iothefourthmoon:

Queer Scout Badge

Mary Tremonte

thatqueerchick:

toxicteardrops:

l-ovelynialler:

from left to right;

I am afraid to hold my boyfriend’s hand.

My friend’s parents sent her away.

I found death threats in my locker.

I submitted to electroshock therapy.

I lost half my friends after coming out.

My grandmother sends me hate mail.

My school won’t let me take my date to prom.

I am not here anymore.

My dad tried to beat it out of me.

No one is proud of me.

This showed up on my blog again. Forever reblog.

The “I am not here anymore.” 

Oh my. This hit hard.

Could never not reblog. Long lasting, traumatising fear is being a closeted queer kid in a very straight conservative school, in a Tory-run area. You are out to maybe a few friends, but they’re not that supportive and say stuff like ‘you shouldn’t be so angry all the time’ and ‘try not to let it affect you.’

You are obsessed day and night with policing yourself-just enough makeup to look straight, wear the skirt today, did I look at that girl’s legs, and fnally and most terrifying of all, do my parents know?

You watch and carefully listen to people whom you plan to come out to, trying to figure out their reaction. The first time you come out, you are so scared you won’t even say it on school grounds.

You have no queer friends and your only support system is online. You come home exhausted from hearing homophobia and the fear of hearing it. You are never not tense at school. At home, you think you’re safe but you’re not.

You are always listening and watching people, trying to gauge if they are gay. You know that you look straight, so by the law of statistics there are others here. You wonder if they are as frightened as you are. Probably. You wish you could help them. you wonder if they watch you in the same hope. Years later, you will find out via Facebook (which you didn’t have then because you feared it would out you) that some people you knew well were gay.

On top of all this, you must always look happy, and working hard to pass your A-levels which will get you into university and away from here. You have to pass, because otherwise you will be stuck here.

The trauma of this experience will give you five different mental illnesses, and your first year at university is spent recovering from the last two years of school.

Yes. I think this is why “no one is proud of me” hurts so much more than “I am not here anymore.” Because they aren’t here, and that is sad and terrible, but I am still here, and what does it mean to still be here when you know there are so many people who would prefer you were not? What does it mean to keep going every day when (it feels like) no one is proud of you?

I was talking today about what it means to keep living when there are no models that tell you that you will be okay in the end. Where are the old queers? Where are the old trans people? Where are the old people who have been sad and in pain their whole long lives? Normally, I would talk about “older people” and about “elders,” but that’s not what I want. What I want is old people. What I want is something simple, a simple word, I want people who show me that it can be done. I want grown-ups. I want parents. I want a culture and society that raises and nurtures rather than quiets up.

Audre Lorde talked in an interview about how “it would have saved a lot of time” if she had known that there were other people with her identities struggling with the same things she struggled with. In Sisterhood and Survival, she talks about discovering the work of Angelina Weld Grimke, another Black lesbian poet who had lived in New York when Audre was growing up. “I often think of her, dying alone in an apartment in New York City in 1958, while I was a young black lesbian, in isolation not too far away, and I think of what it could have meant in terms of sisterhood and survival for each one of us to have known of the other’s existence, for me to have had her words, and for her to have known I needed them. That we are not alone.”

These were the thoughts somewhere beneath the surface when I was asking where are they? Where are my people? Why, in my life, do I always seem to do it for the first time? To be the first trans person you have met, the first person with slippery pronouns, the first to explain to you words other than gay and straight (and, growing up, to have done that!), the first willing to give you their language about how sick all of this has made them? I know that other people are doing this work, but where are they? How can I find them? And can they help me?

(Source: lui19h)

black-poetry:

I was taught
men marry women
have two point five kids
ranch homes in suburbs
with impossibly green lawns
surrounded by
pristine white picket fences
shop at pathmark and k-mart
buy tools from sears
go to church every sunday
pray for salvation
find mistresses when bored I was told
it was wrong to
love another man
touch the way I do
mingle spirits and fluids
feel okay about who I am
listen to my heart
expose the real me
admit to being gay I was warned
that if I swallowed my
unconventional desires
slept with a man
satisfied wants
fulfilled needs
I would burn in hell
fry forever So
I tell them
“Start the barbecue

alexandraerin:

youarethebeautifulone:

steffalopod:

basically gay marriage should be legal but it’s basically the least pressing queer issue there is. coincidentally it’s the one that allies care most about. haha ok come back to me when you care about the rates of homelessness and violence and suicide among queer youth

so, heaven forbid we just care about homeless, suicidal, youths all together? Heaven forbid we prevent bullying to ANYONE, not just one group? Why oh why can’t we watch out for each other? Why are more walls being put up? That’s what it feels like. It seems like once people start getting somewhere there is more anger and demands made that it is not enough.

 For fucks sake people, can we just hold each other up? Are we going to start paying less mind to cis kids with issues because they supposedly have it easier? This is bullshit. Just bullshit. True equality is watching out for all bullied children, and also looking into the bully themselves.

 Second rant of the day and I’m off it.

Rant/OFF

~Impy

If one person is bleeding to death, one person has a scraped knee, and one person is fine, do you think that equality demands that everybody gets a band-aid and a pat on the back?

Or are we allowed to give the first and most urgent care to the people who need it most urgently?

Yup.

crackerhell:

genderbitch:

ramblers-jig:

oppresseveryone:

genderbitch:

It’s a trans woman that loves herself and loves her penis.

Yes as a Cis person, that is the one thing I hate the most.

I’m a trans person and i don’t take trans people who love their genitalia very seriously so…

god truscum are gross

I am drunk right now an probably should not be making posts on an emotional subject: But fuck that person. Fuck. Them. It’s shit like that that has made my life EVEN HARDER than it has had to be. That has had me cutting up my chest and between my legs because I had to disavow myself of my body in order to be trans or to not want people to call me she. Does that make me trans enough? Does binding with ace bandages, despite shame-y Tumblr posts telling me to just buy a ($60) binder because I couldn’t live with myself with my chest unbound make me trans enough? Does my fucked up back and sciatica and chronic pain make me trans enough? Does my urinary cystitis from not peeing in public with its unsafe bathrooms? Does trying to make peace with my body so I can live long enough to try to change it make me trans enough? Does surviving make me trans?

many-worlds:

[Woody from Toy Story looks into the camera and promises “you’ll be fine, partner.”]

I’m pretty sure this is from Pixar’s “It Gets Better” video and while I have problems with that campaign, I do not have a problem with beloved children’s characters promising it is okay to be queer.

butterofcolor:

here’s to all the quiet queers.

all the queers who eat micro-agressions and secretly cry themselves to sleep.

the queers who dress the way their cis mothers told them to.

the queers who think about killing cis fucks every half hour, but never say a word more radical than “sorry.”

the queers who sip tea at their friend’s house while considering suicide, since that’s just about all they can think about.

the queers who are living double lives.

the queers who put on makeup at 2 a.m. in a hand mirror, making sure to wipe it off before school the next morning.

the queers who go to work dead and come home to see the world.

the queers who fuck, and suck, and kiss with the same hands and lips they use to eat dinner with their well-meaning shitty-acting parents

the queers who are ugly to you, too fat for you, running from you with lips sewn shut

here’s to the quiet queers, since it’s about fucking time we stopped shaming them.

All of this.

(Source: mascfemme)

thatqueerchick:

psychokandi:

ladyniteloveswho:

THIS BEAUTIFUL WOMAN

-Was RAPED along her best friend while her husband was tied up and forced to watch.

-Was diagnosed with uterine CANCER

-Had to get a DIVORCE because her husband was gay

What did she do about it all?

-Create a television show with her ex based on their divorce and friendship that still holds strong.

-Laughs just as hard today as she has in the past.

-Fights for the rights of the gay and lesbian community

-Works for the U.S. State department for the Public Diplomacy Envoy for Women’s Health Issues.

-Launched the ‘Cancer Shmancer’ movement, a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all women’s cancers be diagnosed while in Stage 1, the most curable stage.

-Has won the following awards: Jon Wayne’s Institute’s Woman of Achievement award, Gilda Award, City of Hope Wom of the Year award, Hebrew University Humanitarian award, Albert Einstien’s College of Medicine’s Spirit of Achievement Award, City of Hope’s Spirit of Life Award, and the ”My Aid Award” for her achievements in support of cancer prevention and rehabilitation.

-She has been cancer free for 12 years.

Now tell me she is not an AMAZING Woman.

When people say they “Hate her” because of her voice, I just want to punch them straight in their faces.

This is Fran Drescher, and she is one HELL Of a strong woman.

Reblog, because Fran Drescher is amazing, and people are stupid <3

In case you don’t recognise her,she was on Friends and dated Chandler…

That was actually Maggie Wheeler. Fran Drescher is best known as the titular character in “The Nanny.”

Here’s what she had to say about why she started officiating same-sex marriages!:

It is our duty to recognize that injustice exists and shift national consciousness to correct that injustice. Marriage equality is our opportunity to uphold our constitutional values, to stretch beyond our comfort zone and mature into a better version of ourselves. It is only by example that we may continue to be a beacon of freedom for the rest if the world. Love is love.

grrrlfever:

having body hair is awesome because it means i can offend men without even having to open my mouth

odofemi:

My doctor, who is a trans woman, and I had a conversation today about the guy who raped me earlier this year. At first she was like “did you charge him?” When I explained that he’s a trans man of colour, she immediately got why I hadn’t. Not because I couldn’t bare to put a trans person, especially a trans person of colour, in jail (which I can’t), but also because it would cause me to be completely ostracized by the queer/trans community in Toronto. I’d be “just another crazy trans woman.” It was an uncomfortable realization for both of us to sit there, as trans women, knowing that we have literally no recourse when violence is enacted on us within the community (though if the same violence conveniently came from a white cis straight man, we would be celebrated as heroes for standing up to such an easy target, at least within the queer/trans community).

She and I both, as professionals in the community, are well aware of the fine line we have to walk in order to be taken seriously in the queer/trans community. We not only have to look a certain way (both in terms of passing and in terms of conforming to queer normative acceptable standards of appearance), we also have to make sure not to rock the boat too much. We have to appear as sane and calm as possible, no matter the circumstances. If we show too much emotion at any time (read: any inconvenient emotion), we get hit with a double-whammy of misogyny and transphobia, quickly written off as hysterical “crazy trans women.” Accuse the wrong person of something, anyone too close to queer-home, and that’s the end of our credibility and the revoking of our entrance passes to Queerlandia.

It’s exhausting having to walk such a fine line. I’ve found that there are so many “danger zones” to watch out for. Trans women have to not only be queer-literate (knowing queer social justice language), we have to be exceptionally good at using it. Any minor slip of language or politics and we’re labeled “crazy trans women” by cis people while trans men nod knowingly in agreement — rarely standing up for us, and just as often perpetuating the ‘crazy trans woman’ stereotype themselves.

I became aware of this initially through cryptic warnings from an older queer trans woman friend of mine, years before I became involved in the queer community, but I didn’t realize the extent of it at first. That is, until I was invited to participate in it. When I first became involved heavily, I befriended two trans men whom I looked up to a great deal, and one of the first conversations we had in private was a gossip session in which they “warned” me about various trans women and got me to agree that they were “crazy.” I’ve found similar conversations throughout the community, often used in a way that it makes me wonder if what’s really happening is that they’re subconsciously testing my loyalty to the queer zeitgeist. Am I good tranny or a bad tranny? Am I willing to be part of their clique, giving them the ability to deflect any and all criticism of transmisogyny, or am I a “problem?”

Before I realized that this was a system, that trans women were being systematically tested and written off, I engaged in it myself. You get a self-esteem boost, knowing that the cool kids don’t count you among those trans women. Those trans women who stepped on the wrong toes, who take up “too much space,” who don’t have the right guilt-producing identity complex to be worthy of space (disabled young trans sex workers of colour who vogue are considered highly prized friend-accessories, to be seen but not really heard beyond the occasional “gurl” for comedic effect, but only if they have the right haircut and the right clothes and are working towards a bachelors of gender studies or similarly useless degree).

Who are these “crazy trans women?” Often they are incredibly sincere activists who haven’t had the privilege of being taught all of the ins and outs of anti-oppression social justice practice that is a prerequisite to membership in this queer community. Often they are labeled “too emotional” and “too angry,” “loose cannons” who are out of control when speaking about our experiences of sex work that don’t fit into the easily digestible “I do queer feminist porn on weekends to pay for my fluevogs while I’m in grad school” vision of sex work that the queer community has deemed acceptable. Often they are trans women who are said to take up “too much space,” while everyone whispers about how “you know, I know it’s wrong to say, but she just seems like she has male privilege, you know? Like you can just feel it. Not that I’m saying she’s a man, but, you know, you never know.”

At the end of the day, this whole complex of issues is simply misogyny, ableism, and transphobia dressed up as “community accountability.” It holds trans women to impossible standards, opening us up to vulnerability to all forms of in-community violence (physical, sexual, social), and creating a fear within the minds of so many queer trans women that our second-class position within the queer community could be ripped from our hands at any time for any minor infraction.

I’m tired of trying not to be a crazy trans woman in the voyeuristic eyes of queer community.

Morgan M Page/Odofemi, 2013.

Kanye West

(via her0inchic)

“Everyone’s born confident, and everything’s taken away from you.”

(via organization)

In my opinion, this is the realest statement Kanye has ever made. Yes, realer than “George Bush hates black people”… everybody knew that already. But this is enlightening.

(via theallchemist)

Some of my friends were recently saying they felt really sorry for Kim and Kanye’s baby because it will have Kanye as a father, and I was like, “Seriously?  Have you heard how affirming he is?  He is all about people reaching their highest potential and loving themselves as much as much as they can.”

(via mellendjneres)

I have so much love for Kanye.

(via inflatablefilth)

#PINK IS OBVIOUSLY A BETTER COLOR

John Barrowman (via childhoodgames)

[Gif of a camera panning out on a scene where a lot of people are dancing in boxer shorts, long sleeved button up shirts and socks.]

Barrowman, everyone.

(via rt-hon-harry-koschei-saxon)

THANK YOU BARROWMAN. 

I really need for people who watch Torchwood and went into seeing Miracle Day knowing or at least having some knowledge that Captain Jack is NOT AT ALL STRAIGHT EVEN A LITTLE BIT were okay with the sight of a queer/non-straight person being tortured and killed repeatedly but couldn’t stand to see that same person enjoying themselves during consenting, enthusiastic encounters to think very closely about what that means. It says far more about them than the show. 

Because basically the complaint is, “Look, it’s one thing if you want to brutally torture the queer dude. We don’t mind seeing queer people hurt, that fits the proper narrative. It’s just when you show them being happy and having sex lives and not getting punished for it that I get pissed. I mean, you’re sending the message to all those queer or questioning kiddies that not only can queer people be like Captain Jack, having adventures, leading a team of secret agents and saving the world, living this wonderful amazing life but you’re telling the straight ones that they should feel sad and upset and sympathetic when a queer person gets hurt. That I simply will not stand for! Next thing you know, they’ll be considering queer people human and treating them like they treat straight people and it’ll be chaos! Anarchy! Cats and dogs living together!”

reallyfoxnews:

With the projected $50,000 in increased revenue from couples seeking same-sex marriage licenses next year, Joe McDermott, Seattle City Councilor, drafted a last minute amendment that sends all of that money into programs designed to help at risk queer youth. According to The Stranger, 

“I wanted there to be a nexus between that money and where it went,” says McDermott, who is the county council’s first openly gay member and who intends to marry his partner. “We know that LGBTQ youth are overrepresented in at-risk, homeless, runaway, and sexually trafficked youth populations.”

All nine members of the council’s budget committee passed the amendment this morning—that’s all the Democrats and all the Republican on the council—assuring its adoption into the full budget. It directs $35,000 for at-risk youth programs run by the nonprofit Youth Care and $15,000 for Lambert House.

This is so beyond awesome.

inksplotched:

tammy baldwin: supported strategic removal of trans protections from ENDA

mary gonzalez: open pansexual WOC who acknowledged the existence of non-binary identities when she came out

let me tell you who i’m celebrating

A white woman with gingery hair waves before a crowd.

fromonesurvivortoanother:

itsinthetrees:

Tammy Baldwin, Senator-Elect from Wisconsin. She will be the first openly gay senator in U.S. history.

:D