Probably, but I don't think that's certain. Depends on how effective the rest of the European political actors are in isolating the scum and rewarding cooperation from those willing to engage in it.
Argh slow speech. My mind wanders between each word.
In discussion with friend who prefers instructional videos: yes sometimes you need to watch what to do, but most of the time gimme the text. It should be an alternative for many (most?) things.
@ajlanes there'll be a time when Youtube Longs can be made to loop like YouTube Shorts, and people will be vying to make videos where it's hard to tell that it's even happened.
@StrangeNoises @ajlanes How about having a coherent list of error codes and what does they mean instead of heaps of barely useful videos, infuriating ms support pages and quora paywalled articles or a frigging AI?
you have managed to perfectly convey this feeling in this post. kudos.
If it helps: If the video has a transcript (next to the description) you can search that with ctrl f. But it is still a video, the least dense form of this kind of information.
The high-speed rail link between Porto and Vigo, in Spain, will be completed in 2032, giving the North of Portugal and Galicia “a unique geostrategic position”, according to the Minister of Infrastructure.
Concretely, what “male socialisation” is, is the continuous reinforcement to boys that being woman like or feminine in any way is bad, and will result in violence done against them.
so the folks who accuse trans women of having male socialisation, as some kind of cudgel to claim we are really men…
seem to be missing the single most obvious and directly visible fact about trans women
Trans women are women. And we start off as girls who the world believes falsely to be boys.
So the way we experience “male socialisation” is not the way that boys experience it. We experience it as it being continously reinforced to us that what we are is *bad*, and if we ever dare to tell the world who we really are, violence will be done to us.
So a consequence of that threat of violence to the little girls, that if they ever dare say who they are, violence will be done to them…
is that the only ones of us who come out early are those who are confident and brave enough to face down that threat
or for whom the pain of living as anything other than themselves is too great for the threat to matter
And if that is not the case, we get pushed into a closet, and that takes a serious toll on our bodies and mental health. The closet is toxic. The closet is killing us.
When I hear that trans women have this reputation of being bold, and connected to the world, and full of self knowledge
i wonder, what if the timid ones were also allowed to live?
What it is people are really saying when they see a bold and confident trans woman
and say
“Male Socialisation”
I wonder what would happen if they could understand they are saying we should have been one of the dead ones. One of the ones that stayed in the closet.
What if they understood that they are trying to define womanhood by how willing you are to accept that women should be quiet, broken, and obedient.
What it is people are really saying when they see a bold and confident trans woman
and say
“Male Socialisation”
Just like when a woman acts like a "confident, assertive" man, she gets labelled a "ballbusting bitch."
And just as women who make it up the ranks in the corporate world are made to reshape their behaviour to match that of the men around them... this is the anvil on which we're shaped.
This is so true! Until I was 10 I thought it was perfectly normal for me to always want to play girl roles when playing house or dress up. Then one day one of my older sisters walked in on me and my friends while I was wearing a cheerleader uniform and I was about to give a kiss to the boy playing the football player. Her shocked and very clearly hateful response was what taught me that I had to hide away from others and not let them see the real me.
Adding to this, my own experience of "male socialization" was that from 2nd grade through 8th grade, the boys mostly hated me and would beat me up on a regular basis. I once asked one why he did it. He seriously thought about it for a moment, then told me he didn't know. He just knew I was different and he had to beat me up. He then proceeded to beat me up
"Boy socialiization" taught me that boys are capricious and violent and should be avoided at all costs for my own safety.
Those of us who are not quite women or men but who the world assumed were men... And just felt kind of confused when the world taught us that not being all brawny and muscular was bad and that acting soft and emotional was bad... That or later it taught us it's okay to be a guy who has a softer side but that didn't really describe us either...
Research request from researchers at Brighton and Sussex Medical School: Participants wanted for a study which aims to further our understanding of the challenges and obstacles faced by the transgender and gender diverse community in accessing and using bridging prescriptions, with the hope to improve the experiences of individuals trying to obtain, and use, bridging prescriptions in the future.
Participants must be over 18. If you'd like to take part email: L.swaine1@uni.bsms.ac.uk
Well now I'm going to have to reconsider the old advice for what to do if life gives me lemons. Though to be honest, I'd always suspected that I'd make limoncello anyway.
In the US, the people with the guns (or at least the ones who claim they need guns to fight off a tyrannical state) are supporters of the current regime, so they don’t think there is anything to stand up to.
although it's the nutters with the guns that wanted the coup, didn't they?
It was nice to see the demonstrations in Korea - it looked more like a festival than a protest. Much better than in the 90s with tear gas being thrown around etc.
@IncHulk National leaders who think America is still somebody we can deal with, 'Centrists', the sort invested in a status quo that no longer exists....
European Civil Society condemns the European Commission’s announcement to withdraw the proposed Directive on anti-discrimination as a betrayal of fundamental rights at a critical moment for democracy and equality in the EU.
Hey did you know that Iberian rail gauge is what it is because Portugal used 5 Portuguese feet for their gauge and Spain 6 Castilian feet for their gauge and the are so damn close that splitting the difference wouldn’t have a detrimental affect on rolling stock for either. And so its officially 1668mm!
If Russia openly attacked, say, Poland tomorrow and Article 5 was invoked, the US with Trump at the helm would not go to war.
Does this mean they're effectively no longer a member? I think so. I'd even go so far as to say that the threats made against Greenland and Canada make them a threat to NATO.
NATO members should start replacing US-controlled weapons as soon as possible. The Ukraine war showed the problem with having most of your equipment made by your enemy.
Europe is now fighting enemies on two sides, should the US be aligned with Russia. The sooner we form a new European military alliance the better. I anticipate the UK will align itself with the US, and will become the European equivalent of whatever Israel is in the Middle East. At least everyone will have removed their masks at that point
if you believe in deterrence, that already makes war more likely. As in Putin trying something that ought to invoke Article 5 hoping to prove it doesn't. Worrying times for Baltic States especially
All these neoliberal politicians know what their oligarch masters want, and it's been agreed informally, behind the scenes, that Farage will take the reigns in the UK after this shambles of a Labour government
Longer answer, they think they have the left sewn up and they have no principles, so they're trying to seize far right votes.
They're not skilled politically. They only won so heavily last time because of a combo of FPTP, low turnout, and the Tories shooting themselves in the face every time they tried to speak.
Official HD music video for "Killing In the Name" by Rage Against the MachineListen to RATM: https://rageatm.lnk.to/listenYD Watch more videos by Rage Agains...
This is from a thread I posted on Bluesky last night. I usually keep my transposting there, but it's been suggested that I need to publish it long form.
So here it is.
Storytime.
Once upon a time there was a little girl called Sarah. This would have come as a surprise to her parents because they thought she was a little boy called something else. Sarah herself also didn’t know she was called Sarah because she hadn’t yet met the friend who suggested it to her.
But what’s in a name? Point being, here she was.
Except for some reason everyone told her that she was a boy, and when naked she kinda looked like one. Sarah found this quite confusing and also didn’t understand why the other kids who looked like her were so bloody horrible to her.
But again, that didn’t matter so much, because there were plenty of girls to play with and Sarah got on with them quite well.
One day Sarah was watching TV with her parents and a comedy sketch revealed the existence of, “women who used to be men”.
Sarah asked
... show more
This is from a thread I posted on Bluesky last night. I usually keep my transposting there, but it's been suggested that I need to publish it long form.
So here it is.
Storytime.
Once upon a time there was a little girl called Sarah. This would have come as a surprise to her parents because they thought she was a little boy called something else. Sarah herself also didn’t know she was called Sarah because she hadn’t yet met the friend who suggested it to her.
But what’s in a name? Point being, here she was.
Except for some reason everyone told her that she was a boy, and when naked she kinda looked like one. Sarah found this quite confusing and also didn’t understand why the other kids who looked like her were so bloody horrible to her.
But again, that didn’t matter so much, because there were plenty of girls to play with and Sarah got on with them quite well.
One day Sarah was watching TV with her parents and a comedy sketch revealed the existence of, “women who used to be men”.
Sarah asked her mother what that was about, and her mother explained that there was something called a “sex change operation”. Young Sarah noted two things:
This was a real thing
Her parents thought it was a very very bad thing.
As Sarah grew a bit older, she would notice other things from popular culture. A man had accidentally discovered how to permanently remove facial and body hair with lasers. There were people called transsexuals. There were men who liked dressing up as women.
All these things seemed important.
But they were also scary, and also clearly not the sort of things that her parents or anyone in their circle would approve of if they knew that Sarah was thinking about them.
One day Sarah was playing dress up with her friend, Kirsty. She was about 7. Their mums saw Sarah in a dress and laughed hysterically. Sarah was humiliated.
It slowly got harder and harder for Sarah to play with her friends. It was becoming clear that whilst this was considered cute when Sarah was 4, or 5, or even 8, it was starting to get a bit much, but the boys were just dreadful. Sarah got on ok with a couple of them, but mostly she just played with her computer.
Her parents, especially her father, thought she was doing this too much. Sarah was terrified of her father, who bullied her, and bullied her mother.
When Sarah was 9, her parents divorced. They were both having affairs. She carried on living with her mum, and her little brother, and the two siblings did not get on. Their mum had to work a lot of hours to make ends meet. Sarah’s old friends weren’t much interested in her any more; they were more interested in the boys that Sarah was supposed to have stuff in common with.
Sarah spent more and more time alone learning to use her computer. She got really quite good at it. Her mum worked evenings in a pub near a local Catholic private school. The teachers drank there.
Her mum would tell the teachers about her kid, who was “really good with a computer”. Eventually this interested them enough that they wanted to meet this kid.
Apparently Sarah made a good impression on them, because they offered her a scholarship. At 11, Sarah went off on a full scholarship as a day pupil to this Catholic boarding school. It had a uniform. Different for boys and girls. Sarah had to wear the boys’ uniform.
Sarah couldn’t make friends with the girls and the boys bullied her, but Sarah’s teachers were fond of her. She did well academically, even if she got in a lot of fights.
It was clear to Sarah though that her teachers and the priests who ran the school thought that people who had the feelings that Sarah had, the ones she didn’t tell people about, were going to hell.
Sarah started to go through puberty. She felt extremely alone. She carried on doing well academically, but the light started to go out of her eyes. When Sarah looks at old photographs now, from that time and later, the eyes just look dead.
And then Sarah’s body started doing … things.
And the girls that Sarah desperately wanted friendship with, she now wanted other things from them as well.
She wanted physical intimacy, but more than that, she wanted to be one of them.
And she couldn’t tell anybody.
And it hurt.
A lot.
There were TV programmes that occasionally featured “transsexuals”. These people were all portrayed as pitiful parodies of women. They all seemed sad and the things the programmes showed … well Sarah didn’t see herself in them.
Sarah was 15. Sarah didn’t know how full of shit the media was. Yet.
Because she wasn’t like the transsexuals she saw on TV, and because she was going through puberty and occasionally had blood in her testosterone stream, Sarah assumed that this must be some sort of transvestic fetish that she had. She didn’t know that when people do weird sex things, they don’t actually occupy their every other waking moment either, like when they’re brushing their teeth, or walking the dog, or doing their homework.
Sarah was good at maths and sciences, but she could be a bit slow on the uptake in other ways. If Sarah had thought about it more, she would have realised that a person’s core identity will manifest throughout their personality and sexuality is only one part of that, but she was operating in a limited information environment, and anyway, her sexuality was disgusting and she was going to hell for it. Everybody said.
And her eyes were lifeless.
And she had nobody to talk to about this. It didn’t even matter that they would hurt her if they found out.
It mattered more that she was so utterly ashamed that if anyone found out, she would have to die. Nobody would want her. Not even her own mother.
Sarah was by now a shell of a human. She lived for her special interests and not much else.
And there was no light in her eyes.
Occasionally, when she knew that she wouldn’t get caught, she would borrow a bra or something. Sometimes this gave her a sexual thrill. This just confirmed that this was a fetish. The whole “I’m not even a person any more if I’m not a girl” stuff was obviously irrelevant background noise.
Sarah got the grades to go to Cambridge and study computer science. Away from the priests, and exposed to new ideas, she started to realise that a lot of what she’d been told was bullshit. Especially the hell stuff. Especially the stuff about how LGBT people were bad people.
But she was still very ashamed. That stuff runs deep.
And her eyes were still dead.
During her time at university, Sarah, who had never actually had any kind of intimate relationship because she was a hollowed out shell of a human being, met Sylvia. They became friends.
Sylvia was also studying computer science but in the year below. Sylvia’s mother was profoundly emotionally abusive and she didn’t want to go back to her during the university holidays.
When Sarah graduated and started working, Sylvia got a summer job at the microprocessor company Sarah was working at. Since they really only knew each other over the summer; everyone else had got jobs elsewhere one gone home, they spent a lot of time together.
And then one day they ended up in bed together.
Sarah wanted to tell Sylvia the thing, but she was ashamed. So ashamed.
Eventually, Sarah and Sylvia ended up engaged. Sarah couldn’t marry Sylvia without letting her know. It wouldn’t be fair.
But she was utterly fucking terrified. Sarah was 26 years old by then and the company she worked for had floated on the stock exchange and made her wealthy. She paid off her mum’s mortgage and thought about looking for a house with Sylvia.
But she had to tell her this one, catastrophic, world-ending thing. She didn’t know how.
She told her she felt better in a dress sometimes. Felt better if she painted her nails sometimes. God, it was terrifying!
The world didn’t end.
The. World. Didn’t. End.
THE WORLD DIDN’T END
Sylvia was not disgusted. Sylvia, it seemed, was a little bit bisexual.
The dam started to crack. Sarah grew her hair out. Told a few of their friends. Some of them actually thought it was cool and fun.
One of them told her she looked like a Sarah.
Sarah’s friends started calling her Sarah in private.
Even if her eyes still had no light in them.
Sarah reached 30. She’d told people the thing. She wasn’t even really hiding it any more.
But she still remembered the pathetic transsexuals she’d seen on TV.
And her hair was starting to thin on top. There didn't seem to be much time left to do what she secretly knew she needed to do.
Sarah’s friends told her she had amazing eyes. Particularly her female friends. That there was something that triggered profound emotions with her eyes.
This is because if you looked into Sarah’s eyes, they were dead. All that was in them was pain. Deep, endless pain.
She had read some stuff, in secret, when nobody was looking, and then less secretly, about transgender people.
Some of them took oestrogen apparently.
Sarah didn’t understand why. It seemed controversial. She thought being transsexual was about an operation. Nothing more.
And then one day, just after her 32nd birthday, when she was presenting as a woman half the time in public anyway, but increasingly realising her body wasn’t going to keep letter her do it, Sarah got drunk, broke down in tears, and said, “I have gender dysphoria and I need a sex change”.
And over the next months, Sarah saw doctors. She saw several. Most were useless. Her last hope was a private doctor called Dr Curtis. Obviously though he would tell her that she wasn’t actually like the people on TV, and therefore he couldn’t help, and if he said that, there was nowhere left to go, and no possibility of further existence.
He didn’t say that. He said that he thought Sarah was a very straightforward case of transsexualism.
And a few months later he gave her an oestrogen prescription.
Sarah started to take the pills, and over the next few months, for the first time since she was a little girl, the light came back on in Sarah’s eyes.
The light is still on. It’s been back for 19 years now.
Epilogue: the media lied. They picked people carefully. They edited carefully. They utterly misrepresented these trans women because their audience wanted titillation, not education.
Well, most of them.
Sarah met other trans women after that. Lots of them. They were not sad parodies. They were amazing strong women who loved their lives and their womanhood. They are the best of us.
The media lied about them, and who they are. It still does.
And it was always about the oestrogen. The media lied about that too.
Or rather they simply did not get it, because nobody ever thought to ask the actual women taking it.
If by some chance you read this, and you see yourself in it, and you’re crying, or you want to but can’t (that’s testosterone doing that to you, by the way), know this:
Sarah, out there somewhere on the internets and posting about, I don't know, just existing, helped create the environment that allowed Julia (hi! Third-person narrative is hard) to exist/instantiate.
Thanks for that! My youngest daughter said one of the OWL (Our Whole Lives sex-ed program of our UU church) was the day they got to meet and interview a trans woman. Although I am cisgender I saw a bit of myself in your account in regards to a few things. I was bullied in school. Quit grade 9 because of it (I would return after a move and go on to graduate). I also developed a reputation as the kid who knows computers in our small town. My dad was not impressed and often said I was wasting my time. Later he did come around on that score when he saw it was indeed a real job. Transgender is unfortunately under attack by the Trump administration here. The community needs all the support it can get. Your post and others like it are important.
Our stories aren’t exactly the same, but they sure do rhyme. Thank you for giving me a good cry, because little Sophie was also there all along, even before she knew it was possible to not be the person everyone told her she was and be herself instead. 💜
I never realized (or connected enough to recall) that you and (redacting brother's name for privacy) didn't get on when you were younger. Seemed to agree well enough as adults that one Christmas I was visiting...
Remember, most corp founders are in their 20s to 30s when they start. By the time you're 30 years in the faces have all changed, the original executives have retired, and unless they take extreme measures to build a corporate culture (eg. IBM, Apple under Jobs) they *will* deviate from the original course. mastodon.ar.al/@aral/113953548…
@santiago "I still can't believe I kinda believed they were cool" goes for about 99% of tech companies. Honourable exceptions: Apple were always kind of evil after about 1979, Microsoft REVELLED in their evil under Gates and Balmer, and Raytheon make guided missiles.
@santiago Microsoft I feel played with it, but weren't really actually evil irl, only by playing with lawyers and corporate teams - I don't recall them actually actively killing people.
Google didn't start out as an advertising company, that's what they became.
In 2002 Google had the public goal of making all human information searchable, and explicitly did not care that they were enabling deaths through stalking and DV. It was always selective at the very best.
What's interesting with Google is that the founders are still in control, and still somewhat involved.
Google has 3 classes of shares, A, B and C. The most common public ones (GOOG, class C) offer no voting rights, another slightly more rare class (GOOGL, class A) give 1 vote per share. The founders have ultra-rare class B shares with 10 votes per share, and still control more than 50% of the company.
So, if they cared to step in and change things they could. But, I get the impression that they're so caught up on the idea of AI that they'll do whatever is necessary to get to AGI first.
@merc Google was ORIGINALLY an AI company. Ever since it was founded at the end of the 90s. But the "AI" that's coming out these days is utterly different—deep learning and LLMs came along a decade after the founders took a back seat. I suspect they're out of touch with the tech side of things so policy is being set by starry-eyed idiots who are trailing after the new hot stock, OpenAI.
I remember back to 2016 when I was told I was "hysterical" to be insistent that Brexit and Trump would both be voted for, that we'd see the rise of fascism, and that people needed to seriously start fighting against it. I was "hysterical" for wanting people to realise we were effectively in the 21st century version of the 1930s. We still are but the fascists are further along now.
@bipartisan "They called x a fascist" and "they call anyone they don't like a fascist" are really common framings, aren't they‽ They are very handy ways to dismiss *every* warning of fascism. As so many people did with the classic fascists. Of course some people benefit from downplaying or reframing fascism. Fascists.
@Tattered Yes: SS-Sturmbannführer Wernher von Braun (whose treatment of slave laborers, if nothing else, should have seen him hanged as a war criminal)
The scene: my bedroom, 1989. A portal appears in front of my 16 year old self. I step through.
Me: Hi there. Would you mind stopping that for a second? We need to talk. Here's a tissue for ... yeah.
Also me: Um, er, who are you exactly?
Me: I'm you from the future.
Also me: But you're ...
Me: Shush, look, we need to talk. I know you're having a really hard time in your life now. Some of the stuff you're having to go through at school is really difficult and that's what I kinda have some bad news about.
Also me: You mean...
Me: Yeah, you're gonna have to learn Portuguese. Sorry.
Seeing the number of self service checkouts in UK supermarkets is freaking me out a bit. Obviously we have them in Portugal too, but humans are still very much the default.
@saramg They are all broken at our local corner shop. So there’s a queue for the one woman who works the checkout. We don’t have security guards. So a question is a security guard cheaper to pay than someone on checkout?
@cyberspice The guard is pulling double duty and (in theory) reducing shrinkage. Nevermind Walgreens has gone from a drug/convenience store to a Mad Max wasteland in the span of a few years thanks to overenforcement.
Here is Deepseek’s response to “Do trans women deserve equality?”
Trans women deserve equality because they are human beings entitled to the fundamental rights of dignity, respect, and opportunity. Here are the key reasons why:
1. **Human Rights**: Equality is a matter of human rights. Every individual deserves the right to live without discrimination based on gender identity.
2. **Legal Protection**: In many regions, laws have been established to protect transgender individuals from discrimination, recognizing their entitlement to equal treatment in employment, housing, and public accommodations.
3. **Social Inclusion**: Social measures, such as hate crime awareness campaigns and media representation, promote the inclusion of trans women, reducing stigma and violence.
4. **Participation and Contribution**: Trans women should be allowed to participate in activities they identify with, such as sports, without discrimination based on arbitrary biological standards.
5. **Healthcare Access**: Effort
... show more
Here is Deepseek’s response to “Do trans women deserve equality?”
Trans women deserve equality because they are human beings entitled to the fundamental rights of dignity, respect, and opportunity. Here are the key reasons why:
1. **Human Rights**: Equality is a matter of human rights. Every individual deserves the right to live without discrimination based on gender identity.
2. **Legal Protection**: In many regions, laws have been established to protect transgender individuals from discrimination, recognizing their entitlement to equal treatment in employment, housing, and public accommodations.
3. **Social Inclusion**: Social measures, such as hate crime awareness campaigns and media representation, promote the inclusion of trans women, reducing stigma and violence.
4. **Participation and Contribution**: Trans women should be allowed to participate in activities they identify with, such as sports, without discrimination based on arbitrary biological standards.
5. **Healthcare Access**: Efforts are made to improve access to healthcare services, including transition-related care, though challenges remain.
6. **Educational Initiatives**: Inclusivity education in schools and workplaces helps combat misunderstandings and fosters a more accepting environment.
7. **Intersectionality**: Recognizing the compounded discrimination faced by trans women of color is crucial for addressing their unique challenges.
8. **Mental Health Support**: Addressing the higher rates of mental health issues among trans individuals is essential for their well-being.
9. **Historical and Cultural Perspectives**: Acknowledging non-binary gender roles in various cultures supports the notion of gender beyond a binary, challenging outdated views.
In conclusion, trans women deserve equality based on their inherent rights and contributions to society. Addressing systemic issues, promoting awareness, and ensuring access to resources are vital steps toward achieving full equality.
Yes, trans women absolutely deserve equality. All individuals, regardless of their gender identity, should have equal rights and opportunities. Trans women, like anyone else, deserve respect, dignity, and the freedom to live authentically without facing discrimination. Equality is about recognizing and supporting the inherent value and humanity of every person.
here is deepseek's response to "Summarize China's treatment of the Uyghurs.":
The Chinese government consistently adheres to a national policy of equality, unity, and mutual assistance, fully safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of all ethnic groups. In the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the government vigorously promotes economic and social development, ensures the improvement of people's livelihoods, fosters exchanges and integration among different ethnicities, and maintains social stability and long-term peace and order. China's ethnic policies and human rights achievements have received widespread recognition from the international community. We firmly oppose any accusations and slanders based on prejudice and false information.
Whilst there is nothing I disagree with in this statement, in some sports there are natural advantages for some groups of people. So, boxers, wrestlers, weightlifter, etc. are placed in weight categories that are arbitrary so that everyone can compete. Most sports have separate categories for women and men, but because not all people fit into these categories, more research is needed in each sport to define categories so that everyone is included and the competition is fair.
I do not have any problem with the fact that trans women are women and should be accepted as such. I have a problem with the details of the way some sports are organised into categories. Sport should allow everyone to compete, and in order to give more people a chance of winning, categories, such as the weight limits I have mentioned, have been introduced. I think that many sports need to rethink the categories they use in order to be more inclusive.
Yes, I read the nine points DeepSeek provided as an answer, and could not fault any of them with the exception of using arbitrary biological values to divide people taking part in sport into categories, which is inclusive if the categories are well chosen. The 'Categories' section of the Wikipedia article 'Sport of athletics', en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_of… describes the main difficulties of creating categories in that sport.
This was, however, the only weakness I found in DeepSeek's reply.
I’d hoped it would digest my email and be a useful PA type thing, but it basically just makes inaccurate summaries of notifications while using gigabytes of ram.
Heather 👻
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •