#Lesbians = immigrants?

[sailoreddy]

[enyasaints]

TW: SA in the Work Place. Seeking Justice

Direct Aid:

PP: enyasaints@gmail.com

Sorry I look disheveled. I am a broken person. All I ask is that you guys help me prove my past employer wrong. Help me fight.

💗 $400/$20,0000 raised

[lgbtally4ever]

If you reply to my posts, I’m going to assume you, too, are a fan of BL, and/or a proponent for gay rights, and/or a Liberal, who believes in equality for everyone.

MAGA: KEEP YOUR CULT-BASED DELUSIONS TO YOURSELF

[bootdork]

Enamored with the gym changing room lighting.

Tagging my usual suspects, hi from tio @ashtnketchup @toadmancer @kingblau @khaoticdyke @chainmail-butch @farmerlesbian @butchchrist

[5eyed]

yayo! (real name: yolanda). shes xeress crush. i want to give her some tattoos or piercings but i couldnt think of good ones yet..

[ianthes-missing-arm]

This realization doesn't hit you until you're 24 and you have lived outside of your home country for 6 years. You will most likely never experience romantic love with someone of the same origin. You only had your first girlfriend last year; if you're ever to date someone again, the chances of them having the same ethnic background aren't slim, but practically non-existent.

You will never get to sing along to amorfinos with your beloved. You could show them the salsa songs that you grew up with, you could teach them Spanish, but they will never share the same sense of nostalgia and belonging that you have for your culture.

You come from a tiny, often forgotten country. You always find yourself educating the people you meet that aren't latine. Sometimes it is frustrating to explain where you're from, "sandwiched between Colombia and Peru... Galápagos Islands? surely you learned where Charles Darwin went in science class?"

Other times it is fun to teach people about your origins, your culture, and your customs. Most people are receptive and seem to be politely interested. Nonetheless, you can tell when people have absolutely no idea where the hell your country is, even though they try and seem like they do.

Perhaps your future partner will be excited and willing to know this part of you. However, you can't help but wonder what it would be like to be loved by someone who doesn't need to be told where you grew up, because they would know as soon as their hear you speak.

[eclipsesalign]

Y’know I have never really liked the whole sentiment around coming out and I really think its because people make it into like… a thing you MUST DO or else it lowkey makes you a coward?

Since the moment I figured out that I was some form of queer, I decided that I would NEVER come out to my family. And like… I don’t care about that! There’s no reason my parents or my sister need to know about my identity and as it goes, I would almost never run into a situation in which I’d be forced to explain.

But by all definitions, I’m in the closet. I don’t like that. I don’t like the concept of me being “stuck” and being unable to reveal myself. I don’t WANT to reveal myself! And I don’t ever care to

I dunno! I just feel like I keep seeing people being pressured into coming out to their family even when it potentially isn’t safe, both in like tv shows and social media. I don’t really get it.

(P.S. if this experience doesn’t reflect your feelings on it I am not telling you you HAVE to keep your identity to yourself and you shouldn’t come out if you actually want to. Just making sure I have all my bases cleared)

[ara-line]

So, queer POC.

A lot of left wing people are uncomfortable acknowledging many queer POC face marginalization from their own communities.

This is especially true if you're from an immigrant family.

"But Bee," you say, "your grandmother and mom are very open minded towards the gays and they grew up in uber homophobic India. They managed to unlearn their homophobia. You have coworkers who've been in Canada for less than a year and they include their pronouns on their LinkedIn profiles. The Chennai Rainbow Parade is a thing. There are Indian universities with LGBT support clubs. So just because they grew up in a homophobic environment doesn't mean they'll be that way for the rest of their lives."

Yes, that is true, especially among urban university educated Gen Z Indians. But there are still many who for whatever reason, don't unlearn those views.

And their potentially queer children, who already struggle to see eye to eye with their parents because of how wildly different the environments in which the generations grew up in are, struggle even more because of it.

Many white North American middle and upper class LGBT people, who are able to come out and are privileged compared to many of their fellow gays because of this, are left wing and are quite uncomfortable acknowledging this reality out of fear of being racist. We can recognize this reality and also not be racist or xenophobic. What matters is doing so with respect and nuance.

As a result, many queer POC are not able to get support from their own POC communities and from their fellow LGBT people, leading to a whole new level of alienation. Jasvir Singh is one openly gay Sikh man, and he has discussed how many LGBT Sikhs are excluded from their communities when they come out.

See: Bruce MacArthur was able to kill gay male POC, primarily men from South Asia and the Middle East, because his victims concealed their homosexuality from their families because they knew their families were homophobic. TW for murder, torture, and dismemberment.

I am aware there's many other factors at play with respect to Bruce MacArthur, but given some of my own experiences growing up as a first generation Canadian from India, I do think this particular fact of life I'm talking about did play somewhat of a role in why MacArthur evaded justice for so long.

So I do want to acknowledge queer POC who aren't able to come out due to homophobia within their fellow POC communities and because many usually white North American middle and upper class LGBT people, aka the ones who are safest coming out because they're able to get support easily and don't have to fear marginalization, refuse to acknowledge their privilege and support their fellow LGBT people who are less privileged and less safe in coming out.

In short, white, economically privileged LGBT people with supportive communities need to do more to support their fellow LGBT people. Especially POC ones and queer first generation immigrants.

[iambic-stan]

last book read + last stethoscope used, part 31

This is Li Charmaine Anne's YA debut, Crash Landing, with my starry night MDF. There are some heavy issues like dealing with homophobia and abusive parents here, but overall it was a really fun, distracting read about two daughters of Chinese immigrants in Vancouver preparing to graduate from high school while discovering each other and their queerness. I immediately connected Jay and Ash to Angela and Rayanne in the short-lived show My So-Called Life...if the latter two had been gay and Chinese-Canadian, I guess. There was even a scene during a senior presentation that had me recalling one near the end of the show's run when Angela and Rayanne were rehearsing for a school production of Our Town, except this was a debate about Orlando. I learned a lot about skateboarding I didn't know (I basically knew nothing going in). Also a reminder that I should visit Vancouver one of these days--it sounds beautiful.

[wenddelina]

🏳️‍🌈 Help A Young Lesbian Couple Build a Life in Safety 🏳️‍🌈

We are a lesbian couple aged 22 & 21, who fled from Turkiye in order to save our lives and love each other freely. Thankfully, we managed to make it to Ter Apel and register as refugees of the Netherlands, but we need your help, as the life for us begins now.

We have been in love for over a year now. We lived together, cried together, laughed together, did quite literally everything together but between closed doors, with the fear of being murdered if anyone knew about our love. We tried our hardest to finish our university education in our home country, to be able to just move abroad, instead of seeking asylum and/or requesting help from everyone we come across with, but Turkiye has made it impossible for us. Even though we both had “decent” amount of money incoming, we couldn’t afford a life in our country. We couldn’t pay bills, rent, utilities, we couldn’t attend school sometimes simply because we didn’t have the money for transportation, we couldn’t take our pets to the vet because we were scared of the bill, and we couldn’t share our story to get help within the community because that would bring us nothing but torture and/or death. Maybe you already know, but just in case you don’t, the Turkish economy has been falling down for around 15 years now, with absolutely no action taken to prevent it. So, even after we decided to flee the country for the sake of our lives, thanks to the economy, it was almost impossible for us to do so. Thankfully, we had a few friends who were kind enough to lend us some of their own money for our future. After months of collecting money from every single source we could find, we ended up gathering enough to get us to The Netherlands.

The troubles didn’t end with us collecting the money, because we had to land in Lithuania, then travel for around 5 days in order to get to Amsterdam, and then another 3 hours to get to Ter Apel. At around 19.00, 18th of June, we arrived at the IND office, and requested asylum. Thankfully, everything went kind of smoothly, and after registering for the first time, we were given a place to stay.

The next morning, we were taken away from the place and sent to the police station for the official registration, which took us 9 hours of waiting. After the police was done with us, we were sent back, but not to the place we were offered the first day, to a temporary encampment near Ter Apel. Not only were the conditions awful, but also it was really scary and triggering for us, since the place was full of people we were trying to run away from. It was surrounded by the mentality that wished the worst way of death on us, the mentality that believed we didn’t deserve to see the light of day ever again. We lied to everyone asking and said that we were sisters or friends, because we didn’t know how they would act. After immediately reporting to the Red Cross at the encampment, we sat on our beds the whole night, taking turns to sleep because of the fear we had within. The sleeping didn’t last long, as we were taken back to Ter Apel with the hopes of finding a room. Busses full of people were taken back and forth in between Ter Apel and this encampment, waiting all day in ridiculous conditions and praying for a room. At this point, we weren’t caring about anything but a room. We were not feeling safe because we knew that we weren’t. If anybody, by any chance, learned that we were in fact not sisters but a couple in love trying to find equality, we would be threatened by many people at once. Knowing the stories coming from the queers of Ter Apel, we were scared to death. We were thinking about sleeping on the benches, or even on the highway instead of going back to the tents without privacy. Thanks to lgbtasylumsupport.nl we managed to get our voice heard by the COA, leading to us taken back to the room we were assigned before. Even though we cannot be sure about how safe we are, we are thankful for the four walls we have right now.

As the days have passed with us trying to find a safe place to sleep, or even to exist, the due dates of all the loans we have taken from banks & people are getting closer and closer. We managed to get ourselves into a room in an actually short period of time, but we highly doubt anything will get done at the same pace from now on. As two students who fled their country for the sake of their future at such a young age, we are also unemployed refugees as of now. So, in order for us to pay out any debt we have and at least boost our new life a little, we need your help.

Any piece of donation you can offer will definitely save us from days of trouble and will be appreciated. We are already highly aware of the situation all refugees and minorities face even in a peaceful and safe place as Netherlands, so we will be donating all the money we don’t need. We want to be able to help people out right now too, but we have to stand up for ourselves first to be able to be good for others.

Thank you for your generosity and kindness. Please don’t forget that any interaction on this post helps us a lot too!

— LINKS —

🏳️‍🌈 GoFundMe

🏳️‍🌈 PayPal

🏳️‍🌈 Twitter

[rainbluealoekitten]

my grampa has potential to be the coolest man ever bc he sends me messages that say "😱👍😄⚓" and he changed his email settings so everything he sends is in blue comic sans.. then you've got his flags for every single thing you can imagine that he puts on his boat and the church BUT NO he's got to be a sexist anti-immigration unionist.

[ya-world-challenge]

Book Review: When the Angels Left the Old Country (🇵🇱 Poland)

[image 1: book cover; image 2: map of Poland; image 3: Jewish boys studying in 1930s East Europe, source: Roman Vishniac]

When the Angels Left the Old Country

by: Sacha Lamb

YA World Challenge book for 🇵🇱  Poland

Technically only about 1/3 of the book takes place in Poland (the rest taking place either on the Atlantic Ocean or in New York), and the area is controlled by Russia at the time the book takes place. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, its that the world and its people are never neatly categorized no matter how many lists I make.

Review

The angel and the demon have lived side by side in their tiny nameless shtetl for centuries, passing their time studying and arguing over fine points of the Talmud. The world around them is changing, though, as threats of pogroms grow closer and more young people are leaving for the promise of the New World. When the two hear of a villager’s daughter who has disappeared along the way, they decide to head to America to find her. The demon, Little Ash, finds promise of mischief and excitement, while the angel sees a duty, a mitzvah, to watch out for the residents of their village.

And adventures ensue! Along the way they encounter murderers in Warsaw, the ghost of an old rebbe, a headstrong girl on her way to America still bitter that her crush married a man, demons at Ellis Island, New York mobsters, dybbuks, and more!

But what I love most of this book was the relationships and the way it is such a sweet, beautiful song of being alive, being human (even when you’re not), and the many shapes of identity. I really can’t put into words how beautiful I found this book. If you’re looking for a queerplatonic story with a demon and an agender angel (it pronouns) that explores themes of names, change, identity, and soulmates, for lack of a better word, that is unashamedly Jewish/Yiddish -- if any of that sounds like something you’d like to read, go pick this up now! (You won’t need to know anything of Yiddish culture to appreciate it)

I was sucked into this story feeling all the feels, and it’s definitely my top book of 2022 now. 

(Random aside: I also couldn’t help picturing Ash and the angel looking like the demon and angel from CLAMP’s Wish, which kinda makes it all the more cute. And Ash is such a tsundere.)

Other reps: #jewish #agender #queer #lesbian #immigrant

Genres: #historical 20th century #faith #adventure #fantasy

★  ★  ★  ★  ★    5 stars    

Read it at  Bookshop.org  |   Amazon

[netscapenavigator-official]

Oh so you’re a “queer ally” but you won’t marry an American Fag so that they can get a one-way ticket outta this dump? 🤨 Sounds home of phobic to me, dawg.

[paperglader]

i was busy with finals, fist fighting depression, and attempting to get some semblance of peace back into my life... + my computer ran out of storage. so, in summary: it's been a while since i opened hsr.

WE ARE SO BACK, THOUGH

only thing is that i totally missed firefly's banner, which i've been waiting for since she made me sob for her death way back when she was first introduced. it's fine, though? apparently next one's jade and she looks very sapphic + pink hair?

[areafiftydun]

okay but who does found family better than 911?? WHO?!

[fashiun-killa]

One thing about me is I am very unforgiving about politics. You can't befriend queer people while voting their rights away.