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Queer vs. LGBTQ+

TW: homophobic language

I say Queer. I rarely ever use the phrase LGBT or LGBTQ or LGBTQIA+BCDEFG etc. Why?

Well conservation of energy. It’s a bloody mouthful! Why use so many syllables when I can use one? Of course its more nuanced than that, but it certainly plays a role.

The acronym name is not original to the movement of the 1960’s and 70’s. A lot of words were used then, everything from…

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Coping with Suicide

TW: suicide

Facebook is not the place you want to find out about a suicide, but it often is. At least twice now I have been scrolling through my stream and come across a wordy memorial post to a friend I didn’t know was gone. The moment of disbelief, clicking over to their profile and then seeing post after post.

“I wish I had known.”

“She was a shining star.”

“She was my best friend.”

It isn’t a…

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Burning

The crack of the fire echoes in the darkness. I drop my life into the flames. Piece by piece it burns. The warehouse is empty around me. A plastic ID card shrivels, licked by blue flames. The face melts and distorts in the heat. It doesn't look like me anymore. Or I don't look like it. Birth certificates burn as easily as flimsy school transcripts. Credit cards blacken and melt. Somewhere a…

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It’s June here in New York and for me that means one thing: Pride Month! I went into the bank and was delighted to find rainbow lollipops and pens. I went to Target and bought a tank top for the summer emblazoned with all the colors of Roy G. Biv. I finally saw Hamilton on Broadway and I came home with the Stonewall 50th Anniversary Pride program to hang on my wall. All of this is very fun and festive, but it’s more than just an excuse to throw rainbows on everything. Pride month is a unique opportunity for queer people to feel the way everyone else feels all year.

This is only my second pride in New York. Before moving here, I had only ever been on the outside looking in. Pride in my hometown meant more of a personal celebration. Watching YouTube videos of parades happening somewhere else in the world and wondering what it would be like to be a part of that. No one put up flags or sold cheesy merch. There just wasn’t a market for it. If you were already a gay organization you observed pride, but otherwise, it just slipped by like every other month.

But when I came to New York I experienced pride as a community event. A capitalistic opportunity. A political battlefield. A massive party, and a sober memorial. All the life and breath and humanity that I had never seen expressed in the center of society before. It is hard to put into words how different it is to be queer during pride month in New York as opposed to any other month anywhere else.

Pride month is a unique

opportunity for queer people

to feel the way

everyone else feels all year.

Queer people are used to living in the margins. We get crap for being loud and flamboyant, but we have to be loud to be heard. There is no space made for us so we make one by being the funniest, flashiest or angriest person in the room. All day every day is an endless barrage of straight stories and images that subtly remind you that you are different. Advertisements with straight couples. Movies about straight people falling in love with other straight people. Clothing shops with gender specific everything. Bathrooms with requirements so specific you need a physical just to be allowed in. The message to queer people in America has become:

“You are tolerated as long as we don’t have to do anything for you.”

Don’t get me wrong, this is historically a pretty great message. Previous slogans have included:

“Get away from my children!”

“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”

and

“Burn the Witch!”

So we are definitely doing better. But many queer people are tired of being a niche interest group. There are so many of us and our stories are great, our voices thoughtful and our bodies beautiful. We want to be seen.

Queer people are tired of being a

niche interest group.

Everywhere I look in New York in June I see queer people. The straight people are still there, and they should be, most of them are lovely people. But the queer people are there too. Coming out of their cracks and shadows. Ultimately, the parties and the rainbow face-paint are great, but what really makes pride important is the way it puts queer people in the center of the cultural attention.

The other day I was walking to work, feeling caught up in my own troubles and I saw a massive rainbow flag hanging outside a Marriot Hotel. It doesn’t matter why they put it up; if it was just a business decision or if they meant for people like me to see it. It stopped me in my tracks. The city was saying:

“You are not just tolerated, you are wanted.”

Someday queer culture will be more fully integrated into mainstream America. I see it beginning to happen in pockets. Conversations are happening, lines are blurring. But queer people still feel isolated in the greater community. And that is why joyously observing pride month as a whole society is so valuable.

In the book of humanity,

queer people are

a prominent character,

not a footnote.

Happy Pride!

The Center of Attention It's June here in New York and for me that means one thing: Pride Month! I went into the bank and was delighted to find rainbow lollipops and pens.

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Gay Elsa?

For almost one hundred years Walt Disney has been an idol of American culture. He created many of the characters that define American childhood and built a corporate empire rarely equaled. But, as any teenager who loves to see the world burn will gleefully tell you, Mr. Disney was not always the saint he is made out to be.

Walt Disney was unabashedly anti-semitic and harbored concerning…

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Sky's the Limit

Sky’s the Limit

Back in February of this year something incredible happened on the laptops and smart TV’s of America. Five, diverse, queer men set off on a journey of discovery, communication and understanding through one of the most conservative states to help other men learn to express themselves and live fully. I am, of course referring to Netflix’s reboot Queer Eye.

Modeled after Bravo’s makeover show from…

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Does Representation Matter?

I was sixteen the first time I heard the word transgender. It’s not that I had never encountered the idea before, by that time I was watching TV and had seen “tranny”s the way they were depicted in the early 2000’s. These vague, gross, hardly-human’s that hung out on street corners and tried to seduce unwary men. I had heard of celebrities trying to “get attention” by getting a “sex change” but…

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Gender Dysphoria isn’t…

I see a fundamental misunderstanding of what dysphoria is reflected in the way some people talk on this website… so here’s a reminder for y’all.

Dysphoria isn’t caused by society. Dysphoria is due to the incongruence between one’s brain and birth sex. Society can make this worse, but in the end even if the world was completely accepting of trans people, I would still be dysphoric about my body because my brain expects it to look a different way and to have certain traits. Even if people called me a boy 24/7 and called me “he” and viewed my birth sex’s traits as male, I would still want a dick and a flat chest because that’s how my brain is wired.

Dysphoria isn’t hating yourself. Y’all, I’ve made a post about this before, and it got pretty popular, but I still see people equating dysphoria to hating oneself which is frankly just tiring. While dysphoria can cause you to hate certain parts of your body, that is only a symptom of dysphoria, not dysphoria itself. Gender dysphoria is the disconnect between your brain and birth sex. That is all. It presents differently in different people. For some people it’s “Wow?? What the fuck is that on my chest? That’s so bizarre,” while for other people it’s “I hate this, get it off of me, this is wrong.” This leads me to my next point…

Dysphoria isn’t present 24/7 and or always distressing to the point of making one suicidal. Dysphoria. Is. Different. For. Everyone. It can fluctuate and be lesser some days and can focus on different body parts and that’s normal. That being said, dysphoria never goes away completely. While you can ignore your dysphoria and repress it, it’s always there. No dysphoria means being completely comfortable (given that there are no underlying issues such as trauma or other mental health problems) with your birth sex. (I’m not talking about people who have transitioned to the point where their dysphoria is lesser. Obviously that’s different.)

Dysphoria isn’t logical. Sometimes there will be things that make you dysphoric even though you know it’s silly or stupid. Sometimes you will be so sick of it all. Sometimes you’ll feel guilty or like a burden for being dysphoric or for feeling like shit when someone misgenders you on accident even though you know they didn’t mean it. Don’t beat yourself up for the way you feel.

Dysphoria isn’t your fault.

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I really bare my soul in this post, so, yeah, enjoy that.

If you find this interesting or want to share it please feel free. Especially for educators and those who work with children. Even before they come out, before they start asking for it, trans kids need your help.

Likes keep the lights on!

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Trans Kids Are Missing Out

Trans Kids Are Missing Out

I took ballet in pre-school. And I hated it. I had to wear a frilly pink tutu and tights. For a performance, all the girls were given matching hair scrunchies and, even though I had no hair to be scrunched, we had to find a way to affix it to my head so that I wouldn’t stand out from the others.

I pretty quickly left ballet for gymnastics, but that too became a no go for me as soon as outfits…

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The Concocted Personas of Billy Shakes

The Concocted Personas of Billy Shakes

“Shall I compare thee to a summers day?/ Thou art more lovely and more temperate.” “Let me not to the marriage of true minds /Admit impediments. Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds, /Or bends with the remover to remove.” “A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted,/ Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion./ A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted/ With shifting…

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I have a lot of feelings...

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THIS IS IMPORTANT

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Your super power is that you are average, at everything you do.

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some people are afraid of dogs but i’m afraid of the opposite of dogs. the absence of dogs. dogless space

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“Why rats?” they ask. “They are just big mice,” they said. Rat with a saxophone. Point made.