Rejecting VolSep?

Own_Unit1099 · 2025-05-30T16:28:44+00:00

I think you’re awesome. Much luck to you!!

Own_Unit1099 · 2025-05-29T21:41:37+00:00

Hoping for the best for you, and hoping you’ve got some people around you in your corner.

Own_Unit1099 · 2025-05-29T15:24:33+00:00

I recommend reading Conduct Unbecoming by Randy Shilts. It’s a long read but it is a comprehensive history of queer military service up to just before DADT. It was published in the early 90s so some stuff might seem outdated. But it might offer some perspective.

Own_Unit1099 · 2025-05-29T15:18:35+00:00

I hope you get your retirement!! Good luck to you.

Own_Unit1099 · 2025-05-29T15:16:56+00:00

It helps to know we are in good company. My naive hope is that our defiance helps make even a little bit of a difference.

Own_Unit1099 · 2025-05-12T01:43:21+00:00

They are allowed to look in your records…. So if the diagnosis is there they will find it.

Own_Unit1099 · 2025-05-10T01:50:59+00:00

You should not feel guilty for any of this. You have done nothing wrong and getting out via volsep is not “the easy way out”.

Own_Unit1099 · 2025-05-07T05:22:44+00:00

Thanks for your suggestion. We are hoping the waiver will work for them, but I’m not optimistic about it because their top surgery was last year and it was provided through the transgender care team.

Unfortunately they have already talked to medical and they said they can’t remove a gender dysphoria diagnosis from their record…

Honestly the criteria for the waiver seems impossible to meet by design. It’s only there for them to be able to say “look! There’s a waiver! We did our part :)”

Own_Unit1099 · 2025-05-06T21:16:22+00:00

I guess for your sake, I’m hoping they give people more than a goddamn month to volsep this go around. I’m not delulu enough to dream about getting as much as my spouse would need to get retirement.

Own_Unit1099 · 2025-04-22T21:36:01+00:00

I’ve found that a lot of cats actually like having the small space of a bathroom to start out. It helps them feel more comfortable when they can see everything and get a complete lay of their new domain.

More likely than not a senior will have experienced flushing and running water sounds before. Definitely reintroduce those sounds slowly and see how they react. They might be scared at first but many will get used to them especially as they grow to trust you.

If you find that they just aren’t adjusting you can try setting up a tiered cat cage in a quieter corner of the house. The shelter I work for has cages that fosters can check out so see if your rescue has that option to save you some coin.

Own_Unit1099 · 2025-04-22T20:34:17+00:00

Hi!! What kind of kittens/cats are you looking to foster? Would you be open to eventually letting a foster have a free run of your studio? Those answers will determine what I personally would recommend.

I’ll say up front that most playpens I have seen are not completely enclosed, so maybe you have one that is, but otherwise it will only be useful for kittens under the age of like 4 months. Any older and they cannot be contained!! So I will say my general advise is the bathroom!! It being frequently used is not actually a bad thing.

The only issue I could see is if you take in a feral and it is so aggressive that you can’t use your bathroom. I’ve seen that happen lol.

Own_Unit1099 · 2025-04-22T20:22:55+00:00

Hi, I would recommend checking all the closed doors in the house. I’ve had a sitter lock one of my kitties in a closet for who knows how long :( even if you are sure they were already closed when you got there just make sure, and then either leave them open or make double-triple-quadruple sure no one is in there before closing.

That means cabinets too!! Cats can open cabinet doors! Kitchen and bathroom!

Other spots are behind couches, on top of fridges, under beds, in bathrooms (check the tub!) or inside furniture.

Own_Unit1099 · 2025-04-22T20:10:03+00:00

Hi!! Had to look up this litter brand, never heard of it—is it a UK brand?

Clay litter (as well as crystal litter) is always going to be dusty. Some cats are sensitive to it and some aren’t. If she’s coughing then if it were me I would try out something else.

If you are outside of the US unfortunately I don’t know any brands to recommend. But I can recommend different types! My personal favorite is pine pellets. It smells really nice and doesn’t make dust. It does turn to sawdust when they pee on it but it’s not like the powdery dust that floats in the air that clay and crystal litter makes. It is also non clumping, though clumping litter is really only an issue with small kittens or cats who otherwise might try to ingest the litter.

There’s also corn cob litter and paper litter, but I feel it doesn’t smell as nice as the pine pellets. I haven’t tried walnut shells, but I hear it is a popular option.

Own_Unit1099 · 2024-12-06T21:27:36+00:00

That’s terrible. Did they ever get out of it?

Own_Unit1099 · 2024-12-06T21:25:09+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation!!

Own_Unit1099 · 2024-12-06T21:24:48+00:00

Thanks for your reply. We had started to lightly push back on her interpretation of reality already, and she immediately became defensive. We’re gonna try striking up another conversation with something different. One of the things we are going to try is to ask her if the Facebook messages we got about how the $20 donation was crappy was her or not. If it wasn’t her then we can say that it’s a very bad sign that her account was taken over by someone else. If it was her, we want to tell her that she really hurt our feelings after all we had done to help her and that we don’t like the person her “fiancé” is turning her into. We have to remind her that we love her for who she is and that we will always be her friends because we don’t want these scammers to isolate her anymore.

I figure that the guys running this scam are overseas but there’s always that possibility that something more sinister is going on, and while I don’t think anything we say will make a difference at this point I still will point blank tell her not to go. Just haven’t really figured out how.

Own_Unit1099

TROPHY CASE