nervously laughs. " So.. I kind of need Y/n's help with something.. personal" Chris says looking over to me. Scott and I give him a weird look. " I have a sex scene too shoot in two days and I have to manscape and every wax center near here is booked because of the holidays coming up. Apparently people love to be hairless to eat a damn turkey" Chris says and I bust out laughing. " Oh come on guys, please you're the only person I trust! You're a nurse!" He says. " You want me to wax you because I'm a nurse.." I laugh. " I'll do it, not like we didn't bathe together until we were 10 and have had to give you cold showers n your drunken nights" Scott says. " Thanks...but no thanks" Chris says and Scott rolls his eyes at his brother. " Wait, do I have too see like.. it.." I ask hesitantly and Scott laughs. " No! well just the top part maybe but that's it!" Chris reassures me. " Chris.."I whine. " Please! I'd do it myself but I'd probably stick things together that don't need to be stuck together" he says with pleading eyes and I sigh. " Fineee, shirt off, go lay on the floor' I say grabbing the bag which contained the strips. " Aw you sound like my date from Tuesday night" Scott says from the kitchen as he checks the food on the stove. Chris and I giving him a " WTF" look. I then read the instructions on the box and it says i needed to warm up the strips rubbing them against my hands.

Chris takes off his shirt and I can't help but admire his muscular chest and torso filled with tattoos. "I'm so recording this for my instagram" Scott says getting his phone out. " Don't you dare!" Chris says. " Too late!" Scott smiles. I shake my head at the two brothers that act like kids well into their late 30s and now early 40s. " Why can't you just shave?" I ask Chris as I kneel down on the carpet next to him. " They need to use make up to cover my tattoos and I get prickly fast so the hair's make it flake" he says. " Can't they just CGI these crappy tattoos?" I say and Chris scoffs. " Take that back" he says and I laugh. " Okay here we go first two strips. I peel the strips from each other and put the first one on his chest, on his very hard muscular chest. Come on Y/N snap out of it, this is just your roommates brother. Your very very hot actor brother of your roommate. " Are you ready?" I ask looking at his nervous face. " Do you have something to bite on?" Chris asks. " What a baby!" I say just ripping off the strip " Fuuuck!! Holy shit, yeah no I think we're done here... fuck that times 100" Chris says in pain and I cringe at the wax strip full of hair. "I got you good, look at that! It's like Chewbacca's baby spawn" I laugh showing Scott who had his phone out recording. " Oh my god you drew blood!" Scott says looking at his brothers chest with a whole chunk of hair missing and little bits of blood seeping through his skin. " Holy shit did that fucking hurt" Chris grimaces. " Well we need to take the other one off- NO! You're not doing that again" Chris says shaking his head. " Wait... why didn't you just Nair the hair off?" Scott says and Chris looks at him with annoyed face when he realizes the wax strips were a very dumb idea. " You know what... let me be a good brother and go to the pharmacy down the street and get you Nair" Scott says grabbing his keys. "Food is done and I'll be right back" Scott says leaving. " What are you going to do with the other one?" I ask. " Leave it on there for eternity" Chris says looking down at his chest. " Let's just do it really quick" I say reaching for it and he stops my hand. "I will cry" he says and I laugh. " Okay what do you think would help?" I ask. " A kiss" he smirks and I raise an eyebrow at him. " Give me a kiss and I'll let you rip it off" He says. I eye him suspiciously but give in leaning in to give him a sweet kiss. Once our lips touch it was hard to stop, his lips were the softest I had ever kissed. " Ow!! Shit!!" Chris hisses half way into the kiss. " I thought it would be a good time to rip it off, you were distracted" I smile pecking him on the lips and going to get my first aid kit to treat his little boo boos.