growth.

Fellas, listen.

You don’t have to do anything sexual that you’re not interested in. Moreover, you don’t have to explain why. “No” is a complete sentence.

Not interested in getting pegged? You don’t have to. Monogamous and not into the idea of another partner? Okay. Not sure about period sex? Cool.

1. I’m very flattered that you think my skeleton will be examined by scientists. Thank you for believing in my longevity.

2. When I’m a skeleton a thousand years from now, I plan on being dead so tbh I don’t see this being an issue.

3. I have an anthropology degree and I’ve worked with bones (not my focus, but it was still part of my curriculum), and yes we do use terms like “female pelvis” or “male proportions” when discussing remains. Even though I’m a trans person, I’ve never once been bothered by this. Gender and sex can exhibit themselves differently in a variety of contexts and language can adapt accordingly. Tbh I’m more concerned about my job security and my access to equal healthcare, rather than the gendered language my physical anthropology instructor uses.

4. In studying these bones, I can say that the sex or gender of the specimen I was looking at was the least interesting thing about them. Do you think archeologists thousands of years from now will care what biological sex I was? No, they’d probably wonder why I have a piece of metal permanently glued to the back of my teeth. Or the fact that my jaw is misaligned. Or what my joints can say about my daily lifestyle and level of movement. These details can help paint a broader picture of what life looked like back then on a physical level. That is the story my bones tell, not the shape of my pelvis or brow ridge or whatever.

Her name is Sasha Johnson.

She's not dead yet, but it's unlikely she will survive as she was shot in the head.

She has been heavily involved in organising protests over the last year as well as making speeches, and has been receiving death threats for it which the Met hasn't done anything about.

“what about the poor little white kids just trying to have fun?” what about the poor little kids of color made to feel unsafe and unwelcome in a space that was supposed to be fun?

“why can’t poc just make their own redesigns and we can keep these ones” why cant you realize that your actions have consequences and that you should maybe try to not enforce racist stereotypes??

like ofc its ideal to have VARIETY among both villains AND protagonists, its when your characters look like this

that the issue arises

She nodded and accepted my salty language like a seasoned sailor.

I’ve had experience with this before, in Prague a group of five girls and I were followed by three men at night. After a while they started yelling at us, the most common being “how much?” Meaning how much we “cost” as prostitutes. Seeing as they weren’t going to stop, I turned on my heel, faced them (which surprised them), spat at their feet and responded with “You couldn’t afford me.” This prompted the other girls to start yelling back at them as well, starting with our spitfire Czech friend to start slinging curses in Czech as she and the rest of the girls came up beside me. Needless to say the men backed off and pretty much fled. They weren’t expecting a fight. It empowered me and encouraged the rest of the girls to yell back too.

I’ve heard that a lot of people don’t know what to do in this situation because they’ve been taught all their lives to be polite and non-aggressive. Keep your heads down or whatever.

Keep in mind that studies have shown that rapists look for victims who won’t fight back.

Remember that nobody has the right to touch you without your consent or harass you, and you have all the right to make the biggest fuss about it that you can possibly make.

It’s also more common for women to jump to ‘freeze’ or ‘fawn’ in a dangerous situation just because of the ways society has been encouraging and training women to behave from a young age. Girls are heavily conditioned never to make a scene or inconvenience other people and it can be really hard to overcome that conditioning especially in stressful or scary situations.

For a lot of girls and women it’s also hard to speak up if they’re being harassed or assaulted in public because of shame or embarrassment, they’ve been taught there’s something shameful and embarrassing on their part for being harassed or assaulted in public which can make it difficult to overcome the shame to draw attention to what’s happening. Always remember, if you’re being harassed or assaulted in public you’re not the one who should feel ashamed or embarrassed, you’re not the one doing anything wrong.

A loooot of people always talk big game about how they’d respond if they were being sexually harassed or assaulted, like “well I’d totally punch that guy, I’d totally give him hell!” but the thing is, you actually don’t know which f your brain will jump to in any given situation.

That’s why it’s so important that we need to start telling girls from a young age that it’s not just okay but it’s best if they scream, fight, and make a scene if they’re scared or uncomfortable. Tell them if a man touches them or makes them uncomfortable on the subway or the bus that they should yell and make a scene. Tell them if a man is in public making them uncomfortable to yell and make a scene. Tell them they have nothing to be embarrassed about if it happens to them because they’re not the one doing anything wrong.

Predators who touch girls and women in public or in any way harass girls and women and make them uncomfortable are counting on girls and women being quiet because of the heavy social conditioning to not make a scene or inconvenience anyone or their victims feeling too much shame and embarrassment to speak up. It’s really important that we try to actively combat that social conditioning in girls and work to undo that social conditioning in adult women.

Biden’s rambling justification of the status quo was peppered with straw men, invocations of false scarcity and non-solutions. He pitted working-class Americans against each other, implying that people who attend private schools aren’t worthy of relief, as though poor students don’t also attend such schools. He said that money would be better spent on early childhood education instead of debt cancellation, as if educators aren’t themselves drowning in student debt, and as if we can’t address both concerns at once. He suggested relying on parents or selling a home at a profit to settle your debt, a luxury those without intergenerational wealth or property cannot afford. And he touted various programs, including Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), that have totally failed borrowers: over 95% of PSLF applicants have been denied.

In contrast to Biden’s smug comments, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley recently revealed that she defaulted on her student loans. Similarly, at a recent Debt Collective event, congressional hopeful Nina Turner said that she and her son owe a combined $100,000. Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has, of course, proudly confessed to being in debt, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said that becoming a congressperson was easier than paying off her debt. Philadelphia councilmember Kendra Brooks (who is planning to introduce a city resolution calling on the Biden administration to cancel all student debt) has also spoken out about her own struggles as a borrower. Their experience and candor – and commitment to real solutions including cancellation – demonstrate why we need debtors, not millionaires, in our public offices.

Let’s be clear about another thing. Biden ABSOLUTELY has the legal authority to use executive power to cancel all federal student debt. Congress granted this authority decades ago as part of the Higher Education Act. It’s even been put to the test: in response to the Covid pandemic, Donald Trump and his former education secretary, Betsy DeVos, used that authority three times to suspend payments and student loan interest.

Biden owes this country debt relief not only because he campaigned on it, but because he helped cause the problem. A former senator from Delaware, the credit card capital of the world, he spent decades carrying water for financial interests and expanding access to student loans while limiting borrower protections.

Instead of acknowledging this generational disparity, Biden reiterated a common criticism of more generous forms of student debt cancellation – that it would help the privileged, specifically the minuscule subset of debt-holders who attended the Ivy League. But as Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in response: “Very wealthy people already have a student loan forgiveness program. It’s called their parents.” As things stand, poor and working people typically pay more for the same degrees than their affluent counterparts due to years or decades of monthly payments and accumulating interest. Our debt-financed higher education system is a tax on poor people who dare pursue a better life.