-
Another myth that is firmly upheld is that disabled people are dependent and non-disabled people are independent. No one is actually independent. This is a myth perpetuated by disablism and driven by capitalism - we are all actually interdependent. Chances are, disabled or not, you don’t grow all of your food. Chances are, you didn’t build the car, bike, wheelchair, subway, shoes, or bus that transports you. Chances are you didn’t construct your home. Chances are you didn’t sew your clothing (or make the fabric and thread used to sew it). The difference between the needs that many disabled people have and the needs of people who are not labelled as disabled is that non-disabled people have had their dependencies normalized. The world has been built to accommodate certain needs and call the people who need those things independent, while other needs are considered exceptional. Each of us relies on others every day. We all rely on one another for support, resources, and to meet our needs. We are all interdependent. This interdependence is not weakness; rather, it is a part of our humanity.via dandyfied➜
-
A new documentary on "queer" identity, politics, and lived experience➜
Right now, my partner Jess Salgado and I are starting a queer film project called “Queering Boundaries,” and we need the help of the whole queer community!
It will be a short documentary on the term “queer” as an identity, politics, and lived experience. We are looking for people to help out in anyway they can—being interviewed, assisting with the actual filming, or connecting us to people who might be interested in the project. We especially want queer-identified folks who want to share their experience/understanding/personal definition of “queer.” You can read more about us and the film on our Facebook page. If you could post this to your page, that would be wonderful!
We’d appreciate any help we can get (note: we are located in the San Francisco Bay Area). Thanks!
P.S. Queering Boundaries is also on Twitter (@QueerThis) and Tumblr: queeringboundaries.tumblr.com.
-
➜
Hello folks! My partner Jessica Salgado and I are starting a queer film project, and we need your help!
A little about us:
Jess is a young, queer, woman of color filmmaker who creates films that center around social justice and community. She is a senior in Digital Media and Film Production at the Art Institute of California – San Francisco and “Queering Boundaries” will be her senior project. I (Ashley) am a senior at Mills College in the Creative Writing program, with a double minor in Spanish and Queer Studies.
The film:
“Queering Boundaries” is a short documentary on “Queer”—how the term functions as an identity and politics. Our primary intended audience is the LGBT community, especially those who are not familiar with “queer” as an identity term. Our goal is to open up an inter-generational dialogue in the queer community and also support those who embrace this term and its multiplicity of possibilities. We will present a brief history of the term and its uses (gender, sexuality, politics, slurs versus empowerment), then show three to five queer-identified individuals and their lived experience.
How you can be involved:
We are looking for queer-identifying individuals (however you define it) to be involved with and support the project in different ways, whether that is agreeing to be interviewed, assisting with the actual filming, donating time and equipment, recommending reading, introducing us to people who would be interested in the project, or helping us bounce ideas around.
We want to listen to your experience and knowledge of queer history, theory, and community, and lived political experience. Interviewees will be given a list of the interview questions prior to the interview, and do not have to answer all of the questions if they make the individual uncomfortable. We may ask to follow some of the interviewees for a day to show a rounder picture of the individual and how being queer does or doesn’t affect other aspects of their lives.
And to fellow queer filmmakers: if this sounds like a project you’d like to be a part of creating, please drop us a line!
You can contact us via email at: QueeringBoundaries@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter (@QueerThis) and Facebook (facebook.com/QueeringBoundaries) to keep updated on the project. We are just now setting up our social media platform, so there isn’t much yet, but there will be soon!
SinQueerly,
Ashley Redfield & Jessica SalgadoP.S. Please share this around!
Hey folks, Jess and I are jumpstarting her senior project! Please get involved however you can, even if it means just following “Queer Boundaries” on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook!
Thanks, we really appreciate your support :)
Love, Byrdie/Ashley.
-
“Let me tell you some things. I used to investigate child abuse and neglect. I can tell you how to stop the vast majority of abortion in the world. First, make knowledge and access to contraception widely available. Start teaching kids before they hit puberty. Teach them about domestic violence and coercion, and teach them not to coerce and rape. Create a strong, loving community where women and girls feel safe and supported in times of need. Because guess what? They aren’t. You know what happens to babies born under such circumstances? They get hurt, unnecessarily. They get sick, unnecessarily. They get removed from parents who love them but who are unprepared for the burden of a child. Resources? Honey, we try. There aren’t enough resources anywhere. There are waiting lists, and promises, and maybes. If the government itself can’t hook people up, what makes you think an impoverished single mom can handle it? Abolish poverty. Do you have any idea how much childcare costs? Daycare can cost as much or more than monthly rent. They may be inadequately staffed. Getting a private nanny is a nice idea, but they don’t come cheap either. Relatives? Do they own a car? Does the bus run at the right times? Do they have jobs of their own they need to work just to keep the lights on? Are they going to stick around until you get off you convenience store shift at 4 AM? Do they have criminal histories that will make them unsuitable as caregivers when CPS pokes around? You gonna pay for that? Who’s going to pay for that? End rape. I know your type errs on the side of blaming the woman, but I’ve seen little girls who’ve barely gotten their periods pregnant because somebody thought raping preteens was an awesome idea. You want to put a child through that? Or someone with a mental or physical inability for whom pregnancy would be frightening, painful or even life-threatening? I’ve seen nonverbal kids who had their feet sliced up by caregivers for no fucking reason at all, you think sexual abuse doesn’t happen either? You say there’s lots of couples who want to adopt. Kiddo, what they want to adopt are healthy white babies, preferably untainted by the wombs and genetics of women with alcohol or drug dependencies. I’ve seen the kids they don’t want, who almost no one wants. You people focus only on the happy pink babies, the gigglers, the ones who grow and grow with no trouble. Those are not the kids who linger in foster care. Those are certainly not the older kids and teenagers who age out of foster care and then are thrown out in the streets, usually with an array of medical and mental health issues. Are they too old to count? And yeah, I’ve seen the babies, little hand-sized things barely clinging to life. There’s no glory, no wonder there. There is no wonder in a pregnant woman with five dollars to her name, so deep in depression you wonder if she’ll be alive in a week. Therapy costs money. Medicine costs money. Food, clothes, electricity cost money. Government assistance is a pittance; poverty drives women and girls into situations where they are forced to rely on people who abuse them to survive. (I’ve been up in more hospitals than I can count.) In each and every dark pit of desperation, I have never seen a pro-lifer. I ain’t never seen them babysitting, scrubbing floors, bringing over goods, handing mom $50 bucks a month or driving her to the pediatrician. I ain’t never seen them sitting up for hours with an autistic child who screams and rages so his mother can get some sleep while she rests up from working 14-hour days. I don’t see them fixing leaks in rundown houses or playing with a kid while the police prepare to interview her about her sexual abuse. They’re not paying for the funerals of babies and children who died after birth, when they truly do become independent organisms. And the crazy thing is they think they’ve already done their job, because the child was born! Aphids give birth, girl. It’s no miracle. You want to speak for the weak? Get off your high horse and get your hands dirty helping the poor, the isolated, the ill and mentally ill women and mothers and their children who already breathe the dirty air. You are doing nothing, absolutely nothing, for children. You don’t have a flea’s comprehension of injustice. You are not doing shit for life until you get in there and fight that darkness. Until you understand that abortion is salvation in a world like ours. Does that sound too hard? Do you really think suffering post-birth is more permissible, less worthy of outrage? “Pro-life” is simply a philosophy in which the only life worth saving is the one that can be saved by punishing a woman.”
— In reply to a ‘pro-life’ blogger: STFU, Conservatives: When I say I’m pro-life… (via grrrltalk)
(via abiosis-apoptosis)
via speakfortheweak➜ -
![Read it all, please.
timeofthedecade:
Some context for the idiots claiming the women are overreacting:
This [man pulling out his penis in front of the crowd] occurred at a Slut Walk. For those not familiar with it, the Slut Walk is basically a peaceful protest seeking to eliminate the rape apologism so prevalent in society. The basis is that no woman is “asking for it,” with “it” being rape. It’s not a feminist protest; it’s a human rights protest.
Many of the protesters, as you can probably imagine, have dealt with sexual harassment or rape in their own lives. Many of them have structured their daily activities to avoid being raped. The gathering is supposed to be a place for them to feel empowered and able to recover in the company of those who understand what they’ve been through or who will not blame them.
Nobody at a Slut Walk will tell a survivor that it’s her fault. They will not ask what she was wearing to provoke her attacker. Nobody will say she had too much to drink. Nobody will tell the men in the group that they are inherently rapists themselves, and nobody will tell a male survivor that his experience “wasn’t really rape.”
Then, this fellow comes along. He sees this gathering of survivors and their supporters, and to him, it’s a joke. He sees feminazis. He sees girls who are taking “a bit of fun” too seriously. And what does he do? He exposes himself to this group of survivors and supporters - some of whom are, in fact, underage.
He sexually harasses literally hundreds of women in one act. Aside from public indecency, there was cruel intent in his actions. He wanted to make them uncomfortable. He wanted to “put them in their place.” Other photos from this event show him flipping the protesters off and laughing at their anger.
And there are still people defending his actions. There are those who still feel like these women were asking for itand that they deserved to be harassed for trying to claim they weren’t. There are those who feel that women should be taught a lesson this way, and they applaud this man’s actions.
So no, he didn’t pull out his dick in front of feminist protesters. He harassed dozens - if not hundreds - of rape survivors. The reaction to his actions alone outline the purpose of the Slut Walk.
For those of you still doubting whether what he did was wrong (and I do wonder if there’s something wrong with you, if you have doubts), let me give you an analogous situation. Imagine a gathering of black civil rights activists. Imagine Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and all their colleagues gathered together to demonstrate that being black did not make them lesser people. That being black and living in the South did not mean they were “asking” to be the target of hate crimes.
And at this gathering, a white man decides he should teach them a lesson by pointedly hanging a noose from the nearest tree and laughing at their anger. And other white men, laughing along with him, commend him for taking these activists down a peg.
That’s what happened here. It’s not an “OMG, I can’t believe he did that!” moment. It’s an “OMG, there are people who think this is okay” moment. And the fact is, it’s not. It never will be. And that’s the take home message.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mchczdGFZA1r4alqeo1_400.jpg)
Read it all, please.
Some context for the idiots claiming the women are overreacting:
This [man pulling out his penis in front of the crowd] occurred at a Slut Walk. For those not familiar with it, the Slut Walk is basically a peaceful protest seeking to eliminate the rape apologism so prevalent in society. The basis is that no woman is “asking for it,” with “it” being rape. It’s not a feminist protest; it’s a human rights protest.
Many of the protesters, as you can probably imagine, have dealt with sexual harassment or rape in their own lives. Many of them have structured their daily activities to avoid being raped. The gathering is supposed to be a place for them to feel empowered and able to recover in the company of those who understand what they’ve been through or who will not blame them.
Nobody at a Slut Walk will tell a survivor that it’s her fault. They will not ask what she was wearing to provoke her attacker. Nobody will say she had too much to drink. Nobody will tell the men in the group that they are inherently rapists themselves, and nobody will tell a male survivor that his experience “wasn’t really rape.”
Then, this fellow comes along. He sees this gathering of survivors and their supporters, and to him, it’s a joke. He sees feminazis. He sees girls who are taking “a bit of fun” too seriously. And what does he do? He exposes himself to this group of survivors and supporters - some of whom are, in fact, underage.
He sexually harasses literally hundreds of women in one act. Aside from public indecency, there was cruel intent in his actions. He wanted to make them uncomfortable. He wanted to “put them in their place.” Other photos from this event show him flipping the protesters off and laughing at their anger.
And there are still people defending his actions. There are those who still feel like these women were asking for itand that they deserved to be harassed for trying to claim they weren’t. There are those who feel that women should be taught a lesson this way, and they applaud this man’s actions.
So no, he didn’t pull out his dick in front of feminist protesters. He harassed dozens - if not hundreds - of rape survivors. The reaction to his actions alone outline the purpose of the Slut Walk.
For those of you still doubting whether what he did was wrong (and I do wonder if there’s something wrong with you, if you have doubts), let me give you an analogous situation. Imagine a gathering of black civil rights activists. Imagine Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and all their colleagues gathered together to demonstrate that being black did not make them lesser people. That being black and living in the South did not mean they were “asking” to be the target of hate crimes.
And at this gathering, a white man decides he should teach them a lesson by pointedly hanging a noose from the nearest tree and laughing at their anger. And other white men, laughing along with him, commend him for taking these activists down a peg.
That’s what happened here. It’s not an “OMG, I can’t believe he did that!” moment. It’s an “OMG, there are people who think this is okay” moment. And the fact is, it’s not. It never will be. And that’s the take home message.
(via hellogorey)
via bigdaddyg-wil➜ -
Join the Place for Writers tomorrow night (Tuesday, October 23) for the third Works in Progress of the semester!
With:
Truong Tran
friendly, poet, artist, teacher; fly
http://gnourtnart.com/home.htmlMelissa Valentine
let’s you in the houseMaya Weeks
left-handed only bastard childSarah Merkle
will define picarism for youEmily Kim (Oakland School for the Arts)
a question mark; an enigma.More details:
Bender Room, Mills College (above the M Center)
5:30 p.m.
Snacks and beverages will be served.Questions? E-mail auwilson@mills.edu.
See you there. <3
Hey Millsies! Heads up! Great people on the program. And Emily Kim is from my old high school!
via placeforwriters➜ -
Japan to launch campaign preventing LGBT youth suicide
Activists in Japan have an answer to the It Gets Better Project - their own campaign to combat LGBT youth suicide.
The project’s co-founder, Fumino Sugiyama, says efforts will launch Sept. 10, World Suicide Prevention Day, to tell LGBT youth that it’s okay to be who they are even in the face of bullying and other challenges. Some background from the Wall Street Journal, of all places:
The campaign comes amid growing attention to gay culture — and the surrounding pressures — in Japan. Last week, the Japanese government mentioned for the first time in its annual national policy to prevent suicide the need to offer special support for the gay community. In response to the government’s move, Taiga Ishikawa, a member of Tokyo’s Toshima ward assembly, set up an online LGBT community.
Change is coming - everywhere!
(via projectqueer)
via gaywrites➜ -
➜
Signal boost!
it’s strugglingtobeheard here, trying to reach out to some people that i would like to network with. i have talked about my involvement in the sex work industry. i am a queer genderfluid person who has been involved in this industry for about 6 years, on and off. right now, it is a lot more mild than the club scene i was dealing with in the past. but online camming is still a world of it’s own with the oppressions we face in our in space lives coming into our online lives. and so i want to network with other self-identified qtpoc (especially Black folks) who are involved in this work, either online or offline, who want to create or work together to create some kind of space where we can discuss, share and have some safety to just be us.
right now i am thinking something that is free and easy to start up, such as a password protected twitter, tumblr or facebook group. something along those lines. or even an email list where we can send each other messages. tinychat and gchat options or skype sessions as well. i want to protect people’s privacy, i know this is a big issue, so if you want to chat or collaborate but don’t want to reblog/call attention, i understand. a message marked private might be a good way to start, if you are comfortable.
i don’t have anything concrete yet, but my time at the allied media conference has given me a bit of energy and an idea and the sense that i might as well and see what i can do on my own and build from there. so if you are self-identified qtpoc who is involved in sex work (or seriously considering, maybe… maybe.) then i would love if you signal boost this, contact me, or those who aren’t pass this along to those who might be.
my ultimate dream would to be to set up a way to market ourselves to a qtpoc customer base so we would have less of the stress to deal with in our livings. but this is further down the line. so in the meantime, please signal boost or hit me up if you’d like!! if you don’t feel comfortable doing so or want more info, feel free to also message me in that regard.
I need to go to this media conference next year, all these bloggers came back with so many ideas… signal boost!
-
➜
A seed bomb is a ball of dirt and seeds that is self-sustaining and used to beautiful urban neighborhoods by being secretly thrown onto patches of dirt and abandoned lots. You can also use them in your own yard.
Don’t ask me what a seed bomb is, because I have no idea. However, I do know that I love this packaging! It’s cute, organic, and fun! While muslin bags are by no means unique, the colorful designs and typography make these pop.
Sold by VisuaLingual on Etsy.
-
➜Nowadays, I believe, identity-based conflicts are less pervasive and people interested in transgender politics are not using “border” only as a metaphor. We are beginning to think instead about the ways in which racial identities, class backgrounds and immigration histories have a profound impact upon one’s experience of transsexuality, one’s access to health care and community, one’s social role post-transition. While many of the early debates that we call “border wars” took place within and among white transsexual and lesbian/gay communities, more recent discussions have occurred among and between queer communities of color.
-
Mark McCormack’s The Declining Significance of Homophobia: How Teenage Boys are Redefining Masculinity
Looking forward to receiving this from the library.
Hmm…not sure if I completely agree with the premise, nor that McCormack did extensive enough research. Still, I’ll probably read this. Here’s an article about it from the Economist: http://www.economist.com/node/21548961
via tan-the-man➜ -
APOPELECTRIC: A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hipsI worked hard for thismy...➜
A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips
I worked hard for this
my ass doesn’t make me cis.Even if I’m not curvy, you’ll still look to my chromosomes,
a letter on a document I had no say on,
you’ll fit me into a ‘close enough’ definition
but I’ll stick outta that box and you won’t stop…
