#uk issues

[wild-at-mind]

TW- murder, transphobia, racism, incarceration, suicide

I remember in 2018 (I think that was the year) I went to a TDoR vigil at the cafe in the next city over, which at the time was the source of much of my LGBTQ connection, along with a meetup group I attended in the same area. The vigil ceremony was not ideal in many ways- some local reporters talked over part of the address, and during the name reading it was clear that the Latin American names were being pronounced wrongly. In the UK it can be harder to find someone who is culturally connected to Latin America who could do the reading or at least advise than it might be in the US, so I don’t know if they would have ever been perfect, but it seemed that pronunciation had not been even checked and it was really noticeable. But while there is room for improvement I still think it’s an overall good that this vigil happened.

The gathering in the cafe beforehand was better. I was very tentatively exploring my gender stuff back then, and being around so many trans and nonbinary people of all ages was very powerful. I remember seeing a group of older trans women who looked weary and tired talking at one of the tables.. or perhaps they were cross dressers. The line between them can be blurred, especially in older generations. And being a male cross dresser who doesn’t identify as a trans woman does not protect you from violence. One of the murder victims on the TDoR list this year is Jimmie ‘Jay’ Lee, a black self identified gay man in the US who was murdered while wearing women’s clothing. https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2022/07/08/jimmie-jay-lee_lafayette-county-mississippi-usa_348b20a4  Plenty of historical transfemme people identified variously as cross dressers or drag queens as well as trans women. I’m hardly the first to say this but I hope that an obsession with correct labelling in the LGBTQ community does not mean the important things get ignored.

At that 2018 gathering before the vigil the cafe was packed, full and standing. I felt a sense of community with people there suddenly, even though I didn’t know most of them, because I felt we were all coming together for something bigger than ourselves. I think it’s easy for something as personal and identity based as gender to become very inclosed in our own heads, especially for the comparitively privileged (Western, white, ok financially) and that’s something I’ve found difficult. For me at least, because of these things that I have and the comfort they provide, it can feel self indulgent to focus on myself. Coming together in this outward focusing way with so many trans and nb people at that time was incredibly moving and poweful. Especially important to me is that it had nothing to do with the kind of awkward self flaggellation that self conscious white queer communities can end up doing when trying to support people much more marginilised. I hate that this seems to be so inescapable sometimes. Though maybe that was a misguided view as I later saw an overview of some of the criticism of TDoR on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_Day_of_Remembrance  in the Reception section. (It uses a lot of language about ‘bodies’ rather than people, a language choice which I have seen pushback on recently from black people especially, so warning for that.) As a way to honour trans and gender nonconforming people who were murdered or took their own lives, it is vastly imperfect, as we saw from the badly done reading of the names I talked about earlier. It’s ok for things to be imperfect and nuanced, and I hope I will make an effort to actively learn more about these issues. It’s common for activists for a particular cause to be asked to think of and draw attention to related injustices, and I think TDoR should be no different. Starting in the UK, where I live, the story of Taylor really gripped me. Taylor was a trans man who in prison serving an IPP, Indeterminate sentence for Public Protection. He was in a situation where he had served 10 years over his initial sentence, due to the nature of the IPP, and had no release date. They no longer give out these sentences, presumably because they are inhumane, but they were not retroactively repealed. I encourage you to read more here: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2022/07/09/taylor_wotton-under-edge-gloucestershire-united-kingdom_87fabb44 and here: https://iwoc.iww.org.uk/free-taylor/ (Note- this was written before Taylor’s death.) Taylor took his life in prison while under an insufficient suicide watch. Transphobia was one of the problems he faced in his life but it was one of many, and all were exacerbated by him being locked up for so long. This makes me want to learn more about UK prison advocacy- we have the highest rate of prison suicide in the world according to the IWOC link there, and that horrified me. A homeless man in my hometown who to be honest was mainly known for acting strangely in public (shouting in megaphone while wearing odd outfits- mildly annoying I guess but harmless) was jailed for one of those ‘crimes’ they get homeless people for, and soon after he took his life in prison. There was a shrine to him in the town centre when the news came. His name was Lee and they called him Superman because that was one of his outfits. It made me think of him and how fucked up the system is, if he hadn’t been locked up he could still be alive.

Got a bit rambly there. I hope it made sense. Sending my love to all trans and gender nonconforming people today. And I hope I can focus on the wider issues in UK society in the name of the amazing trans people I know, for the love of humanity and people of all kinds in our country.

[nando161mando]

The people of France showed up for Palestine!!!! 🔥🔥🔥and defied Macron's undemocratic ban on protests ✊❤️🇵🇸

[vordemtodgefeit]

[tolympiabeanie]

Do you think i look good in blonde?🤭🥰

Reblog if you think i look good and if you love trans😍🥰

Answers in my dm🤭

[reasonsforhope]

"Glamour UK launched its digital June Pride cover this week featuring a pregnant transgender man. 

The cover features transgender activist and author Logan Brown standing topless with a suit painted over his chest and his pregnant belly on full display. 

“I am a transgender pregnant man and I do exist, so no matter what anybody says, I literally am living proof,” Brown told the magazine. 

Glamour UK, an online women’s magazine published by Condé Nast, launched its Pride cover issue on Thursday, coinciding with the start of LGBTQ Pride month. The magazine has previously showcased prominent figures in the LGBTQ community, such as Grammy-award winning artist Kim Petras and "Queer Eye" cast member Antoni Porowski.

This year’s issue “celebrates the allyship between women (cisgender or not) and transgender people through our shared experiences — in particular pregnancy, healthcare and childbirth,” the magazine explained.

The cover interview, which was conducted two weeks before Brown, 27, gave birth to his daughter, Nova, recounts the cover star’s experience with an unexpected pregnancy and navigating the medical system as a trans man...

Despite the backlash, the cover star expressed his desire to educate those who may hold misconceptions about transgender individuals.

Brown shared with Glamour that he is working on a children’s book and an autobiography that highlights his pregnancy, and hopes it will serve as a resource for other transgender people. 

He added that he would also like the book to reach people who aren’t transgender but “are curious and want to know about the situation,” referring to trans pregnancy."

-via ABC News, June 2, 2023

-

Especially heartening to see this coming out of the UK, given the dramatic rise in transphobia and TERFism there the past few years.

Right now, it can be a really stressful and heartbreaking time to be trans. Widespread change takes time that it often feels like we don't have. But we're here, and we will always be here, and despite what it may feel like, we have made unbelievable amounts of progress in the last 20 years alone.

I promise you this: the transphobes are going to lose.

[2001hz]

Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as Mystique in X-Men, Official Playstation 2 Magazine UK Issue n°5 (2001)

[beaft]

maybe it's just the news about the ban on puberty blockers, or the renewed coverage of brianna ghey's murder, but i can't help feeling like transphobia in the uk is gaining traction every day. it feels genuinely unsafe to be trans here and while i'm not in fear for my life, i cannot escape the sense that i am living in a world that is fundamentally hostile towards me and people like me. and it's not getting better. it's getting worse.

for months i worked at one of london's biggest bookstores, where i was told to display authors like kathleen stock and helen joyce and abigail shrier as face-outs because they were so popular. i had to smile and make small talk while ringing up these books. i didn't complain about this. what would be the point? people want those books, so we sell them. that's what bookshops are for. you can't just not sell books because you don't agree with what's in them. so i didn't complain about it.

the number of trans hate crimes has hit a record high. the tavistock's young adult department has shut down. the wait to be seen at a gender clinic is now ten years and counting. and yet i still have to read articles in mainstream leftist newspapers that talk about how there should be more restrictions placed upon us, or how the mere fact of our existence is endangering children. of course you can't complain about this either. last week i had an appointment with a cis doctor who used the correct pronouns for me and expressed sympathy for my struggles with the NHS, and even that was enough to almost bring me to tears, because i'm so used to doctors treating me with suspicion or discomfort that even the bare minimum feels like a gift.

you can't complain about it. other trans people already know how it is, so there's no point in telling them, and cis people don't care. what good do words do if nobody's listening?

[rotteneldritchhorror]

I desperately need more botany/gardening/solarpunk/foraging posts that aren’t so fucking American-centric

“European plants are invasive” okay, in America— but which ones are invasive HERE, like are Spanish species invasive to England? Are French plants invasive to England??

[luckydiorxoxo]

[cocaineheartz]

go ahead and cry little girl, nobody does it like you do

[webcxre]

Introducing KinitoPET™, the digital companion you know and love, now available for your computer! The perfect friend for all ages, he can help you surf the web, set reminders, play games, tell jokes, give fun facts, and much more! With our patented RRA technology, Kinito really responds to you!* Available now at Maplin Electronics and PC World retailers. Make a new best friend with KinitoPET™!

*KinitoPET™ is only capable of generating pre-written responses. In the event of inappropriate dialogue please contact the Kinito Leisure and Entertainment Company to report potentially illegitimate copies of KinitoPET™. Only purchase KinitoPET™ from trusted retailers.

Released to moderate success after missing the tail end of the Kinito Companion's hype, KinitoPET was quickly overshadowed by larger, more popular programs and products within the following years. After all, although beloved by many who used it, there was only so much the program could do with its limited, pre-rendered sprites and dialogue.

...Yet there were rumors of an "upgraded" Kinito. Some believed you had to unlock it, others believed it was a limited release. A statement from KLEC only suggested the existence of an unauthorized, likely malicious modification being spread around online. What little information on its existence believed it to be able to generate responses on the fly, with advanced animations and capabilities. Anyone who claimed to have it however would quickly disappear from forums, leaving most to speculate that they were simply trolling.

Others, however, believed Kinito had somehow killed them.

It was a ridiculous claim, creepypasta-esque and surely impossible. Yet as the years went on, it became Kinito's legacy with screenshots, videos, and recollections that could no longer be determined legitimate or not. An oddity morphed into a story of a permanently "unwell" state Kinito that would install itself onto your computer and make people disappear.

Years later, a retro tech enthusiast with nothing better to do due to their declining condition becomes interested in the old program and rumors, and to their surprise encounters this "rogue" Kinito themselves as a result.

But in their fascinated dissection of the axolotl, they find him doing the same of them...this was no spooky reskin. His motions rehearsed, sure, yet with a tone of bitterness. He seemed...tired. It resonated with them. Their backgrounds couldn't be any more different - a program and a human - yet they found themselves to be surprisingly in sync.

[nando161mando]

"What about those Palestinians who are in hospital on life support & babies in incubators that will have to be turned off because Israelis have cut the power to Gaza?"

Ex Israeli PM Naftali Bennett: ""Are you seriously asking me about Palestinian civilians? Whats wrong wth you?"

[shiftythrifting]

[lord-squiggletits]

The reason this fandom hates IDW Optimus isn't because he's a cop (plenty of people are fine with Prowl) or because he's a bastard (most characters in IDW are) but because he commits the crime of being an actual person who's messy, flawed, and makes a shitload of high stakes mistakes fitting for the intense situations and pressure he's put under constantly.

But we can't have Optimus actually react to his situations by lashing out or being unpleasant, no, he has to have the personality of a cardboard cutout of G1 whose only defining personality traits are "dad, funny, nice," and if he ever vents negative emotions it can only ever be #relatable depression or him being sad on his own without ever letting it show during the important parts of the story. If Optimus dares do things like be angry or frustrated or bitter it's just a sign that he's a bastard and LITERALLY the worst Optimus ever. If Optimus ever makes mistakes or does wrong things in the heat of anger/frustration/stress it's because he's just an evil bastard with no redeeming traits.

God forbid Optimus go through an unending gauntlet of war, politics, atrocities, near-complete loneliness, and a seemingly endless cycle of violence for his entire life and come out of it kind of bitter, angry, and tired of dealing with people's shit. He's not allowed to be a realistic person, context doesn't matter, sympathy doesnt matter. IDW Optimus doesn't fulfill the fandom's fantasies of Father Figure or Perfect Cultural Icon or Twinky Fucktoy and since that's the only reason most people care about Optimus in general, the fandom collectively trashes on IDW OP.

All because he can't fit into the overly simplified and childlike double standard the fandom has where if any other character is messy and flawed, that's good writing and interesting and compelling, but if OPTIMUS is messy and flawed, he's Literally The Worst and he's an asshole for no other reason than He Sucks, context be damned

[reasonsforhope]

A surgeon who carried out the UK’s first womb transplant on a cisgender woman has said similar transplants for transgender women are probably about 10 to 20 years away.

In February, Imperial College London professor, James Smith, and his colleague, Isabel Quiroga, from the Oxford Transplant Centre, carried out the womb transplant on a married woman whose 40-year-old sister was willing to donate her own, having already given birth to two children.

The 34-year-old recipient, who lives in England and wishes not to be named, received the transplant during an operation lasting more than nine hours at the Churchill Hospital, in Oxford.

It is hoped that, in the future, womb transplants can be performed on trans women, giving them the chance to have a baby, but Smith said the reality of this is still decades away.

There is currently no “technical feasibility” to perform the operation on trans women due to a difference in the pelvic and vascular anatomy, the shape of the pelvis and issues with the microbiome – the network of micro-organisms that live in the human body, he explained...

Dr Narendra Kaushik, a surgeon in the Indian capital New Dehli, said in May 2022 that transplanting uteruses into trans women is “the future."

Uterine transplants are currently rare, costly and experimental surgeries that typically rely on donor organs. They are often done on people born without a uterus so they can become pregnant and give birth.

The first successful womb transplant took place at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden in 2014. Two years later, the operation was carried successfully once more in the US.

About 50 babies have now been born worldwide as a result of womb transplants.

Kaushik, who has 15 years of experience in gender-affirming surgeries, said: “We cannot predict exactly when this will happen but it will happen soon. We have our plans and we are very optimistic.”

-via PinkNews, August 23, 2023

[2001hz]

Microsoft: Original Xbox launch special ad print in Official Xbox Magazine UK issue n°0 (2001)