lammythesmartie - Tumblr blog

[lammythesmartie]

[lammythesmartie]

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.

[lammythesmartie]

Burst blogging is my preferred method. Reblog a thousand things in a minute and leave. Its like the opposite if queue-ing

[lammythesmartie]

[lammythesmartie]

This award is so much larger than me. This moment is about visibility and about representation. What and who we see in the media defines our perception of the world around us, and so to see ourselves in this picture of what is ‘normal’ and what is acceptable and what is beautiful is absolutely vital. In saying that, so much of the work that has contributed to our progress as a community is far less glamorous than the work that I’m being honored for tonight.

Keep reading

[lammythesmartie]

[lammythesmartie]

2010 / 2016

[lammythesmartie]

[lammythesmartie]

xx

[lammythesmartie]

this vine made me 100% more emotionally stable

[lammythesmartie]

“I feel bad!”

[lammythesmartie]

are you ever just really thankful you didn’t share any big secrets with the “friends” you don’t talk to anymore

[lammythesmartie]

I mean

[lammythesmartie]

[lammythesmartie]

we’ve released the song from our stage show ‘The Internet Is Here’ as a charity single for Stand Up To Cancer!

Download it now on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/album/the-internet-is-here-single/id1160332724 or Google Play: https://goo.gl/RVVC2G to raise money for cancer research!

To see more about why we did this and how we recorded it in a studio check out this behind-the-scenes video: https://youtu.be/OVa5XSJtlFA

Please reblog this video and tell all your friends to buy the song too as it’s for an incredible cause! :)

[lammythesmartie]

“hey phil?”

“what?”

“let’s go home.”

“ok.”

[lammythesmartie]

the worst thing about trying to decide to read a fic:

-horrible writing.

-the summary is good but the story is written in a different language or is badly written.

-opening it to find no spaces between the paragraphs.

-both your otp and notp is tagged and you have no clue if you want to take a risk or not.

-tagged major character death and you start sweating.

-hasn’t been updated in 80 years but the summary is on point and their the best fucking writer ever.

-you start reading only to find that the person updates every ten years and you just happened to catch them on a day they finally updated.

-you find a writer and check them out, only to find out they mostly write about your notp - and of course they always update, have perfect writing and have stories that are epic.

-stories with so many fucking tags, you just shake your head and move on.

-the “i suck at summaries please check it out still” and you just, pause because it has your otp and you debate whether or not to take the risk.

-you find a pairing you never considered before and think holy shit, that could be hot and spend all day hunting through the tag.

-you ship a pairing so fucking hard, only to find like two fics and you start weeping.

-when you find a perfect story only to check the tags and see some weird shit that disgusts you and you scream why.

-a fic with good writing and summary but it’s so short or is only fan-art.

-a crossover fic where you have both of your fandoms but don’t have both of otps, just one.

-one shots that are so good you wish they were longer.

-when your notp is tagged but it’s labeled as a past relationship or says your otp is endgame, and you have to go through the notp’s awkward breakup in order for your otp to happen.

-when someone doesn’t tag properly and a plot twist hits you and you want to cry.

-you finally find a great fic that has been updated and the last update says writes block, personal issues- can’t do this, asks for co-writer, discontinues it or says lol i hate how this is turning out, deleting.

-when a writer as twenty stories to update and you cry because you like all of them and you have to wait.

-when you remember a story from like five years ago and you search for it, only to find it’s been deleted or can’t seem to find it anywhere.

-when a writer gives you an update schedule and you’re excited because they follow it but then they start missing it and you just…

-when a writer deletes a story and rewrites the same story but you like the original better.

-when your reading a story about a rare pairing that interests and your otp hate each other or just friends and it’s just so weird to read.

-when one half of your otp is in another relationship and the other half shows up with someone else and then you remember, right i’m not reading a story about my otp so i can’t get mad.

-when your otp is popular but it’s not as popular as another ship in the fandom and you hate how the other ship as so much more stories than your ship.

-when you try to read an ot3 relationship because it has two characters you love but the other character is usually from your notp and you hate when your notp share moments.

-when you beg an author (usually one where they aren’t in the fandom really) to write more stories about your otp and they say maybe and it never happens.

-when the writer literally shits on your favorite character and you can’t go through it anymore.

-when your otp isn’t the main pairing and you don’t really care about the other pairings in the story and skip to your otp parts.

-when a story has a million words and it’s so good and you know that you will spend all day and night reading it until your eyes hurt.

-when a story have 200 parts to it and you lose all hope after a while because the story is dragging.

-when your otp is going through something and so many stories are filled with angst, fluff and hurt that it makes you cry because yup, i need to read about my pain for my otp.

-when the writer refuses to write the smut you been waiting for and your otp is stuck in unresolved tension mode forever.

-when the writer unexpected changes the story’s events and you are disappointed by the direction.

-when you find a great au and the characters are so out of character… it makes you sad.

-when you open a fic only to find you hate the point of view and you scream.

-when you request a prompt and the author writes it but you are disappointed and just smile through the pain.

-when you have such a good idea in your head and you try to write it but it’s so bad that you delete it and cry, hoping someone else writes the brilliant idea that you had.

-when you don’t ship something anymore but see a great plot and you click the story and take a deep breath - because shit is about to go down.

-when you reading a great story but get distracted and skip some parts, shit goes down in between and then you think fuck, and have to start over.

-when it’s tagged “slow burn” and you say i can do this and it’s chapter 30 and my ship still hate each other like what.

-when the author says this is their first time writing smut and you think on god they better do this right - only to find out they writing eight pages on your otp making love. like yes.

-when the smut is so rushed or improper you feel cheated and log off because done. like so done.

-when it’s tagged “everyone lives” and your eyes water because that’s all you ever wanted in life.

-when the author leaves a cliffhanger and says in the author’s note “lol sorry about the cliffhanger, i’ll update soon”. you ain’t sorry, stop lying.

-when you see that the story is complete and do a happy dance, only to realize that it ended badly or the sequel/series hasn’t been updated.