Another unnecessary sequel?

I’m gonna skip this one, let me know when they put Jesus in space, or make him fight Jason Voorhees, or whatever these sortsa franchises do when they run outta ideas.

Huge problem imho, is that a lot of these people who rattle on about voting for harm reduction candidates go home after voting on election day and then don’t get involved politically until the next election cycle.

In these bourgeois “democracies” political parties are always going to move to court wealthy donors and thus shift right wing. If you lot over in America can’t mobilise enough people out in the street to fight for these causes, to grind your country to a screaming halt if needs be, then the Dems will be where labour is soon. Maybe not this election, but check back in with this comment by the midterms.

I guess there’s some small comfort that they’ll at least pay lip service to trans rights then.

The labour party won an election over here and one of the first things they did was stop access to puberty blockers. During the election I was told by a lot of liberals preaching harm reduction that, as a trans woman, that I had to vote for them 'cos the Tories would be worse.

I’m worried about trans people over on your side of the ocean being in a similar position where the elections are between trans exterminationist and transphobe.

Okay, can you be more specific about what they did to minimise damage? Like, did they make trans people a protected class, or relieve the bureaucracy around transitioning, or what?

Not an American, so no real stake in this but, could you tell me what the Democrats have done in the past four years to protect trans rights? Since you’re all so clearly concerned about them an’ all.

There was this bloke who used to sit at the train station close to the uni I was attending at the time, he’d drink cans of alcohol and do a little trainspotting. We talked a couple of times and he gave me some advice that helped me get out of my shell and talk to people a lot more. I must’ve only chatted with him, like, once or twice but I think it made all the difference in pushing me into making friends in what would otherwise’ve been a very lonely and isolated part of my life.

Not sure if I’d class it as the craziest moment of my life, but it was like a scene out of a sitcom:

When I was a teenager I briefly worked part-time at a place that refurbished various household appliances. Donations came in through the front and ended up in back with very little looking over. We took all sorts in and the workshop floor was split into various departments based on what appliances they dealt with. I was a new hire and they were still cycling me 'round various departments, my least favourite one was when I was assigned to cleaning out used ovens.

One day this box came in and, like, we opened it up and there were various electronic massaging gizmos. So, my supervisor is pulling 'em out, he passes some of 'em to me to give a lookover to make sure they’re clean and do, like, PAT tests and stuff.

I’m plodding along and he gets to work on the rest himself. I’m doing the tests on this thing that’s like a plastic plate with this piece on the top vaguely shaped like a pair of cupped hands, when my supervisor calls me over to lend a hand. He’s got this black tube that goes a bit wider on one end, about as thick as my wrist. It looked kinda like a torch but with a cap screwed over the bit the light’s in.

His hands are a bit slippy so he’s having a hard time unscrewing the cap, so he asked me to have a go. Wider end pointed away from me, I wrapped my hand around the cap and gave it a good twist. The first clue I had that something was amiss was that my supervisor went bright red. I asked him what’s wrong and just told me to see for myself, so I turn the thing in my hand and see this silicone orifice looking back at me.

That was how I learnt what a fleshlight is.

NO

Tankie has been shifting way beyond its original meaning to just be a vague leftward stab, but being an anarchist and everything I don’t think it applies to me just yet

That’s a brave person right there, to stand in front of all those tanks.

What happened next? I bet it was something terrible.

When I was still in the closet, I grew and maintained a big beard as part of my attempts at performative masculinity.

Not saying that this is what’s happening with most men who’re growing 'em out, but sometimes I see a bloke with a well maintained set of facial hair looking absolutely miserable and my egg radar starts shrieking.

Do murder ghosts or whatever count as dependents?

There’s probably some nightmare tax form for this, isn’t there?

Have a good day, friend

You too, mate.

Ah, you’re right, I see now, boiling down Marxist critique into “can’t control emotions” and “only wants money” while celebrating the individualistic ramblings of a lead-poisoned imperial despot, is a much more rational outlook.

Systemic issues aren’t real, you just gotta stop thinking bad thoughts and suddenly the crushing oppression that Aurelius was writing in defense of don’t matter.

“Hmm, why would man sitting on the top of an inherently unjust system preach complacency with said system as a virtue? Must be because he’s super rational and smart.”

• you, somehow still on that slave mentality in the 21st century.

It’s a split between two things:

Firstly, I finally got my degree. People in my immediate surroundings got tired of the confirmed bachelor jokes after the first week of me making them.

And secondly, after a year and a half of waiting I got to talk to a gender service doctor back in February. Now I’m well on the way to get the bureaucracy part of my transition out of the way. And I’ll be getting my hormones soon.

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and then try to envision everything my body just did to take that breath.

The intercostal muscles expanding an’ the diaphragm contracting to make a vacuum in the thoracic cavity.

The air rushing down my trachea, into my bronchus, then into the bronchioles.

The alveoli swelling individually as the air fills 'em.

My lungs filling the vacuum that the muscles created.

It’s a lot of things to keep ahold of all at once, so there ain’t the space in my mind to keep thinking of what annoyed me (until some daft bastard goes and does it again mind you).

Was added (yesterday I think), so now you can!

If you want to know something you merely have to ask. Maybe explain that you don’t know much about a subject matter.

My initial comment was to someone who has an opinion on Trotsky and thus probably knows who he was, so I didn’t feel like typing up a whole-ass essay on the guy. Y’know?

Genuine question, if you don’t have a stance on Trotsky, and you don’t know fuck all about him, why are you wading into this comment chain in the first place?

I took it for granted that people who had a stance on Trotsky would know who he is.