Not recommended, you could cut yourself on the edge.

I think the story there was that I broke off the tab by accident.

Woah woah woah. That’s going too far.

The opposite of Nouveau Riche: Nouveau Pauvre. They lack the culture of people who were born into poverty.

I was with them helping them out. For reasons I won’t discuss here I won’t be able to visit them anymore, so that avenue is gone 😞.

The exit plan from WhatsApp is quite simple. Start by installing Signal and setting it up – it takes only a couple of minutes. Then, resume any WhatsApp conversations on Signal if that person is already a Signal user. If they are not, then switch to regular text messaging and gently suggest to that person to switch over to Signal.

Sadly for me, this doesn’t really work for some relatives as

• They live abroad and the cost of sending text messages abroad is not insignificant
• Some are so tech un-savvy that even installing a new app by themselves is too much.

All I can do for those relatives is to leave WhatsApp installed but take away basically every permission I can, including running in the background.

Another one: An old metal USB stick that stayed on my key chain for 15 years. It went through the washing machine at least once.

It still works, though it is dead slow.

I’ve had one Jansport bag for 18 years, all the way through secondary (high) school, university and many years of work.

I use it for food shopping, travelling etc.

It’s only now starting to form holes, in the last couple of years.

Ah ok. On Boost I don’t see it :(

None on this one, sadly.

Nah it’s french lighting 🇫🇷

Gale is that you?!

How did it get up there?!

In another incident, Lindsay Toczylowski, the chief executive of Immigrant Defenders Law Center, wrote on social media that ICE agents threw a tear-gas canister at two of the center’s female attorneys after they asked the agents if they could see a warrant and observe their activities.

Oof

Well, I’m not an expert in this stuff, but here’s a couple of starting points

• This bill amendment that was submitted, but thankfully didn’t pass
• The Cass Report, a review of the science of trans studies the government bases many of its decisions on has been widely criticised by the international community. It was also found they tried to deliberately ban any subject experts from weighing in on the report during its construction.
• The EHRC and other government bodies frequently consult trans hate groups while preventing any trans person from weighing in on decisions about them
• Last year, the UK government banned the use of puberty blockers for adolescents, saying there is an unacceptable health risk to them, when in fact the risk is minor at best and witholding them is much more damaging to trans people (high suicide rate, for example).

Generally, rather than listening to experts, the government cherry picks bad research (similar to weirdos saying vaccines cause autism) and listens to and emboldens hate groups.

It’s a words Vs actions sort of thing. They say they support trans people, while doing everything they can to make their lives worse.

That’s the narrative, but trans rights have been taken away. Ask anyone who is being forced to out themselves by going to their “sex assigned at birth” bathroom, or being forced to use the accessible toilets.

That’s in no small part due to the EHRC’s “interim guidance” that in no way follows the law.

Not to speak of the increased trans-spotting, and the fact women can now be searched by male police officers (trans or cis) for being suspected of being trans.

And every effort is being made to pass more laws to make things worse, such as making registries of trans people, outing them to their employers and potential employers.

And give them affordable housing and you’ll solve the homelessness problem.

Also, it might be worth asking other trans women about their advice in dating, either on Lemmy or otherwise.

I said all of this but I’ve not lived your experiences. Best to ask other people with similar circumstances.

I’d give it a go, if I were you. Maybe keep tabs on what they’re up to and if your son is visiting friends, for example, and it aligns with one of those events you can go while he’s out.

You know best about your son and what support he does or doesn’t need. But the 17 year olds I know would probably not notice if their parents went out, and if he needs you for things like cooking, might be worth you teaching him how to do it, given he may be leaving the nest soon!

Give it a thought and see how you get on. 🙂

Should have written some integration / end-to-end tests 😞

I’m going to mention this because noone else has so far, but you may have already considered this.

Have you tried to go to any local LGBTQ events? Not sure if you live in a very remote location or not but where I’m from every medium-size city or above will have regular meetups to socialise or meet new people. Sometimes there are concerts and cabaret.

I’m a boring cis straight person, so I don’t really take part in these communities directly, but I have friends and family that do.

I expect you’ll find other people in these groups are far more likely to welcome you for who you are than the wider, heteronormative community.

I know some trans people who have managed to find partners there too.

Another place to find like-minded people is at protests and rallies, though depending on the state you live in I wouldn’t blame you for feeling unsafe going to one. I’ve started going to some of them myself in the UK recently to show my support, as they tend to welcome allies i.e. people who aren’t necessarily LGBTQ themselves but support their rights.