This. All Of This. I Have No Issue With Painting Nails, As I Feel Like It Can Be A Fun Thing To Add A

This. All of this. I have no issue with painting nails, as I feel like it can be a fun thing to add a little color to life, and unlike makeup or shaving, I feel like society doesn't tend to give a shit whether or not your nails have paint on them or not. But I DESPISE fake nails.

I was raised by a nurse and these are the reasons my mother gave as to why I was under no circumstances allowed to have fake nails while growing up:

- Acrylic nails must be applied to a rough surface which means they file down your actual nail, which makes them weaker

- the space between your acrylic nail and your real nail is a great spot for bacteria to hide and grow.

-acrylic (and gel) nails literally have to be soaked in acetone to be taken off

-you can't do anything with acrylic nails and they make writing, typing, and literally all activities of daily living more difficult

-cuticle trimming (often done before acrylic or gel nails are applied) is literally pushing back and trimming the very thing that prevents the skin surrounding your nails from infection. And just like removing body hair, removing your cuticle skin often causes it to grow back rougher.

Gel has become pretty popular in the last 10 years and in the interest of giving clear information, I feel like I should state that there are two different products "gel nails" may refer to. The first is artificial nails made out of gel that bond to your nails with UV light. Basically this goo is applied to your nail and then 'cured' under a UV light, so that is hardens into a tough shell attached to your nail. The second product is gel polish, which is regular nail polish with a gel component, that is still dried under a UV light and generally lasts longer than regular nail polish due to the gel curing under UV light.

-while gel nail polish isnt quite as bad as artificial nails, please keep in mind that UV light is used to seal this type of polish. I know some people like gel polish because it lasts longer than typical nail polish, so if you absolutely insist on using it, at least put sunscreen on your hands (or feet, if painting toenails) before putting them under the UV dryer. And consider taking breaks in between gel with no polish at all, as repeated use can lead to brittle, cracked nails.

-the major problem with gel nails and gel polish isn't actually the gel, it's the removal of it. People often pick at the gel and peel away layers of gel polish instead of having them taken off with acetone at a nail salon. Picking and peeling causes not only the gel but part of the protective outer layer of the nail to be peeled or pried up together due to the chemical bonds. Pure acetone breaks the bonds so that the gel can be removed with less damage to the nail. The bond between your nail and the gel only solidifies more with each day and the longer you wait to have gel nails removed, the harder it will be to get them off, so the whole longer lasting thing doesn't really pay off.

Moral of the story: stick to regular polish if you are going to paint your nails. And never feel obligated to paint them, cosmetic companies run by men don't need any more women's money.

As if I haven't password shared seven other streaming platforms with friends and family. Good luck Netflix.

Yeah guys, great job

I have several college degrees and this Tumblr post just explained how to search a database with far more clarity than any of my professors ever did. Keep all this in mind for EBSCOhost, Pubmed, ScienceDirect etc. if you happen to be writing any research papers.

I wish that ao3 had an option to filter warnings (and tbh certain authors) out like I will never ever want to read it and just seeing it puts me off so much that often I end up closing my browser because that content upsets me so much lmao

John of Arc, Portrayed with Top Surgery Scars

Based on the 1903 Engraving by Albert Lynch

This piece was inspired by an anonymous message I received: “ The history of Joan of Arc’s life has a lot of trans themes that many people overlook—dressing and presenting as a man was very important to Joan, not just in order to lead the French military but also in Joan’s personal life. It ultimately led to Joan’s execution because Joan couldn’t agree to not wear men’s clothes in exchange for only a life sentence in prison. I think Joan of Arc’s story of bravery is really inspiring, and I think it’s amazing that there is a (possibly) trans saint, so that could be an idea for you to consider for your artwork 💕 ”

Thank you for the support and love, I love receiving messages like this from people who have personal/emotional connections with classical and religious art figures. I grew up Jewish so I don’t have much experience researching saints, I would have never known the complexity of Joan of Arc’s gender identity had I not received this message!

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ran into this on tik tok and am floored by the resounding power of female solidarity

This is crazy! I pay for the NYT and they literally disable comments on most trans stories to prevent people from even having a conversation about anything instead of just accepting their 'facts'. The only time I have seen them present anything that shows the view point of those 'average Americans without an agenda' was a recent story about how some teachers are calling students by different names and pronouns based on student preference, and purposely not alerting their parents to these changes. The article discussed how many parents are upset by this blatant dis-involvement and purposeful hiding of information related to how their own children feel about their core identity.

The Bradshaws have been startled to find themselves at odds with the school over their right to know about, and weigh in on, such a major development in their child’s life — a dispute that illustrates how school districts, which have long been a battleground in cultural conflicts over gender and sexuality, are now facing wrenching new tensions over how to accommodate transgender children.

The Bradshaws accepted their teenager’s new gender identity, but not without trepidation, especially after he asked for hormones and surgery to remove his breasts. Doctors had previously diagnosed him as being on the autism spectrum, as well as with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, PTSD and anxiety. He had struggled with loneliness during the pandemic, and, to his parents, seemed not to know exactly who he was yet, because he had repeatedly changed his name and sexual orientation.

Given those complexities, Mrs. Bradshaw said she resented the fact that the school had made her feel like a bad parent for wondering whether educators had put her teenager, a minor, on a path the school wasn’t qualified to oversee.

The only 'agenda' this article discussed was a parents' right to be involved in major decisions about changing how their child is referred to and thus how they are perceived by their classmates and the world at large. And most of the parents voted liberal on other issues but discussed how they could not talk about their frustrations because people are so quick to label anyone with a dissenting voice or even a questioning one as 'transphobic', thus leading them to seek out allies on the other side of the political spectrum.

But how schools should address gender identity cuts through the liberal and conservative divide. Parents of all political persuasions have found themselves unsettled by what schools know and don’t reveal.

Mrs. Bradshaw said she wouldn’t align herself with Republican lawmakers who sought to ban L.G.B.T.Q. rights, but she also felt as though her school’s policy left no room for nuance.

“It is almost impossible to have these discussions,” Mrs. Bradshaw said. “There is no forum for someone like me.”

Other self-described liberal parents said they registered as independents or voted for Republican candidates for the first time as a result of this issue. Although they haven’t sued, some have retained lawyers affiliated with the largest legal organization on the religious right to battle their children’s schools.

The best part of this random call to eliminate 'anti-trans' stories is that even some transgender people support the right to have an actual discussion about social transition and for parents to be involved in their own children's major life decisions, so I'm not sure how they can possibly claim articles like these ones as being biased against trans ideology when they are going out of their way to get the opinion of both sides.

In November, Erica Anderson, a well-known clinical psychologist who has counseled hundreds of children over gender identity-related issues and is transgender herself, filed an amicus brief in a Maryland lawsuit in support of parents represented by a conservative law group. The parents have argued that their district’s policy violates their own decision-making authority.

Transitioning socially, Dr. Anderson wrote, “is a major and potentially life-altering decision that requires parental involvement, for many reasons.”

She told the Times that she had to push aside her qualms about working with conservative lawyers. “I don’t want to be erased as a transgender person, and I don’t want anyone’s prerogatives or identity to be taken away from them,” she said, “but on this one, I’m aligned with people who are willing to advocate for parents.”

So far, this is the first and only article I have seen from the NYT actually having a discussion about gender ideology rather than blatantly shoving it down our throats as 'science', and if an article showing both sides of an issue is really so offensive to some people, then those people don'tunderstandhow journalism works. All they are doing by shutting down any dissenting voices is proving the point that many of these parents made regarding how quickly anyone questioning these liberal doctrines are slapped with the 'transphobic' label.

There is a network of internet support groups for “skeptical” parents of transgender children, some with thousands of registered members. Detractors have called the groups transphobic, because some want to ban gender-affirming care for minors, or have amplified the voices of people who call transgender advocates “groomers.”

But members say these groups are some of the only places to ask questions and air their concerns.

One Saturday morning shortly before Christmas, a meeting of one such support group was held in Westchester County, just north of New York City. Sitting in a circle in a member’s living room, 12 mothers and one father spoke of the ways they said they had been sidelined by their children’s schools.

One mother said her middle-schooler had secretly changed names and pronouns without her knowledge, even though she had worked as a teacher at the same school. Another mother shared how high school teachers had hidden her teenager’s social transition from her until graduation because they thought she wouldn’t be supportive enough. A mother of a 14-year-old who had spent time in an inpatient therapy facility said she had sent her school a letter from the student’s psychiatrist outlining concerns that the school had ignored.

Most said they identified as liberal, and that the living room was a rare safe space for them to voice their fears. Some parents didn’t think their teenagers were really transgender. Others thought it was too soon to know for certain. Most said their children had mental health conditions, such as bipolar disorder, or autism.

Here they could ask: What if their children had been unduly influenced by their classmates to ask for hormone treatments and surgery? What if teachers were encouraging students to see their families as unsafe? And were right-wing partisans their only sympathetic audience?

“It’s just been such a hard thing to navigate, because on the one hand, I’m dealing with my very extreme liberal values of individuality, freedom, expression, sexuality, wanting to support all of this stuff,” said a tearful mother. “At the same time, I’m afraid of medicalization. I’m afraid of long term health. I’m afraid of the fact that my child might change their mind.”

Collecting information on and being empathetic to the indivuals on both sides of an issue in order to try and understand the influences on and made by that issue doesn't make a journalist phobic of anything, it just means that person did their research. TRAs need to stop this absolute insanity of trying to emilinate discussion on gender ideology. They are pushing people out of their own political circle by refusing them a voice, and the consequences of a political spectrum where neither of the major parties allows for free speech and discussion in a respectful manner could be drastic.

last line is me circa 1543 when that loser galileo dared to suggest that the earth revolves around the sun