Today, students drowned out a small anti-transgender demonstration that took place mere steps from UBC’s Pride installation outside the Nest.
Two individuals not affiliated with UBC came to campus this afternoon with materials denying the existence of transgender people, while stressing conservative Christian values.
“I’m protesting censorship on university campuses and human rights commissions, and the imposition of transgender ideology and the inability to be able to freely speak out on this topic, as evidenced by some of the responses,” said Bill Whatcott, a demonstrator and well-known anti-LGBT activist.
This is not the first time Whatcott has hosted an anti-LGBT demonstration on university campuses, having appeared at the University of Calgary and theUniversity of Regina in 2016.
Around a dozen UBC students responded by chanting “trans rights are human rights” and “trans bodies are safe here.” Some carried large Pride flags to block the demonstration from view.
> The college I attended was small and very LGBT friendly. One day someone came to visit and used the word “gay” as a pejorative, as was common in the early 2000s. A current student looked at the visitor and flatly said, “we don’t do that here.” The guest started getting defensive and explaining that they weren’t homophobic and didn’t mean anything by it. The student replied, “I’m sure that’s true, but all you need to know is we don’t do that here.” The interaction ended at that point, and everyone moved on to different topics. “We don’t do that here” was a polite but firm way to educate the newcomer about our culture. […]
> It turns out talking about diversity, inclusion, and even just basic civil behavior can be controversial in technical spaces. I don’t think it should be, but I don’t get to make the rules. When I’m able I’d much rather spend the time to educate someone about diversity and inclusion issues and see if I can change how they see the world a bit. But I don’t always have the time and energy to do that. And sometimes, even if I did have the time, the person involved doesn’t want to be educated.
> This is when I pull out “we don’t do that here.” It is a conversation ender. If you are the newcomer and someone who has been around a long time says “we don’t do that here”, it is hard to argue. This sentence doesn’t push my morality on anyone. If they want to do whatever it is elsewhere, I’m not telling them not to. I’m just cluing them into the local culture and values. If I deliver this sentence well it carries no more emotional weight than saying, “in Japan, people drive on the left.” “We don’t do that here” should be a statement of fact and nothing more. It clearly and concisely sets a boundary, and also makes it easy to disengage with any possible rebuttals.
> Me: “You are standing in that person’s personal space. We don’t do that here.”
> Them: “But I was trying to be nice.”
> Me: “Awesome, but we don’t stand so close to people here.”
> Them: Tells an off-color joke.
> Me: “We don’t do that here.”
> Them: “But I was trying to be funny.”
> Me (shrugging): “That isn’t relevant. We don’t do that here.”
I really really do want to endorse this. Making a person’s behavior about capital-M Morality is a great way to get people to dig in their feet and escalate situations. By going “Hey, that behavior doesn’t fit in this context.” it removes a ton of the resentment and toxicity on both sides of the interaction.
The federal government announced a $450,000 grant to help Pride Toronto develop strategies to make LGBT communities in Canada live more securely.
“For too long, the [LGBT] community has encountered injustice from various institutions in our society in ways that have prevented people from living their lives more fully and contributing their strengths to our country,” said Bill Morneau, federal finance minister and MP for Toronto Centre, home to the city’s Gay Village.
“We know that we have to do better.“
Morneau was joined by Olivia Nuamah, executive director of Pride Toronto, at an afternoon news conference on Saturday to formally commit the new money.
The funding will be used for the creation of a new initiative, run by Pride Toronto, that seeks to address “institutional and systemic barriers that lead to negative outcomes for [LGBT] communities, especially those that they have when encountering the criminal justice system.”
1. thats not a lot of money for, ideally, their goals 2. we have orgs doing this. not just in Ontario, but across Canada. why on earth is this money being given to Pride Toronto – for consultations, and to erect a project that other orgs exist and need funding for 3. it’s like the federal government has appointed Pride Toronto with some umbrella authority or spokesmanship over “LGBTQ agencies and leaders” across Ontario
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau isn’t saying what he is willing to do go to keep a provision protecting labour rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer workers inside a renewed North American free trade pact.
More than 40 Republican lawmakers wrote U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday demanding the removal of language in the agreement pledging all three countries to support “policies that protect workers against employment discrimination on the basis of sex, including with regard to pregnancy, sexual harassment, sexual orientation, gender identity.”
The lawmakers urged Trump not to sign the agreement unless the language was removed.
horrifying fun fact of the day: so greenwich village, which is the neighborhood in nyc where the stonewall riots took place and which was a v important gay center from like the 50s-80s, is now super swanky and full of touristy boutiques and expensive apartments and stuff. st vincent’s, the local hospital which had the first aids ward on the east coast, closed a couple years ago and is being replaced with luxury condos. all of this is sad enough, BUT i just found out that one of the reasons it’s so gentrified now is that the aids crisis was really awesome for real estate. ppl were dying in thousands and leaving empty apartments behind, which their landlords would then rent at higher prices until only rich ppl could afford to live there 🙂
elaphaia said: also during the aids crisis landlords would shut their heat off in the winter knowing it would kill ppl so they could then rent 4 higher 🙂
Reminder that the cishet dominated government didn’t just ignore the effects of HIV/AIDS because of how concentrated the deaths were in other communities because they hate us, but also because they materially benefited from it – because they owned most of the buildings, because our partners and other kin had no legal right to our possessions, and because they commodified and monopolized antiretrovirals to bilk us.
Never forget ACT UP NYC that consisted of marginalized members of the LGBT community, many of whom were dying of AIDS. All of whom fought hard and valiantly against AIDS and HIV/AIDS discrimination. Never never forget about the brave men and women who smuggled drugs for AIDS patients into the US because the FDA was taking too long to approve drugs here and people were dying.
Never forget that people were often kicked out of their housing because they were unable to afford rent and treatment, because their partner died, or because of outright discrimination.
Enjoy your luxury apartments. I hope you remember the men and women who died so you could live there.
Just remembered Mimi’s line in RENT. “It’s nothing/they turned off my heat/and I’m a little weak on my feet.”
Jesus. I know this was before a lot of tumblr’s time, but we can’t forget this shit.
Let’s also never ever leave race out of this conversation. It wasn’t just any queers who were the most targeted, it was Black trans women. It wasn’t just any queers who stood up and fought back at stonewall, it was Black trans women.
Dan Savage may be rich and well respected, HRC may be a corporate giant but who is STILL out there fighting to survive, getting murdered and locked up because they dare to exist and resist? BLACK TRANS WOMEN.
I see a lot of posts on queer history lately that don’t follow through to the presence. You know why we still talk about AIDS today? I’m sorry to say this but it has A LOT to do with the fact that not even cis heteronormative white men were safe. They were dying too and for the first time, they were forced to be lumped in with the type of brutality, ostrization, and public humiliation that we, as a culture, HAVE ALWAYS doled out generously to Black people, ESPECIALLY BLACK TRANS WOMEN.
Can we have a conversation where we connect the AIDS epidemic to forced medical experiments on Black people that the United States CONTINUES TO THIS DAY to perpetrate? Can we talk about how racists STILL blame the genesis of the AIDS virus on Africans fucking monkies so God punished them and the rest of the “heathens” with AIDS. Can we talk about how AIDS could be entirely controlled, if not eradicated entirely, if it weren’t for US imperialism and it’s world-destroying inhuman lust for greed and power? Let’s talk about how the AIDS epidemic IS NOT OVER! How it still rages strong in the US, especially in homeless communities, communities of color and other groups of people put white supremacist system has targeted for genocide. How it still persists in many, many other countries abroad and we pretend as if it doesn’t exist unless “activists” like Bono can capitalize on it.
I’m sick and fucking tired of these half assed discussions of AIDS, no disrespect intended to the original poster this is about white queers in general right now so if the OP isn’t white this isn’t about them.
White queers, DO BETTER. Stop fucking pretending that AIDS is about you!!!! Talk about how when we honor those lost to AIDS we MUST honor the Black trans women who were the very first to stand up and fight, who DIED so you can sit on your couch and shed a tear for all those fucking whitewashed Harvey Milk movies.
AIDS IS NOT GONE. AIDS IS NOT OVER. AIDS STILL DESTROYS THOUSANDS OF LIVES EVERY DAY AND THE FACT THAT IT HASN’T YET BEEN CONTAINED IS A STRATEGIC ACT OF IMPERIALIST, WHITE SUPREMACIST WARFARE.
BLACK TRANS LIVES MATTER. BLACK TRANS WOMEN HAVE ALWAYS BEEN / ARE STILL THE BACK BONE OF AMERICAN QUEER RIGHTS AND WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THAT MORE. NEVER, EVER FORGET.
No discussion of AIDS should ever happen without also centering the lives and resistance of Black trans women. Period. The end.
NYC is a gentrified and hateful horror show that they built on the backs of the dying and dead.
VOTE LIKE YOUR FUTURE DEPENDED ON IT, BECAUSE IT DOES!
❤ ALL OF THIS ❤
Get out and vote regardless of whether it seems like its a “Sure thing” or seems “Hopeless”…there’s no such thing as a sure thing and there is always ALWAYS a chance that your vote can make a difference no matter how hopeless it might seem…
Just to be clear: I dislike the Democrats. I don’t feel that they reflect my values, and I find them mostly ineffectual.
BUT
The Republican party is a complete dumpster fire right now. I’m voting to keep white supremacists, transphobes, social Darwinists, and fascists out of places of power. I’m voting like lives depend on it, because they literally do.
I don’t like the Democrats, but you can be damned sure I’m voting for them this week, every chance I get. You should too.
I do not need to explain to you why the Toronto police should not march in Pride.
You are a decent, rational, compassionate person. You of course recognize that, the individual foibles and allowances of individual officers aside, the Toronto police have been the historical, habitual and ongoing antagonists of Toronto’s LGBT community.
Perhaps you remember Operation Soap, the malicious bathhouse raids that destroyed people’s lives — and subsequently triggered Toronto’s first Pride march as a passionate anti-police protest. If not, you still know about the decades of harassment and attempts to destroy the village’s institutions like the Glad Day Bookshop. You probably saw the footage of HIV-phobic insults hurled at a homeless person in the village. You likely remember 2016’s Project Marie, which descended on anonymous and closeted men in a park and publicly humiliated them in droves. You certainly saw the cheerful police photo op just a few weeks ago with neo-Nazi mayoral candidate Faith Goldy.
You know about the people we lost while begging the police to do something for decades, though perhaps their names escape you; there are, after all, so many of them: Majeed Kayhan, Selim Esen, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Andrew Kinsman, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, Abdulbasir Faizi, Kirushna Kanagaratnam. The decades of grisly cold cases, now reopened, despite the mockery they once gave us for suggesting there was a killer; the blame the police chief tried shifting to us when the killer was caught too late.
Alloura Wells, left to rot in a morgue while her community searched everywhere. Tess Richey, left in an alley stairwell for her mother to find.
to anyone who is a member of pride TO, this is reason to vote out your board. a board is beholden to their membership and if they go against their members they can be removed. they aren’t allowed to do this kind of shit.
Imagine being a kid in school. Your teacher comes up with an idea for class picture. Every student will draw pictures of their friends.
Everyone starts drawing enthusiasticly, and can’t wait to see what they look like in the drawings. When pictures are ready you notice that popular students have more pictures than rest, but nobody has done a drawing of you. The teacher notices that too, and asks if someone would do your picture. To your horror the class clown takes the job, and comes up with a caricature of you. Others are laughing, but you’re not. You feel awful. The teacher notices that. and asks again someone to do a drawing of you. One of the ‘good students’ starts drawing, but the result is forced. It’s just a drawing of a generic child wearing a shirt of same color as you a wearing. There’s no spirit, no soul in it. You start sensing that the class is geting frustrated with you. They want to be done with this. You ask quietly the teacher if you could do a drawing yourself.
After school your classmates confront you. Why did you have to make such a big deal out of it? The first picture was funny. The second picture was just fine! The drawing you did yourself wasn’t right, do you think you are that good-looking? There were other kids who got only one or two pictures of themselves. Who are you to demand special treatment? Maybe there would have been a picture of you if you weren’t such annoying baby, nobody likes you anyway, and nobody’s going to if you keep on being like that, you don’t deserve a drawing!
This could be story of bullying, but it’s also about how I see portraying LGBTQ+-people and PoC in mainstream entertainment.
WATCH THIS: MAN SHUTS DOWN ANTISEMITIC WHITE POWER PREACHER
One of my friends in the Boston area took this video and gave me permission to post it. She writes: “ I stood there for twenty minutes, easily. Hitler Youth kept trying to preach about “the evils of the Jews” and the big guy barely let him get a word in edgewise. At one point, the big guy yelled, “I will be here ALL DAY” and the crowd cheered.”
I promise this will be the best thing you see today.
Where’s a goddamn bullhorn when you need it?
wow that preacher is probably shitting his pants low key with some big ass biker that close to his face
Caption for those who need it– the guy in the suit is saying shit like “all races must serve us as put here by God” and a lot of racist/anti Semitic drivel.
Every time he opens his mouth to speak though, the biker yells “AHHHHHHH!!!” Until the man in the suit shuts up again. When the man in the suit takes a breath and opens his mouth, the biker doesn’t even let him get started and just screams “AHHHHH”…. This happens a few times.
The guy in the suit plows ahead but the biker screams and says “No no no no!!!”
I love biker dude
Make racists afraid again.
Um, sorry, but the guy in the suit deserves to speak his opinions. How’d you like to get screamed at everything time you spoke about what you are passionate about? I’m not saying I agree with his opinion, but that doesn’t make shutting him down like this right. Freedom of Speech. Just agree to disagree and walk away.
1) Freedom of Speech means you have the right to speak your mind without being punished or censored by the government. It does not mean other people have to listen to you, and it does not mean they can’t yell over you if you’re saying something disgusting and inflammatory. The Biker Dude has just as much right to do what he’s doing as the Neo-Nazi. Nobody’s right is being infringed upon here.
2) The guy is “passionate about” hating and inciting violence against Jews. I’m passionate about information literacy, candle-making, and giving snuggles to my pet rabbit. There’s a fucking difference, there.
3) “Agree to disagree” is something you say when two people can’t come to a consensus over whether or not The Empire Strikes Back is the best Star Wars movie. It’s not something you say when one person is Jewish and the other person believes Jews are a evil satanic cabal trying to enslave the white race who must be stopped at all costs. That’s not an “agree to disagree” topic. We don’t “agree to disagree” over the issue of whether or not Jews are people. We don’t “agree to disagree” over whether or not black people, immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ folks, etc. are deserving of basic human rights. These things are not up for debate, and there is no middle-ground to be had with people who think otherwise.
“I can’t remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you’re saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it’s not literally illegal to express.” – Randall Munroe
Queer Fiction Writer 