so one of the things I was vaguely aware of before reproducing was that people hold a lot of anxiety around the gender of babies and 'wrongly' gendering babies (i.e. failing to guess correctly based on their clothes and appearance what their genital configuration is) and having now had a baby: wow, yes, they really do.
I take an extremely laissez-faire approach to baby clothes because like, they are constantly being thrown up on and grown out of and so on, what matters is that they are clean and easy to put on and I am not spending $$$$$ on them. as long as the colour/design is not directly offensive, it's fine. what this means is that people are quite frequently 'misgendering' the baby and then falling over themselves to apologise about it.
and, like, I haven't even had a chance to dress him in anything pink yet; this is based on rules I didn't expect like 'anything with flowers or sparkly bits on it is for girls only'. equally, I do not care when this happens because it's an irrelevancy, but THEY care to make sure I am not offended. so I have started telling them "look, he's only [x] months old; his gender is baby."
and you know what? you'd be surprised how many otherwise average heterosexual people process this and go "huh, yeah, I guess it is." there is a tiny amount of hope for the future after all.
Ahmed Saad, a Palestinian man who had to jump through an insane amount of loops to get the funds necessary for escaping Gaza, is asking us all to donate to his friend’s family fund.
Mohamed is a hemophilia patient who needs access to medicine and to do surgery on his knees, his 11-year-old daughter also needs thigh surgery (she was supposed to do it outside Gaza in November but couldn't travel due to the border issues). Mohammed’s condition is worsening rapidly and, with Israel destroying the last functional hospital in Gaza, things are looking dire.
i will remember with absolute clarity, when the thought strikes me that i have a text to send someone, that this is the fourth time in three days i've attempted to send this specific text
i will forget, in the time it takes me to pick up my phone, that i picked it up intending to send a text
Phantom, the newest addition to the Justice League, pulls Wonder Woman aside.
He has...a strange request.
He's nervous, flustered, fading in and out of the visible spectrum. It's clear that what he's about to ask of her is important to him, and even though she has an uncomfortable voice in the back of her head telling her this young hero is about to ask her out, she resolves to listen before she jumps to conclusions.
She's glad she did.
"Can...can you put a grave for me in Themyscira? I know it's just for women, but it's the safest place I can think of for it! I just...I don't have a grave, and Clockwork says it's starting to stunt my growth as a Ghost, and I have too many enemies on American soil, so. It's okay if you say no, though, I'll figure something out, it's fine."
Diana lets him ramble to the end, already knowing what her answer is going to be.
"We would be honored to host your grave, Phantom. Do you have any remains I can take home? Do you require a funeral service?"
Phantom looks...he looks beyond grateful. Close to tears.
"No, no remains. A symbolic grave is fine, it just. It has to have my real name on it, my mortal one." He says, looking hesitant. "Please don't reach out to my family, Wonder Woman. They don't know."
With that, he hands over a small slip of paper, torn from a notebook and clearly folded one too many times.
She takes it as though he were entrusting her with the rarest diamond in the world. She wants to, but she does not ask how they could not notice the death of someone so very bright.
Instead she nods, tucking the paper away.
Phantom will get a grand grave, one worthy of a friend to the Crown of Themyscira. She will ensure it.