Did you know…It is illegal for your school’s web filter to block web sites for “LGBTQ Content.”
Get the facts at transstudent.org/facts
(via cuzfuckyouimgreat)
California-native, femme writer, theorist and feminist who likes pretty things. Bloodstream of ink, lyric heartbeat. I queer everything.
-
via queerability➜
-
➜
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.
-
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➜ -
➜
I think this speaks for itself. Accepting a person doesn’t mean you get to put limits on their freedom. You can’t be an ally and want us to stop talking, or labeling, or demanding to be heard.
Acceptance has no exceptions. Period.
“AS LONG AS YOU DON’T USE A WEIRD LABEL”
I have seen far too many people on tumblr start to whine that eight labels for sexuality is going “too far”, when a lot of those people know over 81 times that when it comes to Pokemon, and I’m pretty sure sexuality labels are more important that virtual monsters.
Sexuality and gender identity labels aren’t “frivolous”. And the vast majority of people that use them aren’t trying to be “special”, they’re merely trying to find a word that validates and explains their orientation - something that most people have and take for granted.
tl;dr: This person is amazing and I love their graphics so much it hurts.
(via anonformyprivacy)
-
➜I read you last post and was better able to understand the LGBTQA society. But I still haven't figured out what queer means. Is it all of the above? Is it unidentifiable? Is it "I haven't quite figured it out yet"? I guess it just bugs me because I'm not sure I'm comfortable with labeling my friend as queer (aka weird). Isn't there a more scientific name for it?
-
I don’t care that you’re taking straight characters, characters who are assumed to be straight because of opposite sex relationships but it’s never stated, or just plain unknown characters and putting them in a same-sex or same-gender relationship. In fact, I generally like it. Fanfic is about putting your own interpretation on these characters, and I usually enjoy reading it (assuming it’s well-written).
That said, there’s this habit of authors where they totally ignoring any mention of sexual orientation in slash fic.(“Slash” here includes femslash, and there isn’t much of any other sexual orientation/gender identity group in fanfic at all.) Please, if you’re writing slash fic, don’t just ignore all previous relationships that a character has had that point to them not being exclusively homosexual. Don’t write one of those fics where it’s never even mentioned, even though one of the characters is totally surprised at falling for a character of the same gender. Don’t be write of those well-it’s-you-and-you’re-different-so-it’s-okay-but-this-doesn’t-make-me-not-straight fics. Don’t write a fic where a character suddenly turns gay after realizing the romance thing in order to suit your plot. The whole “never even suspected they weren’t straight until now” is quite frankly stupid and overdone. Don’t do it.
If you are going to write characters as queer, show consideration to the actual, real life people who are queer. Unless you are queer yourself, and sometimes even if you are, you’ve probably never noticed how many fics don’t even use the word “gay.” No character ever says, “I’m gay.” Even when it’s something that they should say, even when it’s something the author’s totally hinting at that.
Do you have any idea how frustrating that can be? This is something that is a huge part of a lot of people’s identities, and their struggles. This is something that we, as queer people, have to think about, because society doesn’t give us a choice. And do you have any idea how good and liberating and affirming it feels to be reading a fic and have a character actually come out and say who they are, that they’re not straight?
And another thing: there are sexual orientations besides homosexual. And a lot of the time, some other sexual orientation will fit what you’re doing with the character much better than calling them heterosexual OR homosexual. Try making your character bisexual, or pansexual, or asexual homoromantic! Because they exist. And don’t just think in your head that this character is gay or bi or heteroflexible, actually write it down. In dialogue or in internal musings, and you know what it’s a great way to add dimension and conflict to a character in your story!
Here’s another reason it bugs me: realizing and accepting your sexuality is hard, at least if you’re not straight. Having a character feel a type of desire that you go ahead and say they’ve never experienced before, but then not have them address those new feelings any further or try to figure themselves out, and just have them go along with it and be okay with the one person you’re slashing them with? Totally unrealistic. You want solid character development? Write out their struggle. Hell, mention their internal struggle, which is more than a lot of people bother to do. Or mention if it isn’t one, and why. Also a tip: yes, sexuality can change over time, and yes some people don’t discover their sexuality until well into adulthood. But one of the main characters thinking they are emphatically straight until their 30’s in every single fanfic? Stuff like what you’re writing happens in real life sometimes, it does. But frankly, I don’t give the vast majority of you enough credit to think that you’re trying to go for a genuine portrayal of a somewhat rare but real experience, partially because it never feels like a genuine portrayal, it feels like a token issue you felt you had to address before moving on to your gay porn. And if that happens in every single slash fic you ever right, you don’t get any benefit of the doubt. I’m just going to assume you’re ignorant, prejudiced, and don’t bother considering the thoughts and feelings of the queer community.
Because the fact is, gay people don’t exist so straight cis girls can get off on male gay sex. (And because undoubtably some of you don’t know what “cis” means, it means not transgender; your gender matches up with your biological sex.) And as for everyone else who isn’t heterosexual, they actually do exist, whether they’re bisexual, pansexual, asexual, queer, or anything else. So stop ignoring us because you don’t care, or you’re uncomfortable with it, or homosexuality is only okay in the context of pretend gay sex for you to masturbate to. Because most slash fic is written by straight, cis girls for other straight, cis girls, the same way that most lesbian porn is made by straight cis men, for straight cis men.
Now we’re back to the point of why you should address sexual orientation in your slash fic. And as I mentioned, it’s because seeing that affirmation, seeing a testimony that we do exist, is huge. And I know you’re showing it, but sometimes that’s not enough, especially when some authors seem to avoid having their characters actually identify as gay like the plague. The other day, I was reading a fic, and to my tremendous surprise, one of the characters actually took a paragraph to google bisexuality. It wasn’t this big thing, but he called himself bisexual and he actually did the research to learn more about himself, and later he comes out as bi to a couple people with those words, actually saying it, and that made such a big difference. And it probably took ten minutes of the author’s time.
It’s not hard, and acknowledging sexual orientation can make such a difference to people who are reading it. It helps affirm the experiences of queer people, and it helps educate heterosexual, cisgender people. It can even make your story better. This hurts no one (unless you’re a homophobe). So do it right. Acknowledge that we exist, and acknowledge that our struggles exist. Please mention sexual orientation, because it really shows when none of you ever do.
via randomlyimagine➜ -
➜I don’t understand the problem people have with little boys wanting to dress up as female characters for Halloween or for Comic Con or, you know, for whatever event requires dressing up as someone. It really is no different from a little boy dressing up as Captain America or Prince Charming because they’re not dressing up as these characters because of what their gender or sex is but because they like the character. It’s as simple as that. If a little boy decides to dress up as Black Widow it doesn’t necessarily mean that he wants to be a woman or that he feels as though he is a woman, most likely it just means that he thought she was fucking cool and the best character in the Avengers movie. Even if he does want to be a woman or feels as though he is one, who gives a shit? There’s this horrible hypocritical attitude going around with parents stopping their children from being who they are because they want to protect them from being ridiculed and from not being accepted. Doing this does not help them. It makes things worse for them. Home should be a haven for all children but when children realize that even their parents don’t accept who they are, that haven disappears. They suddenly have nowhere to be themselves at. And I’m writing this and trying to make a valid argument against parents and people doing this and acting this way but I really can’t think of one more obvious than to flat out say that it’s one of the shittiest things you could ever do to your children. Let your children be who they are. Let your daughters dress up as Iron Man for Halloween and let your sons dress up as Cinderella because you only have a short amount time with them and you should really be trying to make that time as happy as possible.
-
➜The book also asks people to consider that LGBT are not isolated, that they do not exist without a family. I ask readers to consider what the possibility for social change might be if trans people are not cast off from their families, but held lovingly by their families and communities as they transition. We are used to thinking of LGBT as outsiders, only allowed to be considered “normal” if they mimc hetero-normative behaviors like having kids or getting married. But what if we allowed all people to be who they are, without risk of ostracism? What if we could also choose to be radically queer, or transition, or be gender variant as a child, and still be loved and valued and supported? What amazing social change may be possible!”
—Rachel Pepper, interviewed about her groundbreaking anthology of essays from mothers of trans and gender-variant children TRANSITIONS OF THE HEART -
First Openly Gay Woman Competes for Miss California
Mollie Thomas’ announcement of her intention to run for Miss California in this weekend’s pageant stirs a very sacred pot. Pageants are typically reserved for the proper, the straight, and the narrow. She is anything but. The spirited 19-year-old was raised both on a horse farm in Pennsylvania and in Manhattan by an American mother and a French father. She doesn’t recall an official coming out, saying her family has always been aware, supportive, and progressive. Thomas says, “My family is so open and accepting that I knew very young who I was and who I loved.”
via christineleem➜ -
Hi, ya’ll! Thanks for all the reblogging, following, and favoriting. This has to have been one of my favorite class projects, ever.
So, the thing is, our class is over and thus the project (which is why we’ve been on hiatus since December). But I loved contributing to this blog and reading everything my group posted, it looks like many other folks do too, so I was wondering if any of you were interested in being a regular contributor so we can keep it going. Any takers?
Also, if there is enough interest, I may open it up to submissions? Let me know via message or comment!
Can’t wait to hear from you!
~Ashley
via queerisaverb➜ -
Ace Admiral: So what's all the fuss about: "Sexual" people
I’ve been getting quite a few questions as to what OTJ means/stands for, so here’s a quick summary of the background and status of this term.
The Claim: Calling non-aces “sexual people” is offensive/slut-shaming
- Calling people “sexual” reduces them to the sex acts they perform
- It makes people…
In fighting so hard for non-normative, non-hegemonic sexual practices and desires to be recognized as legitimate, or fighting for space for such desires/practices/individuals in our society, our queer communities often forget those folks who don’t identify with a sexuality or have sexual desire. Yet another marginalized community within a marginalized community. It’s important to self-inform about all the various forms of self-/gender-/sexual- expression within our communities and not jump to judging the ways they struggle to define themselves in a community that so often overlooks their existence.
This link outlines some of the arguments for and against the asexual or “ace” community calling those who identify otherwise “sexual”.
[also, if I have mis-framed this argument, please do alert me, I’m still learning]
~Ashley
(My reblogged response from my Queer Studies group blog.)
via aceadmiral➜ -
south-asian queer resource list
if you have any questions email khush.berkeley@gmail.com !
via queersatyagraha➜ -
➜I signed a bill saying that every hospital must treat gay and lesbian partners the same as heterosexual partners, because NO ONE should have to produce a legal contract to be able to hold the hand of the one they lovePresident Obama- Human Rights Campaign Dinner (10/1/11)
