2 days agoDear White People, Recover your AngerWhite people, separated from their anger, align to power and suck their way to conditional safety. It’s the chief condition of acceptance — that anger doth not bare it’s uncivil teeth. If you’re feeling uneasy at this point, you’re about to learn something. See if you can stick it out. …2 min read
Aug 3Dopey Autistic Trans WomanI’m a trans woman. When I first came out, changed my name, my pronouns, my look, everything but my physical self really, I was alert to rustles in the bush; “hypervigilant”. Ordering a coffee, the din of the breakfast rush is pierced by a “he” from table 9. They are…Actuallyautistic3 min read
Jul 31Diagnosis — Unaccountable: Psychiatry’s history, present, and all of our futures.Gendernaut and prophet, Alok, recently dropped this 👆 cautionary history of 19th and early 20th Century psychiatry. It’s replete with (cw, which applies to the whole of this article) institutional violence, racism, ableism & eugenics, bringing us tastefully up to the roaring 1920’s. It’s instinctive to hope this violence, institutional…18 min read
Jul 11Big pharma, big psych, and their tiny tiny frameworkBig pharma, big psych, and their tiny tiny framework Until the mid 19th Century, the European scientists (in all their credible wisdom) thought critters arose from dust — spontaneous generation, as the doctrine is now known. Gnats from rocks, Maggots from flesh, these critters were magical. …6 min read
Jul 5The Beigeification of AffectIt’s not just psych meds that make us beige on the inside. It’s all the feedback that we get about being “too much”. We censor our emotional expression as children (masking), and soon enough we cease fully feeling. …Emotions2 min read
Jul 36 Reasons to STFU if you don’t have a uterusHi friend, Yesterday my disabled, trans, uterus-owning friend in the USA noticed that the novel they’re reading (1984, by George Orwell) resembles the state they live in, and I shared that moment with you. …Dystopia6 min read
Jun 8What do you want to be when you grow up?What do you want to be when you grow up? “A mum” A ruler lands sharply on my knuckles. Not a real one. We still get slapped in supermarkets but not with rulers. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a microsecond of terror on my mother’s face before she saves it. This is not my first experience of mortal shame. …2 min read
Jun 2Throw me a metaphorThrow me a metaphor A rich conversation about the use of metaphor in writers group today got me thinking about how we got here *gestures broadly*. I’ve garnished this piece with quotes from it. Stealth Going into the session, I thought metaphor was primarily useful for writers as a cloak: Metaphor is a trojan horse…3 min read
May 16Partnered? You’re killing it.You’re telling a story and your partner is in it. If you find yourself saying “my husband”, “my wife”, or “my partner”, to an unpartnered person, you might as well be saying “my Maserati”, “my holiday house”, or “my triple figure salary” to a houseless person. The implications are the…Couple Privilege6 min read
May 12The ExaminatrixTrogdor was a man, a dragon man. He burninated the countryside. And the peasants. Trogdor had one impulse that laid claim to his body — burnination. Trogdor is a part of Strong Bad, namely his temper. He is totality. Totalitarian. Like Trogdor the…3 min read
