Continuing into April on weekdays?

[magnetic_pole]

Folks, if there's interest, I thought we could continue into April on weekdays. (On weekends we can post a list of links to topics earlier in the week for those looking for conversation on Saturday and Sunday.)

If you're interested, please just leave a quick yes in comments below? If it seems like there's interest, I'll create a new sign up post. (No worries if not--we'll post through the end of the week this week.)

We're still chatting about mythology and folklore over here!

Daily discussion post: Visibility

[ng_moonmoth]

Today is Transgender Day of Visibility. This is a day when transgender people who wish to do so are encouraged to live their day as themselves, rather than yield to cultural stereotyping of dress and behavior based on one's body shape. We have set a day aside for this to make it clear to transgender folk who are wary of venturing out in public as themselves that they are not alone, to identify ourselves as someone like them, and to share with them that we are a community that will welcome them as who they are.

Right now, with all the sheltering in place and isolation that is happening as a response to COVID-19, everyone is getting shortchanged on visibility. For many of us, if we go out at all, it's only for essential things for which we spend as little time outside our homes and interacting with others as necessary to get those things done. As a result, we are all fading into invisibility, where if people we don't already know notice us at all, it's as a faceless blob or stereotype.

I'm used to this. My gender identity and sexuality are visible only to the extent I allow them to be, and are often subject to erasure even in gender- and sexually-variant environments. But it's stressful all the same. I really enjoy the opportunities I have to go out as myself -- especially when I am recognized as a person and treated as such. And I'm guessing there are a lot of folks right now who are chafing at the strain.

So I am gladly sharing my day of visibility with everyone in this community. I'm going to define "visibility" for this post as "someone you are not intimately connected with sees you doing something, and interacts with you personally because of it." So if someone you love is in a care facility, and you call them up for a chat, you are visible only to them -- but if a caregiver checks on them, and your loved one mentions that they're on the phone with you, asks you if you want to say hello, and you have a chat with the caregiver, you have become visible -- whether it's voice or video chat. And if you're making a grocery run, and the only conversation you have with the checker is that which is needed for you to make your purchase, you aren't visible as anything more that a faceless "grocery store customer" -- but if you or the checker notice and talk about what's in your cart, or what either of you are wearing, you are each now recognizing the other as an individual, and have become visible.

Commenting here is a form of visibility. Responding to another's comment confirms that visibility. What have you done during your isolation, whether voluntary or by government order, to be visible? What about today? What ideas have you seen that you might want to try in the future? I'm hoping we get lots of ideas here, so people have a broad selection of things to choose from to increase their own visibility.