soymelk

More photos, as always, on the site!

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Reposting these tags with consent from the person that wrote them. The post about the Sex Offenders Registry is locked, but these tags are too important to go unnoticed.

When you hear people throwing around the talking point of “well there’s a high rate of sex offenders in the trans/queer community”, this has to do with why.

Being on the sex offender registry isn’t inherently equivalent to whatever horrific sex crime you’re meant to think of when it’s mentioned. It evokes imagery of pedophilia and rape, but there is a lot that can get you put on it and not a lot you can do to be taken off of it.

Public crossdressing used to be able to get you put on the sex offender registry (and by used to I mean as recently as 2011).

Public urination (you know, the literal only option for someone who’s homeless and doesn’t have access to public bathrooms, a venn diagram where trans people are more likely to rest in the meeting zone) can get you put on the sex offender registry.

Sex work is pretty much an automatic way to end up on the sex offender registry if you’re caught. (This is especially weaponized against black trans women who do sex work)

“Deviant Sexual Intercourse” (aka literally any sexual activity aside from penis-in-vagina penetration) could get you on the sex offender registry as recently as the early 2000s. That effectively impacts the entire queer community in one way or another.

The sex offender registry is, first and foremost, useless. It tells you nothing about what someone did. It’s mentioned to quickly associate a person or a group of people with the worst possible crimes imaginable.

Today, many scientists acknowledge the troubling attitudes that have long plagued research projects in Indigenous communities [...] But some Indigenous groups feel that despite such well-intentioned initiatives, their inclusion in research is only a token gesture to satisfy a funding agency.

Has everyone just believed this whole time that I bring it up for optics?

Everyone nods, "of course he mentions Indigenous people," because they believe it would simply look bad for me if I didn't.

In fact Indigenous knowledge is a constant topic of conversation and point of reference when I discuss my work as a scientist who uses Western science because my work is useless without it.

I work with endangered species which are endangered solely due to continual colonial violence against people and the land. I can follow the Western scientific method all I want and publish 100 papers on how to fix salmon populations—and get nowhere without Indigenous knowledge and sovereignty.

Indigenous knowledge is not an afterthought to reference as back up to Western science. Believe it or not, we can and should lead any number of scientific projects with Indigenous knowledge.

I really just have to summarize Thomas's entire life:

He was in a committed relationship with a male swan named Henry for 18-24 years before a female swan named Henrietta showed up and mated with Henry.

Thomas was initially jealous of the pair and attacked them, breaking 2 of the 5 eggs Henrietta had laid. However, once the remaining eggs hatched, Thomas warmed up to them and helped raise them.

Henry couldn't fly because of an injured wing, so Thomas taught the cygnets how to fly.

When they needed to reduce the goose population in the pond where Thomas and the swans lived, they dyed Thomas's feathers red so he wouldn't be separated from Henry.

Henry, Henrietta, and Thomas remained in their happy throuple for years and raised 68 cygnets before Henry died in 2009. After Henry's death, Henrietta found another swan and flew away, leaving Thomas alone.

Thomas finally met and mated with a female goose in 2011 and had his own babies. However, another goose named George stole them and raised them himself.

As Thomas grew elderly and blind, he was relocated to a wildlife center where he raised orphaned cygnets.

His caretaker at the center described him as "pretty high maintenance."

Thomas died in 2018 at the age of around 40. He had a funeral that included a small coffin and a procession that was led by a bagpiper. He was buried under the stone where Henry was buried, the two finally reunited in death.