art, memes, and meta

Black and rufous sengi - Rhynchocyon petersi

Aardvark - Orycterops afer

Western long-beaked echidna - Zaglossus bruijnii

Star-nosed mole - Condylura cristata

Giant anteater - Myrmecophaga tridactyla

Russian desman - Desmana moschata

As far as I'm aware, I was not mutilated as a baby, and when doctors started pushing for me to go on hormonal medication as a teenager to 'fix' me, my mother simply did not care enough to actually make me go on hormones.

To be clear, this has not spared me from intersexism.

Not even medical intersexism: I've still been treated like a freak who should be fixed by doctors, and I think most of the reason for my unnecessary and traumatic involuntary hospitalization for "suicidal ideation" was the doctors thinly veiled intersexism/transmisogyny, so I do have medical trauma of some sort.

Which is to say nothing about the social intersexism, and the impacts of being malgendered, misgendered, degendered, for my entire life, by my parents, by my peers, by doctors, which cannot be overstated, were extremely traumatic and put me in very real material danger several times.

Being intersex has caused me immense trauma on a number of fronts, and I am one of the "lucky" ones, that should tell people about how intersex people are systematically abused and brutalized in our society.

And yet intersexism is regularly treated like a "lesser" form of oppression, like something that can just be brushed aside because there are, apparently, not enough of us for it to matter, or, insultingly, when it comes to intersex people in trans spaces, we're seen as a cancerous tumor on the side of the trans community who only get hit with the 'collateral' damage from transphobia and otherwise just annoyingly talk over trans people.

Proboscis Bat Rhynchonycteris naso

It is found from southern Mexico to Belize, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia and Brazil, as well as in Trinidad. The bats are nocturnal, sleeping during the day in an unusual formation: most of them line up, one after another, on a branch or wooden beam, nose to tail, in a straight row.

In the photo, the two bats on the lower left are carrying young.

@allofthebeanz

in new zealand, our evil government are trying to legislate definitions of women and men, in ways that are legally incoherent but clearly trying to pave the way for more horrifically transphobic legislation. we have an election in a few months but our main opposition party, and all our mainstream news media, are so spineless and cooked that there's a good chance the ghouls will win reelection.

it took 2 whole months for local terf group 'speak up for women' to get 2,000 signatures on the petition that led to this new bill in our parliament.

it's taken five days for this pro-trans 'they don't speak for us' petition to get 17,000 signatures.

this is a show of support that is really heartening for a lot of trans people in our corner of the world.

cis/ish women, if you're from here but haven't signed yet, please do. and if you're not from here and you know any new zealanders, could you send them this petition? a full fifth of our population lives overseas, and there's a good chance they don't follow the news.

I've pulled together a LOT of links to help you do just that.

Even formal petitions made regarding matters Parliament is already considering will be ignored. If you want to do something useful to stop this particular flavour of bullshit, your best bet is to make a submission to the Select Committee currently considering this bill. You can, and I encourage you to, do so here:

Here's an explanation from Te Kāhui Tika Tangata, the Human Rights Commission, on why this bill is unnecessary and harmful, to help you:

Here's guidelines from Sexual Wellbeing Aotearoa:

Here's some help from Qtopia, including a really good step by step of how to make a submission:

Here's some from Rights Aotearoa:

my cat: