Glitter and Bruises

TIFFANY STUDIOS 'Nautilus' Desk Lamp

Lee Sangsoo | South Korea, b. 1983

Siamese Cat, undated

tell yourself things you do not believe. it feels stupid at first but I've done this for years and now I believe it when I say "I'm good at this" or "I love myself" or "I deserve good shit!"

make a note of every mundane good thing that happens to you. mental or literal notes! could be as little as "the sky is a nice shade of grey, it's calming" or "I ate a piece of fruit today, I'm looking after myself" or "I talked to a friend". again, feels stupid at first, but I genuinely believe this is part of why I have so many "good days". trick your brain into storing things in your long-term memory that you wouldn't otherwise remember.

they're coming from someone who had multiple daily panic attacks for half a decade. someone who genuinely felt like he did not deserve to live. someone who hated himself so much he convinced himself he was irredeemably evil. someone who loves being alive these days, even though it's difficult sometimes.

ENHANCE

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:

i did a bit of digging and found that some bloke named Simon Brooke used the OP's joke as his email signature at least as early as March 14th, 1995 according to this quoted text. it takes a while to find a preserved copy of something Simon said but here's an example from mid-96:

I think there's an incredible correlation between insulating cis boys from the consequences of their actions and the prevalence of violent crime.

I think we teach cis boys from a young age that violence will be tolerated from them as long as they perform masculinity to society's standards.

That second part is the salient factor here. Because we also teach them that violence will not be tolerated from them if they defy society's standards of masculinity, even if it's self defense. If they're picked on for defying those standards, it's the violence against them that's validated.

I think cis boys who are performing masculinity to society's standards get in no real trouble for snapping their classmates' bra straps or pulling their hair or whatever else gets written off as "he likes you" & it sets them up for a life of violence.

when phantom of the opera was playing, a woman behind me whispered "kitty!" to her friends whenever the cat appeared on screen. everybody laughed when clara bow made a guy ride the bus with her. the organist played bits of scotland the brave and yo ho ho and a bottle of rum and what do you do with a drunken sailor during the black pirate with douglas fairbanks. it's just been such an amazing, lovely experience to go to the theatre and see something beautiful and transporting, because that really was the goal, and it still feels fresh and new because you're watching people do things that haven't been done before!

if they start again this summer I highly recommend it for anyone in vancouver, and for people in other places, I recommend watching a silent film on a big screen in a dark room. it's a totally different way of experiencing it than just watching on youtube in the daytime!