Notices by rowan {chaosfem node} (storybead@chaosfem.tw)

If the only people who wore “protect trans kids” buttons and t shirts were trans kids, I guarantee there wouldn’t be much of a market for them. And yet we see them.

Wear a damned t shirt. Put on a pin. Put a flag in your profile. I want to see people put even one tenth of their necks out that I do every damned day.

And, yes, don’t stop with that. Put the meaning behind your pin, and actually make a safe place for me. You’re afraid of rainbow washing and meaningless symbolic gestures? We’ll make them have some meaning. But if you don’t have the guts to give me a sign so simple as a pin, what does that say for anything else?

When I walk into the climbing gym and I see a pride and a trans flag prominently displayed, that tells me something.

When I sign up for your event and the form has a place for pronouns, that tells me something.

When I walk by your desk and see a trans pin nestled amongst your personal stuff, that tells me something.

When you hang a progress pride flag in your front window, that tells me something.

Maybe you can’t back any of that up. Maybe it’s just words. Maybe you’ll run when the danger comes. But those things tell me that you’ve at least thought about me and where I am, even a little bit. I’m not going to build my foundation on them, but I will see them.

"What if I conceived of activism as a palliative endeavor, rather than one guided by a utopic end? ... Something of a ritual, and much of a prayer. Its goal is to ease pains, like a balm after the sun; to cultivate comfort and love among the suffering. How do you help in a world of fire? What do you do when you run out of water? Cuddle and fuck. Aren’t the flames pretty? Let them set the mood. Suck dick. Eat pussy. Build a bookcase. Write a poem for the friend you’re crushing on. Kiss your lover under a rain that pours like nails from heaven; leave your damp clothes on the floor and shower with your bodies held together for warmth like mousebirds. Love one another—because the world sure fucking won’t. Palliative activism is a joyful or, at least, content pessimism. Maybe even an optimistic fatalism. Or fatalistic optimism—I don’t know what words mean anymore. If we are doomed to suffer, maybe we can ensure that there will be love among the suffering."

- Gender/Fucking, Florence Ashley

@EmilyGB2023 @DivineKestrel @bridget I've been at my place for 12 years, and people think that's because it might a great place. It's not awful, but it's nothing special, but I'm fucking terrified of running the interview gauntlet again. I tried that a couple years ago, and it was clear people were looking for young rockstars who wanted to prove how much trivia they know.

Me? I take a broom and clean up the mess that everyone leaves behind, I make sure that things work, I write down the damned documentation and keep it in order (not that anybody ever reads it), I know where the bodies are buried and why what you're trying to do doesn't work in this particular knackered environment, I do special tasks for other teams because the interfaces are written by tech jerkwads who think if you're not also a tech jerkwad you might as well leave the industry.

And then I reduce my hours, go part time, and go out to circus where I can actually find *joy*.

@EmilyGB2023 @DivineKestrel @bridget “I will use this cool inscrutable feature of python because it seems cool. But I won’t bother to use standard exception handling because who needs that shit.”

Instagram ads think I’m transfem. Facebook ads think I’m transmasc. I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere. I just want big flowy skirts, and no one seems to give me ads for those.

@erin

nobody:
me: France France Revolution

@terraboops @ariadne I’d like the basic model that mostly doesn’t speak except to amplify any ideas I’ve already described. I’m not sure I’d trust anything else it says.