Messages

I am so tired and so angry.

https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/07/13/sarah-jane-baker-met-police-london-trans-pride/

Apparently I'm obligated to find this surprising.

Commission set up by transphobic government finds that transphobic charity isn't transphobic.

More as it develops.

https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/07/06/lgb-alliance-charitable-status-mermaids/

[There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels ... upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!]

There's a speech I've always loved which I feel has been a bit misused around this idea.

We were told the following: If President Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of the regents in his telephone conversation, why didn't he make some public statement to that effect? And the answer we received, from a well-meaning liberal, was the following: He said, 'Would you ever imagine the manager of a firm making a statement publicly in opposition to his board of directors?' That's the answer!

    Well, I ask you to consider: If this is a firm, and if the board of regents are the board of directors; and if President Kerr in fact is the manager; then I'll tell you something. The faculty are a bunch of employees, and we're the raw material! But we're a bunch of raw materials that don't mean to be—have any process upon us. Don't mean to be made into any product. Don't mean ... Don't mean to end up being bought by some clients of the University, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone! We're human beings!

    There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels ... upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!

I've heard a lot of folks centre the 'you' in this, ignoring the fact that Mario was clearly talking about collective action.

Yes, he's saying that 'you' need to do it, but the key here is that he was talking in a context of massive protests.

It was the threat of collective action that made him a menace. He was an organiser. He spoke a good game but he backed it up with his community. And that's why the FBI surveilled him for more than a decade. That's why they worked against him.

Mario centred the human in his activism. He contrasted who we are against the systems we are forced to operate in. He wanted more humanity, and he knew that the only way to disrupt The Machine was by encouraging that humanity in others; seeing it, fostering it, and refusing to be 'processed' by The Machine. Forcing it to recognise and acknowledge us as humans. Not raw materials.

And breaking it if it can't do that.

It's a romantic vision. He obviously didn't succeed. But he tried, and he did good, and whilst there will always be a price paid in blood to rebalance power in the world... there's no reason to make it any greater than it has to be. If you forget that, you're not seeing your fellow people as people any more.

You're seeing them as materials to be processed for the product of 'revolution'.

I got a job offer that is absolutely covered in red flags but has enough potential to be legitimate that I can't ignore it, the pay is ridiculous and it's completely remote, and I won't be talking to cops or fielding phone calls WHILE listening to the radio WHILE monitoring text messages WHILE checking for camera alerts WHILE... which means I will be less goddamn tired all the time and might actually have the energy to exist again. It's scary though. I've never had to give notice before. And not knowing 100% that this isn't a scam and I'm not being spearphished is... well it's sure as fuck not helping.

Definitely do as much research as you can (obvs) but I'll keep my fingers crossed. Sometimes good things do happen.

The odds of this being legit are shrinking rapidly. I have already mobilized the resources needed to absolutely end these people if it does turn out to be a wire fraud scam, which will be a nice consolation prize if it goes the way it's looking.

Argh. I'm sorry to hear that.

Molotovs all around I think.

Lol okay it was about as obstructive as I expected.

I got very excited when I signed up to the new GP and they suggested to me that they would recommend a shared care agreement with Gender GP rather than me asking and getting rejected again.

Got all that set up, got a blood test done, got reassurance that all I needed to do was put the prescription request through the app...

... and that has now been rejected and they've pulled all shared care agreements with Gender GP for all their patients whooooo

Conversation basically went:

"So you asked me to do this and now you've pulled it?"
"Yeah we can't work with them."
"Okay no worries, that's fine, can you tell me who you can work with?"
"No. I'm not allowed to make suggestions about private care."
"Okay so, what're my options?"
"If I were you I'd google something. Just try and find someone reputable."

Note: The process of even getting in the door at a private clinic is likely to run £100 or more. Then more to actually get treatment set up to the point where they could then ask about a shared care agreement. And after going through all that they could then decide that whoever I've picked is not 'reputable' and I'd need to start over.

I think I'm just going to ditch all this extra expense and self medicate. It is significantly cheaper and whilst I'd feel better with regular monitoring at this point I feel like I'm just pissing away money.

I got a job offer that is absolutely covered in red flags but has enough potential to be legitimate that I can't ignore it, the pay is ridiculous and it's completely remote, and I won't be talking to cops or fielding phone calls WHILE listening to the radio WHILE monitoring text messages WHILE checking for camera alerts WHILE... which means I will be less goddamn tired all the time and might actually have the energy to exist again. It's scary though. I've never had to give notice before. And not knowing 100% that this isn't a scam and I'm not being spearphished is... well it's sure as fuck not helping.

Definitely do as much research as you can (obvs) but I'll keep my fingers crossed. Sometimes good things do happen.

It has been a wild ride these past few days.

The charity I've been putting so much effort into over the past 4 months has collapsed due to the founder's mismanagement and bigotry. Which was a shock.

Sunday felt like I'd had my heart ripped clean out. Spent a lot of it crying. I haven't felt that bad since I lost a friend to covid. It kind of shook me up that it hit me as hard as it did.

Back to work monday. Put on the smiley face. Everything's fine. We're all fine here.

Yesterday it was strongly suggested I put in an application for a new position at work that would be far more interesting and a small pay bump. In a totally new area requiring totally new skills and probably demanding far more time. Conflicted on that.

And today my request for medication which my GP has been assuring me every step of the way would be routine was rejected.

I tried as hard as I could to keep the NHS out of my treatment over exactly this kind of bureaucratic battle. But I'm trying not to be too cynical. Have a call in a few hours to speak to a pharmacist and find out why he is overruling two doctors. We will see how that goes.

Charity failure is still raw but I'm not crying about it any more, which is an improvement. Just need to take a little time to regroup. Made some good contacts and we're getting drinks in a couple weeks. Maybe we can find another route to help.

It is yet another Ezra day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0DRVh9nn0E

I killed myself but I'm still around
I think the living dead will like me better now
I'm gonna socialize I'm gonna go out more
I'll be so beautiful with nothing at the core

I came out one year ago today.

I agonised over it for a long time. It felt self-indulgent to say the words aloud. Like, who the fuck cares about you? Why would that be relevant to anyone? You don't need to make an announcement. You don't need to say it. Just shut up and get on with it.

But I made myself do it. Last day of Pride Month, it felt like if I didn't say it then I'd need to wait (which is stupid, Pride Month doesn't mean a fucking thing, really. But I'm glad my brain gave me that particular delusion; the deadline was helpful).

I didn't feel like I could wait any more.

So I said it. And people supported me. Not a single friend was surprised. Reactions ranged from 'that's really cool' to 'thank fuck finally' and I got so much advice. People I didn't even know came forward to offer me their own stories of support, their own examples. I confessed that I felt that, being in my 30s, I'd waited too long to start living.

It's never too late to start living.

It didn't solve everything. Of course it didn't. Twelve months on I still have a thousand problems, big and small, that need to be dealt with.

But it is possible for me to deal with them now.

And it is possible for me to be happy.

And a lot of people really do care.

It feels like it has been longer in a lot of ways. Twelve short months and my life looks so very different to how it did before. It's hard to remember how miserable I was; how repressed and small and quiet. Living a lie can be convenient. I still do it sometimes; for work, especially. But it crushes you down. The weight of it compresses you. It makes you less than you are.

I can stretch, now. And I can take up space. And I can smile.

I killed myself, twelve months ago. But I didn't die.

It'll be fun to see who I am next year.

This thread is so much concentrated cringe it is banned under the geneva convention.

I've mostly been taking Beau's analysis on the situation. When it comes to the military he knows his stuff. He's put out a lot of videos and the one this morning is interesting in the implications.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eHnTG2NB60

Missed this at the time, but I did a bit of poking around because they are now saying that there's a chance Truss could be brought in to replace Sunak.

https://www.independent.co.uk/business/bank-may-need-to-spark-recession-to-control-inflation-economist-says-b2361485.html

"Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Ms Ward, who sits on the Chancellor's economy advisory council, said the Bank of England has to interrupt this spiral.

"They have to create uncertainty and frailty, because it's only when companies feel nervous about the future that they will think 'Well, maybe I won't put through that price rise', or workers, when they're a little bit less confident about their job, think 'Oh, I won't push my boss for that higher pay'.

If you need a recession, putting Truss back in charge is probably one way to get one.

Last night was the first night that I've slept more than 3 hours in the past 2 weeks.

Glad I got there.

I was getting WEIRD.

I feel perfectly free to make a diagnosis.

He's an asshole, and I don't care why.

Pretty much this.

I've known people who have a diagnosis of psychosis who I'd call friends and people who pride themselves on their mental health who I'd love to see bleed out in a dark alley for the harm they've done.

Whether or not Trump has any mental health conditions is irrelevant to the far greater problem that he's Trump.

Really not a fan of mental health language being used here.

Trump might be psychotic. He might also just be a bigoted fascist. Psychoanalysing him from a distance is just gross.