#Female queerness wasn’t even illegal like male queerness was

[tokyogirl07]

Two lesbian moms and their son in Granada’s The Return of Sherlock Holmes, the third season of 1984’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (AKA The Slashiest Adaptation). They hold on these three for, like, 4 seconds before returning to Holmes and Watson. The neighbourhood they’re in is an expensive one, home to a politician, and these ladies look to be fairly well to do. That might explain it.

Seriously though, mid-80’s. No one caught this until the past decade?!

[just-another-frender-blog]

Seriously, why was the Comedy Central revival lowkey shippy? lol. If it aired in a later time, I'd wonder if some of the writers actually shipped Frender. Fry and Bender bathed together and had a pretty seductive dance in one episode (I can't remember which one, but I know you know which scene I'm talking about, lmao.) I hope it continues in Hulu revival. Queer culture has exploded in the decade after "Meanwhile" aired.

I was just talking about this with some other Frender shippers recently, and I've thought about this a lot. I have quite a bit to say on this subject as well.

I know that this a very controversial topic, but I'm of the opinion that Fry and Bender's relationship was queer-coded on purpose. Queer-coding has been around for a very long time in American entertainment thanks to the Hays Code. Movies and TV shows didn't allow queer people for a very long time, and if I'm being honest, they still barely allow queer characters. Queer characters and queer stories are incredibly rare in television and film.

There are a number of reasons why this is the case. For one, there was obviously the Hays Code, which made it illegal to have out gay characters. This meant that queer writers would code characters as gay. It would fly over the heads of straight executives and audiences, but queer people have a keen eye for these things. Another reason why queer characters are so rare is that we aren't a marketable demographic. Executives greenlight what makes money, and they don't take risks. They see queer stories with queer characters as too much of a risk and would rather greenlight reboots (hi Futurama).

I tend to be very critical of a lot of canon queer representation because I personally feel (with exceptions) that a lot of canon queer rep is designed to be palatable toward heterosexual audience members. One of my biggest issues is that you rarely see queer main characters. You very rarely see shows where the main pairing is queer. I think that executives are more okay if some side characters are queer as opposed to the main characters (especially if the side characters are disposable).

Now back to Fry and Bender's relationship. Back in the early 2010s, or even 1999, it's possible that the writer's purposefully coded their relationship as queer. And there are a lot of gags and episodes where Fry and Bender are purposefully written to be like a couple. I don't think it was intended to be romantic in the same way that Fry and Leela's relationship was; however, you never know and you can never say for sure. I’ve always thought that Fry and Bender’s relationship was similar to Bugs and Daffy’s relationship in the Looney Tunes Show. They live together, they bicker like a married couple, they act like a married couple, etc. They’re definitely queer-coded, but both characters still have female love interests.

Here’s a more blatant example of queer-coding in Futurama: the yuri fanservice between Amy and Leela. It is definitely done for the sole purpose of titillating straight, cis, male audience members at the expense of gay women. And yeah this does make me uncomfortable, but I won’t get into it here. However, this is still an obvious form of queer-coding, even though it wasn’t to be covert representation. Actually, Farnsworth and Zoidberg have quite a few moments where they act queer, and you can make the argument at that all of the main characters in this show are queer-coded. Well, except for Hermes (maybe).

If you divorce Fry and Bender relationship from the shipping aspect of canon and merely look at it through a queer lens, it would be a huge deal if it became canon. I cannot stress how important it would be in terms of queer rep. For one, both of them are main characters, and iconic characters at that. AND they are the main characters of a well-known franchise, and they are both men. Fry and Bender are not your handsome, skinny, bishonen types at all. They aren’t conventionally attractive. Which is honestly why I love them so much as a queer ship, but I’m also not going to get into that with this post.

Futurama is an adult cartoon geared toward straight men; the idea of getting representation like this from Futurama is nearly impossible. That’s another reason why it would be a massive deal. However, I can also imagine the backlash from viewers. So many fans would be furious, and most of the target audience would be furious. I don’t think that the writers might not want to make Fry and Bender explicitly gay (which is fine, that’s their right). However, even if they really did, I doubt they would be allowed to do so. I do think there is a slim chance, because Matt Groening does have a lot of control over this property, and maybe he could make it happen, but I’m also going to be realistic here.

This leads into another point I want to address, and that’s the worrying trend with the obsession of wanting ships to become canon. I think this leads to a lot of bullying and abuse over the Internet in the name of shipping wars, which I find disturbing. I think the biggest issue is that the obsession comes from the fact that canon seems to give people validation. That they can tell someone that their ship is right because it is canon or because they think it was meant to be canon. This is dangerous to me, because a lot of popular queer ships will never be canon, and that’s just reality. I think that can change, but not any time soon. 

There’s the possibility that Fry and Bender were coded on complete accident (which I honestly find hard to believe sometimes), and that the writers really did write their relationship as completely platonic. I’ve never been able to find evidence that they even know Frender exists, let alone speaking out about it, so I have no clue. However, I’m completely confident that they would give their blessing for people to ship them and read them as romantic, even if that wasn’t their initial intention. And knowing that they would support the queer fans like that is enough for me. 

I’m going to end on this note. Matt Groening’s new show Disenchantment has a bisexual female lead. She has a romance with a mermaid on screen, and her sexuality is explicit. We don’t know what his plans are for Futurama. Maybe he will let characters like Fry, Leela, and Bender have a queer side that can be explored now that it’s 2023. And if you ask me? I would love it if Freeler became canon and all three of them got married to each other. That’s my dream canon ship. <3

Edit: The success of Our Flag Means Death, which is unapologetically gay and has an unconventional gay couple at that, is proof that queer rep does do well with a broader audience. Maybe we’ll get more shows like it in the future. 

[epic-sorcerer]

Queer imagery in BBC Merlin

Content warning: kink/fetish, fisting in particular but I show I big image containing a long list of different kinks, homophobia, dom/sub dynamics, sex

Merlin is shown wearing a purple tunic in s4, despite the fact he is a servant and purple(especially with such saturation) was extremely expensive bc purple dye was so hard to make. Gwen also has a light purple dress(or maybe 2? It’s hard to tell). Even though it’s definitely lighter than Merlins tunic, it’s still expensive.

it was illegal for peasants to wear expensive fabrics because of the Sumptuary Law. Basically it makes sure that lower class people are not fashionable. However, BBC Merlin doesn’t seam to care about that law, considering Merlins other bright clothing so take this was a grain of salt.

Basically what I’m trying to say is that there’s no way they could have gotten their hands on these clothes without the help of nobles. Gwen might have, because she works with clothing and could have easily mixed blue and red dye together. Merlin probably not have because he’s never shown to be particularly materialistic or interested much in fashion, despite his bright clothes. Bright Purple would have been much, much harder to get.

It makes the most sense for Merlin and possibly Gwen too to have been gifted such expensive clothing by a noble for being a good servant. I’d imagine Arthur would be the one to give Merlin the tunic and morgana the dresses.

Why does this matter? Lavender(and also purple in general) was considered a queer color starting in the 19th century. Queer men especially were said to possess a “streak of lavender” and a serge of homophobia at the time was often referred to as the “Lavender Scare.” Purple and lavender is still used now to symbolize queerness.

Since Merlin is a modern interpretation of Arthurian myths, it would be perfectly plausible that this symbol was on purpose. Merlin/Arthur and Gwen/Morgana are both extremely popular ships and they are both shown to have a very deep form of trust(Gwen/Morgana being at the beginning of the show). Arthur and Morgana gifting Merlin and Gwen purple clothing could be show them they accept their queerness and/or signaling their own queer attraction to them.

Now, this next symbolism concerns only Merlin/Arthur.

Merlin is shown to have three neckerchiefs.

Navy blue, red, and light grey. Why does this matter? Well, let’s take a look at something called the handkerchief code, also known as the hanky code or “flagging.”

This code has its origins all the way back in time during the Wild West in the USA, but got more popular during the late 20th century in USA and UK gay bars. This code was used mainly by queer men and some nonbinary people to signal to other queers what they wanted sexually. While typically worn in people’s back pockets, a handkerchief could also be worn around one’s neck to show they are a versatile and experienced.

According to this code, Merlin is into;

Red: fisting and getting fisted. This color was hard to get an exact shade from, but the second best option was dark red for double fisting which is honestly so similar I’m not sure if it really matters much.

Light grey: stone topping and getting fucked by a stone top

Navy blue: fucking and being fucked anally

For any one wanting to make their own interpretations of Merlins neckerchief colors(the lighting makes it hard to tell the exact ones) have a look at this handy chart

Not only that, but Arthur is seen wearing a favour on his left arm in s3 ep 4.

What’s a favour? It’s a fabric strip of affection commonly given by maidens to knights before a tournament as a symbol of good luck. It’s often a very important scarf, hankcerchlif , towel, really any bit of cloth that can be tied around someone’s arm. This is also a popular trope in historical media for a female love interest to give a favour to a male one to show chemistry between them.

Regardless of your stance on Merlins gender identity, you have to admit how commonly Merlin is shown to be gender nonconforming(GNC) or otherwise be associated with “womanly” qualities. Especially in a society so heteronormative, the only “pure” option for a knight receiving a romantic gesture would have it be from a woman. If the token was from a queer man, it would also out the noble and cause lots of horrific chaos and destroy both of their reputations.

Even if it was common for women to give knights favours, queer men still existed and with that came romantic gestures—this time hopefully more secret.

Even though the favour on Arthur’s arm doesn’t look exactly like Merlin’s neckerchief, Merlin was the only person to speak with him while preparing for the tournament. Also, the original theorist who I linked in my sources also pointed out that Merlins neckerchief looks lopsided. Almost like Merlin tore off a bit of it and hastily tied it back on.

Although this theory is definitely flawed, it doesn’t matter. Arthur is still wearing a red handkerchief on his left arm. But what does that tell us exactly?

Regardless of wether or not it was Merlin’s, the red is the same shade and also implies Arthur is also into fisting. What about the placement? Sicne it’s on his left, it shows that he is a top/dom, meaning that he prefers to be the one fisting. Since it is worn around his upper arm, it shows that he is simply into the fetish, compared to what other placements mean. In another source, it shows taht upper arm means switch, but because Arthur is wearing it on his left it wouldn’t really make sense for him to signal being a “top-switch” compared to being a top and having the fetish in general.

If you look closely, you can see a different colored stripe on the favour. It’s hard to tell exactly what the color is, it could be yellow, gold, orange, etc. because the color is so dubious, I’ll just leave y’all with a list of color meanings that may apply to Arthur’s favour.

YELLOW: pisser/watersports kink

YELLOW, Pale: spitter/spit kink

MUSTARD: Has 8+ inch dick

GOLD: two looking for one

ORANGE: anything anytime

Also, it’s important to bring up what many in thsi fandom refer to as the “fisting scene.” Where Arthur threatens Merlin by showing him his gloved fist and pulling a bit at the glove.

In the blooper, you can see Merlin’s actor(Colin Morgan) breaking character and giggling as Arthur shows him his fist. Many in the fandom agree that this was a clear innuendo for fisting, and it is very well possible.

Merlin is shown hitting Arthur and saying he was just doing some horse play, but still indirectly convincing Arthur that he needs to teach Merlin a lesson. This is actually a common act in BDSM sex, where the submissive person purposely angers the dominant into punishing them in a way that somehow involves sex or fetish play.

If you look closely, you can see Merlin is wearing at kinky red fisting handkerchief, showing Merlin is perfectly capable of being a submissive fistee. Also, the hanky code also includes other symbols such as latex or rubber gloves that, surprise surprise, also mean fisting. Although it’s more likely Arthur’s gloves where made of leather, it can still further be interpreted as a fisting symbol if you want. Either way, Arthur’s favour still holds water as he is undoubtedly the dom in this situation.

Also, Merlin is very impulsive and a madlad. Tell me he wouldn’t wear his secret fetish symbols infrount of stuck up, Roman Catholics who are none the wiser. He’d probably think it’s hilarious which is probably why he wears them almost everyday. Merlin loves playfully misbehaving(and is also a brat sometimes) so it makes sense for him to have some dangerous fun.

Now, you may be asking. Why does this matter? At the end of the day, it probably wasn’t intentional. Well, there is alwyas room for doupt BUT I do have some ferther proof. One of the co writers of BBC Merlin—Johnny Capps—actually won a Stone Wall Award. You know, an award named after a core part of queer culture?

The award’s website and Wikipedia page say they give the award for art that describes the LGBT experience well. While I am unsure why or what Capps made to be nominated, it still shows he is very much in touch with queer culture. Capp himself even said at an interview about Merlin, “... in the end, deep, deep down it’s about sexuality and things you just can’t tackle head-on.”

Well, what says more about sexuality than the main characters fist fucking each other? That’s a lot of sexuality. While I am unsure of Capp’s age, he does look to be about middle age and it would make sense for him to know about a code popularized in a 70s to 90s. Especially for someone who has made multiple queer oriented stories in his life time.

Sources:

Why is purple considered the color of royalty?

Sumptuary law

How lavender became a symbol of LGBTQ resistance

How Lavender Became a Symbol of LGBTQ Resistance(part 2)

flagging opinicus rampant

Handkerchief code

DO YOU KNOW THE HANKY CODE?

Picspam: The Red Favour (Proof of Arthur Wearing Merlin's Favour in 3x04)

Five medieval love tokens

The Lady's Favour

Hanky codes

Nominees for Stonewall Awards announced

Merlin series 5 spoiler-free launch report

Pls reblog I spent hours on this /np 😭👊

[doberbutts]

Where was my father’s male privilege when he was beaten by his father so savagely that he went deaf, while his father’s girlfriend watched and did nothing?

Where was my father’s male privilege when he was abandoned and locked inside an empty apartment until the 1950s equivalent of CPS was tipped off he was there and took him to save him from starvation, because dear old grandpa and his girlfriend at the time didn’t want a defective child once they figured out they’d permanently fucked him up?

Where was my father’s male privilege when he bounced from foster home to foster home until he was held down and raped by one of his foster brothers, tried to tell his foster mother, and she just called him a faggot and left it at that?

Where was my father’s male privilege when he was finally reunited with his mother and had to scrape together a living by eating stale bread and running errands for what turned out to be local gangs, because she was too poor to feed another mouth?

Where was my father’s male privilege when he watched a black man shot by police bleed out in the street?

Where was my father’s male privilege when teachers who should have caught his deafness instead made him believe he was failing his classes because he was stupid because that’s just how black people are?

Where was my father’s male privilege when he got the tar kicked out of him by his white classmates who felt emboldened by their female teacher’s anti-black racism?

Where was my father’s male privilege when he brought the subject of racism up with the school board after a cross was lit on fire on his desk, and he was dismissed by both male and female staff?

Where was my father’s male privilege when he struggled to find a job after completing college, completing a master’s degree, which he paid for exclusively with scholarships earned from his competitive essay writing, because no one wanted to hire a disabled black man?

Where was my father’s male privilege when he was accused of assault by a white female student who could not keep her story straight and eventually admitted she had made it up because she wanted to put her black principal back in his place?

Where was my father’s male privilege when he was violently cuffed and illegally searched while I sat in the carseat and he was forced to comfort me through the window?

Where was my father’s male privilege when his wife, my mother, was immediately disowned by her entire family for associating herself with him? When she was forced to make a choice between a future with him, or her family? When he sees this echo with his children, and my sister’s children have still never met my brother-in-law’s family despite more than 10 years of marriage?

Where was my father’s male privilege when he came to pick us up from school and my school refused to let him in until the cops verified he was exactly who he said he was? Despite his name matching his ID, the lanyard he wore stating he was a principal at a nearby school, and the name on the school registry as being one of my parents? Despite me being called into the office to peek through the blinds at him and verifying that yes, this was my father?

Where was my father’s male privilege as neighbors who protested living near a black man repeatedly called the police on him as he pulled into the driveway of the house he’s lived in since I was born, let himself in with his own key, with ID to match the address and having known these neighbors by first name? To the point my white-passing mother had to diffuse the situation?

My father is straight and cis. My father is black and disabled. My father is a survivor. My father is a lot of things, and I have a lot of complicated feelings about him, but he is not trash. He has not skated through life as though it’s easy. His life was significantly harder than my mother’s, and her life wasn’t easy either. He has been hurt by men. He has been hurt by women. Some of the instances he has been hurt, my mother was directly sheltered from because she is a woman.

Her father was also an angry drunk, but deliberately did not take his anger out on his daughters, preferring to beat his son bloody instead. Mom has the trauma of watching her father beat the piss out of her brother and having to patch him back up after, but never of having been beaten herself.

Mom found herself in compromising and dangerous positions at times, but was protected from physical harm by her brother and the other men around her who saw it as their duty to protect the girls from that sort of thing. Literally the only good thing about rural purity culture.

Mom has a history of speaking out against racism and discrimination when she sees it, but has never needed to throw a punch in her life, because there was always a man around to protect her from the resulting fight. The men might not have agreed with her views on race but they were connected to her and thus duty/honor bound to protect her if someone tried to jump her because she wouldn’t let them beat up the black kid or told them to stop bothering the asian kid.

Mom never once had to stop and consider that it would be kinder to her partner to break things off.

Mom has never been falsely accused of assault because it’s just assumed that women don’t do that.

Mom has never been accused of trying to kidnap us because it’s believable that a white woman has mixed race kids that are darker than her but inconceivable that a black man has mixed race kids that are lighter than him.

Mom has never had the police called on her for entering her own house in their very white neighborhood.

Mom has only been pulled over once in her life, and the cop was far more interested in what my sisters and I were doing in her car than anything she might have potentially done.

My mother is straight and cis. She is also a white-passing POC and disabled. My mother is a survivor. My mother is a lot of things, and I have a lot of complicated feelings about her, but even she admits that her life was easier than my dad’s.

Cis, straight men suffer. White men suffer. My uncle is also a white-passing POC and a survivor. Do you know how much pent up anger he has? Still has, even though my grandfather changed and got better and apologized and owned up to his wrongs? Even though my grandfather’s been dead for years now? My uncle is sullen and prefers a bottle to take away his pain, pain he’s not been able to process, not been allowed to process, and he’s been that way since he was a child, which is not surprising considering what I’ve been directly told the beatings entailed... and things are always worse than what you’re told when it comes to that.

And all of that anger and resentment and rage and pain builds and builds until one of his sisters pokes him a little too hard about it and then he roars at them and storms off and he knows it’s wrong to take it out on them and he knows it’s not fair and that they only mean well but it hurts and he knows no other outlet besides lashing out because that was the only thing he was ever taught. Men get drunk and then get angry and then get violent. So he stops himself at yelling because he knows he can’t hit in anger, and he leaves and bangs doors behind him and stomps off until he calms down.

And you can say “dude needs therapy” and you know... you’re not wrong. But why would he ever seek it? When he sought help as a child he was told to be a man and suck it up and harden and grow some balls. His mother didn’t intervene to help him. You know, I know, he knows it’s because she was afraid her husband would turn on her. But it still hurts to know your own mother let your own father do that to you. Repeatedly. Over and over and over again. The most help he ever got was some first aid from his sisters when my grandfather decided he was done being angry. His teachers just knew him as an angry, sullen boy who frequently got into fistfights with other angry, sullen boys and chalked new bruises up to that. 

If you grow up like this, betrayed by everyone who is supposed to help you, then why would you ever consider seeking outside help as an adult?

And if your reaction is- see? He is a violent man! He is part of the problem! He could seek help and won’t because he is a stubborn man that wants to make his problems into women’s problems by relying on his sisters!

Then you fail to understand that my uncle is the way he is because of unprocessed, repeated trauma and betrayal that he was actively discouraged from seeking help to free himself of the cycle and start to heal. And his sisters were the only people in his life that did not harm him in that way, so at this point his sisters and his wife are the only people he trusts when triggers get poked and the pot boils over.

He does need therapy. He’s not likely to ever seek it out. And it’s because he was born a boy that this happened to him, and it’s because he was born a boy that no one was willing to help when he needed it most.

These men are not part of the queer community. They still were made vulnerable, and needed help, and did not get any, because of that same logic that drives these feelings about men not needing to be helped or included or assisted today. It’s not progressive just because the logic is coming from the queer community this time instead of conservative christians.

[cassandraclare]

Not too spoilery, but very long!

fieidofpoppies said: I was hoping to get some clarification about the LGBT situation in TLH’s background. 

What exactly is the Clave's position on homosexuality? Alec struggles with people's opinion in 2008, so I guess in 1900ish things are definitely not rosey, but to what extent? We know that being gay is considered a crime in mundane London at the time and I'm guessing that is not the case for the Shadowhunter world, so how seriously is it a problem? What does it/ would it mean for our characters to be out?

Okay, so I’ve gotten a few of this question, leading me to believe it is A Conversation that needs some addressing. It’s a complicated issue so I’m going to try to break it down in parts.

There is no “The Clave’s position on homosexuality” that is unchanging: it has changed, advanced and regressed through history just like you, know, regular human history. :) If you’re asking about the Clave’s position on LGBT Shadowhunters in 1903, we will get to that.

Just because Alec is struggling in 2007 doesn’t mean things were worse for Anna in 1903. The idea that culture moves inevitably forward towards tolerance and progressivism is an oversimplification. We see it assumed all around, so it’s easy to believe it, but actually it’s more of a two steps forward, one step back scenario. There are always periods of cultural progress, marked by periods of cultural regress. If someone had told me when I was a teenager that a woman’s right to choose would be more trammeled and in danger in 2020 America then in 1989 I wouldn’t have believed it; it is, however, the truth. We are in a more regressive period culturally now than we were ten years ago; LGBT rights are more under threat. This isn’t the first time in history this has happened and it won’t be the last: “During the golden years of the Weimar Republic [Germany's government from 1919 to 1933] Berlin was considered an LGBT+ haven, where gays and lesbians achieved an almost dizzying degree of visibility in popular culture” — but by 1934 LGBT+ Germans were being persecuted and eventually would be sent to death camps with Jews, communists, and other “undesirables.”

Alec is living in a time in which a regressive, conservative group that his own parents belonged to nearly toppled the more progressive aspects of the Clave. He already comes from a family in exile, during a time in which progressive and regressive aspects of the Clave are battling each other and the situation with Downworlders is explosive. Four years after Alec comes out, the fascist Cohort rises to power and splits the Clave in half. Nothing like that is happening in 1903: there is a progressive Consul in power, demon attacks are low, there is generally peace with Downworld.

It is reasonable that Alec would have concerns about how the Clave at large might treat him, and also have concerns about family and friends, given his parents’ past. And while Anna and Matthew etc. might have similar concerns about coming out to the whole Clave, which they haven’t, they are not concerned about their particular group of friends, and have mixed concerns about family. (Also, we have plenty of characters who have been just as worried about coming out as Alec was: Charles, Alastair, Ariadne. We don’t yet know Thomas’ attitude. Everyone who doesn’t consider themselves a “Bohemian” isn’t taking this very lightly, and even Matthew isn’t “out” to anyone except his friends. It’s not like the Wentworths know he’s bisexual.)

None of this is to say it was “easy” to be LGBT+ during the early 1900’s. It isn’t easy now. It’s to say that “Well, it sucked across the board then and now it’s great across the board!” isn’t true, and ignores the significance of context in the lives of characters — and people. There’s a great moment in the movie Colette (set in the 1890′s and early 1900′s) that focuses on Mathilde de Morny, Colette’s lover. Mathilde was assigned female at birth (academic scholars are widely divided on whether Mathile was transgender so I’m going to be gender-neutral here.) Mathilde dresses in men’s clothes, and openly romances women, but in this particular moment, Mathilde speaks about the fact that if Mathilde were not rich and titled, it might be a problem. But given Mathilde’s social status and power, and the Bohemian set of people Mathilde spends time with, it’s not. Colette herself also dresses in men’s clothes and is open about her same-sex romances, even kissing Mathilde onstage at the Moulin Rouge.

(Colette and Mathilde, 1907.)

The artist Romaine Brooks wore men’s clothes, even painting herself in them: according to the Smithsonian “By 1905, she had made a name for herself in Paris as a painter of women, some of whom were her lovers. Her most visible and lasting relationship was with the American poet Natalie Barney, who also lived in Paris.” (There’s a reason the characters are often talking about Paris or visiting Paris: being LGBT+  wasn’t illegal in France, and Paris was a gay and lesbian mecca, complete with LGBT+ cafes, high society, celebrities, and so on.)

People like Anna existed in the mundane world in 1903. It’s important to realize; this isn’t something I wrote because I’d have liked it to be true and historically accurate, it is true and historically accurate. It’s also true that even though male homosexuality was illegal in England in 1903, there were plenty of gay men who were out to their friends and community. Lytton Strachey (part of the Bloomsbury Group which included Virginia Woolf) “spoke openly about his homosexuality with his Bloomsbury friends, and had relationships with a variety of men.”  Which isn’t to say he spoke openly about it to everyone —  just that there have always been spaces within “mainstream” society where it was safe to be queer: Anna and Matthew, by going to the Hell Ruelle, by standing somewhat apart from their contemporaries save those they already trust, are inhabiting those spaces.

Now, if the question becomes: what happens if everyone in the Clave finds out the sexualities of the LGB+ characters in TLH? Well, first, they won’t be arrested; it’s not illegal. But that hardly covers the whole issue. We look at what happened to Oscar Wilde and think, horrors, as well we should — had he not sued the Marquess of Queensberry, though, he probably would have lived out his life with society turning a blind eye to his affairs with men. What happened to him is fucking terrible. Yet even today, there are celebrities who remain in the closet — though their queerness may well be an open secret to their friends, family and colleagues — not because they’re worried about being arrested, but because of the fear of what the damage to their career might be were it publicly known. And how is that so different from the situation Charles finds himself in? He’s pretty clear that if people knew he were gay, he couldn’t be Consul. He wouldn’t get the votes. In the same way, it’s likely that the other LGB+ characters would face societal disapproval and issues with their families. That’s not really about the “Clave’s official position” though, any more than a politician today not wanting to come out is worried about being arrested rather than losing their career. The official position is important, but it’s not the only indicator or generator of societal, systemic bigotry.  (” It turns out that one of the worst times to be a homosexual - that is, in terms of being at risk from the law - was in the run-up to and aftermath of the liberalisation of the 1960s [when homosexuality was decriminalized].” )

So if you made it this far: what I’m basically saying is three things: one, that any comparison to Alec has to take into account Alec’s specific family situation, the Uprising, and who the Clave and Inquisitor are in 2007. And that I can’t say what it means for the characters of TLH to be out because it’s going to mean different things, and have different repercussions, for all of them. I can say “They won’t be in trouble with the Law”, which is true, but in terms of their family situations, their personal goals and dreams, and where they are socially, it would be different for each one of them. 

And third, that we can’t assume that progress is one inevitable forward march. That things will always be more tolerant, less oppressive, in “the future” simply because it’s the future.  While we can believe that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” it’s important to remember that rights can be abridged, freedoms taken away, times of tolerance and harmony can end, bigotry and nationalism can rise. To assume progress is inevitable is, I worry, to forget to fight for it. And we can never forget to fight.

[Recommended reading: Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century, by Graham Robb.]

[wildwoodgoddess]

A Study In Garnet Chapter 2

Chapter Summary: A change meeting of an old friend at the Criterion Hotel offers Dr. Siân Watson an intriguing new opportunity. As the cab crept its way slowly along the snow-narrowed street, I reviewed my strategy for the next few hours with the same deliberation I’d use in preparing for a complicated surgery. Other than securing affordable lodging to free me from the hotel, the primary thing keeping me from returning to life as a woman was that I had no women’s clothing.

Fixing this wasn’t so simple as just going to one of the large department stores that had become popular over the last five years and selecting a new wardrobe of ready-made clothing. How would I, dressed as a man, justify such a purchase? If I were wealthy and powerful, perhaps the shop assistants would assume I had recently acquired a mistress and was showing my generosity. But dressed as I was right now, no one would believe I could support a wife, much less a mistress. My detailed interest in and knowledge of women’s clothing would be immediately suspect.

Even if I could find a way to manage such a purchase, there was the problem of fit. I had no idea what my measurements were now, after my injury and long illness. But I couldn’t be measured—by either the gentlemen’s department or the ladies’—without exposing my deception.

Not that passing as a man was illegal, per se, but I’d be the subject of ridicule in the papers, and it would take only days for the army to discover my secret. My reputation, male or female, would be ruined, and my pension—such as it was—would be halted.

So there was the conundrum: in order to purchase women’s clothing, I needed to be dressed as a woman.

Read the rest of the chapter for free on my website

(A Study In Garnet is the first book in the Ladies of Baker Street series by Meredith Rose. It is a mostly-canon-compliant, Victorian-set, female, and queer retelling of the Sherlock Holmes stories. I’m offering the first 10 chapters for free, in hopes that you will support my writing and continue enjoying the story by becoming a supporter on Patreon.

I'm posting the chapters on my website, once a week, to keep them all in one place and because some of the chapters are a bit long for posting here.

I'd love for you to take a look, like, comment, reblog, and please share with people you know who are looking for historical f/f fiction or who enjoy Sherlock Holmes stories. Thanks for reading!)

[nerdygaymormon]

Stonewall Inn and the Riots

I have a friend who was a gay college student in the late 1960′s & early 1970′s, and he actually went to the Stonewall Inn a few times. He shared it was difficult time, people had to be careful because the consequences if people found out you’re queer, so gay bars were the place to go where you could be open and meet other queer people, however, it came with a risk because a police raid could occur and your name be printed in the paper. Many queer people chose not to take the chance, and it was something in the back of my friend’s mind the times he went. 

Because no legitimate establishments would serve gay people, most of those that did were very shady (the Stonewall Inn was run by the mafia) and didn’t meet safety and health codes, like having fire exits or whatever else they didn’t want to bother with. The Stonewall Inn had no running water except in the bathrooms! They had a bucket behind the bar where they rinsed off glasses, toweled them dry and then used for the next customer. When the bucket water got too dirty, they didn’t have any drains, so they’d slop it into the toilets, as a result the bathroom floor was usually wet. 

The Stonewall Inn was popular because it had dance floors, my friend says most gay bars did not, so this was a big draw. And they often had drag queens perform. He said it was a very fun, happy place to be. In case the police came, there was a red light above the dance floor and the bar would turn it on so everyone would stop dancing and step apart because same-gender dancing was illegal. 

Not just anybody could enter the Stonewall Inn. It had a fortified door with a little slit in it and a doorman would ask who you are and might even ask you to describe what the inside of the bar looked like to prove you’d been there before. In addition to keeping out people who wouldn’t belong in such a bar, this is how they were able to warn people the police had arrived before opening the door and letting them in. 

———————————————————— 

My friend says he knew nothing about this, but we now know that on the second floor of the building the mafia had prostitution going on. When Wall Street guys, or people who seemed rich, paid for a prostitute, the mafia would steal their wallets & check their ID’s and then threaten them, basically a blackmail ring was being run. 

There was a sort of cat-and-mouse game played with the local police. The police squad had a monthly quota of arrests they had to make and when they were low, they considered gay people easy targets because they didn’t put up a fight. 

They would show up to raid the bar, usually early, around 8pm or 9pm, before too many customers had arrived and not many people were drunk. The aim wasn’t to shut down the bar but to get a few easy arrests, maybe some easy money from people paying off the cops to avoid arrest. 

When the police would raid the Stonewall Inn, they’d walk in and everyone is standing around (no longer dancing). The police had everyone show their I.D.’s, if you didn’t have one, you’d be arrested. People of color were less likely to have I.D.’s so they were at higher risk. Trans women would have I.D.’s showing them as male, and they’d be arrested for “female impersonation.” In other words, the most vulnerable of the crowd were singled out. Drag queens could be arrested. Bar employees could be arrested for running an illegal establishment. The Mafia hired gay people to be bouncers and work at the bar, so that’s who would be arrested, not the owners, but those employees learned to go join the dance floor and act like they didn’t work there before the cops entered.

It’s now known that the bar was paying the local police precinct money to only come once a month to do this sort of raid and to not shut it down, or maybe shut it down for the night but not permanently. When adjusted for inflation, it was paying about $10,000 a month. 

————————— 

The Stonewall riots occurred because the police didn’t follow the unspoken agreement of how these raids would occur. The queer patrons were used to being oppressed by the police in certain ways and accepted it. Another contributor is the queer people were influenced by the Civil Rights movements and Vietnam protests of the era, and by the increasing profile of gay people thanks to activists who were using phrases like “gay power.”

It’s thought there were about 200 people at the Stonewall Inn when the police showed up at 1:20am, those inside where buzzed and partying. It wasn’t the usual gang of cops, but a new morals squad which had the aim of shutting down the bar for good. 

Before the raid, 4 undercover cops entered to case the place. After an hour, the 2 male cops exited and confirmed to the waiting uniformed officers that alcohol is being served. I don’t know why the 2 female cops stayed in the building; it could be they were identifying those who were working for the bar so they couldn’t escape by blending with the crowd. Nor do I know why it took an hour for the male police to exit and make their report.

The cops knock on the door and announce “Police,” the red-light flashes, the lights are turned on, everyone uncouples and is standing around. 

The police pull the transwomen aside, accused them of being sex workers, and told them to go wait in the bathroom. That’s where the female police officers were waiting for them, to do a visual inspection of their genitals to determine they were men impersonating females.

Since the police were going to shut down the bar, everyone has to exit. The police are requiring everyone to line up and hand over their ID so they can be inspected before letting the patron leave, which means people are exiting slowly, maybe 1 or 2 per minute.

Those who make it out hang around to see if their friends get out okay. Many thought that in probably 30 minutes the police would leave and the bar might reopen and they could resume the party. This was a busy street at that time of night with other people enjoying the nightlife, so it felt safe to stay. Plus. there’s a sense that this is bullsh*t and they want to see if the cops are going to do anything else that breaks the norms of how they typically handle raids.

The cop cars outside the building with their flashing lights, and the growing crowd of patrons waiting for their friends or to see if the bar will reopen, it’s attracting other people who want to see what’s happening. As people exit the bar, the crowd starts cheering for them, soon those exiting start striking poses or saying funny things as they are let go by the cops. While waiting for the next person to be released, people are chatting, some are singing. It seems a pretty friendly crowd.

The police now are boxing up all the alcohol, and they’ve handcuffed all the trans folks and some of the employees and are bringing them out of the building to put them in a paddy wagon (like a van which can hold more people than a car). They exit the Stonewall Inn to find a crowd of about 500 people, and the police nervous being so outnumbered. The police are surprised, usually gay people would slink away into the night. Why are they not leaving? 

As the people being arrested are being brought out one or two at a time, this is when the crowd starts turning, they are unhappy about this. Those being arrested are talking back to the cops, one person (not clear if it’s a drag queen or trans woman) hits an officer with her purse and says to show some respect, and the cop hits her with his club. The crowd’s mood turns tense.

One of those arrested, probably a transman, as they’re being shoved into the paddy wagon, cries out to the crowd, "Why don't you guys do something!"

At this point, a butch lesbian throws a brick (no one seems to know who this was but many witnesses report this). Street kids around 17 or 18 years old who don't like the cops start hurling coins at the police yelling things like "Take your payout! You're here for a handout, aren't you?!" And someone throws a bottle. Suddenly this has gone from an uneasy crowd to the start of a riot. 

People are picking up rocks from the ground, or whatever else they can find, and throwing them. The police now barricade themselves inside the Stonewall Inn. 

People manage to pull up a parking meter and start using it as a battering ram on the door. The door is too strong, so then they try to light the building on fire. The police inside are terrified. To the credit of the cop in charge, he tells all the officers not to shoot, not to use their guns.  

Estimates are now there’s about 1,000 people present, however, initially only about 100 are actually engaged in the uprising, throwing stuff and fighting back, the rest are watching and egging them on. As is typical of such movements, those who had the least to lose are those who were most willing to fight--those who get the brunt of police harassment such as trans women, sex workers, street kids, and the homeless. 

One of the female cops is able to squeeze out of a window and call for a tactical squad to come help. The swat team arrives and gets the police out of the Stonewall Inn, they promptly hop into another paddy wagon and are whisked away. 

The swat team stays to deal with the crowd, but the crowd is fired up and is taking them on. The swat team has shields, nightclubs, and helmets and is engaged in a skirmish that lasts for hours.

Greenwich Village, where this is taking place, has narrow streets. The swat team would advance, and then part of the crowd would run around the block and show up behind the swat team. There are reports that people would line up and start doing a kick line while singing provocative song, and others are calling the police names and things like, “Hey Sweetie,” basically just taunting the police.

Overlooking the Stonewall Inn is The Women’s House of Detention, an eleven-story prison. Many of those imprisoned were women of color, queer women, and gender non-conforming people, and also political prisoners like from the Black Panthers. The prisoners were setting toilet paper on fire and dropping it from their cell windows to show support for the rioters. There’s red fire falling from above as the women inmates are chanting from the windows “Gay power! Gay power!” 

(FYI, Tupac Shakur’s mother Afeni Shakur was inside the prison at the time for being a Black Panther Party member. After that night she starts talking to the lesbian prisoners and wanting to know their stories. She’s instrumental in getting the Black Power movement to support LGBTQ+ rights & feminist liberation)

Many other groups had rioted before, but no other group had ever caused the New York cops to retreat. The police were humiliated and made that "faeries" were beating them, and took out their anger and frustration by wailing on people with their billy clubs.

Around 4am everything dies down, people leave the area. But someone takes a piece of chalk and goes all over the area writing "tomorrow night, Stonewall protest." The night after the initial Stonewall Riot, 2000 people show up for a night of jubilant chaos, open affection between gay people, and again beating back the cops. The New York Times, the New York Post, and the Daily News show up and report on what’s happening. 

All together, there was a total of 6 nights of rioting. This has woken up something in people. The crowd feels the thrill of standing their ground and demanding their freedom, demanding gay bars be legal and people be allowed to wear what they want. As individuals we feel helpless against the forces of society & institutions, but together there’s power. They weren’t going back to the previous status quo. They were worth fighting for and weren't going to apologize for being gay or trans or queer. 

—————————

This was a turning point because it inspired people to protest at the police precinct, and to riot when other gay bars are raided by New York police, and this inspires queer people in other cities to do the same.

The first night of the Stonewall riot was commemorated a year later on June 28, 1970 with a big march down the street in front of the Stonewall Inn. It’s estimated the parade began with 3,000~5,000 people, but ended with closer to 20,000 as spectators were encouraged to join the procession, which many did once they saw it was safe. Marches also occurred on June 28, 1970 in Los Angeles and Chicago. 

The following year marches also took place in Boston, Dallas, Milwaukee, London, Paris, West Berlin, and Stockholm. This is the beginning of how we got Pride events and parades.

[desmond-the-queer-dragon]

men in popular culture have been wearing dresses for decades and and even before that drag/“cross dressing” has literally been going on since Shakespeare when men would play female characters and before that in ancient greece. and i’m not arguing that black and brown lgbt people didn’t create the trends, they did. but harry is not hurting anyone by wearing a dress. he NEVER said he was the first to do so. it’s not his fault if someone else calls him a trend setter. him wearing a dress did not harm anyone in any material way, you just want someone to be mad at, and you don’t even know if he’s straight or queer, which shouldn’t even matter. kurt cobain and david bowie wore dresses too, and they didn’t hurt anyone by doing so either.

My original post focused on the issue of Harry being called a gender bending icon by the media, not Harry wearing a dress himself.

it may not be his fault if someone else calls him a trendsetter. But it is his fault that he does not even bother to give credit where credit is due nor correct the media on this claim of theirs.

The acception of queerness always fluctuates. In the Victorian England period it was accepted for the most part but overtime it became a huge issue once again, which you see when Britain gave its homophobic doctrines (aka new penal codes) in 1885, making homosexual acts illegal in the countries that they colonized in the Middle East. Greece wasn’t that much better because while men would have male lovers, those who were seen as “playing the woman’s role” were still treated like shit.

Let me ask you this: when has Harry wore a dress when it does not benefit him? The two people you mentioned wore dresses frequently, breaking the gender binary and being an ally when it was an unpopular thing to do. Harry styles only wore the dress once and the media said “here is our new gender bending icon” and he didn’t even say anything to correct them.

In a perfect world, his sexuality would not matter. But this is far from a perfect world and it does matter because you cannot simply sit here and say “I’m unlabeled” and then go and appropriate from a minority. Harry Styles benefits from a privilege that a marginalized community does not benefit from.

It does not matter if Harry never said he was the first person to do so. The media has claimed it to be such and that is the true issue here. The erasure of the advocacy of Latinx and Black queer people and trans people which stems from systematic racism and transphobia and homophobia. I have not seen Harry reject this claim of him at all.

[rotationalsymmetry]

Long post about how justice needs to be about the people harmed, not the people causing the harm. From justice for individuals to social justice. Some non-graphic discussion of rape. Behind a cut, partly because of the rape stuff but mostly because it’s really long. Somewhat rambly.

I’ve got one more in me. At least. Hang on.

My brain will fan out in one of a thousand arbitrary directions and then not want to go back. I can do this.

Ah, right, “as usual this isn’t about being a bad person.” The US and I’m assuming the Western world in general, has a really skewed idea of justice. We think it’s about the person causing harm.

Let’s say someone rapes me. Let’s say it’s one of those mythical rapes that almost never happens: a stranger in a dark alley relying on physical force. OK. That’s bad. That’s not a stealing baby formula kind of crime, it’s not something that just shouldn’t be illegal in the first place or something that wouldn’t be an issue under a more fair economic system, that’s really bad.

(A massive percentage of the prison population is there for nonviolent drug crimes, and in general illegal is not the same thing as wrong.)

Is putting the rapist in jail going to help me or other people? I mean, maybe I’ll feel a little bit safer, maybe?

Except that’s not how most rapes happen. The guy who actually raped me wasn’t a stranger who physically overpowered me. He was my boyfriend. And he didn’t need to overpower me because I trusted him and thought that since I’d said that I wanted to do some things and not other things he’d respect that and, well, turns out I was wrong.

There is no way in hell I would have gotten a conviction, if I’d even contacted the police, if I’d even seen it as rape at the time. I’d have to prove, in a court of law, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it wasn’t consensual, and how do you do that? And most rape victims can’t. Because most rapes are committed by someone the victim knows — a boyfriend, a spouse, a friend, an acquaintance — and they’re not committed using physical force. (Alcohol/drugs are really common, although not in my case.)

How do you prove it was rape? You don’t.

That’s the bad news. The good news is, you don’t have to punish the rapists to create a world with less rape in it, or to support people who have been raped. You can tell the truth about rape and dispel the myths. You can make therapy widely available, and medical care including abortion widely available and cheap or better yet free. (In spite of what a certain Republican politician has claimed on the record, there’s no special magic that keeps people with a uterus from getting pregnant if they didn’t want the sex.)

Oh, and including generous support for parents who don’t have a lot of resources, for victims unlucky enough to get pregnant who choose to not go the abortion route.

You can promote consent culture (talking about what getting consent looks like) and fight slut shaming (slut shaming is always also rape victim shaming) and promote bystander intervention and make certain kinds of “locker room talk” socially unacceptable and spend an inordinate amount of time talking about “It’s Cold Outside”.

You can address the myth that false accusations of rape are common. You can impose social and economic consequences on accused rapists without waiting for or requiring legal confirmation. You can bring “missing stairs” out into the open. You can decide this isn’t a good time to talk about the Rule of Three when a rape victim asks for a curse in your online pagan group. You can believe victims and support victims and not ask a bunch of weird “ok, but you must have done something to make him think you wanted it” type questions.)

(Um, I’m mostly using male perpetrator/female victim language here, but rape absolutely happens in queer contexts and women can sexually assault men or boys, and believing male or nonbinary victims and people who have been victimized by women or other not-men is important too.)

Hmm. I don’t think this is exactly what I wanted to talk about here. But I guess I’ll roll with it?

Anyways: if my rapist was in prison that wouldn’t do a danged thing to help me. What helps me? Project Unbreakable. Yes Means Yes. Other people who have been raped talking about their experiences. A lot of people being very emphatic that it’s not a “misunderstanding” thing and it’s not the victim’s fault. People talking about what the emotional fall-out of being raped can look like, and how there’s no “wrong” way to react to being raped. People who make it possible to talk about this stuff without getting a lot of weird ass reactions.

And, you know, health care and stuff.

And this is what justice should look like: what helps people who have been harmed, what mitigates the damage, what promotes healing. Which pretty much always starts with speaking truth and dispelling the myths.

It’s really, really, really not about the perpetrators.

And it’s the same thing with all oppression related stuff. Racism isn’t about white people. This anti-immigrant xenophobic stuff going on in the US, isn’t about white US citizens who are overly fond of weird candy metaphors, it’s about immigrants and their families and what they need.

Fighting the patriarchy fundamentally isn’t about punishing men or doing anything with men at all, and taking the focus away from men is a really important step in fighting patriarchy.

Fighting ableism isn’t about temporarily abled people at all, and I have to say as a formerly temporarily abled person (or at least formerly able bodied person) that term resonates with me hard. It really is a fundamentally unreliable state of being.

Anyways: it’s about disabled people. It’s about being clear on the differences between what our conditions do to us and what a human-made world does to us. It’s about taking our voices out of the margins and putting them in the center. It’s about resources and support and challenging the idea that worth is connected to productivity or independence. It’s about being real and upfront about how while work often needs to be done, work isn’t worth. It’s about acknowledging that sometimes what happens to us isn’t caused by us. It’s making space for seeing people who are sick or injured who aren’t getting better, ever. It’s about representation in media, it’s about accommodations, it’s about addressing stigmas. It’s not about abled people at all.

So: I’m disabled, ableism is (partially) about me. (Definitely partially though — there’s some forms of ableism I don’t experience, and other forms I rarely experience compared to others.) When we’re talking about a type of ableism I experience (like...doctors assuming you’re not really that sick because you look healthy) my voice is important; when we’re talking about another type of ableism (like...people with developmental disabilities being treated as less than human) I need to get into ally mode and support.

I’m white: that means my opinion is intrinsically less important when the conversation turns to racism, because it’s not about me. My role is to support, to not get in the way, to use my privilege to amplify people of color’s voices. Mostly to step back. To listen. To not make it all about me.

Idk, I don’t want to act like different forms of oppression are interchangeable, and I think sometimes I do fall into that way of thinking. They’re not, there’s significantly different issues and concerns. But there’s also some extent to which ideas about one form of oppression can be transferred to other forms, some extent to which generalizations can be made. It’s easier for me to “get” racism if I think about the ways I’m marginalized. It’s not a substitute for listening though.

Anyways. I think people mess up on this a lot. Like, so much of oppression talk would be easier if there weren’t so many people whose immediate reaction to hearing oppression words like “classism” or “racist” or “patriarchy” or “transphobia” was to think “you’re telling me I’m a bad person” or even “you’re saying all men are bad” or whatever. That’s not what it’s about.

You can be really clear that that’s not what you’re saying, and people will hear it anyways because that’s what they’re primed to hear. That’s how they’re primed to think about justice. Which is one heck of a barrier to actually getting justice.

[johns-prince]

Ok so this is going to be a long post but I need someone to explain something to me. I'm a guy, I'm gay and recently I just started to get obsessed with The Beatles and John especially. Let's say I have a mad crush on the guy. I was pleased to hear thanks to some blogs like yours that he was an lgbtq ally, and there is a chance that the man of my life was also a bisexual ( strongly leaning on the male side if I read some of your blogs including yours ). But my adoration for the man has been ---

shattered since I've read on various Beatles forums that he was very homophobic and shit it hurts me to hear that. I know that he has beat up a guy for implying that he was gay, trashed a movie on homosexuality in front of everyone ( I think the movie was called Victim ), that he would openly mock his gay manager Brian Epstein ( bless him ), has called gay people nasty names during a 70s interview like AKOMP stated, that he made fun of a musician by kissing him then pushing him away and called - him a " faggot " and other incidents I can't think of right now. It just hurts a lot because I adore this man, I'm madly in love with him but I'm starting to believe that all this support for the our community had been nothing but a shtick for the " peace & love " propaganda he and Yoko started in the 70s. He also said in a interview w himself that " bisexuality is trendy " which makes me believe that I'm right. I am lost & disappointed & I'm turning to you guys to clarify all of this to me pls.

Well first of all, hullo! I totally understand having a mad crush on John, as well as him being The Man of My Life. 

Yes, it’s true! The Beatles in general were very ahead of their time; none of them had any real issue with homosexuals, though perhaps a bit put off at times because of their upbringing and culture and all that, but they were supportive and never understood why these people were treated so poorly. They had a gay manager, it’d be weird for them to be homophobic while treating Brian like a parental figure, loved him and adored him [even if they did tease him a bit behind his back, or even in front of him-- they teased everyone, doesn’t mean they held any ill feelings towards Brian because he was gay] and being part of the music/artsy crowd, they all had gay/bisexual friends, open or not. 

I truly believe John was bisexual, and while he never outright stated it, I believe he would have eventually directly came out if he had not been killed. 

He was moreso testing the waters though, talking about that when he was 15 he thought he’d have to go and marry off some wealthy old woman or man to continue his passion for art/literature; frequented gay bars with Harry Nilsson, and while he claimed he did it to put off the press-- we know that what he did would have the opposite effect, the press would be constantly on watch, being that there was John Lennon going about gay bars! John could be a terrible liar; even during his Hamburg days, John was described as seeming at home in bars featuring drag queens, and was told he found it stupid how the ‘’culture’’ of gay individuals in industries like music or art, the “scenes” were championed, but the people in general were treated like shit; later on John says gay people are beautiful during an interview [in the 70s I believe]; he’s quoted saying that people should be able to love anyone, that it shouldn’t matter who someone loves; back to the Hamburg era, apparently John had been caught in a drag club/transvestite bar, you know, getting frisky with one by I guess the club runner? and he was all embarrassed of course, but the man didn’t judge him; John is described as someone who was always willing to experiment, after agreeing to a threesome with someone, again back in Germany, one female and another male [though the female was between them, not sure if anything happened between John and the other male]; yes I remember reading somewhere that John did kiss another male performer, before shoving him off and responded crudely; Yoko saying how she’d ‘’teasingly’’ call John a Closeted Fag; Yoko claiming John had told her he would have slept with a man, but he hadn’t found a man beautiful and intelligent enough for him to want to bed him [lies]; Yoko claiming that John had thought about having an affair with Paul; there’s rumors about John and David Bowie; that John had let Brian jerk him off and touch him during their trip to Spain [how John claims it wasn’t fully consummated, that is, no intercourse]; John in an interview saying how he hasn’t slept with a man-- but who knows? Life begins at 40!; John saying how Yoko reminded him of a bloke in drag, and how she was basically like a best mate, but it was easier because with her he could fuck her and love her in public; how he was found holding Brian’s hand by George and Pattie and someone else, and made it a note to showcase his holding of Brian’s hand, because being homosexual was still illegal then-- and there was John, trying to show that “yeah it’s okay.”; and there’s probably much more stories about John when it came to his sexual leaning towards men, though most have probably died with close friends and lovers.

Now, I think what happens is that these people forget the context surrounding John’s life; he wasn’t born in today’s world, he was born in the 40s and raised in the 50s-- being homosexual was illegal, and taught as something shameful, wrong, sick. Even though the boys were relatively very open and ahead of their time, they still grew up in all that, and so of course they still had ignorance and “fear” of homosexuality, of being anything but the expected standard of masculinity. 

John wasn’t the only one who mocked or teased Brian about being gay-- the other boys did it too, though moreso behind his back. John only did this when he was in a very sour mood though, as he did with anyone, he’d hone in on what was considered a sore spot, or weakness of theirs, and jab at it. He’d never mean anything by it though, and would often go talk to them afterwards an try to explain that-- his roundabout way of “apologizing,” that he never meant it, he was only joking, and he might hug them. No one was really safe from John’s sharp tongue when he got into those low points, aggressive and biting. John loved Brian, absolutely did, Brian was a very important paternal figure in John’s life as John never had a good one. When Brian died it devastated all of them, especially John, because again he had lost a very close male friend, too soon or too young, they’d always leave him. John loved Brian, and if anyone tries to tell you otherwise, they’re either lying or ignorant themselves. 

Now, I think it was actually pretty important for John to tell that story about beating up Bob Wooler, and be as honest as he could about the whole thing, and owned up to his rather intolerant reaction to someone suggesting John was “a queer,” essentially [this was indeed after going off with Brian to Spain, so really everyone had been making sly comments– but that time around, John was drunk, and Drunk John is not at all sensible or cool]

“Bob had been insinuating that me and Brian had had an affair in Spain. And I must have been frightened of the fag in me to get so angry. I was out of my mind with drink - you know, when you get down to the point where you want to drink out of all the empty glasses; that drunk. And Bob was saying, ‘Come on, John, tell me about you and Brian - we all know.’ You know when you’re twenty-one, you want to be a man - if somebody had said it now I wouldn’t give a shit, but I was beating the shit out of him, hitting him with a big stick, and for the first time I thought, ‘I can kill this guy.’ I just saw it, like on a screen: if I hit him once more, that’;s going to be it. I really got shocked. That’s when I gave up violence, because all my life I’d been like that.”

- John Lennon, 1972 Anthology [x]

I think it says a lot, you know, John claiming he was afraid of the fag in him-- I mean, wouldn’t that mean that John knew a part of him was queer then? I think this was part of John confessing, though again, barely anyone caught onto it around that time. This is where I think John was projecting, and most of the ‘’homophobic’’ behavior he showcased was simply a product of internalized homophobia/biphobia. 

Also apparently John was INCREDIBLY, horribly remorseful and ashamed of what he had done to Bob-- I think he had gone to him and tried to apologize and show how sorry he was, how ashamed. 

I haven’t heard anything about John trashing the movie because of it being homosexual, so I can’t say much about that. 

So yeah, my conclusion is that a lot of what John did or said was a product of not only his upbringing/society and of internalized homophobia/biphobia. 

John grew up as a musician and individual in the “gay” scene, had many gay and bisexual friends from the industry, seemed to adore and love drag queens, was close friends with Elton Jon, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, loved and truly did look up to his manager Brian Epstein, thought it stupid gay people were treated like shite despite their contributions to the culture they all loved, thought Elvis was beautiful and was often caught commenting about it by friends, was always willing to “experiment,” his wife thought he was a bit of a closeted fag, that he would have slept with a man though he had never found one that met his expectations [liar], how his first love was Paul, that he fell for Paul’s looks like everyone else, thought Paul was the prettiest, Yoko claiming John had contemplated having an affair with Paul-- like, the list goes on. 

His support and acceptance of LGBT individuals was there long before Yoko-- so I wouldn’t really put the two in the same area, that being, yeah the whole political-era and “Peace and Love,” was brainwashing and influenced by Yoko, but not his beliefs towards the LGBT. 

Also, bisexual was seen as ‘’trendy’’ as, you see, bisexuality was actually considered a bit of a “new” thing; you were either gay or straight, even if you loved both men and women, you were considered a queer. I think that also messed with John’s already confused and frustrated view of his sexuality. And before that, it was considered a Bohemian Lifestyle-- try everything, sleep with men and women. 

I think if anything, John was possibility irritated with the fact bisexuality was considered a trend. 

I dunno, I try to remember the period and cultural context when talking about John, or anyone really, because it’s not very fair to judge them based on today’s culture and societal acceptance. It’s easy for us to judge them, not to try and understand them.

[gwsseuphoria]

Episode 2, “Stuntin’ Like My Daddy” - Melissa Merdzo

Here is a little recap of what happens in Episode 2, Season 1 of Euphoria. Rue, the main character (who is played by Zendaya, a mixed (half Black half white) cisgender female actress), had her first day of school after summer and panicked when she was put on the spotlight to talk about her summer, which consisted of her overdosing on drugs and her younger sister finding her passed out. Later on in the episode, Rue showed up to her drug dealer friend Fez’s house to get drugs at the wrong time and was pressured into taking Fentanyl by Fez’s supplier. This episode we also learned a ton about another important character, Nate, who is played by a white cis gender male. During Nate’s childhood, he found and watched his fathers porn collection, which consisted of his dads personal sex tapes with queer men and transgender women. This was when Nate found out his dad was into penis, as he is married to Nate’s mom, a cis gender woman. Nate’s girlfriend, Maddy, who is played by a mixed (half white half Mexican) cisgender woman, falsely accuses a man of raping her while she was “blacked out,” even though it was consensual sex, because she doesn’t want to upset Nate by admitting she had sex with another man named Tyler. This causes Nate to lash out, and due to the fact that he is obsessive, possessive and insane, he stalks Tyler for days and finds out where he works and lives. He breaks into Tyler's apartment while he’s gone and when Tyler comes home, Nates ties him up and beats the shit out of him for “raping” Maddy. To be fair - Maddy was 17 when they had sex and Tyler was 22, so although he wasn’t aware, he did have sex with a minor which is illegal and makes him a pedofile. Jules, Rue’s best friend in the show, is played by a transgender white woman. She is using a dating app and starts talking to a guy who keeps himself anonymous and lies to her about who he is - but in the end of the episode, it is revealed that the guy is Nate, who turns out to also be closeted like his father and struggling with his own sexuality. Another important character that the episode focuses on is Kat, who is played by a white Brazilian cisgender woman. Kat loses her virginity to a stranger at a party because she feels pressured by stigma. Shortly after, her sex tape from that night got leaked to her school. She quickly has it taken down because it is child pornography. Even though the video got deleted, it got reposted by another user. Kat reads the comments under the new video and is inspired to sign up for the website's cam program.

I would say that the cast of Euphoria is decently diverse compared to other popular shows in this age. It showcases a spectrum of of different races, ethnicities, sexualities and gender identities, from white, Black, Hispanic to cisgender and transgender, to an array sexuality. We do see lack of Asian, Native and gender non conforming representation in season one. McKay is one of the only Black characters we see in Euphoria, who is there mainly showcased as Nate Jacobs (white man) best friend and Cassie's (white woman) boyfriend. He doesn’t have much of his own storyline, but it is a bit of a stereotypical role as we see him forced into college football by his dad. Moving on to gender indentity, it’s rare to see transgender people in television and I think that the transgender character Jules is represented in a non harmful way and it’s a really great, positive thing that Euphoria included this character. Also, sexuality is represented very well in Euphoria I would say. I don’t think I could pin down Nate and his fathers sexuality, but neither of them are straight which shows a spectrum of sexuality in Euphoria. Nate and his dad are shown struggling with internalized homophobia, fear and sexual confusion, and they deal with that through violence. Later on in Euphoria, Rue and Jules end up catching feelings for each other and making out so we can conclude that neither of them is straight as well. Something we see in this show later on is Rue’s mom accepting Rue’s sexuality, which breaks typical stereotypes for queer characters in televesion as we are typically fed the idea of parents being non accepting of their childrens sexuality. It’s great for LGTBQ+ representation that these character are multidimensional and being queer or trans is not their only personality trait - they all have incredible background stories and struggles that they deal with aside from their sexuality and gender identity. Next to cisgender characters in Euphoria, Jules (transgender woman - the only non cisgender character in the show) has a ton of speaking parts in the show as she is one of the main characters. Jules has her own storyline like other main characters - there is an episode glimpsing into her own pre-transition and traumatic experiences. I believe that Euphoria definitely shatters a ton of stereotypes seen in society. One take on this is Rue, a cisgender woman, hating the idea of gender roles and being feminine - we see her saying she hates the idea of wearing a dresses. Although some characters break stereotypes, Nate Jacobs is the epitome of toxic masculinity and gender roles. He believes that girls need to act, dress and extremely stereotypically feminine, as well as be “pure” virgins for him to have sex with them.

I think that the television show Euphoria does not touch on political issues very much, although it does touch on some issues that seem private but do have political implications, such as drug abuse, mental health issues and abortion. Rue is shown dealing with her own drug abuse journey throughout the season, which began with her mental health issues. Rue suffers from depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, ADD and OCD. When she was younger and her father was struggling with cancer, she took one of his pills and that's where her drug journey began. After her father passes, she uses drugs as a coping mechanism and becomes addicted. On the other hand, Euphoria showcases abortion near the end of the season when character Cassie ends up in a teen pregnancy after finding out her boyfriend impregnated her. When she opens up to him about being pregnant, he freaks out and tells her he isn’t ready to be a father and he pressures her to get an aboriton. Later on, Cassie breaks down to her mom asking her for advice as she is unsure if she wants to keep the baby, like she wants, or get an abortion, as her boyfriend McKay wants.

Levinson, Sam. “Euphoria - Stuntin’ Like My Daddy” Episode. HBO Max 1, no. 1. New York, New York: HBO, June 16, 2019.

[ober-affen-geil]

I want to take a second and appreciate something that Roswell has done. They haven’t done it perfectly, by any means, and it’s still a work in progress, but it’s something that is clearly a deliberate effort and it makes it standout in the field of scifi/fantasy.

This is about how Roswell has handled metaphors of oppression thus far.

*A disclaimer, I come from many positions of privilege and my writing will reflect that no matter how hard I try. If I don’t touch on something you think I should have, or I misrepresent an issue, please do not hesitate to reach out to me about it. Also, CW for racism, homophobia, abuse, and consent violation.*

The thing about scifi/fantasy is that it is traditionally a medium where current topics can be discussed and addressed under the guise of fiction. It’s easier to talk about an issue when you’re not really talking about the issue directly. You don’t have to worry about losing viewers because you took a firm stance, because it was about completely fictional characters/events.

What this has unfortunately led to, even and especially in modern scifi/fantasy, is an overabundance of majority representation using the metaphor of the fictional other to “cover” issues relating to minority representation. Which really only succeeds in othering the minority.

Roswell has managed to avoid that on many levels.

What I mean is, although it is clear that the pod squad serves as a metaphor for “passing” in any sense of the word (racially, sexually, religiously, etc.), the majority of the “hot button topics” are addressed through the human characters.

Racial inequality and microaggressions are things that Liz and Maria deal with and talk about on the show, because they are Latina and Black in a majority white town. Immigration and deportation of “illegal” immigrants is an issue that comes up with the Ortechos because Arturo did not enter the country legally. And in fact we get that discussion from two sides because Kyle’s mother, Sheriff Valenti, entered the country legally and has her own opinions. Alex has a history of physical abuse because his father is homophobic and Alex is gay. Alex is disabled because he was wounded in action overseas, end of story. Cam and Liz both deal with sexists comments/standards, and it is implied that Maria does as well. Even accusations of culture appropriation is brought up by a human Native character (Arizona) in an episode.

These are things that could have been addressed exclusively through the alien characters, but were not. Microaggressions could have been limited to the brief discussions about alien representation in movies, but it wasn’t. The question of immigration could have been limited to the alien refugees alone (it’s RIGHT THERE I MEAN), but it wasn’t. Discussion of torture and physical abuse could have been limited to the treatment of the alien survivors, but it wasn’t.

And what makes it even better is that the alien characters also deal with human issues in a non-metaphoric way. Michael’s abuse in foster care is a human problem. Some of it was because he’s an alien (the exorcism as a result of his powers), but he did not bounce around the system and slip through the cracks because he’s not human. Jesse Manes didn’t take a hammer to his hand because he’s an alien, he did it because he’s queer. It was homophobia, plain and simple.

And it doesn’t matter that Noah manipulated Isobel through alien means, it was a violation of her consent and that is a human problem. He didn’t do it because he’s an alien, or because she’s an alien, or because they’re both aliens, his motivations were self-preservation. He disregarded Isobel’s (and Rosa’s) autonomy on his own, not because he’s not human.

And just because Max is an alien and is “passing” as human, putting him in a minority metaphor, does not mean that his privileges are disregarded. He acts, unknowingly in my opinion, with male, white, and class privilege coloring his worldview and that is something that is addressed as a human problem.

It has not been done flawlessly, of course, because there is no such thing as perfect representation or discussion of issues like these. Especially when the creators are coming from a position of privilege themselves. But my point is, Roswell hasn’t hidden behind alien metaphors to discuss current issues. Homophobia is homophobia because it is coming from a straight character directed at an explicitly queer character. Racism is racism because it is coming from a white character directed at a character that is explicitly non-white. Sexism is sexism because it is coming from a male character directed at a female character. 

Roswell has brought alien issues to a human world, not the other way around. And that is so rare to see in scifi and fantasy these days I just wanted to point it out for a second. Here’s hoping for even more in season 2. 

[serialreblogger]

like GOSH i’m just so TIRED of people tryna comfort me by saying “of course it’s hard, if it was easy everyone would do it”

like, first of all, no. not everyone would do it, because people are many and diverse and we all have different passions and interests. If it wasn’t made unnecessarily difficult (expensive or selective or arbitrarily cruel), that wouldn’t mean eVeRyOnE would try to go into forkin engineering. Some science geniuses would rather go into medicine. Some want to be lawyers, or veterinarians, or politicians, or artists, or authors, or carpenters, thrice-curse it

If you removed the unnecessary obstacles to success people would actually be able to choose their own path, and we aren’t all gonna choose the same one

But no, you’re right though. the reason it’s “hard” (the reason it costs so much money to get a degree, the reason everyone in any field expects you to have ten years experience, the reason your applications get denied even though you filled out every requirement, the reason every university very politely asks if you’re male or female and “if you identify with the trans experience”) is to keep “everyone” from succeeding. There are people we don’t want to succeed.

We don’t want queers in the workforce. We don’t want people with disabilities finding success. Hiring based on race is illegal, but we still want to see your picture before we send the contract. 

And you assume, when you say “it’s hard for a good reason,” that everyone faces the same kind of difficulty. You assume it’s fair. Or maybe you don’t assume it’s equal; maybe you just assume the people that are being weeded out don’t deserve success in the first place. 

Maybe you just assume I’m not one of them.

I am, though. I’m one of the people that can hardly stand to get up some mornings, one of the people who can barely bear to move, one of the people who spends every day drowning in anxiety and still I heap more on my plate, spend hours on applications, borrow strength from the next three weeks and trade it for extra pain, sell my smiles (rare enough these days) in the hope of success. And still I get rejected. And I hear you say “it’s fair.” 

It’s not fucking fair. 

It’s designed to eliminate me. And I just get so exhausted, because my own brain is trying to eliminate me, my entire life is a constant struggle to fight the darkness I was trained to adore, and it’s not fucking fair that I have to fight the world, too.

[bornonthesavage]

Can I just talk about Black Sails and Queer representation? Spoilers for the show. As a bisexual, I have come to expect certain portrayals in media. I am extremely used to Queer-bating. So let me tell you, when I watched Black Sails for the first time, I was blown away by the fact that they do the exact opposite. Here we have this hyper masculine main character, who is an all around badass. A Reveared Captain of a famous Pirate ship, respected and feared by his men. And all through the first season, we’re sitting here going “Oh ok, he’s in love with that woman and that’s why he’s doing all this.” And then in the second season, it’s revealed that NO! Our badass main characters true love was a man. And he was taken from him, because being gay in 1700’s England was illegal. And the whole reason our Main Character became a Pirate, worked to become a Captain, grew his crew and power, and is now hell bent on destroying the British regime is because they took his love from him. And I remember when it happened a bunch of straight dudes were SO mad, because their beloved character wasn’t actually a fantasy specifically for them. But like, the LGBT rarely get that type of explicit representation. And it’s not like they subtly hint at it. We get full flashback kisses and lying in bed. We get love letters and gentleness. All from a man who up until that point has shown that to no one else. And it is NEVER shown as humorous or as disgusting except by people who are clearly in the wrong and are villains. I mean, his good friend and also famous Pirate knows about it, and he never treats it like it is invalid or wrong. He always paints it in the same light as he does his own true love. And it’s fucking beautiful. And don’t even get me started on the positive and respectful portrayal of polyamory. I just wish more people watched that show because wow. And I haven’t even mentioned the INCREDIBLE writing, and AMAZING characters, and the BREATHTAKING cinematography. As a whole, that show is a masterpiece and was horribly over looked. Oh, and did I mention that’s it’s a semi prequel to Treasure Island, and mixes real life Pirates (Both male and female) and fictional treasure island pirates to create one of my favorite narratives of all time? Man, I just really need more people to watch it and talk about it because it deserves it.

[itslmdee]

Fic: Female Presenting N8pples

A coffee shop, December 2018

"Female presenting nipples?" Josh laughed, leaning back in the booth with his coffee in one hand. "It sounds like a really weird conference. Or modern art piece. Or a one hit wonder pop band."

Rachel nodded. "It's ridiculous."

"Look I only do Instagram and barely that these days. You'll have to explain this Tumblr thing a bit more. They're banning porn?"

"Yes but it's the way they're going about it. It was a big thing for some subcultures. A safer place than porn sites for many queer people to explore sexuality. And the way they've singled out women. Why should a woman's body be deemed inherently sexual in a way a man's body isn't?"

Josh frowned. "I can go shirtless on the beach but you can't. Is that sexism too?"

"I'd argue yes. But Tumblr isn't a public space. It could have raised the minimum age you need to be to join the site. It could have put in place better ways to filter out adult content. There were other ways to go about making the site safer for young teens than this sledgehammer."

"Teens need protecting," Josh repeated and smirked. "I was reading Playboy at their age. Teens are curious. Anyway, I'm on your side about nudity not being sexual ever since that woman tried to censor the half-scale replica of Michelangelo's statue of David at the local art gallery. So, this female presenting nipple thing; I don't get it. Instagram's the same but I don't look for that kind of thing - not there anyway - so I've never much thought about it."

Rachel took a sip of her cappuccino before she replied. "Most people don't get it. It's not just women's nipples are bad. Anything that looks like a female nipple. Male nipples in some cases. Mountains."

"Mountains?"

"The algorithm is already flagging all sorts of false positives. And while genitals are banned, naked buttocks aren't or at least aren't getting flagged. Artwork isn't supposed to be, so your David statue should be okay, but it's still getting flagged often. And nipples are okay if it's a post about breastfeeding or a mastectomy. I find it creepy, hey your body is offensive unless you're doing your womanly duty to feed a child or you've suffered a terrible illness."

Josh finished his coffee. "What about transitioning? I think I heard Twitter had a thing about that once, a trans woman posting regular updates during their transition and seeing when the ban kicked in?"

"I guess we'll see." Rachel sighed. "I like some of the social commentary on Tumblr, the cute animal pics, the music discussions. I don't even go there for porn but I know some artists are leaving and it's having a knock on effect. The ban isn't supposed to be for text posts but one of my posts about an LGBT hotline offering advice on sex and relationships got flagged because I had it tagged 'gay and lesbian sexuality'. LGBT blogs with no porn on them are getting deleted en masse, while actual porn blogs are still showing up. It's a mess."

"That's social media," Josh said. "Or capitalism. When all social media is privately owned they can censor whatever they want. You'd need a non-profit committed to freedom of speech with a clear understanding of where the definition of hate speech and abusive content lies. One that doesn't think a nipple that's maybe attached to a female body is evil. Seems unlikely right now."

Rachel finished her drink. "You're right. Can we walk back past the library?"

"Sure." Josh got to his feet. "It's a nice day. Maybe I should take off my shirt and show everyone my nipples."

Rachel laughed. "In this weather? You were still wearing jumpers in June."

"In my defence it was a very cold start to June!"

They left the cafe, continuing to gently tease each other, the subject of censorship soon forgotten.

Notes and further reading

The incident with the statue wasn't a direct reference to a real event but I did google for similar examples and found this which is exactly what I referred to, though taking place in Russia https://news.artnet.com/art-world/russians-dress-michelangelo-david-328717

The Tumblr ban came into effect in December 2018. It has been heavily criticised by many.

https://www.themarysue.com/tumblr-will-ban-all-adult-content/ looks at the ban "this sort of adult content is frequently generated by women, marginalized people, and all sorts of creatives struggling in our vicious “gig economy.” They’re going to be hurt the most by the ban." and includes a tweet from someone talking about transitioning " where i post pictures of my bare chest every day while i'm on hrt and wait for the exact point they become illegal"

Tristan Greene at https://thenextweb.com/opinion/2018/12/14/tumblrs-female-presenting-nipples-language-isnt-semantics-its-oppression/ highlights the hypocrisy "if you’re a woman – or any human with “female-presenting nipples” – and you pose for a nude fine-art photograph, and someone wants to share it on Tumblr: forget it. No girls allowed. This is beyond stupid. There is no relationship whatsoever between images of women without a top on, and images that are criminal by their very existence."

This woman's story https://www.quora.com/What-message-is-Tumblr-sending-by-banning-female-presenting-nipples-from-user-content-Why-is-it-so-controversial/answer/Gabriel-Bell-18 shows the ban contributes to sexualising of any woman's body by singling female bodies out as sexual and she writes "By classifying “female-presenting nipples” as explicit material, Tumblr has taken a stance that any chest or breast that differs from a male default is worthy of shame and unavoidably sexual. The idea that breasts are shameful and unavoidably sexual is exactly what fucked me up for so much of my life."

The title is given here with an 8 replacing the i; there are many workarounds for writing words that might get flagged including replacing vowels with other symbols and deliberate mis-spellings, hence the rise of the internet slang term pr0n.

[amostexcellentblog]

Judy Garland: Reflections on an Icon, Gay or Otherwise

Today, June 22, 2019, marks the 50th anniversary of the day we lost one of the world’s greatest entertainers, Judy Garland. In just a few days time we will observe an even more momentous 50th anniversary, that of the Stonewall Uprising which birthed the modern LGBTQ equality movement. If you’re familiar with your queer folk history, you’ll know there are those who claim this close timing is not a coincidence. But we’ll get to that later.

I first encountered Garland the way most people do--my parents showed me The Wizard of Oz when I was little. I don’t remember much of the experience aside from wanting to be a flying monkey for Halloween, and that “Over the Rainbow” made me cry, which was the first time any piece of media had made such an impact on me. It never really occurred to me that the woman who sang that song could have had a career beyond Oz until 12 years ago when I was just finishing Middle School and becoming interested in the Old Hollywood era. She was the first star I formed an emotional connection to, and as I happily made my way through her filmography and read up on her life I first encountered the phrase “gay icon.”

I knew what gay meant, obviously. I was vaguely aware of the LGBTQ and marriage equality movements, but at the time I mostly knew “gay” as the insult hurled at me seemingly everyday of Middle School for a series of things I never gave a second thought to but were apparently tell-tale signs that I was that way, and thus a figure deserving of torment--how I carried my books, how I sat, how I looked. My basic opinion of being gay at that point was that it’s fine for other people, but dear god don’t let this be my future!

So, when I realized that the star I was idolizing was famous for being idolized by gay men, I did what I’d become very adept at doing, I ignored the implications. Denial allowed me to spend high school working my way through her films, youtube videos, documentaries, and a biography without really examining why this woman resonated so much with me. So now, as we approached these two anniversaries, it seemed like a good time to finally try to sort through what she meant to me. What I ended up with instead is an essay that’s part personal reflection and part mediation on the meaning of the term “Gay Icon” in the era of Marriage Equality and Corporate-Sponsored Pride.

The term “Gay Icon” has been used to mean several similar, but different types of people. To clarify, when I talk about Gay Icons in this post, I’m talking specifically about a subset of gay icons related to the so-called “Diva Worship” culture among gay men. Nobody really seems to know why exactly gay men are so drawn to larger-than-life women, I’ve heard too many reasons to go into them all now, but even if not all of us go for the cliches (Cher, Gaga, etc.) pretty much every gay man has a female figure--real or fictional--they connect with in a way their straight male peers don’t.

Looking back, it’s obvious why Garland resonated with me. She was chronically insecure, especially about her looks--as was I. She spent her life wanting desperately to for someone to love her unconditionally and to be able to love them back, only to be denied this simple happiness time after time--well, of course that would resonate with a gay audience, especially in her lifetime. And she was a survivor, repeatedly cast aside by the press and the industry as washed up, she continually had the last laugh. She had a strength to her that I wanted. It was a different kind of strength than the physical/masculine kind offered by the pro-athletes and superheroes my male peers emulated, but which I found unrelatable and unappealing. Hers was a strength that came dressed in sequins and high heels, and I just thought it was fabulous.

Garland though, is more than just a gay icon, in a lot of ways she seems to be the gay icon. The popular code phrase “friend of Dorothy” is generally assumed to be a reference to her character in Oz. She maintained close friendships with gay men throughout her life, with whom she would frequent illegal gay bars on both coasts. Her father was a closeted homosexual, and biographers have speculated this is why so many of the men she was attracted to, both as friends and romantically, turned out to be gay or bi. She was one of the first celebrities to have their gay following acknowledged in the mainstream press. There’s even footage on youtube of her being asked directly about why she attracts so many “homosexuals,” and she is visibly thrown by it.

To understand why Garland would be so flustered over that question, it’s important to understand how being popular with the gay community was perceived in her lifetime. William Goldman’s The Season, his influential book about the 1967–68 season on and off Broadway, includes an account from an unnamed screenwriter friend describing a mid-1960s cocktail party that offers a fascinating glimpse at just that:

I can’t explain her appeal, but I saw it work once in this crazy way. I was at a party in Malibu... There were a lot of actors there, the word on them was that they were queer, but this was a boy-girl party, everyone was paired off, and these beautiful men and gorgeous broads were talking together and drinking together. Anyway, everything’s going along and it’s sunny, I’m getting a little buzzed... when I realized, Garland was in the room.

The guy she’s with, her husband, supports her as she plops down in this chaise, and says what she wants to drink and he goes off to get it. And she’s sitting all alone and for a minute there was nothing, and then this crazy thing started to happen. Every homosexual in the place, every guy you’d heard whispered about, they left the girls they were with and started to mass move towards Garland. She didn’t ask for it, she was just sitting there, while all these beautiful men circled her. They crowded around her and pretty soon she’s disappeared behind this expansive male fence. It may not sound like all that much, but I’m telling you, she magnetized them. 

I’ll never forget all those famous secret guys moving across this gorgeous patio without a sound, and her just sitting there, blinking. And then they were on her, and she was gone. (x)

Another passage describing one of her concerts in 1967, from Goldman himself, is even more blunt:

Another flutter of fags, half a dozen this time, and watching it all from a corner--two heterosexual married couples. “These fags” the first man says, “it’s like Auschwitz, some of them died along the way but a lot of them got here anyhow!” He turns to the other husband and shrugs, “Tonight, no one goes to the bathroom.” (x)

Both passages, laced with condescension, homophobia, and misogyny, are nevertheless useful windows into a pre-Stonewall way of looking at how far gay culture has come. Today Lady Gaga can sing “Don’t be a drag just be a queen” on a lead single and still reign as a queen of pop music, back then any association with homosexuality was enough to taint you. Garland’s popularity with gay men opens her up to condescending mockery, while gay men’s mere existence at a public event is enough to terrify the heterosexual attendees.

Still, the most revealing part of that last passage might not be the homophobia, but the opening reference to “another flutter of fags, half a dozen.” The fact that a decent amount of gay men evidently felt comfortable enough to express themselves at least somewhat openly at a mainstream public event is notable. In this pre-Stonewall era such openness was generally reserved for bars and other covert safe spaces.

Which brings us back to the first paragraph. If you know any queer folk history, then you’ve probably heard this one--Judy Garland’s funeral sparked the Stonewall Uprising. That fateful night in June the Stonewall Inn was packed with gay men still emotionally raw from losing their idol, so much so that when the police raided the joint they channeled that anger and loss, and fought back, and the modern LGBTQ movement was born! It’s a story that would solidify Garland’s status as the definitive gay icon, a martyr for the cause, (move over Harvey Milk!) Except, it’s not true. It’s been debunked multiple times. Most recently in this video from the NY Times.

I bring it up though, because even if she wasn’t the cause, she was still connected to that historic night, if only indirectly. Even as the NY Times video debunks the myth of her funeral causing it, two of the uprising’s participants interviewed do admit to being at Garland’s funeral, which really was held just hours before the violence started. Other accounts from people who patronized Stonewall have said that “Judy Garland” was a popular fake name to use on a sign-in book at the entrance. In other words, even if she didn’t cause them, she was still an important figure for some of the people who went on to build the modern equality movement.

As a final thought to wrap this all up, I’ve been thinking about Garland and her status as a gay icon. It’s no secret that as the years have passed by she���s been somewhat supplemented by younger icons for younger generations. There’s been some question over whether Garland even has a place in a gay culture that now has people like Lady Gaga and “Born This Way,” openly acknowledging their gay fans in ways Garland never could. 

At the same time, I can’t help but feel the recent debate over Taylor Swift’s gay-themed music video demonstrates why Garland still deserves her Gay Icon status, even if most younger queer people today don’t have the same connection to her that older generations did. Swift’s video, chocked full of every out celebrity who would return her calls and saturated in a rainbow-hue, has faced criticism for being “performative activism.” That after being fairly silent on the issue for so long she’s now trying to cash-in on the movement by branding her single a new gay anthem for Pride Month. The fact that with one exception, which misuses the word “shade,” the lyrics to the song sound more like they’re referring to Swift’s online haters rather than anti-LGBTQ bigots, certainly helps the critics’ case. As does the fact that Swift never seemed to have much interest in building a large gay following before this.

Yet there’s also a sense that this was inevitable. Corporations already roll out rainbow colored logos for Pride, in retrospect it seems obvious that celebrities, and their PR firms, would start deliberately trying to market themselves as a gay icon without first taking the time to build a large following in the LGBTQ community. (Gaga’s established gay fanbase undoubtedly blunted similar criticisms of “Born This Way,” for example.) Garland in this case then serves as a symbol of a time when the Gay Icon title wasn’t anointed by marketing campaigns, but emerged organically from a genuine affection for an individual held by a large number of queer people. A reminder of how important that affection was to members of our community, (and still is to many of us) even if it could only go one-way. And perhaps even a warning, of what we might lose if we let this important part of gay subculture be transformed into just another marketing gimmick.

But I’ll leave all that for another time. For now, I’ll just say, thank you Judy Garland. Thank you for all the joy and comfort you’ve given to generations of gay men. And thank you especially for the companionship you gave me while I was still figuring some things out.