Bay 12 Games Forum

My friend just gave me her Crunchyroll login so I can watch Witch of Mercury

What else should I check out while I have free access?

God, I'm depressed. Sorry for the ALL CAPS but with Homestuck over I am putting on cruise control for y'all's nostalgia

[snip snip lmao]

this is my vent, I know I will be fine but jesus fucking christ fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

So, I'm going to clarify via a couple of bullet points:

- I have been harassed in public for being suspiciously trans in California (while doing literally nothing wrong/overtly trans-flavored, i.e. no visible pride flags or whatever)
- I enjoy attending drag shows
- I enjoy reading books about and by trans people. I am a very heavy-duty library user
- I enjoy being able to use restrooms in public spaces without being worried about criminal charges or harassment. When available, I always use all-gender restrooms
- I want and need ready access to abortion. I find the concept of being pregnant kind of horrifying
- I may need access to gender-affirming care (medical transition) or tools like PreP
- If I had a trans child, I would allow them to transition, too, because jesus christ been there done that.
- I have on numerous occasions considered taking advantage of California state laws that would allow me to change my gender markers on legal documents to an X
- I, like most people, do not enjoy being misgendered, and people passing laws about it being ok to misgender schoolchildren doesn't give me the most faith in the surrounding society
- I really struggle emotionally when I experience targeted harassment and nothing about my present workplace environment makes me think that continuing in a career in the exact sciences will somehow result in an "ok" degree of harassment.

Finally, yes, trans people are a protected class in California and New York. Great! Do those protections have teeth? Do any universities there have tenure-track positions in the very specific area of mathematics in which I'm getting a degree? Can I build a national career based on postdoc positions from trans safe states only? What about the locations of where the big career-building math conferences are held? For example, is the International Congress of Mathematicians going to meet in Russia again? Will I be able to get invitations to present at seminars, over Zoom say, in unsafe states? Or will I need to lose out on those opportunities?

The point here is not to say "I know it will be like X Y or Z." The point is that a thinking person looks at this situation, says: "well, I know of two working mathematicians in the whole country who are trans and sentiment is becoming worse and worse and worse. I will have to figure out what to do next."

I'm stressed out. I'm doing a little better than I was before after having a big crash-and-burn mental breakdown. However, I had planned to become a research mathematician and with the present legal slide the way it is and the need to develop a national reputation, it genuinely feels as though within five short months the career I've been working towards for the past lifetime is all gone. It's not gone due to my incompetence or stupidity; or lack of discipline; or unsuitability; or lack of skill; it's gone because a bunch of fucks wanted political power and decided that people like me should have no access to public life.

OK, assholes. You demolished one of your own country's best and brightest after decades of very expensive training and education. Good fucking work.

I don't know whether I should become depressed or what. I can finish my degree and move to a safe city in California and find some kind of work, maybe even pretty satisfying work, but with my PTSD DX I've seen online that I wouldn't even be able to get the most basic security clearance. So realistically, I'm going to be working in education until they force me out, and then after that I'd be code monkeying. Or digging ditches, I don't give a shit.


I'm writing about this here because I want people to understand that the current situation is affecting people you know well in direct and unambiguous ways. Hi lurkers o/

Meanwhile, in Montana, fascism.

I feel like I should run some crazy bastard game. I don't actually have an idea yet, though. I'll take suggestions.

*sits quietly nearby, lurking*

I fucking told people. But no. They wouldn't listen. It was "just politics" they said.

(I don't mean here. I mean IRL where they have been treating me like I am complaining about nothing for years).