What an incredible achievement!

🏊‍♀️#katieledecky breaks #phelps record with her 16th individual gold at the world championships - #ESPN https://apple.news/Ab51UN_X_Ri2XcKLjK7-JZg

Michael #Phelps s'enflamme en direct, estomaqué par la course de Léon #Marchand qui bat son record du monde de 400m 4 nages 🏊 #Fukuoka2023 #WorldAquaticsChampionships

https://www.ouest-france.fr/sport/natation/leon-marchand/video-natation-le-record-du-monde-de-leon-marchand-salue-en-direct-par-michael-phelps-5addf68e-29f6-11ee-aabb-b7edc8cc55f9

Still Watchin': Diego Bucchieri's 20 Stair Ollie
#Phelps #StillWatchin
https://www.thrashermagazine.com/articles/videos/still-watchin-diego-bucchieri-s-20-stair-ollie/

#EAS for Maries, ##MO; ##Phelps, ##MO: National Weather Service: #TORNADO WARNING in this area until 5:15 PM CDT. Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris. Check media. Source: NWS Springfield MO** DO NOT RELY ON THIS FEED FOR LIFE SAFETY, SEEK OUT OFFICIAL SOURCES ***

#EAS for Maries, #MO; #Phelps, #MO: #Tornado Warning issued April 15 at 4:32PM CDT until April 15 at 5:15PM CDT by NWS Springfield MO Source: NWS Springfield MO** DO NOT RELY ON THIS FEED FOR LIFE SAFETY, SEEK OUT OFFICIAL SOURCES ***

Asked for evidence from the pro-#narcissist crowd. A link, a source, anything. At this point, I'd even have taken a blog post as evidence.

One woman whose voice I actually enjoyed quote-retweets me to explain that "maybe I should listen to #NPD people instead of believing experts."

Well I have. For forty years, I've had to deal with #narcissistic #abuse. At this point, people with NPD are fucking terrifying to me.

She explains that maybe #narcissists would give me a source if I didn't come off as confrontational and rude.

OK? So I should just take the abuse then? Like, do you not realize that this is literally how I became trapped in not one but two #relationships with narcissists who chipped at my psyche until I had to rebuild my identity from scratch during intensive #therapy?

Nah. I'm not doing that. If not even one narcissist is capable of being #empathic to a #survivor of narcissistic abuse, then what the fuck are they even arguing? That we should be nice to #abusers? That's Megan #Phelps shit right there. #Entitled, narcissistic #behavior. Those of us who've #survived it see it for what it is.

And we don't have any reason to #tolerate it. In fact, we have every reason to cut a person off who behaves that way.

Every extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence. In its absence, at least have the #humility to recognize the #harm that your #disorder does to the people around you and talk to survivors who are justifiably terrified of you like they're people who deserve at least as much #empathy as you're asking for.

And if you can't do that, then you kind of proved how #dangerous you are, didn't you?

I think you did. It's why I'll block you.

#psychology #neverAgain

Just because someone has changed doesn't mean they've grown.

An example.

Once, not as long ago as she wants you to believe, Megan #Phelps lived in and worked hard for a cult—the obsessively monstrous #Westboro Baptist Church—where she gleefully shouted anti-gay and anti-Semitic slurs, harming countless of innocent people. Her work contributed to the suicides of unknown numbers of #LGBTQIA+ youth, ultimately leading to the creation of the It Gets Better Campaign to counter their disgusting messages.

Then she had her #redemption arc, about which she wrote a book and was invited to speak at TED.

Now, rather than shill for a genocidal cult, she engages in apologetics for her past behavior, refusing to talk about the harm she's done (and even refusing to believe that she actually did any harm because she was a bad evangelist and couldn't have possibly convinced anyone that she was right), and refusing to take any #accountability for it.

She spends her time lamenting the polarization of the United States population, believing that if we—and by we she means LGBTQIA+ people—are really kind and patient with our #abusers, the #bigots in our lives who do us the most harm, then we can learn from them and find common ground. This was her reason for creating The Witch Trials of J.K. #Rowling, which you may recognize as having a name that paints her, the anti-#trans #bigot, as a victim of trans #activist hate and "cancellation." #Cancellation which J.K. Rowling has literally stated has only made her more money.

So, lots of #change.

Zero #growth.

She's the same selfish person she was then. Except now she leaves God out of the picture, argued on behalf of Donald #Trump's ability to speak his beliefs freely on social media, and offered J.K. Rowling a platform and free PR work by rewriting history multiple times in her shitty little podcast. In her memoir, she uses slurs a lot, but it's cool because she's only talking about her past, not her present. A past that she later describes as having been "fun."

You see, she's the main character of the universe, and so she can only see the world from her perspective—the perspective of a "reformed" bigot. She has no idea what it's like to be the object of that #bigotry and what it does to you. She has no #empathy for the lives she destroyed because she's "changed now." She's "moved on." She hasn't made amends, and she still has criticisms for the LGBTQIA+ community about how we talk to our most privileged attackers. We have to be nicer to them, you see, because that's how she changed.

So much change. So little growth.

Growth means taking #responsibility for your behavior. In the absence of that, any #forgiveness or empathy offered to a bigot only welcomes more #abuse.

We're done doing that.

Bigots' lives objectively do not matter more than the lives of their victims. Bigotry isn't caused by marginalized people, and it's bigots that have to make an effort to change and to grow. Any effort that we make to reach out to them is supererogatory, and they should be fucking grateful that we took that time out of living our best lives to engage with a basilisk in human skin and breathe in their poison in order to tame it.

People who don't want to change won't. People who don't want to grow won't. No matter how much help you offer them, how much empathy, how much compassion, and how much patience, these people will not alter who they've become unless they want to.

And it seems that Megan Phelps has finished changing now. She's found a new sort of #zealotry to attach herself to, a pro-bigot anti-trans cause to fight. And even though she's changed what she believed, her inability to look beyond her own prejudices continue to prevent her from challenging how she thinks about issues and not merely what she thinks.

Change. No growth.

That's very sad, but it's also very common. The stories of "reformed" bigots are few. They're nice, yeah. But usually, these folks' minds are changed by marginalized saints, and most of us are not that. We're human, and when we hurt, we say "ow." But that ow makes people like Megan Phelps feel bad.

I guess it's up to you whether you feel like silencing that ow is worth it to protect the feelings of "reformed" bigots. Me?

I'm gonna shout it louder.

#transphobia #apologetics #homophobia #socialJustice

We had a great day. We had fun. We had dinner. Now tv until bed time. We will see you all tomorrow. Good night beastronic humans. #beastrons #jaws #phelps #goldfish #beastronic #tv