Finding Beauty

"Artists can colour the sky red because they know it's blue. Those of us who aren't artists must colour things the way they really are or people might think we're stupid."
-Jules Feiffer

Any theory of gender, if it’s to have any meaning or usefulness or validity at all, must speak to the actual full realities of gender. And that requires speaking to the actual realities of gender variance. All of them. Not just whichever ones you can slot into the pet theory you refuse to abandon for fear of losing a political edge, or fear of admitting to having been wrong. It requires speaking to the actual lived experiences of human beings, all of them, not telling certain people that their lives are wrong, or don’t exist, so that you can continue believing whatever makes you comfy or meets your particular political goals. Your degrees, ambitions, publications or worries over how a fact might be misinterpreted do not trump anyone else’s actual existence. Views must be adapted to fit the facts. Otherwise, yours is just another inaccurate worldview imposed by the privileged on the actual world, and the lives within it.

Otherwise, you’re not addressing the social dynamics of gender. You’re covering them up, and thereby perpetuating the problem.

—Natalie Reed, Fourth Wave: Part Two (via kiriamaya)

(via sociolab)

davvesprite:

Things you do not say to an asexual

  • how do you know you don’t want sex you’ve never had it
  • it’s just a phase
  • grow up
  • your hormones just haven’t kicked it yet
  • ‘prude’
  • you must fear sex
  • you just haven’t met the right person
  • so do you split in half?
  • you are in denial
  • asexuality doesn’t exist
  • There must be something wrong with you

(via genderedge)

mckeegles:

justtakeitforgranted reblogged your photo: did-you-kno: Source I fucking love Koko

I hope this is real.

I know for a fact that Koko was taught sign and that at one point or another she got lonely and told the people in charge of her that she wanted a baby, which I guess is where the cat came from. I hadn’t heard this particular story about her, but it doesn’t sound that far off.

Yeah, she had a kitten - that I already knew - which is why I didn’t bother fact-checking. Still, the internet, so…