There are now more than 350,000 transgender people under the age of 25 in the United States, the majority in the largest cities of New York, California, Florida and Texas – and an estimated 20 percent of them lack secure housing, though many service providers believe that figure is low.
revolutionary idea: pet ownership is not a human right.
cats scratch. dogs bark. certain rare pets are not adapted to living in a regular domestic setting. if your home is not suited for an animal to express their most basic natural behaviours or your situation makes absolutely predictable traits into dealbreakers, then you should not have that kind of pet. “but i want one” is not an acceptable excuse for owning an animal you can’t provide for.
This includes being able to pay for one. If you can’t afford to feed it, to house it properly, to give it regular visits to the vet/pay for medications it might need, then don’t get it.
Even more revolutionary idea.
Being able to care for a companion animal’s basic needs is a human right in the same ilk as the right to feed oneself with dignity and the right to shelter. Economic barriers to being able to care for an animal companion should not exist. The relationship between humans and animals is special, critical even to most if not all of us, and a proven psychological (read: health) benefit. Such an important facet of the human condition should NOT be seen as a luxury.
The existence of non-profit vet clinics and introducing support for companion animals of low-income individuals is also a human welfare issue, directly and indirectly. Disease control, reduction of “surplus” animals through spay/neuter, and easing the strain on taxpayers by keeping our animals in actual homes instead of shelters, are social boons resulting from this perspective.
We cannot simplify this issue to “can’t afford it, can’t have it” when homeless individuals form mutually beneficial relationships with homeless animals, when people who already HAVE pets suddenly lose their income, when people live in a critical need area (these exist to the point where AVMA will straight-up pay your tuition to work here after school, look it up) and suddenly, due to circumstances out of their control, the closest vet that won’t kill their animal lives 80 miles away instead of down the block.
I know this is not anybody’s intention when they say “people who can’t afford pets should not have them,” because actual real poor people, vs. the image society wants to paint of them/us, are incredibly forgettable. That’s the way classism or any -ism is insidious, getting the best of us by winding its way around the blind spots it manufactured. I know people who say this aren’t necessarily bad people, because they care about animals, and good people care about animals, dammit.
I love animals. Animal welfare and conservation is my soapbox. But if we don’t factor in human welfare in every part of our activism involving animals that are human companions, the animals involved will always fare worse, not better.
Not to detract from the above point, but one such place that aids in helping homeless people with their pets is Pets Of The Homeless; they collect donations of food, other supplies and funds, and the work they do is incredible. You can check their site for a donation point near you, for Canada and the United States!
Take the time to donate if you can; now that it’s winter, donations of dog coats and sweaters can be particularly helpful. If you can’t donate, then spreading the word can be a huge help as well!
Reblogging for the links for Pets of the Homeless.
Heard someone say “if you can’t afford a ten thousand dollar surgery for your pet you don’t deserve to have one”
Who the fuck deserves a pet then? Most people I know don’t even have that much in their savings.
Also, like, I live in an area that has a really bad overpopulation problem with cats. All of the no-kill shelters are full, completely full. It’s better for a cat to live with a poor person than to be in a kill shelter or on the streets, for goodness’ sake.
college is just as ridiculous as everyone thinks it is
last term i was 35 minutes into the first day of a roman society class and there was this dude eating burritos in the third row, and the prof asked him a question and the dude just went “i would love to answer, but it just occured to me this is NOT honours environmental economics” and stood up and left
this reminds me of the time i was in a design class at 8 in the morning and about halfway through a lecture a kid calmly stood up from his table, cut off the teacher, and said in the most exasperated, defeated tone: “my class is at 8 at night. this isn’t my class. i don’t…i don’t need to be here”
Medicalization of orientations is diagnosing bisexuality as a symptom of a personality disorder and using is synonymously with “hypersexuality.”
Medicalization of orientations is cutting off anti depressants to an asexual because the doctor thinks no sexual interest is a side effect and a bigger concern than depression or the effects of withdrawal.
Medicalization of orientations is telling an aromantic that they are disconnected from their feelings due to either their meds, their mental illness, or from lack of trying, and wanting to change treatment based on that.
Medicalization of orientations is real, stigmatizing, systematically discriminatory, and fucking dangerous.
Medicalization of orientations is prioritizing your opinions of a patient’s sexuality over the actual medical problems you’re supposed to be treating and your responsibilities as a medical professional.
Just imagine the uproar from mainstream society if it came out that people treated their dogs like they openly treat their autistic children.
“Puppy Forced Through Obedience Training Eight Hours A Day, Seven Days A Week.”
“Puppy Restrained And Punished To End Tail Wagging And Barking.”
“Puppy Has To Earn Food, Play Time And Rest By Doing Tricks Correctly.”
These headlines would make people angry, but this is just a couple examples of how the most widespread therapy for autistic children (ABA) abuses us and nobody bats an eye because our society has more compassion and empathy for animals than for autistic children.
Not to derail, but many people DO treat dogs like this. In fact, the last headline is exactly what the mainstream training philosophy entails, and it’s called Nothing In Life is Free (NILF). The dog must do some manner of trick or offer some nominal behavior for everything they desire, from food to play to potty breaks to the ability to sleep on their bed.
Yesterday I went to buy some yarn and so you know how annoying it is when fucking people put those stupid bullshit “don’t use this, wool is murder” PETA stickers on the label?
First of all, stop defacing stock in someone’s store. You’re not clever or saving the planet or anything. You’re making it hard for customers to shop and see the info they need on the label (yardage, weight, dye lot)… You’re making employees spend hours peeling the damn things off, and in some cases, you’re causing damage to the label and or yarn itself. That means loss to the company, which affects employees who probably make minimum wage, you shit bags. You want to make change happen? Contact corporate, you fuckhead. That’s where decisions are made.
Second of all, wool is not murder. Are you fucking stupid? (Obviously the answer is yes). It’s a fucking haircut for a sheep. They’ve been domesticated so long that if we don’t sheer them, it’s bad. Yes, some sheep don’t live in ideal conditions. Got a problem with that? Going to a yarn store and putting stickers on things isn’t going to change it or the minds of customers. For fuck’s sake, you absolute cockwomble, go to the yarn companies. Make them use wool providers that use humane conditions for their yarn, like A LOT OF YARN COMPANIES DO.
And third of all.
You. You precious, empty-headed little shitnugget. You complete and total sawdust-for-brains.
You put your fucking stickers all over acrylic yarn.
There’s no fucking wool in there. It’s all synthetic fiber. Basically, it’s plastic.
You fucking dumbass.
I connect with this post on a spiritual level
It’s like Lush and the Body Shop and all those other faux-activist cosmetic companies in the UK that make a big deal in their advertising in opposing cosmetic testing on animals, despite that practice having been illegal in the UK for nearly 20 years, and it also being illegal to sell any imported products containing ingredients newly tested on animals.
It has been illegal to test finished cosmetics on animals in the UK since 1998, and animal testing of ingredients that may be used in cosmetics has been illegal across Europe since 2009. From March 2013 it has been illegal to import and sell cosmetics that have been tested on animals outside the EU.
(Though: Over a third (39%) of those surveyed think it is legal for cosmetics to be tested on animals in the UK, and almost a quarter (24%) do not know whether it is legal or not. Only 37% know it is illegal.)
Which some dodgy marketing approaches have been counting on, yeah
There has been some concern about what might happen with those regulations (among so many others) post-Brexit, but at least for now that’s the legal situation.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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