I know it’s only April, but I just saw such a rancid take on Tiktok (and the person blocked me, woo!) That I need to vent somewhere.
The argument went “bi/pan/queer people with cishet partners shouldn’t bring those partners into queer spaces/Pride because it makes those spaces unsafe for lgbt folks.”
Which is a frankly awful take for many reasons.
First of all “makes a space unsafe” is not an identity. It is a behavior. And ANYONE who is making those spaces unsafe, regardless of their identity, *shouldn’t be there.* Whether they are a cishet man or a lesbian, if you are making people unsafe, you shouldn’t be there.
Secondly, it’s blatantly unenforceable. You can’t clock someone’s identity at the door. You don’t know if they are bi or trans or nonbinary. And no one should have to out themselves to a bouncer.
As a caveat to this, you also don’t ever know *why* someone might bring their cishet partner to pride. Whether that’s because this is an important part of their life they want to share with their partner, or they are disabled and need help managing their meds or mobility aides, or the partner is a designated driver. You just don’t know. So even if you did know they were cishet, maybe they have a “good reason” for being there.
So between it not solving an actual problem to not being enforceable, all this discourse does is create an EXTREMELY hostile environment for, well, bi/pan/queer folks especially. Always. We always get targeted for this kind of stuff.
But also anyone who might worry that *they* aren’t queer enough or not look queer enough. Trans folks who haven’t socially transitioned, non-binary folks who aren’t androgynous enough, ace and aro folks, people who are newly out- they see this rhetoric and think “Oh no. What is someone sees me and thinks I’m cishet? What if someone tells me I can’t be there? What if I don’t really belong?”
So we aren’t doing it. It’s shitty snd hostile and biphobic and exclusionary.
“Carolyn Meiller is working on her dissertation project looking at sexual pleasure for curvy, queer, women. […] Because research on curvy, queer, women is limited, and when focuses on sex mostly focuses on the negative aspects of sex, I am hoping to raise the varied experiences curvy, queer, women have with sex and sexual pleasure. I hope this data will be used to create a theory for how identity, societal messages, and other external forces influence the experiences of pleasure for curvy, queer, women. Furthermore, I hope this research will be used to further promote sexual health, justice, and fair treatment for curvy, queer, women in medical and mental health settings. Individuals who participate in interviews will receive $20 to compensate them for their time. I appreciate any help you can provide!”
1- I’m a bisexual woman dating a cis straight man. That doesn’t make me straight, and that doesn’t make my relationship a straight one. That doesn’t mean I belong less in the LGBT+ community than a gay person.
2- The fourth example was not a joke. I’m in a fandom where two genderless entities with a temporary human shape are paired together. I’ve seen artists get hate because they drew them “looking straight”. The characters are still non-binary, still in love, STILL NOT STRAIGHT. Do not allow this toxic rhetoric in your fandom. Protect artists.
**Note– Forgot I meant to add aro and ace in there, sorry, but this TOTALLY INCLUDES ARO AND ACE PEOPLE.
THERE IS NO HIERARCHY OF WHAT IS MORE ACCEPTABLE IN THE LGBT+ COMMUNITY.
I feel like a lot of the ‘whiny shippers’ rhetoric against those of us who are upset is really dismissive of the LGBT+ community & what we deal w in media. & that dismissal by a whole portion of the SPN Family of fans has me pretty depressed, tbh. Most of us didnt expect it to go full-canon or reciprocated. We were happy w 15x18. But when we didn’t get more than a crumb too small for a mouse in the final 2 — not as Misha fans or even Cas fans — but as LGBT+ ppl who’s rep just got killed, when we were put in a corner, once more, like always, by a show that claimed to value us…it hurts. It’s 2020, I’m tired of hurting. Yeah, there is a v small subset of fans who only care about that ship or that actor, but 99% of us who are upset, angry, depressed right now are upset for a whole different reason that hits v close to home for us…for me. Pls, don’t dismiss that. This feels like the straw in a line of decades of other straws, of every show that has ever pulled this shit, that broke the LGBT+ fannish community’s back, you know? It was just one too many for me. (FYI I’m a fan of all 3 characters, all 3 actors & the brother relationship as much as anything else, if you felt you *had* to know that for my pain to be valid.) Anyways thats my piece. SPN Family, pls let us feel our pain w/o mock & dismissal.
“How were LGBT people able to hijack the rainbow!?!”
Uhh, well Jake, we started using the rainbow to connote gayness and you immediately stopped using it because you were pants shittingly afraid of looking gay.
I live in a country with an anti-LGBTQ government and it’s both frustrating and hilarious how you can’t have anything rainbow themed anymore without someone throwing a shitfit. Like, a kindergardener wasn’t allowed to use one as their sign because that’s “indoctrinating children into the gay lifestyle”. Fucking what
Here are some wise and empowering words offered by some of our favorite queer women in 2016 to give you hope for humanity in the new year. Based on what we’re already seeing, we’re going to need them.
Radcliffe certainly put the innocence of his “Harry Potter” years behind him when he played gay poet Allen Ginsberg in 2013’s “Kill Your Darlings,” set in the early days of the Beat Generation.
But just how much of the “Potter” star would be display once the movie hit the big screen was a matter of debate ― for one specific reason.
A gay man who happens to look eerily similar to anti-LGBT extremist and Vice President-elect Mike Pence is putting his looks to good use ― by wandering the streets of NYC in short shorts and collecting money to benefit important organizations.
The transgender activist who took Donald Trump to task in a series of VIRAL tweets says she hopes her rant will inspire others, including Republicans, to speak out against the president-elect’s many lies and offenses toward minority groups, among other transgressions.
Lesbians For Men is a first of its kind coffee table book that brings together photography from over the decades that explores female sexuality created in relationship with the straight male sexual desire.
These days, the singer-actress said, all of her family members are “exactly where they should be,” noting, “Everyone’s so much happier, richer, and more fulfilled, being their authentic selves.”
just saw a post where someone put “detrans dni” and like… hey we should be supporting detransitioned people bc if we don’t terfs will
sometimes you’re wrong about your identity and that’s ok like i used to think i was bi but it turns out i was wrong and i know ppl who thought they were trans but it turns out they were wrong and it should be ok and accepted that sometimes people don’t get it right on the first try
This touches on something I have felt for a long time, which is that one of the reasons rigid queer labels and gatekeeping is so dangerous is because if you want to encourage people to explore their gender/sexuality, there has to be a safe “Actually I was wrong” option.
I went through so very much anxiety coming out, and when I really think about it it was squarely from the fear of being wrong about it all. That I was, at heart, a cishet woman, and therefore I was appropriating a label that didn’t ‘belong’ to me, and I would (somehow) be harming other people by doing so. There’s so much more unnecessary pressure if the sword hanging over your head is “But you do have to be right about this, you can’t back out once you’ve even asked the question.”
I think that is Bad. I think it makes fewer people ask the question. I think that includes those who need to ask, and would be much happier for it.
