What I've been watching recently

Whew! It has been a week. It turns out that ten aikido classes in a little over a week knocked me down a little more than I was expecting.

I apologize that I'm sending this late this week, but I have a fun collection of queer joy, inclusivity, and what I've been watching lately.

First, we love to see trans people doing their expert jobs. Recently, Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) and Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) introduced the bipartisan Biotechnology for All High School Students Act. This would increase funding and accessibility of science education for high school students.

I learned about this bill via one of my clients, BioBuilder, a non-profit creating educational materials and providing training to high school students and teachers. This shoutout is not sponsored or anything - I genuinely appreciate them creating these opportunities for hands-on science education and facilitating inspiring student projects.

Inclusive scientific training has the opportunity to really benefit the LGBTQIA+ community. Think of medical advances such as the in-progress HIV vaccine, PrEP, gender-affirming healthcare, and more.

I just re-watched the musical Rent (on Kanopy, from my local library!). Several of the characters are HIV positive and attend a support group. They sing, "Will I lose my dignity? Will someone care?" So many gay and queer people died. Today, people who are HIV positive can take medication to suppress the virus to undetectable, non-transmittable levels. That's incredible!

It brings me hope to imagine a generation of kids learning how to do their own scientific work.

Thinking about inclusivity here in Japan, I was curious about Braille in Japanese after seeing it on signs and buttons. Tenji, or "dot characters," encodes phonetic kana in 6-dot characters. So each character represents a sound. In written Japanese, words can be represented by kanji, or by hiragana or katakana. Tenji does not have the equivalent to any kanji.

Many ticket machines, elevator buttons, public toilet buttons, etc, have tenji instructions.

Many Japanese train stations and other public spaces have braille blocks, which include floor tiles with raised bumps and lines to indicate where to go. I've seen the yellow tracks and bumps on the floor and found them helpful for visually guiding where to walk through the train station, and it was very cool to learn that these shapes are helpful for blind people as well.

I've recently been watching some videos by Anthony S. Ferraro about his experience as a blind man, father, musician, and martial artist. Here's one showing him practicing Judo:

I've been enjoying watching some queer joy on YouTube recently!

Check out Emile Ennis Jr., who posts a "daily gay agenda meeting" to build queer community - this one introduces a somatic grounding technique if you're feeling overwhelmed, and features a cute dog and crochet!

I've also been watching Gaydar recently, in which Anania, a drag artist, asks random people and celebrities trivia questions about the queer community. It's fun! Here's one with Bob the Drag Queen:

Thanks for reading my list of queer joy and hope! If you've been watching anything good lately, please let me know - you can always reply directly to my newsletter!

Have you noticed anything interesting lately that makes your world more inclusive? That's great! Please share with us in the comments.