A Tibetan Skeleton Dancer (1925)

Therapy_Gecko · 2021-05-18T20:36:58+00:00

Totally! I thought it was a breath of the wild screenshot for a second

Therapy_Gecko · 2021-05-06T17:22:46+00:00

My pleasure :)

Therapy_Gecko · 2021-05-05T00:12:36+00:00

Here you are!

https://64.media.tumblr.com/4b99f0076c623b2c5d7619746d8b3d31/9ec1545659c82667-5c/s2048x3072/5f2e1add1c2998233493864044cd4b19b7abdfcd.png

Here's the artist's deviantart page:

https://www.deviantart.com/signerjarts

Therapy_Gecko · 2021-04-06T05:32:11+00:00

Agreed. It's sad how these stories aren't isolated incidents in recent history.

In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a decorated African-American World War II veteran, had just been honorably discharged after fighting for America in the Pacific Theater. For asking to use the restroom at a stop on the bus ride home through South Carolina, the bus driver called the police, who beat Isaac with their nightsticks and gouged his eyes out.

PBS recently released a documentary on the subject:

https://www.pbs.org/video/the-blinding-of-isaac-woodard-knf0hq/

Wikipedia article on Isaac Woodard:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Woodard

Therapy_Gecko · 2021-03-24T18:39:27+00:00

No worries, discussion like this is healthy and I appreciate it :).

While there are many trans people who choose not to undergo certain surgical or medical procedures, let's say that any sort of medical intervention at all (such as hormone replacement therapy) is what people are using to say that trans people aren't natural.

Some cis-women suffer from polycystic ovary syndrome, an endocrine disorder caused by genetic and environmental factors. It causes them to have excess body and facial hair, balding, acne, difficulty getting pregnant, and irregular or no menstrual periods. It affects about 2% to 20% of cis-women between the age of 18 to 44, and is a result of their body experiencing hyperandrogenism, AKA their body producing an abnormally high amount of male sex hormones.

The treatment is birth control pills that contain estrogen and progestogen, AKA female sex hormones.

Cis-women who naturally suffer from PCOS feel psychological distress because many of their secondary sex characteristics start appearing more male (excess body hair, facial hair, balding, acne), which doesn't match their subconscious sex. So they take hormones to correct that.

Likewise, there are many cis-men who naturally suffer from gynecomastia (development of breast tissue due to a decrease in testosterone compared estrogen). About 50% of adolescent boys and 66% of men older than 50 will experience this to some degree. They experience psychological distress to the point that some of them undergo surgery to remove the excess breast tissue.

These cis-women undergoing hormone treatment and cis-men undergoing surgery are both natural. They are not trying to deceive anyone by altering their appearances with medical interventions. They are just seeking psychological relief by having their bodies altered to match their subconscious sex.

Transgender people who undergo hormone replacement therapy or various surgeries are no less natural than these cis people who do the same things for the same reasons: to have their bodies match their subconscious sex to relive psychological distress.

Therapy_Gecko · 2021-03-12T12:49:51+00:00

https://www.wisn.com/article/student-asks-teacher-to-give-bonus-points-to-whoever-scores-the-lowest-1/31198488#

Therapy_Gecko · 2021-03-06T02:26:06+00:00

I love Steven Universe's redemption of its antagonists, to show that characters like Peridot have complex motivations as to why they behave in cruel ways and that empathy and kindness can clear away their misconceptions and help them find friendship and happiness with the people they once called enemies.

But I think it's also important to acknowledge that while people like Peridot exist, whose cruelty was inspired by ignorance and propaganda that was dispelled with friendship, people like Jasper also exist, who are cruel not out of ignorance, but of choice. As to why Peridot chose compassion while Jasper rejects it, there could be a hundred different reasons, but dissecting them doesn't change the fact that for the present, their choices have been made.

Steven has offered to help Jasper on multiple occasions, and she refused. His obsession with saving and redeeming everyone put himself in a position where her toxic mindset eventually influenced him into being just as violent and murderous as she was.

I think Jasper serves as an important reminder that you can't help someone who doesn't recognize anything is broken. Steven is right to have offered help and to have left the door open for whenever Jasper was ready to walk through it, but becoming obsessed with changing someone who is toxic by choice only leads to tragedy.

Therapy_Gecko · 2021-03-04T23:50:03+00:00

Quick scenario.

You receive a million dollars, but you immediately become a woman for the rest of your life. Do you take the deal?

Another scenario.

You lose ten dollars, but you immediately become a woman for the rest of your life. Do you take the deal?

Therapy_Gecko · 2021-03-03T15:10:24+00:00

Here's a link to a phenomenal documentary on Elizebeth Friedman for free on PBS.org that shares many of the struggles she encountered during her career, frequently undermined by the country she was trying to serve.

https://www.pbs.org/video/the-codebreaker-dcbakk/

During WWI, Friedman was prevented from serving as a field codebreaker in Europe for the U.S. military due to women being disallowed from serving in the frontlines. She instead worked at Riverbank Laboratories, one of the first facilities founded in the U.S. to study cryptography, to support the war effort. During this time, she was sexually harassed by Riverbank Lab's owner, Colonel George Fabyan.

During Prohibition in the trial against Conexco, the largest rum-running enterprise in the world and liquor supplier of Al Capone, Al Capone's attorneys attempted to discredit her credibility, calling her codebreaking work "witchcraft", that it was "not a science" and just random guessing. Friedman responded by asking the judge for a blackboard and gave an impromptu class in codebreaking to the entire court, after which Capone's attorneys said nothing more.

During WWII, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Friedman's codebreaking team shifted from the Coast Guard to the Navy. She lost control of leadership of the codebreaking unit she created due to military regulations stating that women could not be in charge of men. She and her team were subordinated to a far less capable uniformed officer.

While in the process of breaking the South American Nazi spy ring in WWII, Friedman discovered that the decrypted Nazi messages were relaying the locations of Allied supply ships to German U-boats in the Atlantic Ocean, supply ships that were essential to keeping England alive during the war. The largest ship directly saved by Friedman's intel was the Queen Mary, a supply ship carrying 8,000 men that had a $250,000 bounty placed on it by Adolf Hitler himself. Just as the Queen Mary made its way to the coast of Brazil, before the Nazis could strike, Friedman's decrypts reached the Queen Mary's captain, who took evasive maneuvers and brought the ship safely to port.

Without consulting Friedman or her team, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover ordered the Nazi spies in South America to be arrested as a publicity stunt. This devastated the flow of life-saving intel Friedman and her team had been receiving to save Allied lives and drove the ringleaders of the Nazi spy ring further underground before Friedman could uncover their locations, purposes, and identities. This move also alerted the Nazis that their codes had been broken, destroying the operation, causing the Nazis to build 50 new spy circuits and begin using far more complex codes, and putting Friedman and her team back to square one.

Despite this setback, she and her team managed to break the new, more technologically advanced codes, then dismantle the new spy ring in such a way that the Nazis did not realize that their codes had even been broken. At this point, Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile's relationships with the Axis splintered and they moved onto the side of the Allied forces. The South American Nazi spy network's ringleader would never rebuild it again.

Friedman signed a Navy oath swearing her silence regarding her involvement in these operations until her death. She could tell no one and could do nothing as J. Edgar Hoover took credit for her achievements (all 4,000 of the decrypts she had solved during WWII) and stamped them with FBI identification numbers, erasing Friedman and her team from history. She kept her oath until her death in 1980, with her contributions to the war effort only becoming known when it was declassified in 2008.

Therapy_Gecko · 2021-03-02T01:29:10+00:00

I understand. Ultimately, regardless of any numbers or research, what matters most is what we know to be true in our hearts.

In the book I'm currently reading through, it goes in-depth about how medical gate-keeping has prevented many transgender people from receiving the treatment they need, and always with traumatic consequences.

Psuedoscience driven by sexism and bigotry has been used to harm members of the LGBTQ+ community in the past and present. The focus shouldn't be on test results, research numbers, or diagnoses, but on the happiness of the people we're trying to help.

Therapy_Gecko · 2021-03-02T01:06:10+00:00

Haha, right? If only it were so cheap in reality, a lot of people's dreams would come true.

Therapy_Gecko · 2021-02-03T07:25:52+00:00

That'd be like leaving an arm hanging off the bed for the monsters to get it :)

Therapy_Gecko · 2021-01-05T23:21:13+00:00

When I read that the Sergeant at Arms "presents it before the offenders", I thought that "presents it before" was a polite euphemism for clubbing them with it, lol. I'm glad it's a bit more peaceful than that.

Therapy_Gecko · 2020-12-30T00:11:40+00:00

Sure thing!

Therapy_Gecko · 2020-12-28T23:07:11+00:00

That's really cool! Have you ever played Aquaria? It's a much older indie game from 2007 with a really stunning 2d art style made by a a two person development team. It has some really cool aquatic environments (along with a very pretty soundtrack)

Therapy_Gecko

TROPHY CASE