“I think it’s important to be able to be like, ‘Yes, your shoulders are broad, yes your hands are big and your voice is deep and you’re really tall and people notice you, and that makes you noticeably trans, but that doesn’t make you any less beautiful,’” [Laverne Cox] says.
“You’re not beautiful despite those things, you’re beautiful because of those things, and [believing] that has to be an active conscious process.”
Trans Is Beautiful: Laverne Cox on the Work of Self-Love via Self
Wow, TERFs are really angry about this post. Guess it’s a good time to reblog it again. 💜
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.
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?
I want to make it clear first that I do not want your donation.
I use the term queer because it is more inclusive than lgbt, outside of lgbt excluding anyone who just isn’t included in that tiny acronym I have found it very white-centric, and to be honest to the point of erasure. In one of our more recent articles we discussed the bate, and transgender people in native american communities. And in that research I found many other cultures that had and used terms that were different than transgender, or gay. And this is not the first time that white people have tried to label other communities and it is never a good thing, so I am not comfortable overriding any label they gave themselves, and queer is very purposefully non-specific, whereas LGBT could be one of four things queer is any sexual or gender identity that strays outside what society considers “normal” and does not attempt to label anyone, just say that their label is outside of what society may have expected.
And it is my slur to reclaim for myself and my art and it is no ones job to police how I decide to use it.
Also I know what dog whistle terminology you are using here, and yes, I do include asexual and aromantic people in my articles, and I do not care if you do not like that. Asexual and aromantic people have a history as well and they deserve to be able to learn about it.
And now I want to explain why I do not want your donation.
This is my project, and it is run along with my amazing business partner Grace, but in the end it is mine. I choose in which direction it goes and what I write about, and I am not going to be pressured by money into changing my mind. There is a reason I have made the decisions I have, I am on patreon so I am very firmly my own boss, my patrons are there to support my project, and I love all of them for it, but they do not get to decide where this project goes. I do. And if they don’t like it I understand them withdrawing their support but will not change my art to avoid that. And you clearly feel very entitled to decide where my art is going, and I want to say-as kindly as possible- I don’t want your support. I don’t want support that is an attempt at control, and there is no amount of money you could give me to sell out the asexual/aromantic community.
So go support some other project, because you can’t control what happens here.
I’ll keep this somewhat short. I think in terms of the huge queer spectrum there has been an excellent idea to start the push for equal rights with gay marriage, on the basis that you have to start focusing on one thing, and gay marriage is a quick and easy win (relatively). Okay, a huge struggle, but as things go it was easier for a lot of people to accept.
Anyway, I’d like to suggest a selfish alternative idea, which is starting with recognizing trans people with all the necessary legal abilities to change name and genders and treatment being protected and not gatekept and making it not legal to murder us and stuff. Here’s my thoughts why:
We need rapid change, not incremental. If you start with trans rights, it has to pull all the rest along with it. If people can change gender, you have to recognize a fluidity and spectrum. If gender is fluid, you have to recognize a fluid sexuality as well. If people can go from a heterosexual marriage to a queer one, you have to recognize marriage equality. If you have to start recognizing equality for queer people generally, you have to start realizing there’s a pretty big problem with racial equality in the queer world. And so on.
I think trans rights nets the whole thing in one catch, and this is probably very naive and full of problems I didn’t think but also – I am absolutely this selfish.
This isn’t even selfish anymore, just a necessity.
This works in reverse too by the way so if we lose rights you know they’re gunning for everyone and will use it as precedence to knock down every bit of progress since the 1920s.
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.
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.
Queer Fiction Writer 