Pardon, but your tie is not symmetrical.

skeleton of cave bear in Bears Cave, Romania

wonder why it’s called that

This sent me down a massive historical rabbit hole, but, long story short: it’s called Romania because there were once Romans there.

[ID: a picture of the skeleton of a cave bear, lying curled up on the floor. /end ID].

http://www.bihorcouture.com

hey friends, if you care about cultural appropriation and the damage it causes, please check out this awesome project!

in 2017 dior copied the design of a traditional romanian coat from the county of bihor and sold it for 30,000 euro, giving no credit to the local artisans. in response, romanian fashion magazine beau monde helped the community create their own brand, bihor couture, which sells the original coat, handmade to order, for 500 euro a piece. they also sell other traditional clothing and jewelry for much more accessible prices (5-45 euro). they’ve been hugely successful so far, and currently have enough pre-orders to cover 4.5 years of work, with 100% of the profits returning to the community. 

it’s surprisingly common for big name fashion designers like dior, gaultier, tom ford and altuzarra to copy traditional romanian clothing and sell it for ridiculous prices, with minimal original input, while giving nothing back to the community where these designs originated. it’s completely unfair that a big name designer can just steal so much hard work and misuse it to make huge profits. 

please support bihor couture, if not by ordering one of their products, then by spreading the news around. it’s really awesome to see a small community fight back against cultural appropriation so successfully. i hope they carry on for a long time!

some organizations you can donate to in the wake of romania’s new ban on gender studies, restrictions on sex ed and increased violence against women and lgbtq people:

accept romania: romania’s main lgbtq organization. in addition to organizing pride month in bucharest and other cultural/community events each year they provide free legal and healthcare counseling to lgbtq people. 

sex work call: this is the first advocacy group for sex workers in romania, founded in early 2019 by a collective of sex workers. it’s currently led by roma trans activist antonella lerca duda.

centrul filia: an advocacy and research ngo with a broad focus on gender issues in politics, labor and society. they also cooperate closely with e-romnja, an association advocating for roma women’s rights (unfortunately i couldn’t find a direct donation link for them, please add it if you know one)

sex work call takes paypal donations but accept and filia take bank transfers, so i suggest using google translate to navigate the donation pages. all of these are legit non-profit organizations doing good things for people the romanian government is actively harming.

Hello tumblr.

I know Romania isn't well known by most of you, and I know this isn't as important as what is currently happening in America, but please take a moment to learn and spread information about the current issue faced by romanian lgbtq+ people.

As a response to attempts to introduce sexual education in schools, the senate is trying to pass a law making it illegal to mention "gender identity" in academic spaces. According to this law, schools and universities alike would be banned from discussing "gender, understood as something different from biological sex".

Not only is this a bigoted law and an attempt to bring censorship in academic spaces, but it also creates issues for universities which offer master programs based on gender studies. Through this law, university programs based on gender equality or gender studies would be banned.

Press article discussing this issue (in romanian): [link]

If you are romanian, please take a moment to sign this petition

Even if you aren't romanian, please reblog this post to spread information about this issue.