I would just like to both validate and challenge your view of the UK. I lived in Torquay (Devon, so the southwest) for a good long while, albeit during the height of lockdowns, and community felt nonexistant. There were some punk-type-folks attempting to get stuff started right when I moved away, but only just then iirc.
I moved to Inverness (Scottish Highlands) and it’s night and day. There’s a queer community doing hella shit, there’s a tool library popping off, lots of good local initiatives are being organised and taking off.
My kneejerk response is to say that Inverness beats the hell outta Torquay. But the thing is, about 4-5 years ago NONE OF THE STUFF I mentioned was going on. The queer meetup was organised by one dude who moved up from London and was gobsmacked that there wasn’t an active community. Now it’s consistently a huge, weekly event. There are even offshoots of quieter meetups that had to be created because the main one is So Successful. But all the local queers will tell you that before this started, they thought they were all alone up here.
And the tool library is only about a year old, but keeping on well.
So on one hand, yeah, I think the UK has a very… independent culture. But once someone identifies a need in a community and fills that need, people tend to show up and appreciate it.
Also, i reckon this is a good time to be an organiser. People are tired of being alone during a pandemic, people are tired of seeing what other communities do via the internet and want their communities to do the same.
What an awesome thing. Reminds me of the Trans Couch Network on tumblr back in the day, I always wondered if there was something else to take its place.
(I have the same concerns as I did then of the potential for abuse, like someone else said, but I don’t have any actionable advice/etc yet. But queer housing is a major Thing to me so I might do some research/thinking on the subject of abuse mitigation, if that’s welcome)
Very much inspired by the recent post about what anti work actually means. If you were free from the “work or starve” paradigm, what would you do with your time? No wrong answers....
I can see the concern, as a trans and nonbinary person, about the phrasing of the headline. Casual readers will totally think the actual guidance says “if you fuck up a person’s pronouns, you go to jail” or whatever.
But not the guidance itself. We need more protections against intentional, malicious misgendering as verbal harassment. Which is usually less “she said— oops, they said—“ and more stuff like “(female coworker) put has pronouns in her signature? I thought she was a REAL WOMAN”
(The second being a real example from a friends work place. Funny thing is, friend is stealth trans and the coworker being misgendered is cis, but i digress)
But yeah all that aside I think the real context is misgendering when someone needs the bathroom, e.g. “you’re in the wrong bathroom” type comments. Where we really need stronger protections.
I’m swimming-with-mermaids delighted to reveal the cover of my next solarpunk mystery novel, Missing Mermaid. Right now I’m deciding how best to arrange the text on the cover. Do you recommend option one (author name on her tail) or option two (author name and title both up in the sky)?...
I like option 2, I thought I would prefer Option 1 before I saw 2 but it’s executed really well in 2! Also, that illustration is gorgeous, and thank you for sharing the illustrator’s details. I want my next novel to be solarpunk, and I am definitely in the market for a new cover artist…
I need to add this and Murder in the Tool Library to my storygraph. And preorder/buy a copy of both tbh.
Part of the issue could be in overlap of identities. I could have identified myself as transmasc on the poll, but I chose nonbinary instead. Both are true most days, anyways.
Oh hell yeah, what a great excuse to write more! And the prize money is not freakin shabby. Like I could put a sizeable chunk towards creating the kind of future I want to write about.
This makes me so happy because at least half of the things in community sufficiency column are things I see happening in my city. Saw a flier for a fermentation course recently as well as general veg growing, not to mention the community gardening initiative where people plant edible plants in public spaces. I still need to find a day I can help out with that one. Then we have a local mattress store that sells bespoke and/or handmade mattresses for affordable prices, and specifically employs disabled folk so they can be paid a living wage while upskilling. Then there’s the tool library that’s saved many a DIY project of mine…
I live in a chronically underfunded part of Scotland. In the past i lived in an underfunded part of England. Don’t get me wrong, no city should be underfunded to start with, that’s a government crime imo. But the Scottish city took underfunding and went “fuck the government, we have each other” while the English city just kept crumbling.
All of this said not to brag, but because it proves that this shit can work, does work, and is working. And i find that inspiring.
I was just having a conversation with my wife this morning about my anxiety about the first time I was going to be confronted for my identity. I told her how I felt like it was going to happen soon as I stop passing as cis. Being in a red state in a very rural area makes these anxieties spiral....
A friend literally just gifted me a copy of this because I’ve been feeling so burnt out by capitalism, and let me tell you, I devoured that book. It spoke to my weary soul. And made me want to quit my job (I already was wanting to quit my job)
The other morning my dogs woke me up way too damn early, but it meant I got to watch a very fat pigeon on the power line behind my house, and I got to see the finch population rapidly increase around it. (I swear I saw one little bird and by the time I got out of bed there were 5 jetting around. Pigeon did not move.)
I agree that these are luxuries for a lot of people. Some of them can be found with mindset shifts (from “fuck you dogs” to “oh look, pretty birds” for example) but it’s also hard to shift your mindset to positivity when our society tries its damnedest to beat happiness out of you.
Edit: Jesus Christ, people. If you buy a $150 Thinkpad made by slave labor instead of a $1,200 MacBook made by slave labor, you’re still supporting a capitalist economy based on slave labor. We all do. We have no choice. The number of smug liberals in the comments saying “well I buy a cheap used laptop” or “well I buy...
So a perspective I haven’t seen here yet: in many places, Starbucks is the only suitable third space left. I.e. place that is not work/school or home. I have non-Starbucks cafes nearby, but due to astronomical and increasing rent for all the independent cafes in walking distance, they are in smaller buildings and they can’t afford to have people sitting for hours on laptops using the WiFi/talking to friends/reading a book. I still support my local cafes for food and coffee, or really short meetings with folks, but if I need to get out of the house and spend time in public where I’m not obligated to speedrun my coffee, Starbucks is The Choice.
And that’s why i might be inside of a Starbucks while hating capitalism. Because capitalism made Starbucks the only corporation able to afford proper cafe space.
(There is a library nearby, yes, but not with good space for sitting down and working on a laptop. And even having THAT Is a massive privilege)
(Also I actually do have a MacBook that I do my personal stuff on, because of various bits of software i need that are OS specific, which is annoying as heck but i got used to my work mac anyways and then found a nice one used… so yeah.)
I’m so interested in this subject, but I have no societally-wide answers. I’m coming at this from the perspective of someone solarpunky who will have a child soon, and then as someone who will be educating that child eventually. I know what I WILL NOT do is send them to American public school, because of my own traumatising experience in that situation. Also because I live in the UK now. But I don’t want to send them to UK public school either, if I can help it. Still too much focus on rule following and “behaviours” as things to be changed, instead of behavior as communication.
In the years before kiddo goes to school, or if I choose to home educate, I’m gonna try pulling in some inspiration from montessori/waldorf/reggio emelia styles. (I’m realising now that I know those names but not exactly what they stand for anymore. Gotta redo my research, because I know they’re all a mixed bag)
But I think the ideal for school is time in nature, problem solving, finding answers over memorising them, etc. Big emphasis on time in nature, too-- I very much love tech and that should play a part in education too, but learning how the world in its most basic state works is so important. Especially with regards to where food and utilities come from.
Oh I feel you on the “how do I afford living” bit. I’m a senior software engineer—arguably the career people say makes some of the best money—and I still feel broke as fuck constantly.
(I mean I’m in the UK so it’s not Silicon Valley Monopoly money but STILL)
Seconding the question on what kind of PT stuff you’d go for, because I often consider the same.
UK based Senior software engineer here (by title anyways, I have a little over 3 years experience iirc so I’m more a mid stage-wise). I kinda use indeed, mostly use linkedin and recruiters though. My last two jobs, a recruiter just reached out to me with companies I’d never heard of or looked for. But I got on their radars by applying to postings on linkedin.
We’re not talking about hair colour though, this is obviously reducing a pic of some friends to “haha big booba small booba”. That’s kind of textbook objectification.
I have a few conditions that affect my spoon usage, like autism/ADHD and mild chronic fatigue. But I’m also pregnant, which means every day I put N+1 spoons into the “avoid nausea” drawer, and there’s a steadily increasing multiplier on any activity that means I have to walk places. Lately being vertical too long costs a bit o spoon.
All this to say that yesterday my husband sent me this comic and I immediately replied “that’s me”.
(A good percentage of his messages to me consist of Foxes in Love comics, and they are ALWAYS incredibly accurate)
Moving to a city with a tool library. For an annual £20 fee I can borrow any of a myriad of power tools. Currently using an orbital sander for some DIY, previously borrowed a hedge trimmer for the garden, it’s freaking great.
While I don’t feel like this shills IKEA that badly, i wanna thank you for giving me the term “fast fashion of furniture” because I had yet to find a way to explain why I fucking hate IKEA furniture
(Caveat that fast fashion/furniture is a complex, awful issue when we’re paid in pennies and still required to have clothes and also like sleeping in beds. But I fucking hate when it’s unnecessary)
The one-of-a-kind glow-in-the-dark playground Joya at Oran Good Park in Texas is now officially open. City officials at Farmers Branch, a town just 20 minutes outside Dallas, welcomed the public to the 18,000-square-foot park on Saturday, January 20....
Good point in this context (of Texas), moreover it’d be WAY more useful in places higher up latitude-wise. It gets dark REALLY early here in Northern Scotland, and stuff like this would be way more tangibly useful.
Though also, being from Texas, I just want kids going outside there… at all.
Eastern Prickly Pear about to pop! (slrpnk.net)
So many flower buds!...
community is punk (slrpnk.net)
Join the Trans Housing Network matrix room (matrix.to)
If you are having issues finding housing as a trans person or would like to help others, consider joining this new matrix chat room....
Discussion: what would you do in a post-work society?
Very much inspired by the recent post about what anti work actually means. If you were free from the “work or starve” paradigm, what would you do with your time? No wrong answers....
New Federal Rules Protect LGBTQ People From Misgendering, Bathroom Bans (truthout.org)
working on cover for my next solarpunk novel (slrpnk.net)
I’m swimming-with-mermaids delighted to reveal the cover of my next solarpunk mystery novel, Missing Mermaid. Right now I’m deciding how best to arrange the text on the cover. Do you recommend option one (author name on her tail) or option two (author name and title both up in the sky)?...
Lemmy's Transmasculine Problem
Y’all, we have a problem....
Feeder for small birds (lemm.ee)
Made from sticks, wire and a plastic lid from a box of liquorice.
Imagine 2200: Write the future contest (grist.org)
self sufficiency and community sufficiency - both are necessary, neither are sufficient (slrpnk.net)
I was approached in public for being clocked as trans
I was just having a conversation with my wife this morning about my anxiety about the first time I was going to be confronted for my identity. I told her how I felt like it was going to happen soon as I stop passing as cis. Being in a red state in a very rural area makes these anxieties spiral....
you don't need consumerism or mass media to be happy (slrpnk.net)
how can something be so courageous and yet so true (slrpnk.net)
Edit: Jesus Christ, people. If you buy a $150 Thinkpad made by slave labor instead of a $1,200 MacBook made by slave labor, you’re still supporting a capitalist economy based on slave labor. We all do. We have no choice. The number of smug liberals in the comments saying “well I buy a cheap used laptop” or “well I buy...
What would education in a SolarPunk society look like to you?
Curious to hear people’s ideas on how education would look in such a world....
Where do you look when applying for jobs?
It might also help to specify details such as...
That's some big inflation (files.catbox.moe)
I've run out (sh.itjust.works)
src: Foxes in Love
What's a thing that increased your power?
Doesn’t have to be a thing you bought. Just some thing you didn’t have but then once you did it expanded your scope of actions....
Spent 8.5 hrs in IKEA (lemmy.world)
The makers of Palworld are desperate to hire more developers: 'We are overwhelmingly short of people' (www.pcgamer.com)
Unique glow-in-the-dark playground opens in Texas (www.mysanantonio.com)
The one-of-a-kind glow-in-the-dark playground Joya at Oran Good Park in Texas is now officially open. City officials at Farmers Branch, a town just 20 minutes outside Dallas, welcomed the public to the 18,000-square-foot park on Saturday, January 20....
Any obscure community you're a part of that you wish would grow?
Besides lemmy of course
Happy New Year (sopuli.xyz)