Karen (they/them)

For a company to try to make money by telling people hazy early years is anything but normal is bad
But for them to say this is a definite sign of childhood trauma and abuse is evil

pro tip - this is why a range of day to day experiences is more likely to create meaningful moments for small children than once in a lifetime things

Nothing is more repetitive and mundane than life of a small child - which is as it should be
Limited life experience also means wierd stuff makes "sticky" memories and its rarely the things parents/carers etc hope
Yes the trip to Disney probably sticks, but so does the cool bug you touched age 3

This is why sometimes we struggle to remember if something was last week or last month, and often have to work through contextual clues eg. "Oh yeah that happened when it was snowing because I remember I had my rainbow hat on" - that kind of thing

One of the best ways to understand how early years (and indeed most long term memories) are formed is depicted in the work of creative genius - Inside Out
Most of the time we arent laying down memories as keepers because we are doing mundane repetitive shit
sleep, eat, work, repeat

I had to pop onto zuckbook for something and saw such a worrying ad - it suggested that if your early years memories were "hazy" you were probably abused as a child
WtactualF
Everyone (well 95% of ppl with some neurodiverse exceptions) has hazy early years memories
(thread)

Should the BBC have beeped the word - porbably yes, but with an acknowledgement that balancing different harms and oppressions was happening (silencing a person with tourettes versus transmitting hate speech) It's not a simple situation

As a neurodivergent person it is horrifying seeing someone with Tourettes be hounded because of their disability.
Coprolalia is a condition defined by saying taboo and obscene words at inappropriate moments - demanding an apology from the neurodivergent person for their difference is never ok

state schools vaccinated, measles is done before children start school, they also do mandatory swimming

the correlation of income to low vaccination is stronger than anything else, including immigration status, ethnicity, or education levels.

But childhood vaccines are free on the NHS, right?

Cass can continue to pretend to be neutral, but we will see whether Michael Absoud the MRI crank is given excessive power to veto individual care.

a picture of a needle and syringe shaded green with the words heroin crack cocaine spice green party says yes in rhe "scary font"

its also worth pointing out that this campaign is a racist dog whistle. A lot of time and effort has been put into associating people of colour and drugs and labour know that
(ht to @slowbikeiain.bsky.social for sharing this labour nonsense)

the labour party opposes flavour in food and equates it to narcotics - actually tracks given the people they are trying to appeal to

Annual of Sexual Intermediaries Volume II (1900) Annual of Sexual Intermediaries Volume II (1900) [Hirschfeld, Magnus, Lombardi-Nash, Michael] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Annual of Sexual Intermediaries Volume II (1900)

“With gratitude for your contributions to this book and admiration for all you have accomplished to recover and record our history.” ─Jim Steakley (2021), from a personally signed copy of Magnus Hirschfeld Schriftenverzeichnis #MagnusHirschfeld #GermanGay
www.amazon.com/dp/B0CMLH3HZN

Special Saturday Triad: What I Saw at the Battle of Minneapolis The national media has moved on. Minnesota is still under siege.

"You now live in a country where volunteers deliver babies at home, in secret, off the books, because mothers fear that if they go to the hospital, they will be abducted by masked, armed agents of the state while giving birth. This is not a hypothetical."

a family member (who isnt white) visited Manchester for the first time this winter - they won't ever go back. I had, wrongly, assumed Newcastle was worse not better than one of our major metropolitan areas

Prepping this morning for my relationship escalator episode for the podcast and its so much fun! #lotr #lgbtq

My heart rushes to every parent of a trans child this evening. I know you are desperate to keep your child healthy, alive in the face of Labour's onslaught. Anne Health does good work. But, if your child is vulnerable and you can it is worth considering leaving. Things here are getting worse fast.

In case you were wondering just how little facts matter in the UK a doctor who believes in both social contagion theory (disproved) and Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (disaproved) was given time on TV to argue that kids catch being queer from twitter
How's your lgbt history month?

On Nov. 16, a mental health counselor recorded in Kamilla’s medical records that her mother reported the girl had lost her appetite after being “served food that contained worms.” A week later, the couple said, children were told to gather in the gym for what they believed would be a Thanksgiving celebration. Excitement spread as families saw tables set with turkey, sandwiches, pastries and pies, they said. The children waited expectantly. But when a parent asked when the celebration would begin, Oksana said, staff told them the holiday meal was for employees, not detainees. The children, she said, watched despondently as the feast was packed away.

On Thanksgiving, the immigrant children held at the Dilley detention center gathered in the gym for what they thought was a holiday feast.

The kids salivated over a spread of turkey, sandwiches, pastries and pies, a family told me.

But the food wasn’t for detainees — it was for the staff.

I think I will be using my Substack for only one thing...

To inform people about the strategic abuse of writers like Tolkien for neo-fascist ends - to change the narrative to a pro-extremist-right stance.

These two quotes by JRRT were abused by one of the most dangerous groups - only months ago.

So, it looks like the new DfE guidance on trans students in schools incorporates recommendations from the Cass report. Suffice to say that is an *incredibly awful* decision.

Here's a thread with my analysis of Cass on social transition from back in 2024.

TW sexual abuse
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.

we need to erase the phrase "underage" from our langauge

Underage = children
Sex with underage girls = sex with children
Call it what it is, not what makes abusers feel more comfortable with their abuse

The "natural" state of humans is not "red in tooth and claw". In fact we know from the examples of ship wrecks etc that children tend towards co operation and egalitarianism

I wish it was surprising to see #lordoftheflies on TV at a time of fascism but of course it isnt.
So your reminder its a book written to reinforce a eugenicist white supremacist class system and excuse the child abuse inherent in English public schools
Its also wildly inaccurate about children

Time trends in the male to female ratio for autism incidence: population based, prospectively collected, birth cohort study Objectives To examine changes in the male to female ratio in diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) over a 35 year period, providing temporal trends in diagnosis (incidence rate), the male to fem...

waves the Swedish study in the faces of psychiatrists still insisting on giving girls bpd diagnosis because sexism in medicine is so pervasive
The number of autistic afab ppl, particularly queer afab ppl wrongly given a bpd dx needs to be shouted from the rooftops
www.bmj.com/content/392/...

Again, this is FALSE. Administrative warrants are NOT signed by an immigration judge (or any judge at all). They are generated and signed by ICE officers themselves with no external oversight whatsoever.

Here is a blank sample warrant. Note who signs off on it; an "immigration officer."

Reminder that "jaywalking" was literally made up by american car manufacturers to shift the blame for accidents from drivers to pedestrians. "Jay" was a slang term meaning "idiot" or "rube".

My 2025 with Tolkien – from Faërie to Minnesota I had a busy time with Tolkien in 2025 – in scholarly and popular publications, in talks and lectures, on my crowdfunding blog, and in manuscript archives…

I'm an award-winning Tolkien biographer and I've been researching and writing about #Tolkien for years. Now I also crowdfund. My thanks go out to the supporters who helped me achieve all I have over the past year. Take a look here to see what I did! tinyurl.com/mytolkien2025

A post & run approach to lgbt history month (its this month in the UK) by social media accounts is a great way to spot real allyship vs pinkwashing
If an account allows hateful comments on a post to remain, you can be pretty sure they dont actually care about building a better world for lgbtq ppl