Will not stop dancing

Over fifty years of data show a peak in PFAS (also known as "forever chemicals") content in seabird eggs in the 90s, followed by a decrease as regulations went into effect. The most recent findings show a 70% decrease of most common PFAS.

We are making genuine progress! Producers are dramatically altering how much they use PFAS and how much gets released in effluent, but also there's a lot better understanding of how to remove PFAS from the environment!

ETA2: we do use inches/miles in poetic ways ("he was lost in thought/miles away" or "his lips were a bare inch away").

Something I notice is, when men discuss the manosphere, they either centre the reason boys fall down that pipeline on some inner weakness or defectiveness of the boy, ie. "they're just autistic weirdos who want rules for women because they can't get their dick wet," or they centre the reason on women, "feminism had made women too woke, mean and impossible to socialise with."

What I noticed while working is that every single little Tate goblin I had to work with had conservative parents, and I have never once seen that aspect of all this discussed. Boys will reflect the social norms they are raised in within their household. The biggest preventative for manosphere bullshit I saw in the boys I worked with was a dad who isn't a fuckwit and a household that isn't LARPing the 1960s.

okay

The answer is: the uterus isn't what causes your period, it is effected by your period. What causes your period and what causes trans women's periods is the same thing: the endocrine system.

HRT changes the sex of your endocrine system. Feminizing HRT makes it a female endocrine system, giving us a 28-day hormone cycle just like cis women. At the end of that cycle, the hypothalamus floods the body with prostaglandins. Those are what cause all but one of the period symptoms, because they make muscles inflame and contract. They are what make the uterus shed its lining, they are what cause intestinal cramps, they are what cause body aches, they are what cause headaches and migraines. The only period symptom not causes by the release of prostaglandins throughout the body is depression, and that is caused by your endocrine system simply not processing as much estrogen and from simply feeling like shit.

So, the only symptoms trans women don't get every 28 days is menstrual cramps, because yes we do not menstruate since we don't have uteruses. But migraines, depression, body aches, intestinal cramps, and the infamous "period shits" don't exactly add up to us having any better of a time. Except we have to pretend that we're fine and nothing is different because no one believes that we get periods, not even cis women.

Slurs used against intersex people are often taken and reclaimed for perisex trans people who then shut the door on us, telling intersex people these slurs were never "really" for us and that we need to keep our mouth shut on their usage.

Terminology we coin is similarly taken by perisex trans people, and then their usage is twisted and turned around to bludgeon us with in the endless attempt to fit intersex people into the box of agab based 'girl intersex' or 'boy intersex' for the sake of making trans discourse cleaner.

While it may seem harmless on the surface, even things like intersex animals being consistently held up as "trans icons" while their intersex status is ignored, is representative of the larger problem.

We're fetishized, propped up as "transition goals", people gush about what they imagine intersex bodies to be, joke about- or in rare cases, seriously claim- to be "transitioning into being intersex", because to them intersex people are a fetishized aesthetic.

And then, anybody who doesn't fit into their fetishized view of the 'true hermaphrodite' are treated as if they're not intersex at all. How often do perisex people mockingly deride who they view as "just cis women with pcos" for daring to try to have a voice in gendered conversations? As if hormonally intersex people are 'fakers' in some way.

We're used as a talking point, constantly, against transphobes.

"How can transphobia be 'basic biology' when even sex isn't binary?" perisex trans people challenge transphobes, but then, as soon as they're done using us as a gotcha, those same perisex trans people try to push us into a sex binary that doesn't fit us.

There's an envy, almost, to how perisex trans people talk about "cis children" having access to "gender affirming care" like surgeries and hormones, speaking about our medical abuse, the medical mutilation of our children, as if it's a privilege to us as "cis people", rather than a horrible oppression our community faces.

And then there's the argument, on how transmisogynistic laws impact "cis women" (intersex people) as well, as if this is something transphobes are unaware of. Whether they'll say it or not, very few pericis people care to differentiate between a "hermaphrodite" and a "transsexual" in their minds, intersex people are not collateral damage, we are intended targets.

Not to mention how intersex people are also used as weapons in intra-community discourse within the trans community as well, people will tack on the concept of intersexism to an argument to legitimize it while refusing to listen to or engage with our community, at least, beyond the few intersex people with internalized intersexism they can find to boost their points and then drop. We are a talking point, but we ourselves are never given the space to talk, because fundamentally our oppression is seen as lesser, 'collateral' in transphobia, this is why perisex trans people seem to think we're a good debate point to use against transphobes who surely care about us.

This concept of intersex people as "collateral" is also what fuels the concept that trans people can, and should, "just pretend to be intersex" to get out of instances of oppression, as if intersex people don't experience horrible violence regardless, for looking the way we do, for being what we are. Actually talk to almost any intersex person and I'm sure they'll be able to give you countless examples of times "I just have a condition" didn't save them, because intersex people too are active targets of gendered violence and oppression.

Even intersex people who are also trans are frequently given a lesser seat at the table. Because we're "lucky", because surely we have an easier time transitioning, a head start, and surely by virtue of being intersex we- especially intersex people people with an ISIG- can more easily be 'accepted' as another gender anyways, so rather than intersex trans people being treated as more vulnerable, because of how intersexism and transphobia intersect to doubly marginalize us, we're viewed as somehow 'less trans', or at least impacted less significantly by transphobia, and, well, functionally, it seems a lot of trans people do not believe intersexism exists, or if they do believe in it, they view it as a misdirected and lesser form of transphobia.

And I'm tired of it. I'm tired of intersex terminology and oppression and symbols being co-opted by perisex people who then try to claim those things were never ours at all, I'm tired of being a talking point for people to use for their benefit without having a voice of our own, I'm tired of us being rhetorical props to be put back in our boxes when perisex people are done using us, I'm tired of our community being derisively talked over from all sides, I'm tired of the fetishization, the envy, the belittling, and of still having to meekly and respectfully beg for a seat at the table in discussions of gendered oppression!