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#gender

45 posts36 participants1 post today

Article of the day by Wambui Esther Kimani here: #African diverse forms of #family are how we became human (and grandmothers need big respect!)

'The nuclear-only view of the family is truly unAfrican. Our stories are full of women who parent without partners, boys who grow up with grandmothers, queer folk who build homes full of joy, and communities that stretch wide enough to catch whoever is falling. Those are the true African families.'

#anthropology #kinship #gender

theguardian.com/global-develop

The Guardian · Diverse, communal, gender-fluid: African families’ true history is being whitewashedBy Guardian staff reporter

"The takedowns were carried out in late January to comply with an executive order from President Donald Trump redirecting the federal government’s stance on gender and sex policy. They were restored in part when a plaintiff medical organization, Doctors for America, was granted a temporary restraining order after successfully arguing that the sudden removals impeded their ability to provide time-sensitive care..."

fiercehealthcare.com/regulator

New at Austin Free Press: Life was already tough enough for #transgender Texas kids. But a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling has made things a lot tougher.

Last month’s ruling by the high court upholding Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors reinforces a similar ban #Texas enacted in 2023, delivering a pair of legal blows to Texas transgender children and their families.

“Our country is really headed in a direction away from caring about individuals, and it’s still so shocking,” an #Austin mother of a 13-year-old transgender girl told Austin Free Press.

The Austin mom, who asked not to be named, added: “I feel like I grew up in a country that was really progressive and supportive of human rights, and we were so proud of everything we had overcome, and we’ve just taken a million giant steps backwards.”

In the wake of those legal decisions, hers and other families with transgender children say they face stark choices: Forgoing care that can improve their kiddos’ mental health, reduce #gender dysphoria and suicide rates — or relocate to a state with no ban on gender-affirming care for minors, an option that many families can’t afford.

Read more at Austin Free Press: austinfreepress.org/supreme-sa

#news #trans #LGBTQIA+ #SCOTUS #transphobia #healthcare #MentalHealth #children #teens

The ACLU’s Ash Hall makes a stand for Texas trans rights at Austin’s “pink building.”
Austin Free Press · Supreme sadness: High court’s “Skrmetti” ruling hits Austin trans families“I know what happens when care is taken away and have seen the depths of despair that a child is in.”

“Our country is really headed in a direction away from caring about individuals, and it’s still so shocking.”

New today at Austin Free Press: I spoke with the ACLU of #Texas, and the parents of local transgender teenagers, about the impact of the recent Supreme Court ruling which upholds bans on gender-affirming care for minors. austinfreepress.org/supreme-sa

#SCOTUS #Austin #trans #transgender #LGBTQIA+ #LGBTQ+ #news #politics #USpol #healthcare #gender #children #transphobia

The ACLU’s Ash Hall makes a stand for Texas trans rights at Austin’s “pink building.”
Austin Free Press · Supreme sadness: High court’s “Skrmetti” ruling hits Austin trans families“I know what happens when care is taken away and have seen the depths of despair that a child is in.”

#WordWeavers 2025.07.06 — MC POV: You get an hour to do absolutely anything (within the possibilities of your world), no restrictions. What do you choose?

That already happened. My world blew up. I wasn't NOT going save my friend Bolt when the constables reneged on their deal for fingering the crime boss. Suddenly all sides knew who I was. I could not go back to being a quiet unassuming upper school student. I would be hunted.

I had learned of a restricted library at the Academy of Thaumaturgy and had the means to enter unseen, so I did. Were there miracles that hinted at changing the flow of time? I had to know. I spent that hour there, until Rainy Days figured out to where I'd fled. Of course she had. The evil woman had wanted me as her student all along, and me being a criminal was of no concern to her. The library was the honey trap.

Did I find those time miracles? Did she subvert me with her offer?

[As the devil-girl's author, I need to end the conversation and give her a stern talking to. Sorry.

Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#mystery #thriller #romance #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory

#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.05.07 — Show off a bit of text describing a meal.

This excerpt is from Inklings. It's a magical fantasy in my Wands universe in first draft. The POV has a gift for befriending beasts that comes with a cost. She was raised in part by wolves and doesn't understand human beasts very well.

"Sit back and take some deep breaths. I think you will feel better after I heat you up some soup." He clunked a pot on the stove and rummaged in the icebox for a container filled with a liquidy stew.

I padded over to the Dragonfyre [stove] and knelt before it. With my practice of Dragon Speak firmly in my mind from before, I said, "Furor!" and focused the bulb of the heated dragon word over the metal mesh usually reserved for fire spells. My new [vibrissae] sense on my cheeks of distant shapes and textures, let me "touch" the the edges of the box-like area and feel the wires and metal tubes. It allowed me to center my aim.

"Hey! You need to rest. Don't bother doing that!"

Saying the dragon word a few times, turned the sponge bright red as the heat made the skin on my face tighten. He thumped the container on the granite sideboard; his arms went under mine, hefting me up.

"Excuse my touching, but really! I'm beginning to worry you'll hurt yourself further." He set me in my chair and Flash [the cat she just magically befriended] jumped into the newly created lap.

He was acting sweet, again. That word! People being somehow sweet made me go warm all over, and forget my new worry about being shy, and the residual tightness in my muscles from the agonizing part of using my gift. Having a human male care about me felt... I could only express the sentiment in Wolf Speak, so I smiled up at him.

He rolled his eyes and huffed like a wolf replying. He splatted the soup into the pot, which made a brief hiss from the heating it had undergone empty.

"No problem," I said.

"About what?" He stirred the soup.

"You're welcome to touch me."

He shook his head slightly. Soon he placed a green-striped earthenware bowl of chicken vegetable stew before me, which smelled of cabbage, carrots, squash, and parsnips, and of chicken. The fatty broth glistened in the deep spoon. He raised it and blew on it, before presenting it to me.

Across the room, Mother Wolf had taken notice of the delicious smell; I could tell by claw clicks as she approached. He was determined to see me rest.

His attention felt excessive. He had seen the scar grow on my arm from using my gift. Had that worried him badly? Did he feel responsible?

Nevertheless, I smiled as I shut my eyes and opened my mouth. It forced him to put his other hand under my chin as I slurped, touching me again.

"Oh, that's nice!" I said, leaving it vague as to whether it was the soup or his actions I referred to. I liked the velvety broth and the savory pepperiness of it, recognizing, sage, sweet forest herbs, and woody mushrooms mixed in—but human beasts flavored things with too much salt, I thought.

I opened my mouth again.

"You're working this," he murmured.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author #romance #fantasy
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSInklingsStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory

In case it's useful: #Context is critical. The way a group of people behave is always, always heavily context dependent. This seems relevant to some things people say on the internet...

"Trans people have higher rates of stress-related mental illnesses" - Right now, yes, while most of our societies demonize them and work to take away their basic rights. Let's try full LGBTQIA+ equality and see how trans people do.

"Only X% of people say they have nonbinary gender, trans identity, non-straight sexuality, or other LGBTQIA+ identity/experiences" - OK, yes, while nearly every person on earth lives in a society that marginalizes or demonizes sexual/gender minorities (I've seen X quoted as "under 5%", "under 10%", etc.). Thhose numbers will change as we make the world safer for people to express identities outside the prescribed dominant categories.

"Fascism has an advantage in economic downturns" - For now, when extractive/exploitative capitalist systems dominate the world. I wonder if this will still be true when we make all of our governments more humane.

"UBI is amazingly successful" - For now, yes, while small groups receive UBI in the context of mostly capitalist systems. Let's guarantee everyone a living income and then see.

"Women have better outcomes as political and corporate leaders" - Maybe. They certainly seem to right now, while most women (and eveyrone else) are raised in patriarchal cultures. Let's make equality actually happen and then see.

"Women are more interested in social issues while men are more interested in physical and power-dynamic issues" - Possibly true only while we acculturate women this way (there's actually cool empirical evidence suggesting this is not innate)

"Brown, Black, female, and queer people focus on community and justice while cis/het white male people focus on 'the bottom line' and 'concrete' outcomes" - Evidence that this stops being true when various kinds of inequality stop being the norm.

And so on.

🎓 Call for Papers: “Rethinking Gender in Inter- and Transimperial Contexts,” 🗓16–17 Jan 2026 at the 📍 University of Freiburg. Explore how gender shaped empire interactions beyond traditional metropole–periphery frameworks. Submissions welcome from history, sociology, anthropology, and related fields. 🚨Deadline: 31 Aug 2025. Please send a 500-word abstract + one-page CV to: maximilian.klose@geschichte.uni-freiburg.de. Limited travel funding available. Supported by @dfg_public and hosted at @unifreiburg.

#histodons #histodon #history #academicmastodon #empires #empire #masculinity #men #geschlecht #gender #sociology @sociology @empires @mehlera @ManuelaBoatca @histodons @histodon

How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy, [gender determinism], or capitalism?

First, you never admit that the order is imagined [probably not even to yourself].

You always insist that the order sustaining society is an objective reality created by the great gods or by the laws of nature.

Yuval Harari, Sapiens

*Words in brackets are my own.

Continued thread

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.07.06 — Share which thing from yesterday's poll was about the MC.

The most popular choice for the MC was, "Packed a gun and did her own bounty hunting." Nope. The devil-girl's mother was an opera singer and popular musical theatre star. My mother was a bailbondsperson in the 1960s over seven Midwestern states. She really did her own bounty hunting for bail jumpers. I grew up with a nonstandard sense of gender roles for women. Actual reality surprised me when I grew up.

I am quite shy, not her. The devil-girl is an introvert rigorously trained to act extroverted. If she needs or wants to interact, it isn't a problem.

I slightly cheated with the, "Autistic," choice. I share this superpower with my MC. Her mother was also autistic, more severely so. Masking and acting are important for the character.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#mystery #thriller #romance #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory

Die Stigmatisierung von psychisch Erkrankten als Gewaltrisiko hat den Ruf nach ihrer administrativen Erfassung in einem gesonderten Register laut werden lassen.

Das ist ein Rückfall weit vor die 1970er Jahre, als die antipsychiatrische Bewegung mehr Selbstbestimmung für psychiatrisierte Menschen erkämpfte.

Nur weil gesellschaftliche Gewaltverhältnisse im Grundsatz ausgeblendet werden, können individuelle Faktoren als Ursache für Gewalttaten in den Mittelpunkt gestellt werden.

So wirkt die extreme Individualisierung der neoliberalen Gesellschaft zum einen als Herrschaftsmittel, indem die atomisierten Marktsubjekte gegeneinander ausgespielt werden, zum andern als Bezichtigungskonstrukt, laut dem der Mensch selbst für die Folgen kapitalistischer Verwertungsbedingungen geradezustehen hat. Verluste sozialisieren, Gewinne privatisieren auch auf der Subjektebene.

Teile und herrsche - Schuldgefühle induzieren, während das Bewusstsein für soziale und politische Entfremdung und Unterdrückung geschwächt wird,
ist die Basis aktueller Herrschaftsicherung.

#Kapitalismus #Gender #Disability #Ableism

fr.de/rhein-main/landespolitik

www.fr.deEin klares Nein zum „Register“ für psychisch Kranke – Experten reagieren mit offenem BriefDie Haltung zu Gewalt ist keine Frage des Gesundheitszustand, sagen die Fachleute. Hauptrisiko ist vielmehr das Mannsein.

It's funny when people try and insult my #masculinity I identify as #twospirit since 1) I have Kleinfelters and 2) I'm gay I don't think much about my #gender at all. I'm neither man, nor woman, nor non-binary. I walk around as a dude, because I enjoy that. But honestly....I could care less. Like honestly...I just have better things to do. Like play with elfeed on #emacs. #trans #intersex

#WordWeavers 2025.07.05 — What kind of perfume/scent would work for your antagonist?

Rainy Days is okay with the scent of human sweat, especially if it's a man's. Sweat is ubiquitous in her world because of the heat. Beyond that, she likes rose and lavender.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#mystery #thriller #romance #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory

#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.05.05 — How unsympathetic are your protagonists?

Generally sympathetic, but they don't always start that way. Usually they end up that way.

Being sympathetic is a relative thing depending on the reader. I had a beta reader react toward a female MC's masculine sensibility toward sex (lack of shame, I think) and her personal rejection of female gender roles by calling the character crass and unfeminine. They thought of themself as a feminist. It's times like this that I feel I've made people think about equality and gender roles.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion