#queer rights
[Image description: A youtube comment, edited blackout-poetry style to read, “Remember, we should be inclusive of LGBTQ. We should respect all humans.”]
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Remeber, we should be inclusive of LGTBQ
We should respect all humans
Submitted by @bregee13
omg you do not understand how rare it is to see queer desi weddings this is beautiful
Madrid today has dawned a little more inclusive. It seems that protesters are fed up and they are going to reclaim what belongs to all of the people #QueerBenches
Madrid amanece con bancos “invertidos” para denunciar la LGTBIfobia
Colectivos por los derechos y libertades LGTBIQ responden a la desaparición de bancos que se pintaron hace casi cuatro años y que algunos concejales del gobierno de Almeida han querido eliminar.
Madrid dawns with “LGBTQ+ Pride” Park Benches to denounce Queerphobia, when overnight LGTBIQ+ Civil Rights Groups respond to the disappearance of public benches that had been painted (in LGBTQIA+ Colours) almost four years ago, but that some councilors of the new more conservative-leaning government have wanted to eliminate.
La ciudad de Madrid ha amanecido este martes un poco más colorida. Con la etiqueta de #BancosInvertidos en redes sociales, diversos colectivos LGTBIQ madrileños celebran la aparición de bancos de parques, plazas y aceras con los colores de las banderas que representan la diversidad sexual y de género. A los nuevos bancos pintados les acompañan frases reivindicativas como “Los malos bancos son los otros”, “Barrios libres de transfobia” y “Las calles son nuestras”.
The city of Madrid has dawned on Tuesday a little more colorful. With the label of #BancosInvertidos in social networks, various LGTBIQ groups in Madrid celebrate the appearance of park benches, squares and sidewalks with the colors of the flags that represent sexual and gender diversity. The new painted banks are accompanied by vindictive phrases such as "The bad benches are those others", “Neighborhoods free of transphobia” and “The streets are ours.”
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Hello Beloved,
Some good political news:
As of 2/25/21, the Equality Act was passed in the House of Representatives. It will be headed to the Senate soon where it will be voted on.
If you are unaware of what the Equality Act is, it is an act proposed that will allow for protections and equal opportunities for LGBTQ+ people throughout America.
Hello Beloved!
A mix of good and bad LGBTQ+ political news has surfaced.
The Bad News: The week of the attack on the Capitol, Trump rolled back protections in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that allows for any social-service provider that receives federal funding to discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity. This impacts LGBTQ+ lives in ways from adoption and foster care to HIV and AIDS services. Source.
The Good News: On Day One of his presidency, Joe Biden signed an executive order that ensures that all anti-discrimination laws, from workplace to housing and education, also include sexual orientation and gender identity. This comes after, in June 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights Act also protects people based on gender identity and sexual orientation in the workplace. Source.
Change is an uphill battle, but it is coming. Have hope, Beloved
President-Elect Joe Biden (he/him) has chosen Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg (he/him) to be his Secretary of Transportation. With this decision, history has been made as Buttigieg will become the first openly gay/queer person to be in the presidential cabinet.
There is an island off the coast of Australia named “The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands.” This island was named and claimed as a protest by a group of LGBTQ+ Activists in 2004 until it was disbanded in 2017.
What is Gender?
1: GENDER IS A COMPLEX THING. Essentially gender is our internal relationship to societal concepts of masculinity and femininity.
2. GENDER EXPRESSION is the behavior attributes and symbols that indicate and perform one’s gender(s).
3. PART OF IT HAS TO DO WITH how you feel, part of it is how people see you, part of it has to do with expectations based on biological sex. Frankly, no definition of gender really gets all of what it is or isn’t.
4. MANY PEOPLE IDENTIFY WITHIN the binary of man or woman, many have a fluid experience within the spectrum, and still many identify outside the spectrum of these two options altogether.
5. CISGENDER PEOPLE identify with the gender society prescribes them at birth based on external sex characteristics.
TRANSGENDER PEOPLE internally align with gender(s) other than those assigned at birth.
Even Biological Sex Is NOT A Binary
The terms “MALE” AND “FEMALE” are used to categorize the anatomical differences in our bodies, but everything we attribute to biological sex— chromosomes, horomones, sex-linked genes, and genitalia— all exist on a complex spectrum. We are taught that XX chromosomes means female and XY chromosomes means male, but someone with XX chromosomes can be born with a penis and someone with XY chromosomes could be born with a vagina. Other chromosomal combinations exist (including X, XXY, XXX), and many people are born with varying degrees of both ovaries and testicles. This diversity has come to be generalized as “intersex” (neither male nor female). Tragically, doctors in many parts of the world perform irreversible surgeries to assign a binary sex to children whose bodies don’t match traditional understandings of male and female anatomy.
//For a descriptive thread on why biological sex is not a binary, visit https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1207834357639139328.html
Gender vs Orientation
BEING TRANS IS NOT THE SAME THING AS BEING GAY.
Who you are sexually or romantically attracted to is separate from your gender. Many people confuse the two.
“When I first came out as a lesbian in college, my friends assumed I must feel like a man on the inside because they couldn’t imagine two women loving each other.”
“Growing up, everyone assumed I was gay because of my personality and how I dressed, but that was because they didn’t have the language for gender diversity. To them, everything queer had to be gay.”
Brief History of Gender Diversity
While most of the western world is only just waking up to the diversity and complexity of gender, many cultures around the world and throughout time have recognized transgender and gender nonconforming people, often giving them spiritual reverence.
Ancient Egyptians identified three genders, man, sekhet, and woman, as early as early as 2000 BCE. Other cultures acknowledge three, four, and even more genders.
THE MODERN EMPHASIS ON GENDER as a rigid binary is primarily the consequence of European colonialism: a Christianity of patriarchy and cis-normativity allowed European colonists to call other cultures primitive and justify violence against them along with other forms of theft and control.
The Importance of Pronouns and Names
There’s so many options for pronouns: he, she, they, ze, or even just using a person’s name, and more. THE WORDS WE USE TO GENDER PEOPLE MATTER.
Calling a transgender person by their birth name, or a previous name associated with an identity that is not authentic to them can be harmful. Often times trans people choose a name that aligns more with their identity. Their previous name is sometimes called their “dead name.” DON’T DEAD NAME PEOPLE.
Using a person’s chosen name and proper pronouns can REDUCE THEIR RISK OF SUICIDE BY 30%.
FUN FACT: the singular ‘they’ has been used as a gender neutral pronoun in English for many hundreds of years!
God is Not a Man
God is infinitely more complex than can be contained within human vocabulary and thoughts (see Isaiah 55:8-9).
THIS INCLUDES GENDER. God’s fullness includes woman, man, non-binary, and being outside of gender. The gender-diverse nature of God is reflected throughout scripture. In addition to masculine terms, God is repeatedly described as a nursing, protective, and comforting Mother who has born us from Her womb (Hosea 11:3-4; Deuteronomy 32:11-18; Isaiah 42:14, 49:15, 66:13; Psalm 131:2; Matthew 23:37; etc). Even Genesis 1:27 says all of humankind was made in God’s image (not just cisgender men).
In the Beginning
The Bible says that in the beginning, God created day and night, land and sea, birds and fish. But have you ever seen a sunset, or a beach, or a penguin? Well, trans and non-binary people are kind of like that. A BEAUTIFUL ARRAY OF DIVERSITY.
So, God created male and female, and we are no less beautiful, diverse, and wild than a sunset or a beach or a penguin. God created people with genders beyond male and female in the same way God created realities in between, outside of, and beyond these others. Trans and non-binary and agender and intersex: God created us.
–Adapted from a message from trans pastor Asher O’Callaghan
To see the post in slide guide form, go here.
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Hello Beloved
As of 11/7/2020,
Joe Biden is the President-Elect of the United States.
This will make Kamala Harris the first woman Vice President, first person of color to be Vice President, and the first woman of color Vice President.
This is a monumental moment for America as we transition out of Trump’s reign of power and into one of progress.
With that said: We must hold Joe Biden accountable. Hold him accountable when it comes to COVID-19, racism, police brutality, sexism, homophobia and transphobia, climate change, and everything else going on in America. Just because he won doesn’t mean we stop fighting.
Go out and make change, Beloved
This election season has been on fire since the beginning. With so many large personalities and explosive debates, it can be hard to keep up sometimes. Many hard-hitting issues have been covered since the race for the presidency started, but we still haven’t heard much on LGBT issues.
We did some digging, and here are some of the top statements some of this year’s most notable presidential hopefuls have made on LGBT issues throughout the years. You’ll find that some candidates have evolved while others…not so much.
I just want to say, I am very disappointed that we didnt get a Hen/Karen kiss last night. The conversation about having another baby should have ended with a kiss and the fact that it didn’t but we got seven thousand Buck/Ali kisses makes me livid. It barely counts as queer representation if you refuse to allow them the same level of affection that the straight couples get.
The Girl/Girl Scene Movie was removed from Amazon due to customer complaints about the nature of the lesbian content (a lot of men were complaining that it was NOT pornographic). This is hate directed at the LGBTQ community. Read the full story here - https://www.afterellen.com/entertainment/570603-amazon-removes-a-lesbian-movie-after-men-leave-negative-reviews?fbclid=IwAR0_5FCvLbY4Y363SNt8alA1wyge5CAxufg3F-w-X92ej-dNin44cgwLgUk
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Quote by Marsha P Johnson, a queer activist who played a large part in the Stonewall Riots.
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Hey guys, if you have the time please click this link and go view the AIDS memorial quilt. As of last year, all 1.2 million feet of the quilt has been photographed and made viewable to the public.
As such a cornerstone to our community as queer people, the AIDS quilt was a sign of love and remembrance of all who were lost. And for some, with no solution in sight. What a wonder science is, because living as HIV/AIDS positive is no longer a death sentence. It is a treatable and manageable disease. We can live full and happy long lives and not transmit the disease.
When it was intitially unveiled, the quilt had about 2,000 panels and it was now bloomed into 48,000. The majority of them measuring 6'3". About the size of a grave.
I urge you to take the time to treasure, understand, and support our community. As their lives and the queer movement- have brought undoubtable freedom as we live in our own.
Making a quilt can take countless of hours. And a quilt of this size, it’s a whole generations worth.
Love your queer elders. Love your gay history. Live free, today.
im really tired of people within the LGBTQ+ community pointing fingers at each other and saying “you don’t really belong because you benefit from [insert type of privilege here]”
a cishet asexual still suffers from marginalization. their sexuality has been pathologized as a mental illness right along with gayness and transness. in a hypersexual heternormative culture where we’re told we must enjoy sex and we must be in relationships, an asexual person is made to feel as if they’re broken, as if they don’t exist, as if forcing sex and intimacy on them is a corrective measure to “fix them”
a straight trans woman still suffers from marginalization. being able to “pass” as a woman while also being in a relationship with a man does not negate the fact that trans people face the most violence out of anyone in the queer community, must face a society that enforces a standard of womanhood that may not necessarily apply to them, and must navigate a political climate that seeks to banish them from public spaces and paint them as criminals
a bisexual man in a relationships with a woman still suffers from marginalization. compulsory heterosexuality not only erases this identity but enforces this idea that bisexuality is a phase or a kink that can soon be grown out of. bisexuality is the largest subset of the LGBTQ+ community yet has the least amount of representation and leaves bi people more likely to have mental illnesses. being constantly recloseted when you date different genders has psychological and emotional consequences
individuals in a polyamorous relationship still suffer from marginalization. they exist in a society that hails monogamy as the only acceptable relationship model and attempts to make polyamorous individuals feel as if their relationships are abnormal, deviant, and inappropriate for children. they are treated as the example of what not to do, seeing as how society fails to acknowledge the breadth of relationship models that don’t necessarily have to include just two people.
examples like these can go on and on and on and on
these critiques also exist without the context of race, ethnicity, immigration status, ability, and/or religion. we’re so focused on worrying about whether certain queer identities even belong in the LGBTQ+ umbrella yet fail to see how whiteness, Christianity, citizenship laws, access to disability services, etc. further compound on the experiences of those who are told by a cishet world that we are abnormal.
and that’s what it comes down to: there is a formula for privilege in our society, and part of that formula involves being straight, being cis, wanting to marry, desiring sex, and believing in only two genders. queerness was always meant to represent those who live in opposition of those formulas, in opposition of systems that enforce and perpetuate those formulas.
our job is not to gatekeep our community because that is childish and unproductive. our job is to understand the systems that oppress us, figure out how to navigate/change these systems, and advocate for all people who fall victim to the violence and oppression that these systems were created to enforce.
we don’t do that by telling people that they don’t belong in our communities bc “they’re not as oppressed as we are.” this isn’t the oppression olympics. this is a time to fight, to love, and to advocate.
People who aren’t at fault for attacks against queer rights:
- Trans women
- Nonbinary people
- Asexuals
- Aromantics
- Pansexuals
- Catgender people
- Stargender people
- People with conflicting gender labels
- People that use it/it’s pronouns
- People that use noun/nounself pronouns
- People that use no pronouns
- Cis people using “different” pronouns
People who are at fault for attacks against queer rights:
- The politicians attacking queer rights
- The white supremacists attacking queer rights
- The conservative crowds attacking queer rights
- The transphobes attacking queer rights
- The homophobes attacking queer rights
The only people at fault for attacks on queer rights are the people attacking queer rights. Don’t blame your community for having their rights taken away alongside you.
Since I haven’t seen any posts about it and it’s been two days now…
Texas social workers can now turn away LGBTQ, disabled clients
To summarize:
+ The date board of social workers decided to follow Greg Abbott’s recommendation and take away protections for LGBTQ+ people
+ And disabled people.
+ Both groups are vulnerable already but with COVID-19 this change puts disabled people and queer people’s health at more risk
+ They are facing backlash largely from the queer community. I haven’t heard much from disabled people but that could honestly be my ignorance and me not being in the loop of that info
+ The national board of social workers condemned the Texas chapters actions
+ Abbott said that the Board took his recommendation because “the board’s nondiscrimination clause went beyond the state’s policy on social work”
Since joining Tumblr, I’ve met a lot of young queer people. Look, I’m a bisexual man in a gay relationship, and I’m approaching 30. I was still a kid when Matthew Shepard’s story was being covered on the news. I remember thinking, “I better keep my mouth shut about these feelings I’m having.”
And then I met Dominic when I was 12, and people could see how in love we were. And we got the shit beat out of us. The year I met him, some kids in the grade above me held me down against the bleachers in our gym and stomped on my hand until my fingers broke. Instead of sending me to the nurse, the teacher sent me to the assistant principal to explain the situation. She asked why the kids had beat me up. I said, “They were calling me gay.”
Her response was, “Well, areyou?”
My, “I don’t know,” earned a call to my parents, and I was outed. Efforts were made to keep me from seeing Dom. Throughout high school, Dom’s stepmother intensified these efforts. He slept in the basement of the house. Although he was an incredibly talented student, he was prohibited from participating in any extracurriculars. He suffered a lot of physical abuse during those years.
The day he turned 18, he packed up everything he had and walked to my house, and we’ve lived together ever since. Things are better, but they’re not perfect. I’ve had trucks pull up next to me at stoplights and, seeing the pride sticker on my car, through old drinks and garbage into my window. I no longer speak to my dad’s side of the family. I haven’t been to see them for Christmas or Thanksgiving in years. One of my uncles had cornered me at Thanksgiving when I was 17 and said, “I’m not going to judge you, but I’d be happy to break your neck so God can do the judging a little sooner.”
I joined a support group for trans and intersex people. When I joined, 40 people attended regularly. Within the year, the group was half the size it had been. Some couldn’t make it anymore, because they were staying at the shelter, where their stay hinged on them agreeing to instead to attend homophobic sermons. Some were put in correctional therapy. Five of them died. Three of those, I didn’t know, but I knew Alex, the 19 year old who was fag-dragged in Kentucky and died a day later in the hospital, and I knew Stephanie, who went home to Alabama to care for her mom in hospice and was beaten to death with a baseball bat by her mom’s boyfriend.
Tumblr is not reality. The dynamic here does not reflect the dynamic out there. Here’s the part where I finally make a point, and it might be extremely unpopular - but guys, value your allies.Value each other. We are met with enough hate in our daily lives to enter an online safe-space and meet more hate from our own, over petty things. Don’t go after one another over every little thing you find problematic.
Learn to see nuance. Maybe the word “queer” bothers you, and you see a gay man using it as an umbrella term. Maybe someone called a trans man a trans woman because they’re confused about terminology, but the post where they did it was voicing support for the trans community. Maybe someone is just asking a question, wanting to learn more. Stop. Attacking. These. People.
Allies are being driven away. Members of our own community are being ostracized. Others are feeling nervous and estranged, and it’s largely because of places like Tumblr, where the social justice movement is quickly becoming violent and radical. I am begging you, stop nitpicking “problematic” things and start directing your efforts to create real change. When it comes to comes to your allies, forget the “social justice warrior” mentality and put down your torch. Educate calmly. Be respectful. Be understanding. Be forgiving. And I’m certainly not saying that your anger doesn’t have a good place - when you are met with bigots on the street, congress members who want to pass hateful laws, violent protesters, abusive parents, prejudiced teachers, that is when you need to be a warrior. That’s when it counts. In the real world. When you have the opportunity to protect people from real harm. Attacking your would-be allies via anonymous asks is just going to lose us ground in the long run. And we don’t have time for that, not when trans women of color are being murdered every day, not when states are still fighting against marriage equality, not when there are politicians in office who believe that trans people are possessed by demons, not when we’ve just lost 50 brothers and sisters to one gunman, not when the media won’t even admit that the attack was homophobic.
Please step back. Look at the big picture. Look at where we are, globally. Don’t just log on to your safe space and attack your allies over small missteps. That’s like washing the dishes in a house that’s on fire, kids. Let’s fight on the battlefield, and when we come home to each other, let’s just focus on bandaging up our wounds so we can go out and win the war.
3rd Grid Stitch
Marsha P Johnson
Here’s the ‘how to’ video
Reader Alert: Homophobic Language
I’ve been called “fag” many times in my life, but probably the last place in the world where I would have expected to have it happen again was the “Paganism and the LGBTQ+ Experience” panel discussion at Paganicon.
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