I WENT TO KITTENS WITH WINGS ISLAND AND EVERYBODY KNEW YOU

Either way, I am getting distracted. The point was actually: someone dropped into my comments at this going: "Ha! I would argue children were more oppressed when it was legal to beat them!" And mind you. This person was American. And, uhm... Well.

I do not know how I should tell y'all. But you... do understand that it is still legal in all of the US to physically punish children as a parent, right? Like, the US never ratified the rights of children. A lot of places never did that, actually.

This is the map from Wikipedia about where children can legally be beaten by their parents or in some cases even teachers. The key is: in Green countries it is illegal alltogether, in yellow countries it is legal for parents/guardians at home to physically beat children, bright orange allows it for parents/guardians and within private schools, dark orange is generally parents/guardians and people at school, and red countries allow violence against children in pretty much any institution.

And, like, you might say: "Oh, that is actually more green countries than I thought." But... I should remind you that in the end, even in the green countries, the law against violence through parents/guardians tends to not be enforced until it reaches a level where adjacent adults will be uncomfortable.

And pretty much no country protects children and minors from non-physical stuff. Having your privacy stripped? Yeah, tough luck, nobody cares. Your parents or teachers verbally abusing and humiliating you? Yeah, tough luck, fuck you.

And many of the rules that are currently pushed for to "protect" children from evil things like *checks notes* porn and horror movies and serial kidnappers that do not actually exist pushes children into a situation where they have way, way less abilities to escape abusive homes, or abusive schooling situations. Because children and minors in general are right now heavily restricted in their freedom of movement and freedom of education.

Any of your friends or family members could be part of a system. Any of your classmates or coworkers could, too. Even your partner could be a system.

Plural systems usually do not announce our plurality. Because of the massive stigma around plurality, we try to pass as singlets. My system does this every day. My headmates have friends they've known for a decade who don't know we're plural.

It's said that dissociative disorders are very rare, but they're not. Trauma can and does happen to anyone. And many systems don't have dissociative disorders at all.