TBCC

"your hands are warm..."

"you have a little ice cream on your nose."

"good morning, sweetie"

"i'm sad and i demand cuddles."

"stay as long as you want.."

"i love you more than i did yesterday."

"i'd shout it from the roof if i could."

"don't say that, i love every minute spent with you"

"you're cute when you're jealous."

"oh stop pouting, i'm coming."

"i'm on my way, love."

"your hugs are nice.."

"my hand is kinda heavy, can you hold it?" "that's not how the line goes, but you're cute so fine."

"sad...i have a blanket with all this extra room and no one to share it with."

"come taste! tell me if i need to add anything."

"you have something on your face." "what?" "me."

"i made a playlist for you, come sit and listen."

"i heard you singing in the shower. you have a wonderful voice."

"you know i only tease you 'cause i love you."

Finally, some good news.

Adding a link that isn’t blocked by a paywall

‘Queer’ was reclaimed as an umbrella term for people identifying as not-heterosexual and/or not-cisgender in the early 1980s, but being queer is more than just being non-straight/non-cis; it’s a political and ideological statement, a label asserting an identity distinct from gay and/or traditional gender identities.People identifying as queer are typically not cis gays or cis lesbians, but bi, pan, ace, trans, nonbinary, intersex, etc.: we’re the silent/ced letters. We’re the marginalised majority within the LGBTQIA+ community, and‘queer’ is our rallying cry.

And that’s equally pissing off and terrifying terfs and cis LGs.

There’s absolutely no historical or sociolinguistic reason why ‘queer’ should be a worse slur than ‘gay.’ Remember how we had all those campaigns to make people stop using ‘gay’ as a synonym for ‘bad’?

Yet nobody is suggesting we should abolish ‘gay’ as a label. We accept that even though ‘gay’ sometimes is and historically frequently was used in a derogatory manner, mlm individuals have the right to use that word. We have ad campaigns, twitter hashtags, and viral Facebook posts defending ‘gay’ as an identity label and asking people to stop using it as a slur.

Whereas ‘queer’ is treated exactly opposite: a small but vocal group of people within feminist and LGBTQIA+ circles insists that it’s a slur and demands that others to stop using it as a personal, self-chosen identity label.

Why?

Because “queer is a slur” was invented by terfs specifically to exclude trans, nonbinary, and intersex people from feminist and non-heterosexual discourse, and was subsequently adopted by cis gays and cis lesbians to exclude bi/pan and ace people.

It’s classic divide-and-conquer tactics: when our umbrella term is redefined as a slur and we’re harassed into silence for using it, we no longer have a word for what we are allowing us to organise for social/political/economic support; we are denied the opportunity to influence or shape the spaces we inhabit; we can’t challenge existing community power structures; we’re erased from our own history.

I’m not kidding. Cis LGs have literally taken historical evidence of queer people’s involvement in the LGBT rights struggle and photoshopped it to erase us:

Pro tip: when you alter historical evidence to deny a marginalised group empowerment, you’re one of the bad guys.

“Queer is a slur” is used by terfs and cis gays/lesbians to silence the voices of trans/nonbinary/intersex/bi/pan/ace people in society and even within our own communities, to isolate us and shame us for existing.

“Queer is a slur” is saying “I am offended by people who do not conform to traditional gender or sexual identities because they are not sexually available to me or validate my personal identity.”

“Queer is a slur” is defending heteronormativity.

“Queer is a slur” is frankly embarrassing. It’s an admission of ignorance and prejudice. It’s an insidious discriminatory discourse parroted uncritically in support of a divisive us-vs-them mentality targeting the most vulnerable members of the LGBTQIA+ community for lack of courage to confront the white cis straight men who pose an actual danger to us as individuals and as a community.

Tl;dr:

Don’t be fooled by the black and white, this picture is from the early 1990s. I believe Queer Nation itself was founded in 1991.

Same group, but I want you to look at that slogan at the bottom. That was the movement’s rallying cry for YEARS. L, G, B, T, Q, I, and A. All of us. That’s what we screamed when we were dying of AIDS and what we screamed when we were being beaten to death and what we screamed demanding the right to see our partners in the hospital. I’ve personally screamed a variant of it, “we’re here, we’re queer, we want our civil rights” marching down Pennsylvania Avenue with thousands of other queers demanding marriage equality and an end to queer-discriminated adoption. (You’re fucking welcome.) This slogan was often paired with “not gay as in happy, but queer as in fuck you.”

Show from 1999. Around the same time, there was a show on called “The L Word.” That’s right–“queer” was more acceptable than “lesbian.”

2003.

Learn your history. “Queer is a slur” only if you’re a TERF. Otherwise it is a blanket term over three-quarters of the community uses.

We’re here.

We’re queer.

It shouldn’t be that hard for YOU do to your research and figure it out. EVERY WORD THAT HAS BEEN USED FOR US IS A SLUR. I’m willing to bet there are kids in school today still hearing “lesbo.” I KNOW “that’s so gay” is still going around.

Then we’re NOT FUCKING TALKING ABOUT YOU.

reblog this post if your account is a trans safe space or owned by a trans person!

A friend of mine told me yesterday that he didn’t realise how much Ukraine meant to him until now. I posted yesterday about the time we spent there, and we’re all getting super pre-occupied about the invasion. As I said in that post, I can’t get our waitress out of my head. I can sort of remember what she looked like now. She had an undercut. I think maybe her hair might have been blue? But - I will never know if she lives through this, and it’s driving me very slightly mad.

So naturally, my husband spent all day yesterday obsessively researching everything he could about it with the help of his journalist friends, as a way to help me process it.

This post is me putting it all in order, as a way to try and process my own emotional response as much as anything else (I freely admit there is an element of self-indulgence here). Please don’t take me as the spokesperson for Ukraine right now, nor as a solid reliable news source. But, I haven’t seen this stuff except in bits and pieces on Tumblr, so here we go.

(This is also not about why the invasion has happened. This post is solely about what has happened, and how the invasion is going.)

So, Putin and the rest of the world believed that this invasion would take 1-4 days. The plan was to push through fast, take Kyiv, and force Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian President, to surrender. Given Russia’s military might, it really looked likely.

Here is the conclusion of all that’s happened so far:

Ukraine is absolutely nailing this??? Actually???

They managed to defend every single city overnight, including Kyiv. They started rolling out and using these WW2-style anti-tank thingies that look a bit like angry gabbions, look, here’s a picture of one being delivered:

A bunch of spare iron girders turned into a hefty octopus of Russian misery, basically.

But it’s not just tanks they’re taking down, oh no. Ukraine successfully shot down a transport plane 20km from Kyiv. That is, I shit you not, the single biggest hit to the Russian military since the Second Chechen War. Volunteers from Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Azerbaijan and Israel are all entering Ukraine to help fight and bolster the anti-Russian forces, which is probably illustrative of how Eurovision voting is going to run for the next decade. Most countries have banned Russian planes from their air space. To help stop the Russian advance, Ukraine has made and installed new road signs, like this one:

I can only say a handful of sentences in Ukrainian, Tumblrs, but as I understand it, from top to bottom, it says:

“Fuck off”

“Fuck off again”

“Fuck off Russia”

Meanwhile, it turns out the Russian military might we feared is… possibly not quite as advertised?

They’re underfunded and badly trained. Ukraine captured 200 soldiers in one go, and most of them were confused 19 year olds with no training. The equipment is shite. The tanks keep running out of fuel. Russian soldiers keep abandoning their tanks and handing them over to the Ukrainian army. Putin’s plan was to take Kyiv fast and move on, and he didn’t have a plan B - hence these kids, playing soldier. Here is an image of a Russian tank receiving roadside assistance from Russia’s finest, an old Lada.  

No one expected Zelenskyy to survive the night; but he did. America offered him asylum in the White House.

But he said no. 

Zelenskyy remains in Kyiv, with his people.

And Putin, in his desperation to be adored, has turned Zelenskyy into a global icon and hero.

Here is something you may not know about Volodymyr Zelenskyy - he used to be a standup comedian. Was he any good? No idea - but what he IS good at is producing funny short videos he can put on Twitter and that, which are absolutely fantastic for Ukrainian morale. And morale is vital in an invasion like this, and Ukraine are smashing it out of the park there.

They are utilising the internet to its fullest extent. In addition to Zelenskyy’s videos, they’ve made sure that the final words of the Ukrainian defenders of Snake Island are known and now echoed around the world: “Russian warship, go fuck yourselves.” A video has gone viral of Ukrainians mocking a group of Russian soldiers whose tank had broken down and who didn’t know the way to Kyiv anyway, presumably because of all the new road signs. They have created a website that lists every single Russian death they can identify, partly so Russian mothers can have closure (thus also painting themselves as the defenders of decency and humanity), and partly for the enormous morale boost of the world knowing, categorically, that they’ve already killed 3700 Russian soldiers (over 100 of which were from that transport plane.)  Not one word has leaked of Ukrainian casualties. I’m sure they’re devastating, but for morale purposes, they’re being kept quiet until the dust settles. Ukrainians have started setting up fake Tindr profiles to catfish Russian soldiers for intel, and they’re all 19 and lost, so it’s working. Plus, they’re using Grindr to actually track where the soldiers are, because it turns out Putin was not entirely correct about there being no gays in Russia.

So, Russia wants to cut their internet access. Can the Ukrainian Minister for Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, shame a billionaire into providing aid?

This is crucial, remember. Atrocities happen best in the dark, and the world is watching - because of the internet. Morale is vital to maintain. Can they convince Elon Musk to help?

Yep.

Ukraine now has the fastest internet service in the world. The fastest, most stable internet service in human history, in fact. Russia cannot now disable it. The world watches.

Which is just as well, because then Anonymous decided to get involved, and have leaked the website database of the Russian Ministry of Defence. Lol. Also this happens:

And then the Russian propaganda channels started broadcasting the truth of what is happening in Ukraine. Double lol.

So what is the political response?

Well, in addition to closing airspace to Russian planes, loads of countries are sending weapons to Ukraine. Those that can’t are offering asylum. They’re also offering asylum to any Russian soldiers who surrender or defect, which is startlingly good tactics, and there are rumours of around 5000 Russian soldiers who have done just that. Germany, of course, has long had a block on lethal weapons transfer; but Germany recognise this shit for what it is. They’ve lifted the block, thus allowing the Netherlands to send weapons. Efforts are now underway to fast-track Ukraine into the EU. I presume they will consider the lack of pint glasses with crowns on to be a worthwhile price to pay.

So what about Russia’s supporters?

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenka helped Russia with this invasion. Now, this has happened:

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was actually elected president, but some wild nonsense kept her out of power. She’s now running a government in exile. I have literally no idea what this means or will mean! But my god. She has a spine of steel, and this is not a good time to be happening for Putin. 

And it’s really, really not, because then intel on a meeting of Putin and assembled Oligarchs LEAKS (hello Anonymous, probably). The highlights:

This war is costing Russia $15bn a day

He expected it to take ONE TO FOUR DAYS TO WIN

It’s been two days and he is losing very badly, currently

They will run out of rockets by day 4, maybe sooner

After that they will be down to rifles and ammo

It will take 3-4 months to make more significant weapons, except they need raw materials, and the countries that can provide them… have cut supply lines

If the war lasts 10 days, Russia will have completely run out of money and weapons

It’s only day 2, and Russian soldiers are knocking the doors of random Ukrainian homes begging for food and water because they’ve already run out

So, out of desperation, Putin turns to his greatest, closest and most trusted ally for help: Kazakhstan. 

And Kazakhstan

SAYS NO

And then Ukraine shoots down a second Russian plane.

Anyway, I’m going to finish off with a final point. Morale is vital in this situation, so here is the message from the Ukrainian government at the minute, to everyone watching around the world:

Be VERY SUSPICIOUS of any negative news about Ukraine. Russia uses misinformation and propaganda. They will want to damage Ukrainian morale.

Use your social media to spread news of Ukrainian victories. 

Don’t give oxygen to negative stories. Especially since they might not be true.

That’s genuinely something we can do to help. Every victory of Ukraine, blast it far and wide. So on that note, I’ll leave you with this:

It is a photoshopped image posted by Ukravtodor (State Agency of Automobile Roads of Ukraine) in a post calling for people to dismantle existing road signs.

Source:  https://www.facebook.com/Ukravtodor.Gov.Ua/posts/321509113341039

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s tweet is real: https://twitter.com/Tsihanouskaya/status/1497583706038484996

Elon Musk’s tweet is real: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1497701484003213317

Kremlin website goes down as Russian TV channels ‘hacked to play Ukrainian songs’

If you are not a legal adult there are so many ways for you to be harmed through the internet, and the more comfortable minors feel the more at risk they are of being taken advantage of

When I was growing up at the beginning of the internet age I was constantly shown informational videos on how people could get my name and address from just a screen name, To Catch A Predator was on and showing all the ways adults posed as minors to trick them into being abducted, and even shows like Catfish on MTV were always there to remind you that if you did not already know someone in person you couldn’t be sure who they were online

For years I only went into sites geared towards kids and even then with strict rules on how to keep any identifying information out of my screen name and to never answer personal questions online. While YouTube existed, a large chunk of the videos didn’t involve peoples faces like almost all do now

When I got a tumblr at 16 I knew porn could come up at any time and I was cautious of how I used it because of that. People regularly scoffed at the idea of clicking a link you were sent in a message and who could be so dumb as to click one

I don’t want kids to feel safe on the internet because they aren’t, and people looking to take advantage of kids want them to feel comfortable. They want minors using their legal name, posting videos of their school, showing their face as they wear school sweatshirts. I’ve seen so many recent stalking cases that happened because the person used the Snapchat map feature that allowed people to see where they went and for how long every day

I think that it’s good to accept that kids exist on the internet and getting rid of some of the more horrific Wild West aspects is good (Chatroulette type situations, easy to stumble on beheading videos) but the amount that social media sites are telling people they’re safe for minors and said minors can let their guard down makes me very nervous. It is not difficult to film your 13 year old nephew for a TikTok, post it like it’s your own, then ask the other 13 year olds who like it where they go to school

And this is not me blaming Gen Z or calling them stupid, as I said the only reason I knew how to be safe was because the culture around me so heavily pushed all the tactics on how to be safe and what the consequences of not being safe were. Gen Z grew up with shows about how great is to be a successful teen vlogger, with child influencers, with teenagers who put their face and identifying information in Vines being tracked down and given prizes by Ellen DeGeneres. The entire culture they’re being brought up in is designed to tell them that being open online as a child isn’t just cool it’s a way to be successful and validated