Life will change

Aro and ace exclusion was like this, they'd say "Asexuals are basically straight, they can just pass as straight, nobody cares if they want to fuck or not, there's aromantic straight man invading Pride, there are quirky asexual straight girls pretending to be queer, asexuals are appropriating Stone and oppressing lesbians."

Bisexual exclusion and it was all, "Bisexuals are basically straight, they can just avoid oppression by being straight, these fucking bisexual women are bringing their homophobic straight boyfriends to pride, bisexual women are appropriating butch and femme, and they can't say dyke, those are lesbian only terms, bisexual women are oppressing lesbians."

And now it's like, "Trans men are basically cis. They can just avoid oppression by saying they are men, these fucking trans men are dangerous rapists who can pretend to be women to avoid consequences, trans men are appropriating T4T, and they can't say tranny, and can't say they were once "eggs", those are trans woman only terms. Trans men are oppressing women."

This isn't even all, transmeds also fit this bill, their enemy is just "the transtrender menace."

Like here we are again, rooting out the fake queers, policing them, traumatizing an entire community, and when we all get embarrassed about how we fell for yet another fucking queer moral panic, the damage will be downplayed, nobody will learn anything and we'll move onto the next secretly privileged queer group who needs to be annihilated in order to defend some poor defenseless women who cannot possibly defend themselves from these ugly mannish straight invaders... huh, wait a second.... why does that sound so familiar?

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

🎶 the people you love are all you have to lean on so treat them well 🎶

Screenshot via Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net on bluesky

Tldr Amnesty International, global human rights organisation, published a report called 'A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK'. In it is detailed, amongst others, a whole bunch of transphobic groups and organisations, including Beira's Place, JK Rowling's trans exclusionary sexual violence support service. JK Rowling threw a shit fit and got Amnesty to take the report down by threatening libel. This was obviously not enough, because you can't appease a fascist, so now she's going to bankroll a bunch of lawsuits anyway through the JK Rowling Women's Fund.*

You can read an archived version of the report here, please save it and share it.