hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

this was it LMAO

the last time I reblogged this post right before I got a great job, in a permanent work-from-home position, with benefits, retirement, and a salary literally 3x what I was making before, doing something I really like. 

So you know. 

I need some good luck for my resubmission but life is good and I can get back to writing with my new laptop soon and hopefully a house in the future.

So, if any trans men are being told about this, it’s not true!! Smoking will not change your voice, at least not until you’re about forty years down the line and you’ve already irreparably destroyed your lungs and throat and mouth and pretty much every other organ in your body. When you hear heavy smokers with deeper, scratchier voices it is literally because their vocal cords have been ruined. This is not a passive effect of smoking, it is a very very damaging one!

It’s simply not worth it! There will be no meaningful changes except terrible ones. Voice training will do a lot more for you than cigarettes will, I promise that the people urging you to start smoking as a voice training method do not have your best interests at heart!

(And you know what, this also goes for not eating due to the idea that starving yourself will decrease your chest size. Like with smoking, there will be no meaningful changes except terrible ones. Your body is worth so much more than that and there will always be healthier alternatives!)

(Btw, afaik smoking only has this effect on estrogen from HRT. Estrogen that AFAB bodies produce naturally is not affected, so smoking is still bad for trans men)

I think also in that conversation, I had a couple people tell me that the book The Easy Way to Quit Smoking is, despite the gimmicky title, genuinely helpful.

If quitting for yourself seems too abstract and it’s hard to care, think about everyone around you. Someone with asthma or migraines will breathe easier if they’re not risking an attack from standing near you.

Lastly, some queer history: a 90’s tobacco marketing campaign that targeted gay men was literally called Project SCUM. That’s what they think of us. Don’t give them your money.

THIS was posted by the current President....

Presumably it was supposed to project an image of utter masculinity.... which would surely test even the most soulless of generative AI programs, but this... THIS?

This may simultaneously be amongst the most horrifying AND most gay things I've seen in my long life.

The closest thing I can think of is those old Sino/Soviet posters all about men striving together which just looks like they're a slightly adorable gay couple, sometimes bringing up their kids together.

The central image strives for manliness, though I can only hear Jabba the Hutt's theme playing in my head as I look at it.