Traveller Pride
@TravellerLGBT
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Rights for Travellers, Rights for the LGBT community. All Travellers. All LGBT+.
Joined February 2019
The shoelace that Traveller Pride runs on is close to snapping. This has a high goal, with the intent of working for multiple years off this one single effort. As always, every share helps, we'd just need one billionaire to feel magnanimous for a moment.
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On the "is all art political?" Front, I can't help but think of how many Traveller kids at primary school fail* tasks like "draw a house", because they draw their own homes- With wheels, often white or silver- instead of the classic red brick, square, four windows things.
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Anyone who feels like the ban on blockers for trans kids is a shame but not really their problem needs to have a think: What happens when your regular medication becomes the target of the next moral panic, and gets banned outright to coddle the delicate feelings of reactionaries?.
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My big takeaway from the Cass review is that this is hugely dangerous for not just Gillick competence, but for the presumed medical competence of *adults* full stop - Because if a 24yo can't meaningfully consent to a mastectomy, how could they ever consent to an abortion?.
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Honestly you lost me at "Imagine a woman who must be stripsearched" - Nobody NEEDS to be strip searched, why is sexual violence being done by the state meant to be "better" if it's done by someone with the Right Sex?.
Imagine a woman who's been arrested and must be stripsearched. This may be late at night. She may be drunk, high or otherwise a risk to herself or others. Someone who's obviously a man walks in to tell her to take off all her clothes and bend over. If she refuses she will be.
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Another great example of the sexrealists' faith: to them, puberty isn't a set of material changes (ie, the presence of hormones changing the body) it's a spiritual event, much like how their idea of breastmilk isn't a mix of water, fats, vitamins etc, it's a spiritual concept.
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Awful scenes in Manchester, of young Traveller people being manhandled and forced onto trains basically at random by GMP, after being racially profiled and barred from the Xmas markets, for no good reason. As always, mobs of police treating kids like animals.
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This is a thing that we're putting together this year about folk devils: It's all very general, but I'm inviting you to think about who they apply to and when you might propagate them yourselves. And to ask: Are you a folk devil?
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Likewise, how "Die Treppe" (stairs) are first-year vocabulary for German learners at school, but "Die Anhängerkupplung" (trailer hitch) is something they might only come across at degree level. Or, is it a Wohnwagen or a Wohnmobil, never mind how you'd translate a chalet. .
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@MsVanillaRose A surprisingly common answer too! A lot of kids who live in towerblocks, when told "Draw your house, just yours, not your neighbours, not your whole street" struggle (because it isn't a possible task, or, the right answer is just a window) so draw inside the living room instead.
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"Trans people are the safest minority in the UK!" said an army of greyfaces in the replies to every tweet about TDoR yesterday. I can't sleep, so I'm going to bore you with maths.
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If you can, give. Times now are unthinkably bleak for some. Don't let Ukrainian Roma get left behind.
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Having seen people complaining already in response to Manchester: Gypsies in the UK often call ourselves Gypsies, if you are more interested in 'correcting' us that we should say Rromani, than in trying to get justice for the kids targeted by racist cops, you are not our friends.
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The irony of seeing "Save The Tomboys" in the hashtags and handles of antitrans activists, who are celebrating Cass. Cass, which says that children wearing gender-atypical clothing or using gender-atypical names is dangerous unless it's under clinical supervision.
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"Shroud waving" is a truly nightmarish phrase that I hope never to hear again, but am sure that the most inhumane people on the Internet will gleefully bleat every time anyone talks about suicide, for the rest of time.
Hilary Cass accuses critics of “shroud-waving” over trans youth harm. #transgender #trans #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA.
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Just waking to the news that @TheCValentine (our George) died over the weekend. Indescribably sad. We will release a full statement in the next few days. George's buoyant and genuine love and care were so nourishing and we're beyond grateful to have called him a friend.
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@Maarva_Andor It makes sense too that a queer person who is on the fence about whether or not they need a walking stick might feel more okay about using one than a straight person - When you already "stand out" it's not so scary to admit that you stand out in other ways too. .
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Radar keys have been a nightmare for this country. They were meant to be for putting unmanned a11 toilets in places that would otherwise have no facilities at all, but instead they're used to block people from using the toilets in places that should have them freely available. .
A diabetic man is prosecuted for urinating at Victoria Coach Station. He needed to go, didn't have a key for the disabled toilet, and a member of staff refused to let him in to use the facilities. He's got a criminal conviction for this now.
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There were young kids separated from their older siblings and stuck onto trains where they didn't know where they were going - Many of them won't have had their own tickets or phones, so they'll have been at risk of MORE criminalisation for fare dodging as they tried to get home.
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This is the crux of it all: If your workforce believe that Roma families and Gypsy and Traveller families are more likely to be abusive than other families, you end up with more investigations and more interventions at a lower threshold.
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But: Yes, if you take puberty blockers and then some kind of sex hormone, puberty will progress down the path mediated by those sex hormones, that is an option that is available, you can see the evidence of it by looking at trans people who transitioned before and during puberty.
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Still gathering thoughts, still numb and off kilter, but just to say:. I put so much of the success and growth of Traveller Pride over the past year down to Cherry Valentine. Being open on drag race and then later the film, an enormous impact. We will be forever grateful.
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We still have some GC2B binders left to give away! Sizes as follows: . 4x 5XL // 2x 4XL // 2x 3xl // 2x 2xl // 3x XL // 3x L // 1x M // 6x S // 3x XS. Email us and we can help you pick through the sizes, colours, and types we have!
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Every day I am made slightly more miserable, thinking about how many of the best artists and craftsmen not only can't afford to own things of similar quality to what they make, but can't even afford to make their crafts to give as gifts, never mind just to keep for themselves.
Hermes offering a salary of up to £25k a year for sewing bespoke (custom) garments when those garments probably start at £25k is insane to me
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It feels closely related to the other antitrans talking point: ie, if women and girls are too outclassed and intimidated by men and boys to even play a 5-aside friendly or game of chess with them, how can they be expected to work alongside men as equals in more serious things?.
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There's a regular cycle of panic around painkillers, antidepressants, stimulants, sleepers, HRT for menopause, pills for impotence, any novel therapies that catch the eye of the press- This sets the precedent that any of them could get an overnight ban without clinical reasoning.
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This is amazing news, progress is being MADE. You can still get your vaccination as an adult in the UK if you're under 45, and are at least one of: are a woman, are a sex worker, have sex with men, are trans. Two doses as an adult is better than one, but even one helps.
Scotland has detected no cases of cervical cancer in women born between 1988-1996 who were fully vaccinated against HPV between the ages of 12 and 13.
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We know that there's a lot of LGBT+ Travellers who monitor what we do on the sly. They don't like our pages or follow us, they go on the website on inprivate browsing etc. They're scared to bits of even googling us. If that's you, We love you and are here.
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Under that pile of officers, there is a child. Stanislav Tomáš was a grown man, and similar treatment killed him. So was George Floyd. Not to mention how the police in Victoria Station were creating the conditions for a crowd crush, we've seen the kids showing injuries from it.
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"The state has kidnapped you and is going to take your clothes and touch you, and if you try to stop them or complain too much, you'll be punished. But don't worry, the person overriding your bodily autonomy because their job makes that seem normal, has matching genitals to you!".
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Maybe it'll be something as simple as over-the-counter paracetamol. Did you know that 80,000 people overdose on paracetamol in the UK every year, and around 200 of them die? They sell these kill-pills in the corner shop!! Why not just mindfully ignore the pain? Etc etc. .
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@bo_austin_ This is the evil mirror of Marwan Makhoul's "In order for me to write poetry that isn't political, I must listen to the birds/.and in order to hear the birds/.the warplanes must be silent".
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(Personally, I don't like the term "second puberty" for people who transition in adulthood, I think we could have picked a better word that doesn't infantilise the adults who do it - but, that's the word we have and I'm not the spokesman-queen of all trans people, so I use it.).
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My whole point though is: It's important that their claims are spiritual and faith-based, that they do "believe in biology" in a meaningful way, akin to how if you have two identical bottles of wine, one might be the Most Precious Blood Of Christ while the other is just a drink.
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Already, less than a day since its been online, we have had lgbt travellers reach out to us and say they didn't know about us, are glad to know us and to say they feel more connected already. This is why representation matters.
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If you can strip search someone "for their safety", you can supervise them instead. Strip searches and 'pat downs' are done far too lightly and too regularly as a way of humiliating whole groups of people. Stop letting the cop in your head dictate terms, and as always ACAB.
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@speakoutsister Exactly! Watching them dance around "Women have eggs. women SHOULD have eggs even if they don't. no not THAT no-eggs, the other no-eggs. " and it's obvious that they mean something more like "An immaterial soul designed by the Great Biologist Of The Universe to have eggs".
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I'm not tweeting on Manchester because I don't know any more than anyone but- Seeing Traveller kids shoved on a train by police, while they shout that they don't know where they're going and a baby screams in the background, is nightmare stuff. GMP are racist through and through.
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@sexualhealthLDN The parallels aren't an accident: Any attack on prescribing sex hormones is also an attack on hormonal birth control, this is all one big small-c-conservative attack on bodily and reproductive autonomy, in favour of ppl being heterogender-ed and able to be reproductively coerced.
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@jamesp_robinson @jigokuhana89 You should probably pass this info about her bone density and stuff on to the various news orgs reporting on her, because the only info they have is an IBA report that didn't share any of this stuff. I presume you're her doctor, or the IOC examiner who checked her out in 2020?.
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I am no art critic but, it feels deliberate to use the comparison to "the children's game Guess Who" and "Quintessential primary school art project", when dismissing trans people as childish is one of the most popular angles of attack, after claiming that they corrupt children. .
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Like this one- The thrust of the article is that the problem was male officers being present. So. Six grown women cutting the clothes off a terrified, handcuffed, teenage girl, who had been locked in a cell all day, that'd have been just kushty?
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Often even the parents don't know exactly what is happening: They're told that the child ~needs~ a quick procedure straight after birth, often with the implication that the child needs something life-saving, like having a urethral opening made, when often it's purely cosmetic.
Worth being clear: trans care is accused of risking future regret and highly regulated and even banned for young people who actively seek it.Intersex mutilation is pressed on parents who are told there's something that needs to be changed with their kid before the child can speak.
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Must be explicit that the "When they dig up yr bones. " fantasy is a violent one. When archaeologists find people buried with normal cultural rites, they get names, grave goods, portraits to study. If they're trying to guess from bones alone, that's a shallow grave in a ditch.
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Muting now that the most tedious people on the Internet are here to defend and proselytise their faith, dominus vobiscum losers xoxoxo.
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There's a lot of "If this happened to any other minority it would be headline news/the police would be held accountable" going on today but, other minorities are ALSO unaccountably treated like animals. .
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Utilising little-used land on a temporary ad-hoc basis for people to stay on, without planning, for a temporary time, with necessary services laid on. What a *novel* idea.
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Today is Hitler's birthday so just want to say, from the bottom of my heart. lol, we're still here. Yours.The LGBT Gypsies (amongst us we're also jewish, disabled, commies etc. the whole shebang).
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@AssignedMale That 16 is misleading too- bc you can start your application at 15 years and 7 months, so that you can be assessed at 15y 9mo, and join on your 16th birthday. And the Cadets are presented as an alternative to Scouts/Guides for 12yos, and recruiters are present there regularly. .
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On here right now, I have people I my mentions arguing that "natchral-born-wombyn" cops are naturally gentle and won't violate arrestees because of their natural soft gentle wombyn nature, at the same time as seeing videos of the undifferentiated mass of GMP attacking children. .
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All we can offer is our solidarity with the kids, and a hope that they got home safe, and to tell everyone to not be a bystander - Complain to GMP, tell them that we all can see them and will hold them accountable. Don't let this be "Just Travellers", we need EVERYONE.
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Look, if I was actually professional I would have taken a lot of pics and tweeted all day but instead I danced, had a great time and *MADE HISTORY* by being part of the first ever group of Travellers to go to Pride. Thanks to everyone who had a part in this. I love you!.
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Spare a moment's thought for all those roadside or on canals during this storm. Keep safe everyone!.
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Onlyfans stopping the content that put them where they are today is another sickening example of a minority group being accepted only because of the money involved. As soon as the platform can survive without sex workers they are discarded. No other word but despicable.
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There has been a real wave of negativity and misery in recent days, so it just bears repeating that I love being a Traveller and it's ace. You should all be envious if you're not tbh.
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I almost want to frame it because, hauntingly, yes, pointing person - you *could* have done that, you could have watched the love of your life waste away from a nightmare illness that nobody with a shred of power cared about. Any of us could be Felix, any of us could be Ross.
modern/contemporary art haters are society’s weakest links dont pmo
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The 2nd of August is always a difficult one. The anniversary of the murders of the last Roma at Auschwitz-Birkenau, during the "liquidation" of the camp. Somewhere around 20,000 Roma people were killed there, with around 3,000 survivors.
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Today the documentary with @TheCValentine is on the Iplayer. This is the first time the topic of LGBT+ Travellers has been explored on UK screens and we’re very proud to be part of it. If you found us due to the film here is a thread outlining who we are and what we do to:.
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OH, and if you're LGBT+ but not a Traveller and found us through the film, please look beyond the film to what real damage is being done to travellers in the UK by a hostile press environment and how the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill is directly discriminatory to us.
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All this- & as long as ppl keep imagining that testosterone is the bad-behaviour horny hormone, they'll keep being suspicious of anyone who wants more of it, or has/d "too much" of it. Bc that is easier for society to handle, than "The way we raise c/h boys makes them dangerous".
1. I’ve been doing this for 50yrs .Believe me the ‘testo-fueled pederast’ has been thrown at Trans men throughout.1982 i first heard it when sacked (for being trans) from a project run by the Local council in church buildings. Sunday, my wife & project users demonstrated /2.
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Thing that drives me spare: People making a great point about one group's rights or how we're treated, but then finishing with "Could you imagine this happening to any other minority! It would never go ahead! People would be outraged! They'd know it was wrong!" -It's never true.
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@finngalkn @UglaStefania Atop all else. Most berries that are actually ripe aren't pink? Lots of red, purple and orange, but if the colour you think of berries being in general is pink, I assume that most of your gathering experience is in seeking out the packaging for vaguely fruit-flavoured desserts.
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This statistic horrifies me every time I think about it. Just over 1 in 10. That's two or three people from your form class at school. Nine people out of a full double-decker bus. If you have four grandparents, two parents and two siblings, then most likely one of you.
“We are talking about a National crisis, there are so many Travellers taking their own lives.”. This powerful documentary explores the issue of high suicide rates among the Irish Traveller community. #Patrick – A Young Traveller Lost | Monday | 9.35pm
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We all heard the dogwhistle in Braverman's statement, right? Obviously she's targeting people who sleep on the streets as a whole, but those foghorns about "Aggressive foreign beggars", we know she (at least in part) means Roma and is evoking the same old libels as always.
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There is a weird irony here in that there is a leg of GC thought which says that trans men are tomboyish girls who were just too weak-willed to say "I'm happy being a masculine woman". And yet, here go the GCs, saying that masculine women should be reclassified as men.
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If any LGBT+ Travellers are particularly affected after this and would like to book a time to call us to talk it over then get in touch. We love and are proud of you. Rest easy, George x.
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Even setting aside straight trans people - If trans conversion therapy is still allowed, many parents will claim that they're not trying to ex-gay their child, just to stop them from being trans. And then the exact same abuse will occur.
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As the PCSC bill comes into force today, I don't even know what to say about it. Just, I am so sorry, love to our comrades living roadside, and if you don't live roadside, make it your business to protect people who do. Obstruct arrests, listen to what they need from you.
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This is beautiful! This is ALSO (part) of why I get so annoyed at "Hippy Boho Tribal Gypsy" fashion always looking like it was made of rags and painted by a dog with a brush tied to its tail. Our work is precise and rich and crucially clean.
Blacksmith Jake Bowers is hard at work. You can see our new (old) vardo in the garden, where it’s being conserved before we bring it inside. Come and join us @TheMERL for our Romany and Traveller Heritage Day.
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Today, 2nd August, is the day we commemorate the Roma & Sinti who were victims of the Holocaust. Some reflections on commemoration are here in our blog. Try to take some time today and mark what today is, however works for you.
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I always feel like I need to explain it as: Borat was to Gypsy kids as Little Britain was to Queer ones. And, God forbid you're both.
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The grim joke is that you can just buy a radar key, it's a security-by-obscurity system: Lots of people think you need to be prescribed one or that you need to get some kind of permit, but really most key cutters sell them. They should not exist, basic hygiene should be free.
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In 2022 the trans memorial in Sackville Gardens in Manchester burnt out. It was a sycamore carving, so the morning after that I went and picked some sycamore seeds up and planted them up in pots. A few changes of potting later, giving a few away, here are some of them:
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Yes lads! Finally the beginning of the respect we deserve. I'm sure my knighthood is around the corner. This almost makes up for never hitting one of those "30 under 30" lists.
Congratulations to all involved at Traveller Pride @TravellerLGBT! You have been shortlisted for the Community Organisation Award for LGBT at the National Diversity Awards 2022 in association with @ITVNews!! Good Luck to you all! #NDA #NDA22 #ShortlistedNominee @lushliverpool
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So we have had our pre pride get together; we have eaten,drank and been merry. Tomorrow we have #makinghistory by bringing #GRT communities to pride for the first time. I'm so honoured to know everyone involved (not everyone is pictured) . Thank you x
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@RickShag @ValerieEBradley Yep, and opiate painkillers, benzos, z-drugs, other kinds of HRT, ADHD medications, a surprisingly high number of OTC things. The list wasn't exhaustive XD.
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It feels obvious in any other industry: You're in a job, maybe a job you hate, you potentially took it because you were having difficulty getting any other work. Is your life going to be made easier, by making all of your customers criminals?.
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Every 8th April we get to nominate one Gorjer (non-Roma) as an honorary Roma-for-life. This year it is Angela Lansbury. Congratulations, Angela.
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The thought of being the older sibling, with responsibility for looking after the younger - Having to choose between obeying the police to try to save yourself from getting a record or tazed (GMP are notoriously taze-happy), and obeying your parents and protecting your kid. .
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It used to be a common talking point for the local pub racist to insist that the Olympics needed a separate category for African athletes (After a few years where Ethiopia and Kenya cleaned up in the middle distance events) -the harassment of Imane Khelif is part of that legacy.
Imane Khelif is a cisgender woman and your harassment of her is horrific. by @notCursedE.
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Trans ppl could be 10x more likely to be murdered than cis ppl, and still in an average year, none would be murdered in the UK. Statistics are unintuitive, trying to make inferences about very rare events, between a very small and very large population is harder than you think.
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Whole thread is sound: There are a million reasons why an injury or illness is more likely to become chronic or disabling, when you're scared of being abused by your doctor, feel like you can't go for walks because of hostile neighbours, can't take time off work to heal right. .
Re the high levels of physical disability in the trans community I sure feel like it would be a lot easier for us as a wider community to stay physically healthy if it were safer to be out in public, go to the park and walk or run, to play sports without constant harassment.
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One of the oldest libels against Romani people is that we kidnap and mutilate children - You still see people claiming that we kidnap kids and make them sick or injure them, to gain sympathy as beggars. .
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We've seen a huge surge in followers, promos & have been offered donations for the 1st time. Today may feel bleak, but people are pulling together. Locking hands. Looking out for one another. Seeking a tiny LGBT Traveller group to give us a hand. It's cute. #SolidarityForever.
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At risk of making points off a joke: This is part of why it is problem that horse cultures other than white, gorjer, upper class ones are suppressed. It's hard to explain how losing our horses can be like losing our selves- And how often it goes with violence and criminalisation.
Overheard a tenderqueer presenting person say to their friends “I had a trauma in my childhood when the stable I rode at unexpectedly closed” and the noise that escaped my body……………….
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I'm celebrating (pronounced drunk) so won't do a proper thing now but just so you know. We only went and fucking won the award.
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This is how the cycle of criminalisation starts. How many of those kids do you reckon will now be wary and skittish around cops. that gives the cops "cause to stop and search" because they look suspicious. that will add more fear at best, and charges at worst. .
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~LGBT+ Traveller Christmas Outreach~. The festive season can be tough if you're around a family who might not accept you. LGBT+ Travellers can request, 100% anonymously, a call or text chat on or around Xmas from another LGBT Traveller. You're not alone! We're here!. Please RT.
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The murder rate in the UK is low, and the trend has been roughly falling since the 2000s - Last year, there was about 600 murders in the whole UK, a country with a population of 67 million people.
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I am very nervous about the trans men saying "Well this NHS plan will force me - Big, hairy, deep voice, men's clothes - onto women's wards where I will NATURALLY scare the Women" bc however you look, there will be both trans women and nottrans women who ALSO fit those criteria.
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A particular kind of racism I keep running into, is settled people who are happy to have Gypsy "friends" as long as they can think of us as a bit dim and funny and salt-o'-t'earth, but really get their hackles up when we have the same kind of minds and emotions as they do. .
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When I see Gypsy rendered as "G*psy" I feel awful, because it is the word for what I am and my friends and family are, and seeing people act like it is such a bad word that it needs to be censored or couched in caveats, makes me feel like you think we are bad kinds of people.
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@speakoutsister It's exhausting seeing transphobes being almost half right in the replies: "She must be evil, taking a job that lets her wield power over vulnerable women and sexually violate them based on nothing but her own 'suspicion'. " and like. Yeah, right, now do EVERY OTHER COP. .
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We still don't really have good stats on how many people are trans or genderdiverse in the UK, but the highest estimates are usually around 1% - 67,000 trans people. And 0.009% of the UK population was murdered.
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Most trans people know someone who killed themselves whilst unable to access transition, and the people who survived a suicide attempt before coming-out, motivated by despair at being unable to come out, suggests that there are ones who did die, who were never counted as trans.
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But, back of the envelope maths, there are probably about 300 Romany trans men in the UK, and if two dozen of them can crochet, that would be your 9%. It doesn't mean anything, and the fluctuations by 0.3% every time one of them teaches a friend or quits means less.
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It's 2nd Aug, the day we commemorate the Roma & Sinti victims of the Holocaust. @chelsmcdonagh & @littlespy have collaborated on a blog to help outline where we are in the process of commemoration. Light a candle tonight. #HMD #DikhHeNaBister.
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Today, on Holocaust Memorial Day, we stop and think about those impacted by the holocaust and by genocides before and since. Advocacy for the future is vital but we need to take a moment and allow the pain and misery to be witnessed at times.
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