hello! nice to meet you! my name is xiangling!

People of color, especially black people, have to think about racism constantly. It's woven into the fabric of our entire lives. Every interaction with white people runs past that filter. And you'd be shocked how much racism we catch that we simply never comment on, at work, at school, even with our friends. I have a lot of white friends. And yes, they do and say racist things, or don't speak against racist things, maintaining the racist status quo with white-serving white silence. And they never have to consider those actions. They never have to consider their impact. What an incredible luxury, to exist in a world where you can decide whether racism exists, or not. What a gift to live free of that heavy burden that so many of us find chained to our backs.

Your trauma was severe enough, your mental illness is severe enough, your disorder is severe enough. 

It’s traditionally misogynistic in that it “punishes” any deviation from traditional masculinity by stripping away a man’s “right” to call himself a man. Manhood is a competition under patriarchy; being a man is not seen as the obligation that being a woman is. Instead, men are expected to compete for their “right” to manhood, and Being A Man is a reward reserved only for those who conform the best. The “right” to manhood is constantly dangled over men’s heads- the threat being that if they deviate at all, if they fail to conform, it will be taken away.

Calling feminine men “basically women” is not woke or queer or feminist; it’s classic misogyny.

It’s a weird rehash of the “no femmes” hatred of gender non-conforming men in gay subculture, too. Gay men have to fight twice as hard to be seen as men already, and much of gay male subculture in the modern day is built around being seen as acceptably masculine under patriarchy. “Femmes” are seen as undesireable for how adjacent to women they are, and gay men who are with them are also often seen as abandoning gayness for this perceived proxy to straightness.

It’s also extremely transphobic to trans men in particular. I feel this point is often overlooked, because if we see any feminine man as a woman, imagine how validated trans women must feel! But the message is that all of these attributes- a slight frame, less or no body hair, a soft/round face, or feminine clothing- automatically negate manhood. They cannot coexist with manhood, and any “man” who bears them is actually just a woman or woman-proxy. Only people who are attracted to women could ever be attracted to them, because they’re Basically Women.

And imagine how that feels to trans men, who, even after years on testosterone, often still have slight frames, less/no body hair, or a soft/round face. Imagine how that feels to trans men who are interested in feminine clothing, who aren’t interested in HRT or don’t have access to HRT, or who are just... gender non-conforming. We already have to fight so much harder in the competition of manhood under patriarchy; now we’re being told by other queer people that any small sign of femininity makes us “basically women”, too?

always listen to music/audio at a reasonable volume. additionally, use over-ear headphones instead of earbuds whenever possible, preferably noise-cancelling ones as you won’t have to turn up the volume to drown out ambient sounds.

use earplugs when going to concerts/other loud places (cons, sport events, etc). if you’re worried about audio quality or not being able to hear people in a conversation, don’t be! many modern earplugs simply attenuate incoming sound without muffling it or otherwise deteriorating the sound (this is absolutely not an ad but Flare Audio’s Isolate is one example of earplugs that work like this). use of earplugs can in many cases result in an even better experience, as your ears will only perceive really loud audio as straight-up distortion anyway, a problem that earplugs fix quite effectively. 

it’s also important to note that if anyone gives you shit for wearing earplugs, they are not your friend and you should absolutely not listen to anything they have to say (if you’re the kind of person who does this then please drop your address in my DMs so i can personally come punch you in the face, thanks!)

if you work in or otherwise frequent a noisy environment, try to find the time to give your ears some rest. just sitting/meditating in a quiet space on a somewhat regular basis is enough, and also has the added benefit of decreasing stress and anxiety, two other factors that can potentially lead to/worsen tinnitus.

this is all important because once you have tinnitus, it will not go away. while there are treatments that can help mitigate the symptoms or help you cope with them, there is no cure for tinnitus, and there is no guarantee that there ever will be.

i feel like i don’t need to put into words how detrimental it is to your overall quality of life to have a constant tone/noise playing in your ears, never being able to hear pure silence ever again.

if you’re curious about what it’s like for me specifically, go to this website, set the waveform to “sine”, put in 6800 hertz, drag the volume slider almost all the way to the left, then click play. this is approximately what i hear in my left ear constantly, even when there’s other sounds in the background. any everyday sounds in the same frequency range that i happen to hear also amplify this tone, so simply drowning it out is not an option.

[ID: Tweet from monicayk97 reads, "honestly i'm just fucking done and tired with it all. i'm angry that i know the white supremacist shooter's name before the names of the asian women. i'm angry that it's working class asians that are targeted and people wanna erase us all as wealthy. i'm just fucking angry" end ID]

some places to donate (compiled by monica):

advancing justice (atlanta, GA local org)

stopaapihate (aapi women-led)

'i'm ready' movement (aapi women-led)

asian prisoner support committee

apienc (for queer and trans asian people)

[Tweet by Jenny Yang @jennyyangtv

THESE ARE THEIR NAMES

TO THE MEDIA: FIGURE OUT HOW TO SAY THEIR NAMES. THANKS.

Delaina Ashley Yaun

Paul Andre Michels

Xiaojie Tan

Daoyou Feng

Julie Park

Hyeon Jeong Park

(two more not yet released)