witcherettes

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surely it is the lgb that will benefit from this new push to label anything lgb “queer.” surely it will be for the benefit of gays, lesbians and bisexuals to have a slur that others them as “strange” be used as an umbrella term for their experiences, communities and identities. it must be a good thing that we are using the neutral terms “gay,” “lesbian,” and “bisexual” less in favor of a slur. surely this is not at all another homophobic push to erase the humanity of these people and once again associate them with something that literally labels them as unnatural. that would be so crazy haha this can only be positively influencing public opinion on gay, lesbian and bisexual people weird rainbow queerios

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While Saudi Arabia celebrates being awarded the Fifa men’s World Cup and meticulously promotes itself on the global stage as reformed, women who have dared to publicly call for more rights and freedoms have faced house arrest, jail and exile." Ladies everytime someone mentions Saudi Arabia doing something like getting to host the Fifa men’s World Cup remind everyone of the Dar al-Reaya

Tom Levitt and Deepa Parent Wed 28 May 2025

Ayoung woman wearing a black abaya is pictured in a city in north-west Saudi Arabia standing precariously on a second-floor window ledge. A second photograph shows a group of men escorting her down with the help of a crane.

The woman’s identity is unknown, but she was allegedly being held at one of Saudi Arabia’s notoriously secretive “jails” for women banished by their families or husbands for disobedience, extramarital sexual relations or being absent from home.

It was a rare glimpse of the plight of hundreds or more girls and young women believed to be held in such facilities, where they are “rehabilitated” so they can return to their families.

Speaking out in public or sharing footage of these “care homes”, or Dar al-Reaya, has become impossible in a country where voices on women’s rights appear to have been silenced. But over the past six months, the Guardian has gathered testimony about what it is like inside these institutions, described as “hellish”, with weekly floggings, forced religious teachings and no visits or contact with the outside world.

Conditions are reported to be so bad that there have been several cases of suicide or attempted suicide. The women can spend years locked up, unable to leave without the permission of their family or a male guardian.

“Every girl growing up in Saudi knows about Dar al-Reaya and how awful it is. It’s like hell. I tried to end my life when I found out I was going to be taken to one. I knew what happened to women there and thought ‘I can’t survive it’,” says one young Saudi woman who later managed to flee into exile.

Maryam Aldossari, a Saudi activist based in London, says: “A young girl or woman will stay in there for as long as it takes for her to accept the rules.”

A woman stands on window ledge, allegedly trying to escape one of Saudi Arabia ‘care homes’ and is then apparently helped down by a group of men.

While Saudi Arabia celebrates being awarded the Fifa men’s World Cup and meticulously promotes itself on the global stage as reformed, women who have dared to publicly call for more rights and freedoms have faced house arrest, jail and exile. Activists say the country’s care homes are one of the regime’s lesser-known tools for controlling and punishing women, and want them to be abolished.

It is a prison, not a care home, as they like to call it. They call each other by numbers. ‘Number 35, come here’

Sarah Al-Yahia, campaigner

Saudi officials have described the care homes, which were set up across the country in the 1960s, as providing “shelter for girls accused or convicted of various crimes” and say they are used to “rehabilitate the female inmates” with the help of psychiatrists “in order to return them to their family”.

But Sarah Al-Yahia, who started a campaign to abolish the care homes, has spoken to a number of girls who describe an abusive regime, with inmates subjected to strip-searches and

But Sarah Al-Yahia, who started a campaign to abolish the care homes, has spoken to a number of girls who describe an abusive regime, with inmates subjected to strip-searches and virginity tests on arrival and given sedatives to put them to sleep.

“It is a prison, not a care home, as they like to call it. They call each other by numbers. ‘Number 35, come here.’ When one of the girls shared her family name, she got lashes. If she doesn’t pray, she gets lashes. If she is found alone with another woman she gets lashes and is accused of being a lesbian. The guards gather and watch when the girls are being lashed.”

Yahia, who is now 38 and lives in exile, says her parents had threatened to send her to Dar al-Reaya since she was 13. “My father used it as a threat if I didn’t obey his sexual abuse,” she says, adding that girls and women may face the horrifying dilemma of deciding between Dar al-Reaya and staying in an abusive home.

“They make it impossible for others to help women fleeing abuse. I know a woman who was sentenced to six months in jail because she helped a victim of violence. Giving shelter in the case of a woman charged for ‘absenteeism’ is a crime in Saudi Arabia.

“If you are sexually abused or get pregnant by your brother or father you are the one sent to Dar al-Reaya to protect the family’s reputation,” she says.

Amina*, 25, says she sought refuge in a ‘care home’ in Buraydah, a city in central Saudi Arabia, after being beaten by her father. She says the building was “old, crumbling and unsettling” and the staff “cold and unhelpful”. They belittled her experience, says Amina, telling her other girls had it “far worse” and were “chained at home” and told her to “thank God my situation wasn’t that bad”

The next day, staff summoned her father, says Amina, but did little to protect her. “They asked both of us to write down our ‘conditions’. I requested not to be beaten or forced into marriage, and to be allowed to work. My father demanded that I respect everyone, never leave the house without permission, and always be accompanied by a male escort. I signed out of fear – I didn’t feel I had a choice.”

Once she returned home, Amina says the beatings continued and in the end she was forced to flee into exile. “I remember being utterly alone and terrified. I felt like a prisoner in my own home, with no one to protect me, no one to defend me. It felt like my life didn’t matter, like even if something terrible happened to me, no one would care,” she says.

For young girls, learning to fear Dar al-Reaya starts from a young age. Shams* says she was 16 when a woman who had been in one of the care homes was brought to her school. She told the class that she had started a relationship with a boy and was caught by the religious police and made to confess to her father. After she became pregnant her family disowned her and the father refused to allow her to marry, so she was sent to Dar al-Reaya. “She told us, if a woman has sex or a relationship she becomes a ‘cheap woman’. If you are a man you will always be a man, but if a woman makes herself cheap, she will be cheap for life.”

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oh.. this writer snapped

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Actually being homosexual is terribly normal. It's the most boring shit ever. It doesn't make anyone special or interesting or exciting and it says absolutely nothing about them as a person or about their political views and opinions. It's not even interesting. It's normal.

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one thing i dont think we talk enough about is how pretty much every sex ed resource for lesbian teens tells them they should be open to sex with male partners

i remember being 14/15 and googling how lesbian sex worked and just being confronted with site after site telling me that lesbian sex sometimes includes a penis and it was uninclusive and closed minded to think otherwise :)))

i guarantee you no girl or woman searching for lesbian sex ed resources is looking for advice on how to blow a guy or have piv intercourse, theyre looking for advice about sexual relationships between biologically female partners

i think people underestimate how ashamed and broken it made me and other lesbians feel to read that over and over. after reading those resources i felt so hopeless that i tried to force myself to be asexual because it was the only socially acceptable way to rule out having a male partner

constantly adding these ~helpful reminders~ is like telling lesbians that they just haven't met the right guy yet, and there is no context in which they should forget it

some of these were government affiliated websites insisting that exclusive homosexuality didnt exist, or at the very least that it was unthinkable and unpeakable

its a very impactful and insidious form of homophobia

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We talk a lot about how it’s homophobic to tell lesbians that they need to be open to dating males.

But by focusing on on how harmful this is to lesbians, we leave bisexuals behind.

Many trans people have an attitude of “If lesbians/gay men don’t want me, at least bisexuals do.” And that’s just not true, and not fair to bisexuals. It leads to a culture of expecting bisexual women to be okay with any configuration of biological sex, hormonal status, and body parts.

Bisexuals are therefore framed as a group of women who are supposed to be available as a potential partner for anyone who wants them.

So it’s not just homophobic, it’s part of rape culture. Because it aims to teach (mostly) women that they’re not allowed to form their own feelings about their sexuality and their attraction. It teaches women that their sexuality isn’t for them. Their sexuality is a political statement, and there is a right and wrong statement to make.

The fact of the matter is that no one has to date someone they’re not attracted to. No one has to try to develop attraction for someone they’re not innately interested in. No one has to “examine their preferences” when it comes to who they want in their bed. This includes bisexuals.

Yes, women standing up for ourselves does lead to a lot of lonely mtfs who can’t get dates. No, that is not women’s problem.

This affects all of us, but it affects bisexuals in a unique way that’s worth talking more about.

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It's a long read, but worth it.

Another win for JK Rowling

And she deals with this shit day after day, comment after comment.

She deserves a commendation and a medal of bravery

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“Male culture ensures that women’s anger is not taken seriously (and thus that women’s anger will not lead to social change) by defining anger in women as pathological. Broverman et al. (1972) found that mental health professionals judged aggression to be a trait associated with a healthy man, but not a healthy woman. Feinblatt and Gold (1976) found that more girls than boys were referred to children’s mental health centers for being defiant and verbally aggressive. Aggressive girls described in hypothetical case studies were rated both by graduate students in psychology and by parents as more disturbed, as being more in need of treatment, and as having poorer prognosis than boys described with identical problems. Hochschild (1983) found that males who displayed anger were thought to have deeply held convictions, while females were considered personally unstable.”

— Dee L. R. Graham, Loving to Survive (via reading-blog)

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smthing i can just never believe when ppl (mostly twitter users) complain about a girl character being made to look 'mannish' or 'masculine' and talk about the death of femininity and every time i get excited and think 'oh okay cool did we get a butch character or-' and its literally jusg a regular fucking woman like you would see at the grocery store. like jusyt a normal woman

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https://www.thecut.com/2018/11/im-broke-and-friendless-and-ive-wasted-my-whole-life.html

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Like y'all need to understand that nobody was nonbinary, and then queer discourse on tumblr got popular, and then everyone was nonbinary

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trans activists: cis gays are a disease

trans activists: i hate cis f*ggots

trans activists: cis lesbians deserve to be raped

republicans: i agree. let’s re-ban same-sex marriage

trans activists: OH MY GOD DO THE TERFS SEE WHAT THEY’VE DONE DO THEY SEE THE BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT

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i hate seeing people drink the openai/chatgpt koolaid 😭😭😭 genuinely feels like watching someone get seduced by scientology or qanon or something. like girl help it's not intelligent it's Big Autocomplete it's crunching numbers it's not understanding things i fuckign promise you. like ohhh my god the marketing hype fuckign GOT you

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women be like “I’m nonbinary I can finally get a haircut”

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Ahem

Do not take them out unless you absolutely have to.