I am joining in asking the OTW to give regular updates on their June 2020 commitments.
@transformativeworks you do a lot of great work for fandom, and you are an organization that inspires me in many ways. But as a member, I am disappointed that we haven’t gotten more updates on the commitments you made three years ago to combat discrimination and harassment by giving users and admins better tools and reviewing/updating policies & TOS.
I know that sometimes commitments like these take longer than desired to follow through on. Sometimes challenges arise – like unexpected complexities, disagreements about how best to implement changes, competing urgent priorities, etc – and maybe some of that is relevant here. But that’s just basically me out here making up my own headcanons for what might be happening behind the scenes, because I don’t actually know. As a member, I am asking for more transparency about the progress so far on all the efforts, the nature of any challenges that have arisen, and the current priorities and timelines.
@transformativeworks please update us on the efforts you committed to in 2020, and give regular updates going forward. If there are challenges, please also share if there’s anything that members might be able to do to help!
can i talk my shit again. yall love fat people when theyre like 200 lbs and “somft” but can we get some positivity posts for people who are like 400 and having trouble getting off the floor. who have tried everything and cant drop more than 20 pounds. yes fat people are beautiful and awesome but can we talk about 4/5x more instead of just xxl. for the love of god. can we talk about those of us who cant get merch of our favorite creators bc it only goes up to 3x.
CAN WE TALK ABOUT STILL FINDING YOURSELF PRETTY AS A FAT PERSON. CAN WE TALK ABOUT BEING 375 AND CUTE AS SHIT BUT EVERYONES FUCKING PUT OFF BY YOU. CAN WE TALK ABOUT THAT. IM FUCKING. THIS IS PERSONAL TO ME
Yes. Exactly fucking this. We live in a society. Larger fat people are treated like toxic sludge despite being cute and wonderful and funny and (not even needing to be all these things I’m just saying, yanno, larger fat people are WORTHY FUCKING HUMAN BEINGS THE SAME AS THE THINS OR LESSER FATS)
And even if fat people aren’t cute, no one deserves to be treated as toxic for how they look. And even the person whose behavior is the most toxic is still a human being deserving of reasonable consideration.
im expecting a lot of “pride month is over, now it’s time for wrath month” posts. that’s cool and all. but july is disability pride month.
pride month is when you’re SUPPOSED to be angry. it’s a celebration AND a riot. that was the best time to get angry. second best time is now. but it’s not wrath month. let disabled people have this.
please get angry with us. please fight with us! we are both losing our rights, if we ever even had them to begin with. please don’t talk over us, especially during our own pride month.
did you know over 10,000 people die a year while waiting to be told whether or not they can receive disability benefits?
did you know while being provided disability benefits, disabled people cannot have more than $2,000 total in their bank account? the average rent for an apartment in the united states, as of last month, is $1,995. per month.
while they want to kill queer people, they want to kill disabled people just as bad. please look out for your disabled friends and family. please look out for those of us who don’t have friends and family. those of us who are out on the streets.
The above are USA stats so I’d like to add: In Australia, on Disability Support, you’re also not allowed more than $2000 in your bank accounts either, in USD that’s $1,400~ - average rent in Australia is $2400~ (AUD) per month. Hundreds of people die a year waiting for Disability Support, which granted is much less than the US (even per capita), though its worth mentioning our total population is less than 30 million.
In most of the world with Disability Benefits, you cannot get Disability Benefits if your partner makes too much money (‘too much’ meaning 'not enough for a single person to live on their own’ most of the time), and definitely not enough money to let you both live together if you don’t get Benefits. People divorce or break up all over the world just so a disabled person can get Disability. It’s also a world where disabled people are not entitled to their own financial support - and financial abuse and domestic abuse of disabled folks is much higher than for non-disabled folks.
There is no queer marriage equality until queer disabled people can get married safely, we don’t stop fighting for marriage equality until it applies to all queer people.
im expecting a lot of “pride month is over, now it’s time for wrath month” posts. that’s cool and all. but july is disability pride month.
pride month is when you’re SUPPOSED to be angry. it’s a celebration AND a riot. that was the best time to get angry. second best time is now. but it’s not wrath month. let disabled people have this.
please get angry with us. please fight with us! we are both losing our rights, if we ever even had them to begin with. please don’t talk over us, especially during our own pride month.
did you know over 10,000 people die a year while waiting to be told whether or not they can receive disability benefits?
did you know while being provided disability benefits, disabled people cannot have more than $2,000 total in their bank account? the average rent for an apartment in the united states, as of last month, is $1,995. per month.
while they want to kill queer people, they want to kill disabled people just as bad. please look out for your disabled friends and family. please look out for those of us who don’t have friends and family. those of us who are out on the streets.
The above are USA stats so I’d like to add: In Australia, on Disability Support, you’re also not allowed more than $2000 in your bank accounts either, in USD that’s $1,400~ - average rent in Australia is $2400~ (AUD) per month. Hundreds of people die a year waiting for Disability Support, which granted is much less than the US (even per capita), though its worth mentioning our total population is less than 30 million.
In most of the world with Disability Benefits, you cannot get Disability Benefits if your partner makes too much money (‘too much’ meaning 'not enough for a single person to live on their own’ most of the time), and definitely not enough money to let you both live together if you don’t get Benefits. People divorce or break up all over the world just so a disabled person can get Disability. It’s also a world where disabled people are not entitled to their own financial support - and financial abuse and domestic abuse of disabled folks is much higher than for non-disabled folks.
There is no queer marriage equality until queer disabled people can get married safely, we don’t stop fighting for marriage equality until it applies to all queer people.
People horrifically fucking up facts about evolution and genetics too support their stupid beliefs or to seem smart and “rational” is probably one of my big pet peeves
Yeah. An enormous number of racists, misogynists, homophobes and transphobes I’ve met eventually whip out something about evolutionary biology and they never, ever, ever, ever have the slightest shadow of even a half-right idea what any of it means or ever cite a claim ever actually made by a scientific study.
Here’s a quick handy reference list or anyone who isn’t sure:
Homosexuality does exist in almost all social species.
“Alpha males” are not a real phenomenon and in fact the most aggressive males tend to be the least reproductively successful.
“Survival of the fittest” simply means that the success of a species hinges on how well it “fits” its environment. It does not mean that stronger or smarter individuals are supposed to succeed. Those things can even be a detriment in nature by wasting too many resources.
“Race” is not a biological concept. Someone who looks different from you has the same human genes, just a different grab-bag of dominant traits.
Evolution is not a march towards higher complexity, more intelligence or even more adaptability. It’s just a fluctuation of characteristics dictated by environmental pressures and mutation. A slime mold isn’t “less evolved” than a hawk, just adapted for success under different parameters.
People didn’t evolve “from apes.” It’s more complicated than that. We are a category of ape, sharing a common ancestor with the other apes.
No human on Earth is “closer” to an evolutionary ancestor than any other. We all descended from the same one.
Neanderthals were also a “sibling” species of ours. We didn’t evolve from them.
Some of us did, however, cross-breed with Neandethal man. It is exclusively non-African races, such as white people, who still carry hybrid human/Neanderthal genes. Whoops, sorry “white purity” skinheads, you’re actually mixed with a whole other species.
Some more stuff!
Humans are actually more genetically homogeneous than most people suspect. This is possibly due to a population bottleneck at some point in our evolutionary past. Two chimpanzees from different sides of a jungle are likely more genetically different to each other than any two human beings in the world.
Our big brains may help us use tools, but what was really principal in their development was the need for empathy, communication, and cooperation.
Humans. Are. Social. So social it drove an incredibly energetically costly increase in our brain size. Don’t believe anyone who says its our nature to fight “every man for themself.” We’re humans, not bears. We fight for each other.
And we always have. Fossil remains are found of ancient humans who bore signs of crucial mobility impairments that lived to notable ages. Some even have sticks or other mobility aids – community care and support is our way. We don’t cast off those with impairments, we stand by them.
Human sexual dimorphism is on a decreasing trend. Our ancestors had greater difference in canine size and overall size. Our dimorphism gap has gotten smaller.
Occam’s razor is the principal that whatever is the simplest explanation is probably the most likely one. Don’t believe someone who says the reason we evolved bipedalism is so that males could carry gifts to females to woo them. Yes, this is a real ‘theory’ on how bipedalism evolved.
Skin tone is an adaptation of UV levels vs vitamin D levels. Both come from the sun. UV is harmful, so where sun is plentiful populations develop a darker skin tone for more protection. The skin needs sun to create vitamin D, so where sun is scarce, the skin tone lightens to allow more sun in. This is literally all it is.
Final thing: No one’s mind is really equipped to fully understand how long a billion years is, or a million, or even tens of thousands of years. Evolution takes place over a loooong time. Its very, very, slow, slower than we can really comprehend. We can’t “stand in the way” of natural selection by caring for our ill. We don’t need to “help” evolution in any way. It inevitably happens, but not on any sort of timescale we could possibly affect, so don’t fall for anyone that tells you not to “stand in the way” of natural selection. That’s fascism, and its utterly pseudo-scientific.
Not to mention natural selection doesn’t have a “will” that you can stand in the way of. Its not an entity with wants, its a millions-year long process. And its impossible for our decisions to “stand in its way.” Our decisions to care for one another are what brought our species where it is, plain and simple.
This cat strikes me as both fascinated by the sensation of the rain - the smell, sound, and feel of it - and completely mortified by the fact that it comes with being wet
This cat is like “I am enjoying approximately 75% of this experience but I’m not sure if it’s worth that other 25%”
The Fair Folk: “I can’t believe this. Twenty years I’ve cleaned your house and you DARE to try to REPAY me with GIFTS. This is such an insult. Fuck you, you insolent humans. I’m leaving here and never returning because you have insulted me so deeply.”
Also the Fair Folk: “Remember that one time you pulled a thorn out of a cat’s foot? That was me. To show my gratitude, here is a house made of solid gold, a life-debt, my daughter’s hand in marriage, and a promise that all your children will be gorgeous and successful at all that they do. I can also throw in a blow job if you want. I hope this is enough. I don’t want to seem ungrateful.”
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