What about what I wrote made that come across as a choice? I haven’t had time to clean the puke that’s been festering in my bathroom for weeks. I don’t have time to do the dishes. I work and work and work, and it is killing me. I would have loved to have had the time to stand in line and vote, if just for the break.

Republicans don’t view their female children as human.

As a trans man who experienced sexual violence and domestic violence, “why did you let him do that to you?” And I’m persona non grata. My husband who took advantage of my state making it legal to fire me for being trans (and losing all access to independent finances) - he would be more welcome with my dads family than I am.

My step-mom’s brother-in-law who got picked up by a police officer posing as a thirteen year old with drugs - that was just a little mistake.

Republicans don’t view AFAB people as people.

I didn’t vote because the lack of domestic violence protections in my state mean that I have been working 7 am - 9 pm every day for the past two weeks. I live in Oklahoma, so voting is pissing in the ocean. There’s a good chance I’ll be murdered or arrested for existing in the next year!

That is one of the techniques I was taught in a sketching class.

Yes. I have very limited/cheap furniture. Almost everything I own comes from discount stores or thrifts. I don’t have an attachment to any of it. I’m debating going the Peace Corps so I don’t really want to own anything that I’ll have to pay to store.

Something that I’ve found works well for sleeping is a tatami mat and futon mattress. It’s best if you can air out the mattress and mat outside occasionally. But you can fold and roll both. You can also stack up layers of those $4 Walmart fleece blankets to adjust coverage.

It’s also got some somewhat overt Objectivist messaging? Syndrome’s line: “when everyone is super, no one will be.” is fascinating.

Like, you can make an argument that a major message of the film is that some people are born special and more capable than others, and should be alotted special privileges. Syndrome isn’t one of the golden few, and rather than accept that, he attempts to democratize super powers to some extent (although because he’s the bad guy, part of his plan is making money from this).

I love the film, I just get some odd vibes from it at times.

Charity can serve as a means of control. This is way Republicans advocate against social services.

The government cannot mandate that you attend church to receive EBT. A church can require you attend a service to feed you.

I’ve heard from friends in Utah, for example, that access to many social services is through the church. Friend was trying to rescue a girl from FLDS - pretty much all job training/housing required she play along with mainstream Mormonism.

Orgs like the Salvation Army are known to require trans people to detransition to recieve services as well.

Another benefit is the rent seeking - Goodwill is a good example. You can still turn a profit with the right combination of PR, and tying access to services based on things that’ll make you profit (Goodwill “provides employment” for disabled people - they are legally allowed to pay them far below minimum wage.)

It’s the two pillars of the contemporary Right - control and grifting.

I like the classic Usenet “Micro$oft.” Producers of Microshaft Wind-blows.

There’s been deliberate dismantling of social services.

I was married to a wealthy man. He was controlling and abusive, and had the police remove me from our home. It wasn’t legal, but the police have lost the records of whatever they did that night. I couldn’t get a lawyer to help me, he had access to my bank accounts and emptied them. I reached out to multiple domestic violence agencies - there is no shelter, there are no lawyers, there are maybe one or two therapists if you are lucky. But I’m basically completely helpless.

The story of the woman who accomplished this is pretty interesting. Maryam Khatoon Molkara wrote a bunch of letters to the Ayatollah Khomeini asking for advice with her dysphoria. He told her to dress in woman’s clothes and encouraged her transition. Learning about her can be the positive part of this story - one person was able to improve the situation for people like her.

As others have pointed out, it’s not really a win for queer rights on the whole - you can transition from one set of strict enforced gender roles to another. You can’t be gay/lesbian. It might be coercive and fixing the distress of having the wrong set of hormones in your body is kinda the point of HRT.

The reality is that most people are terrible people, especially when we look at them years later, once the dust has settled.

(Look into what Dr. Seuss did to his first wife)

I’ve read an argument (I think I can cite this to David Graeber maybe) that women were one of the original forms of property. Early forms of marriage are essentially master/slave, or a form of prostitution.

Yeah - I’ve noticed Big Lots (similar kind of store) hasn’t been that much better than Walmart or whichever store the items first came from.

Clearance sales also seem to getting worse across the board. My Walmart puts dented cans and packages with missing stuff out for maybe $1-2 off at most.

Look at what happened to David Reiner if you really want to be sickened.

I’m pretty sure that I’m intersex myself and had something done to me when I was an infant, but there is no way for me to ever find out. My only evidence is apparently my dong is pretty massive for a trans dude, which is a nice thing to hear from a nurse.

Doesn’t Apple tend to be very anti-porn? Not allowed on the App Store, and they tend to have lots of restrictions on the content that apps can show. It seems like you’d have to jailbreak it, which Apple probably makes as difficult as possible.

That’s the problem with living in the south. There is no welfare in my state. My state has defunded everything to the point where just getting your drivers license renewed can be a month long process. Y’all don’t understand how fucked things are here. And if I’m homeless, the cops will just kill me. It’s happened to at least two people I know.

Because the last time I had to do sex work and got raped multiple times :)

The problem isn’t really temporary at this point. I’m on year 30. I have two bachelors degrees, half of a masters and I work 80 hours a week to sleep on a floor mattress at my friends house.

I want out so badly. I suffered through a college degree, I’m working two jobs but I can’t do it anymore. I hate living here. I’m poor, I’m trans, I’m teetering on homelessness. If I can’t get out I’m just going to end up becoming an hero.

Dr Phil hired a client to work for him and then later developed a relationship with her. Gotta wonder about the advice he was giving her….