thisismyveryownsideblog

[thisismyveryownsideblog]

recent environment studies ✨🌱

[thisismyveryownsideblog]

I wish I could take all of you home and wrap you in a warm blanket and sit you down at my kitchen counter. I'd let you pet my tabby cat and give him treats while I put on my flame-orange soup pot and make you a hot delicious meal (it's okay, the food in this daydream is imaginary; you can enjoy it all you want). Maybe I'd make a stew recipe from the north woods, the kind my mother handed down to me, with a large slice of fresh warm bread from the bakery next door spread with creamy white butter, the warm smell of browned meat and onions and broth and herbs and carrots filling the air.

I'd set the stew to simmer, and while the steam was rising and making little spirals in the air I'd make you a cup of peppermint tea and pass it across the counter. I'd sit down opposite you and we'd listen to the muffled sounds of my neighbors living their own private lives, my cat purring in his bed, the rain on the windows. And in here, everything would be quiet and peaceful and warm.

And then I'd look you in the eyes, and take your hand, and I'd say the following:

"At some point in your life, someone told you that you didn't deserve to love yourself as you were. That some part of you needed to change in order to be worthy of love and self-love. Maybe it was your body, or maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was something else—that you needed to be smarter or dumber, harder-working or less aggressive, tougher or weaker, stronger or daintier, bolder or meeker, prettier or handsomer or even less attractive, less of a 'target.' Maybe they said you would only be worthy of love if you followed all the rules. Maybe they said that you could never measure up, or maybe they said you could, but that you just weren't 'trying' hard enough. Maybe they said that if you were being abused, that it was your 'fault.' Maybe they told you these things through hurtful actions as much as through hurtful words.

Maybe it was your mother or your father. Maybe it was a teacher, a relative, a friend, a parent's friend, a religious figure, a neighbor, a lover or someone you hoped would be a lover. Maybe it was many people, or even society itself. In every case, it was someone you should have been able to trust. And they betrayed you. And I am so, so sorry.

I'm sorry they made you believe that you were unworthy of love and self-love, just as you are. I'm sorry they made you think that you had to measure up to some standard, possible or impossible, before you were deserving of affection and warmth, of attention and care.

But it was never true. It was never true.

You are good simply because you exist. Your body is good, because it is you, and you are good. You are good. You do not need to harm yourself to be good. You do not need to hurt your body to be good. Your body is not the enemy and it does not need to be defeated or beaten into submission. Your body is you, and I it is so so good that you are here.

Inside you, there is a little kid who needs you to protect them. They don't want you to hurt them or hurt their body. They want to know that you love them, unconditionally, no strings attached. And I know it's hard, but you've got to try. You've got to try. That little kid deserves it. They need to hear what they, what you, should have been told years ago, and they need to be told it until they, and you, believe it:

You are worthy of love, exactly as you are. You are of infinite value and infinite dignity; you are worthy of affection and warmth and attention and care. You always were. You always were. And you always will be."

[thisismyveryownsideblog]

I don’t know who needs to hear this today, but intrusive thoughts are basically your brain’s (sometimes very upsetting) way of saying “If there were two guys on the moon and one of them killed the other with a rock would that be fucked up or what?”

I’ve personally found that adding the “would that be fucked or what?” part in myself really helps put the more disturbing thoughts we sometimes get into perspective. Helps me say “yeah thar sure would be fucked up” and move on with my day.

It’s not not a secret desire, it’s not something that only occurs to you because you’re a bad person. It’s just your brain deciding to process the fact that it knows an uncomfortable thing exists in the world by feeding it to you in an absurd “what if” with you as the main character.

[thisismyveryownsideblog]

"You are risking your lives drinking" listen not to downplay the problems of repressive governments but buddy ANYBODY who drinks this is risking their lives.

[thisismyveryownsideblog]

The Iranian Regime is going to execute rapper Toomaj Salehi for supporting protests of Jina Amini’s murder by the regime in his songs.

Iranian activist Elica Le Bon says, “Iranians in the diaspora picked up on the fact that the regime tends not to execute people who become known to the international community. We have seen many examples of prisoners that were either released on bail or had their sentences commuted through our “say their names to save their lives” campaign on social media, using hashtags to garner attention for their causes, and even before social media existed, through getting the stories of political prisoners to international media outlets. Once reported on, and once the eyes shift to the regime and the reality of its pending brutality, realizing that the action is not worth the repercussions, we have seen them back down and not execute. For that reason, this is part of an urgent campaign for readers to talk about Toomaj as much as you can, using the hashtag #FreeToomaj or #ToomajSalehi. Every comment makes a difference, and if we were wrong, what did we lose by trying?”

[thisismyveryownsideblog]

With the final report now released, I feel compelled to say something, or else I risk looking back and berating myself for staying quiet.

We now know, for a fact, that the commonly-repeated claim that many of the means of medical transition are safe is, in fact, not based on sufficient high-quality research.

Moreover, we also now know, for a fact, that the referral rate has skyrocketted in recent years. I have been listening to the stories of detransitioners quietly myself now for about a year. Please, please, please understand: there is no guarantee that your certainty right now means that you won't end up detransitioning later. So many detrans people will tell you right out the gate that they were absolutely 100% sure they were trans when they first started out down this road.

Please, please, pause and really evaluate this decision before you make it. Ignore people who are trying to rush you to medically transition; if they really cared about you, they'd let you take the time you need to make such a huge decision. You don't need to rush. You can take your time and really ask yourself what you want—not just for today, not just for tomorrow, but for forty, fifty, sixty years down the line. This isn't just a choice you make for your teen years or twenties or thirties. This is a choice you're going to have to live with when you're middle-aged, your grandparents' age, and very elderly.

The trans community is known for downplaying negative results of medical transition and silencing naysayers; people who are deep into a possible sunk cost fallacy cannot be trusted to inform you about the possible negative effects of their decision. Ask detransitioners to tell you what they wish they'd known before starting medical transition.

And ask yourself why you want to transition. Really sit down and interrogate this. I know it's scary. But you wouldn't want to make a serious medical decision without making sure first that there wasn't another way to solve it. Many detransitioners have listed among the reasons they thought they were trans as repressed internalized misogyny or misandry, justified discomfort with being sexualized or a self-defense response to past sexual assault, repressed AGP or AAP, trying to "trans the gay away," or undiagnosed autism. For many of them, transition was only a distraction from the real root cause of their unhappiness—a costly, invasive, and ultimately harmful distraction. Dysphoria does not automatically mean that medical transition is your only option for dealing with these feelings.

Look. I'm not a TERF. I don't hate you. I don't want you dead. I'm just really, really concerned that a lot of you are making extremely serious medical choices, choices that will leave you a medical patient for the rest of your life when you don't have to be, choices that could gravely affect your ability to have kids or find a partner someday if you decide you want that, choices that plenty of other people before you have made and later regretted.

Slow down. Think this through. Do your own, independent research, and ask people who've come through the other side and regretted it what they would have done differently.