leigh

Hah, good one. 😆 And ‘grats to your sister! It’s a big step. 😊

💯 A cishet person who treats “ally” as a verb is WAY more helpful than one who only wears it as a noun.

Other people here are already doing a great job of covering the “what we think” and “whether welcome in queer spaces or not” aspects of your question, so let me dive into this part instead:

…someone who’s not in the space or actively an ally. I would more accurately describe myself currently as a “don’t care” person in the sense that to me it genuinely does not matter what someone identifies as or who someone is attracted to.

Ever watch the TV show Ted Lasso? There was a scene in the final season where one of the players on the football (soccer) team came out as gay. The other players tell him they “don’t care”, meaning to be supportive but not actually succeeding. Ted gives a speech and, as his character admits afterward, makes a poor comparison — but still does a good job of communicating to the others that they should care. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcaUZ9R0y2c

So, like… I’m glad you’re not antagonizing any of us, but that’s just kind of the bare minimum for being decent, you know? And that is somewhat similar to racial discrimination: as a white person in North America, telling Black people I “don’t care that they’re Black” would tell them I haven’t considered that being Black is something core to their identity and how they experience the world because of the way society works. It would tell them I still see whiteness as the “default” but it’s “okay” to be something else. It would tell them that I might say something if I witnessed blatant racism happening, but they shouldn’t count on me to do so because I haven’t made any effort to learn how racism actually works and I might back down if I feel speaking up would put myself at any risk. But I do care, so I try to educate myself, and I look for opportunities to practice anti-racism. I absolutely make mistakes, but they tend to be easily forgiven so long as I show a willingness to listen, learn, and try.

But hey… I freely admit that I was way older than 18 when I finally started listening to people and began understanding all of this! So I absolutely don’t mean to “rake you over the coals” or anything. I just tell you these things because I hope you grow into a better person faster than I managed to. 🙂💜

Sending best wishes that your family will be safe and sound soon. 💜 If you choose to do any work on Memmy during this time, please let it only be because you need to do it for yourself, like as a distraction or just to feel some sort of normalcy. You don’t owe us a thing.

not supplying them to Ukraine gives russia an advantage, thus being against the US supplying them to Ukraine is de-facto a pro-russian stance.

I strongly disagree with you here. I’m not against providing any weapons to Ukraine, I just believe there are better options than cluster munitions — options which won’t still be killing civilians in the decades to come. I don’t believe that cluster munitions are in any way essential to Ukraine’s defence.

Ukraine and its allies can’t do anything (short of surrendering, which I certainly don’t advocate) to stop Russia’s use of them, and there will be long-term consequences. But that doesn’t make it a good — or even neutral — idea to add on additional long-term consequences. The more unexploded ordinance, the more danger to residents in the future.

I think I prefer the old one, honestly, and I’d switch back if the option were available. But hey, it’s just an icon and the new one certainly isn’t bad or anything. 🙂

As someone who has endured religious bigotry for much of my life, Catholic “health care” infuriates me. I really wish we’d take all that public money and invest it in facilities that don’t push their dogma on other people in their most vulnerable times.

I have a complex enough medical history that I have it printed on a wallet card. (Two reasons: in case I’m incapacitated, and in case I have trouble remembering all the details.) One of my big fears is that someday I’ll be unconscious and paramedics will fail to see or respect the bold-print “Do not take me to a Catholic hospital” instruction, and the Catholic hospital will treat me extra-poorly when they see it.

I know it sounds fun, but that will almost certainly backfire. Most likely it would feed the “persecution complex” many religious groups feel even when they’re in the majority and convince them to “dig their heels in” and become even more staunch in their wrong-headed beliefs. 😔

I read this more as a condemnation of the US (as opposed to Ukraine) for enabling further use of an indiscriminate weapon that will have civilian consequences for decades to come. But alas, it’s what I expect from those warmongers to our south. 😔

It’s all good, whenever the fix comes is fine, you’re already super on top of things. 😄

I get the same error when I accidentally downvote (I often slide too far since I’m on an iPad) and the instance I’m on definitely has downvotes disabled.

You made me wheezy-laugh and my eyes water for real. 😂 Thanks, I needed a good laugh!