I mean it’s nuanced yeah?

Am I gonna talk to a journalist about a sensitive thing like DIY that could trigger brainwashed regressive people? Fuck no.

Am I gonna blast on all channels that we are in a climate crisis and inequality crisis and housing crisis and? Yes, yes I think I will.

And that’s my decision for me. Some people are understandably never comfortable talking. Let alone to journalists lol!

100%. Honestly after growing up borderline right-wing, self-reflection was one of my main tools for personal and political deconstruction. That and good parents. Anyway, very little stood the test of “why am I doing this, and is it what I really want” when I stopped and looked more than 3 feet in front of my own dumb face. That and realizing I’m hopelessly queer lol.

Of course, self-reflection opens the door to a whole lot more than just politics. I get the sense that, if they started self-reflecting without guidance, the first thing they’d be scrambling for answers about would be why they believe in whatever random religion they were born into. There’s a whole lot of fervent people that are one solid reflection away from crying over a toilet on a Monday at 3AM because they’d accidentally deconstructed their faith and can’t ctrl-z the issue (not a joke, just an observation/personal experience).

For all of our sakes I hope you’re right.

Then again, underestimating regressive politicians leaves us with a massive blind spot. You can bet they’re counting on that while they lie to literally anyone who will listen about how “evil” progressives are.

Holy shit, I didn’t draw up the situation of travelling while married as a problem but you’re absolutely right. It’s already getting extremely tricky to figure out what places are OK or no-go for trans and NB people, this is just going to make things so much more fucking worse.

Atlanta for example is a massive air travel hub. What if Georgia doesn’t uphold same-sex marriage? What about international travellers who are married abroad?

JFC. These idiots.

Personally I am increasingly uncomfortable feeling the “need” to apologize to regressive people about feeling hurt or insulted. They are entirely responsible for their actions.

They are also not sorry that they are pushing the majority of people (women, LGBTQ+, basically anything non-cis-white-men) into a second class or even subhuman status.

I realize that most people are only open to changing themselves when their feelings are not threatened and when they’re feeling understood. But what we’re talking about here, I don’t know the right word, but “accidental” or “unintentional” are not part of it. If regressive leaders like trump or desantis or whoever get elected then we’re talking about borderline genocide done on purpose. I don’t see how we can come back to acknowledging the feelings of bigots at that point.

Yes that is fair and I agree. The current method of determining assigned chromosomal sex at birth is inadequate. Edit - I forgot, it also doesn’t account for rare cases such as XXY (kleinfelters). Personally I think strictly for medical reasons ASAB/chromosomal should be determined accurately and then essentially not used. Gender identify further does not play any meaningful role at all and is not needed on an ID. It is just a way to discriminate as far as I can tell. Sadly we are quite a ways from that reality.

Apart from genuine medical reasons to know chromosomal makeup, gender doesn’t matter. Unless a bigot is looking.

What does matter is that the US has an arcane, idiotic method of doling out IDs to it’s citizens. It is fundamentally incompetent.

A federal ID or at least a unified standard state ID that is issued at birth or immediately upon immigration for no cost would reduce inequity and prevent people from being barred service due to ludicrous reasons such as “not having valid ID”

And I’ll be blunt and say that while I respect an individual may not want one, the fact is that you already have one (either SS# or an equivalent) and are a know quantity with or without your consent. A fair federal or unified state standard would take bigoted tomfuckery out of the question and make things clear to individuals.

Spot on. Just like a lot of other things (taxes being the notable one that I can remember) an unreasonable amount of US people hate it when government does anything useful with their tax money.

Want an ID? Fucking do it yourself, but oh btwz here’s this shitty paper that you can never share or lose or you’re fucked.

Want to know how much tax you should pay taxes? Figure it the fuck out yourself (but then we’ll still do it for you and ruin you if you fuck up)

Want to avoid going to jail? Be fucking telepathic and know how to do it yourself.

It’s a pretty insane thing to tolerate and yet here we are.