Ramblings Of A Gay Athiest Created By Science.

Where I live, a lot of the casual conversations at work, events, out socially with strangers, etc is around football. That's the safe, neutral conversation that everyone understands and has in common. But if you say you don't have a team, that starts a whole other conversation.

So, I say I barrack for Essendon.

I have no idea what Essendon has been doing for the last 20 years. I know roughly three things about them that allow me to participate in the conversation, but I'm not really invested either way and I'm just doing it to be polite and make social interactions easier.

In Australia anybody can make free calls from any phone booth, also most phone booths also provide wi-fi.

So many people benefit, in so many situations.

The free phone booths have been so popular and important that new(fancy) phone booths are being installed.

Making phone booths a free public utility 👍

Ripping them out in the assumption that everyone has access to a phone or internet 👎

She went white as a sheet. I saw her pupils contract.

And there was me muttering "mother fucker" under my breath and slotting my neck back into place like a mild inconveinance.

My cervical vertebrae slips out of place and my skull crunches a bunch of nerves. It’s why I have so much chronic and debilitating nerve pain in my face and head.

is it because you're scared of the word vulva? of acknowledging out loud that some people have penises? of recognising that many many people, including but certainly not limited to trans people, have mixed sex characteristics that cannot be accurately summarised by "afab/amab" as shorthand for "female/male"?

"in [GENITAL RELATED] situation AFABs will need to do X and AMABs will need to do Y" there are "afabs" with penises and "amabs" with vulvas. Saying this shit makes you look so unserious & honestly transphobic (given the ongoing erasure of post-op trans people within broader community). Intersex people and GRS have both existed for long enough (fucking forever and, decades, respectively) that we should well past making this basic fucking mistake.

do NOT say 'people with a vulva/vagina" when you talk about PERIODS AND BIRTH CONTROL. the term you want is FUNCTIONNING UTERUS.

lots of trans women and transfem people (including intersex ppl, *including cis women*) can and do get bottom surgery. the procedure in itself does not make actual-blood-loss periods happen, though, because long-lasting uterus transplant is Not A Thing (yet?) and *the blood comes FROM THE UTERUS*. if it's about *side effects* related to *hormones* (so, not punctual iron deficiency, bc that's linked to the blood loss…) then… it's about HORMONES. again, not external(ish) physical characteristics like a vulva or vagina!

precision is key.

When "women's health" comes up, it's always a mystery of "is this for breasts, vaginas or uteruses?" Which body part are they avoiding actually mentioning today? Hysterectomies are far more common than you'd expect, I was shocked to find out how many people have had them. If your "women's health" message is only subtly alluding to functioning uteruses and periods, then it's not relevant to menopausal women, trans women, many intersex women, and a surprisingly large number of cis women of "child bearing age". It also might not be reaching non-binary people or trans men who might actually need it. Not all vagina owners are uterus owners, whether the vagina is original or handmade.

The amount of time I have wasted trying to work out if a "women's health announcement" was relevant to me, only to discover it was about cervical cancer or pregnancy or something mentioned in cutesy terms at the end is maddening. It means I start disregarding "women's health" messaging that could actually be relevant for me.

Studies show that babies are not afraid of snakes