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#i wish there was more diversity in like. circles for queer men
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By: Ben Appel
Published: Dec 26, 2023
In 2021, Harvard evolutionary biologist Carole Hooven stated on a television news program that there are “two sexes” and that “those sexes are designated by the kinds of gametes we produce.” She added that “understanding facts about biology doesn’t prevent us from treating people with respect” when it comes to “their gender identities and use [of] their preferred pronouns.” Afterward, a Harvard graduate student, in her official capacity as director of the Human Evolutionary Biology Department’s Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Task Force, tweeted that Hooven’s “dangerous” and “transphobic” remarks made the department unsafe for transgender people. The Graduate Student Union took out a petition against Hooven, and, since no one would agree to serve as her teaching assistant, she had to discontinue her popular lecture course. This past January, under duress, Hooven retired from her position at Harvard.
More recently, I heard Hooven speak at a conference in Denver. She talked about academic freedom and her dedication to creating a just society. She said something I believe: that the truth is the way toward true social justice, and that the truth is what ultimately alleviates human suffering. After Hooven left the stage, I tweeted my thoughts about what she said, concluding, “Yep, I’ll die on that hill.” A Twitter user, in a now-deleted series of replies, responded, “Wish you would then. And quickly.” Later, this person elaborated, “Cis white conservative gays can all d*e. Please do, no one likes you.”
This might be the first time I’ve been called “conservative” for voicing my support of the truth and social justice. Right-wing homophobia is nothing new, though the enmity for “cis white gays” like me from the other side of the aisle has sadly also become widespread online. Here’s a very small sampling:
“[C]is white gay men are the weakest links and idc who knows it.” — @ann_forcino.
“ur rave wasn't ‘100% queer joy’ it was a warehouse party full of white cis gay men who want to dance and fuck each other lmfao [...] “that's not queer joy, that's f^g joy.” — @Maxies_back
“Chelsea and Hells Kitchen, more so than other neighborhoods in New York, produce nothing better than prissy, entitled cis White Power pretentious gay men, who don't respect diversity, or the rule of law.” — “LGBT for Change”
“Maybe they were right all along and white cis gays really do go to hell.” — Jerry Falwell @obssdwmlp
“Behind every bad man there is an even worse cis gay white man.” — @ANIMETWTDNI
“We need to realize that gay cis white men are still cis white men.” — @pettypiedpipertake
“Maybe homophobia against cis white gay men is valid.” — @heartIwin
“Noah Schnapp is also evidence that gays will truly go to h£ll. especially a cis white upper class gay like i genuinely, genuinely mean that and i’m sorry if that comes off as problematic.” [Schnapp is a 19-year-old Jewish gay actor who has spoken out in support of Israel in the wake of the October 7 2023 terrorist attacks.] — @brat6z
 “I love it when white gays erase the trans and black side of this flag [...] You faggots deserve to get hatecrimed to death.” — @daredevilshill_
Writing for The Nation in 1994, the gay playwright Tony Kushner argued that homosexuality and socialism are intrinsically linked. Homosexuals, he wrote, “like most everyone else, are and will continue to be oppressed by the depredations of capital until some better way of living together can be arrived at.” Kushner lamented the growing number of gay activists, like Andrew Sullivan and Bruce Bawer, who advocated a more pragmatic approach to equal rights. The radical contingent of the LGBT community has long pejoratively described these types of gay and bi people — those who prioritize marriage equality, the right to serve openly in the military, and peaceful inclusion in Western society — as “assimilationist.” Real gay liberation, the radicals argue, will result from razing Western civilization and its capitalist, cisheteropatriarchal system and rebuilding it in their utopian vision. Like the gay journalist Donna Minkowitz once said to Charlie Rose, “We don’t want a place at the table — we want to turn the table over.”
The thing is, the pragmatic approach won. Today, gay, lesbian, and bi people get married, serve proudly, have jobs, own homes, and raise families. Like black civil rights leaders who preached nonviolent protest and a politics of respectability, discerning LGBT activists took the long view. We don’t want to exist on the margins of society, they insisted, we want to participate in it. LGBT people, just like black Americans, are a vital part of the fabric of this nation.
But the radicals haven’t taken this defeat lying down. After the 2015 Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which made marriage equality the law of the land, the radicals pounced. “You got what you want,” they seemed to say. “Now it’s our turn.” LGBT rights organizations, either under the influence of impatient extremists or in an attempt to stay relevant (i.e., donor-worthy), refocused their missions to a form of revolutionary activism that purports to fight on behalf of trans people but in practice agitates for a revolt against Enlightenment ideals, liberalism, capitalism, and even basic biology.
Every LGBT organization seemingly became an extension of a university Gender Studies department, whose purpose was not to produce new knowledge but to interrogate — or, in their academic lingo, queer — existing knowledge which they spuriously associate with “whiteness”, colonialism, and Western patriarchy. Alongside this, a new social hierarchy of disadvantage was erected, where everyone was in competition to be the most “marginalized” — and therefore deserving of resources, a voice, and power in the revolutionaries’ value system. According to that value system, being gay or bi seemed to matter far less if one were also white, cis, and male, and therefore deemed to be in cahoots with the oppressors.
In 2017, while I was a student at Columbia University, I interned for GLAAD, one of the largest LGBT organizations in the US. Not only had their mission absorbed this new orthodoxy, it had filtered down to the interpersonal level. On campus and at GLAAD’s offices, I was regularly called “cis” in a kind of sneering, vitriolic tone that reminded me more than a little of the bullies who called me “fag” in middle school. The oddest thing was that much of the vitriol was coming from people who didn’t seem to be LGB, or even T, but who identified only as nonbinary or “queer.” Many of the people I encountered seemed to be profoundly homophobic. Any gay or bi man that didn’t at least adopt he/they pronouns, especially if they were white, was considered assimilationist, right-wing, traitorous upholders of the evil sex binary.
I never quite got used to being eyed with suspicion by other activists for my normative, gender-conforming appearance, or the constant bad-faith interpretations of anything I said. The only cis white gays spared this unfairly cold treatment were the ones who made a public show of being self-hating — the ones who renounced their “cis white gayness” and frequently apologized for their white privilege.
It was alarming to be on the receiving end of such vitriol simply for being myself — for not shaving one side of my head, painting my nails, piercing my septum, and adopting plural pronouns. It was alarming especially because so much of the hate I received when I was young came precisely because I was way too sex-nonconforming (in fact, in middle school, my classmates would often ask me if I was a boy or a girl). I wondered if my peers cared that I had been mercilessly bullied as a gay kid, or that I had worked on a trans rights anti-discrimination campaign when they were barely teenagers. I knew that my volunteering for marriage equality wouldn’t earn me any points, since marriage was to them an antiquated Western institution and part of an “assimilationist” agenda. This attitude has become so entrenched in LGBT activist spaces, I suspect it partially explains why support for same-sex marriage among Gen Z Americans has dropped from 80% in 2021 to only 69% in 2023.
Last year, I got a little more clarity about this issue when I came across an article, also written in 1994, by Stephen H. Miller. The publishing journal, Heterodoxy, titled it “Gay-Bashing by Homosexuals,” although Miller’s original title was “Gay White Males: PC’s Unseen Target.” In the late 1980s and early 90s, Miller chaired the media committee of GLAAD’s New York chapter. In fact, Miller came up with GLAAD’s mission statement, which was to “fight for fair, accurate and inclusive representations of gay and lesbian lives in the media and elsewhere.” In the article, Miller wrote that he was “purged” from GLAAD in 1992 because he objected to the rising political correctness and censoriousness in the gay, lesbian, and bisexual movement. Similar to the cultural shifts of the past decade, Miller recounts how activist organizations began prioritizing race and gender (and of course, the Correct political views) over individual merit. New staff members had to attend “endless sensitivity sessions” which “identified white men (whatever their sexual orientation) as the oppressor class.” Suddenly, it seemed like there was more antagonism towards the “white males” within the LGBT rights movement than without. Miller, who described himself as a “political moderate who believed in dialogue with the straight world and a good-faith search for common ground,” found himself “shunned.”
The race and gender quotas that LGBT rights organizations began adopting, Miller wrote, included weighted voting that favored women and people of color. For example, after regional delegations of organizers for the 1993 March on Washington for LGB rights failed to achieve their quotas, it was decided that women’s votes would count for three votes apiece and non-white votes would count for two votes apiece. That decision — and the many others that have since followed in LGBT activist spaces — calls to mind some dark and creepy moments from American history best learned from rather than imitated.
Of course, this also raises the question: Who decides who is a person of color and who is white, and how? Will they apply the one-drop rule, the early 20th-century legal principle that deemed any American with even one black ancestor (“one drop of black blood”) as black? I suppose that would be illegal since the Supreme Court outlawed the one-drop rule in its 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision. And yet, I’m not surprised by these backward tactics. It was Ibram X. Kendi who recently wrote, “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” Around and around we go.
Then as now, as Miller wrote, anyone who challenged this illiberal orthodoxy was “deemed racist and sexist” and accused of harboring the belief that “white men are the main victims of discrimination.” Naturally, Miller notes, such accusations serve to discourage people who sense this hostility toward gay white men from voicing their dissent.
Then after AIDS decimated gay and bi male activist communities, lesbian radical feminists moved in, and a “critical attitude toward men, male sexuality, and ‘the patriarchy’” became the norm. “Male solidarity, once a hallmark of gay liberation, is now anathema.”
A direct line can be drawn from this upheaval in the early 1990s and the divisiveness in today’s LGBT activist spaces, where “cis gays” — and, in particular, “cis white gays” — are seen as upholders of villainous Western cisheteropatriarchy and its henchman capitalism. These modern activists are sure to include “white” not only out of an animus against white people, but because they assume that all people of color are helpless victims of Western capitalism who, because of their oppression, invariably hold the “correct” far-left politics. In his aforementioned article, Kushner invoked Oscar Wilde, quoting “A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at.” He added that he is “always suspicious of the glacier-paced patience of the right.” Writing for The Advocate, the gay writer Bruce Bawer responded that he and so many others are “impatient with models of activism that involve playing at revolution instead of focusing on the serious work of reform.”
This anti-“cis white gay” attitude proliferates in LGBT media as well. “White Gay Men Are Hindering Our Progress as a Queer Community” was the title of an article published in the magazine Them. “You had your time — now, we have other things to fight for,” read the subhead. “Let's Talk About People That Aren't Young Cis White Gay Men,” a HuffPost article was titled.
I could go on and on.
A few years ago, I attended a conference for LGBT journalists. There, I met a young, white, gay writer who would go on to work for a progressive news outlet in New York. He said his upbringing in a Southern state had made him racist, but since then, he has “trained” himself to be attracted to black and brown people, and now black and brown people are the only types of people he wants to sleep with.
If this is the “progressive” strategy for combating racism, I want no part of it. And any liberal cis white gay person who opposes racism won’t either. This is racism, operating under the guise of “anti-racism”, plain and simple. It attempts to end inequality by inverting it and, in the process, is attacking the foundations of the principles that have enabled the remarkable progress our society has made in transcending bigotry and prejudice. I only wish more people who saw this dogma for what it is were unafraid to voice the truth about it.
==
Homophobia and anti-gay hate are alive and well as progressive virtues.
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sharpen-your-blade · 1 year
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I have to tell you why it's so crazy that you're posting about Colleen Hoover. Not too long ago, I had nothing to read and was really disillusioned by all the new books I'd been reading. So I just went on Amazon and looked up their book list to see who was on top. ALL OF HER BOOKS WERE THERE. I was like damn, who is this lady? Her ish must be great! I look her up on insta and twitter, and everyone can't stop talking about how great her novels are. I'm telling my sister that we need to read her books, non-negotiable. I'm deciding which one to get first, and then I see your screenshots and it was like a record scratch in my head. I'm thinking, no way is this really for real. But then you post like 5 more screenshots and I'm sitting here like...it is. It is really real. So I really just want to thank you for saving my peace of mind before I lost it by reading that, thanks bestie
AHAHAHAHA THIS IS SO FUNNYYY np bestie 🤣🫶🏼
i genuinely don’t understand the coho hype—the handful of her books i’ve read have been actually horrific. ‘without merit’ normalized a character who romanticized terminally ill men and got with them for the sole intent of taking care of them until they died (plus a semi? cheating trope), ‘layla’ had a prominent cheating trope and serious manipulation/gaslighting of the mmc’s first love interest, ‘verity’ was…a hot mess (with, surprise surprise, a cheating trope), ‘ugly love’ was indeed ugly, the random sex scene in ‘it ends with us’ between an 18yo man (aka a legal adult) and a teenage girl (aka a minor) was soooo nasty to me (because i was also a minor when i read it). these are just SOME of the problematic things in coho books—the list quite literally could go on and on. those screenshots i posted don’t even touch the surface of how horrible coho men are/treat women. this coho booktok era is the seventh circle of hell imo and i want OUT 😩
i won’t tell u not to read them—i get it if people find them enjoyable. it ends with us was a very original and interesting idea in theory, but the book’s execution was severely lacking. i think the plot and the message of the story got a bit muddled because of coho’s desire to make atlas everyone’s #1 book boyfriend. and i think her writing is just very mid lol. plus, her stories are not inclusive of diversity; she’s one of those writers that will sprinkle in a poc and a queer person and maybe a woman a little bigger than size zero here and there, and that’s the extent of her inclusivity. but i can see why people would like her books. i just wish today’s hot romance books didn’t have such glaring misogyny and eurocentric beauty standards that all of coho’s do, because when we push these kinds of books and label them as bestsellers, this is the blueprint that aspiring authors will follow, and we will never be free of all these problematic writing tendencies.
if ur looking for enjoyable contemporary books i’d recommend anything taylor jenkins reid! she’s one of my UNproblematic favs 😙
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saprophetic · 3 years
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i have a lot of thoughts about how like invisible i feel in fandom as a trans mlm who is visibly disabled but unfortunately i dont think i have coherent words for it that wouldnt be like twisted beyond what i meant in the hellscape that is this website
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some (not new) ideas I’m throwing at the wall vis-a-vis gender and star trek (esp in ds9)
Note: We’re eeeeever so slowly moving into times in which “transgender” - as useful a phrase as it is - isn’t the catch-all it’s been for the past 15 or so years, mainly with an understanding that gender is an infinite, fascinating playground that is affected by culture and time. I’m partially using transgender/trans here, and partially terms like nb, genderqueer, femme, and masc as well as “gender transgressive” which is useful to describe, well... transgressive gender.
However I wish I could jump into the future to see what terminology exists then...
I do think there’s something interesting in certain transphobic media, esp the kind that deals with crossdressing-for-laughs (vs drag, which is ofc community-based), because even though it’s usually done mockingly by cisgender heterosexual guys, it reveals how undeniably queer certain ideas are, even if that queering is done in a punch-down sort of way
surprise, this is about Profit and Lace, specifically in how it introduces the idea of transgressive gender in Quark and in Rom, accidentally building off Pel’s story in Rules of Acquisition.
surface story is yeah: Quark makes an ugly woman, with a dose of misogynistic haha women and their hormones amirite (and that opening *shudders*), but what is fascinating is how easily Quark is able to access what we’d today call gender affirming surgery in a future where you can be altered to look like all kinds of different species. 
all this handwringing about regret and “staying in your gender” (which isn’t how it woooorks for a lot of us) and not allowing consent over our own bodies and the patronizing, ahistorical, unscientific, slew of unwanted commentary from everyone and their mums, it’s just... not there. they know Quark is going to reverse the surgery the second the jig is up and Julian still just does it, because sure, got a moment to spare.
you wanna have boobs? yeah, go on. you wanna have boobs and still be considered a man? uh-huh, that’s cool - wow, Rom makes a wonderful “woman,” don’t you think? (and Leeta’s.. kind of in support of that!) 
I’ve argued a fair few times that Rom is trans/nb/femme/genderqueer by Ferengi standards (that is, gender is measured by business-sense/lobes and is its own kind of binary -- also on that note... their mother is trans/nb/genderqueer by that measurement too). It’s a really fascinating overlap between financial class and gender as a caste system (which affects both Ishka and Rom in different ways), which also exists on earth irl today, even though that intersectionality doesn’t  get discussed enough outside of queer circles.
I think Quark fits that standard as well, but he’s fighting it a lot harder than Rom is. The central tension of Quark’s series long arc is his attempts to be A Good Ferengi Male and failing over and over and when he occasionally succeeds, how he doesn’t often feel good about that. He blames a lot of this on the Federation, but by all accounts it was in him to begin with, although he used to be able to cover it up more easily.
Quark desperately wants to get it right, but a lot of the time he’s clearly masking. Sometimes he really enjoys it though, it’s not like with Rom where he has no sense for business, so much as it takes effort.
meanwhile Pel (whom I HC as masc) doesn’t have access to the kinds of surgeries that are so easy to get in the Federation, which puts her in danger - much like not having access puts us in danger today. I'm sort of torn on the headcanon that she either gets her lobes enlarged via the same surgical procedure (which, again, is so no big deal in the future) or because she’s in the gamma quadrant, she’s able to reimagine gender without having to change herself physically - which many trans/nb/genderqueer or otherwise gendered/non-gendered people also don’t want to do.
I also think it’s interesting that Quark-as-a-woman who is dressed in clothes (gasp) is fetishized, because she’s oh so transgressive -- exactly what happens to us today and one reason why so many trans people end up in sex work (of any kind - here’s me adding: get that money however you can and want to, siblings, much love and support). 
I bet there are underground sexual “deviancy” shops that sell fake lobes to imagine your female is actually the man of the house, or even lobe-enhancement that some females take to “pass” although they were actually designed for helping out your small-lobed son “perform business better”
(all of my talk of lobes: here’s the reminder that lobes in Ferengi culture are sexual characteristics)
bottom line, the tension between cisgender (heterosexual) people trying desperately to maintain a binary system of understanding gender and how they play in genderqueer sandpits is always interesting for me to watch. 
on the one hand they’ll argue there are innate social behaviours that exist in women (and they exist across species) - the way Quark has to learn to walk for example, or even - interestingly - that when Ishka starts dressing, her style is very different from men’s dress (maybe inspired by an older version of Ferengi culture where females weren’t so oppressed? - Ishka as transfemme? She could notice that she and Rom have the same likes and she buys him - gasp buys with her own money!! - a lovely dress and one of those massive lobe-earring/necklace things (lobe-lace?), so they match) - and innate social behaviours that exist in men
on the other hand they will unknowingly present a future in which the distinctions between woman and man are so immaterial that you can access any kind of physical surgery you want - in the Federation that is, and differently defined throughout different species on different planets. I always liked the idea that the further away from the “paradise” of earth you get, the more diverse the gender distinctions become but in a lot of these places they also practise rigid systems, like on Ferenginar. I can imagine some majority-human planet worshipping the old ways of the 20th century and enforcing that colonialist gender binary, urgh, can you imagine....
You wonder what things like “assigned gender and sex at birth” might mean in a future where there’s no social capital involved in assigning those kinds of things, if anything.
 And so, Profit and Lace is -- still not a good episode. I remember one of the DS9 writers talking about how unexpectedly well it’s aged and it absolutely has not. It’s misogynistic and transphobic, but I think also very important in the canon of Star Trek’s accidental gender-exploration (Star Trek’s accidental gender-exploration sounds like the title of an article....)
sometimes you find the best gold nuggets in the trash.
and on that note: time to spin the wheel and headcanon that O’Brien was (using today’s terminology) assigned female at birth and decided he liked the sound of being a boy when he was thirteen (his parents like: “for your birthday we got you gender reassignment! and you can always change your mind.”)
also I wrote it above, but Rom and Ishka wearing matching outfits and it being equally shocking is *chefs kiss* (esp with Rom as Nagus)
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What happened with Kora @princesshamlet: A start at contextualizing the events of the past week
While I am writing this because Kora expressed that they would like it if someone would post something contextualizing what happened, I do not speak for them; my opinions and perspective are my own. I think the general response has been wildly disproportionate to their actual words and actions. Let me know if you have questions about anything or if my writing style is hard to read and I’ll do my best to clarify.
Tl;dr: Last fall, Kora, a new Supernatural fan, started rewriting Supernatural to be more racially diverse and to more overtly address social issues such as homophobia and misogyny. They continually asked for feedback, particularly from POC, and received overwhelmingly positive responses.
Earlier this week, Kora posted something that unintentionally played into ideas that harm trans men. They were horrified to have hurt people, immediately apologized and made an effort to learn more about the issues involved.
Yesterday, some of Kora’s friends cut them off, presumably over the abovementioned. Some people read Kora’s Supernatural rewrite and were offended by portrayals of various ethnicities; Kora tried to learn from these criticisms and apologize for them. People organized to spread bad-faith, extremely hostile claims and Kora left Tumblr.
Background:
- last fall, Kora started watching Supernatural, and posting about it, including making some popular reaction videos and an elaborate summary of the events of season 16 as of mid-November. They got really attached to Cas as a character and DeanCas as a ship.
- Kora made a post along the lines of “what if I drew Castiel as Indian?” and got encouraging responses, so they made a drawing. A lot of Desi people left comments saying that they really liked the drawing and that the representation was meaningful to them, so Kora started posting and reblogging a lot more about recasting Supernatural to be racially diverse.
- Kora accumulates a lot of ideas around how they wish Supernatural had been, and starts casually writing it up into a story. It didn’t even have a title for the first few chapters, but it quickly amassed a small, enthusiastic following.
- I started reading it at first mostly as a way of getting to know Kora, who was at the time a new friend irl (they didn’t mean to give me their Tumblr; I had followed them for Hamlet and Star Trek posts and then recognized them when they posted a selfie) but wound up getting pretty invested. I started watching Supernatural despite the fact that I can pretty much never commit to finishing a TV show.
- Kora’s general strategy was to post ideas on Tumblr and get input before including them in the fic, particularly regarding race and ethnicity. Plenty of people gave them feedback -- I remember one really long conversation where people swapped headcanons about what music a Mexican-American Dean Winchester would have liked growing up.
- iirc, they actively collaborated with multiple Latine fans of the fic on one chapter that foregrounded Mexican-American culture. These fans are credited in an author’s note.
- they received substantial encouragement from Supernatural fans of color for how they were writing the fic, and afaik no negative feedback.
- they also used the fic as a way to discuss and joke about their personal experiences with misogyny, repression, and homophobia, including writing Dean Winchester as undergoing a character arc involving working through and overcoming severe homophobia. When we called recently, they described going from homophobic to not homophobic as “the best character arc a man can have.”
- afaik they had beta readers or at least people to run ideas by for most chapters.
First incident:
- earlier this week, Kora posted a somewhat poorly-worded vent post about Dean Winchester’s misogyny in Supernatural canon.
- I think I reblogged it because I don’t have super high standards for my SPN blog and yeah, afaict Dean said some pretty gross things in canon? I’d seen a lot of people talk about it, particularly Asian women, it’s clearly a thing.
- several people expressed hurt at the post’s wording, which could be read as bigoted against trans men.
- Kora immediately apologized and started looking for ways to learn more about trans men’s issues (afaict, mostly asking friends and going through the trans dean tag)
- they messaged me about it (Tuesday 4/13/2021), and I took a closer look at the post and explained how in isolation it looked harmless, but some of the rhetoric fit into wider patterns of transandrophobia, i.e. part of the impetus for this post was Kora being surprised that some of their trans male friends project onto Dean, since he’s a pretty bad role model for gender -- I pointed out that one way trans men are marginalized within queer movements is by people perpetuating the idea that we’re more misogynistic than cis men (which makes no sense), and their post could be read as playing into that trope (that reading had occurred to me when I first saw the post, but I had initially dismissed it because Kora and I had been spending a lot of time talking about gender and I never felt that they distrusted me or saw me as a threat).
- they made another hasty apology post, quoting my message to them.
- I encouraged them not to worry too much about what strangers online thought about them, but they were very insistent that they had hurt people and needed to learn and make amends.
- I think what happened next was that the conversation sparked a larger discussion about transandrophobia in the Supernatural fandom? I’m not sure about this though, I was off Tumblr most of Tuesday and Wednesday. I saw a few well-written posts refuting the idea that it was misogynistic to headcanon Dean as trans. I did not see anyone claim it was misogynistic to headcanon Dean as trans, but again, I wasn’t looking.
The Discourse™:
- yesterday, Kora started getting a lot more and a lot meaner messages.
- a large part of their social circle cut them off all at once, saying they felt unsafe and that Kora was transphobic. Kora did not/was unable to receive further clarification, while actively seeking the chance to learn more and repair harm done.
- someone made a dedicated hate tag for them.
- a new group of people read their Supernatural rewrite, and were offended by their portrayals of race and their writing about homophobia, and additionally mocking their writing style. The tone was often extremely mean-spirited.
- Kora responded to and apologized for some of the concerns around their portrayal of race, and refuted some of the bad-faith readings of their depictions of homophobia.
- Kora made an effort to understand what they had done wrong but a lot of the posts weren’t very specific.
- some of the claims got fucking wild. A lot of them involved taking stuff out of context. I think w*ncest got brought up at one point???
- Kora wrote another apology and took a break from Tumblr, on the advice of another friend.
- I spent like a day gearing up to write this because I vastly underestimated the speed at which Tumblr discourse moves.
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gateauxes · 3 years
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the war on gender terror
At this point in my life, the presence of mostly-white liberal feminism is inescapable. While I'm excited to see more people taking baby steps to a radical analysis, largely I am frustrated. On the other hand, involuntary exposure to popular feminism is the reason why I'm noticing a trend in it. Here's my report from where I'm standing: the liberal feminists don't know it, but reactionaries are trying to scare them.
Reactionary feminist projects begin the same way as any other reactionary project - concern trolling liberals over topics at arms' length from the main goals of exclusion and domination. With regard to reactionary feminists the progression of topics are well-known: women's sports & 'human trafficking', then domestic violence shelters & kinky porn, then policing gender-segregated bathrooms, defunding trans healthcare, and opposing sex work of any kind. I've been watching a pessimistic thread emerge in liberal feminist (and radical!) circles which I believe has been pushed into place by reactionary feminists. This bio-pessimism places women into a perpetual state of victimhood that can never truly end due to the essential rapacious nature of men. If this seems like the same shit the second-wave lesbian separatists were peddling, that's because it is. What I want to question is how today's essentialist pessimism differs from its initial appearance.
RADFEMS ARE OBSESSED WITH DICK
Reactionary feminists have not dispensed with a religious-conservative perspective on the power of the penis - and by extension they imagine women identically to how the rest of the right views women. The penis, apparently, is the mechanism by which rape becomes possible. Therefore, any engagement with a person with a penis is a grave risk. Vulnerability is a mistake if you might be dealing with a rapist. The MeToo movement activated an enormous public forum about how incredibly prevalent the violence is, but I now see it used as a tool for re-framing this prevalence as a biological reality. (MeToo, even without being used as a tool, was ineffective at acknowledging that violence is perpetrated by all sorts of people). An explosion of survivors talking openly about violence as an unacceptable status quo has been infiltrated by reactionary feminists who whisper that this is the fate of all women, always. The new bio-law absorbs the third wave's progress in acknowledging diversity of experience - right up to the point where it would be forced to note that sexual nature, like categories of racially-dictated nature, is a myth.
This pessimism rooted in the power of the penis is hypervigilance beyond a realistic assessment of risk. (I also blame true crime podcasts and the media in general) This is not the careful awareness of one's surroundings which comes naturally to many of us. What I'm describing is avoiding going out at all, because of statistics on sexual violence which may not even reflect the risks in the neighbourhood. This, for instance, is purchasing and insuring a vehicle for the express purpose of avoiding public transit. I frequently notice that popular discussion of domestic violence neglects to mention the disproportion of violence toward people with disabilities, asserting that all of us have identical risk. Ultimately, this is the justification for a culture of exclusion as the only recourse to the ever-present threat of men. The fortress must be defended, and the enemy could be anywhere.
BUT HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GET LAID?
I do not want love or children, so my interest in sex is purely recreational. I have been told this is not in line with my female nature - I stand before you deviant and happy. However, anyone attracted to men must grapple with the contradiction of desire and very real risks. I support caution, and even precaution. My concern is with a bio-law that requires a baseline of suspicion if one is to survive, the assumption that one is always a moment away from violence. To be explicit, how am I supposed to have fun when I am letting the enemy penetrate my figurative fortress?
I think this is why kink is such a problem for reactionary feminists. The only way to make the horror of sleeping with the enemy worse is to find that some people like to confront, satirize, and role play the power dynamic. To choose recreational pain or literal bondage flies in the face of the notion that a woman’s lot is to be in constant pain, and to tolerate penetration as a miserable necessity. The reactionary feminist must sleep with one eye open, aware that her biology has already sealed her fate, and mitigate vulnerability by excluding the threat, since she can’t defend herself (biologically speaking). This is why trans women can’t stay at the domestic violence shelter, this is why you should worry for your life if your boyfriend watches kinky porn. As with vanilla dating, there are true risks - and reasonable precautions. But kink is about play with vulnerability - there is no room for play under the martial law of bio-pessimism. By hijacking post-MeToo popular feminism, reactionaries can reinsert the bone-chilling suggestion that it’s all rape, all the time. All the men want kinky sex, because it’s the closest they can come to hurting women the way they secretly wish to. According to this logic, the only way to safely navigate the risk is constant surveillance of men, the self, and any woman who could be a traitor. He’d better not be watching kinky porn, you’d better not be watching kinky porn, and the women in the kinky porn are either hapless victims or remorseless collaborators. Once we have arrived at this point, it’s obvious why the next step is a crusade against any pornography, and a mission to ensure that kink is understood as something men want and women tolerate. 
How can reactionary feminists get this done? By linking the prevalence of trauma with the increased visibility of alternative sexuality & gender, from kink-at-pride to polyamory to transcending assigned gender. They ask, do you feel uncomfortable when you see all this change? We’ve all been traumatized - who do these people think they are, flaunting a lifestyle that feels wrong to feminists like you? You should trust your gut, they urge. Perform a little more vigilance to be sure you’re safe. If you find yourself unable to open a dating app or sit next to a man on the bus without feeling deep dread and revulsion, that’s vigilance, and realistic given the state of things. Any - and most - men mean women harm.
REDPILLS AND RADFEMS BELIEVE THE SAME SHIT
Incels hate women, reactionary feminists love a certain kind of woman. This distinction is relevant, especially since incels pose a physical threat to women in general whereas reactionary feminists only attack trans people, black athletes, sex workers, the wrong kind of queers, kinksters, child athletes... Despite their own active hostility toward many types of women, reactionary feminists hold up incels/redpillers/the far right as evidence of the threat that all women live under. There is no doubt that women face misogynist and antifeminist violence. Reactionary feminists are are far from the only ones highlighting this. What’s worth investigating are the given reasons that a target is vulnerable, and what should be done to mitigate risk in the future. In these, an incel and a reactionary feminist are in perfect harmony. Instead of a realistic assessment of risk at an individual level, or an assessment of group dynamics that allowed a survivor-victim to fall through the cracks, both parties will insist that all women are simply unsafe at all times. This notion suits a reactionary feminist’s goal of closed-rank suspicion, and an incel’s dream of terrified submission. This perspective neglects to really ask why things turned out the way they did, because that’s not the point. Whether women are innately inferior or innately vulnerable, we must travel in flocks if we want to survive. The reactionary feminist offers herself as the shepherd, having assured the flock that the enemy is close at hand. Women cannot, of course, be a pack of wolves. Members of a wolf pack work cooperatively but diverge at will.
THE WAR ON GENDER TERROR
The cumulative effect of this mindset and focus is a miserable hypervigilance, which is further hostile to any who are not miserable and vigilant. We know this scrutiny well from living inside a war on terror, which resulted in a vast expansion of state power to exclude, surveil, and punish. Because they have not abandoned their desire to dominate, reactionary feminists would like to do the same along the lines of gender law. Exclusion requires a concrete set of criteria by which a person can be marked acceptable or unacceptable, and there is trouble when a person shifts between the two. Whether you’re an immigration agent or an officer of the gender police, you’ve got to demonize those who shift, and shifting itself. Special attention should be paid to possible ulterior motives. At the overt end, this looks like the myth of the predatory trans woman and the slavery-complicit sex worker. However, these will not be widely accepted until the audience is made nervous by less ridiculous threats with a basis in reality. Sex trafficking is real, and pickup artists really do share tips online about how to pick up, manipulate, and coerce women. However, alarmist chain-mail suggesting that ‘gang members’ are stealing women off the street via box trucks does not reflect reality, but rather supposes that the threat could be any construction worker or labourer with a truck. Given the way people of colour are disproportionately represented in blue-collar work, the implications of this racially-biased hypervigilance should be obvious. The rapid dissemination of information (true or false) online is useful when stoking fear of ulterior motives. Genuine desire to spread a message that could save another woman fuels the sharing of partially-true and emotionally charged statements. Given the existence of incel and pickup artist subcultures, it seems believable that most men could have consumed advice on how to covertly film during sex, or remove a condom without being noticed. Whether that is true or not is irrelevant - the thing to do is be cautious. No matter how they seem, anyone could be concealing their motives. It begins to make sense to suspect a male social worker, or police bathrooms. Furthermore, failure to agree to this assessment of risk is evidence of insufficient solidarity with the rest of the female sex. Solidarity is imperative, given the horrors made visible by feminists who just want to protect women. Inaction could suggest complicity, and asking for a source on a claim is indicative that one does not believe victims. An avalanche of scorn awaits those who ask questions out of turn. the terror cannot end until the defenses are fortified and the infiltrators exposed. As footage of atrocities is replayed during news coverage of foreign occupations, the danger inherent in womanhood must be grimly acknowledged when we consider stepping out into the world.
WHAT IS MY POINT?
Reactionary feminists cling to the second-wave notion of sex and gender as stable categories by which most oppression can be measured. For reactionary feminist strategies to be accepted by a popular feminism informed by intersectionality, popular feminists must at least partially believe in the inherent vulnerability of women or the base instincts of men. While this sentiment was more readily at hand during the second wave of feminism, third wave feminism resists homogenizing by sex, race, or class. While white liberal/popular feminism has an embarrassing tendency to acknowledge intersectionality only out of politeness and/or use it as a cudgel, even performative acknowledgement is a ward against overt essentialist dogma. For this reason, reactionary feminists must harness movements like MeToo, incel attacks, and further misconstrue actual misogynist violence to encourage hypervigilance against terror. The war on gender terror perverts the desire to confront diverse facets of misogyny into the pursuit of covert internal threats. The war compels commitment to defending the home front. A feeling of perpetual vulnerability is the perfect environment for the proliferation of exclusionary strategy. We must feel our goodness and our weakness to the core. Fully enjoying relationships with men, sexual diversity, and private moments of peace are collateral in pursuit of remaining ever-vigilant.
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nerdygaymormon · 4 years
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October Interview w/Reporter
In October I was interviewed by a reporter. He sent me a list of questions and I sent my responses. He asked a follow-up question.
I don’t know when the story will run, or if any of my responses will be included (I understand he’s interviewing a number of people). But for my own record, here’s the questions and answers.
———————————————————————   
First can you tell me a little bit more about you, how old are you, what’s your job, and how long have you been a Mormon?
I am 48 years old. Single, never married.
I was born in Canada but Florida is home, I've lived here about 20 years.
I am a research administrator at a university. I do the administrative paperwork on research projects. The professor does the research and I do things like financial reports, payroll, purchasing, and so on.
My parents are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormons. I’ve been a member of this church all my life. 
________
Does your entourage know about your homosexuality? If so, how was the news greeted?
Most people know I’m gay, including people at church.
I've known since I was a teenager that I'm gay, but didn't come out until later in life, almost age 40. I finally reached a point where I thought, "what's the point of having a life if I'm not going to live, but remain in hiding?"
As you can imagine, I’ve gotten all sorts of reactions when people learned I'm gay.
My dad wishes he sent me to conversion therapy when I young and thinks I still should go and get “fixed.”
My mom wishes I would go back in the closet and just not talk about it.
Some of my brothers & sisters accept & love me, some are more reserved in their expressions of support.
Because I still go to church and live the type of life they agree with, most of my family and church friends accept that I’m gay and don’t have much of a problem with it. However if/when I step away from church, find a boyfriend, and all that, I think most church friends will go away and some of my family will likely limit their contact with me
_________
How gays are perceived within the Mormon community as a whole?
Gays are something of an enigma to Mormons. We don’t fit into the theology and so they don’t know what to make of us.
If there is a God, then God created all this diversity in the world. Surely God would account for this beautiful variety in His plan. However, gay people are absent from my church’s version of God’s plan.
Many gay members will say that God made us this way and loves us and we need to be embraced and loved, just the same as any heterosexual member. Some members think that we are trying to change church doctrine in order to justify our sins and that we are in apostasy for not agreeing with the anti-gay messages by our church leaders.  
As you can imagine, most gays leave this church. Consequently, even when a homosexual is attending church and doing their best, many members look at us suspiciously, assuming it's just a matter of time until we leave & "commit sin."
_________
Does homosexuality fully fit with the Mormon faith and lifestyle?
Homosexuality is incompatible with the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In this church, gay people are required to not have sex and not get married or live with a partner.
According to the Mormon faith, we have Heavenly Parents, we are their spirit children. They sent us to earth. One of the purposes of earth life is to start a family by getting married. This family bond can remain in effect after death if our marriage is "sealed" in one of the Mormon temples. Being married is a way for us to be like our Heavenly Parents. They had spirit children, and we can have children.
Gay people frustrate these beliefs. Our relationships don't resemble that of a Heavenly Mother sealed to a Heavenly Father. We can't create children with each other. Why would God create people who are designed to love someone of their own gender? It doesn't make sense to Mormons, and some deny that homosexuality is real. Because we don't fit in the Church's understanding of God's Plan, we're told to be celibate and alone.  
The Mormon faith also says we are meant to have joy in this life, but for gays it feels like we're asked to be miserable for Christ. The Church makes gay members feel shame simply for being how God made us. The church's teachings rob us of hope & joy for our future.
Being gay is a part of who I am, how can I defeat it? That's like asking a heterosexual person to stop being heterosexual, how would someone even do that?
I personally believe that gay people and our relationships are perfectly fine and can be compatible with faith in Jesus, it takes a slight reinterpretation or expansion of the doctrine. I have a personal belief that our Heavenly Parents completely love their gay children and did not set us up to fail. They weep at the injustices, oppression and hatred we deal with in life, much of which is done in God's name by religious people.  
As for church, I think it's a lack of doctrine about gay people that is causing the issue. It’s the lack of doctrine that results in “don’t do this,” and “don’t do that.”
What is it we’re supposed to do? What is the message from God for us? How will God bless us? What is the purpose of us living life as gay or transgender or bisexual or aromantic? What are we to do with this orientation?
_________
You are really active and talk openly about your condition on Twitter and Tumblr, what pushed you to do it ? Do you feel that the social medias have a role to play to help the Mormons LGBT ?
Social media is a huge help to LGBTQ Mormons. We find each other and don't feel so alone. A big part of being a Mormon is the sense of community. Mormons are very good at building community, and queer Mormons build community with each other online.
When I came out of the closet, I vowed to be completely honest with LGBT members of the church. We don't have role models, no example of how to be a gay Mormon. I try to be open about the good things and the hard things of being a gay Mormon. I also share affirming messages, I want to push back against the messages that cause people to feel shame simply for who they are.
I'm quite a bit older than the other LGBT Mormons on Tumblr or Twitter who are mostly in their teens or twenties. They have come to view me like an uncle. Many people send me questions they don't feel they can ask their parents or bishop. Sometimes it's a question about church teachings. Sometimes they want advice about how to tell their parents that they are gay. Sometimes they want encouragement because they're having a hard time. Sometimes they are suicidal and want help to hang on.
Being part of this online community of queer Mormons has blessed my life. I have gay friends. I have people who can understand my life and the things I've been through. I have people who understand that I am not evil for wanting love and companionship.  
_________
Do you feel like LGBTQ peoples are getting more and more accepted within the Mormon community? What still need to be done?  
The Bible has an ever-expanding circle of inclusion. People who were forbidden early in the book get included later in the book. My church has a similar history of expanding who gets to be included. I don't think the circle is done expanding. If we are all children of Heavenly Parents, then they love us and want us to be included.
When I was young, the church leaders used to say that being gay was a choice, or was caused by a lack of faith or some other reason. Obviously they were WAY wrong. I didn’t choose to be gay, and I can’t unchoose it. There was no choice involved.
These days the church teaches that it’s okay to have gay feelings as long as you don’t act on them. It’s okay that I find men attractive as long as I don’t have sex with them.
Among the members, there is a growing acceptance among Mormons of gay people. In the United States, about 50% of Mormons approve of gay marriage even though the church opposes such marriages.
Just as LGBT Mormons have built communities on social media, the same is true for Mormon parents of queer children and friends & allies. It's possible to find support, to read statements explaining why the church needs to change, and so on.
My view is that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is about 25~30 years behind society on LGBTQ topics. It reluctantly is being forced to move forward, centimeter by centimeter. Think about where society was in 1990, that's where the Mormon church is. More change is coming. The homophobic teachings & policies seem wrong to a growing number of members, especially to younger people in their teens & twenties. These young people love & support their gay friends and don't want to be on the wrong side of the civil rights struggle of their lifetime. If the church doesn't change, it will lose large numbers of these young people, the future of the church.
_________
Will I have a future in this church? Decades of my life have slipped by waiting for the church to change. How much longer can I be expected to wait? Sometimes I feel so weary of trying to make life work. Other times I'm reminded of things that mean a lot to me in this church. It's unfair I have to choose between love and church, between family or faith, straight people are not required to make such a choice.
___________________________
I come back to you to ask you a little question, in your answers you say "Gays are something of an enigma to Mormons. We don’t fit into the theology and so they don’t know what to make of us." I find this sentence very interesting and I was wondering if the LGBT were the only one in this situation? This question may sound strange but is there other "enigma" within the Mormon community, or the LGBT are the only one to be in such an "in-between" position? Moreover do you now how the trans peoples are perceived within the community? I found very little information about it. 
I said that gays are an enigma, but that's true of the entire queer spectrum. If a child tells their parent, "I'm bi," the parent's reaction is likely to be "you don't need to tell anyone and you can marry someone of the opposite sex." They would just prefer to ignore and erase that their child also likes people of the same gender.
Most Mormons aren't familiar with asexual or aromantic orientations. They believe that sexuality is a gift from God and romantic feelings for a spouse will continue into heaven, so they can't make sense of people who say they don't experience either of those. If gays are an enigma, then trans people are considered a direct challenge to the theology.
Gender is an important part of Mormonism. The youth program is divided by gender, there is a women's organization at church, there is a male-only priesthood. Top leadership of the church and of the congregation is men. There are some women leadership positions, but typically they are leading women or children, not men or even teenage boys.
There's a lot of thought about gender roles and the leaders teach that gender is eternal. So for a trans member of the church to say my spirit is male but I was born into a girl's body, it's strange to Mormons.
The leadership thinks that trans people are confused. Most members think being trans is fake or some form of parental abuse forced onto children.There's a definite lack of understanding, and no interest in learning.
I'm friends with a number of trans people and church is really rough for them because the way they understand themselves is undermined, they're told their identity isn't valid.
About 25 years ago, a top church leader said that gays, feminists and intellectuals were enemies of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The leaders used to fear anything unfavorable about church history being taught, everything had to be faith-promoting. But with the internet, now many people read about past teachings and some troubling things from church history. The leaders have come to terms with academics & historians and agree that it's important to expose church members to these things from the past. Better that church members learn about these things within the framework of the faith than from enemies of the church who will assign the worst motives to past actions.
Next up are feminists. This is a patriarchal church, meaning men hold the power. But more and more opportunities for women to participate are being opened up, the sexist language that existed in some of our religious rites has been replace or removed. While the leaders deny it could happen, there's a growing sense that perhaps women will get to be part of the priesthood, or perhaps will get a separate order of priesthood.
That leaves gays, and the church isn't ready to accept us. Thanks to science, the church can no longer say being gay is a choice or caused by sin. Nowadays church leaders will say that the cause of same-sex attraction is complicated, but that doesn't change the belief that gay sex & relationships are evil. The leaders say that gay marriage will never be accepted within the church.
But you know, there's a number of things that past leaders would say could never happen, and they have. A church that claims to receive revelation needs to be open to change. What's the point of revelation if there's nothing new to be revealed? The things that are right about this church can fix the things that are wrong about this church. 
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starryrogue · 4 years
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Hey. Below the cut is a LONG (2 page google docs) rant on being a gay sff book fan and the intersection of being a gay man in m/m spaces and book stuff. Just me ranting into the internet void. probs gonna delete this later so dont reblog/ or @ me or w/e
Before I get started, a disclaimer. This is a series of observations and rants based on my lived experience as a gay man in book and fan spaces. This isn't a formal critique or callout or call for action. Just an expression of confusion, frustration and desire. This isn’t me trying to dictate who can read and write and express m/m fiction. This isn't me saying “How dare women find enjoyment in things” since shaming women for “liking thing” is a long and complicated history. None of this has been checked for numbers and stats. There are a lot of generalizations below. There are probably more lgbt people engaging than I perceive. THERE IS A LOT OF GENERALIZING. This isnt an argument or formal essay.   I emphasize, this is me, a gay man, ranting and reflecting on my experience. Now that we have that out of the way
On a fundamental level, M/M book spaces are predominantly women filled. Starting at the top of the process, authors (check goodreads), Publishing (my industry and the results of a recent survey showing employment stats in publishing), Readers and engagement (harder to say stat wise but checking goodreads comments), and Fandom (more just a lived experience) are mostly women . So as a Gay Dude its confusing. On one hand, I feel kind of if I'm entering a space not meant for me, a man entering a women’s. But on the other hand my identity is the subject of so much work, both properly published and fanwork. Is this a space I can enter? 
Why is this the case? Why are women writing about this? Why is it finding an audience with other women? Is it a result of all of the above aspects just being woman heavy and it's a statistical result that most genre fiction being written/read by women? Fandom, shipping and M/M zines and fic are historically not led by men? Why? At the inception of fan culture, were there gay men engaging in shipping and using that as an avenue to explore male sexuality? Why have I only heard of fandom moms and not dads? 
Please read none of these as acuistory. I am generally inquisitive and would like an answer with historical context and data. Again, it's hard finding a balance between being a man commenting/genrailizing on a genre/hobby predominaltey for women and also being gay and wanting to engage in M/M content since again, its part of my identity being reprisented and commented on. Obviously not all the people i'm generalizing are straight, or cis. There are probably a lot of wlw, trans and nb people in these circles but I can't imagine it's the majority.I’m worried this might come off as misogynistic?
But then comes the real life scenario where I go to Scifi/fantasy book events that feature mlm leads and relationships and at a glance) I’m like one of 3 guys in a room of straight women? (again, generalizing) and I think, “why are y’all here? I'm here b/c I’m gay, and this book is gay? What are you getting out of this relationship? Where are my Gay SFF bros?”
A lot of YA SFF M/M content seems to be coming from author moving out of fan spaces, using fic as a way to practice their craft. Is this an equivalent of stright bro enjoying lesbian porn? Maybe not in YA SFF but BL/Yaoi has alway been pretty for women, by women? What about all the Mass Market romance? Straight up romance and smut between guys? Is it enjoyable b/c its two dudes making out and the author and audience are attracted to men so why not make it two men? Is it the “cultural taboo” around gayness that makes it hot? In all fairness I’ve only read 2 or 3 Mass Market/Ebook gay romances and they were Okay (like 7/10ish?) but that's not a good sample size. Again, why are women/ straight or otherwise getting to depict and dominate a market about gay men? I really suspect that women who are into men drastically out number MLM and also women being into men has been less stigmatized (Generally) than men depicting gay romance and sex. 
I wrote a post about being a gay man and liking love between men for a masculine. A kind or romance and intimacy seeped in masculinity kind of  thing and a lot the likes I got (or could identify) were women. As a gay dude i want to intereact with other MLM about M/M media since like this is suppsoed to be depiciting our kind of sex and romance but it hard to find any? (I'm not looking craaaazy hard but it's frustrating that its not a default) but where are the mlm talking about gay relationships on tumblr and goodreads?
I’m not trying to dictate who can write and read and publish this stuff. It's just isolating. There are a couple things I could go on about like depictions of mlm in shipping culture or like why all the top Tapas comics are BL but I think that's a separate issue. 
And now for some content rant 
As far as canon m/m content in books, up until recently it came in 3 flavors. Literary Tragedy, YA coming out Angst, and Mass Market Romance. Comics are a little better but not by much. Growing up I had like Magnus/Alec in that C.Claire series and Wallace Wells from Scott Pilgram and I think that was it. There has been a recent move in Sci-fi Fantasy (SFF) to be more diverse but generally its a lot of YA with a little less coming out angst. All my faves are still genreally written by women but I think the queer women and NB authors do it best IMO. 
I love SFF, but also I’m an adult so I am aging out of YA. Also YA coming out stuff especially contemporary is an easy way to get me anxious AF. Long story short, being a gay teen is tough and Id preferer not to relive coming out. I wish I had things like Carry On and How to repair a Mechanical Heart as a teen, but alas, I did not. Not that these books have no value, just there is still a gap in the market fot gay adult genre fiction(also why are straight women depicting coming out stories? Altruism?)
Give me that adult genre fiction with a gay romance b-plot please. (shout out to TOR for being market leaders but i need to do a deeper dive into indie presses). Shout out to things like Witchmark and Amberlough and The Last Sun. All great SFF stories in other worlds and full of magic and plot but also, dudes kissing. The one thing is gay authors have a tendecy to make thier books have darker topics like abuse, sexual assult/rape, homophonia, hard core drugs and violence, which i’m not going to deny. Let authors navigate the waers of gay culture in thier art. But I just want to read things like Juno Steel, queer AF but none of the homophbia and trauma attached. These asks are purely self interested, but I know there is a market for it.
(Also, there is this weird trend of Homophobia-Lite ™ where we arnt going to have the characters be bullied or outed or beaten/disowned but they need to “grow up” and get wives and families. Which on one hand is not great but on the other hand I like the way it reflects the lived experience of being ashmaed of your secuality but without the harsher traumas of the world. Its like me being gay in NYC in an artsy inudsrty. No one realy cares I’m gay and out but there are still little things that give me pause and some shame b/c interlized homophbia is a think. I think the SFF book makes it the best of both worlds of exploring homophobia without the darker themes. Ok end sidebar)
I have more thoughts on podcast content and fan spaces/shipping culture but this rant is already long. So I’ll leave it here. 
Probs gonna delete this after a day or 2. This was mostly an exercise for screaming into the void at some gay nerd frustrations. This rant is not without flaws or critique. But again, just a rant. A gay dudes nerdy rant about fantasy books. 
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matildainmotion · 6 years
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Mothering/ Making - but what about the Mating?!
           Spring has sprung at last. The bluebells are out in our garden. The apple tree is in blossom and a pair of wood pigeons that nest there are clearly busy. It is the month of May. The mating season has begun.  
           Mating. The thing that often, though not always, precedes mothering. A mate: your partner; your other half; your significant other; your wife; your husband; your spouse; your girlfriend; your boyfriend; your man; your woman; your dear one; your queer one; your ex. Have I left yours off the list? Please add them in….
           I feel nervous as I sit down to write about this. I have said before that I aim to challenge the ‘professional versus personal’ paradigm around which our lives are organised and via which the personal gets a poor name. But isn’t this theme getting a little toopersonal? It is okay to talk about mothering – it’s personal but valuing it is what I am advocating. It is okay to talk about making – it’s both personal and professional – that’s the point. It straddles both. But your mate? Your partner? Isn’t that a step too far? It feels like a ‘hot spot.’ It is tender, difficult, awkward, and yet it is huge. An elephant in the room, or a father/ mother/ non-binary other, just outside it. All the more reason to brave it. Here goes….
           In part I am nervous raising this topic because in doing so I could summon up the image of a group of mothers sitting round having a moan about their men. This is not my aim – quite the opposite in fact. It is also not the only reason why I feel nervous. Inevitably this is where I need to get personal….
           I have a husband. I still flinch slightly when I use this term. I like it because I love my husband and I loved our wedding. I want to honour the seriousness of my lifelong commitment to him. I do not like it because of the plethora of assumptions it brings with it about who I am and how my life is organised. It makes me a participant in the ‘proper world’ of marriage and all it brings – for better, for worse. I participate in the ‘properness’ and yet I also identify myself as outside or even against it, certainly not one of its unequivocal proponents.
           Back to my husband. We met whilst making. We made a show together. Then another. Then we made a home, and then, a baby.  I remember when our son first arrived I did not feel the instant overwhelming maternal love that some describe – the love grew later - but I did feel protective at once, responsible for this raw bundle of life with such palpable needs. This has continued. The children and my care of them – we now have two – are, for me, a given. I cannot not respond to them. If anything this is a confession, not a boast. Judgements aside, I am simply noticing that the children’s place in my day, as part of my time, is unquestionable.    
           I am in the extremely privileged, and weirdly traditional, position of being, for the most part, supported by my husband financially, which means I have been able to be a full time mother. I love it. I never resent the fact that I do most of the childcare, but I might if I had to give up my creative practice to do so. Along with the children being a given, it has felt essential for me to keep making – the critical quality of this need is the origin of Mothers who Make. So, I HAVE to mother, I HAVE to make – these two take up more than all my time, but what then of my marriage?
           Mothers Who Make acknowledges the challenges, as well as the joys, of mothering alongside making, but if I am honest the truly fractious, difficult fault line, or conundrum for me since becoming a mother has not been how to sustain my creative practice, but how to sustain and care for my relationship, for my mate. At night in the tiny window of time after the children are asleep (they go to bed late) I often have a choice: do I see my husband for an hour or do I do some work? At weekends we take it in turns: I give my husband some time to work while I am with the children, then we swap – no time for us. All too often the making and the marriage feel pitted against each other, even though I know that in fact the latter grew out of the former and the two are inextricably connected.
            Mothers Who Make meetings and events are adult-centred spaces but the children are welcomed and integrated. Such spaces are rare in our cultural topography yet whilst I am busy broadcasting about these to the world, showing that it is not only possible but good for all of us – adults and children alike – I do not manage it at home. At home we are child-centred and the adults needs are marginalised. We squeeze in our needs around the edge of the children’s or we don’t get them met at all. It is not how I wish it to be, but it is difficult to change. There are several reasons for this, some personal, some to do with the children we happen to have, some connected to our patterns of work  - working in the arts our work spills out into every corner of our lives, demanding its own nurturing, and in subtle ways makes it harder for us to assert our adult-connection and ownership of the home space.
           Another key reason, not particular to us, is the shortcomings of the nuclear family structure. Within a Mothers who Makemeeting a small community is formed for the duration of the session. Mostly there are more adults than children present in the space, and collectively, sitting in a circle, it is possible to hold the structure of the meeting in place, to keep the space adult-centred even whilst the children interrupt, shout, cry and run around us. With a circle of two, at home, it is harder. I am not saying it is impossible – for some it works, but I believe we need a greater diversity of structures around which we could build our lives. The royal fairy tale goes: man meets woman, they fall in love, marry, settle, have two or more children and live happily ever after.  We know it is not real or even necessarily desirable, and yet it is amazing how potent it still remains, how far we compare ourselves against it, so that any other narrative becomes a daring deviation or, worse, a failure.
           Whilst the bluebells and the apple tree may be blooming in the sunshine, the carrots that my son planted in one corner are only tiny shoots, barely showing through. Allotment gardeners talk about the month of May, when the winter brassica’s are over and the summer’s first broad bean’s have not yet come in, as ‘the hungry gap.’ There is little or no fresh produce, whilst everything grows. After our initial season of courtship and mating, my husband and I are in ‘the hungry gap’ – we’ve been in it for a while. The children are young and growing but not yet grown, and there is almost no time to feed our relationship. I trust we will come out the other side into a late summer romance, but it is a struggle. I wish we could find another gentler, more joyful way through, not just buckling down and bearing it. We are in the midst of trying, seeing if and how we might house my mother, the indomitable granny, who is as close as we can come to an extended family model, seeing if and how we might be able to reconfigure our home/ work spaces to better meet our needs.
           Here then are my month’s questions for you all: what’s your way through? How does it work for you? How does it not? What is blooming? What is struggling to grow? We need a plurality of stories, diverse gardens, a new sustainable ecology, within which to nurture ourselves, our work, our children and our mates be they men, women or queer - they are all dear.
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call-me-g-sama · 3 years
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Reader-identity crisis: is it real? *long post*
My experience of falling in love with books has not been an easy one. I always loved stories. Be it stories in books, movies, songs, dance or any form of narration, I would find myself under a spell. I love stories, that is the way it has always been.
The beginning
I read books but am not particularly drawn to them. It was in middle school that I started to read books ‘seriously’. I changed schools often because of my dad’s job. Being the A+ kid all my life, I found my position of the ‘bright student’ challenged at the new school. Most of the students there read books and one particular group of students whom I saw as my competitors in school activities have read a lot of books. They had good command over English and could weave good stories. I felt both – jealousy and loneliness. I wanted to fit in just as much as I wanted to come out at the top.
During the summer of the 7th grade, I surprisingly got selected to national level writer’s workshop along with the group of students that I wanted to befriend. I thought of it as the perfect opportunity to learn, grow and connect with others who loved stories. But I couldn’t enjoy that. I knew far too less compared to others about books and authors. I couldn’t pronounce ‘genre’ properly let alone know what it means. So, to keep me afloat I followed along with the popular choice and opinion. Harry Potter was the focus during that time. Just about everyone seemed to be reading it, watching the movies and discussing the arcs of the series. I started reading the series purely to join the discussion circle and as a bonus, I liked the story. I love the world of Hogwarts and the opportunities there. Thinking that I could finally enter this circle I read all the books simply because others were reading it too.
You must have seen what was wrong with that logic. I was forcing other’s tastes in books down my throat. Reading books was not pleasant but surprisingly it was entertaining enough to ignore the tightness in my heart. When I had to leave books for a while to focus on academics during high school, it came as a welcome break. I changed schools again so there was no longer any reason for me to continue reading what others have been reading. However, I love stories and nothing could keep me away from that. I learnt that a book I loved back in the day that I chose myself had a sequel, so, I brought it and read. Slowly, I started looking out for more reads by myself and dabbling in various genres and writing styles. It was fun! I could see why people loved it enough to forget the world around them! It was like I finally could command my ship to venture out in the sea of literature. But like any novice solitary captain despite the love for the ocean, I was scared of it. The thrill of exploration was dwarfed by the fear of exclusion.
Reader-Identity crisis
I liked reading stories that include queer themes characters, story arcs and/or romance. My bookshelf is overwhelmingly queer literature and for some reason, I couldn’t proudly display it to others or share my love for it openly.
When one’s choices are different from mainstream media, they feel lonely and scared. They are treated as outcasts if people don’t agree with their taste and subject to judgements and opinions of others. Reading may seem like a solitary hobby but readers need social community just as much as any other person. Readers tend to feel alienated too for their reading choice.
For example, Twilight. Twilight enjoys a lot of popularity. Many love the books series and movies too, to an extent. However, as observers who did not read the stories, the only reason why we see people talking about Twilight is because of how awful it is. I am guilty of being swept away by that opinion too. I thought they were uninteresting and cringy. One day when my friends and I were talking about our latest reads, the newbie reader among us, Allie, proclaimed her love for Twilight. That was one of the first series she was reading and she was loving it. I cringed inwardly at her taste. Unlike me, my seasoned-reader friend Jan, (whose extensive read shelf on Goodreads intimidates me) criticized the Twilight series and questioned the other’s taste openly. Alllie was so angry she teared up. She was not having any of our snobbish shit and made it clear that we could keep our opinions to ourselves. She is allowed to love what she loves. No reason required.
I had been in a reader-identity crisis for a while then. Unlike my friend it didn’t occur to me that I am allowed to like the books just because I do. My apprehension was not entirely unfounded. Books are a form of personal expression for both the writer and the reader. Me reading queer literature was my expression. Those stories made me feel accepted before I accepted who I am myself. Declaring openly about what I like to read seemed like I am baring myself naked in front of the world for it to pass a judgement. When I am writing this, it sounds rather dramatic but it was scary inside my head then. Scarier because I felt alone.
The talk around queer literature was so diverse I was bobbing up and down the sea of opinions. There was the scare of being accused of fetishizing gay men or being a crazy fangirl. I once in a panic said, ‘Queer literature is just like regular ones but, you know, with queer characters.’ Oh dear, I wish I could punch that past me. Queer stories are not a remix of mainstream heteronormative ones. Everything about them is different precisely because it features queer themes. The character dynamics, their relationship, the trials and tribulations are part of a queer person’s story which are nothing like a regular joe because queer people aren’t regular.
The heteronormative narrative almost made me feel guilty for being queer and later for wanting to read LGBTQIA+ stories.
A poet friend of mine who wanted to read novels asked me for recommendations so I gave her Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe. It has a poetic sadness in its prose and I thought she would like it. It was also a sneaky way for me to test how she would react if she knew that by the end of the book the two best friends would proclaim their love for each other. She returned the book a week later and simply said, ‘oh, I did not it was gay.’ That sentence felt like a slap. The fact that she needed a warning or notice beforehand made me uncomfortable. I resisted the urge to defend the book saying, ‘it wasn’t gay. They only declare like each other in the last 10 pages.’ The hell with excuses!
Around the same time, Allie asked me for books. I had Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe in my hand (I started re-reading it as a form of protest). I was not entirely sure how she would react so I read her the first chapter to see if she would want to read further. She instantly connected to the tone of the story. She excitedly asked me if she could borrow it. A week later when she returned it, she was cooing over how adorable she found the ending and how much the characters grew by the end. She embraced the story as a story. She did not put them in boxes. She embraced them as a whole. That day I had a new-found respect for her and also, I found my first real-life reading buddy.
Happy Ending (?)
I believe that my identity is not limited to answering a few questions on forms or during the discussion of sensitive topics. Who I am and what I like, are all forms of self-expression and there are times we may feel less safe or welcome for just being me. This is my story of falling in love with reading. It started as a way for me to enter a social group and since then, I found a whole new community, a part of the world that feels like home. All because I could dare to fall in love with words and the magic they hold.
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max-morris · 6 years
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21 Questions with PhD Student Max Morris
By Raven Bowen
Q: So, what do you do?
A: I’m a sociologist of sexualities and most of my research is about gay, bisexual and queer youth, but at the moment I’m writing up my PhD at Durham University based on 50 interviews with young men who have accepted money for sex online, which is something I call ‘incidental sex work.’ Basically, these guys did not advertise themselves as selling sex and most of them didn’t identify as sex workers. So selling sex is a form of sexual exploration or economic opportunism, and most often it was a one-time thing. So it challenges some of the assumptions about who sells sex and their motivations and the diversity of experiences people have about selling sex. What I want to do is to challenge some of our conventions around identity politics and sex work. I also managed to get a survey of 1,500 Grindr users and through that I found that 14.6% admitted to engaging in some form of commercial sex, with 8.2% of those doing incidental sex work or webcamming. So, it’s a lot more common among gay and bisexual men than we might realize.
Q: And your favourite colour?
A: Floral pink, because I’m a gay stereotype!!!
Q: What are you most proud of?
A: So, last year I was diagnosed with HIV and it came as a total shock to me, but I was quite proud that I was able to turn this unexpected event into an opportunity to learn from other people and educate other people. Within a couple of months of my diagnosis I had begun giving public lectures at universities and to HIV charities and I did some radio and television interviews. And they were all about the revolutionary changes in medication over the years, like PrEP as a form of prevention. I’ve been very vocal about that. I became HIV positive in a very good context with the new drugs and the normal life expectancy, and now it’s impossible to transmit the virus when you’re on effective mediation. So I want to see us move away from that stigmatized view we have of the virus from the 1980’s. Q: The death sentence idea. A: Yes, and that needs to be gone now. And this impacts my sex industry research because HIV is an intersectional issue that affects not just gay men, but trans women, migrants, sex workers. It also angers me…recently seeing prohibitionist feminists going after Amnesty International, UNAIDS and other charities because they endorse decrim as an effective way to reduce HIV infection. So that affects my life and my research in lots of different ways. Q: Amazing how your life experience now expands your scholarship and activism! A: Yes and it’s given me a feeling of solidarity for a lot of different groups with the intersections of HIV, sexual identity and feminism it definitely expanded my horizons intellectually and as an activist.
Q: What drew you to sex industry related work? What was the call for you?
A: Looking back, on the street that I was raised on, just after I left home for university, there was a ‘gay brothel’ that was raided from the Vice Squad in my home city of Bristol and my mom sent me a news clipping of the story. So, these were basically my neighbours who’d been arrested in a crackdown on drugs and prostitution in my city. Often times the laws cracking down on brothels are often policing people who are working together for safety. So it’s an excuse, so that the police can be seen as being tough on immorality. Also, when I was 16 I was on the BBC program, the Big Questions. So that was 9 years ago now and they were talking about if brothels should be legalized and I spoke up and I said that I supported decriminalization in solidarity with the two women speakers, and one of them was from the International Union of Sex Workers. The responses were moralist, right-wing. I ended up bumping into one of the speakers at the end of my street and I stopped her and said ‘hey you were on the Big Questions’ and I really remember the look of terror on her face. She thought I was going to stigmatize her or attack her for being an open sex worker. And I said, no I was one of the people how supported you. So basically, the poor diverse neighborhood where I grew up in the Southwest of England, sex workers were my friends and neighbors, they weren’t this ‘other’ identity. So, for me I took that forward when I went into university and I began my academic career looking at why we have this binary between them and us. People who sell sex are exactly the same as us. We are all sex workers in a sense. We are all selling services. My peers are engaging in incidental sex work, and that blurs the boundaries between ‘them’ and ‘us.’
Q: The last thing you laughed about?
A: I have a game that’s called Top2Bottom, which is the gay version of ‘Cards Against Humanity.’ It’s really fun. There is this one card I always laugh at. The answer card is ‘AIDS Face’ and I’m in stitches about it. When I was diagnosed, my doctor made that face at me and he said ‘don’t worry, people don’t get this face [makes face] any more because the medications have improved things so much.’ So, that card always makes me laugh.
Q: What’s your favourite food?
A: Olives, especially in a dirty martini. Q: That’s a bloody condiment!
Q: Your current project or pursuit?
A: At the moment I’m working on an article looking at the legal implications of new HIV meds for a special edition on consent in the journal of criminal law. So, looking into whether someone can consent to having bareback sex with someone who is positive, in light of the research that says that if you’re on medication you can’t transmit it, so why do we keep the legislation around transmission. My partner and I are participants in the PARTNER study, and they found zero cases of HIV transmission across 58,000 acts of condomless sex between serodiscordant couples. There is a debate within NHS about funding PrEP as well. It has big implications for sex workers as well. So much advocacy has been around gay and bisexual men but these issues are really important for sex workers.
Q: What’s your biggest regret?
A: I wish that I had been more of an ally to sex workers, trans people, migrants, people of color, people living with HIV, when I was younger. I wish I had been more active in challenging stigma before it hit me personally. The message I’d like to send is that if you have privilege and you’re not in these groups that are stigmatized, it can so easily be you or someone you know and actually these are people who you should care about. They are your friends and neighbours.
Q: Facebook or Twitter?
A: Well I went to a lecture last month by sociologist Bev Skeggs and she was talking about how Facebook collects user information, and basically sells high-end consumer goods to ‘high value’ users but sells debt to ‘low value’ users. It reinforces class inequality. And they are even tracking you when you’re not on the App. So I uninstalled the Facebook App and now I only use Twitter. Q: You don’t use Whatsapp? Facebook bought Whatsapp. A: Really!? Q: Yeah, it’s now part of their ‘family of companies’…data harvesters! A: And every website that has the Facebook logo is tracking you. Q: So, Twitter then [laughter]?
Q: What challenges you the most about your sex work or related work?
A: Being raised by a single mom on benefits, I’ve always been a feminist and class conscious, but at the same time as a man I’ve benefited from male privilege and patriarchy, so the difficulty comes in balancing my critique of sex worker and trans exclusionary feminisms with my belief in giving women a greater platform. So, that’s often an intellectual challenge I come up against. For me the best solution for that has been to use queer theory and understanding as a vocal queer person I experience some of the same patriarchy and heterosexism, so goals are intersecting and unified. Homophobia and misogyny are two sides of the same coin, especially when it comes to toxic masculinity and issues of suppressing marginalized people. That’s how I square the circle as a feminist man. Q: Yes, and no need to square the circle, we need circles, but your level of introspection outstrips most humans!
Q: Favourite Movie?
A: Alien, I absolutely love Sigourney Weaver. She was amazing in it.
Q: And the last time you cried?
A: The last time I had an argument with my boyfriend. Relationships can be hard at times.
Q: Cat or dog person?
A: I love all animals but I’m allergic to cats. I’m definitely a dog person. Me and my boyfriend dog sat for Alex Feis-Bryce who you interviewed a few weeks ago!
Q: Who understands you?
A: My boyfriend.
Q: What’s the last book or article you read?
A: I actually borrowed this from Alex: ‘Sex workers unite: a history of the movement from Stonewall to Slutwalk.’ Q: Does he know you have it, or is he going to find out here on the blog? A: Yeah he knows. Q: Oh, too bad [Laughter].
Q: Childhood Fear?
A: I used to be a surfer kid and would go down to Cornwall every summer and even though there’s nothing that can kill you in the oceans around Britain, I used to be afraid of sharks while I was on my surfboard. Which is funny because I love sharks now and I use it as a symbol for irrational fears, like those around HIV transmission. You’re more likely to get hit by a car on the way to the beach than get bitten by a shark! Q: Interesting. Let me guess, you watched Jaws as a kid, right? A: Yeah! Another great movie.
Q: What did your last text message say?
A: It was to my mom ‘Thank you for the lovely text a few days ago [mom’s name]. Happy Birthday! We are dog-sitting. Can’t wait to see more of your art exhibit.’
Q: One thing that your work or existence is aimed to do for the sex industry?
A: I think the main thing I’m interest in doing is breaking down binaries and challenging the dichotomies between us and them. The idea that sex workers are some stereotypical other…a marginalized and victimized group. There are issues of victimization and problems that the community experiences, but we need to stop thinking in such binary terms. So, feminist and queer theories are great at breaking those things down. They are more like us than we realize. Q: Yeah, ‘they’ are us!
Q: The meaning of life in one word?
A: So, part of me wants to reject the premise of your question. Q: Of course you do. Damn academics [laughter]! A: There is no objective meaning of life, but for me it’s Pleasure!
Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?
A: I’ve always liked the idea of becoming an elected member of parliament, if only to queer the House of Commons by attending important votes in full drag. I’ve said so many controversial things publicly now that I don’t think that I would ever be qualified for that, but there’s too many men in suits and it doesn’t really represent the population.
Q: Three portable items that you would have with you while stranded on a desert island?
A: How long am I on the island for? Q: Well you’re stranded. Between you and Rosie I’m starting to regret adding this question. A: [Laughter] Okay, well I’ll definitely take
(1) a sex toy, like a vibrator or a dildo or something like that, because a boy’s got needs.
(2) Then I would take a full medical kit with my insulin and HIV meds, and plasters if I cut myself on a rock. So that’s sex and health covered.
And I’d take (3) a truck full of wine!
This interview was first posted on the Sex Work Research Hub website, available here: https://sexworkresearchhub.org/2017/11/30/21-questions-with-phd-student-max-morris/
#SexWork #HIV #Research #Activism
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nothingman · 6 years
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Writers and artists took this weekend to condemn harassment and bigotry in the comics community
High-profile creators in the American comics industry have been slow to condemn the rise of Comicsgate, a campaign to “save” the comics industry by reducing the diversity of comics both behind the scenes and on the page. But this weekend, a wave of harassment aimed at a legendary creator’s widow prompted a number of writers and illustrators to rally together in making statements standing against intolerance in the comic book community.
On Aug. 21, a Twitter user posted a clip from an interview with deceased comics legend Darwyn Cooke — best known for his work on DC: The New Frontier — and tagged it #comicsgate. This caught the attention of Cooke’s widow, Marsha Cooke, who thoroughly denounced the movement. Her response provoked a string of threatening tweets, some going as far as to imply that her objection to her husband’s name being linked to Comicsgate was some sort of false flag that she had been “coached or bribed” into making.
Like Gamergate, Comicsgate has its prominent personalities associated with it, among them Ethan Van Sciver, a former DC Comics artist who regularly collaborated with former DC Comics chief creative officer Geoff Johns on titles like Green Lantern and The Flash. Van Sciver has a history of online bullying which has been documented extensively, and has used his YouTube channel to promote his interviews with controversial figures in genre media, including Vox Day, a writer who led several successive campaigns to game the voting of the Hugos, and prominent Comicsgate voice Richard C. Meyer, who runs the ironically named Twitter account Diversity and Comics. Meyer also hosts a YouTube channel on which he has made numerous racist and transphobic statements in regards to comics creators, including Ta-Nehisi Coates (Black Panther, Captain America) and Magdalene Visaggio (Eternity Girl). (Disclosure: In this writer’s own experience, I’ve clashed with prominent Comicsgate figures in the past, and have been on the receiving end of harassment campaigns as a result.)
After Marsha Cooke asked Van Sciver and his followers to tone down their transphobic attacks, Van Sciver dodged the issue and recommended she mute the tweets. He then called on “SJWs” to apologize for the harassment she was receiving.
Marsha Cooke’s experiences and Van Sciver’s response seemed to be the motivation that many high profile comic creators needed to speak out about Comicsgate for the first time. Jeff Lemire (Black Hammer, Sweet Tooth) was among the first, saying “Comicsgate is based on fear, intolerance, bigotry and anger.” Bill Sienkiewicz, legendary New Mutants artist and co-creator of the X-Men character Legion, followed with a Facebook post which denounced the movement and referred to Comicsgate’s ideology as promoting “hateful, misogynistic and plain-old-ugly dogma.”
After Sienkiewicz’s post, other high profile creators joined in. Many copy-and-pasted a phrase from a viral tweet crafted by Tom Taylor (X-Men Red, All-New Wolverine, Injustice 2) — “There is no place for homophobia, transphobia, racism or misogyny in comics criticism.” — along with their own words, sending more of a personal message than a simple retweet would.
As of publication, the list of those who shared Taylor’s message include Fabian Nicieza (co-creator of Deadpool), Gail Simone (Birds of Prey), Nicola Scott (Wonder Woman), Jordan D. White (head editor of the X-Men line at Marvel), Cullen Bunn (X-Men Blue) and Jamal Igle (Firestorm), among others. Some creators, including Gerry Duggan (Infinity Wars), Jody Houser (Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows) and Michael Lark (Lazarus), chose to modify it to remove the word “criticism.”
Others chose to use their own words entirely, like Aleš Kot (New World) and Ramon Villalobos (Secret Wars, Border Town):
Yeah, #comicsgate is a white supremacist patriarchal hate group developed and maintained to further those designs by the means of organized harassment and abuse. It capitalized on mainstream comics creators largely ignoring queer voices speaking up about being targeted for years.
— Aleš Kot (@ales_kot) August 26, 2018
now that the light is on and we're all kind of publicly talking about comicsgate and how trash it is to be a white supremacist hate group, i have a few thoughts.
— Mr. Vertigo Comics (@RamonVillalobos) August 26, 2018
Only two comics publishers have addressed Comicsgate officially; last year, Vault Comics released a statement, while Alterna Comics’ founder and publisher refused to do so.
These statements come at at time when Comicsgate-related harassment has been a presence in the social media circles of comics professionals for several years. The use of the term itself began in Sept. 2014, during the nascent days of Gamergate, when a controversy surrounding a Spider-Woman #1 variant cover by European comics legend Milo Manara led to cries of censorship, and the term “Comicgate” was born. (The earliest uses of “Comicsgate” with an “S” were from Twitter users mocking the movement.)
In his 2014 ICv2 piece “If Comicsgate Ever Happens, It Will Be Catastrophic,” Rob Salkowitz made eerily accurate predictions of how the movement would eventually coalesce around points of controversy or criticism in comics, including Frank Cho’s “outrage covers” inspired by Manara and a Marvel artist publically comparing “Social Justice Warriors” to Nazis. In Aug. 2017, the event often listed as the inciting incident of Comicsgate occurred, when a group of female Marvel staffers became the targets of a wave of harassment after posting a photo of themselves celebrating the life of the then-recently departed Flo Steinberg with milkshakes. However, the main ringleaders of Comicsgate had already begun their attacks on trans creators, queer creators and creators of color well before the #MakeMineMilkshake incident.
The enduring animosity of Comicsgate is one of the reasons that some fans, critics and even creators — including those who have endured its harassment — aren’t happy that creators have chosen this moment to respond to it, or how they’ve chosen to respond to it. Most creators who spoke out declined to specifically use the word “Comicsgate” in their condemnation of bigotry within the comics community. Many folks also took issue with framing Comicsgate as “criticism,” like in Tom Taylor’s much-spread tweet.
One of the most high-profile people to speak out against Comicsgate was Batman writer Tom King, who stated that comics “is the medium of the outsider and the outcast, the nerd who won’t fit in.” His remarks were met with pushback that they could just as easily apply to Comicsgate supporters as they could to those affected. Cullen Bunn’s statement “I *might* go so far as to say most of the people associated with [Comicsgate] aren’t bad people,” drew criticism for ascribing positive motivations to those knowingly participating in a campaign built around harassment.
Marsha Cooke herself pointed out what many Twitter users were saying this weekend, noting “it is annoying that people didn’t get on board the reality of what these idiots are doing until it was a white wife attacked.” The two times the industry has rallied together against Comicsgate has been when harassment was publicly focused on women connected to comics’ most mainstream centers, like Marvel Comics and a decades-beloved artist like Darwyn Cooke with many in-industry friends.
Comicsgate eruptions come at a booming time for diversity and inclusivity in comics. Titles such as Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur don’t do great numbers in monthly issues, but more than make up for that via Scholastic book fairs. DC Comics is expanding into the young readers’ market with the upcoming DC Ink and DC Zoom imprints, following the immense success of DC Superhero Girls. Meanwhile, many traditional superhero stories that Comicsgate enthusiasts would like to see more of are the ones struggling to find a place in the market, and Marvel’s most recent blockbuster crossover Secret Empire was the second-worst selling event in Marvel’s history.
Criticism is a vital part of any mature art form, but the biggest voices in Comicsgate aren’t comics critics. In many cases, such as Van Sciver and Meyer, they’re creators themselves, and as Tom Taylor himself later addressed, Comicsgate doesn’t stem from “comics criticism.” As journalist, comics critic and podcaster Jay Edidin said in a thread on the nature of art criticism this weekend:
Criticism isn't editorial feedback. It's not for the artist (although artists can and do make use of it as they proceed). It can intersect with lobbies or campaigns, but that's not what it is at its core.
— (((Jay Edidin))) (@RaeBeta) August 27, 2018
Kieran Shiach is a Salford, U.K.-based freelance writer and one half of Good Egg Podcasts. He is on Twitter, @KingImpulse. He wishes in the past he tried more things ’cause now he knows being in trouble is a fake idea.
via Polygon - Full
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fashiontrendin-blog · 6 years
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How RuPaul’s Drag Race Challenged My Gay Identity
http://fashion-trendin.com/how-rupauls-drag-race-challenged-my-gay-identity/
How RuPaul’s Drag Race Challenged My Gay Identity
A
s even the most casual viewer of RuPaul’s Drag Race will tell you, the show is one meme-worthy, GIF-able moment after another. From the now-infamous Linda Evangelista rant to deep cuts like “Get her, Jade,” the show has spawned a shorthand of its own. But there is one specific scene from the show’s decade-long history that will always stay with me. It’s a testimonial clip from the seventh season (admittedly not the show’s strongest) in which Trixie Mattel reveals the origin of her drag name: “Trixie” was a homophobic slur used repeatedly throughout her childhood, a name intended to cause harm to a little boy who didn’t fit into a certain predetermined mold of manhood. Taking that slur and building her drag identity around it was an act of defiance on Trixie’s part, a way of reclaiming power and owning her identity.
The moment had such a profound impact on me was because it wasn’t until I began watching Drag Race in 2014 that I realized just how much I had been holding onto my own misguided ideas about what it means to be a gay man.
I was a scrawny and bookish little boy, and because I didn’t quite fit in, I found myself identifying with Disney heroines Belle and Ariel, who were outcasts in their own ways. I would sit in my room for hours, reading and making up stories and casting myself in lavishly imagined adventures. I had no idea that these things would code me as queer in the eyes of other people. I was called “camp” when I was still in primary school, before I even knew what the word meant, and long before puberty hit me like a bus called Priscilla and brought with it the first inkling that I might like boys.
When I later came out as a teenager, I almost immediately became preoccupied with being the “right” kind of gay.
When I later came out as a teenager, I almost immediately became preoccupied with being the “right” kind of gay. Since I didn’t personally know any other openly LGBTQ people, I can only assume I internalized what that entailed from the meager, sexless queer representation in the media at the time and from the constant jokes made by my peers. I went to an all-boys grammar school that had been so steeped in the myth of masculinity over its 350-year history that you could practically smell it as you walked down the halls. (Male privilege, it turns out, smells a lot like AXE body spray.)
Moderating my own behavior became second nature, and that habit followed me into adulthood. Was I being too loud? Too effeminate? How was I standing? What should I do with my hands? Even dating other gay men, I would feel this impulse to tone myself down, to put on a rather weak show of perceived manliness, assuming that would be what they found most attractive.
RuPaul’s Drag Race was a real “come to Jesus” moment for me. In addition to being one of the most consistently, outrageously entertaining TV shows of the new century, Drag Race synthesizes the battle that goes on inside a great many gay men in a way that I had never seen on screen before. The queens share many personal stories about playing with mom’s makeup and trying on her clothes, or feeling somehow separate from their peers and siblings when they were growing up; as a kid who was constantly described as “sensitive” and “creative” in a very particular tone, I could relate.
Unlike so many other gay narratives where you follow a character from their traumatic coming out to their inevitable death by HIV/AIDS, RuPaul’s Drag Race was perhaps my first unapologetically optimistic, joyful gay viewing experience. It takes all of the things it seemed I was encouraged to feel embarrassed about, the weirdness I often wished I could leave behind me in the closet, and it reframes them as important, integral elements of a greater collective identity. Here were men like me, who had also idolized Disney princesses as children and were now channelling and reinterpreting those characters, retelling those stories with themselves cast in the lead roles.
The acts of reading and throwing shade (described by drag queen Dorian Corey as “the art form of insults”) were also immediately familiar to me. After all, the stereotype of the acid-tongued gay man is rooted in some truth; if you spend your formative years being taunted or feeling like you have to read the room in order to better fit into it, then it makes perfect sense that you would become an expert at picking up on other peoples’ insecurities and retaliating with perfectly formulated barbs. What makes the show’s iteration of this so gratifying is that when a queen is read for filth, she will shriek with laughter because she appreciates the artistry of the shade. Drag queens wield language like a weapon, but those volleys are shot across an equal playing field. Bullies they are not.
  I can say with certainty is that I wouldn’t be so openly affectionate and supportive with my gay male friends, so unafraid of showing vulnerability, if I hadn’t learned how by watching grown men share wigs and lovingly call each other “sister.”
As the show’s popularity grew, it became something of a gateway drug to queer culture for its audience. You can’t praise Drag Race without first acknowledging the debt it owes to Paris Is Burning (a legacy the show references proudly and often). And you can’t talk about Paris Is Burning without recognizing how much gay vernacular and iconography comes from black and Latinx communities, and trans women in particular.
I’m not saying that I wouldn’t have the circle of queer friends I do now if I hadn’t become so enamoured with Drag Race, but what I can say with certainty is that I wouldn’t be so openly affectionate and supportive with my gay male friends, so unafraid of showing vulnerability, if I hadn’t learned how by watching grown men share wigs and lovingly call each other “sister.”
I was in my late twenties when a friend initiated me into the cult of Mama Ru. Watching Drag Race become such a mainstream success and inspire a generation of younger fans has been hugely encouraging; queens like Trixie and Katya especially have stans who are still in adolescence, right at the beginning of their journeys to find themselves. It makes me so happy to know those kids are growing up hearing Ru’s message of self-acceptance: “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?” It makes me wonder how different things might have been for me if I’d been exposed to such a philosophy at an earlier age.
The show is not without its challenges. The conversation that has emerged during more recent seasons about the way black queens are received by fans of the show compared to their white sisters, and this season’s disproportionately negative viewer reaction to The Vixen (who correctly anticipated that she would be stereotyped as an “angry black woman”) is both illuminating and damning. This dialogue, and the fact that we are only now beginning to openly talk about race on the show, is in many ways a microcosm of the ongoing discourse on racism in the gay community at large, where whiteness (along with, yes, masculinity!) tends to be centered.
RuPaul herself might occasionally misspeak on certain issues, but RuPaul’s Drag Race as an entity has become a broad church in which queens of any ethnicity, gender identity and body type are celebrated. I eagerly await the day when that kind of acceptance is reflected in mainstream, everyday life so that young LGBTQ people won’t be inhibited by the same kind of gatekeeping that still occurs even within our own community.
The time has come for outdated ideas of being the “right kind of gay” to sashay away. Until then, it’s reassuring to know that there is at least one mainstream outlet for joyful diversity in the form of Drag Race; I hope it continues to open people’s’ eyes like it has mine.
Philip Ellis is a freelance writer and journalist from the U.K. You can follow him on Twitter @Philip_Ellis
Photos via VH1. 
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nerdygaymormon · 5 years
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The world's standards have lowered. And rather than maintain the standards of the church you advocate for the church lowering it's standards to meet the world's. God is not a god of chaos. You advocate for chaos. A world were people can do whatever makes them happy in that instant. Where men are woman and woman are men. I feel so bad for all the young kids you've led astray.
If I really bother you so much, it’s probably better for your blood pressure if you stop reading my blog. I don’t know why you bother sending me messages like this. I’m just some random guy sharing his thoughts and experiences of being a gay Mormon. I’m not a leader in the church, in fact, just a secretary. 
You’ve sent me a number of pointed questions, I’ve taken time to answer. You’ve sent some accusatory messages and I’ve responded, even though I’m certain you are not interested in my opinion. Why do you do this? 
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I'm not asking the church to “lower” its standards. I’m saying that church should be a safe place for all of God’s children. I wish the church would recognize the complex realities of the diversity of life. That’s not “lowering” standards, it’s wanting the church to continue getting better, to continue widening the circle of inclusion, to find ways to bless the lives of more of God’s children. 
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If you think what I’m asking for is “chaos,” you haven’t read the Bible. The God in that book is wild and routinely undermined traditions and previous teachings in order to recognize the messy complexity of life and to expand the number of people who can participate. 
And yes, I mean God was wild, not the tame, placid version we find described in the LDS Church. Yahweh spoke to Moses from a burning bush, was in the whirlwind, used the Reed Sea to crush the Egyptians, sent ravens to feed Elijah, protected from the burning bite of the desert serpents by having people look at a serpent on a stick, wrestled with a prophet. Do you even recognize this God? Is this the God you worship? This God doesn’t mind a bit of chaos, meets people where they are, can be demanding and also is open to change. 
Some examples of changes you can find in the Bible:
Eunuchs are banned from worshipping - actually, eunuchs are welcome
Commemorate Passover - okay, if you were ritually unclean and thus unable to celebrate Passover, hold a second Passover remembrance
Firstborn gets the birthright - gives the second born the birthright
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“people can do whatever makes them happy in that instant” 
This is what you think I want? Then you haven’t paid attention. I want everyone to get the same opportunities. The gospel teaches ways to have deep joy in this  life and the next, and then the church prohibits some people from those things. 
Black people used to be prohibited from advancing beyond baptism, that was wrong and unfair, deprived them of the opportunity for exaltation. Eventually this got fixed. 
Today we are taught about the covenant path, but then roadblocks are put in the way to prevent trans people from being able to take the first step on that path, and gay people are forbidden from completing that path by getting married. 
If the God of today is like the God of the Bible, I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point things are disrupted, those who are currently held back from blessings get declared to be greater, move to be the first.  
And we have hints that this is the case. President Kimball gave permission for a trans woman to be sealed to her husband in the temple. Either this trans woman will be a woman in the eternities or this is a same-sex couple. Either way, it shows that the current rules are not fixed, that there is a way for queer members of the church to receive the greatest blessings the church has to offer. 
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killingthebuddha · 7 years
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“It’s funny because I never much liked the Scriptures growing up. They always seemed boring. But during these late-night conversation they came alive and I saw people I had never seen before. Men and women and some not male, not female, something in the middle or altogether different.”
–Mary/Marcus, from “Transfigurations: Trangressing Gender in the Bible” (written & performed by Peterson Toscano; directed by Samuel Neff)
I too have transgressed with the Bible.
For some reason, our regular Sunday School classroom at the Evangelical Covenant Church was unavailable, so our high school class was meeting in the sanctuary, usually seen as a place too special and sacred for a high school class. In our best Sunday clothes, we awkwardly tried to form a circle, some of us facing backward in the immobile pews as we went through the day’s curriculum. We had been asked to read from our favorite chapter in the Bible. Others read Psalm 23, “For Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want” or I Corinthians 13, “love is patient, love is kind.” But I claimed as my favorite, and read, Leviticus 18: “‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable. Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.” I had no strong opinions on these commandments. I just thought it was funny to be able to read about gay sex and bestiality in the sanctuary. And no one could stop me, because, hey, it’s in the Bible.
Peterson Toscano transgresses with the Bible. As a Bible scholar and actor, Peterson takes stories of gender-non-conforming characters from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures and brings them to life in a one-man performance. As the warrior/judge Deborah (from Judges 4-5) Peterson shows the diverse ways of being a woman in war. As Hegai, an official from the book of Esther, he introduces the in-between spaces eunuchs can occupy. He tells the story of Desta, the Ethiopian eunuch of color from Acts 8 who may have been the first baptized Gentile. From a single line about a man carrying a jug of water in the Last Supper story, he develops a rich story of violating gender norms at the heart of the gospel.
Learn more about Toscano’s performance here.
But most compelling to me was the story of the cross-dresser Joseph, told through the character of Joseph’s uncle, the manly-man Esau. Now, I’ve known the story of Joseph and his “coat of many colors” since I taught myself to read using Bible picture books. But it wasn’t until I encountered Peterson’s play that I learned the translation issues around the Hebrew phrase for the coat, “Ketonet Passim.” Peterson shows how the only other place that the word is used in the Hebrew Bible is in 2nd Samuel: “She was wearing an ornate robe [Ketonet Passim], for this was the kind of garment the virgin daughters of the king wore.” After poking fun at stereotypical male Biblical scholars completely unable to determine the meaning of the term in the Joseph story, he shows how reading “the coat of many colors” instead as a “princess dress” is a possibility we must consider:
“If you have any intellectual integrity you have to admit that one possible interpretation is that Jacob gave his son this female garment…it doesn’t have to be the only interpretation; it doesn’t have to be the one that you agree with, but it needs to be on the table, because it’s in the text.”
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But what does it mean to transgress? To transgress with, in, for, or against the Bible?
Lord knows I’m no Biblical scholar, but when I look up “transgress” in a Bible encyclopedia, I get this definition: “passing over or beyond any law, civil or moral; the violation of a law or known principle of rectitude; breach of command; fault; offense; crime; sin.” The word appears about 100 times in the Bible, represented by the Hebrew “pasha” in the Old Testament, and the Greek “parabasis” in the New. And unlike the cool and edgy connotations the term gained in social theory texts of the last 25 years, every instance is negative. Transgressing in the Bible is something that you avoid, ask forgiveness from, or wish your neighbors would stop doing. It is willfully breaking God’s law. It is unquestionably bad.
This was the moral binary I learned in the sanctuary and Sunday school rooms of my youth. God’s law is God’s law, and breaking it is bad. But I had trouble squaring this binary with the realities of me and my peers. I saw bad people be good and good people be bad. I saw good done for bad reasons and bad done for good. I saw situations with no good responses, and saw that some people had easier paths to good than others. I did my part to question these categories. What was good and what was bad? What law was God and what was man’s? And I found an unlikely ally in my struggles: the Bible itself, both Old and New Testaments. Yes, there were moral absolutes laid out in the text, but we only paid attention to a handful of these. The characters I experienced in the Bible, on the other hand, they struggled with these questions of what was good and what was bad, which laws were of men and which were of God.
So Peterson Toscano’s queering of the gender binary by inhabiting Biblical characters is meaningful for me. Yes, “male and female they made them” is in the Bible, but so are manly women and feminine men, cross-dressing patriarchs and eunuch officials. Yet, conspicuously absent from Peterson’s performance is the main gender-non-conforming character in the Bible, the main character in the Christian biblical story: Jesus. For Jesus did not marry and reproduce children, in a culture that expected such from real men. Jesus spent his time with a bunch of young men, telling them how he loved them. In a world that expected him to solve problems with a sword, he gave the unmanly message of submission and gave up his body without a fight.
Are beloved Biblical characters queer? Is the Bible trans? Are the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures subversive texts undermining the gender binary? These don’t have to be the only questions, they don’t have to be the ones that you ask, but as Peterson Toscano’s “Transfigurations” shows, they need to be on the table–because they’re in the text.
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