Cait the Proud Trans Woman

FOSS search help, please? Anyone got recommendations for a site offering surveys/polling that isn't tied to variously problematic and horrible providers? And is free? Thanks! #FOSS

Okay, this is just *madness*. I went to a gala tonight, comped because I was an early board chair of what is now a full-size queer community centre in our cities (ourspectrum.ca). Tonight, they called me up to the front. I was surprised, but game. I went forward, while my friend Suzi (ED of Spectrum) praised me. Growing confused, I stood and listened...as she announced that Spectrum was instituting a new annual award: The Cait Glasson Award for Queer Activism. Seriously. They named a freaking award for me. And gave me the first one. I am, totally, BLOWN THE FUCK AWAY. Holy crap. So yeah. That happened. I am excited and awestruck and humbled and loved and happy. That's my life now. If you want to show me love for that, and have anything to spare, I could really use some donations to Zara's fundraiser. Zara is the woman who has filed a refugee claim as a USan Black trans woman here in Canada, trying to flee the brutality of what's coming. I've been working this issue for three years now, and am having some effect. Not enough yet, but we're both working hard. Zara is still struggling to find work, as she cannot work anywhere that will pay her more than 2200 CAD a month, or she loses her legal aid access to legal representation in her refugee claim. We basically need CAD 200 before Friday night, if we can get it. https://gogetfunding.com/help-zara-reach-safety/ I can also accept donations for Zara through my PayPal account directly (or Interac within Canada), at cavebabe21@gmail.com. It's where all the money goes anyway, then I transfer it at $0 fee to Zara for her use. None goes to me personally. I'm working pro bono. Thanks for considering, and boosting, this request. And if you want to honour my work in another way, contact your rep, wherever you are. Ask them to push Canada to get this change made, to suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement for trans folk in the US, and allow them to make asylum claims, being in genuine danger.

The Daily Science Minute! I was just thinking about something, and scared myself very badly. I was doing some reading, and found out that water? Sneaky little bastard. It's all explosive and accelerant! Just push a bit of electricity through it, and it breaks right down like a gourmand trying to resist one wafer-thin mint. And then...woo, you have trouble. Because that molecular hydrogen...that's the stuff of nightmares. You may have heard of the Hindenburg. That...was hydrogen's work. But sneakily, all around, oxygen was making it worse. Feeding the fire, feeling the burn, and turning it into a raging inferno! And we're all walking around carrying this stuff in containers on our hips and backpacks. It's madness, I say! We need to stop using electricity, immediately. We need water for life, but electricity and water should never be used in the same place, obviously. Imagine! Imagine using this stuff to, I dunno, cool nuclear power plants? They're FULL of electricity, it's what we make 'em for. And we're using WATER to cool them? No wonder Chernobyl happened. We're a race of insane creatures. END WATER AND ELECTRICITY DEPENDENCY NOW! REFUSE THE JUICE! Use ICE to cool the reactors. That should work. They're all pretty absorbent-looking. This has been your Daily Science Minute. (brought to you by the US Science Department, © 2026, Robert F. Kennedy Jr presiding.)

We at Big Trans™️ would like to assure the communities we serve that we have dedicated teams working on the discovery of new genders every day. Recently, we discovered "warm sunny day", and "rainbow sparkle", and "klorb". We're not sure of the parameters of klorb yet, as klee hasn't indicated kleir position aloud as of yet, but we hope for a breakthrough soon. It is only through the actions of science that we can accurately map the shifting genderspace continuum. Our trained observers have learnt how to ask "Hello, what is your gender or genders, if you have any?" and "Would you like to share pronouns with us?" and "How do you perceive your gender(s) or absence thereof to work for you?" We feel that we are on the cusp of a new set of discoveries of truly unimagined genders, in the liminal space *between* major gender groups. Please give to Big Trans™️ regularly. We serve your needs...queerforwardly.

What I like to think of being queer goes like this: The first rule of Queer Club, is you have to want to be a member. The second rule of Queer Club is *there are no more fucking rules*. No one gets to tell someone whether that person is "queer enough", or any other identity. Anyone who tries to fundamentally misunderstands queerness. We are rejecting the tying of identity to social roles or behaviour. We reject hierarchical rules of who may use what parts of their body with another consenting peer. So we necessarily must reject gatekeeping. And "you're not IDENTITY_X enough." For who among us semi-outcasts has the right to insist that some sibling *must conform*? Fuck no. That's not queerness. That's just sparkling faux rebellion.

The problem I have with this theory is it's a closed loop ontologically. You say you literally assume that if a man is criticising gay people, he must BE gay (or trans) himself...you are then implicitly saying that "gay people are doing all the bigotry to themselves!" It is not true. Most of our foes are quite happily heterosexual. That they may have some insecurities that lead them to cruelty, doesn't make them automatically gay. What you're seeing is called "confirmation bias". When you hear a story about some right wing 'phobe who ends up caught bein' gay, that's going to make the news, yeah? And you'll notice it, because it confirms your existing belief, rather than challenging it. But you know what doesn't make the news: "old straight white man who hated queers all his life turns out to be actually straight when he died and we read his diary." It's not titillating. It's just ordinary street-level bigotry. So not on the news. When the vast majority of preachers who cheat do that cheating, they are not sleeping with men. Again, doesn't make the news. "Straight man sleeps with woman, film at 11." Not going to make the cut, is it? So this idea does far more harm to our community than good; it takes cis het people off the hook entirely, because now you can, conveniently, write it off to just gay people being mad at one another. And then the bigots get to keep on being bigots, because you don't want to believe they exist, let alone that, as expected, they are the vast majority of the bigots. I speak here from 34 years as an activist for and in the queer community. Most of the bigots I have met were in no manner secretly gay. They were just hateful people, who get to be small-minded because being a white cishet Christian in North America is "playing on kiddy mode", and so never needed to learn to expand their mind or learn new views, because the current setup suits them like it was made for them. Which, funny thing... (not saying no 'phobe is gay, either!)

I notice that the Great American State Fair has been the subject of much attention, in the sense that people are pointing and laughing at the ridiculously small groups of people (there aren't nearly enough to call them a crowd) who have turned up. I do notice, though, that the commentators seem to be using an unusual measure to conceal this. Most are using the words "tons of people". I suspect this is accurate, actually. 25 average USan adults would weigh approximately a little over 4000 pounds. That is, quite literally, two tons of people. So...good job, Fox News! You said something true for once!

2/2 Trans talk (cont.) Anyway, I was very excited. I know how to do more pitch variation. That's very much in my mimicry repertoire. So all I need to do is figure out the femme-coded pitch variation pattern for London English, and move mine to be closer to it. As my friend put it, "I was thinking that (London) takes that to absolute extremes. Like, it is almost impossible to overegg it." That's the difference. My particular accent happens to be one where the largest gender distinction in speech pattern is entirely pitch variation variation. Pitch variation squared? Not sure how this works. Basically, the amount of variation from the baseline is the marker. More masc, less variation. More femme, more variation. Be distinctively one or the other. I can do that. Gimme six months, and we'll see where I am on femme-voice Londonerinisch. It got me thinking, though. I wonder what the markers are like in the other languages I speak? Not the very clear ones, like using the right form of a noun ("traductrice" v "traducteur"), DE use of -in to indicate femme-coding, Slavic verb endings. I mean the unwritten ones. Not the content of speech, but the manner. What is it, in your language, that tells you what gender to refer to your interlocutor as? And yes, I'm aware, gender is not transmissible by phone line as such, I'm a good trans, I know my theory. But what are the signals that make you feel like "this is a man speaking" or "this is a woman speaking", in French, or German, or Spanish, or Russian? Not the obvious stuff, like Russian past tense verbs, but the...suprasegmentals, I guess. The stuff outside of the bricks and mortar of linguistics. Do French men swear more often? Do German women speak more indirectly? Do Spanish men have a notable speech difference from Spanish women? Do Russian women speak more quickly)? I'm interested in hearing from anyone about their language's answers. Responses in :flag-fr: :flag-de: :flag-es: :flag-ru: all okay.

It's so interesting, isn't it? How phrases come into and go out of fashion? Like, I remember this one, it was ALL the rage in 2016, something about "vote blue no matter who"? And yet, here we are 10 years later, and the people who were posting that daily on Xitter back then don't seem to remember the phrase at all, now white establishment Dems aren't able to just stand up and say "hey, vote for me, what, are you gonna vote for the greater evil?" and expect to win a seat. Strange thing, fashion.

@thatdawnperson@toot.cat @crispius@mstdn.fname.ca Deep cut. Oh my. That is a DEEP. CUT. A hit! A most palpable hit! Tis not so wide as a church door, but twill serve, twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave woman. Brave! Bravissime! (best I can do for a neutral ending!) That was excellent. Disclaiming having the skill you are currently displaying in the writing of the disclaimer? Astounding. I am impress.

@MedeaVanamonde@beige.party I wish I could agree. See, he's not passing legislation. That could be undone much more easily. This is publishing a register rule. Something only the executive branch can do, or the judicial - if you've any faith in this SCOTUS. To undo it will require undoing the rule in each individual agency affected by it at the federal level. It could take years to unravel. I'm not given to panic. I'm the one who's been saying "show me the Senate vote count before you panic" for 18 months now. This is now the time to set your hair on fire about it.

@aSweetGentleman@mstdn.social Thank you! So far, my masc-French voice tends to be more Quebecois, more soldier-like, brusque and so on. While my femme-French voice tends to be more standard French, to the extent that such exists. I don't use the same Canadian vowels and diphthongs as I do in my masc-French, for instance, where "oui" gets out somewhere closer to "oué". It's very interesting stuff. Thanks!

Uneducated white people should be required to have a warning label: CAUTION WHITE FRAGILITY CAUTION This container can explode under the lightest touch of social justice accountability. Beware of shrapnel. When experiencing Rapid Uncontrolled Disassembly, may create hazard to all within earshot. CAUTION WHITE FRAGILITY CAUTION Maybe we could look into some kind of bell, too? I mean, the government is supposed to protect our safety against the flaws of poorly-built product. It just makes sense. How about a rotating flashing white light?

@IsabelB@mastodon.ie @Natasha_Jay@tech.lgbt Yeah. That's perfectly logical! I hope you two beautiful women get a long and happy time together. You are a gorgeous couple, and your joy is always visible. Thank you!

@crispius@mstdn.fname.ca I congratulate your klorbine revelation and self-ID. Science is proven once again.

@BruceMirken@mas.to

I agree they could. But the Dems aren't gonna have 61* Senate seats next January, so they aren't gonna stop him there too easily. And unless they can get enough votes to convict, they're not gonna remove him or be able to override. Frankly, unless SCOTUS takes a stunning 5-4 slide left, I don't see how this gets even started on being rolled back before Jan 21st, 2029.

I wish you good luck in working it, but unless I've forgotten something crucial, this is here to stay for not quite 3 years. So I will keep my butt in gear trying to Schindler us out of this fascist wet dream by forcing my country to stand up this time and NOT send the MS St.Louis back to Europe with her cargo of hunted human lives.

• Because Federman exists.

@Mannanan@mas.to Nope. Carney doesn't give a monkey's left one for public opinion. But the opinion of other leaders and the folk he wants to impress and join? That means a lot to him. And if he wants to publicly side with the Maple MAGA to reject us, I'm gonna make sure the world sees him do it. Bc it would be the shortest path to PM Avi Lewis, which is the path to Canada for its people, and not its greedhound Maplewashed Epstein Class. So thanks anyway. Fuck worrying about the Tories. They'll make up in lies what we don't give them, so no point in behaving as though they're acting in good faith.

@Melezioh@mstdn.games Oooohhhh, dude...that's AWESOME. Oh, you are a brave man, sir. That is a hell of a lot of surgery and recovery, I hope your new gear brings you HUGE joy every time you take a swinging step. :) I have one other friend that I know of who's had the same surgeries. He is the happiest trans guy I've ever known, and he attributes that to his choice to have bottom surgery. He has a great tattoo on his forearm scar, too. Thanks so much for telling me about that! I hope it goes really well for you, and recovery is as easy as it gets. Good luck!

I don't believe it's ethical for me to take payment from people who are fleeing oppression, especially people from my own community. So if that's you, and you need my help, there will be no paying. If anyone *else* felt like it, I do have a ko-fi, and a buck or two a month in a subscription would be a real boost to my circumstances as someone on disability. Rent control keeps me housed, but the leftover dosh isn't much to live on. :) I want to be clear there is no pressure whatsoever, and I will not be upset with anyone if no one takes me up on that. It's fine. I'm genuinely not doing it to make money. I do it because I want to give what I can to build this community, here and across Canada. Money means I eat a little better, and then maybe that I even can buy some clothes again. Been a few years. But it's not my motivation in life. I am not for sale. I can be borrowed, and I like being valued well for that, but I won't turn someone down because they can't give me what they wish they could. And if your economy is in the shitter, because my ancestors colonised yours? Or even if it's doing well despite us? Part of my apology is that you never need to pay me for help of any kind. I owe you, not the other way around. This specifically includes people Indigenous to Turtle Island, though as far as I know, we were the first of our line to set foot on this island when we came 50 years ago. Still. My being here benefits from our colonialist oppression. So you don't pay either. My ko-fi is https://ko-fi.com/oldladyplays Thank you to anyone who decides to spare even a dollar. Seriously. I know how precarious our lives can be, I've lived it myself, so I will never judge anyone for not being able to contribute to any cause, especially when it's not a cause but a loudmouth old woman with Strong Opinions. I pledge to continue activisting for ALL queer folk as long as my brain hasn't become porridge yet.

@jrdepriest@infosec.exchange Yeah. I'm so sorry the world hasn't moved as much as we want to. We're trying. :) But yes, it can be a ridiculously hard life if you're alone or near it. It shouldn't be. But it still is. Thanks for letting me know whereabouts you are. I'm going to spread the word in my contacts across the US, and see if we can bump into someone nearby who has a bit of energy to make contact, at least. So you won't be quite so alone.

@davidnjoku@mastodon.world Thanks, David! That's nice to hear. :)

@jrdepriest@infosec.exchange That is a super hard situation, sister. I'm sorry the weight is landing so heavily on you. The only solace i can offer is trying to get my country to offer a path to safety. I hope you get through ok. If you felt like sharing a location with me privately, I might be able to find someone who could maybe fundraise for you to be able to get safer? It's ok if you don't want that, too, ok? It's an offer, not an order. Good luck, my sister.

@BruceMirken@mas.to I can't do that fight. I'm in Canada. So I'll do the one I can do. 😄

@poupou24_@peculiar.florist I think you very much did. Thank you, my friend. That was really meaningful and thought-provoking. I appreciate your sharing so very much. I had no issues reading your English - small mistakes here and there, mainly using too many plural endings (remember, English adjectives do not have to agree with the nouns they modify - so "small balls", or "large trees".) Honestly, I think if you spent a few months in an English-speaking place? You'd be really fluent in a short span. All the tools are there, it's just the little stuff now. I know that's not realistic, but that's what I see in you as a potential.

@NicolaElle@chaosfem.tw Wonderful! A concert...I was just thinking this afternoon, I need to find a local club that books Jamaican music. I wanna see some live ska, or reggae, or reggaeton, or something. I need to move my body. And I can never stand still when Jamaican music plays.

@imp3tuz@mastodon.gamedev.place Dropped some yanqibux your way. 🇺🇸💶 Hope that helps! 😍💚✊️🏳️‍⚧️

@Willow@chaosfem.tw @thriftwicker@mastodon.social Good point, Willow, thanks.

@Cetraria@neurodifferent.me Oh, that's great! I'm glad they're being an honest dealer. That is a good find these days. I hope the new tree has more success. :) Thanks for sharing! :)

@faithisleaping@anarres.family Oh, that's amazing, Faith. I kinda love that for you. Nice way to take the W when it's handed to you. :)

@poupou24_@peculiar.florist (listens quietly, sitting near you for comfort)

@eniko@mastodon.gamedev.place Exactly. I can ask others to try and respect my needs, but demanding they accommodate me, when I could choose not to read or use tools to not even see the post...that doesn't work. If I'm at risk, then *I* am the one who must watch out for me. Relying on my ability to bully the entire world into not saying anything that will upset me seems to me to be rather more like cop work than activism.

@A_Mimi@kolektiva.social Absolutely in sync with you. It's the time to make a stand. Antifascism isn't just a fun concept to tweak the fash with. It's a commitment to fight them. It's our turn to stand against it. We didn't choose it. We didn't want it. But here we are. And we shall, as the man said, either all hang together, or surely be hanged separately.

@cutesobri@cathode.church Yay mutual aid! That's a good story anyday! I'm so glad you had such a great day. Thanks for sharing, and I hope tomorrow's even better!

@Willow@chaosfem.tw That IS glorious! How awesome. Thank you, Willow! :)

@victoria@lgbtqia.space Oh, that is superb. I'm so glad you've found the joys of a community. It is really the best way to live, surrounded by the queer folk who love you just as you are. That was wonderful news to share, thank you!

https://youtu.be/sgM63L8H9kM #trans #activism #CanadianTransRefuge Okay, my dears. The first of what I hope will be many, many videos in support of Zara. If you would like to make a video in support - including in your own language - please do, and DM me for how to get it to me. Couple of minutes is plenty, expressing that you're in support, where you're from, and that you're hoping Canada will do the honourable thing, and open our doors once more to those fleeing tyranny. We failed once before. Look up the MS St.Louis, from 1938. Yes, that's an ominous date, and yes, it's for the reason you'd expect. We turned them away, and many were murdered. So let's get it right this time. People are in danger, from an internationally-recognised legislative genocide attempt. They are literally trying to legislate trans folk out of existence. We've been named as inherently terroristic, as violent dangers to society, and threatened with fraud if our ID - which many of us can no longer change in the US - don't match our birth sex as they define it. We are being forcibly detransitioned and subjected to conversion therapy when imprisoned in the US, too. Removal of HRT, housing trans women in the men's prisons, and so on. This puts us at serious risk of all kinds of violence, which I doubt I need to enumerate for anyone here. If you doubt my claim that this is a genocide, please refer yourself to the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, which has repeatedly raised alarms about the assault on trans people's existence in the US right now: https://www.lemkininstitute.com/red-flag-alerts/red-flag-alert---anti-trans-genocide-in-the-usa---%233 It's real, it's happening now, and we need your help. Please consider shooting a short video of support that we can pair with a video from Zara? You don't have to be famous. Just passionate. Any language is fine! Thank you!

@poupou24_@peculiar.florist It is funny, in a sharable way. Thanks for the story! I have the very same problem in speaking my languages. FR, DE, RU, ES, I struggle in all to actively recall what I can passively read. So I stumble and move slow, though all four I can watch without translation (sometimes JP too, but not always). For me, it's bc of being a translator. I'm like an old-timey seamstress, with one huge thigh from pedaling the machine. My ability to read is pretty good. Across all four Euro languages. Writing slower, but reasonable. Speaking? Useless. It's very annoying. I've been working on it in an unusual way, though. I read a text in Russian, get my understanding, and then speak it into an interpreter in my phone. I'm doing so well, I'm going to start using it for the others. Instant feedback is great: did it transcribe correctly? What did it get wrong?