sorry, I should have clarified that I was talking about active communities (where users regularly visit and interact)

they’re no longer following the Constitution, in case anyone has noticed …

at what point is this not just a reactionary coup - the president’s complete disregard of the Supreme Court’s ruling and the Constitution means the United States of America is over, no? I mean, whatever this government is, it’s no longer operating by the fundamental rules and laws that established this country, that define this government - this is a new, autocratic government operating by different rules.

Yup, though this isn’t an argument for why plastics are certainly dangerous. It doesn’t really matter, there are many reasons plastics are a problem, even if we don’t have that smoking gun yet on how actual plastic is hazardous. BPA, BPS, PVC, and other additives are already horrible, the reliance on plastics are part of what is destroying the earth’s climate, and these materials are not recyclable or re-usable, it’s an environmental disaster on a scale we have never seen, etc.

yeah, this is probably a bit like when people thought smoking wasn’t bad for you.

The higher concentration of microplastics are correlation studies, they don’t establish a causal link (which would be huge news and the discovery of a century). For example, the correlation could just be due to the poorer lifestyles of those who consume more microplastics (for example, they’re more common in processed and fast foods, which tend to be less healthy, for example and may also just be more common in people with lower economic status who then have less access to healthcare and more likely to die younger for a variety of reasons). The point is that they don’t have the smoking gun, yet.

We should just be clear about where we are at with the evidence, I’m not saying we shouldn’t be concerned or the lack of evidence is somehow exonerating or that we should be confident this isn’t a public health concern - I am very much concerned.

And of course there are lots of other reasons to avoid plastics, including its impact on the ecology and agriculture. It’s terrifying that China for example will just till plastic sheeting into the soil rather than bother to pull it up (and perhaps concerning plastic sheeting is used as a mulch in the first place, both in China and other countries like the U.S.).

I don’t know what to tell you about additives, they absolutely do make plastics without some of the known-to-be-hazardous additives, though I’m not saying that has in any way been adopted across the board or has solved the problem (I don’t know enough about that to be honest, but I’m cynical industrialists are going to give a shit).

As I understand it, plastics themselves have no known negative impact on human health - it’s the additives in the plastics that are a problem. But I don’t think the BPA hazards listed above can be fairly generalized to all microplastics.

EDIT:

from the hazards sheet:

HEALTH HAZARDS IN THERMAL PAPER WITH BISPHENOLS (BPA & BPS)

So BPA and BPS, and they’re talking about thermal paper with those in particular.

I guess this has more details about BPA hazards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_Bisphenol_A

The U.S. FDA states “BPA is safe at the current levels occurring in foods” based on extensive research, including two more studies issued by the agency in early 2014.[2] The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) reviewed new scientific information on BPA in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2015: EFSA’s experts concluded on each occasion that they could not identify any new evidence which would lead them to revise their opinion that the known level of exposure to BPA is safe; however, the EFSA does recognize some uncertainties, and will continue to investigate them.

As usual, it’s highly contextual when something is a hazard and to what extent it is.

Above that it mentions:

HAZARDS FOUND IN LABORATORY TESTS INCLUDE:

• Obesity
• Diabetes
• Early Puberty
• Cardiovascular system disorders
• Abnormal reproductive system development
• Hormone abnormalities in children
• Susceptibility to various cancers
• Resistance to chemotherapy
• Diminished intellectual capacity

Great, so receipts are going to be like our version of the leaded gasoline and mercury of past generations? 🫠

Meaning there isn’t an instance for women, nor are there multiple communities - as far as I know there’s just this one community.

this is a bit of how Blahaj works as I understand it, so it’s a good model - if anything I would think Blahaj might already be poised for this kind of instance-level protection of women

EDIT:

one of the Blahaj guidelines does include removing bigotry, including sexism, and would be a candidate for a safe space for women:

Inclusion and Acceptance

Embracing inclusion and acceptance means listening when people tell you who they are and what their needs are. It means not telling people that you know their experiences better than they do. It means not gatekeeping experiences of identities of others. It means no bigotry such as racism, sexism, anti LGBT commentary, ableism etc. It means doing your best to ensure that you don’t over-talk the voices of folk who don’t share your privileges.

That said, the women spaces on Blahaj are mostly for trans women, so a more general women’s community would be nice.

unfortunately I think this is the current answer, at least on Lemmy.

that is a good point that I should have thought of sooner, lol

It would be nice if someone could fly a plane with that as a banner, or maybe wrap a car with it? Or maybe a billboard?

I get the feeling the average person isn’t fiddling with that, though I do know of one person who has.

EDIT: either way, the win here is for the corporations who don’t want regulations, not for the consumer (who will now suffer the downstream consequences of not having those regulations).

I don’t understand your response, why is acknowledging the political aspect to contemporary Western queer identity upsetting to you? I’m just trying to explain why queer conservatives might not identify as “queer” or “LGBT+” - because of their political associations. It’s similar to how conservatives might remain in the closet about their sexuality.

The comment I was responding to just said they were surprised that the arrested trans person prayed the Rosary in the bathroom before being arrested, i.e. they were surprised a trans woman could be a devout Catholic. (Admittedly, I think people who do successfully transition are maybe less likely to be devout Christians, considering Christianity’s role in conversion therapy and the anti-trans movement, so it’s not entirely unreasonable to be surprised.)

Hegemony is social and structural, the individual is coerced into it one way or another.

Yes, the Catholic Church is anti-trans, but you have to understand that trans people are just like everyone else, they are subject to the same influences and pressures as cis people, and they come from the same backgrounds - from religious families, from conservative families, etc.

While trans people in the U.S. form an alliance with lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, two-spirit, and intersex individuals - this does not mean every trans person accepts the label “queer” or thinks of themselves that way, let alone how they think of other trans people. There are many self-hating trans people, and lots of trans people who hate other trans people.

Caitlyn Jenner is a Trump supporting Republican who went on Fox News to deliver anti-trans remarks about a trans athlete.

Blaire White is a Trump supporting Republican who makes a living supporting right-wing and anti-trans talking points on YouTube.

The Log Cabin Republicans are mostly LGBT+ folks who are Republicans, and they show up to support anti-trans legislation, like in the recent California vote to ban trans athletes.

I think you have to understand that labels like “queer” and “LGBTQ+” are political identities, and lots of people who are descriptively queer based on their sexuality or gender identity refuse to identify that way for political reasons. Some people remain closeted and hiding, but other people are open about their sexuality and just don’t connect the dots between their sexuality and the political struggles of people with those sexualities, refusing to identify as gay or queer and instead just insisting they’re “straight” even while openly engaging in queer sex.

Sure, it boggles my mind too, but it’s unfortunately very common. I think a lot of this has to do with the dominance one identity has, like one’s identity as a conservative or as Christian, over another, such as one’s identity as a queer person. When those conflict, it’s not surprising that sexuality or gender identity are not always the winner - especially in cases like Christianity where the religion can have a hold on your entire life (your job, your spouse, your whole family, your entire community - everything might depend on a religious identity like that and it’s very difficult to escape). This is especially the case for a binary trans woman who transitioned so young and can live as a cis-passing woman, there might be very little visible about her trans identity at that point, making it easier to live as a conservative Catholic.

Trans bathroom bans are ultimately just a means of driving trans people from public life entirely.

This is not an exaggeration, the anti-trans movement literally aims to “eradicate [trans people] from public life entirely”, those are their words.

Here are some citations, numbers, and evidence to back up what you’re saying and why we should view trans bathroom bans as genocidal rather than about safety, like anti-trans activists claim:

When laws permit transgender people to access sex-segregated spaces in accordance with their gender identities, crime rates do not increase. There is no association between trans-inclusive policies and more crime. As one of us wrote in a recent paper, this is likely because, just like cisgender folks, “transgender people use locker rooms and restrooms to change clothes and go to the bathroom,” not for sexual gratification or predatory reasons.

Conversely, when trans people are forced by law to use sex-segregated spaces that align with the sex assigned to them at birth instead of their gender identity, two important facts should be noted.

First, no studies show that violent crime rates against cisgender women and girls in such spaces decrease. In other words, cisgender women and girls are no safer than they would be in the absence of anti-trans laws. Certainly, the possibility exists that a cisgender man might pose as a woman to go into certain spaces under false pretenses. But that same possibility remains regardless of whether transgender people are lawfully permitted in those spaces.

Second, trans people are significantly more likely to be victimized in sex-segregated spaces than are cisgender people. For instance, while incarcerated in facilities designated for men, trans women are nine to 13 times as likely to be sexually assaulted as the men with whom they are boarded.

…

In society at large, between 84% and 90% of all crimes of sexual violence are perpetrated by someone the victim knows, not a stranger lurking in the shadows – or the showers or restroom stalls. But trans and nonbinary people feel very unsafe in bathrooms and locker rooms, though others experience relative safety there. In fact, the largest study of its kind found that upward of 75% of trans men and 64% of trans women reported that they routinely avoid public restrooms to minimize their chances of being harassed or assaulted.

from: https://theconversation.com/baseless-anti-trans-claims-fuel-adoption-of-harmful-laws-two-criminologists-explain-206570

These laws aren’t designed to protect cis women, they are designed to police gender (this impacts cis people too!) and eliminate trans people.

Why is it confusing? The woman who was arrested, Marcy Rheintgen, is a conservative Catholic who thought when push came to shove, they wouldn’t actually arrest her …

where I live it’s not exactly perfectly fine to be out of the closet, lol - your mileage may vary, significantly, and people definitely still live in the closet, acceptance is not universal even if it’s much, much better than it was before (and you can see this in the generational differences, older people are less likely to come out of the closet and younger people are more likely to).