#queer visibility

[aaa-battery-not-rechargeable]

i met a queer high schooler today, at my job

throughout the interaction i had with them, i watched them become more relaxed and open, simply seeing me as a queer adult doing my job

i sort of feel like i served as an example for that student, of a queer person existing successfully in society.

i could pick up on their habits mannerisms and fashion, and related my own experiences to that. they were visibly disabled, so i wanted to ease their mind about accessibility concerns in the building, so i mentioned my heart condition and trouble with walking up stairs. they were immediately more comfortable. we used the elevator

i complimented their nonbinary pride flag bracelet, and pushed my hair aside so they could see my name badge with my pronouns, and they smiled.

it's so freeing to be seen without the expectation for any explanation, and i know that so i wanted to give them that peace of mind. i wanted to show them that the world outside of high school is survivable. hope is not crushed, i am here, i am visibly queer, and so it is possible for them too.

[cactiaintracist]

Solidarity (My pronouns are the definite article versus same, but I’m mostly a disaster)

[copperbadge]

The Chicago Public Library did not fuck around for Pride.

[ID: A decorative table in the Harold Washington Library in downtown Chicago; it has a nice potted plant on top. A banner on the front of the table, visible to the entry lobby of the library, reads "150 YEARS OF QUEERS"; the number 150 is composed of black and white photographs. The text beneath reads "These library employees represent more than 300 years of queers serving at CPL and are only a fraction of those from the past, present, and future!"]

[tingedwithemerald]

Should you be so lucky to be spirited away by an elven queen, you accept your fate without looking back or live the rest of your days in mourning.

(also known as the day I got to marry @rampant-noodle )

[steel-knight]

happy international asexuality day 🖤🩶🤍💜

we are all valid and recognized here on the asexual spectrum!

🖤🩶🤍💜🖤🩶🤍💜🖤🩶🤍💜🖤🩶🤍💜

[softbeebee]

If I see one more person calling Dina a one-note character or whatever, I am willing to fight someone. It's almost like you didn't pay attention to the scenes where she talked about her sister, family, and her religion/her families religion amongst lots of dialogue/character arc which shows us and tells us a lot about her.

Dina could have had more development, but we see a lot of Dina + begin to know her a lot more in the game throughout and comparing her to Mel and Owen of all people is insulting. She is such a great character, and you always love to compare the queer/non-white/etc characters to the white/cis/straight/etc ones all the time.

The fandom can do better, and I respect people's opinions until it comes to clear microaggresions being held against certain characters. Anyways, Dina, all the way!

[fayeandknight]

On a non dog related note, thank you to everyone who displays pride flags.

As I came off the exit for my hotel this weekend I saw a Desantis 2024 sign and was immediately filled with dread. I feared for my safety being in a place that supported that kind of person.

But when I went into town to get dinner I saw pride flags outside homes and businesses alike. And I breathed this huge sigh of relief. I instantly felt safer, more at ease. Not 100% safe (I never do), but safer.

Someday I will live in a place where I can hang my own flag. And I hope it helps others know they're okay too.

It's such a small, simple thing. But seeing pride flags makes me feel so much better. Makes the world a little less terrifying.

So if you're someone who displays a pride flag outside your home or business, I just wanted to say thank you.

[sapphic-courtship-for-dummies]

If you're ever feeling like you're alone or isolated. Check out this site.

"Queering the Map is a community generated counter-mapping platform for digitally archiving LGBTQ2IA+ experience in relation to physical space.

The platform provides an interface to collaboratively record the cartography of queer life—from park benches to the middle of the ocean—in order to preserve our histories and unfolding realities, which continue to be invalidated, contested, and erased. From collective action to stories of coming out, encounters with violence to moments of rapturous love, Queering the Map functions as a living archive of queer life. If it counts to you, then it counts for Queering the Map.

Through mapping LGBTQ2IA+ experience in its intersectional permutations, the project works to generate affinities across difference and beyond borders—revealing the ways in which we are intimately connected."

The website will probably be laggy due to all of the posts. We really are everywhere.

[trainsgenderfoxgirl2816]

Just making a post about how good it feels to see very visibly queer people on a bus :3

[equalityspeaks]

Noah De Losa shares: “I’d become a doctor and that was representative with the cap but I really wanted to represent my Queer journey as well.

I identify as quite gender fluid, and I love makeup. I love femininity, and I really love drag. It’s something that feels very authentic to me. I really love the art form, I love the history of it, and I love the provocative nature of it.”

📸 @noahloades

Love this!! ❤️ Noah, you are looking so fab on your special day.

[aaa-battery-not-rechargeable]

Your blog has helped me a lot, as a neuordivergent, trans, aroace teenager who's still figuring life out, seeing you just living out there as you makes me hopeful. So thank you.

hello sweet anon

here's one of my favorite life secrets: nobody really knows what they're doing and that's kind of the fun part. we're all made of the same stuff, atoms created at the beginning of time inside of stars and supernovae and now we're us. the way we exist is never stagnant, even in our short lil human lives, and that's so fkn cool. so regardless of if we change things about ourselves, we are so awesome because we exist. life is so cool and it's even cooler with you in it

whatever you're doing, keep at it buddy 🩵🦋

[daikon1]

The Couple Closet

“I guess… I don’t quite understand what you get out of ‘knowing’ that you’re bisexual? If you only want to be with me, why does it matter?”

An exploration of queer identity in straight-passing relationships written for Sailor Moon LGBTQ+ Week (@smlgbtqweek) 2023.

[vital-information]

“But the Berea students’ Lobby Day experience…demonstrates the dilemmas rural young people face when they rely on similar strategies of visibility and assertions of difference deployed by their urban peers. Unlike urban gay and lesbian communities able to mobilize significant numbers of people and dollars to generate visibility, rural youth and their allies live and work in communities and legislative districts that prioritize solidarity, rely on familiarity, and lack the public or private resources to underwrite sustained, visible dissent to assert queer difference. These are also places where media representations of LGBT people outpace the tangible presence of locally organized constituencies able to or invested in prioritizing queer recognition.

This book [Out in the Country] addresses how young people in the rural United States who lay claim to LGBT identities confront the politics of gay visibility, expectations, and constraints that define and shape the recognition of LGBT-identifying people in popular culture and public life. I take an interdisciplinary approach to examine how rural queer and LGBT-identifying youth, contrary to popular narratives of escape to urban oases, stand their ground to name their desires and flesh out local meaning.”

Mary L. Gray, Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America

[bluesnow21]

Someone You Know is Trans; They don’t deserve to Die in the Closet.

It’s been two years, four months and twenty days since the day my best friend committed suicide. She was a transgender woman struggling with mental health, had admitted herself into the psychward a few times prior, and I thought she was taking her meds and getting better. There had been three instances where she’d mentioned/struggled with deciding over the ten years I knew her whether to go back on HRT or not.

At the time, she was back in college pursuing an IT degree, she planned to go back on HRT, move out to Sacramento CA permanently, have a small piece of property, and adopt a black kid. She was a stoner, a grease monkey, an atheist, pool player, and a big part of what made living my life in NJ easier and more enjoyable than it ever would’ve been.  She also wrote letters to queer/trans inmates within the Black/Pink Project. She loved reading, film, collecting license plates, and muscle cars. Some of her favorite writers included Chuck Wendig, Douglas Adams, Michelle Tea, and Joe Hill. I got my first tattoo with her present, and the same day backed her car into a brick wall while she was trying to teach me stick-shift (she took I really well). We went to concerts, played pool, smoked weed, made trips through the Adirondacks, and every bit of time I spent with them was memorable. She got me through a bad relationship just by being there and comforting me, helped me out whenever I had car trouble, and was there to help me move into new apartments three times; Anytime I needed help or a friend she was there. Our birthdays are exactly 3 months apart, or as they would say when I’d forgotten this fact, “You Idiot! We’re exactly 9 months apart how do you forget this!?” She didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought about her. I admired her courage to be herself.

I miss her.  I still remember the last hug I gave her a week before it happened; the last time I’d gotten high with her she’d told me her name she wanted to start going by but I was so high I couldn’t remember it when I sobered up (I had to Uber home). I thought I could ask again next time I saw them in another week. I knew something was wrong. When I got the news the morning of: I got drunk, then I cried my eyes out about a week or two later.  I helped bury my best friend and I couldn’t remember her name that she’d wanted to change it to, so the funeral was a misgendered funeral; It’s something I still feel awful about.  She wanted to be buried in a Rheingold Beer Jumpsuit that had belonged to her grandfather; instead it was a regular suit (not what they wanted). There was only one photo at the funeral of when she’d briefly started transitioning when I first met her, before she went off of HRT. I didn’t know how to bring any of this up to her Dad. He wasn’t a transphobe. I just didn’t know how to bring it up and since I didn’t have the name she wanted to go by I thought it more important to help bury my friend. Out of respect for not wanting to dead name her, I won’t use names.  I just want to finally put something up here and TransDay of Remembrance seemed appropriate.  It’s taken me time to put this up here because I wasn’t sure how the parents or other friends would feel about this.  I know I’m not the only person she shared this with, but know that if she’d had more time more people would’ve known about this. 

I’m posting this in memory of my friend and for all the trans-women/men/etc, who never come out and who never will.

Memento Mori Memento Vivere

Remember you will die. Remember to Live.

[softbeebee]

This song + music video in a nutshell

[i-wear-the-cheese]

getting super down about the fact that none of the streaming services seem to have LGBTQ sections anymore. like yeah I know it's not a genre but it made it easier to find stuff with rep in. they don't even put it in the little tags they do so how am I meant to find new queer focused media easily?

this is why tumblr osmosis is so important. anyway looks like I'll be listening to the same queer audiobooks for the fifth time in a row