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queering-ecology · 2 months

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Queering Ecological Politics

“The articulation of sexuality and nature [can be used] as a form of eco-sexual resistance” (21). Gay urban culture, at least according to mainstream media, is tied to lifestyle consumerism. Social acceptance comes not because of queerness but because queers are good consumers.

The editors argue that we must reorient our politics towards a queer ecological perspective; “a transgressive and historically relevant critique of dominant pairings of nature and environment with heteronormativity and homophobia” in order to counteract the “environmentally disastrous (and often ethically void) lifestyle consumerism” (22) we feel trapped in.

Queer ecology then offers “new practices of ecological knowledge, spaces, and politics that places central attention at challenging hetero-ecologies from the perspective of non-normative sexual and gender positions” (22). The editors then demonstrate how (queer) literature has been used to challenge ideas of heterosexuality as natural by positioning same sex relationships as innocent/natural and heterosexuality as the thing that needs to be ‘learned’. There has been a lot of work done within environmental literature with queer ecology but also in these same oft hetero-naturalized parks.

Many gay men (and other queers) have used public green spaces to ‘cruise’. These spots have also been impetus for community activism. “Shortly after the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York, a popular cruising area in Queens, Kew Gardens , was destroyed by extensive tree cutting. ‘Within a week…there were public actions showing conscious visibility, and the first gay liberationist environmental group, Trees for Queens, was formed to restore the park” (Ingram, 1997a, 47) (27).

When we consider environmental politics through issues of race, gender, and sexuality we expand the understanding of ‘what counts’ as an environmental issue; when viewed from a queer, feminist, anti-racist perspective, the environment is understood as “where we live, work, play and worship” (2004, 1)(27).

Greta Gaard’s article ‘Toward a Queer Ecofeminism’ (1997) is one that I plan on also reading and summarizing. But the main points that are made are, “Western culture’s devaluation of the erotic parallels its devaluations of women and of nature’ and “queers are feminized, animalized, eroticized, and naturalized in a culture that devalues women, animals, nature and sexuality” (29).

Gaard emphasizes the concept of ‘erotophobia’ as a bridge between heterosexism and ecological degradation, and it opens the door to considering environmentalism as sexual politics, “as a form of aesthetic and corporeal struggle against the disciplinary logics of heteropatriarchal capitalism” (29).

Queer Ecology then involves the ‘opening up of environmental understanding to explicitly non-heterosexual forms of relationship, experience, and imagination as a way of transforming entrenched sexual and natural practices towards simultaneously queer and environmental ends” (30). All the chapters/articles in the remainder of the book should share this fundamental supposition: “scrutinizing and politicizing the intersections between sex, and nature not only opens environmentalism to a wider understanding of justice, but also deploys the anti-heteronormative insistences of queer politics to potentially more biophilic ends than has been generally imagined”(30). The editors finally dedicate the remainder of the introduction to laying down the upcoming chapters, which I do not feel the need to summarize as I will probably end up summarizing most of them eventually.

#environmentalism #environmental justice #environmental politics #queer theory #queer ecology #heteronormativity #queer politics #anti capitalism #trees for queens #intersectionality #ecofeminism #critical ecology

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wetcatspellcaster · 25 days

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Hello again, Ms. gender nerd anon here, re-sending my ask! Thanks for confirming it got lost!

I just wanted to say that I really appreciate your stance on misogyny in BG3 fandom (those “shipping Astarion with women is conversion therapy” takes are wild).

Gender dynamics in your fics are also a breath of fresh air because of how full of default heterosexual sado-masochism* and female submission in general f/m Astarion fics are (nothing wrong with being submissive, but the tendency itself is not above criticism imo). I absolutely love Rosalie’s wit, intelligence, agency, initiative, insecurities and vulnerability, she’s such a deep and well-rounded character. She’s a badass but not in a stereotypical “strong woman” type way which just acts “masculine”, e.g. fights, is assertive and sure of herself, etc. I think you’re doing a great job at portraying more egalitarian f/m relationship and sexuality.

I also remember you saying something like (I’m paraphrasing here) the problem you see with “I can fix him” trope is heterosexism that often accompanies it.

Considering all this I wonder if gender dynamics and using a feminist lens is something you consciously think about when writing Rosalie/Astarion and if yes, how do you approach that?

Thank you!

* https://preview.redd.it/6ak4wpp4zimc1.jpeg?width=577&auto=webp&s=933cf03cb5cc08346d3dff9bfc4a3266a0b68651&app_web_view=ios

PS I also read Howl’s Moving Castle recently and really felt something of Howl and Sophie in your fics, it’s lovely!

PPS English in not my first language so sorry for any awkward phrases/mistakes

hi anon, thank you for coming back with the long-awaited question (also there is no need to stress about the English used here, it's all very high level lmao so please don't apologise!)

I'm not interested in commenting/speaking ill on other fics or trends within Astarion fic so I'm only going to discuss this question in relation to my own writing. [Beyond once more reiterating that the popularity of m/m ships in fandom has its roots in racism and misogyny (a preference for white male characters above any female characters, especially those of colour when they are the canon interest), and the belief that 'gay' ships are inherently more virtuous has its roots in um. radfem ideology. and again, misogyny. Fair enough if you like what you like but please examine your biases and plz stop hating women and dressing it up as queer positivity.]

This ended up being very, very long, so it's under the cut lads! I did promise I could talk about gender in fiction all day long.

So first off, anon - people like what they like. There's nothing wrong with that - most of what I write, it's not done with any virtue signalling in mind, it's just that I'm writing what I like, as well. That is, I'm going to be honest, in large part my answer to your question.

In all honesty, I do not write my bg3 with an inherently feminist lens or mindset held in my brain at the time of drafting, beyond the fact that I'm a feminist in my own day-to-day life. If I was to attribute it to anything... I would actually be really basic, and just be frank: I really like women. I find women hot. I like a lot of female characters, more than I like male ones.

I'm really touched you think Rosalie is a well-rounded character, as she is intended to be written that way, but honestly? I just find her hot. I give her good lines and fun moments equal to Astarion's, bc she's v sexy to me. I like giving her hot things to do, and at a very basic level, it's for me, lmao. I made her well-rounded, bc I like her and I find her entire character aspirational and attractive. Fic is, often, just for pleasure. In the same way other people write what they find hot, I write what I find hot, and if you were to examine my fics and my bookmark history (Sophie/Howl is up there honestly, but Jareth/Sarah from Labyrinth is the biggest giveaway lmao) you would know that I just find this kind of dynamic.... where there's a villain and a heroine who breaks him.... or a woman who reads a man for filth... hot.

But if you want an answer that goes deeper and more theoretical, there are two things that I can give you!

I find it both reassuring and funny that you bring up both heterosexism and not making Rose 'masculine', bc Rosalie is consciously one of my most femme OCs. The pink/purple colour scheme is a dead giveaway. I think this was because, in Early Access, all of the femme companions are gnc in some way, which was fucking awesome, but that meant there was a gap in the market for my funky pink tiefling!

Most of the characters were also quite edgy - I've talked about the Early Access disapproval, and the way it felt like you were being bullied by the pixels inside your gaming PC, and how this informed my choice of OC. At the time, I was also playing in a D&D game full of edgelords, and was getting quite bored (mid-pandemic) with this entire belief that playing 'good', or being idealistic, is naive/dumb, or boring, or trite, or overdone. A lot of my writing is triggered by a spite reflex, so in Rose, I doubled down. I put a lot of tropes about femininity that get a lot of hate in fandom into Rosalie, bc these often overlap with the idea that being emotional or naïve is undesirable bc (you guessed it!) misogyny. It's better to be jaded and cynical, bc that's a traditionally masculine view of the world. This idea that being 'good' is stupid is fed by many things, but it is gendered, and making Rosalie a high femme woman was a conscious decision.

BUT in her character, I also had this secondary question - in a group where everyone is berating you for being kind, if you're a rabid people pleaser and traditionally feminine caregiver, why are you refusing to back down? How are we getting to the 'lawful' part of lawful good - which I interpret as having an inflexible moral code? And this was where I bought in the idea that someone is trying to make up for lost time, and created the device of her agoraphobia, and the tadpole as anxiety medication.

I think this is perhaps what makes her feel well-rounded, but also takes her from 'passively' feminine to 'actively' feminine - she's had all the traditional femme upbringing BUT she then has a tadpole hijacking all her AFAB socialisation, everything that's told her to not to take up space or back down or defer to other people.

I'm not going to lie, this is something I am struggling with at the moment: an awareness of being raised and socialised as a woman, and as an autistic woman who's masking practices are inherently tied up into the codes of femininity and the behaviour expected of her. I didn't realise this at the time of writing. But I guess Rosalie gets access to a confidence she didn't before, through a magic cure, and this is something that alters the dynamics of her character in a way that allows her to have a more active role. She doesn't feel the need to mask much anymore (see! this is why I find her HOT!!!)

The other gendered lens I will admit to bringing to the table with Rosalie, and consciously employing, is the traditional gendered dichotomy between emotion (femininity)/intellect (masculinity) that was held in the 1800s-1900s. This is because this theory used to fascinate me, I've read/studied a lot about the idea of gendered modes of reading books and understanding the world - for instance, there was a moral panic that's reflected in books like Northanger Abbey and Madame Bovary where it was feared women couldn't read literature properly, and that the lines between fiction and reality became blurred for them, because literature incites emotions and women are inherently more emotional beings. It was believed that they couldn't differentiate between the emotions fiction made them feel, and their real life. This persists till today, in a derogatory approach to female fandom, to immersed readers, and the media products that girls like (e.g. the Twilight books, and associated derision of its readership). In this dichotomy and belief system, women are overly emotional and thus stupid/idealistic, and the admirable way to be is critical, detached, intellectual - ie. everything the man making these rules thinks he is.

This DOES come into play with Rosalie, in a big way, but that's kind of BG3's fault. The whole idea of a mindflayer, is someone who is intellect without any emotion, and this makes them threatening, and powerful. I coupled that with a woman who sees her depression (and thus her emotion) as a weakness, and who is using illithid tadpoles as medication. I've talked a few time in asks, about how the bad ending for Rosalie would be her turning into the mindflayer for the good of the group, becoming that ideal of intellectual detachment that she thinks will be all everyone wants from her. It would be: The Bleeding Heart, versus The Exalted Mind. I sat on that decision screen, CRYING, for a really long time, bc I knew she would turn illithid in a heartbeat, for all the wrong reasons. To me, it felt like a new version of suicidal ideation had been given to my mess of a character. (Thank god for Astarion in this instance, honestly).

As a wizard, Rosalie is operating in that intellectual paradigm that critical thinking = good. Being cold and analytic = good. She is not that, until she has the tadpole: she never aspired to power, she feels in thrall to her own emotional state, she feels like her emotions make her weak and have actively disadvantaged her progress. So she is facing this battle between what she thinks she should be - intellectually confident, certain, calculated and cool - and what she thinks she is - emotionally messy, easily manipulated, sad and weak - without realising it's a fake mutually exclusive binary, and she can in fact be both. This is a journey I hope to take her on in An Honest Lie, and she's already undergone in Pieces (although, there's a bit more emotional repression in this timeline, if she was actually well-adjusted i think she would've fucked the Ascendent at least once lol).

What I did bring to the table was a extreme frustration at traditionally feminine-coded traits (moral idealism, goodness, empathy, over-emotional modes of being in the world) being constantly derided or treated as stupid. I also wanted to write a wizard who wasn't a pinnacle of intellect, but was struggling with that fact, and I made her high femme for a reason!

So... yeah! TLDR, I write women with personalities bc I like and am attracted to women - the same way a lot of male characters get attention or become the most fully fleshed, complex beings in existence, bc their writers like and are attracted to them. I do not write consciously feminist attacks on other people's dynamics, what I write is the dynamics I find incredibly sexy instead.

So I guess... my advice on how to approach things???

write what you find hot

give attention to the characters you find hot

if there are any dynamics you find interesting in theory, you can explore them!

I did make a conscious choice to subvert some tropes in Pieces, but this was mostly to avoid writing noncon bc it's not my thing, I didn't have any interesting in doing that to my OC, and also, i don't think I could write it well. So I guess the other thing you can do is, if there's a trope that frustrates you or you don't like the gendered politics of something, think of a new interesting way to write it or flip that dynamic (....like a Power Word Kill!)

#asks #anons #long posts #an especially long post. considering my answer is 'women hot'.

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femme-historian · 2 months

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Hii :)

If I don’t bother and you accept questions I would really like to talk about something it‘s more of a question and if you‘re not comfortable talking about this please feel free to ignore it. But I saw a lot of discourse again lately on the topic of bisexual butches. And I personally have always thought these labels like femme and butch are only lesbians labels because it’s also mostly shown like that on the internet but then I saw a documentary „gender outlaw“ with Leslie Feinberg in it talking for a really short moment about bi butches and I was/still am kind confused because I also saw a lot of people with the butch flag as their profile pic but with „bi“ in their bio. I really don’t know what to think about it because it‘s not my place to say how anyone identifies but I thought butch/femme was also about distancing yourself from men completely. But when I saw Leslie Feinberg (my favourite lesbian icon) talking about it it really got me thinking. But on the other hand maybe they just said bi butches because their wasn‘t that much other labels for masc presenting bi women these days and nowadays a lot of bi women call themselves masc which I personally feel more comfortable with instead of them calling themselves „bi butches“.. I don‘t know really. I’m not trying to be disrespectful or anything. English is not my first language so I hope I didn’t write anything harmful but this topic really bothers me. I asked someone before on here which has helped me a bit but I couldn’t take their answer completely serious because they also said that bi women/butches dating men would make their relationship queer.. and I really wouldn’t go that far..

Can you please tell me your thoughts on this ?

Hi! I apologize for the late response. I understand your questioning. I think it can be generative for us to look in the past to base our understandings of “Self.” Butch-femme is a departure from heterosexism and patriarchy. Butches and femmes do not have to be butch-femme (as in coupled; these identities exist separately as well) I can’t speak for butches or bisexuals, but yes, bisexual people who self-identified as butch did exist. But when we study the past, we have to make sure to yes, see reflections of ourselves but also not flatten the complexities of their identities! We don’t know for certain if every bisexual butch identified with Butch as an identity and not just an aesthetic.

From what I understand talking to lesbian elders, butch as a descriptor was also used to describe loosely ‘masculine’ fashion and dress alongside being used derogatorily. However, the past is not the only place to generate identifications. It’s not my place to police other people’s identities. Bisexual butches exist simply because people identify as that! It really is that simple! I will say that butch and femme are primarily Lesbian identifications. Just like anything from the past, especially Queer histories, there were people who disagreed and agreed on whether butch and femme should only be exclusive to lesbians. The fact that you see multiple perspectives doesn’t mean someone is right or wrong per se, but you are seeing the multiplicity and beauty of Queer history!

As for bisexual butch cis women who date cishet men and call their relationships queer…. I wouldn’t say that’s queer at all! Because they read as a heterosexual couple.

This is long and hope it helps!

XOXO

bunny (the femme historian)

#anon ask #lesbian history

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docgold13 · 2 months

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Hey, Doc. What advice would you give to incel, blackpilled, etc. men trying to improve their mental health and worldview?

That's a tough one. If I understand it correctly, the 'black pill' ideology basically entails a fatalism wherein the individual believes their lives are bad because they are not conventionally attractive, their lives will always be bad, and nothing can ever change this.

at its core, this type of fatalism is not all that dissimilar to that seen in many cases of depression as well as a host of other psychological difficulties. There is a negative core belief that colors and skews the way the individual seems interprets and interacts with the world around them. And the only way to circumnavigate the matter is to constantly question, test and analyze the negative assumptions until one’s perspective becomes more objective and less skewed by self-prejudice.

Easier said than done, of course. But this is the basic principle of cognitive behavioral therapy wherein there are scores of different exercises meant to help the individual to regularly question and reanalyze their negative assumptions and look at life experiences through a clearer, more rational and less prejudiced lens.

In my experience, people who might fit into the concept of an incel are generally quite obsessed with issues of status and seeing the self and others as existing on a continuum based on value. Here those who are attractive, talented, famous, wealthy or in some fashion charismatic have high vale; whereas those who are unattractive, who are shy, uncertain or socially awkward are viewed as of low value.

That whole dichotomy needs to be thrown out the window.

The idea that one’s personal value is based on physical appearance and how successful they are at dating is exactly the kind of negative and irrational assumption that requires constant questioning and reanalysis.

A successful regimen of cognitive behavioral therapy (which can often be expedited through concurrent use of antidepressant medication) will likely lead to a stark decrease in self-hatred.

I don’t believe there has ever been a chauvinist whose sexism is not based in self-hatred and insecurity. Indeed improving one’s self-esteem and reducing self-hatred almost always entails a decrease in hatred toward others; reductions in bigotry, sexism, racism, heterosexism, the whole ball of yarn.

Successfully treating self-loathing is not an easy ordeal. It takes a lot of work and the individual needs to want to change. But it is very much possible.

#ask docgold13 a question

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browneyesbrighteyes · 2 years

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I have one last thing to say on this matter and I’ll be done.

My initial post today was very reactive after seeing a post that vaguely showed that filtering for “dark” dinluke content is about 15% of the fics.

And after that post, and the many following by both myself and others, dark fic sort of once again got centered in the discussion. And although I have pointed out more than once that it is not the dark fic on its OWN that I have an issue with, I think it did allow one very important issue to sort of fall to the sidelines. That issue being the homophobia and heterosexism in the fandom, which, yes, is NOT restricted to the “dark” dinluke community.

I do think the things that have been said today ARE important. We should strive towards works more free from racism, xenophobia, and fetishism. I don’t have an issue with “dark” fic in general, I have an issue with those things, and with improper tagging.

But I also think it’s important that we don’t drown out the other voices. So I apologize if I contributed to that today.

Because I agree. Homophobia and heterosexism is extremely prevalent. Somehow, Luke is always the “woman” the the relationship. A “tradwife” if you will (not a phrase I’ve come up with for the situation but one I’ve seen others use).

I notice this, and I fucking hate it too. And I try to be very conscious of this when I’m writing. I’m bisexual, and the dynamics of my relationship with my partner/husband are not what would be considered stereotypically hetero. But, I am not a gay man.

So please, if I ever contribute to heterosexism, call me out on it. Let me know. I WANT to know, because I either want to fix it. Or, if it is something I cannot fix, I want to remove myself from creating in the space if I cannot do so without creating harmful content.

#dinluke

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gatheringbones · 2 years

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[“The coalition understood initiatives like the Worcester center as part of a long historical alliance between medicalization and criminalization. A leaflet explained, for instance, that “our opposition to this unit is part of our opposition to prisons and mental hospitals in general…. They are extreme and brutal manifestations of the racism and classism of our society, and … inevitably reflect and serve the interests of the patriarchal, capitalist organization of society, which is, most basically, what we are fighting.” In a signature piece titled “The Truth Behind the Bars,” the group posited that “there have never been clear lines between who can become labeled a ‘criminal’ and who can become labeled a ‘crazy’”; both “correctional and psychiatric prisons” share an objective of “individual adjustment or pacification” to the existing social order.

In the case of the Worcester center, CSIV saw these parallels transfigured into powerful intersections: by importing the “medical model” into the prison setting, corrections authorities would be granted the mechanism to indefinitely extend the sentences of so-called violent women under the auspices of professional medical opinion, thereby bolstering the indeterminate sentence that many prisoners and their allies were fighting to destroy. Indeed, during the 1970s, a wide range of political actors—from those on the left who sought more transparency and less coercion to those on the right who sought harsher penalties—helped to produce a sea change away from the indeterminate sentence, and the therapeutic rehabilitative ideal upon which it rested, and toward determinate sentencing.

The very behaviors that correctional and mental hospital authorities sought to curtail were conceptualized in CSIV’s analysis as legitimate responses to institutional harm. Moreover, subjection to biomedical abuse might, in turn, actually “increase disruption” and make for a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” Coalition writers suggested that the act of labeling worked to detach an individual’s behavior from her social, political, and institutional context, including her prescribed treatment. “Crazy” behaviors were strategies for navigating and surviving the conditions of confinement in prisons and mental institutions. “Any crazy behavior,” wrote Arlene Sen of MPLF and CSIV, “is really connected in some way to the issues of power and powerlessness— sexism, racism, class, heterosexism, ageism, etc.”

CSIV drew upon Phyllis Chesler’s nationally acclaimed trade book, Women and Madness (1972), which had lent empirical credibility to feminist critiques of psychiatry in the early 1970s. Chesler’s research confirmed that women comprised the majority of the institutionalized psychiatric population in the United States, and that diagnosis and treatment were shaped by race, class, gender presentation, and sexuality. The “especially narrow definitions of appropriate behavior for women” that mental hospitals and prisons enforced rendered any expressions of independence or autonomy as nonnormative and dangerous: “For example, inappropriate behavior for an inmate may include political activism or organizing activity, refusal to accept medication, refusal to accept arbitrary orders, or refusal to do prison work.” Protest was constructed as a masculine activity and thus doubly circumscribed.”]

emily l. thuma, from all our trials: prisons, policing, and the feminist fight to end violence, 2019

#emily l. thuma #currently reading #history stuff #gender stuff #mad pride

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der-unverantwortliche · 2 years

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There is unquestionably enough ‘racism’ in Lovecraft – by any conceivable definition of this term – to keep everybody immersed in moral terror to the limit of their attention span. Yet if the term is to be used exclusively[, it] requires a still more comprehensive scope, in which it serves as a proxy for an even more all-encompassing cultural offense, comprehending every discriminatory and bio-essentialist social ‘-ism’ (anti-semitism, generalized cis-heterosexism, common misogyny, ableism ... it is not until we reach ‘speciesism’ that we encounter – due only to Lovecraft’s love of cats – some plausible horizon to mandatory socio-cultural denunciation). To this list we can add both overt fascist sympathies and (supplemental) reactionary cultural attachments. If Lovecraft’s ideas are not socially intolerable, it is hard to imagine how anything could be.

The truly cyclopean empirical offense distracts from a truth that is potentially still more upsetting. Lovecraft’s (never quite) “full-fledged racist neurosis”24 tends to the transcendental. It inclines to the apprehension of race25 as such in horrified terms. Beyond the flaking surface of convenient genealogical identification (and the hopeful hypothesis of the patronymic), heredity is an occult power. Biological origins are intrinsically uncertain. They provide an indistinct object for scientific curiosity precisely because they exceed casual comprehension. What would it be, then to ‘fall back’ upon identity? There is no home there, to which one might safely return, but only the dark secrets of ancestry, contaminated with hidden, alien strains, and destining a return to the sea. No insight is more distinctively ‘Lovecraftian’ than that which glimpses the cryptic Outsideness of the inside, and then recoils, seized by unbounded repulsion, into the delusive security of some unstable, liminal space – such as the edge of a mirror, or family portrait – where interiority is compromised beyond redemption. The hideous other is found – rediscovered – deep inside (where exact natural science, too, is sure to find it).

Lovecraft is notably impolite about the ‘other’. Some never wholly explicit terror of genetic entropy makes miscegenation a supplementary phobia, beside that triggered by alien peoples. Abominable regressions populate his nightmares with a still more horrible insistence. Identity is besieged, superficially, by foreign masses, and inchoate demographic mixtures, but is then – with far greater profundity – undermined at the level of its most basic foundations by insidious processes of hereditarian subversion. That there are tempestuous extremities of Lovecraftian racism is beyond all question, but there is no resilient Lovecraftian identitarianism (except as a cultural legacy, sacrificed in literary contemplation of the Outer Gods).

Nick Land, “Neurosys: On the Fictional Psychopathology of Abstract Horror.”

#nick land #h. p. lovecraft

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andersfels · 2 years

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there had been something bothering me for a while about reading gay relationships written by women (and contextually, I'm presuming straight,) that i just couldn't put my finger on until just now.

the thing that always stuck out to me and bothered me to the point i couldn't read anymore was...well, for a lack of a better way to phrase it, one male character would obviously be written like a woman.

i knew as much, but i couldn't figure out why it bothered me. is it that I'm bothered by a man behaving like a woman? no, i mean why should behaviors be gendered? is it because its projection? i mean again no, that's pretty normal. i couldn't even figure out what i meant bc i don't see actions as specifically gendered as someone who is nonbinary and i don't see any women i know behaving in those ways.

and then it hit me. its not that they're written "like women," its that they're written like STRAIGHT women. the behaviors in question aren't like, non-male in that they embrace femininity or reject toxic masculinity, it's that they're put-on behaviors based on a straight woman's interpretation of what men are attracted to. and these straight women cannot conceptualize a man being attracted to something else, even if they're writing about gay men.

so these stories will have a traditionally male character, and then the male love interest, and the love interest will not also behave in any way like the other man; and he will instead behave in ways that are traditionally seen as "cute" and generally attractive in women. i mean physically making themselves smaller and putting attention on that, excessive giggling to appear more innocent and childish when nothing funny is happening, focus on hair and fashion and beauty routines when they're wildly ooc for the character. its all filling the stereotypes of what straight women think men are attracted to, bc they cannot conceptualize men being attracted to other men without all of that.

it tends to roll around to specific genres too, especially like. omegaverse, which carries this unsettling bioessentialist form of heteronormativity that romanticizes the idea of attraction forming between innate identity types that you're born with and cannot change, and have predetermined opposite types that attraction is biologically programmed for. and this attraction is based on things like pheromones, the feminization or masculinization of physical characteristics (in that alphas are seen as more attractive for being more masc, and omegas for being more feminine, and the closer an alpha is to a cis man or an omega to a cis woman despite their genders, the more attractive they're seen,) and it places value on things like the omega's ability to bear children.

its a whole genre that uses straight up reimagined bioessentialism and heterosexism projected onto a world of gay characters so that the gay sex is consumable and fetishized, but straight women don't have to deviate from their heteronormative understanding of how attraction functions.

and it just. kind of blows my mind bc now I've figured out what it is that specifically gets under my skin, i can't stop seeing it.

its like i will be reading, stop, go "men do not behave like that," and then "well why don't they? is the belief they can't rooted in sexism? in cisnormativity?" and then "no, because most women i know also do not behave like that." because the reality is that while i don't personally gender behavior, it is a behavior rooted in heteronormativity and what het people believe that men are attracted to, and therefore a behavior literally only done by straight women.

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kuuyandere · 2 years

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do you know any other languages?

What’s your favorite movie and tv show?

What pisses you off the most that isn’t related to your darling?

Favorite song at the moment?

🌾

Thank you for the questions, these are very interesting! It gets long, so there is more under the cut.

I know some conversational French and the barest amount of Mandarin and Cantonese, although I am illiterate in the last two.

Favorite movie and TV show is a difficult one for me to answer as I tend to get heavily involved in fandom culture, and picking just one feels like I am betraying the others. But one movie I rewatch every so often is the 2004 Andrew Lloyd Webber film for The Phantom of the Opera. A great deal of it is problematic with questionable choices (I do prefer the Charles Dance version of Erik and a more spunky Christine), but I love the music, costuming, and set design. I watched it for the first time when I was young and impressionable in late elementary school (which may explain a few things if you are familiar with the plot), so watching it now and playfully insulting it with a metaphorical wine glass in hand is like coming back to an old friend.

A TV show I am currently in the middle of is Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, which I've thoroughly enjoyed so far. I like Gaiman's writing in general, and I read most of the comics for it (I've been meaning to finish the series the next time I hit a library or Barnes and Noble). I also finished the first season of High Rise Invasion a while ago, which I liked as well. I haven't read the manga yet, but I have a soft spot for the English VA for Sniper Mask and have been thinking about cosplaying his character.

I suppose the things that piss me off the most are a majority of the -isms: racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism/homophobia, for example. Systems of oppression are so ingrained into social norms that many people don't realize or care that what they are saying is both hurtful and damaging. I hear how some guys talk to each other about their girlfriends and say the most fucked up shit. Even if I call them out on it (which is not really my place, I know), they have the audacity to look at me like I'm the crazy one. It makes me want to punch their fucking faces in. Perhaps it is mainly because I have a younger sister and my beloved has had many negative experiences with that, but those sorts of things really try my patience and my ability to resist committing homicide.

My favorite song at the moment would probably be "Red Lights" by Stray Kids' Bang Chan and Hyunjin. The music video is very... sensual, to say the least.

#your yandere #aidoneus asks #🌾 anon

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hineini · 5 months

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don't bombard me

My general theory is that Christmas trees shouldn't appear until the start of December since, excuse me, that's the month Christmas is in if someone, like my mom, is Protestant or Catholic. Much as I respect Christian folk I'm not desperate for their holidays to bombard me despite their pervasive appearance in marketing and so much more. Some ads obviously attempt to hide it a little, using completely Christian everything then offering Happy Holidays as their ending statement; to me that simply makes everything even more obvious, ironic as it might strike them since, shit, you're depicting a single holiday, making plural grammar unnecessary, and queer folk (based off religious heterosexism) have it easy detecting fake inclusion, as we can during pride month when stereotypical heterosexism has some relative potential to dilute-when ads show couples that are both women or men appear on TV-then return a month later.

My mother asked me, once I was out of bed, if she had full right to make her Christmas tree appear. I'd think it went without saying I don't want Christmas shit to bombard me early at home, easily saying I respect her and don't make my chanukiah appear any earlier than the holiday and it's happily back in the attic once Chanukah has finished. Her reaction to my gentle reminder about Jewish Pride led her to throw the following compromise my way: I'm putting my Christmas tree in the window today but it won't have any decorations until the start of December. Obviously had to respect that proposition since, long run, decorations contribute something to the bombardment I feel, desperate as they are to grab others' attention and devote it to Jesus' birthday. Give me a tree adorned simply with lights-as my mom's will be in an hour and a half or two hours-and I'm not about to feel half as annoyed with it.

If some authentic Christmas music's audible, won't faze me a second since, holy earth, it gives proper attention to Christmas, which I'm ecstatic for it to receive given its tendencies to be reduced to an occasion to spend as much money as possible to demonstrate love for others rather than celebrate the birthday of someone responsible for a faith tradition very well-known to dominate earth. Christmas music about Santa, doing a 180, has high potential to drive me psychotic, half according to where the emphasis goes and half based off the fact that one specific member of that group will always leave me experiencing an anxiety attack, bursting into tears and promptly leaving the space I'm in, if it enters my ears.

If nothing else, I can definitely laugh at the date. As Judaism has it, eighteen is linked to life since they're synonymous with each other (if you read life as a Hebrew number, you'd have eighteen); as my Christian mom has it, something linked to Christmas is coming to life later this morning. Ironic if I'm not mistaken, right?

#queer #heterosexism #pride #chanukah #jewish #judaism

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myhealingjusticejournal · 6 months

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Spiritual Conditions

Mothers of Gynecology, by Michelle Browder in Montgomery, Ala. Photo by Cristela Guerra

This entry discusses generational trauma. It begs the question, what can we understand about trauma and the generations of healing? How do we process long-term, structural trauma? Two sources of generational trauma stuck out to me the most while reading this entry. First, the fact that there’s a long history of government institutions using archaic concepts of eugenics and population control to create a social welfare system invested in killing black women so that they can’t reproduce more generations. The repercussions of this cannot be understated. Even today, having children is significantly more dangerous for black women than white women. Pregnancy is much more fatal for black women, largely due to the everyday stressors they experience due to implicit racism and microaggressions. All of this is based in historical context and has undoubtedly contributed to generational trauma. Not to mention, black women face poverty and single motherhood at higher rates than white women. Healing for these women and their children who have survived is imperative, as well as allowing them space to mourn and honor the ones who haven’t.

Another area where generational trauma is present is actually within the LGBTQ+ community. There is still a lot of racism in these spaces, which can actually be traced back to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. During this epidemic, lesbian and gay organizations were largely funded by wealthy, white gay men. Queer communities of color, on the other hand, had fewer wealthy community members to provide private funding. Not to mention, these individuals usually had less resources and more restrictive access to healthcare when dealing with the AIDS crisis. As a result, white voices within the LGBTQ+ have consistently been elevated, and white members of the LGBTQ+ community have historically been more recognizable because of their disproportionate access to funding. Healing justice for queer people of color is imperative, as they’ve had to continuously overcome structural and cultural barriers while being positioned at the intersection of racism, homophobia, and heterosexism. Creating safe spaces for these individuals and their unique struggles, especially within the LGBTQ+ community, is necessary in addressing this generational trauma.

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small-names-big-ideas · 9 months

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Homophobia Without Homophobes

the idea:

Walls (2008), for example, posits that there are four types of modern heterosexism espoused by individuals in a heteronormative society: aversive, amnestic, paternalistic and positive stereotypic. Aversive heterosexism refers to perceptions of gays and lesbians as “too militant” or receiving of too much attention. Amnestic heterosexism is the denial that anti-gay discrimination still exists, similar to Bonilla-Silva’s (2014) concept of Minimization of Racism. Paternalistic heterosexism is the expression of concern for the well-being of gays and lesbians, such as justifying one’s desire to not have a gay or lesbian child, because his or her life would be difficult. Positive stereotypic heterosexism is appreciating stereotypical notions of gays and lesbians, still othering queer identities.

overt homophobia, like overt racism, has become significantly less socially acceptable in the united states in recent decades, leading to increased forms of covert homophobia instead. (importantly, this does not include transphobia, which is still much more socially acceptable and thus often more overt.) teal and conover-williams (see below) draw on previous research and ideas to propose categories of modern, covert, homophobia with examples of each.

the paper also discusses the ways the charmed circle intersect with homophobia that have led to some parts of the lgbtq+ community to fall into the trap of respectability politics in an attempt to distance themselves from less generally socially acceptable queer communities. two examples of this that were especially prevalent in the 2000s and 2010s are: the dramatic shift to focus on achieving marriage equality at the exclusion of other kinds of rights, and the "born this way" discourse that deadlocked all lgbtq discource into essentialism. both rhetoric choices excluded significant portions of the lgbtq+ community and have had long-lasting, and hobbling, effects on the general public understanding of queerness.

my original source:

"homophobia without homophobes" by janae teal and meredith conover-williams.

further reading:

racism without racists by eduardo bonilla-silva was a major source and inspiration for teal and conover-williams' paper.

#homophobia #homophobia without homophobes #respectability politics #queer theory

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firstumcschenectady · 2 years

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Lament / Prayer / Dreaming

“A History Lesson”

In 1968 the Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren Church to form The United Methodist Church. Both of the predecessor denominations had social creeds, statements about what justice looked like. This had started in 1908 when The Social Creed was passed in the Methodist Episcopal church calling for end to child labor, a fair wage, and safety standards.1 Initially, the statements of both churches were included in the Discipline, but the 1968 merging conference created a study committee to create a unified statement, the first edition of the Social Principals which state where we – as a church – stand on a wide variety of issues.2

The committee came to the 1972 General Conference with language that said, "homosexual persons no less than heterosexual persons are individuals of sacred worth." (It seems worth noting that the Stonewall Riot was in 1969, and may well have influenced the intentional inclusion of this statement.)

However, General Conference fussed over the language, and Don Hand, a delegate from Southwest Texas suggested that the period be turned into a comma followed by the phrase "though we do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian doctrine."3 It passed.

Thus began the 50 years of EXPLICIT homophobia in The United Methodist Church – 50 years and counting. The next General Conference – 1976 – added funding bans to prevent church funds from being used to “promote” homosexuality. The 1984 Discipline Adopted as the standard for ordained clergy, commitment to “fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness” and “self‐avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be accepted as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church.” I remain particularly horrified that the church wrote in “fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness” in order to attack LGB people, while claiming to do otherwise. It took until 1996 to ban clergy from presiding at “homosexual unions” and to tell churches they couldn't host them.

At the same time, occasionally, the UMC would make attempts to remind others that they should be in ministry “for and with all persons” (1996) and ask “families and churches not to reject or condemn their lesbian and gay members and friends.” (2000.) Isn't is great the church asked people not to reject people while actively rejecting people? In a great turn of irony the 2008 General Conference adopted a resolution to oppose homophobia and heterosexism. (FACEPALM.) You can't make this stuff up, can you?

Meanwhile, over the course of these years, the AIDS crisis raged, suicides stayed common, and LGBTQIA+ kids were kicked out of their homes and onto the street. Clergy were defrocked, and people called by God kept their calls quiet (or lived in death spiral closets), individuals were rejected from their churches and families, and the church's attention remained on an odd definition of sexual purity INSTEAD of focusing on income inequality, poverty, colonialism, sexism, racism, or climate change.

In 2012 there was an attempt to acknowledge that people of faith disagree about homosexuality. It failed. 49% to 51%.

Meanwhile, as you may well know, individuals, churches, communities, and sometimes even Annual Conferences refused to obey unjust laws. Many organizations were founded by people who worked for inclusion, many churches became Reconciling (26 years ago here), clergy refused to obey rules about homosexual unions and marriages, Bishops refused to deny people ordinations, people of God simply refused to obey unjust laws.

And those who wanted control, those who wanted to have authority over OTHER people's bodies, other people's love, other people's sex lives, were really, really upset that they could pass the laws but they couldn’t crush the dissent.

In 2016 this came to a boiling point at General Conference, and instead of passing more laws from both sides of its mouth, the church created a Commission to create a new way forward, and called for a Special Session of General Conference in 2019 to receive and act on their report. The Commission called for a moderate way forward, “The One Church Plan” which let Annual Conferences, Bishops, clergy, and churches be led by their own consciousness and faith. It aimed to remove explicit homophobia from church policy but protect those who wished to live it. Meanwhile progressives called for a FULL end to homophobia with the “Simple Plan” and conservatives to a doubling down on it all with the “Traditional Plan.” (While I'm teaching this history lesson, I still can't make myself explain all the horrors of the Traditional Plan.)

The 2019 General Conference passed the Traditional Plan.

And, as you may know, there was general outrage and horror, and even the moderates in the USA got upset, and it became certain that The UMC was headed to divorce, with the only questions being which side would exit, where the moderates would land, and how the money would be divided. And then, and I'm pretty sure you DO know this, there was a pandemic, and here we still stand. 50 years of death and destruction. And so, we lament.

“Where are We Now?”

The United Methodist Church these days is stuck. We've realized that we cannot stay together – not when some of the church says that the most important litmus test of faith is fidelity to homophobia at all costs --- and the rest of us … I don't know, exist and don't agree with that immoral and theologically bankrupt assessment. On May 1st, after years (decades?) of planning, the “Global Methodist Church” (GMC) launched, inviting churches and clergy to leave The United Methodist Church and join the GMC. That church is designed for those who think homophobia is faithfulness to God, although oddly that isn't on their website. Slowly, but rather consistently, some churches are “disaffiliating” from The United Methodist Church and joining the GMC. I wouldn't call it a mass exodus, perhaps because leaving involves paying a fair share of debts owed, ministry shares, and shared pension liability, and perhaps because their theology is shallow and deviates wildly from Jesus's.

There was a hope among many that the 2020 General Conference would pass legislation to allow a mostly graceful way forward, allowing churches, clergy, and even Bishops to leave The UMC. However, the next General Conference is now scheduled for 2024, (2020 never happened) and things keep changing. There is, unfortunately, little hope that the denomination's official homophobic stances will change in 2024, but there is SOME hope that our Annual Conference might become a part of the church that refuses to acknowledge such laws.

In the meantime, we HERE remain committed to the Reconciling statement:

“We celebrate God’s gift of diversity and value the wholeness made possible in community equally shared and shepherded by all. We welcome and affirm people of every gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation, who are also of every age, race, ethnicity, physical and mental ability, level of education, and family structure, and of every economic, immigration, marital, and social status, and so much more. We acknowledge that we live in a world of profound social, economic, and political inequities. As followers of Jesus, we commit ourselves to the pursuit of justice and pledge to stand in solidarity with all who are marginalized and oppressed.”

We continue to celebrate love and weddings for God's beloveds, with no boundaries around gender or sexual orientation. We continue to welcome into membership all of God's beloveds, and invite people to be in leadership in the church when they are willing and able. We work in regular and consistent opposition to both the unjust laws of the church, the implementation of those laws, the homophobia and transphobia of the country and the world, and the patriarchal, white supremacist narrative that only some people matter.

And, we know that there are beloveds of God who cannot stomach being with us because we are a part of The United Methodist Church, and/or Christianity, and the harm they've experienced from one or both.

We are in-between. Clear on what we believe, but stuck without a good way forward, aware of harm happening in the meantime, and yet still hoping God can help us find a way forward. That's what this time of worship is about – praying for help in the midst of all that is “where we are now.”

“A Glimpse of God's Vision”

I know that no local church, no denomination, and no clergy person will ever be perfect. We're human, we're finite, our perspectives are limited, and our needs differ from those around us.

But sometimes I let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and I forget to even dream with God about where God wants the church to go (because if we can't be perfect, why bother???) I don't have the full vision of God wants, no one person does, but I am going to share with you what I can see, so that it becomes part of the conversation that can become whole.

I believe that the GMC is predominated by wealthy, cis, straight, white men who are angry they couldn't control the movement of the Spirit. That helps me see what I want the church to look like: economically diverse, and careful to center the voices of people living in poverty; diverse in gender expression and careful to center the voices of those who are trans and non-binary; diverse in sexual expression and careful to center the voices of those who are LGBTQIA+; racially and ethnically diverse and careful to center the voices of people of color and immigrants; with men, women, and non-binary people, with carefulness in centering the experiences and needs of women and non-binary people. My language here is very careful, because I believe in community where all are welcome and fully engaged members, but the hierarchies of the world enter the church with us and unless we INTENTIONALLY invert the power dynamics of the world, they'll replicate themselves in the church.

And, of course, I want to be a part of a community open the radical movement of the Spirit. The GMC uses scripture as a means of control, to limit people and prescribe their lives. I hope to be part of a church that sees scripture as an invitation to dialogue about what matters, what justice looks like, and how we might work together for the common good of all of God’s beloveds.

When I listen to Jesus, I hear a lot of intentional inversions of the power dynamics of the world, so I'm pretty sure he's into that. I also hear an amazing amount of empowerment, and reminders that together, the people have enough to care for each other. The world believes in scarcity, but the church is called to believe in abundance.

At this moment in time, I see several intersecting crises that I believe we are all called to be attending to: poverty and income inequality, climate change, militarism and escalation of violence, and an epidemic of loneliness. (In terms of analysis, the way we practice capitalism seems fundamental to all of these concerns.) I hope that when the church stops infighting about who is lovable in God's eyes (eyeroll) and acknowledges the answer “everyone” we might put our energy and attention to enacting that by working on the current crises. (I know, all too well, than when we move from explicit homophobia to implicit homophobia and transphobia not nearly enough will change. I know that, and I'll keep working on it. But the care of all people includes these pieces TOO.)

At its worst, religion is the set of myths that empower the societal systems that create injustice, inequality, hierarchy, and despair. I think one of the tells of this use of religion is when it is focused on control.

BUT, at it’s best, religion lives out the love of God for all people, dreams of a society of equity, justice, equality, and hope. I think one of the tells of this use of religion is SHARED power.

While I hope we will speak, act, live out, and advocate for justice in all the crisis areas, I think we are best set up to change the world is by being a place for humans to really connect, to God and each other, and therefore changing the

epidemic of loneliness. We are already a community. We already have a building that can help people gather. We are already practicing caring, and listening. Many among us have already have lives transformed by being a part of this community, that is, by God and by each other. Seeking to use our gifts and resources to connect with others, and transform loneliness would ALSO increase our empathy and lead us towards more valuable work in KNOWING that our well-being is interconnected. I dream of a church where people are loved exactly as they are, and listened to, and thus healed, and thus a source of healing and love for the world around them. I think it is possible, too!

To do this, though, would require a rather different way of “being” than we are now, and I am waiting to see how the Spirit moves in others, to learn how we will move forward together.

1https://www.umc.org/en/content/methodist-history-1908-social-creed-for-workers

2https://www.umc.org/en/content/ask-the-umc-why-do-we-have-social-principles-where-did-they-come-from

3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_Methodism#United_Methodist_Church, the word “doctrine” was changed to “teaching” by friendly amendment before the amendment and statement passed.

Worship 7/24/2022

#progressive christianity #thinking church #inclusion #50 years of homophobia #lament #prayer #vision #first UMC Schenectady #homophobic denomination #hate can't speak for God #oh the harm we've done #UMC #Schenectady #Rev Sara E Baron #O God hear our prayers

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autogyne-redacted · 3 years

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Bit of a long post

Three quotes from the Combahee River Collective Statement and analysis

Unpopular opinions about intersectionality.

Did a reread of the famous Combahee River Collective statement and 3 quotes jumped out at me:

Above all else, Our politics initially sprang from the shared belief that Black women are inherently valuable, that our liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else's may because of our need as human persons for autonomy.

The push for what would later be named as an intersectional approach came from desire for autonomy, understood as a general human need, and demanding not puting oneself second.

///

This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else's oppression. In the case of Black women this is a particularly repugnant, dangerous, threatening, and therefore revolutionary concept because it is obvious from looking at all the political movements that have preceded us that anyone is more worthy of liberation than ourselves. We reject pedestals, queenhood, and walking ten paces behind. To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough.

While the focus is on an identity, again the quote almost had an egoist bend to it. The collective having been born out of a consciousness raising group, there is a clear understanding that working for liberation at the level of identity is rooted in individual experiences and refusing to shove them aside.

Additionally, the active resistance to pedestals is noteworthy. It is undeniable imo that Black women (and trans women, and black trans women most of all) are pedestalized to shit by identity politics, and with tall pedestals come crushing falls.

Both of these quotes actively push against the pyramid inversion that is at the core of modern identity politics.

///

We might use our position at the bottom, however, to make a clear leap into revolutionary action. If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression

An unfortunately common fault in the classic Black feminist ~cannon~, Black womanhood is positioned not only to be a inherently revolutionary subject position (a rehabilitation of the proletariat), but is positioned as the pinnacle of oppression. In a statement that speaks plenty of class oppression and heterosexist oppression, neither warrants a mention here.

If we were being generous, we might day that freeing Black women necessarily includes and end to heterosexism, transmisogyny, ableism, etc. But if that was the case than the same would be true for a simple focus on Black liberation or women's liberation and the whole of The Statement speaks to that not being the case.

(ultimately I tend to read this quote as evident of the statement being from a collective in which different voices exist in tension with each other).

///

I deeply appreciate the statement on the whole. And when I first encountered it the insistence on not letting ones own circumstances be brushed aside or rendered secondary to other struggles was move moving and emboldening as I tried to piece together an analysis of transmisogyny.

I find value in going back to it also because Black feminism is in many ways the base material from which the present day intersectional social justice common sense has been built. However, that process has in many ways erased nuance and magnified the faults of its sited source material (in some cases twisting them substantially).

Intersectionality as a concept and Black Feminist frameworks more broadly often come up in the context of pushing white women to not focus on the ways we're oppressed for a minute and recognize our privilege (and the same for poor men and white men). There is a tendency to assume that intersectionality generalizes beyond that to examine any intersection of oppressions with each other or mixture of oppressions and privileges.

While this can be the case (and Crenshaw actively has tried to encourage the use of intersectionality in a broad array of cases), I think the Combahee River Collective statement shows a tension between a general respect for different struggles all being important; and a rendering of Black womanhood as the pinnacle of oppression in a way that positions oppressions beyond race and gender as strictly secondary.

#long post #intersectionality #black feminism #writing #quotes

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theshedding · 3 years

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Lil Nas X: Country Music, Christianity & Reclaiming HELL

I don’t typically bother myself to follow what Lil Nas X is doing from day to day, or even month to month but I do know that his “Old Town Road” hit became one of the biggest selling/streamed records in Country Music Business history (by a Black Country & Queer artist). “Black” is key because for 75+ years Country music has unsuspiciously evolved into a solidly White-identified genre (despite mixed and Indian & Black roots). Regrettably, Country music is also widely known for anti-black, misogynoir, reliably homophobic (Trans isn’t really a conversation yet), Christian and Hard Right sentiments on the political spectrum. Some other day I will venture into more; there is a whole analysis dying to be done on this exclusive practice in the music industry with its implications on ‘access’ to equity and opportunity for both Black/POC’s and Whites artists/songwriters alike. More commentary on this rigid homogeneous field is needed and how it prohibits certain talent(s) for the sake of perpetuating homogeneity (e.g. “social determinants” of diversity & viable artistic careers). I’ll refrain from discussing that fully here, though suffice it to say that for those reasons X’s “Old Town Road” was monumental and vindicating.

As for Lil Nas X, I’m not particularly a big fan of his music; but I see him, what he’s doing, his impact on music + culture and I celebrate him using these moments to affirm his Black, Queer self, and lifting up others. Believe it or not, even in the 2020′s, being “out” in the music business is still a costly choice. As an artist it remains much easier to just “play straight”. And despite appearances, the business (particularly Country) has been dragged kicking and screaming into developing, promoting and advancing openly-affirming LGBTQ 🏳️‍🌈 artists in the board room or on-stage. Though things are ‘better’ we have not yet arrived at a place of equity or opportunity for queer artists; for the road of music biz history is littered with stunted careers, bodies and limitations on artists who had no option but to follow conventional ways, fail or never be heard of in the first place. With few exceptions, record labels, radio and press/media have successfully used fear, intimidation, innuendo and coercion to dilute, downplay or erase any hint of queer identity from its performers. This was true even for obvious talents like Little Richard.

(Note: I’m particularly speaking of artists in this regard, not so much the hairstylists, make-up artists, PA’s, etc.)

_____

Which is why...in regard to Lil Nas X, whether you like, hate or love his music, the young brother is a trailblazer. His very existence protests (at least) decades of inequity, oppression and erasure. X aptly critiques a Neo-Christian Fascist Heteropatriarchy; not just in American society but throughout the Music Business and with Black people. That is no small deal. His unapologetic outness holds a mirror up to Christianity at-large, as an institution, theology and practice. The problem is they just don’t like what they see in that mirror.

In actuality, “Call Me By Your Name”, Lil Nas X’s new video, is a twist on classic mythology and religious memes that are less reprehensible or vulgar than the Biblical narratives most of us grew up on vís-a-vís indoctrinating smiles of Sunday school teachers and family prior to the “age of reason”. Think about the narratives blithely describing Satan’s friendly wager with God regarding Job (42:1-6); the horrific “prophecies” in St. John’s Book of Revelation (i.e. skies will rain fire, angels will spit swords, mankind will be forced to retreat into caves for shelter, and we will be harassed by at least three terrifying dragons and beasts. Angels will sound seven trumpets of warning, and later on, seven plagues will be dumped on the world), or Jesus’s own clarifying words of violent intent in Matthew (re: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” 10:34). Whether literal or metaphor, these age old stories pale in comparison to a three minute allegorical rap video. Conservatives: say what you will, I’m pretty confident X doesn’t take himself as seriously as “The true and living God” from the book of Job.

A little known fact as it is, people have debunked the story and evolution of Satan and already offered compelling research showing [he] is more of a literary device than an actual entity or “spirit” (Spoiler: In the Bible, Satan does not take shape as an actual “bad” person until the New Testament). In fact, modern Christianity’s impression of the “Devil” is shaped by conflating Hellenized mythology with a literary tradition rooted in Dante’s Inferno and accompanying spooks and superstitions going back thousands of years. Whether Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Scientologist, Atheist or Agnostic, we’ve spent a lifetime with these predominant icons and clichés. (Resource: Prof. Bart D. Erhman, “Heaven & Hell”).

So Here’s THE PROBLEM: The current level of fear and outrage is:

(1) Unjust, imposing and irrational.

(2) Disproportionate when taken into account a lifetime of harmful Christian propaganda, anti-gay preaching and political advocacy.

(3) Historically inaccurate concerning the existence of “Hell” and who should be scared of going there.

Think I’m overreacting?

Examples:

Institutionalized Homophobia (rhetoric + policy)

Anti-Gay Ministers In Life And Death: Bishop Eddie Long And Rev. Bernice King

Black, gay and Christian, Marylanders struggle with Conflicts

Harlem pastor: 'Obama has released the homo demons on the black man'

Joel Olsteen: Homosexuality is “Not God’s Best”

Bishop Brandon Porter: Gays “Perverted & Lost...The Church of God in Christ Convocation appears like a ‘coming out party’ for members of the gay community.”

Kim Burrell: “That perverted homosexual spirit is a spirit of delusion & confusion and has deceived many men & women, and it has caused a strain on the body of Christ”

Falwell Suggests Gays to Blame for 9-11 Attacks

Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church

Pope Francis: Gay People Not Welcome in Clergy

Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church

The Pope and Gay People: Nothing’s Changed

The Catholic church silently lobbied against a suicide prevention hotline in the US because it included LGBT resources

Mormon church prohibits Children of LGBT parents to be baptized

Catholic Charity Ends Adoptions Rather Than Place Kid With Same-Sex Couple

I Was a Religious Zealot That Hurt People-Coming Out as Gay: A Former Conversion Therapy Leader Is Apologizing to the LGBTQ Community

The above short list chronicles a consistent, literal, demonization of LGBTQ people, contempt for their gender presentation, objectification of their bodies/sexuality and a coordinated pollution of media and culture over the last 50+ years by clergy since integration and Civil Rights legislation. Basically terrorism. Popes, Bishops, Pastors, Evangelists, Politicians, Television hosts, US Presidents, Camp Leaders, Teachers, Singers & Entertainers, Coaches, Athletes and Christians of all types all around the world have confused and confounded these issues, suppressed dissent, and confidently lied about LGBT people-including fellow Queer Christians with impunity for generations (i.e. “thou shall not bear false witness against they neighbor” Ex. 23:1-3). Christian majority viewpoints about “laws” and “nature” have run the table in discussions about LGBTQ people in society-so much that we collectively must first consider their religious views in all discussions and the specter of Christian approval -at best or Christian condescension -at worst. That is Christian (and straight) privilege. People are tired of this undue deference to religious opinions.

That is what is so deliciously bothersome about Lil Nas X being loud, proud and “in your face” about his sexuality. If for just a moment, he not only disrupts the American hetero-patriarchy but specifically the Black hetero-patriarchy, the so-called “Black Church Industrial Complex”, Neo-Christian Fascism and a mostly uneducated (and/or miseducated) public concerning Ancient Near East and European history, superstitions-and (by extension) White Supremacy. To round up: people are losing their minds because the victim decided to speak out against his victimizer.

Additionally, on some level I believe people are mad at him being just twenty years old, out and FREE as a self-assured, affirming & affirmed QUEER Black male entertainer with money and fame in the PRIME of his life. We’ve never, or rarely, seen that before in a Black man in the music business and popular culture. But that’s just too bad for them. With my own eyes I’ve watched straight people, friends, Christians, enjoy their sexuality from their elementary youth to adolescence, up and through college and later marriages, often times independently of their spouses (repeatedly). Meanwhile Queer/Gay/SGL/LGBTQ people are expected to put their lives on hold while the ‘blessed’ straight people run around exploring premarital/post-marital/extra-marital sex, love and affection, unbound & un-convicted by their “sin” or God...only to proudly rebrand themselves later in life as a good, moral “wholesome Christian” via the ‘sacred’ institution of marriage with no questions asked.

Inequality defined.

For Lil Nas X, everything about the society we've created for him in the last 100+ years (re: links above) has explicitly been designed for his life not to be his own. According to these and other Christians (see above), his identity is essentially supposed to be an endless rat fuck of internal confusion, suicide-ideation, depression, long-suffering, faux masculinity, heterosexism, groveling towards heaven, respectability politics, failed prayer and supplication to a heteronormative earthly and celestial hierarchy unbothered in affording LGBT people like him a healthy, sane human development. It’s almost as if the Conservative establishment (Black included) needs Lil Nas X to be like others before him: “private”, mysteriously single, suicidal, suspiciously straight or worse, dead of HIV/AIDS ...anything but driving down the street enjoying his youth as a Black Queer artist and man. So they mad about that?

Well those days are over.

-Rogiérs is a writer, international recording artist, performer and indie label manager with 25+ years in the music industry. He also directs Black Nonbelievers of DC, a non-profit org affiliated with the AHA supporting Black skeptics, Atheists, Agnostics & Humanists. He holds a B.A. in Music Business & Mgmt and a M.A. in Global Entertainment & Music Business from Berklee College of Music and Berklee Valencia, Spain. www.FibbyMusic.net Twitter/IG: @Rogiers1

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