Tag: mlm

transgenderteensurvivalguide:

Lee says:

  • The word “transgender” is an umbrella term that covers anyone who identifies as a gender they were not assigned at birth.
  • Both binary people and non-binary people are equally transgender.
  • Being trans without dysphoria is possible.
  • Gender expression ≠ gender identity, as shown on the genderbread person
  • Again, if you don’t fully identify as the gender you were assigned at birth 100% of the time, you can call yourself trans. That’s it, there’s no other criteria you need to meet to be trans.
  • More info: Trans resources masterpost or Ally resources for cis people

Followers, feel free to add on!

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Source: transgenderteensurvivalguide

Blackwood is now available for preorder!

thebibliosphere:

nightalp:

not-poignant:

not-poignant:

image

About Blackwood:

In a world that is still getting used to shifters,
where everyone thinks omegas are second class citizens, nature photographer and
omega Braden Payne lets everyone think he’s a beta. That way no one gives him a
hard time and he doesn’t have to live a repeat of his failed relationship. But
when his car breaks down in the remote Blackwood forest in Western Australia,
without the medication that lets him hide who he is, he’s faced with what he
fears most: an unmated alpha.

Government forest guardian and alpha Coll MacDubhar
is tired of illegal loggers, foolish tourists and people who underestimate the
wilds of Western Australia. He discovers Braden lost and in need of medical
assistance in the forest he protects and knows something’s not right.

But there’s hidden depths to Braden that capture his
interest, and no decent alpha would walk away when Braden’s unwelcome past
comes to visit.

BUY NOW AT AMAZON // KOBO // NOOK // APPLE

Release: November 23rd

Deets:

Blackwood by Pia Foxhall (Perth Shifters #1)
– Can be read as standalone! –
Each book in the series focuses on different characters
Queer (gay/bisexual character) m/m romance
93,000 words // 267 pages (Kindle)
Cover by TiferetDesign
Subscribe to the Foxhall Newsletter!

Curious about the world?

Introduction to Braden Payne and Coll MacDubhar (with excerpt)

Introduction to some of the unique aspects of alpha/beta/omega worldbuilding in the Perth Shifters world.

Time for a reblog! 😀

Hi @thebibliosphere could you reblog this so more people learn about it?

Pia’s a really awesome author and a great person and you probably have some followers who might be interested in checking their book out.

Absolutely!

latinxstan:

maeamian:

paladin-protector:

dynastylnoire:

maeamian:

maeamian:

maeamian:

BTW, the high five was invented in 1977 which means your parents probably didn’t grow up with it.

For real though Glenn Burke, inventor of the high five was a gay black player in the 70s, and the Dodgers tried to get him to marry a beard and their manager got mad when he befriended the manager’s gay son before being traded to the Athletics, probably for being gay. In Oakland, the rumors of homosexuality followed him and manager Billy Martin started using homophobic slurs in the clubhouse and homophobic behavior from other players lead to an early retirement for the promising young star at 27.  After retiring from baseball he introduced the high five to the Castro district of San Franscio where the high five became a symbol of gay pride and identification. ESPN wrote a long form piece about it which I recommend reading, it’s got some homophobic slurs in it although not presented positively.

A few appendices:

Although he was unceremoniously drummed out of Major League Baseball, Burke became the star shortstop for the local Gay Softball League, and even dominated in the Gay Softball World Series, as well as medaling in the 100 and 200 meter sprints in the inaugural 1982 Gay Games. Unfortunately, Burke also picked up a cocaine habit and had his leg and foot crushed in an accident. He spent much of his final years homeless in the Castro, and died from AIDS complications in 1995, but he was in the first class of inductees to the Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame, and his High School retired his jersey number.

The Dodgers Manager in question was Tony Lasorda, whose son “Spunky” died of AIDS complications in 1992 although Lasorda maintains that it was cancer. Likewise, despite the High Five becoming a symbol of the 1980 Dodgers team, Lasorda maintained and continues to this day to maintain to not know its origin. It’s possible that this isn’t a deliberate slight to Burke, but given his homophobia in other matters that’s a hard benefit of the doubt to give.

The Athletics have, in the years since, attempted to make up for some of the wrongs they committed in this story. When Glenn revealed publicly that he was living with AIDS, the As moved in and helped him financially. Burke was honored publicly at Pride Night at the park in 2015 and his brother was invited to throw the first pitch.

Burke was happy to see the high five catch on, spilling out of sports and into the small joys of every day life. He died believing that the high five was his legacy. Next time you high five your friend, remember that the high five came from Glenn Burke.

Npr has a dope story on it

What? Cool! Maybe I can find some of his baseball cards?

You can! Not super expensively even!

I’m so glad high fives are gay culture

ace-and-aro-wlw-positivity:

Hey y’all, with Asexual Awareness Week coming up (Oct 21-27th this year) here are a few things to remember!

• Asexuals are part of the LGBTQ+ community

• Asexuality is real

• Aces can choose not to celebrate/participate in any way

• Aces have every right to be proud of their identity

• Aces are lgbt+ regardless of their romantic orientation.

• Aces aren’t “basically straight” or any other complaint exclusionists have

• Asexuality is an orientation just like any other as well as a spectrum

• Greysexuals, Demisexuals, Cupiosexual, etc are all valid and also have a right to celebrate this week

• Ace Men exist

• Nonbinary Aces exist

• Not every Ace is Cis

• Exclusionists/Gatekeepers/etc are not welcome here

• AroAces exist

• Ace WLW exist

• Ace MLM exist

• Ace nblnb / nblm / nblw exist

• Poc Aces exist

• Disabled Aces exist

• Mentally ill Aces exist

• There are Aces of many different races/genders/ages/religions/etc

• Whether you’re an Ace still struggling with their orientation or an Ace who’s proud, or any other type of Ace, Asexual Awareness Week is for you and you’re valid regardless.

Feel free to add on!

Zero transmissions mean zero risk — PARTNER 2 study results announced

actupny:

The chance of any HIV-positive person with an undetectable viral load transmitting the virus to a sexual partner is scientifically equivalent to zero, researchers confirmed at the 22nd International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2018) in Amsterdam today.

Final results from the PARTNER study were presented this morning at a press conference on the opening day of AIDS 2018. Results originally announced in 2014 from the first phase, PARTNER 1, already indicated that “Undetectable equals Untransmittable” (U=U). However, the statistical certainty of this result was not quite as convincing in the case of gay men, or for anal sex, as it was for vaginal sex.

Results from PARTNER 2, the second phase, which only recruited gay couples, were presented today.

The results indicate, in the words of the researchers, “A precise rate of within-couple transmission of zero” for gay men as well as for heterosexuals.

The PARTNER study recruited HIV serodiscordant couples (one partner positive, one negative) at 75 clinical sites in 14 European countries. They tested the HIV-negative partners every six to 12 months for HIV, and tested viral load in the HIV-positive partners. Both partners also completed behavioural surveys. In cases of HIV infection in the negative partners, their HIV was genetically analysed to see if it came from their regular partner.

The study found no transmissions between gay couples where the HIV-positive partner had a viral load under 200 copies/ml – even though there were nearly 77,000 acts of condomless sex between them.

Why PARTNER matters

It is fitting that the results of PARTNER 2 appear on the tenth anniversary of an impassioned debate at the Mexico City International AIDS Conference in 2008 on the validity of the Swiss Statement, which was the first published document to say that, under defined circumstances, people with HIV who have fully suppressed viral loads due to treatment cannot transmit HIV.

At the time it was said that due to lack of viral load monitoring in anything but high-income countries, this fact – even if true – would have little relevance to most people with HIV.

There was also concern that telling people with HIV that they were not infectious if virally suppressed would be counter-productive because it would discourage safer sex. The more important message to give to people, some experts said, was that they should take every dose of their therapy.

The U=U (Undetectable equals Untransmittable) campaign was founded as a reaction to these positions.

The thinking behind U=U is that telling people they are not infectious if virally suppressed was a message of hope, and something earnestly desired by many people with HIV. It would help to combat the stigma against them, and their own self-stigma. By providing a powerful incentive to take treatment it could also have a positive impact on public health, as well as on individuals.

The Swiss doctors who issued the original 2008 statement apologised at the time that stating that people “do not” transmit HIV under the circumstances above was too definite, and that they had only meant to indicate that the likelihood of transmission was reduced.

But what PARTNER tells us is that they were right all along. People who are virally suppressed do not transmit HIV.

It was widely assumed at the time that sexually transmitted infections (STIs) might make people infectious even when they normally had an undetectable viral load.

But PARTNER tells us that STI infections have no impact on HIV infectiousness in people who are fully suppressed.

And it was thought that because HIV is transmitted more easily via anal than vaginal sex, the results might not hold for gay men.

But PARTNER 2 now tells us that U=U holds just as strongly for gay men (and for anal sex) as for heterosexuals.

[…]

PARTNER is not the only study about viral load and infectiousness. Last year the Opposites Attract study also found no transmissions in nearly 17,000 acts of condomless anal sex between serodiscordant gay male partners, meaning that no transmission has been seen in about 126,000 occasions of sex, if you combine this study with PARTNER 1 and 2.

What has changed is that we can now state that U=U with at least as much confidence for gay men as we already could for heterosexuals or, as the researchers say, “PARTNER2 provides a similar level of confidence for gay men as for heterosexual couples in PARTNER 1.”

“We looked so hard for transmissions,” Alison Rodger told aidsmap.com. “And we didn’t find any.”

The last line in the last slide she presented today was “Undetectable = Untransmittable.”

This is great news and so important, emphatically confirming what we already knew: UNDETECTABLE = UNTRANSMITTABLE for HIV. Pass it on.

Zero transmissions mean zero risk — PARTNER 2 study results announced

History of Slash

thebibliosphere:

systlin:

veronica-rich:

kronette:

70thousandlightyearsfromhome:

Been reading the “Slash Controversies” section of Fanlore.  I’m a long time fan, but some of this stuff is from way before my time, even.  Mary Lou Dodge’s outrage over smut at Trek cons, for example.  

Slash was still controversial in the mid to late ‘80s, when I got really involved in fandom.  But the battles over whether it should be allowed at cons were more or less over.  There were slash-only cons by then, but fan cons in general permitted slash.  I’m told because slash fans were such a big part of fandom, they just couldn’t afford to exclude them, even if the con organizers disapproved of slash and would rather not allow it.

I remember discussing fanfic awards at a con once, with someone who was outraged that there were separate gen and slash categories.  “Slash writers shouldn’t get special treatment,” she proclaimed.  A couple of other fans explained that having separate categories was actually to protect the gen writers.  Gen stories tended to lose to slash stories, because there were so many slash fans, and “slashers read across fandoms.”  While gen fans tended to stick with their personal favorite fandom(s), slash fans often read (and voted for) slash in any fandom they found it in.

That wasn’t me.  I tend to fall deeply in love with a fandom and/or character, and read everything I can find in that fandom, gen or slash.  But I knew a lot of slash fans who fit the description.  I used to zine-shop for friends at MediaWest.  (People who couldn’t make it to the con would ask those who were going to buy zines for them, either giving them the money upfront or promising to pay them back later.)  The slash fans often asked me to buy them slash in any fandom, as long as it was new.  

And I didn’t know David Gerrold hated slash.  As recently as 2013, he reiterated his feelings about K/S.  He’s gay, so I thought he’d be a little more tolerant.  His characterizing slash fans as “fat ladies with a sexual dysfunction” seems just a tad misogynist.  

Though come to think of it, that’s not that unusual.  A lot of gay men seemed perplexed and even offended at the idea of straight women writing gay smut.  That changed, IME, in the ‘90s, when the Internet made it a lot easier for gay guys to find slash, and become a part of it.  Minotaur‘s willingness to answer slash writers’ questions about m/m sex (and his good humor about it) made him popular both online and at cons.  

He ended up writing in many fandoms, but his first was Voyager – in particular, Paris/Kim.  Though his first story was more Kim/Ayala than P/K.

Minotaur was a godsend to us, and a wonderful man.

Minotaur proved what impact you can have with positivity rather than just bitching and throwing shade all the time.

Ahh, this took me back. 

Some fandom history for y’all youngin’s out there. 

Ugh, I still remember when he died. It was like a mass grieving across the fandoms. I was only 22 and I forget exactly how I ended up on his lj but he was just so damn open and funny and willing to talk about things that were rarely talked about in a healthy and informative manner. His writing taught me a lot, both in terms of basic human anatomy but also just how to tell a damn good story.

Then four years after his passing, there I was, being relegated to the LGBT kink dept in the publishing house (because nobody wanted it, can you BELIEVE) and with the absolute authority of someone who grew up reading minotaur’s works on fandom was able to say with confidence, “that’s not how the prostate works” to a room full of senior publishers attempting to cash in on the popularity of m/m works, with no idea what they were doing.

It was hilarious, and I feel he would have gotten a good laugh out of it.

sapphickaliprasad:

hey so canada has been dealing with a serial killer who has killed eight (mostly middle eastern/east asian) queer men as well as abused and assaulted other queer men for the past decade or so and they just recently found more dead bodies on his property and the police did fuck all to stop it besides questioning him a couple times over the years and deciding he wasn’t threatening enough to lock up and I feel like nobody is talking about this because everything is so fucking u.s centric – though I’ve hardly found any other canadians talking about it – but if I read one more article I’m going to vomit because nothing was done to stop it and I’m so sick and tired of indifference and our fucking leader getting a pat on the head for knowing this stuff is bad but then doing absolutely nothing to fix it while minorities die and I wanna know how many more have to suffer until condolences just won’t cut it anymore and I am so fucking upset

daffydithcourthe:

gayhex:

gayhex:

we talk a lot about how cis lesbians dont wanna date trans girls but why dont we unpack how yall cis gays wouldnt even be caught in a mile radius near a trans dude

lets revisit this ladies

yes, let’s talk about this because i’m sick of cis gay dudes asking my boyfriend if he minds or say he’s only okay with it cause he’s bi. i’m sick of them saying shit like “i’d never be able to do that to myself” and “even if he’s a boy he has, you know…girl parts…” or whatever. not to mention the amount of gay dudes who hit on me when i was passing only to find out i’m trans and laugh it off like they were joking or, worse, react with utter disgust. cis gays are just as capable of being transphobic as cis lesbians and the fact that people are only calling out women is kind of telling. a lot of gay men won’t even entertain the possibility of dating a trans man and their “reasons” are just excuses wrapped up in transphobia and, at times, misogyny. the community gives cis gay men a lot of free passes for their bigotry and i’m sick of it. we should really talk about this.