I think I need a tea.

dankmemeuniversity

catasters

toobasementpanda

I dream of this sort of bed-to-body ratio

hexglyphs

*gently places a small clump of moss in your hand*

jonesybonesyowo

we shall be married in the morning

tooquirkytolose

*clocks into work* I’m shifting into PRIDE MODE

tooquirkytolose

*clocks back into work* I’m shifting into MAXIMUM OVERPRIDE

popcorn-fox

I met an eleven year old boy last week. His name was Leo.

Leo was in the girls cabins because he was trans. I don’t think anybody realized that until I saw he was about to go down our slip-n-slide in a binder. I grabbed my supervisor, and asked if she knew if it was safe. She didn’t know what a binder was.

I grabbed Leo, and explained to him that it’s not safe to get your binder wet, and it’s definitely not safe to take them on or off when they’re wet. He had no idea about any of it. I also had to warn him not to sleep in it. He said he’d had to beg his mom to buy it for him, and she didn’t know what it was. He had no idea. He couldn’t do research. He didn’t know it would warp his ribs and could crack his spine if he wore it for too long. He didn’t know anything.

While we were walking back to the cabin to change, Leo asked if I was nonbinary. I said yes, and he said, ‘you’re the first person I’ve ever met who’s like me.’

It was a good week. Leo had fun, and I was genuinely worried to send him home, but such is the life of a camp counselor. I hope he remembers the stuff I told him, and stays safe. I really hope so.

But all I could think about, in that week of time, was what if I hadn’t been the one to find him first? What if some terf asshole or truscum idiot had met this sweet little eleven year old, and told him that he was wrong to be who he was? What if he’d been found by some radicalist ‘~Genderfree~’ nutjob, and had his whole world crushed? He was eleven. I was the first Queer person he’d ever met. What would his life have been like if the first person he’d ever met like him had told him he didn’t belong?

I don’t know if I have a point, other than TERFs suck, but I hope that some of you realize that a lot of this radical bullshit trickles into real life, and affects real, vulnerable people. He was eleven– he wasn’t even in high school yet, and there are people who already hate him for existing. Trans kids are real, and trans kids are vulnerable.

we need to protect them, because there are so many people who won’t.