“homophobes and transphobes think lgbtq identities are exclusively about sex, so kinky or sexual lgbtq people shouldn’t be allowed to be visible because that reinforces that association in peoples’ minds” is no different from “lets shame feminine, flamboyant queens because they’re playing into harmful stereotypes”
if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: oppression does not run on logic. whatever justification someone has in their brain for oppressing someone is a lie. we know this because the excuse can change at any time to suit the oppressor’s needs, but the oppression stays the same. misogyny is misogyny regardless of whether you think women cursed the world by eating the apple in the garden of eden or that their hormones make it harder for them to understand math. it is an excuse, not an actual reason, because there is no actual reason. it’s illogic all the way down.
oppressors don’t oppress you for something you do, they oppress you for something you are. trying to alter your behavior to appease them is always going to be pointless. it is a game where the goalposts are made up and the points don’t matter because at the end of the day, homophobes don’t hate you because you’re too queer or the wrong kind of queer, they hate you if you’re queer at all.
me reading genderbender stories from ages 10 to 19: well this makes no sense. why does he want to undo this so bad. if i was turned into a girl i would never go back. this is a total non-problem
me at 20: ok i see where i may have had an unusual perspective
I love that four different people on my feed scheduled this joyous person to reblog by 8am on June 1. I look forward to seeing this a dozen more times today.
Hey it’s National Coming Out Day! Just a reminder that today– or any day– if you’re looking for support to come out along any axis of queer identity, I’m here for you, if you’re not ready or able or want to come out or be out for ANY reason, I’m here for you, and if you are out or not and feel like you’re made invisible by the types of queerness that are centered on days like today, I am also here for you <3
when you talk about queer love, remember the queer love that isn’t romantic.
queer love can be two best friends who support each other through their transitions and go to pride together each glowing with admiration for the other
queer love can be siblings confiding in each other about the difficulties of growing up queer in a small town and still texting each other every day when they finally move away from home
queer love can be queerplatonic partners caring deeply for each other and redefining what a relationship can be
queer love can be a group of friends who bond in middle school, realize years later they’re all gay, and laugh and smile when they reminisce together about how far they’ve come
queer love can be a community coming together to give food, shelter, and unconditional support to a teenager who’s been rejected by his family and has nowhere to go
queer love can be two mothers supporting their daughter as she changes her name and buys the clothes that truly express her gender for the first time
whatever form it takes, queer love is life-changing and revolutionary.
(Pictured: a series of pride drawings in the bold colours of the original rainbow pride flag complete with the colours meanings in the drawings.
Pink: sexuality. Drawing depicts a feminine presenting person straddling the lap of a person wearing a binder and cupping their face.
Red: life. Two Black individuals laughing with their heads tilted up at the sky. The first has an afro and the second has long dreads and a he/him/his tattoo.
Orange: healing. Two people grinning and showing off bandages. One had jaw length hair and bandages on their arms. The other has long curly hair and bandages on their chest with drainage tubes.
Yellow: sunlight. Two masculine presenting people kissing. One has their arms thrown around the other’s neck and is loosely holding a bouquet of flowers.
Green: nature. A person in a hijab with cat eye eyeliner and light facial hair looking calmly upward. There are flowers drawn beside them.
Teal: magic. Drawing depicts a drag queen and a drag king standing next to each other. The queen has a buzz cut and it wearing a corset. The king has messy hair and is wearing a baggy tux.
Indigo: serenity. Three people drawn with their heads cocked to the side and zen looks on their face. They each have a tattoo on their cheek. The first has two man symbols the second two female symbols, and the third two Male symbols and a female symbol all linked.
Violet: spirit. Two couples drawn holding their significant others. The first couple is crouched on the ground holding a pride flag. The second is standing and one has their head on the other’s shoulder.)
this might be because I’m a family law lawyer and also an old crone who remembers when marriage equality wasn’t a thing (as in, marriage equality only became nation-wide two months before I went to law school), but I have Strong Feelings about the right to marry and all the legal benefits that come with it
like I’m all for living in sin until someone says they don’t want to get married because it’s ~too permanent~ and in the same breath start talking about having kids or buying a house with their significant other. then I turn into a 90-year-old passive-aggressive church grandma who keeps pointedly asking when the wedding is. “yes, a divorce is very sad and stressful, but so is BEING HOMELESS BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT ENTITLED TO EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF MARITAL PROPERTY, CAROLINE!”
“oh, he thinks a piece of paper shouldn’t define your relationship? ASK HIM HOW HE FEELS ABOUT BEING ON YOUR BABY’S BIRTH CERTIFICATE, PATRICIA.”
“oh, sure, it’s all fun and games until your estranged parents are making medical decisions for you and inheriting all your property, TIMOTHY.”
so, I’ve gotten this question and similar ones before, and I want to use it to go into what marriage actually is.
so, in law, there are a couple of legal assumptions made when someone is a close family member, like a parent. the assumptions are that this person knows you well enough to make decisions on your behalf in an emergency, supports or is supported by you financially, and, most importantly, that they are emotionally significant to you in a way that makes them different from a total stranger or a good friend. immigration law, for example, prioritizes families over people immigrating for jobs alone, because not getting a job doesn’t have the same emotional weight as never seeing your mom again.
the difference is that you don’t get to choose your family (outside of adoption and, uh, legally that’s not a bilateral decision). you do get to choose your spouse. the fact that you chose them is why they get priority for things like inheritance and immigration, even over your parents or your siblings or your grandma.
how does the government know that this particular person is someone you want to have as part of your family? you fill out a form and you tell them.
what happens if you don’t want them in your family anymore, and don’t want those assumptions made about them? you fill out a different form and you tell the government that.
the thing I think that’s hard for people to wrap their heads around – whether you’re a starry-eyed romantic or a pragmatic bitch like me – is that marriage isn’t an announcement of how much you love someone. that’s what a facebook status update is for. you do not need to be in love, or sexually/romantically monogamous, or be religious, or any of the other things people associate with marriage, in order to bemarried.
it’s a legal decision. it is choosing to get certain benefits (like taxes, because it’s assumed you’re financially supporting each other) in exchange for certain responsibilities (because it’s assumed you’re supporting each other, it stops mattering exactly who bought what after you got married, so divorce splits the whole pool of stuff even if one person bought like 75% of it).
you don’t get the one without the other, and you don’t get either if you don’t affirmatively say that’s what you want to have happen. it doesn’t happen automatically, or in every romantic relationship no matter how serious, because the choice is the point.
and, to be clear: if you do not want, or do not care about, the legal rights and responsibilities of being married, you should not get married. it’s a fucking legal contract that has serious legal implications! it’s not something you should be doing for funsies!
tl;dr: if you want all the shit that comes with a marriage, good and bad, you need to tell the government that’s what you want. if you don’t want it, then you don’t need to do it, but you need to also be aware of what you’re potentially losing (in exchange for what you’re keeping). that should be an informed decision, not one you make for emotional reasons like “I just want everyone to know I’m only having sex with this person forever” or “our love is so pure it transcends legal boundaries.”
Is there any option other than marriage for telling the government you want this person to be part of your family? Like, can you draw up some kind of homebrew contract?
Short answer: No. If there was, queer people would have done it already.
Long answer: That’s a little like asking “can you become a citizen via contract rather than going through the immigration and naturalization process?” Marriage is a legal status: you either are or you aren’t. Can you cobble together very specific stuff, like advanced healthcare directives and wills and whatnot? Yes, absolutely. But anything that requires you to be legally married as a status cannot be contracted away: you can’t file taxes jointly or sponsor someone for a green card or get someone’s Social Security benefits if they die if you’re not married to that person.
Now, to be clear: some things that often require marriage do not always require marriage. For example, usually you need to be married to have someone unrelated to you be on your health insurance, but my job’s specific health insurance plan allows coverage for domestic partners, which they define as a single person who has cohabitated with you for six months or more and is in a committed relationship with you. So even though my fiancé and I are not married yet, he’s been on my health insurance for the past year and a half, because we hit the six month mark of living together right around when I had to re-enroll in my health insurance for the year.
But if we’d gotten married sooner, he’d have been able to get on my health insurance right away (getting married is a qualifying event that lets someone get on a health insurance plan outside of the enrollment period), but since he’s just a cohabitating partner, we had to wait six months for him to get on my insurance. And if he’d moved in with me a month later, we’d have to wait a whole year before he could enroll with me on my health insurance. Even though it’s allowed, it still doesn’t have the same standing as a marriage.
I guess technically adult adoption is an option, in that it is what queer people did for a while in lieu of marriage, but it’s a bad idea for a lot of reasons (not least of which being that you can divorce a spouse but you can’t undo an adoption).
this, THIS is why QPR make me so fucking nervous. i’m not trying to shit on your beautiful poly aroace love affair, i’m asking you HOW WILL THIS RELATIONSHIP HOLD UP IN COURT. cause, news flash: it won’t.
if you have shared bank accounts and a house and a kid with someone who isn’t married to you, they can wipe you out – legally speaking – and you have no recourse. none. you will never see your kid again, unless you’re lucky and contributed half their DNA.
if they have a car accident and end up in hospital, you don’t have a legal right to see them. if they’re in a coma, their parents can pull the plug and adopt that child and you can do nothing.
queers wanted marriage equality not to Be Like Teh Hets, but because it is the most legal protection you can ever have against that bad stuff that comes (and it comes for everyone).
if you don’t have that stuff, if you’re relying on your partners to do the right thing forever and be perfect people and never have a business collapse or a messy family situation or an accident or even to get sick … you’re being really, reallynaïve.
Pre-legal-gay-marriage, I saw this happen. I was on a parenting board and one day a woman we’d posted with for years told us her partner and one of their children had died in a car accident. And because she wasn’t the biological parent of the surviving child – the child she’d been a parent to since conception – her ex’s parents took custody and took the child away and kept her from seeing that child. Ever.
Because here’s the thing: children are not property. Specifically, in estate law, children are not, and cannot be “Real Property.” You cannot bequeath them like furniture, books, and bank accounts.
“But my will states who I want as guardian!” You say.
Welp. That statement is, in law, only a (strong) suggestion. A judge still still have to rule on guardianship of your minor child, and you cannot, from the grave, dictate where they end up.
Again:Children are not real property. If you are not their biological or legal parent, the state can remove them from your custody and hand them to someone more closely related, or not related at all but merely less gay, less queer, less “inappropriate” by your state’s legal standards.
The woman I knew back then was on good term with her not-quite-in-laws. Or thought she was. Because as soon as her partner died, their tune changed 100%, they found anti-gay legal support, and they took that woman’s child from her. Forever.
That’s not my only “my outlaws are great and fine with us and its okay we’re not legally married” story, but it’s probably the most heartbreaking. Though the image of a man who has just lost his partner of 25 years watching his ex-outlaws take ½ of his chairs, ½ of his pillows, ½ of his sheets, ½ of his napkins, ½ of his towels, ½ of his dishes, ½ of his books….. is pretty fucking close. After they made him sit behind “the family” at his partner’s funeral.
My mother was a lifelong Republican, a very conservative Catholic. The thing that pushed her over on legalizing gay marriage was stories about people being in the hospital and their partner of 20 years not being allowed to see them, because they weren’t legally married. She thought that was wrong and unfair.
Also a reminder “get married” does not mean “have a wedding.” You can file the paperwork and get married in a courthouse or office. There doesn’t even need to be a ceremony, you just have to sign some papers. (Bonus: you get access to the legal privileges of marriage as well as the protections, AND you get to stick it to the billion dollar “wedding industry” that preys on us all.)
Thinking about what I’ve said earlier about grandmother points and plausible deniability.
(Not clear if this is a “It’s queer-baiting!” situation or a “Creative team doesn’t want to spoil things but What We Do in the Shadows just got renewed for a sixth season so obviously Nandor and Guillermo can’t get together yet.” situation. Annoyed that the former is common enough that I can’t just automatically assume it’s the later.)
aight im drunk im 22 im cis im 99% sure this is a trans guy meme but,,, i experiuence this too dont worry this is a male experience i love u all ur wonderful and strong
I meant to add captuons like ur calid and all thar shit vut i hit the wronfg button oops
Cis allies if you’re not on his level don’t even try
I didn’t want to make the message ace-specific because I wanted to make a point of how all of the above include aspec people, but I tried to use an ace colour palette for the background :) I also think the message applies especially (even if not exclusively) to the ace community!
Hope you like these
@rockmarina possibly “all labels were made up at one point, stop being an ass”?
I played around with the concept a bit, I hope you like it anyway!
I feel like this also needs to be said:
[ID:
Image 1: (in white text, on a background of rainbow watercolors) Gatekeeping hurts queer people who are questioning.
Image 2: (in white text, on a background of rainbow paint strokes) Gatekeeping hurts more queer people than it protects.
Image 3: (in white text, on a background of pastel watercolors) How about you let people question their gender and sexuality in peace.
Image 4: (in white text, on a photo of the rainbow pride flag flying in a blue sky) People don’t owe you a chronicle of their life experiences and feelings for you to decide whether they belong in their own community.
Image 5: (in white text, on a marbled pink background) I don’t know how to tell you this, but you are not the queer police.
Image 6: (in white text, on a background of multicolored textile) Stop siding with our oppressors.
Image 7: (in white text, on a photo of pieces of chalk arranged in a rainbow on asphalt) Not every queer person’s experiences need to be like yours.
Image 8: (in white text, on a background of shiny, rainbow chunks of metal (?)) Mind your own damn business.
Image 9: (in white text, on a mottled black & rainbow background) Let people change labels.
Image 10: (in white text, on a photo of a full moon in a dark sky) There’s no such thing as not being queer enough.
Image 11: (in white text, on a background of paint strokes in pink, white, magenta, purple and dark blue, the colors of the genderfluid pride flag) Vocabulary is designed to be constantly reinvented as human societies evolve, and labels aren’t the exception.
Image 12: (in white text, on a background of pink, purple, and turquoise) Gatekeeping is a product of privilege.
[Image description: (in white text, over a black background with trees decorated with multi-colored lights) Queer people don’t have to make themselves palatable to deserve respect. End ID]
[Image description: (in white text, over a wooden background with curved boards the colours of the rainbow) It’s okay to use a label even if it doesn’t fit perfectly. End ID]
…you know what, I think the message of this post really boils down to this:
[ID: (in white text, over a black background with striking rainbow lights) gatekeepers are nothing but bullies. End ID]
And I’m really glad this post has helped so many people feel a bit less alone in their struggles. Bullies have made a LOT of damage in this community—have made so many of us feel like impostors, like trenders, like maybe we were making up the things we were feeling—and it makes me so happy we’re all pushing back against their hateful, narrow-minded, queerphobic rhetoric.
Keep it up, everyone
Happy pride month to the post that marked the beginning of my journey to overcoming internalised queerphobia
i get that people are more comfortable with defined rules and structure but i also think queer people lost when they started resorting to dictionary definitions for what labels mean
the queer umbrella is meant to deviate from the norm of rigid boxes and definitions and to decide that lesbian means Only this, bi means Only this, etc, is directly contradicting what queer means. each and every label is going to have a unique meaning to the person using it and that is how it’s supposed to be. if you’re not comfortable with that…sorry?
basically if someone tries to tell you you’re using a label wrong:
fuck all of u bitches with bad taste welcome to night vale did not have THE MAIN CHARACTER, THE NARRATOR, say hes in gay love at first sight with another man in goddamn 2012 when the best you could get was, like, glee, for you to say its only legacy is that some ppl r being cringe abt horror. fuck you.
people’s standards have dropped so fucking low n some of u have never had that experience of listening to the pilot for the first time and hear cecil wax poetic about how handsome and mysterious carlos is and have it be completely normal and expected! do you know how unprecedented that was? do you know how healing it was to hear gay love being talked about with such candor and without shame, without restraint?
wtnv was incrediblyy ahead of the curve in a lot of ways and it continues to be almost a decade later and i REFUSE to let yall slander it like this. it isnt even a horror podcast it’s a comedy with horror elements but it was never meant to be scary. the way that wtnv also does satire so well n the scathing critiques of contemporary society (esp the surveillance state)….. just say u never understood what it was (is & continues to be) abt and go lol no need to embarrass urself
and you see. the thing is. i remember being here. i remember when ppl were scared wtnv wld just be another bury your gays story. and i remember when the 1 year anniversary episode came out and EVERYONE being shocked that not only did nobody die but cecil and carlos rly got together! and i rmbr when wtnv topped the charts week after week after week following that and it was THE fiction podcast and it was THE podcast in general for so long until its popularity gradually lessened and people started to look at other things and listened to other podcasts.
but you cannot look at wtnv which was literally genre-defining in its ingenious storytelling and everything else and say its legacy is that ppl think trees with eyes are the epitome of horror.
i wont allow it.
they’re literally celebrating their 10 yr anniversary this year n they never dropped the ball, not even once. your faves could never. i need u to apologize to jeffrey cranor and joseph fink rn for this slander.
