#being queer

[fixing-bad-posts]

being queer is just saying fuck societal rules very much

[butterflyinthewell]

Queer people are expected to leap out of the closet fully realized.

But closets are full of clothes.

It’s okay to try on outfits, mix and match, revisit old outfits and add new ones. Whatever feels right to you at the time is who you are at the time.

So it’s okay if the outfit you chose first is the one, and it’s also okay if you try out many or change it as time goes by.

There’s no wrong way to be queer and there’s no rule saying you can’t explore your queerness.

Don’t listen to anybody who tries to dictate otherwise to you.

Explore, discover, and embrace YOU.

[naturallyteal]

Another little gemstone - about “being out”:

Every time I watch the show, I notice something new. Yesterday, it was this:

When I asked myself: “why did they film this scene?”, it cost money and time to do it, and it wasn’t really doing very much for the plot or the characters’ development, so what’s it here for? That’s the first time I saw the possibility of a double meaning in those words. As @kimberleyjean put it, who btw made the snippet for me (THANK YOU!) and who I discussed this with (shortly), the double meaning of “being out” does not refer to the Them. So maybe it’s just a little bow to times and places where it is true that you don’t go to prison for being openly queer? A celebration?

Or, indirectly, a nod to all those times/places where this wasn’t/isn’t the case, where it was/is illegal to be openly queer, where people actually went/go to prison for it. Thinking of Oscar Wilde here, who was ruined in prison in England ~ 130 years earlier, for “gross indecency”. Thinking of all the Good Omens fans who live in such places today.

I’m not a meta writer, so the questions are all I have, but if we’ve learned one thing from Good Omens, it’s that question are important, right?

[outofbluecomesgreen2]

What I love about the way they came out as a couple and engaged is the fact that THEY choose the time to announce it.

It wasn’t a forced outing for Ty, it wasn’t an invasion of their privacy, it wasn’t against their will and too early.

No, it was in the coolest way possible: within a conversation with a friend during a Podcast. None too curious questions were asked, and it wasn’t repeated over and over to actually prove DJ said the truth.

They are engaged, will marry, grew old.

I’m happy I had no clue. I wish them all the best. 🏳️‍🌈😘

[im-ro-yo]

guys.... i love him so dearly

the bottom one is him helping me get used to forearm crutches clarifying cuz it's not super clear

[bitingyoubitingyoubi]

Y'know, my own coming out story and sexuality journey is a pretty much perfect mirror of tommyinnit.

I, too, was the token cishet friend in a group of very cool queer people. I, too, had to have many queer and explicit terms explained to me. I, too, had a running bit about being in love with and proposing to and marrying my friends. I, too, aggressively hinted at it so much that I forgot I hadn't come out (projecting here, but close). I, too, had queerness and being gay so normalized that I accidentally outed my friend within minutes of him coming out to me. The biggest difference is that I was raised in a "love the sinner hate the sin" Christian family and had queerness rapidly normalized for me at high school, whereas tommyinnit's mom is just based and taught him that gayness was normal from day one.

Someone get me in a room with this guy I need some solidarity.

[shadowsandsunset]

I wish nothing but good things for Oliver Stark and Lou Ferrigno Jr.

They gave us such an authentic, gentle, tender experience. I've watched the clip of that kiss several dozen times now.

Oliver, especially, has been amazing in his interviews and social media posts, empathetic and honest and sweet. I don't know his sexuality and I don't speculate in real people's sexualities, but regardless he seems like a true ally. He seems to Get It.

As someone who came out later in life** it really touches my heart what they're doing.

9-1-1 has always seemed to try to do good by their queer characters and I really appreciate that.

Hen and Karen have always been a fantastic and very real feeling example of a wlw relationship.

This show is doing amazing. I wish nothing but good and happy things for the cast and crew who make this happen.

**Under the cut is my coming out/self acceptance story if you're interested.

Tw: repression, self harm, drug use, shitty relationships both familial and romantic.

I tried to come out as a teenager in the early 2000s after I kissed a girl for the first time. It did not go well.

My mother was a complicated woman and she loved me very much, but when I told her I was bi (I prefer pan now but at the time I didn't have that word) she told me it was a phase and that she was disappointed, that she would always love me but that it was wrong in the eyes of God and she couldn't accept it.

Disappointing my mother was worse than her being angry. It felt like my heart was carved out of my chest. I feel like if she had been angry or openly cruel I could have fought back, but her sadness destroyed me. I was 16 then and I continued to live at home until I was 24. I'm in my mid/late 30s now.

So I repressed that part of myself for well over a decade and spent a lot of time depressed and miserable. I self harmed and did A LOT of drugs. I'm clean now except for super occasional weed use. I have a lot of scars from self harm.

My mom died several years ago and it wasn't until after her death that I allowed myself to even think about it, any of it. I was in a relationship with a man for eight years that was loving but he was an alcoholic and I had to walk on eggshells around him because of his mental health struggles; he was emotionally abusive but in a way that was only apparent in hindsight. I thought that my relationship with him was as good as I was going to get. We broke up not long after my mom died.

The only family member I am out to is my older sister, who has been amazing and accepting and loves me completely. Without her support I would be lost.

I have now dated/hooked up with women, men, nb and trans people. I have explored my own gender identity (it's whatever, I don't feel like a woman despite having the female equipment and appearing female in body, I feel pretty masculine but not like a man either, and I don't have strong opinions on pronouns, but I feel like I fail at femininity and masculinity in equal measure so I call myself genderqueer. I don't have any desire to take hormones or have any surgeries, I just want to be a person without having to perform gender).

I live in a conservative small city in the US south and I feel disconnected from the wider queer community. I don't know how to bridge that gap. There is a small queer community here but you can't really be openly out and be safe.

I'll be going to my first pride event this June. I'm excited and terrified because I don't feel like I'm queer enough or The Right Kind of queer, which is such a stupid stress to have, but I don't have many friends to talk about this with and I am hoping to get out there and make some but I'm nervous. I'm socially awkward and kinda weird. I'm also single and trying to mingle, lol.

I like who I am now but it was an incredibly difficult road to get to this place. I'm still on that journey, and maybe I always will be but that's ok. I'm finally myself.

[counting-stars-gayly]

Is it possible to be so physically attracted someone that they give you an asexual awakening? Like hey you’re hot... *squints* why don't I want to fuck you?

[mojo-yous]

Reminder (to myself as well):

You don’t have to be any certain way to BE queer or qualify as queer/LGBTQ. This is something I wish I had realized in middle/high school/early college. Looking, talking, acting, or being a certain way does not make you queer or not queer.

I wish it was more accepted and known that no matter who tf you are and what tf you look like there are queer people in your demographic and in your niche because queer people don’t fit in a box. Being gay or trans doesn’t assign you with a certain quota of ‘gayness’ you have to have in order to be whatever identity you are.

Queer people are into art, music, sports, dance, theatre, science, math, trades. Queer people are in sororities, fraternities, every major that exists, every career that exists, and in every country and every city everywhere. We don’t exist to conform to what people assume gay people are supposed to be like.

[30minuterice]

no cis person can understand the happiness I feel when I realize a good batchmate of mine is also a genderqueer person.

[northlt03]

Being queer feels very isolating when you first discover that about yourself. There's this heavy feeling that no on else could possibly understand you or how you feel. Mainly because you're surrounded by cis het people who really don't understand you. And it feels that much more lonely and terrifying when your family is homophobic/ transphobic where you don't ever see any escape. You start to dream about leaving your family behind and moving away, far from their clutches on you. And it's so sad that a lot of us have that thought, of choosing between your family and being your own self. Your family, who has repeatedly told you they'd love you no matter what. But very quickly as you grow up, you discover their love is conditional, they have their limits. It's just fucking heartbreaking when you realize the people who were supposed to love you no matter what, who were supposed to stand by you, support you, make you happy, would do the opposite if they discovered this part of you.

But growing up as a queer person also feels very liberating. I know a lot of people say it, but it definitely does get better, I promise. Maybe you really would have to leave your family behind and start over, maybe everything goes wrong in your life and you want to be a little child again, desperate to be loved, maybe the world is harsh and cruel. But you owe it to yourself to live your best life. Even if it means going against what people expected of you.

You owe your little teenage self the opportunity to live as themselves. You owe it to yourself to try. And I can't say for sure it'll all work out in the end, but isn't living and losing better than never living at all?

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

Hiiiii!!!

The Hindi songs guy again (salaamat recommendation, if "Hindi songs guy" is too vague)! Firstly, thanks for telling the name of the song, I listened to it and *sighs* it was them!

Secondly, i didn't know you were from India too! Got to know some days ago from your posts, and then just read your post when you were drunk and telling about India. And I fully agree, it was accurate (and as a North Indian, I'm sorry for the racism🙊). And I'm also sorry about the transphobia and every other awfulness you might've experienced. I love youuuu (sorry if this is too weird🙆🏻‍♂️). Also, the career prospects thing was 100% true: I was 'supposed' to become a doctor, but I had taken science just coz i liked it, and then there was a three years long tragic battle against doctor as a career, and then finally after a failed suicide attempt, I was able to choose English Literature, and things are only now (5 years after the fact) looking better....sooooo I guess your fears about college are totally valid but it will be better, you'll meet great people and learn so much beautiful stuff and create sooo many brilliant thingss! Again, I love youuu (and again, sorry if all of it is too much info, too weird, I'm just...weirdly emotional, idk why)

Thirdly, I really like your name! Asmi is a beautifullll nameee!

Fourthly, sorryy for the long and weird ask, just... I'm glad to know someone else from India here, who's also a Good Omens fan and evidently a lovely person. Sooo lots of long tight hugss!

Lastly, sorry for all the sorrys, and you can totally ignore this if it's uncomfortable or anything (if you couldn't tell by the sorrys, I'm super self-conscious, so thanks for the anonymous option)

Love and hugss, and best of luck for college, for your art, and life in general!❤️

Hey anon maggot! I'm so happy you listened to the song and loved it.

And thank you so much for sharing this with me. It's awful that you had to go through all of that, and I'm so proud of you for surviving. I spent three years preparing for medicine too (11th and 12th year, which caused me to fall sick and miss the NEET test, so I took a gap year etc) and I really did want it. Well, I thought I did. It was more that I didn't think I had any other choice.

TW: explicit mentions of transphobia and disregard and discrimination on the basis of mental health below. Skip the below paragraph if you need to.

I'm glad you're doing better. Yeah, I am not looking forward to college. I know there will be fun parts and all. But I had a go at college for three months back in August, and despite it being very liberal and open and stuff in theory, I had to drop out because the entire student body was isolating me because of my mental health and things my ex-roommate had said about me, and a lot of transphobia from the admin too. When I went to the dean and told her I felt unsafe and the environment was horrible, she told me to stop being so self-absorbed (and then denied she said that the next day to my parents). Luckily after the whole medical ordeal my parents had learned to listen to me and they helped me leave.

I will try again. It's just that it's... disheartening. That was design school, too, just like my next college will be. And I really did try my best. It's weird thinking about all that stuff because Tumblr and you maggots have kind of, well, healed it in a way, and given me such a safe space here that it feels unbelievable that the real world could be so, so fucking shite. Apologies for the vent here, but I do want to be honest, and I want everyone who's faced the same thing to know that they're not alone. Because I know so many people, too many, who've been there.

Thank god for Good Omens and you all. For the ridiculous amount of support and love and joy I've got here. It's easier to forget about all of it for a while when I focus on Crowley's pouts and Aziraphale smiling and making you all laugh.

And hey, you have nothing to feel sorry for. I'm so grateful to you for taking the time to write this. I love you too, anon maggot, so very much. Take all the tight hugs right back. I'm so proud of you for fighting for the future you wanted and deserved. I know it's not easy, both to fight with your internalised doubt and the others.

I'm so proud.

Good luck.

All the love, Asmi

[brightlotusmoon]

Autisticat:

i just found out the other day that something i thought was common knowledge might not be.

(do any of you do that too, where you assUme that everyone else knows things? for me i think a lot of it is that i often seem to be the last person to know!)

note: this isn't specifically about the autistic community. but i, like many of the other autistic + otherwise neurodivergent people i know, are also part of the quiltbag community.

the word quiltbag is an alternative to the initialisms LGBTQ, LGBTQ+, LGBTQ2S, etc.

i first learned "quiltbag" in the 00s, i think. i don't know who coined it, but the person who pointed me to it told me about the symbolism that resonated with her.

unlike initialisms, quiltbag is also a pairing of two words that describe a real thing, a quilt bag. also called a piece bag, a quilt bag holds the cut pieces that will be sewn together into a quilt. and quiltbag holds ALL the pieces that form the community.

and the word quilt? oh my goodness, to me that feels like a gentle nod of remembrance for everyone we've lost to aids, because it evokes the aids quilt. (i was in my 20s when the aids hit hard in the us.)

less emotionally: it's also easy to say!

tl;dr: i love the word quiltbag because of all the meaning and symbology -- and i had NO CLUE this wasn't common knowledge, oops!🙀💜xo

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0q5v3LkCt3tBo1ZqoG3rByNCvPFNpSzhyzMEXfHPBeLRidfD27tuT4UW9S4iveJrvl&id=100063032388992

Me: I learned about quiltbag in 1998 when I was at a very very queer friendly college in New York for the time. I'm not certain exactly when it started, but I still use it today.

[leihaddock]

As a queer guy, being in fandoms where queer ships are big is quite the dilemma situation

On one hand, I don’t want to be fetishised. Don’t do that in general. A lot of people who consume mlm media are allocishet women. Which is okay. But it sometimes escalates to unhealthy degrees and it’s still people writing our stories that aren’t us. And I understand. I was a girl in fandom spaces once upon a time. I’m not willing to lose the safe haven fandoms tend to provide. Go ahead and ship what you want (but for the love of whatever god may be listening, keep it consensual, legal and fictional). Please remember we are people.

On the other hand, where in the history of anything have we got proper queer representation? In modern times, probably never. Fanfiction and fandoms in general, provide so much of it. And where else am I gonna get ultra specific art of my favourite characters? Where am I gonna get real life issues shown and proper characterisation?Where am I gonna get actual good E rated stuff? Definitely not official media of any sorts. Queer baiting is still a big thing sadly. Realism aside, the representation, albeit fandom exclusive, feels so good. Official media is catching up slowly but in the meantime we still got this.

Bottom line: do show us and our relationships and struggles but remember we are first and foremost people

[sp3akfri3ndand3nt3r]

Having a boyfriend is like having a cat. We were cuddling and he fell asleep. I guess I’m not allowed to move ever again and I’m not gonna complain about that

[bitingyoubitingyoubi]

Will y'all still let me be gay if I have and still cry to Macklemore same love? If it's the gay song sitting sitting closest to my heart?