2025-06-27 Birthday Party Invite ! TO: You! WHEN: Tomorrow! DRESS CODE: ≈N95! WHERE: #SaltingTheVibes #YallMaskingUpdate: I received over 40 pro-mask messages of people wearing N95 or similar respirators! I think there are even more, I lost count a few times. Thank you SO much to everyone who participated and helped take care of themselves and their communities.
For my birthday & Stonewall Riots anniversary tomorrow (June 28), I would love if you would wear an N95 or comparable mask! I especially invite allies, friends & family of disabled people, and anyone who attends work/school/hobbies/etc where someone else wears a respirator to wear one. (A respirator is the technical term for masks with N95 or comparable protection ratings.)
It would mean even more if you wore your well-fitting respirator in public, or told some friends about it! Please join us at #SaltingTheVibes or #YallMasking across the internet. I can’t wait to see the top part of your faces or read what you have written, posted, filmed, etc.
As for the Stonewall tie-in, Queer people are higher risk for Long Covid, and yet pride events are often inaccessible to many queer & disabled people. If you’re going to a pride event this weekend and wear a respirator, you are actively helping protect your communities from developing chronic health conditions, severely worsening existing chronic illness, and frankly, death.
I’m only asking you to wear a respirator at some point on or near June 28. If you only do it for the photo, at least you learned where to find one, and practiced wearing it again. But who knows, if we’re lucky, you might find it more comfortable than you thought, or even remember how great it is to not have people see your facial expression, and wear a respirator a bit more frequently.
Actor Matt McGorry says:
My asks are very simply masking, at the very least, in places where disabled and immunocompromised people have to be: grocery stores, medical settings such as doctors, offices, pharmacies, hospitals, and transportation like planes, trains and buses.
Even as an act of solidarity, picking a couple of those places, making a commitment to that and making that known is incredibly important. As someone who feels extremely isolated and abandoned by the rest of society, I don’t have the capacity any more to ask individual people in my life if they will take this on. That’s what the video was for.
And that’s what the art is for. Thank you so much.
If you’re able and would like to, you can buy me a matcha or two (ko-fi).
https://www.illmarks.com/2025-06-27-birthday-party-invite-to-you/
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