to ache is to be alive; ✮˚.⋆

Then maybe...

Maybe...

“I was treated worse than an animal,” said Mario Garcia-Valenzuela, one of the detainees. “We don’t deserve to be treated like this.” Garcia-Valenzuela, a trans man detained at SLIPC, has alleged that, as part of the unsanctioned work program, [assistant warden] Reyes forced him to move heavy cabinets and cinder blocks, and to clean using industrial-strength chemicals without gloves or protective gear. When Garcia-Valenzuela complained of injuries from the work program, he said, Reyes and his associates forcefully stripped him naked and mocked him. Kenia Campos-Flores, who is trans and non-binary, told the Guardian that they suffered from persistent migraines and chest pain after exposure to cleaning chemicals they were made to use during unofficial, overnight work shifts. Campos-Flores also alleged in a complaint they were persistently sexually harassed by Reyes, who entered their dorm and stole possessions including their boxers. Another trans detainee, Monica Renteria-Gonzalez, complained that a stripper chemical he was told to use to clean the facility floors seeped through his fabric shoes and burned the skin of his feet. On more than one occasion, while Renteria-Gonzalez was bent over cleaning, he said, Reyes came up from behind and inappropriately touched him. The assistant warden also told Renteria-Gonzalez he was watching the detainee through security cameras, including while he was showering. A fourth detainee, identified by the pseudonym Jane Doe, is a cisgender, queer woman who said that Reyes forced her to perform oral sex on him on a “near daily basis” between February and May 2024, threatening to kill her if she refused, according to her complaint. Doe, who was deported to the Dominican Republic in January this year, has chosen not to share her name or speak publicly because she fears that Reyes will make good on his threat to find and harm her, her lawyer said. [...] “This was a sadistic late-night work program,” said Sarah Decker, a senior staff attorney with RFK Human Rights. “It was designed to target vulnerable trans men or masculine-presenting LGBTQ people, who [Reyes] coerced into participating.”

A cis woman was also involved in the sexual violence:

Twice, Renteria-Gonzalez said, Reyes came up behind him and touched him inappropriately. Another SLIPC officer, according to Renteria-Gonzalez, began to sexually harass him as well, sending him explicit notes and showing him pornographic images of herself.

This article includes more from each victim, but I want to highlight this part as well:

Garcia-Valenzuela had fled to the US in 2014 from Mexico, where he was tortured by members of a drug cartel. “I have no choice, that’s why I’m fighting,” he said. “Because I know that as soon as they deport me, I’m going to be handed over to the cartels and I’m going to be tortured and killed – ripped into pieces.” But in SLIPC he faced a new kind of horror. He alleged that on more than one occasion he was told to move heavy metal filing cabinets back and forth across a room. When he struggled to lift the furniture, Reyes would taunt him, he said, saying: “If you think you are a man, I’m going to treat you like a man.” In the spring of 2024, Garcia-Valenzuela reported sexual harassment on the basis of his gender, in accordance with Prea. He said he felt targeted due to his gender identity and wanted the fact he is transgender removed from his file, as a measure of protection. But an [ICE] officer responded that “even if we take off your transgender marker, there is no hiding that you are transgender”, noting Garcia-Valenzuela’s physical appearance, he said. To Garcia-Valenzuela’s knowledge, no follow-up investigation into Reyes was conducted. Renteria-Gonzalez’s complaints were dismissed as well, Renteria-Gonzalez said.

BREAKING: 21-year-old protester, Kaden Rummler, was shot point-blank in the face by ICE. he just spoke about how he’s blind for life and almost died:

“I will be blind for life. I have fractures in my skull that they can't fix. They pulled a piece of plastic the size of a nickel out of my eye. I had shards of metal, glass, and plastic behind my eye and in my skull. They said it was a miracle I survived.”

What the hell is wrong with these people?

GoFundMe for Kaden Rummler, the young trans man blinded by ICE agents this week.

“It’s easier for trans men to pass/be stealth!!”

Actually it’s easier for people with very specific bodies (white, thin, average height) with large incomes and supportive families to transition medically in a way which is more likely to conform to strict ideas of ‘man’ and ‘woman’

I swear every time I see someone try to make the argument for one of us having it better they exclusively either cite celebrities (again, see white, rich, thin) or assume that the people they know irl are representative of every trans person.

It also begs the point that YOU DO NOT KNOW IF SOMEONE IS STEALTH UNLESS THEY TELL YOU. No one actually knows how many trans people successfully live as stealth.

Most of the passing trans people I know personally are women, but most of the trans people I know to be stealth are men. I also know far more trans women than I do trans men. Not to ignore the fact that these arguments completely erase non binary people who are pressured to just pick a binary gender to ‘pass’ as because it is functionally impossible to be a ‘stealth’ non binary person.

The most bitter sweet trans masc validation🥲

so one time at some southern store we were buying chicken and this old lady looked at my grandma and said “4 boys… must be hard,” and when my grandma tried explaining that I, in fact, was not male, the old lady was like “really? Are you sure?”

the story isn’t worded the best but it made me really happy back then :)

 nd now is tired and needs to lay down

Closest match: Bombyx mori BmN4 cell DNA, chromosome 24, sequence Common name: Domestic Silk Moth

✨healing magic