my brain

there's having parents who can pay for your application to any college, and then there's having parents who can bribe your way into any college. there's owning your own home, and then there's owning 50 houses and getting rich off hoarding a vital resource. there's not fearing for your life whenever cops are around, and then there's being the cop and being allowed to murder anyone at any time.

Today is Trans Day of Visibility, so to celebrate I wrote to my [MP/elected representative/transphobic relative or colleague/organisation] to [demand rights for trans people as an openly cisgender person/advocate for gender-neutral language/tell them that transphobia is idiotic bigotry etc.], donated to [trans charity/political org], and then bought my trans friend [something from their online wishlist/a massage/fancy food or drink of their choice] without mentioning TDOV or politics at all.

I thought we made fun of MRAs because they are misguided and misogynistic for believing that feminism is against their interests and they need a movement apart from it. I thought we made fun of them for not understanding that feminism is in favor of men's liberation from the oppressive patriarchal binary as much as women's.

But some of you are actually making fun of MRAs because you think men have no problems to complain about, and feminism ISN'T for men, because they don't need anything, and the patriarchy isn't the enemy, men are?

But some of you are actually making fun of any men who ask to be taken seriously and have their needs met and issues heard, even though they aren't talking over women? Some of you are making fun of marginalized men for talking about the experiences at their unique intersections of identities and asking for justice because you actually DO think "all men [insert bad behavior here]?"

This is why you sound like a clown if you say "trans men who want feminism to be for them are misgendering themselves" and "trans men benefit from the patriarchy because all men benefit from the patriarchy" and "trans men experience no unique injustices because misandry isn't a systemic axis of oppression" and "trans men have male privilege so they can't be oppressed."

Because even if you take "trans" out of these statements, they're still incorrect. Feminism is for people of all genders. Men can be harmed by the patriarchy. The ways in which men are harmed by the patriarchy are different from the ways others are harmed by the patriarchy. Having certain "privileges" in certain contexts doesn't negate the harm of a rigid social structure that punishes nonconformity.

The patriarchy is a system where ALL people have rigid roles imposed upon them. All else being equal, certain advantages are more likely to be given to men (or masculine people, or people AMAB, or people with male sex characteristics, depending on CONTEXT). But all else is RARELY equal and even when it is, the range of experiences is vast, and the system is rigged against almost everyone.

Because the goal most individuals have, and the right all individuals deserve, is to be themselves, and to do so by choice. And no matter who you are, the patriarchy stands in opposition to this goal. It tells you who you're allowed to be, who you're not allowed to be, what you're allowed to do, and what others are allowed to do to you. This is an injustice for people of all genders.

We're ALL trapped. This system can only be dismantled if we understand the WHOLE thing. Which means we need to listen to everyone when they talk about the harms the system is causing them, from where THEY'RE stuck in it.

Grafting is really common. Most edible fruit trees, cultivated roses, some tomato plants etc are grafted onto a different rootstock as standard- you can control size that way, or make a useful but weak plant much stronger. As long as your two plants are related closely enough and you have cambium to cambium connection (cambium is the thin layer of green under the bark), you can do all sorts of weird shit - like a single tree that gives you plums, cherries, apricots, peaches and almonds.

Or at least, he was, until about three years ago, when he was sent off to do mandatory Work for the Dole at a volunteer organisation. He'd done a lot of Work for the Dole in the past, of course, and like most people who are forced to do a shitty job under the threat of starvation, was neither enthusiastic nor particularly useful. But in this particular place, he was given a job that he could do better than anyone else (he was one of 2 men working with a legion of elderly women, and the only person able to easily haul around the heavy goods that the organisation works with). He quickly found himself with a job he could understand, he could see the clear utility in, and that his coworkers greatly valued him for. He started arriving on time every day, putting in the effort, getting shit done. He started caring about the results. And when his Work for the Dole time was up, he kept volunteering.

Closest match: Psylliodes chrysocephala genome assembly, chromosome: 4 Common name: Cabbage Stem Flea Beetle

After ten years of dreaming, eight years of government support, six years of fundraising (we needed $50,000,000!), and five years of construction, the Paul Farmer Maternal Center of Excellence at Koidu Government Hospital finally saw its first patients on February 14th.

13 babies were born at the MCOE that day. Several were admitted to the NICU, the first in Sierra Leone's history. The MCOE is already radically transforming the kind of maternal and infant care available in eastern Sierra Leone.

Five thousand babies will be born at the MCOE this year. 5,000 more will be born there next year, and the year after that, and the year after that--hopefully for decades. The healthcare workforce of the entire nation will grow stronger because the MCOE is a teaching hospital training the next generation of Sierra Leonean nurses, midwives, and doctors.

If you're on twitter or threads or reddit, and you say, "Oh, I had a terrible experience with Delta Airlines. They canceled my flight and then booked me into a hotel room with a stranger," and you tag Delta, there's a chance Delta Airlines itself will come and apologize. Maybe even give you some SkyMiles or something.

But if you complain about a terrible airline experience on tumblr, all you can hope for is that someone might come along and write slash fiction about two guys who get booked into the same hotel room by Delta Airlines.

You can't gain social capital by being here. Nobody knows who you even ARE because your user name is, like, some randomly generated phrase or else an obscure reference to hockey sex books.