When it comes to the sheer scale of loss due to aids, I always think of the photo the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus took to demonstrate just how many of their original members died. It's absolutely devastating. We lost so many people, many of whom were terribly young.

The artists are a great point, but there's just... so many *people* who would have been so different. Because this helped keep people in the closet. Fear. Being seen as "unclean." All of it. It set that back so much, and kept *so many people* in the closet.

So during pride celebrate the artists we lost but remember to also celebrate the art we never had and the world of people we didnt get to see.

Imagine a modern world were all those artists never died. What would that look like? It would probably be so different it would be unrecognizable. So many books/plays were finished. So many more great movies were made. Think of the music we missed. Maybe millenial grey would never have happened.

More young men were lost to aids than the Vietnam War, many of them creatives at the peak of their careers. Howard Ashman, Derek Jarman, Keith Haring and Freddie Mercury are some of the most famous but there are so many unknown writers/actors/artists/filmakers cut down before they even started.

People love historical what if scenarios. What if JFK was never assassinated? What if the Nazis won in WW2? A scenario I never see discussed is what if the aids crisis didnt decimate the gay men of America in the 80s-90s? Its easy to forget 1 in 15 gay boomer men died. An estimated 300,000 deaths-

This thread has become something really special because of the comments from people who experienced the epidemic first hand, many if which lost friends and loved ones. They deserve to be heard and recognized. This is what Pride month is about.

>renames it to the Department of War >names himself the Secretary of War >fights one war >loses

When someone asks what my favorite books are, I can never remember the title of any book I've ever read in my entire life.

Reminder that, after the civil war, southern states passed "vagrancy laws" to force formerly enslaved people into either working for the people who had enslaved them in, under horrible conditions, or being considered criminals and forced into carceral slavery.

Minnesota! Useful information for if you get the feds knocking on your door (and remember: SHUT THE FUCK UP.)

They don’t want kids online because online is where kids discover other people like them and hope for a future where they get to be themselves and be loved.

It's actually very easy to get broad cross-party agreement if you just make the proposition vague enough! "Food should be healthy" "Bad people should be punished" "Children should be happy" "Things should cost what they're worth"

in the realistic trolley problem you have a choice of five hundred different tracks and you have no idea who (if anyone) is on any of them and the trolley probably won't go the way you choose anyway

I spent so much of my life thinking utilitarianism was the obvious ethic and everything else was basically superstition but the real problem with utilitarianism is that it would work perfectly if you had perfect information, which you absolutely do not, and should not use math to pretend you do

oh my god I don't want to register an account and log in to my video card, oh my god nobody wants that, nobody is thinking I wish I had more MEMBERSHIPS. I wish I had more USERNAMES and more PASSWORDS so I could get more EMAILS. from my VIDEO CARD.

social medias need a null react. a sidevote. just to communicate "yeah. I saw it."

Based on every poll I've ever seen that tried it, you could turn the US into a robust social democratic welfare state just by having Republican voters write down how they think government works, then allowing them to make what they think are harsh cuts and strict rules

the value of trans people to right wing politicians and media is that they can use us to keep their followers' penis-anxiety-violence complexes hyped up. they can't achieve that by negotiating! they don't want the issue settled! they either want us dead or they want us keeping people mad forever!

ppl talking abt banning youth transition are redefining "youth" older and older, not guaranteeing autonomy at 18. trans women are not being promised safety measures if they agree to use men's facilities. I don't think these compromises would be acceptable but that's moot b/c no one has offered them!

the thing about negotiating on trans rights is that we have not actually received a counteroffer. no one on the right or center is laying out whatever kind of Limited Transness Plan this would entail. doesn't even matter how I feel about incrementalism - WHAT INCREMENTS?

They will be clutching their pearls in terror that they, too, might be briefly publicly embarrassed for something awful they've done to a woman.

And other men will absolutely lose their minds over that brief public criticism.

The single most likely outcome for a woman making allegations of violence or sexual abuse at the hands of a specific man, and *especially* a wealthy man with political power, is complete social and career ruin. The most likely outcome for the man is brief public criticism.

there are surprisingly few good dinosaur movies, considering how good dinosaurs are

hey unironically for one moment here, happy Pride not just for what we've survived against, but what we've become despite the lives, the communities, the families we've made and we've made them full of love and care and laughter and art I'm so goddamn proud of us

In what experts are calling an unprecedented development, transphobia is being used to bully any cis person who departs from conventional gender norms. "We did not see this coming," cis people report, "and received no warning from anyone who did."

14-year-old Caden, who once would have been a high-T alpha shooting bears with his gun and eating them raw whilst defending the Confederacy, is succumbing to wokeness because Internet porn and calzones have withered his once-copious supply of sperm. Don't arrest me, I am your nation's health czar

The option was either (a) accept that the relationship between gender and biology is complicated or (b) hand the country over to guys who say things like "our nation's teenage boys have too little sperm to develop the manly virtues" and America has MADE ITS CHOICE

Reading Lyz’s profile and then looking back at Tucker’s trajectory, it’s easy to just see him as a full on opportunist. He started working for the Neocon Weekly Standard when neoconservatism was cool. He became a libertarian when the Iraq War went sideways. Then he became a right wing nationalist

During Trumps first admin I interviewed Carlson and talked to him about how his rhetoric specifically hurt my life and he treated it like a big joke. Remorse that only comes when it’s convenient isn’t remorse at all.

Stage managers. What you’re looking for is stage managers

It’s finally happened. After 18 months. Finally, a media merger you can root for.

Here's how we're taking over InfoWars.

For fuck's sake, sign up for The Onion, and get a free limited edition IW tote. A share of merch sales will go to the Sandy Hook families, which will be the first time they get any money since they filed this lawsuit eight years ago. Legal fees have been insane. Please sign up and help us out!

I believe that in order to take some small step forward, the word “bird” should be replaced with “saur” in all common names. Mockingsaur. Secretarysaur. Red-winged blacksaur. HUMMINGSAUR

What is native? What does this environment require? What can I give it? Is that thing I'm pulling up really a weed?

Those things, in their infancy, will need you to get out there and weed every day until they're established and can go on their own. But the plan cannot just be pulling up weeds. It HAS to include plans for ecosystem replacement, because crabgrass takeover is a sign of a deficient ecosystem.

I love this analogy, and to extend it: it is nearly impossible to outweed the weeds that have taken over if your goal is to return to bluegrass. The thing you need to do is plant things that outcompete the crabgrass.

Each year I know my enemy and my friends a little more, and each year there are fewer enemies and more friends. But there will always be SOME crab grass. That's just the nature of the environment I want. Vigilance and dirty fingernails will always be its price.

But each year, it's easier. Last year I was out there with big tools grabbing giant plants all summer. I didn't know their life cycle, I didn't know to get them early in the year, I didn't get the clover seeds down in time.

But there will always be weeds. You will always have to find them and make them unhappy and ultimately uproot them. As long as I want an environment hospitable to my clover and my kids, I will be out there getting my fingernails dirty, year in and year out.

You keep pulling it up by the roots and you keep working, though. Slowly, the beautiful stuff you want starts to take over, and gradually you start to see the difference. The good stuff starts to set down roots and mat and make it harder for the weeds to get a foothold.

So you weed. And if the weeding has been neglected, it is a horrible job. You are basically just ripping up chunks of turf in some areas. It's ugly, you're covered in mud, the ground is ugly, but it's how you make room for what will eventually be beautiful.

NASA isn't why the US doesn't have universal healthcare, or a social safety net. The US doesn't have those things because politicians with the power to provide them choose specifically not to (with varying levels of support from voters). Enthusiasm for human spaceflight doesn't drive that choice.

It's frequently pointed out that NASA activities (and basic/exploratory science in general) have a fantastic return on investment, contributing far more to the economy than they take. But even if they didn't, no one's actually taking from the "cure sick people" pot to put money in the "rockets" pot.

Yep. A male-chauvinist pig will always wonder why women can’t seem to do a man’s job, but it’s still striking to see his prejudice play out.

The details here are pretty bad. Hegesth personally intervened after the military officers in charge refused to block the promotion. The officer was told "President Trump would not want to stand next to a Black female officer at military events" by Hegseth's Chief of Staff.

frustrating to have to re-up this again, but this essay has all the necessary facts to counteract today's news: juliaserano.medium.com/trans-people...

The ppl who deliberately did this to him should be tried for murder.