The only thing I care about is: Will this be enough to pull critical mass from Twitter? I don't think I'll ever join, because twitter life made me very unhappy, but the sooner journalists and high-volume celebs move off twitter, the sooner it can be relegated to Truth Social 2 and that, I think, will make the world a slightly better place.
The proper term is "gay" outside of a clinical context. You would think someone concerned about homophobic language would know this. And also "butthurt" is not an anti-gay slur. But enjoy your trolling!
People are weird. But also, as an old, the influencer economy is so funny to me. Either they're accepting money/gifts/promotion to "influence" on behalf products, in which case they are just going to stop taking the money? Or they're editorially pure and they're just going to stop supporting a product they have previously genuinely endorsed because more people can enjoy it? It's all dumb.
At my urging, my husband tried making miso caramel and it turned out amazing. Great on ice cream. But also: miso latte
At my urging, my husband tried making miso caramel and it turned out amazing. Great on ice cream. But also: miso latte
I hate it in movies when the crime boss just casually executes a henchman for, like, giving him cold coffee because I always thought, "Why would you work for this guy when you know he'll just murder you for no reason whenever he feels like it? So unrealistic!" But I guess it's not!
It's so funny to me that none of these people seem to have any idea what they're mad about.
I love the line about "we have 30 tools for [preventing this thing that keeps happening from happening] ". It's marketing-speak all the way down. Like, wow! Thirty tools!
I didn't say they were scared of gay people. I said they were scared of reality, which includes gay people, America's history of racism, global warming, and scientists who know more than they do. These things threaten their identity, which can feel like actual physical danger. Certainly, the powerful and sleazy opportunists have used demonization of out-groups to manipulate the masses since the beginning of time, but I don't think these maniacs screaming about pronouns at schoolboard meetings are pretending at gay panic as a clever ruse while they calmly and knowingly execute a fascism. My husband recently peeked at the facebook of one of his MAGA cousins and she is a maniac. There is nothing strategic about her behavior. She is wrapped up in an ecstasy of hate, driven by fear. It's an old joke, but she is literally terrified that trans Muslims are going to sneak across the border to forcibly inject her with 5G. Literally.
And to be clear: I don't care what is going on in their heads. It is unknowable. What I care about is how they are understood and defined by the ambient culture, and my recommendation is to relentlessly portray them as scared diaper babies desperate for their government daddy to come and save them from the big scary world.
We have to keep repeating this: These people are terrified of reality and think that it is everyone's job to protect them from the real world. I don't know if it's helpful to use the term "snowflake", but it is apt. Queer people exist in the world. There is no doubt. Trans people exist in the world. The Civil Rights movement occurred and was a big part of US history, as was slavery. If someone's religion says that ham is a sin, we don't ban it from school cafeterias. That, as we say, is a you problem. We have got to start hammering home that these people are afraid of reality and want big government to protect them from it. And we also have to start saying "Tough shit. Grow up. Learn to deal with the rest of the world or hide in your basement. I give zero fucks."
Here's something you may not know: When you are gay, you have to come out constantly. That's why famous people "announce" that they are gay. And let me assure you, gay people do not want to be the constant subject of public debate. We are the constant subject of public debate because people hate us and want us to die. And because people who maybe don't hate us or want us to die are really obsessed with making sure that those people have platforms on social media and other mainstream media platforms. So, if it's really wearing you down to hear about all these different kinds of people, maybe go yell at some bigots and the people who platform them?
"Business people" don't contribute anything to society and should be thrown into a dumpster.
Really wish we could stop with the "openly gay". If you know somebody is gay, then they are out. If they aren't out, you shouldn't call them gay - with an exception for anti-gay bigots who should be called "probably gay bigot". It's minor thing, but I feel like this terminology fuels the right wing propaganda that gay people could just not exist if we weren't so stubborn.
Also, if employers know that you could quit tomorrow and have housing, food, and health care while you look for another job, they would be incentivized to make it not so shitty to work there.
It's sounds like we're fundamentally in agreement, but I don't even see the big deal if every once in a while there is one trans girl playing in a competitive youth league. Sure you could argue that there's only so many spots on the team, so maybe some cis girl who would have made it loses out. But if you're the 20th best player and you get cut because there's one trans girl? I mean, you're the 20th best player, you're probably not going to be at the top of the recruiters list. I just feel like this time is so fraught for trans people. There are so many powerful forces literally trying to destroy them, I really don't think we need to worry about hypothetical potential future slippery slopes in kids athletics. Once trans people feel safe, and ideologues aren't using sports as a wedge issue to promote anti-trans panic, I'm sure we can come up with equitable solutions for these edge cases.
In competitive youth swimming, which I did as a child, the age groups are like 11-12, 13-14, 15-16. So, it was possible for someone who was 12 a week ago to swim against someone who turns 15 next week - a HUGE difference in terms of physical development. And if your birthday happens to fall in the weeks before the big championship meet every year, you are always at the bottom or middle of your age bracket for your entire childhood, never at the top. But the specifics don't even matter. Age groups and grade classifications are to try to make things a little more fair so that little kids aren't swimming against basically adults. But it's not in any way perfectly fair. And also, it doesn't matter! Let kids play sports and get the benefits of that activity. Your kid's team winning - or losing - some sports game in 10th grade doesn't matter. Keeping this girl from playing volleyball isn't fixing any problem. In Utah they made a ban and there were literally 4 trans athletes in the entire state. It's culture war bullshit. And people who start quoting bone density studies or whatever are either falling for it or willingly participating in it.
What is the distribution of athletic performance in volleyball between 14 year olds and an 18 year olds? In high school volleyball, it's perfectly possible for a team made of all 18 year olds who are 6 feet tall to play a team that is all 14 year olds that are 5 feet tall. The idea that without the participation of trans girls, high school volleyball is completely equitable is ridiculous. High school sports are for fun, learning teamwork and discipline, and fitness. Who wins a high school volleyball game is not important. Certainly it's not more important than the health and safety of trans girls - and non-gender-conforming cis girls who have been and will continued to be tortured by laws like this.
I am a giant music nerd and it is really weird how often I am completely wrong about the year that bands/albums came out. It's pretty much just early 80s vs late 80s for me though.
Ok, so a million years ago me and a friend of mine were in Vegas and checked out Quark's Bar at the Star Trek Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton. And it was great! I drank a dry-ice-powered "warp core" drink. A guy in a Klingon costume messed with me in a cringey but completely perfect "interactive theater" bit. The video screens all had Star Trek visuals playing. Super fun.
Anyway, a couple of years later we thought "Hey, let's go back to Vegas and we'll visit Quarks Bar again!" But we were big enough nerds that we didn't realize when we booked it that it was superbowl weekend. So, all the pro sports gambler types were in town. The "free drinks as long as you are gambling" policy in the casino seemed to be suspended - all the servers ignored us. We had high hopes of escaping to the nerd refuge of Quark's, but when we got there they had football on all of the screens, and a table of "Da Bears" style football dudes started fucking with us for, I don't know, not being manly enough or something. It sucked, but it's kind of funny in retrospect.