Statement wise “I don’t want the government to tell me what to eat” or variations could mean basically anything. Most of the time it’s posturing on behalf of the idea that a lack of government regulation is a good thing which ignores a rather bloody history of food suppliers adulterating food with harmful substances in the name of preservation / cheapening production cost or using production practices that cause the likelihood of contamination of food.

Once you scratch the surface of the argument you can usually figure out more exactly what they mean and it often isn’t things like government subsidy programs publishing food pyramids based on shady science and economics rather than in the interest of health.

Often it’s based out of perceived personal inconvenience or the appearance of moral judgement such as when there’s some sort of health labelling initiative.

In Canada there are a lot of things that are not considered legal additives for food that are used in the US and the difference in strictness is in part because the Health care system in Canada is funded publicly. Producers of foodstuffs cost the government money directly if whatever they put in it has no nutritional value and causes known health problems. Rather than let companies create messes and tragedies which the government is on the hook to clean up when people’s health fails they remove the issue at it’s source. In the US there’s less incentive as these costs become scattered in the form of individual medical bills and oftentimes the savings are from food being shelf stable for longer. Shrugging one’s shoulders at the fallout or claiming its an exercise of “freedom” is in service to those who make money hand over fist.

Hey, Non-binary trans masc person in trades here.

I can tell you how I perceive different types of co-worker if it helps you want to dial in what it’s like on the other side of the experience. There’s layers to the whole situation and as non-binary folks we understand what we are asking for isn’t automatically going to click and requires people to figure us out.

First up : Most of us end of day aren’t going to rock the boat for anything less than fully agregious behaviour so calls to report other people for being mildly offensive are probably not actually going to go anywhere. Most of us are scared of being labelled “a problem” so we just take the hits when they come. If you are a boss and notice a non-binary person sticking closer to specific people and avoiding others there’s a good chance that they’ve found the people who are safe and avoiding ones who aren’t. A great accommodation that can invisibly help is just to recognize this strata and if a task nessesitates putting people together try and pair along these lines. A lot of co-workers wait until other people aren’t around to let their nastier behaviour shine.

Now to co-worker types. Aside from the full on transphobe or problem persons there’s a range of different stages of cool people.

The “I don’t really get it” Co-worker pays lip service to the polite aspects of using pronouns. They are the type to introduce you to others by misgendering you and then flap their hands and go “Oh no sorry ‘they’”. We know they don’t get it or don’t really care. The misgendering still hurts but they are fairly benign. They make these accidents non maliciously and are afforded grace. If they step in it we basically disregard because they aren’t really worth the effort of getting too comfortable around. We make these accommodations for strangers daily. Annoying but nessisary.

The “in training” co-worker is one whom is encountering their very first trans person. They want you to be their Obi wan and their enthusiasm is a bit of a double edged sword at times. It’s tiring to teach people to dance when they keep stepping on your feet but the job needs doing. Some of us veiw this as our own brand of service to the cause of normalizing ourselves more widely. Some of us just don’t want to be bothered. Either way, just wanting to learn is heaps better than ambivalence. If you fuck up something, don’t make a big deal about it. It’s not that you’re a terrible person and should have known better. Our stuff takes practice and we know it’s not intuitive.

The “A little too up in our shit” co-worker is excited to know the real you but looks at you as a beautiful creature in need of preservation. They might seek to advocate on your behalf or behind your back but the attempt is clumsy and often at odds with a non-binary person’s desire to just get through the workday as a regular human and not make waves. Good enthusiasm sure, we’re probably friends but for the love of God we’re adults and we can sort out our own shit if need be.

The “Understands the Assignment” co-worker is just comfortable to be around. They don’t have to be the most tuned in to all the nuance about our specific needs in ways we require more out of partners, family and friends but they treat our basic requirements as no big deal, maybe they occasionally ask questions to check in if they catch us struggling or reacting but aren’t going to narc to the boss on our behalf. They either avoid all stereotypes associated with sex or in the case of trans mascs/trans femmes they treat us like one of the boys/girls. Gold standard.

Hey, enby here. While I definitely benefit from they being a default I have enough binary trans friends who have this experience. What the person you are replying to is giving you is something referred to as nuance. A solve put forward by a well meaning cis person doesn’t automatically work just because it seems like it should to you. Sometimes it causes new problems and when someone tells you about them it’s a good idea to not assume it’s them trying to be a dick or difficult about something but actually explaining why that solve isn’t always a good thing.

If your intention is to make a trans person actually comfortable instead of getting defensive then listening when these things come up instead of telling them they are trying to be trouble on purpose is the play.

Not everything works for every trans person and inside the trans community there is something sometimes referred to as “the coward’s they”. It’s a well known phenomenon where a physical transition gets to a certain point the brain stops easily registering and sorting someone as being their birth sex because they seemlessly look and act as their gender so the automatic neurological system of assigning them a sex value flips fully to the new and desired setting. You see it on conservative media sometimes where they slip up and use the actual correct pronouns and have to correct themselves back over to using the wrong pronouns… Problem being is it causes the same mental redirect issues for a Conservative actively dodging the automatic reaction as learning to use Non-binary pronouns so as a compromise these people use “they” instead because it is easier to trick the sorter and strand themselves in the safe neutral ground where they can identify a person as “not actually a woman/man” without triggering their audience by using correct pronouns for a trans person.

When you use they/them pronouns for a binary trans person it’s interpreted by the brain of the trans person as you seeing and reacting to all the aspects of their body that makes them visibly trans and your brain’s automatic sex recognition system sorting them into this “not enough” category. It’s effectively less hurtful than full misgendering… But it still pings the bit of the brain that is seeing their own body through your perception via your words. It causes they same dysphoric reaction where their mind picks over all the parts of their body that would cause you to react by misgendering or degendering them. The whole point of preferred pronouns is to help us stop that mental reaction from happening as much.

It is perfectly safe to use they/them pronouns for cis people who do not have dysphoric reactions at all and for non-binary people who actively use those pronouns but if someone rocks up looking like they are trying to project a full binary situation it’s worth going for the full binary pronoun option because they are specifically putting in the work to be as obvious as possible so that people know that’s what they want.

It’s non-specific to queer culture. It’s been around for ages as a sort of funny bar standby or joke drink.

I encounted them first about 20 years ago in Canada. Had one for my 19th birthday at a random bar long before I came out as trans. Most of the time it’s a vehicle for the joke of someone saying they got you a blowjob for some kind of special occasion.

Have you ever been to a kid centric drag show? They are a blast! There’s a lot of overlap with traditional clowning and kids love the silly Princesess and over the top characters. It’s also a safe way to show kids that gender presentation can be playful. A lot of drag queens who do kids shows love the wholesome vibes of dancing, reading to kids and being silly with little chaos munchkins just like any other performer who works with children. It’s the same reasons some folk become Clowns, Santa Clauses or Easter Bunnies.

If you don’t want to bring kids to a drag act that is your choice. Walk on by. Nobody is forcing anyone to bring their kid to a drag act, quite frankly nobody wants a sourpuss in the audience…but the issue is that a lot of parents and religious people who “don’t want kids around drag queens” are taking that choice away from parents who want their kids to try that experience. They aren’t making that decision for their kids they are taking that experience away from everyone by making those events unsafe or cancelling them through interference.

Nobody is throwing tantrums that some parents don’t want that experience for their kids. Nobody cares. It doesn’t impact them in the least if they just don’t participate. It’s like the same level of don’t care if you told them you are not going to a jazz festival or something. They might say "well you are missing out on a good time’ but it’s not like it really matters.

Women who are like that usually change their mind after a couple of years buckled into the yoke. There’s currently a whole group of women stuck in golden handcuffs in the trad wife influencer community who are miserable in their relationships but making too much ad money to consider stopping.

Probably not vaccinated for e coli. There’s very few options and most only work very short term. This smacks of reckless child endangerment.

I mean Cholera is kind of not the issue here. This creek has habitually tested high for e coli. An e coli infection makes cholera seem tame. You treat cholera it’s got a mortality rate of less than 1%… E coli infection has a mortality rate around 17% slightly less than one in five people who get hit die from renal failure. Those odds go up significantly for kids…

This idiot brought his grandkids to splash in this e coli laced stream. I am without words.

Neoliberalism is very specifically a breed of political thought that came about with the likes of Margaret Thatcher and Jimmy Carter that seeks to create new markets out of previously held government bodies in the name of austerity or protectionist principles and cuts help for disadvantaged people. Think privatization of government service, liquidation of government assets under the guise of saving taxpayer money, removing restrictions/protections on the consumer market and manufacturing sector and dissolving the welfare state or services that soften the blow of being unemployed or unable to work.

Neoliberalism is often used by people on the right to describe the “Progressivish Liberal identifying party of the hour” but it is inaccurate. While Democrats flirt with Neoliberalism under the guise of courting people who like tax cuts Republicans are straight up Neoliberals. Basically old school liberalism believes in a body of rights, a reasonably unrestricted market and a democratic system of governance. Neoliberalism believes first and foremost the market will sort everything out (or is a scam so that people in government can sell it off peicemeal for personal kickbacks.)

Neoliberalism is incompatible and kind of the exact opposite of socialism which seeks to expand sectors of public protections and publicly held wealth.

I mean dude, love the energy but this isn’t a protest to those laws… that’s just going out for enough time in public to need to use a public restroom as a trans man.

Trans men getting arrested by police for ‘causing a disturbance’ by being forced to use the women’s bathroom isn’t a bug, it’s a transphobic feature. They want to make being trans as uncomfortable as possible because they think that if they can ratchet up the discomfort level less people will attempt to transition. Trans men who pass on average are massively uncomfortable using the ladies room because it’s a great way to get arrested by cops, hastled by security, banned from private property, assaulted by women, yelled at and abused because everyone assumes you are a cis male creep, they want you to suffer for being trans or they just don’t care.

Like trans women are generally the forefront of the conversation but when it comes to trans men this isn’t “malicious compliance.” it’s either compliance compliance or stealthily breaking the law and hoping nobody notices. The trans deterrent system is operating as intended.

Very individualized as per need. Non-binary is an umbrella term for a whole bunch of different situations so what feels right is going to be very different for someone who feels like say a mix of masculine and feminine versus someone who has dysphoric reactions to any and all gender markers. It’s going to be different for someone whose identity is more static than say someone who fluidly bounces between extremes.

If you know someone who is non-binary that’s essentially just the tip of the iceberg of a whole discussion about how they personally interact with their body or the culture of gender. A lot of people seem to treat it as a full stop third category which can actually be a disservice to a non-binary person because it oftentimes just leads to a lot of new assumptions and frames out some of the ways they could be better treated than just as automatically genderless. I’ve heard of mixes of Mom/Dad for bigender people, just Mom or Dad for trans masc/femme folk, Completely new words that do not have cultural baggage, or just “my parent”. It’s not a one size fits all situation.

I’ve heard “Mawpaw” for a bigender person before which sounds kind of delightfully southern.

I dunno about that. This status quo was created because America came out of WWII smelling like roses. All of Europe was rebuilding and so American prosperity of the time was basically like being the one only slightly scorched house on a bombed block. It’s been long enough that the countries in question aren’t in need of leaning on the one stable currency.

This could be the push needed to equalize the world stage and break off of old habits. Like take Canada for example. Food self sufficiency in Canada was always a concern. That’s why there was a tarriff on US Dairy, because Canada wanted to retain domestic self sufficiency in one of it’s food production spheres. That issue persisted through other sectors but there wasn’t a strong political motive to make that shift. The government wasn’t called to protect and incentivize strong domestic production to a great extent because the US generally has a better growing year in the south. To not have food security however is a weakness in Canadian’s self determination if things go bad. Now that things have gone bad structure will be put in place and protected meaning a semi-permanent loss of market for American interests.

What Trump has proven is American volitillity in it’s government structure and voting block and nobody will want to tie a shoddy investment around their ankles. In fact some might take it as the opportunity to cut loose a problematic ally.

It’s not nessisarily skewing the narrative, it’s just not providing context. Terrorist acts have a narrow definition in Canadian law. This guy could be a spree killer motivated by racism but unless that killing is for premeditated ideological, religious or political reasons to coerce a specific result or change of policy from the population / Government it doesn’t fall under the definition.

No manifesto or claim of reasoning or connections found to groups that claim responsibility - no terrorist designation.

A terrorist attack has a narrow definition in Canadian law where it is specifically part of a premeditated ideological, religious or political attempt to influence government policy or to intimidate a section of the public to a specific end. Basically if this guy didn’t have a manifesto or ever stated his reason within this rubric and was not part of a group that has specific aims then it follows under a regular old spree killer homicide unless it was racially motivated in which case it is also a hate crime.

Whether one uses cars or guns is not a factor in determining what counts as a terrorist act. The reporting on this has not been great ar clearing up this point.

There’s a very specific rubric for what counts as a terrorist attack in Canada. Probably the level of calculation and premeditation involved was a factor and that he’s not a part of an ideologically organized group that is trying to influence behaviour of a government or political body.

A spontaneous hate crime made against a population is technically not a terrorist attack by Canadian definition. To count you have to have done it for a narrow slice of very specific reasons.

But there are a lot of things that exist that aren’t exactly friendly. People often hinge their belief or disbelief in any divinity singularly on the bible. They consider proof of God existing is based on whether all the claims made in an old book are true - not that it is a fallible piece. It either has to be all true or all false which is not how any scientific text more than a decade out of date has proven.

Not saying that means anyone should start praying. The God as listed in the Bible given their behaviour does not seem either omniscient, omnipotent or benevolent but those ideals have shaped a lot of the discussion about whether something classifies as a “true” God or not. A lot of thought and debate goes towards squaring that circle. Sometimes the easiest answer is that lies exist. The presense of other gods are noted in the bible. Maybe that one was just a super powered Narcissist.

Technically that would be a defense if the god in question was actually as powerful as they say they are or that they are nessisarily good. There is always a possibility that Gods exist but are not on the hook to tell the truth and their goals do not align with humans.

A lying god telling the kids they have magic powers well beyond them and proving it like an uncle playing a dumb trick on the three year olds at a family reunion is a possibility. Maybe God exists and is just kind of an ass?

Trans masc person checking in. Might be my bias or community or something but I get way less misgendering by guys under 30 than basically any other demographic. They seem to pick it up faster and be really chill about it in ways that a lot of the women in my life really don’t seem to get as comfortable with.

But there is definitely a part of my brain that sees men as being of my tribe in ways that women are not. Like not to say that I don’t have incredible women in my life whom I have incredibly close bonds with… But there’s definitely some kind of cognitive distance that has always kind of been there.

I think trans femmes might experience a similar situation with feeling accepted by women ( Or maybe not because TERFs tend to look at them as a threat) but to answer your question about if the bros are alright… Yeah, they good.

It’s more like the definition used by Right leaning government to cast Progressive social agendas as the downfall of society because in their case you slap “Neo” on something to mean “Untested and scary”. This isn’t so much a “Tankie” thing so much as a Fox News thing.

They get away with it because people aren’t taught or don’t absorb the actual technical meanings of different labels for subtypes of political philosophy. Hence why “liberal” has become buzz word to mean “civil rights and social emancipation enthusiasts”, “conservative” is abandoned to be this wishy-washy ground that evokes both a retaliatory resistance to social movements and/or a sort of nebulous (often false) vision of fiscal austerity and “communist” a brush to tar a variety of social movements with that handily has an implicit conspiracy aspect.

None of these definitions are accurate but they serve to muddy the water. That’s really the point of it. To rob us all of accurate ways to discuss political matters and to create team sport like voting blocks.