Trashpool's Dumpster Fire

That is the actual goal of gender affirming care. It’s a treatment we undergo so we can just stop thinking about it.

Now picture the 42-year-old staff sergeant whose bloodwork comes back a little low on testosterone next spring. Nobody’s asking him for evaluation letters from therapists. There’s no legislature holding hearings about his prescription, no lawsuit trying to stop his refills. Under Hegseth’s program, he won’t even have to ask. The Pentagon is coming to him. So when a member of Congress looks at that program and declares it the same thing I went through the wringer for, I understand the point she thinks she’s making. But here’s the message a casual reader actually takes away: transition care belongs in the same drawer as testosterone boosters, Botox, and Elon Musk’s hair plugs. And once it’s in that drawer, it’s about as “medically necessary” as anything else in there. Which is to say: completely optional. That phrase, medically necessary, is doing far more work than it gets credit for. It’s the standard insurers use to decide what they’ll cover and what they’ll wave off as cosmetic, and “cosmetic” is already their favorite exit ramp when a trans patient’s claim hits the desk. It’s the finding those dozens of medical organizations put their names behind. It’s the thing my three letters existed to establish in the first place. The entire miserable apparatus I climbed through exists because this care has to keep proving, over and over, to skeptical people holding checkbooks, that it’s necessary. The joke hands that hard-won word away for free.

“The police spend very little of their time dealing with violent criminals—indeed, police sociologists report that only about 10% of the average police officer’s time is devoted to criminal matters of any kind. Most of the remaining 90% is spent dealing with infractions of various administrative codes and regulations: all those rules about how and where one can eat, drink, smoke, sell, sit, walk, and drive. If two people punch each other, or even draw a knife on each other, police are unlikely to get involved. Drive down the street in a car without license plates, on the other hand, and the authorities will show up instantly, threatening all sorts of dire consequences if you don’t do exactly what they tell you. The police, then, are essentially just bureaucrats with weapons. Their main role in society is to bring the threat of physical force—even, death—into situations where it would never have been otherwise invoked, such as the enforcement of civic ordinances about the sale of untaxed cigarettes.”

since i think many will have had the memory slip with just how many other atrocities have occured in the past 11 years, or are simply too young to remember, the last bit about the sale of untaxed cigarettes isn’t just some hypothetical, it’s a reference to the killing of eric garner

The saga began earlier this month, when Amnesty International (UK) released a report titled “A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK.” It released a similar report last year, but this year, it added a new category for what appears to be the anti-rights movement’s most rapidly growing sector: “Gender critical” groups, or groups that are antithetical to transgender rights and inclusion. Rowling rushed to tweet about the situation. She lauded “LGB” groups—another anti-trans buzzword, which, as the name suggests, describes groups that wish to erase transgender people from the queer liberation movement—like the Gay Men’s Network, an organization that has pushed for anti-trans policies. That group posted a public letter indicating it might sue Amnesty International for defamation. The Network demanded a retraction of the report and then claimed that Amnesty is guilty of “trying to control gay and lesbian free speech.” In the day or so that followed, Rowling retweeted around a dozen similar letters. The posted letters include groups like Genspect, a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group that threatened Amnesty International with legal action, as well as groups like LGB Alliance and Sex Matters.

I think going forward it will be important to define what is meant by a "free" country.

Lawmakers from both parties sharply criticized some of Mr. Trump’s moves, and federal judges have repeatedly declared the president’s actions illegal. Yet the White House has continued pressing ahead, and has taken steps to formalize some of its practices with its proposal targeting federal grants.

Insane to me that disabled people will say: "Hey, your glorified idea of revolution is going to get us killed" and then be treated as collateral damage or a necessary sacrifice. Like, yeah, the systems in place now are oppressive and literally based on eugenics, but a Revolution™️is not going to save us. How are we supposed to trust you (abled people) to put good systems in place if you're ready to kill us to get rid of the old one. That's not saving people. Treating disabled people as if they're ridiculous for not wanting to die and pointing out how bad a revolution would be for us is insane. You're actually a horrible person if you do this.

It bothers me so much that the healthcare system relies so much on the patient's ability to advocate for themselves, organize their history, and be so persistent against every medical “professional” who says there’s nothing wrong/they can do. But so many struggle with fatigue, brain fog, and face such ingrained systemic barriers, that the people who need and deserve help and support can’t access it.

The saga began earlier this month, when Amnesty International (UK) released a report titled “A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK.” It released a similar report last year, but this year, it added a new category for what appears to be the anti-rights movement’s most rapidly growing sector: “Gender critical” groups, or groups that are antithetical to transgender rights and inclusion. Rowling rushed to tweet about the situation. She lauded “LGB” groups—another anti-trans buzzword, which, as the name suggests, describes groups that wish to erase transgender people from the queer liberation movement—like the Gay Men’s Network, an organization that has pushed for anti-trans policies. That group posted a public letter indicating it might sue Amnesty International for defamation. The Network demanded a retraction of the report and then claimed that Amnesty is guilty of “trying to control gay and lesbian free speech.” In the day or so that followed, Rowling retweeted around a dozen similar letters. The posted letters include groups like Genspect, a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group that threatened Amnesty International with legal action, as well as groups like LGB Alliance and Sex Matters.

Wild how no one made announcements like this about P.Diddy when his trial was happening.

I think we apply conspiratorial thinking to things way more than we should (though I think the basleine for conspiracies we should believe in is zero in general), from individuals to large scale ideas. Most people are not thinking about the specific ways to hurt someone or a group of people as much as possible, they simply don't care when that harm happens.