cringe culture is dead and I killed it >:3c

Texas kitten in snow

because they were lonely and needed human interaction/attention

or had emotional needs not being met

because they thought it was the price of being treated with care

or because it was a way to understand/reenact/overwrite/escape previous trauma

because they thought it was normal

or because they had picked up the message that this was how to be daring and cool and sexy/mature

or because they didn’t really understand how it would affect them

because they felt like they deserved it

or because they thought there wasn’t a big difference and “age is just a number”

or because being sexual around adults was the only time people said nice things to them or seemed to like them or notice them

or for any other reason

… still did not deserve the abuse they suffered.

Kids who initiate flirtation with adults still don’t deserve abuse.

Adults who aren’t abusers will not take advantage of a kid’s crush or advances. It’s the adult’s responsibility to set clear boundaries and enforce them. It’s an adult’s responsibility to not become sexually or romantically involved with a child. Adults who do are abusers.

Children did not cause those adults to become abusers. Children cannot tempt nonabusers into becoming abusers. Children are never responsible for adults deciding to abuse.

Even if you feel like you made it really easy for them to abuse you, being vulnerable to abuse around a nonabuser doesn’t result in abuse. Your vulnerability wasn’t the cause of the abuse. Their choices were.

[ Link to survey ]

The eighth annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 10th March 2021.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, retweet this tweet, boost this Mastodon post, check out this post on Reddit, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks like Facebook. Every share is extremely helpful - it’s what helped us get 24,000 responses last year.

Survey URL: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/gendercensus2021/

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

I’m cis because I’m afab and still identify as a woman. If I was afab and identified any other way, I’d be trans. I’m intersex because my body itself has a mixed bag of secondary sex characteristics and hormones.

The label “intersex” itself isn’t a gender identity as much as it’s a way for people with mixed or ambiguous sex characteristics to define that experience. There are cis men and women who are intersex, trans people of every kind as well. I’m sure there are intersex people who just identify as intersex entirely but most intersex people I’ve met still identify as male, female, or nonbinary. Because your body doesn’t determine your gender identity.

literally the intro is like "yeah we're being 'woke', what the fuck are you gonna do about it bitch? gonna whine on twitter? gonna piss your pants? maybe shit and cum?"