one of the main failings of the disease model of addiction is that it doesn't actually say that drug use or alcohol use is morally neutral. it says that people who do them cannot help themselves; it's not "their fault".

which still maintains the belief that drug/alcohol use are, fundamentally, Bad, just some people have Diseases which Force Them To Do Bad Things. it actually fits very neatly within reactionary + puritanical beliefs about drug/alcohol use + the benefits it has for reducing stigma/violence against ppl who use drugs (which it has evidently done, to some extent!) are limited by this

something no one told me until I got my actual eval for adhd was that—

okay so do you remember being a kid going through growth spurts and you just kept hitting your body parts on stuff as you moved through your day to day life cause you weren’t adjusted to your new size and the literal dimensions of your body yet so you kept misjudging distances from yourself and the environment around you?

—that feeling/perception of just being totally unable to judge your own body in relation to your surroundings as you move through space is something that (some! not all) folks with adhd experience all the time their whole lives.

that’s why, if you have adhd, you might often end up with bruises in random places you don’t remember getting, or people perceive you as clumsy, or you find yourself constantly apologizing as you move through a space due to accidentally bumping into people

like not only does it impact our short term memory and our ability to perceive and predict the passage of time accurately, but it also impacts our ability to perceive the boundaries of our own bodies and the boundaries of other things in our environment. I wonder if this difference in perception is related to the common adhd trait of fidgeting, leg bouncing, stimming, etc. like it’s a way to sort of ground yourself/remind you of the physical reality of your body, or like a way to interact with the movement of your body in the environment in a contained and controlled way.

the more I learn about the neurological effects that are currently grouped by the term “adhd” the more frustrated I am that we are using “adhd” to refer to this experience. like is it a deficit of attention or is it really an inability to maintain short term memory and therefore be unable to hold the long list of related tasks together long enough to complete the entire responsibility? is it really hyperactivity or is it an inability to perceive the physical boundaries between the self and everything else in a way that develops naturally to others?

In case anyone thought I was making things up

five out of six of my most immediate family members have serious lasting health issues from catching covid (all vaccinated and boosted, ranging from a 29yo to a 93yo). three of those were working adults when they caught it, and are now long term sick. I wear masks indoors and a respirator on public transport, and only three people have ever bothered me about it. one was a guy shouting conspiracy nonsense at me from an open car window, which I ignored, one was a woman who stopped me on the street to tell me about faith healing, which I politely turned down, and the third was a cashier who made a good natured darth vader joke (I did an impression, we both laughed). that's three people, total, since 2019.

when people say they feel awkward masking or they fell out of the habit or they're worried about social repercussions sorry but I am completely unsympathetic. I'm not going to excuse you. there's no moral test you can cram for later and make up your grade. this it. you're failing.

we need to make peace with the fact that "i am a girl and retroactively i always was even when i didn't personally think so" and "i am a girl but i used to be a boy" are both equally valid ways to be transfem and both are punk af bc they equally reject societal norms of what a person's gender experience should be

I feel so... down whenever I want to watch queer or trans videos because I know in the back of my mind that none of the current large queer content creators' content or community is safe for people like me, intersex people.

I love their work otherwise, but it hurts badly to hear them toss around casual intersexism in their videos constantly when discussing queer and trans issues and nobody ever mentions it.

And because these are large, popular creators, nobody has ever listened when I've tried to ask they adjust their language. My dms go ignored or unseen and my public comments get drowned out by fans defending their intersexist comments. It's emotionally draining and exhausting, I just want to be included in my own community.

Genuinely asking if you are comfortable sharing, but what are some examples of "casual intersexism"? I'm honestly less read up on it than I should as someone who is intersex. Feel free to ignore this though should you not feel like it or anything.

• Stripping our intersex status when it fits an argument, ex. "Cis kids get put on hormones no problem while trans kids are denied them" (While they ignore that these are intersex children forced onto hormones)
• Using us when it does fit an argument, but ignoring us entirely outside of that context, ex. Using intersex people existing to validate trans people existing, but never doing any sort of intersex advocacy unless it directly benefits/includes trans people as well
• Erasing intersex issues while attempting to argue trans rights, ex. "No child is getting forced sex changes, that's not a thing that happens" (It doesn't happen to trans people, but happens all the time to intersex people)
• Saying that sex is binary but gender isn't (Neither of them are binary)
• Reducing intersex people down to cis people with disorders, ex. "Cis people without uteruses" or "Cis people with gynecomastia"
• In addition to the above point, generally acting as if intersex people are not oppressed or as though we have it better than trans people do, often by calling us cis and disordered rather than intersex, ex. "Cis women with high testosterone levels are allowed in sports but trans people aren't" (Which is not even really a true statement) or by wishing that they were intersex or openly admitting to calling themselves intersex in their personal life in an attempt to avoid discrimination
• Casual use of the word "Hermaphrodite"
• Calling intersex animals trans/nonbinary
• Ignoring blatant intersexism, never calling it out
• Calling bills/laws or other issues which directly impact intersex people "trans bills" instead of "trans and intersex bills", such as the recent Kansas bill directly targeting intersex people being called a "trans bill" - making these bills aiming to exterminate intersex people solely about trans people and ignoring the bills' direct attack on intersex people
• When these issues are brought up, saying that intersex people are "just caught in the crossfire/unfortunately affected by mistake but not intentionally, it's about trans people not intersex people"
• Saying that intersex people are not LGBT/queer (Not all intersex people identify as queer, but we have always been part of queer community and should not be pushed out)
• Reducing intersex people down to a statistic
• Common misinformation, such as saying that being intersex means "being born with both parts"
• Using afab and amab as equal to "perisex female" and "perisex male", ex. Talking as if all afabs are born with the same hormonal, genetic, or reproductive profiles

I am once again explaining that in order for walkable cities and public transit to work for disabled people, there also need to be more public bathrooms available in and around those areas. Not just places to sit down or rest. Bathrooms. We need accessible, clean bathrooms. With sharps bins. With multiple wheelchair accessible stalls. With an area to set down supplies needed to maintain one’s body. Even if it’s not being used to get rid of bodily waste, bathrooms are one of the few spaces disabled people have to maintain some sort of privacy when they’re in the middle of a flare up or they need to take medication or what have you. Designing a public space? Include bathrooms.

Absolutely goddamn obsessed w this pic the creator of neopets sent after trying and failing to push his shitty nft game to the current playerbase

idk what traumatized or mentally ill person needs to hear this but dreams (especially the really disturbing ones you dont want to talk about to anybody) arent some deep peek into your psyche or a sign of your True Desires or whatever theyre quite literally your brain making fruit salad with whatever it can find on the shelf. just putting all that shit in a blender and hitting obliterate. its fine, youre fine, youre not a weirdo for it

Actually forget what I said. This dream is more important than anything

Reminder that associating hair length with gender is not a culturally universal concept and that many indigenous folks in North America don’t cut their hair for cultural reasons that have nothing to do with gender.

Reminder that a native guy should be allowed to wear his hair in long braids without people calling it gender nonconformity or saying he’s breaking gender norms, because hair length has nothing to do with his gender norms.

Reminder that a queer native woman should be allowed to wear her hair long without being automatically read as femme presenting, that she can be butch with long hair, because long hair is not associated with femininity in her culture.

Reminder that many native folks cut their hair for solemn reasons, usually mourning, and remarking on it as a reflection of personal style or gender presentation can be deeply disrespectful. No, she didn’t just get a fierce butch haircut - she cut her hair because someone died. No, he didn’t cave to a gender conforming haircut - he cut his hair because someone died.

Reminder that this is not universally practiced by native folks and, like all cultural practices, some people are more strict in their adherence than others.

Those lunches are just chili in a bag btw

I need to start drawing other characters 😭