#Cw queerphobia and racism but

[just-let-me-see-accounts]

If I could kill people instantly with impunity I would be better. Give me blood explosion magic.

[elysianmadness]

LGBT+ discourse on this website is so wild to me because we are in the midst of an international moral panic about gay people existing, with countless anti-LGBT+ laws being passed in countless different countries. One of the biggest social platforms on the Internet was bought by a raging transphobe last year and has become more and more hostile to the LGBT+ community as time goes on. Now, more than ever, would be the time to stand together. As like, an actual community

But yeah, let's go argue over who can use what words and pronouns because it's somehow harmful for a gay man to use she/her pronouns. Let's go treat aces/aros like they're "less LGBT+" for some fucking reason. Let's argue about which mspec sexualities are and aren't "valid" instead of letting people identify how they want. Let's go tell some bi lesbians to kill themselves because apparently they are Solely Responsible for creepy, entitled cis men harassing other lesbians.

Let's not focus on actual issues that the community has internally, like racism or ableism. Let's not focus on the fact that gay people are literally being murdered. Gay people identifying in any way that might require the use of a braincell to understand are obviously the REAL problem in the LGBT+ community and the REAL threat to LGBT+ rights

That'll definitely work!

[artfightdramaconfessions]

I want to thank some of the comments here for some ways I can word my permissions <3 https://www.tumblr.com/artfightdramaconfessions/755265382214991872/i-dont-really-understand-why-people-accuse?source=share I’m a minor too and I live with my dad (divorce happened a year ago and my mom didn’t want custody so :/) who is very transphobic and homophobic and very racist and I love the suggestions on how to word it somewhat lowkey so that if he does find out I have AF its easier than him straight up seeing I am part of the community or even hinting at it and then he could hurt me. I’m already on thin ice with Tumblr where he monitors my blog here and there (ugh I know) and I’m sending this while he’s asleep rip Lots of love to those in similar positions!

related post

[arocoded]

I'm showing up to this topic three years late, but the overrall fandom response to Scott's response about his political donations is really strange to me in hindsight.

I guess I'm not super surprised that people took his words of not being racist or queerphobic at face-value, but I am disappointed.

At best, we don't know the guy, and being able to evaluate whether he definitively is or is not bigoted is just something that's hard to do with the limited information we have, especially since we don't know how genuine his online persona is. He doesn't elaborate very much on his political views in his reddit post [link] other than specifically saying he's a Christian republican and pro-life.

But even beyond that, most white, allocishet, able-bodied, and otherwise privileged people will deny any accusations of bigotry without reflecting on themselves first, because acknowledging the bigoted things we are taught and complacent in immediately feels like an attack. It takes conscious work to actually respond in a constructive, repairative way to that, and Scott's post feels really dismissive, especially in that he outright refuses to apologize for supporting the candidates in question. The whole post had a "I'm sorry you feel that way" overtone, which is not a proper apology let alone a solution. I feel that someone genuinely invested in disproving those accusations, i.e. not because it hurts their ego, but because it hurts others, would put more care into their response.

Not to mention, even if Scott genuinely isn't queerphobic, and especially if he isn't racist, it's not enough to not be those things. You have to actively unlearn and fight against them. I will give Scott that he has supported organizing against queerphobia with donations to the Trevor Project, but I'm not sure if he has supported any antiracist organizations or movements.

He states he supported a politician thinking they could help "bring the Black community out of poverty," but doesn't elaborate further. From what I understand, that's not necessarily an acknowledgment of systemic racism, as many racists will acknowledge that Black people struggle, but then deny that it's the fault of systemic oppression.

Regardless, neither of these erase his donations to queerphobic and racist politicians. And his admitted pro-life stance is most definitely informed by some amount of misogyny, which is rampant in American Christian spaces.

That's really a lot of words to say that as much as Scott defined our childhood and seems like a nice guy, we shouldn't take his statements at face value at all. We have little information, and what we do have doesn't seem to paint a pretty picture.

It's been three years and I can only hope his opinions and donation patterns have changed, but without any solid evidence, I don't feel comfortable giving him money or benefit of the doubt.

[crystalsandbubbletea]

What's 2spirit I hear it a lot but never found out the meaning

(I'm bad at explaining things, so I apologize if this seems like a bad explanation-)

Basically two-spirit is an Indigenous American identity used for people who don't identify as male or female.

It's not very talked about because of what the European colonizers and white America did.

(Gonna put a trigger warning for genocide, racism, and queerphobia for this section)

One method the white Americans tried to get rid of two-spirit people, specifically two-spirit youth, was the boarding schools. It was heavily frowned upon for not fitting with white people (Specifically Cishet christian) norms. Meanwhile a method European Colonizers used was throwing two-spirit people in pits that contained starving dogs.

Back to the topic of boarding schools. Because America was trying to make sure that us Indigenous Americans wouldn't survive, most tribes were forced to adopt queerphobic Christian standards, and that caused two-spirit people to be erased from many of their cultures.

I'm still educating myself because unfortunately I didn't grow up in my culture (Mostly grew up white because my grandmother was born a year before ICWA was passed :/) so my knowledge isn't that good, but this article also explains two-spirit identities, and it contains the personal experience of someone who is two-spirit.

Once again, I apologize if my explanation was bad. But I do hope this somewhat helps.

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

there really needs to be a name for the trope where a piece of media makes a very obvious fantasy stand-in for an irl marginalized group--or just straight up people from an irl marginalized group--so they can conflate them with their oppressors, whether directly or with sly innuendo and imagery to evoke it. this is never used as an opportunity to explore lateral violence, let alone done so with sensitivity; it's bait dangled in front of an audience who's just aware enough of political movements, structures, and ideologies to go Ideology Very Bad and instantly shut off any examination of the messaging behind it.

(which is, often as not, either shifting the blame to marginalized people so the audience can hate demographics they're already comfortable with hating instead of grappling with the discomfort of real privilege being called out or held accountable, 'so the horrific and violent bigotry leveled at that group irl is totally justified and we should Do More of That Actually,' or both.)

like. i keep seeing this over and over and over. don't get me started on how SF/F media in particular seems completely unable to restrain itself from having at least one black character in a setting that breathes anywhere near fantasy racism say and do just the most ungodly racist shit ever. every time, jesus fuck, it's awful.

this trope is not at all limited to racism or antisemitism--it shows up for pretty much any marginalized group you can think of, BOY i have rants in me about a lot of portrayals of abuse survivors in various media i'm into--but it seems to pop up most blatantly and obviously for those. and fascism in general, which, i HIGHLY recommend these excellent essays for a more articulate and in-depth analysis of than i could give in a paragraph of one post. they're fantastic go read them and come back. especially the second one.

more specifically, it's a special favorite of these fucking people to evoke this with nazism. so the closest term i've got to what i'm describing is naziwashing, which i think is still useful as a descriptor of a subset of that phenomenon but again does not nearly cover all of it. so i'm a bit stumped.

[nerdygaymormon]

I just heard it's LGBT+ History month. It's also Black History Month. When will this catering to small groups of people to soothe their hurt feelings end? When is it White History Month? Hmmm? Ever think about that? When do the majority get the recognition we deserve for all we've done?

I think we all could use a reminder of why we have things like Black History Month. It's not replacing any other history. It's a chance to highlight areas of history that often are lost or not shared due to censorship, repression, benign neglect, shame, or any other reason.

The history of the United States has often been told as the story of White people of European descent and their accomplishments. White people have traditionally held positions of power, and consequently their history has always been presented as the nation's history. By adding a fuller picture of our past it shows how we arrived at our present.

For example, telling the history of LGBTQ+ people would've been illegal or strongly discouraged & censored for much of our past. There's value in learning of their contributions to technology, literature, and other areas. It's worth learning that LGBTQ+ people have always been here and didn't first appear in 1997 when Ellen DeGeneres announced on television that she's gay.

Same for the history of Black Americans. There's much more to the story than that their ancestors were brought here as slaves. Their labor was used to build this country. They also made important contributions to agriculture and food science. Black Americans have had a tremendous impact on American culture. Their struggle for equality under the law and the way they clung to promises made in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution and demanded the nation live up to those values is inspiring.

This isn't history for queer people or for Black people. The fact is this is our history, it's for all of us. This is our nation's history.

History is often presented as a story of how great the nation is and how wonderful our leaders have been. Acknowledging these groups and their stories illustrates an important reason for the greatness of this country is people working for equality and opportunities for everyone and for the nation to hold itself to higher standards. 21st century America didn't emerge fully formed in 1776, it's been pushed and shaped by the diverse people who live here.

Enabling the freedom of people to fully participate and develop their talents benefits all of us. Highlighting the underreported history of minority groups helps us understand this important truth. It also helps us comprehend that our neighbors who are different from us belong here just as much as we do, together we built this country.

Learning these stories that deserve to be told can help all people understand they have a place here, they have the opportunity to thrive, and can pursue their dreams for greatness.

[shuppityduppity]

For political reference, THE BIG MAP OF TERF TALKING POINTS. So you can map out what exactly the fuck happened.

This entire chart is just full of absolutely rancid political beliefs, so take a breather before you try to read the whole thing.

[glacierruler]

CWs: racism, religion, transphobia, homophobia

So I'm in the kitchen making hot cocoa, and dad is listening to this Christian guy react to an interview of a queer pastor(or preacher maybe? someone in charge of teaching people the gospel, but I forget the word he used). And the first question she's asked is if she would refer to herself as woke. She said it was complicated, because(paraphrased), "white women tend to use that term when they know one black or brown person to say that they know everything about racism." Which is true, y'know. But then the guy reacting pauses the video and starts saying(paraphrased), "start asking questions like what is racism or do you have a way to get rid of racism." And it's like, I knew that the video was going to be queerphobic, that's all my dad listens to. But none of that was what she was doing. No one has to define racism to you when the definition is pretty obvious, and she wasn't giving solutions to it because that's not why she brought it up. She was talking about why she's hesitant to use a term that she's seen to be taken out of context!

[papersasquatch]

Saw a video from a pride parade and started crying. Everyone looks so happy... I wish I lived somewhere that we could have pride again.

I only went once and it was the last parade my city had. My dad drove me there (pre-transition when i was still a palatable lesbian to him). There were protestors for no cops at pride, and the parade got shut down. My dad said "that's what they get for trying to make a police-free gathering, who else was going to keep them safe?" I wanted to argue but was still too scared to talk back to him.

The next year pride was called off. The official statement was basically a very roundabout way of saying that it was because of the protests.

I've volunteered at queer homeless shelters in my city. Hell, I sought refuge in the same one once. I've seen cops throw my neighbours in tents out of their homes. I've watched a cop approach an indigenous kid on the subway, hand on holster, just because he had his feet up on the opposite seat. The cops in my city unabashedly hate the poor, the queer, and any who arent white.

We had a small pride festival once to make up for the fact that we could no longer have pride parades. My only memories were about how expensive the tickets were and how a man threw a lit cigarette at me while I was waiting in line.

I am a trans man who is straight and stealth. I have never felt at home in the online queer community, I'm simply not queer enough for that. I think maybe I could feel at home meeting more queer people irl, but my school's gsa club shut down after one year. We haven't had a pride parade for years, and as someone living in poverty, I can't afford to go to these "pay to enter pride festivals".

As this June ends without a single rainbow in the city, I watch longingly at the people who celebrate pride, together, stronger, happier, and I cry over what was stolen from us.

[hesgirf]

im so pissed off about that post. fun fact GOOD PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS EXISTED AND WILL ALWAYS EXIST! THE SAME WAY BAD PEOPLE DO!! there is no one generation that has a monopoly on kindness - nor is there one generation that has a monopoly on evil! THAT IS HUMAN NATURE!! and another thing: disregarding the kindness and the activism of previous generations also serves to EXCUSE THOSE WHO DID WRONG!! you can’t act like the motherfuckers who harassed and murdered Black people didn’t know any better! you can’t act like they didn’t have the empathy or emotional language to understand that what they were doing was wrong! THEY FUCKING KNEW!!! because there were people EVEN THEN that DID GOOD. that CHOSE TO BE GOOD. that saw the shitshow around them and said you know what fuck this! i’m going to help people! and fun fact: this applies to EVERYTHING. on the subject of queer boomers: just as so many of them used to exist, so did KIND boomers. (to be clear, they still exist - there’s just less of them. it comes with age and privilege and being murdered.) you can’t say that boomers didn’t have the capability for kindness because they did. they fucking did. the point is that not all of them USED it. i’ve lost the plot of this post but PLEASE THINK CRITICALLY

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

hi! loving your art. I was watching your awesome stories/gifs and I was wondering: how did Chang develop his feelings for Tintin? Did he discover them before or after him? How did he react and why? (English is not my first language so if you see a grammatical mistake, I'm sorry. Also, sorry if so many questions made you feel like you were in a philosophy exam)

Thank you so much! As a contrast to the rest of the Marlinspike team I'm writing Chang as someone who makes friends and develops crushes pretty easily!

I imagine he's had a crush on Tintin for some time, possibly from when they first met. He's been at the mercy of his circumstances for most of his life until that point - Tintin basically makes him feel capable of doing stuff.

He's pretty heartbroken after the Blue Lotus. Tintin doesn't contact him for years. Chang is struggling to adjust to his new family and is failing at school, having missed out on a good education for a few years prior. Until Tibet he feels pretty hopeless, he will never live up to the time when he took down a drug ring.

His near death experience in Tibet shakes him out of this rut. He starts to travel and take up hobbies like dance and photography. Didi trains him in some basic martial arts. Tintin makes an effort to actually stay in touch this time. Chang has some abandonment issues as he's frequently lost people throughout his life, so he's someone who's willing to give people second chances, even if they've hurt him badly. Chang thinks he's well over his crush on Tintin when he comes around to Belgium for his studies, but falls for him again very quickly!

Unlike Tintin, Chang is a lot more comfortable with who he is. He's used to being the odd one out and has generally low expectations for himself, so just goes with the flow.

Below I talk a little with how I'm going about writing him and the historical context surrounding this, cw for mentions of racism (sinophobia) and queerphobia:

I'm writing Chang as bi, I thought it would be interesting to explore as Asian men were perceived differently in the 30s compared to today. While Asian men in the West are currently heavily desexualised in the early 20th century they were stereotyped as predatory and deviant. In London a lot of Chinese immigrants were male dockworkers, so when they married white women there was a lot of fearmongering about predatory and disloyal Chinese men.

A lot of depictions of Asian men in Western media reflected these stereotypes (and often used queercoding to push the idea of Asian men being animalistic seducers - General Henry Chang in Shanghai Express (1932) was written to be bisexual while posing as a threat to the white leads). Some examples off the top of my head include Hishuru Tori from The Cheat (1915) and The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932). Novels frequently depicted Chinese drug lords with borderline supernatural powers in manipulation.

On the other hand I've noticed how fans frequently depict Chang as someone who's submissive, demure and soft, which ignores how ridiculously brave and proactive he is in canon (stealing documents from police officers, charging into a man immediately after getting shot at by a machine gun, I could go on!). It's a common example of Fandom Racism (not accusing anyone specifically, it's just a trend I've noticed.)

When writing Chang I'm kinda reckoning with two different eras. From a contemporary angle I'm writing him as a love interest, which as an Asian guy I rarely see in media today. I also gotta consider his own time and context, how he would navigate being a queer Chinese guy, and how that would affect his relationship with others and himself.

[cipheramnesia]

Trying to crack the "Diverse Slasher" formula for horror movies has been a thing for a while, sometimes riding it as a selling point (usually unsuccessfully), sometimes using at as angle to be edgy, and once in awhile someone comes right out and delivers a good movie with good characters, which is Departing Seniors (2023).

It's sort of the Chucky the Series model - take a good plot, cast more than just white actors, write some characters as queer. It's literally that simple, and time and again movies and other media just can't seem to figure it out. Racism and queerphobia run real deep.

Anyway, Departing Seniors doesn't have any trouble with its range, and it's really above and beyond when it comes to the characterizations. It's pretty common to have stock characters, the bully, the mean girl, the flaming gay, whatever. This movie takes a lot of run time to explore its characters as more than one note, and the consequence of the extra effort pays off in suspense and emotional attachment. It creates a better film, better horror, and even the conclusion feels more cathartic.

It's not perfect, and could be better in some ways, but for me it was a great film, almost an instant favorite. I adored every character by the end of act one, and felt like the writing didn't cheat me or disappoint me by the end. It's not a film with exceptional depth, and more or less wears its themes on its monologs, but just seeing a slasher movie that goes all in on character development and isn't just crammed with white guys (give or take one black person dying in act one) - its refreshing. The humor and emotional engagement was like a little extra treat on top.

I guess some cw for flashing lights, but it is light on gore and light on jump scares, making it a real solid pick for those many of you who hate those specific elements. It's fun, it's new, I hope the director does more.

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

also! i've been picking up some mutuals and interactions lately since i started posting ffx/iv stuff, and i just want to disclaimer that i get Pretty Loudly and Strongly Emotional sometimes about things in fiction + related shittiness from a fanbase that i have negative feelings toward, and it's important to me to be able to express that. (the vast majority of the time when this happens, it's because the subject is one that really hits home for me and/or is about a heavy, serious issue.) i do have people i try to check in with to make sure i step back when i need to, but it's worthwhile to me to engage with it carefully, both because there are vital things to process there and because if i don't get it out it'll just stew in my head forever.

BUT: to be totally clear, i don't judge anyone for personally liking or disliking a character, or not being viscerally upset by something in the same ways i am. i think it is very much possible to be shitty in ways where that's a factor, but personal gut reactions to or interest in something =/= having asshole takes or silencing people who are expressing legitimate upset. i really appreciate the existence of [Thing That Upsets Me] likers who enjoy and talk about the thing without being dickheads about it, it's a relief to know they're out there and i salute y'all.

i also know it can be really draining, exhausting, and unpleasant to constantly engage with negativity about something you like, even if you think the negativity is fair, and i 100% don't hold it against people for needing to tap out of that. i try to tag it for blacklisting when i can, although i do occasionally forget; general negativity about fandom is tagged 'the salt files,' negativity about a piece of media is tagged 'the crit files,' and negativity about ffx/iv specifically is tagged 'ffxivcrit tag.'

(this applies to any fandom with aspects i feel Like This about, but i figured it'd be good to specify here in particular, because i know ffx/iv has had some truly almighty wank and i don't want to pile onto bullshit like IF YOU LIKE EME/T-SELCH YOU'RE A GENOCIDE APOLOGIST discourse just because i Do Not Like Him and some parts of his fanbase have been awful. i am Absolutely going to complain about things like racism toward hermes and making 'hitler was right' jokes about eme/t into a meme while actual nazis are hanging around his fandom, but i am not here for harassment, misogyny, queerphobia, and transphobia either, fuck that.)

BUT yes, tl;dr no shade, take care of yourselves if you need to, and either way i hope you enjoy.

[aronarchy]

[queermoths]

on "leftist" activists and their blatant ableism and sanism

cw: frank discussion of the blatant, excessive, and harmful ableism within so-called "leftist" circles

im so done and tired of political commentators/ "activists" who claim to be "leftist" while throwing out "psychotic", "delusional," "schizophrenic", etc. as insults against conservatives. im so tired of my mental illness being the first thing i hear as an insult against these horrible people. i hate that self-proclaimed "leftist" political commentators are so incapable of understanding that ableism and sanism are things they should fight against, alongside fighting against classism, racism, queerphobia, etc. and that ableism and sanism intersect with these. i hate how they so obviously have no care in the world for disabled people, especially those of us with "scary" or more stigmatised conditions or presentations.

newsflash: you are not spouting leftist thinking when you further marginalise psychotic people. you are not being "progressive" and "leftist" when you cast us to the side in your so-called "activism."

(disclaimer: i am a leftist. this is not in favour of conservatives. i am merely calling out the hipocrysy and disingenuity i see in leftist circles where they say they want to fight discrimination, then further marginalize and other psychotic individuals, such as myself.)