#directed at the different categories of lgbt people

[catboyrightsdefender]

every time i see a post mentioning slurs on this hellsite i lose 10 years of life expectancy you are all so stupid

[catboybiologist]

Hello, I've heard from a few trans women that their transition made higher education impossible I wasn't sure if they were talking about college or grad school, but since you're a woman in a PhD program I was wondering if you think transitioning would make getting a higher education harder.

Thanks

Someone who might be trans that wants to pursue a master's

Hm. This is weird to answer. Unfortunately I can't offer TOO much insight here. I'm very much a baby trans (~1.5 months HRT) and I present as a man day to day without issue (seriously, y'all have NO idea how masculine I look outside of my pictures). When I do finally socially transition, I'll probably have more thoughts.

With that out of the way, here's my personal experience so far:

I don't think I would have transitioned if I was NOT in academia/pursuing my PhD. I think most of the issues people run into can be divided into three categories:

1. Financial difficulty with acquiring HRT or other gender affirming care

2. Closer ties (financially and emotionally) to family and being seen less as an independent adult means greater pressure to not transition, and consequences if you do

3. Academic stress and pressure while you're undergoing emotional changes that may make things difficult short term.

Personally I was able to dodge most of those issues.

A huge part of this is because I spent a lot of time meticulously ensuring a lot of aspects of my life are in place before I started HRT. I waited until I was out of undergrad, which has weirder finances, I scoped out options at my student health center vs in the community, established queer community, waited a year to start in a good lab and establish there, scoped that lab out for queer acceptance before I joined, and in general became more financially and emotionally secure. Also, while I'm still in good terms with my parents, I'm not financially or emotionally reliant on them anymore- so if that changes when I come out, it won't affect me as much.

Looking back, it's hard to say whether I would recommend doing things this way. During the time that I was "figuring things out", I was dying. I was depressed and aimless, and I couldn't make happiness or contentment my baseline emotion. Starting an online femboy account was my only outlet for a while. Also, my results are going to be less drastic now that I've waited until I'm 25 to start.

Obviously, I still have the stress of a PhD to worry about while my emotions and body are changing. But to be honest.... My PhD has been kinder to me academically than my undergrad. All of my goals center around two or three long term, overarching projects instead of a million tiny assignment and study snippets from a million directions. I personally think this is easier to manage even if it's more work overall.

In return, the academia environment has been good to me about my queerness. There's a gender care specialist on campus via student health where I can get HRT, queer organizations and events are much easier to come by in a university environment, and people on average are far more educated and open minded towards LGBT issues than the general public. I have a role in the main queer graduate student group here, and it would have been hard for me to find explicitly supportive friends without that.

I'm gonna throw an additional paranoid note your way: a master's degree is hell for everyone. While the exact ways in which this is true vary from program to program, but in general, they feel like the worst of both worlds from undergrad and a PhD. You're locked out of or have less of a chance for the financial stability and employment positions of a PhD position, but you're also locked out of the financial aid and support of undergrads. I'm very biased from a miserable MS experience, though.

So yeah. I think my experience has been different than a lot of people, but I hope there was some small insight there!

[nerdygaymormon]

This blog has helped me many times with accepting and combining both the "I'm LGBTQ+" and "I'm LDS" parts of myself, and helped me see how it's not a contradiction to be both. Thank you!

I was wondering if you have any resources or previous blog posts that I can review in regards to tithing. On one hand, being a full tithe payer is a requirement for temple worship. On the other, I don't think I can trust the Church in how it spends the money it is given. From the Church supporting anti-LGBTQ+ groups in the past, to the recent whistleblower articles and 60 Minutes video, I'm torn and feel like I'm doing mental gymnastics. Am I just looking for excuses not to pay tithing? I tell myself I'd rather donate to other charities I trust/I know would make a difference, but I also recognize that I'm falling short on any sort of donation. I do plan to ask my bishop about this at some point as well, but I wouldn't mind hearing more advice from more experienced people, either, if you have some wisdom to share.

Thank you for the compliment, I appreciate you letting me know my blog has helped you in some way. 💖

As for tithing, that’s something you have to figure out between yourself and God.

We’re asked to donate 10% of our income as tithing and it goes to paying for ward activities & supplies, for the church building, for temples, and so on. A part of it also goes to paying for the central offices, programs, website, manuals and governance of the church.

Do I support the things that tithing supports? Well, that’s where it gets a bit sticky, right? I do support a lot of the things it pays for, especially the parts we experience at the local level. But it’s hard to think I am contributing to an organization that actively fights against me, as a citizen of my country, from having full & equal rights.

For a number of years I refused to pay tithing, beginning when the church worked in California to pass Prop 8 which undid marriage equality. A few years ago I did start tithing again as it seemed the church was making space for LGBT members and accepting the reality of marriage equality However, I’ve revisited that decision several times. I’ve thought about what is my “interest annually,” (see D&C 119:3-5) and is the church the only way to give to the Lord? Also, “church” can have several meanings, including the institution, the building, the attendees/congregation, a community of people.

I support a number of the things that tithing pays for. I want the blessings that come from paying tithing. Once I turn over that money, am I responsible for what happens with it, is it any of my concern? When it was used against people like me, it did feel like it was my concern?

When making a donation to the church, in addition to Tithing there's several categories available, such as Humanitarian Aid and General Missionary. I know some people who choose to use those as a way to direct where they'd like the money to be spent.

I appreciate that church leaders simply ask "Are you a full tithe payer?“ and it is between me and God to determine the answer. The bishop doesn’t review your statement of donations, there’s not rules about if you paid on your net or gross income, no real explanation about what is meant by paying on our excess. The Church really leaves the interpretation of Tithing up to us. So if the Spirit confirms your plan, you’re good.

I have a post about paying tithing that doesn't necessarily relate to your question, but it may be helpful in how we think about the obligation to pay a tithe.

[duckyfruitbat]

MOGAI

Here's a bit of LGBT history that happened right here on Tumblr. MOGAI was an attempt to rebrand and expand the community by being accepting of all labels and finding any that have been ignored by society.

In late 2013 early 2014 some LGBT youths here on tumblr realized something about the community name. The official acronym has been expanding to keep itself as inclusive as possible, but the issue is that it doesn't seem to stop. At time of writing the full acronym is LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, questioning/queer, intersex, and asexual). The "+" is either everyone else, or HIV positive people depending on who you ask. As far as inclusion goes, the acronym does a fair job, but is not fully inclusive. There are variations that are longer and/or with a different order that includes pansexual, two-spirited, and straight allies. I don't think that last group includes themselves in the community.

The biggest issue with the acronym is that it is difficult to use in conversation. Most people shorten it to just the first four letters and maybe the plus, others use a more regal form of gay, and others more are using queer as a substitute. That last one is the most common, hell it's the one I use, but it does have a complicated history. It is in fact a reclaimed slur that the community has been working on since Stonewall, I'd argue that the effort has been largely successful. These days it's hard to find someone who genuinely uses it as a slur, they instead use the f slur for hateful purposes. The last example I saw of it being used as a slur was ten years ago when I was first coming out of the closet, in a video that was already a few years old.

Tangent aside, back to the early 2010's. A group of teenagers on this site was discussing the above two issues mentioned and thought that maybe it's time to come up with a new acronym that is not only short, but wonderfully inclusive without the baggage that queer has. After a short debate they landed on MOGAI (marginalized orientations gender alignments and intersex). Let me just say that for a group of teenagers online, this acronym is absolutely wonderful, it addresses all major categories while being easy to understand say and spell. It is also wonderfully inclusive, it's hard to feel left out with a name like that. I want to reiterate that this was made in a group brainstorming session.

After that the MOGAI community was born and given a flag. Real quick that flag at the top is in fact the official MOGAI flag, and I understand what they're trying to do with the symbolism and all, but did it have to be a color wheel. The original post behind the flag was lost, but the flag survived, so official meanings were lost.

Now something else that was noted by the newly formed MOGAI community was that humans are just insanely diverse. Here's where things started going downhill, people tried to name every variation they could possibly think of. Every way one person would express their sexual orientation or gender identity would be categorized, with a free flag included with each one. Variations included terms that already had a name that just wasn't mainstream yet, terms that are super specific to one or two people, or terms for what's just gender dysphoria but the poster is in denial, some un-cracked eggs that are on the verge of hatching.

The part about categorizing everything is also where a lot of trolls come in. Yeah MOGAI was famously the target of harassment and ridicule, and it is also where the "I identify as an attack helicopter" meme comes from. A lot of people decided that teenagers exploring their identities on the internet was super cringe and worth cyberbullying. Don't worry, the arrow of cringe is now pointing in their direction now for that exact behavior.

The many categories mixed in with the public harassment has led to MOGAI being just another chapter in online LGBT history. Despite its promise, it did not substitute the acronym and has instead lost to queer as an alternative. MOGAI is mostly forgotten, but it does have an impact that can be seen. Specifically in gender identity, it pushed the conversation from gender being a binary to being a spectrum in the mainstream. Non-binary identities did in fact exist before MOGAI and have for as long as humans have existed, but it forced the idea back into the mainstream and now most of us know someone who's non-binary in some way.

With all that said here's to MOGAI, for all its flaws it forced us to have a conversation!

[everything-is-crab]

Why do you think that India is more happy to legalize legal sex changes then gay marriage?

Because acceptance of gay marriage in society is a direct hit to one of the first oppressive institutions of patriarchy- marriage between a male human and a female human.

The government has answered your question itself during the recent court case to hear petitions to legalize same sex marriage- To them the purpose of marriage is to "procreate" and to maintain the "Indian family unit" in their words, and in my interpretation- to preserve the traditional societal roles of women in child bearing,childrearing and domestic chores so the men can carry their patriline.

And keep in mind, SRS and HRT aren't affordable for majority of the population here. So it does not make much difference in society if they legalize it. Most trans people you come across here haven't gone through the process.

It's the same reason why sex change is legally allowed only after SRS. Because if they could self identify then same sex attracted people could easily marry through that process regardless of gay marriage being legal or not. That's what they have said as far as I know.

This is the legal aspect of it.

Societally it's complex and differs on the sub category of trans people. I have lately been reading about the work and interviews of LBT collectives (Lesbian, Bisexual Women and Trans Men) who offer a much better perspective on gender, sex and sexuality than the LGBT people with the loudest voice (primarily those born as male). So you can ask me about that.

[garetthawke]

I posted 4,127 times in 2022

That's 399 more posts than 2021!

757 posts created (18%)

3,370 posts reblogged (82%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@sapphoseraphim

@luciferscathedral

@chelseawolfe

@cripplepunx

@fredersen

I tagged 865 of my posts in 2022

#anders - 23 posts

#literally - 11 posts

#yeah - 9 posts

#scorpio - 5 posts

#lmao - 5 posts

#steve harrington - 5 posts

#yes - 4 posts

#lol - 4 posts

#stranger things - 4 posts

#ref - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#what do u mean u don't over analyze the same media over and over to supplement your own ideas so they're reinforced by canon and not fanon

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

internet-only lgbt+ people being obsessed with seeming “normal” is going to be what weakens us

1,305 notes - Posted June 26, 2022

#4

"all lesbian rep is always femme" it's not, actually. i literally never look on the screen and see femmes. we get hallmark channel blondes who look exactly like every other straight woman on tv. actual femmes are so beyond what's considered acceptable or normal for lesbians - in fact characters i would call femme are usually very pointedly straight and usually shamed/demonized, with their appearance a pointed commentary on why they're bad people, from slutshaming to the selfish material girl trope, unless it treads into the "weird" category for straight people, in which case they're always oddball lonely cat ladies nobody likes.

but even then, the distinct things that i recognize in femmes (queercoding, if you will,) are always absent, because they are deviations from the male gaze. femininity is expected to be a performance for the male gaze, femininity embraced by lesbians is literally the opposite. guess what we see on tv?

and i don't say this to be like "ooh femmephobia is real!" rather, my point is that media just hates lesbians. and i dislike when people say "all we see for lesbian rep is femmes," because we don't see femmes, we see feminine people playing a lesbian based on a straight interpretation of what femme and the female gaze is. they literally don't understand it. there is no gender nonconformity, no actual femme coding on any of these characters; what you mean by "femme" is they wear makeup and maybe high heels.

media hates lesbians. butch rep is utterly abysmal, and I'm begging y'all to reframe how you look at what rep we do have, because continuing to call what they give us "femme" is a disservice to lesbians. straight people do not understand that there are different ways to be a woman or perform femininity, so all we get for lesbian rep are straight women and straight interpretations of lesbians, not femmes. please don't disrespect lesbians by acting like any of what we get qualifies as rep for butches and femmes, because it doesn't, and it won't without direct queer involvement because straight people are incapable of understanding what we are or even look like.

1,403 notes - Posted June 4, 2022

#3

amab people can dress masc and be gnc and afab people can dress fem and be gnc and yall really need to get this thru ur skulls bc u seem to think "gender non conforming" refers to agab and not. you know. people's actual gender

7,367 notes - Posted June 15, 2022

#2

the tumblr discourse brainrot that had ppl reading the phrase "gender essentialism" and sped them past actual gender essentialism just to arrive at "no critique of men ever feminism is over unless you're a terf."

y'all really need to start getting education off this fucking website bc I'm sick and tired of y'all not grasping basic shit only to take nuanced terms out of context just bc they're trending.

8,519 notes - Posted June 18, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I'll never forgive tumblr for being so quick to shit on the concept of "queer platonic" relationships bc even outside of asexual/aromantic relationships, the bond I've shared with other queer women in a non romantic, non sexual way has been wildly different and more intimate than any friendships I've ever had with cishet people, even when we're not as close as my cishet friends. the fact that y'all were like "relationships are strictly within these categories there is only familial, platonic, sexual, and romantic" like yall pls 😭 queer connection and bonding is so much deeper and more complex than that. get offline and connect with some of your community i beg

28,085 notes - Posted June 21, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[torc87]

So that is part of my social psychology textbook. And once I read that, I understood why there is so much anti-Semitism in America right now.

We have economic scarcity, w ridiculously hight prices for food and salaries not rising to follow.

We have concern about exposure to a virus - we may have declared COVID over but it's still around and our minds Know that.

We have political threat - actual concern about the end of democracy.

A lot of leftists have concern about sheer survival - anyone trans, LGBT, likely to want an abortion, in danger of police shootings - that's actual concern about a direct threat to life.

So lots and lots of threats occuring right now.

People are scared and mad and in defend mode.

Which means a "sometimes" in-group like Jewish people, a group that was a clear out-group for thousands of years and only considered an in-group for less than 50 is once again treated as and subconsciously labeled as an out-group.

Not one of us, and all the dehumanization outgroups face is being directed towards it. THEY must be terrible for us to dislike them so much. THEY must be capable of inhuman things. THEY are different, don't feel empathy, etc. THEY, THEY, THEY.

It is easy to displace all that fear and anger into an out-group, especially one that is a small minority of the population.

In 2020 the Pew Research Center put Jewish adults in the US as 2.4 percent of the population. As compared to 7 percent of Asians, 18.9 percent Latino, and 12.1 percent Black.

That is a tiny part of the population - very visible bc of a bunch of famous people but also very vulnerable due to the low numbers.

And normal empathy isn't extended, and there's no interest in differentiating amongst people bc out-groups are naturally treated as more homogenous than in groups.

So that explains the leftists part. Under threat their brains chose to see the Jews as an out-group and you can dehumanize an out-group, you can say hateful things, write hate messages, graffiti, do violence to them. Bc they are not your people. Bc your brain doesn't recognize them as your people. And when they try to act like your people - by continuing to be part of the same queer or communist organizations they have been for years - they get rejected. Bc now they are places in the outsider category.

[coochiequeens]

For a group that claims to be so oppressed TRAs have no hesitation to call the cops.                                                          It’s like they know that cops will prioritize men, even men in dresses, over actual women.

A group of lesbian women were removed by law enforcement during a Pride march in Cardiff, Wales for “causing confrontation” after they were verbally attacked by trans activists. The organization, Get the L Out UK, opposes the addition of transgenderism to the LGB category, and carried banners which read “lesbians don’t like penises,” and “trans activism erases lesbians.”

Videos uploaded to Get the L Out’s Twitter account depict an exchange between Get the L Out organizer Angela Wild and a police officer.

“I want to make sure I understand. You are removing lesbians from an LGBT march. Is that what you’re doing?” Wild asked the officer. 

“Yes, that is what’s happening. For your safety, and for other people’s safety,” he replied. “At the moment, your march is causing confrontation between different groups of people.”

In the background, a man wearing a dress can be seen rushing towards Liane Timmermann, activist and lead campaigner with the organization, while shouting insults. 

Speaking to Reduxx on what happened, Get the L Out demonstrator Angela Wild says police formed a line between them and the other Pride marchers immediately.

“We were initially told by the police that we had to move, but we told them we had the right to march where we were. They then told us they could escort us, but only if we marched at the back. We said ‘no, we’re at the front, and we intend to march where we are.'”

Wild says that while the police initially told them they were allowed to march at the front, the decision was quickly rescinded, and the lesbian demonstrators were once again told they either needed to shift to the back of the march, or they would be removed entirely.

“They told us we were going to be removed for our own safety, to which we asked why they wouldn’t do anything about the trans activists who were harassing us. They didn’t respond. We were then threatened with being physically removed from the march.”

Wild noted that verbal abuse was being hurled at them, with one particularly hostile trans activist telling them that “lesbians can fuck off,” but police did nothing to stop the hostility that was aimed at Wild and her group.

“We did this action to highlight the way lesbians are treated within the LGBT community, and in Pride marches as well, where we cannot state that we do not like to have sexual relationships with men, even if the men identify as or call themselves lesbians,” Wild told Reduxx. 

“It’s an issue that no one seems to want to talk about. One of our banners said ‘cotton ceiling is rape’ and another banner that said ‘lesbians don’t like penises.’ They don’t seem like controversial statements but that’s what got us all the harassment,” she added.

The ‘cotton ceiling’ refers to a term coined by porn star and trans activist Drew DeVeaux in 2015. It is inspired by the concept of the “glass ceiling,” which is used to describe discrimination women face in the workplace that prevents them for reaching upper management levels. The “cotton” refers to the material of a women’s underwear, and frames a lesbian’s refusal to have sexual relations with males as a form of discrimination.

Wild also says their participation in the Pride march was intended to provide opposition to plans the Welsh government has to introduce LGBT-oriented policy in an effort to become the most “LGBT friendly state in the world.” Wild stated she had concerns the policies were going to disproportionately impact women and lesbians as similar policies have in other parts of the world.

In a past interview with Women’s Declaration International, Timmermann explained that Get the L Out focuses on direct actions and research, and that the group was formed “because we realized that transgenderism is a threat to women, but more specifically to lesbians.”

“We see transgenderism as posting two main dangers for lesbians: the cotton ceiling and the trans’ing of young non-conforming girls and women, most of whom are lesbians,” Timmermann explained.

On Twitter, feminists and lesbian allies expressed outrage at the footage uploaded by Get the L Out UK, with many pointing out the irony in removing lesbians from a pride parade for not wanting to engage in heterosexual relations.

“Pride was set up to protest against the homophobia directed at people because of their sexual orientation not for heterosexuals. Yet there we have it – same sex attracted women being harassed by heterosexuals,” Twitter user Davina Day wrote.

Many also took issue with the police claiming the lesbians’ removal was for “their safety,” when the threat itself was not being addressed.

“And ‘for your own protection.’ How about removing the men who were threatening them? Or maybe the law doesn’t apply when you identity as trans?” User Jonathan Hartley asked. 

Pride Cymru released a statement following footage of the lesbians’ removal going viral on social media. In the short post, they suggested Get the L Out had “interrupted the march” and proclaimed “trans rights are human rights.”

This isn’t the first instance of hostility being directed at lesbians attempting to march at gay pride events in recent months.

In July and August, lesbian activists in Germany were physically assaulted by trans activists for holding signs similar to those Get the L Out had in Cardiff. 

On July 2, a group of women gathered outside of Museum Ludwig and unfurled banners which defined lesbians as “female homosexual persons” and declared opposition to the ‘queer’ trend. In response, trans activists heckled and harassed the women, and at one point a masked man rushed a young woman who had been holding a lesbian pride flag and put her in a headlock, wrapping his arms tightly around her neck and strangling her.

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

This one will be pretty personal and contain some negative self-talk but I think it’s an important conversation to have: 

When I first came out as trans, some people told me that i will never be in a relationship ever again: Straight men and lesbian women won’t date me because I’m a man, gay men and straight women won’t date me because I am a trans man. They warned me that, by choosing to live as myself, I am also choosing to stay alone forever, to end up as the sad little leftover nobody ever picks out of the fridge - and I hate to admit it but I feel like they were right. 

I haven’t been in a relationship ever since I came out in 2019. Even just typing this out loud makes me feel like a failure. 

Am I not supposed to be proof of all those positive statements? Trans people are loveable! Trans people are attractive! Trans people can do anything they want to do! …and instead here I am, proving the people right who said I’ll never find love ever again. Turning into the leftover, into the kooky lonely uncle who will always just be the uncle, never a husband. 

Yes, this all sounds depressing and no, I don’t 100% believe my own thoughts here either. The logical part of my brain knows all the good counterattacks: “Plenty of people of all genders and many different orientations are happy to date trans men. Being single for multiple years or even forever isn’t a moral failure and being in a relationship isn’t a guarantee for happiness. Society is moving past the whole leftovers thing, the “you either get married in your twenties or never at all” binary. Plenty of people get married later. You don’t even need to get married at all for a happy and fulfilled life. And maybe most importantly, as a trans person you’re not supposed to be proof of anything. You’re not a fictional character who needs to be good representation of the trans community. You are a human being.”

And yet, with all these nice sentences in my brain: I sometimes do feel like a leftover. Like I am undateable. Unable to ever be someone’s husband because of, well, the trans thing (and the “I want no sex at all whatsoever” thing but there’s not enough room in this letter for all that), and that sucks because I’d really like to be someone’s husband. 

If I knew that before I came out, I still would’ve decided to come out. The happiness and freedom and self-love I found in openly living as my true self is worth it. Even if I really do never get married and even if it was a  direct “result” of coming out, it’s the happier alternative for me. If I never came out and got married, I’d have to be someone’s wife and I couldn’t do that without heavily lying to both myself and them, and that would definitely be unhappy and unhealthy for everyone involved. 

So, what’s the big message for you here? Well, it’s 3 am and I couldn’t sleep without getting these thoughts out of my system, so this is somewhat of a diary entry for myself. But I am a firm believer in open and honest conversations about feelings - and feelings don’t always fit into the neat “lgbt+ positivity” category. I wanted to share this with you, just to show you that it’s fine to have worries and negative thoughts like these. It doesn’t make you less trans or bad at being trans to worry about stuff like this, it just makes you a human being. 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Dad 

[mostweakhamlets]

Hello friends. I want to talk about a project happening on a totally different blog. I've been thinking about doing this for so long, and today I decided to put the hours into starting it.

The Lavender Showcase

@lavendershowcase is a blog that will reblog and promote original stories by LGBT writers. Hopefully, the blog will one day have a big enough following that this will direct decent attention to LGBT writers and will help writers connect to one another.

There is a tab for tags (currently there's one story that's been reblogged and cataloged for the sake of getting a tag list started). If there is a trope you like, a specific identity you'd like to see, a genre, or a rating, you will be able to see what has been cataloged under each category. (This list will grow as more stories are reblogged).

Anyone can be featured on the blog as long as they are LGBT (the story doesn't have to have a focus on LGBT characters) and so long as they follow the very simple guidelines (which can be found under "How to get Featured.")

The blog is meant to be a celebration of LGBT writers and was inspired by the issues I've had posting and browing tags on Tumblr related to queer writing.

If you would like to see stories written by LGBT people all over Tumblr, follow @lavendershowcase! If you want your original work to be featured, tag the blog! If you're still unsure, check out the FAQ page.

The blog will also be creating a directory for writers and hosting writing and reading events in the future.

Even if this doesn't seem like your thing, please consider reblogging this to spread awareness. There are not a lot of spaces like this anymore on Tumblr, and I would love it if LGBT writers could have a spot where they can find one another.

Questions can be directed to @lavendershowcase

[tanadrin]

I mean, you would *think* that asexuality wouldn’t be so frowned upon/would be more acceptable in todays society than something like homosexuality, and I certainly thought that too, until I brought up asexuality with my (former) pastor who immediately said that such people were completely broken, disconnected from god, and also all must be pedophiles, for some reason. (Something something children don’t experience sexual attraction so why are you as an adult not experiencing sexual attraction? You must be trying to groom them!!1!1!) (this pastor later was arrested on account of having child pornography on his phone so. Yknow. Always be wary of the people that are loudly calling an entire group of people pedophiles) So, yea idk, I’ve felt very rejected from the world at large due to my asexuality and that’s why I formed an identity around it. Also, common misconception, asexuality ≠ celibacy, celibate people may experience sexual attraction whereas it’s impossible with asexuals. I too thought that people at large would just think of asexuals as people who are celibate, but that hasn’t been the case in my lived day-to-day, where people who are celibate are far more accepted than people who are asexual. Which leads to a weird realization that in society, sexual desire MUST happen to everyone, and if it doesn’t you’re a freak and also weird, BUT if you act on your desires you’re dirty and a sexual deviant, so it’s good if you abstain from it, but ONLY if you desire it in the first place. No winning.

i don't deny that heteronormativity is uncomfortable for asexuals, as it is for many heterosexuals, and that having a prepackaged identity to hand people and go "here is the slot to fit me into in your worldview" is useful. like, it's not bad that category exists. it just seems different in type than other LGBT categories, where there's been a history of, like, murder and legal sanction directed at members. it's not that i'm opposed to the existence of the category, it just doesn't seem as intuitive to me.

[xeniden]

Suppose I should tell y'all what the flag means huh?

I realized I didn't make a post about the flag & my stance on xeniden flags as a whole.

First off, this flag is meant to cover all xenidens at once. Past, present, & future. This one flag in itself is friendly to any & all xeniden labels. It is the ultimate catch-all.

[Read more under the cut ..]

Second, this isn't really a flag template, and I'd strongly prefer if no one made a (public) template without my explicit permission.

Generally, I'd prefer xenidens to not have pride flags with them since they aren't an lgbt++ thing and I do not want them to get mistaken as genders/sexualities/etc since they are not, and I would love to encourage colour palettes and visual aesthetics/moodboards because they give more inspiration to the xeniden itself rather than the concept of "just having a flag for it." (If you look at seaiden, you will notice I created a colour palette in the middle circle, but not as a flag!)

Visual representations in the form of moodboards also lends way to tons of creative options for one to represent a term coined. This is about expression and self-perception!

And, as a reminder, xenidens are allo cishet nt+ friendly too. Everyone is welcome as long as they are using labels in good faith! Flags tend to be used for lgbt/disabled/nd/etc communities only (afaik, I may be wrong though lol)

If you still want to make a flag, you can, but for the foreseeable future, no flags will be considered "official," even if you made it along with a term you have coined. I will still reblog qualifying posts even if they do have flags though!

I'm not ANTI-flag, I just don't feel that they are necessary here. If you have an excellent argument for why you feel flags are necessary to include, or 100% should be considered official any time one is made, please let me know! Can't say my opinion will for sure change but you're free to argue with me lol (/g)

Alright, onto what the flag actually means:

Upside down rainbow similar to xenogender flag: Represents a loose parallel to lgbt & xenic communities but not exactly the same; just based around identity and self-expression.

Blue & pink: Representing traditional masculinity & femininity & how it ties into one facet of our traditional self-expression, as well as how a lot of things in our cultures are often tied to one or the other arbitrarily.

Yellow: Representing things outside of the binary of masc & fem, to do with individualistic expression without the direct influence of the former two categories.

Cyan & orange: An even further extension outside of the binary or trinary, representing expression free from anything traditional styles would like us. These also represent complete nonconformity and the ability to just do what you want. It doesn't mater what "colour" what you like is, all that matters is it's you!

Circle: Represents what "you" are, one whole who has many facets; of which xenidens can represent just one part of your whole without necessarily directly interfering with others. Can also represent a feeling of whole-ness that some have expressed after discovering xenidens; the full & complete freedom to just Vibe(tm) with your identity without gendered (or other) restrictions.

Lines within circle: Represents the different parts of self as mentioned above, how even if these parts may or may not be divided, similar or related, they all are part of you, and thus are within the boundaries of the circle. They are horizontal to match with the stripe pattern of the rest of the image. It also seems to form an "equals" sign, which represents how we are all welcome to xenidens, and all xenidens are treated as equals to one another in every circumstance. Can also represent how xeniden labels are just as valid as all other labels people use to describe themselves.

*.+

Xeniden Carrd in case you have no clue what I'm going on about

*.+

Please don't edit or re-vamp this flag without my permission!!!

[floatingbook]

Hey just re your unorthodox Jewish anon! I grew up catholic & am seriously considering conversion to Judaism. I’m also a feminist & a lesbian. I think it’s very different for Catholics vs for Jews. You can’t really be culturally catholic but not believe in God, whereas being culturally Jewish & an atheist is definitely possible. Many strands of Judaism encourage disagreement & doubt in a way that, in my unfortunate experience, even the best parts of catholicism don’t. You might have to find a different type of Judaism (reform maybe? I know in some places there are also LGBT+ synagogues, which is just honestly INCREDIBLE coming from a catholic perspective, I wish I’d had a gay-affirming church when I was younger. Anyway). And I know there’s a whole lot of feminist Jewish theology too, which is cool. Anyway. Sorry this is a bit of a mishmash. But it’s basically to say, I think there’s more possibility of staying within your religion / culture in Judaism as a gay feminist woman than there is in Catholicism. All the best!

So this anon was sent to me when I reposted the anon which spurred me to write the twelfth habit shift, You too can kill god. The original anon wondered how to reconciliate her religion and her belief in women’s liberation. My conclusion is still the same. Women’s liberation is in total opposition with any sort of patriarchal religion, and whether you like it or not, Judaism falls into that category. So at the end of the day, “you will likely have to let go of one of them, otherwise you’ll always be pulled into two conflicting directions, dragged around and stretched thin by compromises”.

It’s too easy to say, ‘but my personal understanding of religion is different’, ‘but my group of religious people are not like that’, or to make any other excuse as to how the rest of the people who use the same name and pray the same god are sadly misguided. I understand you mean well, but when you choose to associate with groups or institutions who belittle and oppress women, or when you choose to share a name with them, you’re putting up time and energy to uphold them as well, not just your own, progressive interpretation. So at the end of the day, you’re still choosing the comfort of men telling you what to think, instead of the liberation of women. And that is your choice, to which you are entitled, but you cannot pretend that it’s all well and without consequences.

It’s perfectly possible to upkeep a misogynistic religion while calling yourself a “gay feminist woman”, especially because you’re not defining “feminist” in here. What you, anon, and I would put under “feminism” differs radically. Down the line, perhaps you can manage to reconciliate equality with religion, or make the compromise which sooth you, but I want liberation and I won’t make such compromises. I don’t need a god. If you do, there’s nothing I can do to part you from it, so do not worry too much.

But honestly, pretending that you can separate any sort of patriarchal religion from its god figure, or that you can just take a name charged with history and tradition and pretend nothing bad ever happened in connotation with that name is a self-delusion. You don’t need to call your moral conscience by the name of god for it to exist. It’s fine, you can decide for yourself what’s moral or not, you don’t need to listen to someone else to figure out morality, and you certainly shouldn’t blindly follow something just because your religion says it. You don’t need to disguise or hide morality under any other name.

On a side note, you mentioned it being impossible to be culturally catholic but not believe in god, and I’m afraid you’re quite mistaken on that. France is a good exemple of a place heavily culturally catholic, despite there being fewer and fewer people who actually believe in god.

[deadmandairyland]

Hi! I’m here to bring you yet another Danganronpa tier list: the sexuality tier list, which you can find here.

Now I’m going to be honest here: I don’t really have any LGBT headcanons. It’s just not really something I focus on much when it comes to fandoms. Instead I usually just focus on ships, and as a result from that I tend to present a lot of characters as LGBT in fanfictions and posts I’ve made or reblogged. In other words, a massive chunk of my “headcanons” here are a direct result of shipping (as well as information I’ve picked up from the games themselves). That being said, it was interesting to actually think about this for once, so I’m kinda glad I did the tier list. And it gave me an excuse to bring back the rainbow color scheme I usually put in my tier lists for aesthetic reasons.

The original tier list had Straight at the top, but I moved it to the bottom for two reasons. One, this is Tumblr and that’s not what you’re here for. Two, I gave it a neutral color, and having a gray section next to a white section (i.e. the title of the list) like that looked bad to me. I definitely prefer this setup just on aesthetic alone.

Because this is largely based on ships, I feel it needs to be said that representation does not factor into this chart in any way. I know it probably looks bad that the only character in the Lesbian category is one of my least favorite (though NOT hated or even disliked, I should point out) characters in the main series. That has nothing to do with the fact that she’s a lesbian. She’s just a jerk, and usually not in a way that’s at least entertaining enough for me to like her.

Also keep in mind that this is just the main cast of the main series games. If you were to include characters from the DR3 anime, UDG, or the spin-offs, the Gay, Lesbian, and Ace categories would get more rep, certainly. Think Juzo, Yui, Takemichi, that gay guy with the trumpet, etc.

With that said, let’s go through the list:

Gay

Not gonna lie, one of the reasons why Rantaro is here (and not in Ace) is because of ships. Though I do sometimes ship him with girls, canon suggests he’s not interested in dating girls, and most fans seem to headcanon him as either gay or ace because of this, so I respected that. That being said, I also acknowledge he’s a very popular character in mlm ships, and at the time I was putting this together I hadn’t gotten to Taka yet so the Gay tier was still empty, and Byakuya was already sitting in Ace, so all of that swayed me to putting Rantaro here instead of Ace.

Taka was much easier to place here. He strikes me as a closeted gay man who probably doesn’t even realize he is gay. “Hey, let’s all hang out in the bath, guys! Getting naked is essential to form bonds with your fellow man! No need to be ashamed, it’s tradition!"

Lesbian

Again, ships. I only ship Hiyoko with one other character, and as soon as I say that you already know who she is.

Bisexual (Male Preference)

Akane is mostly here to account for any wlw ships I may have of her (e.g. Hina, Sonia maybe). Obviously she has a thing with Nekomaru, so Male Preference.

Chiaki is here for the same reason as Akane. I’ve shipped her with characters like Sonia and Ibuki before, but she really digs Hajime.

Chihiro honestly could have been anywhere in the Bi and Pan sections, but I ultimately went with Male Preference because of ships, specifically the fact that outside of the more... R18 circles of the Interwebs Chihiro tends to be shipped with guys more often than girls. Also doesn’t hurt that my OTP is Naehiro. I mean, have you seen how often Chihiro blushes around Makoto? (There’s more to it than that, as I’ve covered in the past. I’m just trying to add more fuel to the fire.)

Himiko is probably one of the few characters that isn’t here mainly because of ships. I do think she has some attachment towards Tenko, but I also get “I’m uncomfortable around her” vibes from her, and there are moments where she seems to crush on Kokichi (of all people) so that’s why she’s here. Still very much bi, though.

Hina has a crush on Makoto and has a complex around wishing she was more feminine so she can attract boys. So why isn’t she in the Straight section? ...Because Sakura, duh. And Kyoko too. And any other wlw ship you can think of that might work with Hina.

Honestly if it wasn’t for Miu I probably would have considered putting Kokichi in Gay. Again, while shipping plays a big part of my choices here, much like with Rantaro I have no qualms with putting a character in a tier that contradicts any ships I might have with that character, if those ships aren’t something I’m super invested in. This is a very important distinction, because it’s why I let ships sway my hand for so many of these even if I am also okay with going “Just because I ship this doesn’t mean I headcanon it” as I did with Rantaro. And honestly Kokichi’s ship teasing with Himiko does come off as more trollish than a sign that he’s into her, but he really gets into his back-and-forth with Miu, in my personal opinion, and he gets into it far more often with her for that matter. It’s why it’s one of my favorite ships for both of them tbh, and it’s because I like the ship so much that I just can’t ignore it for this sexuality headcanon tier list.

Maki... is here because of ships (e.g. Kaede).

Sakura... is here because of ships (e.g. Hina). ...What, you were expecting me to put a guy in the example? Remember, she has a boyfriend in canon.

Sayaka... is here because of... NOT ships, but DRAT. Yes, really. (”We really got down and dirty, Naegi-kun.”)

Sonia... strikes me as someone who swings both ways. I can’t describe exactly why I feel that way, but yes.

Bisexual (No Preference)

Celeste wants a harem of vampire boys but shipping her with Kyoko is also very popular and honestly i feel like it would fit her character. She’s got a look that says “I could get any ass I want and I know it.”

Ibuki is decked out in blues and pinks, and also I ship her fairly evenly among both boys and girls. She just screams bi icon to me, more so than any other character in the series.

Junko is either bi with no preferences or pan. She is an equal opportunity heart-and-soul-breaker and lust-for-despair machine.

There is no Mukuro in this list, but honestly I would probably put her where I put Junko anyway.

Kaede... is here because of ships (e.g. Miu, Maki)

Honestly I had no idea where to put Kirumi, so I just randomly chose one that I wouldn’t regret later if I ever put more thought into who I shipped her with.

I’m pretty sure Nagito being bisexual has some degree of canon attached to it??? I think??? I’m not entirely sure tbh, but fuck it. I’m doing this for fun anyway, so this doesn’t really matter.

Shuichi, like all Danganronpa protags, is bi as fuck. I also find him to be more shippable with guys than the other two protags, so IMO he has no preference.

Toko might have a thing or two for pretty boys, but... Komaru, I mean, this isn’t exactly shocking, I don’t think. Probably was closeted before she met Komaru. I mean she did focus on Hina’s boobs a lot in DR1, let’s not forget.

Tsumugi, much like Kirumi, is here because I haven’t put much thought into her ships.

Bisexual (Female Preference)

Gundham has a thing with Sonia in canon, but I can see him being bi. So... yeah, ships again.

Hajime, like all Danganronpa protags, is bi as fuck. It’s just that his Chiaki and Mikan game is just too strong.

Hifumi might claim to only like 2D, but his interest in Chihiro both in human form and computer program form (and the fact that this didn’t go away after the gender reveal) places him here.

Kaito strikes me as a closeted bisexual. The kind that could start any given conversation with “I’m not gay, but...”

Kazuichi also strikes me as a closeted bisexual, only his “I’m not gay, but...” is rooted more in dumbass than it is in systematic homophobia.

Korekiyo... is here because of ships (e.g. Rantaro).

Kyoko is bi as fuck, and I can see her having a preference towards girls in particular. She gets shipped with girls a lot (e.g. Celeste, Hina, Yui, and even Junko and Mukuro), and when she is shipped with boys it’s usually just pretty boys (e.g. Makoto, Byakuya, Ryota, Shuichi, and, depending on your interpretation, Chihiro). Also note that aside from Makoto and maybe Byakuya, Kyoko’s girl ships are far more popular than her boy ships. Just something I’ve noticed over the years.

Leon... is here because of ships (e.g. Chihiro).

Mahiru is here because I’m pretty sure she has a thing for Hajime in her FTEs, but obviously she tends to get shipped with girls more often (especially Hiyoko), and I agree.

Makoto, like all Danganronpa protags, is bi as fuck. It’s just that his Kyoko, Hina, Sayaka, and Mukuro game is just too strong.

Mikan may be interested in Hajime somewhat, but her obsession with Junko cannot be ignored, no matter how much some of you may want to.

Mondo is another character that strikes me as a closeted bisexual. He is said to strike out all the time with girls, so I do think he’s attracted to women. And I do get some vibes that he’s attracted to Chihiro pre-reveal. And if circumstances had been different, I imagine he probably still would have been post-reveal. But obviously it’s his bond with Taka that I feel cements his sexuality in, at the very least, an mlm category.

Tenko... is here NOT because of ships, but because I’m pretty sure she’s at least sort of interested in Shuichi because of some canon thing... and also I don’t want to put her in Lesbian just because it feels like I’d be stereotyping the Lesbian category if I do that. If we were to compare her to the character that I did put in Lesbian, Hiyoko doesn’t treat people like shit because they’re men, she’s an equal-opportunity asshole. Still not the best representation for lesbians by a long shot, but at least Hiyoko doesn’t follow the stereotype of a man-hating lesbian. She’s just like that, and that’s okay. But putting Tenko there, especially if she’s shown some degree of interest in a male character at some point in the game, just rubs me the wrong way personally, because it would feel like I’m ignoring canon just to stereotype her. But that’s just a personal hang up of mine. No disrespect intended toward anyone who genuinely feels that Tenko is a lesbian. Maybe you see something there that I don’t, and that’s perfectly fine.

Pansexual

I don’t remember exactly how her FTEs went, so I’m not going to get into that, but Angie just comes off as pan to me, like gender doesn’t fit into the equation at all for her.

Gonta I can see as either pan or ace. I feel like he wouldn’t care about gender, and honestly the only reason I decided to put him in Pan rather than Ace is because of that scene with Miu.

Imposter is not only pan, they are currently OT3ing it up with Ibuki and Ryota as we speak, and that’s a fact.

Keebo... is mostly here because of ships. A lot of ships, actually. Mostly male ships (Kokichi, Shuichi, Kazuichi, and, depending on your interpretation, Chihiro) but there’s also Miu to consider. And the Miu game is SO strong that I put him in Pan instead of, say, Male Preference.

Just gonna lump them together because I have the same thing to say about both of them: Miu and Teruteru would **** anything that walks. What did I censor? Well, I’m doing the Nier: Automata thing, so you can put whatever you want in there and trust me, it would probably fit, for better or for worse.

Ace

I know this is an unpopular opinion, because Naegami, but I just don’t think Byakuya is interested in anyone, at least not in that way. He might be fascinated with how common people live, because it’s so foreign to him, but that’s about it.

Straight

Even though I do ship Fuyuhiko with some of the boys, his Peko game is so strong that honestly I can’t see him actually dating anyone aside from Peko outside of some very niche fanfiction.

Honestly, Hiro was another one that I was just like “I have no idea what to do with you.” I think maybe his team up with Kanon made me eventually choose to put him in Straight? I don’t remember. I clearly didn’t put much thought into Hiro.

I really only ship Nekomaru with Akane, so that’s why he’s here. I’m sure if I dive deep enough into my psyche I can pull an mlm ship with Nekomaru in it out of my ass, but like Rantaro that wouldn’t be significant enough to change anything.

Peko is in the same boat as Fuyuhiko. I have shipped her with girls before, but her Fuyuhiko game is just too strong.

Ryoma had a girlfriend once, and as far as I can remember he didn’t really seem interested in anybody in the game, so that’s all I have to go off of for him.

-----

So there you have it. Explanations for literally all of them! Explanations that were definitely not pulled out of my ass as I was typing them, nope, certainly not. Definitely won’t be tagging all of them, but I may tag the ones with the longest entries. And like all the tier lists I’ve done, this was just for fun and honestly any opinion I have for any of these characters could change at a moment’s notice because my brain is fickle like that. Tried my best to make sure that every tier had at least one character in it, but I did so without trying to force characters in places that I personally did not believe they should go. I hope you all enjoyed my dive into this area of fandom that I rarely dive into (the LGBT headcanons, not the ships, obviously). It was a lot of fun, and hopefully it will stay fun and not result in angry anons blasting me for my opinions. I am grateful that this never seems to happen to me, but I’ve seen it happen to others and I know what Tumblr is capable of at its worst. These are just headcanons and a matter of personal opinion, and if you disagree with them, that’s perfectly okay. Your feelings and opinions are also valid.

[wisteria-lodge]

Sorting The Vicar Man

… the debut novel of our very own @ameliahcrowley! 

Here’s the character analysis system I’m using. (if you're curious, I go into a lot more depth here.)

PRIMARY (ie MOTIVE) 

BADGER ~ Loyal to the group.

SNAKE ~ Loyal to yourself and your Important People.

LION ~ Subconscious Idealist. Ideals are linked to feelings and instincts. 

BIRD ~ Conscious Idealist. Ideals are linked to built systems and external facts. 

SECONDARY (ie METHOD) 

BADGER ~ Connect with the group. Make allies, work steadily and well. Be whatever the situation calls for. If you find a locked door, knock.

SNAKE ~ Connect with the environment. Notice things. Tell people what they want to hear. If you find a locked door, get in through the window.

BIRD ~ Collect skills, tools, knowledge, personas, useful friends. If you find a locked door, track down the key or learn to pick the lock.

LION ~ Be honest, be direct, speak your truth. Either the obstacle is going down or you are. If you find a locked door, kick it in. 

And as for the novel, it’s sweet, it’s funny (there will be spoilers) but basically, it’s light pastiche/satire of a specific type of historical Gothic fantasy. Gave me Our Flag Means Death vibes actually. And really, I am loving characters in historical fiction being purposefully written as LGBT, ace, and neurodivergent. (I especially enjoyed how side character Tom was clearly on the autism spectrum, and everybody was just kind of cool with it and thought he was great anyway.) Keep that coming. 

The premise is that there’s an island where you’re periodically supposed to sacrifice a virgin to the Eldritch Island God, except (since all the islanders know about this) they make sure that they’re not "qualified," and try in a very haphazard way to attract Virgins to the island. They seem to have actually nabbed one in Reverand Norman Plotwhistle, and so barmaid Dora decides it’s up to her to seduce him to save his life. Of course, he’s gay, and she is very heavily implied to be ace, so this is not really the greatest situation. 

DORA MAKEPEACE is an interesting protagonist. When we first meet her, she seems very Badger primary (to the degree that she slightly dehumanizes Mainland people.) This makes total sense: the culture of the Island itself is very Badger, and the handful of Islanders originally from the Mainland are put in a slightly different category, despite being on the Island for years and years. 

But, clearly that's not all that’s going on with Dora, who is absolutely a Bird, but a Bird who has difficulty getting her hands on outside information. We see her cling to the books her mainland mother left behind, even though those books are (comedically) weird and leave her an expert on a not-especially-useful combination of subjects. Still, we see her go back to them again and again when she isn’t sure what to do. She likes to cite things that the Poet, and the Island's other occasional visitors, have told her. She’s the only one interested in the archaeological evidence, and (while not romantically interested in Norman) she is curious about him and finds him worthwhile. After all, he’s got a different perspective, and information that she doesn’t have. 

Her speech at the end is just about as Bird primary as it’s possible to be - anger with systems that don’t make sense, and anger at changing rules on the fly. 

“There’s no rule written anywhere that says [that]: you’re just making it up. In fact there's nothing written down about any of this: we just do it this way because that’s what our great-grandparents did, or so they say, and they did it because their grandparents did, and so on and so on and ruddy so on, and at no point did any of them stop and bother to ask themselves whether any of it worked… because of course it doesn’t work!.. And you know it won’t work. You do, really. You aren’t utter idiots. Not all of you. You know the ground here’s no good for farming and the weather’s too miserable and the fish won’t come no matter what you do. You just don’t want to face it.” 

It’s also very unflattering to the Badger perspective, bringing attention to the clannishness and small-mindedness that shows up when protecting your own narrowly defined community is the only thing that’s important. (Also, in this world where virgins are sacrificed, the moralizing “no sex before marriage” character becomes a lot more sinister in a way I like.) 

I also enjoyed that the Islanders aren’t particularly villainized. This isn’t a story of benighted Islanders and civilized Mainlanders, it’s a story about two different communities who both get stuff wrong. Norman is all bent out of shape about the fact that he's gay, something that the Islanders… do not care about, even a little bit. This book says that the correct solution is to expand your perspective and your worldview, which is just a good lesson in general… but an especially Bird primary lesson. 

In terms of Dora’s secondary… She’s a Lion. She’s a Burnt Lion, who thinks that being a Lion doesn’t especially… work. I wonder if this is because she’s sort of mythologized her best friend Molly? Who makes her own Lion secondary look so effortless that Dora gets intimidated. Of course Molly can be herself, Molly is graceful and fun and easy. But Dora is a little intense, a little awkward, a little nerdy, and therefore Dora thinks that being herself is a bad idea.

We see how much she models Actor Bird, trying to to put together a Gothic Heroine persona to seduce Norman - using her books as reference, and getting annoyed in a very Bird primary sort of way when the books contradict each other, invent things, leave out important pieces of information, and just in general do not coalesce into a system that makes sense. Dora uses specific costumes, specific poses, researches what a “romantic picnic” is and then takes massive pains re-creating that. Her plans are extremely rigid, and the second things go wrong she’s got nothing.

It’s only when Dora finally starts following Molly’s advice (to just be herself) that things start getting back on track. She seems a lot more comfortable, and a lot more capable when she just does the Lion thing: go in a straight line, speak your truth, be incredibly direct.

MOLLY herself is definitely a Loyalist, and I would say Snake primary with a lot of people before I would say Badger. She is attached to her boss, her coworkers, her lovers, she falls in love easily and constantly… and that’s why she's attached to the island. She doesn’t seem to care (or even think about) the island traditions, island culture, or the island community as a whole. 

REVEREND NORMAN PLOTWHISTLE is a little mysterious. He is clearly written as kind of incomprehensible - that’s the point. He’s a very new type of person that Dora has no idea how to deal with. Even from a reader's perspective, it’s unclear when he’s being oblivious, when he’s being genre savvy, and when he’s got his own thing going on. 

He’s definitely a Badger secondary. He comes to the island and starts doing the Badger secondary thing hard: restoring the old church, building up a community, putting together church services. His solution at the end involves playing the community - managing the mentality and expectations of his new parish so he can be with Cecil. If he’s in a (lavender) affair with Dora, then that’s the scandal right there, and no one will look at his relationship with his valet!

For his primary, I’m tempted to say Bird… because when he eventually does bond with Dora, it’s because of their shared annoyance at systems that don’t make sense. But I suspect that underneath everything, really it’s about Cecil, who he is just googly-eyes in love with. I think he would do anything for Cecil but… Cecil is hilariously capable, so I expect realistically Cecil will always be fine. And since Cecil is always fine, Norman will always be allowed to indulge in his fun Bird model.

tl;dr

DORA - Bird Primary with a Badger System that she sheds / Burnt Lion secondary, Bird model

MOLLY - Very expansive Snake primary / Lion secondary

NORMAN - Very safe Snake who mostly models a fun Bird (or possibly just a straight-up Bird / Badger secondary

[jewish-privilege]

(...)

I was a 12 years old when I was attacked by a mob of children and called "Christ killer" — the same age Jesus was, according to the Gospel of Luke, when he lingered in the Temple of Jerusalem and impressed the elders with his intellect — so this issue is undeniably personal. That wasn't the first or last time I was bullied for being Jewish, but it was the only time I nearly died because of it: Those kids held my head underwater, chanting, "Drown the Jew!"

This incident sprang back to mind  this month as Republicans tried to figure out what to do about Greene, a particularly obnoxious Christian right-winger who has suggested that a "space laser" affiliated with Jewish banking families caused the 2018 Camp Fire in California, expressed sympathy for the anti-Semitic QAnon fantasies, promoted a video that claimed Jews are trying to destroy Europe, posed for a picture with a Ku Klux Klan leader and liked a tweet linking Israel to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

(...)

None of this is surprising for anyone who is familiar with the history of American anti-Semitism. Greene is not an aberration, some inexplicable pimple of hatred that blemishes the American right's otherwise Jew-friendly visage. The American right has long had an anti-Semitism problem, and she's just the latest symptom.

This history of hatred "tells us much more about the anti-Semite than it tells us about Jews," Dr. Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, told Salon. After citing an Israeli historian who refers to anti-Semitism as a "cultural code," Sarna explained that beliefs that vilify Jews as malevolent plotters who secretly control the world have a long history in American political life. "These ideas, which I think many on the left frankly had thought were done and over with, we suddenly see them full blown," he said

Before the 19th century, Sarna explained Jews were stereotypically depicted as being cursed: They were "wandering Jews" for their supposed role in killing Jesus Christ. In the modern era, however, the stereotype emerged that Jews secretly controlled the world and were responsible for everything that a given anti-Semite might regard as sinister. During the Civil War, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant blamed the Jews for cotton smuggling and expelled the entire Jewish community from areas he controlled in Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. When the populist movement arose to address agrarian economic concerns in the 1890s, Jewish bankers like the Rothschilds were a frequent target among ideological leaders like William Hope "Coin" Harvey.

(...)

There's a direct line between those conspiratorial fantasies ideas from previous decades and the anti-Semitic attacks of the 21st century. "Conspiratorial thinking, by its nature, argues that everything is connected," Sarna explained. "There are no coincidences and it eschews complexity. It believes there are simple explanations based on sinister individuals who are manipulating the universe. Unsurprisingly, in a Christian setting, those are Jews."

Those ideas can evolve — Sarna pointed out that the QAnon belief in a giant child abuse ring run by Jews is analogous to the "blood libel," the medieval myth that Jews used the blood of Christian children for rituals — but the underlying assumptions have been consistent. It just so happens that, in the modern right-wing incarnation, Donald Trump's cult-like following believes that "all the enemies of Mr. Trump are now child molesters."

(...)

[Jewish comedian Larry Charles] brought up community organizer and political theorist Saul Alinsky, a favorite target of the right. "He is almost like the devil in a way," Charles observed. "He's like this radical leftist Jew, he fits all the categories. He checks all the boxes."

"Shooting some of these movies, we would see reasonable people who have this blind spot," Charles said. "They have this crazy belief, and there were all different applications and manifestations of it, that the Jews control everything. That is like a mantra amongst a certain segment of the population."

(...)

With the election of Trump in 2016, those ingrained belief systems — which for many years had been kept outside the American political mainstream — became more prominent, and their adherents more emboldened. David Weissman, a military veteran and former conservative Republican who stopped being a self-described "Trump troll" after a 2018 conversation with comedian Sarah Silverman, told Salon about his encounters with anti-Semitism on the right.

Back when he still supported Trump, Weissman recalled, he got into a "little spat" with an alt-right commentator who calls himself Baked Alaska, who was recently arrested after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Ultimately they moved past it, Weissman said: "We both realized we were Trump supporters" who believed "Democrats were the bad guys." Once he left MAGA world, however, Weissman said "the anti-Semitism definitely escalated" in interactions with his former allies.

"When I became a Democrat, I was called 'the k-word'" and targeted by "anti-Semitic slurs and tropes," Weissman said. Trump supporters sent "memes of me being Jewish in the oven," and "put my name in parentheses," a common tactic used by the far right to target someone for being Jewish.

(...)

"Anti-Semitism certainly did not start with Marjorie Taylor Greene, nor did it start with Donald Trump, but we have seen an exponential increase in violent anti-Semitic incidents during Donald Trump's presidency," Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, told Salon. "That is no doubt related to the fact that he emboldened and aligned himself with white nationalism." She mentioned Trump equating the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville with the peaceful protesters by "commenting that there were very fine people on both sides," refusing to denounce white nationalism and telling the right-wing Proud Boys during one of the campaign debates to "stand back and stand by."

"White nationalism had existed in our country prior to that, and anti-Semitism as an element of it, but white nationalists had never had an ally in the White House until Donald Trump," Soifer said.

(...)

Donald Trump's supposed pro-Israel policies were closely aligned with those of Benjamin Netanyahu, and did nothing to correct for Trump's history of anti-Semitic words and actions. He accused Jewish Democrats of "great disloyalty" toward Israel (feeding into the stereotype that Jews have dual loyalties), removed any specific reference to Jews from a 2017 State Department statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day and has frequently used anti-Semitic dogwhistle terms by opposing "globalists" and describing himself as a "nationalist." When I interviewed Charlotte Pence, the daughter of former Vice President Mike Pence, she talked about her family's love of Israel but refused to answer a question about whether she believes Jews are going to hell — or discuss the creepy messianic theories underpinning the Christian right's support for Israel.

When I asked Larry Charles whether, based on his experiences, there's an opportunity to build bridges with anti-Semites, he was skeptical. "I have not seen a lot of opportunities for bridge building in the situations that I've been in," Charles explained. "The people that I've met through Sacha [Baron Cohen] were very rigid and dogmatic in their prejudices. There was no crossing that gulf with them. There might be tolerance, temporarily. There might be patience, temporarily. But there's no changing that belief."

I hope that Charles is wrong but suspect he is right, which raises the question of how American Jews should react to the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the world. For want of a better alternative, I think the only solution is to be intolerant toward intolerance. House Democrats were right to strip Greene of her committee assignments, but that is not nearly enough. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter need to do more to limit hate speech, even if conservatives cry foul in bad faith (the First Amendment only protects people from government censorship, not consequences from private corporations). Right-wing politicians who attack prominent Jews in ways that can be plausibly construed as anti-Semitic, or by denouncing "globalists," need to lose their funding. People who oppose anti-Semitism must lead boycotts against right-wing media figures who cover for people like Greene, such as Fox News' Sean Hannity.

On a broader level, critics of anti-Semitism must recognize that this form of bigotry is part of America's long history of hate — a history which holds that only white, straight Christian "manly" men have a right to rule — and recognize our responsibility to be allies to African Americans and the Latinx community, Muslims and the LGBT community, women suffering under the patriarchy and the poor struggling to make ends meet. If we limit our empathy merely to other Jews, the implicit message is not that systemic oppression is wrong, but only that we happen to dislike it when our group is targeted. The Jewish tradition at its best instills a moral responsibility to see all the layers of oppression, and align ourselves with its victims.

[Read Matthew Rozsa’s full piece in Salon]