The 2021 Gender Census Is Now Open!

The 2021 Gender Census is now open!

[ Link to survey ]

The eighth annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 10th March 2021.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, retweet this tweet, boost this Mastodon post, check out this post on Reddit, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks like Facebook. Every share is extremely helpful - it’s what helped us get 24,000 responses last year.

Survey URL: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/gendercensus2021/

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

Thank you so much!

just some gay people meeting up for brunch

my dear friend @triggerlil also wrote a cute little drabble to go with this!

hello!! if you get this, answer with three random facts about yourself and send it to the last 7 blogs in your notifications, anonymously or not. let’s get to know the person behind the blog :)

As always if you feel comfortable doing it ♥️

Thank you for the ask! @primavera-cerezos also sent me this one, so I figured I would answer in one post. I hope that’s okay! I love ask games. This is so fun. Okay, here we go. Three random facts about me:

1. I was very bossy when I was little, and one of the funniest ways this manifested was that I would gather all my siblings and cousins (I was the oldest, for context), and we’d put on little plays for all the adults. I immediately labeled myself the director, and I’d choreograph little dances and scenes for us to all act out. We even raided our grandmother’s wardrobe and more than once devised outfits that were mostly a mix of scarves (she had a ton, all sorts of different fabrics, colors, and designs) and costume jewelry, with the occasional pilfered vest and tie combo from my grandfather’s side of the closet. The grandparents and parents all still talk about this to this day, and it still makes me laugh.

2. While most of my fandom friends are convinced I am an owl in disguise, I would actually probably not be a very good one because I’m terrified of heights! So flight might be wasted on me. On the other hand, it’s really the falling part that I’m so scared of, so if I were in control of said flight, maybe it’d be different. Here’s hoping because I’d actually love to have wings. How cool would that be?

3. I went through the first 33 years of my life having never broken a bone, but I got into a bad car accident on Labor Day in 2018 and fractured my C2 vertebra in two places. So when I do something new I really go big, I guess, haha. 😅 But don’t worry too much. Four months in a neck brace, and I was good to go, minus a bit of nerve damage and a tendency to develop tension headaches more often. And the increased anxiety surrounding driving, but that’s sort of to be expected, really. 

Happy Trans Visibility Day, y'all! I'm an out and proud trans/nonbinary person, and today I see all my trans family! You are celebrated wherever you are in your journey, friends. 💛

An open letter to fanfic readers

Do not leave criticism in fanfic comments. Even if it’s constructive. Even if you’re “just being honest.” This is not traditional publishing, and you should not treat fic in the same way you treat traditionally published works. AO3 comments are not Amazon reviews.

If you want to offer the author criticism, please follow the steps below:

Contact the author to see if they even want your criticism (their vision and intention might be different than yours; this isn’t for-profit publishing, so there’s a chance the author has no desire to make their fic anything than what THEY want it to be. Moreover, unless you’re some kind of literary genius, it’s possible that they might not give a fuck about your opinion)

If they do, provide it in a private forum so that they have the opportunity to accept or reject your criticism outside the public grounds of AO3 comments (what I mean is: CRITICISM IN COMMENTS IS FUCKING HUMILIATING)

Do not be offended if they don’t accept your criticism

Thank them for their time and for listening to you speak your peace

Some additional notes:

Do not leave negative criticism/hate/wank on a WIP (or, see above: ever). Some people are enjoying the story and negativity might (will) make the author fall out of love with what they’re writing such that they don’t want to finish it. Also, you owe it to the author, who is writing FOR FREE, to hear them out to the end of their story in case they end up fixing what you were criticising. 

Do not leave a comment telling the author why you stopped reading the fic. The author isn’t going to fix it and it’s just going to make them sad and feel shitty. Seriously, these types of comments are everywhere and they help NO ONE.

If you read something in a fic you don’t like, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST STOP READING IT. Please don’t let yourself believe that the way you see fic is the way fic ought to be. Everyone likes different things. It’s okay to exit silently. It’s the polite thing to do. 

Do not point out OOC. Ever. Period. End of story. Interpretation is the entire point of fanfic. If you don’t like someone’s interpretation, DO NOT READ IT. You’re not the IC Police.

Avoid backhanded compliments. Please don’t start a comment with, “To be honest I hated this at first, but…” or anything similar. If there is an insult in your comment that is turned positive somehow, it is still an insult, and it is still hurtful.

Please please please, I am begging you, readers of fanfic, to take into consideration that fanfic authors are not celebrities, even if you think they’re super popular and amazing writers and you get hearts in your eyes when they acknowledge you. If you cut them, they will bleed. If you talk to them, they will listen. If you tell them they suck, they will believe you.

Be kind to fanfic authors. They do what they do because they love to do it. Don’t take that away from them by leaving tactless or rude comments.

❄️ H/D Mistletoe Week Four Wrap Up ❄️

We’re wrapping up the last week of Mistletoe with a variety of multimedia works – including fic, art, podfic and poetry. 

Keep an eye out for creator reveals happening later today too! 🎁 There are also some works with extensions still to be submitted; they will be added to the collection after reveals.

Links and summaries for all five works listed below the cut ⬇

Keep reading