RainbowTurtle 🏴‍☠️☠🍊

Happy Birthday! (sorry you were targeted by the sky laser while celebrating!)

24 hours left to post to the Paramount/Skydance Kudoboard to #SaveOFMD! I'd love to get to 250 posts and we need 6 more! It doesn't have to be a long post! Ask your friends, family, partners, colleagues, and room people!

www.kudoboard.com/boards/WDOgZ...

i love that in the simple decision of not wanting to edit Queen Anne next to The Revenge, they essentially made Gentlebeard u-haul lesbians

It's Severe ME Day. Yesterday, the news was full of discussion of the DecodeME results of the massive genetic research study done which did, of course, yield results.

25 years ago, I was diagnosed with ME.

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Digital painting of Olu from Our Flag Means Death

Olu painting time 🌞🩵
#ofmdfanart

That line got me too, so wonderfully validating!! And the bit about chronic pain (a consultant once told me that pain wasn't a symptom of m.e. then promptly discharged me from the pain clinic!).

AMAZING!
In summary:
People with an ME/CFS diagnosis have significant genetic differences in their DNA compared to the general population.
Eight genetic signals have been identified.
The signals discovered are involved in the immune and the nervous systems.
www.decodeme.org.uk/initial-dna-...

I hope this research will help lead the way to you getting the support you need and deserve very soon!

ME linked to your genetics – early study indicates Scientists said the findings offer the first robust evidence that genes contribute to a person’s chance of developing the disease.

In case you missed it!

📹 C4: ME linked to your genetics - early study indicates

www.channel4.com/news/me-link...

Thanks to all involved - especially to Sarah for sharing her story 🧡

#decodemeresults #decodeme #MECFS #pwME

@decodemestudy.bsky.social
@cgatist.bsky.social
@tessamunt.bsky.social

Wow, that's impressive- I've started using cfs less since learning more of the history behind it, but still use it as a signpost (for sesrches etc!).

Yay new stranger friend- hellooooo! 👋 Lovely to meet fellow lgbt person!
With this amount of high spirits in the ME community, the day after tomorrow is going to be A DAY. Totally worth it 😂

I wish I could shout it from the hilltops!!

X marks the spot where ME/CFS biology can be discovered - DecodeME 06 August 2025 Scientists, people with ME/CFS, and their charities came together to create DecodeME, the world’s biggest ME/CFS study – and its results are striking. 18,000 people with ME/CFS gave the...

www.decodeme.org.uk/x-marks-the-...

Scene from Star Trek TNG episode "Command, Part II". Picard is shouting in exhausted defiance "there are four lights" (while being tortured into saying there are five lights, when there's clearly only four).

I know it sounds weird but I'm crying with joy right now bc there's been so much medical, government & journalist gaslighting and abuse for decades- telling us we could get better if we tried harder, and now we have proof that this illness is real- IT'S REAL, IT'S FUCKING REAL!!!

Quote from the Decode M.E. article: "So, Decode M.E. showed that immunological and neurological processes are likely to play a part in ME/CFS. They also found a link to chronic pain, but not to anxiety or depression."

I was one of the thousands who partipated in the DecodeME genetic study- and we finally have the initial results back- people with M.E. have SIGNIFICANT GENETIC DIFFERENCES compared to those who don't.

DecodeME: The Results announcement post. The graphic has a blue background with a DNA helix. In the centre of the graphic it says ‘We have released our initial DNA results! We have discovered that your genes contribute to your chances of developing ME/CFS.’ At the bottom left of the graphic is an image of a research paper.

Our initial DNA results! DecodeME have discovered that people with an ME/CFS diagnosis have significant genetic differences compared to the general population.
-
Summary of our results: shorturl.at/pgsjk
Check out our full preprint paper: shorturl.at/VwN3s

Please- lets not do the same to another generation of kids, they absolutely deserve better.

As someone who experienced the void that was Section 28 for most of my school years, I can confirm that it completely failed to make me straight. What it did do was contribute to homophobic bullying, feelings of self hatred, and mental blocks that I'm still trying to unpick well into my 40's.

The Urgent Need to Revise the RSHE 2026 Guidance and Centre Trans, Non-Binary, Intersex, Asexual and Gender Non-Conforming Voices

UK folks- sign this to stop another Section 28 era for trans kids- RSHE needs to be fully inclusive.

Rainbow pride flag out of Indian style scarves with gold patterns in several stripes, draped over a chair in a garden

#ofmd I'm not sure I've ever posted a pic of the (for now) finished S2 Pride Flag. But since we've been sharing #ofmdcrafts recently:

Loves, I could use a little help in my tatty old coin purse. If you haven't scooped it up already, I have a huge digital art book available! Please share this around and thank you so much for helping me out! 🥰🧡 #ofmd #OurFlagMeansDeath

Being disabled in the face of all this is terrifying. We can't just go into hiding, we can't wait and hope it goes away. We have to fight it as soon as it appears because history shows we're already gone by the time the main act gets started.

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Stand up for people speaking out on Gaza What is happening in Gaza is a state-sponsored atrocity – and one of the states sponsoring it is the UK. Support people speaking up!

What is happening in Gaza is a state-sponsored atrocity – and one of the states sponsoring it is the UK.

Many feel it is their moral obligation to say so. But we know what it means to speak against Israel’s genocide: massive pushbacks.

So we're supporting them 👇
goodlawproject.org/crowdfunder/...

Frakes casually taking out all the lesbians and bisexuals in one scene. Respect.
#snw

Just to clarify, my anger is directed at the government for refusing funding, not at everyone who worked hard to create and push the plan forward.

CW / medical neglect, assisted dying

No care / treatment pathway. No specialised urgent care in hospitals.

When a bill for assisted dying goes through in the same year, one wonders if they do indeed have a plan.

CW / medical neglect, disability cuts

Is the plan to provide services? Nope bc they refused to fund the plan.

Tens of billions available for weapons tho. Thousands of people stuck with 0 specialist medical support (often for decades), with benefit cuts perpetually on the horizon.

/Vent

News presenter: "so how does the new government plan for M.E. affect patients in terms of things like waiting lists?"

I just had to pause a news segment to engage in some hysterical laughing- what fucking waiting lists?! You need to actually have service available first! 🤦‍♀️

A photograph of two muppets at sea. The Ed Teach muppet is in his rice sack onesie and he's holding a fishing line. He has caught a merStede muppet who is dangling from his fishing line and they are both staring at each other in delight.

A new month and a reminder to never stop being your quirky, curious, unique self :)
#OFMD #OurFlagMeansMuppets

Wait is thinking you must have a long lost twin your whole childhood a gay thing??