#queer spaces

[leunusualsuspect]

The eyes are what got me.

Yesterday my wife, sister-in-law and I went to our usual karaoke spot. The spot famously doesn’t have Coke products but the near-by pizza place sells bottles the bar doesn’t mind us bringing in. And let’s be honest here: Coke is better than Pepsi.

And while we were there, a collection of clearly queer people were sitting at one of the tables. They were quiet, but one made plenty of noise without saying a word.

He was glaring at me, only me, with a burning anger I am all too familiar with. Every time I turned around, there he was, burning holes in my back.

My sister-in-law noticed, and confused, wasn’t sure quite what to say. Honestly I didn’t either.

When they finally left, we shared words about the experience, and Baruch Hashem for that, it made me feel not crazy.

It hurts.

It hurts to know that my brilliantly gold Magen David and my features (the nose, the hair, the beard, I can’t really be mistaken) make this experience unavoidable.

The antisemitism on the American left is out of control and in queer spaces in particular, pushes out queer Jews like me. This experience itself was far from the worst of it, and other Jews have attested as such. But it makes the warnings of my elders ring ever louder in my ears.

I am a staunch critic of Israel. A fierce advocate for peace. A union organizer. A husband. An artist. A scientist. An avid consumer of fiction. A skilled cook. A queer man.

But none of that was in his eyes.

I was just a Jew, even if he spelled it Zionist.

[melovibes57]

[taliabhattwrites]

Since people seem to like my Bsky hits, bringing another certified one over.

Is it "queer spaces are all so anti-masculine!!!" or "I want queer women to decenter themselves in their own spaces"

HmmmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM ...

The funny thing is I know about this shit not just because I've noted the way cis queer men speak to me and my trans gfs, but because I'm friends with gay trans guys and transhet women who've been through these spaces in some way or another.

So like, you could be finding community amongst those who have similar experiences to you, even folks who aren't fully accepted by cis queer men's spaces, but you're just ... not? In favor of saying any queer women's space is TERFy if it's woman-centered?

Get help.

Like, I'm not even going to go into whether it's problematic or whatever. It's just whiny. It's off-putting. It's entitled and bizarre.

Stop.

[gr00vyvampiregrrrl]

Dyke Night 2 06/29, with soap wrestling

[cuckoo-on-a-string]

Ace folks are queer. Die mad.

There are still apparently folks (some with genuinely good intentions, some just looking to outrage farm) who don't get why asexual/aromantic folk belong in queer spaces.

I'm ace. So if you keep saying "Someone explain it to me!" here's your explanation, right from the source:

The queer community (at least in my part of the world, yours may be different) is for anyone who doesn't fit into 'standard' cis/hetero norms. Ace people are not attracted to the people we're 'supposed' to be. This often leads to very different values and lived experiences from cultural 'norms.'

It's a different experience than many other LGBTQ+ people have, yes. And it's easier to hide in straight spaces. But it's also easier to hide in straight spaces as a bisexual, cis woman than as a trans woman, or a lesbian woman, or any number of other things. Our camouflage options don't define us, just as they don't define you. You do not become a bush when you put on a ghillie suit. Is my experience different from yours? Probably. BOTH of our experiences may be different from a cis gay man's. That doesn't mean his experiences are invalid, unworthy of support, or not in need of protection.

Exclusionist takes stem from the same attitudes conservatives have about women's clothes. I'm not kidding (and I grew up in that space so @ me at your peril). If a conservative person lived in the 1920's, women shouldn't wear pants. Hardline view right there. But in the 70's and 80's jeans and trousers had become so normalized only the MOST conservative groups had any kind of opinion on them, and nowadays skirt-only groups are even rarer.

Exposure and experience made those garments cultural standards instead of something scary and new.

The same thing happens in all spaces, including queer culture.

Ace/aro folks aren't new to the planet, but we've only gotten any significant attention relatively recently. Because people may have to stop and consider out experiences instead of nodding along and going, "Yes, I know what gay generally means," the natural instinct is to push it away.

Challenge that instinct.

We're a community, not a clone factory. We're supposed to be celebrating diversity this month, not playing Mean Girls and defining our moral superiority by who we exclude.

[thisliminalspacedaydreams]

I think my fav thing about fanfiction (depending on the fandom) is that in a lot of cases we see queer-normative universes.

There are very few places in real life or on the internet where queer couples outnumber hetero ones by several orders of magnitude.

Flipping the norm on its head.

Giving us a view of what it would be like to be extra normal, to the point of being almost logical.

[quark-nova]

funny how some "left-wing" queer spaces have have about exactly the same takes as far-right media on islam and "cultural muslims"

like, i'm not saying that all interpretations of islam are always queer-friendly or anything, but acting like muslim immigrants are the main reason why queer folks in the west are oppressed is a bit disingenuous.

and more importantly it shifts the blame away from the (mostly white christian) politicians while claiming to be "punching up" against a so-called oppressor with nearly zero political power. not sure that's actually punching up tbh

[incognitopolls]

Add your general area in the tags if you want to!

–

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Montreal's Plateau Mont-Royal borough was once a haven for lesbians, where Kim Brien remembers nights feeling "like being in a movie" as women danced, made eyes at each other and flirted. "We felt alive. We truly had the freedom to be ourselves," said Brien, now in her 40s, while reminiscing about her youth spent in bars where she could live her lesbianism without strange looks thrown her way. She said the staff knew its clientele and there was a real community connection. Brien is part of a handful of generations of women who have known Montreal's lesbian bars — a bygone era, much to the dismay of many young sapphic women.

Continue Reading

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[winterboyx]

"i want queer liberation"

But you alienate queer people inside your community just because they dont fit your standars of queerness.

"non binary rights"

But you keep reinventing the binary to cathegorize queer attraction. (ex: "you are either a man or a non-man")

"trans rights"

But you believe transandrophobia doesnt exist and overlook the violence transmascs face.

"bodily autonomy"

But you ignore the medical violence intersex people suffer

"queer rights"

But you only listen to a part of our community.

So while you enjoy your rights (we also fought for) marginalized identities inside an already marginalized identity suffer.

[friday-tea]

Tea House Pledge Drive Continues!

Thank you for the love this summer as we continue our tea house pledge drive! We've made it over halfway to our goal to defeat the survival debt cost that's bleeding our small community space dry.

Once we hit goal, we can keep all our revs and be back to breaking even!

We're doing a big push on this today: we're under pressure for the deadline we didn't meet last week, plus regular bills/payroll. Ugh.

Our communitea angel contributions have slowed way down, which is expected as everyone is struggling, but we're still hoping to get back on track!

Sharing is caring, especially for indies. We do most of our business via a lot of small transactions, rather than few really big ones. Word of mouth fuels the bulk of our business and is how we've grown and built connection for 15 years.

~400 donations have been made through the below link!

So thank you for bearing with us as we try to get our queer nerd witch tea house back on solid footing. We ARE seeing regular stability return, just not quite fast enough to beat the debt cost!

We've had a helluva few years & plan to keep stubborning through and caring for our communitea. 🍵❤️

[gr00vyvampiregrrrl]

Dyke Nite at Beauty Haus 06/29, Pride Weekend

[i-got-poisenality]

shoutout to theatre for being the best place to be queer

like i knew it was a welcoming space before i started acting but like hello??? i didn’t know it was this welcoming????

all i had to do was walk in with my he/him pronouns and the rest of the guys immediately accepted me as one of them???? like no convincing them that i was a man necessary??? and they know im trans?????

also like, i realized i was gay in this space (before, i thought i was all the way aroace, turns out im not all the way aro but still all the way ace) and i’ve felt most comfortable with that in theatre out of anywhere

so yeah, shoutout to theatre