Mermaids are real.

And all my scars don’t seem to matter anymore

Kelly Herron was using a restroom in a public park on March 5 when a man, who’d previously been convicted of sex crimes, allegedly pushed her to the ground and attempted to rape her. Herron later posted on Instagram that she was “clawing his face, punching back, and desperately trying to escape his grip,” screaming “not today, motherfucker!” when she got away. Her story got a lot of media coverage because her fitness tracker recorded her frantic movements during the attack.

(Kelly Herron’s Instagram post)

run_kiwi_run My biggest running nightmare became reality- 4 miles into my long run Sunday afternoon, I stopped to use the restroom and was assaulted by a man hiding in a stall (that is my GPS in red lines). I fought for my life screaming (”Not today, M**F**er!”), clawing his face, punching back, and desperately trying to escape his grip- never giving up. I was able to lock him in the bathroom until police arrived. Thankfully I just took a self-defense class offered at my work and utilized all of it. My face is stitched, my body is bruised, but my spirit is intact.

A few days later, Just Want Privacy, a group pushing a school-specific ballot initiative that would prevent transgender children from using the restrooms that correspond with their gender identities, used the photo Herron had posted of her injuries in an email to its campaign listserv.

…When Herron found out her experience had been co-opted into a moneymaking scheme, she responded to the group with the same language she used to try to scare her assailant, Gary Steiner. “To the people behind I-1552, I say ‘not today, mutherf*ckers,’” she wrote in a public statement published by the Stranger. “I refuse to allow anyone to use me and my horrific sexual assault to cause harm and discrimination to others.”

This is the most pure thing I’ve ever seen, we are not worthy!

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act: ‘Null and Void’

In a victory activists were unsure they’d get, Uganda’s Constitutional Court overturned the country’s draconian Anti-Homosexuality Act today, declaring the anti-LGBT law “null and void” because of a parliamentary technicality in how it was passed.  

And fantastic news for the LGBTQI community worldwide too