you're correct that the term normally used is "drop out". i think this article may be using "stop out" to specifically refer to people who merely did not enroll in a new semester (vs. people who e.g. failed out, or were otherwise forcibly removed from the school), but i wasn't able to conclude this 100% from my reading

huh, interesting. i mean that's awful for you and i'm sorry you have to deal with that, but it is interesting there's a place where that's the case

i can understand the second part of your statement, but the first part confuses me. are you saying that you'll be harassed more in public for being gender conforming vs e.g. wearing a dress? or do you mean something else?

i would have appreciated hearing how the author, personally, found capitalized pronouns to be affirming, because, absent that reasoning, it really does seem like it's to set up a deferential power dynamic. i don't really mind respecting the pronouns anyways, but it does mean i don't really want to be friends with Them until i understand what's going on there better

yeah i feel you. i don't think this would be better even if i were vegan (i'm not bc i think i would starve due to a number of dietary restrictions /allergies, but i cycle in the vegan food i can)

yeah and i posed both questions just to kind of allow for multiple possibilities because, y'know, i wasn't really sure what was going on in your head

but otherwise, i dunno if you're this comfortable with your dad, but if you are, maybe you could have a conversation about it. ask him if he knows about sex work and how workers in the porn industry are treated, ask if he's considered looking for ethical pornography producers, maybe suggest some (?) LOL

i understand this isn't a conversation everyone is necessarily comfortable having, but i think, if you can overcome the awkwardness, it's worth it to kind of reaffirm your dad's relationship with you and his shared values with you. fwiw i think a lot of people (men?) who are like, strongly feminist would be open to reconsidering this stuff and maybe just don't necessarily have the tools or haven't really had the idea to explicitly pursue more ethical porn. some of it is just accessibility, you know? like, everyone knows pornhub, but i can't name an ethical porn studio offhand

that said, this inspired me to google it (i know, what an idea) and i found a couple of article recommendations as a starting point:

https://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/a36465164/ethical-porn/

https://sexualalpha.com/ethical-porn-sites/

and then, just for full disclosure, some of the things that prevented me from doing that before were:

• i didn't (and still am not sure) that i could just trust a google search about this (it's still better than nothing and the second article lists some signs that you can look for, at least)
• conflating ethical with soft: sorry if this is too mcuh information LMAO but i'm kind of into people fucking hard (sort of regardless of gender), so it's hard to feel like i'll enjoy ethical porn. i think it's better now, i would have been a lot more concerned ten years ago, but there's probably something nowadays that is ethical and still caters to me
• there's also kind of the concern about like, getting my money's worth, because tbh ethical porn DOES mean paying for it. the money isn't really a huge concern (altho it could be for others), but it's hard to want to manage it without the sort of security of a good return. again, it's not a huge deal, it's a worthwhile investment to spend a few bucks to find out and i think these studios probably have enough available material to evaluate them
• similarly on the accessibility front, is being able to access it on my phone bc my pc is in the goddamn living room (another situation which has probably improved substantially over the last ten years)
• some of it is just like, it wasn't that feasible or good of a situation ten years ago and i just haven't sat down to think about it much since the last time i did until now. and your dad is definitely older than i am, i am not old enough to have a child your age LOL

notably, none of these are really about whether it's a (morally) good idea or not, it's a lot about the practicalities, but yknow not necessarily every feminist guy is on this page

i'm not gonna sit here and pretend these are the best reasons or anything, i'm not the best human being to ever live, but i try to do better than the day before, and i listed those reasons out honestly to hopefully help if you decide to have that conversation with... not even just your dad, but anyone

but you know, if you decide not too, obviously that's totally fine and understandable LOL, i think this was still good to write up and talk about

i had to think on this a little bit, and knowing you're a woman helped me see where you were coming from, i think

and i think you should reflect on what looking at porn says to you about a person. because there can be a lot of baggage attached and - at least for me, as a guy who likes porn - i've already had to come to terms with that stuff. but it's hard to know if someone else has done that kind of inner reflective work about what most people treat as a throwaway hobby

it's also kind of like, how comfortable are you with your own sexuality? are you asexual? how did your folks treat sex and sexuality growing up?

i don't have any answers for you, and you certainly don't need to answer any of these questions in a public forum on the internet. but hopefully they help you understand and resolve what's troubling you

fwiw, my dad is super careless about it LMAO i found his porn bookmarks by accident as a kid. and nowadays his steam notifies me when he hops on hentai games 💀💀💀 but yknow what, good for him, hope he's having a good time

it's highly personal, so ideally you ask the individual and include their consent in your article. that said, generally speaking, trans people will use their current pronouns, even referring to their pre-transition selves. this is also what's generally considered polite if you don't know them, so it's pretty suspect that the article is not doing that

still, something about malice and incompetence....

not necessarily for you but for other trans people reading - transition isn't going to make you cis but it can help a lot of things. at the very least, hormones can potentially provide a lot of mental benefits, even if you won't get the exact body you want at the end of the day

and, y'know, if they don't, you can always stop taking them

lmaoooo believe it or not, some people around here ALREADY had that idea. which is INSANE when people are paying >$100 a month in HOA fees 😭 which i discovered by talking to someone i (mistakenly) believed was getting paid to pick up trash in the area

it's shit like that that makes me want to organize people

this is interesting to me. i recently met, and subsequently turned down, a local communist party. after some interrogation, i realized that, much like organizing folks in my workplace, i wanted the work i did with them to directly benefit the people of my community. they were very much about recruitment ("waiting for the next event where capitalism radicalizes a bunch of people") and learning theory (... which i respect to a certain extent), with a distinct emphasis on doing things other than community building / mutual aid / etc. they're also mentioned as one of the not-great groups (RCA)

i guess i'd like to know which groups are doing that important community building / solidarity building / organization education outreach? there's a mutual aid group in my area i'd like to become involved with at some point, at least

to a certain extent, i also want to know if my criteria for judging a group is good (or, if you agree, i suppose) - i've always thought that the worth of a group (here, meaning, a group meant to change things in the world for the better) is measured in the lives they've changed. but i can't prove that, obviously, it's just what i've arrived at based on my experience of the world, and i'm curious what others think

a friend of mine discovered the tip to add "before:2025" (or, the current year+1) to your yt search to improve it. i have no clue why that does anything but it reverts it to pre-enshittified functionality

it's crazy how those comments are aging like milk precisely because google/web search is going to shit (in addition to being dickhead comments ofc)

just weird to look back and think about how we thought it would never change

the misandry has become less acceptable over time, probably as more "cis" girls like i was realized we weren't so cis or girls and made some of those actually cis girls confront the things they'd said and thought during that time

but also we've become a lot more aware of how the patriarchy hurts men, and we've also become more broadly aware of feminist authors like bell hooks, who have been writing about how men need feminism too all along

fwiw you've conveyed the same general question i have about the situation, albeit far more eloquently than i would have been able to

i am totally down to stop using words that disabled people find offensive, but i need alternatives to express that someone is being needlessly / purposely ignorant or otherwise harmful and is generally worthy of scorn and contempt

which isn't to say that providing that is the onus on disabled people (it's really not, their only real obligation is to express their experiences)... but it does make it a lot easier to action on the request

it's also kind of interesting to approach this conversation both as an outsider, but also as someone who these words do apply to in some capacity

yeah as someone on a keto diet and already allergic to soy and coconut... i need this LMAO i'm gonna die if i lose dairy and meat 😭

really appreciate the author's dedication to explaining math in an approachable way

the way you're trying to exclude trans men from a general trans space "because most of the memes are trans fem" is really othering and hurtful

i don't feel like that reason makes it okay to be exclusive to trans men. if anything, that strikes me as a reason to be more considerate, not less

sort of like how a typical women's space should be considerate in including trans women, since they're a minority of a marginalized group, no?

incidentally, you should see that the rules of the subreddit which forbid bigotry and encourage tagging your post with the audience it's aimed at

how is this a women's space?

cw: targeted towards trans femmes :')