Students whose identities are affirmed at school report a greater sense of belonging and higher grades, and are more likely to participate fully in class, according to a report released Tuesday by GLISTEN and the Trevor Project. Students report similar outcomes when they are able to connect with LGBTQ+ peers at school, see positive representations of LGBTQ+ people in their classrooms and attend schools with inclusive policies, such as those that allow them to compete on sports teams or use facilities that best align with their gender identities.
Wow, it's almost like treating people with a little respect and dignity makes a difference. No one can thrive when they're being talked down to and treated like something's wrong with them all the time. And even if someone's not constantly attacking you, it still makes you feel unwelcome when the norm is to do nothing to make you feel like you're welcome and valid. Trans kids are kids. Trans rights are human rights. Protect trans kids.
This is exactly how I feel as a fat guy in the age of Ozempic:
I’m a fat person. We are constantly badgered and tortured by a society that tells us to lose weight, at all costs. If you’re fat, that’s a moral failing: you’re lazy and unhealthy. If you’re fat at the gym, or jogging down the street, you’re an object of ridicule. If you lose weight with drugs, you didn’t earn it. If you’re fat and not self-flagellating at every moment, you’re glorifying obesity. If you lose weight for any reason, it then proves you were never really happy with yourself; it proves that fat is bad, that thinness was always the real goal. If you stay fat, we want you to admit you’re unhealthy. If you say you’re happy, we want to diagnose you with denial. So much of the condescension as well as plain cruelty towards fat people is packaged as “we just want you to be healthy”. If this were true (and if being skinny were the only marker of health, which it isn’t), nobody would be criticising John Goodman or other fat people for using medication, by saying it’s cheating.
You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. And fat shaming has become the norm these days; it's expected and encouraged by society. Even if you're going to get ridiculed for using a GLP-1 to lose weight, at least you lost the weight and aren't a reprehensible fat fuck anymore, right? It's not enough to simply lose weight; you have to earn your new status through humiliation too.
I've come to terms with being overweight. I'm okay with who I am at this point in my life. I spent the first half of adulthood strung out on opiates and cocaine. I was pretty damn skinny back then, and since I quit the better part of a decade ago, I've gained some weight. I'm not the poster child of perfect health by any means, but I'm doing a lot better than when I was living on a steady diet of drugs and honey buns.
Maybe I'll eventually get my shit together and lose some weight before I face certain death, but for now, I'm okay with just living my life. You'll have to excuse me for not wanting to revert to injecting a drug that makes me slimmer just to fit in with a society of shallow, self-appointed health experts.
“Most guys say that my vagina smells like strawberries and gunpowder. So I tried to duplicate that,” she said.
Honestly that's kinda fucking punk lmao get it girl.
A robot built by Beijing’s X-Humanoid ran 100 metres in 9.39 seconds at the World Humanoid Robot Games, beating Usain Bolt’s 9.58-second record. Roboticists point out that speed on a known course is far easier for a machine than folding laundry.
If you think that's impressive, let me introduce you to: cars.
👾 what I'm playing:
Alruna and the Necro-Industrialists by
Alruna is a compact and high-density Metroidvania, with a focus on sequence-breaking and playing things out of order.
Super fun little metroidvania. The link above is for Steam, but I'm playing it on the Switch. Anyone who knows me knows that metroidvanias are my jam. I've played every classic I can get my hands on, like all of the Metroid games, most of the Castlevania games, and plenty of indie stuff on my Switch and Steam. It took me a minute to get used to the controls and mechanics, but as soon as I did I started having a little anticipatory grief for when I finish it in the next day or two.
Lucky for me, it looks like a sequel just dropped pretty recently!
It genuinely feels like I'm playing a game for the SNES or Sega Genesis, and I respect that in a 'vania. 100% worth a look if you're into the genre.
📖 what I'm reading
Everything Will Swallow You by
I'm one of those dopes who hasn't read much fiction as an adult because I feel like it's "smarter" to read non-fiction. I realize that's really dumb, and I'm working on it. This is the first one of Tom's books I've ever read and the first fiction I've read in years. It's so good!
Eric and Carl live in Dorset in a small white cottage under the shadow of a big cliff. Eric sells old records and antiques. Carl cooks, cleans and crochets. Nearing seventy, Eric is a lifelong accumulator of obscure objects whose easygoing, chaotic approach to life masks some of the unaddressed sadness of his past. The significantly younger Carl is an old soul who has a sophisticated emotional intelligence and likes swimming, mid-century female novelists, fibre arts and Dolly Parton. If you passed them on a walk, you may not pay them much attention. Most likely you would see Carl's long floppy ears, tail and fur and mistake him for a dog.
I read that first paragraph of the book's description and immediately bought it on my Kindle. I saw a skeet from Tom saying he'll send you some post cards, a bookmark and a signed copy if you live in the UK so that's pretty neat. The above link is for the paperback.