Birds also need clean water – if you live where it freezes in the winter, a heated bird bath will attract so, so many birds. In summer, put a fountain splasher in and you can attract hummingbirds as well. I wash the bath every day (just soap and water).

But the most comprehensive answer to support birds is to get rid of lawns and plant native plants and trees! When I owned a house, I worked to replace much of my lawn with native plants and smaller shrubs that supported birds (cover, places to perch, berries and seeds) and also supported bugs, etc that birds eat.

Within a year or two of planting lots of native plants, we were getting so many different varieties of bugs and birds (and other wildlife - toads, skinks, etc). Added bonus is selecting plants for your soil and light conditions so the plants I selected needed basically no attention once established: no watering in summer, no fertilizer, obviously no pesticides and just scattered straw in fall.

Your point is precisely why I voted against this law. Tried to argue it with some of my local friends but don’t think I changed any minds (unfortunately).

I appreciate your take on this and I wish we were talking more explicitly about this in LGBTQIA+ spaces. The theory of how bpd develops is complex and probably includes biological factors (think, brain differences leading to sensory issues, memory issues, etc which then lead to certain experiences being more challenging to recover from) but you are correct that the experience of trauma and invalidation in childhood are central to the development of bpd. If we have a society that uniquely traumatizes trans folks, it makes sense that more trans folks than cis folks would have bpd as a result.

One of the more disturbing facets of some of the new anti-trans legislation in US states has been language that seeks to make it impossible for someone autistic or someone who has a personality disorder to access gender affirming care.

This ableist language is clearly the next line of attack and serves to dehumanize not just trans folks but also folks with personality disorders and neurodivergences. Anyone who thinks that these governments intend to stop at murdering trans folks is a damn fool - these laws make it clear there are other groups they intend to target.

Covering sucks. Nursing is hot before you have to put a sweaty blanket on, babies want to make eye contact while they’re nursing because it’s about connection and not just nourishment and in my experience, once they’re old enough to grab the cover, they’ll just throw it off their face and expose your titty anyway.

As it turns out, having my tits out publicly didn’t lead to complete societal collapse, no matter how much I hoped it would.

That’s a great point wrt: diagnosis as an adult. Many folks with ASD have learned how to mask effectively enough that they are then dismissed by psychiatrists later in life because they’re not exhibiting specific symptom.

I do!

I still get teased as an adult (30s) because I can’t remember phone numbers, addresses or passcodes people tell me, have a lot of trouble reading analog clocks, and constantly mix up left and right.

In school, it was frustrating because I would understand concepts much of the time but actually doing figures for math/ science problems I would switch numbers around and end up with the wrong answers. It was discouraging.

As an adult, I’ve found tricks that help me and I’ve successfully done plenty of jobs that revolved around numbers and counting. I just wish there had been more support around it when I was younger.