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Jennifer R. Povey - Author

@jenniferrpovey / jenniferrpovey.tumblr.com

Jennifer R. Povey is a writer of speculative fiction for adults. Her books include the Lost Guardians series and the Lay of Lady Percival. This tumblr is her random ramblings about her writing and occasionally anything else she stumbles across.
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no-passaran

I haven’t seen anyone talk about it on Tumblr yet but in Mexico they’re doing a huge step forward against conversion therapy for asexual people

5 Mexican ace people are suing Mexico’s health system for cataloguing asexuality as a psychiatric illness and for having forced them into conversion therapy which had the objective of turning ace people into allosexual (meaning non-asexual) people.

Translation:

Tweet by the organization Colectivo PTF Yucatán (Collective for the protection of all families in Yucatán): “📢 From the Colectivo Para la Protección de Todas las Familias en Yucatán, we will accompany 5 asexual people from the state [of Yucatán] in their recurso de amparo [a writ to protect the constitutional rights of a person] against the Mexican Secretary of Health and other authorities for cataloguing asexuality as a psychiatric illness. #NothingToCure 🖤💟💜 [hearts in the colours of the asexuality flag]

Translation:

ASEXUAL PEOPLE SUE THE [MEXICAN] HEALTH SYSTEM FOR THE CONVERSION THERAPY
Five asexual people from Yucatán have presented a writ of amparo against the federal Secretary of Health and other authorities of the National Health System for cataloguing asexuality as a psychiatric illness. They demand the protocols and internal practises be modified, as well as allowing healthcare, specially the psychiatric services, to access the right to healthcare without discrimination.
Asexuality is an orientation characterised for not feeling sexual attraction towards anyone or the lack of interest in sexual relations. It’s calculated that at least 1% of the population is asexual. This will be the first time that a writ of amparo is presented to defend the rights of asexual people in Mexico.
From the Collective for the Protection of All Families in Yucatán we accompany this law suit in which the plaintiff resorted to the Federal Justice after the federal authorities confirmed to them that asexuality is understood as a psychiatric problem under the National Healthcare System’s framework.
According to the Secretary of Health staff, if a person states that they don’t have sexual attraction towards anyone, first of all studies are done on this person to identify if [their asexuality] has a physiological origin. Once this option is ruled out, they [asexual people] are channelled to the psychiatry staff for therapy. This practise is in fact a conversion therapy, given that it seeks to cure people whose orientation is asexual. The healthcare authorities do not contemplate in their protocols the distinction between asexuality and physiological alterations.
The demand was admitted last Friday [July 16th 2021] in the Third District Court in Yucatán, who will resolve the matter.

Transcripción en español (no lo hablo, lo siento):

Un tweet del Colectivo PTF Yucatán 🏳️‍🌈🇲🇽[bandera transgénero], @ColectivoPTFYuc.

📣 Desde el Colectivo por la Protección de Todas las Familias en Yucatán, acompañamos a 5 personas asexuales del estado en la demanda de amparo en contra de la @SSalud_mx y otras autoridades por catalogar la asexualidad como una enfermedad psiquiátrica. #NadaQueCurar 🖤♡💜

Un artículo.

Personas Asexuales Demandan Al Sistema De Salud Por Terapias De Conversión

Cinco personas asexuales de Yucatán presentaron una demanda de amparo en contra de la Secretaria de Salud federal y otras autoridades del Sistema Nacional de Salud por catalogar la asexualidad como una enfermedad psiquiátrica. Exigen se modifiquen los protocolos y servicios psiquiátricos, para ejercer su derecho a acceder a la salud sin discriminación.

La asexualidad es una orientación caracterizada por no sentir attracción sexual hacia ninguna persona o un desinterés por las relaciones sexuales. Se calcula que al menos 1% de la población es asexual. Esta sería la primera vez que se presenta un amparo para defender los derechos de las personas asexuales en México.

Desde el Colectivo por la Protección de Todas las Familias en Yucatán (Colectivo PTFY) acompañamos este litigio en el cual las personas demandantes acudieron a la Justicia Federal luego de que las autoridades federales les confirmaran que la asexualidad era entendida como un problema psiquiátrico en el marco del Sistema Nacional de Salud.

Según el personal de la Secretaría de Salud, si una persona afirma no tener atracción sexual hacia nadie, primero se le realizan estudios para identificar si tiene algún origen fisiológico. Descarto esto, son canalizados al personal de psiquiatría para terapia. Esta práctica es una terapia de conversión de hecho, debido a que busca curar a las personas con orientación asexual. Las autoridades de salud no contemplan en sus protocolos la posibilidad de distinguir entre la asexualidad y alteraciones fisiológicas.

La demanda fue admitida el viernes pasado por el Juzgado Tercero de Distrito en Yucatán, quien resolverá el asunto.

My image description is pretty bad, anyone should feel free to add a better one instead. Thank you so much, OP, this is huge news.

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One driver already quit and NASCAR responded with basically “we had to google you because nobody knew who the fuck you were”

Nascar started because they said fuck cops and its nice to see they havent lost their roots completely.

I remember that guy, although I've forgotten his name. My response was "Now somebody else will have to come last in every race in the truck series." And no, they haven't. And now, we have 23X1, which is owned by, of all people Michael Jordan (the basketball player) working with Denny Hamlin, with Bubba Wallace as their first driver. Wallace turned down a seat with a more established team to do this and I smell an initiative to improve diversity. (It started, apparently, during a golf game). I hope to see more Black drivers in NASCAR, and also more women. NASCAR has yet to have a Black woman driver, and the first Black woman pit crew member was hired in 2016 (Brehanna Daniels). There's currently one Black driver in Xfinity, which is the one step down series, Jesse Iwuji, and I hope he gets offered a seat soon. Perhaps in 23X1... It's very hopeful, although I was very glad when they banned the flag. It made me more willing to admit to being a fan.

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lgballt

You guys are valid, whatever age you may be!                          

You. Are. Valid. And happy aro-spec awareness week!

[Image description: A series of images with two circles colored with the colors of the asexual flag. There are speech boxes next to them that say the following:

Left hand circle: So you’re 13 and you saw asexuality on google and you want to label yourself as an asexual?

Right hand circle: yeah…

Left hand circle: Then welcome to the community! Ace is ace, whether you be sixty or thirteen!

Left hand circle: And remember that even if you change your label later, you’re still valid!

Right hand circle: Thank you!]

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You’re rather annoyed that your history teacher gave you a D on your essay about Mesopotamia. Not just because you’re sure she doesn’t like you, but also because - as an ancient being trying to adapt to modern society - YOU WERE THERE.

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meret118

Union mine workers in Alabama are taking part in a historic strike, the first of its kind in four decades, accusing Warrior Met Coal of first exploiting its workers and now inspiring violence against them on the picket line. Freelance journalists are on the ground and local news has been covering the story from the start -- yet more than three months into the strike, the historic labor action has not received so much as a single mention from CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC, according to a new analysis from Media Matters.

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An Alabama physician glumly says she is making "a lot of progress" in encouraging people to vaccinate – as she struggles to keep them alive.

Dr. Brytney Cobia, a hospitalist at Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham, wrote in a recent Facebook post she is treating a lot of young, otherwise healthy people for serious coronavirus infections.

"One of the last things they do before they're intubated is beg me for the vaccine," she wrote. "I hold their hand and tell them that I'm sorry, but it's too late."

In her post, Cobia wrote that when a patient dies, she hugs their family members and urges them to get vaccinated. She said they cry and tell her they thought the pandemic was a "hoax," or "political," or targeting some other age group or skin color.

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neil-gaiman

Hi Neil, i had to read the most atrocious script i have ever laid eyes on for an internship and I'm trying to figure out how to gently tell my boss it's not okay to produce a script with the amount of sexism and general bad taste to this level, and it desperately needs to be rewritten ground up. I figured you've been around the film block and i was wondering if you'd give me any tips on talking to a superior about a terrible project.

If you reply thanks for taking the time and i hope you have a great day

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If I was an Intern -- and this is me, not me telling you what to do -- I probably wouldn't tell my boss how bad his script was. I'd smile kindly, and get an internship somewhere else as quickly as possible, mostly because, in my experience, the people who do the awful stuff either can't see that it's awful (in which case you will be wasting your time and theirs telling them and just pissing them off), or (which is worse) they already know just how awful it is and like it that way because they feel they are giving the public what the public wants. The exception would be if I had a real, proper, communication between equals relationship with them, and felt they were good people who didn't get it and would be grateful to have someone explain something to them, but that's not as likely as the first two.

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bogleech

I know this might not be your area but do you know anything about a koalas ecological niche? I heard theyre completely useless because all they do is eat poison so nothing can eat them, but im also someone who doesnt want to write off any animals as 'useless' (as if, having a use, is what animals are for??)

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Yeah there's no such thing as a useless animal, and one thing people don't often realize is that plants NEED to be eaten! They can suffer from too much population density, outbreaks of disease, and crowding out other species just like animals can, and therefore require herbivores to keep them balanced. Koalas and a few insects are among the only things that help trim back eucalyptis, which is not only poisonous to other animals but ultra flammable, causing or worsening wildfires that the trees grow back from. Everything that can stand to eat them probably contributes a little to the containment of an incredibly hostile tree!

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Also koalas 100% do have natural predators: dingoes, large birds of prey, even a large enough reptile will eat one if it can get it. Koalas perform the ESSENTIAL task of turning poison into food (in the form of koala)

This is the biggest meaning of "food chain" that a lot of people overlook. They just get taught the simplified "plants become food for herbivores which become food for carnivores" but different plants are edible to different herbivores and different animals are edible to different carnivores! Everything that eats is making new and different meat! There might be nothing around but poisonous toads until a bird moves in that can safely eat them, and then the birds mean that a snake or a weasel gets food!

There might even be a plant that tastes so bad to most things, it chokes out all the other plants, but if just the right butterfly is present then it turns that plant into caterpillars, and just as the caterpillars kill foliage or simply poop, they're turning that invasive, bullying plant into fertilizer for all the others!

Or a plant which carefully designs itself so that its fruits are unpalatable to mammals and delicious to birds, thus ensuring that only birds eat its fruit. As birds travel further, this is beneficial to the plant... ...until along comes that one* mammal that not only finds the unpalatable flavor this poor plant has spent so long evolving.

Fortunately for the plant, that one mammal liked it so much they took over as its primary seed disperser. Yeah, I'm talking about our friend the chili pepper.

*tree shrews will also eat capsaicin-heavy plants.

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dongcroncher

"C'mon Olympians it's bedtime, time to go to your anti fuck beds!"

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dunkstein

Lets make sure these precision machinelike human bodies sleep like absolute dog shit in their mobility punishment beds

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seluvian

They realize people CAN fuck on the floor right

i'm genuinely curious why are olympic athletes not allowed to have sex

1. They're not anti-sex beds, the warning is because of concerns that somebody will win a medal and jump on their bed and break it.

2. They are recyclable beds. Japan is a low resource country, that's why they use so much nuclear energy. Wood is at a huge premium. They've been building things out of paper for a long time. Which brings me to. 3. These beds can support something like 440 pounds. 4. They are trying to discourage sex at the Olympics this year because of COVID. But the 188,000 free condoms normally given out at the Olympic Village are still being given out because nobody's stupid.

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uovoc

I’m pretty comfortable with Murderbot being called “SecUnit" by its humans for perpetuity because the flavor is like title (familiar) in the way that in some cultures (Chinese, Japanese, probably others too) it’s normal to call some people by title rather than name, to the point that calling them by their actual name feels downright weird. Like you wouldn’t typically call your relatives by their names, you’d call them “third aunt” or “older sister” (how the Mensah’s kids address her as “second mom” translates nicely to 二妈 which makes Farai 大妈 I guess), so calling MB “SecUnit” feels like a pretty normal form of address in the same vein as Laoshi or Shifu, in that it’s both casual and respectful while at the same time reaffirming what your relationship to each other is

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source: TechCrunch

Like Twitter’s Super Follows, Tumblr’s Post+ lets creators choose which content they want to put behind a paywall, whether that’s original artwork, personal blog posts or Destiel fanfic. Creators can set the price for their subscriber-only content starting at $3.99 per month, with additional tiers at $5.99 and $9.99. Tumblr will take a 5% cut from creator profits.

oh no.

this could actually get very, very bad, because just ask the OTW—you cannot profit from fan fiction without running into legal issues. that’s why AO3 has to come down hard on anyone doing fic for paid commissions, posting links to their ko-fi in the author’s notes, etc.

if a tumblr user puts their fanfic behind a paywall, they are now profiting from it, and would be entirely at risk if the owner of the intellectual property in question decided to sue them. god help you if it’s disney.

and if tumblr is hosting that and also profiting… then I imagine that tumblr itself might be part of that lawsuit.

Yeah. If you choose to use this function, please do not paywall fanfic. File the serial numbers off of it first, just saying.

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RODRIGO NO

So I’m currently enslaved employed by a cable company, and I can offer a few pointers:

  1. Find a copy of the customer agreement online. Read it. Have the “big cats in boxes” YouTube video on standby so that you can renew your will to live periodically while reading it.
  2. Focus on the sections about cancellation
  3. Examine any terms regarding early termination fees, notice required, proration of the time between cancellation and the end of the billing period, and equipment return policies.
  4. Send a letter requesting cancellation to your carrier via certified mail. Include the date you wish for it to be cancelled. If you are not the account holder but have power of attorney, or the account holder has died and you are managing their estate, send copies of the relevant documentation with the letter. 
  5. The day after, when it isn’t cancelled, call back. Ask for “retention” or “loyalty” and when asked why, state that you wish to cancel. 
  6. They’ll ask you why you want to cancel. Say “I don’t want to discuss it, I just want to cancel my service.” (note: there are times when it pays to disclose your reasons; my company will waive all early termination fees and penalties if the account holder is being entering military deployment or a nursing home. Check their policies.)
  7. They’ll offer something nice. Bundles, discounts, free channels, etc. Say “as nice as that sounds, and as much as I appreciate the offer, I just need to cancel my service.”
  8. When they deflect again, ask how to return any leased equipment. They’ll launch into another spiel about that, thankful that you aren’t making them process the cancellation. Write down the process – they’ll either tell you to bring the equipment to a local office, or they’ll state that they are sending recovery kits. If it’s the latter, ask for the address that the recovery kits return to and write it down (you want to use the recovery kit if you get one, since it’s prepaid, but if they aren’t sent you’ll want to be able to return the equipment yourself.) 
  9. After all of this has transpired, state “As I stated in the letter sent via certified mail on [date], I am ending our contractual relationship and terminating this subscription. Has my cancellation order been processed?”
  10. If the cancellation order has not been processed, tell them to process it. Listen to their spiel. Ask for the date that it will be terminated.
  11. Hang up, wait thirty minutes. Call back, ask if your account is pending cancellation or not. If not, ask to be transferred to retention and ask for a supervisor. Demand that your cancellation be processed and advise them that a complaint will be filed with the FCC if it is not. 
  12. If more than an hour has been spent on the phone, file a complaint at FCC.gov. Forcing a customer to continue a service outside of the terms stipulated by the contract is illegal and the FCC hates it. 

This went from really funny to “holy fuck what kind of nightmare dystopia do we live in that we need to be educated on how to get a company to actually cancel an account with a company that bills you monthly” really fast.

When I changed providers the only way I could get them to cancel was to tell them I was moving outside the area.

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teaboot

This may just be my experience as an autistic person, but the kids I’ve nannied whose parent’s complain of ‘bad awful in cooperative selfish autistic behavior’ are… Not like that? At all?

Like, for example, I cared for a kid for a while who was nonverbal and didn’t like being touched. Around six years old? Their parent said that they were fussy and had a strict schedule, and that they had problems getting them to eat. Their last few nannies had quit out of frustration.

So, I showed up. And for the first little while, it was awkward. The kid didn’t know me, I didn’t know them, you know how it is. And for the first… Day and a half, maybe? I fucked up a few times.

I changed their diaper and they screamed at me. I put the TV off and they threw things. Not fun, but regular upset kid stuff.

Next time, I figured, hell, I wouldn’t like being manhandled and ordered around either. Who likes being physically lifted out of whatever it is they’re doing and having their pants yanked off? Fucking few, that’s who.

Next time, I go, ‘hey, kiddo. You need a new diaper?’ and check. ‘I’m gonna go grab a new one and get you clean, okay?’ ‘Wanna find a spot to lay down?’ ‘Alright, almost done. Awesome job, thanks buddy’.

I learned stuff about them. They liked a heads up before I did anything disruptive. They didn’t mind that I rattled of about nothing all day. They didn’t like grass or plastic touching their back. They were okay with carpets and towels. They liked pictionary, and the color yellow, and fish crackers, and painting. They didn’t look me in the face (which was never an issue- I hate that too, it fucking sucks) but I never had reason to believe that they were ignoring me.

Once I learned what I was doing wrong, everything was fine. Did they magically “”“become normal”“” and start talking and laughing and hugging? No, but we had fun and had a good time and found a compromise between what I was comfortable with and what they were comfortable with. (For the record, I didn’t magically sailor-moon transform into a socially adept individual, either. In case anyone was wondering.)

I don’t like eye contact. It’s distracting and painful and stresses me out.

They didn’t like eye contact either.

Is eye contact necessary to communication? No. So we just didn’t do it.

Was there ever a situation where I HAD to force them to drop everything and lay down on the lawn? No. So the thirty second warning came into play, and nobody died.

“But they never talked!”

No, they didn’t. And they didn’t know ASL, and they didn’t like being touched.

So you know what happened?

My third day in, they tugged on my shirt. ‘Hey monkey, what’s up?’ I asked. And they tugged me towards the kitchen. ‘oh, cool. You hungry?’. They raised their hands in an ‘up’ gesture. ‘you want up? Cool.’ and I lifted them up. They pointed to the fridge. I opened it. They grabbed a juice box out of the top shelf, and pushed the door closed again. ‘oh sweet, grape is the best. You are an individual of refined taste.’ I put them down and they went back to their room to play Legos.

“But they didn’t say please or thank you!” “But you should be teaching them communication skills!” “But!” Lalalalala.

1. The entire interaction was entirely considerate and polite. I was never made uncomfortable. I was made aware of the problem so that I could help them solve it. There was no mess, no tears, no bruises, no shouting.

2. Did my brain collapse into a thousand million fragments of shattered diamond dust out of sheer incomprehension? No? Then their communication skills were fine. Goal realized, solution found, objective complete. They found the most simple and painless way to communicate the situation and then did it.

Kids are not stupid. AUTISTIC kids are not stupid.

I’m willing to bet real cash money that the real reason the last few nannies had quit had a million times more to do with their own ability to cope, not the kid’s.

To this day, that was the most relaxed and enjoyable job I’ve ever had.

And I know I don’t speak for everyone. All kids are different. All adults are different. But in my time and experience, pretty much 95% of all my difficulties with children come from ME not being understanding enough. Every single “problem child” I’ve worked with turned out to be a pretty cool person once I started figuring out how to put my ego aside and let them set the pace.

Again, not speaking universally, here. I’m just saying. Sometimes social rules are bullshit, you know? People are people

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disaster-j

The thing about why so many parents think their neurodivergent children are a handful and a half is that they cannot wrap their heads around the fact that their child has needs and boundaries that conflict with what they want their child to do and be like. 

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terfs in the discourse tag

We have terfs who admit that ace discourse was their first step towards radfem ideas. We’ve had multiple break downs of how terfs and radfems try to radialize other people by using ace/bi/pan/nb/queer/etc. discourse. We’ve had multiple break downs of how popular exclusionist arguments use the same faulty logic and arguments that radfems use.

Can exclusionists maybe finally admit that this is a problem and either drop the discourse entirely or try to come up with arguments that aren’t copied from radfems?

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korrasera

This is really important to recognize, because exclusionists don’t often want to recognize this dirty little truth about their community.

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