Eh

the color of trees

clouds and how they look different throughout the day

the different colors the mornings can have. sometimes it's an orange hue and sometimes pink and sometimes it's too misty to tell

pretty color schemes in random places (the trees and your neighbors wooden patio and the color of their car)

the states of the vehicles passing you by, dents and scratches and the different trinkets suspended from their rearview mirrors

the sound of silence

the shadows the lights cast in your home, like how sunset looks different than sunrise, and the shadows the sun casts look different than those of your lamps and candles

pretty details in buildings and houses like certain types of windows or doorknobs or archways

I have a family friend who worked at our local Salvation Army headquarters as a a secretary. This particular office took all the Christmas donations for children in need, put them in a warehouse, and on a designated day the staff and their friends picked through them all, taking whatever they wanted. She saw people hauling away bikes donated for specific families. Some local children had hundreds of dollars of gifts donated in their name, and on Christmas they received three cheap things, items likely not even from the person who sponsored them.

My friend quit, and I’ve not given them a dime of my money since then.

I’m a wildfire and disaster logistics specialist.

I deal with a lot of agencies who provide disaster relief.

I used to say the Salvation Army’s disaster services were the one (literally the ONE) good thing they did.

They would come in, set up a canteen trailer, make and pass out hot coffee and donated food in a disaster, usually being one of the first agencies to get there and the last to leave.

Then I found out.

Every time they did this, regardless of if they were actually invited or deployed by the agency in charge (usually FEMA, sometimes others) they would SELF-DEPLOY. Meanjng they would just show up. Ok. That’s not TOO bad, sometimes agencies have to take initiative and get there before the red tape is sorted out. BUT. They, after they left at the end of the incident, they would send FEMA or the host agency a BILL. They used one or two paid employees (usually the driver of the truck and a supervisor); and many VOLUNTEERS, but they would bill for EVERYONE’s Labor at standard federal rates. They would bill for the food they distributed even though it was all donated by another agency or private parties. They would bill for the coffee they made and the supplies. Except they would use electricity from the shelter location, water from donations or from the shelter, and in many cases, they would get the coffee and industrial filters DONATED, but bill for them at retail prices.

Salvation Army reached out to Milknmuffins and asked what shelter she’s at with the promise to address the abuse in it. She…ended up saying where she was. She was thrown out onto the street. It’s also all on Twitter.

They invited her to a personal talk so she could explain the situation in person.

And then they threatened her with a screenshot of a rape-threat made supposedly by her:

And then threw her out into the street while claiming she broke house rules that

tumblr:

Dont fetishize asians.

Dont make coronavirus jokes about asians. (Yes, it’s still happening, and it’s still a problem.)

Keep the same energy for racism against all asians as we do with other races. That includes more than just east asians. Asia is more than China, Japan and Korea.

It’s why people don’t understand the roots of the word “queer” in the first place, or why it’s important to so many people

It’s why people think “gay” is some apolitical neutral term with zero negative connotations, ever, for anyone

It’s why people actively feed into lesbian separatism, political lesbianism, and TERF movements without even knowing it

It’s why people think “LGBT” is some True Name that has never been changed, challenged, nor shaped over the years to better represent the community

It’s why people feed “who can reclaim which slurs” discourse without giving living human beings older than 25 any real consideration

It’s why people straight-up don’t know what the “drop the T” campaign was/is, or understand the troubled history between the trans community and the rest of the queer community

It’s why people don’t understand what “trans” used to mean, or how that meaning has changed over the years, or why

It’s why people don’t understand the differences between queer communities and identities by country, or often how they’re complicated by race

It’s why people don’t understand what “butch” and “femme” actually mean, the many definitions they can have, or how those labels have intersected across communities for decades now

It’s why people don’t understand the differences between the transfemme and transmascs communitys’ histories, or the differences in struggles they have- and then feed into those struggles without even realizing it

It’s why people straight-up recycle old homophobic and transphobic rhetoric, uncritically and unironically, as if they’ve discovered cool some new bigbrain hot take for the “super smart” gay kids 

It’s why people treat these complicated, contradictory-sounding, or lesser-known identities like “trendy new ways to claim you’re oppressed”- without understanding the history behind those labels, and those communities, and that they’ve been here longer than any of these people have been alive.

Like… yes, we’re moving forward now. Things are changing, and in many ways, it’s for the better! But we seem to forget that most of our community was lost in the 80′s and 90′s, and those folks left a massive, gaping chasm behind.

Because I really want to learn this.

Seek out older queer folks on social media, and follow them! There aren’t many around, but you can start with activists and look for others. Here’s a few:

Miss Major Griffin-Gracey

Kate Bornstein

Julia Serano

Read! There are a ton of books on, or touching on, queer history by queer people who lived it. Some nice starting points are:

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinburg

Transgender Warriors by Leslie Feinburg

Whipping Girl by Julia Serano

Redefining Realness by Janet Mock

Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein

Becoming a Visible Man by Jamison Green

If you have the opportunity to take gender studies or queer literature classes, or anything similar- take them! Try to talk to some fellow queer students folks before you choose which classes/professor you take them with, too.

Join local queer organizations! Not just clubs at your school, if you’re in school- though those are also great!- but clubs, in-person meetup groups, online groups, and other organizations where you might meet folks who are older than you. 

Seek out material on topics that interest you; be it Stonewall, the AIDS crisis, specific queer artists and musicians (like Frida Kahlo, Keith Harring, or Freddie Mercury), or your country or specific region’s history. There are a ton of documentaries out there, and a ton of articles, books, essays, etc. that can all be great resources.

Also, @makingqueerhistory is a great resource. They have a podcast and do a ton of writing on queer history, and that can be an amazing place to start as well.