What if supernatural creatures don’t exist anymore? What if they did once, but through the years, they slowly mixed in with humans?
You can see the blood of fairies in the way a ballet dancer hovers in mid air before he or she hits the ground. You can see it in the way that middle school girl never forgets when someone makes her a promise. You can see it in how that one little boy in the kindergarten class seems more comfortable in the forest on that field trip than the others.
You can see the blood of dryads in hikers who never trip over roots. You can see it in that suburban grandmother never lets any of her garden die. You can see it in that one kid who climbs a tree faster than his friends, barely looking at the branches as he goes.
You can see the blood of naiads in the way a professional swimmer seems to command the water to help them. You can see it in how a cross country runner needs a water break more often than his teammates. You can see it in the way that one girl in your class always has a water bottle on her desk.
You can see the blood of mermaids in a surfer who can be tossed around underwater for a long time without drowning. You can see it in a teenage boy who doesn’t have to pretend to be unbothered by the pressure when he races his friends to the bottom of a swimming pool. You can see it in the little girl who wades into every stream she sees on a hike without quite knowing why.
You can see the blood of sirens in people who never have a problem with getting people to date them. You can see it in that soprano who can hit notes most of her fellows can only dream of. You can see it in the camp counselor who all the straight girls have a crush on, who can play guitar and sing better than any of the others.
You can see the blood of shapeshifters in the way an actor adjusts their personality to become their character with scary accuracy. You can see it in the subconscious, barely noticeable changes a tween girl’s eyes make to match her outfit better. You can see it in the way you always lose that one friend in a crowd if you’re not careful, because he’s just too good at blending in.
People who carry the blood of werewolves don’t change with the full moon anymore, but you can still see it in the way your best friend always knows something is wrong, though even they don’t know they’re smelling the changes in your body chemistry. You can see it in the way that one guy always seems to eat more than the reasonable amount of red meat at an all-you-can-eat buffet. You can see it in the way that one werido never has a problem when the teacher turns off the lights before a PowerPoint presentation because her eyes adjust quicker and better than yours.
The blood of supernatural creatures may have mostly faded away. But if you look closely, you can still see it.
So, letting people be who they want to be is a good thing. That’s shocking I tell you, just shocking. All I want to know is, how much time and money went into this research when you could’ve just asked trans folks how they felt for free
The way research works is they probably did ask trans folks, and then systematically collected their responses. Research often is the collection of many many people’s responses, collected in a rigorous standardized way. They are not just saying “this is the case for some trans kids” they are saying “this is the majority experience” for the trans kids they studied/ which is a powerful and useful thing to be able to say.
Yes it seems obvious but especially with social justice and medical research even if it is well known having a peer reviewed paper saying means that when some cis person is arguing the opposite you have a peer reviews paper to go, “look it’s been studied you are wrong”.
Research studies inform policy and medical practice. It is a good thing that this paper has been made because it can be used as evidence.
Minority groups benefit from research that looks at how things affect them and gives them a voice that is harder for policy makers to ignore. Bashing this study because it is obvious isn’t helpful, this study could seriously help trans kids, especially if it had been published in main stream media, because parents who are cis and don’t know anything about trans issues or don’t know if anyone they know is trans might find out their kids are and search for info and this will pop up. And because it’s from a trusted source, it’s research! they might think “oh maybe the best thing I can do for my kid is let them transition”.
Poo pooing research that gives minorities a voice because it’s obvious for the maringalised group but not the hegemonic one hurts the marginalized group because the hegemonic group is the group that needs to learn how “obvious” it is.
I remember when I first found out the truth about “Somali pirates” I got chills because of how horrific the truth was and how insanely creepily well the media had twisted the situation. Every single fucking article making it seem like these “pirates” were just after money or something holding innocent people hostage and I never gave it a second thought, why would I? There was no indication that people were trying to legitimately fight off disgusting imperialism that left nuclear waste in their waters, that over 300 people have died from radiation sickness, that Europeans have been stealing Somalia’s seafood because they overfished their own waters and the indigenous fisherman are starving and so these “pirates” emerged to deal with those stealing their country’s natural resources. The truth is enough to make anyone sick to their stomachs.
This is a great article about the truth about Somali pirates, in case anyone wants a source.
just so we’re clear, shes not suing the white supremacists who are calling her an aryan goddess or icon. shes suing someone bringing attention to her passive at best support of white supremacists
UHHHHHHHHHHHHH (repeat repeat repeat)
I saw this comment on facebook:
“You know what I find interesting? A white supremacist wrote a lengthy op ed about Taylor Swift being the “perfect Aryan goddess” who secretly put Nazi symbols in her lyrics and videos and she didn’t go after him. Breitbart spent hours tweeting her song lyrics when Look What You Made Me Do came out, and that’s an alt-right publication famous for its white nationalist followers and has millions of readers…but she didn’t denounce them. No. She goes after a blog that has less than 1000 followers on Twitter. You know how Trump got more upset at that ESPN anchor for calling him a white supremacist than David Duke and Nazis for proclaiming that he’s “one of them”? Yeah. Same thing.“
we have to stop pretending people like her are just “stupid” when they tell us time and time again how they really feel.
