feluka:

cats being capable of understanding accidents and even giving you a little head bonk to let you know you’re still cool makes it infinitely funnier that they don’t understand when you’re trying to help them

cats when you step on their tail: i’ll admit that was rather ouchie, but given the lifetime of goodwill and trust between us, one must conclude this booboo is but a fluke.

cats when you try to get their claws unstuck from the couch covering: this nefarious bitch has never had a single honorable intention in their dishonest and shameful life, this must be one of their sinister plots or perhaps even an attempt on my life,

gingersnapwolves:

So today I want to talk about puberty blockers for transgender kids, because despite being cisgender, this is a subject I’m actually well-versed in. Specifically, I want to talk about how far backwards things have gone.

This story starts almost 20 years ago, and it’s kind of long, but I think it’s important to give you the full history. At the time, I was working as an administrative assistant for a pediatric endocrinologist in a red state. Not a deep deep red state like Alabama, we had a little bit of a purple trend, but still very much red. (I don’t want to say the state at the risk of doxxing myself.) And I took a phone call from a woman who said, “My son is transgender. Does your doctor do hormone therapy?”

I said, “Good question! Let me find out.”

I went into the back and found the doctor playing Solitaire on his computer and said, “Do you do hormone therapy for transgender kids?” It had literally never come up before. He had opened his practice there in the early 2000s. This was roughly 2006, and the first time someone asked. Without looking up from his game of Solitaire, the doctor said, “I’ve never done it before, but I know how it works, so sure.”

I got back on the phone and told the mom, who was overjoyed, and scheduled an appointment for her son. He was the first transgender child we treated with puberty blockers. But not, by far, the first child we treated with puberty blockers, period. Because puberty blockers are used very commonly for children with precocious puberty (early-onset puberty). I would say about twenty percent of the kids our doctor treated were for precocious puberty and were on puberty blockers. They have been well studied and are widely used, safe, and effective.

Well. It turned out, the doctor I worked for was the only doctor in the state who was willing to do this. And word spread pretty fast in the tight-knit community of ‘parents of transgender children in a red state’. We started seeing more kids. A better drug came out. We saw some kids who were at the age where they were past puberty, and prescribed them estrogen or testosterone. Our doctor became, I’m fairly sure, a small folk hero to this community. 

Insurance coverage was a struggle. I remember copying articles and pages out of the Endocrine Society Manual to submit with prior authorization requests for the medications. Insurance coverage was a struggle for a lot of what we did, though. Growth hormone for kids with severe idiopathic short stature. Insulin pumps, which weren’t as common at the time, and then continuous glucose monitoring, when that came out. Insurance struggles were just part and parcel of the job.

I remember vividly when CVS Caremark, a pharmaceutical management company, changed their criteria and included gender dysphoria as a covered diagnosis for puberty blockers. I thought they had put the option on the questionnaire to trigger an automatic denial. But no - it triggered an approval. Medicaid started to cover it. I got so good at getting approvals with my by then tidy packet of articles and documentation that I actually had people in other states calling me to see what I was submitting (the pharmaceutical rep gave them my number because they wanted more people on their drug, which, shady, but sure. He did ask me if it was okay first).

And here’s the key point of this story:

At no point, during any of this, did it ever even occur to any of us that we might have to worry about whether or not what we were doing was legal.

It just never even came up. It was the medically recommended treatment so we did it. And seeing what’s happening in the UK and certain states in America is both terrifying and genuinely shocking to me, as someone who did this for almost fifteen years, without ever even wondering about the legality of it.

The doctor retired some years ago, at which point there were two other doctors in the state who were willing to prescribe the medications for transgender kids. I truly think that he would still be working if nobody else had been willing to take those kids on as patients. He was, by the way, a white cisgender heterosexual Boomer. I remember when he was introduced to the concept of ‘genderfluid’ because one of our patients on HRT wanted to go off. He said ‘that’s so interesting!’ and immediately went to Google to learn more about it. 

I watched these kids transform. I saw them come into the office the first time, sometimes anxious and uncertain, sometimes sullen and angry. I saw them come in the subsequent times, once they were on hormone therapy, how they gradually became happy and confident in themselves. I saw the smiles on their faces when I gave them a gender marker letter for the DMV. I heard them cheer when I called to tell them I’d gotten HRT approved by insurance and we were calling in a prescription. It was honestly amazing and I will always consider the work I did in that red state with those kids to be something I am incredibly proud of. I was honored to be a part of it.

When I see all this transgender backlash, it’s horrifying, because it was well on the way to become standard and accepted treatment. Insurances started to cover it. Other doctors were learning to prescribe it. And now … it’s fucking illegal? Like what the actual fuck. We have gone so far backwards that it makes me want to cry. I don’t know how to stop this slide. But I wrote this so people would understand exactly how steep the slide is.

may-darling:

I find it absolutely hilarious that after playing the popularised sexy man “James Bond” for what feels like a millennium, Daniel Craig has only now reached tumblr sexy man status by playing a funky southern gay detective with a hubby that bakes sour bread. If this is not the most on brand tumblr thing I don’t know what is

mylittleredgirl:

okay tumblr’s exclusion from the twitter social media ban list is hilarious but genuinely we do not belong on there. if a real human person asks “where can i find you on social media” and your choice is a swift death or revealing your tumblr, most of us would simply expire. half of y’all change urls every week like you’re in witness protection. just imagine for one second attaching your wholeass government name to your latest two am clownposting and tell me that didn’t send a cold chill down your spine. the only place i ever want to see the words “connect with me on tumblr!” is on the ao3 profile of an author i’m actively stalking. anyone in the world can follow me except anyone i personally know. antisocial media.

spokenitalics:

forgot this was happening!!!!!!!

morganoperandi:

otterloreart:

penny-anna:

pajama-han:

thydungeongal:

a-m-e-t-h-y-s-t-r-o-s-e:

thydungeongal:

zarnagel:

titleknown:

thydungeongal:

grazztthedark:

thydungeongal:

thydungeongal:

I really hate that pixel art is becoming associated with NFTs, pixel art rules

Maybe I should just make the opposite of an NFT, like I dunno, just a cute pixel art goblin anyone can right click+save for free and keep it forever and now it’s theirs

You can put a hat on it too if you like

I’m totally on board. I’d like to propose a name for him: Nifty the Goblin. 

I love it, I’ll try to whip something up when I’m feeling inspired

…

…[BURSTS THROUGH THE WALL LIKE THE KOOL-AID MAN] HELLO, YES, HI, ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT CREATIVE COMMONS ART PROJECTS?!

…I mean, yeah, these sorts of opposite-of-NFTs Open Source Art things are something I dedicate a lot of brainspace to, and I actually have some suggestions!

Firstly, if you wanna do that, you’d probably want to use one of the organization Creative Commons’ licenses, to make the “anyone can use/save/alter it” official and legally binding, presumably one of their looser ones like CC-BY or CC0.

Secondly, honestly, this is a rad idea, something like Open Game Art’s various sprites but more as an art project than an assets thing, and i have an idea on how you could expand it further.

Basically: Fanpro but for Pixel Art. Which, for those who don’t know, Fanpro is basically this pool of character designs people contributed to for a while, released totally and utterly under a CC0 license, for anyone to use how they see fit! Basically the exact opposite of NFTs!

It ha a successor in ComPro, but that kinda sputtered out, but one based around a specific theme like pixel art might be perfect! If only as an F-you to NFTs!

…But yeah, that’s my two cents on that good idea.

Boosting this!

The opposite of NFTs has existed for a long time, it’s called open source and creative commons.

And to add something, Kenney has recently released this little app called Creature Mixer to create little animated pixel art sprites: https://kenney.itch.io/creature-mixer

It’s free and it’s terms of use forbid any use with any kind of NFTs for the sprites created with it.

so, with some thanks to the lovely people above and with no further aplomb ‘cause it’s just a goofy 16 by 16 pixel goblin, here goes:

Nifty is a little 16 by 16 pixel goblin who’s yours to own and do whatever you wish to do with.

Licence: You can copy, modify and distribute this work, even for commercial projects, strictly excluding those relating to or containing non-fungible tokens (so-called “NFT”) or blockchain (related) projects.

I’ve included a blown up 80 by 80 pixel version simply because I know from experience that Tumblr messes up small pixel art, but I’ve included a version in the original 16 by 16 resolution. While Sprytile is my pixel art software of choice, any image editor should do as long as long as it allows for turning off anti-aliasing, the bane of anyone who’s worked with pixels.

anyway, that’s enough pomp and circumstance for my silly little goblin powered by spite, although I do think it turned out pretty cute

I know nobody cares but I made a bunch of Nifty’s because he’s just so cute

I CARE HOLY SHIT THIS WHIPS

Shhh… sleepy

hi i love Nifty so i brought him into the physical realm

pattern:

OH i literally JUST finished my nifty piece today:

It’s Nifty the goblin in a nice little forest home with a pet cat and some friendly ducks nearby. <3

I love everything about Nifty, but Nifty and his nice little forest home are about to make me cry