Spyke

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People forget that for kids transition is first social only, then puberty blockers, then after a lot of counselling, hormone placement and in very, very rare cases top surgery. For latter, one of the very, very few if not only institutions that in same select cases would offer top surgery for teens that are in late puberty disbanded those surgeries.

When you look at the rates of transitioned kids who detransitioned and mental health outcomes for children and adolescents who couldn't transition, offering transition is evidence-based and saves lives.

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What is your favorite insult in your native language that doesn't exist or cant be directly translated in English?

My personal favourites from Finnish.

"Ei ole kaikki muumit Muumilaaksossa" "Not having all the Moomins in Moomin Valley" Used for people who are either stupid or lack sanity. There are other variants of this and Moomin one is not older than a couple of decades.

I find our version of Grammar Nazi pretty great. We call them comma fuckers.

"Ei voi kauhalla ottaa jos on lusikalla annettu" "You can't take with a ladle if it was given with a spoon". This refers also to a lack of something, usually a lack of intelligence or sense.

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Iranian chess player who removed hijab gets Spanish citizenship

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While I agree strongly with the latter statement I have a lot of reservations with the former. I am incredibly happy for her. But this decision as has been the case most of the time in the past decade with the exception of Ukrainian refugees is a decision on an individual level instead of an institutional one. There are a lot of people who are either asylum seekers, people with asylum or quota refugees with similar situations and danger levels. Making individual decisions leaves them behind and only aids one person. Basically, it is good PR with limited results increasing already existent inequality among refugees in Spain.

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Ukraine moves Christmas from January 7 to December 25

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There is no Orthodox Vatican. While the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is first among equals Orthodox church comprises self-governing canonical areas. The majority of Orthodox patriarchates fall under either Russian, Greek or Constantinople Patriarchates. The Orthodox Patriarchate of Ukraine has fallen under Russian Patriarchate since early modern times but the Patriarchate of Kyiv existed before Muscovite Patriarchate. There has been multiple attempts to return it under Greek Patriarchate with varying success but they have been separate although not recognized by Russian Patriarchate since 2018.

And that was probably as many times as I have ever written Patriarchate on one text.

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‘Media outlets are erasing Sinead O’Connor’s Muslim identity’

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Islam as religious text basis doesn't really differ in a bad way from the other two Abrahamic religions. It even gives some extra rights to women that Christianity and Judaism don't. Forcing hijab on women is also expressively banned in Islamic theological texts. Doesn't change how it works in practice as forced hijab is pretty common in fundamentalistic Islamic theocracies. But might explain why converting is a little bit less insane than at the surface level. If I had to choose one of the Abrahamic religions on a purely theological basis I might end up choosing Islam. Please note, I am not trying to give a pass to Islam, Islamic countries or especially fundamentalist Muslims. The issues are myriad. People outside Islamic countries just have a somewhat skewed image of the religion. Both in theory and practice.

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Facebook turns over mother and daughter’s chat history to police resulting in abortion charges

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Of course use Signal or Matrix but please don't think that makes your messaging entirely impenetrable. I am not saying their end-to-end encryption has been breached. But a compromised device is a compromised device. Signal might be secure at least for now, but is your keyboard?

We do live in times of zero-click spyware and while the general public doesn't necessarily have to worry about things like Pegasus atm, it is still used increasingly and not just against people who break the law.

I do my best, although I do fail to be up to date every once in a while, to stay as secure as possible, but to think any communication is entirely secure is not a good policy.

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What is a hobby you enjoy, but seems too quirky or obscure to bring up in most conversations?

In addition to general learning which might be my favourite, I have multiple.

Maybe the most niche is a historical reenactment and historical costuming. Latter usually based on extant garments or garment finds. I try to get as close to the original in techniques, tools and materials using the best evidence I can find.

I also plan things that will never happen. I decorate houses and apartments on paper. I make extensive plans for travel that I can never afford unless I win in Lottory. Which I even never play.

I spend absolutely too much time playing with spreadsheets.

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10 days after 3rd party reddit app shutdown, Lemmy's top 10 instances combine for a thriving userbase of 234,000

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Coming from the non-profit world, it is never that easy. Even when there is no one officially making any money, there are people who will see it as a way to make some bank. There is also a drawback in that not making money can and will affect the amount of time people can put in unless there is a fair way to get them compensation. Volunteering also brings a huge amount of interpersonal and inter-organizational drama. That is why grassroots organizations and movements have a habit of fracturing into smaller groups.

At the same time, there is power in goodwill and being non-profit. You just really need to be careful in vetting your instance and keep an eye on issues in a way people not used to this type of world are not familiar with.

But I wouldn't be here if I didn't have a belief that it could be successful enough as a community. I also wouldn't have been working in the NGO world for the past decade if I didn't believe in that. But let's not have too rosy glasses on. Growing slowly will also give this community a chance to work out the kinks and not die in a blaze of fire.

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Portuguese tourist assaulted by Turkish police, jailed for 20 days for "looking gay"

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There was a lot less difference in liberties in majority Islamic countries and the majority Christian countries until the 60s' and 70s' when Islamic fundamentalist theocracies got enough popular support to gain power. It is a very complex phenomenon that is largely linked to colonialism and especially de-colonization.

Based purely on books Islam is actually the most advanced of the religious texts. It for example actually grants rights for women that are not found in other Abrahamic religions. Do they actually happen as Quaran and hadiths say? No, they largely don't. But there is a high level of differences between different Islamic countries and that are not explainable by sects they believe in. For hijab (as clothing) Afghanistan and Turkey are very different from burqa to hijab (headscarf) having been banned for decades.

Current people in power in Islamic countries aren't there necessarily because of current popular support. Trying to unravel Gordian's knot of Islam, dictatorship, culture, fundamentalism, colonialism and decolonization is as the name tells pretty impossible., For example, FGM is seen as Islamic practice and while not haram it is not Islamic but cultural one that seems to have at least one center in Kurdisrtan. Only thing prophet Mohammed said about it is that if you have to cut don't cut so severely. Which by Islamic jurisprudence makes only the cutting severely not practice itself haram. One of the Islamic principles is that if it isn't explicitly banned it is allowed. Honor violence is a thing. Part of it is largely cultural and how the majority of Islamic countries are honour based societies.

Of course Islam and especially Muslims have a huge amount of issues with social liberties and human rights. But even worst of it, Islamic terrorism, has been a minority in both casualties and attacks in Western countries. In the US in past 50 years majority of attacks have been linked to alt-right and Christian fundamentalism. The majority of attacks by Islamic terrorist organizations happen in Islamic countries which tells us that either governments or inhabitants are not fundamentalist enough for those groups. The rise of the two biggest of past couple of decades, Al Qaida and ISIS/DAESH can be followed to the actions of Western countries. Former because of armament and training because of Cold War and the latter to the power vacuum left by the Iraq war.

Current issues in Turkey are a lot less Islam related than to things like having autocrat and a culture with ultra nationalistic. For example how Ataturk is seen as something that is closing what is haram. Turkey is following especially civil society and oppositional politicians to close degree. The space for advancement in social liberties and human rights is very narrow and they have no issue deporting, jailing or vanishing people (usually just jailing them in black sites). But that does not differ from Russia for example. Erdogan also has no qualms of for example fucking up the economy even more to gain votes. There are different rules for different types of people. If anyone can skirt the rule of law they will. Tax evasion is more assumed than something notable. But one thing I had no issues with was Islam itself. While as foreigner albeit woman I had more leeway but I did not need it. The biggest culture shocks were not Islam but living under autocrat, my and my organizations actions being followed constantly, wide corruption and the absolutely mind boggling one was getting used to people not caring that things are not functional. Currently, the majority of my Turkish friends who have a way out are leaving. Erdogan's economic decisions for winning elections are already increasing inflation that already was entirely out of hand. You literally had no idea what things would cost tomorrow even before elections. The last earthquake in Turkey destroyed a lot of land that was farmland and with war in Ukraine already causing famine forecast is not great.

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The Protecting Kids on Social Media Act is A Terrible Alternative to KOSA

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I think having a digital ID system is very important in the modern age but where it is required needs to be limited. You should not need to use it where it isn't strictly necessary. We have one in Finland too. You will almost entirely use it to use official services that would need your ID in person as well. In this proposal, the issue is not digital ID but how it would be used. First, where it would be used could compromise revealing too much of your identity when you want privacy and secondly and more importantly, it could compromise revealing your private actions to the government. Latter can move into highly problematic territory when criminalizing actions that should not be criminalized.

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Not in America only but how bad it is depends on the country. In most, even when things are miles better, if you are a racial minority or other minority, the likelihood of cops doing shit goes higher. In mine, I can't remember a case where people have been killed in these situations but I do know a lot of cases of structural and open racism. In other countries I have lived in, it can get a lot worse.