#lgbt-phobia still very much exists today

[awakefor48hours]

"This character isn't good rep because they were only confirmed to be queer/trans after the story ended." No, we are not doing this! Stop it!

[doberbutts]

Feel free to ignore this ask but I'm too scared to say it off anon but like.... the absolute audacity of people to say "all problems trans men face are ACTUALLY misdirected transmisogyny and are about trans women" while ALSO insisting on using terms TMA vs TME is insane to me... Like, which is it? Are trans men all TMA or is transandrophobia a thing? Because it very literally cannot be both.

Well this is information from 10 years ago so take it with a grain of salt but like. When I was being taught trans theory as a scared 18yo in my college's GSA by a trans woman who was directly mentoring me, her opinion was that all trans people are affected by transmisogyny for exactly that reason, and that transmisogyny would literally be the correct word to describe what is now being called "transandrophobia" and "enbyphobia" and even parts of "intersex-phobia" because the problem is that our genders, our sexed bodies, and the way we related to the world causes oppression based on the intersection of misogyny and transphobia (as well as intersex-phobia and homophobia) (and a lil bit of racism to go with it especially for trans people of color and intersex people of color).

Again, this is back when the correct term was trans*gender, to include those who considered themselves outside of the binary but not transgender due to lack of interest in transitioning or lack of dysphoria or because their cultural understanding of gender does not include what American society would consider "transgender" or simply because. I... still know people to this day who fit under that label, and it seems those advocating for the removal of the asterisk have sort of left them behind. I understand that transmedicalism poisoned the waters, still don't love the immediate accusations that I was A Bad Person Oppressing Non-Binary People when the script flipped and suddenly the asterisk was not inclusive when my non-binary friends were very much thankful that I was still using it. Now I don't, and I had a few ask me about it, and when I explained they understood, but...

So like. A large part of my protest behind the whole TMA/TME thing is that I literally am listening to trans women, the trans woman who helped me gain the confidence to be who I am today, and that trans woman negated the idea of "trans men aren't affected by transmisogyny and thus are exempt from harm by it" literally before those terms even existed.

BTW this is why people keep stressing that we need to actually like. Take a moment and listen to and learn from our LGBT elders before running off at the mouth taking potshots at people who are part of this community an receive much of the same harms as everyone else.

And this is why when I learned those terms back in May my instant reaction was "uh... no?"

So like. We are. We are affected by transmisogyny. And if we're not allowed to use that word anymore, then we get to find a different word to use that describes our very real problems with both transphobia and misogyny. But we're not allowed to use that word because "misandry isn't real" (it is, MRAs are just using it wrong, again poisoning the waters literally never helped anyone) and we're not allowed to use that word because "OP had a personal dispute with Blogger A and his consensual sexual history makes me uncomfortable" and we're not allowed to use that word because "it looks like it's not a real word and anyway people who believe this is true are transmisogynists" and we're not allowed to use that word because "it's not the right time" so it's sounding an awful lot like people just don't want us talking about what we go through or finding support in each other to me.

[derpyslurpy-da-derp-master]

All the personal asks plz

Alrighty then!

1. Any scars?

Mhm, pretty much all the scars I have are burns. One is from burning the side of my arm on an iron my mom had  standing upright that I brushed against trying to reach something on the counter behind it and I’ve got one or two other scars from my culinary class on my hands from trying to put a tray in the oven and bumping it on the rungs above the ones I was putting it on. I burnt my hand day one of actually cooking. Yes I’m a disaster.

2. Self harmed?

Absolutely not. One, I’m too scared of pain, and two, I have uh… An unpleasant history involving someone else threatening self harm to make me do what they wanted, so… It’s a really sore spot for me.

3. Crush?

I honestly have no idea.

4. Kissed anyone?

Nope

5. Coke or Pepsi?

Neither they make me physically ill

6. Someone you hate?

There’s a LOT of assholes at my school but the person I hate the most is probably my dad for reasons.

7. Best Friends?

Mhm! I’ve got a handful on this site but my IRL best friend is @theansweris-a. She doesn’t really get on tumblr anymore but if you’re reading this I love you friendo and have a good day! :D

8. Have you ever done alcohol or drugs?

hahaha fuCK NO. I’d rather not get addicted to something that can and will kill me and throw my money at people to sustain it. If someone offered me either I’d probably flip them off whilst slowly backing up and getting tf out of there because NO.

9. What’s your dream job?

Author/Illustrator with some VA work and Video Game directing on the side.

10. Ever been in love?

I have. It was with someone I didn’t have a chance with and who would be an absolutely awful lover to me since we weren’t compatible emotion-wise so I let it go. It was hard, but I did it.

11. Last time you cried?

Last Sunday trying to explain to my mom why our preacher and the church we go to has completely fallen out of my favor for it’s very loud blatant ‘LGBT people are bad abortion is evil insert other white conservative stuff here’ ‘cause she doesn’t know I’m LGBT+ (and it’s going to stay that way) and I was trying to explain to her why I would never say invite my LGBT friends to church because they would be mercilessly persecuted by people who call themselves followers of God then spit in his eye by doing the exact opposite of everything he’s asked of them. Yes I still feel really strongly about this.

12. Favorite color?

Cyan!

13. Height?

How coincidence, I just got it measured today! 5′6, FINALLY OFFICIALLY TALLER THEN MY MOM MUHAHAHAHAHA

14. Birthday?

November 17th!

15. Eye color?

Milk chocolately-brown

16. Hair color?

Dark brown

17. What do you love?

this is so open ended hjkfjfjkhgkjh okay then I love girls, video games, anime, writing, drawing, reading, and animals.

18. Obsession?

My top 3 in order of obsession; Kill La Kill, RWBY, and Kingdom Hearts.

19. If you had one wish, what would it be?

For every single illness, disease, syndrome, disorder, and so on to have a cure. From Cancer to Asthma. Both because I have so many incurable diseases/disorders and because I know there are people out there who have things so much worse than me in that department.

20. Do you love someone?

I love all my mutals, friends, and most of my family including extended family. 

21. Kiss or hug?

I’ve never been kissed so I don’t know anything about how that would be so I’d say hug because I love hugs!

22. Nicknames people call you?

Derpy, Slurpy, D-Slur, Resident Cinnamon Roll (That’s my actual nickname on a Revue Starlight discord)

23. Favorite song?

this is like asking me to pick my favorite child uhhhhh… This Life Is Mine by Jeff Williams, it just means a lot to me.

24. Favorite band?

i know no bands by name

25. Worst thing that has ever happened to you?

….Okay, uh, this is gonna be really hard to decide because a LOT of bad things have happened to me. I’ll go with the more physical choice because I’d rather not dump too much of my emotional baggage onto yall. One time I was being prepped for surgery and they needed to get the IV in. (for the record I’m shaking pretty badly right now from thinking about this) They had to stab my arm with what they called a ‘Bee sting’ (it wasn’t a bee sting it goes almost down to the bone) that had numbing stuff in it and they were trying to find a vein they could put my IV in but they couldn’t find one (okay now i’m typing really fast so I don’t have to think about this for long) and they kept stabbing my arm over and over again. The thing is I have a serious phobia of needles that sends me into panic attacks, I’ll go lightheaded I’ll lose my hearing and so on. So I was trying to put a brave face on despite my parents not even being there but they would. not. stop. They didn’t give me a break. It was one stab then another then another then another. I was having a full blown panic attack, I was almost crying. Then they seemed to get it. They left me for a bit and my parents came in. My arm started swelling. They HADNT got it. My arm was being filled with whatever my IV was. They came back in with the beesting. They started stabbing me again but on the other arm. I couldn’t keep a brave face anymore after thinking they were finally done. I started to cry and sob and the panic attack I had that day was the single worst I have ever had. It got worse. They missed a vein entirely and instead hit a bundle of nerves. My hand started involuntarily twitching as pain unlike any I’ve ever felt before or until now wracked my arm. I had actual trauma from this, the night after the surgery I kept feeling ghost pains of the stabs in my arms, I had to sleep on my stomach with my arms wrapped around my front just to make them go away. I’m still extremely traumatized of this to this day. I never want to have surgery again. I never want an IV again. 

Okay that got away from me there I’m sorry I kinda was having a panic attack while writing that. Anyways moving on.

26. Best thing that has ever happened to you?

This is gonna sound cheesy but meeting @theansweris-a. She’s the sweetest and kindest person I have ever met in my entire life and I feel so incredibly lucky to call her my friend, though knowing her she’ll see this and reply with ‘No U’ because we always end up in a shouting match of ‘YOU ARE A WONDERFUL HUMAN BEING’ ‘NO YOU’RE A WONDERFUL HUMAN BEING’ 

27. Something you would change about yourself?

I definitely would lose weight. Not because of societies bullshit but because I legitimately want to lose weight so I can actually get strong and build up some muscle, I WANT TO BE ABLE TO OPEN GATORADE BOTTLES GODDAMNIT

28. Ever dated someone?

Nope, I’m closeted and have no interest in even pretending I’m straight by dating a guy, I mean I know some genuinely nice guys (all of them dorks) but they’re all just my friends though they are massive goofballs and I love them very much. (Entirely platonically)

29. Worst mistake?

I… Don’t think you guys wanna know that. It’s nothing bad its just depressing and I don’t wanna be more depressing then I already have been.

30. Watch the movie or read the book?

Depends on which is better, like I’d rather watch the Chronicles of Narnia than read the books because the books are honestly terrible but I’d rather read Percy Jackson than watch the movie because the movies are incredibly unfaithful to the books.

31. Ever had a heartbreak?

Yeah… 

32. Favorite show?

Kill La Kill!

33. Best day of your life?

My cheesiness never ceases but the first time I actually hung out with @theansweris-a IRL at the mall. I remember being SO excited for it but also nervous that how easily we talk to each other wouldn’t translate into real life and I remember spotting her walking up and practically shouting her name before running up and giving her a big ol’ hug whilst crying happy tears (I know i’m sappy shut up) and then when we were let loose to walk around we quickly discovered that we clicked almost immediately and incredibly well it was just the best thing ever. Like, in that one day alone we spent six hours in that mall just chatting and buying stuff and having fun and we left the mall with like three different inside jokes despite it being our first time meeting in person since we first met. Hi my name is Derpy and I’m a big ol’ sap.

34. Any talents?

I’m pretty good at writing, I can type really fast, and I can play the harmonica.

35. Do you wish you could ever start over?

Absolutely not. Things are the way they are for a reason, and even though I’ve been through a LOT it’s because of all that that I’m the person I am today and I wouldn’t trade that for the world.

36. Any bad habits?

Yeah, I’m a nail biter.

37. Ever had a near death experience?

Yes actually, when I was 3 or 4 we took a plane to California to visit some relatives and I almost walked out of the air hatch one the way out, I remember this vividly even though it was a long time ago. If it wasn’t for the flight attendant grabbing me before I fell out, I wouldn’t be here today.

38. Someone I can tell anything to?

@theansweris-a and @my-words-are-light, they’re both really good listeners and have helped me through a lot of stuff.

39. Ever lost a loved one?

My Great Grandpa Ritch died shortly after I was born, there’s a lot of pictures of him smiling and holding me while in a hospital bed and hooked up to oxygen.

40. Do you believe in love?

Oh absolutely, 100%. I mean if you know me you already know that I have just ABSURD amounts of love in my heart and I genuinely believe that it exists.

41. Someone you hate/Dislike?

Wasn’t this already a question?

42. Are you okay?

Mostly, yeah. I have some stuff to work on but I’m honestly at the best i’ve ever been!

43. Relationship status?

I’m a Single Pringle

[leskinggoddesskittycat]

It's just. This is how it is. For LGBTQA+ and POC in this world today. People think. Well we gave them things. Marriage (though not everywhere still for LGBTQA). Oh and we'll let more of them be on TV. You'll get some more characters. Isn't that all better now? Now run along.

But that's it. Turn off the screen though. We go back to the phobias and the racism. Daily. In our faces. Everywhere. And tbh even the screens aren't always great. White washing is very very much still a thing and it's bull. The LGBT person is often the one that dies or has to suffer. Hell rarely do you see mentions of anything outside the first 4 letters of LGBTQA+. Abuse, mistreatment, homelessness is still higher for us. There's still problems.

But we can't complain or whine or we're "impatient, needy, attention seeking" How dare we want the same as the straight white cis folk of the world? Especially to want as much as the men in that category. What have we don't to "deserve" such a thing? Besides, ya know, being humans too, existing just like them, just trying to live life just like them.

All we ask is acceptance. To *matter*. But that's "greedy," right?

Cause hey, we got some tv shows and movies and the whole marriage thing, right? So it's fine. It's all fine.

It's like. Like they see us as kids. Easy to occupy and distract with little things.

Like kids at an event. They're there all day wanting to be involved and have fun like the adults. So what do the parents do?. "Oh here's a balloon honey go have fun with your friends" And sure. They're occupied for quite some time. That balloon is fucking great. You can do a lot with that balloon. Play catch, volleyball, play "don't touch the floor", it's great. But eventually. That's it. That's all you have. And there's nothing else. You look around and you realize while you've been spending half the day on this one balloon, the adults have done like 5 different things. And they're still having the time of their lives.

~ Chanestra

[big-eater-queen]

Figuring out my identity and figuring out how much I identify with my religion have become overlapping as of late and some things just hit me in the face.

People who are Hindus are.. a lot of them, especially those who are in the position of maintaining the religion tend to be very bigoted. They're homophobic and transphobic and basic LGBT+ phobic as a whole. Thanks to this and the fact that they act entitled to other religious groups pushed me away somewhat but I'm not getting into that superiority complex today.

My point is, how can the impact of LGBT+ phobia by outsiders curse you British Empire have made you so blind to their very existence? We have deities who express sexual and gender fluidity and freedom right before our eyes, and you have the gall to claim that our community does not have the right to exist??

Trans visibility is much more apparent with figures like Ardhanareeshwar, Sikhandi, Mohini, and heck, even shiva himself!! (I'm looking at that one tale of how shiva was so entranced by Krishna's music that he wanted to dance with him, even if he became a woman here)

Looking for sexuality fluidity is a lot harder. Maybe it's because it's more stamped out or maybe it can't be written off like trans representation can. So I went on a research hunt for more. I did find some things which made me glad, but when I finally went and started looking for A-spec representation.... I wasn't happy. The closest comparison I could find was with the bhramacharya and... Thats not what I am. ...

But even so, it doesn't erase the fact that we as a community have a place in this religion and it's not fair that our place is being written off by bigots!

I'm not sure where I was going with this, but what I guess I really want to say is, to all my fellow LGBT+ Hindus, you do have a place in the community (I'm still trying to properly find our place fellow A-specs) and any ""hindu"" who tells you otherwise is just mistaken.

[freedom-of-fanfic]

antishipping as the ‘cool new trend’

or: why are most antis under 25 years old? (posted June 2017)

I really think that antishipping is a movement that’s gaining ground with the younger & newer arrivals to fandom spaces; a kind of ‘cool trend’, so to speak. In aggregate, antishipping culture is beautifully constructed to be particularly appealing to teenage or college-age people in the late 2010′s - and especially American people - who are marginalized, oppressed, often social outcasts in real life and often under-educated about their own marginalized identity, and I kind of wanted to get into why.

EDIT (October 2018): this post is was originally put up in June 2017. I’ve tweaked it a bit to correct some stuff I now think is just patronizing/incorrect, but overall, I now think it’s overly reliant on adolescent growth stages when the best explanations are societal changes (fandom being on viral social media, fandom being conflated with social justice activism, and increasingly authoritarian trends in 21st century America.)

the other day I posted to talk a little about why I think antis tend to be young (and American). To sum up & simultaneously add a little more:

a brain still growing - until the age of 22-25, the frontal lobe of the brain does not finish development. the frontal lobe handles higher reasoning skills and complex problem-solving. Thus: the growing mind is particularly prone to incomplete reasoning, black and white thinking, and total empathy failure, making it hard for those under 25 to fully comprehend the impact of their actions, sympathize with others, or tackle social problems with nuance. Truly comprehending that others come from entirely different worldviews or have entirely different experiences and that being different doesn’t make them wrong and that most deep-seated problems need complex solutions that require nuance tends to come with this final brain growth. (Not always, of course. but often.) nah I’ve completely changed my mind on this. It’s true that physiological changes are still occurring in teens that make empathy harder, but they can respect the choices of others just as well as an adult can.

current American sex education being mostly scaremongering and abstinence-only + ready availability of sexual content, specifically pornographic material, online + hypersexual marketing = a deeply fucked cultural understanding of sex that adolescents are particularly unequipped to detangle

escaping religious/Christian fundamentalism but not  black&white thinking or authoritarian ‘us vs them’ mindset: the moral/communal purity that organized Christianity often demands can take years to deprogram (and this is not to mention the gender essentialism, homophobia/queerphobia, and anti-sex/anti-kink messages, accompanied by a strong undercurrent of anti-intellectualism to discourage self-education on these subjects!) teens just breaking away from this toxicity are especially unequipped to untangle themselves. Young ppl tend to take the same worldview/us vs them/b&w thinking they grew up with to a more liberal cause instead (such as enforcing ‘social justice’ in shipping), with a side-order of internalized, unexamined anti-lgbt/sex/kink/etc rhetoric that dovetails rather neatly with exclusionist rhetoric.

exclusionary gatekeeping as baby’s first lgbt/queer culture lesson - transformative fandom is a frequent haven for marginalized people who don’t see themselves in the media they consume (so they change the media to meet their emotional, sexual, social, etc needs, you see?). because it’s not taught in schools here in the US, it’s not too uncommon for newcomers to get their first big dose of history and cultural education that’s not centered around straight white men in fandom. but what are they learning? here on tumblr, since about 2013, exclusionists have used the relative lack of education on queer history to build an false history, one where the gender binary is strongly enforced and sexualities can only exist on the binary axis: nb/queer/ace/pan and sometimes even bi and trans -identifying people are erased or ‘not oppressed enough’. this history is the one that young entrants into fandom are more likely to encounter first and have no knowledge with which to counter it.  Antishipping derives its mode of operation and principle values from exclusionists. It dictates who can write or do what based on their sexual/gender identity (and sometimes race as well). Its definition of social justice is also heavily influenced by exclusionists because its members are mostly young people who learned all their queer history from exclusionists.

the particularly adolescent vulnerability to peer pressure (the need to belong & the fear of being ostracized): teens are particularly inclined to be influenced by friendships and maintaining social ties. [...]  it’s easy to become an anti in order to keep your friends and almost impossible to quit without losing everything, and teens are especially vulnerable to this kind of social structure.  I think this was a factor 18 months ago, but not so much now. both ‘sides’ of this argument are pretty well-known and people in fandom can have strong opinions on shipping or anti-shipping from very early on.

less focus on teaching critical thinking & self-government. Education in America has long been aimed towards adequate training to work an assembly line, but 21st century American parenting and education both have neglected teaching young people how to make decisions for themselves & how to engage in critical analysis of what they see and read. antishipping is a highly cohesive, insular culture with enforced rules of conduct, striking clear in/out lines and valuing loyalty and groupthink over originality and intellectualism. also: keeping the party line & persecution of outsiders is encouraged, further strengthening the need to conform.

having a just cause & a space to control: antishipping rests its laurels on a(n incomplete, corrupted) form of social justice/righting the wrongs of the privileged. being an anti feels like making a difference b/c your actions have visible impact on your immediate surroundings. (and having a space you feel you can control can be even more urgent with additional pressures like abusive home situations, past traumatic experiences, academic pressure, untreated/unrecognized mental illness, being forced into the closet b/c of queer/transphobia, etc.)

an American (and to a lesser degree, western European) post 9/11* cultural shift from prioritizing personal freedom to prioritizing communal safety; those under the age of 20 were 3 or younger or not yet born when the shift happened. antishipping prioritizes communal ‘safety’ (‘bad’, ‘dangerous’, or ‘inappropriate’ things must never be mentioned to protect people from hearing about them and being either corrupted or harmed) over personal freedom (allowing ‘bad’/’dangerous’ things to be  discussed, and it is up to the individual to personally decide what content to avoid).

(*actually, this shift started in the US before 9/11. 9/11 just sped it up.)

of course, all of this is conjecture based on my own experiences and observations, and it’s not a set of rules - just circumstances that I believe absolutely encourage young fandom members to end up falling headfirst into antishipping and either never notice how hurtful it is or never get the courage to leave it behind. And I think there’s a lot more the popularity/prevalence of antishipping today, but this post is already longer than I meant it to be.

(I always go light on racism when i talk about antishipping because while antis frequently accuse shippers of racism, it’s disingenuous to class racism as the same kind of oppression as lgbt+-phobia & misogyny, particularly in America - they’re related, but not the same. Centering non-white (and especially black) voices does not get the same focus as centering lgbt and women’s voices in fandom, and I think it’s easy to dismiss legitimate charges of racism as ‘anti bullshit’ when we class all these types of marginalization together.)

[sociopoliticaltrends]

December 10, 2016 Patterns can be observed occurring naturally in nearly every aspect of our world. Weather, foliage, crystals, scales, shells, petals, migratory birds, hibernating mammals, and tides all operate in predictable ways; even microscopic atoms tessellate to make up all of those things. Human behavior is no exception to the rule of repetition. The well known phrase “history repeats itself’’ indicates that we are conscious of these patterns to a certain extent. Sociopolitically, trends in human behavior become most obvious during times of extreme polarization. The current sociopolitical climate in the United States has reached one of those points of extreme polarization. Many of the current movements and ideations are very reminiscent of those throughout the 20th century. Examining the cause and effects of social and political phenomenon throughout the 20th century in America will give us a better understanding of what contributed to our current state, and what might happen next. On November 8, 2016, the Republican presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump, became the president elect, winning with 306 electoral votes. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic party candidate, won only 232 electoral votes. Independent party candidates, principally Jill Stein and Gary Johnson, won 2-10% of the popular vote per state. (CNN) While failing to win the popular vote by roughly 1.3 million, Mr. Trump won by a considerable margin in the electoral college. Many major news sources and polls had predicted a presidential win for Clinton, claiming that the American people saw Trump as “unfit to be commander in chief” due to his behaviour during debates and allegations of sexism and racism in the past. However, they failed to take into account the extreme unpopularity of Clinton as well. After the election, many speculated that Clinton’s team took her predicted win for granted, and therefore did not campaign as hard as they should have, while Donald Trump was out motivating so many republicans to go vote for him that he managed to break “The Blue Wall”. (CNN) The presidential election of 1968 had similar circumstances and outcomes, with an extreme Republican win after prosperous democratic presidential terms, and an atypically large independent vote. Nixon, the Republican candidate, won the presidency by motivating the “silent majority”: Americans who felt unrepresented in the climate of civil unrest. (Holland,73) In the 1960s it was the Civil Rights Movement, the Environmental Movement, and the Anti-War Movement that overpowered moderate America and took the spotlight. Today, it’s the Black Lives Matter movement, LGBT activism, reproductive rights disputes, and dispute over immigration that are motivating moderates who feel unrepresented in America today. Another parallel between Nixon and Trump’s respective presidential victories is that the Democratic party’s candidates in both the 1968 and 2016 elections were not the most popular of the potential Democratic candidates. In 1968, Robert Kennedy was assassinated, and the presidential nominee became Hubert Humphrey. In 2016, Bernie Sanders, extremely popular among the youth due to his democratic socialist policies, lost at the Democratic National Convention to Hillary Clinton. Had the most popular candidates been able to run in the November election, the outcome may have been different. The “Black Lives Matter” movement has been a huge factor in the politics of the past four years, tracing back to the murder of unarmed african american teen, Trayvon Martin. The phrase “black lives matter” started as a hashtag after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the police officer who killed Trayvon Martin. “Black Lives Matter” is used in the same spirit as “I Am a Man”, which was a popular slogan during the Civil Rights Movement; both speak to sentiments of African Americans feeling perceived as less important than white Americans. (Davis) The Civil Rights movement took place from 1954-1968, spanning about 15 years. The Black Lives Matter movement has been an organized phenomenon since 2012, and in its 4 years of existence has gotten considerable public attention.(Cullors) Public response to the Black Lives Matter movement has been varied. Much of the criticism received is the same kind of criticism that the Civil Rights movement recived during their early years. According to their website, the objectives of the Black Lives Matter movement are “to (re)build the Black liberation movement.” , to work for “a world where Black lives are no longer systematically and intentionally targeted for demise”, and “to collectively, lovingly and courageously work vigorously for freedom and justice for Black people, and by extension, all people.”(Tometi) All of which are more abstract than the goals of the Civil Rights movement, which were primarily to re-enfranchise black voters in southern states, combat racism, and integrate society.(Scholastic) The strategies implemented by both movements are similar; rallies are held, protesters march, and variations of sit-ins and be-ins are held in most major cities across America and on college campuses. College campuses across the nation have always been hot-spots for progressive and liberal activity. Columbia College is attributed as the birthplace of the late 1940’s “beat generation”, college students and graduates who lived near the college, who became an underground society in New York City. Youth in America today, the generation of Millennials, has been labeled as lazy, having no aspirations, and self-absorbed. In 1952, an article published in the New York Times about the beat generation says “There are those who believe that in generations such as this there is always the constant possibility of a great new moral idea, conceived in desperation, coming to life. Others note the self-indulgence, the waste, the apparent social irresponsibility, and disagree.”(Holmes) This sounds very similar to the rhetoric used about the millennials. The beat generation did not amount to much beyond being known for their conformity and poodle skirts. The most subversive that their generation is remembered as is huddled in cafes reading poetry, wearing all black, probably somewhere in Greenwich Village. In the 1970s, the LGBT rights movement started. Marsha Johnson is credited with sparking the stonewall riots in NYC in 1973. The issue was over police harassment of trans and gay citizens. Much of the issues today in the LGBT community are over the rights of trans people, and the validity of their identities. The same issues that were present in 1973 are still present today. The current generation has characteristics and ideals from every previous generation. Racism, sexism, phobias, and biases of every kind still lurk in American society today. The problems of previous generations have resurfaced and mutated and the solutions are being taken from the previous generations as well. The ideas that have been outside of the mainstream are being conveyed and circulated through social media today and are becoming more widely accepted and adopted by individuals all over the nation. Conservatives are becoming the minority as the same push that was seen in the late 40s, through the 50s, and well into the 60s is seen today. Works Cited Watson, Steven. Strange Bedfellows: The First American Avant-garde. New York: Abbeville, 1991. Print. Marshall, Richard. Great Events of the 20th Century; How They Changed Our Lives. Pleasantville, NY: Reader’s Digest Association, 1977. Print. Hakim, Joy. War, Peace, and All That Jazz: 1918-1945. New York: Oxford UP, 2006. Print. Glennon, Lorraine. Our Times: The Illustrated History of the 20th Century. Atlanta: Turner Pub., 1995. Print. Pichon, Yann Le, and Jean-Louis Ferrier. Art of the 20th Century: A Year-by-year Chronicle of Painting, Architecture, and Sculpture. Paris, France: Editions Du Chene, 1999. Print. 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