Edit: Latest album is called "Drumless". My bad. The name of their tour is Drummer.

My gen z cousin & her gf were visiting the last few days. We are a very, very small contingent of queer members of our family & we stick together. She and her gf introduced me to G Flip. They recently attended a concert and said it was the best concert ever. They were playing G Flip in the car and I was impressed by the vocals, the lyrics, the influences, and the percussion (G is also a drummer). I love a nonbinary vocalist (not that we get to hear so many...yet...) because the freedom from gender performance shines forth. I could hear influences from many styles of music I loved in the 90s, but all blended together in a joyfully percussive way. G Flip is rad! I would post a link to some tracks or an album, but there are explicit lyrics which would go against community rules - you can easily search youtube yourself if you're interested; their latest album is called "Drummer". But here is a picture of G who is serving us gorgeous nonbinary vintage Axl Rose!

Welcome, @MAN8791. I relate to this so much. I'm roughly the same age as you, afab & nonbinary. For decades, I beat myself up for being a "broken" girl/woman. And I tried my darndest for many of those years to perform woman successfully. While outwardly I may have seemed "a success", inwardly the effort and dysphoria caused me so much anxiety, panic, and depression that it eventually became unsustainable. For me, the first step was letting go of identifying as "broken". Next, I allowed myself to be however I am. And very rapidly I felt better - in fact, initially I felt ecstatic. The door was open for me to really learn about self-love and therefore love itself. 

Well, the counter space in the kitchenette is pretty Limited. But also cost, and usefulness. I guess she is mostly right, and it isn't really important.

"The Health and Human Services Grants Regulation (HHS Grants Rule) Final Rule protects LGBTQI+ people by clarifying and reaffirming the prohibition on discrimination on the basis of sex – including sexual orientation and gender identity – in specific health and human services programs, consistent with the Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644 (2020)."   https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/04/30/hhs-issues-final-rule-prevent-discrimination-health-and-human-services-grant.html

Wasn't sure whether to post this in the "uplifting news" or "news" forum. This bill is pro-LGBTQ+, albeit 30 some odd years too late with 100s of thousands of lives lost throughout the AIDS crisis. The upshot is that ol' Ron has actually done some good for the community. That's really...something...although I doubt he sees it that way. And most importantly, greater access to screening and care will save many lives.   https://ncpa.org/newsroom/qam/2024/05/01/floridas-governor-signs-bill-expand-hiv-care  

"The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) updated the federal workplace guidelines after a quarter of a century to protect pronouns, bathrooms and abortion."   https://thehill.com/business/4631184-updated-federal-workplace-eeoc-guidelines-protect-pronouns-bathrooms-abortion/    

Both of my parents were raised in WASP-ish families. What was or wasn't appropriate, with an emphasise on superficial appropriateness (conformity) was verbally beaten into me the second I hit puberty.   Which is really sad as I think back, and was bewildering at the time. I remember being really free to be expressive how I wanted to and then once I started puberty, all of that freedom disappeared and I didn't understand, at all.

I'm doing "beans and rice" for dinner tonight, but it's Punjabi style red bean curry and saffron rice, and I always have an appetizer tray of cut vegetables and dip (seasoned yogurt to go with the theme) on the table.  Might grab a package of naan from the store on the way home, or just make a pan of very american biscuits to go with.

I'm volunteering both days of our Pride Festival (signing other volunteers in, lol).    Taking my two younger kids (oldest is way too cool for school, lol) to a family friendly pride festival, and then turning them loose at the city wide event while I listen to music. They're old enough to experiment with independence and the festival is in a controlled enough space they can feel like they're getting away from me without being *that* far away. My middle is newly out as LGBTQ+ and has been practicing their makeup look for a couple weeks already (age 14) <3 

Well today was mostly sleeping so far. I woke up at around 0600 and made sure my oldest was ready for school. I came back down on the computer chair and next thing I knew it was 0953. I went through speech therapy for myself. Next thing I realize it's 1300 and apparently went to sleep again. I knew I slept last night but whew apparently not enough. 

Jeans, grey henley, heathered grey blazer with elbow patches, split sole jazz sneakers. Blazer is one of my favorite wardrobe pieces and it's warm but super windy today so perfect sort of day for it 

Fragile is my word of the day. More intense dysphoria than my baseline normal, feeling emotionally on edge. Also ignoring a piece of therapy homework that's actually going to be beautiful when it's done (I'm doing an art piece exploring emotions around the name I was given at birth).

Got accosted in a grocery store parking lot this morning by someone out on a petition drive (in my state, citizens can gather petition signatures to advance ballot measures; I'm always a little cautious about encountering petition drives "in the wild" because unless it's an issue that's been talked about *a lot* it can also be used as a way to just gather voter information).   ANYWAY, the person with the clipboard is presumable cis male and aggressive and I'm AFAB, genderfluid, dressed pretty androgenously this morning and this guy hollars across the parking lot asking "young lady" if I'm a registered voter.   Informed him I'm neither young nor a lady (guy was at least a decade younger than me, maybe more) and wasn't interested in the petition anyway.   "Oh, so I guess you're just offended then."   "YEP!"  

Welcome @FelixThePickleMan! I admire your ambition to become a K9 handler. Working dogs are fascinating and outstanding.