#especially young queer people who live in places where it's unsafe for them to be openly queer

[bowerywilliam]

at one point are people "picking up clues" and at what point is it them constantly engaging in a constant state of delusion as a way to find the belonging and validation they don't find in other spaces and indoctrinating themselves into online cults of their own making at the cost of their own mental health?

like, is that public figure in a straight, loving relationship actually secretly gay and giving you signs only you can see and interpret correctly or do you just need friends, some therapy, and mood stabilizers?

[liquidstar]

i think that on here we've kinda talked a lot about how the traditional "coming out" narrative presented in popculture is flawed in reality. because it always presents this idea that you have to tell everyone who you Really are, that youre Hiding parts of yourself, that you can never be You until you bare your Secrets to the world. and that actually this isnt because people feel entitled to your personal business but that its hurting YOU when they dont know your personal business so you should really just tell them. (but also dont be "too" proud because thats annoying :( act mostly cishet please but dont lie about it! hehe!) it will work out every time for sure :)

but ofc thats not how real life works. i mean, naturally i understand that there are OF COURSE people out there who want to be loud and proud about who they are, and that this is incredibly important to their identity which theyve suppressed for so long. but that "coming out" narrative is harmful because it ignores many of the reasons it had to be suppressed to begin with. its fucking dangerous! its dangerous to a lot of people for a lot of reasons. they can lose their support system, family, job, house, and their entire life. both in the sense that they'll be completely uprooted from it, and in the sense that they could be killed. so constantly presenting the notion of "coming out is good for you no matter what because its the Only way to be your Real Authentic Self and also you HAVE to do it eventually because thats how this narrative is just Meant to go. be a good little queer and please dont stray from this path."

and the problem is that plenty of young LGBT+ people completely internalize it too! ive had so many convos with young people worried about coming out to their conservative family because, well, theyre supposed to! and their minds are completely blown when i tell them that actually they dont have to do that. that theyre under no obligation to tell everyone their business and its okay to just keep being them w/o making an announcement about it. ESPECIALLY IF IT PUTS THEM IN DANGER!!!! and to be clear this issue doesnt stop at age 18 or at moving out or anything like that either, there continue to be many obstacles for many people that make coming out unsafe, or just a bad life decision to uproot everything Right Now. it's okay to just be in the closet and it isn't a moral failing like cishet media wants to convince us. we all agree, right?

good! but here's what my actual real point is:

when we talk about this, for some reason, we seem to only reaaaallly be talking about the gay side of it, right? like im sure lots of people imagined, like, teenage gay boy movies. maybe a couple lesbian and bi characters too perhaps. and that makes sense because thats like the most common narrative for this sort of trope, so ofc those are the first examples we imagine. and ofc theres the more complex addition of "passing" when it comes to trans versions of this story, the idea that you gotta look a certain way to be "valid" adds another layer.

so i think its time more people started to acknowledge this about trans people too, right? i think we can all agree with this on paper already; no trans person is obligated to come out or present a certain way if theyre not in a place where they currently are able to do so. physically, mentally, financially... or just because they dont wanna! whatever the circumstances are, there is no criteria they have to meet to be vindicated in this. it doesnt only apply to 14 year olds living with shitty parents who plan to move out soon and become "Really Trans" (as if they didnt count before conforming to The Narrative), the person could be 40 and never planning to be completely out, and its the same. they dont owe you this "showing the world who you Really are in order to [earn the right to] Be Yourself" crap. thats their choice only.

however, i also think that even if most ppl on here in lgbt circles on here agree with the general sentiment... sometimes it doesnt always get applied it practice. though the whole "truscum" thing kinda died down (thank god) i still think that rampant transmedicalism has left its scars on lots of people and the things they internalize, combined with similar cisheteronormative messages in popular media about how your narrative Should go and how you Should act and look to be respected, and its Morally Wrong not to fit that mold.

so when encountered with people who dont pass, who dont TRY to pass and instead actively choose to look like their agab due to the fact that they are literally in the closet irl (lest we forget people have whole entire complex lives outside of the net) this sort of short circuit happens in ppls heads, where that internalized idea of "but you're supposed to be THIS WAY! youre not doing it RIGHT!" pops back up and they end up labeling that person as fake or Not Trans Enough for this reason.

and i do also think part of this stems from people not having enough sympathy for those whose paths are different, because they were told not to. theres a Right way, and they did it the right way. and likely they struggled for it a lot, so isnt it unfair that people are doing it the Easy Way (as if its easy to be closeted to begin with) and claiming theyre like you? thats Wrong. they have to Earn it. you lgbts should all get mad at EACH OTHER actually! this will help your community be better [in the eyes of cishetero society that doesnt really want you to exist to begin with]

additionally the reason im emphasizing the internet side of this so much is because... well, in this day and age, thats the space lots of people go to to NOT be in the closet. to at least microdose on being "out" while in real life they very much arent. like i said before, being in the closet is rough and taxing, suppressing yourself hurts which is why so many people wanna be loud and out and proud! not everyone can though, so turning to a place with relative anonymity to get that is great, and i think its probably saved a lot of people. but also because of this, its pretty much the only way to get the scenario this is positing to begin with- where you know a stranger can know that youre trans even if youre otherwise closeted completely, just so they can tell you that youre Not. but how many people in the past do you think lived lives where they never let these feelings out at all? how many alive today do you think dont even express them online?

you know that sort trope (often stereotypes in media) of a trans person "crossdressing" only when alone, in order to get a short bit of relief or euphoria that they cant in their closed life? i think that today we have the internet to do that. i think its kind of the same thing. but its also very different, because its not as private. its still secret, because its anonymous, but its also something shared with plenty of strangers at the same time. they dont know you irl, so its safe, distant, and gives you that rush of being yourself, and being referred to correctly by others too. theres community, theres support, and theres friendship too, once you get to know those strangers. its not a "second life" or a "persona" is just a side of yourself you dont show elsewhere, an identity that needs to be let out one way or another.

who the fuck are we to deny others the right to this life-saving connection just because they arent out? because they dont pass or dress the Right way irl? because we decided they arent trying hard enough to "fit in"? because they dont plan to change their lives to fit the right narrative anytime soon?

should they not be allowed into the community then? that would be perfect wouldnt it? leave many who need support out to die, because they did it Wrong. fight within our community over who is doing it Right until we've broken it in half. the righteous ones [according to cishet standards] are surely going to be treated with respect once they get rid of the Bad ones, right?

yeah, i dont think so. thats horseshit. we're stronger together than we are apart, thats why infighting is so useful to those who dont want us to be strong to begin with. its important to help each other, boost each other up, even if some of us arent playing the "right" part irl. are we really just going to sit around and accept the cishet norms as rules to live by? fuck that. not everyones story will reflect it, and you have to accept them anyway if you want a strong community. it doesnt matter how much they might look/act like their agab irl, if theyre telling you otherwise take it at face value, respect them the way you would any other. again, many of us agree with this on paper, but i think we still have to put work into acting on that too.

the end <3

[pseudonymphomania]

You can ignore this ask if im bothering, but whats your minor policy here? Like, can minors only not interact with the nsfw posts or not at all?

The short answer:

Sfw = ✅✅✅✅✅ minors can interact

Nsfw = 🚫🚫🚫🚫🚫 minors shouldn't interact

Welcome to my kingdom, anon!!!!!!! 😊

The long answer for people who like essays:

Note: I'm going to use this as a FAQ so the "you" I'm referring to is the General You and not anon.

“Do you mind if your work gets seen by minors?” Is actually a question I’ve been asked a lot because I write and draw saucy works and the accountability has seemingly been shifted from legal guardians onto randoms like me. They say it takes a village to raise a child after all. This leads easily into the subjects of censorship, human sexuality, responsibility in the digital age, parasocial boundaries, society and individuality, proliferation of paywalls that rope off the internet and free flow of information… and so on. So many subjects, so little time, and yet so intersectional. I see it often, the ubiquitous “minors dni”, even on people’s pages that don’t have explicit material; I’m guessing it’s because people don’t want the headache, but any dni is as good as a line drawn in the sand, a magic circle where all your morals live, until the wind blows it away. Have you ever been asked “are you over the age of 18?” I pressed that button just the other day and just as easily as I had when I was a minor. “Do you mind if your work gets seen by minors?” is the question I’m asked, like my saucy work is a landmine for someone to accidentally step on and to which I can’t help but imagine a different question: “Do you mind if a minor seeks it out?”*

I’m not anyone’s parent and it is not my responsibility to take care of a stranger’s welfare. You have to understand that the internet is a grey place. I don’t know who’s looking. I’d rather not know.**

I tag my smut and label it with a 🔞 with the implicit meaning being don’t look at things you’re not supposed to be looking at. I won’t ever know for certain if a minor looked, pressing the proverbial “yes I’m over the age of 18”, unless that minor was a fool and broadcasted their vulnerability to the world at large, interacting with my unsafe works knowing that their profile reflected that same perceived lack of impulse control. Goodness, if they were smart, they’d be liars.

Even so, I was young once; I lived like the puritanical ideal while also having seen society’s forbidden knowledge [sex things, oh my!]. No matter how well someone hides the cookies, someone will always climb the fridge to get them, and if I had fallen off the fridge, no one should blame the baker. And no one should tell the baker that they should stop baking, especially in their own bakery.

We exist in a moment in time when even payment processors have a say in what kind of content is distributed and how that affects art as a whole, eating into adult spaces [recently the Gumroad nsfw policy leaving nsfw artists reeling] and especially encrouching on queer spaces. Imagine the amount of chargebacks various nsfw gets because sex is so vilified in society that people have to panic when caught oh I'm really not into big anime boobs dw, oh i didnt actually commission this nsfw artist and waste 20 hours of their precious time and labour, oh i need my money back because...; I’m sure the money system abhors it for a money reason, but the root of it is the proliferation of Protect the Children™ used by puritanical opportunists. You the individual affect the wider culture as a whole through the groups you belong to, even if you don't intend to.

I’m asking for people to be smart, to think of their own well-being, but to also think of where they draw the line. Filter the word “smut” and “nsft” and "suggestive" and you should be safe on my page even though the sauce is rare in my Tumblr. This goes for everyone this applies to and not just minors.

Welcome to my kingdom. 😌

Sincerely,

Yuki, your friendly everyday sex-positive asexual

*Yes, I mind. But it’s not my problem.

**Showing nsfw to a minor is illegal and people risk trouble for doing so [lack of mens rea notwithstanding in a court of public opinion], but I have 5 different social medias. I cannot play detective and sift through every follow, like, reblog. That's impossible. Make it easier on me.

I warn. It is your responsibility to comply.

Thank you kindly!

[fredheads]

Fred helping fp move into his new trailer after senior throws him out…fp having parties at his place where he invites all the queer serpents he’s become friends with and Fred getting to sit between his legs while he and fp share a joint and laugh and kiss and touch in front of people…Fred sleeping over and waking up entangled in FPs limbs…making breakfast for the two of them while fp hangs onto him from behind still sleepy

literally moaning n crying thinking about that tweet

and how sure growing up fp didnt have anything either but his space was SO patently unsafe and he had no autonomy over himself or his things, he was on red alert all the time, every wall of that apartment had traumatic memories, holes from fists, the fridge was always empty, he didn't dare put anything personal up or keep something out in the open where senior could take it or break it etc... he had no privacy, senior would let himself into fps space whenever he wanted, maybe he even locked fp in his bedroom or the bathroom sometimes so he had no choice to leave or he'd just beat him too bad to go out some nights so fp would spend more and more time in that trailer or fp would go and scrunch himself into closets or under the bed to hide and just make himself smaller and smaller... senior might not have been a hoarder or something but he was definitely a slob, there were probably weapons or drugs etc laying around, other gang members would taint the space just by being there... it was never a home.

and i think allll the time about how fp was born in that trailer and spent 16-18 yrs there depending on timeline, barely knew anything else, was abused and neglected there and maybe his mom died there, that's where he was the most traumatized and hurt and afraid and how domestic abuse especially as a young child growing up whos never known another environment shrinks your world to the size of those four walls and consumes you, how he never thought he could escape, never really felt he belonged in the world outside that tiny shitty trailer, that whole situation was so toxic and there was trauma etched into every single corner of the place he grew up, it would have looked so different to outsiders than how it looked to him and for all his life he'd go back to it in his nightmares etc...

but then he's out on his own. and he has nothing again but anything he does have is HIS. and its safe. and its different. and he can start breathing again and he gets used to inviting his queer friends over and finally he can have a place where fred not only can sneak through his window at night if he wants but can come in the door!!! he's finally living somewhere apart from the place he was stuck and smothered and battered for 16 years. and he can slowly slowly learn to trust himself, learn to make decisions for himself, learn a tiny bit of perspective, learn to breathe again and live on his own terms. and fred is there with him every step of the way, sleeping on the floor in sleeping bags with him, buying him his first cooking pot from goodwill for a dollar. making him coffee and breakfast in the mornings while fp hangs onto him from behind........ <3 domestic bliss :')

[denimbex1986]

'A lonely 40-something screenwriter living in an almost-empty London apartment block, Adam (Andrew Scott) is alienated, exhausted and struggling to write about his past, but can’t get beyond the opening line.

One evening, Harry (Paul Mescal), a younger man from downstairs, appears at his door. He’s tipsy, vulnerable, flirty and charming. “There’s vampires at my door,” he says. Adam doesn’t let him in and later reveals that fear had stopped him.

This rings true, especially for a 40-something gay man like Adam: someone who grew up in the 1980s, during a period of rampant and violent homophobia and the AIDS crisis. England and Wales had partially decriminalised homosexuality in 1967, but Thatcher’s Britain was an ugly place for LGBTQ+ people.

The screenplay Adam is writing is set in 1987, the year that Section 28 was introduced, banning the “promotion” of homosexuality. At that time, the tabloids demonised AIDS victims as deviant plague-carriers and there were terrifying government health warnings on national television.

Homosexuality remained illegal in Ireland and the 1980s witnessed notorious hate-crimes, including the murder of Charles Self by a stranger when they hooked up. These crimes don’t belong to the past: in 2022, two gay men in Sligo were murdered by a man they met through a dating app. Small wonder that a fortysomething gay man like Adam would shut Harry out.

But it wouldn’t be much of a story if it ended there.

As an academic of LGBTQ+ history, I hugely enjoyed this delicate, melancholy and life-affirming film. It speaks to many of the real and heartbreaking experiences gay men in the UK and Ireland have had to navigate. It also highlights the progress and more hopeful world that has been carved for younger generations of queer men. But most of all, its a testament to the power of love.

Open to love

There is a spark between them; Adam reaches out to Harry and we see a relationship develop from an initial hook-up to long-lasting companionship and love. This connection allows Adam to revisit two painful relationships he had left in the past.

Spurred on by a photograph of his parents (Jamie Bell and Claire Foy), he returns to the suburbs where he was born, and meets them again. They were killed in a car crash when he was about 12, but here they seem to be alive, welcoming and not a day older.

When Adam tells his mother that he’s gay, she isn’t hostile, but she is worried. She says that she’s seen the ads about that awful disease and “they say it’s a lonely life”. Adam’s reply – “they don’t say that now” – is contradicted by his own experience before meeting Harry. He has been shut down by homophobia.

He tells his father about the relentless name-calling and physical bullying he endured at school. But he had never revealed it when he was a child and his father had never consoled Adam when he heard him crying in his room.

This again speaks to the experiences of many gay men and isn’t confined to the past. A man easing his son’s pain is still perceived by some as a weakness and we still live in a society where LGBT+ children are tormented by bullies. The 2022 national survey conducted by BelongTo, an Irish LGBT+ rights group advocating for young people, found that 76% of LGBT+ secondary school students felt unsafe at school.

Embracing the word ‘queer’

In the film, twentysomething Harry refers to continuing homophobia when he asks Adam if he is queer; it seems a more polite word than gay, he says, recalling children using the word as a slur. Harry’s remark points to an extraordinary transformation in language.

In the 1980s, “gay” was the most positive word used to describe LGBTQ+ people, and “queer” was used by homophobes as a vicious insult. “Queer-bashing” was the term used by the five youths who killed Declan Flynn in Dublin in 1982: a notorious Irish hate-crime. The judge at their trial did not regard them as murderers and gave them suspended sentences for manslaughter.

I mention Ireland again because, in the film, Adam was sent to live in Dublin with his maternal grandmother after his parents’ deaths. He tells his mother that he got on better there because he had learned how to fit in, an act of self-censorship still familiar to many LGBT+ people in Ireland, as referenced in drag queen Panti Bliss’s “Noble Call” speech. But today’s Ireland is also a place where “queer” is no longer a hateful word: it’s used by many LGBT+ people to celebrate their identities.

BelongTo’s 2022 survey points to the positive impact of adults’ support for LGBT+ young people and shows that there are pathways out of oppression and suffering.

In the film, the adult Adam comforts his father, who cries when he grasps how much young Adam had suffered. In a beautiful scene we see the two of them hugging. Through the reflection in the mirror Adam is transformed into his younger self, and without any words the film conveys a sense of acceptance and forgiveness between the two.

The film’s final scene makes us rethink its storyline of Adam’s and Harry’s relationship. It again affirms “the power of love”, the title of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood song (and LGBT+ anthem) that plays over the ending and credits. “I’ll protect you from the hooded claw, keep the vampire from your door,” promises Adam, repeating the words of the song and echoing Harry’s first words to him.

Whatever “really” happens in All of Us Strangers, it leaves us with a sense of hope and love transcending loss and death.'

[nicostolemybones]

Queer As In Fuck You

Alternative title: the fuckening.

Basically: the fic where Nico is gay and angry and punk (also the title is a song)

Tw: homophobia, mild violence, reclaimed slurs

Nico had decided that today was forever going to be referred to as the fuckening. To say Nico was nervous was an understatement to say the least- because today he'd decided that he was finally gonna come out to everyone officially. It wasn't necessarily because he was ready to, but because there were rumours flying around everywhere about him. The first was that he was having an affair with Annabeth and that's why he was avoiding Percy. The second was that whilst travelling with Reyna and Hedge he'd tried to kiss her and that's what they refused to talk about. The third was that Jason had a crush on Nico and Nico was waiting for him to break up with Piper. And the fourth was that Will was obsessed with Nico and stalking him. The fourth annoyed Nico the most- because it framed Will as some kind of predator, and of course, Will was the only openly gay camper at this particular point. And the fact that just because he made the effort to spend time around Nico and actually cared about his health was being twisted. 

Nico could handle rumours about himself. The rumours about girls kept him closeted and whilst it pissed him off that people thought so low of his morals that he'd cheat, he was used to being painted as the bad guy, and besides, everybody thought he was too weird to ever be loved. But it was hurting others too. It was hurting Annabeth and Percy and Reyna and Jason and Piper, even if they knew the truth.

But Will? Will didn't need this. It rubbed Nico up the wrong way that they'd accuse his boyfriend of being a stalker or being predatory or obsessed towards Nico, especially as it was convenient that nobody slapped the same label on anyone else at camp who showed interest in somebody in some way. No, because only the gay guy could possibly be a predatory person. 

So Nico was going to announce his sexuality and his relationship to camp, because he could see that the rumours were starting to get to Will. At first it was small things- Will stopped leaving good morning texts when he woke up at 5am. Things like Will waiting for Nico to sit at the Apollo table rather than waving him over. And then it was the big things, like Will only seeing Nico after campfire so people couldn't comment on the amount Will called him into the infirmary, and the way Will had asked him if he made Nico uncomfortable, to the time he'd seen Will shaking with anger and on the verge of tears when a 'concerned' camper tried to warn him off. 

So Nico was going to come out. Because the rumours were too much and it was hurting the people he cared about. And he knew- he knew there'd be more vicious rumours afterwards, but at least he could control them, correct them, shut them down. He wanted to be in control of the situation, and he couldn't do that from in the closet. 

Nico wouldn't have chosen to come out just yet, not if the rumours weren't there. It was a shit situation, which angered him, because it shouldn't have to be. He should be able to come out comfortably, but instead, he'd be coming out so he could take control back of his own narrative. It angered him because he'd been painted this picture of this progressive society where people could be openly gay and gay marriage was legal and people could come out without fear- except that wasn't everyone's reality. It wasn't Nico's. And he kept seeing this push to silence his experiences- to cut them out of fiction and cut them out of discussion because society was progressive now and nobody needed or wanted to see the struggles when they could show a happy life. Except Nico did. Nico needed to see people struggling like him, laying awake at night feeling scared and alone and rejected and wrong to know he wasn't alone, to know he could come out the other side. He needed to see the pain to see that it wasn't a tragedy. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows and it certainly wasn't for Nico. 

So Nico was angry, because he'd been sold an image, a faceless image, of this amazingly accepting place where he could feel safe, except he didn't, and that made people uncomfortable. It made him feel guilty for his struggles with his past, his struggles with microaggressions, his struggles with internalised homophobia, because when he created, vented, his experiences were reduced to a tragic trope doing more harm than good. Nico felt silenced. He wondered how many like him, venting and speaking up about lived experiences through art and writing, were shot down for doing so. 

Nico was angry because he'd been introduced to this amazing community only to find the beginnings of toxicity and identity policing rooting in the fringes online. Nico was angry because he'd been told the world was accepting to find out some still paid the price with their lives or their freedom. Nico was angry because the only rep he could find was dead, on screen for two seconds, stereotype, unnecessarily sexualised, predatory, or bootlicker. Nico was angry because he'd grown up in a time where he learned fear, to be then told of the wonders of modern society, to be shamed for his learned fear, to then find out that the reality was still scary and unsafe for many.

He was happy for those who were accepted and comfortable, for those who were open and free, for those who could rise above the hate, for people like Will who felt able to freely express their identities. Of course he was happy, and of course he wanted their stories to explode across the media and give others hope. Of course he wanted to get away from Bury Your Gays. But he wished that wasn't at the expense of people like him telling their realities. He wished you could have both side by side, not at odds. Because experience was diverse, and the push to homogenise the portrayal of the gay experience into either perfectly happy or tragically horrible was seriously tearing the community apart and leaving people feeling frustrated and silenced on both sides. 

Nico was angry because his reality right now was uncomfortable and his reality was one of pressure. He had to come out because he had to take back control of his own narrative. He was angry because he wasn't the first and he wouldn't be the last. He was angry because he knew if he spoke about how he was violently outed, he'd hear the whisperings of shared experience amongst kids too young to be facing prejudice. He'd have year round campers look to him for advice on how to be like him, how to come out and be happy when their own situations were bleak. 

The first thing he'd tell them was that being gay isn't a tragedy or a death sentence. The tragedy is the existence of prejudice. The next thing he'd tell them is that yes, for some, it was gonna hurt and it would be hard. You'd feel like a newborn deer balancing dangerously on thin cracking ice with no guidance. He'd tell them that yes, safe spaces could be invaded by arseholes and you'd cry and rage and question. But he'd also tell them that that didn't mean they couldn't be happy and comfortable. He'd tell them that they didn't have to come out. He'd tell them that it was okay if all they could do was turn the closet light on to see themselves. He'd tell them that it was okay to exist in your own space and your own head whilst you learned how to navigate the world. He'd tell them that nothing could take away the labels they chose or chose not to take. He'd tell them that they could find power in simply existing. But above all he'd tell them to sing their truths, to create, to vent, to put into prose the pain or the joy or the duality of experiencing both at once. He'd tell them to delve deeper and learn and reach out and accept. He'd tell them to tell the stories they needed to see to feel heard and to heal, whether that be fairytale or tragedy.

Nico would tell them that even if they felt like their hand was forced, that their cards were ripped from their hands and laid bare for all to see, that they could still take back control. They could do what they needed to feel safe, hide if needed, or spit in the face of oppression with a 'so what?'. He'd tell them to fight back if they could fight comfortably, to protect those who couldn't fight for themselves, to find allies and comrades who would boost their voices.

And Nico realised that yeah, fuck it, he'd never been more ready for the fuckening. Because yes, he was still in pain and he was still scared. But fuck the people who made him feel silenced. He refused to be. He was fighting back. He was gay, he was a man in love with a man, a man who held hands with a man, a man who kissed a man, a man who would one day live with a man and fuck a man and unapologetically marry a man. And loving men wasn't all he was, but it was damn important to him and he'd be damned if anyone tried to strip it from his identity. He was scared and he was struggling and he was shamed but he wasn't ashamed to say that he was different. You know what? He was the fuckening and that was a fucking threat.

So yes. Nico's narrative was never going to be sunshine and rainbows. It had been fear and persecution and shame and war and oppression and pain. But now? Now it was a fire, the embers of self-acceptance and self-love glowing in his soul, the sparks of rebellion and pride igniting the flames of passion and rage and all things fuck you.

Things had to change. Nico refused to be silenced and spoken about in a way that he didn't want to be. They'd learn soon enough. Respect his existence or expect resistance. He'd control the rumours now. They wanted something to talk about? They could talk about this.

So Nico pulled on Will's pride vest, and pulled on his own black and pink jeans heavy with chains, and pulled on his biggest angriest boots, and pulled on the black leather waistcoat he'd taken the time to paint and sew with patches and slogans, and he put on his skull necklaces and his black lipstick and raccoon eyes eyeliner and he ruffled his hair until it looked like a bird's nest and he put on his playlist full of rage and gay and shouty lyrics full blast knowing it could be heard through his earbuds and he stepped out of his cabin with his best murderwalk because yes he would stomp on you if you dared say anything, because he wasn't a doormat anymore and he refused to be. He was gay and angry and he'd ripped off the duct tape society had glued to his mouth and he was screaming with confidence and radiating death because fuck society for making him feel like this.

"I'm only gonna say this once," he began firmly. People listened because he made them listen for once. He wasn't done talking and boy would they know it. "If anybody dares to accuse Will of anything ever again, I will come for you, and I will damn you to Tartarus, capisce? You do not get to make rumours about me and my private life. How dare you use me for your sick entertainment, how dare you drag my friends into it. You should be ashamed of yourselves! I am not some article in a gossip magazine for you to fawn and speculate over. I'm not some kid you can poke fun at. Will isn't some uwu gay best friend you have and he's not some butt sex obsessed fiend. And neither am I. We're just two pissed off queers who are sick of your shit and from now on if you've got something to say about it you say it to my face, you got that? You put your money where your mouth is and you face me you fucking cowards. See if it's still funny or exciting to call us slurs behind our backs when an angry faggot is done being scared. Shout at me what you like because I've reclaimed it all. You do not get to silence us, you do not get to control our narratives, you do not get to police our identities and our relationships. Respect our existence or expect resistance, you got it? Good. You wanna learn how to be an ally? Listen to us. Will's happy to educate you and so is Google. You're an ally to all or an ally to none. You don't get to pick and choose which parts of the community deserve respect. So yes, I'm fucking gay as fuck for Will Solace and if you got a problem with that then tough!"

An Ares camper rose to his challenge. Walked to his face and spit at his feet. Nico elbowed his face and kicked his nuts and shoved his face into the dirt. "I wouldn't do that, pretty boy," Nico warned, resting his boot on his cheek. "Anyone else wanna try me? No. Good." Nico let him go and walked straight over to Will, who was staring with his mouth open. Nico was terrified of the crowd still watching but fuck them Nico was feeling brave and bravery wasn't the absence of fear. He was gonna live and living meant pushing through it all. 

"Wow," Will managed, "gods, just kiss me, fuck, that was- just wow!" So Nico did. Nico kissed him there and then, in the middle of camp, in front of everyone, because dammit he was a man who loved men and Will was his man and he was pissed off and living off spite. He had a point to prove and that point was that his existence was not up for debate. And boy did he intend to make it loud and fight for others who needed it. 

[youngbradford]

Xmas Message For 2019

And here we go, my 19th annual year-end love letter online …Georgi Balinov and I rang in the new year at a giant party in Bangkok, halfway around the world. That foreign location, its beauty and tastes, set the tone for my 2019, a year of seeing the world, while stabilizing my life. Though often in flux or movement, 2019 was a year many things normalized over the year.

In January, almost immediately after arriving stateside, I crossed the pond and saw Michelle Visage perform in the West End with Peter Wish. Afterward, I played with her wigs backstage and walked her towards the queer kids lining up for selfies and autographs. I am very lucky to have Peter and Michelle in my life, kindred spirits both. One reminding me that fame, fortune, ebb, and flow, but that being real is what matters most. The other, a reminder to stay forever young. I visited Berlin yet again and did the usual, working, and playing, hard.

February appeared and I traveled to Philadelphia with Sandra Hansel, Georgi, George Sapio, and Anthony DeFilippis. We toured Lisa Roberts’ house, saw a Dieter Rams exhibit, dined with George Alley. In Lambertville, that Sunday, I bought vinyl and vintage hats. Later that month, I got a swallow tattooed on my hand, a symbol of flight and travel, and Warhol’s knives, blackened into my shin. An Eames exhibit in Oakland was a sweet way to end the month.

In March with my crew, Georgi, Khadyon Reid, Luis Urribarri, Anthony, and George, descended upon Salvador for Carnival. It was insane! I watched Anitta live, and danced in a sea of pushing, fighting, kissing Brazilians for days upon days. I felt unsafe and alive, threatened and excited. It was intense. Back home I got my other hand tattooed, again honoring my love of seeing the world. I traveled to Portland, came back to NYC at the end of the month, finally moving into our apartment, the one we bought 1.5 years before, that I designed, and had renovated head to toe. Finally, we had our dream home. The weekend we moved in, the place was still not ready, but we were sick of living without our things and in other people’s beds. Peg Kendall and Georgi’s mom came, and we worked our asses off unpacking and starting to make the 2800 square foot loft on west 13th street a home. We’d lived in Airbnbs and friends’ places for 19 months and it was tiring not having a home, not having most of our things. My art! My toys! My shoes!. Those months taught me how important a home, a safe place, and the oasis of my collections is to my mental health. From March on I felt more on solid ground and dedicated more energy to my career and friendships as a result.

In April we went to Coachella, seeing Ian and Jose Seronni, JJ and Andrey Lunin, and dancing in the desert of California. Multiple trips to San Francisco, catching glimpse of old friends, scaling my team at work, as I took on more and more responsibility.

In May, George Sapio and I celebrated (me a little early) a shared, fun birthday weekend at Soho Farmhouse. Joined by Matthew Kelleher, Mark Silver, Jaime Tanner, Matt Lynch, and others, we went shooting and feasted on pheasant in the English countryside.June was really busy, insanely so. 

For my 43rd in early June, I had a 30-person dinner party in our new place! We ended up at Club Cumming after, but before friends, new, and old, showered me with a vinyl record, the admission fee I’d set for my party. Lauren Foster, who has shared her home with us, was, appropriately, our first overnight guest. London, again, Berlin, too. Then home for Pride. Willam Ralphie hosted Bingo at eBay, Zach Augustine, David Mason Chlopecki, other loves attended. That weekend danced to both Madonna and Grace Jones on the pier and danced with 15K others at Javitz, where my favorite singer, Cyndi Lauper, belted “I Drove All Night,” her best song, at midnight. I stayed until the sun came up. NYC was electric that weekend. Parties, icons, friends from the world over … the city has an energy you could literally see and taste. I caught a few moments of the parade, overtaking lower Manhattan, and I smiled really big. God, it can feel good being gay! God, the world has improved for gay people (and yes, I know, we still have ways to go, especially for more marginalized LGBTQ groups). But I still took a moment to acknowledge the things that are better, that I have seen in my very gay lifetime. NYC that weekend was the ultimate place to reflect.

July 4th I went to Hamptons, with Ricardo, Brian, Felipe L. Mollica, others, guests of Anthony. Hosted Fab.com reunion, walked the Brooklyn Bridge, and took my team to Korea (where I shared a traditional Korean meal with Jae Hah), China (where I ate bird’s nests, jellyfish, sea snails, saw a Yves Klein show with Adnan Abbasi, and danced to 90s pop in a packed gay club), and Moscow (where I was amazed at how clean the city was and where I went to a traditional sauna and was whipped, naked, with tree leaves in front of dozens of Russian dudes in the nude). While in Russia a protest erupted, literally below the rooftop bar I dined in. Russia seemed freer than I’d expected, way more Western, up until this moment. I ended the weekend at a club at 3 AM, Russian women in high, high heels, dancing on the bar, vodka flowing like water. 2020 saw me traveling to places I romanticized as a child. Russia, one such place. I thoroughly enjoyed the friendships formed in Moscow, the food, and history. I want to return.

August, I was back in San Jose and Portland for work, then off again to Europe for vacation. We started our trip in Croatia, where Georgi and I kayaked around Dbruvnik’s harbor. Croatia’s cliffs and turquoise water did not disappoint, as we boated to islands and swam in caves. Driving south into Montenegro, the architecture reminded me more of Polish, Bulgarian trips, the water, greener. At the Amman we laid out next to The Beckhams, watching David kick a soccer ball with workers of the hotel, and watching Victoria read a book. Georgi and I then ventured to Mykonos, sunning til sunset and dancing til sunrise. A weekend trip upstate with our besties (including a guest appearance by Eric Lee, riding rides at the Colombia County fair, cooking pies, and grilling meats, ended our summer.

In September I went to Berlin and did Folsom and a speaking gig in front of 1K eBay sellers. I went again to Tel Aviv, meeting gay Israeli technology workers and a bevy fo Israeli start-ups. In Jerusalem, I returned to the wonderful Machneyuda with Gilad Ayalon, where they remembered me from my birthday the year before.

October saw us hosting my mother and my niece for a visit. We fell in love with Company XVI, a dance/burlesque/performance art troupe in Brooklyn. I took my mother to see Madonna, a night I will cherish forever. And we saw Dear Evan Hanson. A weekend in Miami with Lauren Foster and K was needed warmth. I took Georgi to see both acts of The Inheritance (so good!).  Then off to Berlin, again, and Paris, where I looked at art and went shopping for fall clothes. Halloween, in NYC, was brilliant and over the top; I went as white Pierrot clown. In Brooklyn, to Honey Dijon, we danced all night. Ralph Rucci, the American couturier reposted our photo on Instagram, calling it high-fashion, however, it was Georgi who won the night as Spock.

November I was in NYC early on, shopping with Thomas Cawson (who hooked me up with pink denim Helmut Lang), eating Christmas cookies, and being interviewed by Buzzfeed, a segment on 90s toys. I imitated a Furby. Then a week in Portland (I glow-in-the-dark-miniature-golfed), and off to Helsinki, catching up with former friends from Fab, One Nordic, Hem. Then to Lapland, with Georgi, George, and Anthony, lapping up wine, winter wonderlands, and dining on reindeer and elk. Dog sledding, snowmobiling, Northen lights! Another childhood desire checked from the list. Dinner with Michelle Case in London closed the month.

In December I went back to Berlin (my second home) and hosted a fundraiser for Single Step in our home. In one night Georgi and I helped raise $50K to help build Bulgaria’s first LGBTI center. It was also an impromptu holiday party: so many old friends together again in one room. And now Georgi and I sit in an airport lounge, awaiting our flight to Baltra, in the Galapagos. Once we land, we’ll board a 7-day cruise on a mega-yacht/small cruise ship. This, I feel, I have been waiting my entire life for.

I often write about how I was lonely as a kid. I was gay, I had a drug-addicted father, I grew up very poor. I oftentimes say music saved my life. But, I don’t write enough about the joy animals gave me too. I had so many pets: newts, turtles, tortoises, tree frogs, geckos, crabs, salamanders, etc. Caring for them, feeding them, gave me peace and allowed me to love. One turtle I had had a cracked shell. He lived in my room for many, many years. I always preferred him, with his defects, to the others. I think I feel the same about people.

As a child, I became obsessed with the Galapagos Islands, and mostly the tortoises. I would read about them in encyclopedias and race to see them at zoos. I always felt connected to turtles. They were my spirit animal. Later in life, I’d bloom, my feathers growing, my pride, alive. I’d no longer consider myself a turtle, my spirit animal changed. I told this story to my colleague Eben Sermon, who runs eBay’s German business: I always wanted to be a turtle. But I ended up a cockatoo. Eben brought this up last week in Berlin and it made me think a bit more about affinities for animals and how I have not had that connection as often as I probably should.

So this week, before we ring in New Years in Rio, I will honor the old me, the kid, the quieter Bradford, the sadder Bradford, by visiting those turtles, finally.

And I’ll marvel at the wonder of nature and evolution, both the evolution of animals and this world, and also the very real and dramatic evolution of my spirit and happiness.

Happy Holidays, Peace & Big Love

[sol1056]

Can you explain why LGBT representation is so important and why Voltron's negative portrayal of LGBT characters/rep should be scorned as harshly as it has been? I'm trying to prove a point to a friend and they don't get why representation has to be as important as we're making it.

Oh, this is a huge topic, and one I’m not sure I could do justice to, all by myself. Given that, this time I’ll let people speak for themselves. Anyone else reading (and I know a whole lot of you are out there) who’ve valued representation – regardless as to whether you relate to the character as a lived experience – feel free to add your thoughts, or links to any other articles, podcasts, or videos you’re recommend.

Fabricio Leal Cogo, Why Queer Representation Matters

I remember growing up here in Brazil and not seeing anyone like me portrayed on TV—or at least, not anyone with a similarly complex inner life. The few times I saw gays on TV, they were always a punchline in a comedy—a source of laughter. Many people, I’m sure, are probably thinking: It’s just a joke, right?

But representation matters.

It’s impossible to overstate the power of being able to identify with a public figure, particularly when that figure is actually seen in the fullest sense. As Michael Morgan, a former professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a researcher on media effects, told the Huffington Post earlier this year, “When you don’t see people like yourself, the message is: You’re invisible. The message is: You don’t count. And the message is: ‘There’s something wrong with me.’” He continued: “Over and over and over, week after week, month after month, year after year, it sends a very clear message, not only to members of those groups, but to members of other groups, as well.”

Uma Dodd, Queerbaiting And The Issue Of LGBT Representation In The Media:

Of the 125 movies released by major US studios in 2016, the media monitoring organisation GLAAD found that only 23 (18.4%) contained characters who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer – an increase of less than 1% from the previous year. … It’s insulting, and often quite disheartening, to be told that you’re only worth the three lines of dialogue and five minutes of screen time that the one LGBT character in a film might have, just because of your sexuality or gender.

Queerbaiting relies solely on subtext and the subsequent interpretation of it by fans, and as a result, creates the perfect paradox: writers are able to attract an LGBT audience with vague promises of representation, implied by the text and often encouraged by the writer, but will then never actually confirm or explicitly show said representation, reducing the amount of effort that has to be put in on their part.

You may say that I’m blowing this issue out of proportion, but that too, is a part of the problem. Because queerbaiting is based on purely subtextual hints, any evidence of it, no matter how blatant it might seem to the viewer/reader, is often insubstantial and difficult to quantify. This allows writers and cast members to dismiss the anger of LGBT fans as simple overreaction and, as a result, makes any legitimate pleas for better representation easier to ignore.

Another by-product that has resulted out of increasing calls for better LGBT representation is implied representation. This is where writers will claim that a character is LGBT but never explicitly show this within the TV show, film, or novel.  This is a method which has been employed by many creators of famous franchises, and it allows them to insert that token bit of representation which makes them look good, without ever actually providing said representation explicitly … Not only does this result in LGBT characters, once again, being shoved into the background – and often killed off for shock value – it raises the question: is this kind of representation good enough?

…Whilst any representation of non-heteronormative characters is a good start, this way of representing us can’t be allowed to become the norm – we deserve to be explicitly shown in the media as much as anyone else does. We need better representation and we need to be shown that not all LGBT characters have to remain in the closet, because what kind of a message is that sending to those young people out there who are currently questioning their sexuality?

B. Whiteside, 6 Reasons It’s Important to Have LGBT Characters on Children’s TV Shows:

A recent study by the Williams Institute at UCLA revealed that nearly 6 million adults and children have an LGBT parent. There are more than 125,000 same-sex couple households with nearly 220,000 children under the age 18. These children go to school and are active members of their communities. Their identities and home life deserve to be portrayed and represented just as much as anyone else’s.

Being a child can be tough, especially when one can’t identify with anyone around them. There are children and young adults alike who identify as LGBT or have parents who do so. Having content that mirrors their lives can, in fact, save their own. It isn’t always easy for children to articulate what’s wrong or what they need. So it can be a tremendous help to see their favorite character in their same predicament live out their life and truth.

Aristeaus Sizer, We Need To Talk About LGBT Representation, Apparently:

…since Cinderella, there have been 11 Disney princesses. All of which have been heterosexual, and the majority of them married by the end of their film. There is no shortage of straight princesses in this world, so why would it be such a crime for one of them to be LGBTQ? If anyone is forcing any agenda down anybody’s throats, Mary, it is you and your heteronormative agenda.

As a heterosexual, and I don’t mean to patronise here it’s simply the truth, you cannot understand in full capacity how important representation is. Seeing yourself on screen in a genuine, non-caricature form is hugely validating. When I was a kid I thought being gay was like doing drugs, it was a fun choice you made when you wanted to spice things up, and that all came from the films I had seen and how sordid LGBTQ people were portrayed as being. Then, later on into my teenage years, I thought I’d never be able to show public displays of affection without violent repercussion. Again, this was because of the media I had consumed telling me this. Films and media may not dictate our personalities, but they tell us how much of it we should hide, and the implicit message when you have an entire franchise of heterosexuals is that anything other should be kept underground, out of sight.

…we’ve been everywhere for so long you’ve just never noticed. Primarily because every movie and every advert and every t.v show and every animated cartoon is packed to the brim with straight people. LGBTQ people deserve representation because there’s far more of us than you think. … To you, it’s just a gay Disney princess where there could have been another straight one, but to someone that princess is the validation they needed that they aren’t some abomination or sinful mistake. They’re valid, they’re wonderful, and they have every right to love and be loved.

Danielle Cox, The Importance of LGBT Representation in Media:

[In 2016, GLAAD’s annual] shows the highest percentage of LGBT characters on our televisions … [but] when more than twenty-five of those characters are killed off in the same year, we know there is still a lot of work to be done. In fact, GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis released a statement saying, “When the most repeated ending for a queer woman is violent death, producers must do better to question the reason for a character’s demise and what they are really communicating to the audience.” When this ending is repeated in show after show and character after character, we can’t help but think the message they are sending is about the worth of our LGBT characters or rather lack thereof. 

James Dawson, The importance of LGBT visibility in children’s books:

I was unaware gay people even existed and, when puberty hit, found myself more than a little lost. I so dearly wish there had been just one book with a character who was a bit like me – just a normal teenage guy who happened to be gay. I would have especially loved one whose sexuality did not define him.

I just know that had there been a diverse range of people like me in books when I was growing up, I wouldn’t have felt abnormal for all those years, which I see now, overwhelmingly, I am not. In 2014, it’s my hope that all young LGBT people can see themselves in fiction and recognise there is a place for them in the world.

Palmer Haasch, “Yuri!!! On Ice��� and the importance of positive LGBTQ representation:

Despite my resigned certainty that I was about to be drawn in by the potential of a queer relationship only to be disappointed for the umpteenth time, Yuri!!! On Ice managed to exceed all of my expectations. In the end, the show delivered a thoughtful portrayal of two men developing a deep and trusting romantic relationship that provides LGBTQ viewers with representation of queer individuals being happy together above all else, which is something that we desperately need.

For me, it was the first piece of entertainment media I had seen that didn’t present queer individuals as “other,” but allowed them to simply freely love and exist. While watching, I didn’t have to worry about whether Yuuri or Victor would be outed in an unsafe environment or if Yuuri was going to be unfairly judged on the ice because of his sexuality like so many real life figure skaters have feared in the past. Rather, I fretted over when they were finally going to kiss (because really, it was a long time coming) and if I was ever going to get to see the wedding that was hinted at by their matching gold rings.

Although it is true that the discrimination-free world of Yuri!!! On Ice isn’t realistic (yet), it can help reassure queer individuals like me that they can experience love in the same way as anyone else. At the same time, it provides a glimpse of a future where being queer doesn’t mean being “other”. And that notion is something that I will always work towards and protect.

Additional reading:

Why Visibility Matters

Make Them Gay: Why Queer Representation Matters

Why LGBT Representation Is Important In Media

We Need More Than Visibility

Why It’s Important To Make More Diverse LGBT Films

Queer Representation in the Media

Why Television Needs More LGBT Characters

Importance of LGBT Representation

[lordendsavior]

Harry Styles is a faithful disciple of silence. He rarely does interviews, and when he does he speaks with charm and cheek while avoiding any nuggets of actual information that could be described as revealing. Until he started doing press around his debut solo album this spring, giving him various bits of artwork and magazine covers to screengrab, his Instagram looked like an A-Level photography project—full of dramatically monochrome shots of infrastructure and food. His Twitter timeline is essentially a corkboard littered with messages expressing thanks to his fans, structured like love letters from a husband in the trenches—"See you soon. Love. H."

In our climate of oversharing, his withholding nature may conveniently double up as a watertight marketing tactic, creating a shroud of mystery that's inherently desirable (what's he wearing today? What's he eating for breakfast? What does he do when he's not making scheduled public appearances?). But for him, it's more than that – "When I go home, I feel like the same person I was at school," he told Rolling Stone earlier this year, "You can't expect to keep that if you show everything."

This is why you don't often see Harry Styles among the names that frequent the daily aggregated news cycle of and Person Says Thing > The Thing is Outrageous! > Actually, The Thing Is Very Nuanced > Ugh, Someone Has Said Something Else Now. He has, to paraphrase someone he once dated, removed himself from the narrative. But, at the same time, Styles has created a narrative that exists just between him and his fans. Simply put: he cares about them, very sincerely and very unabashedly. Which isn't unusual—Lady Gaga is a perfect example of the often very intimate way fandom culture works today—but Harry Styles is muse to such a vast number of teenage girls, a demographic whose interests and opinions are rarely taken seriously by music critics or society at large, that his respect for them takes on a different meaning. It's a relationship best summarized by the following quote from Styles in that Rolling Stone interview: "Who's to say that young girls who like pop music—short for popular, right?—have worse musical taste than a 30-year-old hipster guy? That's not up to you to say." He goes on: "Teenage-girl fans—they don't lie. If they like you, they're there. They don't act 'too cool.' They like you, and they tell you. Which is sick."

This was also the defining characteristic of One Direction's relationship with their fandom. They knew exactly who elevated them from bronze winners of a generic talent contest to global superstardom, they knew exactly who kept them there, and in return they gave them what they wanted. In the wake of their split, journalist Anna Leszkiewicz described One Direction as "a towering monument to the power of teenage girls."

It would have been both a strange and fairly stupid move for Styles to abandon that relationship moving into his solo career, but if anything he seems to have doubled down. He still doesn't say a great deal to the press, save for the endless shouts of appreciation for the people who make his life possible—namely, his fans and faves (artists like Stevie Nicks, to whom Harry Styles owes much of its inspiration)—but over time he's fostered a channel of trust that means his shows have become as close to a safe space as is possible for young girls to get as far as experiencing live music is concerned.

Harry Styles is currently touring Europe. He passed through London last weekend, with fans arriving to camp outside Hammersmith's Eventim Apollo in west London as early as Tuesday. Approaching the venue on Sunday evening, the area outside is deserted. It looks like a Glastonbury camping zone on clean-up day. Duvets are draped over the empty barriers; the floor is littered with foil blankets and carrier bags full of empty sandwich boxes and crisp packets; Pride Flags and Black Lives Matter placards have been taped in place like calls to arms. Everyone is already inside, obviously, and has been for ages. There are about 50 girls camping across the road on a patch of grass underneath Hammersmith flyover so they can be first in line for tomorrow's show. To arrive on time to a Harry Styles show is akin to missing it.

As for inside the venue, you can hardly see the stage for the number of LGBTQ Pride and Black Lives Matter signs held aloft by the audience. In Manchester, people also held up the city's bee symbol. The "I love you"s and "Marry me"s stereotypically associated with teen girl fandom are still very much there in spirit, but their articulation has taken on an actively political tone. The rainbow, the striking black and white of the BLM logo, the Manchester bee—all are symbols of support shared widely on social media, where pop fanbases tend to be most active, exemplifying a generational shift in consciousness towards social awareness. Here, they're brandished less a show of resistance and more as a celebration. People feel comfortable expressing themselves this way because they know everyone in the room is already on their side.

Styles has spoken generally about equality in the press before ("Most of the stuff that hurts me about what's going on at the moment is not politics, it's fundamentals," he told Rolling Stone. "Equal rights. For everyone, all races, sexes, everything"), but it's what he says at his shows, addressing people directly, that means the most to those who care the most. Throughout the night he encourages people to be "whoever you want to be in this room" and continually thanks them "from the bottom of my heart." Someone throws a Pride Flag on stage and he holds it with both hands above his head and runs back and forth across the stage. Someone else throws a French flag and he does the same. Someone else throws a bit of tinsel and he drapes it around his shoulders like a stole.

The room is full of groups of teenage girls hugging each other, hugging people they didn't know, turning to ask the people behind them if they could see alright. Anyone crammed towards the front has been there from the second the doors opened, denying themselves water or a sit-down so they could be as close to their idol as possible. The show had to be stopped twice to help two girls who fainted in the pit. Harry calmly asked people to take a step back, repeatedly checked if everyone was okay and spoke soothingly about looking after one another. He played "Kiwi" twice because it's what the fans wanted, though not without a bit of showmanship ("if you want us to play it again you're going to have to scream louder than that").

It's also worth noting that, although it was ostensibly The Harry Styles Show, five of the ten people onstage are women. As well as a female drummer and keyboardist playing in his own band, he's being supported by MUNA—a goth-pop trio from LA whose music communicates the emotional disarray of sexuality and relationships, as well as heavier topics like assault, through a specifically queer lens. On stage in Hammersmith this weekend, they repeatedly acknowledged the marginalised communities present within the crowd, providing reassurance that—in this room, at least—they are seen and heard. There are, sadly, so many awful reasons to feel unsafe at any show, but in light of the Manchester Arena bombing, pop shows now carry a particularly horrific association that lingers in the back of your mind and can make you inadvertently take note of the emergency exits. Rather than avoiding it, guitarist/vocalist Naomi McPherson addresses the elephant in the room and reminds people how brave they are for being here at all. Singer Katie Gavin introduces their single "I Know A Place"—essentially the San Junipero episode of Black Mirror as a song—by describing it as their imagining of an ideal world we should be working towards. "I know a place we can run / Where everyone gonna lay down their weapon," Gavin sings over a dancey four-to-the-floor beat, "Don't you be afraid of love and affection."

For all the talk of inclusivity and equal rights often thrown around within subcultural communities like punk, hardcore and indie—predominantly male-dominated spaces that can't seem to go a day without someone in a band being called out as abusive—it strikes me as significant that this is one of the few shows I've ever been to where I've not felt threatened by anyone in the room. And it's not because I am, at 5 feet 3 inches, one of the largest people in this one. It's because Harry Styles supports his fans' politics while they really live it, and as a result his shows have become a place for people to celebrate being whoever they are. The diversity of the room itself speaks to that. He's cheering just as much for his fans as they are for him.

Pop music is accessible and available in ways that more subcultural music isn't, but this dynamic doesn't just present itself anywhere. Justin Bieber shows, ecstatic as they may be, are not largely comprised of kids shouting down racism while overtly celebrating their queerness. Pop, like all music, can often be a form of escapism—a way to forget yourself, especially if being yourself can mean facing a multitude of hardships. The actual content of Harry Styles' music isn't anywhere near political but, because of the way his fans engage with him and each other, his shows inherently are.

Obviously, anything can happen anywhere and anytime. Harry Styles' name on the front of a building can't guarantee the absolute safety of everyone in it. But it does foster a world away from our current one; a world that feels less oppressive and more like MUNA's "I Know A Place." I can't imagine how valuable it is for teenagers to experience that—even if it's just for a night.

[postvibesofficial-blog]

This Isn’t Going to Be Your Forever

Tips for Queer Youth Stuck at Home With Trans- and Homophobic Parents The global COVID-19 pandemic has put a huge amount of pressure on a huge number of people. In many households, the strains of closed schools, lost jobs, health issues, and close quarters mean that tensions are high, tempers are short, and privacy has become a luxury. If you’re a young queer person who is now isolated with trans- or homophobic family members, you probably know that better than anyone. Maybe things are normally okay at home, but now it feels like everything you do is under a microscope. Maybe an environment that usually just felt tense, now feels unsafe. Maybe you’ve been holding everything in for so long that you feel like you are about to burst and have nowhere to go let off steam. Whatever your situation looks like, the fact is, you could probably use a little support. So here are a few ideas to help you stay as physically and emotionally safe as possible during these difficult days. Stuck at Home During high school and college, there were plenty of times my parents and I butted heads, or got under each other’s skin, or found ourselves in epic screaming matches. One of the things that helped the most was getting some space. These days, many of the self-care strategies that you probably use to manage everything from dealing with microaggressions to flat-out dangerous situations just aren’t going to be possible. Those might have been things like escaping to a friend’s place, being at school, participating in your GSA, going to a movie or a coffee shop, staying at your grandma’s, or even just taking a walk. So what can you do? For Darid, a high school senior who's a member of GLSEN’s National Student Council, what has helped most has been staying connected to the outside world. They say, “I am fortunate to have my own space and my own room in the house to get away from everything, and just focus on myself. I’ve been keeping in contact with friends. We FaceTime almost every day. We even developed a routine; every Saturday, we get together virtually and have movie nights through Netflix Party. Finding a group of friends and starting a mini routine or picking out an activity to do together virtually has been helping me hold on to some type of normality.” That will resonate for a lot of young people. But for others, connecting virtually is going to be a bigger challenge since it is estimated that almost half of all Americans don’t have reliable Internet. That can be tough under normal circumstances. But as everything from school to socializing has moved online, it can make you feel even more isolated. Depending on where you live, you might be able to borrow a device or get online via your school. WiFi may also be available through a public place, like outside a library or a McDonalds. Some young people have also been given the okay to safely connect in real life by doing things like taking a physically distanced walk or bike ride, or having a distanced picnic with friends. Being Yourself If you are like a lot of people, your home self isn’t identical to the self you share with friends, teachers, or at your job. For some of you, being at home might actually be a relief and a nice break from the stresses of your regular life. I teach middle and high school health and I was surprised to hear from one of my students who said they were actually happier at home than at school because they weren’t dealing with daily drama. But for a lot of young people, especially LGBTQIA+ youth who have trans- or homophobic parents, home is anything but relaxing, especially if you need to constantly think about how you are acting, talking, or presenting yourself in front of your family. That is often called code switching and it is a crucial survival tactic for a lot of queer youth. But it can also be an exhausting and stressful one, especially if you have to do it 24/7. As Darid says, “I am a senior in high school, so I currently live with my parents. At first, it was difficult to adjust. For me, I code-switch a lot. The way I act and express myself with my family is completely different from the way I express myself with my friends. So it was hard, not having supportive and queer spaces that I often occupy.” If you are modifying how you present yourself to avoid triggering hostility from your family, it is also a good idea to try to find ways to express yourself authentically. That can be with friends over a video chat, dressing up alone in your room, writing in a journal, or even watching a movie or listening to music that speaks to you. Coming Out and Being Outed Coming out should always be your own choice, done on your own terms and timeline. But being isolated with your family, especially if you don’t have any privacy, can increase the chance of being outed before you are ready. Your sibling could pick up your phone and see a revealing text. You could get overheard on the phone. Your parents could be watching your every move looking for “signs.” For one college student, being home from school right now meant being pushed to come out by religious parents. As she wrote on Reddit, “A couple of months ago my mom asked me if I was gay and I said I wasn't because I did not want to be forced out of the closet.” However, being at home has changed the dynamic and after being asked and confronted repeatedly about her sexual orientation, she came out. The result? “My parents are not really taking it well,” she wrote. While some of you are probably terrified that your families will find out about your identity, others of you might be desperate to come out to them. That can be the case if you feel overwhelmed by the difficulty of keeping everything inside. Coming out can definitely be an amazing experience. But it can also be a risky one. So if you are leaning in that direction, you really need to think about whether or not now is the best time. Here are a few things to ask yourself: How do I think my family will react? How will coming out impact my situation at home? Is it safe, physically and emotionally, for me to come out to my parents? Do I have resources available (both emotional and financial) if coming out changes my situation at home? Do I have people whom I can talk to before I come out to my parents? What will waiting to come out until after the pandemic ends do to me? What are the upsides of waiting? What are the downsides? If you go through this list and decide that coming out at home it isn’t the best choice right now, you should know you still have options. For example, there might be a friend or family member whom you could call and talk to. If your school or college has a GSA, or something similar, you could also reach out to the person who runs that. Many communities have LGBTQIA+ community centers that have programs for youth. You can find your closest one at Centerlink. If you have privacy online privately, there are also a lot of places you can find support. For example, you can ask for advice on the Scarleteen message boards, live chat or via text. There are also groups like the Trevor Project or the LGBT National Youth Talkline which are geared towards queer and questioning youth in crisis, and sites like Q Chat Space, that can help you connect with LGBTQIA+ peers. If you hadn’t been involved with the queer community before the lockdown, getting involved now could actually be a good way to ease in since there are more virtual spaces around than ever. When Life at Home is Unbearable Sometimes a person’s family of origin is just so toxic or abusive that being at home is unbearable or unsafe. Some young people suffer verbal or physical abuse. Others are forced into conversion therapy. This practice, which falsely claims to be able to change sexual orientation and gender identity, had been banned in almost half the states. However, minors are still being put into these dangerous programs by parents. Getting help from a supportive community, an affirming school guidance counsellor, an understanding family therapist, or an LGBTQIA+ - friendly religious congregation can help families work through many of their issues. But there are plenty of situations where needed help isn’t available, or it just isn’t safe for a young person to live at home. As a result, some choose to leave. Others are removed by the state. Far too many get kicked out by their parents. That generally isn’t legal if a person is under 18. But, sadly, that doesn't stop it from happening. Whatever the reason, if you can’t live at home, the first thing to do is to see if you can stay with a friend or family member. That option is really going to be impacted by the state of the pandemic and by the rules about physical distancing where you live. If finding someone to live with doesn’t pan out and you are facing homelessness, or if you are already unhoused, try to locate LGBTQIA+-friendly services. When dealing with a crisis like losing your home due to trans- and homophobia, the last thing you need is to hit up against the same prejudices in the outside world. These days, you can find LGBTQIA+ focused services for youth in cities around the US and Canada as well as in many countries around the globe. Lambda Legal has a good list of resources for LGBTQ youth by state. In some areas, there are even LGBTQIA+ shelters and residences. One of those is the Ali Forney Center in New York City, which is committed to staying open throughout the pandemic. They also have a list of resources specifically for youth facing homelessness around the country. In extreme cases, teens can seek legal emancipation from parents. This gives minors the legal rights and responsibilities of adults. But with courts closed, jobs hard to come by, and schools shut down, this probably isn’t the best bet for most people. What it All Comes Down to Being a young person queer with trans- and homophobic family can present challenges during the best of times. But right now, living with parents who are hostile to your identity is probably just about one of the hardest things around. So it is crucial that you find ways to stay safe, honor yourself, and get support. Sometimes talking to a friend you know in real life, finding your people online, or reaching out to an organization that supports queer youth is a good option. Other times, just being able to step outside your front door by yourself can give you the headspace you need to get through the day. This isn’t going to end overnight. But try to remember that what you are experiencing right now, and whatever you are doing to survive it, also isn’t going to be your forever. Source link Read the full article

[exploringsocialinformatics]

Blog #6: The Internet Could Empower Women If People Would Just Be Cool For Once

I wrote this based on the article Young Women’s Blogs as Ethical Spaces by Mia Lovheim, which I chose because I was interested by how constructive the Internet was framed and because, as a woman who has strong opinions on the internet, I know that isn’t necessarily always the case.

I have been a woman on the Internet for roughly seventeen years and it has opened up so many opportunities for me to express myself, to meet and engage with people I could’ve never connected to in real life and to collaborate with similarly-minded writers and artists. I’ve made lifelong friends online, fallen in love online (I wouldn’t recommend this but it’s fun while it lasts!) and developed so many aspects of my identity.

The only reason that I have been able to do these things is because I have done them in woman-dominated spaces and queer-dominated spaces.

Because while I’ve shared my opinions on Tumblr as a curated, personal space, I’ve shared the same opinions on Twitter and had someone threaten to rape me.

The internet is amazing! It’s also a toxic cesspool that limits my ability to express myself and open up my ideas to a wider audience! Both things are simultaneously true even though it’s sometimes difficult to rectify them.

There’s an encouraging amount of literature surrounding gender-based harassment online. Many of them give strong examples of the kind of harassment that women and female-presenting people face when they do things like say words and have emotions where people can see them online. Most women won’t need to dig into that literature because they see this in their daily lives; men experience online harassment at dissimilar rates and of a dissimilar nature (harassment aimed toward men is typically homophobic or belittling their masculinity; gendered but not nearly as violent [Jane 533]), but if they’d like to see examples of the vitriol that women face, all they need to do is read replies to tweets by women who talk about politics or sports or video games or television or music or movies or. . .you get the picture.

The point of this is not that the internet is irredeemable—although I am going to share enough of that literature that it may appear that we absolutely should burn it down and start over—but that it needs to be redeemed. We’ll get there, though.

Amnesty International has done a lot of work studying the issue of online harassment of women. In response to the #WomenBoycottTwitter day, they commissioned a poll that included women between the ages of 18 and 55 in Denmark, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the UK and USA. They found that 33% of women in the United States had experienced online harassment or abuse—and it’s important to remember the context that these are not all necessarily people who are actively using social media, especially considering the age range (”Amnesty Reveals Alarming [. . .]”).

TIME reports that the United Nations did a study that said that 73% of women have experienced online harassment—I would lean toward accepting theirs as it seems Amnesty’s sample size was limited (Alter 2015).

I’m going to toss out a list of statistics that came from the Amnesty poll that are genuinely upsetting to consider:

41% of women who had experienced harassment were made to feel physically unsafe

26% were doxxed by their harassers

46% said the harassment was rooted in misogyny specifically

25% were threatened with physical or sexual violence  (Amnesty International 2017)

Remembering again that this was a poll targeting women and not just women who are regular social media users, these numbers are staggering. And these aren’t just individual occurrences or one-off attacks. The nature of Twitter in particular means that messages spread rapidly—and so do attacks. According to studies of Twitter’s abuse reports, at least 29% of the reports filed by women were addressing ongoing attacks (Women, Action & Media) and according to an additional poll from Amnesty: the more visible and vocal a woman in, the more frequent harassment she’ll endure. A study of 778 female politicians and journalists (disproportionately women of color) found that they received abusive tweets every 30 seconds—1.1 million a year between them.

I couldn’t possibly get into #GamerGate here and give it the attention it deserves but, if you managed to avoid that nightmare in 2014, it’s something to look up that will really cement this problem for you.

And it is a problem—but it’s not just a problem because women feel threatened, because allowing a culture of harassment and degradation like this is inherently wrong, because this is something that impacts our lives on a semi-regular basis even if we’re not public figures. It’s also a problem because women are being silenced.

Even back in the early 90s before the insane access that we all have to each other online, women were “found to introduce fewer topics of discussion and receive fewer public responses than men” (Megarry 29). It’s no different than women speaking less in a classroom or meeting (Tannen 2017)—just a different venue. That form of silence seems more rooted in social norms, though, and in the early 2000s, according to Rodriguez-Darias and Aguilera-Avila, “the expansion of the online world was hailed as a catalyst for the development of democracy, equality and women’s empowerment by enabling access to information and social support” (63).

All of that is still true in 2020 and has made an incalculable difference to women all across the world. It’s just that now they’re statistically far more likely to receive hundreds of threats of violence and rape and have their address shared all across social media platforms because they said something about a video game.

Those threats and that atmosphere that makes women feel unsafe and like they can’t truly express themselves creates a framework that holds women back. When I said that I formed my identity on the Internet, it’s some of the most tender important parts of me—if I had been faced with this kind of harassment when I was younger, it would have been detrimental and I would have lost one of the few safe spaces I felt I had. People use the internet to convey their identities in so many ways that can be taken away from women: hashtags “convey attitudes and social identity” (Fox, Cruz, Lee) but also makes it easier for harassers to target you, “gendered avatars and usernames” (Assuncao) allow for gender expression that. . .makes it easier for harassers to target you, and all of these things tie into self-esteem that women could be building if they had access to positive, empowering communities. And it is unquestionably impacting their self-esteem: according to Amnesty International’s report, 61% of women experienced lower self-esteem and Emma A. Jane compiled information about how women described their experiences with online harassment, with words like “distress, pain, shock, fear, terror, devastation and violation” (536).

Because of that distress, that fear, that terror—women self-censor themselves. According to the same Amnesty report, 76% changed the way they used Twitter after facing attacks and 32% stopped talking about certain topics altogether. By being forced to endure the same gendered violence and discrimination that we face in the real world in a virtual setting, it’s like there’s no escape.

There’s one issue that can be brought up to complicate this: freedom of speech. This argument doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny on a base level. Social media networks aren’t actually entirely beholden to the First Amendment—which prevents the government from silencing you, although its reach has differed—and Twitter has a conduct policy that prohibits threats, slurs, degrading people, wishing ill on people, etc (Hateful Conduct Policy). The Internet often exists as a lawless, Wild West-type place, though (your Reddits when poorly monitored, your 4Chans, for example), and there will always be people on it that will believe that the freedom to speak their minds supersedes everything else. Freedom of speech is important and these are useful conversations to have to make sure that the platforms that we’re using are operating equitably.

A platform that allows women to be shamed or threatened into silence is not operating equitably, though. We should have the freedom to speak openly without worrying about our safety. Twitter is already addressing this issue but it hasn’t been enough—according to the survey of their abuse reports, only 55% of reports led to suspended accounts, 67% of women who reported said they’d done so at least twice and, mostly notably—Twitter’s staff at the time of their study (2014) was 79% men (Women, Action & Media).

Let’s loop back around to my ultimate point here: redeeming the Internet. Focusing on Twitter, there are plenty of plans of actions they could take to do better, including hiring more women and actively listening to their feedback, training their employees more thoroughly to recognize and address forms of harassment, and being more open about condemning both misogyny and other systemic issues like the spread of White Supremacy. These are all relatively small steps that could start to change the wider culture and start the inevitably unbearably slow process of detoxifying the Internet so it’s accessible for everyone.

Resources

Alter, C. (2015, September 24). UN: Cyber Violence is Equivalent to Physical Violence. Retrieved from https://time.com/4049106/un-cyber-violence-physical-violence/

Amnesty and Element AI release largest ever study into abuse against women on Twitter. (2018, December 18). Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/12/crowdsourced-twitter-study-reveals-shocking-scale-of-online-abuse-against-women/ 

Amnesty reveals alarming impact of online abuse against women. (2017, November 20). Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/11/amnesty-reveals-alarming-impact-of-online-abuse-against-women/

Assuncao, Carina. (2016). “No girls on the internet”: The experience of female gamers in the masculine space of violent gaming.” Press Start, 3(1).

Fox, J., Cruz, C., & Lee, J. Y. (2015). Perpetuating online sexism offline: Anonymity, interactivity, and the effects of sexist hashtags on social media. Computers in Human Behavior, 52, 436–442.

Jane, E. A. (2012). “Your a Ugly, Whorish, Slut.” Feminist Media Studies, 14(4), 531–546.

Megarry, J. (2014). Online incivility or sexual harassment? Conceptualizing women’s experiences in the digital age. Women’s Studies International Forum, 47, 46–55. 

Rodríguez-Darias, A. J., & Aguilera-Ávila, L. (2018). Gender-based harassment in cyberspace. The case of Pikara magazine. Womens Studies International Forum, 66, 63–69.

Tannen, D. (2017, June 28). Do Women Really Talk More Than Men? Retrieved from https://time.com/4837536/do-women-really-talk-more/

Twitter. (2020). Hateful conduct policy. Retrieved from https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hateful-conduct-policy

Women, Action & Media. (2015, May 15). Reporting, Reviewing, and Responding to Harassment on Twitter.

[angryinterrobang]

I'm so so interested in your views of Kyoshi's bi-pansexuality. What do you think about Kya and her being in the closet despite the Air Nation being accepting??

Anon is referring to this post where I kvetch about fandom’s portrayal of Kyoshi as a primordial valkyrie with Báthory bathing habits and not a breathing human being. Kyoshi could have been so many interesting things with interesting flaws to go with them! Maybe in her early days learning the elements the people in power treated her differently because she was a peasant from the ass end of nowhere. Maybe she didn’t always like being so tall. Maybe she was bitten by a vampire. And maybe, just maybe, if her society told her being gay was wrong she didn’t instinctively know to jump for joy when a smiling woman gave her goosebumps. Ya’know. A person.

As for Kya I’m not sure. I’m working off of spoiler content. Of what I’ve seen I’m okayish with it- because to me it didn’t seem like she was fully closeted so much as very careful. The glass closet lots of people on the rainbow spectrum use.

(Note: I am discussing this from a Watsonian perspective. There’s a larger Doyalist conversation about how this comic portrays the Four Nation’s response to queer identities. I am not a fan of how simplistic everything is or how. Hmm. Not Western exactly. Just odd. Both Water Tribes have the same views? The entire Earth Kingdom has always had the same view through all of history? If you say so.)

Back on topic-

My generation of the family is batting a solid 50 to 75% notstraight™. We’re all very accepting- my grandmother doesn’t always understand and my father often asks earnest invasive questions of most everyone, but our homes are a safe space. We spend a lot of time laughing.

BUT. We still live in what the press likes to call a purple state. This means out there in the world there are places where it’s unsafe to be different. Liberal college campuses can be very freeing- but then you step out of them and you just don’t know. You don’t know if it’s safe to hold your lovers hand.

“Some people out there… are afraid of what’s different. And sometimes they want to hurt people like Stef and me. So, every time we’re out and I want to hold Stef’s hand, but I decide not to… I get mad. Mad at the people who want to hurt us, but mad at myself too. For not standing up to them. The thing is… if you’re taught to hide what makes you different, you end up feeling a lot of shame about who you are. And that’s not okay. There is nothing wrong with you for wearing nail polish. Just like there’s nothing wrong with me for holding Stef’s hand. What’s wrong is the people out there who make us feel unsafe.”

In the same way, from that clip I saw, it seems Kya was being careful with who she told. When she saw a young couple she made sure they knew she was a safe resource but otherwise; Republic City, the world she went wandering in, was predominantly Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom where she couldn’t be certain. Especially as the Avatar’s daughter with the rise of invasive modern media.

The Air Nomads might have been more accepting but they were not in control of this wider world. I don’t see how the Air Nation is that relevant when they are less than a hand full of years old.

Maybe Kya came out to her parents, who loved her and supported her, but still felt a lump well up in her throat when her Water Tribe Healing sifu talked about “family values”. Maybe her Air Nomad philosophies kept her moving around the world and it was hard to find a safe space over and over and over again. She states straight up that she’s had girlfriends; maybe they were longterm. Maybe she didn’t always correct a stranger when they called them “such good friends”. Maybe she had her heart broken a time or two, decided to take a break, only for friends to suggest she’d gotten over her phase.

At the time of the show she’d moved to the Southern Water Tribe where “People like to keep family matters private. No one’s going to disown you for coming out…” so maybe Kya decided to be more subtle than she had in her own hippie communities. Maybe she wears that necklace so people assume she’s a widow and leave her alone.

We just don’t know. I’m not going to shame a fictional character in a world that has just been established as homophobic for not inventing the rainbow pin.

[affinespaces]

The bay area tech booms were a godsend for many young (white) queers living in places where it wasn't safe for them to be themselves -- in principle, good tech companies don't care about who you are so long as your engineering skills and computer science fundamentals are on point and you aren't a nightmare to work with. That has led to queers getting hired and attaining senior roles at many established tech companies, and many of those companies consequently emerged as strong advocates for queer rights and dignity, and pioneers in the way of creating comfortable work environments for queer folks. As recent news would suggest, that hasn't been the case at every tech company, and might not even be true at most, but it's a phenomenon worth noting. But that hasn't done much good for many queers on the outside -- namely, those who were in the bay area before it became associated with tech, who are older, or who are non-white (and especially not for those who are black).  The overwhelming majority of queers who found comfort and acceptance in tech are white. 

The rising cost of living in the Bay Area has led to a steady loss of stable unskilled jobs -- these are increasingly supplanted (mostly by tech companies) with exploitative gig economy work and 1099 contractor roles. Likewise the loss of affordable housing has led to rapid displacement of peoples and the rise of horrific and unsafe conditions for those that remain -- e.g. warehouse situations like ghost ship, converted basements like the one under a laundromat from which two dozen latino migrants were forcibly removed just a couple weeks ago, and closets, toolsheds, and just about anything else a human being can be crammed into. These sorts of situations are very, very common among low income queer folks living in the bay area. 

The extent to which tech is responsible for creating these conditions isn’t even a question, and if it is, you are willfully confusing yourself. There are plenty of resources 

Regarding having constructive conversations about this -- I have been deeply frustrated at seeing conversations critical of tech get shut down, ignored, or tone policed. We are talking about peoples lives here -- where they live, whether or not they get to stay in their homes, how they earn their money, whether or not they have any rights if they get hurt on the job. So anger you should expect -- it's very personal, and many people have had to deal with some pretty heinous stuff such as: living in a laundromat with 24 other people, toxic mold, outright homelessness. 

It’s especially frustrating seeing people respond with “i’m a queer and i’m a techie”. Good for you. now shut up and sit down -- you live in an entirely different world from the queers who aren’t techies. You have a job that pays you a stable salary, gives you benefits, and stable housing. You aren’t living in a toolshed, struggling to come up with rent despite working multiple exploitative, very physical jobs, finding yourself unable to afford good quality therapy (because therapy is another one of those things that has become inaccessible to low income folks as therapists struggle with the cost of living and find tech salaried folks are willing and able to pay more for it), or food for that matter.  

I think that if folks in tech were more interested in having these conversations sooner, and more willing to work through their feelings of being attacked and towards having some kind of empathy for people who've found themselves on the wrong side of the tech boom without being dismissive or condescending, then there wouldn't be so much anger directed at them. 

[treysenglishclass-blog]

Opinion Series

Religious Conservative Parents:

In today’s world, you may have started to notice more and more LGBTQ+ characters in your TV shows, movies, books, etc. As normalization of these types of characters is integrated into various media, you may start to feel uneasy about these characters and why they’re in your story. My intent is to help you understand why LGBTQ+ representation is important and why an understanding of this community is important when raising your children.

I understand that change is scary.  According to research, older generations are more reluctant to change because they were raised in religious and conservative backgrounds, where change is not deemed favorable. A study that was conducted in 2015 found that throughout America, the more religious and conservative a person is, the more likely they are to oppose the LGBTQ+ community. (cite)  This is because when America was first founded, religion was at an all-time high. The laws and societal standards set by our founding fathers were based on religious bias, and created a status quo; a status quo that encouraged the discrimination of LGBTQ+ people because of what their religions taught. Because of religion being highly ingrained in America’s culture, conservatives often share the same ideologies as religious people. These ideologies are resistant to change and oppose equality in order to maintain the status quo. People who were raised in these conditions understandably get scared and angry when the status quo begins to change. They’re not used to seeing LGBTQ+ people, and everything they knew when growing up is being flipped upside down. 

Over the years, the status quo has been changing as people come to understand that LGBTQ+ people are not an issue. The American Psychological Administration created a pamphlet to help people understand the LGBTQ+ community better. The pamphlet teaches that people start to become aware of their sexuality during middle childhood and early adolescence, and while there is no scientific consensus as to why people have a certain sexual orientation, people overwhelmingly feel no sense of choice in their identity. (cite) Homosexuality is not a mental disorder either. “Despite the persistence of stereotypes that portray lesbian, gay and bisexual people as disturbed, several decades of research and clinical experience have led all mainstream medical and mental health organizations in this country to conclude that these orientations represent normal forms of human experience”. During adolescence, people tend to be the most exploratory with their sexual feelings. When these young people come to their conclusion, it’s important to be supportive no matter what. Support leads to happy, satisfying, and healthy lives.

The idea of support is also backed by a researcher and social worker, Caitlyn Ryan. Ryan has worked with families and LGBTQ+ people for over 40 years. In her work, she has found that there is a lack of communication between families and their LGBTQ+ youth. Caregivers have admitted to not knowing how to treat their LGBTQ+ children; they’re unsure of the LGBTQ+ community and grow scared and angry when they see the paths their children are going down. Many times caregivers feel there is pressure to choose between their religion and their LGBTQ+ child. These findings led Caitlyn to create the Family Acceptance Project; an organization that aims to teach caregivers about their LGBTQ+ youth, and help these caregivers understand how important their support to their LGBTQ+ youth is. When an LGBTQ+ child is rejected, that child is “more than eight times as likely to have attempted suicide, nearly six times as likely to report high levels of depression, more than three times as likely to use illegal drugs, and more than three times as likely to be at high risk for HIV and 2 sexually transmitted diseases.” (cite) Caitlyn has helped numerous families with tips on how to accept your LGBTQ+ children. Her method is just to love and support them. You don’t need to choose between your child or religion. 

Through my research, I have found that a lot of homophobia comes from just a lack of understanding of the community. Because of religion creating the status quo, there has been a lot of misinformation spread about LGBTQ+ people. These people are not sinful. They are normal people who were born with a different sexual preference. Because children start becoming aware of the sexual orientation at such a young age, we need to start showing them support at that age. If you demonstrate homophobic actions or use homophobic words in front of your children, think about how that may affect them. If they’re LGBTQ+ you may send a message that your child is wrong. This is seen as rejection and puts your child at risk of struggling with many mental illnesses, stresses, and lead them to indulge in high-risk activities. If they’re not LGBTQ+, your actions and words may send the message that it’s okay to discriminate against these people. This inadvertently can lead to bullying of other children. You don’t need to choose between your religion, but I hope you gain a better understanding of LGBTQ+ people and learn that they didn’t choose to be the way they are. Why would someone choose to be discriminated against? Also, please understand the importance you play in your child’s life. You never know if your child is going to be LGBTQ+, so make sure to watch your actions and words around your children. 

Media executives:

Over the years, there have been more and more representations of LGBTQ+ people in media. While this is incredible, and I thank you for letting these representations pass censors, there is still some stigma around the LGBTQ+ community. I feel you should know just how important this representation is, especially for LGBTQ+ youth. 

In 2014, a study was done through twitter that asked LGBTQ+ people 14-21 about their social connectedness, truancy due to feeling unsafe, school-based and cyberbullying victimization, sadness, suicide ideation and attempt relating to their sexual orientation and gender identity. The study concluded that these people are more than twice as likely to have suicidal ideologies and attempts. Some of the people surveys reported feeling safe at home and school, but there was still a gap outside of those places. Because of the stigma of LGBTQ+, it is harder for people of this community to reach out for help, and instead internalize their feelings. For the people that don’t feel safe at home, school, or anywhere in between, there should be a place for them to escape and feel accepted. This journal argues that integrated learning, without excluded anyone, on LGBTQ+ people and issues is most beneficial for decreasing LGBTQ+ bullying and suicide ideology. The Journal also argues that with youth suicide in LGBTQ+ people increasing, adults should be calling for action. Since these adults have the power to teach their children, they need to be teaching their children that these people aren’t an issue. The study shows that exposure to LGBTQ+ people helped decrease LGBTQ+ youth suicide rates. 

So what’s one of the best ways to show support for this community? TV and movies!  By seeing a positive representation of themselves in TV and movies, they can escape into a different world where they feel accepted. These people can start to gain a better understanding of themselves and see themselves in a happy future. By having positive LGBTQ+ representations in family-friendly content, you not only tell LGBTQ+ people that they’re important and cared for, you teach their straight peers that these people are normal, and they deserve love and support. Children are extremely perceptible to what they see on a screen. You see children playing pretend and acting out their favorite movies and shows all the time. In 2005, there was a study done that recorded how children responded after 6 months of watching prosocial content vs watching violent content. The results found that children who watched prosocial content behave more prosocially than those who watched violent content. With this finding in mind, think about how that can relate to LGBTQ+ content! By showing LGBTQ+ people being treated as equal and loved, you can teach all children that LGBTQ+ people are equal and loved! This would be doing what the previous study suggested. Decreasing suicide rates in teens form the LGBTQ+ community, by teaching everyone through integrated learning!

If you’re scared of how LGBTQ+ people will be interpreted by audiences, take a look at an example from Rebecca Sugar. Rebecca showcased the first lesbian wedding in her show, Steven Universe, and crowds went wild for it. Her show centers around healthy relationships and queer identities, and it’s one of the most viewed shows on Cartoon Network of this decade.  After years of heteronormative content, LGBTQ+ adults thanked Rebecca for her fight for inclusion in the show. Rebecca argues that by deeming LGBTQ+ content as not child appropriate, you are teaching children that there is something wrong with them at a young age. By including LGBTQ+ content in children’s shows, children don’t have to learn they’re wrong just to unlearn that as an adult. 

Ultimately, you guys are the ones with the final say of what goes into the creator’s content. In years past, there have been fights with censors to get LGBTQ+ content approved. By understanding that children are perceptible to what they see on screen, and the positive effects showing this content would have, you guys have the ability to mold youth’s minds and save lives. 

 LGBTQ+ young adults:

While LGBTQ+ has been becoming more normalized over the years, thanks to the media portrayal of these people creating more exposure, there is still a lot to do. A researcher in Denmark did a survey with a bunch of youth groups asking them about heteronormativity on TV. A lot of them have an understanding that being LGBTQ+ is only about sex when we know that its just part of who we are. The researcher also learned that a lot of these groups didn’t have Anti-LGBTQ+ Bullying endorsements, leaving the children to learn that being gay isn’t natural and should be seen as a joke.  Obviously, this is wrong. 

Looking at how the media portrayal of our community has positively changed over the years, you can see a lot of change was made during the Stonewall riots. These riots helped start paving the road to equality and awareness of our community. In the years that followed, more and more networks pushed for LGBTQ+ content to be presented in TV shows. Some of the most notable in family-friendly content include Korra being Bisexual in Legend of Korra, Steven Universe’s statements on gender and same-sex couples, Princess Bubblegum and Marceline’s relationship in Adventure Time, etc. All of this began as a push from the public to raise awareness of our community. 

It is up to us older LGBTQ+ people to raise awareness on the matter. As children, we don’t make much of a difference in the world of media. Adults think that they know better, and are the ones that are listened to. Since children don’t have this voice to get things changed in how LGBTQ+ is presented, it’s up to the older generations to stand up for them. We need to fight for LGBTQ+ representation because it’s important for kids to understand at a young age that they matter and that being LGBTQ+ is completely normal. While we push for this inclusion, it’s important to remember to respect the people with power. I know they haven’t respected us, but if we fight fire with fire, it just creates a bigger fire. I know it’s hard to confront this because a lot of people are hateful, so it’s better to just ignore it? We have to be strategic about it. I’m not saying we have to excuse their actions, especially with how many people are hurt from straight people in power, but we do need to work with them to make the progress we want to see. 

As adults, it falls on us to push for inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community in family-friendly media, but we must be strategic about our approach. If we just yell and complain about the lack of representation, it can both paint a negative picture of the LGBTQ+ community, and also send us further back. No one likes to be yelled at. If we come from an angle of understanding and love and take the time to fully explain why this is important in our lives, chances are people are more likely to listen to us. We’ve seen people push for this acceptance in the past, and it has made a difference in the long run. We’ve seen progress in our representation in TV and movies which helps normalize us and decrease bullying. I’m not asking you to forgive people who’ve hurt us, I’m asking you to be the bigger person. Yes, we’ve suffered for years, but we’re on the rise. While there is still this imbalance, and while we’re young, we need to show the older generations that LGBTQ+ is not an issue. We need them to listen to us, and people will listen when it comes from a place of love and understanding.