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My name is Fatima, a teacher from Gaza. I used to work in a small school I loved dearly, planting hope in the hearts of children and teaching them that tomorrow could be better. But the war took everything away. My school was bombed, I lost my job, and our home was reduced to rubble. Yet, I refused to give up. I set up a small tent amid the destruction and continued teaching children, showing them that knowledge is a light that cannot be extinguished, even in the darkest times.

My husband, Akram, was my partner and pillar of support. But he was severely injured in an attack targeting civilians. His abdominal injuries are so severe that he can no longer work or even lift basic items. Every day, I see the pain in his eyes and feel the weight of helplessness, but I try to stay strong for him and for our children.

Our eldest, Manar, is four years old, and she’s missing out on her childhood amidst this devastation. Our youngest, Ibrahim, was born under bombardment just a year ago. He has suffered greatly due to the lack of milk and proper medical care. Yet, sometimes, he smiles, and in those brief moments, I find the strength to keep going.

We now live in a fragile tent that doesn’t shield us from the cold or rain. Every day is a new battle for survival. I write these words while holding my children’s hands, with nothing left but my faith in God and the hope that your kind hearts will hear our plea.

Please help us provide milk and food for our children, ease Akram’s pain, and rebuild even a small part of the life the war has destroyed. Every donation, no matter how small, makes a big difference in our lives.

I ask you to share our story and be our support during this harsh and unforgiving time.

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Here's a link to help you find it if you don't know it..

The checkbox at the start of the big annual survey reads:

Yes, I confirm that I don't really fit into just one of the two boxes of "always, solely and completely a woman/girl" or "always, solely and completely a man/boy."

Obviously the logic of this very precise wording is very familiar and coherent to me, because I have been thinking about it every year for like 10 years or something! But I do always get a few people confused about whether binary trans people are deliberately excluded, or whether they are "nonbinary enough" to participate.

So, this evening I made this diagram that I hope illustrates what I was going for with it:

So, there will be people in just one circle, or two circles, and people all the way outside all three. (That's me, agender, occupying zero circles: consistently never anything.)

I think most cisgender, transgender and intersex binary women would say that they are always women, they're not anything else, and they're women all the way through, for the most part. Ditto most cisgender, transgender and intersex binary men. If they agree with that for themself, they're not invited to participate.

It's intentionally very broad. That's why cisgender and binary are on the checkbox list, because someone could feel like they are a cisgender man or a cisgender woman and there is still something that nudges them out of that central segment. (As a nonbinary person I'm like, "are there really people who feel like they truly absolutely are always, solely and completely [men/women]? That sounds fake." But yeah, that's most of the population apparently!)

And the thing is, there is no sharp cut-off. Two people can have the same internal experience of their gender and maybe even call it the same thing - but one of them might feel that they qualify while the other feels they don't, and that's totally fine.