Mutant and Proud

my mom would write bible verses on like anything when i was younger so this happened

In the heart of South Sudan, amidst the turmoil of civil war and human suffering, I find myself trapped in a precarious existence. As a queer refugee from Uganda, I carry the weight of my identity, feeling targeted, marginalized, and silenced. My journey began in 2021 when I fled my home country in search of safety and solidarity, only to be met with hostility in Kenya. There, I sought protection under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), but I quickly discovered that my pleas for help fell on deaf ears. Living in Kakuma refugee camp, I faced relentless discrimination, harassment, and threats from both fellow refugees and members of the host community. The environment was so hostile that sadly, we lost some friends to violence; others succumbed to despair, taking their own lives in the face of overwhelming adversity.

In 2023, with little hope left, I made the difficult decision to move to South Sudan, believing that a change in scenery might offer me a chance for a new beginning. However, the reality here is grim. The country is enveloped in a civil war, and basic necessities such as food and medical care are scarce. As if that weren't enough, I continue to face discrimination and harassment from the local community and the government. Each day is a battle for survival, compounded by the fear of arson attacks akin to those we endured in Kenya. The struggle is relentless, and every moment is tinged with uncertainty.

Among the 750 queer individuals who once sought asylum in Kakuma, most of us are Ugandan, with others hailing from Congo, Burundi, and Ethiopia. Together, we have forged a bond formed from shared experiences and a mutual understanding of our plight. Each of us carries our own scars, but we have found strength in unity and resilience. Despite the dire circumstances, love and solidarity serve as our guiding lights, reminding us that we are not alone in this fight. We support one another, sharing stories that inspire a flicker of hope in our collective struggle for acceptance and survival.

As we navigate these challenges, the world continues to turn its back on us, limiting our options for a future. Resettlement opportunities from countries like the United States and Canada once seemed promising, but the recent executive order issued by President Trump has left many of us in limbo. Our dreams of rebuilding our lives in safety and dignity hang by a thread, and we anxiously wonder when—or if—this agonizing history will change for us. The fear for our future looms large, but we find solace in our shared determination to fight for our rights.

In our hearts, we know that we must remain vigilant and hopeful. We humbly call for intervention and support, recognizing that even the smallest act of kindness can keep our struggle alive. We are yearning for a chance to be seen and heard—a chance to break free from the constraints of this global prison. With every step we take together, we nurture our dreams of liberation and resilience, for we are united in our pursuit of a brighter future, where love conquers fear and acceptance triumphs over hatred. ❤️

boy acquired

I got an A on that paper.

Writing is a skill. Skill is muscle. If you don't use a muscle, it atrophies. If you are a student and you are tempted to use genAI to cheese an assignment, I am begging you for your own sake to not do it.

This is not a moral stance about genAI (which is shit at what it's ostensibly for, and full of lies and evil, and fueled by art theft and burning rainforests, and there is no good reason to ever use it for anything; that's the moral reason for why you shouldn't use it), it is a purely pragmatic stance based on the fact that if you use it you will never learn the single most essential skill that is used in every single workplace.

You will never learn to bullshit.

And if you cannot bullshit, you will not understand when you are being fed bullshit by others.

For your own sake you must learn to do your own thinking, your own bullshitting, because our trashfire society runs on bullshit and for your own good you must become fluent in it, because very few people will bother to translate it for you. It was asinine in the late 90s, and it is asinine today, but it is the central truth of adult society: everything is bullshit, and you need to know what is going on beneath the bullshit, and you need to be able to bullshit back if necessary.

I know that the expectations being placed on you are ever-increasing, and I know that it does not seem rational to put effort into explaining the plot of a Charles Dickens novel to someone who has read the thing 50 times and will read 50 identical essays about it over the weekend. I know you are being handed ever-greater heaps of what is functionally mindless busywork because of an institutional obsession with metrics that don't actually measure learning in a useful way. High school was nightmarish in the 90s and I am fully aware that it has only gotten worse.

Nevertheless, you must try, if only for your own sake. Curiosity is your best hope, and dogged determination your best weapon. Learn, please, if only out of spite.

I was able to get an A on that paper because I was able to skim the reading, figure out what it was about, and bullshit for 1500 words in the space of 40 minutes.

Unfortunately, what I heard was "read everything BUT The Old Man And The Sea."

Double unfortunately: the first day back was a test, on The Old Man And The Sea. Which I had read exactly zero words of. It was, notably, a short essay test. It wasn't multiple choice or fill in the blank. It was designed to require deliberate answers from scratch, entirely out of your own head, with nothing to go on BUT what was in your head.

And in the course of about 45 minutes, I was able to use the questions of the test itself to piece together a vague enough sense of how the story went to bullshit my way through other questions. I gave wide, thematic answers that were extremely light on details, since I did not know any of them, and did not even know this test would be happening until it was in front of me. An essay test for an AP-level English class.

I had a starting point of zero information, and an essay test about the thing I was supposed to have read.

I bullshitted my way to a B+ on it.

On a test I should have gotten a ZERO on.

It's been 16 years since I took that test.

I couldn't tell you a damn thing about The Old Man And The Sea.

But you better fucking believe I still know how to bullshit, and when someone is trying to bullshit me.

"Well I don't think minors should be allowed to make big decisions like transition, I think they should wait until they're 18 to do that."