so beautiful 😍
dandelion
joined 5 months ago
🫂 we love you - take care of yourself!
so happy to hear that - incredible! 🥰
aww, glad you're feeling gender euphoria - if you have the time, I would love to hear more details 👀
Sorry you got COVID, tho - that sucks. It seems like everyone I know is getting COVID right now.
damn, that's brutal - it sounds you you need to take care of yourself! 🫂
I started progesterone yesterday and it's already giving me better sleep, allowing me to sleep a little more deeply and longer than before. I had been having trouble even catching up on sleep on the weekend because I was just doing estrogen monotherapy, I would sleep like 6 hours and the body would wake up and I couldn't fall asleep, even if I felt tired.
I am on-board with taking multiple strategies, any political strategy that categorically ignores electoralism or militant direct action are likely making some kind of strategic error. However, this zine does not take that position. Some more context around the quote you provided, first it is under a heading:
Rejecting settler colonial authority, aka not voting.
The surrounding context of the quote:
Voting will never be “harm reduction” while colonial occupation & U.S. imperialism reigns. In order to heal we have to stop the harm from occurring, not lessen it. This doesn’t mean simply abstinence or ignoring the problem until it just goes away, it means developing and implementing strategies and maneuvers that empower Indigenous People’s autonomy. Since we cannot expect those selected to rule in this system to make decisions that benefit our lands and peoples, we have to do it ourselves.
They are saying we shouldn't ignore the problem that voting is supposed to reduce harm from, but directly address it with direct action. It is not saying we should still vote and participate in electoralism. Nowhere in this zine is it implied voting is any form of legitimate political action, and everywhere it implies it is 1. unhelpful and 2. wrong.
For example:
Consolidating the Native vote into a voting bloc that aligns with whatever settler party, politician, or law that appears to do less harm isn’t a strategy to exercise political power, it’s Stockholm syndrome.
To organize from a position that voting is an act of damage limitation blurs lines of the harm that settler and resource colonialism imposes. Under colonial occupation all power operates through violence. There is absolutely nothing “less harmful” about participating in and perpetuating the political power of occupying forces. Voting won’t undue [sic] settler colonialism, white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, or capitalism. Voting is not a strategy for decolonization.
Even if I agree that voting won't undo colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism it is clear that voting can reduce the harm of this system by avoiding some electoral outcomes and prioritizing others. This zine would be in a much stronger position if it were willing to take a slightly more nuanced position that voting should merely not be the top priority or focus for political action, which seems exceedingly reasonable and well grounded, but instead it argues the absurd position that voting and participating in electoralism can show any benefit or lessen any harm.
I can understand frustration with liberals and the dominant prevailing political culture in the U.S. which makes voting seem like the only legitimate form of politics, and so perhaps they feel the need to exaggerate or take a more extreme position as a counter-weight, but it needlessly weakens the position and will only effectively work as rhetoric for insiders who largely already agree and who will simply entrench themselves in symbolic positions like this against good sense, which primarily fractures the left and makes coalition-forming more difficult. I'm not calling for blind, authoritarian left-unity but politics are too important to not be smart and strategic, and I don't see arguing for not voting as the zine encourages helps on any front. The value and necessity of direct action can be demonstrated adequately without making a case that voting cannot reduce harm.
There is nothing intersectional about participating in and maintaining a genocidal political system. There’s no meaningful solidarity to be found in a politics that urges us to meet our oppressors where they’re at. Voting as harm reduction imposes a false solidarity upon those identified to be most vulnerable to harmful political policies and actions.
Perhaps some liberals feel when they vote they participate in a solidarity with the poor and oppressed, but this would be deluded thinking. I don't see why this negates the value of voting for other reasons, however.
The logic of voting as harm reduction asserts that whoever is facing the most harm will gain the most protection by the least dangerous denominator in a violently authoritarian system.
Is it true that some groups are endangered by one party such that voting for the other might be protective? I cannot tell if the author denies this is true, or that it doesn't do enough to protect and thus should be discarded as "too little, too late". The question is fundamentally whether voting has any benefit or political relevance at all, or whether the benefit and relevance is simply considered too little compared to the moral risk of participating.
This settler-colonial naivety places more people, non-human beings, and land at risk then otherwise. Most typically the same liberal activists that claim voting is harm reduction are found denouncing and attempting to suppress militant direct actions and sabotage as acts that “only harm our movement.” “Voting as harm reduction” is the pacifying language of those who police movements.
I don't see how voting, and particularly voting as a "harm reduction" strategy, poses greater risk than refusing to vote. Liberals suppressing direct actions and sabotage is not the same thing as voting as harm reduction, even if some of those liberals will argue for voting instead, that is not the only way to approach voting, i.e. they are clearly not mutually exclusive (you can engage in militant direct action, and vote). If anything, policing militants to not vote is some of the same policing of strategies that the liberals do, just in the other direction. I still don't see a pragmatic justification for refusing to vote, even if I see pragmatic justifications for refusing the calls to not engage in direct action or sabotage (even if sometimes activists blunder in their actions and fail to reach their political goals because they did not assess the situation properly, it is clear that militant direct action can be useful and even necessary in achieving certain political ends, see: the Magna Carta, the liberal revolutions, the Haymarket Affair, etc.).
Direct action, or the unmediated expression of individual or collective desire, has always been the most effective means by which we change the conditions of our communities.
Even if this is true (which I personally think it is), it does not demonstrate that voting isn't also a form of political action that can have consequence (and for many, is less demanding of time, energy, and risk than direct action). I don't see a pragmatic argument in this paper for refusing the strategy of voting, even if I see plenty of reasons here to do much more than vote (though as usual we are left with vague notions of "direct action" and not specific calls-to-action, which is fine but might be unsatisfying for some who might agree and want to take the next step).
What do we get out of voting that we cannot directly provide for ourselves and our people? What ways can we organize and make decisions that are in harmony with our diverse lifeways? What ways can the immense amount of material resources and energy focused on persuading people to vote be redirected into services and support that we actually need? What ways can we direct our energy, individually and collectively, into efforts that have immediate impact in our lives and the lives of those around us?
The resources put into getting out the vote are not resources that would necessarily otherwise be used for good. I would think the liberals and corporate PACs are primarily funding those get-out-the-vote campaigns, and that money isn't going to go where we want if we Just Don't Vote (if anything, I would think not voting would increase the amount of money being wasted on trying to get out the vote, as low voter turnout would on paper justify further increased funding).
Of course, the money could & should be put to better use, but the framing implies collectively refusing to vote will ensure this happens, and I don't see anything that makes this seem like a likely outcome.
What strategies and actions can we devise to make it impossible for this system to govern on stolen land?
Not too long ago socialists and anarchists collaborated in suffragist movements precisely to help increase the political power of oppressed groups like women, not just out of capitalist identity politics, but out of more radical political commitments. Voting, and getting groups like women the right to vote, are precisely some of the strategies that have been used to disrupt the patriarchal system. We should not throw out a political tool simply because it does not fill all purposes.
In our rejection of the abstraction of settler colonialism. we don’t aim to seize colonial state power but to abolish it.
We seek nothing but total liberation.
That is great, will liberation be achieved in the timeline of elections? Will it be possible to avoid the harm of refusing to vote, demotivating liberals from forming coalitions with the left by depending on leftist votes, and allowing those elections to be won by increasingly right-wing political actors? I am for total liberation, but until it is here there is a lot we care about, a lot worth defending.
What real risks of not voting if total liberation is not here soon? What pragmatic political outcome is gained by not voting? Do the benefits of not voting outweigh the risks?
Usually the blood work will vary heavily depending on when you last took a dose. When I get blood work, I do it right before I am going to inject so that the blood levels are at the lowest they could be (the "trough"). With oral I would imagine your E blood levels will fluctuate significantly, so when you last took a pill will make a big difference in terms of what your blood labs show.
The problem with taking larger and larger oral doses is that it doesn't absorb better and you are just potentially taxing your liver. At the very least I would try out sublingual route and see if that helps 🤷♀️
I wish you luck dear, it's not easy figuring this stuff out (esp. with clueless doctors).
So your testosterone is really low !! But I would personally consider estrogen too low, though you know your own body best. When did you get the blood work done compared to the last dose you took?
I think the common conservative recommendation is to have between 100 - 200 pg/mL so your blood work looks good on paper, but I personally found below 300 at trough was mentally difficult for me. I use estrogen as my anti-androgen ("monotherapy"), so I take a larger dose than most.
You might consider aiming for higher blood levels of E and with a better & safer route of administration.
I am a wuss too, it was extremely difficult for me to overcome my needle phobia (I mean, literally breaking down crying after some injections, taking a long time to overcome the mental block to actually push the needle in, just so so so hard for me). But you do get used to it, and it's not bad after you get some practice.
Also, I inject subcutaneously, so I use really small needles that don't hurt at all (literally, I sometimes can't feel the needle). That was crucial for me in overcoming needle phobia, I think it would be much harder to inject intramuscularly (IM).
Even if you still can't do injections, I would encourage doing something to avoid oral, even sublingual troches which have their own problems might still help with absorption, and even better would be patches or gel.
If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend reading this: https://transfemscience.org/articles/transfem-intro/
It's a bit long and technical, but it might help (it certainly helped me).
You've been on HRT for a decade? If you don't mind me asking, what ester & dose and what route of administration? Do you get blood tests and if so what are your levels like?
IRL I met some trans elders who had been on HRT for a while and didn't see any effects from it (almost no breast growth or much change to their face beyond skin softening some, etc.). I think they were taking the estrogen orally, and they weren't sure exactly about their blood levels, but they thought they were fine.
When taken orally, I think around 80% of the estrogen is filtered out by the liver, so it can be hard to get enough estrogen that way and there are peaks and troughs multiple times a day (it is ideal when taking oral to dose 3 - 5 times a day to ensure even and adequate estrogen through the day). Patches & gel are all better than oral, but injections seem the best in terms of getting a consistently high enough level of estrogen.
Sorry, I still don't understand where you are coming from. Do you mean a loophole to avoid discrimination against you, or a loophole that enables discrimination?
EDIT: If it's the latter, LGBTQ+ housing discrimination is legal because the Fair Housing Act does not mention sexual orientation or gender identity as protected classes, so housing discrimination based on those attributes are legal by default, and only outlawed in states that passed legislation to do so, see the map here.
If you are asking about the mechanism of how discrimination works, and how to evade that discrimination as a person in a LGBTQ+ category, that is a big topic and the answers are highly contextual. The obvious strategy is to try to hide or make less obvious your sexual orientation or gender identity, which is easier for some and impossible for others.
For example, if you are a married same-sex couple who both want to be on a lease together, it might to be harder to hide your sexual orientation from a potential landlord you are trying to get that lease with. Others might find a way to make it seem as though they are just roommates. Not every gay person is equally capable of passing as straight.
Another example: if you have recently started transitioning and you are visibly trans (i.e. not cis-passing), you are much more likely to have your application to rent an apartment or house denied (HUD found in 2011 that 19% of trans people surveyed reported this happening to them). Whether you are cis-passing is based on a lot of factors out of your control, such as how much money and time you can sink into your transition (e.g. many trans people can't afford expensive laser hair removal and gender affirming surgeries), how early you started your transition, how long you have been transitioning, whether you are taking hormones, and of course a lot of it is dependent on genetics.
Made souvlakis on the grill. Tofu & red onion kebabs, tzatziki sauce, pita bread, gold potato fries, tomato, lettuce.
Marinade for tofu was red wine vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil, and fresh mint & oregano from the garden. Pressed the tofu then put in marinade for a few hours.
Then I put the tofu on skewers with red onion and grilled them: https://imgur.com/a/1kiMvfE
Tzatziki sauce was made with Kite Hill Greek-style yogurt (which IMO isn't rich enough, I would have made my own cashew based yogurt from scratch if I had the extra time). Also included minced garlic cloves, minced fresh dill and mint, coarsely grated cucumbers that were salted and then squeezed with a towel to remove liquid, and some lemon juice, olive oil, salt & pepper, etc.
Pita bread was made with freshly milled wheat berries (hard white, soft white, hard red, einkorn, and spelt berries). Also used a pre-ferment to reduce the amount of yeast I needed. Also cooked those on a cast-iron in the grill, which worked well.
A lot of work, but quite delicious.
What all have you been cooking recently?
ingredients:
- beyond beef with onions & taco seasoning,
- nacho cheez (homemade, the base is cashews, potato, and carrot),
- pickled onion,
- pickled jalapeno,
- lettuce,
- tomato,
- flour burrito tortilla,
- fried 6" corn tortilla for tostada, and
- homemade cashew sour cream.
recipes to get you going the right direction (not all are vegan):
- https://minimalistbaker.com/5-minute-vegan-cashew-queso/
- https://www.food.com/recipe/copycat-taco-bell-seasoned-beef-537562
- Joshua Weissman
For the sour cream, I put 1 cup cashews with 1 TB vinegar (preferably something like sherry vinegar, ACV works too), maybe 1/4 tsp of salt (to taste), and enough water to get to the desired consistency ("as needed"). Blend in a high-powered blender like a Vitamix until smooth.
Can also inoculate with a yogurt culture and skip the vinegar and then ferment it if you have the time (use a yogurt maker and instructions, then ferment longer for a more sour flavor).
Adapted from this recipe:
More photos of the pizza being made: https://imgur.com/a/npeE1e8
based on this recipe (not intended as an endorsement):
https://www.eatfigsnotpigs.com/chicken-caesar-salad-pizza-vegan/
toppings:
- herbed compound butter (fresh parsley, minced garlic, oregano)
- tomato slices
- red onion slices
- mozz.
- breaded and fried tofu (as a kind of chkn)
- caesar salad dressing (mayo, cashew cream, mustard, capers, parm, lemon juice)
- lettuce
- parm
- bacon bits (used this recipe)
Toppings:
- tofu scramble (pressed tofu blocks broken up and flavored with black salt, turmeric, onion & garlic powder, nooch, smoked paprika, black pepper; allowed to sit in the fridge for a long time to absorb the flavor; then pan-fried with onions)
- spicy beyond breakfast sausage
- some violife "feta" cheez (tasted like the mildest goat cheese, could sub with Miyokos cashew mozzarella, or go with a cheddar cheez)
- bacon bits (I was going to use Horray foods bacon but ran out, so I made some roughly based on Pot Thickens's recipe)
- extra nooch for cheezy flavor
- slices were garnished with green onions
Sauce was a sausage gravy, basically I made a roux with flour and Melt vegan butter, soaked cashews and blended them with a high powered blender into a cream, added maybe 1 tsp of white miso paste and maybe a few TB of mushroom powder and a 1/2 tsp of Better Than Bouillon no-chkn bouillon. Slowly incorporated broth into the roux until it formed a paste, then I added the cream. I cooked up a single patty of Original Beyond Breakfast Sausage and broke it into pieces and then incorporated that into the gravy.
The crust was made out of freshly milled whole wheat (I used spelt, hard red winter wheat, and soft white wheat berries) and used a sourdough starter. I also subbed a Dos Equis beer for the water (just trying to use it up) and that added some flavor.
This pizza was much, much better than I expected. Far exceeded expectations. I had never heard of a breakfast pizza before, apparently it's something people get at gas stations? Either way, this pizza is a winner.
Next time I plan to use omelette toppings, like:
- spinach
- black olives
- tomatoes
- avocado
- bell pepper
- mushrooms
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That's awesome, thanks for sharing! ❤️