#do you want those people living under those anti lgbt+ laws?

[rowanthestrange]

probably a good time to state that I am fully committed to the creation of peace between russia and ukraine, and by peace i mean russia getting the fuck out of all the land they’re attempting to steal, returning all the children and others they’ve ‘repatriated’, providing all the funds necessary to rebuild everything including the half of ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure they’ve destroyed, and if i could magically give every ukranian a laser rifle to ensure that peace, so that russia never think of setting their jackboots across that line or any other country’s ever again, i absolutely fucking would

[petitmonde]

I'm sharing Jade's prom story from her Twitter thread. You can read it here and share it around. I'm putting it under a read more since it's quite long, but it's definitely worth reading every single word that she wrote. If you want to read more or get involved with LGBTQ+ rights, I have linked a few organisations that do great work in the Philippines.

LGBTQ+ Organisations in the Philippines

Bahaghari – national alliance of LGBT+ advocates, organisations, and formations. You can sign the petition for their anti discrimination bill SOGIE right here.

LoveYourself – an organisation that promotes HIV awareness, testing, and treatment. They also have resources available for those seeking help to transition.

UP Babaylan – The oldest LGBT+ student organisation in the Philippines.

LakanBini Advocates Pilipinas – A network of transgender organisations. They focus on health, psychosocial well-being, and human rights.

Rainbow Rights – A nonprofit NGO that focuses on legal literacy and empowerment with respect to SOGIE laws and policies.

Proud Campaign Philippines – Not only do they raise awareness of SOGIE, but they also help Filipinos in need with food, clothes, toiletries, and other necessities.

🩶 State Of The Dollification Address 🩶

I have 3 prom stories that I’ve experienced and here to tell all of y’all! I am now using my voice and platform to raise awareness, for humanity’s maturity and for the betterment of inclusive schools. ‼️

I want to say to ALL schools out there! No matter what Sexual Orientation, Gender Indentity & Expression. Students has the right to have equal knowledge and experience with schools and campus. As long as oppression and discrimination is still happening in today’s world, this is a sign that we are not yet treated as equal.

#PassSOGIEBillNow #TransYouthAreValid #TransWomenAreWomen #TransLivesMatter

#DollShenanigans #DollDomination #Dollification #SuSos #TeamM1ssJadeSo

My first ever Prom that I’ve attended way back Feb 13, 2016. I got invited by a guy from an all boys school. He sponsored everything from the gown, ticket and transportation. Everything went well, I attended their prom as the WOMAN THAT I AM. It was magical, fun and romantic. I greeted some people in the event, ate, had a romantic dance with the guy and also partied a little bit, we went home safe (take note: our driver is his Dad). So happy with this experience I got to live just by being me.

I met some Queer people and some of them are now Trans Women from that school, last year 2022. They told me that I was so iconic, that the administrators, teachers, pastors are triggered by my presence that night. They had to call every Queer people in their school just to have a prayer/mass session to pray the gay away. It was so sad, they couldn’t fight, they just told me that they love and look up to me for my bravery and courage from that night. I hope they are now healed from that trauma.

Going back to March 2016, for our Moving-Up Ball in my school. Everyone is excited as we are about to enter Senior High School (the first batch of SHS) and Junior High School is about to end. I’m very excited about it because it’s going to be our last Ball/Party of our whole batch. I am thinking to myself that this is going to be my coming out moment as a Trans Woman. I immediately thought of wearing a dress and wearing a wig because my hair is too short for the vision of my full bloom woman.

Days before the Ball, I asked my adviser politely if I can go to the event wearing a dress as the woman that I am. She said “No, naiintindihan naman namin ang gusto mo, “Girl” na nga ang tawag ko sayo (as tinatawag niya kong “bakla” before) pero sa college mo na yan gawin, masyado ka pang bata. Malay mo mag-iba pa panananaw mo at maging lalake ka talaga (she laughed)”. I cried it out going home that day. Translation: “No, we understand what you want, I’m already calling you “Girl” (as she calls me “Gay” before). Do it in college instead, you are too young. Maybe you might change your perspective and become a man one day (she laughed).

The day of the event started… I did my friend’s makeup, as I am a makeup artist before. I started doing their makeup during lunch time and ended really well. My sister and mom helped by putting their dresses and curling their hair. 5 girl friends of mine are very happy with the results. I have a lot of memories with them I cherish and miss them now. Hi Aira, Ela, Elriva, Kirstine & Lubna.

I was so tired and had to glam myself up too. I wore a 30 inch black silky straight wig, white cocktail dress from my sister and black thigh high boots.

We went to the moving-up ball with my friend’s driver. My mom joined us because she wanted to explain something. As we got into the event, they immediately stopped me from entering. A teacher told me that I cannot enter, and they let me talk to my adviser and some of my teachers, they said “Jade, sinabihan ka na namin… You can’t wear this here. Magpalit ka ng suit na panglalake, para papasukin ka pa namin, maaga pa naman may time ka pa magpalit, Go na.” Translation: “Jade, we told you about this… You can’t wear this here. Change it to a Men’s suit, so that we can let you enter, it’s still early, you have time to change, Go for it.”

I told them I wanna talk to the principal. They let me talk with the principal and I explained the definition of Transgender and explaining that I am a Trans Woman. She refused, my mom talked to the principal and explained that I am a Trans Woman and I wanted to make this last moment of my JHS as the woman that I am. My mom said “Payagan niyo po sana yung anak ko na makapasok, kasi po babae po siya and yan po ang gusto niyang damit. Pangarap niya po yan”. Translation: “I hope you allow my daughter to get in, She is a woman and that’s how she wanted to dress up. That’s her dream.”

They still said no and change my outfit to a suit or anything na “panglalake” or “Men’s wear”. I lost hope at that moment, I saw my mom crying because how heart broken she is. I immediately cried too and said “Mama, umuwi kana ako na lang mag stay dito and ilalaban ko to. Ayoko na makita ka umiiyak”. Translation: “Mom, Please go home, I’m going to stay here and I will fight for this.”

She invited me to go home too but I said I needed to stay, this is something I think that is right. She went home and I started bursting out of tears, I was sobbing and fully destroyed. As a protest, I’m going to stay here until they let me in. There were feedbacks that they can hear me sobbing inside the event. My classmates comforted me, they took turns to accompany me outside. As the event is going through my classmates are slowly getting inside, they brought me food, talk to me nicely, my whole class went to me outside and took a class picture. Teachers that are close to my heart went outside to accompany too. And there’s this one teacher stayed with me the whole night outside and she said; “Malayo pa tayo sa pinapaglaban natin, pero gusto kong malaman mo na tama ka Jade, tama ang pinaglalaban mo, ikaw yan eh. Balang araw matatanggap ng lipunan natin ang isang katulad mo. Salamat sa pag-laban kung sino ka.” Translation: “We are far from what we are fighting for, but I want you to know that you are in the right track, that’s the real you! The time will come that our society will accept the people like you, thank you for fighting for being who you are”.

She said so many inspiring words that uplifted me. Take note: she’s an Araling Panlipunan teacher. Hi M1ss Meann Salimbangon, you deserve the love from this world. I love you so much, I will never forget you! You’re a treasure for me. She told me she won’t leave me outside until I get home safe. My friend’s driver offered a ride to get me home safe. I went home when that after party started. I was so tired and cried myself to sleep.

April 2016, our Moving-up Ceremony. Advisers are announcing that “No “proper” haircut for boys are not allowed get the diploma on stage. But instead, they will give the diploma a week after (together with our report card). I informed my adviser that I can’t cut my hair because I identify as a Trans Woman and I would like to get my diploma as how my hair is growing now. She refused, so i decided to not to go through. I did the Moving-up ceremony rehearsal for nothing. I informed my Mom that I can’t go to the stage because of my haircut. She was sad that she won’t see me receiving my diploma. I attend our moving-up ceremony with the parents of my friends, I was sitting in the parents section wearing a BLONDE FUCCING HAIR, full leather look with my y2k hidden wedge sneakers lol.

My head was heated seeing these boys in our school DIDN’T GOT THE PROPER HAIRCUT and got their diploma on stage. I immediately thought that the advise and requirement is just targeted for me or for the Queer people in my school ONLY. They were just oppressing us.

When it’s my time to get the diploma they called my name on stage flashed my photo to the screen. I stood up with my head up high, from the parent’s section. Everyone was looking at me, my friend cheered and screamed for me, the parents were clapping. It was a fuccing moment (just like a Pose episode) 🤣

Finally the nightmare era from that school was over, there is much more stories to tell. But it’s to long to share, so many bullying and oppressing issues that I experienced. I know it’s a Catholic school, but is it a requirement for Catholics to hate and oppress Trans Individuals like me? And the LGBTQIA+ community, if there are more issues (I knew it’s not just me 😌).

Moving forward, I searched for the right school to enroll for my Senior High School and that is iAcademy! I really really love this school so much, they accepted, acknowledged, and loved me. This is the first time I felt seen, heard & valued by a school. They let me wear what I want, let me my hair grew, it is so long that it touches my butt. I was openly proud Trans Individual, I even got a romantic relationship with a classmate (part of my growing process).

Fast forward for our Grad Ball and Graduation Ceremony. The MOMENT I’ve been waiting my whole life was to attend our Graduation Ball. I wore the MOST HUGE ROYAL BLUE CINDERELLA-LIKE BALL GOWN WITH FEATHERS AROUND, LEAVING SOME FEATHER TRACKS WHEREVER I GO, WITH A FUCCING CROWN, because I already knew I am a fuccing QUEEN. I won best dressed of the night from the female category. They gave me a 10-min moment to share my JHS Prom experience and I am thankful for this inclusive school and being an LGBTQIA+ ally. I was so happy I could die. This moment will last forever and to the herstory of iAcademy.

For our Graduation ceremony I wore the highest heels that I owned and a red cunty dress to my Graduation. I got my diploma on stage, strutting myself like the sexiest, cuntiest & baddest student on Earth.

[nottskyler]

The Church has an obsession with obedience, specifically obedience to the prophet. I think this comes from a misunderstanding of both the first law being obedience and the purpose of having a prophet.

The first law being obedience does not mean giving up your agency to only do what someone else tells you to do, but it does mean following rules that are important until you understand why they exist. Like a child learning to stop and look both ways before crossing a street or to not hit their sibling or to eat fruits and vegetables so they aren’t constipated. Those rules should be followed because they are important to living a good life and getting along in society, and as a child you don’t yet understand why. You have to obey until you are old enough to understand and then adapt them to their life (like looking as you approach the street instead of stopping or knowing to not cross if you can’t see around a blind corner) but a parent should never force a child to eat legumes if their child breaks out in hives every time they eat them.

Obedience is an act of faith. If there were no commandments, there would be no way to have faith. It’s the act of saying hey I want to trust you, what do I need to do to see if what you say is trustworthy. It’s the first law because without it you can’t experience the transformative power of faith and repentance (the act of becoming a better person). It’s virtue lies solely in developing faith.

This is why “blind obedience” is bad. Blind obedience is giving up your agency to allow someone else to dictate what is right instead of figuring it out for yourself. You are allowed to experiment upon “divine” counsel from prophets and determine that it is not right based on the fruits you experience. And guess what, some people will be allergic to vegetables while other people feel so much better after starting to eat vegetables. And that’s the point. We are supposed to learn for ourselves what is good and evil. If there was only one right answer, humanity would’ve figured it out by now and we wouldn’t have the opportunity to learn for ourselves.

Which brings us to prophets. So many people what to surrender their agency and just blindly follow prophets (I used to be one of them). Sure, if you deign to simply be a sheep following the prophet, yeah you will likely be in the clear as the prophet will be accountable for your actions, but you will be unfit for exaltation. Heavenly Father isn’t running this world based on something someone else is telling Him to do.

So what is the purpose of the prophet? To be a warning on the watchtower. The prophet warns us of dangers ahead and tells us to repent and be prepared. The only time prophets get specific laws for everyone is when they are also leading people in a secular manner (Moses).

Let’s take the example of the family being under attack. And you betcha it is. Families are being broken up by poverty, meaning the state treats being unable to take care of your children due to lack of money the same as physically abusing them. Florida is threatening to break up families if any family member is trans. Anti-abortion laws are encouraging people to be sterilized rather than risk an unwanted pregnancy, meaning families that might’ve been formed won’t be. Long work hours and low pay are reducing the size of families and putting undo stress on families. Expensive healthcare also reduces the amount of kids people have and quality of life and time spent with families, including feeling like it is better to die painfully than riddle your family with medical debt.

The warning that families were under attack was correct. The idea that it was LGBT people trying to live authentically and form families of their own was not correct. It is the rejection of a queer child that breaks up a family, mixed orientation marriages, disagreements on the right way to help a trans child, the fascist response to queer happiness and families, and the general lack of pay increase and exploitation of good people who want to have families but can’t because a billionaire wants a higher score than last year.

Just like I won’t receive revelation for the Church and it’s administration, the prophet is not to make up commandments when Gd has simply given a warning, to create so many rules and policies that it prevents people from experiencing the love of Christ, or to put himself as a Gd on earth without need for repentance, especially for speaking good ideas that aren’t actually meant for everyone.

Sharing my testimony about how Christ has healed me and promising the same to others in my situation is not “receiving revelation for the Church”. It’s finding a legume alternative to fiber and sharing with those who also share that allergy. It’s saying Gd does not want people to suffer an allergic reaction and possibly die. It’s shining my light so others can come to Christ and reduce the suffering in the world.

[duchessofostergotlands]

HelloQ As someone who isn't a Brit but loves watching The Crown, I need a quick run down about why you don't like Thatcher.

Is there one main reason people in the UK dislike Thatcher or is just her overall politics? Or sth else?

How do I even begin to describe Regina George Margaret Thatcher? @princesscatherinemiddleton helped me with this because it’s hard to summarise the full impact of the hell spawn that is Milk Snatcher

Let’s start off with why we call her Milk Snatcher. Back when she was Secretary of State one of her major policies was cutting free milk for school children. It wasn’t by any means the worst thing she did but it was seen as pretty callous - especially as it didn’t save all that much money 

Section 28 - Her government enacted Section 28, a law which banned schools from saying that LGBT relationships were acceptable. Section 28 was the benchmark for anti-LGBT policies and has been used as a model for countries like Russia. She said “children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.” 

Social Housing - Margaret Thatcher’s government allowed people to buy their own council houses. The problem is they sold off all the council houses and didn’t replenish the stock. Fast forward a few decades and those policies are one of the main reasons we have a housing crisis where someone of my age will possibly never own a home and where disadvantaged people are on waiting lists for homes. It also didn’t actually benefit anyone who it was supposed to - most people who purchased council houses under this scheme were middle class people who already owned a home. People who did buy their homes also found interest rates of up to 17% which meant people struggled to pay their mortgages and repossessions rose. 

Privatisation - Thatcher kind of set the model for privatisation of the NHS and other industries by introducing an internal market where private companies would bid to deliver contracts. The wake of that can be seen to this day, with Boris Johnson handing major COVID contracts like track and trace to organisations and individuals with no health care contracts which have achieved absolutely nothing. 

Ireland - this is not an area I know a lot about but I know she supported purchasing weapons which were used to kill ordinary Irish citizens. She also wanted to bring back capital punishment for IRA prisoners 

Income inequality and unemployment - The richest got richer while the poorest had the slowest income rise. This led to an increase in income inequality. Unemployment was also incredibly high under her and the number of children living in poverty doubled while she was PM 

The poll tax - This is a biggie, one of the main things people remember about her. The poll tax essentially charged everyone the same regardless of what they earn. Naturally that’s shit. It also meant a reduction in the taxes paid by the most wealthy and increase for the middle and working class - a Tory hallmark. It was hugely unpopular and led to massive riots

Tying in to this is the fact she trialed the policy in Scotland first. One of the reasons she and English politicians generally are so disliked in Scotland is because they tend to use us as a guinea pig for their complicated, potentially unpopular policies 

The miners - Another biggie is the way she treated the miners, and more broadly the working class. Thatcher made it her mission to shut down traditional British industries like mining, ship building, steel etc. She also wanted to try and shut down trade unions and stop workers from having their say. In response there were major strikes. They ignored them, the strikes were ruled illegal, and the mines and factories were shut down. These communities often relied on those industries for most of their income. Unlike previous PMs who had shut down these industries (because they were in a bad shape, no denying that) was she made no real attempt to invest in those areas or to support economic development following the closures. People just lost the entire town’s source of income and had nothing. To this day these areas are amongst the poorest and most deprived in the UK 

I’m sure there are a lot more but those are the main headings 

[everybody-loves-purdy]

I know it's a commonly used refrain and you don't mean anything harmful by it, but you really don't need to jump straight to "Russia and China" as the reasons why Western media companies don't want to include lgbt characters. Both the US and the UK are majority Christian countries with large Evangelical and conservative bases that rail against equal rights all the time; just look at the school censorship bills in Florida and the anti-transition laws in England. The people in support of those laws would absolutely stop buying Warriors books for their kids if they thought they pushed a pro-gay "agenda", which would hurt the sales that the publishers are so concerned about protecting maybe even more than overseas markets, since that kind of thing is frequently censored and sold anyway in foreign translations. Treating prejudice as if it only exists in national and ethnic groups that are already vilified here isn't realistic and only encourages stereotyping innocent people just because of the governments they live under, and ignores the problems with widespread homophobia and transphobia that we very much still do have in the western world.

You are right and I apologise - I only brought those two countries up since they do have considerable warriors fanbases but their governments make it almost impossible to get anything prolgbtq released over there unfortunately - so it would be the most convenient excuse for the publishers to use even if it isn’t quite the whole truth of the matter. When I said “Russia and China” I was only referring to the government censorship of such topics and not the people that live in the countries.

[tanadrin]

Off topic but do you have any thoughts on how you predict trans liberation playing out in the future (and how to stay sane in the mean time)? Should we ignore or try to deradicalize people spreading deliberate ignorance and misinformation like terfs, Nazis, fundis, etc?

I think as with any struggle for civil rights and social acceptance, you muddle through and things continually get better; but there's always room for improvement. And there's no inevitable arc to these things; the way things are going in the UK, it's possible (not especially likely, but certainly possible) that you could see a reactionary anti-trans backlash the equal of anything in Poland or Russia sometime in the next couple of decades. You already kind of have one in progress with the anti-HRT/puberty blocker laws passed in some US states--while those are contested, states pretty clearly have the right to pass those laws in the same way that more progressive states have a right to pass anti-conversion-therapy laws, unless and until a Roe-style decision prevents them. And there are plenty of places in the world where trans rights, along with more general kinds of LGBT rights, are just a total non-starter, and will be probably for the rest of our lifetimes.

Berlin provides a useful example: in the 1920s, it had a rich queer culture, and with the rise of the Nazis in the 30s there was a long, bleak winter that seemed to last basically until West Berlin, due to its unique status under international law, became a haven for young people dodging conscription in West Germany, and the city began to rebuild its countercultural credentials. If you were alive here in the 30s and 40s, it would have felt like the end of the world; in the 60s and 70s, like a dark episode in a complicated history; in the 2000s, perhaps like a momentary lapse in the natural progression of society becoming ever more tolerant; but in the future, who knows?

The lesson to me is that while you can and should care about the bigger picture, you can't let anxiety about the bigger picture prevent you from living your life now, nor fears (nor hopes) about what might eventually happen putting off what happiness you can seize for yourself today. It is possible to become too invested in the big picture, to the point where anger about politics (and climate change, and everything else going on in the world) leads you to overlook already present possibilities of fulfillment in your life right now. I don't want to blow rainbows up anybody's ass here; there are people stuck in genuinely awful situations, their personal equivalent of Berlin under siege, with the Gestapo still arresting gay people even as the Red Army closed in and the city starved. But if that's you, your goal isn't systemic political change, or convincing your enemies to see your point of view, it's to survive--a month, a year, however long it takes until the spring.

As for convincing people: that's not really the goal. By which I mean, convincing specific individuals is an extremely hard problem, and not usually worth the effort. You will likely never convince the diehard transphobe or religiously-motivated bigot, and the greater population of fencesitters and soft transphobes that it is important to sway from a political coalition-building perspective are only useful if you can persuade them in large numbers. That's a quite slow process, at least at first, but thankfully, it's far from futile. LGBT people have an advantage that other groups seeking civil rights don't: they're randomly distributed throughout the population, and often invisible unless and until they come out. To put it mildly, few white segregationists in the 60s would have had to reckon with learning by surprise that someone they loved was black and having to square their racism with their personal relationships. But by and large the dominant form of political change on (for example) gay rights seems to have come from people discovering that 1) homosexuality is actually very common, and 2) they likely know and love someone who is gay. That's not a silver bullet for homophobia, but boy is it persuasive!

Which makes sense, given the affective nature of politics. And of course it's a situational advantage; you don't come out in a place where it would be suicide even if it might actually convince some marginal homophobes to rethink their homophobia. That's why progress on gay rights was so slow for so long. This isn't a categorical imperative: it's not a duty of any individual trans person to come out regardless of circumstances. It's a circumstantial tool, along with political organization, and pushing to make transphobia socially unacceptable in more and more places, in the manner of racism or homophobia.

From where I'm sitting, in Western Europe, the U.S., and Canada, trans rights seem relatively secure in the gains they've made, with important exceptions like the UK and several specific U.S. states. Further progress outside of those exceptions seems to be linked primarily to the fortunes of socially progressive political parties, e.g., an SPD or Green-led government is likely a precondition for the Selbstbestimmungsgesetz in Germany, and in Europe stridently anti-trans positions are mostly the province of far-right parties that are (for now!) political pariahs. In most of the rest of the world, the situation ranges from bleak to dire, and except for those in a position to move, I don't know what I would do. But I would say this, in general: I don't think anybody has an obligation to emotionally mortify themselves to try to convince a bigot they are wrong. If you enjoy arguing for sport, or you feel particularly called to it, by all means go ahead. But if the idea gives you a headache, I give you permission to ignore the assholes. You have a far higher moral obligation to yourself, to live the happiest life that you are able, and to take joy wherever you are able to find it. That is in fact a political act, a positive propaganda of the deed, and a refutation of the canard that goodness and joy are inherent only in the moralistic and restrictive bounds created by prejudice.

[beaversatemygrandma]

Gonna go on another rant about covid shit dw about me. Even if I’m ready to flat out strangle the next person i see without a mask.

I was feeling uneasy in walmart last weekend, and i said that i wish people were actually wearing masks and i get the response, “Not wearing a mask is a matter of opinion. If they don’t want to they don’t have to.” THERE’S A COUNTY MANDATE RIGHT NOW. THE FUCK YOU MEAN??? And my dad tells me today that the trucker convoy won today apparently (According to what?) the CDC apparently put down the mandate for them (not like 90% aren’t already vaxxed there) so they would stop destroying shit.

And THEN this morning i saw an article that said that fauci said that the pandemic will likely end this year. And Then instantly, a bunch of states are like “hey, no more mask mandates next week ;)” which is just going to be YET ANOTHER UPTICK. Fauci obviously meant at the rate we were going now with omicron mandates still being a thing. Don’t take it away until you’re 100% sure it’s done. Like would you take off a condom in the middle of sex bc surely the biggest risk is when you start, right? Fuck. No. Hard no. Obviously a no.

And now I’m just pissed off. This shit isn’t over. This shit isn’t done yet. Everybody has zero empathy or sympathy nowadays. Nobody gives two shits about others. “Don’t worry, you’ll be okay, but anybody who has any of these hundred health issues may die. But you’re okay! Go back to work!” Fuck you. Under those terms, half of my friends will likely die. Sure, if i caught it i would likely be okay with a chance of being permanently disabled by long covid, but my asthmatic friend will be dead.

Then there’s all this hate for China right now. Most of it, entirely uncalled for. But come to think of it, aren’t they one of the only countries who actually tackled the pandemic the correct way and got rid of the virus before they had any mutations? Huh. Weird. It’s almost like they don’t want us to know that and present them as evil and tyrannical.... hmmm... Sure sure, if you fly in there from this country you have to do multiple tests and a quarantine here, and then when you get there two weeks in a hotel, then when you fly to your specific city, another one, and then a few days quarantine in-home. Sure, it costs thousands of dollars to do. Sure. Sure. But it’s working, right? Isn’t that the point? You don’t want to do all that? Then don’t go there. That’s the whole point. Simple enough. You are a walking host of viruses and bacteria. You always have been. Nothing new. Just being in a place, you are a risk. Don’t complain that you can’t do what you want when you want to when there’s, idk, a pandemic that’s been going for THREE YEARS NOW.

The only good news I’ve seen lately is that Biden shut down that anti-lgbt law that was attempting to pass in FL because it was too harsh. And that was just a thing that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

Idk if I’m just being pessimistic or what. But this is just bullshit. It all is. China of all places sounds like a better place to be than this country and that says something huge. I’m scared to get sick and end up killing my friends and family. I’m scared to present as myself in public bc I’m not in a state that protects queer people from that ‘it’s legal to murder a trans if you’re scared’ shit. I’m scared to be alive. Like. What the fuck is this. This isn’t okay. It hasn’t been okay. I have been doing the right fucking thing since day one of this shit and because of the sheer amount of people who outright refuse, it hasn’t done anything to help.

Can humanity just thrive? Can we go back to caring about others? Can we LIVE? All i hear is a resounding ‘no’ to these questions nowadays and it’s fucking depressing.

[serpentstole]

Luciferian Challenge: Day 9

How do you feel about God?

This might be an unexpected take from a Lutheran-raised Luciferian, but I don’t really have strong opinions about God. I have strong opinions about harmful actions taken in God’s name, the misrepresentation of history, and an abuse of social and political power enacted by any religious group, but not really on God Himself. 

I’m a big fan of some of His people, both living and dead. I have many Christian friends who are just the nicest people, and magically speaking, I work with one Christian saint so far in the form of St Expedite, and I’ve sometimes considered trying to add St Cyprian to the mix. I am comfortable approaching Saints and other Christian entities in the way that’s appropriate to them, and this hasn’t negatively impacted me in any way so far, though I don’t know if that’ll change after I undergo a more spiritually impactful apostasy. 

This feels brief and anticlimactic, so I’m grabbing another prompt from the bonus list! Another thematically appropriate one, this time in the form of…

How do you feel about the religious texts of the Abrahamic faiths? Do you use it as part of your path?

This answer is going to be longer and thus under the cut, but if people read anything I write during this entire challenge, I genuinely hope it’s this one. I will say now for any Christian, Jewish, or Muslim readers or followers I have, it will not be an answer that is hostile towards you, as I don’t want anyone to worry that they might have to either skip this answer completely or else brace themselves against an incredibly shitty take.

To get the “do you use it” part of the question out of the way, I own the Charmer’s Psalter and have used Biblical verse in magic before, but I don’t know how long that’ll continue as my magic develops and changes. I might end up just using the parts that reference the spirits and deities I work with when writing rituals, the ever popular Lord’s Prayer In Reverse, etc.

Now, onto the important stuff.

By Abrahamic faiths I assume they mean Christinity, Judaism, and Islam, since those are the three people tend to lump together during these sorts of discussions. To get two of those out of the way, I don’t think I should really feel any particular way about the religious texts used in Judaism and Islam, as I’m not Jewish nor Muslim. 

I know it’s a sadly common thing for Luciferians or Satanists (or many neo-pagans and wiccans, for that matter)  to be “anti-Abrahamic” and claim that while they don’t have an issue with the people that belong to those religious, they don’t like the religions themselves or the dogmatic rules those religions might encourage. But that’s sort of… missing the point, isn’t it? 

The idea that anyone is a victim of their own religious belief is only half formed if you don’t look at the people or groups that will use the twisting of religious texts, ideas, or communities to victimize others. Lawmakers will often use Christian ideas to try and control women’s bodies, for example, which is something groups like TST vocally push back against. But the expectations they are willing to make on those laws reveal the hypocrisy of their stance, and that belief is being used as a smokescreen to obscure the true intentions of control over women’s bodies for the sake of it. Someone cherry picking or outright misrepresenting the words and ideals of their holy texts or religion to suit their selfish or political needs is not the fact of that holy text or religion.

We claim to reject dogma, but the assumption and blanket statement that these three religions are inherently harmful and oppressive is (in my opinion) dogmatic, and often we Luciferians or Satanists or even Pagans sometimes fall into the trap of regurgitating right wing talking points when it comes to how Judaism or Islam in particular are perceived. The issue is the people who would encourage dogmatic thinking or worse, lawmaking, while using faith as an excuse and to add legitimacy to their bigotry. To demonize the religion is to abandon great swaths of its victims, such as the women and LGBT people of that faith who are being abused by bad actors in the name of a religion they share. 

If the idea of why someone would remain a member of their religion when there are so many bad actors, religious texts, or even just passages they might disagree with is a hard thing to wrap one’s head around, I ask this: would you expect rejection of their faith by a Norse pagan for the historic sexism and homophobia of old Norse societies? For the modern associations it has with neo-nazis and bigotry towards women and queer people? 

If you say yes, if you would stubbornly and genuinely say yes… then what does it say about you, when we share a label with Anton LaVey’s books that were so influenced by Social Darwinism and Might Makes Right? With groups like the Order of Nine Angels, the Joy of Satan, and others who would claim to be Luciferians or Satanists while advocating for hate speech, bigotry, or literal actual murder? If a few bad actors or communities or specific books can ruin religions as old and as complex and as culturally varied as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, how the hell are there any Satanists and Luciferians left that aren’t transparently proud bigots?

If we can accept for ourselves that not all Satanists and Luciferians will use the religious label with good intentions, and that not all Pagans hold ideals that are befitting the gods they claim to serve or the communities they want to be a part of, why can so few of us extend that basic courtesy to other religions?

And all this is to say nothing of how separated from its original historic and linguistic context the bible has become, and how our view of sin is very different to how those that penned Leviticus likely saw it. 

While I can understand and empathize with those who have a negative view of a religion that’s done them personal harm and caused lasting trauma, that’s the shape that their abuse took. It was the fault of the people that enacted that abuse and any churches or organizations that stood by it, not the religion they used as an excuse.* I will genuinely never blame any who shy away from a religious upbringing or culture that tried to condemn their sexuality, or gender identity, or one which tried to control their bodies. That kind of negative association lingers, and there’s no doubt that people have done terrible things in the name of their faith, like I’ve said. But to treat those religions like the root of all societal ills when there are so many who would or are be cruel regardless of their beliefs, or to be hostile towards those that follow such religions without trying to impose any restrictions or beliefs on others, is missing the broader issue and (in my opinion) far more likely to do harm than good.

Also like. Dual faith practices exist and are also fair and valid and doubtless rewarding for those people.

*Please note that I am not including small, cult-like sects in my statements about these religions as a whole. There are plenty of Christian communities who are outright hate groups or otherwise dangerous to their members. Hopefully no one tries to point to some pack of weirdos as their justification to me on why all Christians are either bad or misled, or worse, tries to apply that to other religions as well because they have some historic point of connection.

[nerdygaymormon]

America’s Pre-Stonewall  Queer Rights Movement

We talk like the 1969 Stonewall Riots came out of nowhere, and in some important ways it did as it upended the gay rights movement that had existed. It rejected the respectability politics of prior efforts. We were no longer trying to say we’re just like you, please treat us nicely. Post-Stonewall we were radical and demanding rights, legal reforms and power. However, the steps prior to Stonewall were important as it showed LGBTQ people exist and helped people start getting organized, building networks and methods of communication that could be used after Stonewall

———————————————————————

A lot of queer people lived in small towns and farming communities and felt like they were the only one. Then they were drafted into the military and fought in World War II and found each other. 

Upon returning home from war, they were under a great deal of pressure to marry and conform to a conservative lifestyle. Most did but they still looked for opportunities to meet others and many upstanding men in their communities would go to certain bathrooms or parks to cruise (finding other men for sex) and then return home to their respectable life afterwards. They were out to satisfy a need and if the cops ran a sting, they slinked out shamefully, and feared their name being reported in the newspaper for that could destroy their life. 

The United States government was scared of the Communists and called that threat the Red Scare. Related to this is the Lavender Scare, which is the belief that queer people would be susceptible to being blackmailed and so it was important to remove them from positions in government, business, & society. Many cities passed laws that further marginalized queer people. But not everyone took this meekly, they started organizing to try to fight back. 

———————————————————————

1945 - World War II ends

1947 - Vice Versa, the first American lesbian publication, is written and self-published by Lisa Ben (real name Edith Eyde) in Los Angeles. Lisa Ben is an anagram of “lesbian.” It survived 8 months and published 9 issues. Vice Versa's mix of editorials, short stories, poetry, book and film reviews and a letters column, a pattern subsequently followed by many queer publications. 

1950 - The Mattachine Society is the first national gay rights organization formed after WWII. They coined the term homophile (to be used instead of homosexual which feels so clinical and often used as a diagnosis of a disorder), and when asked to speak about what is a homophile, they talked about love instead of sex. At the time, LGBT people were regularly described as deviants and having mental issues, frequently portrayed as villains in the movies, often were homeless & sex workers as a result of being kicked out of their homes. The Mattachine Society fought to change that perception by portraying LGBT people as respectable citizens. The society went into decline in the mid-1960′s and disappeared after Stonewall for seeming too stuffy and unwilling to be confrontational.

1952 - "Spring Fire," the first lesbian paperback novel, was published and sold 1.5 million copies. It was written by lesbian Marijane Meaker under the false name Vin Packer.

1952 - Christine Jorgensen becomes the first widely-publicized person to have sex reassignment surgery, in this case, male to female, creating a world-wide sensation. This was performed in Denmark, and upon arriving in the USA, her transition was the subject of a New York Daily News front-page story, making her a celebrity. She published an autobiography in 1967

1952 - Several members of the Mattachine Society formed a separate society called One, Inc. They published ONE magazine, a monthly magazine and the first U.S. pro-gay publication. The US Post Office declared it obscene and refused to deliver, but it was sold at newstands in LA. ONE existed until 1965.

1953 - The Diana Foundation was created in Houston and is still in existence, making it the oldest continuously active gay organization in the United States. The Diana Foundation is focused on assisting and supporting the needs of the gay community, by distributing funds to organizations that are dedicated to providing services that enhance the lives of individuals in the community.

1953 - President Eisenhower signs an Executive Order banning anyone identified as threats to national security--including those with criminal records, alcoholics, and “sex perverts”--to be excluded or terminated from federal employment. It's estimated 5000 employees were let go, and this number does not include the many who were not hired as questions about their sexual orientation were found during background checks. This ban extended to all subcontractors who want to do business with the federal government, like Boeing, IBM, and many other businesses.  1955 - Dissatisfied at the lack of women voices in the Mattachine Society, the first lesbian rights organization in the US, The Daughters of Bilitis, was founded. It was originally meant to be a social alternative to lesbian bars, which were subject to raids and police harassment. As the Daughters of Bilitis gained members, they shifted their focus to supporting women who were afraid to come out by educating them about their rights and about gay history. They held national conventions in Los Angeles every 2 years from 1960 to 1968. Their 1962 convention was covered by local TV channel WTTV, making it the first  American broadcast that specifically covered lesbians.

1956 – The Ladder, the first nationally distributed lesbian publication in the United States, began publication. It was published monthly from 1956 to 1970, and every other month in 1971 and 1972. It was the primary publication and method of communication for the Daughters of Bilitis. A big part of it’s end was debate over whether to remain aligned with other homophile groups or to join the National Organization for Women and their fight for women’s rights. 

1956 - Dr. Evelyn Hooker presented her work that disproved the diagnosis that being gay is a mental illness. She conducted psychological tests of gay individuals who were not incarcerated and also were not psychological patients. Her work was met with incredulity, but she continued her work and published several additional studies over the coming years.  

1957 - The word “transsexual” is coined by U.S. physician Harry Benjamin to refer to people who have a gender identity inconsistent with their assigned sex and desire to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually through medical means (hormones & surgery) 

1958 - The US Supreme Court ruled against the US Post Office for refusing to allow ONE magazine to be delivered by mail simply for having stories and poems about lesbian and gay characters. This is the first US Supreme Court ruling to deal with homosexuality

1958 - The first gay leather bar in the United States, the Gold Coast, opened in Chicago

1961 - in San Francisco, José Sarria became the first openly gay candidate in the United States to run for public office, running for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Sarria almost won by default as there were fewer than 5 candidates for the 5 open seats, but city officials recognized this and on the final day had gotten more than 30 candidates registered. Sarria lost but won enough votes to create the idea that a gay voting bloc could wield real power in city politics

1961 - the Tay-Bush raid, the largest raid on a gay bar in San Francisco, resulted in the arrests of 103 people. It is considered a pivotal event in the history of LGBT rights in San Francisco.

1962 – Illinois becomes the first U.S. state to remove sodomy law from its criminal code, but it criminalized acts of "Open Lewdness,” such as open displays of affection between people of the same sex

1962 - The Janus Society was founded in Philadelphia. It is notable as the publisher of Drum magazine, one of the earliest gay publications in the United States and the one most widely circulated in the 1960s. The Janus Society focused on a strategy of seeking respect by showing the public gay individuals conforming to hetero-normative standards of dress at protests.

1962 - In San Francisco the Tavern Guild, the first gay business association in the United States, was created by gay bar owners as a response to the Tay-Bush raid and continued police harassment and closing of gay bars 

1962 - A panel of 8 gay men had 90 minutes on a New York radio station to talk about what it was like to be gay. They talked about their difficulties in maintaining careers, the problems of police harassment, and the social responsibility of gays and straights alike. 

1964 - the first organized protest against gay discrimination took place in New York City. 10 people picketed in New York City to protest the armed forces’ anti-gay discrimination and the army’s failure to keep gay men’s draft records confidential. These brave people stood up and spoke out at a time when very few were willing to do so because they did not want to be identified for fear of their family's reaction and the likely loss of their job and housing.

1964 - Life magazine published the article "Homosexuality In America" which was the first time a national publication reported on gay issues. The article described San Francisco as "The Gay Capital of America." This resulted in a big migration of gays to the city.

1964 - the Council on Religion and the Homosexual was the first group in the U.S. to use the word "homosexual" in its name. It was a San Francisco-based organization founded for the purpose of joining homosexual activists and religious leaders. It held an event where local politicians could be questioned about issues concerning gay and lesbian people, including police intimidation. The event marks the first known instance of "the gay vote" being sought.

1965 - Frank Kameny & Jack Nichols led the first “homosexual rights” protest at the White House. They wanted equal treatment of gay employees in the federal government, the repeal of sodomy laws, and the removal of homosexuality as a mental disorder in the American Psychiatric Association’s manual of mental disorders. 10 men & 3 women bravely picketed, and were covered by ABC, UPI, AP, Reuters, and other news organizations. 

1965 - Inspired by the picket at the White House, on July 4th 39 conservatively-dressed people were part of a protest called “Reminder Day” held in Philadelphia at the Liberty Bell to point out that gay people are denied the rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. This picket was done on July 4th for 5 years in a row. The last time just a week after the Stonewall Riots.

1965 - Vanguard was created, an organization of LGBT youth in a low-income San Francisco district. It is considered the first Gay Liberation organization in the U.S. which encouraged gays & lesbians to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride, such as by coming out to family & friends

1966 - The New York Mattachine Society stages a "Sip-In" at Julius Bar in New York City. New York liquor laws prohibited serving alcohol to gays. While unsuccessful that day in getting served, the publicity helped get the law changed.  1966 - Riot at Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco - Compton’s became a regular hangout for drag queens, trans individuals, and young gay street hustlers, including many who belonged to Vanguard, much to the chagrin of it’s owners. The gay bars didn’t allow them in due to transphobic policies. One night management was fed-up by the noisy crowd at one table and called the police. When a cop attempted to arrest a transgender woman (cross-dressing was illegal), she resisted by throwing coffee at the police officer. It was followed by drag queens pouring into the streets, fighting back with their high heels and heavy bags. In the aftermath of this, the city of San Francisco began treating trans people as a community of citizens with legitimate needs instead of simply as a problem to get rid of.

1966 - In Los Angeles a coalition of Homosexual organizations organized demonstrations for Armed Forces Day to protest the exclusion of LGBT from the U.S. armed services. The 15-car motorcade is sometimes called the nation's first gay pride parade

1966 - National Transsexual Counseling Unit was formed in San Francisco, the first transgender organization ever, this is one action taken due to the Compton’s Cafeteria riot.

1966 - The Society for Individual Rights opened America’s first gay and lesbian community center in San Francisco

1967 - On New Years Day at the Black Cat Tavern in Los Angeles, the balloons dropped at midnight, auld lang syne was sung and some bar patrons kissed, then at five minutes after midnight, 12 plainclothes policemen began swinging clubs and pool cues, dragging patrons out the door and into the street. Sixteen people were arrested that night—six of them charged with lewd conduct (otherwise known as kissing). The raid prompted a series of protests that began on 5 January 1967, organized by P.R.I.D.E. (Personal Rights in Defense and Education). It's the first use of the term "Pride" that came to be associated with LGBT rights.

1967 - The Advocate, an American LGBT-interest magazine, was first published as a local newsletter by the activist group Personal Rights in Defense and Education (PRIDE) in Los Angeles. It began as a way to alert gay men to police raids in Los Angeles gay bars.

1967 - Craig Rodwell opened the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in New York City, the first bookstore in the country focused on literature by gay and lesbian authors. Rodwell was also vice president of the Mattachine Society and the bookstore doubled as a community center. 

1967 - The Student Homophile League at Columbia University is the first institutionally recognized gay student group in the United States.

1969 - Stonewall Riots

[comrade-meow]

Capitalism, the New, New Left and the Gender Industry

“Inclusivity is more than a social cause, it’s a business opportunity.  It’s time to maximize your business growth.”

 - dmi Consulting

Let me get this out of the way, because it seems more than a few people still need to hear this.  

CORPORATIONS DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU!

“Diversity and inclusion ”(D&I) comprise a new business mantra.  Programs and language, based on the normalization of body dissociation, are being corporately cultivated, around the world. The programs being instituted appeal to our emotions, to entice us to believe that companies care about people and just want to create one big happy, diverse, work-family, which include marginalized sectors of society - most importantly, those who imagine they have a sex (gender is a euphemism) that is not male or female.  The overlooked are finally being given a place at the table!

Or are they?

The new, new liberal left in America, the left that has emerged out of a traditional new left, which cared about the working class, blacks and women’s rights, who yearned for a more equal and just social order, is unrecognizable to many of us who’ve long been of the traditional left.  That left, just a decade ago, sparked a potentially revolutionary movement on Wall street, calling out the financial industry and the monopolies ruining our lives and our planet.  Emerging out of the carcass of that potentially revolutionary movement, is a left that has recently climbed into bed with those same big banks.  Snuggled up in bed with them, fluffing their pillows, are Big Pharma and Big Tech.  The left, are running around screaming at protests, get wide media coverage, voices in our universities and institutions, crying that people claiming their sex is not male or female, need human rights.  These manufactured sexes are being supported by, promoted by, and advertised by Big Pharma, Big Tech and Big Banking.  This new, unrecognizable left sees no irony at all in their behavior.  

These purported new sexes, ostensibly requiring special human rights, depend on a narrative that sexual dimorphism isn’t real, that it exists on a spectrum of sexes.  This is the gender industry and with projected profit margins reaching into the billions by 2026, for surgeries on healthy sex organs alone, and the amount of advertising curated to sell it, it is going to be very profitable indeed.

How has the left been so duped about new markets being manifested out of sex, that they scream liberation every time someone dares to mention the glaring inconsistency of human rights for corporate profiteering off of young adults and children’s bodies?

The left knows corporations do not care about the color of our skin, whether we are oppressed because of said color of our skin, whether we live in an igloo or a cardboard box, whether the icebergs are melting, or whether Fukushima nuclear plant is dumping millions of tons  of radioactive waste into the oceans, externalizing the cost of doing business.  How do they not understand that corporations do not give a fu*k about anybody’s identity?  Unless those identities are opening markets.  

The constant business-woke-posing (D&I), for Black Lives Matter (BLM), the LGBT Inc, and the often, corporate mixing of both under the “Black Trans Lives Matter” slogan, is about profit. Every little advertising slogan, every word, is carefully selected to appeal to an ever-increasing fragmentation of humanity, into subcategories, to be marketed to.  It is all about the corporate bottom line.  If they can convince us that the disembodiment movement of “gender identity” is akin to the civil rights movement for black Americans, or has anything at all to do with LGB, they’ve roped us into their narrative of care.  Further, if they can convince more black Americans of their insane narrative of disembodiment-as-progress, it supports the illusion they are selling to all of us. Fortunately, that isn’t going well, so far.  Despite their efforts to corral black youth, and the relentless corporate propaganda aimed at them, black youth are not crying about their “gender identities” or clamoring for cross sex hormones.  

The left knows corporations don’t care.  The working class knows this.  It’s why the Occupy Wall Street movement evolved so quickly.  I was there,  a decade ago, at ground zero, with 40,000 people from every walk of life, as we traversed the Brooklyn Bridge, in protest of the choke hold the financial sector had on us.  Now these same people are waving flags in traditional, baby-colored, pink, blue and white, screaming about human emancipation through medical identities, while many sew themselves to the techno-medical complex for life.  

For a concise and readily comprehensible explanation of how capitalism functions, I urge you to examine the work of Stephanie McMillan, a life-long activist and an anti-capitalist.  She explains, in language that is completely accessible, how corporations are set up to compete in the global marketplace:  “To care about people over profits would jeopardize the corporatist’s position within that system, and their own livelihood.” Corporate heads, consist of those with the greatest wealth and depend on an exploited working class not just to function, but to suck wealth upward, from the bottom, creating ever more wealth for a few, leaving the masses at the bottom, with less and less.  This is a worse crisis for women across the world, who, according to UN stats, put in 12.5 billion hours of unpaid care work each day — a contribution to the global economy of at least $10.8 trillion a year. The reporting of these statistics will no longer be a true measure of what is transpiring globally,  since men will be included in the stats for women, under the new corporate gender regime.  

We are living in an oligarchic gulag, one that isn’t very private.  Our communities, as I addressed in an interview last year, are being opened to the acceptance and normalization of a male fetish based on disembodiment, creating a sexual psycho drama of our corporate and civil landscapes, for profit, while literally dismembering people and creating more identities to market to.  

Because we are governed by corporate monopolies, and the billionaires behind them, driving a steady stream of propaganda through our media, we no longer know what fake news is and what is real news.  We don’t know what men and women are (or we pretend not to know to fit in). We don’t know if people on social media or advertising are real or computer generated and our ability to speak about anything outside the corporately generated illusions plaguing us, are being penalized in myriad ways, not the least of which is controlled and censored speech.  Yet suddenly, we are to believe, and many on the new, new liberal left do believe, these monstrous monopolies that have colonized the entire natural world, have suddenly changed their ways and care about people.  They especially care about these new imaginary sexes being manufactured out of philanthropic funding, corporate cash, and the techno-medical complex.

Will Meyer, in a recent issue of Business Insider, gives us a look at the corporate woke hypocrisy, posing as care about the marginalized.   “IBM and Microsoft,” he reports, “claimed they would no longer sell facial recognition software to law enforcement, signaling their alignment with Soros backed, BLM movement, despite the fact both corporations remaining deeply invested in punitive systems that continue to harm Black and brown lives.”  The BLM movement has the same capitalists behind it as the gender industry.

Selling D&I to the public, is such big business, that there are corporations that teach other companies how to market it effectively. This fracturing of humanity, via the colonization of human sex, is how capitalism functions.  It splits everything into smaller and smaller fragments to open markets.  Where we once had a single-family physician to help us heal, we now have a plethora of specialists to treat everything from lung cancer to toenail fungus.  Where we have had a sexually dimorphic species, we now have medical identities that deconstruct sex, being foisted upon us, to open markets.

Those with wealth create more wealth for themselves, while underlings, not having access to wealth, land or goods, are forced to sell their labor for less and less money. The wealth, goods and land are all siphoned off by the corporatists. Well now the corporatists, with little left to extract, have come for human sex and they are not leaving until they have it, or we rise in resistance and reclaim what is left after their ravaging.

[soprie]

Here are some ace-exclusionist dog-whistles to watch out for

There are a lot of “positivity” posts circling out there that are worded specifically to be ace and aro exclusionist rhetoric disguised as innocuous solidarity. Here are some things to watch out for if you want to avoid interacting with exclusionist posts. 

Keep in mind, a post having one of these things does not necessarily mean the OP is an exclusionist, but it just means to go back and read the post carefully a second time, and maybe scan the poster’s blog or about page.

Text from screenshot reads:

i rly dont like the mindset that all lgbt people want is to be “accepted” and that all out community is about it “inclusion”. no. we want access to trans health care. we want anti discrimination laws for housing and employment. we want marriage equality. we want to stop trans kids from being forced to go by their dead name at school. we want to abolish the gay/trans panic defense. we want to stop corrective rape. we want black trans women to stop being murdered. being “accepted” by cishets isnt the goal, and neither is being an all-inclusive club. i want to be able to live my life freely as an lgbt person. our community was created out of the need to survive. that has nothing to do with being “valid”. 

1) Constant use of LGBT, but the Q is never added. LGBT on its own can be used as shorthand if the person is cramped for space like on twitter, but if the person consistently never adds the Q, it is reason to suspect they are not forgetting it and are deliberately leaving it out.

2) Use of “cishets” when referring to anyone who is not literally “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender”. Exclusionists will refer to anyone who does not fall under those four labels (sometimes they will include pan and nonbinary people if they are feeling generous) as cishet regardless of how that other person self-identifies.

3) “all-inclusive club” “the LGBT community is not a club” “LGBT is not open to anyone” or other framing that there are specific requirements and metrics that one must measure up to in order to be accepted. (by whom? Who is the bouncer? How do we know if we measure up?)

4) “Our community was created out of the need to survive” This is an argument borrowed straight from TERFs, so any exclusionist who claims to hate TERFs is really only paying lip-service to trans-inclusivity. The Queer community was created to uplift and support queer people. Full stop. Yes, survival is part of it, but there is so much more. We celebrate “pride” not just our survival. exclusionists talk about wanting more than just acceptance, but then turn around and harass those who try to celebrate being queer. Exclusionists frame their entire identity around being miserable and it is toxic.

Text from screenshot reads:

2018 is the year we stop derailing various lgbt posts to make them “inclusive”

No more non wlw on wlw posts

No more non mlm on mlm posts

No more non lesbians on lesbian posts

No more “girls are better/just date a girl” on mlm posts

No more cis on trans/nb posts

No more hets on lgbp posts

No more non lgbtpn on lgbtpn posts

This year, we let lesbian, gay, bi, trans, pan, and nonbinary folks have their own things for their own group and respect everyone’s individuality.

5) “inclusive” is weirdly always in quotations marks, as if it is an imaginary or sarcastic idea. Exclusionists write posts that beg the question, you keep mentioning “keep our community safe” and “not a club that just anyone can join” but who, specifically, are they referring to? Why not just outright say pedophiles or white supremacists? It isn’t controversial to not want racists in the queer community.

Because they are not referring to pedophiles or white supremacists. They are referring to aces and aros, the people they want to harass and kick out.

6) The acronym “LGBTPN”. This is not the standard acronym. The standard acronym is LGBTQ or LGBTQ+ or LGBTQIA2S. This acronym deliberately removes the A and Q while seeming to be inclusive. This is an exclusionist signal and if you see this used on a post, block the poster.

There are so many more low-key signals that exclusionists send out that are ripped straight from the TERF playbook. be careful that you are not swallowing TERF ideas and regurgitating them.

Ace and aro people are part of the community. We always have been and always will be. Do not let bullies try to force you out of your own home.

[reallyverynormal]

hey im a proshipper, but i have a friend who isnt either proship or anti. she wants to know more about the anti side of things, if you dont mind could you tell me why you are anti ship? and why you believe others should be? i wanna let her make this decision on her own, but idk how anti shippers think and i cant find informational posts on it

this ended up getting kind of long so i’m just going to put it under a readmore but basically anti shippers are people who say this: don’t fetishize minorities, abuse and abuse survivors and also don’t write paedophilic porn and act like that’s a normal thing for cishet women to get off to.

-don’t fetishize abuse and act like it’s hot or cute. by that i mean don’t take a character that is canonically abusive to another character and write some romanticized tortured love story about it, or act like victims have to or can forgive their abusers for abusing them (not saying they can’t, but perpetuating the idea that they can/have to is bad, actually). just fucking don’t -don’t fetishize paedophilia and act like it’s hot or cute. by that i mean don’t write porn of children, don’t write porn of ‘aged up’ children, don’t write porn of adults raping/being in sexual contact with children and act like it’s hot or cute or something normal to get off to -don’t dehumanize gay men, lesbians, trans people--basically the entire LGBT community--by fetishizing them, calling porn of us “sin”, only writing smut fics about us and nothing else, trying to constantly find ways to ship two men in every piece of media, hate literally any female character that could potentially be a love interest just because she gets in the way of your ship. don’t fucking fetishize us, actually! -don’t act like rape/sexual abuse/sexual assault is hot. period. -also don’t write porn about real life fuckin people without their permission, especially, in the cases of people like dan and phil, when they are very clearly deeply uncomfortable with it and the abuse/harassment they have received from this, (tomska and tord from the eddsworld team and 1direction as a whole are also good examples of this shit affecting real life people).

and by these things, i don’t mean that you can’t write about these subjects ever or portray characters involving some of these subjects ever, i’m saying don’t fetishize them. don’t act like fiction doesn’t affect reality, because it does, (look up the jaws affect, as a huge example), and don’t act like you are above the law, because even the law (in the US and canada, at least), can and will punish you for drawing and writing porn about children. 

fetishizing minorities is, you guessed it, dehumanizing and wrong! black people, asian people and the LGBT community especially get this kind of treatment, and if you go around agreeing with the black and asian people who are talking about the fetishization of their races by white people, and you don’t agree with actual LGBT people talking about the fetishization of their gender/sexuality, you’re a fucking hypocrite*. fetishizing any fucking minority is bad, even in fiction.

note that there is also a difference between LGBT people going out of their way to ship two characters together in a queer/gay/etc ship and a cishet girl going out of their way to constantly ship two men together in every piece of media no matter what, especially if those two characters are white/light-skinned, skinny, conventionally attractive cis men. in the case of LGBT people, we’re doing it to create the representation we don’t get in media. for a cishet girl to go out of their way to ship two men in every fandom they join is just fetishization and it’s dehumanizing because we are not your fetish, we are not here to entertain you, we have lives to live outside of entertaining you and getting you off and often times we have spent years trying to get out of circles where people only see us as sex objects. fuck off. 

fetishizing people’s abuse and turning something horrific into something you can get off to is also extremely shitty and spits in the faces of actual abuse survivors because you’re acting like it’s cute, hot, something to get off to when we’ve often spent years trying to forget what’s happened to us. when we’re still going through this every fuckin day. when people have killed themselves because of the abuse that we’ve gone through. when you do this, you act like what we went through is just something for you to get off to when it is often so bad we are left permanently scarred, our consciousnesses permanently broken, struggling with life-long mental health issues directly caused by the abuse we went through. that is not your fucking fetish.

again--i’m not saying you can’t write about these subjects, i’m saying don’t fetishize them, i.e. don’t act like any of these things can be a good thing, don’t write them like they’re something to get off to, don’t write them like they’re something to strive for or can be in any way, shape or form healthy. write them as they are: horrific, scarring, mentally and physically draining, terrifying, and nightmare-inducing. do not portray these things in a positive light is all we are fucking asking.

inb4 “so we’re not allowed to write characters who think their abuse is good???” or some bullshit like that, no, that’s not what i’m saying. you can write a character who has an extremely complicated relationship with their abuse, for example being sexually abused from childhood and “liking” it because that’s how they were trained to respond to sexual situations, that’s how they were introduced to sex and their body responds to sexually violent situations by being aroused, even if the person doesn’t want to be because biology =/= consent, and that’s how sexual trauma works, albeit not for everyone, but for some people like me. you can write about a character that struggles with “liking” their trauma because sexual violence and being a victim of it is what feels safe, “normal” and familiar to them, while healthy sex is foreign and terrifying because they don’t know how to behave in a healthy sexual environment. that is a normal thing to write about and should, in fact, be written about more because i don’t see anything like that being written by anyone anywhere, and is, in my opinion, FAR more interesting than forcefully writing a character to be in love with their abuser and entirely romanticizing their abusive relationship, (that isn’t to say that you can’t write a character that’s in love with their abuser and wants to forgive them/make it work/ignores the abuse/doesn’t know it’s abuse/etc, just stop acting like their relationship is in any way healthy or something to strive for or cute/hot/etc, just don’t fucking romanticize the abuse they’re going through, portray it as a bad thing because that’s what it is--a bad thing).

that’s the anti-shipper argument: don’t fetishize people, don’t fetishize (sexual) abuse, don’t fetishize (sexual) abuse survivors, and don’t fetishize paedophilia.

it’s pretty simple once you break it down, but i hope my relatively detailed explanation shows you why you’re an asshole, and i desperately hope your friend doesn’t turn out to be like you in this regard :)

*i’m a white person, so if any POC finds this statement racist or offensive or knows of a better way to word it, feel free to let me know and i’ll delete it/change it/etc

[discoursecatharsis]

I’ve gotten more than one anon ask from a teenager, paranoid that they’re a pedophile or a predator for crushing on a peer 2-3 years younger than them. Because anti-shippers/fandom purity police constantly use the term “pedophile” for ships between teens 2-3 years apart, it’s no wonder why real teens are confused and terrified. So I wanted to make a post with proper definitions of these terminologies and link to some sources, so that maybe it’ll reassure some other poor teen out there that it’s perfectly fine for them to crush on their schoolmate.

First I’m going to get this out of the way: I’m talking about crushing and dating and having a romantic relationship. Sex between a legal adult (18 and up) and a legal minor (17 and down) could be illegal depending on the age of consent where you live, and any Romeo and Juliet laws that may or may not be in place. That’s way more complicated, so I won’t be touching on teenage relationships where sex is involved. While I’m on this subject though, a quick PSA: if you’re under 18, do not take/send nudes at all. You could be charged with child pornography for “self-producing” your own nudes. As dumb as that sounds, it happens. I don’t agree with courts that do it, punishing hormonal teenagers for having hormones is dumb, but it still happens. It’s not worth it, don’t do it.

One more thing: I’m talking about relationships between peers in the same age group. Between two young adults, adolescents, or teenagers. Note that there is some overlap between these groups (i.e. 15 year old is a teenager and an adolescent but not an adult, while an 18 year old is all three, while a 20 year old is only a young adult). I’m not justifying age gaps that are obviously wrong and illegal, like a 30 year old and a 14 year old, so please do not put words in my mouth.

Moving on to the topic at hand...

---

If the only “concerning” thing about a relationship is a minimal age gap between two peers in the same age group, the relationship is probably okay.

The existence of an age gap alone does not make someone a pedophile or predator or child groomer. Intent needs to involved. Ill intent. Along with other abusive, predatory, manipulative behaviors.

---

Let’s break down some of these terms further:

A pedophile is attracted to prepubescent children. If the younger party in the relationship is not prepubescent, the older person is not a pedophile.

Here is the criteria for being a pedophile, as defined by the American Psychiatric Association.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/pedophilia

If there is less than a 5 year age gap between teens (i.e. a 15 year old and a 19 year old), there is probably not an issue.

If however, for example, an 18 year old is attracted to someone who’s 13 and still prepubescent, there may be an issue there and the older teen should seek help or talk to someone about it. This doesn’t mean they’re a bad person. If they haven’t hurt anyone, they’ve done nothing wrong. It may just be a disorder that they have no control over, so that’s why it’s a good idea to seek help for it.

---

Moving away from “pedophilia” now. What about people who prey on (i.e. are intentionally seeking to harm) teens who are post-pubescent? That person is not a pedophile, but they are a predator or a child groomer.

Which leads to the next point, what are some examples of “ill intent” when it comes to predatory relationships? What exactly is a predator or a child groomer?

This site lists the definition of grooming, along with some red flag behaviors.

https://www.d2l.org/child-grooming-signs-behavior-awareness/

First I want to point out the word “deliberate.” You can’t accidentally groom someone, like I’ve seen multiple fandom police claim. Posting properly tagged and flagged nsfw fanart on a public forum like tumblr or twitter that allows nsfw content is NOT grooming. Grooming is a deliberate act. It involves intent. If an adult is sending private DMs of nsfw sexual fanart to a minor that they KNOW to be a minor, that is completely inappropriate and grooming behavior. Same goes for any nsfw sexual talk, like an adult having a nsfw rp chat with a minor, that’s wrong too. But simply posting/liking/sharing nsfw fandom content on a public website is not grooming.

That link has a longer list of red flag behaviors, along with examples, but here are three I want to especially point out.

A lot of these sites seem to write their info with the focus on young children being groomed, going by the language they use (”child’s natural curiosity”). But teenagers can definitely be groomed also, in the same ways. If an older partner is taking advantage of a vulnerable teen due to an abusive home life, or trying to isolate them from their family and friends, or overstepping any emotional/physical/sexual boundaries, that teen is very likely in a dangerous situation and needs to confide in a trusted friend, and eventually in a trusted adult, about it.

---

I also wanted to share this source as well, just as a general example of other signs of abuse in a relationship. The National Domestic Violence Hotline has a chart that lists common behavior patterns of an abusive, manipulative partner.

https://www.thehotline.org/is-this-abuse/abuse-defined/

This chart uses the example of a male abuser and a female victim, but they have another page and chart for lgbt+ relationships.

As their site says, this can apply to anyone. Age, gender, sexual orientation, it doesn’t matter, anyone is capable of being an abuser or being a victim. Notice how this has similar tactics as the child predator/groomer red flag list too, such as isolation.

Also notice the different manipulative behaviors in this chart. This chart is just a good rule of thumb for red flags in any kind of relationship, be it sexual, romantic, platonic or familial.

Here is another source that lists more red flag behaviors, but more specifically for teenage relationships.

https://www.teendvmonth.org/resources/signs-teen-dating-violence/

---

With that in mind, here are some hypothetical scenarios. Let’s use a specific example of a 18 year old high school senior (12th grade) dating a 15 year old high school sophomore (10th grade).

This relationship could be bad if the senior is using the sophomore for their own personal gain. Taking advantage of the fact that the younger person is inexperienced when it comes to dating, and using that fact to manipulate them into a relationship. Maybe the senior isolates the sophomore from their family and friends, makes them feel guilty for wanting to hang out with friends, makes them quit their after-school sports activities or forces them to cancel plans with friends so that they can spend more time together. Maybe the older teen controls how they dress or what they do, or makes them do things that they’re uncomfortable with. All of those are signs of an abusive relationship. If the older teen doesn’t care about the younger teen or about their feelings and is just using them, obviously that is an unhealthy, abusive relationship. (*It’s important to note though, that this exact thing can happen between two people of the same age too. A partner who’s the same age as you can also be controlling and abusive. It can happen with friendships too, it doesn’t have to be limited to dating relationships.)

On the other hand, this senior/sophomore relationship very well could be a perfectly healthy one too. Maybe they are in the same after-school club and bonded through that. Maybe they’ve already known each other and have been friends for years, maybe their families are friends, etc. And they’ve recently started crushing on each other and decided to date. As long as they respect each other, it’s fine.

That’s why you need to know what is going on in a relationship before you judge. An age gap by itself is not proof enough that a relationship is bad or abusive or predatory. One of the partners needs to have ill-intent, and exhibit these abusive red flag behaviors.

---

So to sum up everything, if the ONLY thing in a relationship is that there is an age gap, but both people are otherwise peers and in the same age group/range, and none of the above red flags are present, your relationship is fine and you have nothing to worry about. You know you’re a good person, your partner is a good person, you have family and friends supporting the both of you, you care about and respect each other, then you’re fine.

You’re not a pedophile or a predator or any awful thing like that. Remember, those are deliberate acts and involve ill-intent. Please don’t let fandom police scare you. They’re internet strangers, they know NOTHING about you or your personal life or your relationships or your home life or your upbringing or your family and friends. They’re judging you based solely on the fact that there’s an age gap, and nothing else. They have nothing to go by. They’re not trying to educate others on healthy or unhealthy relationship dynamics. They’re just instilling fear in people to back up their own moral superiority or ship war or whatever tf is driving them to be like That and spread misinformation and make inaccurate generalizations. And they don’t seem to realize or care how dangerous it is that they’re telling teens that they’re predators when they’re not. They don’t care about victims. If they did, they’d be spreading helpful advice, but instead they’re just spreading fear and misinformation. Please stop listening to them. And please for all that is good, don’t take advice from them. Talk to adults in your personal life, if not a parent, then an older cousin or an aunt or uncle or teacher or counselor. Or Google it and find reputable sources for yourself. That is much more reliable than taking advice from people who throw around the word “pedophile” to describe a ship between two teenage anime characters. People need to use common sense and look at relationships on a case-by-case basis. And anti-shippers/fandom purity police are unable to do that.

To fandom police: stop telling teenagers that they’re a predator or pedophile for dating their schoolmate who’s two years younger than them. It’s none of your business, and don’t give me that “but if they’re hurting themselves or others, I need to say something” BS. You’re a stranger, you do not know their personal lives. You know nothing about what is going on except that an age gap is involved, that’s it, and that is not enough to jump to such a drastic conclusion and serious accusation. It’s not your place because you don’t know their life or their situation. Also frankly, it’s damn weird and highly inappropriate for you to be inserting yourselves into the personal lives of some random teenager on the internet that you don’t know (especially if you’re an adult). You think shippers are gross for “being invested in the love lives of fictional teens,” yet here you are trying to control the love lives of real life teens. Please get some perspective.

Edit: Another point I forgot to mention, so I’m tacking this onto the end.

Stop acting like all teens x-years-old are the exactly same as every other teen who is also x-years-old. “I’m 18 and I would NEVER date a 15 year old because they’re practically a baby and I’m such a mature adult already and-” Good for you, you want a cookie? Repeat after me: not everyone is the same as you. One 18 year old might be socially awkward but nice and with no dating experience at all, and would fair well with dating a 15 year old who also is in their first relationship. Another 18 year old might be really responsible for their age due to circumstances in their family life, and are fully capable of handling themselves and dating a 21 year old college classmate. Everyone is different. Two people of different ages may just “click” with each other, they’re on the same wavelength, or they have similar experiences, etc. Just because you personally wouldn’t date someone 2-3 years younger/older than yourself doesn’t mean 1) that it’s wrong, or 2) that others wouldn’t be okay with it for their own personal (and valid) reasons.

Again: it is not your business to interfere with an internet stranger’s personal life and relationships when the only thing you have to go off of is “there’s an age gap.” I’m begging y’all, please look at this with the nuance that it deserves. It is not black-and-white, and your black-and-white thinking is really messing up teenagers and making them feel bad about completely normal and healthy age-appropriate crushes or desires to date someone else.

[anarcho-druidism]

Bernie Sanders is not who you think he is

I know some of y’all like Bernie Sanders and just calling out some of the racist sexist homophobic hydrophobic problematic shit he’s done

-He HAS NOT crusaded to illegalize all firearms!! This is problematic AF because the real, moral democrats should be fighting to put America’s 50 million gun owners in jail to perform underpaid labor. 

-In 1984 he spearheaded the movement to incorporate the United States into the Soviet Union. It almost happened but thankfully Reagan was able to stop it, saying “in communism the government eats all your food”

-In an act of BernieBro misogyny, he ran AGAINST Hillary Clinton, not with her, against HER. Against WOMEN. Bernie Sanders is against women. Just when you thought he was done, in 2019 he announced he was running against MORE WOMEN. It never ends and he has never formally apolagized. 

-As senator, he pushed hard for laws that would TAKE AWAY YOUR TOOTHBRUSH. In the senate he said “In the richest country in America, we cannot afford to have it so everybody has their own toothbrush, but nobody has a living wage”. My great grandpa owned a modest tobacco and fruit plantation in Cuba before the communists took over, he had to flee once they told him he had to share a toothbrush with Fidel Castro. Never again.

-This is one that the racist, homeopathic BernieBros never wanna hear, so listen up y’all. Bernie Sanders sounds A LOT like DRump. In 2016 mr Cheeto man said “I am running for president of the United States” despicable, every word. Guess what?!? As recently as LAST MONTH I’m telling you not back in the 80s, LAST. MONTH....Bernie said the exact. Same. thing. I’d love to hear some toxic BernieBros answer for that. 

-It should be obvious that he’s running the most homophobic campaign ever. Not even presidential campaign, this is the most homophobic campaign for anything ever. However, just to make himself look better, he has been constantly saying that he wants to pass a bill that will make everyone gay. He always tries to brag that hes better than the other candidates because in his own words “I have consistently been fighting to make everyone gay. I know this may be unpopular with the Koch brothers and Wall street, but its the will of the American people.”

-Bernie is completely anti-Semitic. He routinely criticizes the right and just leadership of Netanyahu and his humane ethical treatment of Palestinians. In a recent debate he said “the palestinian people deserve to be treated with respect”. I know some of y’all are too young to remember the Holocaust but it was really bad and there is no way a privileged-ass white man like Bernie would know what that feels like.

-He is campaigning on bringing Sharia Law to America. Millions of people have died under Shakira law and all these BernieBros just continue to support him, they have no idea what its like to have your hot dog taken away. Sit the fuck down. 

-He as a white man just takes up so much space its for real hella problematic. Just look at any debate he is in, he’s always arguing with women and lGBT folx. For real deadass nobody asked him to start talking and taking up all this space. These debates have just become so much debating and we need to return to civility. 

-despite what you hear online, nobody likes Bernie. Every one of those “votes” he got was made up by right wing Russian troll bots. This is an attack on our democracy just like when Russia hacked our country and made trump president. 

-he has no respect and only wants to be divisive. He told Pete Buttigieg in a private conversation that “working class Americans deserve to be able to see a doctor and not go bankrupt, but of course that means nothing to you, a champagne slurping deep-pocketed rat” LGBTQ folx have put up with too much of this bigotry. 

-He goes on Fox news. Do I need to even explain this??? Fox news is racist so everyone who goes on fox is racist, except Kamala Harris who is allowed to be racist. 

-FOLLOWING UP ON THAT. Bernie has some racist-ass republican supporters. If he knew anything about elections, he’d know you win by getting the least amount of republican votes.

-Regardless of how you feel about politics, you HAVE TO VOTE IN NOVEMBER. VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO. Unless its bernie which in that case I dont know what to do but do what I say or I’ll call you a neo-nazi. I dont owe y’all a fucking explanation. Thanks for coming to my TED talk

[the-scottish-costume-guy]

Following some people on my facebook who had good intentions but didnt know any better I have to share this everywhere because Im kind of angry this is being allowed to spread. The rainbow poppy is Not Connected to the LGBT movement. It is a random ebay listing thats just intended to look nice - it has nothing to do with lgbt people and that connection was made by a member of the brexit party trying to undermine lgbt activisim. https://www.independent.co.uk/…/rainbow-poppy-remembrance-d… https://www.pinknews.co.uk/…/rainbow-poppy-brexit-party-ba…/

I have a couple of points to make on this subject.

First - I'm asking you all to really think about if you would care about these 'stupid fights' if you were in the lgbt community. If the answer is no, theres a good chance these things arent real and usually a quick google search will reveal that it isnt. Nobody cares if its a snowman. Nobody wants a gender neutral santa. But people who hate lgbt people want you to think thats what we want.

I believe it was Terry Pratchett that had the lines about "You need to believe the little lies before you can start believing the big ones." Although the context was much nicer.

Second - to all the people who are asking what being lgbt had to do with war. Remembrance is mostly about the first and second world war and I'm going to take the opportunity and the conversation this has generated to actually do some remembering for the lgbt people that were lost. The lgbt movement was thriving in the 1920s, there were gay bars all over Berlin, the first gender confirmation (sex changes) were happening and anti-lgbt laws had been repealed in Germany.

The rise of the Nazi's saw an end to that and set the equality movement back decades. LGBT people were specifically targeted for concentration camps - a pink triangle for gay men and black for lesbians who came under a different category 'deviants.' We do not know how many lgbt people died in camps alone. We do know that this destroyed the early first wave of queer rights - and that certain things (eg pink) became coded as queer. http://theconversation.com/how-the-nazis-destroyed-the-firs…

Before this gets too long, its impossible to mention lgbt history and world wars while neglecting to mention Alan Turing. For those who don't know Turing was a mathmatician and theotician. His computers and code breaking skills saved millions of lives, ending the war up to 4 years earlier than would of been possible without him. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18419691

Turing was found guilty of indecency - of being gay. After being forced to undergo hormone treatment designed to lower his sex drive - which also caused him to develop feminine features and body shape - he killed himself. He laced an apple with cyanide and took a bite. This was the inspiration behind the Apple logo.

TLDR: - So in short there is no rainbow poppy - but lgbt people should definitely be thought of and remembered during the time of remembrance.

[reasonandempathy]

@unpopularly-opinionated​

Just wanted to shift to address the “Republicans are better about LGBT issues than before”.

It’s just not true.  News coverage of it gets smothered by every fucking thing Trump does that’s bat-shit insane, but it’s been a steady, executive-branch and republican-party lead erosion of LGBT protections.

Some sources/articles:

Pacific Standard:  The president pledged to protect LGBT people, but instead has infringed on their rights domestically.

Since taking office, Trump announced on Twitter that he would bar transgender Americans from serving in the United States armed forces; nominated judicial nominees with distinctly anti-LGBT records; beat back protections for transgender students attending schools that receive federal funding; rolled back protections for transgender employees under current civil rights law; sought to define gender on the basis of immutable biological features in a move that could legally categorize trans Americans out of existence; and, as recently as last week, ordered U.S. embassies not to fly the rainbow Pride flag.

Buzzfeed (There are links to news articles and press releases in other publications)

In addition to banning transgender people from the military, the Trump administration has said it is legal for companies to fire workers for being trans or for being gay. The administration has also argued to the Supreme Court that it is legal for shopkeepers to deny service to LGBT individuals if they have religious objections. Among other actions, the president has also retracted a proposal to count LGBT people in the census.

In March, a Trump official told the Washington Blade, an LGBT newspaper, that the administration also opposed the Equality Act. The bill, which would amend the Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination against the LGBT community, passed the Democrat-controlled House this month, but is not likely to receive support from Republicans in the Senate or White House.

Buzzfeed 2 (sourced again)

1. Saying it’s legal to fire workers for being transgender.

2. Arguing that it’s legal to fire workers for being gay.

3. Making transgender female prisoners live with male prisoners.

4. Telling the Supreme Court that shopkeepers can turn away LGBT customers.

8. Issuing a religious liberty policy.

it goes on.

Support of L.G.B.T. Rights Drops Among Young Republicans, Survey Finds

GOP lawmaker backtracks on anti-gay bill after daughter publicly shames him - Kansas Republican Ron Highland is withdrawing his support for a bill that calls gay unions “parody marriages” following an open letter from his LGBTQ daughter.

Conservative Texas lawmakers delivered some red meat to their base last week by promising to reintroduce bills that target the LGBTQ community for discrimination when the legislature convenes in Austin in January 2019.

The 2016 Platform of the Republican Party

That same provision of [Title 9] is now being used by bureaucrats — and by the current President of the United States — to impose a social and cultural revolution upon the American people by wrongly redefining sex discrimination to include sexual orientation or other categories. Their agenda has nothing to do with individual rights; it has everything to do with power.

..

Our laws and our government’s regulations should recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman and actively promote married family life as the basis of a stable and prosperous society. For that reason, as explained elsewhere in this platform, we do not accept the Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage and we urge its reversal

You know those memes of corporate accounts not being people?