#queer literature on the lawn

[givemetherapyimawritingtravesty]

Reading queer literature on the lawn under an old oak tree, listening to Taylor Swift. I AM the aesthetic.

[flowersforfrancis]

Becoming a character in a dark academia novel - A beginners guide:

Show off your love for literature, fine art or mythology. Make sure everyone knows you’ve read Plato. And Shakespeare. And Homer. Basically, Quote an old white dude who’s probably dead at least once a day.

Make sure to be seen running through your school. Develop an aesthetic run. Maybe do this with a group of equally experienced friends.

Please don’t own anything plastic or overly bright. (this is definitely for the environment). 

Have a set of fucked up morals. But make sure to prepare yourself with some smart sounding excuse that essentially intimidates people and deters them from asking questions.

Murder someone or be murdered. Either one. (I’d say it’s your choice, but if you’re being murdered, well, it’s probably not).

Develop an addiction- I’d recommend something like red wine, or cigarettes. Or both. (But you didn’t hear it from me).

Embrace the angst, the insanity, the insomnia and the general dislike for others.

Don’t worry about being friendly; coldness is encouraged.

Learn several old languages that most people don’t actually speak. If this truly isn’t possible: resort to French.  

Please, for the love of [insert old white dude here], be dramatic.

If you aren’t rich then either embrace it as an aesthetic. Or just lie.

Either get a small, cluttered apartment, or a giant fucking mansion.

Be smart.

Listen to classical music.

In terms of love you have a few choices: fall In love with someone but then kill them. Be queer and deny it. Be queer and fall for heterosexuals (or at least people who think they are). - basically please never get a happy ending with someone you actually love.

Exist only during winter and autumn. I suppose you may spend some time in spring. But only make brief appearances in summer. If you’re seen during summer, make sure you’re at a lake, or on a lawn, or in a sunlit library, maybe a sailboat?

Read.

Get some collared shirts.

If you get glasses they better be obscure.

Make sure people see you drunk. Maybe knock on a classmates door whilst drunk.

If you aren’t six feet under, remember to be mature and regretful years after your time at your elitist school.

Oh yeah, receive an elite education. (Or hang out in public libraries a lot?? Idk).

Avoid healthy relationships. Or maybe form an inseparable bond with someone. Honestly this can still be unhealthy. Probably will be.

Never have a good relationship with your family. They must be either dead, uninterested in you, far away, or just plain shitty.

[northern-passage]

this past week (october 1-7) was banned books week. last year, censors targeted a record 2,571 unique titles, a 38% increase from the 1,858 unique titles targeted for censorship in 2021. the majority of these titles were written by or about members of the LGBT community, Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color.

[source]

recently, back in July, we saw Mississippi ban Hoopla & Overdrive for people under the age of 18, restricting young people's right to read and their access to library resources. this is likely going to continue as more parents lobby for "parent's rights" (aka the right to treat their children as property) and pressure school boards to remove certain books from the education system.

but there are people that are pushing back against these restrictions: Leah Johnson, author of You Should See Me in a Crown, has spoken out vocally against book banning as well as her experiences as a Black queer woman. she's also opened her own bookstore, Loudmouth Books in Indianapolis, which will be a haven and spotlight for marginalized voices and controversial literature.

George Johnson, author of All Boys Aren't Blue, has joined the PEN America vs. Escambia County School District to challenge the removal and restrictions of books from school libraries within Escambia County, Florida.

There are also multiple library systems across the country that have joined the Books Unbanned program, which offers free digital library cards to anyone age 13-21.

Brooklyn Public Library: ages 13-21, anywhere in the U.S.

Seattle Public Library: ages 13-26, anywhere in the U.S.

Los Angeles County Public Library: ages 13-18, California only

Boston Public Library: ages 13-26, anywhere in the U.S.

[source]

a lot of these book bans claim to be for the "safety" of children, but that is simply not true. these book bans target LGBT literature and Black literature indiscriminately. this does not protect children, it endangers the most vulnerable of them.

Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe, was the top banned book in 2022. You can find the author here, where e reflects extensively about the current book bannings & advocates for children's right to read as well as the rights of other banned book authors.

Some of the other most banned books of this past year also include (in no particular order):

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Sold by Patricia McCormick

Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman

Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison

Melissa by Alex Gino

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Push by Sapphire

at the end of this banned books week, we should continue the conversation and support for marginalized authors and diverse literature, especially for children, in schools & libraries. get involved at your own local library, talk to your children or your siblings or your nieces and nephews, attend their school board meetings, and contact your representatives and speak out against book censorship.

[mariana-oconnor]

The Dancing Men pt 1

His head was sunk upon his breast, and he looked from my point of view like a strange, lank bird, with dull grey plumage and a black top-knot.

This is probably not the image ACD (nor Watson) intended to conjure up, but this was what I immediately thought of.

Ooh, we're starting with a Holmes deducing Watson section again. That hasn't happened for a while. I thought Watson had got over his amazement at having it turned on him. Apparently not.

I looked with amazement at the absurd hieroglyphics upon the paper. “Why, Holmes, it is a child's drawing,” I cried.

Watson knows some very intelligent egyptologist children.

“Well, Mr. Holmes, what do you make of these?” he cried. “They told me that you were fond of queer mysteries, and I don't think you can find a queerer one than that."

Yes, but aside from Holmes' taste in literature, what about the paper?

OH, I have read this one before. I didn't remember the title, but I do remember the little stick figures. Not that that reminds me of anything else.

"You'll think it very mad, Mr. Holmes, that a man of a good old family should marry a wife in this fashion, knowing nothing of her past or of her people; but if you saw her and knew her it would help you to understand."

Oh no, Mr Cubitt, have you been honey trapped?

"If you take me, Hilton, you will take a woman who has nothing that she need be personally ashamed of; but you will have to be content with my word for it, and to allow me to be silent as to all that passed up to the time when I became yours."

Oh dear... this is not a good sign. If you're not willing to share your past with the guy, you really shouldn't share your future with him. Where's the trust? Where's the communication? You don't have to explain everything in detail, but he should have at least a little idea of what it's about.

Red flags once again.

"It was only the day before our wedding that she said those very words to me."

She might be a perfectly nice person, but she doesn't trust you

"None did come for a week, and then yesterday morning I found this paper lying on the sun-dial in the garden."

I might be remembering wrong, but last time a mysterious coded message was left on a sundial in these stories, three people were murdered by the KKK.

That story also started with a person being deiberately secretive with information that could have savde people's lives.

“Don't you think, Mr. Cubitt,” said he, at last, “that your best plan would be to make a direct appeal to your wife, and to ask her to share her secret with you?” Hilton Cubitt shook his massive head. “A promise is a promise, Mr. Holmes. If Elsie wished to tell me she would. If not, it is not for me to force her confidence. But I am justified in taking my own line—and I will.”

Because hiring a detective to snoop into your wife's secret past is so much better than asking her directly. I get that you made a promise, my man, but while this may be sticking to the letter of that promise, it absolutely isn't sticking to the spirit. Asking your wife is definitely the lesser of two evils here.

"After that I determined to lie in wait; so I got out my revolver and I sat up in my study, which overlooks the lawn and garden."

Given that this is Sherlock Holmes story, the person leaving these notes probably is very dastardly and liable to murder, but I'm not sure leaving weird encoded messages really calls for guns.

“‘What, be driven out of our own house by a practical joker?’ said I. ‘Why, we should have the whole county laughing at us.’"

"Seizing my pistol I was rushing out, when my wife threw her arms round me and held me with convulsive strength."

Was it a pistol or a revolver? Because earlier you said you got your revolver, and now you're saying pistol...

The dancing stickmen are very cute. I like the upside-down ones the best.

So, is this going to be one of the ones where someone dies before Holmes gets there? It feels like it might be. But ACD does prefer happier endings for his couples when neither of them is the bad guy. Guess I'll have to wait and see.

[savpumpkinhead]

crying over classic literature is WILD to me. like do you think william shakespeare turns over in his grave everytime a little queer person crys over horatios love for hamlet. do you think bram stoker absolutely stirs in hos grave everytime someone reads quinceys death and thinks about him and arthur. maybe im a little gay???? also i always cry when nick yells across the lawn for gatsby, thats also one. i bet fucking zelda fitzgerald is getting some major vibes in the grave

[zabe-books]

Queer Joy

“We’re looking for stories about queer joy. Joyous queers. Happy queer stories. No homophobia/transphobia. Happy endings.”

“We want authentic queer narratives.”

When my mother explained to me what being gay was, she bent and whispered it in my ear, so no one else in the house would hear her say it. I was eight. I remember thinking that doesn’t sound so bad but everyone–my classmates, my church, my family–was convinced. My father caught me reading a story someone wrote about their lesbian characters in the Sims 2 and installed a parental controls module on the computer.

Two years later, I had a crush on the captain of the girls’ soccer team, and I was horrified with myself. I vowed to never tell anyone, to keep it a secret from everyone I knew until my dying day. I was eleven and I thought I would be tortured in hell for all eternity because I liked how shiny another girl’s hair looked in her ponytail.

I spent my childhood in a state of terror that still haunts me. Not to sound dramatic–most queer people do. You grow up. You do the work of putting yourself back together.

And then you tell your story.

One of my most profound moments of queer joy: I’m a few weeks from graduating college. Me and a group of trans friends I’ll be parting from set up a kiddie pool on the dorm lawn at 3AM. We float in the water and sing hymns from the churches that rejected us. The next day, we’ll go back to the hometowns we’re not safe in and build ourselves some lives from toothpicks. It’s the Last Supper and a baptism all in one. God is in the water.

Queer joy. We want queer joy. I hear it over and over in publishing circles. We want queer joy. But I have never experienced any kind of ‘queer joy’ that hasn’t been touched–or given meaning–by the circumstances that marginalize queer folk to begin with. A bawdy joke in a bowling alley. The celebration when a friend leaves an unsafe household. The invisible language of touch in a gay bar saying things you cannot safely share out loud.

There is joy and then there is queer joy. To me, queer joy is rooted in overcoming oppression, in dodging a gender norm, in seeking love and community against the odds. Queer joy is not permitted. It’s something illegal, taboo, something that must be stolen. I can write a queer person experiencing joy at finding a nice pair of shoes on sale. But to explore why that joy is queer, I need to hold in my head the laws and customs that deny us the right to self-expression, the consequences and complications and the intersections that go into something as simple as planning an outfit for a night on the town. Other authors may not, but I do.

When I turn to queer literature, I look for stories about navigating the complexities of queerness–how you can belong in one moment and be banished in the next, how you can be hyper-visible and invisible all at once. I look for queer depression, queer anxiety, queer trauma–for queer characters who bear the scars of living in an unfriendly society and yet move forward. Other people want to read about people without trauma falling in love and expressing their gender how they please in magical worlds without homophobia and this is their right. But unless we invent a time machine and I can drag Baby Me to a kinder, safer era (whenever that may be)–queer joy with no homophobia is as alien to my authentic lived personal queer experience as life on the moon. And to build a literary canon that represents queer life, we need to keep the doors open for stories about pain.

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

for the writer asks!

🌻💌💫

🌻what makes you want to give up on writing? what makes you keep going?

i don't know if anything could actually make me give up on writing. i love it too much. the thing that makes me keep going is the writing itself. like, legitimately, when i feel myself getting to stressed and overwhelmed at like, life and my Actual Professional Job and shit, I take an afternoon off to write and it's legitimately like a pressure valve is released. It makes me happy in a way that nothing else really does, so I don't think I could ever give it up.

that being said, at risk of sounding like an old geezer shaking their first at kids on their lawn, i've seen a kind of devaluation of writing and literature recently that makes me a bit discouraged at times.

mandatory disclaimer: i do think that people have always been people and that we've been doing shit just like what i'm complaining about forever, it's just that the internet makes it easier to see, so i don't think anything is like, a product of today. people do the same things they've always done. I also do want to say that due to the nature of the ask that this is all way too broad of a criticism and that an actual discussion of literary criticism and writing today would require way more detail and nuance.

that being said, i think that a lot of current trends in fandom that i see just sort of devalues writing, literature, and literary criticism as an enterprise.

there's this weirdly puritanical insistence of analyzing all written work in a primarily moralistic framework, which i think is often just toxic to actual meaningful literary analysis. and we're back to book banning now and defunding public libraries, so it's really going to shit. there's a big devaluation of older literature nowadays, and reading comprehension of a lot of the books being critiqued in those respects is at times, nonexistent.

there's a lot of mob mentality. i've watched a lot of really amazing writers get attacked or driven off entirely based on some pretty baseless critiques of their writing--and like. this is something that I personally find to be one of the most disheartening things? I've seen multiple amazing queer artists get harassed because they didn't like, submit their Queer Card for the perusal of grown adults on the internet before writing the very kinds of stories those people want. and I think that it becomes very worrisome when there's a lot of people who have decided to judge written work not by it's actual content but rather by like, demanding the intimate personal details of the artist that no one is entitled to.

and i think that there's just a real devaluation of just writing as an art in general? I've seen a lot of analyses of fictional works that are like "the story is bad because the writer didn't do X." And I'm reading it like "huh. yeah you just wanted it to be a different story entirely. like, that's not a problem with the original story, it's just that you'd rather be reading a different story to begin with." Everyone's out here trying to be an amateur english professor--and like, I want to be clear, there's nothing wrong with amateur literary analysis. It's fun. I do amateur literary analysis. But a lot of what I see keeps getting tangled up in this weird drive to frame everything in primarily moralistic terms, and I think it's weird that the majority of fandom analyses or breakdown that I see tend to be discourse about whether some writing decision was Morally Right or Wrong. And that's not to say it's all the analysis that I see online--it's just common. Like, I'm still seeing the ace jon discourse on my dash in this the year of our lord 2023 and it's kind of weird to me that a lot of media appreciation on the internet is just us beating each over the head with rocks so we can claim the high ground. Dont get me wrong--sometimes there is a moral issue to be discussed, I just don't think it's nearly as often as a lot of fandom seems to think it is.

All of these things i'm referencing are very vague and non-specific, and none of them can be effective critiques without a more nuanced discussion, so I'm not certain I said anything of tangible merit in the past five paragraphs. and I do want to say that there's a parallel conversation about the very necessary role that critical analysis and examination for biases and harmful stereotypes, including in a moral framework, plays in our engagement with literature--it's just not one that really answers this question, so i won't subject you to it.

none of this really discourages me from writing so much as discourage me from being a writer. Like--I only dump my fan fiction on this tumblr, but I've got purely original works too. I've loved writing for almost a decade now, and I always dreamed of doing it professionally. but i also really love law and am fulfilled by it, and sometimes i wonder if i want to go through the potential hassle of publishing or if i just want to keep my stories for myself. I mean, i probably would still if i ever get that opportunity, but i also probably would chuck my phone into the sea if i ever made anything moderately popular

💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

there's a time loop TMA AU that I'm kind of looking to publish once I clear a few stories off my docket. It's much shorter and more artsy than nhthcth, which is part of why i'm considering writing and releasing it, because nhthcth is a fucking BEAST of a story and while kintsugi itself is much shorter, the series is Many Parts, so that's also gonna be around for a while.

i'm excited for it because it hits that kind of perfect balance of being very sad and wistful while still getting a decently happy ending. like, you get all those fun angsty emotions and there's still loss but it's still happy in the end.

💫what is your favorite kind of comment/feedback?

i answered that here and usually i try to come up with a different answer when i get duplicates but i feel like the nature of having a favorite means I can only have one

[libidomechanica]

Suddenly in her which to his soul once filld by

An’ I saw the prime of literature     self did make glad the foaming eye, and constitute     taught the Stripling, howsoever

sin. A horse haustus ter in     Cashmire had a sword of blood, the Lark, the rest. For sith the     poor crept till each man tremble

of nobler than she; whether     this I do it for mind, their eyes were. Of those Easter-hands,     from far estrange, in gloss

of bluntie, Tam; but, as I can scarce     more than to rail at the flesh, as well as milk; but don’t know     my wrath and Doom: the slow

close poison wall is higher.     Suddenly in her which to his soul once fill’d by her life is     not feelings, what the

ambulance wakes all vital through the     surf and, falling,—no method as calmly as a vapour     of social art of the

Saxon kingly ill-bred. Second     thence Love in beamy black curls as warm, and away. If I     can not loving, rapid,

merciable, I found nudgers, queers,     funny feel the web, she had got Haidee’s isle and this canvas     close shadowed sky, seem

paradise; and its brother, who     row’d see the living than coughed, she could be found above the     lines, olive, in love’s

regardless describe; describe; description     of the nights might be, by rebellious Lust, nay! I walked     weigh in sunlike, should I

don’t look a surveys the pang is     fled,—the shade: she had she took a survey up and dangers     maim. Which have me pardon

to discord-loving happen as     his dunghill, crowing—whether off from Heaven, either men:     the wheel of ever two

from eyes just an antics were falls     far arose age, and sing mynde. And my Highland dranke of     sensations; so tormenting

thy shadowed lawn; scenes! Heaven is     adorn his public honour; gay damsels glad the unreturn’d     in placed a wrong. He

that he metamorphosis in     vain; for love their pace; but strong appear in its gold, of course.     To lose myself and did.

[h3r3s-a-st0ry]

Book Banning | An Essay

Banning books is a harmful act of censorship. The idea of book banning is not only an infringement upon the first amendment, but it also disproportionately affects minorities, including LGBTQ+ persons and black Americans. Banning books is old-fashioned, unlawful, controlling, and silences communities most in need of a voice. 

PART I: The History

Though the first book ban in the United States is difficult to track, most can come to an agreement that the first widespread book ban was Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, due to Stowe’s abolitionist themes. About ten years after the Civil War, Anthony Comstock, a government official, convinced the United States to pass a law prohibiting the mailing of pornographic materials. But Mr. Comstock’s definition of “pornographic materials” is absolute ludicrious: anatomy textbooks, doctors’ pamphlets concering reproduction, anything by Oscar Wilde, and The Canterbury Tales. And yet, this law passed, and the then-slang term for banning was dubbed “comstockery” due to his influence (Brady).

Then, in the court case, The United States v. One Book Called Ulysses (1933), the judge overturned a federal ban of James Joyce’s Ulysses, which had been in effect since 1922. This book was originally banned due to explicit depiction of sex, though the judge decided that the depiction of sex, even if unpleasant, should be allowed in serious literature. There were numerous court cases following this one, trying their definition of pornographic materials, though it was ultimately decided that these books that continued to be challenged were not pornographic or excessively violent, but they were simply depicting the real world. Yet, there are people today who still struggle with the idea of letting the nation freely read whatever they please, and though many consider book banning to be something of the past, in the year 2021 we have seen hundreds of attempts to ban works of literature due to citizens being unhappy with the message of the book, or even the authors’ sexual orientation and/or race. 

PART II: Infringements Upon Human Rights

The same people who threw tantrums over Donald Trumps’ ban from Twitter are the same people who don’t realize, or refuse to admit, that book banning is a form of censorship. The First Amendment provides that “Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise. It protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” (The White House).

Books that are most targeted for bans typically contain violence, disrespect for parents and/or family, are sexually explicit, exalt evil, lack literary merit, are unsuitable for a particular age group, or have offensive language. Book bans usually take place in educational settings, which is further discussed in PART III, but there are people who attempt to ban books world-wide. Frequently challenged books include Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, Lawn Boy by Jonathon Evison, All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, among hundreds upon hundreds of others (Meckler). But, typically, books are challenged in the educational setting, as book ban court cases typically only take place on the state and local levels, and are rarely ever upper priorities.

PART III: Schools

In numerous sources, people claim that children’s literature is the primary target for book banning, as many parents want to censor what their children read and learn in the classroom, which is understandable. 

But there is a difference between restricting access and banning, as most schools are coming to realize. Banning is not constitutional, but restricting access is. That is to say that school libraries cannot physically remove a book from the shelves, but they can restrict access to it, or require parent permission for the child to be able to read it. However, schools are unable to ban books from notorious/generally accepted authors, such as Mark Twain, J.K. Rowling, R.L. Stine, Judy Blume, or Robert Cormier (Webb).

Another court case, Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v Pico (1982), ruled 5-4 that public schools can bar books that are pervasively vulgar or not right for the curriculum, but cannot remove books simply because they dislike the ideas within those books (Webb). Many people remember that over-told story where one teacher from the south refused to read a book about evolution since the idea of evolution went against the beliefs of the Bible, a prime example of what this law is protecting against.

There’s also the issue of parental involvement in their children’s education. Many parents wish to ban books in the name of being a good parent, protecting their children from the horrors that life will bring them down the road. Is this protecting or just temporarily shielding?

The simple solution is the development of a strong parent-teacher relationship. Typically, teachers do not have much control over the literature chosen, as it must coincide with the education curriculum. But, as long as the teacher is transparent and honest about the material being discussed within the book and the classroom, it shouldn’t be an issue.

Oftentimes, the banning of these books in the classroom, which typically target LGBTQ+ authors/themes, is just a cowardly action to avoid having serious conversations about life outside of the classroom, even though that should be the aim of education in the first place: to prepare students for life after school.

PART IV: Who is Banning Really Censoring?

Banning books silences voices that are the most in-need of being heard. There’s a lot of politics involved in the book banning dilemma. Generically, conservatives move to ban books involving race, sexuality, and gender. But there are also liberals who move to ban books that “marginalize minorities or use racially insensitive language” (Harris), such as the infamous To Kill a Mockingbird, which heavily discusses racism and why society has so much work to do towards equality, but uses racial slurs as is consistent with the time period of this book being written. Recently, a Tennessee school district removed a book about the Holocaust: a topic heavily discussed in history classes, which is paramount for a full understanding about the inhumane actions taken against Jewish individuals.

Most targeted books for banning in 2021 were by or about black or LGBTQ+ persons, according to the American Library Association (Meckler). As previously mentioned, this censorship removes the possibility for discussion and better understanding of topics that are in need of discussion for better comprehension at a young age, such as gender expression, race/racism, and sexuality. The lack of these conversations will only lay the groundwork for increasing bullying, disrespect, violence, and attacks against others. 

Homophobia and racism is likely the driving force behind book banning. One example of homophobia playing into the banning of books involves the Mayor of Ridgeland, Mississippi, who had recently withheld funding from the Madison County Library system. “He would not release the money until books with LGBTQ themes were removed,” says the library’s executive director (Harris). 

It seems that for every step forward American society makes in regards to gender expression, LGBTQ+ rights, and equality, there are two steps backward, returning to transphobia, homophobia, and racism. Now that these groups are finally able to tell their stories, something that had rarely happened in literature, they are once again being silenced due to a prejudiced political climate. 

Book banning should be something of the past, as it does not benefit anyone except the silencers. This form of censorship blatantly defies the First Amendment, as it silences the press and also other communities that have only recently been able to express their feelings and experiences without being met with gruesome repercussions. The banning of literature, especially in schools, will create an unaccepting environment with increased bullying and prejudice, undoing any work that had previously been done for equality rights. Not only does this harm students, but by going through all the motions to get a work of literature banned— a work of art that an author may have spent years of their life on— instead of just having a conversation about the abnormal themes of the book, or the language used, shows that these people are cowards and/or do not understand enough about the content material themselves, which actually shows that these books are a necessity in order to move toward a progressive, educated society. 

Work Cited

Brady, Amy. “The History (and Present) of Banning Books in America.” Literary Hub, 22 Sept. 2016, lithub.com/the-history-and-present-of-banning-books-in-america.

Goldberg, Erica. “When Are Book Bans Unconstitutional? A First Amendment Scholar Explains.” Virginia Mercury, 20 Apr. 2022, www.google.com/url?q=https://www.virginiamercury.com/2022/04/20/when-are-book-bans-unconstitutional-a-first-amendment-scholar-explains/%23:%7E:text%3DThe%2520government%2520cannot%2520create%2520laws,such%2520as%2520obscenity%2520or%2520libel&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1653325376487195&usg=AOvVaw0blOVUlZ5bUV0pE0RqoHoO.

Harris, Elizabeth, and Alexandra Alter. “Why Book Ban Efforts Are Spreading Across the U.S.” The New York Times, 8 Feb. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/01/30/books/book-ban-us-schools.html.

Klein, Lisa, and Carrie Leff. “Our Book on Puberty Has Been Banned. This Only Puts Kids at Risk.” The Washington Post, 4 June 2022, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/02/our-book-puberty-has-been-banned-this-only-puts-kids-risk.

Mazariegos, Miranda. “Efforts to Ban Books Jumped an ‘unprecedented’ Four-Fold in 2021,  ALA Report Says.” NPR, 4 Apr. 2022, choice.npr.org/index.html?origin=https://www.npr.org/2022/04/04/1090067026/efforts-to-ban-books-jumped-an-unprecedented-four-fold-in-2021-ala-report-says.

Meckler, Laura, and Perry Stein. “These Are Books School Systems Don’t Want You to Read, and Why.” The Washington Post, 28 Apr. 2022, www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/04/28/book-banned-why-locations.

The White House. “The Constitution.” The White House, 20 Jan. 2021, www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/our-government/the-constitution.

Webb, Susan L. “Book Banning.” The First Amendment Encyclopedia, www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/986/book-banning. Accessed 23 May 2022.

Wikipedia contributors. “Book Censorship in the United States.” Wikipedia, 10 May 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_censorship_in_the_United_States.

Wikipedia contributors. “List of Books Banned by Governments.” Wikipedia, 30 Apr. 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_governments.

[hellomynameisbisexual]

I’m 12 years old, sitting in the bathroom, watching my mother straighten her hair before work.

For once, the house is quiet. No little sister running around and agitating the neighbors below us. No stepfather chasing after, telling her to be quiet. Everything is white and fluorescent. We’ve lived in this apartment in Jersey for a year now.

My mother glides the metal plates down her hair, ringlet curls now tamed from years of constant heat damage. Then, she calmly says, “So, you think you’re bisexual?”

This catches me off guard. I, awkward in clothes that have yet to adjust to my changing frame, sputter, “What?”

“Tití Jessie overheard you talking to your cousin.” Which means she picked up the house phone to spy on our conversation. Great.

My mom puts the straightener down, turning from her reflection to look at me. “So you want to put your mouth on another girl’s vagina?”

Naturally, more panic ensues. “What? No!”

She turns back to the mirror. “Okay, then. That’s what I thought.”

And that was that.

My mom and I didn’t talk about my sexuality for another 12 years.

In that gap of time I was on my own, often riddled with doubt. Thinking, yes, she’s probably right.

I read all these romance novels about strong men pursuing strong girls who became soft for them. As a late bloomer of sorts, I didn’t have a significant other until I was 17. He and I explored entering adulthood together until I grew past him.

I went to college in Southern New Jersey, on a small campus known for its nursing and criminal justice programs. You can guess what my fellow classmates were like.

I was a commuter, so I’d drive through Atlantic City — predominately Black, overwhelmed with unemployment, watched over by the casinos jutting into the sky — and into the woodsy off-shore neighborhoods.

Thin Blue Line flags peppered the lawns of homes I passed, a constant reminder of where the people around me stood when it came to my humanity as a Black girl.

So obviously there wasn’t much space for an awkward, introverted Black girl who knew only how to make friends by attaching to the nearest extrovert.

I was still uncomfortable in my Blackness, and I think the other Black kids at my college could sense that.

So I found a home with the other literature majors. I became very used to attention from people who weren’t my type, while simultaneously never being the type of those who piqued my interest. This created a complex that led to a series of sexual encounters that displayed my need for attention and validation.

I was the “first Black girl” for so many cis white men. My quietness made me more approachable. More “acceptable.”

Many people kept telling me what I was or what I wanted. In sitting around common areas with my friends, we’d joke about our relationships.

As my friends watched me rack up body after body, all of them cis and male, they began to make jokes at the validity of my queerness.

A lot of internalized biphobia is questioning yourself because others get into your head.

Bisexual people make up a little over 50 percent of the LGBTQIA community, yet we’re often made to feel like we’re invisible or don’t belong. Like we’re confused, or we haven’t figured it out yet. I began to buy into that concept for myself.

When I finally did have a sexual encounter with a woman, it was during my first threesome. It was a lot. I was slightly drunk and confused, unsure of how to navigate two bodies at once, balancing the couple’s relationship and focused on paying equal amounts of attention to each party.

I left the interaction a little disoriented, wanting to tell my boyfriend about it, but unable to because of the don’t-ask-don’t-tell nature of our open relationship.

I would continue to have sex with women during group play and continue to feel “not queer enough.”

That first interaction, and many of the following, never felt perfect. It added to my internal struggle.

Was I really into other femmes? Was I only sexually attracted to women? I wasn’t allowing myself to understand that queer sex can be less than satisfying as well.

I had racked up so many underwhelming experiences with men, yet never doubted my attraction to them.

Without queer examples in my life, or in the media available to me, I had no idea what was right.

My environment shaped a lot of my self-perception. When I moved back home to NYC, I realized how much was available outside the blue collar, often-conservative district I’d grown up in.

I could be polyamorous. I could be sex-positive and kinky, and I could be queer as f*ck. Even while having relationships with men.

I realized when I began actually dating a woman, I had continuously boiled down my sexuality to sex — just as my mom had years ago.

In that initial conversation, she never asked me if I wanted to put my mouth on a boy’s genitals. I would’ve had the same reaction! I was too young to fathom sex as a whole, let alone the body parts involved.

My feelings for that girl were real and exciting and wonderful. I felt safer than I ever had in a romantic relationship, simply within the kinship of the same gender.

When it dissolved before it really started, I was devastated in losing what I almost had.

It took a long time to come around to the term bisexual

To me, it implied a 50-50 attraction to each sex. I questioned if it was inclusive of other gender identities, too — so I chose pansexual or queer in the beginning.

Although I still use those words to identify myself, I’ve become more comfortable accepting this more common term, understanding its definition is ever-evolving.

Sexuality for me has never been about who I am attracted to. It’s more so about who I’m open to.

And honestly, that’s everyone. I no longer feel the need to prove my queerness to anyone — not even to myself.

[we-are-inevitable]

new javid au?? you bet!!

hi ok so i thought of an au. basically a stereotypical hallmark movie but make it javid. this au featuures: jack “i was raised on a farm and practice saying important conversations to my cows” kelly and david “i went to college in a big city because i’m built different” jacobs

i might eventually write this out into a fic !! soooo,,

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION:

the jacobs family lives in a small town in a southwestern state.

david jacobs is, of course, a bit of an outsider in the town. he's not interested in farming or country things, he's more into the Big Outside World and wants to study something that isn't very "traditional" for his area (i'm thinking comparative literature or journalism (with a minor in queer studies that he Does Not Talk About because Hello, Small Town!)

anyways he has a devoted friendgroup that he spends a lot of time with:

sarah (david's twin sister, who isn't afraid to get into trouble and has never been very 'ladylike'; plays softball and runs track with tony)

jack (latino farm boy with a heart of gold, a shitty father and a hidden artistic talent; basically the glue that holds the group together)

katherine (a girl who constantly feels trapped in a close-minded small town and wants to get out; also into journalism)

tony (who they call racetrack because he's an all-state cross country runner; biggest dumbass but can solve any math problem ever)

sean (he's basically a god on the football field; extremely intelligent, can play at least 6 instruments; called 'spot' bc Freckles)

charlie (Literally The Best Human Ever; student council president, National Honor Society president, also in drama)

and albert (probably a stoner but he's chill and legitimately the funniest person; troublemaker but also a literal golden retriever)

there's more of them that float between friend groups, but, of course, Davey, Sarah, Jack, Katherine, Tony, Sean, Charlie, and Albert are the "core" friends.

but. surprise: davey is the only one who goes out of state for college.

the rest split up, but stay in state. Jack goes to a trade school (he takes welding courses at the local vo-tech), Tony and Sean end up going to a community college together about 30 minutes away from home, albert goes straight into the workforce under a relative's wing, and charlie, kath, and sarah all go to a big university about 3 hours away from home.

but not davey. no, davey goes to a school in new york, just because he needs to get away from everything.

because davey goes to school on the other side of the country, he rarely gets the chance to come home. this, of course, means that he slowly drifts away from all of his high school friends- aside from sarah, obviously, because he still sees family a lot, but he doesn't talk to anyone else that often... especially jack.

now, jack and david were never a "thing," but there was always some underlying tension. longing stares, late night talks on the roof of jack's barn, hangouts at the diner in town. they were inseperable, pretty much. by far the closest friends out of the group... until jack and katherine started dating. and, yeah, david is happy for them. he's so happy for them- he jumps up and down and screams and shouts when kath and jack show up to school one day holding hands- because jack and katherine have been his closest friends for YEARS. they’re their own little subgroup- Jack, Kath, and Davey- and they go pretty much everywhere together. sometimes sarah tags along too, so david isn't third wheeling, but most of the time it's just the three of them.

but it hurts so much, because david likes jack. but jack is apparently straight. so david goes away. goes to a school across the country instead of, yknow, facing his feelings.

FAST FORWARD TO ABOUT TEN YEARS LATER!!!

david is a successful 28 year old. after graduating from college (where he ended up double majoring in english and journalism, with a minor in queer studies), he works for a publishing company and has a pretty cushy job as an editor or something, idk yet, and he's doing really, really well for himself- until one day, he gets a call from his mom, Esther, and finds out that his father is sick. sicker than he should be, really, and they're just now convincing him to get checked out.

of course, after hearing the news, David is torn. his family is from a small town, so job opportunities are hard to come by... but regardless, within a little over a week, David has moved back home to help take care of things.

pretty soon, david has a job. thanks to his background knowledge in journalism and his writing ability, he's able to score a job from Joseph Pulitzer, who runs a few newspapers in their town and others in the surrounding area. he feels like he's gotten a whole new start from the past he disliked so much, until it all comes back to bite him in the ass when he runs into Jack Kelly at the co-op. 

"Davey?"

"Wha-- Oh! Jack?"

"Good to see ya, man! What are ya doin' back?"

"I moved back a few weeks ago. Missed home, you know?"

"Just couldn't stay away, could ya?"

"Guess not."

they talk for a few minutes, but eventually have to split apart- jack has to get his feed back to the farm before his girls, aka: his cows, get angry, and davey has to get the chicken scratch back home before esther maims him. they exchange numbers, though, and promise to catch up sometime soon.

after that encounter, Jack Kelly ends up showing up a lot more often. davey sees him all the time without meaning to. in line at the grocery store, at the co-op, stopped next to him at the one stoplight in the middle of town- everywhere. they're never able to talk, though; not until one evening, davey gets a call from jack. 

at first, conversation is a bit tense- but only because it's been so long since they've talked. once the ball gets rolling, though, they're laughing and carrying on like they never stopped talking. when the conversation calms down a bit, jack asks davey if he'd like to come over.

"i'd love to, if your wife doesn't mind having a guest, of course."

"i... actually don't have a wife."

"oh-- oh, i'm sorry, i just assumed-"

"nah, it ain't nothin' to twist yourself up about. you know where i live, yeah? swing by 'round seven."

"sounds like a plan." 

and that's how davey finds out that jack owns the land that his father's farm was on. the house, though, is different- and he soon realizes that jack has completely remodeled. the porch isn't rotting anymore, and the yard is green and trimmed, and the pond out in the back yard doesn't look god-awful anymore, much to davey's delight.

dinner goes off without a hitch. everything goes right, just like old times. they swap college stories. jack tells davey about inheriting the farm and making it his own (likely to scrub every piece of his father out of his life), while davey tells jack about the big city and how different it is being home. it's nice. comfortable. familiar.

jack and davey try to meet up as often as they can after that night, which is difficult considering their schedules, but they somehow make it work. they make it really work, in fact- they have dinner twice a week (usually with some old friends), they fish together (read: jack fishes while david sits on the back of his truck and talks to him), and they even go to rodeos and football games together (to look back on they're youth, of course). 

one night, about a week before jack's 29th birthday, they meet up at the bar in town and spend hours drinking beer and whiskey and talking about life. once they make it back to jack's house, they continue talking on the couch, but talking turns into cuddling ("just for old time's sake") and cuddling turns into confessions ("i only dated those girls because i thought it would help me get over you") and confessions turn into tears ("when he found out, he kicked me out of the house") and tears turn into promises ("i loved you then, jack, and i'll love you now") and promises turn into more. 

eventually, more turns a knee on a ground and a ring on a hand. eventually, a ring on a hand turns into a wedding. eventually, a wedding turns into memories, years down the line, while sitting on an old porch swing and watching grandchildren play in the front lawn.

the end !!!!

[queendomcum]

Ship and Let Ship: A Semi-Formal Defense of AkuRoku From An Unbiased Third Party

AKA: I Don’t Want This To Ever Be A Hill I Die On As Someone Who Does Not Care About AkuRoku But I’m Tired Of This Endless Spew Of Hatred From This Fandom AGAIN Hurting People Unnecessarily So Here Is A Really Long Breakdown About Why You Are Hurting People You Don’t ACTUALLY Need To Hurt

There are a few Highly Personal Things things to cover about me before we get started into the Even More Highly Personal Things About Me. Why? Because these things put me in a unique position when it comes specifically to the AkuRoku pairing, and something tells me y’all need to actually understand what you’re campaigning about from someone who’s been through this.

This is 2k and if you don’t read it, don’t interact.

1. I was molested as a child. For years. I am open about this and have been to therapy.

2. I was taken advantage of multiple times in my youth both beneath and above age of majority by older individuals who told me I was “Mature.”

3. I started playing Kingdom Hearts literally when it came out.

4. I’m very, very queer. And Autistic, actually, so point #2 is really that much worse right now.

5. I am -- surprise, surprise -- a published novelist and musician so I know a thing or two about narrative choice, intent, unintended consequences of literature, etc. (No, you cannot have my pen name.)

6. I ship Age Adjusted Leon/Sora, so you can put down the link to my AO3 and stop digging for dirt ‘cause here is your dirt.

Long story short, I was and am very literally the exact person you want and wanted to protect.

Now that we have established these facts, I would like to ask the Antis to put down their pitchforks and acknowledge the fact that this game is aimed at children... and really let that sink in. Now sink into this story.

When I was about four years old my first ship was Cloud and Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII. This game was aimed at people older than me, but I had access to it because my brother played it and I was allowed to watch him play. I had been reading full novels by the time I was two, so I had a comprehensive idea of what was going on with the plot. Somehow I ended up shipping Cloud and Sephiroth. They were adults, though, and I had no interest in that. I was four. I told no one for more than a decade, but my family still actively tried to get the “gay” out of me in their own way, being Mormon. Four years later, Kingdom Hearts came out. I shipped Cloud and Hercules briefly. Coincidentally, I was exposed to pornography and manipulated and essentially brainwashed into being molested around this time. This would go on for years.

My next big ship? Sakura and Syaoran from Card Captor Sakura. They were the subjects of my first fanfiction, a good few years before I knew what fanfiction was. I still remember writing it on my bed shortly after transferring to a new school. I had recently moved. The entirety of the fanfiction consisted of Syaoran giving Sakura a “magical kiss" to save her life. I wrote them as eleven years old. Why? Because I was eleven years old.

I was exposed to pornographic fanfiction for the first time on the front lawn of my middle school in the form of Full Metal Alchemist Ed/Roy fics on a flash drive given to me by one of the girls in the anime club. (Yes, that’s a mouthful.) I devoured them. Why? Because they were reading material, yes, but also no. Not really. That had nothing to do with it. Was it the sex? Maybe. But why did I really devour them?

Because they were Queer.

Do you know how hard it is to find Queer media in a Mormon household? I legit had a VHS of Femme Fatale that I had squirreled away and was so overused by the time I was fourteen that it no longer played the sex scene in the bathroom -- it’s too worn and only gives you screwed up visuals. It was legit all I had for a long time. Why didn’t I have access to Queer media more aimed towards people my age?

Because it didn’t exist.

Steven Universe wasn’t on television. Princess Bubblegum wasn’t a thing yet. She Re was a completely different series. And guess who wasn’t allowed to watch Buffy after Willow came out? Yeah. I wasn’t even allowed to watch Power Puff Girls at one point. And now that I’m an adult, you want to know something? My consumption of Queer media -- and media in general -- has shifted dramatically because of readily available series aimed at children that are willing to address and even include Queer culture. I would much rather rewatch entire seasons of Steven Universe than go back to watching oversexualized, fetishized representations of wlw aimed towards men in a movie that I honestly don’t know the plot of because sound wouldn’t work and there were no subtitles. And you know what? I don’t want to write fanfic about these works. I don’t want to read fanfic about these works.

I want -- and wanted -- to read fanfiction about people my own age. So that’s what I did. That’s what I do. When I was eleven I wrote about characters who were eleven. When I was fourteen, I wrote about characters that were fourteen, and sometimes I aged them up because “Age of consent is sixteen, right?” seemed like a logical thought but at the same time it didn’t really click. Sora/Riku was my jam. And you want to know something really disturbing?

Because of that puritanical divide that absolutely prevented popular queer media from being separated from sex, it was very difficult for young me to understand a lot of things I really should have been taught in school. This was then paired with a constant barrage from mass media that, as a person with a feminine body, I was to be instantly marketable and at all times sexy.

Those Full Metal Alchemist fics? They never made me want to be in a relationship with someone older. I straight up was writing smut fanfic online by the time I was thirteen, stumbling my way around the internet from website to website on dial-up before I found a home on FFnet literally over a decade ago. You know what made me want to be in a relationship?

Super straight forward thinking 1980′s feminist novels written for kids that had all the girl characters actively yearning for a relationship. And you know what? I bought into it. I became a relationship hopper. Why did I become a relationship hopper?

Because I didn’t actually like the relationships.

I always figured something was wrong. That something was wrong with me, specifically. I didn’t get it. I was confused. It took me years to realize that -- much like the characters in the fanfiction I absolutely devoured -- I was queer. In what way, I didn’t know. But not before some older men approached me and asked to date me. And I said yes sometimes. Why? It’s not because fanfiction normalized it to a young impressionable mind. So why?

Because Mass Media, my Parents, and high school had done that. I didn’t even notice there were age gaps in those fanfics. You wanna know why? Because I didn’t know the characters’ ages a lot of the time. Axel? I didn’t know. He looked older. I didn’t care. Roxas? Who knows? He’s a Nobody. They’re both nobodies. They’re not even technically human. They both had their memories stripped from them and are slowly recalling their past lives with the lens of literal apathy and I looked at them as ageless beings, which is actually how I saw literally every character in the media I interacted with that wasn’t live action because age was a number I didn’t quite understand, compounded with the fact that this game was not live action and it was difficult to find a distinction between ages when 15 year olds were literally half the size of fully grown adults. I read the occasional akuroku fic, but my heart was in Riku/Sora because you played the same game I did and Sora dropped to his knees and cried.

Now.

Let’s summarize a bit of that, okay? I wrote who I wanted to read about -- people my age. I was shipping from an unusually young age. I was writing from a young age. I was trained from an even younger age through mass media and literally everything everyone did that queer media was only for adults, and Adult Only Content meant Sex. I was queer and acknowledged that I liked queer media, even if I had to actively hide it, and thought I had to run in certain circles.

Were there fics more associated with my age group? Yes! Yes there were! Did I read them? Yes! And I can name a number of fics that absolutely changed my life for the better.

Did I -- a victim of sexual abuse and literal brainwashing -- ever write media under the age of eighteen that was possibly super messed up and glorified the wrong things and sent the wrong messages? Did I mess up on tone and presentation and accidentally promote super messed up stuff?

Absolutely.

And that divide doesn’t magically stop when you turn eighteen.

What did I do?

I deleted them when I realized they could be harmful.

No one flamed me. No one messaged me. I realized they could be harmful and I took them down. It’s that simple.

Would I have done this sooner if someone pointed out what I had put at risk? Yes. Would I have done it sooner if someone had attacked my ship and actively attempted to shame me on the internet?

Honestly? I think I would have tried to kill myself.

Of Note: Did the writer of Lolita have his tone and content so misunderstood by massive audiences to the point where it's marketed as a romance novel? Yes.

It’s important to read media critically... but I don’t think a lot of people understand what “critically” means. Not any more. It doesn’t mean brutally. It doesn’t mean screaming about what’s bad. It means understanding what your reading, to put it basically. To understand media doesn’t exist in a vacuum. To understand that yes, there are social implications and very real ramifications for what you are writing. And writing is hard, okay? I’m a professional, and writing is hard. It’s hard work, and hard hours... and then people read it too fast or they only read what they want to read and miss your point entirely.

A lot of the people who write AkuRoku grew up with it. It’s much like how I grew up with Sora who -- spoilers! -- I now write as a twenty-five year old stumbling his way through life. Sometimes he’s sure of himself. Sometimes he has anxiety. AkuRoku is the same. It is not an inherently pedo ship, and not inherently abusive. Your ship is what you make it. Very, very literally.

It is within our ability and thus our responsibility as consumers of media to read tags, read warnings, read summaries, and generally know what we are consuming. Don’t like, don’t read. It’s an age-old saying for a reason. Click that little X on the top of the screen and leave me to my Punk Rock AU as I remember that time I was actually in a punk rock band, but with less drama, less tinnitus, and a drummer who actually commits and wears the leather jacket.

TLDR: Y’all are attacking people over a ship that was not only ambiguous about the ages from the get-go, but that very young people latched onto as one of the few relationships in popular media (at the time) that appeared to be actively Queer Coded. As an actually queer person who was abused in exactly the ways that you’re trying to “prevent,” you’re not only barking up the wrong tree -- you’re setting the wrong house on fire.

Yes, there are real pedophiles on the internet. Yes, it’s a real problem. Yes, we should not condone it. However, the majority of the audience for the pairing has aged with a game series that was ambiguous about the character ages from the get-go. Legit, in order to find out how old Sora was when I first got the game I would have had to read the manual.

Don’t pretend. You didn’t read it.

I did, though. And you know what? I saw that Sora was fourteen. I saw Sora was a teenager far older than me. I saw that he was under the age of eighteen.

But you know what I really saw?

I just saw myself.

And isn’t that what media is all about?

[96thdayofrage]

‘Unparalleled in intensity’ – 1,500 book bans in US school districts.

Past nine months have seen censorship effort ‘unparalleled in its intensity’, with books on race and LGBTQ issues singled out

More than 1,500 book bans have been instituted in US school districts in the last nine months, a study has found, part of a rightwing censorship effort described as “unparalleled in its intensity”.

PEN America, a non-profit organization that works to protect freedom of expression in the US, scrutinized efforts to ban certain books from school libraries for its “Banned in the USA” report. The organization found that 1,145 books were targeted by rightwing politicians and activists, including the work of the Nobel prize laureate Toni Morrison.

The report shows the striking impact of the ongoing effort by conservatives to censor literature in schools. The bans have largely targeted books that focus on race and LGBTQ issues, and a large number of the banned books are written by non-white or LGBTQ authors.

PEN America tallied efforts between 1 July 2021 and 31 March this year, in what it said was the first “book by book, district by district account of what books are being banned, where in the country, and through what procedures”. It found that 1,586 bans were implemented in 86 school districts across 26 states.

“This type of data has never been tallied and quite frankly the results are shocking,” said Jonathan Friedman, director of PEN America’s Free Expression and Education.

“Challenges to books, specifically books by non-white male authors, are happening at the highest rates we’ve ever seen. What is happening in this country in terms of banning books in schools is unparalleled in its frequency, intensity and success.”

The data confirms that was a specific theme to the book bans. Of the banned titles, 41% included “protagonists or prominent secondary characters” who were people of color, according to PEN America.

About 22% of the banned books “directly address issues of race and racism”, while 33% “explicitly address LGBTQ+ themes, or have protagonists or prominent secondary characters who are LGBTQ+”.

PEN America found that the three most frequently banned titles all are centered on LGBTQ+ individuals, “or touch on the topic of same-sex relationships”.

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe has been banned in 30 school districts, while All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M Johnson and Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison are also among the most targeted.

Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez, a novel about a romance between a Black teenage boy and a Mexican American girl, has been banned in 16 districts, and The Bluest Eye, the story of a young Black girl’s experiences in 1940s America by Toni Morrison, has been banned in 12 districts.

“This is an orchestrated attack on books whose subjects only recently gained a foothold on school library shelves and in classrooms,” Friedman said.

“We are witnessing the erasure of topics that only recently represented progress toward inclusion.”

The book censorship has been matched by a wave of rightwing legislation dictating what teachers can and cannot discuss in schools. In March Florida passed a bill dubbed “don’t say gay”, which forbids “instruction” on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.

Some states have also banned discussion of the modern-day impact of historical racism in the US – an issue that has become a hobby horse for Republicans at state and national level.

The censorship has frequently been pushed by conservative groups linked to deep-pocketed rightwing donors. Groups like Moms for Liberty and Parents Defending Education have been instrumental in book-banning attempts in the US, often presenting themselves as small, “grassroots” efforts, while in reality they have links to prominent, wealthy Republicans.

There is, however, some evidence that the efforts to censor literature that focuses on race and LGBTQ issues are having the opposite effect.

“Banned book clubs”, where children and young adults meet to read and discuss titles that have been censored by school districts, have sprung up across America, while sales of the book Maus, a Pulitzer prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, soared in January after it was banned by a Tennessee school board.

[alex-writes-things]

100 Things I Love

1.      Poetry and beautiful quotes from literature

2.     Feeling it start to rain on a hot day or when you’ve been exercising

3.     Sitting in a dimly lit room, writing and listening to music

4.     Old typewriters and record players

5.     Kelly Macdonald/Joanne Davidson

6.     People who ship Wolfstar, Flemson, Cazzie etc

7.     Watching someone play with children or be affectionate with children

8.     Huge open fields

9.     Laying in said fields with my girlfriend (hi beth if you’re reading this)

10.   Queer women represented in fiction

11.     Drinking fanta on a hot day

12.    Cities, especially Rome, especially in summer or when it’s raining

13.    Watching storms and rain from a window

14.   Smiling when I think of old memories

15.    Line of Duty (sorry, had to mention it)

16.   Listening to music very loud through headphones

17.    Looking at people in cities and towns and wondering what their story is

18.   Trains, and the feeling of looking out of your window and watching miles fly by

19.   Making/finding and giving gifts

20.  At concerts when they hold out their mic to the audience and everyone screams back the lyrics

21.    Beth’s laugh. And her voice. And pretty much all her mannerisms 😊

22.   Cats

23.   Hozier, Frank Turner, Dear Evan Hansen, Hamilton, The Head and The Heart, The Strumbrellas, and countless other artists that make me feel at home with their music

24.  Pretty flowers and bright green lawns and huge houses with hidden ruins and statues and secrets!

25.   Watching someone in love look at their person

26.  Road trips and car journeys

27.   Theme parks and running from one side to the other so you don’t miss your favourite ride

28.  Talking to my friends

29.  Talking to people that I don’t often talk to and falling platonically in love with little things about them

30.  Coming home after a long day

31.    Being accepted after coming out to someone or mentioning that I have a girlfriend

32.   Reading all day and being so gripped that I forget anything else exists

33.   Texting someone at 1am and getting a reply

34.   Being told that I helped someone or made their day a bit better

35.   Holding hands (with Beth), hugging (Beth only. Like sorry. But no hugs.), leaning on (Beth’s) shoulders.

36.  Sleepovers, and staying up so late talking that the sky starts to lighten outside the window

37.   Finally understanding something I’ve been struggling with

38.   Walking

39.  Packing bags for holidays, school trips and days out

40.  When someone sees that you’re upset and doesn’t say anything but helps quietly

41.   Lesbians. Girls. Women. Girls that love girls. Literally lesbians.

42.  Picnics

43.   Stargazing and cloud watching either with someone I love or by myself

44.  Beaches early in the morning

45.  Running through the shallow waves on a beach with a dog at my heels

46.  Finding pretty rocks and shells or cool creatures out in nature, watching other people do this too!

47.  Sleeping beside someone you care about and you see their sleepy smile and messed up hair in the morning

48.  Willow trees and clear chalk rivers

49.  Mountains and tall buildings and anything incomprehensibly huge

50.  Casual touches between people who are completely comfortable with one another

51.    Writing poetry when I’m alone

52.   Being alone, especially on a journey or home alone

53.   Fish, and seals, and whales and dolphins and all of those crazy sea creatures that exist

54.  The fact that there are so many humans out there that live and create and love and hate and feel things? And we’re all stuck in our one life. I hate it but I also think it’s wonderful

55.   Sexual and romantic tension in books. It isn’t necessary but sometimes it’s what makes me fall in love with a book even more

56.  Fajitas, burritos, guacamole, street food, dim sum, Vietnamese restaurants

57.   Watching plays and musicals

58.  How much opportunity there is in the world, and how much we still have left to learn

59.  Cliffs

60.  Wind in trees, in hair, in clothes

61.   Finding beautiful things out about people I love

62.  Listening to someone tell me their childhood stories (to an extent haha)

63.  Playing guitar especially when I’m alone

64.  Figuring out the chords to a song I like on my guitar

65.  Vicky McClure/Kate Fleming, Martin Compston/Steve Arnott, Adrian Dunbar/Ted Hastings, Kelly Macdonald (again), Scarlett Johansson, Keeley Hawes, Jennifer Lawrence

66.  Being truly alone or being in a crowd with nobody that knows me

67.  Black nail polish

68.  Jewellery especially rings and earrings

69.  Denim jackets, cord jackets and other kinds of jackets like this

70.  When people smile at each other across the room

71.    When people scrunch their noses as they smile or laugh or something

72.   Reading people’s head canons about tv shows and fandoms they’re passionate about, even when I don’t agree

73.   Analysing poems in English class (don’t ask why)

74.  Watching banter between old friends

75.   Rediscovering music I haven’t heard in a while

76.  Salt and vinegar crisps

77.   Leaving school at the end of term with my friends

78.  Singing with my friends

79.  The Midnight Library (Matt Haig), Children of Blood and Bone (Tomi Adeyemi), Red White and Royal Blue (Casey McQuinston), A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder (Holly Jackson)

80.  Enamel pins

81.   Stationery of all kinds, but especially notebooks

82.  Antiques shops and old book shops

83.   Edinburgh, York, Cambridge, Snowdonia, London, Rome, Palma

84.  The sound of people laughing, people shouting, people chatting

85.  Acting

86.  Having fun and doing stupid things with my friends, my girlfriend, my drama group

87.  Wearing nice clothes and then the feeling of being complimented on them

88.  Climbing mountains and canoeing

89.  The taste of cold water on a hot day

90.  Online/window shopping just for fun and not to buy anything just to look

91.   Crying at a sad book, film, poem or TV show

92.  Finding out a famous person that I look up to or respect is part of the LGBT+ community

93.  Researching for a project I care about

94.  Frogs, rats, kittens, dinosaurs

95.  Pretty ukuleles and guitars

96.  Finally understanding something in a maths or chemistry lesson and feeling like I’m not as stupid as I think

97.  Huge communities of people coming together

98.  Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, ancient mythology, literature from a very long time ago

99.  The film 1917

100. Finishing a good book and never wanting to let it go ever again

[endfatphobiayesterday-blog]

Your Favorite Movie Can Be Problematic

Maybe your favorite movie is from the 80s, which uses homophobic language, or employs tired racist characters. Or maybe your favorite movie has a known abuser, or someone who is notoriously MAGA. It is difficult to find a movie that has aged gracefully, or doesn’t contain a problematic aspect, small or large. And I think that’s okay. 

I recognize the problems that lie nestled within Call Me By Your Name, but it is still my favorite movie. In a time when cancel culture, cutting out toxic people, and a huge political divide is the common thematics of our everyday life, I’m allowing space for problems, a space for difference, a space for imperfections. So as I observe and notate the various problems within the movie, I simultaneously hold close my love for it. 

The movie Call Me By Your Name is a queer love story, based on the novel of the same name written by André Aciman, who is Egyptian, Jewish, and unfortunately, heterosexual. Up until I researched the film, I never could have thought that the writer of such a beautiful queer love story could be straight. So while I wished my favorite queer romance was written by someone who identifies as LGBTQ, that is not the case. To continue on the complexities of representation, portrayal and queerness in popular culture, both of our queer characters are acted by cis/het white men. Would the film be better if more queer people were involved in the creation of a piece of media that is so enveloped in queerness? Yes, absolutely. But does it negate the beauty of queer love that is depicted? No, it doesn’t.

Another problem that is easy to observe in the film is the glaring depiction of class. The film takes place in Elio and his family’s summer home, located in the beautiful and lush Italian countryside. The family has a pool, domestic workers...they are served lavish foods and shown in piles of books. Elio’s quick wit, piano skills and literature knowledge reflect privilege in higher education. There is no question that Elio is privileged. But while the film reflects this privilege, it is not overly thrust in the viewer’s face. The house is nice, yes, but it appears old and creaky. Elio seems uninterested in wealth, or clothes, or anything material. Elio finds pleasure in picking peaches off the tree, swimming in the small outdoor pool, writing music on the lawn, and reading old paperbacks. 

The film is blindingly white, too. Elio and Oliver are both Jewish, yes. It is evident throughout the film that their Jewish identity is something that does render them marginalized. But they are both European in a way that comes prepackaged with privilege. So, no, the movie doesn’t offer much diversity. It doesn’t even offer much intersectionality within queer identity. There is no concern with race, class, or ability. The movie is nearly apolitical, if the queerness is disregarded. And while I consider myself deeply passionate about activism and politics, this does not affect my ability to enjoy and become enveloped in the film.

So if the film isn’t about, or even pay mention to, white or class privilege, what is it about? It’s about love. And not just love, it’s about first love. And not just first love, but a first queer love. Oliver is older, a grad student visiting to study with Elio’s dad. Elio is 17, with little to no experience in romance, love or sex. And while the movie does a good job of offering perspective into what Oliver is feeling, the film is ultimately shot through the gaze of Elio. 

When, inevitably, Elio’s father finds out about his love for Oliver, it is met with sincere support, understanding and gentleness. There is no moment, not even for a second, that the audience thinks that Elio will face consequences for his queerness. So if the film does an inadequate job of representing race or class, it does feel like a relief that we get to observe parents support their son in an unwavering love, regardless of sexuality. 

Call Me By Your Name is about falling in love for the first time, and yes, it is about queer love, but it offers none of the fear that is commonly associated with queer love. Elio’s first love with Oliver is simultaneously effervescent, fun, scary, and ultimately, heartbreaking. And these feelings aren’t innately queer, they are universal. So while I identify as queer myself, and yes, while I see plainly the problems another person might assign to the film, I can’t deny the absolute perfect portrayal the film offers of a first romance. 

This film shows exactly how it feels to fall in love for the first time. And as a romantic...and as the tears silently leak from my eyes, even after the 14th viewing...my body can’t deny that this is my favorite movie. 

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Hello! I just wanted to let you all and your followers know about this neat LGBTQ-centric Christian organization, CPI. They’re dedicated to resistance and uplifting the marginalized and oppressed - “including but not limited to those who are people of color, queer, trans, femmes, gender nonconforming, Muslim, formerly and currently incarcerated, cash poor and working class, disabled, undocumented, and immigrant." 

They’ve protested on the MN governer’s lawn for the right to vote and organize retreats and literature and webinars. Thought some of that might be of interest to y'all!

Oh, very cool! Thanks so much, @pingnova!