The Fun Police

When I see photos celebrating women who don't shave or wear makeup they are always thin, naturally beautiful or awesome, cool looking women. It feels like their natural beauty is what allows them to be comfortable. When women like me allow ourselves to be comfortable we're offensive to society on a whole other level. When so few things about us can be made acceptable to look at it feels as if the few things we can control, like having hairy legs or a bare face, is a deliberate choice made in poor taste.

I don't shave or wear makeup anymore, but I feel like a monster. I try to embrace body neutrality and accept my body for what it can do, but it's hard. It feels as if I "owe" society a shaved leg to make up for its deformity. My choice to not do anything can only at best be seen as "brave", but beyond that most of what I get is pity, a "thank god I don't look like her" type of look. I certainly can't be the only one who struggles here.

I too am visibly disabled, but even before that I was always "the weird one". I was "breaking the rules" without wanting to or even knowing that I was and people made me miserable because of it. I tried to learn to follow the rules, but everyone still made me miserable! So, if people were going to make me miserable regardless of whether or not I followed the rules, then I was going to break the rules on my terms and be myself and enjoy my life and other people could deal with it.

It was hard, I have suffered a lot because I have chosen time and time again to go against the grain, but I wouldn't take it back. The freedom and autonomy and confidence and authority I have because of it are invaluable. I have only gotten weirder with time and I'm proud of it, I'm proud to be me. I want that for other women too, to be able to be proudly themselves.

That being said, I want to give a little advice for those just getting started. If you're trying to become body neural, avoid thinking about other people's opinions of you, comparing yourself to others, monitoring your appearance, and stop trying to alter yourself (shaving, makeup, etc). Treat these things as bad habits and thought patterns that you are trying to break, because they are:

Pick one thing you can do less

List the good things that will come from changing this habit

Pick something you enjoy to replace your habit with or something you want to reward yourself with when you don't do your habit

Be consistent and hold yourself accountable

Notice any negative thoughts or self-talk

Redirect your thoughts towards the good things that come from changing your habit and the thing your enjoy or are rewarding yourself with

Continue this process until you are consistently not doing your habit, you have fewer negative thoughts, the negative thoughts you do have are easy to catch and redirect, and you feel much more comfortable

Celebrate your accomplishments

Rinse and repeat, doing something less and less until you don't do it at all

Rinse and repeat until you remove all the bad habits you set out to

Example:

Brianna wants to be more body neutral. She has decided that having less judgmental thoughts about her acne would be a good place to start. She writes out how being less judgmental will help her feel more comfortable and confident, how it will save her money because she'll buy less makeup and skincare, how she will get to wear less layers in summer, how she will enjoy being outside and in public more, etc. She's decided that every day that she catches and corrects her judgmental thoughts she'll touch nice things and give herself a massage and eat her favorite chocolate. To hold herself accountable she's told her best friend about her habit change and asked if she'd make sure to check in with Brianna every so often.

On the first day, Brianna catches herself staring in the mirror picking at her acne. She stops and thinks "it isn't healthy for me to pick at myself like that. My skin is part of me and it is working hard to keep me safe and let me enjoy life." She closes her eyes and touches her shirt and focuses on the feeling of it. "My skin lets me do that. Isn't that amazing?! I love my skin. I love me." It feels forced and overly saccharine at first, but she knows with time telling herself things like that will feel normal and earnest.

When Brianna is winding down that night, instead of staring at herself in the mirror and picking at her skin, she warms up some grape seed oil in her hands and rubs it on her face with her eyes closed, focusing on how good it feels. She does this until she feels relaxed and content and then gets a hot wet wash cloth and wipes the oil off. Then she eats a chocolate and watches her favorite TV show. Then she texts her friend "So far so good" and her friend sends back a thumbs up.

RATING: RELIABLE

The above is from this article from The Guardian.  The images are from MYA Network. The caption on their website reads:

Source: ‘When a sperm and egg get together, the body creates tissue in order to support the developing pregnancy.  Here are photos of that tissue from 5-9 week pregnancies.  This is called the gestational sac, and it’s like the “house” for the pregnancy. Inside this sac there are cells that have the potential to become a fetus but there is no visible embryo at this stage. We rinsed off the blood and menstrual lining (decidua) for these photographs.’

The published images sparked a lot of debate, leading to the story being picked up by other news outlets. For example:

Source: ‘Last week, the Guardian published images of pregnancy tissue after abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. The small size and appearance of the tissue were shocking to many. We have all absorbed, knowingly and unknowingly, the pervasive anti-abortion narrative that a pregnancy resembles a tiny baby starting in the earliest weeks. Though an early embryo can be seen under the magnification of ultrasound, it can take months for it to be perceptible to the naked eye.’

Source: ‘People have responded in disbelief, citing the (magnified) images they’ve seen on ultrasounds. […] ”Think of the illustrations on pregnancy and medical websites. The Mayo Clinic, one of the preeminent medical organizations in the country, shows week-by-week illustrations of embryonic and fetal development without any context of scale, like the rulers in the MYA photos.’

As stated in the article, whilst people talk about a ‘heartbeat’ at 6 weeks, there is no heart developed at this stage - only a group of cells that will become part of the heart.

Source: ‘But what exactly do we mean when we talk about a “fetal heartbeat” at six weeks of pregnancy? Although some people might picture a heart-shaped organ beating inside a fetus, this is not the case. Rather, at six weeks of pregnancy, an ultrasound can detect “a little flutter in the area that will become the future heart of the baby,” said Dr. Saima Aftab, medical director of the Fetal Care Center at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami. This flutter happens because the group of cells that will become the future “pacemaker” of the heart gain the capacity to fire electrical signals, she said.’

It should also be noted that the images show an embryo, not a fetus, until the 9th week.

Source: ‘In human pregnancies, a baby-to-be isn’t considered a fetus until the 9th week after conception, or week 11 after your last menstrual period (LMP).’

The co-founders of the MYA Network responded in a New York Times article.

The FBI cut the phone lines during the 1977 disability rights sit-in. Then they turned off the hot water.

They locked the doors from the outside. One hundred and fifty people were trapped on the fourth floor. Half of them used wheelchairs. The government assumed they would leave.

Kitty Cone was thirty-three. She had muscular dystrophy. Her muscles were failing, but her logistics were flawless. She knew how to organize people.

The federal government had promised to sign regulations protecting disabled Americans from discrimination. The policy was known as Section 504. They printed the promise on paper. Then they stalled. Without a signature, it was just typography.

The protesters entered the regional Health, Education, and Welfare building in San Francisco on a Tuesday morning. They took the elevators to the director's office. They brought sleeping bags and catheters. They informed the staff they were not leaving until the law was signed.

By sunset, the police surrounded the exits. Kitty sat near the windows. She organized the floor plan. She assigned committees for security and sanitation. She kept her medication in a small cooler.

According to federal memorandums released decades later, the strategy to end the occupation relied on medical attrition. The building was not equipped for long-term habitation. The FBI calculated that a population requiring ventilators, specialized diets, and daily medical aides would voluntarily evacuate if the environment became sufficiently hostile. They instituted a blockade.

The blockade went into effect immediately. No food deliveries allowed. No medical supplies permitted through the lobby. Guards stood at the main doors checking identification.

Kitty's muscles deteriorated faster under the physical strain. She couldn't walk. When the phone lines went dead, the fourth floor lost contact with the press. The government waited for the quiet.

Kitty dropped to the floor. She realized the barricades were designed for standing adults. The police had blocked the hallways at waist height. They hadn't blocked the linoleum.

The floors were covered in cigarette ash and spilled coffee. She dragged her body through it. She crawled under the barricades to reach the restricted elevator shafts and unguarded offices.

She carried notes in her pockets. She found a single working payphone the FBI missed. She called the local news desks. She called the mayor's office.

She crawled back. When her arms failed, someone pulled her by her ankles. The Black Panthers heard the news reports. They crossed the police lines with hot meals. The FBI could not stop them without a riot.

They shut off the elevators, so she crawled.

The occupation lasted twenty-five days. It remains the longest non-violent occupation of a federal building in American history. On April 28, the Secretary of HEW signed the regulations without a single alteration.

The protesters left the building the next morning. They went back to their apartments. The Rehabilitation Act regulations laid the groundwork for every accessibility law that followed. The HEW building still stands on United Nations Plaza. The elevators run on a schedule. The doors are heavy glass.

Kitty Cone: the woman who crawled under the barricades.

Source: Kitty Cone's oral history, Bancroft Library.

Verified via: National Museum of American History.

Link to the article here.

Does anyone have the link to that post explaining how the term "assigned at birth" was originally coined and used by and for intersex people (or people with DSD) before it was completely appropriated by the trans lobby, to the point that the people it was originally about have largely been forgotten?

Pilots and other transportation workers have absurd hours of service requirements that start your rest period as “the moment you shut the vehicle down” and can be as short as 9 hours in some cases.

Railroad workers have to be available on-call 6 days a week and be ready within two hours notice. They don’t get sick time.

Retail workers have to keep a veneer of politeness against any and all abuse or they can be fired.

Truck drivers get paid by mileage and rarely see pay for shipper or receiver delays.

So when I hit kindergarten and teachers and people started telling me I wasn't allowed to rough house with the boys because I was a girl. That I should wear dresses because they made me look 'cute' and then when I did, they told me I wasn't allowed to run around and play because I was wearing a dress and it wasn't 'proper' as a girl. That I needed to be less rambunctious, that I wasn't allowed because I was a girl.

Yah, no fucking shit I told my mum I wanted to be a boy. I wasn't 'allowed' to do the things I wanted to do and had fun doing because everyone said I was a girl. She told me that my body was what it was and being a tomboy was perfectly fine. So I became a tomboy and everytime someone told me I couldn't do something because I was a girl I responded with 'Im a TOMBOY so I can!'.

Online Education Program & Student Surgery Support:

Stripe GoFundMe

New Sister Care Initiative:

A lot of us were raised with the idea that “its normal for wives/children to get hit! it helps them learn– only white folk don’t get beaten when they misbehave”. That’s not true, white people aren’t the only ones who deserve a safe and abuse free environment. Black and brown people can and do have loving families. 

Washington Examiner - Trump administration loaning $17.5 billion to build 10 large nuclear reactors  By Callie Patteson Published June 23, 2026 10:18am ET "This was a key goal laid out by President Donald Trump last year in his plan to quadruple domestic nuclear capacity by midcentury to support surging energy demand brought on by increased manufacturing and data centers running artificial intelligence."

My letter to reps: 

I don't want my taxpayer money going to rich companies to build nuclear to make things cheaper for data center developers and their billionaire tycoon backers. Billionaires don't need more of our money to speculate with.