Imperfect Sanctuary

Teachers across Spain have joined the Clothes Have No Gender movement (#laropanotienegenero), which was born when 15-year-old Mikel Gómez was punished for wearing a skirt at school in October last year.

Pink News reports:

In a now-viral TikTok video, the teen explained that he wore the skirt to challenge gender norms and support women’s liberation, but was promptly pulled out of class and taken to a psychologist who grilled him on whether he identified as a woman.

Hundreds of boys turned up to school wearing skirts on 4 November, now known as “Wear a Skirt to School Day”.

Manuel Ortega and Borja Velúquez, who teach at the Virgen de Sacedón primary school in Valladolid, decided to wear skirts every day of the month of May in support of one of their own students who was bullied with homophobic slurs.

Borja Veláquez wrote over at twitter:

A school that teaches respect, diversity, co-education and tolerance. Look no further! We join the initiative #clotheshavenogender.

Quarantine Man

The Taiwan CDC with a Disinfectant Gun

Hepatitis but a Boy Band

Syphilis with Gender (女) and other Bio Information

Varicella (chicken pox) and Herpes Zoster (shingles) as Children

The Plague, but Hot Lady (also with bio information)

Fuckboy Influenza

Measles, but Hot Guy

Lyme Disease with a Mech????

And, of course, COVID-19 in all their gender neutral glory.

There’s more but I hit the image limit. I’ve got a couple articles about them, too:

Tsutsumagushi Disease

Chikungunya Fever!

MERS

Pertussis (whooping cough) with a horrifying (almost body horror) headpiece and flute

Dengue Fever, the image of which literally made me stop breathing for a moment when I first saw it

Japanese Encephalitis (as... idols, maybe?)

And Zika Virus (so pretty! and for what???)

And some higher res images of the ones from the video (Legionnaires’ Disease, Viral Gastroenteritis, and Rubella). Unfortunately, I could not fit Rabies because of the image limit.

(the first person has text over them that says “being fat and wanting a girlfriend”)

First person: “See what’s behind this door..!”

(Door has text over it that says “fat girls” while The Toccata and Fugue in D minor plays in the background)

First person: “Noo, is there a bett-”

Second person: “ Yo it’s funny that there’s an entire demographic, of petite women who love bigger men. But because you’ve just ousted yourself, as a cunt, it’s never gonna happen for you mate. You’re really out here body shaming, all these beautiful shawties, big body Bugatti (kiss noise), exquisite; but you’re built like a less cool Bling Bling Boy from Johnny Test. Make it make sense mate. It doesn’t- it really doesn’t. Could’ve kept your mouth shut. But you had to say something. And you even went so far as to put it on the internet. And you thought that was a good idea because-? Please, take yourself elsewhere. Sincerely the entire fucking human race.”

Butch Women Talk About What It Means to Be Butch. Originally posted by them on Youtube. Excerpts featuring Cade Russo Young, a 37 year-old butch dyke.

TRANSCRIPT:

What isn’t sexy about other butches, are you kidding! Oh, my god! To me, butch means someone who I was brought up by, and admire. Butch is nuanced. Butch is more than we’ve been talking about. Just because I identify as a butch dyke and a cis woman right now, it doesn’t mean I always will. Who you are, right now in this moment, is perfect. And if that changes, you’ll be perfect in that moment too.

This is how Martin Sheen puts on a jacket, and he does it that way because of an injury done to his arm when he was born. His left arm was crushed by forceps as they were removing him from the birth canal, which made that arm shorter than the other and also limited his overall movement. So, he puts on a jacket like this--because he has to. He just doesn’t have the movement and flexibility necessary to slip his arm into the sleeves another way. 

But, on the show...he just did it, and did it with such panache and confidence that no one dared even question it. He played President Bartlet on TV for, like, 6 years, and so for 6 years that was just how Fictional President of the United States put his jacket on. And, yeah, it was a bit odd maybe, people definitely noticed, but mostly all anyone actually thought about it was “Damn, that looks cool and badass as fuck.” 

It became a signature for the character, not in any kind of negative or “that’s weird” way, but just, like...something unique and special that people recognized and had really positive associations with. You’d see that jacket flip and it would trigger this little bright smiley “Fuck yeah, you go get’em!” feeling inside. 

There’s even this bit, in one of the show’s most acclaimed episodes, that includes flashbacks to when the character is much younger, and they had the younger actor do this move when he puts on a jacket (which he had to learn how to do of course) and then used it as a transition cut to the present day character finishing the motion--a way of linking them together, making them feel more like one person with one continuing story to the audience. And like, I remember, seeing it when it first aired, and fuck, I got chills, it was just such great moment! They were literally using this little detail, that was entirely due to the actor adapting to his disability, as a way to ground their flashback sequences with the present storyline and make those scenes feel more real and present to the audience and it worked. Because nobody working on the show saw Sheen’s funky jacket move as problem, they actually found a way for it to actively make the story better.