happy birthday!

i have never once seen another person's genitals in a public bathroom because i don't go peeking. i do my business, wash up and leave.

i sat up 💪

this is my home for the forseeable future.

part of my brain is trying to will the part of my brain repsonsible for getting up and around to get up and around and nothing's happening.

I don’t want a society where it’s easier to be sick and get a meeting about getting help for ending your life than it is to get a meeting to get help to stay in your home, find a therapist or get healthcare. (This seems to be happening in Canada with MAiD)

And this is true of many conditions. (As someone quipped to me once while covering the “Tiger Mandingo” HIV case, being born is a terminal condition bc it will lead, someday, to your death!) Cancer, which half of all ppl will have some form of, is a terminal condition & will bankrupt MANY…

Also, as a scholar of disease (and the criminalization of disease) I am DEEPLY skeptical of when the law deems someone as having a “terminal disease.” In much of the world, having HIV is legally considered having a “terminal disease.” But w treatment & housing, it need not be!

I learned a LOT from her & other disability activists about MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) laws in Canada, which changed my thinking abt liberal pols supporting a right to die but NOT supporting palliative care, housing, counseling…ie not supporting a right to LIFE for “disposable” ppl

I’ll write something serious about this later, I’ve thought deeply about it for nearly two decades. (My biological mother took her own life in a gruesome way after a life of poverty and mental illness. My sister died in home hospice assisted by medical care). But before Alice Wong died…

…a government official unwilling to guarantee your right to the tools to live has no right legislating your right to the tools to die)

(I think people should be able to end their lives if they want to, w support & w/o stigma. But I also think people should have pain medication, good healthcare, mental health therapy, and guaranteed housing, w support & w/o stigma…it is a lack of these which cause depression and suicidal ideation…

In late stage capitalism, having the ostensibly more left major party support your right to die when you are no longer useful to capital rather than supporting your right to pain medication, healthcare, counseling, housing—ie your right to LIVE—is fitting

the one on the left has higher ac.