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By The Way...

I'm really inactive on this blog, so if you'd like follow me on one of my other blogs...

My aesthetic, (personal) photography blog:

@behindtheseglassesandthroughthem​

My shit-post, kpop, yaoi, randomness blog (which i’m mostly active):

@thisfangirl07

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This is James Parker Sheffield, a 36-year-old transgender man in Decatur, Georgia. On Thursday, he had some pretty pointed words for Gov. Pat McCrory after North Carolina passed an anti-trans law mandating every person in the state to use the bathroom that correspond to their assigned gender at birth. The tweet quickly went viral, but Sheffield doesn’t actually think his joke is that funny. 

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anyone please ask your crush out like this

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Dear heterosexual white cis male showrunners,

Claiming that after killing off a major queer female character you “understand the outrage and can relate to the pain,”  is at best entitled, and at worst offensive. 

Our pain isn’t yours. You can’t relate to shit when literally 94% of your Netflix, Hulu and HBO accounts reflect and cater to you… Try again. 

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12 year old me: Who are you

me: I'm you but gayer

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kawaii potato + ouran = love♡

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I trip myself out because I use the message thing on tumblr to send myself things from my other dashboard that fits a different blog better. But sometimes I forget I sent myself something and get excited when I see a message in my inbox, im like: “WHAT?!? Someone is willing to talk to a loser potato like me?!?” and end up disappointed. This is probably why I don’t have friends…

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I ended up re-reading it (for the 4th time)… that’s why there’s a lot of pictures, so yea… *FOR THE PICTURE, READ RIGHT TO LEFT. Ganbatte ne!*

My artifact for this week involves a yaoi manga. For those who do not know, a manga is a Japanese comic book and a yaoi is a type of genre, gay manga. Yaoi is one of the many branches of the general BL (boys love) genre, others include shouen ai (or soft yaoi) but yaoi generally involves some sort of smut. So warning to those who go and read this manga, there is smut involved.

This yaoi, “Koishite Daddy” by Kitazawa Kyou, is one I read a while back and it reminded me of homonormativity and intersectionality. Homonormativity is described by Laura Kacere in, “Homonormativity 101: What it is and How it’s Hurting Our Movement” as the assimilation of queer people to the values of belief of what is deemed “normal” (heteronormativity). Christiaan Rapcewicz in “Homonormativity, Homonationalism and the Other ‘Other’” also elaborate by instilling that some of the specific values that are being up held by homonormative queers are: marriage, monogamy, and reproductions. These are also specific concepts that are touched in “Koishite Daddy”.

Jirou Satou is a divorced salaryman raising his toddler son, Rintarou, and Natsuki Takahashi is a gay university student. Takahashi helps Satou take care of Rintarou (such as feeding, watching over, or picking him up from pre-school), eventually (not really, literally in the first chapter) Satou and Takahashi develop feelings for one another and become lovers.

One of the main things that was the theme of the manga was family. Takahashi, being openly gay, often discussed his strong desire for kids. This was one of the reasons why he was so attached to Rintaro.

Satou-san also felt the strong need to have a nice, happy, stable family. Through obstacles and complications (because plot), Satou emphasized how, he need to protect his family.

Even Rintarou, felt comfortable to recognize Takahashi as his “mama”.

The theme of intersectionality played a big deal in all of this. As established, this is a Japanese comic book. In Japan, like many Asian culture, family is a huge, important value. One with the father as the head and then the mother, and the children respecting their elders. This is one of the reasons, Satou felt that he need to live up to the role of being a father and protecting his family.

Also, with Japanese culture, there is the expectation of getting married. I’ve read in multiple yaoi manga, this concept being portrayed, some even instilling that if you’re not married and with a career by 30, you’re useless. In other mangas, sub-characters being surprised that the main character at age 28 (pretty much the standard age for mangas involving salarymen) not being married. Because there is such a huge expectation of marriage a lot of gay people in Japan have resolved in adopting one another as a form of marriage. In “Koishite Daddy” Satou basically goes and asks Takahashi’s parents for his hand, even sitting in a traditional seiza position. His Japanese background creates this whole story/desire for marriage and family which interacted with his sexuality.

Yes, they end happily ever after. There’s also a sequel with Rintarou’s love story when he’s in high school and here you can see Satou and Takahashi got “married”.

(Tbh, I think it’s really amazing that a “conservative” country like Japan has more Queer Visibility with Yaoi, Yuri, Shoujo Ai, Shouen Ai. Gender Blenders, ect.)  

Kacere, Laura. "Homonormativity 101: What It Is and How It’s Hurting Our Movement." Everyday Feminism. N.p., 24 Jan. 2015. Web.

Kyou, Kitazawa. Koishite Daddy. Vol. 1. Japan: Frontier Works, 2011.

Rapcewicz, Christiaan. "Homonormativity, Homonationalism and the Other 'Other'" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 19 Mar. 2015. Web

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*Warning this is longer than I expect ;-;

This collage of self-portraits represents my different aspects of intersectionality. I chose this medium, because of my love for photography and being a photography minor. I was inspired by the LGBTQ+ activist and photographer, iO Tilliett Wright and their project entitled “Self-Evident Truths”.

Each and every aspect/identification regarding myself, come together to make the person that I am today. In essence, that is what intersectionality is. Our experiences are derived upon the different aspects of our identity, either working with or against each other.

In intersectionality, these are some of the basic forms of identification: age, able/disable, sexuality, socio-economic status, education, religion, ethnicity, and gender.  Each one influencing the other and becoming one.

My name is Elizabeth Medina, I am as of March 7 a 21 year old, able bodied, pansexual person.

I come from a lower class family. I grew up in my aunt’s garage with my parents until I was the age of 9, and did not know the warmth of a bed until I was 10. This has taught me humility, the value of money, and to enjoy the little things in life. Because of our socio-economic status, my family has always encouraged me to pursuit higher education. Growing up, my mother always told me, “You have to study hard and go to college so that you don’t end you cleaning other people’s toilets like me.” My family are my drive to keep going; I want to be able to give back to them for everything they’ve done for me.

My family is also Catholic and Latino (which I believe come hand in hand). My parents immigrated to the United States in 1993, and with them they brought their culture, traditions and customs. While it is great to stay true to your roots, society changes and so do the younger generation’s perspective. I was raised as the stereotypical girl, with a machismo, “you must become a good wife and mother” mindset. With this in mind, you can see the how this idealism can come into conflict with gender.

I remember as a child (and being the only female of all of my cousins) being smothered with pink cloths, dolls, teas sets and play make-up. But all I’d want was to join my cousin in playing what they’d play: basketball, soccer, wrestling, video games, and skating. My parents objected to a lot of these, I even recall an instance where I begged them to buy me toy cars like my cousins’, but they kept refusing, instead they eventually bought me a pink, Barbie car.

As I grew older, and I was able to dictate what I’d wear and what I’d play with, I consider myself a tomboy. But, even so I enjoyed some of the things that came with being a girl, such as make-up and dresses (I liked feeling pretty, because I grew up with a low self-esteem, even now from time to time it’s a problem. Make-up is a beauty enhancer, it has no gender!), and I like knowing that female have this beautiful ability to bring life. By senior year in high school, I no longer felt “tomboy” was a relevant description of me because, I liked things people associated with the different genders. It wasn’t until after I chopped of all my hair that I started to really question the gender-binaries.

As I mentioned, my Latino family is very binary and my dad is very machismo. I like short hair. On myself, on other people, I feel like how it leaves a kind of vulnerability, where you can see people for their real beauty. This was the first time, I had gotten a short “pixie cut”. Even though I loved it, my dad was extremely upset and kept telling me that girls are supposed to have long hair and everyone in my family would say it was such a “shame” and that my hair was so beautiful and long. I got tired of hearing the same words over and over again, that I let my hair grow out.

I then began to wonder, what is it that makes a man, a “man” and a woman, a “woman”. Is it cloth, hair, likes and dislikes? Those are things dictated by society. Is it an unexplainable feeling inside? I do not know. I have begun to believe that gender itself is a stigma formed by society, which were once used to bind us to roles that were relied on strength to keep society alive (but this no longer applies to today). What I feel inside is neither feminine nor masculine. What I feel is wanting to be  happy and make other happy, it’s trying to live day by day, it’s not having to fret on the littlest of things that ruin your day, it’s caring, it’s sadness, anger, frustration, love… it’s called being human. Coming from a lower-class, religious, Latino family, combined creates an expectations for women, of what they ought to be. Being at this age, of 21, having an able body, and having moved 400 miles away from my closed-minded home, the skies the limit and only I determine who I am!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJkivljbvQE

Litz, Marika. "What Does Masculinity Mean to Me? - Gender 2.0." Medium. N.p., 16 Sept. 2015. Web.

Michelle A. Gibson, Jonathan Alexander, Deborah T. Meem. Finding Out: An Introduction to LGBT Studies. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publication, 2014.

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Tribe 8, is a dyke punk group that originated in San Francisco, and is an exemplification of (one of the first) queercore movement. The queercore movement itself is the era in which queer people took the most out of in reappropriation (taking a concept and changing its meaning, making it your own). This movement called for the display of discontent among queer people with the direction in which the gay and lesbian movements was heading to, and just society in general. Tribe 8 used the reappropriation of subjects and topic that were stereotyped with queer people, and seen as taboo to talk about, not just by the heteronormative society, but also by mainstream queer people. Tribe 8’s lyrics often talked about S&M, nudity, fellatio, and transgender issues. All these issues that had negative connotations, Tribe 8 basically would say: yes we are this and much, much more. Tribe 8, along with other queercore groups, were very unapologetically queer. A lot of the times during their performances, they would go topless and the lead singer, Breedlove, would wear a strap-on and encourage the audience to interact with it. Their song, “Butch in the Street” touched on the topic of lesbian sex, a topic which would not be spoken of especially not in music. They are retaking the notion of “gay people have a lot of sex” and using it into theirs lyrics. Tribe 8 use these methods as a form of empowerment, and establishing their stance by going against society and the “norm”, embracing their queerness.

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One of the most iconic YouTube gamer, and we don’t even know his face.

Cryaotic (also known as Cry) is gamer, who has strived to keep his identity and personal life secret due to social anxiety and safety.  Only very little aspects are known about him physically (such his age and race) and that he is from Florida. The vagueness and mystery surrounding this YouTuber is one of the numerous reason for his popularity. This exact vagueness in his persona allows for people to disidentify (to “recycle” and recode information to identify with something or someone) with him. I found Cry via my current roommate. We both like video games, but she’s the one who got me into watching gamers on YouTube and Cry was the first one. By the sound of his voice, I had made a prior assumption that he was white (which 5 minutes ago was confirmed by my roommate, who has watched his videos a lot longer than I have). But besides that we don’t know: whether he’s tan, the color of his eyes, color of his hair, body shape, anything. One thing that was revealed to his viewers was his sexuality: pansexual. When I found this out this made me very excited. As a pansexual myself, it is very rare to have some sort of visibility.  Being a pansexual whom enjoys gaming, having a faceless icon, with common interest/humor, it makes it easier to relate to. I, for one, am very light skin toned (or as my friends put it, very white) for a Hispanic, with light brown hair (where as my parents have darker skin with black hair), for all I know Cry can look a lot like me.

Alexandrina. "Radicalizing Fantasy and the Power of Disidentification." Black Girl Dangerous. N.p., 9 Dec. 2013. Web.

Bonus: *view description is advised* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNWpg90uuoA

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Look what I found!!!

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Sailor Moon is one of the most well know anime, many of the people in my generation grew up watching this show. Unfortunately, the show coming out in the late 90’s cause quite a bit a censorship in the English dubbed, especially in regards to the queer notations the anime takes. In the English dubbed, Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune are depicted as cousins, but if you’ve seen the original Japanese version, you know that they are a lot more than “cousins”. But regarding this week’s topic of stereotypes (an overly simplified perception of type of person or group of people) I want to focus on Sailor Uranus, or also known as Haruka Tenou (Amara Tenoh in the English dubbed). Haruka is epitome of the stereotypical lesbian. She is depicted as the butch tomboy, to the point of the first episode when Sailor Moon and the other Sailor Scouts confuse her for a boy. Haruka has short hair, and dressed in boyish cloth (including wear the male school uniform); she was a track star and in the present (of the anime’s timeline) she like driving cars and motorcycles. Haruka is also depicted as being a bit of a flirt and player (mostly to tease the Sailor Scouts), but when anyone get close to her lover, Michiru, she gets easily jealous. These are characteristics often given to male anime characters. I personally, see nothing wrong with this depiction of Haruka, because the creators are not insinuating that this is the only type of lesbian. Haruka’s lover, Michiru, is depicted as to be very feminine, with long hair, and likes playing the violin. Despite, the typical stereotype, I believe it is important to be able to this visibility, especially for a time where homosexuality was such a controversial topic, and in a country that is considered to be conservative.

  Sokoloff, Alexandra. "Sassy Gay Friend! Character Stereotypes and Archetypes." N.p., 24 Apr. 2014. Web

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women are so beautiful how can u not be just a lil gay

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Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…a Link potato

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“I am invisible, simply because people refuse to see me” –Ralph Ellison

Intersectionality according to, "Finding Out: An Introduction to LGBT Studies", is how our different sense of identities interact with one another and effect out personal experiences. In Law and Order: Special Victims Unit: season 5, episode 20, they dedicated the episode to the down low. This is a popular media concept created to explain black male’s homosexual tendencies and the AID epidemic. As observed/researched by Alfred Kinsey, in some Latino and Black culture, a man is not considered gay, if they are the penetrator (because to them, women and gays are the penetrated). In this sexual phenomenon of the down low, the racial identification of being a black male trumps one’s sexual tendencies. As Ice-T explains in Law and Order: SVU, “Growing up being black, you’re supposed to be a man, become a father. Church, family, friends, they all see being gay as a white man’s perversion.” Here we see the expectations that come with being a black male, as well as their sexual tendencies being kept hidden. If no one knows, then it really isn’t happening. The intersection of one’s race and sexual orientation make people have different experiences. White males seem to take the spotlight in everything, even in queerness. That’s why Ice-T, say it “a white man’s perversion”.  It’s not that it’s expect but it is more visible, without the visibility of black, gay males, it’s almost as they don’t exist, thus creating these justification for their sexual tendencies. White male also, have more rights/privileges than a black male. One has to consider those struggles that a white man will not experience and add on top of the struggles and conflicts to queer people have to face. It’s double the struggle, and to prevent that, they rather keep on of the two on the down low.

Michelle A. Gibson, Jonathan Alexander, Deborah T. Meem. Finding Out: An Introduction to LGBT Studies. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publication, 2014.  [pages 180-182]