Ash

1. Your parents were born to muslim parents so they’re automatically muslim. You’re automatically a muslim too. You didn’t choose your religion and you can’t opt out of it or you will be executed.

2. The compulsory hijab law makes you a criminal if you choose not to wear hijab even tho you didn’t choose to be a muslim and you don’t consider yourself a muslim but the regime has forced you into that role whether you like it or not. And when you ‘break that law’, they can do with you as they please.

3. little girls as young as 7 yrs old are forced to wear hijab at school even tho the islam itself says the age is 9. and all the schools are gender segregated so imagine how they force you to get used to hijab even when you’re just surrounded by other girls. And all day long at school they tell you horrible stories about what will happen to you in hell if someone sees even a strand of your hair.

4. the regime modifies all the textbooks, story books, cartoons and movies to represent the ideal woman with full on hijab. The iranian media is ordered to photoshop every photo of a woman that may be showing a little skin. And if they’re iranian, no hair is supposed to be seen or that will be photoshopped away. Women are mostly excluded from billboards and tv commercials.

5. imagine going to work or meeting up with a friend when suddenly the morality police kidnap you in broad daylight and force you into a van to take you to a station where they will treat you like a criminal and if you don’t agree to get humiliated and do as they say, they will put you in prison. And in case of Mahsa Amini and so many more before her, they will beat you to death. My sister was barely 18 when she got kidnapped and they didn’t let her call home and she’d been so fucking scared and we had no idea where she was. Imagine all the psychological trauma.

6. If you’re in a car and not wearing hijab they will fine you and seize your car. So when u get into a taxi the driver will ask you to keep your hijab on otherwise they’ll get fined. And if you refuse they’ll ask you to get off the car.

7. And its not just about hijab. In Ramadan, they get even more vicious. If they catch you eating or even drinking water on the street they will give you lashes as punishment and even imprison you for breaking the law. If you work in a state-owned company it’s even worse. They will close the cafeteria and take away the water dispensers. All restaurants are banned from delivering food before iftar. It’s a fucking mess. Everyone has to pretend they’re fasting or they’ll be severely punished.

8. And how could I forget about this! iranian women are banned from singing! the islamic regime prohibits women’s singing voices to be heard by men so imagine the horror of having 50% of the population banned from ever becoming a singer. If they identify a female singer in iran, they will take her to jail and force her to repent her sins in the most humiliating way so that she will never dare sing again.

9. And every time the regime gets wind of a private gathering of men and women trying to have fun and live their fucking private lives, the police crash the party and take everyone to jail bc the Islamic regime bans iranian men and women from having fun.

10. Did you know that the islamic regime doesn’t allow women’s faces to be printed on their obituaries or headstones? They put a flower for our faces instead and if they see a headstone with a woman’s face printed on it they’ll smash it to pieces. That’s how religious dictatorship continues to oppress and erase women even after their deaths.

11. For some reason, women aren’t allowed to ride motorcycles and the government won’t issue any license for them. In some cities, women are barred from riding a bicycle.

So if you see Islam has become for many iranians a symbol of oppression and torture and discrimination, that’s why. The regime uses islam as a weapon to silence and punish anyone who opposes them. You can love islam all you want from the safety of your home in a free country and talk about how kind and benevolent the religion is, but in iran, it’s a whole different story.

Our economy is fucked. All govt officials are corrupt as fuck. Most websites are banned in iran. Even tumblr is banned. The world has cut the iranian ppl from many services. We don’t have intl credit cards like visa card. Amazon doesn’t do delivery to iran. We cant get netflix, spotify or even a gamepass subscription. we don’t get any Apple services here. iran isn’t listed as a country you could choose when signing up for a lot of services. and when we decide to leave iran and escape this hellhole, every country out there will make it sooo much harder for us to get a visa just bc we had the misfortune to be born in iran at the wrong time.

This is the story of iran for the past 44 years. Held hostage by a corrupt regime that uses religion to suppress and torture the people and being abandoned by the rest of the world bc our lives don’t matter.

100 days ago, millions of Iranians rose up and took to the streets in protest against the totalitarian regime. In response, the regime massacred tens of thousands of innocent Iranians. https://humanrightsintl.com/2026/01/20/latest-human-rights-report-43000-killed-in-the-crackdown-on-protests-in-iran-for-immediate-release/

The reconstructed face of the “Cheddar Man” (c. 7,000 BCE) compared to his living descendant, Adrian Targett    

The Cheddar Man is a Mesolithic skeleton that was recovered from England’s Cheddar Gorge in 1903. At around 9,000 years old, the Cheddar Man is the oldest complete skeleton ever discovered in the UK, and has long been hailed as the “first Briton.” DNA analysis on the Cheddar man from 2018 indicated that he was lactose intolerant, had light-colored eyes, dark brown or black hair, and had a dark to black skin tone. Although the discovery of the Cheddar Man’s dark skin tone was surprising for both scientists and the public alike, it corresponds with recent research suggesting that genes linked to lighter skin only began to spread about 8,500 years ago - approximately 32,000 years later than what was previously believed.  

In addition to the development on his skin tone, the Cheddar Man surprised scientists in 1997 when DNA analysis revealed that he had a living descendant -  a retired history teacher named Adrian Targett. Targett and the Cheddar man share the same mtDNA, which is passed down from mother to daughter. In other words, they share a common maternal ancestor. What is even more remarkable is that Targett lives in Cheddar, only a half mile away where his 9,000-year-old ancestor was discovered.

Targett was not invited to the initial reveal of his ancestor’s new facial reconstruction, but he has since seen it and has commented on the family resemblance. “I do feel a bit more multicultural now,” he once joked in an interview “And I can definitely see that there is a family resemblance. That nose is similar to mine. And we have both got those blue eyes.”

Over 90% of parents of visibly intersex children opt for cosmetic surgery on their infants.

The ones that don't experience medical violence then, likely experience it as a teenager.

I didn't.

I am very rare in that I did not experience medical violence.

Why? Because I learned what intersexuality was as a young age, and I actively fought against what doctors wanted to do to me. All the way down to legal research on what medical care minors can be forced into. I remember walking into that doctor's appointment with the state law written down that proved that if I did not consent they could not do surgery.

The percentage of Israelis who voted for Netanyahu is much smaller than the percentage of Americans who voted for Trump and the percentage of Israelis who show up to protest against Netanyahu is vastly larger than the percentage of Americans who show up to protest Trump (At least so far).

 But if you ask people who think about things, the answer is vague. Killing a hibernating bear would just feel… impolite? You can’t fucking shoot a man when he’s sleeping, that’s just fucking rude. It’s just not the right thing to do.

 Long before hunting laws were established in Finland, you couldn’t kill a sleeping bear, and what commands you is something older than law: tradition. Even at a time when hunting was a matter of life and death, and a bear fighting for its life is mainly a matter of death, you just didn’t kill a hibernating bear, you have to wake it up first. Hunters risked their lives, the lives of their brothers and everyone in the hunting party, who were friends, family and men that they loved, to give the bear a fighting chance.

 In the modern time, the hunting season of bears is in the summer, for the warmest summer months. There are many reasons for why they are allowed to tread safely in autumn and to sleep in peace through the cold months, almost all of which are rational and scientific, and do not touch the old traditions.

 Old faith says a living thing has many souls - henki, luonto, itse. Plants only have one - the one that wills them to grow. Animals have two, both the spark of life and nature that enables them to act. A human being also has the third, one that makes them a person, personality, itse, literally “self”. But the soul that travels in your dreams is not the soul that defines a human - animals have that one as well. When your dog runs in her sleep, her soul is elsewhere, where a dog is needed.