femme steve can be something so personal

Last week, the Trump administration quietly released a sweeping new federal rule that would use funding threats to force institutions across the country to reject transgender people. The 400-page proposed regulation would codify the administration's anti-trans executive orders into binding federal policy, imposing a blanket prohibition on federal funds going toward "gender ideology"

The proposed rule, formally titled "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance," rewrites the government-wide framework governing all federal grants across every agency. Among its most consequential provisions, it requires that before a federal grant recipient can receive money, the award must pass a "pre-issuance review" conducted by a political appointee—not a career expert or peer reviewer—to ensure it is "consistent with applicable law, Federal agency priorities, and the national interest." The regulation explicitly instructs these appointees to screen for "denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic." [...] An institution that acknowledges transgender people exist—through its policies, its training, its healthcare, its bathroom access, its HR procedures, its name-change processes—could be deemed to "deny the sex binary" or to “support the notion that sex is mutable” and have its federal funding blocked.

This torches everything. And I do mean everything.

A very abbreviated list of its ramifications include (but are not limited to):

ending funding for ALL DEI related initiatives

allowing the government to terminate grants at any point for any reason

preventing researchers from publishing, going to conferences, and being part of academic societies

requiring that topics must support the president’s agenda.

What this means, and if anything I’m under selling it, is the death of science and research in America. It allows the government to restrict any topic they please at a whims notice, putting officials who have no background in the topic in charge of deciding funding continuity. It controls what gets researched and if/how researchers are allowed to share their discoveries. There are no books to burn if the government never allows them to be written. This is fascism plain and simple.

Public comments are not a vote, it is a chance for you to say "here is an issue with this law I think you need to address" and provide justification for legal challenges if it goes forward:

"Comments raise the bar that agencies have to meet when making a rule; “if an agency fails to adequately respond to significant, relevant comments in a final rule, members of the public may seek to challenge the rule in court on that basis and claim it could be struck down.ˮ"

They will not investigate the clear case of child neglect happening in Loch Nora until a complaint comes directly from Dick Harrington's five year old.

There is - as Chief McKinley puts it - no use in upsetting the apple cart because of a few bruises, right?

Maybe Hopper is a coward for not doing more. Maybe he's a new father and cannot afford to lose his job, and maybe there is an excuse big enough to justify failing this kid.

He's never found it.

So Hopper tries to make himself available.

He listens to the kid ramble. He lets him interrupt his lunch. He pulls a card out of his pocket with his home phone number on it and gives it to the kid.

He says to call if he needs anything.

The universe twists a bad deed like a knife and plunges it in deep with, "Mr Hopper!"

"I got something for Sara," He says. "Can you give it to her?"

"Sure."

Steve digs into his pocket and pulls out a slightly bent piece of card stock paper. Steve's name, address, and phone number are written on the paper in big little kid writing.

"It's my business card," Steve explains. "You gave me your card and said I can call you if I need help so now Sara can call me if she needs help."

"She don't have to call me," Steve says, sounding shy. "It's just, um. She don't have a big brother and I don't have a little sister so I can be like her brother, and um..."

"I don't want her to be scared and stuff 'cause she needs help," He adds. "Can you give it to her?"

Hopper takes a breath.

God, it hurts in his chest.

This kid that's always so goddamn alone is always looking out for Hopper's baby girl so, "Yeah, Steve. I'll give it to her."

"Can you show her how to use the phone too?" He asks. "She little. She might not know."

"Yeah, sure."

He takes a breath before asking, "You still got my card?"

I am begging the UK trans community and its allies to attend the Mass Lobby at Parliament on June 25th, 11am-4pm, organised by Trans Solidarity Alliance.

The new EHRC Code of Practice pushes trans people out of toilets, hospital wards, and community spaces. It normalises gender policing based on appearance and stereotypes. It becomes statutory guidance in the UK by the end of June.

Trans people are now legally their assigned gender at birth and must join gendered spaces accordingly, but if they are perceived as their lived gender, they can also be ejected from those spaces. The guidance says: either break the law, or don’t pass too well.

A mass lobby is where you invite your MP to discuss your concerns with you in-person. Ask your MP to:

Demand full parliamentary scrutiny, debate, and use their free vote on the EHRC Code of Practice.

Support any motions rejecting the EHRC guidance. As of June 4th, Labour MP Nadia Whittome has submitted a prayer motion - Early Day Motion 240.

Write to Bridget Phillipson, the Minister for Women and Equalities about our concerns

Your MP does not have to be an ally, they do not have to respond to your email for you to show up and greencard them (details below the cut.) What matters is that as many people as possible show up.

I cannot stress this enough: Showing up in person matters. It is much more effective than petitions, emails, and letters.

It is a horrible, stressful time, and I am so sorry if you're trans and live in the UK. But I was at last year's mass lobby and the line for greencarding alone stretched around the back gates. It was a record breaking mass lobby and made us impossible to ignore. Let's do even better this time. Details under the cut:

First: THIS RECALL IS NOT STATE SPECIFIC. IT IS NATIONWIDE.

here are the specific products and dates:

FDA page on this:

And Will is just, "Can we circle back to 'we all have a crush on Steve?'"

Steve starts school early. He graduates early. Everyone is under the impression that he's older than he is and he never fixed this misconception because, really. How often does your age come up?

All to say that Robin is kinda shocked when she's getting cash out of Steve's wallet and, "We're the same age."

"Yeah."

"Actually," She says, staring at Steve's unfairly photogenic driver's license photo. "I’m older than you."

She lets that sit before, "Oh my god! You're just a baby."

"Um, no?"

"You're just a little itty-bitty child and everyone lets you put yourself in danger first because they thought you were the oldest," She laments dramatically. "Next time, I will be the one who is in danger."

But consider Carmilla with Steddie where Eddie becomes a vampire after the Upside Down. Robin will be fuming; How come Steve is the one getting a gay romance with an undead friend and she's not got a beautiful lady coming to visit and slowly seduce/ kill her?

Hell, she's got the nightmares and weird disturbed dreams a plenty, so where is the beautiful lady?

Then also consider, Nancy is like primed to be a victim of a vampire like Carmilla is. Carmilla is building and feeding you false memories while beautiful everyone is attracted or compelled to her, and like, if Eddie becomes a vampire, why couldn't Barbara?

Eddie fully expecting the standard Normie reaction to his music the one time he's "permitted" to play his own cassettes in Steve's car, Steve looking puzzled as he listens before shrugging and carrying on driving.

It's not a negative reaction, +1 for Harrington apparently, but as they drive he keeps getting that little puzzled look on his face, and Eddie's starting to suspect Steve is fighting the urge to be a bitch about it, he's heard about his "trying" from the others.

He's not going to back down if Steve picks a fight over it, Eddie will defend his music to the death if he has to, so he's ready to bite back when Steve finally opens his mouth.

"Is this a new one?" not what he was expecting,

"huh?"

"The tape, is it a new one? I swear I know the voice but... I don't know the songs, is it new?"

"You've heard Black Sabbath before?"

"Is this that Ozzy guy then?" it's not, it's Ronnie James Dio, but that Steve remembered that is Interesting, that he recognises the music is more interesting.

"What songs do you know?" he asks, suspicious, Steve must be bullshitting him, there's no way.

"I dunno... that uh... one that—" he stops and starts 'da-na-na-na'ing Stargazer of all things,

Robin got a cut on her knee during the final battle that won't stop bleeding and Steve is just...broken.

"Awe, don't say that," Steve complains with blood pouring down his chin from his reopened split lip. "I'm just..."

"Tired," Robin finishes for him when Steve trails off. He's doing that with frequency now. Robin thinks his injuries might be worse than he's admitting so, "Let's rest."

Robin's not sure where they're at but Steve says they're halfway to his house so, a little rest is fine.

She finds a door that's unlocked and a house that's empty, and that feels like a good enough reason to enter it and - "Find the first aid kit. I'll patch up your knee."

"On it."

Steve slowly sits down and Robin disappears down the hall. She scrubs off as much grim as she can in the bathroom sink, returns with the first aid kit, and joins him on the couch when the door opens and -

"...What's happening here?"

"We're...." Steve starts, stalls, picks back up to say "intruders" at the same time Robin blurts out, "Your friends! Here for the surprise part - did you say intruders?"

"What?" Steve, who definitely did, responds. "No. Why would I say that? I-"

"Hey," Eddie Munson cuts in. "What the fuck are you doing in my house and why do you look like roadkill?"

First of all, "Rude."

"To roadkill, maybe," Eddie crosses his arms. "Again, I’m asking-"

Second of all...

"Dude, shut up," Steve snaps at him. "I'm tired and everything hurts, and you're fucking loud. I’m trying to concentrate."

Eddie gives him a condescending gesture to continue but it's pretty clear that Steve doesn't remember what he was trying to do.

Robin jumps in to take over but..."What are we doing?"

Steve sounds so tired when he says, "I don't know."

"Eddie," She says, feeling the night hit her all at once and finally.

This not only embarrassed Steve but also pissed him off so he's now dedicating himself to befriending all of Eddie's friend and turning them against him.

She arrives in Hawkins to ruins that are slowly getting rebuilt, smoke almost cleared, and weird whispers about her son and his new friend, the trailer trash Eddie Munson. Something about being too close, too intimate for two men. She feels the familiar disdain, the words "what would your father think" - and then exhales and lets them go. She is past caring about Richard Harrington.

Instead, she sits down with them. She is honest, she was in love once and she knows those eyes - Steve's look like her own, after all. Behind the adoration, she sees the darkness in Steve's face, the pain, and thinks - I couldn't fix my husband, but I can fix this. She gently asks them both if anyone has been giving them trouble. When she hears several familiar names of local God-fearing women, she laughs for the first time in what feels like forever. "Leave them to me," she says.

She stops by for coffee. Chats a little. Gently opens the topic of the rumors about her son. And then: "I understand, Linda. Homosexuality is a sin. What a funny thing, one could say the same about fucking my husband last spring. Of course, it's been so long...I'm sure your husband knows?" One by one, the rumors quiet down and Mary's smile grows into its old radiance.

The first evening back, she summons all the remaining rage, disappointment and sadness over wasted years, poking at old wounds until she's sobbing. And like that, she calls Richard and wails into the phone how everything is destroyed, their house almost gone, and gently guides Richard to the brilliant idea of signing over the small flat in the center he's been renting to Steve. She knows Richard has no patience for her emotions, and she sobs out how Steve has been fixing the town, how he'd become everything Richard had ever wanted, a true pillar of the community, but he has nowhere to sleep, oh how it's breaking her heart, what would the town think-

He promises to send over his lawyer the next day. She thanks him through the tears, says one last "I love you" and with the click of the ended call, dries her tears and pours herself a glass of wine. "How did I do?" she asks.

Steve just laughs and hands her a cheese plate he's been preparing in the kitchen. He nudges Eddie who is staring with wide eyes. "What?" asks Steve with a smirk. "You've always admired my bitchiness and pragmatism. Where do you think I got it from?"