The sun must still shine, and it will.

changed my name to “a snail (performance art)” in counterstrike and played a match where I never ran, only ever walked through the map

a few minutes in someone changed their name to “a crab” and crouch-walked everywhere, and then one more joined as “a frog”, only jumping

we all got kicked a few minutes later. nobody appreciates art.

number one check yourself. Number two comparing TMA/TME to anti-Blackness is a false dichotomy and I need white queer people to stop trying to compare themselves to Black people every single chance they get. oh my god

The two are NOT similar. If you really wanna play the game of equating race and gender, then the equivalent to “Black and nonblack” would be transfem/trans woman and non-transfem/trans woman, not TMA/TME. I can assure you that NO black person is going around saying “antiblack racism affected vs antiblack racism exempt.” Because That Is Stupid.

EVERYONE is affected by antiblackness, because of how deeply it’s ingrained into our entire societal structure. You cannot write off specific demographics as not being affected by certain forms of oppression or discrimination, because the nature of living in a white supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy is that ALL of these systems are INTRINSICALLY connected with each other, and affect EVERYONE to some degree. There are countless historical examples of antiblack legislation directly impacting poor communities of other racial groups- including white people. There are primary targets of discrimination, obviously, but nobody is truly “exempt” from any sort of oppressive system unless they are at the VERY top of the damn food chain.

In the same vein, the intersection of transphobia and misogyny is ALSO deeply ingrained into our society. And because of that, nobody is truly “transmisogyny-exempt.” Even people who aren’t the primary targets are still directly impacted and negatively affected by transmisogynistic systems. I find TMA/TME to be useless in terms of categorization because it directly posits that everyone who gets sorted into the latter group just doesn’t experience any oppression or discrimination derived from transmisogynistic bases at all, which is ridiculous, because that happens All the time.

A trans man or enby who’s mistaken for a trans woman and is assaulted for it, a cis man who’s belittled and attacked on the basis of being Too Feminine, a cis woman who’s publicly shamed, derided, and transvestigated for having testosterone levels that are “too high,” are all examples of non-transfem/trans woman groups being negatively affected on the basis of transmisogyny.

Poor white people being affected by legislation meant to target and attack Black populations and the massive trend of colorism throughout Asian communities are examples of nonblack groups being negatively affected on the basis of antiblackness.

You cannot sort people by what oppression they do and do not face, and attempts to do so are inherently exclusionary and are bound to lead back into denying people of their lived experiences, just because they line up perfectly into these specific categories of “this genre of person goes through this” vs “this genre of person doesn’t go through that.”

I believe that TMA/TME was coined with the best intentions, but the problem is that it’s a clumsy dichotomy and the way a lot of people tend to use it ends up leading back into the same issues of being binary (“amab trans people experience this, afab trans people don’t experience that”) and then THAT leads back into a whole heaping mess in and of itself

Talking about the way transfeminized people are targeted by transmisogyny is not a bad thing in and of itself! But like, you can just say transfem/non-transfem- or even just transfeminized to describe that oppressors will often place people into in order to enact transmisogynistic violence against them- instead of directly trying to state what different groups of people Do And Don’t Experience. you can say “primary targets of transmisogyny” without directly implying that certain groups are exempt from it all together.

Especially when I see myself and other more vocal users of color get harassed daily, and have to always be on guard with their social media, and no one cares because everyone prioritizes white voices here and spend no time with the rest of us via an actual, unspoken segregation of this app. But somehow we don't know what racism and harassment looks like.

So when you say "hey, this person's opinion was not an okay thing to say/their actions were not okay due to racism and I am not coddling that", you get hit with a bunch of people who believe that having "More White Voices must mean True and that Your People Did Not Experience what y'all did... Because the white people around me said it went this way! You're just Mean!!!"

In South Asia, heat weaves already claim more than 200,000 lives annually. According to a recent study, as temperature rises, the death toll might exceed 400,000 by 2045. India is at high risk.

The study further reveals that over 200,000 deaths are currently attributed to severe temperatures, and this figure may nearly quadruple over the next twenty years.

With deaths increasing and governments lacking strategies to protect laborers from dying, vulnerable workers across South Asia are demanding their governments provide heat wave protections.

Ashok Kumar, forty-two, a migrant worker from India’s Bihar state, has been running a barber shop on a footpath with no roof in India’s national capital, New Delhi, where temperatures exceed to 46 degrees Celsius (114.8 degrees Fahrenheit). With no shaded resting area, Kumar spends nine hours a day in a scorching heat to support his family.

“Where shall I go? I have to feed my family. The government cannot install air conditioning at the roadside for us. We are dying under the blazing sun. We have no options. If we stop work, our families will die hungry,” Kumar told me. [...]

While knowing risk factors, many migrant laborers are unable to do much more than cover their heads with wet towels.

In South Asia, heat weaves already claim more than 200,000 lives annually. According to a recent study, as temperature rises, the death toll might exceed 400,000 by 2045. India is at high risk.

The study further reveals that over 200,000 deaths are currently attributed to severe temperatures, and this figure may nearly quadruple over the next twenty years.

With deaths increasing and governments lacking strategies to protect laborers from dying, vulnerable workers across South Asia are demanding their governments provide heat wave protections.

Ashok Kumar, forty-two, a migrant worker from India’s Bihar state, has been running a barber shop on a footpath with no roof in India’s national capital, New Delhi, where temperatures exceed to 46 degrees Celsius (114.8 degrees Fahrenheit). With no shaded resting area, Kumar spends nine hours a day in a scorching heat to support his family.

“Where shall I go? I have to feed my family. The government cannot install air conditioning at the roadside for us. We are dying under the blazing sun. We have no options. If we stop work, our families will die hungry,” Kumar told me. [...]

While knowing risk factors, many migrant laborers are unable to do much more than cover their heads with wet towels.

In South Asia, heat weaves already claim more than 200,000 lives annually. According to a recent study, as temperature rises, the death toll might exceed 400,000 by 2045. India is at high risk.

The study further reveals that over 200,000 deaths are currently attributed to severe temperatures, and this figure may nearly quadruple over the next twenty years.

With deaths increasing and governments lacking strategies to protect laborers from dying, vulnerable workers across South Asia are demanding their governments provide heat wave protections.

Ashok Kumar, forty-two, a migrant worker from India’s Bihar state, has been running a barber shop on a footpath with no roof in India’s national capital, New Delhi, where temperatures exceed to 46 degrees Celsius (114.8 degrees Fahrenheit). With no shaded resting area, Kumar spends nine hours a day in a scorching heat to support his family.

“Where shall I go? I have to feed my family. The government cannot install air conditioning at the roadside for us. We are dying under the blazing sun. We have no options. If we stop work, our families will die hungry,” Kumar told me. [...]

While knowing risk factors, many migrant laborers are unable to do much more than cover their heads with wet towels.

I go through the drive through at the taco bell. This is the same taco bell that, three years prior, asked us how many sauces we wanted. My roommate responded with "we'd like to get lost in the sauce."

To which he said "lost in the sauce. Ok boss!"

And gave us an entire brown bag full of sauce packets that we are still working through to this day.

So our conclusion is that this store is operated by stoners, which is on par for a taco bell.

But anyhow, 2021, all I want is a burrito.

Pull up in the drive thru, order burrito. Compliment the cashier's nails, take the bag without checking, drive off.

I get home. I carry the bag all the way to the kitchen and set it down. The sound it makes is not the sound of a beefy five layer burrito. It rattles.

I realize now that something is wrong.

I look inside.

I find this:

Which I realize now in 2022 after hanging out with potheads that this is considerably more than 100$ of THC products but that's unimportant. I sit there for a few moments and just kind of stare at them asking myself

WHY does this KEEP HAPPENING to me?

Girlfriend comes in and sees this.

"Did someone pay you in smokeables again?"

"No, this is the new beefy 5 layer burrito from taco bell. Obviously."

I could keep them, but what would I DO with them? I didnt know any smokers at the time that I could sell them to. You cant really... pawn THC products in my state because it's a consumable and uhhhh... possession of such products is probably illegal? Fucking I dont know, if there's a law about it everyone seems to be ignoring it.

And I cannot stress this enough: I dont smoke! And yet people keep handing me these things for some reason.

But more importantly: it is now 6:00, I am starving, and I did not get my burrito. So i make a decision and i grab the bag of vape carts and I go back to get the food I ordered.

I go inside and stand at the counter. I quietly tell the cashier that I ordered a beefy five layer burrito, and I got this instead. I lift the bag. I gently drop the bag. It makes the very non beefy burrito rattle sound.

The cashier knows by sound what is in the bag. Her eyes go wide.

"I'm not mad," I tell her. "I dont want anyone in trouble. I'm just very hungry and would like the food I ordered."

She very quietly takes the bag beneath the counter and produces six coupons for a free taco. "We'll get your order to you in a moment, thank you for your patience."

I am... containing my urge to burst out in laughter because this urban legend stuff. This is 'tumblr will call this fake' material. This is 'that happened to my friends cousin' kind of story material and I'm just... waiting for my burrito.

The manager on duty approaches me and says:

"I understand you received something uhh.. other than your order." She thinks I'm gonna tell corporate. This shit is too funny for corporate. I am not telling corporate.

"I dont want anyone in trouble," I repeated. "I'd just like to make sure it gets back to its owner and make sure I get the burrito I ordered."

"Right. Right. Right away."

She gives me six more free taco coupons.

It is deathly quiet back there and I am trying so hard not to laugh at the absurdity of all of this. Like... how did I get here? What happened back there to lead me to this awkward situation? What farcical theater piece am I now a minor character in? Will I exit left persued by a bear?

The cashier returns with a bag. "Once again, I'm REALLY sorry."

I take the bag. I check it this time.

This is indeed a burrito.

"No need, all is well."