Ari's Repository of Mind-Expanding Discoveries

on the way home, I encounter someone eating raspberries. I ask and they tell me that they grow their own, they got some seeds from the shop back in The Raspberry Days and kept them. They take me to a field of many beautiful raspberry plants and invite me to pick my own, they're free for all the town to pick whenever they'd like.

Twice now. Twice. I have been instructed by a dermatologist to go to a pharmacy to purchase something (expensive!) for a medical issue, got it home, opened it up, and was blasted in the face with a floral perfume which immediately made me feel sick.

One of them was a medicated lotion that the doctor said would help with my dry skin and eczema, since nothing else was helping. Not only could I not use it, but even after closing the container, I had to move it outside of my home until I could find someone else to take it because the smell kept wafting off of it.

The other was a medicated shampoo. The label had the audacity to list "hypoallergenic perfume" in the ingredients as though there existed a perfume in this world that no one is allergic to. I tried using it anyway (the smell didn't seem that strong at the start) and then just re-washing with my usual scent-free shampoo to get rid of the perfume. The smell remaining in my hair, after being washed twice, wound up being so strong that my fucking pillow reeked after lying in bed for a few minutes. I had to wash my hair again several times and also wash the pillowcase several times to get rid of it. I was not able to use the shampoo anymore, and there was no similar product in existence without the perfume.

When I told the dermatologists about these issues, they were shocked. It's hypoallergenic though, you should be fine! They suggested I should just use it anyway and I would probably, uh, get used to the smell.

You are. A DERMATOLOGIST. How is it possible that you've never encountered a patient who was sensitive to ALL PERFUMES (not to mention a lot of other chemicals commonly found in soaps, shampoos, and lotions)?

And I'm lucky. I may have a mild form of MCAS (can't get a diagnosis because it's not severe enough and the shitty tests are always negative, but no one has a better explanation for my random reactions to things I am officially Not Allergic to), or maybe I just have a lot of really weird sensitivities. I might get a rash, I might get hives, I might get a sore throat and itchy face, I might wheeze and be short of breath. But I won't die. I won't go into anaphylactic shock.

Bc so many ppl focus on the idea of telling A Trusted Adult, but even a well-meaning individual can fuck up and let abuse fall through the cracks or not know what to do

Whereas if a child tells LOADS of adults AND other kids, there's far less opportunity for an abuser to do damage control

Consistently telling their story and spreading it around disempowers the abuser to control and coerce the flow of information, or to utilise gaps and weaknesses in systems of reporting or welfare to isolate the child

'assigned' is past tense. it was an event, coercive, forced without your approval because you were only minutes old. its not a label, its not an identity

The overwhelming majority of antivaxxers I've met in real life have been nurses in hospitals. I make it a point not to associate with such people if I can possibly avoid it, so pretty much the only time I would have to hear about it directly is if I'm part of a trapped audience waiting for something else to happen. And so almost all the people I've met who felt moved to take me aside and "warn" me about the fictitious dangers of vaccines have been registered nurses despensing medical """advice""" inside of hospitals.

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.