dawnpearls

[dawnpearls]

Since joining Tumblr, I’ve met a lot of young queer people. Look, I’m a bisexual man in a gay relationship, and I’m approaching 30. I was still a kid when Matthew Shepard’s story was being covered on the news. I remember thinking, “I better keep my mouth shut about these feelings I’m having.”

And then I met Dominic when I was 12, and people could see how in love we were. And we got the shit beat out of us. The year I met him, some kids in the grade above me held me down against the bleachers in our gym and stomped on my hand until my fingers broke. Instead of sending me to the nurse, the teacher sent me to the assistant principal to explain the situation. She asked why the kids had beat me up. I said, “They were calling me gay.”

Her response was, “Well, are you?”

My, “I don’t know,” earned a call to my parents, and I was outed. Efforts were made to keep me from seeing Dom. Throughout high school, Dom’s stepmother intensified these efforts. He slept in the basement of the house. Although he was an incredibly talented student, he was prohibited from participating in any extracurriculars. He suffered a lot of physical abuse during those years.

The day he turned 18, he packed up everything he had and walked to my house, and we’ve lived together ever since. Things are better, but they’re not perfect. I’ve had trucks pull up next to me at stoplights and, seeing the pride sticker on my car, through old drinks and garbage into my window. I no longer speak to my dad’s side of the family. I haven’t been to see them for Christmas or Thanksgiving in years. One of my uncles had cornered me at Thanksgiving when I was 17 and said, “I’m not going to judge you, but I’d be happy to break your neck so God can do the judging a little sooner.”

I joined a support group for trans and intersex people. When I joined, 40 people attended regularly. Within the year, the group was half the size it had been. Some couldn’t make it anymore, because they were staying at the shelter, where their stay hinged on them agreeing to instead to attend homophobic sermons. Some were put in correctional therapy. Five of them died. Three of those, I didn’t know, but I knew Alex, the 19 year old who was fag-dragged in Kentucky and died a day later in the hospital, and I knew Stephanie, who went home to Alabama to care for her mom in hospice and was beaten to death with a baseball bat by her mom’s boyfriend.

Tumblr is not reality. The dynamic here does not reflect the dynamic out there. Here’s the part where I finally make a point, and it might be extremely unpopular - but guys, value your allies. Value each other. We are met with enough hate in our daily lives to enter an online safe-space and meet more hate from our own, over petty things. Don’t go after one another over every little thing you find problematic.

Learn to see nuance. Maybe the word “queer” bothers you, and you see a gay man using it as an umbrella term. Maybe someone called a trans man a trans woman because they’re confused about terminology, but the post where they did it was voicing support for the trans community. Maybe someone is just asking a question, wanting to learn more. Stop. Attacking. These. People.

Allies are being driven away. Members of our own community are being ostracized. Others are feeling nervous and estranged, and it’s largely because of places like Tumblr, where the social justice movement is quickly becoming violent and radical. I am begging you, stop nitpicking “problematic” things and start directing your efforts to create real change. When it comes to comes to your allies, forget the “social justice warrior” mentality and put down your torch. Educate calmly. Be respectful. Be understanding. Be forgiving. And I’m certainly not saying that your anger doesn’t have a good place - when you are met with bigots on the street, congress members who want to pass hateful laws, violent protesters, abusive parents, prejudiced teachers, that is when you need to be a warrior. That’s when it counts. In the real world. When you have the opportunity to protect people from real harm. Attacking your would-be allies via anonymous asks is just going to lose us ground in the long run. And we don’t have time for that, not when trans women of color are being murdered every day, not when states are still fighting against marriage equality, not when there are politicians in office who believe that trans people are possessed by demons, not when we’ve just lost 50 brothers and sisters to one gunman, not when the media won’t even admit that the attack was homophobic.

Please step back. Look at the big picture. Look at where we are, globally. Don’t just log on to your safe space and attack your allies over small missteps. That’s like washing the dishes in a house that’s on fire, kids. Let’s fight on the battlefield, and when we come home to each other, let’s just focus on bandaging up our wounds so we can go out and win the war.

[dawnpearls]

just want andrew garfield’s peter parker or matt murdock to be my boyfriend. is that too much to ask for??

[dawnpearls]

some indian trans ppl you can help by boosting and donating to their fundraisers:

help satvik get top surgery (₹89,088 / ₹250,000)

help shakti get sex reassignment surgery (₹143,381 / ₹500,000)

help preethisha set up magizham — a trans-led mobile tea shop (₹158,379 / ₹200,000)

help tanvi get gender-affirming surgeries (₹228,424 / ₹800,000)

help build a shelter for the trans community of rural north bengal (₹73,795 / ₹400,000)

[dawnpearls]

going to kento yamazaki’s house after watching alice in borderland

[dawnpearls]

how can i help?

here you can find donation links, petitions, how to educate yourself, etc.

if you can afford to donate: official george floyd memorial fund here minnesota freedom fund here stephen lawrence charitable trust here the NAACP legal defense fund here black lives matter here

petitions you can sign: justice for george floyd here, here & here get the officers charged here reclaim the block — minneapolis here justice for breonna taylor here, here & here justice for ahmaud arbery here, here & here pass the georgia hate crime bill here **if you are international and aren’t able to sign, here are some zip codes to use: 90015 — los angeles, california  10001 — new york city, new york  75001 — dallas, texas 

text or call: text “JUSTICE” 688366 text “FLOYD” to 55156

get in contact with the district attorney and minneapolis mayor. leave a message demanding that 4 officers including derek chauvin (badge #1087) and tou thao (badge #7162) be arrested for the murder of george floyd.  minneapolis mayor’s office, jacob frey: (612) 673-2100 minneapolis district attorney, mike freeman: (612) 348-5550 OR citizeninfo@hennepin.us minneapolis PD emails: police@minneapolismn.gov minneapolis311@minneapolismn.gov policereview@minneapolismn.gov you can find the email template here

breonna taylor was murdered in her sleep by policemen (jonathan mattingly, brett hankison and myles cosgrove) who raided the wrong house and shot her 8 times. call the louisville mayor’s office and police department to demand that the police be fired and charged. louisville mayor’s office, greg fischer: (502) 574-2003 louisville metro police department: (502) 574-7111

undercover cop, jacob pedersen of the st. paul PD was seen smashing windows as the catalyst to many of the riots that occurred in minneapolis. email the st. paul PD and report his actions. st. paul PD email: policeinfo@ci.stpaul.mn.us proof of smashing windows here proof it was pedersen here

want to learn more? i strongly recommend the book “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race” by reni eddo-lodge. you can find an extract here.

list of resources: black lives matter google doc here black lives matter carrd here elle osili-wood on twitter here

[dawnpearls]

💛

[dawnpearls]

““You should date a girl who reads. Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve. Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn. She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book. Buy her another cup of coffee. Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice. It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does. She has to give it a shot somehow. Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world. Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two. Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series. If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are. You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype. You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots. Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads. Or better yet, date a girl who writes.””

— Rosemarie Urquico (via amargedom)

[dawnpearls]

stolen glances

[dawnpearls]

“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”

— Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis (via amargedom)

[dawnpearls]

(190825) jaemin :: boom

[dawnpearls]

[dawnpearls]

[dawnpearls]

WAYV ‘ SEE THE V ‘

[dawnpearls]

im not saying sunmi’s not straight but it’s weird how some of you really think she or anyone else in that industry would be able to just come out with zero consequences like it just shows that a lot of you live a very privileged life and aren’t able to see from the perspective of those who live in highly homophobic environments. like i know a lot of kpoppies don’t give a damn about real homos except for their little creepy fantasy relationships but we all know how hard it’s been for holland like he’s been 100% transparent about that so you can’t pretend you DON’T know. and hyuna who’s just straight (as far as we know) opened up about her relationship with a man and had her career nearly destroyed so…yeah. i don’t know.. use your brains maybe? is it REALLY that hard to sympathize with people who have different experiences than you??? and please do not try the “she queer baited us” thing when..there are girl groups that y’all love who treat being a gay woman like a joke and y’all eat that shit up like candy. makes you think!

[dawnpearls]

[dawnpearls]

Trainspotting

[dawnpearls]

Madoka Kinoshita 2019 Canvas art “Water” Acrylic paint on Canvas. size 23 6/7" x 31 5/8" in

YouTube >> https://youtu.be/JeQR-M5E3uY