Titled

being disabled is not inherently a bad thing. having a disability does not mean you're a bad person + you're allowed to like being disabled (I also like it!) + it's incredibly fucked up that the entire public understanding of disability seems to be that it's an unfortunate outcome, or something to be pitied, or something that should be avoided at all costs. that messaging has eugenic histories and a eugenic present (read Eli Clare's work on 'cure' or Alison Kafer's work on 'disabled futurity')

AND.

disability rates are not an apolitical thing. some groups are more likely to experience disablement than others. some careers are more likely to lead to permanent disablement, some people are more likely to be exposed to environmental risks during pregnancy that lead to increased likelihood of having a disabled baby, and some people are more likely to be exposed to physical threats that lead to disability (such as people who live in war zones). all of these factors are injustices, and in these cases, disability has emerged as a result of injustice (read Jasbir K. Puar's work on 'debility and disability')

SO.

there needs to be room for identifying and separating out:

the injustices that happen to disabled people (including eugenic practices),

the injustices that create disabled people (including social injustice), and

the ways these kinds of injustices interplay and reinforce each other

it is both true that eugenics is bad, and that there is a responsibility to reduce socially-created injustices that result in disablement. it is both true that disability pride is important, and that disability is a location of grief for many people. the important part is that our analysis of disability is a) materialist (i.e. rooted in material conditions), and b) understanding of the political motivations behind any given statement about disability and disablement

Oh, a human being is seeking a social response? Human being, the social animal wired to make and track social connection? A human desires the vital blood that permitted their species to survive for millennia? The human being who was born completely helpless and primed in every way by nature to seek attention and help from their community?

I have seen FAR too much grace woobification, and while I firmly believe to each their own i am a good soldier and I must spread my "always muscles???" grace canon

Simon is also here and he will not be outdone, thank you

Boob ver and behind the scenes below

time + work = healing (a soft sequel to this comic)

Grace doing a handstand against the wall after ages of sitting down to get his blood pumping again. Ilyukhina used to do this all the time on Earth when they were in the Vat to "get the brain working again" and he picked it up. Rocky is surprised, nay horrified that humans can do that, balance their weight just so to keep themselves up. Yeah, Eridians can climb up walls with handholds but this is different.

There isnt space to run in the Mary, not really, so Grace takes up more gymnastics. He learns how to do a wonky cartwheel, half a backflip, and Rocky is amazed.

That is, until Grace shows him videos of ballerinas and gymnasts from Earth, whereupon Rocky is like "I thought you were good, but you are terrible, statement"

in aotearoa, june isn’t our pride, it’s theirs. martha p johnson and sylvia rivera are their historical figures, not ours. the phrase that “you owe your rights to Black trans women” is true there, but here we owe our rights to (mostly) Māori historical figures. i have the freedoms i do because of the legacy of an entirely different set of people operating in an entirely different context at entirely different times.

But because of american cultural imperialism, most queer people in Aotearoa don’t even know our own queer history. Carmen Rupe, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, the Dorian Society, Gillian Laundon, Georgina Beyer, and the Wolfenden Association are some of our queer history. We should know their names! we should know what they did for us! but because of the power of the american imperial machine, we don’t.

our national pride month should be july, the month that the Homosexual Law Reform Act passed in 1989. our two largest cities hold their pride festivals in february and march, respectively. american queer history has very little (or nothing, depending on who you ask) to do with our queer history. anecdotally, from my own queries, queer youth in aotearoa know more about american queer history than our own.

if you’re in so called Australia go look up the experiences and stories of brotherboys and sistergirls (and those terms if you haven’t heard them to start).

“Kunghah: Sistergirls and brotherboys unite to strengthen spirits” (Article from 2016 by the ABC. Contains photos of Aboriginal people and I don’t know if any have since died.)

Video interview of brotherboys Kai (18) and Dean (50) (2014)

if I were to share only one specific story I’d like it to be of Dr George Duncan, who’s hate crime murder in 1972 lead to South Australia being the first state to decriminalise homosexuality.

(content warning for both articles of homophobic language, violence, hate crime and murders.)

SBS article on Dr Duncan

Long story short: good news, I have found a new place to live.

Bad news, my rent for the old and new places will overlap-- not by a week as I had hoped! But by 25 days. I'm going to be paying double rent (roughly $1932 usd) in the month of July, in addition to coming up with the funds to move myself. I do not make enough money to cover double rent, unfortunately! This is shocking to property management types.

I am hoping to come up with at least $1200 of this and am dropping my ko-fi link HERE