didn't think very much when making this one. and now its done. i hope u like it.

alt image link (blahaj zone, worse quality)

* brainmade notice:

• most of the text on-screen is not my work. it stems from "Daisy Bell", a song by by Harry Dacre.
• ~the~ ~rest~ ~is~ ~my~ ~work~

gradients make a whole image, don't they? but they are lazy. in this case i airbrushed over it with some stronger colors so it's not as uniform. you may notice more yellow on the right and more pink on the left.

catbox works again! you know what that means! imma have to switch up all the posts i had to make with the terrible blahaj zone image compression. imma update all those images so y'all get to see the raw png full quality versions (which are still less than 0.2 MB each, of course).

i just showered. have no more energy drinks. but i had coffee. maybe that's okay.

i thought of doing another purple-post, specifically about lilac telling white to close their work laptop, and once they do, lilac praises them. might still do that. will do that. maybe even today, so get ready for a day 8.5 or 9 very soon. it will likely be day 9, since the two days after tomorrow, i will be out with friends and wont have laptop-access.

so either you get lovingly pre-produced posts, or you get weird photos with text ontop. we'll have to see.

i hope you have a lovely day ~

when they finally pick up on your eggy signals

sawce: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/zxAbV6?collection_id=337777

After eating hot pot, my son took the photo. He asked if he could draw like this. Oh, I said give it a try.

*First panel - Alien 1 is talking to Alien 2 which is sitting at a table

Alien 1: The creature we love has destroyed an object we enjoyed.

Alien 2: Are we certain? [turning back and frowning]

*Next panel - a medium size red dog with three eyes and fluff in it's mouth surrounded by more fluff and a tail of what was once a plushy

Alien 2: The misconduct is ongoing.

*Next panel - closer view of the dog with fluff in it's mouth

Alien 1: At least the creature is contrite [it is showing that it is apparently sorry]

*Last panel - The dog has dropped the fluff, is smiling and wagging their tail.

Alien 2: The joy was concealed.

Alien 1: There is no contrition.

just feeling happy that you exist today

heheh story time

(i should mention that this story starts at 23:45 pm in my apartment)
so i just heard some vibrations in my apartment
rhythmic vibrations
it was clear that it was from music playing
so i took a walk to go around the building to see where the music was coming from
ok, comes from south
start marching
500 m later: ok, it's further away than i thought, but it's getting louder (i think)
or maybe they just turned up the volume for a moment
anyways, continue marching
1 km: i am at the train station. music still comes from south
continue marching
suddenly i am in perchtoldsdorf (i didn't even know that exists, is apparently the neighboring village to the city (where i live in))
that means i'm not in the city anymore
anyways, continue marching
after 7 (!!) km i arrive at the source of the music
some random festival 2(!) villages away from vienna
it was just some village festivity as they have them sometimes
anyways they drank lots of beer (and i can't drink alcohol)
also the festivity ended 5 minutes after i arrived
and so i just saw everyone coming out of the location
and going home
so i did the same
on my way home some random people talked to me
one asked me whether i was a boy or a girl
which was funny
i told them "am a boy" because didn't want to explain, they just looked at me with this "i do not believe you" stare
(btw i should mention i'm amab but currently questioning my gender and apparently it's very visible)
anyways
then i walked 7 km home

:)

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/9026834

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/64444

JK Rowling // Wikimedia Commons

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

Billionaire TERF influencer J.K. Rowling has announced that she will cover the legal costs of anti-trans groups named in a report by Amnesty International (UK), which called them “anti-rights.”

The report was retracted shortly after publication and replaced with a statement from the organization saying the report was uploaded “without going through the established internal review processes” and that its “language does not reflect the position of Amnesty International UK, which is why it was promptly removed.”

But the withdrawal and public acknowledgement was not enough to sate the organizations that have fought tooth and nail to exclude and/or antagonize the transgender community in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is notoriously more perilous for free speech than the United States. For our neighbors across the pond, the burden of proof lies with the defendant to prove the statement is true; here in the United States, the burden of proof lies with the aggrieved to prove that a statement is categorically false, and published knowingly or at least recklessly regardless. The US also benefits from “anti-SLAPP” laws to prevent such frivolous lawsuits waged by wealthy individuals or powerful corporations against those who criticize them.

So Rowling capitalized on the spectacle to, in essence, help dozens of groups in what appears to be an attempt to sue Amnesty into oblivion.

CAPTION: Screenshot from Rowling’s Twitter, where she offers “women’s organizations” backing to sue Amnesty International (UK) through her own charitable fund. She quote tweets a group of people who self-identify as “trans widows”—referring to cisgender people whose spouses or ex-spouses came out as transgender.

The saga began earlier this month, when Amnesty International (UK) released a report titled “A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK.” It released a similar report last year, but this year, it added a new category for what appears to be the anti-rights movement’s most rapidly growing sector: “Gender critical” groups, or groups that are antithetical to transgender rights and inclusion.

Rowling rushed to tweet about the situation.

CAPTION: Rowling tweets a group’s response to Amnesty International (UK)’s report on “anti-rights” groups.

She lauded “LGB” groups—another anti-trans buzzword, which, as the name suggests, describes groups that wish to erase transgender people from the queer liberation movement—like the Gay Men’s Network, an organization that has pushed for anti-trans policies. That group posted a public letter indicating it might sue Amnesty International for defamation. The Network demanded a retraction of the report and then claimed that Amnesty is guilty of “trying to control gay and lesbian free speech.”

In the day or so that followed, Rowling retweeted around a dozen similar letters. The posted letters include groups like Genspect, a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group that threatened Amnesty International with legal action, as well as groups like LGB Alliance and Sex Matters.

Amnesty International (UK) did not formally reply to a request for comment for this piece.

Gender critical activists, often financed by Rowling, rely on legal “guerilla warfare” said one U.K.-based trans rights organizer, who could only speak to Erin in the Morning if granted anonymity. The tactic is familiar: Wear down non-profits and individuals who dare speak out against anti-trans and anti-rights groups. They don’t have to win a lawsuit; they can just file again, and again, and again, draining valuable time and resources.

“They have sued organizations into the ground,” the advocate said.

Some context for just a handful of these groups so up in arms about being labeled as hateful: Helen Joyce, the director of advocacy for Sex Matters, gave a speech at a Genspect conference (both are groups on the anti-rights list) about how “beauty” is “inimical to trans bullshit.

She also boasted about manufacturing a moral and medical panic about how, although only a “small” segment of trans kids are prescribed puberty blockers, it has been a strategic “rhetorical device” to erode the rights of transgender people more broadly.

Depending on who you ask, TERFs are considered either a self-branded liberal faction of gender critical ideology, or a different term for what is essentially the same movement. TERF stands for “trans exclusionary radical feminist,” a term to describe self-proclaimed “feminists” who oppose giving transgender women and cisgender women equal rights.

Many of these TERF or “gender critical” groups have close ties to far-right Christian groups. DonorsTrust, the conservative donor behemoth and primary financier of initiatives like Project 2025, also forked over hundreds of thousands of dollars to groups like the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine and Thoughtful Therapists, both of whom made the “anti-rights” list because, as Amnesty International (UK) among many others have put it, they promote “conversion practices.”

One major point of contention was the inclusion of Rowling’s own organization, Beira’s Place. It does not primarily seem to function as any sort of advocacy organization. Rather, it’s a women’s shelter for those fleeing domestic violence, but it also has an explicit anti-trans policy, banning transgender women from accessing its services.

However, as the report explained, none of these groups exist in a vacuum. “These entities must be understood as an ecosystem sharing values, goals, strategy and tactics and, for some of them, formal collaboration,” it reads.

Amnesty isn’t the first or last institution or expert to call out gender critical ideology for being anti-rights. UN Women has published materials saying as much.

Meanwhile, University of Sheffield sociologist Dr. Sally Hines has called this framework “deeply conservative.” In the Journal for Gender Studies, she writes that “despite its origins within a branch of radical feminism, [gender-critical ideology] has a profoundly misogynist agenda that stands opposed to the rights of women.” It is a “key force within a current conservative pushback against the rights of women and minoritized sexual groups.”

Gender critical activists continue to use the language of oppression to characterize their plight. Many say “TERF” is a slur. Others believe criticizing a group because of its arguably regressive politics is grounds for a lawsuit.

Despite the fact that the report was pulled down, Erin in the Morning was able to retrieve a copy reposted by an anti-trans news outlet. You can read a full version of that archived version below.

Report A Growing Threat The Anti Rights Movement In The Uk July 2026

345KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

The second two photos reference the actual game "Count the Rice".

After nearly 10 years of waiting, it finally happened for me on Monday. Today (Thursday) I had my first sit out of bed for 30 minutes and it was painful. Tomorrow I do it more and the day after, I get my bandages off. It's all a bit unreal for me still. I kinda thought I'd never reach this milestone. The easy part of lying unconscious is done, now for the deliberate work of recovery.

Taking care to avoid the team-picking system of our schoolyard memories, Lilah Maravi divided us into two sides of about 20. It was a pleasant Sunday in June—Father’s Day—and we had gathered at our usual spot for our Pride month game. After a spontaneous game of catch in a Brooklyn park in 2023, Lilah had started this monthly pickup series with a Field of Dreams-esque compulsion to get trans women together to play baseball.

That might sound counterintuitive. Many of us were unathletic youths, and many of us make significant efforts to distance ourselves from an image of masculinity. Add in transphobic campaigns to exclude us from women’s and girls sports, and it leaves few opportunities for trans women to enjoy being on a field. It was going to be up to people like Lilah and her friends to make it possible for baseball to be for us.

The first game, in April 2023 at East River Park, drew not quite enough players for two full teams. Since then, we’ve moved fields (I’m leaving out where and when exactly, but if you want to play with us, you can find us) and found that way more girls wanted to play baseball than we had expected. At least once a month from April to October, as many as 50 players take turns on the diamond as friends chat, cheer, and grill hot dogs on the sidelines.

A few days ago I received my official certificate of legal name change and can now begin using my chosen name everywhere! And so the overwhelming mountain of admin work begins, but I'm actually happy doing it. A younger version of myself could never have imagined feeling any excitement towards scanning documents, making phone calls, and signing forms. Yet here I am in a euphoria-powered flurry of productivity.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/9044667

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/65072

Amy Acton For Governor Instagram Account

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

A growing uproar is consuming the Democratic Party after Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, locked in a dead heat with Vivek Ramaswamy, took her turn at anti-transgender politics. In the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling that Title IX does not protect transgender people—a sweeping victory for the conservatives who have spent years engineering it—Acton was asked for her thoughts by a local newspaper, the Toledo Blade. She could have offered boilerplate responses or defended transgender kids. Instead, Acton embraced the ban, casting it as a matter of safety and vowing to enforce Ohio's "settled law." The fallout was swift: Democratic equality groups posted, then quietly deleted, criticisms of their own nominee, an intra-party rupture that now threatens the race itself—a pointless own-goal by a Democrat who apparently bought the idea that attacking her own most vulnerable constituents is how you win an election.

“I do not support boys playing in girls sports. This is already settled law in Ohio, and as governor I will enforce and uphold the law,” Dr. Acton said in a response to the Toledo Blade after the Supreme Court decision. “As a doctor, public servant, and a mom, I will always stand up for fairness and protect kids’ health and safety… While my opponent tries to divide us, I’m laser-focused on issues that matter most to Ohioans: lowering costs, cracking down on corruption, and cutting taxes for working families.”

Acton's response was quickly seen for its anti-trans sentiment. Ohio is home to some of the most extreme anti-trans laws in the United States, pushed by the same organizations whose attorneys defended trans sports bans at the Supreme Court. In 2024, the Republican supermajority overrode Governor Mike DeWine's veto to enact House Bill 68, which simultaneously banned gender-affirming care for trans youth and barred trans kids from school sports from kindergarten through college. Months later, legislators slipped a bathroom ban into an unrelated college-credit bill. The resulting law forces trans students out of bathrooms matching their gender identity at every school in the state—including private colleges like Antioch, where more than 80 percent of students identify as LGBTQ+. Trans Ohioans now risk their education, their healthcare, and their safety simply by existing in public.

The statement drew swift condemnation from Democrats across the state. The Ohio Democrats Progressive Caucus, an official advisory arm of the state party, issued a blistering rebuke: "ZERO Ohioans have become better able to buy groceries by keeping child sport players away from their favorite sport. Our hearts break for those kids. Those who disagree with that will never vote—let alone doorknock—for Amy Acton." The caucus warned that its members were less willing to volunteer for her campaign "not out of malice, but out of the bad feeling in our chests.” The party's Pride Caucus answered Acton's framing directly: "There are no boys in girls' sports. Trans girls are girls." Maria Bruno, executive director of Ohioans Against Extremism, called it "frustrating to see an otherwise strong candidate take the bait by trying to triangulate a response rather than just being frank: can we please just leave trans kids alone and get back to talking about how we can make life more affordable for Ohioans?" And in The Buckeye Flame, writer NV Gay put it plainly: "On the last day of Pride month, the transgender community of Ohio was betrayed—all for the sake of winning an election." But the condemnation itself became a controversy. The Progressive Caucus’s post vanished from the group's Facebook page. The caucus has not responded to questions about why—leaving Ohio Democrats to wonder who, exactly, wanted the warning unsaid.

The candidate's statement is all the more puzzling given recent elections. In Virginia, Abigail Spanberger had every opportunity to throw transgender people under the bus with similar statements and never took the bait—even as Republicans poured millions into anti-trans attack ads, with more than half of all GOP ad spending in the race devoted to the issue. Spanberger won by more than 15 points and Democrats flipped 13 House of Delegates seats, transforming a razor-thin 51–49 majority into a commanding 64–36 majority. New Jersey told the same story: Mikie Sherrill faced a similar anti-trans barrage and won by nearly 14 points, outrunning Governor Phil Murphy's 2021 margin in all 21 counties. And in 2023, Andy Beshear vetoed both a trans sports ban and a sweeping ban on gender-affirming care in Kentucky—a state Trump carried by 26 points—then won reelection by 5. The evidence is not ambiguous. Democrats who refuse to abandon trans people have a good track record. Acton chose the one strategy with no record of success.

The law Acton has promised to enforce reaches far beyond the marquee sports conservatives fixate on. While bans like Ohio's are sold through images of swimming and volleyball, House Bill 68 prohibits athletic associations from making case-by-case judgments about competitive fairness and instead imposes a blanket ban on transgender participation from kindergarten through college—replacing the Ohio High School Athletic Association's individualized policy, which functioned without incident for eight years and saw a grand total of 19 transgender girls compete among roughly 400,000 student athletes. This sweeping approach means transgender Ohioans can be excluded from activities such as darts, billiards, dancing, disc golf, fishing, and other sports where claims of unfair advantage are tenuous at best. Even chess—recognized as a sport by multiple universities—could fall under the ban's scope, echoing a recent move by FIDE, the international chess organization, to bar transgender women from women's chess competitions. Notably, each of these sports has seen targeted attacks from Republicans in recent years. This is what "settled law" looks like in practice: a teenager barred from throwing darts with their classmates or from playing chess with other girls.

What Acton's statement will cost her is not yet measurable. What is measurable is the race: the polling average separates her from Ramaswamy by less than a single point. In an election that close, transgender people are not a rounding error. They are one to two percent of the population—more when nonbinary people are counted—and every one of them has partners, parents, siblings, and friends: a web of people who love them and vote like it. If Acton loses this one by a point, it will not be because she stood up for transgender kids. More likely, it will be because she didn't.

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.