fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
no. 1 — Faith and Courage by Sinead O’Connor
By: Jenna Sylvester
Tags: Album Review, Sinead O Connor, Nonbinary, Music, Personal Essay

I think this was the first album I felt was mine. Of course, it was introduced to me by my parents, but I took to it in a way that superseded their influence. I remember doing a school project where I made a large word document full of word art and stolen google images, making a list of my favorite artists. Sinéad O’Connor was the first one I wrote down. For a long time, this was the only album of hers that I really knew, but man did I know it well. Even after a decade-long hiatus of having forgotten about it, when I finally returned to it I still knew every word.

No Man’s Woman, a track that instills independence and trust in the universe in whoever listens. The strings add to the intensity of the message- O’Connor will never belong to anyone besides the gods she worships. It’s a devotion that both mirrors and rejects romantic love. I had no idea what it meant when I was little, but I think the song stuck true in the mythos of my subconscious.

The State I’m In feels like you’re in a windy meadow on the top of some famous yet remote cliffs overlooking the ocean, basking in the drama and acceptance and raw emotions of what it means to exist. Maybe that’s too dramatic! But so is this song! Sweeping, overlapping vocals feel like curtains being pulled aside to make way for the theatrics to start. The play is the next song- the Lamb’s Book of Life; an Irish-jig-meets-reggae in a pro-peace lilt. No one could pull off a song like that except Sinéad.

My favorite track was, and still is, Daddy I’m Fine. I brought this album in for show and tell in preschool, specifically to play this song to my class. I can’t imagine what the reaction of my teachers were, but honestly I think it was a perfect choice to share. The song bleeds confidence and courage, self-love and sexual awareness. It’s infectious, even to a three-year-old who doesn’t know what thigh-high boots are. Every time this song comes on, I scream the lyrics. It’s my favorite pump-up song before going out somewhere that’s not usually my comfort zone. If I’m going to a bar or a party where I feel like I have to perform self-confidence, what better positive affirmations to chant are there than “I feel real hot when my makeup’s nice / like I wanna fuck every man in sight”?

I remember going to Barns and Noble with my mom one day and sitting in the little booths they had to listen to CD’s with headphones on. As my mom shopped, I hummed along with this album, eliciting stares from the nearby customers until my mom came back and told me I was screaming along. This album elicits that disposal of self-consciousness. As a child and as an adult, I relish that.

Listen to the album here
What’s in a Name?
By: Clio Hartzer
Tags: Names and Naming, Nonbinary

My legal name is “Paul”. It’s the name I’ve worn most of my life.

When I was too young to remember, I was Timmy. That was based on my middle name, which is Timothy. My older brother went by Mark, his middle name, and I went by Timmy.

At some point, he switched back to his first name, John, and I switched back to my first name, Paul. I was too young at the time to remember why.
no. 2 — Poses by Rufus Wainwright
By: Jenna Sylvester
Tags: Album Review, Nonbinary, Music, Rufus Wainwright, Personal Essay

Rufus Wainwright is another musician I listen to because of my parents. This will be a common theme: my parents met and courted each other doing radio shows in college. My mom went on to create an online music magazine, prompting artists to send their CD’s and Demos hoping to be reviewed on her site. Every week we’d have twenty more to add to the piles in her office, eventually growing to several large boxes in the basement because the shelves and floor space in her office were stuffed to the brim.

I don’t know how my mom discovered Rufus Wainwright, though it may have a lot to do with his famously talented parents. Rufus is one of my family’s idols. We have a homemade popsicle stick ornament of him that we hang on our Christmas tree every year, though the printer paper with his image has watermarks and rips abound. Rufus was the first famous person I ever met. At seven years old, my mom got us tickets, and we met him before the show. I asked him what it was like to be famous[1], and he said that it hurt his neck; a joke about how often he rolls his head around while he plays the piano. I kept the ticket stubs from that night for years, only throwing them away when a cat vomited onto them.

Every Rufus album has a special place in my heart. I have a million memories rooted to his music, to the point where it almost feels overwhelming to write about. I remember the first time I ever got so mad I didn’t speak to someone for days was because two friends made a joke about his name[2]. I remember when my sister and I spent a few weeks planning, shooting, and editing a video contest he announced. It’s still on YouTube somewhere, a minute-long clip of Perri and I frolicking around in the stream in our backyard. We dedicated it to our cat who had recently died. We did not win.

Ultimately, this album gets to some core Rufus Wainwright themes. These are the songs in which he most openly speaks of his history with addiction, of his strange days living in New York City. I love these songs because it’s before he added strings, backup singers, costumes and, eventually, opera. Not that I don’t also love those things, I am just a sucker for what I feel is the raw center of Rufus Wainwright as an artist. I think he’d disagree with that assessment, but luckily, he won’t read this.

[1] Man, is this proof that I have always been obsessed with fame? Am I power hungry? Is that who I am?

[2] Don’t worry, I spoke to them again after like two days and they’ve since apologized. I make them apologize very frequently for this, actually. I hold grudges for a long, long time, seeing as how this happened in the third grade.

You can listen to the album here if you want.
Bob Boilen Told Me To
By: Jenna Sylvester
Tags: Album Review, Nonbinary, Music, Review, Personal Essay

I’m starting a new project! I have always wanted to be a writer. It feels fake and pretentious to say it, to assume that I have anything worthwhile to say or add to a world that has already said everything. One facet of what I want to do with my writing, though, is to help bring new and better art into the world. I want to work in publishing, working on novels and manuscripts to sculpt them into their perfect form. Or, I want to write about music that I love, spreading the word about something that inspires me.

Oftentimes, I feel like everything that has been said about an album I love has been said about that album. And that’s probably true! But it hasn’t been said by me. In a strange attempt to pull a job offer or mentorship out of a cold email, I contacted Bob Boilen, the creator of NPR’s Tiny Desk, musician, and creator of NPR’s All Songs Considered podcast. I love the Tiny Desk series, I think it’s a perfect way to showcase artists, both largely popular and more underground. So I went to his website, found his email, and asked him in a long, rambling way, what I can do.

Essentially, he told me that I was conflating doing what I love with making a living. Which was true! He also said to live my reality. AKA, if I want to be a music writer, just start writing about music. I’ve been operating under the assumption that if my opinion on music was wanted by the world, I would be paid for it in some capacity. But, as Bob pointed out in much gentler terms and lots of ellipses, that’s a naive concept of how the world works. I have to manifest the thing I want. What I want is to have an opinion or taste in music that’s respected. I want to help art find it’s target audience. So, here’s my new project.

I made a list of 45 Albums that made me who I am, and made my music taste what it is. I’m going to write 500 words or less on all of them, and attempt to do an album a day. A lot of these albums are pretty old, or have already been reviewed to the ends of the earth, so I’m just going to speak to my experience with them and nothing else. I don’t know music theory, I barely know what different instruments sound like, and I cannot play more than three notes on a guitar. So I’ll stick with what I know: how the music makes me feel.

These posts will be numbered and vaguely organized in a chronological order from when they were important to me. Starting with the first album I ever loved, and ending with what I’m currently most obsessed with.

Feel free to follow along! Or don’t! Ultimately, I’m trying to do this project as an exercise for my own peace of mind, not because I want validation or approval from anyone. Although that’d be a nice bonus.

My first post will be up shortly, talking about Faith and Courage by Sinéad O’Connor
My Birth Name Is A Dress I Don’t Wear
By: Ash Blue Miller
Tags: Names, Transgender, Nonbinary, LGBTQ, Family

Photo by Tim Mossholder from Pexels

I’ve been reflecting on my birth name. Even going by Ash now, I find my birth name to be beautiful. I appreciate my parents gifting it to me. I enjoyed the simple elegance and the infrequency of encountering others who wore it as their first name. The latter became especially appealing in classes where I had to keep track of which Jessica someone was referring to.

In 2019, I legally changed my name to Ash. Does this mean I now abhor the birth name given to me? While I do have a complicated history with my gender identity and expression, no, I do not hate my birth name. It simply no longer fits.

It’s similar to when I stroll through the mall and see some clothes through the shop’s window. What lovely garments! I stop to admire how they flow and drape the mannequin. Maybe I snap a few pictures on my phone so I can show the outfit to a friend or practice drawing them later.

Yet I know those garments aren’t for me. As pretty as they are, I’d only see dysphoria in the changing room mirror. Much in the same way I feel dysphoria when being called my birth name. It’s taken me years to process this lesson, that I can admire clothing and jewelry and names without wanting to partake.

Once upon a time, my birth name fit me, or, at least, I thought it did. Still, sometimes we outgrow things and try out newer alternatives. Turns out Ash is the better, euphoric even, fit. Still, like many people, I store treasured mementos in my closet. Every now and then I see my old name tucked away. I’m lucky to have worn it.

An amusing side note: When I first started using Ash in 2015, I had no idea how common it would be among other non-binary people. How the tables turn!
Rozemarijn,
By: Keira Fulton-Lees
Tags: Identity, Transgender, Mental Health, Nonbinary, LGBTQ

Rozemarijn,

The more I learn about you, the more I like you!

I have heard a lot about TikTok lately, but honestly I don’t know much about it. I mean literally I just now Googled: “What is Tik Tok”. My search results did not help me in understanding what it is and why it has become such a buzz word that I hear from the other room on my my Mom’s TV. If not for my mom’s TV, I would have never heard the word, as I don’t watch TV.

The reason I don’t watch TV can be mathematically expressed as: TV + Me = Anxiety. Even more so while I’m on the subject of math and Anxiety, the expression:

Autistic Me + Being Hypersensitive to the World I See = Severe Anxiety.

But I digress into my love of programming, logic, numbers, and math. So, back to the Societal Mania with Social Media…
Hi, my name is Jude, and these are my thoughts after six weeks on T.
By: Jude Schroder
Tags: Gender Dysphoria, Non Binary, Transgender, LGBTQ, Transmasculine

Hi, my name is Jude, and these are my thoughts after six weeks on T.

I think for a lot of transmasculine people, having a period can be really distressing, and it is a source of gender dysphoria. While I found my period to be annoying, messy, and sometimes painful, it never really caused gender dysphoria for me. Looking back now, though, I think there was one major thing about my menstrual cycle that kept nagging at me: my hormones.

I knew that it was normal to experience heightened emotions and irritability during PMS, but that did little to ease my anxieties about my monthly mood swings. I was angry and sad and irritable and I would cry over the smallest things. That is all normal, but I could never accept this part of me. It always felt like I had lost control, like my body and my emotions were betraying me. I was helpless, at the mercy of my fluctuating hormones.

I lived with this feeling that something was wrong, that while this was normal and natural for many women, it wasn’t supposed to be happening to me. It is only now that I have started testosterone that I realize those feelings were probably gender dysphoria.

Starting T feels like I am taking back control of my hormones. It feels like I am finally correcting an error with my coding. Things are slowly falling into place. It’s funny, because hormones are such a wacky rollercoaster ride, and each transmasculine person is rolling the dice — if and when they start T. While my new chest was literally shaped with surgical precision, I do not get to choose what changes I want to experience from hormone replacement therapy. I’ll get a mixture of good changes, weird changes, and bad changes, but to me, it’s worth it.

When I started T, I thought I would feel that familiar helplessness, that loss of control I experienced every month with my “female” hormones, but instead I feel more in control than I have ever been. It is still early in my hormonal transition, but so far I’m happy, and all I can really do is continue to pursue that feeling of being happy and in control.
It’s transgender awareness week.
By: Trans Non Binary Teacher
Tags: Nonbinary, Top Surgery, Transgender

It’s transgender awareness week. It’s time for me to talk about something I walk around with everyday. This is partially inspired by my friend, Elaine. ❤️

Elaine and I are somewhat unlikely friends. She’s 70 years young!!! And I’m 37. (Elaine’s age used with permission). We met through Scottish Country Dancing. Yesterday, Elaine and I were talking with some friends. Elaine messed up and called me “girl”. She said sorry, and we seemed to move on from it, when suddenly our other friend said, “Elaine, are you ok?” It turned out that Elaine started crying a little (was trying to hold back tears) because she was angry at herself. It was tough to see the obvious look of pain on her face.

“Usually, people take that anger out on me”, I said.

It’s true. There are small ways and big ways people take their anger out on me as they learn to not call me she, to expand their thoughts beyond the gender binary, and to use they/them pronouns. What “people” am I referring to? How many people am I referring to? Try to guess. I have family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances. Beyond that, I take good care of myself by visiting doctors, buying what I need from brick and mortar stores. *And*, I am a people person.

Before I continue, I want to say that everyday I have to try and choose not to be an awful, toxic person. It’s too easy to be nasty to other people because other people have inflicted their ignorance onto me over and over. All I’m out to do is to get people to build compassion for transgender people as quickly as possible. And I’m a teacher, so I’ll use any moment to further my work. I took time out to hold space for the space for the tears and Elaine’s acknowledgement that she was angry at herself. And now, Elaine and the other friends present know that people just usually take that anger and toss them it onto me. And usually, the words that come out are “be patient”, “you can’t expect everyone to be accepting of you”, “you are different so it’s hard for people”.

For this next part, I want to reveal what people can’t normally see. Disclaimer: this is my experience as a transgender non-binary person, and mine only. How I relate to my physical self and communicate those thoughts to the world are my truth only.

TL;DR, People never know what trauma they are putting upon my body when they get angry at me repeatedly for their own ignorance.

There are two of those scars. Sometimes, it feels like my body was ugly before and it’s ugly in a different way now. But I work to celebrate all aspects of myself everyday. The truth is hard to tell. So, when someone tells you their truth, listen.

Get angry at yourself, not the other person.
About Dominique & WBGS
By: Dominique Amari
Tags: Nonbinary, Writer, Qtpoc, Aliens, Weird

Dominique is a Black bisexual nonbinary femme from New Orleans, Louisiana. They love writing, their cats, and learning new things!

Weird Black Girl Sht is for all the Black people out there who are into Mothman legends and alien abduction stories and who are tired of all the white male voices on podcasts and the History Channel. WBGS tells these tales with a compassionate, intersectional perspective. We’re here, a lot of us are queer, and we like the unexplained!
Non-Binary Students and Pronouns
By: Clio Hartzer
Tags: Transgender, Nonbinary, LGBTQ, Pronouns, Education

What’s the deal with pronouns anyway?

In these times where many of us are engaged in virtual learning through Zoom, you may have seen someone have pronouns listed after their name. Many institutions have begun encouraging people to list their pronouns in their email signatures.

I personally have mixed feelings about this practice, which I’ll discuss later, but I know it comes from a compassionate place when cisgender people engage in it.

In English, our pronouns are the most consistent way of reinforcing the flawed view that everyone is either a man or a woman.

Imagine you’re in a coffee shop with a friend. You forgot to give the barista a tip, and your friend is going back for something else. If you’re like most people, you’re going to use a gendered pronoun for the clerk: “Hey, can you give this tip to him while you’re there?”

When we stop to think of it, this is such a strange behavior: Why do we need to know the gender of a complete stranger, someone we might never see again, in order to talk about them?

And we might get it wrong. When we make assumptions based on what people look like, we could simply be wrong. Perhaps the person we think is a “man” is a trans woman or a non-binary person. Or a cis woman who happens to look “manly”. Or perhaps they’re a “man” but don’t care for that characterization.

If English had evolved a different way, this would not be an issue. Even as it is, we often use the third-person plural “they” in the singular for someone whose gender identity we have very little information about: “Someone left their book in class yesterday.”

We could have developed “they” as a singular for those cases where we don’t know someone’s gender for certain, or in situations where someone doesn’t identify with either “he” or “she”. We could have gone farther, getting rid of “he” and “she” entirely: Many languages do just fine without them.

Instead, English has kept the gendered pronouns (so far, at least), and for decades English teachers and style guides have taught that “they” is only to be used as a plural. The style guides are currently moving towards accepting gender-neutral singular “they”, and I likewise encourage teachers to re-examine their own curricula.
Thank you.
By: Mx. Marie Chase Lewis, They She
Tags: Transgender, Nonbinary, Lgbtqia2s, Girlflux, Queer

Thank you. Being able to find the words to describe ourselves can certainly help us understand both ourselves and be able to communicate our truth to other people, in a way that they should be able to understand with some basic internet research.

I know that after I had been in transition for 7 or 8 months, and was finding phrases like ‘baby girl’ (from fem presenting peeps I was dating) affirming rather than misgendering, I was struggling for 3 or 4 days every month with ‘am I really a woman? Is internalized transphobia and misogyny keeping me from identifying as a woman? Have I just been kidding myself by thinking nonbinary was safer?’

Then I discovered the word Girlflux. And in my head a bell rang and I said ‘it me!’ and peace settled inside me. So most of the time I’m happily a femme Demigirl. A few days a month I’m a Nonbinary woman (paragirl flux) and occasionally I’m just like 'gender, meh’ (librafeminine flux, close to agender). That’s mostly for me. I have varying ways to identify, depending on who the audience is and how much I think they would understand.

I always enjoy your writing. Stay loud and proud! Be visible, both for yourself, and for the other folks who need to see LGBTQIA2S+ people living their truth and thriving.
Between the lines
By: Paint A. F.
Tags: Self Diagnosis, Autism Acceptance, Nonbinary, Fundraising, Transgender Rights

The structure of my assault and trauma was such that I did not know how to write for myself anymore. I still do not know how. I am writing for a space in between humanity and death that needs no recognition because I struggle to speak directly my truth. In one context I am clear, direct, bold. In another, I am falling apart, pandering, wondering. This is the trauma of this type of existence. To fight to be a strong face while also being an honest face. I have been hurt. My pain does not have to pretty or palatable.

I write like seeds. I do not know how to hold words only for myself. My trauma does not change the needs I have. Yet my trauma is weaponized against me, as another excuse to steal agency.

Only when I am whole and treated as whole, will the healing process be able to move forward. I feel stagnant. I have bowed out of polite society to tend to myself and I still do not know how to return to the rest of you, how I can I fit back into situations that will inevitably cause me more trauma when I do not have the strength of my identity feeling like it is no longer on trial. The trial ends when I am able to get the top surgery I want (a single mastectomy) and am able to live in my body as myself.

I got my hypermobility disorder diagnosed. I got my autism diagnosed. I did not do these for me. I did them for you, even though I had to endure visiting multiple dehumanizing & misgendering doctors to get my body assessed. I did this despite trauma so that I could speak with “validity” on what I already knew to be true: I am disabled. I hurt myself to be believed. As for autism, this was an even more dehumanizing process. I am too exhausted to submit the ethics complaint I wanted against the person who accessed me for how they treated and approached diagnosis, even as they relented that there is some likelyhood of me being on the autism spectrum and my psychatrist having read the report, understands why I was upset by the process and agrees that I do meet the criteria. A criteria that says I shouldn’t even be able to talk, yet I do.

I did and didn’t do this for me. I did this to undo years of gaslighting myself and being gaslit about my own experiences and validity, to find the fire of my own confidence. I have had to put asside different parts of me to get each offending puzzle piece in order, to be able to see and say, this is the deck of cards I play with in life, so that I may hold them with pride as part of who I am.

Now how do I say for my gender, there is no appeasement in a society that erases and treats Non-Binary as strange. I have done all these other things in terms of diagnosis for other people to believe me and to see me, I have been right each time. I have proven myself to be a reliable source of insight on myself, something I shouldn’t have to prove. This next thing is something I need to do for myself, to feel whole. I should be granted this dignity.
Pronouns.
By: Fiona Dobson
Tags: LGBT, Nonbinary, LGBTQ, Genderfluidity, Crossdressing

Like many of us, I never got to talk to my parents about things like sexuality and transgender topics. Both of my parents would have been mortified to have the subject raised over the Sunday roast. And then they died.

To be fair, I don’t think either of them were quite ready to talk about such topics. They were born in the 1930’s and these are subjects that simply weren’t on the agenda during their lifetime. That is not to say that they don’t have a contribution to make on the subject of ‘Pronouns’.

My mother, a girdle wearing statuesque woman of conservative English values, held one thing above all others. Politeness to others. Had I told her that a guest in our house identified as a punk rock hamster, then out of deference to the wishes of a guest we would have had to refer to the hamster at the table with unquestionable politeness and respect. I suspect that had Stalin or Mao showed up in our English parlour for tea, we would be expected to hold out the chair, sit after they had taken their place and make polite conversation about the intemperate weather and the promising outlook for the turnip crop this year.

Raising the subject of genocide, persecution of minorities or (God forbid) the forced labor camp deaths of homosexual prisoners would have been considered bad form and may have resulted in a reluctance to return for tea another time. Admittedly this exact scenario never played out in our home counties home, but I think you can see where I am going with this.

Equally, it can come as no surprise that when my father watched a documentary about German prisoners of war — a small number of which escaped from a prison camp in Northern England in 1944 — he stared at the television screen with visible disdain. For the Waffen SS officers to have dug a tunnel out of the confines of a prison with a desert spoon merited their being sentenced to hang immediately, if for no better reason than to do so using a desert spoon, before the use of main course cutlery, was practically a crime against humanity. Well, English humanity, at least.

So, I can say with absolute certainty that had someone come to the house and mentioned that their chosen pronoun was ‘they’, then the matter was settled. They would be a ‘they’ from that moment on.

As archaic as it may seem, this concept holds true as well today as it did in their lives. Whether straight, gay or any shade between, their principal object was to be polite and treat people with respect. To date I have yet to come across a system that improves on this simple behaviour. After all, when we do behave in this manner people do generally treat us with respect in return.

Now, I have to put the tea on. I’m expecting Kim Jong-un any moment. The supreme leader wouldn’t like it if I failed to warm the pot before he arrives.

Fiona

HTTP://FionaDobson.com
Not Non-Binary enough?
Tags: Gender Identity, LGBT, Genderqueer, Nonbinary, Gender

So recently I started using they/them pronouns, this is a very recent development for me. I’ve been questioning my gender for some number of months now. I was AFAB and having people use she/her pronouns would make me uncomfortable, so I changed it.

You’d think that was the end of it right? she/her didn’t fit so I’m non-binary and use they/them, nothing is ever that simple when it comes to my dumb ass brain.

I know a lot of genderqueer people, the majority of my friendship group, in fact, this is amazing and wonderful and I love them all dearly and wouldn’t change them for the world, it does, however, mean I have a lot of people to compare myself to, which I am well aware doesn’t make any sense, you see I have other people I am close to who are nonbinary and when I am out with them and we get referred to my strangers as girls or other sentiments along those lines they are physically uncomfortable and viscerally aware of it and I understand this I do, I, on the other hand, don’t often notice.

Now this could be for a number of reasons, I have anxiety so when a stranger refers to me I don't often take notice of what they say because immediately my mind is going a hundred miles per hour, it could be because of 20 years of excepting this is how people will refer to me I don’t question it anymore, both very valid, however, it could be, and this is what my stupid brain tells me it is, is that I am in fact not non-binary I am faking it to fit in better with my friends and I'm an attention seeker and an awful person.

There have been a few key moments in my life that lead to question my gender and come to the conclusion I have, all of which seem valid. sometimes I just wish my gender could be simpler, that I could be simpler to understand, I wish I could understand myself, without having to second guess myself all the time.

I suppose having parents that tell me that non-binary and trans aren’t really a thing doesn’t particularly help, see I know their wrong, there is no doubt in my mind that they are wrong, but when you told this repeatedly I can’t help but think what if I'm just doing this to go against them. again very stupid since they don’t even know and I would never tell them until that thought process changes.

So all this leads me to now, where it’s 1 am and I'm writing all this because of some small interactions with a friend a few days ago has me questioning everything I thought I finally had figured out about myself. I suppose my biggest fear with all of this is that someone will think I'm faking or find out I'm faking and hate me for it.

If you’re reading this and questioning your gender, try to remember gender is hard, and rewriting what you’ve been socialized into thinking is harder. you are valid and you are loved. I love you
A manifesto
By: Becky Hopkinson
Tags: Teaching, Identity, Transgender, Nonbinary, Language Learning

The non-binary pride flag

I have to admit how concerned I am for so many students given the homophobic/transphobic comments I have been seeing in response to the use of gender-neutral pronouns in gendered language classes (such as Spanish) in teacher groups on Facebook.

Teachers, we have a responsibility to create a safe space where ALL of our students feel seen, respected, and validated for who they ARE (even if who they are changes from day to day!! Remember being a teen? Remember trying on different personalities to figure out which one fit the best?).

When you say “The RAE hasn’t approved the use of ‘elle’ so we shouldn’t be teaching it,” to students who they themselves identify as gender-neutral, or their friends or family members identify as gender neutral, you are — as a power figure in their lives — saying that their identity cannot be represented in you class nor in the language you are teaching.

Instead of focusing on how this makes it “not real Spanish” consider having a conversation with them about how sometimes “the rulemakers” have to play catch-up to society. Talk with them about how languages evolve. Look at super old English writings and identify how things have changed. Look at super old Spanish writings and talk about how the language has evolved since then.

Then, allow your Spanish class to be a place where the language evolves a tiny bit to support the mental health and well-being of our students.

Because, as teachers, that’s our main job, at least in my opinion.

Want some more reading? Check this post out.

Still need convincing? Just check out the suicide rates for trans and gender non-conforming youth.
The Greatest Story Ever Told
By: Aisling, Ash
Tags: Faithfullylgbt, Nonbinary, Latter Day Saints, Transgender

Here’s the address I wrote to commemorate this weekend’s Latter-day Saint general conference 🌝

•••

gospel topic / sabbath school for today:

the New Testament is what happened after a lot of people met this very intriguing “miniature professor,” who gave lectures and recitations about his favorite bedtime stories / superhero escapades / sci-fi movies in the marketplace; a sweet little Jewish boy with curly hair and big brown eyes and dusty skin, who defied their gender norms (he insisted he was a GIRL chicken, a MOMMA hen), led a bunch of scrappy rascally anti-establishment type teenagers around and called it his own kingdom, spoke in simile, became very overcome with empathy and performed a rage-curse on a fig tree, had a dry wit and a passion for puns and plays on words, had a remarkable knack for understanding the relationship and symbiosis of metaphysics and biology (the human body and humankind and somatic awareness and how bodies keep the score — his body was scored with scourges and scars), stood up for the underdog every single time until it got him in mortal peril and still he refused to back down. (these are all hallmark traits of autism.)

the story of Abinadi is what happens over and over and over again to misfit folks who get a little too outspoken. (look up the origins of “faggots” and “flaming.”)

so idk maybe we keep giving pedestals to politicians and crucifying/lynching the actual seers and visionaries, those who “dream a dream” and are “least of these among us.”

it keeps happening over and over and over, the same test repeating itself and we have an infinite number of chances for improvement. *this time* we’ll understand and hold it in remembrance. and when we finally all get it right, together, we’ll have made it. one perfected body (of Christ of humans of selves of earths of wholes).

atonement. that we may be at-one-ment.

but we have so many storytellers guiding us. because humans love a good story. there’s adam young (of owl city and good omens), madeleine l’engle, pi patel, george lucas, lin manuel miranda…..

•••

the call isn’t out there at all; it’s inside me

I AM MOANA!

•••

so what is it that we owe to each other? (love. radical kindness. exactly and precisely, just the way you are.)

•••

It’s great to be able to stop

When you’ve planned a thing that’s wrong

And be able to do something else instead

And think this song:

I can stop when I want to

Can stop when I wish

I can stop, stop, stop any time

And what a good feeling to feel like this

And know that the feeling is really mine

Know that there’s something deep inside

That helps us become what we can

•••

You can’t change nature, son!

Change IS nature, dad, the part we can influence. And it all starts when we decide.
Currículos descartados por algoritmos: instituições alimentam a desigualdade e o preconceito da organização algorítmica?
By: Laura Teresa De Carvalho
Tags: Inequality, Algorithms, Job Interview, Algoritmos, Preconceito

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Carbon inequality — the richest need to reduce their emissions
Tags: Climate Justice, Inequality, Climate Change

If the top 10% of CO2 consumers reduced their footprint to the EU average global emissions would decrease by a third

It’s not politically viable, but the richest people need to reduce their carbon emissions.

If we had global regulations where the top 10% of emitters would cut their CO2 footprint to just the European average than global CO2 emissions would decrease by a third. That seems like a great start.

The top 10% of emitters are roughly people who have $80k in assets, high consumption lifestyles, travel a lot, etc.

Since we don’t want to modify our behavior we are gambling on some future technological solution to reduce emissions. Gambling that they will work and will work on a huge global scale. That there will be little unforeseen consequences.

In terms of a carbon tax wealthy people will not consume less, but rather the poor people. This will have a negative impact on the poor people who are not the main emitters.

Scientific reticence is a big problem where scientists won’t say publicly what they say privately. That is, around the local pub and with each other they will say sea level rise will be closer to a meter whereas publicly they say 0.4. They do this since they need to be absolutely sure what they are saying publicly or nervous of blowback. One potential idea is that the scientists should include the nuances and footnotes in the reports.
I am also a feminist.
By: Dr. Preeti Singh
Tags: Inequality

I am also a feminist. In India we still have lot of inequality. Even now the lady of the house still serves tea & food & no one serves her.
About me
By: Thiago Bartolomeu
Tags: Inequality, Finance And Banking, Financialization, Economy, Monetary Policy

I am an economics student about to finish the undergraduate at the Federal University of Bahia in Salvador, Brazil.

My interests are on financialization in the global south, emerging economies, capital flows, social policy, baking & finance system, and inequality.

When I wake up exciting, I will write some thoughts on this website about those issues. I intend to write more (this time, nice) things, though. Sometimes in Portuguese, sometimes in English, but who cares?

I hope it will be cool. =)
$59.42 Million worth of property lost during protest led by workers!
By: Shashwat Jha
Tags: Voilence, Inequality

Here is what happened:

1. Over 150 people were arrested in connection with the violence.

2. As industry bodies termed the incident as a blot in the industry-friendly image of Karnataka, the Centre asked the state government to expedite its inquiry.

3. The department for promotion of industry and internal trade asked the state government to ensure that the “investor sentiment is not affected due to such one-off incident”.

4. The Karnataka government in its probe has said that the unit could not manage the increased operation. The plant became operational earlier this year. There were 5,000 workers initially. But the number rose to 10,500, according to Karnataka factories department report.

5. The HR department has not been adequately set up with personnel of sound knowledge of labour laws, resulting in various violations.

6. In October, the plant introduced 12-hour shift replacing the earlier eight-hour shift. There were glitches in attendance system as well.

7. Wistron on December 19 decided to remove the vice-president who was in-charge of business in India. In a statement, it has apologised for the payment delays and said some restructuring measures are being taken so that this does not happen again.

8. The unit was shut following the rampage but the authorities are hopeful that it could restart function in a few days.

9. Wistron said no manufacturing equipment has been damaged, though it lost in the range of New Taiwan Dollar 100 to 200 million, which is about Rs 52 crore.

10. As per a statement issued by Apple, it is putting Wistron on probation and the company is not going to receive any new business from Apple till corrective measures are enforced and completed.
Living a brown life
By: Zubair Abid
Tags: Life, Racism, Asian, Inequality

Mohammad Ali (the legendary boxer) in a famous interview shares his racial quandaries as a child when he asks his mother: “How come is everything white? Why is Jesus white with blonde hair and blue eyes? Angels are white, even the Pope, Mary… Everything bad is black, the black cat is the bad luck, If I threaten you, I’m going to ‘blackmail’ you, why don’t they call it ‘whitemail’, they lie too…” Nothing sums up the predicaments of race faced by non-whites today better than these curious inquiries of a black child.

Barring the antiquity of the idea of racial classification, it is far from obscure. Every non-white person experiences racism, albeit of different degrees and variants. As loathsome as the concept is, it is ironic how the victims of racism in one place are its perpetrators in another. It is fascinating as to how fluid this hierarchy is, except for the whites. As a fair-toned Asian, I cannot deny the relative privilege I enjoy in contrast to my darker-toned nationals. A non-white fair toned individual in South Asia enjoys a sense of privilege that would fall flat when he/she travels to the Middle East or Europe, for example.

I have met racism too, not as blatant and glaring as Mohammad Ali describes it, but rather muted and concealed. I have experienced race, not as a persistent enigma but as brief episodes of epiphanies. When I realized that I was wronged or that I would have been treated differently, were it not for my skin tone or place of birth.

These realizations were not only confined to how others treated me but also how I treated others. My own conduct around people who did or did not speak fluent English or behaved in a particular manner was divergent. Not that I can rid my subconscious mind of my life’s learnings, but to be consciously aware of the indoctrination imposed by society at large, is a relief in itself.
II. Why People need to care about the Inequalities of Healthcare?
By: Michael Anthony Pinedo Jr.
Tags: Nursing Homes, Covid 19, Inequality

This is a political cartoon drawn by Signe Wilkinson, who has worked for the Philadelphia Daily News for the past 35 years. As you can see in the cartoon there is man labeled U.S. Health Care talking about the many Covid-19 fatalities in the world with a bed right next to him stating that people who are considered poor, black, and a nursing home resident. In the article, it was reported that over half of the Covid-19 deaths in Philadelphia are from people in nursing homes, and as it’s stated in the article the poorer nursing home’s area, the higher the toll.

After looking over this political cartoon, I was pleased yet distraught to know that it proves my point about the inequalities among the healthcare system. In the cartoon, you see the groups of people who have been the most affected by Covid-19 and not one of them are the 1 percent nor white people. In the same article, as the cartoon, it states that “inequality is an underlying condition and one that should’ve been solved years ago.”

In an another article, written by Rachel Garfield and Tricia Neuman, who are both the Vice Presidents and Directors for a program on Medicaid state that almost 14,000 nursing homes nationwide has been treating people for Covid-19 and have a high share of both Black and Hispanic resident. An analysis showed that, 12% of all nursing home residents are Blacks and 6% of them are Hispanic.

Earlier this year, the Democratic candidates were all discussing their takes on Healthcare. In an article from “Health Line,” written by Stephanie Booth, a Freelance writer from Portland, she stated how in this debate some of the candidates couldn’t agree with their plans with Healthcare. Some of them wanted the “Medicare for All” plan such as Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren because they believe in single payer healthcare. While others like Joe Biden and Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s plans to reform the Affordable Care Act.

Well what did we get? We will see and is it good enough?
A True Nationalist.
By: Radically Muse
Tags: Nationalism, Racism, Inequality, BlackLivesMatter, Black

Hasseena

This is for the people who don’t quite understand the gravity of the situation we are being faced with. This is for those who claim to be nationalists, who hold their hand stiffly on their hearts screaming the pledge of alliance with all of their might. This is beyond George Floyd, beyond Breonna Taylor, beyond an individual life. This is about a population of people who feel, rightly so, as if they are being treated less than, by individuals that reside in a system that constantly reinforces systematic oppression.

Blacks do not matter, and that is the simple fact that has motivated 50 states in this country to hit the streets and protest for that statement to change. Whether they do this peacefully, or violently, is none of my concern. The methods that news media outlets and people through daily conversation love to focus on, shade and cover up the message that these protests are trying to get across.

If you want a source that advocates for violence, you have come to the wrong place. But if you want a source that can easily do math, and can see patterns in history, then you’ve reached your destination. The government wants to maintain law and order, stop an anarchy, keep the peace, and those who want to step outside their boundaries must be dealt with. Why do they do this, because they want to maintain the power that they’ve already concocted. The British didn’t want the Boston Tea Party to occur, it inconvenienced them finically and made them look weak. But the Boston Tea Party, can be seen as one of the first acts to our revolution and independence from British rule.

If you in some way feel offended by the statement, ‘Black Lives Matter’, and your immediate response is, “All Lives Matter”, we need to converse. Whole heartedly there are many places you can uncover to educate your mind on multitudes of different talking points that highlight why this is problematic and a misunderstanding of the movement in itself. So I will not reiterate those talking points. What you should be offended by is that in the United States of America a place where you sleep rest assured that you are living in the best place on Earth because you are promised, opportunity, equality, justice, liberty, and freedoms for all, there is a particular group of people that feel deprived of these simple necessities. They feel as if the promises written in law, is not being back up through action.

As a nationalist, you should firstly be concerned and want to understand where these people are coming from. As a nationalist, you then should educate yourself on the matter to make sure the claims these people are making are valid and backed up, which they are. As a nationalist, you should then feel this overwhelming sense of anger, and be just as appalled and mad as they are. As a nationalist you should now be motivated to achieve the same goal that they are trying to achieve. Why don’t these ‘nationalist’ feel this way?

Because there is a clear difference between nationalism, and white nationalism.
Public-School Funding Benefits All of US
By: Joy Anne
Tags: Class Systems, Property Taxes, Public Schools, Inequality

Like most of us, I am guilty of consuming podcasts that I already agree with. I was listening to Pitchfork Economics, nodding along, when the guest, New Jersey state governor Phil Murphy, started talking about property taxes and funding public schools. He described what he considers legitimate complaints about property taxes in his state, of which 53% goes into their public school system. Then he described a retired couple, shopping for a home, as not having a horse in the race, as if the education of children in their community was completely separate from their own quality of life, which could be diminished by high property taxes.

Governor Phil Murphy and people with that complaint are dangerously wrong. We all have a horse in this race. Whether you have children currently attending public schools or not, you are still sharing a community with kids who do. How well they are educated will directly affect all of us — publicly-educated people get older, make decisions, and become leaders.

This argument extends to the plight of our class system. It appears the 1% believe their money can insulate them from the rest of us and our problems, but they are foolish to think that will last much longer.