feature image via shutterstock
Have you ever just forgotten to write your Friday link roundup? It’s a weird feeling.
Queer as in F*ck You
+ This Is What It’s Like to Be an LGBT Syrian Fleeing For Your Life.
Doll Parts
+ This Interview With Jem and the Holograms Co-Creator Christy Marx Is Amazing And You Must Watch It.
+ 9 Learnings from 9 Years of Brain Pickings by Maria Popova. Happy Birthday, Brain Pickings!
+ 40 Years Ago the Women of Iceland Went on Strike by Shaunacy Ferro.
+ ‘Lazy Girl’ by Artist Macy Rodman Is an Anthem for Transgender Millennials by Diana Tourjee.
+ Native American Women Will Finally Have Improved Access to Emergency Contraception by Martha Kempner.
Saw This, Thought of You
+ Where Does the “Pull Up Your Pants” School of Black Politics Come From?
+ A Record 10 Indigenous Candidates Elected to Canadian Parliament.
+ Focus on Autism Must Broaden to Include Non-Binary Genders by Emily Brooks.
+ How to be the Best Trick-Or-Treating House on the Block. BOOM.
+ Strange Magic: Four Stories About Disney’s Dark Side, a Longreads list compiled by Emily Perper.
+ Why don’t you take a look at the most complete picture if the Milky Way ever taken, you cool bird.
+ The Past and Future of Magnetic Poetry: The Populist Product That Began With a Sneeze by Cara Giaimo
+ Maybe you’d also like to subscribe to this kid’s YouTube channel about dinosaurs. Everyone’s doing it.
+ Why Are Screams So Upsetting?
And Finally
Here’s How to Make the Graveyard Tryst, a Gin Cocktail That Will Awaken the Spirits!
Okay – inspiration to dig out my box of magnetic poetry and finally put some on my refrigerator, four months after moving into a new apartment.
Wow, I’ve only been awake for an hour and I’ve already heard a new song (“Lazy Girl” forever!), seen a huge-ass picture of the Milky Way, and learned why screams are so unique…so far so good!
The Brooks article on autism & gender is so grand!
Gender is so tenderly linked to presentation and body language and social cues–subjects that autistic and allistic folks tend to process & understand very differently. Not in a pathological way, in an intuitive one.
I wish society would react to that like, “isn’t human diversity so effing cool?! Let’s celebrate it!” But when does that ever happen? Instead it’s all, “Red alert! Our objective standards for life have been breached! Let’s use our favorite corrective tool: brainwashing! Err, I mean, cognitive therapy.”
Okay, not all cognitive therapy is bad. And there are many behavioral strategies that keep autistic children SAFE, which I support. I’ve both befriended and worked with folks on the spectrum, and I get cranky when they aren’t given the space to blossom.
You can’t convert a queer person into a straight person and you can’t convert an autistic person into an allistic person. And why would you want to???
Recently I was dogsitting for a friend and I used her magnetic (erotic!) poetry set to write “enormous butt cellar” on her fridge so I’m pretty sure you have me to thank for keeping magnetic poetry alive.
Yessss, I keep giving people magnetic poetry kits as gifts, hoping it’ll come back…no one uses it. Just me. When I come over to their houses and physically put it on their refridgerator for them.