#i just love how people pretend to support queer people until they see queer people actually living their lives happily

[milf--adjacent]

Something that convinced me that transmysoginy exists more than any other argument was how immediate and violent the reaction from TMEs and adjacent folks was. As soon as you bring up the very idea of queer groups having power dynamics it's a flood of "You're intersexist" "You're transandrophobic" "You have no idea what's going on" "you hate gnc people", etc. etc. without ever trying to debunk the argument, and often resorting to character assassinations.

To 'debunk' the argument would mean they would have to address it which means facing their possibly hidden biases upon which they build their own narrative of superiority. They wanna say "you're a bunch of baddel bigot transfem supremacists" when in reality we're chipping away at their own supremacist values simply by mentioning that we are whole people who are consistently forgotten and undervalued by queer communities at large. They think we "want on top" when all we want is an end to veiled hate and dismissal of our thoughts, feelings, and experiences because we were forced to walk through life with a big 'M' on our records and somehow that means we lived the good life until we started "pretending" to be women. All we want is to be considered and included.

Like there was this gushing outporing of support for that post that told trans women to stay alive then told trans men to stay alive, and a bunch of TME people were like "I've never heard it phrased for trans men before!" and while I can respect their experience 1. We curate our own experiences here, so maybe follow some more positive trans men and you'll see plenty of transmasc positivity (I see plenty and I'm not even looking for it!) and 2. Which part of the community has a long, lingering, often unreported suicide issue? Which types of trans people are ostracized from the groups and communities that are supposed to help them and care for them? Which group of trans people makes up the bulk of the trans suicide stats?

Trans women are dying of lonliness and despair every day, and some TME people want to turn it into a "both sides" issue of "balance" and "fairness." I think one side lacks proper balance and fairness since one side has entire stores and clothing lines dedicated to their needs, but when I want a bra or shoes in my size, I have to wade through listings labeled "CROSSDRESSER SISSY BOTTOM TRANSEXUAL CLOTHING FOR MEN" to find something. I go to the queer support group and I am the only transfem in the room and the whole organization is run by TME people. I go to pride and there's so much fanfare for the drag queens who live their lives as gay men and only adopt womanhood as a performance, but even for the fucking TRANS MARCH, only one transfem is given space to speak on stage, and she is quickly bustled from the stage so a TME DJ can spin a super mid remix of I Feel Love (should have just played the extended dance mix for fucks sake) and yet another drag queen can perform.

It's not just me noticing these things, and many transfems aren't half as brave as me because of histories of abuse and neglect.

To even validate the argument that transfems are overlooked and neglected would be to address one's role in making that happen so consistently, so it's easier for that type of TME person to cast individual trans women as some sort of monster than to address their own internalized transmisogyny. No one likes to be told they're hurting someone, but no one goes full hater as quickly as a white queer person who is told their lack of empathy empowers transmisogyny.

[eivor-wolfkissed]

Replaying dragon age now that I'm older- I've actually changed my opinions about Anders a lot and honestly? I *hate* Anders. There are certain things about his character I do like, and I like the tragedy of it all. But honestly I'm just not the biggest fan of him anymore. I think he's a good example of a bad activist who ends up hurting others more than enacting good change. He's more of a selfish accelerationist, rather than someone who listens to the people and fights for change that actually benefits them, but in the long run, his actions end up hurting mages even more in my opinion. He was a better person before he ended up getting jaded and possessed by Justice, then later, Vengance.

I think another thing that fueled my dislike of him is watching his hardcore fans do terrible things on here to other people (like watching some of his chronically online white fans accuse people of color within fandom of supporting police brutality just because they liked certain characters or held nuanced opinions about the templar/mage stuff, and misgender/exclude trans fans from queer fandom spaces for the same reasons stated above, to name a few things). All of these things combined have lead me to just be extremely annoyed by Anders overall. Not to mention his dick behavior towards other companions- like supporting Hawke selling Fenris into slavery, while pretending to be a freedom fighter? Lmao. Cringeworthy. Anders is not a morally good character by any means. For the things I do like- I do always side with the mages in DA2, and I fully support the actions taken to help mages escape the Kirkwall circle specifically. I really enjoyed doing the side quests with the mage underground. I love Anders' refusal to be caged and his determination to live freely (just wish he respected that in others and didn't support selling Fenris into slavery simply because he didn't agree with him. That's beyond selfish and straight up diabolical. Again, another thing that reminds me of IRL white leftists who refuse to deconstruct their bigotry). I just think the final action of destroying the chantry only invited chaos and didn't actually help mages at all (see the violence in DAI and how many innocent less powerful mages get killed by mobs of non mages because they no longer have protection. The circles needed a lot of changes but ripping them away completely and suddenly left a vacuum and invited way too much chaos imo).

And to be clear, this isn't a post with intent to shame all Anders fans. Not all of his fans act in the way I outlined earlier- just a particular, small but loud subset of them I have observed up close and interacted with one on one in the past. I don't think it's wrong to like this character at all- it's silly to claim that someone is morally wrong for liking a fictional character. There are things I still enjoy about his character! However growing up, getting a little wiser about activism, and watching *some* (not all) of his fans act like genuine bigots towards other dragon age fans, have made me lose more and more enthusiasm for him overall. It's also extrordinarily tiring to watch extremely sheltered and privileged people who have never witnessed acts of mass violence say that his final act of blowing up a church is Good and Moral when in actuality, it ended up murdering people who had nothing to do with the conflict. I do firmly believe that people who are gung ho about that action have a very idealized view of violence and do not actually comprehend how horrific and traumatizing these acts are on societies as a whole. It only ends up hurting the most vulnerable people and does nothing but invite violent chaos. I will fully admit I used to be one of those people, until I actually talked with and listened to real life refugees and other people who have experienced acts of terrorism and violent revolution in their respective home countries. These things always impact the most vulnerable members of society in horrific ways, and never actually holds people in power responsible... and all too often, pushes societies into even more authoritarianism.

Anyways. That's my essay on why Anders now annoys me greatly as an adult fan and why I veiw him more as a tragically doomed character rather than a freedom fighter. Anders, to me, is a terrorist in it for him and his. Not a freedom fighter. Everything stated here is my personal opinion- I'm not interested in debating people on my post, only sharing what I now think of this character- any kind of combative harassment added to this post will be ignored, blocked, and deleted.

It will be interesting to see what happens after I post this. If this post upsets you, please ignore it and do something healthy with your emotions, please do not engage in bullying.

[stormblessed95]

Sorry if you talked about it before and i didn’t see, but what were your thoughts on the taemin episode last week?

I loved the 93 bond start to develop, and the way taemin and jimin talked about each other was really sweet. We haven’t gotten to see much of their friendship on camera. I love how taemin talked about similarities between him and jm (especially the word ‘genderless’). I personally think taemin is (probably) queer just like i think yoongi and jimin are, and it was really lovely the way the three of them connected - they’re some of the only people who are in their specific situations so they can relate to each other.

The way they compared it to a blind date with jimin as matchmaker made me laugh xD

Lmao you said last week and I'm just now getting to this over a month later.... If this doesn't highlight how bad I've been about my asks. I still have some I need to answer back from Seven promos!! I'm so sorry y'all.

It's been a while since Ive seen it (over a month lmao) but I remember loving it. Because I love everything Yoongi does. That man has got me in a chokehold and I'm happy to be there! And Jimin was there too so like, amazing all around. The things that I remember so therefore stood out to me from the 3 of them were how adorable it was in the way they both clearly love Jimin. They are so "let hyung love on you" with him. Lol

Jimin calling Taemin Hyungie which was adorable.

Yoongi having an impossible time trying to wrap his head around them being the same age but Taemin being his groups maknae lmfao Yoongi is so hyung coded at this point. He can't even pretend to relate to that part of their separate idol experiences. 😂😂

Yoongi making Jimin turn around so he could interview Taemin because both of them kept turning to look at Jimin instead of focusing on each other lol

Jimin saying idk if y'all will be friends but I'll support this friendship 😂😂😂

I just enjoy seeing them interact with each other and with people outside BTS. Like it makes me happy. Idk why, it just does. I don't have too many opinions on Taemin personally. Don't know anything about him too much really outside of the little Jimin himself has shared.... But it seemed like they had a lot of fun and I enjoy seeing my boys smile!

Yoongi and Jimin CLEARLY trying to behave but somehow still being unable to help teasing each other lmao

Yoongi and Jimin calling the members family and saying how they both can't wait until 2025 To be reunited all together again 🥰🥰😭😭🥰🥰

Thanks for asking! And for being so patient with me and how inactive I've been and my poor inbox!!

[sadkachow]

sometimes i wish i wasn’t transmasc.

i love being me, but it just gets so exhausting. 

i’m not in an environment where i’m able to be entirely open about it, and it makes every moment when i’m with anyone i’m not out to exhausting. i feel like i’m putting on a show, pretending to be someone i’m not.

and then (and this is the main point of this post) sometimes it feels like the queer community hates people like me. not always, but certainly enough. enough to make me feel isolated, even in online spaces where i can be myself, because no one wants me to be me. the amount of shit i see by other queer people (even other trans men!) about how my manness somehow means i don’t experience oppression (which assumes every trans masc or man can or wants to pass—and even then, they must also be quiet about their transness), that trans mascs and men aren’t allowed to have the language to speak about their oppression, that we’re oppressing other trans people (by merit of being men, i guess???), that we’re evil disgusting monsters. 

the fear-mongering around t, the idea that it makes you bad and dangerous, the idea that certain effects of t are inherently disgusting and bad.

the way that we’re either seen as “evil vicious wicked men” or “poor dumb stupid girls- i mean boys- i mean girls”.

we’re hated because we’re failed women. 

we’re hated because we’re men.

no trans man or masc has ever experienced oppression based on their identity—and don’t you dare go look up the reported rates of violence, harassment, and s/a that we receive, don’t you dare look at how high they are! 

trans men aren’t allowed to see our transness and our manhood as connected in any way, they must be separated (“we have to protect queerness from disgusting masculinity”—which is also harmful to anyone who is comfortable or even enjoys experiencing and embracing their masculinity). 

gay trans men like me are introducing on the gay community.

straight trans men are either preying on innocent women, or they’re “better” than cis men, because they(“‘re not really men”) know what women want and are like and can thus serve women better!

trans men who still identify with lesbianism for whatever reason are either treated as women or treated (once again) as evil invaders out to harm women.

not to mention the trans mascs and men who identify with any other label than those three—no matter what, our identities and labels get twisted around to be used against us, to the point where sometimes it feels like maybe it’d be better if we didn’t identify as anything at all (except maybe that’d get turned against us too).

we get attacked for trying to have more neutral language (i.e. “pregant people” instead of “pregnant women”, “menstrual hygiene” instead of “feminine hygiene”, etc). we get attacked for having our own language (the way every single term used to describe transmasc oppression has been dissected and degraded until it’s become clear that maybe it’s not the word itself but simply the fact that we are using it).

we get told how much men are awful and horrible either as if we arent “really” men (“kill all men. but not you, you’re one of the ‘good ones’ (aka: i don’t see you as a man)”), or because we’re just as bad and need to be separated and killed and harassed and hated (“kill all men, including trans men. you can’t be mad, you’re asking for it by (existing as yourself) being a man!” “trans men really are the men of the lgbtqia+ community” (this is also a form of malgendering—gendering someone correctly for the sake of harming or attacking them (aka with malicious intent))).

i see so much help and resources for other queer people, but hardly any for trans mascs/men. i’ve seen support that parades itself as “for trans people”, and then it turns out it’s for all trans people except trans men. (this isn’t an exaggeration, by the way. i’ve seen multiple respurces that say that they’re for the support of all trans people, and then if you actually read into it, they’re for the support of trans women and nonbinary people only—which is completely fine that those support groups exist! but then don’t label it as “for all trans people” if it’s not for all trans people. that’s exclusionary, and can also present nonbinary identities as “women-lite”—and also often leaves no space for trans women and nonbinary people who present in a more masculine way or who also identify with manhood/as men to some degree, or for nonbinary people who dont identify with womanhood/as women at all.)

violence against trans men is so often erased because we’re misgendered even in death. we’re forcefully detransitioned. we’re s/a-ed and abused at extremely high rates.

we’re pitiful misled girls or failed women or wicked evil men or pick me’s or vile abusers. 

we’re evil and we cannot be hurt or oppressed because we’re men, as if that is not a point of view that is based on bioessentialism/gender essentialism, racism, intersexism, and extremely harmful (especially to marginalised men in general—trans or not). 

no identity is uniquely capable or incapable of harm—anyone can harm anyone, regardless of who they are.

and yet, and yet, and yet, it’s alright because we asked for it by simply being us.

sometimes it just feels so isolating to be a trans boy, because everywhere i look, there’s people hating me for existing.

im just so tired of it.

(clarification: i know not all of the queer community holds this stance. i’ve seen and/or met wonderful queer people of all identities who have been understanding and accepting. i’m also not trying to say that the things mentioned in this are only driven forward by the community—plenty of people who aren’t in it do this stuff as well. what i mean is just that it feels as if this sort of talk—particularly radfem rhetoric—has been incredibly pervasive lately, at least from what i’ve experienced. i feel like a lot of people forget it’s not just the “trans exclusionary” part of TERFs that is bad, but the radical feminism as well. radical feminism isn’t good. it’s incredibly bioessentialist, racist, intersexist, and harmful in so many other ways by its nature. but it still stands so clearly in so many places. this is also by no means a comphrensive list on the treatment of trans mascs/men. i’m not infallible. there’s certainly other things that have happened that i’ve either forgotten or am not aware of—and if anyone wants to add on, feel free!)

[elamimax]

There's a lot of people who really, really love the "magical school" setting, but for obvious reasons don't want to support Jowling Kowling anymore.

So, I wrote a YA novel.

Jonathan Rosewood is, not to put too fine a point on it, dead. Well, almost dead. Like, basically dead. But he's being given a second chance: to become the familiar of a young witch-in-training. Luckily for him, that means a second lease on life, access to a magical world and incredible abilities, not to mention a whole host of new friends. Unluckily for him, he does still have to go to class, and occasionally giant monsters seem to try to kill him.

With a whole host of young characters, several of which are some form of queer, Jonathan has to figure out how to navigate his own burgeoning identity, the fact that he's a female cat sometimes, as well as the growing realization that there is more to this magical world than meets the eye.

Any Other Name is a queer reimagining of the genre, with a more anti-authoritarian, anti-status quo bent, and hey, this one is by a trans author! You can buy it on Amazon or wherever else you get your epubs :)

His hands in his pockets, shoulders squared and eyes to the ground, Jonathan crossed the road and tried to bury his face in the collar of his jacket. It was eerily quiet when he almost bumped into a chair he realised was in front of a table. Already strange to see these things outside, but on a zebra crossing? He looked up and saw a woman sitting behind the table. She looked a little bit like one of those well-meaning middle-school teachers, who rewarded thirteen-year-olds with stickers (who would pretend not to be proud of them), all rosy cheeks and smelling faintly of incense and a minimum of two cats. She was wearing what appeared to be a dress from the Fifties; the only thing ‘off’ about the presentation was a tattoo of an eye peeking out of her dress at her collarbone. She smiled at him, and indeed, her cheeks were rosy and round.  “Hello,” she said.  “Um,” Jonathan responded.  “Please, sit down. My name is Charlie. Charlie Ferman.” The lady’s smile was unwavering and eerily genuine. It wasn’t predatory or scary, just… disarmingly honest.  “You’re in the middle of the street,” Jonathan said.  The lady giggled, a sound like sleighbells ringing through the air on a christmas morning. “I don’t think that will be a problem,” she said, and rolled her eyes at her surroundings in an exaggerated display. Jonathan looked. The world had stopped. Cars had all braked for some reason, he thought, until he realised that people, too, had frozen in place. A man was trying to get a pigeon from pecking at his hotdog, and it was hovering just a few feet from his face.  “I don’t understand,” Jonathan said. He sat down out of shock, more than out of any obligation to do as the lady asked.  “Gosh, I do so hate this part,” Charlie said. “You’re dead.” Jonathan looked at her.  “No, I’m not,” he said. “I’d know if I was dead. I wouldn’t be talking to you.” “Well, you’re not wrong. But you also kind of are,” Charlie said with an apologetic little smile and then waved in the other direction. Jonathan only just now became aware of the fact that there was a sixteen-wheeler only a foot from the table. “You’re going to be dead,” Charlie said. “In just a few hundredths of a second. It’ll be fairly painless, if that helps. Would you like a sweet?” She produced a small piece of wrapped candy out of a little purse. 

[hylianengineer]

For some reason I have abruptly returned to being insane about Cabaret. It's a musical about the rise of fascism and the tragedy that is pretending everything is fine until it's too late. It's also a heartwrenching doomed romance. It's unusually direct and neutral-to-positive about its depiction of sex work given how mainstream it is. It's about vice and desperation and fear and horrible, horrible coping mechanisms. It gets the audience invested in not one but two doomed romances AND a doomed friendship that are all about to be torn apart by the impending rise of Nazism. By the end of the play the majority of characters have had their lives torn apart by this one encroaching evil and we have to watch it happen. We have to watch them make all the bad decisions in which they might have been able to save themselves, but they didn't, because they were human and fallible. Because they didn't want to see what was happening around them, or take a risk, or they just couldn't quite bring themselves to believe that getting a happy ending was an option. We can see all the ways it might have gone differently.

I can't get over how incredible our university production of it was. I may be biased but I love it more than the Broadway version. For one thing, we had a nonbinary actor playing the Emcee, which meant that their romance with a Jewish woman came across as both Jewish and queer and like the biggest possible fuck you to the Nazis. But also, they were just such a good actor. The sad-and-terrified-but-forcing-themself-to-be-okay vibes in the final scene were so visceral and haunting. "Where are your troubles now? Forgotten? I told you so. We have no troubles here. Here, life is beautiful. The women are beautiful. Even the orchestra is beautiful." They sounded so broken in this scene. The juxtaposition between the words and the way they said them was like being punched in the gut. I wish I could tell them this but I do not even slightly know this person.

The depiction of the Nazis is also amazing because it shows them as people. Not in a "oh we should sympathize with them" way, but in a "oh fuck they could be ANYONE and you'd never know it" way. As Fräulein Schneider says, they are her friends and neighbors. She expects her friends and neighbors to support her when she decides to marry Herr Schultz, a Jewish man, but as it turns out, some of them are Nazis and make it very clear that if she doesn't break off the engagement, they'll turn on her.

We LIKE the Nazi character, right up until he takes off his coat and shows off the Swastika armband. We had no idea he was harboring such nastiness in his heart - he seemed nice! He was charming. He was kind. He was Clifford's and our introduction to Berlin, and he made a damn good first impression. He was very pleasant to Herr Schultz right up until the he realized he was a Jew, and it was chilling to watch that scene unfold. I remember sitting backstage every night and waiting to hear everyone go dead silent at the reveal. Chilling.

The other thing Caberet does so well is the "why should we care about politics? what does that have to do with us?" angle. Sally says it outright - she'd rather know nothing about what's happening, and even when confronted with it, she doesn't care. She doesn't understand why Cliff won't help Ernst anymore after finding out exactly what those smuggled goods were for - as far as she's concerned, they need the money and the politics are irrelevant. The politics being Nazism, of course. She has absolutely no malice towards the people the Nazis are hurting - she's just incredibly, horribly naive. Doesn't it just make your blood run cold?

It's extra creepy to watch this play in the political environment of the last year or so - the way things have been getting progressively more and more scary for queer people. There were definitely a few times when I read some particularly awful news coming out of Florida and felt very much like Cliff grappling with the horrible realization that he needed to get out of Berlin yesterday. And trying to explain that sheer terror to my straight relatives did feel reminiscent of Clint's failed attempts to make Sally see reason. But it didn't affect her directly, so she didn't care. She had her own life and her own priorities and why should she care about things that don't affect her? I hope things here and now never get that bad, but the exact reason it's so disturbing is that people in early-1930s Berlin never guessed it would get that bad either.

And this is a story based on true events. It's fictionalized, but it isn't made up. Cliff is more or less an author insert for the very real person who wrote the book the musical is based on: Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood. And by the way, Christopher Isherwood was gay.

Tl;dr Go see Cabaret and have your heart broken in like fifteen different ways. But read the trigger warnings first.

[your-queer-dad]

Hi. I just wanted to say 2 things. Sorry about how long this post is - you don’t have to read it all if you don’t want to. At least I’ll have typed out what I’ve been keeping inside so long.

First, you’re a really good person. I’m sure you know that already, and have been told that already, but from a young person to you, thank you so much. You are such a blessing.

I want to preface the second thing by saying that I have no idea where to go for support. My parents are wonderful people, but I’m not ready to come out to them or anyone else because my overall community doesn’t feel safe.

I know that at least one of my uncles doesn’t support LGBT people. One of my former classmates didn’t put in a yearbook quote indicating she was gay because she was afraid of her parents seeing it - and we’re part of a similar community. I have reason to believe other people in our community, even family members, may feel similarly.

At my former high school, my classmates often said transphobic things (one of my friends even said that one day, when I was absent a student gave a presentation promoting debunked rapid onset gender dysphoria - although thankfully someone pushed back) and although I’m not trans, not only is that behavior crappy and must have made my trans classmates feel bad, but it indicated an environment that I didn’t feel safe in.

I want to be clear that my high school wasn’t an awful place - we had an LGBT club and an out teacher who wasn’t harassed by anyone, to my knowledge - but all those other elements, and the world outside my school, still existed. I didn’t know if it was safe to be out.

It’s also my fault I feel stuck, too. Everyone assumes I’m straight, and it just feels easier to go with the flow. To pretend that I’m definitely going to have a boyfriend. To pretend that I’m not a woman who loves women as well as men.

This anxiety is so stifling, but it feels terrifying to think about being out. Even typing these words makes my hands shake and palms sweat. I don’t want to live in a world where people debate whether I can marry, whether I can exist, whether I am human - I hate it. I hate this nervousness. I hate that now, even though I’m going to college, I may not have the courage to be myself on campus.

So, after all of that, I guess I just need to ask: is it possible to find support? How do you learn to love yourself? How do I find a community?

Sorry for the long post. Have a good day.

Hey kiddo! It's alright, I don't mind the long post and thank you so much for reaching out! Yes I think it's possible to find support and your community. I hate it too, that we have to fight so hard for something that's so such a basic human necessity like the right to be ourselves. But finding support is possible, it just isn't always in the way you expect. There's lgbtq people everywhere, who feel like you, and who wants support too. Sometimes it comes when you least expect it to. But you will always have your community online, and your international community here for you, even if you don't see us everyday, we're here (and we're queer!). Learning to accept and love yourself is the hardest and the most worthwhile journey you'll ever go on, and there isn't a rush to start it until you're ready.

- dad x

[just-antithings]

Ok so I'm just need to get this off my chest about alot of fandom discourse and anti stuff (this is a bit messy sorry for that)

People who ship gay ships can and will be homophobic

And maybe this will be seen as a really weird take I don't mean in it in like "oh they have really bad takes about LGBTQA issues and don't understand that what they are doing is harmful" I mean it in "I think all queer people are going to hell and that homosexuality is a sin and that they are not allowed to marry or exist and should be killed but my two blorbos can make out and have gay sex because it's just a fantasy I will pray at the end of the night for forgiveness from God so it's ok uwu"

some do mental gymnastics to justify it

1- "well i see the feminine man as a woman so I'm not sinning"

2- "well my blorbos actually love eachother not like actual gay people they are just in it for the sex"

3 "it's a sin but I'll repent later"

My rule of thumb most religious people will jump hoops to justify things that they like but aren't allowed in there religious and at the same time will shame other religious people for doing the same thing because the other sin is easier for them to avoid

Some Christians will eat selfish but will shame other Christians for wearing certin clothes

Some muslims will drink alchohol but will shame other Muslims for eating pork

It's a basic fact

sins I like and have a hard time avoiding = Well I'm human

Sins I don't like and don't have a hard time resisting = bad and you are going to hell

How do I know that ? Well you see I unfortunately was homophobic I knew alot of homophobic people who shipped alot of queer ships some of them treat it like they have a porn addiction there are servers for *recovery* at least in my country's fandom

Hell me and my sister had to do mental gymnastics to justify to eachother why we shipped bakudeku and dazai and chuyya I still laugh to this day (it isn't funny giving the context that when we both discovered we ship gay ships me and my sister almost had a panic attacks thinking the other will snitch about the other and get beaten up for supporting homosexuality)

Thankfully me and my sister are better now and not homophobic anymore still have things to fix but we are doing better (fandom helped alot with that discovering that LGBTQA people are actually human who love their partners "I am sorry for the wording I really am" and not just pedophiles that are possessed by demons like we've always been told in the news and tv and every other form of media

I'm really bad at getting to the point but Anti policing certain things and calling people homophobic for doing things they don't like in fandom spaces is bad really bad an ally who ships a straight ship over a canonical gay ship are better than a homophobic person who ships the correct ships and uses the right labels and headcanons safe stuff and in real life won't hesitate to shoot a gay person

Some people (antis) need to understand that shipping isn't activism (do they think that all the people who wrote gay fanfiction in the old fandoms where actually you know ok with gay people? All of them ?) People can ship all the right stuff and be homophobic

Homophobia is hating gay people it isn't about what ship you like it isn't about what kind of media you consume and I'm tired of people pretending it is

People ship mainly because they like the pair simple as that (people shipped more gay ships because they simply weren't interested with shipping them with soulless female characters for sex appeal or female characters that simply didn't have chemistry with the protagonist and never showed intrest untill the last two chapters because boy gets girl , but the protagonists best friend on the other hand ? Their enemy ? Their mentor ? Characters that are well built and interesting and have a good dynamic) that's why I think shipping isn't activism your personal preferences aren't some form of activism sorry not sorry

People didn't make straight characters gay because they were progressive and wanted represention (I'm sure some did) but most of them liked the dynamic between these two characters that's it

And I fucking hate the why can't they be friends because they are in canon you are just whining because you want more content of them as friends and the sad truth is you have to make it yourself tragic I know

And I hate how they bully certain tags like gender bend and calling everyone homophobic in them because you know what homophobic people who use the tag do ? They move to the trans tag and pretend it's trans stuff while it is just gender bend simple as that , the people who aren't homophobic will label it correctly (I don't know how to explain it to people and I really don't want to come off as transphobic I'm still educating myself on the topic and I admit I still have unresolved homophobia so maybe I'm just wrong with this certain point and feel free to correct me if I am but gender bend and trans are two different things and it feels obvious when gender bend is tagged as trans I don't know how to explain it exactly I can't really maybe I have a biase on this topic but the greatest example I may have if the bts fandom most trans fics aren't trans they are a genderbend and I mean read and write what they want but criticism is important too"

And I also have a good laugh at the Antis who are like "you are equating pedophilia to gay people your like conservatives" when talking about censorship because no your average conservatives Christian doesn't equate it to pedophilia they think it is worse (pedophilia is not a sin just saying) they just need to be married to do it

I live in a conservative country ok ? When I was 12 I read a story about a 8 year old getting married to an 30 year old guy because her family abounded her and him being a man of god married her (it was a muslim story so adoption was a no no) and he started falling in love with her when she reached 16 and they got involved I would be ok with the story if the authors wasn't actually agreeing with all the worldviews their book had like litterly thought it was a good thing , but two teenage boys kissing in a book is seen as a moral threat to the country

So whay I'm saying here is no pedophilc writing will still exist if censorship people got they want they just need to do it in a god honoring way so all antis want if censorship of queer people there is no beating around the bush

And that gay people shouldn't have sex in literature Anti takes is something they share with homophobic people who ship queer ships do because

gay people wanting sex = predatory and bad

Straight people wanting sex = gods calling to multiply on earth or something

.

[thediktatortot]

Hi! Please excuse my ignorance. English is not my native language and I tried looking up the term Terf online but I struggle to understand how that one blog was a terf. It seemed homophobic to me (which is already a no-go for me, insta block). How can one spot a terf? That whole situation made me highly uncomfortable but I also wasn't familiar with that term and struggled to see the signs if that makes sense. Sorry for this ask

You're good.

So the thing about Terfs is that they come in all shapes and sizes but the one thing they have in common is that they do not believe in or hate Trans individuals.

There are a few major talking points that can help you easily spot a Terf:

Believes in the strict rules of only two biological sexes existing (in humans. Some Terfs give animals a pass for some reason.)

Believe that Trans people are either faking, pretending, confused or sick for being Trans.

Believe that all Trans Woman are just predators dressing up like woman to attack/harm Afab woman. (Assigned Female At Birth. So someone who was born with a vagina, ovaries & a uterus. or at least one of those.)

Believe that people can't possibly know they are trans until they are 'older & not a child', which leads into their unwillingness to teach about trans bodies, intersex people and queer medicine as a general concept to kids.

One thing to note is that Terfs come in all shapes and sizes. You can find a Cishet Terf who loves Trump and JKR, but you can also find a Queer Terf who only believes in Gays & Lesbians being accepted into the queer community who vehemently hates Trans people.

It's all just about not accepting/allowing Trans people to exist.

I obviously don't know everything there is, but here are some common words/sayings used by Terfs:

Female (never using Woman/Girls for individuals and only reducing them to their genitals), Radfem (Radical Feminist. It's been co opted by Terfs), Biological Sex, "Only two genders.", Gender Critical, Transgenderism, Real Woman, Body Mutilation, LGB/LGB Aliance, Womanhood, "You're taking rights away from real woman", "You're making a mockery of womanhood."

(Additional Note: Terf ideology is very very heavily rooted in White Supremacy. You can have Terfs of all races, but the people who are most effected by these ideologies are Black Trans Woman, who are killed on the highest rate of any queer person.)

There's honestly so many but just remember this: If someone believes that your identity as a Trans person is: Inherently wrong, predatory, evil, or taking away rights from other people? They are a Terf and do not respect your life.

It doesn't matter if they "have trans friends". If they believe in Terf rhetoric? They do not want you to exist. They support laws and actions against you that will lead to your death or destitution because the people who make the laws that they support are also the same people who want you dead.

Terfs are not your friends.

Terfs do not deserve spaces in our communities queer or not.

Terfs do not care about you or your existence.

Terfs. Do. Not. Belong. In. Our. Spaces.

(Note: This is all off the top of my head and my mileage on terms and common sayings might vary. I myself am Trans but I don't know everything about everything. I am also white so there are nuances within this discussion I don't have the place/or understanding to talk about further than I already have.)

[travelingthief]

My Favorite Moment with: Lord Dionysus

Lord Dionysus was one of the first deities to reach out to me. I had put up a small altar for Him, but He is a god that demands attention that I was not ready to give, so He left until I was ready for Him. That time came mid 2021.

I had recently taken over my mother’s lease on a one bedroom apartment so she could move South to fulfill the purpose Her God had for her. She was to work at a sobriety house for women struggling with addiction - a battle my mother knew all to well. For nearly a decade, my mother was a drug user and functional alcoholic. She hid it well - except from my brother who she shared her supply with - but when I was 15 she started to change. She found herself in the pews of a non-demonoationional church that offered her a way out. Our relationship, which was not build on a solid foundation, began to change. I had come out to her as trans nearly two years prior, and she was accepting. I was allowed to transition socially and when I was a month away from 16, I began my medical transition. Drastic change didn’t happen until she started attending a Pentecostal church that told her parents of queer children were failures. She told me this teaching, laughing it off as a ridiulous extremist belief, but continued to go to the church. Over time, she began to internalize some of those teachings and she hadn’t been particularly supportive of my transition since.  

I had purged my new apartment of any Jesus related items she left behind and put up my own decor. I had been having a tugging feeling toward Dionysus in recent days so one night I stood in my kitchen and connected my phone to the speaker. I found an old song I hadn’t heard since high school and pressed play. I took down the bottle of cheap moscato my mother had left behind (a secret I was to not tell the church) and sipped it - a day or two passed freshness. I began to dance and sing along, bottle in hand.

I’m feeling devious/you’re looking glamorous

Let’s get michevious/and polyamourous 

I felt Lord Dionysus join me as I twirled around the small kitchen, laughing and singing loudly. My body tingled and I had the realization - this song was on peoples’ devotional playlists. I was not the only one who heard it and felt a connection to the Divine. I became giddy with glee as I rejoiced in the connection I felt with my community. On the final beat, I took a large swig of the wine, thanking Lord Dionysus for His presence.

I hadn’t queued up the next song; it had automatically played based on my listening habits. I had heard “Rock n Roll Suicide” by David Bowie only a handful of times - enough to recgonize the melody and hum along. I cradled my bottle as the excitement from the last song faded and was replaced by Bowie’s melancholy message. I began to look around my apartment and see it from my mother’s eyes. 

She would hate that. I thought, looking at a sign with the Devil and Grim Reaper stirring a pot of coffee. And that. I turned to see my Halloween decor. I sipped the wine and hummed. You’re a rock ‘n’ roll suicide. I picked up a Ninja Turtle action figure - one of the only relics I had left of my baby brother. She’d like this. I thought. Because my mother doesn’t hate me but I’m not sure I’d call it love. 

Then I turned to see the bookshelf filled with My faith. She would hate that. This wasn’t just the tarot cards I had when I was 16 that she pretended to not see. This was pendulums and rune stones, painted skulls and half a dozen oracle decks. This was altars and grimoires, this was me.

And she would hate it.

And I thought of every moment she pretended I didn't exist and every disapproving remark she gave and every high horse she rode when spitting on other faiths and how the core parts of my identity were the ones she resented the most.

And Bowie screamed,

You’re not alone

And I fell to my knees

and wept.

And Dionysus was there to pick me back up when it was over and remind me that I am wonderful, and that people are with me in faith. This was the first time I had truly felt “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” and I haven’t been the same since. I still tear up everytime I hear that song, and in all honesty I’m tearing up writing this.

And that is my favorite moment with Lord Dionysus.

[revengeismygender]

It is truly stunning to me how many people are just unable to disengage from H*rry P*tter. Like, truly stunning. I say this as someone who loooooooooved the books as a child. Loved them. Somewhere in my parents’ attic are multiple copies of once treasured sets including a paperback “travel” set I bought because I essentially always had one of the books on me from the ages of 6 to 16. I was at every midnight release, every movie premiere, and I re-read the entire series once a year for longer than I can remember.

But somewhere along the line I grew up. And I don’t mean I outgrew them because they were childish; I never believed that. I mean I grew up and started engaging with media in a more thoughtful way. I started engaging with people outside of my insular small town and with each re-read I saw more things I couldn’t unsee. I can’t not cringe at Cho Chang. I can’t ignore the antisemitism of the goblin portrayals or the absolute absurdity of every house elf plot. I cannot read the unnecessarily gratuitous description of Rita Skeeter’s “masculine physicality” and not be appalled by what I now see as excruciating evidence of R*wling’s raging transphobia. I cannot read one more time about how not only is Dudley mean, but worse, he’s fat fat fat fat fat.

I cannot pretend HP gave me nothing as a child. I was desperately dorky and lonely and I lived inside books, mainly H*rry P*tter for years on end. It was my introduction to fandom, and fanfic, and fan art. And to fantasy! It was my gateway to an entire world that has enriched my life so much, but it cannot continue to be part of my life. I have never seen Fantastic Beasts. I will never play whatever wretched game they’ve just released. And the thing is, I don’t even miss it. I rarely even think of it until some controversy rears its head.

And that’s what gets me, I guess. I know there are so many people out there who found meaning, or comfort, or hope, or validation in the series as a child. Believe me, you would be hard pressed to find a child more obsessed than I was. But I’m not a child anymore. I’m a trans adult who is stunned to watch people who claim to be allies continue to stuff money in the pockets of someone who has openly admitted to using that money to support groups and policies that do active, material harm to trans people. We can talk about the merits of engaging thoughtfully with problematic media or fans reclaiming stuff for themselves all day long, but at the end of the day this woman is still alive, still incredibly active online and in her weird little TERF world, and actively doing harm to queer people right now.

It’s okay to let HP go. It’s okay to channel that energy into one of the million fantasy series out there that are better conceived and better written. It’s not going to undo your childhood. It doesn’t mean you have to look back and castigate your 10-year-old self for not recognizing and criticizing the werewolf HIV metaphor. It’s just time to let go.

[alarrytale]

Hi! So firstly I want to ask how can Harry CO when his community hates him? He'll be met with accusations of doing it for attention, or people not wanting him to be part of the community so they'll alienate him. I guess it will be easier if he is to CO in a relationship like with Louis or whoever. Maybe that's the only option. As it's harder to dismiss if he is with a male partner. But what if he wants to CO on his own? What is a good way to go about it? I do worry that by him continuing to do stunts he will completely push away with his community. Then when he does CO he'll have no support or respect. Secondly I want to ask if you think Harry and Louis can CO or could there be contracts stating that they can't? I saw twitter Larries thinking that Harry will be pressured into BG like Louis, having a kid that isn't his. The theory started with articles earlier this year saying Yan Yan Chan is having his baby this year. They think it's Sony sending a warning to him. It just sounds like clickbait to me as the media print anything about Harry, but it's made me paranoid too. Do you think that can still happen? Do you think maybe they'll have to stay closeted forever due to contracts?

Hi!

To your first point. I don't think the queer community hates him. I think some don't know he's gay, some think it's internalised homophobia keeping him in, some think he doesn’t want to come out because it's not profitable, some think it's because of Louis and some think it's contractual. Some even think he's not gay enough or gay presenting in the right way. His amplified straight presenting image right now is probably a turn off for many. Generally though the queer community is very forgiving when people come out. You get accepted as a member of the community. No matter the reason you were closeted, people know how hard it can be, the opportunities you can lose, the new light people see you in, the judgement you face etc. The only reason he might get some side eye is if he straight out says he stayed in for profit. If he didn’t stunt, then he might have even survived that.

I think it would be better for both of them if they came out at the same time and as a couple. They will get more sympathy that way. Not only did they have to hide their sexuality, but also their relationship. That's even harder. And it's a love story and people love that.

I think Harry could come out on his own, but i'd prefer it if he let Louis come out first. I think it would be harder for Louis to follow after Harry than vice versa. If one came out, the spotlight would immediately turn to the other. If Harry came out first he'd be linked to every man he's seen with. I think that would be harder on Louis. It would also be hard to be in a relationship with one out and the other one still in the closet.

To your second question. I don't think there are contracts saying they're not allowed to come out. I think the moment the powers that be thought that it would be profitable, they'd be allowed (or even forced?) to come out. I think it's image clauses, bargaining and trade offs that's stopping them. Also the timing for both needs to be right. As i've mentioned before, maybe Harry is allowed to come out right now and Louis is not or vice versa. I don't think they'll stay closeted forever, but i do fear (worst case scenario) they'll not be allowed out as long as they want to have a career in the business. We might have to wait until they retire from the business (lord i hope not).

I don't think they'd do a bg for Harry. He's (somewhat) successfull in balancing the gay and the straight right now. A bg would jeopardise that balance and amping up the gay while pretending to be a baby daddy would feed the queerbaiting accusers. It would hurt the bottom line. And that's all Sony cares about.

[queerfox-tales]

* wandering thoughts rant related to what's happening with a certain wizard game out *

After so many posts made regarding the Harry Potter game coming out and how the person that created the series is harming the trans community, the game finally came out. I haven't seen myself many people talking about playing it but I have seen a couple and I'm not sure how to feel. A lot of people don't even realise that by buying the game, they're indirectly giving her money. One of the posts I saw was from such a person. I was surprised that they had gotten the game and made a comment. They thought that the creator only made money from the books. So now they know better but unfortunately the indirect support was still given. It's hard to hold it against them when they didn't understand the connection. Then I saw a post by someone defending themselves saying buying a game means nothing about sharing the same views. I commented and the person switched their argument to pretending they didn't know what they were supporting. *sarcasm* Ya, ok, obviously you're defending yourself for something you had no idea you did; totally makes sense. So that person clearly doesn't care and does support the creator to some degree.

Part of me wants to think about my society and how we're not taught the consequences of the companies/people we give our money to but mostly, when it comes down to it, people just don't care as long as something cost less or is cool. So my mind connects the situation to Disney and some of the political moves I've heard them making in the ... I can't remember if it was mainly Florida or U.S.A. but either way, they've been supporting legislation to harm the gay, and maybe even the whole queer, community.

I have a friend who's obsessed with Disney. I don't know if she knew about the Disney political stuff before I told her but she does now and hasn't stopped giving them money nor plans on stopping. It's confusing. I don't know how to feel.

The stuff I see on social media doesn't help. Half the people saying to stop supporting Disney one month are themselves raving about a new Disney show the next month. Plus there's the people, gay and not, giving Disney all this credit for finally admitting someone was gay in a movie or a show. Gay people are cheering on Disney and making them out to be a hero even though some are also fully aware of the political moves by them. It's so confusing. How am I supposed to be against everyone supporting Disney? It seems I'd have to hate like a majority of people, including gay people.

I still feel weird about the situation with my friend. It does hurt but I'm not sure if I want to end the friendship over it. Disney is a big part of her but mostly, and I know it's an excuse, I've just had so much worse in life. My mother is the kind of person who would force me into those conversion camps if she knew and had the money. I constantly have that over my head until I can be truly free from my parents. I haven't had friends who would physically harm me for any reason, especially being queer, but most have been abusive or just crappy. I'm down to 2 friends so letting another go isn't something I want to do but at the same time, ... I don't know. Back to the stuff before, what am I going to do? Stop talking to her for loving something sold by a company that she now knows financially supports hurting a group of people for being "different"? A company seemingly supported by half the gay community and given all the credit for gay representation as if no other show had ever done it or even tried?

Just thinking about it makes everything seem hopeless. The power and support that company has. And it won't ever go away. They're literally being supported by those they're destroying. I've even seen posts by gay people telling me to be thankful for what "Disney has done for us" "what they've given us". It's madness. The damn company is trying to remove their rights and they're bowing to the company and begging them to represent them more. Is this what society wants? To have some trait of theirs represented in popular cartoons even at the cost of their rights? This is their rights! Do people not understand or honestly not care? Media representation isn't going to do sh*t if it becomes illegal to do anything even perceived as gay in public or in one's own home again.

So ya, I'm just confused what to do. I still think it's wrong to knowingly support these companies and creators. It does say something about the person even if it's just that they don't care. But am I supposed to hate everyone that gives them money in some way? Everyone who chooses to beg Disney to add more queer characters or keep current queer shows rather than ask another big network to do it? You know, a network that hasn't been shown to financially support removing the rights of the same groups asking to be represented.

I feel like I'm fighting the group I want to defend. I've been in that position before in a much smaller context. It makes me want to just do nothing cuz I end up attacked by "both sides". I'm not strong enough to fight off both the ones hurting us and us. What am I supposed to do?

[ruffboijuliaburnsides]

every time i see this post i cry a little just out of sheer overwhelming emotion. gosh. but so I have a bit of a story that started as a tag ramble but got too long, and it's... not similar, exactly, except for how it is, I think, because it's about keeping the world blooming into something better.

so i was realizing i was queer and not actually a fan of the conservative party about the same time OP was. i'd been raised conservative and evangelical, in the southwest and also in florida, and everyone i knew for most of my life was that way.

so in early 2005, I hadn't really followed anything about gay rights or anything like that until extremely recently. I didn't know much about gay rights, but I knew gay people had gotten AIDS in the 80s and 90s, and I knew that they weren't able to get married or join the army, and I knew my favorite character in First Wives Club was Annie's adult daughter who was a lesbian college student and was complete #stylegoals for me in the early aughts.

In fall of 2004, I'd met some other kids who were about a grade behind me at a NaNoWriMo event, and I'd ended up going to see the tour of RENT that came through with one of them. They became, quite quickly, my very best friends, and all three of them were queer (two of them even started dating around when I met them, I think). They weren't religious the way i was, they were liberal (as much as you generally got in high school in 2005), and they were newish friends but they were kinder and more supportive than anyone i'd ever met through church. They were the ones who'd reach out to me when i was having a rough time to make sure i was okay, they were the ones concerned about my wellbeing when i wasn't sleeping or something. They were queer but... they were good people and i could recognize that in them. I thought that maybe they shouldn't be doing gay stuff, but I was also starting to wonder why that was a bad thing in the first place. Literally could not figure out what harm could come from two girls or two boys loving each other.

I remember a month or two before i finally came out to those friends and kissed the girl who is now my wife, my mom and i got in a fight about me being friends with them because they weren't "appropriate friends". and i was mostly just tired and annoyed and prepared to go 'okay mom' until she was done rather than it being a fight, because I'd heard this before about my friend Willow and done the same thing.

but then she said "people LIKE THAT won't be there for you when you need them. they will abandon you at the first sign of trouble." To this day i'm not 100% sure if she meant non-christian or if she meant ~QUEER~ (or both), but either way i went from 'just wait it out and pretend to agree' to absolutely incandescently angry in the time it took me to parse what she'd said.

I lost my temper completely and for once I didn't and still don't feel bad about it. I screamed at her at the top of my lungs over this: about how they were the only ones who'd BEEN there for me, about how they didn't need me to be perfect to be acceptable, about how they loved me even when i screwed up and had never ONCE made me feel like i was unworthy of love because I didn't live up to some standard I could never quite reach. Unlike everyone i'd ever met through church and ESPECIALLY unlike her and my dad.

and in retrospect while i turned my sexuality over in my head a bit longer to be sure, i think that's when i knew i was queer and that I wasn't ashamed of it and was in fact proud of it. I parsed it at the time as pride in my friends, but looking back? It was pride in me. Because i didn't want to be part of any family that would talk so cruelly about people who'd been so kind, just because of who those people loved and who they did or didn't pray to. And I knew I DID want to be part of a family of misfits and outcasts who refused to sit down and shut up while people treated others like that.

In 2005 it was scary sometimes even just to openly be an ally of queer people, let alone openly queer yourself. Things had improved in a lot of ways, but it was still scary. You still couldn't get married, which meant that if something happened to you, your spouse had no legal rights to make medical decisions, keep custody of your kids, keep your possessions, plan your funeral. You still couldn't come out if you were in the military. There weren't feel good queer stories that were easy to find - even the well written stories were almost exclusively tragic. (I discovered To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar in late 2005 or early 2006, and it was the only story I had for YEARS where there were queer characters and they got a happy ending. I relished it. I still do.)

The point of all this is that I was proud, I wanted to be queer and to not sit quietly and assimilate but be loud and proud and unapologetic, but by fucking god it was scary and not always safe, so sometimes I did end up hiding it. And then things got better. Not everything, but... I was able to get legally married to my wife. I was able to get a testosterone prescription without needing to be psychologically pathologized. I was able to find a job in the midwest of all places where I can have "he/him" in my email signature but still wear skirts and not have any of the people I work with (at one point they'd all been 40+) question it or push back. We were helping the world keep blooming into someplace that doesn't suck so much all the time!

But it's starting to get worse again. My state's passed legislation trying to dictate public bathroom use based on genitals. The supreme court is overturning many landmark decisions, and I know the moment they can, they're coming for Obergefell v. Hodges, the legislation that made my legal marriage valid in all states (including the one I currently live in), not just the state I was married in (which is not the state I currently live in).

So we need to keep fighting. We need to get incandescently angry and we need to be there for each other. We need to scream at the top of our lungs at cruelty and injustice, and we need to be kind and support each other, especially when times are rough. We need to BE a family of misfits and outcasts who refuse to sit down and shut up while people treat our siblings and ourselves like this. Because that's what they want. And we can not give it to them.

I’ve been contemplating for several days something, and I’ve been trying to distill it into meaning, and put nice little bullet points on how this relates to things that have been bugging me about some common Discourses I’ve been seeing, but at the end, I only really have a story. So here, have a story.

About ten years ago, sometime in the eventful 2006-2007 George W. Bush-ruled hellscape of my identity development, I was just starting to figure out how I felt about my conservative upbringing (not great) and whether I was some brand of queer (probably, but too scared to think about what brand for too long). I was working as a server at a popular Italian-inspired sit-down restaurant that was the closest thing my tiny South Carolinian town had to “fancy” at the time but isn’t really fancy at all.

The host brought a party of four men to one of my tables. It was hard to tell their ages, but my guess is they were teenagers or in their early 20s in the 1980s. Mid-40s, at the time. It was standard to ask if anyone at the table was celebrating anything, so I did. They said they were business partners celebrating a great business deal and would like a bottle of wine.

It was a fairly busy night so I didn’t have a LOT of time to spend at their table, but they were nice guys. They were polite and friendly to me, they didn’t hit on me (as most men were prone to do – sometimes even in front of their girlfriends, a story I’ll tell later if anyone wants me to), and they were racking up a hell of a tab that was going to make my managers happy, so I checked on them as often as I could.

Toward the end of their second bottle of wine, as they were finishing their entrees, I stopped at the table and asked if they wanted any more drinks or dessert or coffee. They were well and truly tipsy by now, giggling, leaning back in their chairs – but so, so careful not to touch each other when anyone was near the table.

They’re all on the fence about dessert, so being a good server, I offered to bring out the dessert menu so they could glance it over and make a decision, “Since you’re celebrating.”

“She’s right!” one of the men said, far too emphatically for a conversation on dessert. “It’s your anniversary! You should get dessert!”

It was like a movie. The whole table went absolutely silent. The clank of silverware at the next table sounded supernaturally loud. Dean Martin warbled “That’s Amore” in some distorted alternate universe where the rest of the restaurant went on acting like this one tipsy man hadn’t just shattered their carefully crafted cover story and blurted out in the middle of a tiny, South Carolina town, surrounded by conservatives and rednecks, that they were gay men celebrating a relationship milestone. 

And I didn’t know what I was yet, but I knew I wasn’t an asshole, and I knew these men were family, and I felt their panic like a monster breathing down all our necks. It’s impossible to emphasize how palpably terrified they were, and how justified their terror was, and how much I wanted them to be happy.

So I did the only thing I knew to do. I said, “Congratulations! How many years?”

The man who’d spoken up burst into tears. His partner stood up and wrapped me in the tightest, warmest hug I’ve ever had – and I’ve never liked being touched by strangers, but this was different, and I hugged him back.

“Thank you,” he whispered, halfway to crying himself. “Thank you so much.”

When he finally let go of me and sat back down, they finally got around to telling me they were, in fact, two couples on a double date, and both celebrating anniversaries. Fifteen years for one of them, I think, and a few years off for the other. It’s hard to remember. It was a jumble of tears and laughter and trembling relief for all of us. They got more relaxed. They started holding hands – under the table, out of sight of anyone but me, but happy.

They did get dessert, and I spent more time at their table, letting them tell me stories about how they met and how they started dating and their lives together, and feeling this odd sense of belonging, like I’d just discovered a missing branch of my family.

When they finally left, all four of them took turns standing up and hugging me, and all four of them reached into their wallets to tip me. I tried to wave them off but they insisted, and the first man who’d hugged me handed me forty dollars and said, “Please. You are an angel. Please take this.”

After they left I hid in the bathroom and cried because I couldn’t process all my thoughts and feelings.

Fast forward to three days ago, when my own partner and I showed up to a dinner reservation at a fancy-casual restaurant to celebrate our fifth anniversary. The whole time I was getting ready to leave, there was a worry in the back of my mind. The internet web form had asked if the reservation was celebrating anything in particular, and I’d selected “Anniversary.” I stood in the bathroom blow-drying my hair, wondering what I would do if we showed up, two women, and the host or the server took one look at us and the “Anniversary” designation on our reservation and refused to serve us. It’s not as ubiquitous anymore, but we’re still in the south, and these things still happen. Eight years of progressive leadership is over, and we’ve got another conservative despot in office who’s emboldening assholes everywhere.

It was on my mind the whole fifteen minutes it took to drive there. I didn’t mention it to my partner because I didn’t want to cast a shadow over the occasion. More than that, I didn’t want to jinx us, superstitious bastard that I am.

We walked into the restaurant. I told the hostess we had a reservation, gave her my last name.

She looked at her screen, then looked back at us. She smiled, broadly and genuinely, and said, “Happy anniversary! Your table is right this way.”

Our server greeted us, said, “I heard you were celebrating!”

“It’s our anniversary,” Kellie said, and our server gasped, beaming.

“That’s great! Congratulations! How many years?”

And I finally breathed a sigh of relief, and I thought about those men at that restaurant ten years ago. I hope they’re still safe and happy, and I hope we all get the satisfaction of helping the world keep blooming into something that’s not so unrelentingly terrible all the time.

[hanathesultress]

I'm tired. I'm tired of everything. feeling like a hopeless little bitch that can't do anything right. I'm stupid, my grades are below average since I was still in elementary school, and I'm ugly. I'm tired of pretending that I'm not ugly. I'm tired of pretending that I'm worthy of this life. I'm not talking about romantic love and/or relationships. because I know for a fact that relationships are out of my league.

I'm tired of my country debating whether or not I, a transgender woman, should exist or not. living with my transphobic, homophobic, religious, emotionally abusive family already giving me hell on earth, let alone the country's officials debating about my rights to live a peaceful life. I keep asking god/universe whether there is a reason for me to go through this pathetic life or not. I can't keep living like this. maybe physically I'm fine, but emotionally? I'm broken beyond repair. as cliche as that sounds. why do people think being transgender or gay or lesbian or anything else is a fucking choice?? NO THEY ARE FUCKING NOT YOU CLOSE-MINDED ASSHOLE. you think I'd choose to be bullied for being a little girly as a child back then?? FUCK NO. that child didn't even know what LGBT means until he reached the age of 10. he had been liking guys and acting girly, thinking he was a girl from the age of 3. confused of why all his sisters got all the pink and dolly toys while he got a toy robot. he wanted a barbie. playing with her hair, dressing her up, ready for a date with ken, imagining that barbie was him and ken was a boy he liked during his kindergarten years. I didn't even have anyone around me who was gay. if you keep saying that I'm like this because of my environment, EEK, wrong.

I'm tired of following every single guide to have a physical "glow up" so that at least there is something that I can hold onto for my dear life. nothing works. I'm tired of my acne. I tried every single fucking thing to get rid of this shit, healthy sleep schedule and healthy meal, but still my face looks like shit. I'm tired of every fucking time people see me, and all the shit they can talk about and focus on is my fucking acne. I'm tired of my body that is not masculine nor feminine. I hate being a fucking male with klinefelter syndrome. my body looks like an abomination. I don't need a celebrity level of perfect beauty. I just need decent clear skin and a shape of body like a fucking normal human. I can see the beauty in people even though they don't fit into the society's unrealistic beauty standards, but how come that I can't see my own beauty? fucking stupid.

I'm tired of being queer and living in a homophobic, transphobic family and country. I have a lesbian sister who doesn't even support queer rights and shamed me for liking guys and acting girly. how fucking ridiculous my life is. I'm 19 but I'm still dependent on my family to pay for my college and searching for a decent job suited for undergraduate is so hard. I'm complaining a lot, I know, but I don't have the space to complain until now. I have inattentive ADHD that I just got diagnosed with less than a month ago. my family doesn't know about it. because the second they learn this information, best believe I'm gonna go insane because of how much they're going to call me dramatic and saying "this generation this, this generation that".

I'm tired. I just want to end it all but I'm scared of death. I'm scared of the pain that would come with it. I'm scared of what comes next after. if I'm going to hell for ending the movie way too soon, so be it. living like this already feels like hell, might as well get the real deal. how cruel the higher power is to ever create me this way. what have I done in my past life for me to deserve all this? I'm genuinely asking. if I know what I've done to deserve all this, living in poverty; have a transphobic homophobic religious abusive family; ugly and; stupid, at least I'd feel at ease knowing that I actually deserve it.

[maglorslostsilmaril]

love how queer love is celebrated in media but as soon as an actual queer person expresses attraction for someone they’re seen as “predatory” and “inappropriate.”

queer attraction is not gross or wrong in ANY way. it is beautiful and wonderful and deserves to be respected just as much as cishet attraction/relationships. if you’re only an ally to queer love when it is fictional, you are not an ally.