I used to be scared but now I hold to this when supers, colleagues and bodies follow me even more

If you can’t respect me living the margins of a QPOC migrant disabled life, and as a 23 year old

you don’t deserve my respect at the height of my professional / academic work. https://twitter.com/JakeGThrasher/status/1264288674797273088

at 18 I was told peer sexual harassment was ‘because I didn’t get the culture’
at 19/20 financial issues meant I should ‘not look back’ at uni
at 21 laughed at for disability accommodations
at 22 I shouldn’t speak about suicidality by lack of support

I’m still here getting 1sts

Oh yeah also wanted to say, flex aside

I shouldn’t have had to get firsts and 2:1s all the way through to feel I had to be beyond reproach -

above some invisible barrier of respect as a basic multifaceted human in academia/medicine.

I’ve taught students in my own time who

fail one or multiple med school exams every year since first year too.

Many were not treated nearly as badly as I was, by supers *or peers* because they ‘knew their place’ and ‘didn’t speak up.’

It’s contributed to my C-PTSD, worsened my RSD and worsened by my ADHD.

And that’s stuff I’ve had to pay for, metaphorically and literally at very high cost, to unpack and resolve in myself.

So I won’t show anything but #PrideinSTEM

for all parts of myself and to bring forward all members of my communities where I can, by just...existing honestly.