Last week, the Trump administration quietly released a sweeping new federal rule that would use funding threats to force institutions across the country to reject transgender people. The 400-page proposed regulation would codify the administration's anti-trans executive orders into binding federal policy, imposing a blanket prohibition on federal funds going toward "gender ideology"

The proposed rule, formally titled "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance," rewrites the government-wide framework governing all federal grants across every agency. Among its most consequential provisions, it requires that before a federal grant recipient can receive money, the award must pass a "pre-issuance review" conducted by a political appointee—not a career expert or peer reviewer—to ensure it is "consistent with applicable law, Federal agency priorities, and the national interest." The regulation explicitly instructs these appointees to screen for "denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic." [...] An institution that acknowledges transgender people exist—through its policies, its training, its healthcare, its bathroom access, its HR procedures, its name-change processes—could be deemed to "deny the sex binary" or to “support the notion that sex is mutable” and have its federal funding blocked.

This torches everything. And I do mean everything.

A very abbreviated list of its ramifications include (but are not limited to):

ending funding for ALL DEI related initiatives

allowing the government to terminate grants at any point for any reason

preventing researchers from publishing, going to conferences, and being part of academic societies

requiring that topics must support the president’s agenda.

What this means, and if anything I’m under selling it, is the death of science and research in America. It allows the government to restrict any topic they please at a whims notice, putting officials who have no background in the topic in charge of deciding funding continuity. It controls what gets researched and if/how researchers are allowed to share their discoveries. There are no books to burn if the government never allows them to be written. This is fascism plain and simple.

Public comments are not a vote, it is a chance for you to say "here is an issue with this law I think you need to address" and provide justification for legal challenges if it goes forward:

"Comments raise the bar that agencies have to meet when making a rule; “if an agency fails to adequately respond to significant, relevant comments in a final rule, members of the public may seek to challenge the rule in court on that basis and claim it could be struck down.ˮ"

This year’s is different. They are now federal REQUIREMENTS, which means there’s no flexibility. As was said previously, the 400 pages are not singularly devoted to being absolute shitheads to trans people. Theres a lot of stuff in there, some of which is the standard dry boring grants stuff, some of which is the horrible ideological warfare outlined above.

This document is issued by the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, which is currently lead by fucking Russell Vought, the principal architect of Project 2025. This is how they’re going to implement all the horrible shit in there that wasn’t covered by Executive Order. Russell Vought is actively coming for my job, my marriage, and my kid, and most of my friends lost their jobs last year because of him. He is the fucking arch villain behind the heinous shit the current regime is doing.

Why do you care?

“You know what? Nevermind. It’s not worth it.” Occtis starts folding himself into bed, prompting Julien to sit up, aggravated by the principle of the thing. “Just ask me the fucking question.” “I don’t just want to ask one, I want to—gh—do you know how a conversation works?” “You want to get to know me?” Julien says with horror. — On the road to the Golden Orchard, after the second-worst week of their lives, Occtis and Julien play stupid games.

Chapter: 1/5

Rating: E Fandom: Critical Role (Aramán) Ship: Julien Davinos/Occtis Tachonis Word Count: 4,766 Tags: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Forced Proximity, Road Trip, Sharing a Bed, POV Julien Davinos, Character Study, Mutual Pining, Denial of Feelings, Bonding, Question Games, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Substance Abuse, First Time, Sex Experiments, Undernegotiated Kink

Content warnings for the fic are described in the tags and elaborated in the Author’s Note.

aka why tf am i procrastinating on The Thing (more like a flowchart, actually)

lots of people who have executive function difficulties worry about whether they’re procrastinating on a task out of laziness/simply wanting to be a jerk or mental struggles. this checklist might help you figure out which it is at any given time! (hint: it’s almost never laziness or being a jerk.) (obligatory disclaimer: this is just what works for me! something different might work better for you.)

1) do I honestly intend to start the task despite my lack of success?

yes: it’s a Brain Problem. next question

no: it’s shitty to say one thing & do another. better be honest with myself & anyone expecting me to do the task.

2) am I fed, watered, well-rested, medicated properly, etc?

yes: next question

no: guess what? this is the real next task

3) does the idea of starting the task make me feel scared or anxious?

yes: Anxiety Brain. identify what’s scaring me first.

no: next question

4) do I know how to start the task?

yes: next question

no: ADHD Brain. time to make an order of operations list.

5) do I have everything I need to start the task?

yes: next question

no: ADHD Brain lying to me about the steps again, dangit. first task is ‘gather the materials’.

6) why am i having a hard time switching from my current task to this new task?

i’m having fun doing what i’m doing: it’s okay to have fun doing a thing! if task is time-sensitive, go to next question.

i have to finish doing what i’m doing: might be ADHD brain. can I actually finish the current task or will I get trapped in a cycle? does this task really need to be finished?

the next task will be boring/boring-er than the current task: ADHD brain. re-think the next task. what would make it exciting? what am I looking forward to?

I might not have enough time to complete the task: ADHD brain wants to finish everything it starts. (if task is time-sensitive, go to next question)

i just want to make the person who asked me to do it angry: sounds like anxiety brain trying to punish itself, because I know I’ll be miserable if someone is angry at me. why do i think I deserve punishment?

no, I seriously want to piss them off: okay, i’m being a shithead

7) have I already procrastinated so badly that I now cannot finish the task in time?

yes: ADHD brain is probably caught in a guilt-perfection cycle. since I can’t have the task done on time, i don’t even want to start.

reality check: having part of a thing done is almost always better than none of a thing done. if I can get an extension, having part of it done will help me keep from stalling out until the extension deadline. i’ll feel better if I at least try to finish it.

no, there’s still a chance to finish on time: ADHD brain thinks that I have all the time in the world, but the truth is I don’t. 

reality check: if i’m having fun doing what I’m doing, I can keep doing it, but I should probably set a timer & ask someone to check on me to make sure I start doing the task later today.

8) I’ve completed the checklist and still don’t know what’s wrong!

probably wasn’t honest enough with myself. take one more look.

if I’m still mystified, ask a friend to help me talk it out.

you’re not the only person who’s expressed trouble with the first step, so I’m gonna elaborate just a little on the concept of intent.

‘Intending to act’ can be rephrased as ‘expecting yourself to do the thing’. 

It’s the difference between your teacher giving you homework (your teacher expects you to do the homework) and you deciding to do the homework (you expect yourself to do the homework).

I don’t think you can lie to yourself about whether or not you intend to do something. even as a person who often doesn’t have a real concept of how much I can actually get done*, I can always tell when I don’t really expect myself to do a thing vs when I do expect myself to do it but I’m struggling to start.

below is a list of things that might help you tell if you really intend to do a thing. if even ONE of these is true, I believe you honestly intend to do the task you’re struggling to start.

do you want to do it? or alternatively: do you want the benefits from doing it enough to do it?

even if you don’t want to do it, do you expect yourself to do it?

can you imagine yourself starting the thing? (even if you don’t have a plan for how to get there.)

do you have even a nebulous plan for doing the thing? (my ‘plans’ often start out: ‘1. go to wherever I have to be to do the thing 2. do the thing 3. ???? 4. profit’, which isn’t much of a plan but at least there’s a sense of starting and ending.)

are you trying to force yourself to do the thing by not allowing yourself to start any other things first (and thus continuously scrolling through twitter/tumblr, or staring at your ceiling, or whatever)?

are you trying to make yourself do the thing by offering yourself rewards for doing the thing?

again: 

if even ONE of these is true, I believe you honestly intend to do the task you’re struggling to start.

and this isn’t an exhaustive list of ways to tell you’re planning to do it! you know yourself best, and you can develop ways to tell the difference between your good intent and your wishful thinking.

procrastination is a hell of a monster, especially if you don’t have normal executive function. be nice to yourself! you are a decent person and want to do good things.

*the real problem ADHD people seem to have (or at least, the problem I, an adhd person, often have) is intending to do too much. my to-do list for any given day usually overestimates both how much time I have & how much energy I have. as a result, I can honestly intend to clean my room, do the dishes, and do my budget in one day, but I’ll probably only end up doing 2 out 3 things b/c I’ll run out of time or energy before I get to the last one. 

Like, the difference between the Thaisha of the ritual, the gentle shepherdess guiding lost souls through grief and joy to freedom, and then this Thaisha Lloy, stone cold, stone faced, just flatly daring anyone to touch what is hers. No explanations, no nothing. Just flat, this is the way it is because I say so. Do we have a problem?

I am getting Delenn of the Minbari flashbacks, because Thaisha Lloy just made a whole combat just go away. Tail between their legs.

There's all these Magpies in the background with their crossbows, Vaelus, Azune, Hal, Murray, half of damned Dol Makjar ready to have a fucking go, and none of it is needed.

Just Thaisha. Just a Lloy. Casually ready to stand her ground.