Safe spaces, “LGBT” allies, and a trans girl’s anger (or, only trans people can say when a place is a safe space for the T).

biyuti:

(This is a submission from a friend.)

Safe spaces, “LGBT” allies, and a trans girl’s anger (or, only trans people can say when a place is a safe space for the T).

My school (a college) recently held a Safe Zone training. Anyone unfamiliar with that, it’s basically a two or three hour long session of training on LGBT stuff so professors and staff can be more educated on it. Now, it’s white gay ciscentric, so most of the trans related stuff is so wrong it’s offensive. (They focus on SAAB and the “born in the wrong body” stuff.)

The goal at the end of the training is that the campus will be a more welcoming and educated place. Now, from the START I didn’t like the idea that a white cis man (gay or not) could educate a room full of other white cis people on trans issues or LGBT POC issues, the rare time where we are brought up, we’re brought up in a light that makes us look extremely homophobic, I have NEVER in my life met a gay man (cis or trans) of color (mainly black) who hated being gay and being associated with LGBT things. But that’s another issue.

White cis man educates room on trans things (not on trans things really, just on 20 year old trans terminology that mostly non-trans people came up with in the first place), and now they’re all “allies”.

I respect my REAL allies. Let me get that straight. But a majority of the “LGBT allies” are allies only to white cis gay and lesbians, don’t even TRY to listen to trans people, and are fetishizing and disrespectful. (Note: I’ve been told by numerous allies to accept my sexual harassment and assaults, even when they happen on the “safe zone” campus.)

Now, why am I angry? I’m angry because I’m ignored. I’m angry because the LGBT group on campus talks more about the non-existent plight of allies than it does what happens to trans people. In fact, in the year and a half I’ve been there, they’ve only ever mentioned trans things once. When the opportunity arises and I bring it up, I would get ignored. If I mentioned my problems to the authority figures that can help me, I get dismissed. Example: I change my name, FA office calls out former name, FA ignores me telling them to stop, FA continues to insult me and put me in danger on the busiest day of the year. I go to the authorities, and they just dismiss me and tell me I should get over it (not their precise words, but that’s what it amounted to). So I swallow my hurt and anger and I deal.

Today, when they’re talking about the Safe Zone training in class, they talk about how the school is a safe place for LGBT students. (I’m sitting there rolling my eyes, because LGBT = gay in this instance.) When the semester started, the student workers in the gym building basically get into it with me about my ID card, they don’t believe it’s mine even though it’s clearly me. They also don’t believe I’m a girl. So they try to get me to go to the men’s locker rooms. I don’t, I go about my business and go to class. I come out of the women’s locker room, and they stare at me REALLY hard. Next class, they put up a sign that says to use the “APPROPRIATE LOCKER ROOMS”, in bold print. (Note: that stupid little Safe Zone triangle is affixed to everything in the building.)

I do what it says and use the appropriate room (the women’s locker room). Since then, I’ve been getting into staring matches with the student workers and they always misgender me. But this college calls itself a safe space and I’m looked at like an angry trans bitch with a chip on her shoulder when I call bullshit.

TL;DR - Safe spaces are only safe for trans people WHEN TRANS PEOPLE SAY THEY ARE. You’re only an “LGBT” ally when ALL OF THE LETTERS IN THAT ACRONYM SAY YOU ARE. And lastly, there is no way in fucking hell that allies have some plight because they’re allies. This trans girl would prefer it if you just said gay ally, because I know that’s what you really mean. Being an ally to me would mean helping me when I’m being harassed, assaulted, or verbally abused. None of which the so-called allies in my school have done.

I hate feeling the anger about it that I do, but I’ve taken so much shit that it would hurt me to just keep taking it.

Also: commenting on my breasts and genitals just screams that you’re a predator. Professors have done that to me and thank fuck none of them teach any class I’m in. I don’t bother complaining about it anymore because apparently that’s a compliment.

(via brucebananeronawillgrahamcracker)

Source: biyuti

fabfemmeboy: i-found-you-justine-time: everythingcominguprainbowcats: saynathespiffy: picturesinhismind: blacksheepboy-: hopeboysisacheapthing: did-you-kno: Source You SHOULD know this, because it is INCREDIBLY important and something that wasn’t acknowledged until very, VERY recently. (I did a history project on this in Y9. We got to do something from the 20th century; everyone else did, like, Marilyn Monroe, and I read a translation of Moi, Pierre Seel, déporté homosexuel and then did my project on that. Cheerful, no, but important to know about, yes.) whaaaaat, seriously?! In 1950, East Germany abolished Nazi amendments to Paragraph 175, whereas West Germany kept them and even had them confirmed by its Constitutional Court. Well, that’s horrifying. Oh my god Homosexual concentration camp prisoners were not acknowledged as victims of Nazi persecution.[7] Reparations and state pensions available to other groups were refused to gay men, who were still classified as criminals — the Nazi anti-gay law was not repealed until 1994, although both East and West Germany liberalized their criminallaws against adult homosexuality in the late 1960s. “Gay Holocaust” survivors could be re-imprisoned for “repeat offences”, and were kept on the modern lists of “sex offenders”. Under the Allied Military Government of Germany, some homosexuals were forced to serve out their terms of imprisonment, regardless of the time spent in concentration camps. (X) Also worth mentioning that homosexuals are still largely unacknowledged as victims of the Holocaust even within circles where they should know better.  For example, in the Holocaust Museum in DC and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, gay deaths are acknowledged only in passing and there is not a single picture of a “man of the pink triangle” - only of an empty ballroom that had once held a gay dance club.  When Yad Vashem was completely redone in 2005, gay groups pressed for inclusion alongside other non-Jewish groups such as the disabled, Roma, etc., and numerous senior-level officials and the Rabbinate condemned such requests for inclusion, with some going so far as to suggest that the homosexuals were German criminals and therefore did not belong in the same category as the Jews who had done nothing wrong.  When the memorial to gays in the Holocaust was unveiled in Berlin four years ago, senior members of Yad Vashem condemned it and, in particular, its proximity to the memorial for Jewish victims of the Shoah.
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fabfemmeboy:

i-found-you-justine-time:

everythingcominguprainbowcats:

saynathespiffy:

picturesinhismind:

blacksheepboy-:

hopeboysisacheapthing:

did-you-kno:

Source

You SHOULD know this, because it is INCREDIBLY important and something that wasn’t acknowledged until very, VERY recently.

(I did a history project on this in Y9. We got to do something from the 20th century; everyone else did, like, Marilyn Monroe, and I read a translation of Moi, Pierre Seel, déporté homosexuel and then did my project on that. Cheerful, no, but important to know about, yes.)

whaaaaat, seriously?!

In 1950, East Germany abolished Nazi amendments to Paragraph 175, whereas West Germany kept them and even had them confirmed by its Constitutional Court.

Well, that’s horrifying.

Oh my god

Homosexual concentration camp prisoners were not acknowledged as victims of Nazi persecution.[7] Reparations and state pensions available to other groups were refused to gay men, who were still classified as criminals — the Nazi anti-gay law was not repealed until 1994, although both East and West Germany liberalized their criminallaws against adult homosexuality in the late 1960s.

“Gay Holocaust” survivors could be re-imprisoned for “repeat offences”, and were kept on the modern lists of “sex offenders”. Under the Allied Military Government of Germany, some homosexuals were forced to serve out their terms of imprisonment, regardless of the time spent in concentration camps. (X)

Also worth mentioning that homosexuals are still largely unacknowledged as victims of the Holocaust even within circles where they should know better.  For example, in the Holocaust Museum in DC and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, gay deaths are acknowledged only in passing and there is not a single picture of a “man of the pink triangle” - only of an empty ballroom that had once held a gay dance club.  When Yad Vashem was completely redone in 2005, gay groups pressed for inclusion alongside other non-Jewish groups such as the disabled, Roma, etc., and numerous senior-level officials and the Rabbinate condemned such requests for inclusion, with some going so far as to suggest that the homosexuals were German criminals and therefore did not belong in the same category as the Jews who had done nothing wrong.  When the memorial to gays in the Holocaust was unveiled in Berlin four years ago, senior members of Yad Vashem condemned it and, in particular, its proximity to the memorial for Jewish victims of the Shoah.

(via brucebananeronawillgrahamcracker)

Source: did-you-kno

GLSEN's 2011 National School Climate Survey

Couple of stats that jumped out at me:

  • 80% of transgender students report they felt unsafe at school because of their gender expression
  • 63.5% of students felt unsafe because of their sexual orientation
  • 43.9% of students felt unsafe because of their gender expression
  • 36.7% of students who did report an incident said that school staff did nothing in response
  • Less than half (45.7%) of students said their school had a GSA or similar club.

LGBT students in the Northeast and the West reported lower frequencies of victimization and hearing homophobic remarks and had greater access to resources and support than students in the South and Midwest.

The presence of a GSA or similar student club, a higher number of supportive educators, and LGBT-inclusive curriculum leads to fewer missed days of school, higher GPAs, and higher levels of self-esteem for LGBT students.

Photos of a Clandestine Gay Rights Rally in Tehran Max Fisher It’s not easy to be gay in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A recent United Nations report decried “harassment, persecution, cruel punishment and even the death penalty.” Because Islamic law requires four adult male witnesses to prosecute sodomy, Iranian police typically seek confessions, often through torture. Women, easier to convict, are given 100 lashes for each case. Outside of the legal system, LGBT Iranians face widespread and socially accepted discrimination, bullying, and an elevated risk of suicide, according to a UK-based study. “Loneliness is killing me,” a 27-year-old man from Qazvin told researchers. So it was an act of special significance when a small group of young people gathered in a hilly park overlooking Tehran to show, for a few brief but public moments, their support for Iranian gay rights. It was far from the biggest LGBT rights rally on May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia commemorating the World Health Organization’s 1990 decision to remove homosexuality from its catalog of mental diseases, but it carried its own significance. Though the gathering appears to have been small and brief, the young activists photographed the subversive displays, posting the photos to public social media site Joopea, which has a number of Farsi pages. The photos are reproduced above, showing the rainbow flag waving over Tehran, activists holding a sign reading “no to homophobia” on the metro, and rainbow-colored balloons floating through the skyline. “Note that the individuals were sure to hide their faces to avoid being identified and harassed,” points out Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Golnaz Esfandiari, who surfaced the photos, which she calls “rare, if not unprecedented.” She adds, “Many Iranians may not know that the rainbow flag is the symbol of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement.” For all of the Islamic Republic’s discrimination against gays and sympathetic activists like the young men and women in these photos, the country’s harsh laws are not as necessarily Islamic as the ayatollah-run regime might like to believe. “Over the past few years, there have been a number of progressive Shiite clergymen, both in Iran and in places such as Lebanon, who have written revolutionary fatwas regarding gender equality, human rights, rights to privacy, and sexual offenses,” Hossein Alizadeh, a program coordinator at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told PBS’s Tehran Bureau. “These fatwas have been used in courts by lawyers with various degrees of success. Although the ruling establishment remains untouched by those progressive views, they can’t simply dismiss them as Western and have to take them into consideration as part of the court hearing process.” It’s hard to see much momentum for changing social attitudes toward gay rights in Iran, and even harder to imagine official policy relaxing anytime soon. Maybe that’s what makes these half-dozen or so young activists so brave, to take pride in something their society insists is shameful, and to stand up for themselves, even if it means risking everything.
Zoom Info
Photos of a Clandestine Gay Rights Rally in Tehran Max Fisher It’s not easy to be gay in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A recent United Nations report decried “harassment, persecution, cruel punishment and even the death penalty.” Because Islamic law requires four adult male witnesses to prosecute sodomy, Iranian police typically seek confessions, often through torture. Women, easier to convict, are given 100 lashes for each case. Outside of the legal system, LGBT Iranians face widespread and socially accepted discrimination, bullying, and an elevated risk of suicide, according to a UK-based study. “Loneliness is killing me,” a 27-year-old man from Qazvin told researchers. So it was an act of special significance when a small group of young people gathered in a hilly park overlooking Tehran to show, for a few brief but public moments, their support for Iranian gay rights. It was far from the biggest LGBT rights rally on May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia commemorating the World Health Organization’s 1990 decision to remove homosexuality from its catalog of mental diseases, but it carried its own significance. Though the gathering appears to have been small and brief, the young activists photographed the subversive displays, posting the photos to public social media site Joopea, which has a number of Farsi pages. The photos are reproduced above, showing the rainbow flag waving over Tehran, activists holding a sign reading “no to homophobia” on the metro, and rainbow-colored balloons floating through the skyline. “Note that the individuals were sure to hide their faces to avoid being identified and harassed,” points out Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Golnaz Esfandiari, who surfaced the photos, which she calls “rare, if not unprecedented.” She adds, “Many Iranians may not know that the rainbow flag is the symbol of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement.” For all of the Islamic Republic’s discrimination against gays and sympathetic activists like the young men and women in these photos, the country’s harsh laws are not as necessarily Islamic as the ayatollah-run regime might like to believe. “Over the past few years, there have been a number of progressive Shiite clergymen, both in Iran and in places such as Lebanon, who have written revolutionary fatwas regarding gender equality, human rights, rights to privacy, and sexual offenses,” Hossein Alizadeh, a program coordinator at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told PBS’s Tehran Bureau. “These fatwas have been used in courts by lawyers with various degrees of success. Although the ruling establishment remains untouched by those progressive views, they can’t simply dismiss them as Western and have to take them into consideration as part of the court hearing process.” It’s hard to see much momentum for changing social attitudes toward gay rights in Iran, and even harder to imagine official policy relaxing anytime soon. Maybe that’s what makes these half-dozen or so young activists so brave, to take pride in something their society insists is shameful, and to stand up for themselves, even if it means risking everything.
Zoom Info
Photos of a Clandestine Gay Rights Rally in Tehran Max Fisher It’s not easy to be gay in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A recent United Nations report decried “harassment, persecution, cruel punishment and even the death penalty.” Because Islamic law requires four adult male witnesses to prosecute sodomy, Iranian police typically seek confessions, often through torture. Women, easier to convict, are given 100 lashes for each case. Outside of the legal system, LGBT Iranians face widespread and socially accepted discrimination, bullying, and an elevated risk of suicide, according to a UK-based study. “Loneliness is killing me,” a 27-year-old man from Qazvin told researchers. So it was an act of special significance when a small group of young people gathered in a hilly park overlooking Tehran to show, for a few brief but public moments, their support for Iranian gay rights. It was far from the biggest LGBT rights rally on May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia commemorating the World Health Organization’s 1990 decision to remove homosexuality from its catalog of mental diseases, but it carried its own significance. Though the gathering appears to have been small and brief, the young activists photographed the subversive displays, posting the photos to public social media site Joopea, which has a number of Farsi pages. The photos are reproduced above, showing the rainbow flag waving over Tehran, activists holding a sign reading “no to homophobia” on the metro, and rainbow-colored balloons floating through the skyline. “Note that the individuals were sure to hide their faces to avoid being identified and harassed,” points out Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Golnaz Esfandiari, who surfaced the photos, which she calls “rare, if not unprecedented.” She adds, “Many Iranians may not know that the rainbow flag is the symbol of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement.” For all of the Islamic Republic’s discrimination against gays and sympathetic activists like the young men and women in these photos, the country’s harsh laws are not as necessarily Islamic as the ayatollah-run regime might like to believe. “Over the past few years, there have been a number of progressive Shiite clergymen, both in Iran and in places such as Lebanon, who have written revolutionary fatwas regarding gender equality, human rights, rights to privacy, and sexual offenses,” Hossein Alizadeh, a program coordinator at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told PBS’s Tehran Bureau. “These fatwas have been used in courts by lawyers with various degrees of success. Although the ruling establishment remains untouched by those progressive views, they can’t simply dismiss them as Western and have to take them into consideration as part of the court hearing process.” It’s hard to see much momentum for changing social attitudes toward gay rights in Iran, and even harder to imagine official policy relaxing anytime soon. Maybe that’s what makes these half-dozen or so young activists so brave, to take pride in something their society insists is shameful, and to stand up for themselves, even if it means risking everything.
Zoom Info
Photos of a Clandestine Gay Rights Rally in Tehran Max Fisher It’s not easy to be gay in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A recent United Nations report decried “harassment, persecution, cruel punishment and even the death penalty.” Because Islamic law requires four adult male witnesses to prosecute sodomy, Iranian police typically seek confessions, often through torture. Women, easier to convict, are given 100 lashes for each case. Outside of the legal system, LGBT Iranians face widespread and socially accepted discrimination, bullying, and an elevated risk of suicide, according to a UK-based study. “Loneliness is killing me,” a 27-year-old man from Qazvin told researchers. So it was an act of special significance when a small group of young people gathered in a hilly park overlooking Tehran to show, for a few brief but public moments, their support for Iranian gay rights. It was far from the biggest LGBT rights rally on May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia commemorating the World Health Organization’s 1990 decision to remove homosexuality from its catalog of mental diseases, but it carried its own significance. Though the gathering appears to have been small and brief, the young activists photographed the subversive displays, posting the photos to public social media site Joopea, which has a number of Farsi pages. The photos are reproduced above, showing the rainbow flag waving over Tehran, activists holding a sign reading “no to homophobia” on the metro, and rainbow-colored balloons floating through the skyline. “Note that the individuals were sure to hide their faces to avoid being identified and harassed,” points out Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Golnaz Esfandiari, who surfaced the photos, which she calls “rare, if not unprecedented.” She adds, “Many Iranians may not know that the rainbow flag is the symbol of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement.” For all of the Islamic Republic’s discrimination against gays and sympathetic activists like the young men and women in these photos, the country’s harsh laws are not as necessarily Islamic as the ayatollah-run regime might like to believe. “Over the past few years, there have been a number of progressive Shiite clergymen, both in Iran and in places such as Lebanon, who have written revolutionary fatwas regarding gender equality, human rights, rights to privacy, and sexual offenses,” Hossein Alizadeh, a program coordinator at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told PBS’s Tehran Bureau. “These fatwas have been used in courts by lawyers with various degrees of success. Although the ruling establishment remains untouched by those progressive views, they can’t simply dismiss them as Western and have to take them into consideration as part of the court hearing process.” It’s hard to see much momentum for changing social attitudes toward gay rights in Iran, and even harder to imagine official policy relaxing anytime soon. Maybe that’s what makes these half-dozen or so young activists so brave, to take pride in something their society insists is shameful, and to stand up for themselves, even if it means risking everything.
Zoom Info
Photos of a Clandestine Gay Rights Rally in Tehran Max Fisher It’s not easy to be gay in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A recent United Nations report decried “harassment, persecution, cruel punishment and even the death penalty.” Because Islamic law requires four adult male witnesses to prosecute sodomy, Iranian police typically seek confessions, often through torture. Women, easier to convict, are given 100 lashes for each case. Outside of the legal system, LGBT Iranians face widespread and socially accepted discrimination, bullying, and an elevated risk of suicide, according to a UK-based study. “Loneliness is killing me,” a 27-year-old man from Qazvin told researchers. So it was an act of special significance when a small group of young people gathered in a hilly park overlooking Tehran to show, for a few brief but public moments, their support for Iranian gay rights. It was far from the biggest LGBT rights rally on May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia commemorating the World Health Organization’s 1990 decision to remove homosexuality from its catalog of mental diseases, but it carried its own significance. Though the gathering appears to have been small and brief, the young activists photographed the subversive displays, posting the photos to public social media site Joopea, which has a number of Farsi pages. The photos are reproduced above, showing the rainbow flag waving over Tehran, activists holding a sign reading “no to homophobia” on the metro, and rainbow-colored balloons floating through the skyline. “Note that the individuals were sure to hide their faces to avoid being identified and harassed,” points out Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Golnaz Esfandiari, who surfaced the photos, which she calls “rare, if not unprecedented.” She adds, “Many Iranians may not know that the rainbow flag is the symbol of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement.” For all of the Islamic Republic’s discrimination against gays and sympathetic activists like the young men and women in these photos, the country’s harsh laws are not as necessarily Islamic as the ayatollah-run regime might like to believe. “Over the past few years, there have been a number of progressive Shiite clergymen, both in Iran and in places such as Lebanon, who have written revolutionary fatwas regarding gender equality, human rights, rights to privacy, and sexual offenses,” Hossein Alizadeh, a program coordinator at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told PBS’s Tehran Bureau. “These fatwas have been used in courts by lawyers with various degrees of success. Although the ruling establishment remains untouched by those progressive views, they can’t simply dismiss them as Western and have to take them into consideration as part of the court hearing process.” It’s hard to see much momentum for changing social attitudes toward gay rights in Iran, and even harder to imagine official policy relaxing anytime soon. Maybe that’s what makes these half-dozen or so young activists so brave, to take pride in something their society insists is shameful, and to stand up for themselves, even if it means risking everything.
Zoom Info
Photos of a Clandestine Gay Rights Rally in Tehran Max Fisher It’s not easy to be gay in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A recent United Nations report decried “harassment, persecution, cruel punishment and even the death penalty.” Because Islamic law requires four adult male witnesses to prosecute sodomy, Iranian police typically seek confessions, often through torture. Women, easier to convict, are given 100 lashes for each case. Outside of the legal system, LGBT Iranians face widespread and socially accepted discrimination, bullying, and an elevated risk of suicide, according to a UK-based study. “Loneliness is killing me,” a 27-year-old man from Qazvin told researchers. So it was an act of special significance when a small group of young people gathered in a hilly park overlooking Tehran to show, for a few brief but public moments, their support for Iranian gay rights. It was far from the biggest LGBT rights rally on May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia commemorating the World Health Organization’s 1990 decision to remove homosexuality from its catalog of mental diseases, but it carried its own significance. Though the gathering appears to have been small and brief, the young activists photographed the subversive displays, posting the photos to public social media site Joopea, which has a number of Farsi pages. The photos are reproduced above, showing the rainbow flag waving over Tehran, activists holding a sign reading “no to homophobia” on the metro, and rainbow-colored balloons floating through the skyline. “Note that the individuals were sure to hide their faces to avoid being identified and harassed,” points out Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Golnaz Esfandiari, who surfaced the photos, which she calls “rare, if not unprecedented.” She adds, “Many Iranians may not know that the rainbow flag is the symbol of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement.” For all of the Islamic Republic’s discrimination against gays and sympathetic activists like the young men and women in these photos, the country’s harsh laws are not as necessarily Islamic as the ayatollah-run regime might like to believe. “Over the past few years, there have been a number of progressive Shiite clergymen, both in Iran and in places such as Lebanon, who have written revolutionary fatwas regarding gender equality, human rights, rights to privacy, and sexual offenses,” Hossein Alizadeh, a program coordinator at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told PBS’s Tehran Bureau. “These fatwas have been used in courts by lawyers with various degrees of success. Although the ruling establishment remains untouched by those progressive views, they can’t simply dismiss them as Western and have to take them into consideration as part of the court hearing process.” It’s hard to see much momentum for changing social attitudes toward gay rights in Iran, and even harder to imagine official policy relaxing anytime soon. Maybe that’s what makes these half-dozen or so young activists so brave, to take pride in something their society insists is shameful, and to stand up for themselves, even if it means risking everything.
Zoom Info
Photos of a Clandestine Gay Rights Rally in Tehran Max Fisher It’s not easy to be gay in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A recent United Nations report decried “harassment, persecution, cruel punishment and even the death penalty.” Because Islamic law requires four adult male witnesses to prosecute sodomy, Iranian police typically seek confessions, often through torture. Women, easier to convict, are given 100 lashes for each case. Outside of the legal system, LGBT Iranians face widespread and socially accepted discrimination, bullying, and an elevated risk of suicide, according to a UK-based study. “Loneliness is killing me,” a 27-year-old man from Qazvin told researchers. So it was an act of special significance when a small group of young people gathered in a hilly park overlooking Tehran to show, for a few brief but public moments, their support for Iranian gay rights. It was far from the biggest LGBT rights rally on May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia commemorating the World Health Organization’s 1990 decision to remove homosexuality from its catalog of mental diseases, but it carried its own significance. Though the gathering appears to have been small and brief, the young activists photographed the subversive displays, posting the photos to public social media site Joopea, which has a number of Farsi pages. The photos are reproduced above, showing the rainbow flag waving over Tehran, activists holding a sign reading “no to homophobia” on the metro, and rainbow-colored balloons floating through the skyline. “Note that the individuals were sure to hide their faces to avoid being identified and harassed,” points out Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Golnaz Esfandiari, who surfaced the photos, which she calls “rare, if not unprecedented.” She adds, “Many Iranians may not know that the rainbow flag is the symbol of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement.” For all of the Islamic Republic’s discrimination against gays and sympathetic activists like the young men and women in these photos, the country’s harsh laws are not as necessarily Islamic as the ayatollah-run regime might like to believe. “Over the past few years, there have been a number of progressive Shiite clergymen, both in Iran and in places such as Lebanon, who have written revolutionary fatwas regarding gender equality, human rights, rights to privacy, and sexual offenses,” Hossein Alizadeh, a program coordinator at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told PBS’s Tehran Bureau. “These fatwas have been used in courts by lawyers with various degrees of success. Although the ruling establishment remains untouched by those progressive views, they can’t simply dismiss them as Western and have to take them into consideration as part of the court hearing process.” It’s hard to see much momentum for changing social attitudes toward gay rights in Iran, and even harder to imagine official policy relaxing anytime soon. Maybe that’s what makes these half-dozen or so young activists so brave, to take pride in something their society insists is shameful, and to stand up for themselves, even if it means risking everything.
Zoom Info
Photos of a Clandestine Gay Rights Rally in Tehran Max Fisher It’s not easy to be gay in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A recent United Nations report decried “harassment, persecution, cruel punishment and even the death penalty.” Because Islamic law requires four adult male witnesses to prosecute sodomy, Iranian police typically seek confessions, often through torture. Women, easier to convict, are given 100 lashes for each case. Outside of the legal system, LGBT Iranians face widespread and socially accepted discrimination, bullying, and an elevated risk of suicide, according to a UK-based study. “Loneliness is killing me,” a 27-year-old man from Qazvin told researchers. So it was an act of special significance when a small group of young people gathered in a hilly park overlooking Tehran to show, for a few brief but public moments, their support for Iranian gay rights. It was far from the biggest LGBT rights rally on May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia commemorating the World Health Organization’s 1990 decision to remove homosexuality from its catalog of mental diseases, but it carried its own significance. Though the gathering appears to have been small and brief, the young activists photographed the subversive displays, posting the photos to public social media site Joopea, which has a number of Farsi pages. The photos are reproduced above, showing the rainbow flag waving over Tehran, activists holding a sign reading “no to homophobia” on the metro, and rainbow-colored balloons floating through the skyline. “Note that the individuals were sure to hide their faces to avoid being identified and harassed,” points out Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Golnaz Esfandiari, who surfaced the photos, which she calls “rare, if not unprecedented.” She adds, “Many Iranians may not know that the rainbow flag is the symbol of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement.” For all of the Islamic Republic’s discrimination against gays and sympathetic activists like the young men and women in these photos, the country’s harsh laws are not as necessarily Islamic as the ayatollah-run regime might like to believe. “Over the past few years, there have been a number of progressive Shiite clergymen, both in Iran and in places such as Lebanon, who have written revolutionary fatwas regarding gender equality, human rights, rights to privacy, and sexual offenses,” Hossein Alizadeh, a program coordinator at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told PBS’s Tehran Bureau. “These fatwas have been used in courts by lawyers with various degrees of success. Although the ruling establishment remains untouched by those progressive views, they can’t simply dismiss them as Western and have to take them into consideration as part of the court hearing process.” It’s hard to see much momentum for changing social attitudes toward gay rights in Iran, and even harder to imagine official policy relaxing anytime soon. Maybe that’s what makes these half-dozen or so young activists so brave, to take pride in something their society insists is shameful, and to stand up for themselves, even if it means risking everything.
Zoom Info
Photos of a Clandestine Gay Rights Rally in Tehran Max Fisher It’s not easy to be gay in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A recent United Nations report decried “harassment, persecution, cruel punishment and even the death penalty.” Because Islamic law requires four adult male witnesses to prosecute sodomy, Iranian police typically seek confessions, often through torture. Women, easier to convict, are given 100 lashes for each case. Outside of the legal system, LGBT Iranians face widespread and socially accepted discrimination, bullying, and an elevated risk of suicide, according to a UK-based study. “Loneliness is killing me,” a 27-year-old man from Qazvin told researchers. So it was an act of special significance when a small group of young people gathered in a hilly park overlooking Tehran to show, for a few brief but public moments, their support for Iranian gay rights. It was far from the biggest LGBT rights rally on May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia commemorating the World Health Organization’s 1990 decision to remove homosexuality from its catalog of mental diseases, but it carried its own significance. Though the gathering appears to have been small and brief, the young activists photographed the subversive displays, posting the photos to public social media site Joopea, which has a number of Farsi pages. The photos are reproduced above, showing the rainbow flag waving over Tehran, activists holding a sign reading “no to homophobia” on the metro, and rainbow-colored balloons floating through the skyline. “Note that the individuals were sure to hide their faces to avoid being identified and harassed,” points out Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Golnaz Esfandiari, who surfaced the photos, which she calls “rare, if not unprecedented.” She adds, “Many Iranians may not know that the rainbow flag is the symbol of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement.” For all of the Islamic Republic’s discrimination against gays and sympathetic activists like the young men and women in these photos, the country’s harsh laws are not as necessarily Islamic as the ayatollah-run regime might like to believe. “Over the past few years, there have been a number of progressive Shiite clergymen, both in Iran and in places such as Lebanon, who have written revolutionary fatwas regarding gender equality, human rights, rights to privacy, and sexual offenses,” Hossein Alizadeh, a program coordinator at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told PBS’s Tehran Bureau. “These fatwas have been used in courts by lawyers with various degrees of success. Although the ruling establishment remains untouched by those progressive views, they can’t simply dismiss them as Western and have to take them into consideration as part of the court hearing process.” It’s hard to see much momentum for changing social attitudes toward gay rights in Iran, and even harder to imagine official policy relaxing anytime soon. Maybe that’s what makes these half-dozen or so young activists so brave, to take pride in something their society insists is shameful, and to stand up for themselves, even if it means risking everything.
Zoom Info
Photos of a Clandestine Gay Rights Rally in Tehran Max Fisher It’s not easy to be gay in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A recent United Nations report decried “harassment, persecution, cruel punishment and even the death penalty.” Because Islamic law requires four adult male witnesses to prosecute sodomy, Iranian police typically seek confessions, often through torture. Women, easier to convict, are given 100 lashes for each case. Outside of the legal system, LGBT Iranians face widespread and socially accepted discrimination, bullying, and an elevated risk of suicide, according to a UK-based study. “Loneliness is killing me,” a 27-year-old man from Qazvin told researchers. So it was an act of special significance when a small group of young people gathered in a hilly park overlooking Tehran to show, for a few brief but public moments, their support for Iranian gay rights. It was far from the biggest LGBT rights rally on May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia commemorating the World Health Organization’s 1990 decision to remove homosexuality from its catalog of mental diseases, but it carried its own significance. Though the gathering appears to have been small and brief, the young activists photographed the subversive displays, posting the photos to public social media site Joopea, which has a number of Farsi pages. The photos are reproduced above, showing the rainbow flag waving over Tehran, activists holding a sign reading “no to homophobia” on the metro, and rainbow-colored balloons floating through the skyline. “Note that the individuals were sure to hide their faces to avoid being identified and harassed,” points out Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Golnaz Esfandiari, who surfaced the photos, which she calls “rare, if not unprecedented.” She adds, “Many Iranians may not know that the rainbow flag is the symbol of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement.” For all of the Islamic Republic’s discrimination against gays and sympathetic activists like the young men and women in these photos, the country’s harsh laws are not as necessarily Islamic as the ayatollah-run regime might like to believe. “Over the past few years, there have been a number of progressive Shiite clergymen, both in Iran and in places such as Lebanon, who have written revolutionary fatwas regarding gender equality, human rights, rights to privacy, and sexual offenses,” Hossein Alizadeh, a program coordinator at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told PBS’s Tehran Bureau. “These fatwas have been used in courts by lawyers with various degrees of success. Although the ruling establishment remains untouched by those progressive views, they can’t simply dismiss them as Western and have to take them into consideration as part of the court hearing process.” It’s hard to see much momentum for changing social attitudes toward gay rights in Iran, and even harder to imagine official policy relaxing anytime soon. Maybe that’s what makes these half-dozen or so young activists so brave, to take pride in something their society insists is shameful, and to stand up for themselves, even if it means risking everything.
Zoom Info

Photos of a Clandestine Gay Rights Rally in Tehran

Max Fisher

It’s not easy to be gay in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A recent United Nations report decried “harassment, persecution, cruel punishment and even the death penalty.” Because Islamic law requires four adult male witnesses to prosecute sodomy, Iranian police typically seek confessions, often through torture. Women, easier to convict, are given 100 lashes for each case. Outside of the legal system, LGBT Iranians face widespread and socially accepted discrimination, bullying, and an elevated risk of suicide, according to a UK-based study. “Loneliness is killing me,” a 27-year-old man from Qazvin told researchers.

So it was an act of special significance when a small group of young people gathered in a hilly park overlooking Tehran to show, for a few brief but public moments, their support for Iranian gay rights. It was far from the biggest LGBT rights rally on May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia commemorating the World Health Organization’s 1990 decision to remove homosexuality from its catalog of mental diseases, but it carried its own significance.

Though the gathering appears to have been small and brief, the young activists photographed the subversive displays, posting the photos to public social media site Joopea, which has a number of Farsi pages. The photos are reproduced above, showing the rainbow flag waving over Tehran, activists holding a sign reading “no to homophobia” on the metro, and rainbow-colored balloons floating through the skyline.

“Note that the individuals were sure to hide their faces to avoid being identified and harassed,” points out Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Golnaz Esfandiari, who surfaced the photos, which she calls “rare, if not unprecedented.” She adds, “Many Iranians may not know that the rainbow flag is the symbol of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement.”

For all of the Islamic Republic’s discrimination against gays and sympathetic activists like the young men and women in these photos, the country’s harsh laws are not as necessarily Islamic as the ayatollah-run regime might like to believe.

“Over the past few years, there have been a number of progressive Shiite clergymen, both in Iran and in places such as Lebanon, who have written revolutionary fatwas regarding gender equality, human rights, rights to privacy, and sexual offenses,” Hossein Alizadeh, a program coordinator at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told PBS’s Tehran Bureau. “These fatwas have been used in courts by lawyers with various degrees of success. Although the ruling establishment remains untouched by those progressive views, they can’t simply dismiss them as Western and have to take them into consideration as part of the court hearing process.”

It’s hard to see much momentum for changing social attitudes toward gay rights in Iran, and even harder to imagine official policy relaxing anytime soon. Maybe that’s what makes these half-dozen or so young activists so brave, to take pride in something their society insists is shameful, and to stand up for themselves, even if it means risking everything.

Source: The Atlantic

brinaelegiraffe: posterboycelebrity: dieintherain: spenacethemenace: alex-reid: holybat: axolotlglitter: hiddenjumprope: axolotlglitter: lgbtadvocate: COME ON TUMBLR.  WE CAN DO THIS.  http://yahoo.com can we get a link that actually directs to this survey? It’s http://yahoo.com Scroll down oopsiessss GO GO GO GO GO GO GO c’mon tumblr you’re breaking my bawls TUMBLR. WE NEED YOUR HELP. WE’VE ONLY CHANGED IT BY ONE PERCENTAGE POINT! ONLY 16% GET THEM FINGERS MOVING BITCHES Leggo peeps. GO TUMBLR, GO! Right-hand column, a bit of the way down. VOTE NOW!
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brinaelegiraffe:

posterboycelebrity:

dieintherain:

spenacethemenace:

alex-reid:

holybat:

axolotlglitter:

hiddenjumprope:

axolotlglitter:

lgbtadvocate:

COME ON TUMBLR. 

WE CAN DO THIS. 

http://yahoo.com

can we get a link that actually directs to this survey?

It’s http://yahoo.com Scroll down

oopsiessss

GO GO GO GO GO GO GO

c’mon tumblr you’re breaking my bawls

TUMBLR. WE NEED YOUR HELP. WE’VE ONLY CHANGED IT BY ONE PERCENTAGE POINT!

ONLY 16% GET THEM FINGERS MOVING BITCHES

Leggo peeps.

GO TUMBLR, GO! Right-hand column, a bit of the way down. VOTE NOW!

(via brinaethegiraffe)

Source: lgbtadvocate

In a recent opinion piece titled “All aboard the Trayvon bandwagon,” Washington Blade editor and co-owner Kevin Naff accuses 28 national LGBT groups of hype-riding because they issued an open letter opposing racial profiling and expressing solidarity with Trayvon Martin’s family and friends.In Naff’s view, the Trayvon Martin atrocity is simply a consequence of lax gun laws. Race only enters the picture because “ambulance-chasing zealots like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson” have intervened. “Racial tension” over the case is purely the result of “typically lazy and even deliberately inaccurate reporting by the mainstream media” and celebrity tweets. And LGBT organizations should have nothing to say about the systemic and pervasive practice of criminalizing black men and boys because race is just a “distraction that pumps up cable ratings and generates lots of heat, but no light.


I’m going to borrow that last phrase—“generates lots of heat but no light”—and apply it to Naff’s criminally narrow lens. To accuse organizations including the National Center for Transgender Equality, UNID@S, Immigration Equality and the National Black Justice Coalition of “bandwagon posturing” is to assume that the people who make up these organizations have no stake or interest in dismantling systemic racism. Essentially what Naff has done is cast the struggle for LGBT human rights and equality as window dressing for his own demands for white male privilege.Of course we know that to be a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or gender non-conforming person of color is to be—drum roll—a person of color. We know this because prisons and morgues are full of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and gender non-conforming people of color, their loved ones and their neighbors. They have no choice or desire to atomize their struggles. Naff shouldn’t either.

Akiba Solomon, Yes, Trayvon’s Death Is An LGBT Issue. No, LBGT Politics Aren’t Limited By White Privilege,” , Colorlines, 4/12/12. Damn, Solomon went ham on Naff, didn’t she? (via secretarysbreakroom)

(via racialicious)

Source: secretarysbreakroom

Advice Columnist Smacks Down Biphobe: Dear Lady A: Skeptical about the B

bisexual-community:

DEAR LADY A: The people I know who claim they’re bi are attention-seeking and creepy. I honestly think, of the “bisexuals” I know, the guys are just gays who can’t emotionally handle being gay, and the women are trying to keep potential boyfriends interested with the promise of threesomes. Are actual bisexuals even real? If so, where are they hiding?

~~ Real Homo, Skeptical About The B in LGBT

DEAR DOUBTING HOMO: I’m not hiding and I’m bisexual, so your statement is really more about your own mistrust, isn’t it? It is the worst kind of queer self-sabotage to imply that a sexuality simply cannot be, because you can’t personally imagine it. It’s also ironic. Normally, I have a special contempt for assholes who attempt to inform me that my bisexuality is an urban myth promoted by terrified queens or an affectation I employ to impress my boyfriends. But I will try to exercise patience with you. I will even try to see it from your perspective for a moment.

To pretend like some haven’t used bisexuality as a “gateway drug” to gay or a boy-bewitching sexual tactic, would be disingenuous. Yes, there are folks who, for reasons including self-delusion, hipster trend-grubbing, or maybe just an attempt to earn better money at the stripper pole, might be bisexual pretenders. There are also straight pretenders and gay pretenders, but that doesn’t make you any less gay, does it, sir? And those gay pretenders, by the way, are sometimes boys and girls who love both boys and girls, but felt so unfairly judged by members of their own LGBT community that they actually went back into the bi closet by “picking a side.”

But for the most part, people who call themselves bi, flexible, curious or any other similar designation, are telling you the truth. You know how I know? Because it’s hard to be bi. Society immediately thinks the boys are lying and the girls are sluts, they’re queer but they’re not, they’re straight but they’re not, and they are generally just assigned the convenient homo or hetero sexuality that happens to coincide with their most current partner. They’re also some of the least supported queers in terms of organized help and education … And that’s not fun. So they must have a damned good reason (like the fact that they’ve realized they don’t give a fuck what you or society thinks they ought to be) for standing up and saying who they really are. Just like you had a damned good reason for telling the world who you really are, sir.

So, in answer to your question: Yes, bisexuals are real, and yes, they’re sometimes hiding in your ranks, and could possibly be one of your closest friends or lovers. Being fearful of something you don’t understand and can’t control is scary, isn’t it? On the bright side, now you know how homophobes feel.

I’m bi. No lie. Get used to it.

Lady A is a headmistress with an emphasis on head. She may even spank you. But only if you like that kind of thing. She can be found in the Chicago Phoenix, on Facebook, Twitter as well as all the best places to see and be seen (and sometimes even do), in Chicago.

ALL OF THE FUCKING AWARDS

(via indigoferarchived)

Source: chicagophoenix.com

DRUNK QUEERS TALK ABOUT SEX - our third video of the night

The reason Roommate and I were laughing at the beginning is that right before we started recording, I had brought over a pair of jeans to cut into shorts. I said something like, I don’t have much to add to the conversation so I might as well get some work done.

…Which was really fucking hilarious at the time.

Also Roommate’s cats were running around.

frilldora: The intersectionality of being part of a sub-altern group (like identifying as a person of color, LGBTQQIAA, fat, female) and being a gamer can be really tough.  Gaming isn’t always the kindest environment for non-cis, non-straight, non-male people.  I’ve had a lot of bad experiences in the past with horrible guilds or even well-meaning people who just don’t necessarily understand (or care) about what it means to have these identities. I’m now playing Tera Online (it’s in the closed beta phase right now), and I’ve made a guild specifically for Tera players who want a “safe space.” I figured I’d toss this out into the Tumblr-verse in case anyone is interested.  Synthesis is a competitive PvP guild that is an absolute safe space for all people.  You can check out the Synthesis Forums for more information and take a look at our Synthesis Guild Recruitment thread.
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frilldora:

The intersectionality of being part of a sub-altern group (like identifying as a person of color, LGBTQQIAA, fat, female) and being a gamer can be really tough.  Gaming isn’t always the kindest environment for non-cis, non-straight, non-male people.  I’ve had a lot of bad experiences in the past with horrible guilds or even well-meaning people who just don’t necessarily understand (or care) about what it means to have these identities.

I’m now playing Tera Online (it’s in the closed beta phase right now), and I’ve made a guild specifically for Tera players who want a “safe space.”

I figured I’d toss this out into the Tumblr-verse in case anyone is interested.  Synthesis is a competitive PvP guild that is an absolute safe space for all people.  You can check out the Synthesis Forums for more information and take a look at our Synthesis Guild Recruitment thread.

Your “queer vocabulary” is bashing people, Queerty

lollandlass:

So the dude who runs Queerty decided to declare me a hater and claim he’s justified in using language like “hasbian” and “LUG” and the T-word. For those of you just tuning in, the first two words are biphobic slurs (also panphobic, come to it, as there are pansexuals who could easily be labeled as such) and the last is transphobic.

I am not equating the depth of the terms, mind you. I don’t know of anyone who’s been beaten to death while being called a hasbian, after all. I’m darkly grateful there aren’t high numbers of monosexuals beating down bisexuals for daring to wear overlapping pink and blue triangles in public. It’s probably happened, but nowhere near as often. The discussion started with Queerty using biphobic language and descended more deeply into the Fail Zone from there.

He used the first two to label Gillian Anderson, someone X-Files fandom has long known to be behaviorally bisexual and who recently restated it for the record in more mainstream spaces. I don’t know how she identifies, so I’m not going to assign her one past that. That was tacky and deserving of a nose tweak via Twitter. Then after I delivered same (alongside BisexualFTW), he jumped us for it.

After calling both of us haters, he introduced the T-word as a third item in his “queer vocabulary” into the discussion and said he would not relinquish the words no matter who objected. He claims his usage of these is “abrasive but tenable” and accused us of being the kind who encourages infighting under the LGBT umbrella. Since we weren’t the ones using fighting words, the irony’s pretty high.

Then he capped it. He said I should use my “high horse” and go after black people who use the N-word. My Twitter icon is a cartoon hedgehog from an anime series called Kaitou Saint Tail. I’m also white. I try not to tell black people how to talk. It’s none of my business. But he thought it was somehow applicable. I ignored the derail and blocked him.

Here’s the thing. When you aren’t a member of a subgroup within a larger umbrella, despite the shared issues across those groups, you aren’t allowed to use the words in that free and easy fashion. Blacks and Asians may both be people of color, but an Asian person can’t use the N-word without penalty any more than a black person can use “gook” and get away with it. And as a bisexual, cisgender woman, I wouldn’t use “faggot” without a LOT of context around it. But he’s OK with reminding me my sexual orientation is considered meaningless or non-existent and reminding trans* people that they’re targets.

This is why Queerty’s wrong about biphobic and transphobic language. He’s neither bi nor trans. He’s not allowed to dismiss, belittle, or deride within the gender and sexual minority community when he’s not a member of the sub-community in question. That’s what causes the “infighting.” Abuse of privilege and attacking those who don’t conform within the ranks. And we who defend ourselves and others against that abuse are accused of being the haters in a perfect circle of fail.

And no, I don’t care how “up on queer culture” Queerty may be. He’s broken in this area and refuses to fix it. He’s not up on the culture if he ignores reality in the name of being abrasive. That argument got lobbed at me just as I was completing this post. Seriously, people. Just stop.

(via indigoferarchived)

Source: lollygaggingandlassitude

Terrible Advice from Kate Bornstein, Pt 1 of 2 (TW for transphobia and cissexism)

fortunateson:

Auntie Kate (Bornstein) didn’t quite save my life, but she came damn close. The copy of Hello Cruel World that rests on my bookshelf is heavily dog-eared; I have donated copies to friends and to the UU youth group’s bookshelf. 

As you might expect from this introduction, I’m about to criticize her pretty heavily. Over this “guest spot” by her in Dan Savage’s Savage Love. When a man writes in saying that he is straight and an ally, but doesn’t want to date a trans woman and is worried he is transphobic, this is Kate’s response:

“He’s not transphobic—not in my book,” says Kate Bornstein, author, performer, “advocate for teens, freaks, and other outlaws,” and herself a trans woman. “One more thing he’s not is straight. Sex-positive, supportive of trans folk, and heterosexual? Cool! He’s a queer heterosexual—and some of my best friends are queer heterosexuals.”

…

“A queer heterosexual is just as entitled to the fulfillment of their sex and gender desires as anyone else,” says Bornstein. “Sometimes those desires depend on the nature of their lover’s body. Well, trans people have bodies that are different than cis people’s bodies. We’re two (or more) mints in one—a physical blend that attracts a lot of people. FRAUD just doesn’t happen to be one of them. The fact that he’s sensitive to that blending of genders in our bodies does not make him transphobic.”

First, let’s get this out of the way: If you won’t date a trans woman because — direct quote — “I wouldn’t feel comfortable dating/having sex with a woman who had at one point in her life been a man,” you’re transphobic/cissexist. For one thing, many trans women never were men. And the fact that you couch your explanation for not wanting to date a trans woman in her trans status and excuse it with a “mental block” is pretty damn revealing.

But let’s pretend that he just has a problem with trans female bodies, as Kate seems to be asserting. Still problematic! Here’s why:

If you think you can generalize about all trans people’s bodies, you are cissexist/transphobic.

All of us are different.  There is no physical quality that applies to all trans women or trans men, just like how there’s no physical quality that applies to all cis men or cis women. Some trans women have heavy jawlines, some have delicate jawlines — just like cis women. Some trans women are tall, some are short. Some trans women are curvaceous, some are skinny. Some trans women have breast implants and some don’t. Some have large breasts and some have small (these last two sentences don’t correlate how you might think they correlate). Some trans women have had surgery on their genitalia, and some haven’t.

(For the record, I am extremely skeptical of the idea that you can suddenly not be into someone because you found out their genital configuration is different from what you usually go for, given that I don’t frisk cute boys to make sure they have a dick before I hit on them. I suspect that any visceral reaction to someone’s junk not being a typical cis woman’s junk is a result of transmisogyny & het dudebro insecurity.)

It’s absurd to attribute a resistance to the idea of your partner being trans as based on bodily characteristics that are a) mutable and b) incredibly varied across the trans population.

Look, you’re not obligated to date/fuck a trans person to prove your ally status. But don’t make sweeping generalizations — it’s the difference between saying “I’ve never been interested in a trans woman” and “I’m not interested in trans women.” If you say the latter, your friends are justified in pointing out that you’re not really down with trans issues, just like parents who are fine with gay people until their kid turns out to be one. When it comes to your ally status, this “not in my bedroom” shit is illustrative, not irrelevant. 

I haven’t even touched on the idea of a “queer heterosexual.” But that’s what Part 2 of 2 is about.

(via fortunateson-deactivated2012080)

lilylunastardust: femmesandfamily: thewonderfulbuttnugget: unknowable-woman: saltmarshhag: freibiergesicht: palilicium: bananasforpotassium: tresmaladroit: Where’s the asexual literature? shit homophobic asexuals say ok so first of all the books there appear to be non-fiction, not literature. secondly, there aren’t really any major books, fiction or non, dealing with asexuality using the word/modern identity “asexual” cuz YALL HAVEN’T WRITTEN THEM YET IT IS NOT DISCRIMINATION WHEN THE BOOKS YOU WANT AREN’T THERE BECAUSE YOU HAVE FAILED TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN (and it’s still not gonna be ‘discrimination’ if future asexual works aren’t included under the glbt section ok) this is a pattern with tumblr SJWs in general but it’s actually the same shit MRAs do too: act like all of the resources for and the cultural footprints of an oppressed group fell out of the fucking sky or were rationed out by governments or something. it’s so incredibly disrespectful. asexual literature asexual literature asexual literature where can anyone possibly find books where people don’t have sex, I wonder genfic apparently about to disagree with everyone. whatever. while I don’t think asexuality should necessarily be in the lgbt section, i think it would be great to have visibility asexual characters in literature.  characters that explore what it means to be asexual.  I see ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH WANTING THAT. And saying “go write it” is such a derailing tactic.  fuck that noise. wow that was really harsh people above femmesandfamily, the OP only said “where’s the asexual literature” and as femmesandfamily said, what is wrong with wanting some visible representation? And that doesn’t mean books without sex, so hold the sarcasm there please. Read a children’s novel for that. It means exploring someone who is asexual’s life (if they use that word). Like maybe a Y.A. book that has a teen struggling to understand themselves as ace in a world that shows desiring sex as mandatory to humanity (why are we always aliens? i mean i like aliens and robots but im very human thank you very much).Sure there is stuff that needs to be written and we are workin on thank you but that takes time of course. There probably is stuff out there that exists in a more subtle way just as there are things out there with homoerotic subtext. I will say, it is more difficult than you’d hope getting anything asexual visibility wise out there in the entertainment sphere because most people brush off asexuality as boring (im looking at you Moffat).I don’t think the OP was trying to say OMG DISCRIMINATION MINE IS WORSE THAN YOURS (which is what I am sensing was implied? let me know if I’m off on that), but more, hey I would like some visibility too please. And that is completely valid. I agree. I would like some visibility. I also don’t know where the homophobia was so if someone could enlighten me because I don’t want to take your feelings away from you.Now, also, I am completely aware that asexual issues are different than LGBT (but again all the letters in that acronym are different from each other as well). There are certain spaces we have privilege and it’s important to be aware of that. But I’m going to admit it’s like a punch in the stomach every time someone says I (as asexual) can’t be considered a part of said communities. Not every ace identifies as queer but some, myself included, do. Maybe you’re more okay with me being in “the club” because I’m queer romantic, but either way, I wish people didn’t have to police that. It’s like I’m not “queer” enough and I don’t even know what that means.Why can’t ace nonfiction or fiction (when more of it exists) be in the same section? Where else would it go?I am asking serious questions so people can respond. i.e. this is not just a rando post
Pop-upView Separately

lilylunastardust:

femmesandfamily:

thewonderfulbuttnugget:

unknowable-woman:

saltmarshhag:

freibiergesicht:

palilicium:

bananasforpotassium:

tresmaladroit:

Where’s the asexual literature?

shit homophobic asexuals say

ok so first of all the books there appear to be non-fiction, not literature.

secondly, there aren’t really any major books, fiction or non, dealing with asexuality using the word/modern identity “asexual” cuz YALL HAVEN’T WRITTEN THEM YET

IT IS NOT DISCRIMINATION WHEN THE BOOKS YOU WANT AREN’T THERE BECAUSE YOU HAVE FAILED TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN

(and it’s still not gonna be ‘discrimination’ if future asexual works aren’t included under the glbt section ok)

this is a pattern with tumblr SJWs in general but it’s actually the same shit MRAs do too: act like all of the resources for and the cultural footprints of an oppressed group fell out of the fucking sky or were rationed out by governments or something. it’s so incredibly disrespectful.

asexual literature

asexual literature

asexual literature

where can anyone possibly find books where people don’t have sex, I wonder

genfic

apparently about to disagree with everyone. whatever.

while I don’t think asexuality should necessarily be in the lgbt section, i think it would be great to have visibility asexual characters in literature.  characters that explore what it means to be asexual.  I see ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH WANTING THAT.

And saying “go write it” is such a derailing tactic.  fuck that noise.

wow that was really harsh people above femmesandfamily, the OP only said “where’s the asexual literature” and as femmesandfamily said, what is wrong with wanting some visible representation? And that doesn’t mean books without sex, so hold the sarcasm there please. Read a children’s novel for that. It means exploring someone who is asexual’s life (if they use that word). Like maybe a Y.A. book that has a teen struggling to understand themselves as ace in a world that shows desiring sex as mandatory to humanity (why are we always aliens? i mean i like aliens and robots but im very human thank you very much).

Sure there is stuff that needs to be written and we are workin on thank you but that takes time of course. There probably is stuff out there that exists in a more subtle way just as there are things out there with homoerotic subtext. I will say, it is more difficult than you’d hope getting anything asexual visibility wise out there in the entertainment sphere because most people brush off asexuality as boring (im looking at you Moffat).

I don’t think the OP was trying to say OMG DISCRIMINATION MINE IS WORSE THAN YOURS (which is what I am sensing was implied? let me know if I’m off on that), but more, hey I would like some visibility too please. And that is completely valid. I agree. I would like some visibility. I also don’t know where the homophobia was so if someone could enlighten me because I don’t want to take your feelings away from you.

Now, also, I am completely aware that asexual issues are different than LGBT (but again all the letters in that acronym are different from each other as well). There are certain spaces we have privilege and it’s important to be aware of that. But I’m going to admit it’s like a punch in the stomach every time someone says I (as asexual) can’t be considered a part of said communities. Not every ace identifies as queer but some, myself included, do. Maybe you’re more okay with me being in “the club” because I’m queer romantic, but either way, I wish people didn’t have to police that. It’s like I’m not “queer” enough and I don’t even know what that means.

Why can’t ace nonfiction or fiction (when more of it exists) be in the same section? Where else would it go?

I am asking serious questions so people can respond. i.e. this is not just a rando post

Source: tresmaladroit