Texas feels like Australia’s Queensland, they still have a lot of outdated laws in the books that they can’t enforce, mostly related to “queer crimes” and vagrancy laws.

It’s a conscious choice not to scrap it, because there are people in power who never wanted it to be decriminalised in the first place and they will prevent the law being removed from the books on the off chance they can re-criminslise it when they have more control in office.

The Queensland Youth Crime act is another example, they resurrected an old law in a response to the “out of control youth crime rate” (the youth crime rate increased by 6% on 22-23, but then decreased 6.7% in 23-24, they introduced the new youth crime act at the end of 2024, after the crime rate was already decreasing.)

As a result of the new Act, police can put spit hoods on children “for police safety”, and any child over 10 can be trailed as an adult, oh, and detention is not a “last resort” anymore.

Being a police officer is a job so I completely understand and respect a police officers right to a safe workplace. But putting a spit hood on a kid is not the solution. Properly funding the youth mental health care system, and reforming the foster care system would do so much more for youth crime, community safety and police safety than spit hoods will ever do. In the long run, treating children like animals is only going to increase the chances that they grow up into animals, instead of healthy human members of a society. The justice system is planting the trauma that will resurface as future criminal offences and/or substance abuse issues.

I’m a sweet Tramsvestite, from Transitsexual, Trainsylvania~~~~

Wow, I’m not American so I didn’t realise Texas was holding out that long, wasn’t Massachusetts offering state sanctioned marriages in like 04/05? That timeline is mind blowing! To have one state doing so much for equal rights while the other fights in court to actively do less.

I thought here in Australia, Tasmania was bad waiting until 1997 when their overseas neighbour to the north (Vic) was 1980… Then we didn’t get any form of same sex marriage until 2017.

But 2003!

You have actually broken my brain with this fact…

Yuuuup, I ended up getting a tattoo on my wrist that is essentially a personal period joke.

At one stage it was crucial for my survival, it was a kind of grounding token to snap me out of hormonal suicidal insanity when my PMS was at its worst. Something I’d see that would bluntly remind me “it’s not you, it’s your hormones, you don’t actually want this”

When I say the urge came and went zero to sixty back to zero in 30 seconds flat, sometimes that was an understatement. I really struggled because in addition to suicidal ideation during PMS, I had undiagnosed and untreated ADHD, which often gets worse with PMS thanks to the way oestrogen and progesterone play off each other.

Guess who’s got major impulsively issues. Guess what two symptoms really shouldn’t be combined.

I have zero desire to kill myself.

But my hormones seemed desperate to try and make me do it every month, especially as a teen.

It didn’t help that I had endometriosis and at 17 developed a uterine prolapse, on top of a rectal prolapse I’d had since I was 12. I was in agony when I was on my period, so sometimes the desire to make the pain stop overlapped with the suicidal ideation. That sucked. Hard to reason your way out of physical pain.

I’ve had a hysterectomy (from 17-24 my uterus just kept trying to make its own escape anyway despite attempts to sew it in place) and no longer suffer menstrual dysphoria because it turns out that was gender dysphoria not true PMDD. But I still get suicidal ideation as part of PMS, fortunately my ADHD is much better managed so now my tattoo is less a suicide detterant and just a reminder that I still have ovaries (sometimes I genuinely forget, and it takes me a few days to work out why I’m bloated and irritable and why I’m anxious about my sore boobs)

Send the email, then call me to say “hey I sent you an email that I really need you to read and respond to urgently, I’ll let you go so you can focus while reading, talk later”

For one of my 3 jobs, I don’t have regular work hours, I’m employed just 5 hours a week, on call, for IT support for a little non for profit.

My contract, my email signature, my numerous discussions with the team all state “if you require a response within the same business day, please phone me to alert me to the issue”

I check my email once a day, I don’t have time to be checking it several times a day when I’m only paid for 5 hours work, I need to conserve those hours for maintenance and support I’m not about wasting anybody’s time.

So if someone happens to email me after I’ve already checked my inbox for that day, I won’t see it until tomorrow. Hence, phone me, I want to work, I just need a way to alert myself that work is available for me, a text message will also suffice.

I realise this is asking someone to change the way they operate to make my job easier. But the number of times I check my email at 1pm, and there’s zero tickets, so I turn off my computer because I’m not going to sit and watch an empty inbox for my free time.

Then the next day I check my email and I have 20 emails all from the same person from about 3-5pm all saying “hey I have an issue” “hey following up this is kind of urgent” “hey, are you even checking your emails?”…no obviously I’m not, it would have saved you so much effort to send 1 text after 1 email as I requested than to send 20 emails, and I would have actually gotten the text in time.

Also half the time the issue needs to be fixed with a phone call anyway because it’s something simple like “Microsoft Word is missing”… because the program was unpinned from the taskbar and the staff member just needs help remembering the start menu exists. Most of my support resolutions are the equivalent of describing the buttons on the TV remote to your grandmother over the phone. (lots of older, less tech literate folk working in NFP sector)

At the end of the day, alcoholism, depression, and obesity, they are unhealthy states of being.

They are not something people choose, and while there are treatments, it’s not something everyone can control.

That doesn’t mean we should simply accept this state of being. People living with depression deserve better, people living with alcoholism deserve better than for us to say “it’s out of their control, they can’t help it, so we shouldn’t judge, let them be” when what they need is better support and better treatment options.

Likewise, obese people deserve better than “eat less, move more, fatty!” but they also deserve more than “all bodies are beautiful, just let us be”

I say this as someone who was a fat kid, and a fat teen, and a fat adult. I had a BMI of 50 for a most of my life. In my mid 30s, I got it down to 28, and still going.

So I say all of this is as someone else who was fat, obese, and morbidly obese. Obesity should be viewed the same way we view depression and anxiety, though depression and anxiety also need some better PR.

Being obese may not not always be a choice, but the the ultimate end goal of how we view obesity as a state of being is to find ways we can all manage our weight. Because obesity is not healthy, for those who can’t easily control their weight, life sucks, they are patients in need of treatment, not morally failing people, but also not “perfect plus sized activists who are healthy at every size”

Because while bodies and sizes vary and we can do healthy things at every size. Obesity is inherently unhealthy. Obviously being bullied won’t solve anything, but neither will society politely ignoring how hard it is to live a full life while suffering from obesity.

Being black isn’t an inherent health issue. It genuinely is just a different state of being. 99% of problems unique to black people are social issues, not medical issues… So the comparison between obesity and substance abuse issues is more helpful than trying to compare being obese to being BIPOC.

I don’t think a stereotype can ever be constructive because it will always involve the need to be restrictive and limiting in order to be a stereotype.

I guess we need to question who benefits from the constructive stereotype.

“drivers can’t see you” is constrictive for pedestrians, and also drivers, but it’s not constrictive to the graffiti tagger who is trying to go unseen by passing cars (not that a tagger is being constructive in the first place)

My dad and my brother both have passports and travel regularly.

I can’t get a passport because my dad refuses to give me legal access to his birth certificate to prove that one of my parents was a citizen when I was born.

Why? Because according to the him, the government shouldn’t need that information from our family, so he refuses on principal.

I can’t get a passport without that document.

I can try and take my dad to small claims court, but I don’t have the money for that, my relationship with my dad is civil and functional aside from this one issue, and getting lawyers involved will destroy the family, all I want is a passport.

He needs a psychiatrist, not a lawyer. Because he makes no sense.

There isn’t really enough advice or support out there for children of whack job idiots.

The lyrics on Spotify play along/highlight as the song plays so you can read along in time with the song.

This is actually a vital accommodation for the hard of hearing and partially Deaf because we can often hear/feel the beat and sometimes the melody, but we don’t know exactly where in the song were up to because the tune of all the versus sounds the same, or vocal breaks of “ooooooh, lalala” can be mistaken for the start of a new line of lyrics.

So if you’re just reading along with a static page of lyrics, it takes a lot of mental energy to figure out what’s happening with the song, especially if it’s a new song you’re discovering.

We’ve had static lyric sheets for decades, you’d unfold the sleeve in your record and try to read along as you listened, never 100% sure you were doing it right unless a fully hearing friend was there to point at the words and be your version of the bouncing ball.

So to have this technology that almost completely solves this problem for a vulnerable community… Then to put it behind a pay wall despite the fact that Deaf people are more likely to be underemployed and socially disadvantaged than the general hearing populous is just callous.

Our experience of music is fundamentally different to hearing people, and yet Spotify will charge us the same rate for a sub par experience.

The first pride was pretty wrathful.

I keep having this glitch where I’m stuck in the opening scene with the jojo cubicle. I’m supposed to get a letter telling me I’ve inherited a farm but that hasn’t happened yet, anyone else got this bug?

I remember during Covid lock downs extroverts were loosing their minds and blaming their extrovertism for their cabin fever.

First of all, true isolation is unhealthy and crazy inducing for everyone, that’s why they still use solitary confinement in prisons for further punishment, so no, extroverts, you’re not special for feeling depressed during a global pandemic. (but yes, it did suck extra for them)

But so many extroverts seemed to assume lock downs were an introverts wet dream. There was very little attempt to understand each other. I’d see introverts empathising with extroverts who were struggling, but the reverse rarely happened, extroverts just seemed to assume “you introverts must be loving this solitude” and when myself and others tried to open up about how we were struggling I would hear “yeah but you like being alone, you’re used to it” like that makes it easier.

At no point did I really see any of the extroverts I know, or anyone online posting about how “wow, being pushed this far out of my comfort zone by lockdowns sucks, is this how introverts feel when I force them to actively engage in crowded, highly social parties?”

Not that I expect the middle of a planet wide plague to be the time I’d suddenly expect people to show self reflection and emotional maturity, but it was still worth the observation.

My entire understanding of skinheads was “skinheads are fascists” and I never delved any deeper into it. Until the other month when my barber told me I should consider getting a chelsea cut, my gut reaction being “why would I want to look like a neonazi?”

But one simple online search later, and I went back for the shave. The original sentiment of the skinhead culture is slowly being reclaimed, though there will always be two potential interpretations of what someone with that style stands for, I’ll happily rock my skinbird cut at union rallies and antifa protective counter-protests when actual nazis try to raid our local queer clubs.

I would already be living in a vehicle, but I can’t drive (low vision) so it’s never going to be an option for me.

About 10 years ago I was looking into bike towed campers as a security plan for an unstable housing situation, only to learn they are illegal to tow in my country. You can own one, sleep in one, and tow it on private property, but to move it from one property to another legally I’d need to pay someone with a car to put it in a car trailer, then unload my camper at the destination.

We had party lines in regional Australia in the mid 90’s. The selective ringing had been phased out long before I was born, it either wasn’t available or rather as a kid I was never taught how to alert specific houses on the line. So it sort of operated more like a community chat room.

It was mostly only used for emergencies, if you saw smoke you’d pick up the handset for the party line and others would do the same and you’d try to figure out who’s back paddock was on fire and coordinate to all go down and snuff it out. Or if you didn’t recognise the livestock that wandered onto your block you’d jump on to see if anyone was asking where their sheep went.

But we also had private lines by then, so no one was really hanging out and gossiping on the party line. Occasionally the party line would be used for organised social programs like book clubs if no one could be bothered hosting at their home. We used the personal line for dialing out for calls, and kept the party line free for emergencies.

I never realised it was a party line, or a thing in other places or times in history. I thought it was a cool thing the community just installed themselves using a closed phone loop. Growing up I assumed that since the invention of affordable home phone lines, we’d just always had two phones. One for actually phoning people, and one for town meetings.

I have a step through frame that you sit upright on. 20-25km/h is my average commuting speed for getting to work and going to the shops. I regularly have to push to 30km/h+ because of motor traffic trying to ride up my ass even though I’m in the designated bike lane. (cars in Australia like driving fast in the bike lanes to avoid the chicanes on the road designed to slow motor traffic for cyclist safety)

If ebikes are disproportionately represented in cycling accidents, then I would argue it’s not the speed, it’s the barrier to entry. People who have never ridden before, people who aren’t physically able to ride a standard bike, these groups make up a significant portion of ebike riders because ebikes are accessible.

Yes, speed will contribute to this, people with limited riding experience being able to ride fast, possibly without the physical fitness required to control a bike at high speed.

The issue then isn’t the speed itself, but rider education and training.

Not too far off, $1AUD (0.60 euros) would be a cheap can of beans (which is often mostly water, even if it’s a 400g can, once you drain the beans, your millage varies by brand) $3 a can is average for name brands that fill the can to the brim.

But when you can buy 500g of dried beans for $3.99, and that will make the equivalent of 8-10 cans of beans, as someone who doesn’t eat meat (and has allergies so can’t eat commercial “mock meats”), I eat at least 2 serves of legumes every single day. Buying cans adds up at that scale even though I’m just one person. So I always buy dry legumes when I can.

I definitely have some cans in the pantry for emergencies though, because they are very convenient.

But I also have some pre-cooked, unseasoned beans and chick peas in the freezer, when I cook up a big pot I always throw a few portions in the freezer. They defrost in less than a minute in the microwave, so I’ll use them before I crack open a can of beans.

Oh I assumed that was a cat for farming fur balls, not meat.

I’m not exactly super rich from med bills right now, but being physically well enough to do normal stuff would be a pretty bittersweet miracle.

Oh to just be told “it’s terminal, you’ve got 6 months, good news, you’ll have a surge of health before the end”

It’s not what I would hope for from my life, but it sounds nice to finally be able to just, stop.

No more chasing down GPs for refferals, no more calling specialists asking if they’ve sent over results and reports. No more weekly appointments trying to find the right medication. Most more confusion over “is this symptom something new that’s unrelated? Or Is it related? Will it be temporary? Is this symptom my new normal? Wait, is this a drug side effect?”

No more fighting with council to get ramp access to my house, no more stressing over how I will ever be able to afford the home care I’ll need for the extended duration I’ll need it on the income my disability limits me to.

No more looking at my mother and my auntie’s as they slowly crumble, while still being expected to suck it up and bear the responsibilities they always have. No more seeing the long, deteriorating future ahead of me reflected by my loved ones.

No more “oh, you’re chronically ill? have you tried drinking water and doing yoga?”

No more “you don’t look sick”

I’ve only got 6 months to have to put up with any of this, and then I’m gone.

I’d prefer to be alive, but I wouldn’t be upset at the universe if that’s the hand I was dealt.

6 months is a good time frame. Certainly beats getting hit by a bus tomorrow - who would look after me cat?

Not a bad haul, I might be biased as an Australian, but that looks like good value for money for food that’s balanced and easy to cook.

As a fellow non-meat eater, I am deeply disturbed by the lack of legumes in this photo, but if you’re not a fan of cooking from dried, then I get it, canned can get expensive for what you get out of it.

Some charred chickpeas with olive oil lightly smashed on that rosemary bread would end up being my breakfast for a week straight if this was my house.