#do you know which one of your kids you’re talking to? the gay trans one?

[digitaldollsworld]

When have I ever given my mom the impression that I’m a Christian. Seriously. In what about the way that I talk about things and the way that I live my life ever gave her that impression of me

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

(TW: Religion)

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

When we think about reconciling Christianity and our identity, then we are often automatically jumping to „re-interpreting Bible verses that are used to justify homophobia/transphobia“ or to „looking for Bible verses that can be interpreted in a lgbt-supportive way“. 

Both of that is valid and definitely has its place. And if you are someone who (or trying to discuss with someone who) believes everything in the Bible is true and to be taken literal, then looking for the most accurate interpretation of each passage is also pretty much the only thing you can do.

In that case, take comfort in knowing that there is often historical, cultural etc. context missing from conservative interpretations and learning about that context lets us see seemingly hateful verses in a much more inclusive light! 

That Bible verse that seems to be against gay sex may very well be against rape, that Bible verse that seems to be against trans people dressing the way they want to may very well be condemning old rituals that have nothing to do with modern life. I don’t think looking for these alternative (or maybe *better*) explanations is heathenish at all. God wants you to think critically, that’s why he gave you the ability to. If he gave you a book to live your life according to, then it stands to reason that he’d want you to find the most accurate meaning of his words, and that means looking past the most superficial interpretation.

But if you are (or the person you’re talking to is) open to the idea that maybe the Bible isn’t meant to be taken literal in its entirety - then it can feel tedious to dissect singular verses. 

In that case, you probably don’t feel the need to dissect other parts either and you just disregard them. For example you look at certain verses containing rules on hygiene or health, and you disregard them because you figure those were written in, and for, wildly different times and they just do not apply to modern life anymore, and you believe that one can be a good Christian while also disregarding those specific verses. 

If that’s you, then an approach that might fit you better would be to look at the bigger picture instead. Treat the Bible like you would any self-help book - look at the overall messages but don’t assume that every single line is applicable to your life or even holds meaning. 

This may seem counterintuitive or even like a “bad” thing to do, especially if you grew up in a taking-the-Bible-literal household, so I’ll give you some potential questions that may help you get into the mindset: 

Which messages are repeated often throughout the Bible? Which messages are repeated in most big religions you know? Which messages would come to your mind first if you were to teach a child about God? Which values or attributes describe God best? 

For me, and for many people, the biggest ones would be “God loves you unconditionally” and “God wants you to love others”. Another important one might be “God created you, and everyone else, because he wanted you to exist”. 

When you identified some big picture core messages, and are open to the idea that the Bible may not be meant to be taken literal in its entirety (for example because it was inspired by the Holy Spirit but written by humans and humans can make mistakes or add their own personal agenda, or also simply because it’s so old and over time some of its original teachings got mistranslated or lost), then you may be able to look at these seemingly hateful verses with new eyes - not seeking to find a more accurate explanation, but rather being able to compare them to those core messages and being able to say “this fits in with the core message” or “this doesn’t fit in with the core message”. 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Dad 

[initforthelolzz]

No one does queer representation quite like One Piece.

Allow me to explain in great detail.

I’m going to talk about the queer rep in Impel Down, and you’d best buckle up cause it’s rant time.

Impel Down is one of my favorite arcs because I love the story line, it’s downright hilarious, and Luffy’s struggle to rescue Ace is incredibly compelling.

But there is another reason why I love Impel Down so much, and that’s the queer rep that utterly knocked me off my feet.

Now, I’ve come to accept that queer representation in anime (not touching on any other media in this rant) is generally nonexistent or extremely rare… if you’re watching anything other than a BL.

On the rare occasion that we do find some LGBT rep it is usually extremely subtle, and shown exclusively in convoluted subtext and minuscule details that are easily overlooked. While this representation is so incredibly meaningful to everyone who’s able to pick it out, the subtly makes it all the more easy for homophobes to argue that it was never in the first place.

Keeping all this in mind, I finally picked up One Piece several months ago after refusing to watch it for a long-assed time (It was too long and I thought the art style was weird. Dear god have I eaten my words.) I’d heard on social media that One Piece was big on trans representation, but I wasn’t prepared at ALL for what I’d find in that department.

I had NOT expected to find One Piece’s treasure trove of LGBT characters in Impel Down of all pleases, and the shock factor made it so much better.

The arc had already been chaotic as fucking hell by the time Luffy reunited with Bon Clay, and their reunion made me tear up. Like dude!

I hadn’t been particularly attached to Bon Clay before but THIS ^ was it. This scene right here, he wormed his way into my heart istfg.

Can we appreciate this scene please?! The sparkles in the background?? The leg lifting?! The REUNION HUG?!?! I love this so dearly not just because it’s fucking ADORABLE but because of what it *says.*

Bon Clay is an outwardly queer character, and Luffy absolutely adores him. Those two are best friends and we treat queer people with respect and they are good people. We can be friends with them and allies with them and they aren’t something to shy away from just because they’re different.

Be fucking for real. The representation is so positive, and it never ceases to blow me away.

If you thought that this representation was enough YOU WERE WRONG because this BARELY SCRATCHED THE SURFACE.

Iva. Emperio Ivankov. The Queen of the Queers. He is a gender fluid ICON and a literal drag queen. His special attack is a wink that blows shit up. His Devil Fruit ability is quite literally hormone therapy.

Do I need to say more?

THATS RIGHT, I FUCKING DONT

Now, this is One Piece we’re talking about, so naturally characters are going to be wildly exaggerated but ARE YOU KIDDING

IVA’S ABILITY IS HORMONE THERAPY. HE CHANGES PEOPLE’S GENDER AS AN ATTACK. HIS POWER WORKS THROUGH SYRINGE NEEDLES THAT POP OUT FROM UNDER HIS ACRYLIC NAILS.

I love Iva so fucking much words cannot describe 😭

Oda didn’t just say “look, I made a queer character” he really said “fuck it, nuclear option it is.” It is literally impossible to ignore the fact that Iva is LGBT, and One Piece’s queer rep is SO IN YOUR FACE, especially in Impel Down. It’s impossible to ignore, which is the stark opposite from the usual business with “implied” queer characters in anime.

Implied? HAH.

There is a kingdom of gay people living INSIDE THE WALLS of the biggest prison in the world. They are led by a gender fluid drag queen and run a strip club bar in the middle of a fucking prison, where they drag new gays through the cracks in the walls to join them.

Dude.

I love One Piece so much.

All joking aside, the introduction of Iva and his kingdom of gays drove me to tears. Like deadass. The representation literally drove me to tears, I was sobbing.

Why? Because it was so positive.

Do you know how meaningful that is?

It made me fucking cry, man.

Iva’s speech introducing his gay kingdom, like goddamn. I can’t even remember exactly what he said because I was crying the whole time.

“We’re here and we’re queer.” That’s a quote from fucking One Piece, dude. I can’t, I can’t.

It wasn’t just the introduction of Iva’s kingdom or the LITERAL LESBIAN COUPLE SITTING AT THE BAR, it was the way the sense of community was presented.

We’re called the LGBTQ Community and I don’t know if Oda’s a member or not but HOT damn if he doesn’t know what it means to be a part of it.

I’m talking about the Luffy situation. He fought the Warden and got his ass handed to him. He was poisoned to all hell and about to die at 17 but Bon picked him up and carried him to Iva’s Kingdom. He’s wanted to meet Iva his whole life but by the time he did he was more worried about Luffy’s condition than anything else.

And then we find out that Luffy had insisted that Bon get medical treatment before he did. What a guy. When Iva got Luffy, he said that it was a lost cause to try and overcome the poison. But he was willing to give it a try anyway.

Let’s discuss.

Iva injected Luffy with hormones to help him beat the poison. Luffy underwent hormone therapy. (I will cling to this tidbit of information forever, YOU CANT TAKE IT FROM ME.) When Bon woke up, he demanded to see Luffy.

Iva warned him about what he would find, but brought Bon to Luffy at his request. When Bon found Luffy, he found his friend chained up and screaming in excruciating pain. We didn’t see Luffy in full at all during this time, but when Bon looked through the door he was horrified.

He got defensive. He started yelling at Iva, saying that the person inside that room was not the Luffy he knew.

Iva was firm, and told Bon that Luffy was going through a tough challenge, and he would be different afterwards, but he was still the same Luffy.

Do you see it? Can you read between the lines? This exchange made me sob all over again. Why? I urge you to think about it, to see the underlying message here.

Bon broke down into tears, realizing that Luffy was fighting for his life. He apologized and took back his harsh words.

Then he spent hours outside Luffy’s cell, screaming till his throat was raw and cheering him on. He couldn’t do anything to help Luffy, Luffy was fighting this battle on his own. But he could be there for him.

I ask you again, do you see it?

As the hours passed, others in Iva’s kingdom trickled out to see what Bon was doing. They told him to stop screaming, that it was useless. They mocked him, told him he was being a fool.

Then Iva stood up for him, and told them to see Bon for what he was doing. He couldn’t help Luffy, but he could cheer him on. He could be there for him.

Within moments, the entire kingdom was outside Luffy’s cell. Cheering him on. Encouraging him. Supporting him. They didn’t know who he was but they saw him fighting and immediately backed him up.

It isn’t just representation, merely the presence of a queer character or even an entire kingdom of gays that makes it meaningful. It’s how those characters are shown, how they behave.

Oda could have thrown in a queer character here and there and left it at that, but he went out of his way to show the incredible support system that this community provided. They jumped to Luffy’s aid. They were so supportive and cheered him on until he beat the poison. They fought alongside him… and you know what else?

When Luffy woke up, he accepted them in a heartbeat. He didn’t question anything, just saw a bunch of people and thought “huh. New friends!”

Oda’s representation is exaggerated as much as it is painstakingly accurate in nature and positive to a tee. Obviously it isn’t perfect. Iva and the squad were still mocked, called “freaks” and “weirdos.”

But it’s about Luffy. How Luffy behaves. How Luffy reacts. Even in the face of how the rest of society views Iva and his kingdom, Luffy sees them as friends and allies and doesn’t give a singular shit if they’re gay or not.

Luffy accepts everyone, and he doesn’t draw the line at queer people. The aroace king himself. You heard it here, Luffy is the ultimate ally.

Of course I’m not even scraping the surface on this topic and Oda’s representation is in no way perfect, but Impel Down remains the greatest example of queer rep that I’ve seen this far.

You gotta give credit where credit is due ✨

[olderthannetfic]

I was watching this video of a trans guy talking about his experience discovering his identity and coming out. One of the comments was something like “I want to tell my parents that I’m trans, but I’m scared because they’re transphobic.”

I give similar advice to other commenters, which basically boiled down to “Do NOT tell your parents, at least not until you’re financially independent from them and you’ve moved out.”

There was one guy saying “You are all paranoid, what do you think the parents are going to do?”

I felt that this was such a naïve and sheltered way of thinking. It’s like this guy has never heard of trans kids being kicked out or being abused directly because they are trans. I don’t know if the guy was cishet and never had to consider what queer people go through; or maybe the guy is queer, but had a loving family, and he just thinks everyone has the same experience as him. Either way, I thought it was a little crazy that this was the guy’s response.

Maybe we were expecting the worst, and not letting the original commenter build a stronger relationship with their parents. But this is unlikely: they later revealed that the parents have hit them at least once for asking if they could out with friends.

--

Oof. Even in the 2020s, the position of trans youth in parts of the US where being a cis gay is mostly okay-ish is very marginal. (Never mind all the other places people can be from.)

I do have a few friends I really think should open up to their parents more. I think those particular parents may be a little clueless, but they'd step up if they had any idea their (adult) child was suffering and hiding things.

The vast majority of the time, however, it's on parents to earn their kids' trust. If there's no trust, there's probably a good fucking reason. It may be active horribleness. It may just be a lack of being understanding and overtly opening the door for heart-to-hearts. But as a parent, it's your job to do more of that work and not leave it to your kid.

Fuck no, that trans kid shouldn't tell their shitty parents. Not until they're out of the house. If the parents are paying for college, not until after they've sent the last check.

[loveyouanyway]

i’ll kiss your scars

buck x eddie | 900 words | teen rating

trans buck my beloved for @steadfastsaturnsrings <3

“But y-you like men.” “Yes I do. Particularly the amazing and gorgeous man in front of me.” Buck stumbles across his words, all flustered. “But Eddie, I’m not— like I don’t have a you know.” He glances down there. “That doesn’t make you any less of a man, Buck." (Buck comes out to the love of his life)

read on ao3 or below

Buck, Eddie and Christopher are enjoying their dinner together in comfortable silence.

Christopher finishes his plate of spaghetti and meatballs first and now that he’s not eating, the silence feels weird so he speaks up.

“I’m not the only Christopher in my class anymore.”

Eddie hums. “Oh new student?”

“Nope. His name used to be Chloe but now it’s Christopher.”

Eddie and Buck look to each other in understanding.

“So he’s…”

“Trans. Yeah, it’s not a big deal, Dad. Now people just call me Chris and him Christopher.”

“How did people react?” Buck asks curiously.

“Everyone was cool about it. Some people had questions though so Christopher answered them. Then Mr. Nolan told everyone that he will not tolerate any transphobia or homophobia but he’s happy to tell us more about it. And if we ever have to talk to him about it, we can.”

Buck blinks back tears thinking how happy he is that in school, kids can come out and people will be supportive or at least respectful enough that they won’t say anything negative. He thinks about how bad it would be if he came out in middle school. He’s so glad Christopher has a teacher like Mr. Nolan.

He should probably tell Eddie that he’s trans. It’s been over a year since they’ve been friends. He knows Eddie will be accepting and everything but it’s still hard. He doesn’t want anything to change between them.

“Buck?” Eddie and nudges his foot with his own under the table.

“You okay?” he asks.

Buck quickly nods. “Yeah no I’m good.”

Eddie thankfully doesn’t push and instead asks what movie they should watch tonight.

—

They watch Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse and Buck suggests they watch the second one next movie night which Christopher enthusiastically agrees to.

Christopher gets ready for bed reluctantly and Buck reads him a chapter of Percy Jackson. Eddie watches them with a sickening fond smile.

Once the chapter’s done, he and Eddie both hug Christopher and tell him “good night” and Buck yearns for him to have this every night.

They walk into the living room and Buck plops onto the couch with a sigh.

Eddie sits down next to Buck and faces him.

“Hey, you know that you can tell me anything, right?” he says earnestly with his stupidly pretty eyes and it feels like Eddie's staring into his soul.

Buck breaks eye contact and nods. “Yeah of course, uh thanks.”

Eddie doesn’t reply as if he’s hoping Buck will say more.

“Just give me a moment.” he adds and to that Eddie hums and rests his hand on Buck’s thigh. Oh fuck. This isn’t helping his nerves.

Buck takes a deep breath. “I’m trans.”

A second passes.

“Thanks for telling me.” Eddie smiles, trying to act like he didn’t know this but Buck sees past it.

“You already knew. How?”

“I saw your testosterone gel thing in the bathroom once. I guess you forgot to put it away like you usually do,” Eddie answers softly.

“You’re not mad I didn’t tell you?”

“Of course not, Buck. You don’t owe me anything regarding that.”

“We’ve been best friends for months.”

“Yeah well did I come out to you as cis? No. Besides gender is fucking stupid. Am I even a man?”

Buck sighs. He supposes Eddie has a valid point.

“Uh, while we’re talking about more serious topics, I have something to tell you,” Eddie admits.

Buck doesn’t have enough time to panic before Eddie calmly says “I’m in love with you.”

Is this a fucking dream? Buck doesn’t know what to say. “I- What do you mean?”

Eddie continues, “Yeah that was one of the factors in the whole me discovering my sexuality process. Hen called me out so many times about my gay panic for you.”

“But y-you like men.”

“Yes I do. Particularly the amazing and gorgeous man in front of me.”

Buck stumbles across his words, all flustered. “But Eddie, I’m not— like I don’t have a you know.” He glances down there.

“That doesn’t make you any less of a man, Buck. I know how I feel about you. I love you beyond your body but I mean, I do really love your body too and I hope I can make you feel safe and comfortable with it.”

Yeah this is a fucking dream come true.

Eddie lifts up the bottom of his shirt. “Can I…”

Buck has no idea what he’s about to do but he’ll let Eddie do anything to him. That probably should be concerning but he doesn’t care.

“Yeah,” he says with a shaky breath.

Eddie gently takes Buck’s shirt (which actually belonged to Eddie originally) and looks at him with such adoration, it makes Buck want to cry.

He lowers his head and brings his lips to Buck’s top surgery scars. He softly kisses along the two lines, whispering “I love you” after each kiss.

Now Buck is crying. He is just so overwhelmed with love—both his love for Eddie and feeling so loved by Eddie. He manages to say, “I love you” back before the tears make unable to speak coherently

Of course Eddie understands and doesn’t tell him “No it’s okay don’t cry,” instead he embraces him into a hug that makes Buck feel all warm and fuzzy — like all hugs from Eddie do.

They stay there, holding each other and Buck realizes things have changed between them but in the best way possible.

[1mlostnow]

OK!! I WANNA TALK ABOUT BEING GAY!!!

I hope that caught your attention :)

I’m also hoping to get more input from the queer community here so please comment or rb with anything you have to say.

Please read I think this is incredibly important.

Okay ⬇️

I am a trans man and I have only socially transitioned. I don’t usually like to talk about the fact that I’m trans, because I have this underlying fear that it will somehow remind people that I’m “not really a man” or something. Internalized homophobia, I guess. But this feels really important to talk about.

The 2024 Election. I am confident in my belief that we will have a second trump term. It is so incredibly important for trans kids to build community. If he gets elected, that puts us and queer people as a whole at risk.

Depending on which state you’re from, you may have already gotten a taste of this. I’m from a primarily red state and we’ve got bathroom bills, book bans, and transparency bills.

Bathroom Bill -> bans trans folks from using the bathroom which aligns with their gender identity, requires them to use bathroom that corresponds with their sex at birth. I know for a lot of states, this also removed gender neutral bathrooms in a lot of places.

Book bans -> thank you Ron Fucking DeSantis (florida governer, ran for president but dropped from race in January 2024(?)) Lawmakers can decide what books they consider inappropriate for schools, and have them removed. They defend it by saying they’re banning “sexual content” but majority of it is mentions of queer folks in books. To them two boys holding hands for one sentence may as well be a book full of smut. Overall, they’re only retracting what they want to, excluding gender/sexuality mentions and critical race theory.

Transparency -> OH MY FUCKING AHSHDHDRRR. Okay so. In my state and many others, there’s something referred to as a transparency bill. It was advertised as transparency in education and a right for parents to know what the schools’ curriculum consists of. Part of this bill requires teachers and administrators to out a student to their parents or guardians if they come out at school. — Going into this school year, I was unaware this bill had passed. I emailed my teachers the week before school and on my second day, the principal was legally required to phone home. Luckily, everything was fine on my end and my mom already knew.

Now these are the things that have already happened. There is so, so much more. Bans on gender affirming care, legally classifying marriage as between a man and a woman, and SO much more that I can’t even comprehend enough to type out. Please do your research.

It’s so hard to stay positive when I fear for my wellbeing, my future, and my life. I am a teenager. I am meant to be going to school to learn math and science, not the Ten Commandments. I’m meant to be able to use the bathroom without feeling out of place, no matter where I am.

I know this focused primarily on trans people but this also affects the queer community on so many levels.

I cannot be happy in a country that believes that being queer is a mental illness.

I hope to god I’m reaching people. I think building community is one of the most important things that we could be doing right now. As well as educating and encouraging others to vote blue.

It’s between a man on his deathbed and a felon.

It’s between a man who doesn’t know where he is and a man who claimed this country would become a “unified reich.”

A democracy or a dictatorship.

[anamericangirl]

I recently saw you got an anon from somebody else talking about LGBT stuff. Specifically, those of us who say we just wanna be left alone and exist in peace, but now we have things like kids being exposed to drag culture, which is inherently sexual and not appropriate for children at all. Drag Queen Story Hour, kids being groomed and put on puberty blockers and stuff like that. The anon seemed to imply that everyone in the LGBT community is not only ok with it, we’re actively trying to force this shit on people and expecting them to just passively accept it, and that was our plan from the start. But I’m bisexual myself and I’m friends with quite a few LGBT people and I can assure you we HATE that shit, too, and we really do just want to be left alone. We always have. Every sane LGBT person I’ve spoken to agrees with what I’m saying here because they’re making us look like a bunch of freaks and degenerates screaming “We’re coming for your kids!”.

Don’t let the Rainbow Mafia fool you. Most of us want NOTHING to do with them. Which is why organisations like Gays Against Groomers exist. We’ve literally been fighting against these harmful stereotypes for decades, and we almost won, but then the Rainbow Mafia took over and now MOGAI is a thing. Plus we’ve got pedos pretending to be LGBT, kink at pride and all kinds of disgusting shit the community shouldn’t be tolerating. Most of them aren’t even actually LGBT, they’re some kind of fake MOGAI gender or pretty much anything that’s not gay, bi or trans. Those of us who are legitimately attracted to the same sex and/or dysphoric to a certain degree are mostly just normal people who merely wish to be left alone to live our lives as we wish and love whoever we want without being discriminated against for it.

But apparently that’s too much to ask…not from you, ofc. If it weren’t for the alphabet mob, we could and would just live our lives in peace. But they’re perpetuating all these harmful stereotypes that we’ve been fighting against for generations and grooming kids, et cetera, that make people who are genuinely homophobic and transphobic think they’re right about us.

I can certainly sympathize with those of you who are getting a bad rap because of the degenerates that have infiltrated the community. I know, and I’m pretty sure most people know, that on an individual level most people in the pride community aren’t groomers or pedophiles and don’t support any such thing. And I love organizations like gays against groomers and the work they do in fighting the very real problem.

The problem is the community as a whole is not fighting against those things it is engaging in them. And while there are definitely individuals such as yourself who realize what is going on and hate it, there are also several individuals in the community who just deny that it’s happening or actively support it. I’ve spoken to people like that. And these people unfortunately are the loudest and they are the main face of the community and the organizations that stand behind the pride community also support it.

On an individual level lgbt people aren’t a problem, but the community is and that’s why the sane lgbt people need to distance themselves from and completely reject the community. Their political and social goals are abhorrent and we need the sane people like you to take an active stand against them.

The sane people are the quiet ones unfortunately because understandably you want to be left alone so you’re leaving people alone which is how it should be in an ideal world. But we don’t live in an ideal world and the pride community is creating hostility towards lgbt people and we need more decent people to fight against them and their messages.

[spacemancharisma]

vent under cut

so the background is that I work for a family-owned business in an extremely politically red area. I knew the owners were republicans, but didn’t realize until recently that they’re like,, hardcore about it. the wife wears trump merch 24/7 and they both toss the t-slur around in a work environment like it’s nothing. they have two kids though, around my age, and the son is gay, which I learned a month or two into working here. since then, i’ve come out to him & we’ve been friends, we’ve had solidarity, i’ve seen him make at least token attempts to chill his parents out. I’ve never made my personal political leanings obvious at work bc I know better, but it’s fairly obvious from everything about me that I lean pretty hard to the left.

all this to say- the other day as I was leaving work, I walked into the office where the parents & kids were all talking, and arrived while the son, my friend, was in the middle of a story that went “- and he asked me why he should vote for trump, so I was explaining like, ‘do you know what a 30% corporate tax would even do?’-” and I know it’s naïve of me to have expected anything but it still hit me in the fucking chest

and since then i’ve had this feeling of like,, rage and pain the way a little kid feels, all that righteousness and confusion because how can you not care about other people???? I’m just sitting at work feeling like I’m going to start screaming or crying because PEOPLE DIED FOR YOU. YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS DIED IN THE FUCKING STREETS FOR YOU TO HAVE THE RIGHT TO RENT A LITTLE HOUSE WITH YOUR BOOTBOY BOYFRIEND AND MAKE OUT WHILE YOU VOTE FOR TRANS PEOPLE TO BE FUCKING EXTERMINATED. but what does it matter to fucking you, I guess, since you’re white and cis and male and masc and able-bodied. who gives a fuck about everyone you’re stomping on. who gives a fuck about the queers and the faggots and the trannys getting wished out of existence if it means that you, a Good Respectable Homosexual, don’t have to pay some goddamn taxes. I want to fucking throw up. this is a vent post bc I can’t be articulate about it. it just hurts. it fucking hurts that I am haunted every day by the spectre of an entire generation that republicans murdered in cold blood, and people like him haven’t ever even considered the what it would’ve been like if he’d been born a decade or two earlier. we have not recovered from the aids crisis. we will never recover from the aids crisis. the community we once had was fucking demolished, deliberately, and if you can go about your life & never think about how many people we lost & what we lost with them, you have fucking lost the plot.

how is it possible to so genuinely only think about capital, about fucking money. how is it fucking possible to care so little about other people????? people you claim to have community with???? yourself even?????? we live in fucking georgia dude, we don’t have room to backslide. panthers eating faces or whatever. maybe they’ll come for me first but I promise they are coming for you next.

they don’t fucking respect you. you’re not “one of the good ones”. they’ll never forgive you. they’ll never love you. and when they start eating faces, you’re not as far down that list as you want to be. I just don’t understand how disconnected you have to be to not see that, to not care, to think you’re above it. you are as filthy as any of us to them, and when you need someone to stand with you, it’s not going to be them. it’s going to be us, standing with you even if you never stood with us.

anyway.

[raccoon-in-a-dumpster]

hi. This is the anon who was talking about proship last night. I will try to be concise as possible, without skipping important things this time. You are coming from a place of moral panic and probably your own defense, given what started the conversation, and how could I blame you?

I should’ve been a bit more clear with my explanation, but it was meant to be about shipping. I had assumed that was a given since we were talking about proshipping. I want to remind you that there are a lot of problematic things in various ships across many fandoms, including cannibalism (admittedly that one seems to be pretty fandom-specific), stalking, murder, manipulation, and so on.

I will not argue with you anymore. Clearly you are convinced you’re right (and again…I can’t blame you.).

I will however point out the one flaw in your argument: all of the things I mentioned are illegal. As well as physical and verbal abuse, which are also in a lot of ships, and some people just enjoy that in their fiction. Henry/Will isn’t exactly a pure and healthy ship. You may not know them, but there are people who would tear you to shreds, thinking you support that kind of toxicity in real life.

My point has changed several times over the course of this conversation, and as I’ve had some more time to think on it. I have realized that my initial point was mostly pedantic; meaning, I thought you were wrong about the word ‘proship’ and for some reason felt the need to correct you. Which is pretty shitty of me, I’ll admit.

And once again, I absolutely understand why you’re reacting this way. If an anonymous stranger showed up in my inbox and essentially said “uhhm [word you know to mean pedophilia and incest supporter] is fine, actually.” I’d be incredulous, quite upset, and probably afraid. Of all the ways to try to start a conversation about something like this, I could’ve chosen a much better one if I wanted you to hear me out before deciding that I must be an idiot at best, and a creep at worst, and refusing to even consider anything I say.

But now it’s a point of worry.

I want you to take a moment and ask yourself why you now have two very different definitions of “proshipping”, and why the first definition you were given does not include other things that are illegal, like murder. Who gave you this explanation? Also, if you had read my definition in a vacuum, outside of the context of proshipping, would you agree with it?

If the answer is ‘yes’, ask yourself again why your source told you it was only about liking and supporting pedophilia and incest.

And before you say anything, no, I’m not saying those things aren’t bad. It’s disgusting. I maintain that I wouldn’t touch even the made-up shit with a 20 foot pole.

But do you know what kind of things (aside from actual pedophilia) are often called that?

Adults writing about kids (the same age) being in love, no more explicit than holding hands and kissing each other’s cheeks.

Adults writing to entertain children, even if there’s not even a shred of romance.

Gay people. For existing.

Trans people, like you and me, for existing.

Nevermind the accusations of sexualizing children if you say you headcanon a fictional kid as trans or gay or bi or anything under that rainbow, regardless of whether or not you yourself are gay or trans.

You have experienced this already. You’ve been sent anons accusing you of pedophilia even though you’re a teenager yourself. You and I both know it’s bullshit, but the people who say that don’t care. They don’t care what they have to say to get people like us to, at best, hide in shame and hate ourselves for wanting to be something other than the gender we were assigned at birth. Or, at worst, kill ourselves.

How many people have been accused of pedophilia in the past couple of years? People you may not have even heard of until the accusations reached your ears? I know of a few who have proven their innocence, and it was revealed that the accuser was only trying to make the accused’s life hell.

Screenshots can be faked. Conversations are taken out of context.

Prior to this conversation I had distanced myself from discussions of proship and antiship. I didn’t want to get in the middle of it. But now I have decided that I am proship.

Not because I think it’s okay to coerce children into sexual acts, or that incest is fine, but because I would rather not see the people I care about ganged up on, harassed, and threatened for alleged ‘pedophilia’. For accusations that came from one bigoted prick who decided to use the worst accusation they could think of to get these queer ‘degenerates’ off of the internet.

Because someone writing a story about pedophilia to process and cope with their traumatic childhood experiences with it shouldn’t be dragged to the gallows and hanged for it.

Because someone writing a story about incest may not know enough about it to understand why it’s bad, and they shouldn’t be screamed at and harassed and threatened.

Because my transgender friends shouldn’t be called disgusting sibling-fuckers for discussing how a child in a fantasy AU might try to help their trans sibling find a way to medically transition.

Because I shouldn’t be called a child molester for writing about two gay adult women adopting children.

Because sometimes people don’t know what love could be if it’s not being forced into something.

Because a teenager just starting to explore some of the thoughts and feelings that are coming with puberty might not understand why their 13 year old character shouldn’t romantically or sexually be with the 28 year old pop star they have a crush on, shouldn’t be verbally abused and told to kill themselves until they do too afraid to ask why it’s wrong, because no one will even tell them what their offense was, because they think it’s them.

Because between letting a creep be weird about fictional children on the internet—who gets caught and arrested by their local law enforcement for doing something just the real world (which no one else in the internet would be able to help with, unless you managed to dox them. and is also illegal)—and letting people accuse anyone they don’t like of pedophilia and incest turning all fandom spaces into sterilized hellscapes where one disagreement gets your account publicly executed, I’d much rather go with the former.

Because sometimes the accusations of pedophilia and incest are nothing more than a Trojan horse.

I will not come off anon. I will not tell you who I am. I can hear the war drums in the distance and I don’t care who’s right or wrong, I refuse to end up on a callout post. Because even if your intentions are just “hey watch out, I’m pretty sure this person’s a gross pedo, don’t interact with them”, and nothing more, there will be people who come harass me. People who may not even know either of us beyond the callout post. I have seen the aftermath of it, showing up well after the storm has passed without knowing anything about what they might’ve done, and they’re incredibly paranoid. One of them gets an incredibly high amount of hateful anons and reblogs for no apparent reason. Even on posts talking about something trivial like “if you put this spice in your ramen it’s actually really tasty”. Another sounds like they’re fighting tooth and nail with themself, just to respond to one anon calling them anything derogatory, without apologizing for daring to exist. Neither of them are pedophiles or support incest. How many times worse would it be if that was the reason someone was being harassed, even if it wasn’t true? I don’t want to find out.

I really don’t think you would intentionally start something like that. But you are not who I’m concerned about.

This is my last word on this. Do with it what you will. But stay safe. And ask questions when you’re told that something is an absolute certainty. There is very little in the human experience that is universal and solid, and things can be even more muddled on the internet.

I doubt you’ll take anything I have to say seriously now, but there is a lot of harm someone can do when they’re being guided by dishonest people under the pretense of moral purity.

anon what

what does any of this mean

33 PARAGRAPHS AND FOR WHAT??? I DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS MEANSSS

[explaininghellaverse]

Angel Dust time!

Spider man, but ya know not that Spider-man.

So there have been several controversies with Angel and I’ll talk about the ones I’ve seen. Most of them boil down to being pretty nonsensical if you think for 10 seconds in all honesty.

And a general warning that this will get into triggering topics because Angel’s character revolves around some heavy stuff.

Trans Angel Dust Controversy

So first things first Angel is not trans as far anything been stated. If you want headcannon him as such go for it! And second if he was trans I don’t really see a problem with it. People’s biggest issue that I’ve seen is because of his chest fluff making him look busty, and it’s really a non-issue. No matter if you where the ‘Angel is a trans man’ or ‘Angel is a trans woman’ side of this argument.

Trans people are allowed to not look visibly cis, to say Angel is transphobic while thinking he’s trans because he’s got a ‘bust’ is more transphobic than anything else. People don’t need to pass or they can just be happy with that feature. Looking Cis shouldn’t be everyone’s goals.

He’s Feminine so he’a a gay stereotype.

Yes/no, if anything I see him as more androgynous personally. the most feminine thing about him is that he wears pink, but also being a feminine man isn’t a bad thing. It’s not bad to shine light on the more feminine men in our community, femme men exist.

I also think him being pink and more femme leaning has directly to do with his story don’t forget he died in the 1940s an era not to long ago where simply being gay could instantly be a death sentence. On top of that he’s the child of the Mafia who are also notoriously homophobic.

I think him being more femme in hell, and physically being pink is for to reasons. It’s A something he was probably deeply insecure about when he was alive and B in hell most people don’t care about that so he’s now gotten a chance to embrace his queerness.

I think that will end up tying into why the deal with Valentino even happened in the first place, the tough guy mafia kid embrace his sexuality he’s always had to suppress and thinks he can handle anything since he was mafia when alive. But I think he was fresh in in hell when it happened he didn’t understand yet how binding demon deals are.

The Poison controversy

So this one is complicated and people’s very varied response to it speaks volume. There is a bit where it’s just people not understanding how this sort of thing develops and other are just victims reactions to the same thing can be very different.

So I’m speaking on this in a weird tone I am not a direct victim of SA however my dad is a rapist and mother was his victim so I have trauma relating to SA and have seen an SA victim at her worst and getting better. Just to explain that I am not just pulling stuff out of my ass here. I have different but complex related trauma.

So do I think poison is bad SA rep, no I don’t. Do I think the song can be triggering absolutely, but the episode does come with a warning which is all someone should have to ask for when dealing with these topics.

The scenes actually showing SA in the song are very brief and they all cutoff before you can really see much happening and then switch to Angel dancing in his stage. The song itself despite the pop sound is very depressing if you really listen to it. Kind of in a way similar to “pumped up kicks” which if you don’t know is a popular very cheery sounding song about school shootings.

How I see the song the song and I think is the intended way for the song to be interrupted is that Angel is both spiraling and dissociating. Remember that night Valentino was being extra hard on Angel more than usual and I think that broke him. Dissociating is something the brain does to try and protect itself. Where your brain basically goes hey you’re in a bad situation let’s completely ignore that at any cost. I also think it’s directly referencing Angels mask because he does pretend to enjoy it all as for himself to not get hurt more than he already is. Which is a very realistic depiction.

There is also another disturbing way to interpret it, that I think is horrific and that is up until the end of the song where we see Angel really break down, what if the song isn’t just a song for the audience but one actually physically being performed as a in universe music video. What if Valentino as punishment to Angel is making him sing this song about how much this is hurting Angel to sell to his hungry fans. I wouldn’t put it past Valentino.

That also another thing at the end of the song Angel is going into a panic attack and you can hear his voice breaking and the music becoming more somber. The dissociation is broken the mask is falling and Angel is breaking down. Angel is honestly one of the best depictions of an SA victim I’ve ever seen. And yes some scenes with him made me uncomfortable, but that’s the point, that’s the horror of his situation that he can’t escape. And that’s also why he’s become such a comfort to so many people.

Which leads me to the next part.

Angel Dust’s flirty comment problem

A lot of people think Angel is bad rep because of his constant flirty comments, sex jokes, and literally throwing himself at people like Husk, but again this is a realistic depiction of how some people react to being SA’d especially in a long term situation.

Angel is Hypersexual his brain has been rewired where to protect itself it now has normalized that behavior. Does that mean it’s alright when he pushes peoples buttons in that way, absolutely not but it does make sense.

And it’s shown in show how uncomfortable it makes Husk, but Husk also recognizes that it is a mask something Angel is to afraid to admit. It also makes sense how Angel throws himself at people it’s a mix of trying to take back his power his sexuality and that ‘If he consents no matter what he can’t be hurt again’ mindset. He is a very realistic depiction of an SA victim.

Why do people think Angel is bad rep?

So for one everyone’s situation in what trauma does to the brain is different, someepeople become hypersexual, some people shut down, some people become violent to scare people off, some people become so scared that can’t leave there house. Trauma varies and I think part of why some victims see him as being bad rep is simply because that’s not how their trauma manifested, but I think he’s important we rarely see a victim shown like this and so many people who responded to their trauma in a similar way to him now have a character that they take comfort in.

There is also this thing in media that’s called ‘the perfect victim’ where in a lot of writing victims are written in a very specific very structured way that anything outside of that is considered a bad victim. This directly parallels real life where if you aren’t in tears every second, if you wore something that could be seen as provocative people will say you aren’t a real victim. And I’ve seen people say that exact thing with Angel, I’ve seen people say he’s not a victim because he signed the contract. It’s a mirror on how victims are treated.

There is also something to be said about Angel being a male victim. Male victims are rarely represented and rarely taken seriously. I think that’s also reflecting in how people are viewing Angel. I do think if Angel’s character was a woman he would be treated differently by people that are both fans and haters of the show.

What do I want to see from Angel in the future

This section is just stuff I really want to see from Angel in the future.

-I want more screen time of Angel and his pet pig, we barely see his pet until the end of the series and I think that’s a little weird.

-Now that Angels mask is falling a bit with Husk I want to see Angel open up more in a calmer less sexualized way

-I want to see Angels trauma get in the way of his relationship with Husk. I think a great way they could take this with Angel being scared of hurting Husk the same way he has been hurt. That’s personally something I struggle with and I think that would be amazing to see. Trauma does weird stuff to peoples brain.

-I want to a flashback where we get to see a human Angel and how he interacts with his mob family due to his sexuality being rejected.

In conclusion, does Angel’s representation make you feel uncomfortable does it make you feel gross? Good. That’s the point.

[little-grey-dowitcher]

So apparently there’s been a new twist on a trend I’ve been seeing for a while in like hardcore fundamentalist Christian/anti-LGBTQ+/gender critical groups and as funny as it is that they make hating queer people their whole personality, to the point of even pretending to be ex-gays or whatever, something about it is so bizarre from an outside perspective.

Honestly, it’s kinda sad to me how many of these people will make what are supposed to be the happiest moments of their lives about people they hate. Like in my last reblog, that couple was getting married, which is great for them! But rather than celebrating their marriage and their relationship and their love for each other, they decided to focus on their hatred of kinky furries? And imo there’s no version of events that makes this better. If they both were in on making this post, then I worry about their relationship because I speak from experience when I say ANY relationship founded on a mutual dislike of someone else is doomed to fail. If it was only one of them who came up with this idea and posted it without the other knowing, that’s also pretty bad, because how do you explain to your partner that the reason you can’t just be happy about your marriage is because you’re too busy being mad about kinky gay people online?

This is a trend with people announcing their pregnancies too, like they’ll go “yep! Just found out I’m pregnant! Something only REAL WOMEN can do, not something a trans woman can do!” And first of all trans women are real fucking women, so write that down. But also why couldn’t you just focus on your own happiness? Like, what are you gonna tell your child when they get old enough to use Facebook and they look through your page and see a memory pop up of that post? How are you gonna explain to them that you were so busy focusing on how much you hate a bunch of trans people you’ve never even met that you couldn’t even be happy they were coming into the world? And then there’s the parents who continue to make their entire child rearing experience about their hatred of trans people after their kid is born, like how those tradwife videos will show them making bread with their daughters and then randomly bring up how this is what Real Women do. Which is so bizarre. But also gods forbid your kid turns out to be trans themself, because now they’ve got an entire laundry list of posts you made detailing how much you hate trans people (IN THE CONTEXT OF RAISING THAT TRANS CHILD, NO LESS) that they can now use as a justification to cut you off!

It’s like that woman who talked about hating trans people on her deathbed. I don’t feel like I just “got owned” or whatever. I don’t know any trans women who feel that way either. I feel pity for a few minutes and then I go back to scrolling tumblr and drinking my tea. I forget all about it until someone brings it up, either as a passing joke or to show me an example, and then I laugh and maybe feel a little pity again, and then I go back to playing video games. Occasionally I’ll wish they had something in their lives that they loved and considered more important than their hatred, because I feel like everyone deserves to find happiness in the things they enjoy, but I never feel like I just got “absolutely destroyed” or whatever the poster’s goal was. I just feel pity for the people who are so obsessed with their hatred that they can’t focus on literally anything else, and then life goes on.

Idk I just truly hate this trend, not because I wish ill on the people doing it or think it’s cringe or whatever but because I think it’s more damaging to themselves than it is to anyone they’re directing their anger towards. Imagine being so miserable all the time because people exist that are different from you and it takes up so much space in your heart that you can’t even be happy about the good things in your own life without somehow making it a “gotcha” at random people you don’t know.

[kanamori-kamper-moved]

Tron, any numbers you want!

hehe you’re give me too much power!!! Don’t tempt me to infodump about my babygirl.. but I’m gonna do it anyway!!

Here’s the ask game if anyone wants to send anymore characters!

~

12. Sexuality hc!

Vetrix has always been very gay to me. I always see people with these headcanons of him having a wife or smth but honestly I CANNOT see him with a woman. He’s very unashamedly a boykisser. His kids are all test tube babies, he’d sooner de-transition than willingly sleep with a woman.

He gets kind of weird around woman, kind of a mysognist because of internalized transphobia he needs to get over. Doesn’t excuse it but he’s trying </3

And technically not a sexuality hc but he’s very transmasc to me (or agender, depends on how I feel)! He uses He/They/It/Xe + Neos because why the fuck not. I like headcanoning old men as trans!! Just come and stop me >:3

7. A quote of them you remember

It’s either, “Maybe I’m just a bad dad!”, or “Your father always talked about friendship, and it only ended up being his undoing.” I might be misquoting that second one but its f the Shark Vs Quattro duel and it TORE MY HEART APART??? FUCKING CRIES????

5. Favourite Ship

Fathershipping, undoubtably. I know Most sub Fans are crazy about scientistshipping (which I do ship, to a lesser scale) but I find Fathershipping cuter. It’s funnier because the dub leans farther into Fathershipping and the sub leans more into scientistshipping. For context in episode 55, when Byron and Kazuma sit by the fire he makes a comment about faker being a good friend, but in the dub it’s changed so that Kazuma talks about how much of a good friend Byron is or smth to that effect. Funny detail I noticed :3

Like. Byron literally ASKS Kazuma to let him go into the portal (where he could’ve presumably died) because he wanted him to be safe instead of him. It takes SO MUCH to want to die for someone. There were also two tents in episode 55. THEY ARE LITERALLY IMPLIED TO HAVE SLEPT TOGETHER AUGHHH

I could go on a bigger tangent in another post (which I’m sure I have), but I just think their sweet.

Also I Hope I don’t get in trouble for this but their dynamic post-Barian world/astral world is just that one image of a hamster trying to eat a whole banana. Yes im implying what you think I am. Don’t ask

23. Future Headcanon

You know how Vetrix wasn’t reverted back to his original body? And how he’s just this stupid little baby man who has to go through puberty again? Yeah. He grows up into the most INSUFFERABLE (albeit like 50 year old) teenager, starts listening to Linkin Park and finally gets his drivers license for like the second time. He’s still very boykisser tho!! Tbh it’s only really exacerbated because hormones

28. The most unnecessary thing they did?

The whole possessing Shark thing. As much as I think him gaslighting Shark into thinking the evil homophobic rat killed his sister, what was the point lol. Like he could’ve stopped faker without Shark either way??

Also on another point but I have an issue with how Zexal villains are just treated as borderline evil until their redeemed and just do nothing of substance again. Vetrix is one of the worst cases of this. I could go off about this more in another post if asked.

3. A song that reminds you of them?

Not just one song! I have a whole playlist of songs that remind me of him :3 Take a listen if you want!!

[rrcenic]

lotf characters as things ive said/my friends or family has said

jack: *swerves car*

ralph: tHIS IS WHY SIMON HAS ANXIETY

-

roger: see i don’t condone discrimination against anyone but like gingers are just so much fun to make fun of you’re just so…ginger

jack: jeez thanks rog

-

piggy: when i was in elementary school, my entire personality was being fat, having asthma, being unpopular, and talking too much. now…not much has changed but im really gay

-

simon: man i want top surgery. maybe ill just snap and do it mysef

roger: fun. can i help?

simon: actually nevermind

-

piggy, whispering: oh, here comes the twins!

ralph: hi! which one are you?

piggy: ralph you can’t just ask which twin he is that’s rude!

ralph: but i don’t know!!

-

percival: oh yeah i live at *address* our home phone is *number*

jack, sarcastically: aww, you have that memorized? how cute

-

jack: ooh ooh let’s sing “love is an open door” ill be anna you be hans ready go!

roger: why do i always have to be hans-

jack: aLL MY LIFE HAS BEEN A SERIES OF DOORS IN MY FACE-

-

simon: “trans teen” backwards is “sneet snart”

jack: are you high

simon: shhhh be quiet sneet snart

-

piggy: shit im having an asthma attack

ralph: dont worry i remembered to pack your inhaler for this hike

piggy: can i have it please

ralph: it’s at the hotel

piggy: wHY WOULD YOU LEAVE IT AT THE HOTEL IF YOU PACKED IT FOR THIS HIKE?!

-

jack: at camp a chaperone asked me if i was a band kid

jack: i told her i was a theatre kid

jack: she looked disappointed and scared

jack: …

jack: i love being a theatre kid

-

roger: we passed a group of 6th graders in the hall the other day and i said “oh, look, it’s an all-you-can-eat buffet! and simon looked so embarrassed that he was walking with me

simon: please don’t torment children

roger: no

[ginger-snap-talkin-nonsense]

Not the same anon but If you don't mind me asking why is Bob's Burgers is centrist, uninteresting, and make's you uncomfortable?

People act like Bobs Burgers is progressively left because of, among other things:

-Characters that feel Autism Coded

-Characters that are LGBT

-Having a girl allowed to go through the weirder, grosser side of puberty like being horny

-Landlords bad

So let’s go over all of these as examples.

1. No character is actively autistic and autistic traits are mocked in the show. I know y’all think Louise wearing a bunny hat everywhere is so “you-pilled” but I’d like to remind you of Courtney, who despite them saying deserved better in her opening episode they certainly never even think to slow down on openly mocking her for stimming in a way people find gross and needed to have boundaries expressed verbally because she doesn’t pick up on cues well. Y’all really hate Big Bang for doing that shit, why does this get a pass?

2. No characters are LGBT. Bob awkwardly saying he’s “probably not gay” to a guy trying to turn him down is not confirmation that he’s bi. Dear lord Family Guy at least had the nuts to say the words “I’m Bi” when making a similar joke about Peter. Oh but they have the trans positive characters right? Oh I’m sorry, not trans characters. Drag Queen Sex Workers who’s opening appearance has them talk about sitting on people’s faces to children at a birthday. Now obviously I am absolutely pro drag, pro sex work, the works. But this reads like a conservative comic about how the libs are grooming your kids. Again, y’all hated Family Guy for the joke about Brian being grossed out when he finds out he had sex with a woman he obviously couldn’t tell was trans, why is this suddenly positive trans rep?

3. Tina’s obsession with grabbing her neighbors ass is gross. When Big Mouth did this shit with a character they spent the next 4 years explaining over and over again the line between being attracted to someone and being allowed to horny during puberty while being any gender, and sexual harassing people. Bobs Burgers never makes this distinction. Tina is just supposed to shoot off about her latest erotic fan fiction about the boy next door and I’m supposed to laugh. It’s giving “its funny because she’s a girl” energy, not positive influence energy.

4. Their landlord is a friend who is routinely shown to be “crazy but also friendly guy who’s actually helpful and gives Bob plenty of rent extensions”.

Now does this mean Bobs Burgers is secretly some right-wing pipeline? No. All of these things are dumb oversights or jokes that went on too long which happens in the best of shows. Family Guy certainly wasn’t immune to taking too long to end Quagmire SA jokes or making anti-Semitic remarks feel a little too unironic. But Family Guy also threatens to break your teeth if you don’t respect Native Americans in conversations about their land, or if you don’t have respect for trans people. Bobs Burgers is too out of politics to say that.

And that’s fine. This isn’t modern Simpsons type “centrism” which is just myopically packaged conservatism, this is Duncaville. It’s easy Gen-X humor that’s just calm and mundane enough that you can relax to it. It’s practically background noise for 40-year-old wine moms, and that’s NOT an inherent negative. But I’m sick of people acting Bobs Burgers is the one and only “truly progressive” cartoon while it does literally nothing in the way of politics one way or the other. You like it? Fine. But don’t come to me about how how it’s the most genius show ever written and “so much better than gross out garbage like Seth MacFarlane makes” or you’re getting popped.

[evildilf2]

heyy dude what’s up you don’t have to post this but your discussion of this had me thinking.. as a gay and trans person who would consider myself very religious but in the Jewish way I think this sites obsession w Catholic imagery is really bizarre like I do understand finding things about it compelling or wanting to reclaim imagery but it’s soo weird to me the way nonreligious people choose to engage with it sometimes it’s corny like you said. it’s also so weird to me that catholicism specifically is what’s been chosen as The Aesthetic Religion bc the Catholic Church is soooo antisemitic (on top of many many many other obvious issues) like my family had to leave Europe bc of it. like the Catholic Church has a long bloody history of inciting violence against ppl like me and that Wouldn’t actually change if I was cishet which I think is an interesting distinction between myself and people who want to post gay Catholic imagery stuff. but it’s also like can’t rly complain I think it would be weirder to me if non-religious people engaged with non-christian religions in this way, it would be a really bizarre form of cultural appropriation. the state of being a religious transfag on tumblr in 2023. sorry for rant <3

No need to apologize, I think this is a very important thing to acknowledge! I think the reason why Catholicism is the “aesthetic religion” of choice is largely due to the fact that Christianity in general dominates American culture. So on one hand, I’d say you be hard pressed to find a gay person in the US who hasn’t been impacted by Christian homophobia. & because it’s not uncommon for people to channel their angst with oppression into fascination with or fetishism over a sensitive subject, it’s only natural that so many people would be drawn to do so for Christianity. That said, the aesthetics of many Protestant religions are far more modest than Catholicism, and many Protestant faiths are far less literal with their interpretations of the Bible/biblical rituals and all that. Aside from Catholicism the 2 other faiths I’ve seen be romanticized are fetishized is like… the whole Southern Baptist midwest gothic “Ethel cain core” type thing, and Mormonism, but the only people I’ve seen fetishize the latter are ex Mormons whereas the former seems to have more of a wider appeal.

What you said about that specific oppression resonated with me; though I’m not Jewish myself, I recently learned that my mom & her side of the family are Jewish to some extent… but I was never made aware of this as a kid (despite that side of the family frequently discussing heritage), and I suspect this was due to how Catholic that side of the family is. It’s really fucked up, and I want to ask my grandma what she knows about that, but I’m hesitant to because I fear it would make her or other people in the family treat some family members differently. That dilemma itself definitely has made me uncomfortable with my family’s religious beliefs in a way that’s distinctly different from the discomfort with their homophobia I had prior, so I can only imagine it’s pretty upsetting to see that faith be romanticized when you’re directly and more severely impacted by centuries of Catholic antisemitism. I really appreciate you reaching out & sharing your perspective, apologies if I talked all over the place 👍

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: Pride Asks!

It may be August, but I’m a big believer in Pride Year, so today I’m going through the list of questions I found on this post and answering the ones I feel like thinking about!

(Turns out I felt like answering all thirty-four of them. Have fun!)

1. Which labels do you use?

I am greyromantic and demisexual! I also use aromantic and asexual, or aro-ace.

2. Do you like to use the term queer for yourself? Or just LGBT, etc?

I’m here, I’m queer! I understand why some people aren’t comfortable with reclaiming this word, but it works well for me. You can’t leave out the A when you call it a queer community.

3. Which pronouns do you use?

She/her

4. Are you "out" to your family and friends?

Yep!

5. Are you "out" publicly?

Yep!

6. (If you're out) do you wish you came out sooner? Later? Or was it the right time?

I wish I’d known it was an option sooner. I couldn’t have come out before I knew about it, so I suppose it was the right time. But I wish I’d spent fewer years thinking there was something wrong with me.

7. Are you the "token" queer person in your family?

No, but when I came out, I didn’t know that there were other queer people in my family.

8. Describe your gender without using any words traditionally related to gender:

My gender is “respect me!”

9. When did you realize you weren't cishet?

In middle school, I knew I wasn’t feeling the same thing that my peers were describing when they talked about crushes. But it was easy enough to dismiss it as just another thing that was different about me. I was already anosmic and autistic, and always the first Jewish kid that anyone had ever met. I assumed I was “straight but broken” for the longest time. I didn’t even really believe that I could be asexual the first time I heard the word, in college. I joined my school’s Feminist Union, and that’s where I learned that there are more options to sexuality than straight or gay, more options to gender than boy or girl, and that romantic and sexual attraction weren’t the same thing. I went on Tumblr and followed as many queer blogs as I could find – I was determined to learn everything I could about all the identities, so I could be the best ally ever! One day, I saw a post with the word “demisexual” in it, and I Googled it. I read the definition, and it clicked.

10. Something that gives you gender euphoria (whether you're cis or trans):

When people call me “sir” or “ma’am.”

11. Favorite (or just one you love) piece of LGBT media?

Technically You Started It by Lana Wood Johnson. I wish I could reach back through time and hand this book to my preteen self.

12. Name some queer artists/bands or songs you like most:

“For Me” by Dearlie and “Never Been in Love” by Will Jay stand out. I’m not sure if it was intentional, but “Good Thing” by Zedd and Kehlani is SO aro.

13. Do you choose to reclaim slurs, why or why not?

Every word we use to describe ourselves has been used against us pejoratively. If I find a word works for me, I use it. If someone asks me not to use a word for them or around them, then I won’t use it for them or around them.

14. How do you think other factors like neurodivergency or upbringing have impacted your identity?

I’m Jewish, anosmic, and autistic. I understood from a very young age that there were things about me that made me different from other people, that other people wouldn’t be able to see right away. Once they realized that that difference existed, they would doubt me, question me, negatively judge me, and distance themselves from me. In a way, that all prepared me to realize and accept my asexuality and aromanticism.

I also give my parents a lot of credit for never putting any pressure on me to date when I was a kid or a teen. In hindsight, my childhood home was a very safe place to be aro-ace. Queerness wasn’t something we ever talked about, so it’s not like they encouraged me to explore, but they never discouraged it, either. When I first told my mom I thought I might have a crush on a girl, she immediately hugged me and told me she loved me, and that was the end of the conversation. I knew I could come to her and my dad with whatever new discovery I might make about myself.

15. How has your identity changed over time?

I went from “I have no idea” to “straight but broken” to “panromantic demisexual” to “greyromantic demisexual.”

16. Do you attend Pride in person every year?

No. I’d like to, but there’s a pandemic going on out there. And I live in Florida.

17. Have you ever attended Pride in a big city/ large metro area?

I went to Orlando Pride once with my then-boyfriend. There was a big, colorful parade, I bought a demisexual pride flag, and someone gave me a pair of rainbow sunglasses that I wore til they broke.

18. How old were you when you got to attend your first Pride? Who did you go with?

I think that Orlando Pride I mentioned was my first Pride. I was twenty-four or so.

19. Do you feel safe and accepted in your local community?

Safe enough, and accepted enough, given that it’s Florida. I stay in the Disney bubble enough that I don’t feel the need to constantly look over my shoulder. I have a girlfriend I love and friends I adore. That said, while no one locally is actively out to hurt me, it’s rare that anyone besides my girlfriend and a few key friends is actively out to understand and support my queerness, either. I try to find other aros and aces to hang out with in person, but it’s hard.

20. Do you feel like you "fit in" with the queer/Pride community overall?

I feel like I do. But I don’t think that they feel like I do.

21. What message would you give to your younger self?

Everything about you – everything you feel, everything you experience – is just as good, just as valid, and just as important as anyone else.

22. How do you usually celebrate Pride month?

These days mostly through TikToks.

23. Do you prefer loud parties or quiet?

Game night!

24. Do you practice any religion, if so how does it play into your LGBT identity? Do you feel welcomed by your spiritual community?

I’m Jewish. Masorti/Conservative. Like I said before, being Jewish in a predominantly Christian area prepared me in a way for being aro and ace. People struggle to understand it in similar ways; people are nice to me until they learn about it in similar ways. My community is pretty chill about it. They know I’m queer. My girlfriend and I met at synagogue. It doesn’t come up much, really. They’re more interested in the fact that I’m a twenty-something in a congregation where everyone is either much older or much younger than me.

25. What queer discourse frustrates you the most?

“Aces and aros aren’t LGBT!” “You’re not queer enough!” “You’re not oppressed enough!”

We have nothing to gain from shutting each other out, and everything to lose from perpetuating hate.

26. How do you feel about the term partner rather than husband/girlfriend/etc?

Partner is a great word! One of the ways my aromanticism shows up is in a fluctuating romance-repulsion. Sometimes I’m happy with romantic behaviors and ideas, and sometimes I’m really not okay with any of it! Right now, I’m calling my girlfriend my girlfriend, but sometimes that word doesn’t sit well with me. When we first announced our relationship on social media, I called her my “person.” I’m a big fan of having more words, more options, for how to describe the many ways our lives and relationships can be. “Partner” is great.

27. What gender-neutral terms for yourself or others do you use (i.e. joyfriend)?

My person. My partner. My friend. Babe.

28. Do you experience both romantic and sexual attraction? Do you experience them the same across any gender(s) you are attracted to?

Great question! I experience both at times, rarely. I’m demisexual – I only experience sexual attraction towards someone after I have an emotional connection with that person – and I’m greyromantic – I sometimes experience romantic attraction to others, without a clear pattern to it. Gender has never been an important factor for me. I’ve been in love with he’s, she’s, and they’s, and it comes and goes the same either way!

29. Are you currently partnered, or if not are you interested in having partner(s)?

My girlfriend and I have been a romantic couple for about three months. We were friends for about two years before that. I want to build a future together with someone, to make big life decisions together, to create a home together and have each other around for hugs whenever we need them.

But I feel fine when I don’t have that. Who I am when I’m in love and who I am when I’m not in love – it’s both me. I’m whole either way. But I know what I want.

30. Are you monogamous or polyamorous?

Not sure! I’ve never been in love with more than one person at a time, but I’m pretty sure I could be. I think it would be amazing to have more than one person you have that kind of understanding with and can count on like that. But I’m comfortable with monogamy. It’s not like my romantic partner is the only important person in my life; my family and friends are just as important.

31. Post a pic in your pride gear (or it can just be a selfie or anything else lgbt):

I don’t have any good pride pics right now, but I found this picrew I saved, like, two years ago:

32. Do you do arts and crafts? Post a pic of a project you've done:

I’m a writer, so have a poem instead:

I am yours to sit up with past midnight I am yours now to hold very near I am yours to give flowers and chocolates I am yours when I tell you my fears

I am yours when you soothe all my worries I am yours when you calm all my rants I am yours here beside you for always I am yours since you gave me the chance

I am yours when I tell you you’re silly I am yours when you tell me the same I am yours now to keep us both mindful I am yours in both sunshine and rain

I am yours when we meet in the morning I am yours when I tell you goodbye I am yours, though the allos will tell us That love without sex is a lie

Incidentally, I’m working on a book of Aromantic Asexual Love Poems. If you’ve read this far and you’re interested in beta-reading a queer poetry book, please reach out!

33. What about your LGBT identity do you feel proud of/ want to recognize/celebrate?

The freedom! The freedom to not know what’s going on with me, to be inconsistent, to figure out what’s best for me and my relationships, to build my future day by day by day. Recognizing my aromanticism and asexuality has opened so many doors for me and given me so much hope!

34. What are you needing most right now (what would make your life easier or more fulfilling in regards to existing as queer)?

More people who are neither aro nor ace mentioning aro and ace people in queer contexts. We can’t be the only ones speaking up for ourselves. Y’all need to be positive and noisy about us, too. That’s how we know we’re safe with you.