Bloom's Tumblr Sanctuary

Which might not sound like a big deal but there's a huge difference between admitting that you're uncomfortable in the presence of large dogs VS saying that large dogs actively make you uncomfortable. Like they're not doing anything, the large dogs are just there, you're the one who's feeling uncomfortable, it's an emotion you are feeling.

Another American phrase I have a issue with is "I feel like" when you're expressing an opinion. Why are you saying "feel" when "think" is right there? If I had to guess, I'd say that you don't want to take full ownership of what you're saying. Thoughts and opinions are seen as more open to criticism than feelings.

It’s a nice sentiment, I like the energy, I do. That said, I am actually descended from a “Salem Witch,” and my Ancestor, Mary Isham Towne, was not burnt at the stake, she was hanged by the neck until dead. We’re not savages y’know.

Furthermore, Mary Isham Towne was a churchgoing, god-fearing woman, who just so happened to be a widow who owned a piece of land that the local judge wanted to purchase, but which she refused to sell, and which he set out to acquire pretty much immediately after he sentenced her execution.

My Grandmother on the other side was a practitioner of Women’s Reproductive Health for two decades in NYC, through the 70s & 80s. She and I had many illuminating conversations over the years about the ways in which Women are mistreated and what can be done to address it.

Her own mother had nearly bled out on their kitchen floor, once, when she was just a girl.

Great-Grandmother had had a brief affair, you see, and although she had ended it and reconciled with her husband, a bastard grew within her. Certain moralizing individuals might say that she should create an entire person as a punishment for a temporary transgression, but she was more humanitarian than that, and she had sought a then-illegal abortion. The practitioner had been more of the witchy type, and was untrained in proper medicine, and it very nearly killed Nana.

Grandmother never forgot.

And neither will I.

***

There is only one way for us to truly be a Civilized people, and it is by enshrining material protections for all citizens in law. The possession of a penis cannot be a prerequisite for the ownership of property, or a bank account, or indeed of your own body.

Protections for Women to decide about their own lives, from the ability to own a business, to the freedom to get a private and professionally performed abortion, must be enshrined in law, and enforced by those responsible for such.

I am descended from the Witches Who Were Hanged, and their ghosts whisper to me: that this fight is far from over, and far more important than many give it credit for, and that we cannot let our guard down for even one generation, lest the likes of Peter Thiel and Donald Trump send us back into a Dark Age.

And then you actually look onto the research.

Kids do not generally hate learning or school. Quite the opposite. Children tend to enjoy learning and are naturally curious. It is exactly the fact that they are forced into school and into the rigid structure of it that often punishes curiosity but also is hostile towards the differences inherent in people, that kids hate it.

Kids do not naturally hate medical care. While medical care is scary at times, the fear usually comes from medical care scenarios being defined by adults overriding a child's agency, not explaining things to him, and otherwise being abusive, that makes children afraid of medical procedures. Additionally the way a lot of medical procedures go hand in hand with denying a child's reality ("Look, it is not that bad") tends to be traumatizing to children.

There have been studies done in this. If you explain a child - even a toddler - what you do and why, children will generally be a lot more okay with stuff like needles and simple procedures, and will even agree to necessary surgical interventions.

If you create a learning environment that allows more for self-directed learning, and involves less specific testing, most kids actually will enjoy learning.

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

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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.

I will throw a party if the next shooter hits their mark.

But I don’t want The State to be able to take away Donal Trump’s human rights. Because I don’t want The State to be able to take away anyone’s human rights.

Because the moment they can (which is right now), they target marginalized people. They target refugees. They target trans people. They target people of color. They target disabled people. They’re doing it all right now. Oppressing minorities is What States Do.