Let's throw happiness around like glitter!

Just a quick guide for all you guys and girls having trouble finding the right insurance. It’s incredibly difficult to find insurance that covers sex reassignment surgery, and even when then do, there’s a chance you’ll be denied. 

Make sure you guys are informed so you can make the right healthcare decisions!

Aetna: [x] [x] Amerigroup: [x] AHCCCS: Covers T/Estrogen only Blue Cross Anthem: [x] Blue Cross of Massachusetts: [x] Blue Cross Michigan: [x] Blue Cross North Carolina: [x]  Blue Cross North Dakota: [x] Blue Cross Rhode Island: [x] Blue Cross Tennessee: [x] Blue Cross Vermont: [x] Blue Shield CA: [x] Care First: [x] Cigna: [x] Emblem Health: [x] Excellus Blue Cross (NY): [x] Group Health Cooperative: [x] Harvard Pilgrim Health Care: [x] Health Net:[x] Health Partners: [x] HighMark: [x] Independence Blue Cross: [x] Medicare: [x] Obamacare: [x] United Healthcare: [x] Wellmark BCBS: [x] Wellpoint/Unicare: [x]

- don’t overdo it (the reason why this example is Bad is because the cis person overuses all these masculine words and it’s too extreme).

- don’t say anything about how he is ‘biologically a woman’. never mention that to a trans person. ever.

- don’t shower him with compliments. yes, one or two might be good, but he isn’t asking you to confirm that he looks male (most of the time).

- do show sympathy. tell him you’re sorry that he feels that way and try to comfort him if you can (and if you try to comfort him, refer to the points above this one so you don’t do anything wrong).

- do ask if you can help. if he says that you can’t, leave him alone till he’s feeling better (or maybe try to cheer him up by changing the subject).

Fairy tale dragons? They’re like Smaug. They’re arrogant, talkative, they hoard treasure, they eat virgins. They’re amoral rather than evil, but they are intelligent monsters.

The dragon in Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, the one indirectly responsible for Eustace’s draconic curse is along the same lines.

At that time that is what a dragon was. There was a general consensus in western literature that dragons were, well, that.

In Medieval stories, dragons are to be killed by brave men. Gawain fights “wyrms” - a kind of wingless dragon. St. George slays a dragon. So does Beowulf. So does King Arthur. To be a worthwhile myth hero you have, at some point, to slay a dragon.

Early modern and nineteenth century dragons - we see one counter example - Faustus chariot is drawn by dragons in “Doctor Faustus.” The first really solid “friendly dragon” story is The Reluctant Dragon, which became a 1941 Disney film. That is the first story I can find about a dragon that befriends a human - but it’s friendship, not “human masters dragon.”

The second friendly dragon is E. Nesbit’s “The Last of the Dragons” who decides he’d rather hang out with the princess than fight the prince (the first example of subversion of the dragons eat maidens trope that I can find).

But they’re the minority.

In the 1930s, when Lewis and Tolkien were writing, dragons were the bad guys. The rare exceptions were dragons deciding not to act like dragons.

Then something happened.

That something probably started with a 1948 children’s book called “My Father’s Dragon - about a kid who runs away to Wild Island and rescues a baby dragon. Heard of it? If you’ve studied kid lit, sure, it won a ton of awards. Otherwise…nope, and certainly in Dawn Treader, written in 1950, dragons were still bad.

In the 1960s we start to see a couple more “good” dragons. But it’s almost always the same thing. Dragons are bad, except this one. This is a special dragon.

Then in 1967 John Campbell ran a story in Analog named Weyr Search. Heard of that one? Yup.

It was part of a novel called Dragonsflight, written by Grand Master Anne McCaffrey.

And she completely changed what dragons were.

Anne’s dragons were gentle, genetically engineered protectors who bonded to a human rider at birth and were “mastered” by that rider - the dragons offered instinct, but the reason came from the humans.

Anne McCaffrey was one of the first female authors to write science fiction by women about women - and while she had a number of flaws and was honestly a better worldbuilder than writer she inspired a lot of people.

And changed our view of dragons as a fantasy trope.

Since then most fantasy writers that include dragons have them as friendly and willing to be ridden by humans. Even the “good” dragons in the DragonLance novels.

In other words: In the space between Tolkein and Martin, who’s first short story collection was published in 1976, almost a decade after Weyr Search Anne McCaffrey turned dragons on their head.

Daenerys’ dragons owe more in their lineage to Ramoth than they do to Grendel, the dragon slain by Beowulf.

Freddie Highmore was nominated for a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Shaun Murphy on The Good Doctor.

Now, as an autistic person, I think he’s done a great job of playing a character who is his own individual person. Shaun Murphy has a distinct personality as well as a past, aspirations, motivations, wants, needs and flaws. He doesn’t feel to me like a really bad cookie cutter of “random senseless behavior because hey this character is autistic” that tends to plague actors who play autistic characters. Scenes from Shaun’s POV show what drives his behaviors and tendencies. The “savant” stuff appears to be a really good memory and may also be his visual thinking, which is often portrayed by showing him mentally assembling or disassembling things.

I know the writers and crew are neurotypicals, but it feels like they’re really doing homework instead of showing what they *think* autism is. Freddie said in a Facebook Q & A that autistic consultants are helping with the show, so there is that. (Now let’s get the whole bunch away from Autism Speaks, blaaaah!)

The show’s creators stated that Shaun is supposed to just be Shaun, not a representative of all of autism everywhere. Everybody presents their autism a little bit differently, so of course Shaun may or may not remind you of you or an autistic person you know. I happen to share similar autistic traits to him, such as clasping my hands together (done that all my life!) and the way Shaun moves his body is similar to how I move mine.

But there is a double standard out there that NTAB* people often engage in regarding autistic / disabled people. I’m going to say “autistic” a lot below, but you can imagine “disabled” is there, too. Please take note of what I’m pointing out.

Neurotypicals who pretend to be autistic for movies or your TV screens get rewarded for acting in a way unnatural to them, and their ‘autism’ disappears as soon as the director yells “Cut!”

Actual autistic people who behave their normal way are judged, bullied, called cringey, excluded, are shut away and some of us get abused and murdered by our caregivers. 

Nobody yelling “Cut!” is going to make autistic people stop being autistic. We are often forced to act neurotypical via damaging therapies, and those of us trapped in a 24 / 7 acting job never see any reward for it.

We, as autistic people, have to listen to parents saying they wish we were never born or how they wish they could change us to be the person they “wanted” instead of who we are. We have to hear about people longing to cure and prevent us. We have to listen to charities talk about what tragedies we are and how burdensome we are on our families. We deal with being dismissed, spoken over, ignored and silenced.

Somebody can play us on TV and get rewarded and lauded for it, but us being ourselves is something to mock and destroy.

This is the truth any time an able-bodied actor takes on the role of a disabled person. It sends a message that disability is only acceptable if it can go away as soon as a director yells “Cut!”

We live in a society that rewards people who pretend to be autistic for entertainment, but shuns actually autistic people in the real world.

It’s a very dangerous double standard. 

Please be aware of it.

-( Anyone can reblog, and I encourage you to reblog so this spreads around. )-

Junkrat: