Notices by Cait the Proud Trans Woman (oldladyplays@wargamers.social), page 2

One more little language note.

When a radicalised right wing killer murders a lawmaker and her spouse, and tries to murder another lawmaker and his spouse, then there already exists a word for that. It's not "political violence". It's not "extremist". It's not "lone wolf".

It's *terrorism*. You would think that a country that started a WAR against a concept, would recognise when that concept is knocking on doors and shooting people through them.

The definition of terrorism is "non-state violence in aid of a political goal". That one could use some work, but it's good enough for today.

Today, we had a killer with known political allegiance, murder one and try to murder another lawmaker from the opposition party to his, along with two other people.

So that'd be yer non-state violence, then, and yer political goal. See, there's yer problem. You got terrorism.

Anyone want to guess the chances that this person, when found, will be given a terrorism enhancement to his sentence, if convicted at all?

Or that he'd be pardoned by Trump?

The man they're hunting is a homegrown terrorist.

@jianmin @futurebird

That's news to my US vet friends. The most recent left the service two years ago, and they most certainly did drill. It's part of basic training, and it's used all the time in ordinary interactions. It's not taught for the reason it was taught in 1750, for sure, but it is absolutely taught.

Because it's a vehicle for introducing raw recruits into acting as a unit, following orders immediately and without hesitation, functioning cohesively with your foxhole buddies...it's a simple but very effective training technique on the path of creating soldiers out of civilians.

Similar rituals occur, for instance, in Japanese corporate culture, with mass fitness exercises and award ceremonies with organised standing, to enhance team feeling and corporate loyalty.

So when I see a whole unit marching completely out of step, in a formal unit parade? Followed by three out of four other units in the parade doing the same? That's no accident. We simply disagree, I'm afraid. Which is fine. :)

@futurebird

Oh, you're absolutely right. This is just about..knowledge of the methods of training and the automatic nature of drill movements once you learn them. You don't just discard them because you forgot.

I mean, just for clarification, I was thrown out of the Canadian Forces in an anti-queer purge 39 years ago. I have not drilled in all that time.

But I just checked. I can still do all the basic manoeuvres, and some of the more complex ones, right off the bat. Give me two minutes with an instructor, I'd have it all back. I remember the full procedure for dressing the line (a complex move where you make the line both straight and evenly spaced).

This is not something you just...forget. It's not something you have to focus on doing. It becomes automatic. That they're not doing it, while walking in formation, is a deliberate choice.

Just saw video of Trumpy's Big Birthday Blowout.

I was completely stunned to see the soldiers marching. Because they weren't marching. They were out for a stroll. No one was walking in step, half of them didn't even do a basic eyes left move when they passed the review stand. That's one of the most simple drill evolutions there is, you literally just *turn your head* and keep marching.

I know, I'm not US military, but drill is drill. It's been the way it is for about 300 years, since the evolution of firearms as a major weapon of war, for old reasons that don't really matter, having to do with the accuracy of those early firearms. It's retained for its ability to build cohesion, discipline, and quick instinctive response to orders.

And drill has a look to it. This was not that.

For me, that was a signal: "We don't want to be here either. We're not with him. We're here because we're good troops, and we do what we're ordered when it's a legal order. But he can't make us respect him."

Just to interpret what you can see for yourselves on the video. A good half of those troops are *not* on Trump's side.

Any vets out there want to chime in?

Why I Still Call Myself a Lesbian

Because even though I came out in the early 90s, the height of lesbian separatism (the idea that penises, and people who had them, were the problem), I was never rejected by the lesbian community. They accepted me among them, saw that I fought for all the same things they did, and always supported me for the most part (some didn't, sure). They heard me the other day at Pride call myself a trans pan lesbian, and they cheered in the audience.

They heard my story, and saw their own, warped by transphobia. It wasn't true for everyone, but it happened sometimes.

Over the years, even the most ardent separatists have changed, or retreated from the greater lesbian community as their views became rejected.

The TERFs have taken their place, but they're a small minority. They just are. They've got a lot of willing commerce-driven allies in the media (if it bleeds, it leads), so they get a lot of attention, but they're not anywhere near as numerous as they want you to think.

So this response by UK lesbian activists on behalf of trans women is exactly what I'd expect from my fellow dykes. Couldn't be prouder to see them make a stand for queerness.

https://xtramagazine.com/power/activism/uk-lesbians-supreme-court-transphobia-274301

FYI: Calling a protest "a riot" is fascist behaviour. Protesters have a right to protest. It is in our Constitutions. The police do *not* have the right to stop them. That is blatantly the government restricting the right to free expression and the right to peaceably assemble.

So when the protesters are there, chanting and waving signs and otherwise doing what protesters do, IT IS THE POLICE WHO ARE IN THE WRONG. Their job is *not* to decide the demonstration is no longer "permitted". The right isn't something you can take away.

So when those police begin lobbing and shooting weapons at the protesters, THEY ARE THE ONES ACTING ILLEGALLY. They are literally the government not allowing people their rights. They are the redcoats here. They represent the King's tyrannical authority.

So never, ever call it a riot. A riot is an unreasoning mob, using violence to achieve their aims.

A protest that is attacked by police is "citizens taking up their right to self-defence when someone tries to violate their rights illegally."

Language matters here, folks. Don't accept their language. Call things what they are, not what they want you to think they are.

Also, "violence" against property is not violence. It is tortious, not criminal. Violence is what happens to *people*.

@lxo

Thank you! I don't read Portuguese, but I do read Spanish well enough that I could muddle through it and get about 40%. She's amazing! What a wonderful story.

@WrenArcher

I love Fediverse. Thanks everyone!

:D

Rats - someone posted about a book yesterday, about lost stories of trans life between 1850 and 1950. I really wanted to get it, and completely forgot to note the name of the book, or the author.

Does anyone remember what I'm talking about? I would have seen it on my feed about 13:30 GMT yesterday (going off the email I wrote excitedly about it to a friend).

I've tried scrolling back, but that's over a thousand posts back on my timeline, and I don't have the patience for that.

EDIT: Timeline beats search engine, every time. Thank you, my friends.

The book is Before Gender, by Eli Erlick.

I'm going to stake out what will sound like a radical position, and make my argument for why it isn't at all radical, but common-sense response to a simple problem.

When someone decides to transition, the way it should go is, "I am doing this with my body, and if you don't like it, mind your business."

That's it. Then start hormones, if you want them. Change your name and your gender marker, if you want. Get surgeries if you want. Or not, to all of that.

Because gatekeeping is fundamentally immoral. On what basis does *anyone* claim the right to tell me what I can do or not do with MY body in MY one life?

Why? Because gender-affirming care is already fully legal in the US, everywhere.

For cis people.

You're a cis woman and want breast augmentation? Get in there and get cut, baby.

Erectile dysfunction? We have a range of drugs to help.

Vaginal dryness? Here's progesterone.

Low T? We got you, bud.

Losing your hair? Here's your finasteride.

We don't blink an eye at these obvious instances of gender-affirming care, because they're for cis people.

But try to get affirmed in a gender you weren't coerced into? Whoa! You'll need to see some GATEKEEPERS about that, you're not old enough to make that decision for yourself!

(note that reproductive care, on the other hand, is NOT available everywhere in the US)

It is nothing but transphobia, and if you back that system, you're doing a transphobic thing.

That means if a trans girl needs you to lie and say they always played with girly things because they're facing a gatekeeper, you lie your face off for them.

If a trans guy needs top surgery to feel right, but has to prove his gender, you can tell whatever comforting lies the gatekeeper needs to hear to soothe their wobbly guts.

It is not immoral to refuse to participate in an immoral system. It is, in fact, a moral imperative to fight against it.

Wanna be an ally? This is one way to help.

Just for the record...

...have paid taxes
...have had jobs my whole life
...used to play football, baseball, and hockey
...wrote standup comic poetry
...have had several long-term relationships
...went to the bathroom unassisted this very morning, just like every time

First, autism is a spectrum. To make claims about all autistic people because you've met one is a pretty big logic error.

Second, autism isn't a disease, so it can't be an epidemic. Better surveillance of young humans has improved our detection abilities, and we catch it more readily than we used to.

Third, we should be accommodating the needs of autistic children, not trying to eliminate them.

The so-called search for the causes of autism is in fact an eliminationist goal: they want to find a way to wipe autistic people out. RFK Jr is like a Nazi "scientist" trying to find out what causes Jewishness: bigoted, wrong from the start, and evil.

#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD

@nano_ @Exandra

So the sole reason you replied to this thread is to piss on the idea?

Well, thanks for your contribution. Very enlightening and useful.

A thought for trans allies in this time:

You often ask us what you can do to help. Well, here's something you can do. Wear trans badges, buttons, pins, scarves, whatever you've got. Explicitly. I wanna see that blue and pink EVERYWHERE.

Because the more of you cis folk do that, the safer we will be in crowds and such. It will mean that wearing a badge of support for trans people doesn't necessarily out that person as trans.

"But wait," you're thinking maybe, "if I do that, people might think *I* am trans!"

Well, why is that a problem for you? Would you be offended by someone thinking you might be trans? Would you be scared? Welcome to our world.

This is your time, cis people. You were all ready to call yourselves allies when it didn't matter more than changing your PFP background. Now the rubber meets the road. We need you. We need your help to normalise our existence to other cis people. It could save lives.

If someone accuses you of being trans (imagine being *accused* of existing while trans?), don't deny it. Ask why it matters to them. Keep calm.

#LGBTQ #trans #allies

Bonjour mes amis. J'ai une autre demande d'aide. J'ai une amie trans qui vient de fuir les États-Unis, mais elle n'a pas pu emporter ses affaires et n'a nulle part où vivre.

Elle vit dans la région de Québec, donc toute ressource que nous pourrions trouver pour l'aider serait précieuse. Pour l'instant, elle loge temporairement chez quelqu'un, mais ça ne peut pas durer. Elle attend une place dans un refuge, mais ça ne durera que trois mois, et peut-être même plusieurs mois encore.

Je recherche donc quelqu'un qui connaît quelqu'un dans la région qui pourrait l'aider et qui aurait une chambre libre le temps qu'elle se remette sur pied. Je peux me porter garant d'elle : elle est digne de confiance, serviable et facile à vivre. Je la connais depuis deux ans. Elle doit rester dans la région si elle veut aller au Canada, car ses enfants y vivent (avec son ex).

Aucune demande d'argent n'est formulée pour ce projet, je cherche simplement de l'aide pour trouver un logement le temps de trouver du travail et de se réinstaller.

Merci. Les soutiens sont les bienvenus

#Quebec

Merci à Martin Hamel @martin pour la traduction.

Hello, my friends. I have a different request for aid. I have a trans friend who has just escaped the US, but she couldn't bring any of her stuff along, and she doesn't have anywhere to live.

She's in the region of Quebec City, so any resources we can find to help her would be valuable. Right now she's crashing temporarily with someone, but that can't last. She's waiting on a place in a shelter, but that will only last 3 months when it happens, and may be months yet.

So I'm looking for anyone who knows someone in the region who might be able to help, who has a room to spare while she gets on her feet. I can vouch for her, she's trustworthy and helpful, easy to get along with. I've known her two years. She needs to stay in the region if she's going to be in Canada, because her children live there (with her ex).

There's no money request on this one, just looking for help finding a place she can stay while she finds work and gets settled again.

Thank you. Boosts encouraged.

#Quebec

I want to write a novel about artificial intelligence, starring a robot called Kai.

That's a joke for our German friends.

For those who remember, about two years ago I put up a petition to the Government of Canada, which received 167k signatures, the third-highest total in Canadian parliamentary history. That petition requested that the government recognise the risk to trans people of the hate legislation being passed around the US and UK, and be willing to accept asylum requests from those countries.

They responded with indifference, saying that the US and UK were "safe third countries", and thus ineligible for refugee claims.

In the last couple of weeks, trans activist Fae Johnstone's Momentum Canada have started a new petition, not a governmental one this time (https://www.momentumcanada.net/pathways), requesting the same accommodation.

I wanted to say that we have once again a champion for that request, in the form of the great ally to our community, Mike Morrice of the Green Party. He spoke movingly in Parliament last time about the need for this move to be made, and I worked with him to try and lobby on Parliament Hill, without success.

For Canadians, I want to recommend you consider sending this petition link to your Member of Parliament. If they're supportive, they'll pass it on, and if they're not, they'll at least know we're coming in big numbers, and most importantly that YES, they do have trans-friendly constituents.

I'll be meeting with Mike next week to discuss next steps, but I wanted to give heads-up to those in the US feeling the fear: we're still fighting for your refuge here. Hold on to your hope. We'll exhaust every possibility.

This tool: https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en/search

...will help you find your MP's contact information. Please be polite but firm in expressing your fears for our community members to the south, even if they're Tories. The more of us do this, if we can get it happening in every riding in the country, it could be very powerful.

#CanPol #TransAsylumNow

Question: Anyone out there with prosopagnosia got recommendations on how to learn to, y'know...identify people by their faces?

I'm only coming to realise now that my life has been one long exercise in compensating for prosopagnosia (face blindness). People show me pictures of before and after facial surgeries, and I can't see the changes. You'd think that'd be easy, but my eyes just slide off people's features or something. I don't know how it works, I just know I'm coping with it, poorly, and I want better strategies.

Mostly I use other things, like what glasses they're wearing, or how they typically style their hair, their build, their clothing choices, all kinds of things, to compensate for my inability to tell similar faces apart. But all of those things are changeable, and indeed often changed.

So anyone else out there like this? And how do you deal with it?

When I was in university, I did my fourth-year undergrad thesis on Russian literature. Specifically, the Image of the Machine in Pre- and Post-Revolutionary Russian Utopias and Dystopias.

A real page-turner, I assure you. And no, before you ask, I don't have a copy. And I'm not giving out my doxx so y'all can search my university for it under my deadname. If it were online, which I'm quite sure it is not.

Anyway, the point I came to was this: in the pre-revolutionary work, the image of the machine was as humanity's humble servant, freeing us to become as gods with our leisure time. In post-revolutionary work, the machine had evolved into the master, enslaving people to its needs for maintenance and supply.

And I got into some stuff about the psychology of Russians before and after the revolution as measured at the time (and those books were fun to locate!). That's not really relevant to today's discussion, so I'll leave it aside.

This obviously relates to my feelings about the current state of AI. We are living in what can reasonably be described as a dystopic present. And fittingly, the machine is become our master. We work free for its supply, and willingly sacrifice the planet and our own ability to survive to maintain it.

Is this a manifesto? In some ways, maybe. But it's really time that we thought about what we're doing, and what we want to do about it. Because the only way this stops is by us doing something about it. And the only power we have is our willingness to use the tools that corporations dangle in front of us to distract us while they rifle our pockets for loose data.

Or our unwillingness.

So be unwilling. Be noncompliant. We don't have to break laws to grind the machine down. We just have to refuse to feed it.