sea witch

This facebook post was BLATANTLY plagiarized from my write up on Beyoncé’s “Love Drought” Video, Slavery and the Story of Igbo Landing. 

Please comment on it and call it out as plagiarism here-

This despite the fact that I credited the artist who drew the charcoal rendition of Igbo landing and Beyoncé throughout my original post. While he makes no mention of the artist and literally copy and pasted my writing and threw his watermark over it. 

I can no longer comment on the post and thank people personally there because he blocked me, but a big thanks to everyone that has already commented on the plagiarised post exposing it. If others can as well it is greatly appreciated-

Here is the plagiarised post:

https://www.facebook.com/evanweathersby/posts/10100664637543476

And here is the link to my original post they stole from that you can link to in your comment: Here

As a former employee and current patient who has been almost 8 months without healthcare, this place is rife with cissexism, transmisogyny and erasure. I have written in depth about this.

On March 18, 2016 a man named Johnell Muhammad was questioned by police for not paying his subway fare. The cops claim that he assaulted them and needing to find a way to safely take him into custody, Muhammad was escorted out of the station, placed face first on the ground, had his hands and feet bound and was then placed face down inside a large ‘body’ bag to further subdue him. 

According to the police, Muhammad’s feet and hands being bound were not enough to prevent him from hurting himself or someone else. I have been thinking about this video since I first saw it on Sunday and I just don’t understand how not paying a  $2.75 subway fare escalated to this point. 

The Gothamist did some follow up on this case and according to a hospital employee that was interviewed, the EDP, or Emotionally Disturbed Persons bags that was used here are used quite regularly under certain circumstances. However, the hospital employee claimed to have never seen a person’s entire head be placed inside the bag like what happened to Muhammad.

In case you are wondering what happened to Muhammad, he was kept in the bag for 20 minutes while waiting for an ambulance and then taken to a hospital and then from the hospital, Muhammad was taken to the Manhattan Detention Complex and booked on numerous charges.

and this one…

 This isn’t to say it’s an allegory for being transgender or the oppression trans people face in their daily lives. It’s more complex than that. But if one rewatches the films with the new knowledge that both of the Wachowskis have transitioned, its transgender themes are unmistakable, and have been largely overlooked by (mostly cisgender) critics. Interestingly, Lana Wachowski told her family she was trans on the set of the second and third films.

The Wachowskis’ transness is so central to the trilogy’s metaphors and its entire plot that it’s hard to believe anyone other than two trans women could have created it. It’s stacked with symbolism that means quite a lot for transgender people who watch it.

I’m not just talking about all the shapeshifting in the movie, which everyone from Agent Smith to the Oracle does. Nor am I referring to the ideas about “monsters” and “monstrous bodies” that can be found throughout the film.

But if you think about it, of course two transgender people would create a film about perceptions being false and people being controlled by programmed ideas. The Matrix itself is artificial, and humans are trapped in it without realizing it. Waking up from it and resisting its imprisonment puts one at risk of being killed due to rigorous enforcement of its rule that all human beings must now be part of it.

The gender binary is a set of ideas about what it means to be male and female that have been handed down to practically every person born on Earth for centuries. It stipulates that men and women act particular ways, wear specific things according to their assigned sex, have very specific bodies, and have hard-wired ways of acting that are basically “code.” Stepping outside these boundaries, whether it be by transitioning, loving someone perceived to be of the same gender or even by wearing the “wrong” clothes, is called “unnatural,” puts one at risk of harassment, and can still in many cases result in death. The Matrix itself also holds people’s bodies physically captive. The notion of being “trapped” and freedom from this type of “imprisonment” is central to the trans experience. I’m not referring to the tired and harmful cliche about being “trapped in the wrong body.” The Matrix itself is actually a nice rebuttal to that idea, since people’s bodies don’t change inside it.

During the first film’s revelation in which Morpheus tells Neo he’s really been living in a computer simulation, his Matrix self is referred to as his “residual self-image.” His clothes and mannerisms are revealed to be just a projection of is his programmed “self.” This all sounds very similar to how trans people feel when seeing a body other than the one that’s been told “you need to wear these clothes, have this hairstyle and act these ways.” To me, it basically sounds like the experience of gender dysphoria.

Since the gender binary has been hammered into us from an early age, many trans folks will often stare into a mirror and still see the person they were before, even if their bodies have changed. Hips that look “too feminine,” voices that are “too low,” and jawlines that are either too pronounced or too muted meet us every day. We might falter and fall back into that residual self-image, thinking we’re either “too feminine” or “too masculine,” but the thing is, there’s nothing about breasts, say, that’s inherently female. Cisgender guys with gynecomastia know that very well. There are also plenty of cisgender women who have very low voices.

Woman Tattoos Her Own Face To Cover Scars, Starts Business To Help Other Burn Victims

This woman rose above the challenges of her own experience to help others in similar situations.

Censorship of sexuality, especially while simultaneously violence, particularly sexual violence, is left uncensored, and the harmful implication this juxtaposition has on our collective sexual wellness, is something I’ve written a lot about, like here and here. Hell, I’ve even written a book about it.

So when I found out there is a new “kid safe” search engine called Kiddle designed to block adult search returns for children, I feared it had sex-is-bad-and-violence-is-normal disaster written all over it. When I learned the results are handpicked by humans and not a computer broadly banning based on keywords, I was extra curious to see if I was still right. I was.

I typed in a bunch of different searches that a child might reasonably want or *need* to anonymously ask the Internet. Well, I’ll let you see the results for yourself:

My girlfriend hits me” is also a bad word.

Inquiries about vaginal discharge are, you guessed it, also bad words.

Related bad words: menstrual care, menstrual pads, menstruation, and uterus.

When avoiding a gay dating website in the search results is considered a higher priority of “safety” for children than their homelessness, and you recommend confronting their abusive parents, we have a tish bit of a problem.

If I was 12, typed this into a search engine, and instead of results got a “bad word” finger wagging, I would take the answer to the “is it ok to be bisexual” question as a big fat NO it’s not OK :(

But the human censors apparently allows kids to search for this one under their “kid safe” censorship policies.

Hey everyone! I’m going through a huge life moment and need your support - I’m getting breast augmentation!!

It’s super vulnerable to be talking about this surgery, especially as a trans woman because often our gender choices are sensationalized and viewed as “cosmetic” rather than affirming. For me, this is the *only* surgery that feels exciting and liberating, so please support me with some donations, share with your networks, and/or feel free to message me with support because I’m totally open to receiving that!

https://www.youcaring.com/lunarchichifund

I’m really trusting the universe, faith, and you all to show up as my community and family right now. I’ve never had any type of major surgery before so this is all super exciting and nerve wracking and joyful.

Please take some time to read the fundraiser (x) for some more info. Thank you so much!

all the love & hope, Luna Merbruja

Note: The YouTube video has closed-captioning, and a transcript is available here (x).