QUEERING THE GAME OF LIFE

fuckyeahanarchistbanners:

Queer Mutiny, Not Consumer Unity!

"The announcement that the US government will henceforth push the achievement of “gay rights” internationally, as a key element of its foreign policy, gives new meaning to the phrase “blowback” – and cut out the snickering! Because the self-righteousness and narcissism of American policymakers, in this instance, will have very real consequences for gay people throughout the world, and it isn’t going to be pretty."

Pinkwashing Imperialism.

The “gay issue” is becoming an increasingly hot topic in Western media coverage of the Arab world. In fact, beginning with the spate of gay killings in US occupied Iraq, the status of non-normative sexualities has perhaps been enfolded within a discourse that highlights the plight of “women” in Arab/Muslim countries, and the ideological, material, and military mobilization that such a discourse licenses.

This is not to say that homophobia does not exist in the Middle East. It does. It exists in every country in the world. However, the question here is: Are these groups/governments legitimately and honestly concerned about LGBTQs in the Middle East, or are they simply using them and their struggles for their own ends, whether it is to show how much more advanced they are or to deflect attention away from their own homophobia/political problems? Does the Israeli government, for example, honestly want to help Palestinian LGBTQs, or is it simply using them to make a point about Israeli society being more advanced, and to whitewash its occupation? Indeed, if the Israeli government wanted to help Palestinian LGBTQs, wouldn’t removing an occupation be the first step?

- Pinkwashing Palestine.

Imperialistic states like USA and Israel have not only appropriated women’s rights to instigate more war but they have also invaded and appropriated the space of LGBTQ communities by using their identity as an excuse to wage more war. The phenomenon is called Pinkwashing. Make sure you read about it.

(via mehreenkasana)

(via azaadi)

I know the anger that lies inside me like I know the beat of my heart and the taste of my spit. It is easier to be angry than to hurt / Anger is what I do best. It is easier to be furious than yearning / easier to crucify myself and you / than to take on the threatening universe of whiteness by admitting we are worth wanting each other.
Tongues Untied | Marlon Riggs, 1989

Among the many places devastated by Hurricane Sandy was one close to the hearts of Queerty’s staff—the Ali Forney Center’s drop-in center in Chelsea. This weekend workers were finally able to access the building and assess the damage—which has tragically rendered the center “uninhabitable.”

“It’s destroyed. Water went at least four feet up the walls, and everything in there, including phones, computers, refrigerators, supplies, and the building floors has been irreparably damaged,” said Carl Siciliano, the center’s executive director. “I do not see us being able to return there, especially since our lease ends in January.

The drop-in center, located on West 22nd Street, has been AFC’s home for seven years, and is the entry point for a variety of services for the LGBT youth it serves, including medical and mental-health care, HIV testing, housing referrals and employment assistance.

“This is a terrible tragedy for the homeless LGBT youth we serve there,” said Siciliano in a statement. “This space was dedicated to our most vulnerable kids, the thousands stranded on the streets without shelter… [It’s] basically a lifeline for LGBT kids whose lives are in danger.”

While AFC is preparing to move into a new larger permanent home, it won’t be ready for months. In the interim, the New York City LGBT Center has offered temporary space for the organization to use, but the logistics of that have yet to be determined.

To donate or volunteer visit AFC’s Hurricane Sandy relief page.

(Source: dykesanddykery)

knowhomo:

Queer Avoidance, Vocabulary, Euphemisms, and the Language of Lesbians

9 Ways the Early Twentieth-Century Newspaper

Reviewed Broadway Plays & Avoided Saying the “L” Word

1. “A Twisted Relationship” - New York Times, 1926
2. “A Warped Infatuation” - New York Times, 1926
3. “Tormenting Impulses” - World, 1926
4. “Bondage” - World, 1926
5. “The Poisonous Serpents Spell of Decadent Women” - Evening News, 1926
6. “A Cancerous Growth” - Daily News, 1926
7. “A Monstrous Sexual Perversion” - New York Evening Journal, 1934
8. “L—N” - New York Herald Tribune, 1934
9. “A Naughty Word” - New York Herald Tribune, 1934

16 (Ninetieth/Twentieth Century) Euphemisms for Lesbian Relationships

1. Smashes
2. Sentimental Friends
3. Special Friends
4. Romantic Friends
5. Two Hearts in Counsel
6. Love of Kindred Spirits
7. Boston Marriages
8. Urningin
9. Gynander
10. Viragint
11. Invert
12. Contrasexual
13. Androgne
14. Moderne
15. Roaring Girl
16. Female Adventurer

Lists From:

Richards, Dell. Lesbian Lists: A Look at Lesbian Culture, History, and Personalities. Boston: Alyson Publications, 1990

(via rentless-mistress)

callin all queer folk

extranjero:

spookyamishkid:

hey guys! as you may or may not know, I am now in ~university and as exciting as that is, that means a lot of papers are being written.

I’m currently helping a friend write an essay on how the queer community uses the internet as a tool of empowerment and how this helps develop one’s sense of self and we would really really love it if you guys could provide some insight.

I identify as queer myself, but obviously, I cannot speak for the entire queer community!! because of this, I have put together a lovely little survey RIGHT HERE and i would love it if you could fill it out. we will not be sharing this information with anyone other than his professor and we will not be using last names. hell, you don’t even have to put your real name! we just want to get a general sense of how the queer community is using the internet.

his essay is due at the end of the month so unfortunately if you fill it out after then we cannot use your response. if you would like to help, please respond swiftly! 

if you can fill it out, that’s great! but if you don’t feel comfortable, I completely understand. at the very least, we would appreciate you sendin this out to your queer friends and askin them to fill it out as well. 

thank you guys so much! 

signal boost!

(Source: lapjeskat)

knowhomo:

LGBTQ* Typography, Art and Posters You May Have Missed

Art posted during Gay Pride Weekend, Portland, Maine in late(r)-2000s

(Source: Down Is Not Up)

Seeking LGBTQ people of color for online survey ($75 raffles)

fuckyeahqueerpeopleofcolor:

Do you identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer? Are you a person of color/ ethnic minority?

You may be eligible to take in a 15-20 minute online survey and participate in a raffle for one of 5 $75 prizes (5 chances of winning)!

We are a research team at Western Washington University, composed of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people of color and allies. We are working on a project to see what types of coping strategies LGBTQ people of color use when faced with different types of discrimination (racism, homophobia).

For more information, please see our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/IntersectionalCopingStudy) or visit the survey directly (https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/intersectionalcoping).

cassket:

I’m traveling on the east coast right now, which has thrown me back into the kind of queer, mostly female assigned community that exists in the “I date women and trans men” frame (I’m not saying this doesn’t happen on the west coast – but I’ve found alternatives way more easily). This is a big part of what my Girl Talk piece was about, but I want to address this particular issue really directly.

“I date women and trans men” is the definition of cissexism. It’s basing your frame for sexuality on the gender coercively assigned to a person by their doctor at birth, not on that person’s actual identity. In this case, we’re talking about folks who were assigned female. Of course, “women” means cis women – trans women totally drop off the map.

Chart via TransFusion

My critique of this frame isn’t about everyone on the trans masculine spectrum, where there’s a ton of complex gender and sexuality diversity (though there is an important conversation to have about the privileging of masculinity here as well). I’m talking about how this approach to sexuality addresses people who were assigned female at birth but are men.

It’s incredibly undermining to frame sexuality in a way that lumps these men in with all female assigned folks instead of with cis men. It’s a failure, in the realm of sexuality, to recognize thattrans men’s male identities are just as legitimate as cis men’s. If you’re going to base sexuality on gender, better base it on people’s actual genders.

I get why a lot of female assigned folks exist in this frame for reasons that aren’t overtly about undermining trans identities. There’s a ton of gender based trauma out there, and I understand that folks associate this with cis men, and not with trans men. But that’s not a reality-based approach to gender. A lot of that trauma gets easily linked to genitals, but this isn’t about bodies, it’s about patriarchy. I think this sexuality frame is a big part of why so many trans men get away with (and are sometimes even encouraged to practice) unchecked misogyny and male privilege (remember, power is complicated. You can experience both male privilege and cissexist oppression). Real talk: being trans doesn’t prevent you from perpetrating hurt and violence in the realm of sexuality.

My trans brothers deserve better than sex in a frame that undermines their identities. This doesn’t mean queer cis women and gender non-conforming female assigned folks can’t fuck trans men, but then they owe it to these guys to reframe their sexuality in a way that’s not undermining – to recognize that they sleep with men, and to question why they’re OK with sleeping with trans men and not cis men. I just don’t think it’s OK to process your sexual trauma in a delegitimizing way through the bodies of folks who’ve often faced tons of trauma at the intersection of gender and sexuality.

The problem isn’t one sided: trans guys owe it to themselves to not accept a misgendering sexuality frame just because it makes it easier to get laid, but that shit’s complicated in a cissexist world. It’s unfair to place all the responsibility for fixing this problem at the feet of the people who’s identities are being undermined. I want to encourage trans guys to stand up for what they deserve, but a lot of the responsibility for fixing this shit belongs to the people doing the undermining.

I do put a little more responsibility on trans men for letting this frame push their trans sisters out. This approach to sexuality totally erases trans women by excluding us from the group of sexually existing queer women. Yes, it’s also incredibly undermining of trans women’s identities by moving us out of the category “women” when it comes to sexuality. Ultimately, this frame goes back to the gender coercively assigned at birth for trans women as well. It’s a way for transmisogyny to advance unchecked, because trans women totally drop out of the conversation. It’s part of the broader problem of privileging masculinity over femininity, and specifically  of privileging masculinity in female assigned folks and hating on and marginalizing femininity in male assigned folks. The problem goes beyond gender theory about masculinity and femininity – this is about really specific, really real transmisogyny. Even when some femininity is accepted, it’s in female assigned folks. Trans women (even the butch ones) get left out in the cold. (I think it’s time for everybody to re-read Julia Serano’s groundbreaking bookWhipping Girl with their sex brains on.)

There’s a lot of resistance to thinking about the politics of sexuality in this way, which I totally get. Our sexualities are our own, they’re personal, and in such a puritanical world any critique of sexuality can seem messed up. But our desires are absolutely influenced by our cultural context. When you really look at the way patterns of desire map onto what bodies are privileged and what bodies are marginalized, it becomes obvious that our desires are political. I am absolutely not about critiquing the way one person falls for another. The problem is with a community trend. When we leave sexuality trends unexamined, sex becomes a space where privilege and oppression run amuck.

It’s well past time to say enough. If queer community wants to be about a gender and sexuality revolution it’s got to take these questions seriously. Its got to address the ways cissexism overdetermines community approaches to sexuality. This is an ongoing process involving lots of thought, critique, and, well, processing. We’ve got to be able to move from the broad and systemic to seeing how cissexism plays out in our personal lives, including in relation to who and how we fuck.

(Source: pinktacolovers, via rentless-mistress)

grrlyman:

knowhomo:

LGBTQ* History You (Probably) Never Heard Of

New Orleans, the Fire and the Eraser

* Trigger Warning: murder, arson, homophobia, church refusal

The (arson?/fire?) made the newspaper on one day. After details were shared the day after the fire, the story never made New Orleans’ print again.

Following text from The Bilerico Project:

Filed by Jesse Monteagudo 

On June 24, 1973 an arsonist started a fire that consumed the UpStairs Lounge, a second-floor gay bar in New Orleans’s French Quarter. The UpStairs Lounge Fire was both the deadliest fire in the history of New Orleans and the largest mass-killing of gay people in the US.

Among the 31 men and one woman who died in the fire were members of the local Metropolitan Community Church, who frequented the Lounge after services for its Sunday “beer bust.” (One particularly grisly photo was of MCC Pastor William R. Larson, who burned to death while trying to escape through a window.)

The UpStairs Lounge Fire showed New Orleans at its homophobic worst as many families refused to claim the victims’ bodies and most local churches refused to conduct their funerals. MCC founder Troy Perry and other activists rushed to New Orleans to help bury the victims who, as many locals thought, “got what they deserved.”

Read more HERE

I was just talking about this yesterday! It’s always astounded me that queers ignore this history. It’s obviously because those who died were black, and white queers don’t give a shit about the lives and deaths of black queers.

Michael Swift: “Gay Revolutionary”

This essay is an outré, madness, a tragic, cruel fantasy, an eruption of inner rage, on how the oppressed desperately dream of being the oppressor.

We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries, in your youth groups, in your movie theater bathrooms, in your army bunkhouses, in your truck stops, in your all male clubs, in your houses of Congress, wherever men are with men together. Your sons shall become our minions and do our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave and adore us.

Women, you cry for freedom. You say you are no longer satisfied with men; they make you unhappy. We, connoisseurs of the masculine face, the masculine physique, shall take your men from you then. We will amuse them; we will instruct them; we will embrace them when they weep. Women, you say you wish to live with each other instead of with men. Then go and be with each other. We shall give your men pleasures they have never known because we are foremost men too, and only one man knows how to truly please another man; only one man can understand the depth and feeling, the mind and body of another man.

All laws banning homosexual activity will be revoked. Instead, legislation shall be passed which engenders love between men.

All homosexuals must stand together as brothers; we must be united artistically, philosophically, socially, politically and financially. We will triumph only when we present a common face to the vicious heterosexual enemy.

If you dare to cry faggot, fairy, queer, at us, we will stab you in your cowardly hearts and defile your dead, puny bodies.

We shall write poems of the love between men; we shall stage plays in which man openly caresses man; we shall make films about the love between heroic men which will replace the cheap, superficial, sentimental, insipid, juvenile, heterosexual infatuations presently dominating your cinema screens. We shall sculpt statues of beautiful young men, of bold athletes which will be placed in your parks, your squares, your plazas. The museums of the world will be filled only with paintings of graceful, naked lads.

Our writers and artists will make love between men fashionable and de rigueur, and we will succeed because we are adept at setting styles. We will eliminate heterosexual liaisons through usage of the devices of wit and ridicule, devices which we are skilled in employing.

We will unmask the powerful homosexuals who masquerade as heterosexuals. You will be shocked and frightened when you find that your presidents and their sons, your industrialists, your senators,your mayors, your generals, your athletes, your film stars, your television personalities, your civic leaders, your priests are not the safe, familiar, bourgeois, heterosexual figures you assumed them to be. We are everywhere; we have infiltrated your ranks. Be careful when you speak of homosexuals because we are always among you; we may be sitting across the desk from you; we may be sleeping in the same bed with you.

There will be no compromises. We are not middle-class weaklings. Highly intelligent, we are the natural aristocrats of the human race, and steely-minded aristocrats never settle for less. Those who oppose us will be exiled.

We shall raise vast private armies, as Mishima did, to defeat you. We shall conquer the world because warriors inspired by and banded together by homosexual love and honor are invincible as were the ancient Greek soldiers.

The family unit-spawning ground of lies, betrayals, mediocrity, hypocrisy and violence—will be abolished. The family unit, which only dampens imagination and curbs free will, must be eliminated. Perfect boys will be conceived and grown in the genetic laboratory. They will be bonded together in communal setting, under the control and instruction of homosexual savants.

All churches who condemn us will be closed. Our only gods are handsome young men. We adhere to a cult of beauty, moral and esthetic. All that is ugly and vulgar and banal will be annihilated. Since we are alienated from middle-class heterosexual conventions, we are free to live our lives according to the dictates of the pure imagination. For us too much is not enough.

The exquisite society to emerge will be governed by an elite comprised of gay poets. One of the major requirements for a position of power in the new society of homoeroticism will be indulgence in the Greek passion. Any man contaminated with heterosexual lust will be automatically barred from a position of influence. All males who insist on remaining stupidly heterosexual will be tried in homosexual courts of justice and will become invisible men.

“We shall rewrite history, history filled and debased with your heterosexual lies and distortions. We shall portray the homosexuality of the great leaders and thinkers who have shaped the world. We will demonstrate that homosexuality and intelligence and imagination are inextricably linked, and that homosexuality is a requirement for true nobility, true beauty in a man.

“We shall be victorious because we are fueled with the ferocious bitterness of the oppressed who have been forced to play seemingly bit parts in your dumb, heterosexual shows throughout the ages. We too are capable of firing guns and manning the barricades of the ultimate revolution.

Tremble, hetero swine, when we appear before you without our masks.

(Source: fordham.edu)

knowhomo:

LGBTQ* History and Vintage Photographs You Should Know

Greenwich Village Drag Ball circa 1920s (photograph)

Balls were elaborate festivals for the who’s who of society. They were also the queerest scene in town, bringing forth drag performers, the lgbtq* community, celebrating sexual identity and gender expression.

(via rentless-mistress)

Bisexual Tumblrs

safespacenetwork:

Here’s just a quick list of a few (not all)of bisexual tumblrs we made up for someone last February, most of which have been around for quite a while.

• http://bidyke.tumblr.com Important!
• http://thebiblog.tumblr.com
• http://fuckyeahbigirls.tumblr.com
• http://finebime.tumblr.com
• http://bisexualme.tumblr.com
• http://fuckyeahbisexualityisawesome.tumblr.com
• http://j-applebee.tumblr.com (uk bi activist & author)
• http://robynochs.tumblr.com (usa bi activist & author)
• http://bi-pride.tumblr.com
• http://askabisexualguy.tumblr.com
• http://fuckyeahbiactivism.tumblr.com
• http://youknowyourebi.tumblr.com
• http://fuckyeahaskabi.tumblr.com
• http://stfubiphobia.tumblr.com
• http://bitalk.tumblr.com
• http://fuckyeahbisexuals.tumblr.com
• http://twobisexualsonestraight.tumblr.com
• http://bisexualshitthatblows.tumblr.com
• http://fuckyeahbidolphin.tumblr.com
• http://biconfessions.tumblr.com
• http://kateordie.tumblr.com (bi webcomic artist)
• http://allthechocolatesinthebox.tumblr.com
• http://bisexualftw.tumblr.com
• http://bisexual-community.tumblr.com
• http://bialogue-group.tumblr.com (and us too)

Mod note: Oh lawdy, this is magnificent!

(via thatneedstogo)

zac-slams:

Painted my room white. Shot video. Leather jacket, pink briefs, denim vest.

(via slamslamslammed-deactivated2013)