you will listen to Squid

"Some 6,000 years ago in the northern reaches of modern Latvia, a young woman died. Afterwards, a group of early humans buried her in an ancient, sacred place along a lakeshore. They carefully lowered her small teenage frame into the ground, gently placing a stone ax, 28 flint flakes, 15 blades, and a stone scraper beside her. Stained with ochre, the stone implements were part of her last rites. This young woman remained there thousands of years, until, when archaeologists discovered her along with more than 300 others in the 20th century. The site, known as Zvejnieki cemetery, is one of Europe’s largest Stone Age cemeteries.

Research conducted at Zvejnieki has often challenged longheld assumptions about gender roles in prehistoric Europe. For instance, the young woman interred in burial 211 described above is one of several women and children buried with stone axes at the site, upending the notion that axes only belonged to Stone Age men. Now, a new study published September 10 in the journal PLOS One again upends gender stereotypes, demonstrating that women and children were just as likely to be buried with stone tools as men. The woman in burial 211 alone was laid to rest with a staggering 45 different stone objects. 

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This flies in the face of a decades-old stereotype that Stone Age women didn’t use stone tools as frequently as men. The women were too busy cooking, crafting, and caring for the family to bother with the stone tools used by men in hunting and building. Or so the outdated story went.

“Our findings overturn the old stereotype of ‘Man the Hunter,’”  Little said in a statement. Historically, this stereotype “has been a dominant theme in Stone Age studies, and has even influenced, on occasion, how some infants have even been sexed, on the basis that they were given lithic tools.”

As a trans girl who once wanted to be a civics teacher, stuff like this is terrifying. As a high schooler, having teachers who are like me would have shown there is a pathway to being a teacher. In this world, if I tried I would be bringing inappropriate questions to children.

My body, my expression, all of it could end up a school board meeting's subject, if not a national debacle. Even though i want to teach high schoolers who are not some subhuman race incapable of thinking about big questions like who they are, I would still be talking to children inappropriately by the mere existence of myself near them.

It's terrifying, I've cried because I can't do what is basically my dream job because I have needs that i want met. I can't do anything about this, no amount of voting will change bias. Trans people are increasingly villainized and any amount of publicity is almost always bad. I'm scared about my future. I don't have a career I want to do where I feel secure with being a trans woman.

When the Federal Aviation Administration shut down air traffic to El Paso Airport earlier this year, nobody could have guessed than an experimental high-energy laser weapon was the cause. After days of chaos and speculation, it was revealed that Customs and Border Patrol officials had fired off a laser volley from a US Army base adjacent the El Paso Airport. Though the trigger-happy Border Patrol grunts evidently thought they were firing at drug-smuggling drones, their real target turned out to be a kids’ party balloon. Regardless, it was later reported that the cutting-edge weapon was taken for a test-drive a week before FAA and Pentagon officials had a chance to discuss how to safely implement the laser device, making it a small miracle that nobody in the air was killed. Not every use of an experimental aerospace weapon goes off without a hitch, however.

I'm making this post on the behalf of Hamza and Sami Al-Khalili, who are currently trying to raise money to help their large family in Gaza.