oh, you love me, and i love you!

in aotearoa, june isn’t our pride, it’s theirs. marsha 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 1986. 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.

1. Do you think a post pointing out an issue with fandom racism and misogyny is an appropriate place to bring up your favorite white male character? Why or why not?

2. Did this post call you racist for relating to a white male character? If you thought or think so, consider why you got defensive.

3. Think about the disproportionate amount of art and writing about white male characters in fandom spaces. Do you think this is, across all boards, due to them being written better or more relatably than the POC protagonist?

a. If so, consider why you notice the writing of white male characters more often. Are white male characters written "better" than the POC protagonist, or do you have an internalized fear of relating to non-white characters that you need to work through?

b. If not, consider what ingrained biases might lead to this phenomenon in fandom spaces.

c. If you read a. and thought that white male characters literally just are usually or always written better than the POC and/or female protagonist, accept you are wrong and consider some self reflection.

4. Have you researched how to write and draw characters that are non-white and/or non-male? If not, does this limitation lead you to gravitate towards characters you feel "qualified" to make content about, therefore inflating the issue?

5. If people are telling you to reconsider your point of view in my replies section, did you stop to consider what they said apart from your human instinct to be defensive? Have you considered that arguing against those trying to educate you about fandom racism and misogyny, which can be difficult to see in yourself, in the notes of a post talking about fandom racism and misogyny, might be short-sighted and counterproductive?

6. If you are inclined to defend your favorite white male character, pause. Are all of your other favorite characters also majority white? Are they majority male? Are they either of these and NOT the main character of the show, movie, or game they originate from?

a. If not, this comic is not for you. Please move on and give it a reblog if you're feeling generous.

“i’ll believe something happened on that set when one of the actresses says something”

3 women of colour - 2 of whom are very new to the industry vs 3 veteran white men who have the ability to blacklist and stop their careers

and if they had been angry a lot of you would be calling them unprofessional and difficult - not to mention the smear campaign that happened with tracy could very easily happen with them too.

But also, imagine I am your trans mom for a moment. I am gently grabbing your face, telling you I care about you and your body and your health, and that tucking can be very dangerous and hurt you and that I care very much if you get hurt and I do not want you to be hurt.

So here’s just a small (non-comprehensive) rundown:

Testicular Torsion which can cause even more complications and health risks and requires immediate medical attention/surgery to fix. If not fixed quickly it can cause tissue death/necrosis and do even worse damage to the entire area surrounding it.

Permanent skin irritation and tearing that can lead to infection which can, again, if left untreated turn into way worse things that will quickly turn life threatening.

It can also cause inguinal hernias, which increases additional risks, and must -again- be handled with surgery. And if you’re looking to get bottom surgery down the line you -cannot- get bottom surgery until all the inguinal hernias are handled and you recover from them. AND once you get a hernia you are now predisposition to get more at an increased rate afterward even IF you’re careful from then on.

Tucking can also cause urinary tract infections, which can lead to a kidney infection if left unchecked or improperly handled. Which, even if it doesn’t lead to kidney infection, will greatly increase your risks of bladder and prostate cancer.

… and again, these are just the tip of the iceberg, there’s lots of lower risk issues and other things and depending on preexisting conditions AND even if you’re even able to see a doctor, you have no guarantee that they’ll know how to or even care to examine you properly due to their own biases.

As for the final question I got, “What about safe alternatives for those of us with major dysphoria?”, I don’t really have a good answer… the best I can say is get breathable but slightly tighter underwear or light compression shorts… but even THEN wearing those for extended periods (even just a couple hours, 4 or less) can lead to risk of heath issues or problems. There really isn’t a “good solution or alternative” that is actually fully safe-safe.

🏳‍🌈 . Pride Month 2026

Rumination is probably the most common type of OCD compulsion, but I rarely see anyone talking about it. I've talked to multiple people diagnosed with OCD who didn't even recognize it as a compulsion.

Basically, if you have OCD you have terrible intrusive thoughts. They can be about anything, but common themes are fear of being a bad person, fear of hurting someone, fear of contamination. etc.

Rumination is when you get stuck in a spiral. Rumination is when you spend hours catastrophizing, overthinking, analyzing, telling yourself it's going to be okay.

I'll say it again:

Rumination is a compulsion.

Rumination is a compulsion, and that means you have to stop doing it.

I did ERP (exposure response prevention) for my OCD with a therapist! For 9 months! And it did help, but the idea didn't really click until I found this website a couple years later.

And Oh My God. It made things make so much more sense, and I was able to pull myself out of an episode even though I wasn't in therapy or on meds at the time.

Genuinely if you have OCD, or even if you suspect you have OCD, I'm begging you to read some of these articles.

Like this was genuinely life changing for me.

Here are some of the ones that were most helpful to me:

Defining Rumination

How to Stop Ruminating

ERP Exercises for Compulsive Rumination