Day: June 19, 2017

Transgender candidate wins Virginia primary, could be first out trans state lawmaker

gaywrites:

Danica Roem made history this week. She’s the first transgender person ever to win a legislative primary in the state of Virginia – the Virginia House of Delegates’ 13th District, to be more specific. And if she wins in November, she’ll be the first out transgender state lawmaker. 

As it happens, her opponent in November is Republican Bob Marshall, who is known in the state (and even nationwide) for his extremely homophobic, transphobic and misogynistic views. For example:

Roem told The Advocate she will fight for “transportation, not discrimination,” as the district sorely needs improvements to its highways and expansion of mass transit. Her other priorities include jobs and education, but Marshall, she said, has been focused on proposing anti-LGBT legislation. Just this year, he introduced a “bathroom bill” that would not only prevent transgender students from using the restrooms that match their gender identity, but require teachers to out trans kids to their parents. He used the debunked argument that in the absence of such a measure, men would pretend to be transgender prey on women in restrooms.

He also led the movement to block a gay prosecutor from a judgeship in Virginia, saying a gay person would not be “temperamentally suited” to the job; that gay people shouldn’t serve in the military because they might have HIV; and that if a woman has an abortion, “nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,” making them more likely to have disabilities.

Virginia: Show up for Danica in November! This is amazing. 

Transgender candidate wins Virginia primary, could be first out trans state lawmaker

psa because i’m still hearing people in hot countries make fun of the uk for the ‘heat wave’

very-british-life:

spacetime-psd:

pides:

pides:

  • the uk is a very mild, humid place
  • sweat does not evaporate well in humid heat; the uk has very, very humid heat
  • meaning british people cannot cool down efficiently
  • also british people are adapted for cooler temperatures
  • people are literally expected to die in the next couple of days because of the heat wave
  • the news has put out health warnings because people will literally die because of the heat
  • shut up

oh yeah it’s also been pointed out in comments – we have no AC. no houses have AC. most buildings don’t have AC. most cars don’t have AC. 

WHY DON’T YOU HAVE AC WHAT

Our weather is typically inclined to be cold and rainy most of the year and our summers have typically peaked in the mid 20s. Our homes are built to cope with cold because it’s never been normal to have hot weather but climate change is making our summers hotter and hotter and nobody can afford to get air conditioning fitted or can’t because most of us rent and those that don’t often live in old buildings you can’t get it into. We don’t have AC but us in south east England wish we did 😂

ayeforscotland:

omgsamchap:

JFC this is DISGUSTING, trying to villainize this man for having a faulty fridge when the quality of housing is what let the fire get so big and deadly. The point is that a building that is well-made according to reasonable regulations wouldn’t become an inferno due to one faulty fridge. It doesn’t matter what started the fire, it’s the fact that it grew so big because corners were cut in making the building safe and livable. Fuck DailyMail and anyone blaming this man for what happened.

Like I’ve said in loads of other posts, this is a coordinated attack by the government AND the media.

The media are the ones that shape public perception and find excuses for every catastrophic mistake the Tory government makes. It is the media that has turned people in the UK, although it’s far worse in England, against immigrants and the disabled and everyone they disagree with.

The Tories are a massive bunch of wankers but it’s the media that cosy up to them and will publish any perspective to get a story. That’s ‘journalist’ opinion pieces where they criticise the working class for being lazy or when they publish the endless streams of shite as they follow Theresa May around the country to repeat what she’s said everywhere.

We then get this ridiculous notion of ‘media impartiality’ where ‘all sides must be heard’ so they can drag some arsehole UKIP representative to comment on something. UKIP have been represented on hundreds of BBC Question times despite never having MPs or anything. The BBC giving airtime to twats like Nigel Farage or the EDL has shaped public opinion over the past 10-15 years.

Now we’ve got the scum at the daily Mail attacking a guy for something that could have happened to anyone rather than on the fucking incompetence of a corrupt local council and a government-enforced austerity policy.

Most people are beginning to click that the media isn’t some random channel where we’re told what’s going on. It’s just a bunch of perspectives and it’s mostly the perspectives of total arseholes.

The rise of different media is changing things. Blogs are changing the way the public has access to information.

Fuck the mainstream media as it doesn’t do anyone any favours.

Source: tillaneesia

watchyourattitude:

dracofidus:

England, and from what I hear, Europe, is undergoing a heatwave.

Temperatures in the UK are around 30°C. Where I am it’s gonna hit 32°C in the next couple of hours.

To you Americans, you Australians, that’s nothing. It’s a mild day, we’re weak, whatever, I’ve heard it all, the thing is, WE AREN’T EQUIPPED TO DEAL WITH THIS.

The average temperature in the UK in July is 17°C. It is in the 30’s today. We simply are not used to it. We are used to rain and sleet and hail and wind, not heat. And our heat is a damp heat. A humid heat.

Because of all the sea around us we have an extremely humid climate if it gets warm. The air literally feels heavy right now. I am struggling to cool down because the humidity is fucking with my sweat, and as a trans man, the high amounts of water in the air, combined with my binder make it difficult to breathe, and I assume a lot of asthmatic people have a similar problem.

When temperatures in the UK are like this, people die. Don’t laugh about it. It is serious. It may not seem like much to you, it may not seem warm to you, but in a similar heatwave in 2013, 760 people died.

Our infrastructure is not built to cope with this. The house I live in, for instance, was built when the Thames still used to freeze over. It was built to be warm. The walls are thick, the windows are small, some rooms don’t even have windows that open, it was built with no though to air circulation, and this is one of the most common types of home in the UK. The UK government subsidises insulation. People fill every gap in their home with stuff that will keep the heat in. And nobody – literally nobody – has aircon. A lot of businesses don’t even have it. We have no use for it 99.9% of the time. Hell, I don’t even own a desk fan or even a hand held fan.

It is very different here to where you are. And we are used to and equipped for very different things. Instead of laughing, teach us how to stay cool. Instead of making jokes or quips, make info posts, and things that will help us.

Remember, this may be an average day to you, but to us it’s a heatwave. We cannot cope. And for some, particularly children and the elderly, it’s literally a matter of life and death.

Repeating this cause there’s another heatwave going on in Europe at the moment. This is reality for us.

quasi-normalcy:

unfriendlygaysocialist:

the-purity-of-nude-socialism:

We’ve got people being offered housing in Manchester, a man that just lost his wife being forced to put his terrified children in another high rise, a man that lost his wife being shunted into an old folks home and case closed. And they’ve got no choice or they get this “walked out of the system voluntarily” label and that’s that.

Enough is enough, this is sick.

I’ve know the trap of ‘intentional homelessness’ make people suicidal in this country. It sends people mad. They can’t do this to them

How to Gentrify:

  • Destroy working class lives and homes through decades of tactical neglect;
  • Deport working class survivors away from their jobs and support networks after their homes finally burn down;
  • Presumably build new homes for the “productive classes” (i.e., real estate speculators and Russian gangsters);
  • Get your boot-licking peons in the media to call anyone who objects a Bolshevik
Source: best-street-shark

pentapuslikes:

the-knights-who-say-book:

When the sorcerer found the dragon, it was attacking a grape.

This was only possible because the dragon was not much larger than a grape itself, but she still had to do a double take to be sure the object it was fighting with such animosity was in fact inanimate.

She crouched so that her eyes were level with the top of the table and squinted at it. The dragon sank its tiny fangs into the grape’s skin and gave a great tug, succeeding only in throwing it and the grape into a backwards tumble. The tiny green reptile rolled to a stop with its whole body wrapped around the grape and shook its head ferociously, managing to pull its teeth out but also launching the grape across the table. It gave a mighty roar of anger (about as loud as a human clearing their throat) and stalked after it, tail swishing dangerously.

“Do you need help?” she offered.

The dragon froze mid-prowl and whipped its head around to look at her, looking so offended she almost apologized for asking.

“I mean, I could peel it for you, if that’s the problem.” She wasn’t sure it was getting the message. One could never tell how much human language these little creatures picked up by hanging around the magic labs. Some understood only such essentials as “scat!” or “oh fuck, that sure did just explode”, while others could hold entire conversations — if they deigned to interact.

This one looked like it was deciding whether she was worthy. Finally, it sniffed daintily and flicked its tail, scales clacking together. “Little monster is my prey, and you can’t have it. Found it first. Will devour it!”

“Oh, sure,” she agreed. “But you know it’s a grape, right?”

This was the wrong thing to say. It glared at her and then bounded away to the other end of the table, where it slithered up to the grape and pounced on it.

Grape and dragon promptly rolled off the edge of the table.

The sorcerer quickly went around to that side, alarmed that it would be stepped on. The labs were bustling with shoppers stopping by to watch demonstrations this time of day, and a small dragon wouldn’t be easily visible on the blue and green tiled floor.

“Horrible! Dirty!” The tiny dragon was screeching at the top of its lungs, holding onto its prey for dear life. It would have been hard to hear anyway, with all the noise of the labs, but with the sorcerer’s diminished hearing it took several seconds to locate the screaming creature.

She scanned the pattern of the tiles for it and sighed. “Oh, hold on, we mopped this morning.” She cupped her hands around it and deposited it into her skirt pocket, an indignity the dragon endured only with more screaming.

“An outrage! Put me down!”

“Shh,” she advised. Lab workers were strongly discouraged from bringing creatures into the back rooms, which was where she was heading, picking her way through the crowded front lab.

“Fuck pockets!” her pocket responded.

“Oh, you can curse. Wonderful.”

The dragon seemed to take this as an actual compliment. “Am multitalented. Can also compose poetry.”

“Really? Can I hear some?”

“No. For dragon ears only.” It sounded viciously pleased to hold this over her head. The bulge in her pocket rearranged itself, and she thought it might be trying to gnaw on the grape.

She felt herself smiling even as she tried to squash her mouth into a straight line. She liked this little bad-tempered thing, even though its spiky feet were digging into her thigh.

In the much quieter kitchen of the back rooms behind the lab, she transferred the wriggling, scaly handful from her pocket to the table. The dragon hissed out a few more insults as it got up and straightened itself out, but its jaw fell open when it finally took in its surroundings. She’d set it down next to the fruit bowl.

“There you go. Food mountain.”

The dragon’s shock didn’t last long. Abandoning the grape, it scraped and scrabbled its way up the side of the bowl and from there onto an apple, its claws leaving tiny puncture marks as it hiked to the top of the arrangement. “Food mountain!” It repeated, its gleeful crowing much clearer and almost sing-song without having to compete with the noise of the crowd.

She watched it turn in a circle, surveying the feast. “But… cannot eat it all,” it observed after a while, crestfallen. “Human-sized. Big shame.”

“Don’t you have nest-mates who can help you with it?” she asked. She had assumed not, from the way it had apparently been foraging for food on its own, but she needed to be sure she’d found a loner.

“No nest. No mates. No nest-mates. You’re rude.” It flopped down ungracefully, wings spread out flat on the apple like it was trying to hug the entire much-larger fruit.

She gave it a moment to be dramatic, and then offered it the grape, minus the peel. “You seem to have a good grasp on human-speak.”

It grabbed the grape without so much as a thank you. “Yes. Have composed poetry in both Dragonese and Humanese. Not for humans to hear, though.” Bragging cheered it up a little.

“You mentioned. I can’t hear very well, anyway.” She pulled up a stool and sat down. “Actually, I’ve been looking for a helper.”

“An assistant,” it said, apparently showing off its Humanese. “An attendant. An aid.”

She watched it bury its snout in the grape, juice dribbling down onto the apple it sat on. “Yes. A hearing aid. How would you feel about having a job?”

It smiled craftily. “Would feel positively, if job comes with chocolate chips.”

“It could,” she said, grinning. She had some friends who employed bird-sized dragons as messengers, but this was the first time she’d heard of one negotiating its salary for itself. “It certainly could. What’s your name?”

“Peep,” said Peep. “It is self-explanatory.”

“Don’t worry, I got it.”

Peep expressed its doubt that humans ever got anything, but she thought the tiny, prickly creature might be warming up to her.

Fuck pockets! XD