#like it's always some gay man like “she supports drag. what an ally!”
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rick-ipedia · 6 months ago
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I swear every time I see someone call Chappell Roan an ally it takes a year off my lifespan
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walrus150915 · 7 months ago
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Happy pride, Nimona fandom :3
I gotcha some sketches! Gotta place them in different parts of the post so that you read everything
It's not just drawings I got HEADCANONS for you too!
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Off topic but I love Nimona's design SO MUCH it's so AMAZING TO DRAW AGHHH
So
⚧Nimona LGBTQ+ specific headcanons of mine🏳‍🌈
• I've made a conclusion that if queer flags exist in Nimona universe, as well as gay drag bars (so was confirmed in the artbook), then labels DO exist. As well as good old homophobia??? I suppose????
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• Nimona doesn't have a specific label because she thinks they are sorta restrictive. Also she just doesn't need one lol, if somebody asked her about her gender she'd say "Nimona"
• She'd wear the heck out of a "protect trans kids" shirt she bought no she ain't feeding into the capitalist machine she stole it
• There was something between Nimona and Gloreth but Nimona can't exactly say what for sure. Not exactly romantic but not strictly platonic. Homegirl had that toxic doomed kindergarten yuri going on😭
• Nimona doesn't look for romantic relationships. She explains it as "romance is for sappy dumb-dumbs" but in reality she just doesn't want to date and romantically love somebody who'll. Eventually die and leave her all by herself again yk (oh this got angsty real fast)
• Maybe one day Ballister tried to help her find her label (because he still tries to put things in boxes) and she just waved it off
Speaking of Ballister
• My man is transgender. Do I even have to explain. Read one of those posts that explain his transness better LMAO
• He started his medical transition as a teenager and had to fit right in not to disrupt the Institute's function. If he's a man then he has to transition QUICKLY so that others don't notice
• Because of that he's a transmedicalist and probably an enbyphobe at the start of the movie, thinking only one type of valid transness exists, and it's the one that is very binary and restrictive
• At the end he realizes the wrong of his ways and works on the internalized transphobia
• He came to terms with his homosexuality a bit easier. "It's always been boys" yk the drill
A couple of words about his boy lol
• Ambrosius is a painfully cisgender gay man. I genuinely apologize to all Transbrosius believers but he gives off STRONG cis vibes can't have a character with this surname dickless
• He's a trans ally but his opinions on trans issues were like. Very closed-minded. He supported but didn't entirely understand. Of course it changed as he went through ✨character development✨
• He was fully supportive of Ballister on his trans journey. Reassured him when Ballister felt like he wasn't enough, tried to make his boyfriend as secure as possible, loving every part of him
There should be a bunch of rather suggestive headcanons but this isn't that type of post LOL
No but think about Ambrosius kissing down Ballister's body and across his chest scars. This is my ultimate dream as a trans man
• Ambrosius also rocks a "protect trans kids" shirt that's for SURE
• He came to terms with his queerness as a teenager and had a whole crisis about it. As a Goldenloin he had the expectations of ✨continuing Gloreth's bloodline✨ thrown at him back in childhood so he sorta internalized that. Then boom, my boy is g a y and oh how gay he is!
• Click here to read about my headcanons on goldenheart when they had only started falling in love :D
• Ambrosius made inoffensive jokes about Ballister's transness. Like yk those goofy puns like "baby you put men in MENstruation", "omg does this make your parents transparent". Ballister smiled at them and rolled his eyes but also silently appreciated his bf's support, although expressed so stupidly
• He also made sure Ballister took proper care of his body because you know Ballister would not bind safely, being a dumb teen
Anyway yeah gay people
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Unpopular opinion but we as a fandom should start drawing Bal with a disability queer pride flag
Side characters headcanons, anyone? XD
• Diego came out as nonbinary after the events of the movie. He got that he/they swag going on
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• Also Ballister was his queer awakening FIGHT ME ABOUT IT. He had the stupidest, most childish celebrity crush on Bal. Maybe Bal formed Diego's type in men fjfhhx I like to think Diego got a boyfriend whose attitude is similar to Bal's
• Remember those news anchors? (they are so underrated omg) Well Nate Knight has a husband and Alanzapam Davis is a bi queen🙏
• Speaking of queens. Valerin is a straight ally💪💪 I imagine her being quite iconic on the Kingdom's queer side of the internet. They call her "mother" and stuff aajjaj
• the Director is homophobic, need I say more? So is Todd but I actually imagine him being a type of guy to reject his queerness
Haha mailman *winks at yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt*
• Todd had NO idea Ballister was trans. NONE
• The Kingdom has pride events!! Ambrosius and Ballister were very happy and excited to attend those as an official couple once they were out :}
• Nimona attended them every year, ofc she had to hide her true nature but it was fun for her to march along! And it was even more fun when everyone accepted her!!
Anyway yeah this was very fun to make!! Happy pride y'all, lmk what you think ;D
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read-write-thrive · 6 months ago
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This reminds me of when I was helping run a booth for a local queer group and I had an elderly gentleman approach and start asking questions about the acronym, the various flags we had around, all that sort of thing. The people I was running the booth with are definitely closer in age to this man than I was, but they’re allies and I literally study queerness (on top of being queer myself) so I stepped up to talk to him.
We ended up chatting for about twenty minutes, during which he talked about how he was used to certain terms, like bisexual, being used in biology when describing certain fauna and flora, but it always threw him when it was applied to people. He also talked about his wife coming out as asexual within the past few years, and how he didn’t fully understand but wanted to support her.
Suffice to say, I was *floored* and wished so desperately she was present to talk to her about that! As an asexual/aromantic person, it’s hard to find many fellow ace-spectrum people in day to day life, ESPECIALLY older people!! It’s not a “new” identity relative to some others, but it’s one that I’ve found older generations may not understand as easily as, say, gay or lesbian.
But she was at home that day, and instead I got to have a lovely talk with her husband (though it was unclear if they’re still married or not—I got the impression that they’re close after having had kids and been partners for so long, so the formalities of it all weren’t that important to him, which is heartwarming to see). Who especially wanted to compare his understanding to the terms to what was the “modern” definition. We mostly talked about the differences between bisexual and intersex (these terms have a complicated history that thankfully I’d read up on!) as well as the asexual and aromantic spectrums.
I cannot describe how happy I was to have this genuine, intelligent discussion with someone who genuinely wanted to learn more, again especially considering how old this gentleman was (he attended the local university in the 1950s, so I think he was in his 70s at the time of our conversation). The way I was able to share the knowledge I’d gathered through lived experience, online learning, and in my formal education and seem to genuinely help him understand at least a little bit more made my day, week, month, you name it! He’s coming from such a different background and it’s important to remember that when interacting with everyone, but especially regarding people wanting to know more about the queer community—there’s every chance they’ve never heard of xyz before!
Unfortunately the others at the booth were concerned this gentleman’s questions were too much/dragging on too long/etc and wrapped up our conversation by handing him some pamphlets we had, but I was in desperate need of some water so it was probably for the best. The gentleman thanked me for my time, shook my hand, wished me well, and selected an asexual flag pin to take back to his wife before leaving. Part of me still wishes we could’ve talked more, but such is life. I hope he learned something, as I know I did in talking to him.
Today I was helping run the booth for the local queer non-profit at the farmer's market and a woman told me that she would like a flag, pointing to our little bucket of flags. So I picked up the bucket and I brought it over and asked her which one she'd like.
"Well, tell me about them!"
"Oh! Okay! This one is the inclusion flag- its for everyone, including allies."
"What's this one?"
"That's the bisexual flag: it represents people who are attracted to two or more genders."
"Hmm... what about this one?"
"That's the nonbinary flag: it represents people whose gender isn't strictly 'male or female.'"
"Hmm... what's this purple one?"
"That's the asexual flag: it represents people who may not feel sexual attraction the way that others do."
She put her hand to her chest and got this really curious look on her face. "Tell me more about that!"
"Oh, happy to! So like if you're out with your bestie and someone real fine walks by and she's like 'omg look at him' and you're like 'girl get a grip?' Or like you just don't get what the 'big deal' is about sex or why everyone is so weird about it? But there's also room for like- you don't fall in love with the way someone looks, you're attracted to the person- their sense of humor and their kindness, or there's something about their personality that just makes it click for you? That's asexuality, too!"
And she got real quiet and seemed to think about it for a minute. So I grabbed our little informational sheet about different queer identities and handed her a copy. "If you want to do some research, this is probably a great place to start."
She thanked me and took an ace flag, stuck it in her hair.
Sometimes when you're online all the time, its easy to think that 'everyone knows about (topic), there's no reason to keep talking about it so much.' But while the people on the internet are real people, the internet ISN'T real life. And there are lots of people who do need to know that they do have community!
One of the jokes is that I'm a lot of people's 'patient zero' for discovering that they're queer. This is why.
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malethirsty · 5 years ago
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Loyalty - Tyler Lockwood
Summary: When Klaus’s #2 makes eyes with you, Klaus sets the two of you up. But when you encounter an issue, it’s down to you to pull through for the both of you.
Warnings: M/M smut (21+), Bareback (However Orgasm occurs once Tyler pulls out, make of that what you will), Homophobic comments, Elena and co. become villains
Inspired by: https://twitter.com/MaleThirst/status/1196818509830819841
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Life had changed drastically since Klaus had found out how to make hybrids. He moved you quickly into his house & got his new army to guard you in case Elena and her friends tried to pull any punches, The Council did indeed cut you off, but the Mikaelson fortune was extended to you by Klaus & the day spent shopping with Rebekah helped you both to bond. What was the most surprising thing was that you were now spending more time with Tyler Lockwood. You expected Elena to surround a support group around him, or ask him to spy on Klaus, but she ditched him, as it had been found out that Klaus had sired Tyler, and thus Tyler was now fiercely loyal to him. It was good to have someone else to share an admiration for Klaus & on days when the Original Hybrid had to battle against Damon & Mikael, you took time with Rebekah to train the newest hybrid. It was a Friday night that you all finally got to take a break from hecticness of it all. “Don’t you usually go to the Mystic Grill on Fridays, love?” Klaus pondered as he saw you flopped down, trying to find something on Netflix. “I mean I would, but Elena and all her friends are there, and I know they’ll send me out of the bar.” Klaus could tell you were still a bit down following your exile & leaned in to give you a kiss “Y/N, You need to boost your confidence. I’ll send Rebekah to watch from afar, but also, to make them that much more pissed, tonight I’ll send you out to the Mystic Grill with Tyler as a date, make Caroline jealous.” You snorted, it did sound like a good idea but “Is Tyler up for this?” You asked, you wanted it to be his idea & not Klaus planting him there “I asked him, he said yes. He also said he has a thing for you as well, so I’ve booked you next to her hotel room where she’s staying for the night before flying out for some Miss Virginia thing, keep her up all night.” “And how would I do that?” Klaus leaned up to whisper in your ear “You know how love. Do you always do with me every night” you knew that Klaus meant to fuck Tyler and while the idea sounded good.
“I’ll let Tyler know to be ready at a quarter to 8.” Klaus smiled, dimples on show as you headed into the closet, to pick out some good clothing. In next to no time, whether it be a need to impress you or due to his newly acquired speed, Tyler was ready & waiting as he walked you down the street, hand in hand. Right behind you was Rebekah not only your escort but also giving dirty looks to those who were giving you & Tyler side eye, which was comforting to you, it was nice to know Klaus, Tyler & Rebekah at least cared about your wellbeing, even if the world around you was less than sympathetic. As you entered the Mystic Grill, you saw the majority of the building taken up for Caroline’s big title party. Rebekah positioned herself near the door as You & Tyler selected the same secluded booth that you had gone to the night You & Klaus became partners. Ordering your usual Chips & Garlic Bread, Tyler ordering the same with a massive burger, you eventually opened up the conversation. “So Klaus told me about you having a thing for me.” Tyler gave a slight grin “When did you know & why didn’t you tell me earlier?” “Well it was a while ago, after Dad died, I realised I was free from his vileness, and I was going to tell you after the funeral, but then everything with Mason and turning happened, I threw myself into what I had become instead of managing both my crush & that.” Tyler swallowed, clearly not used to letting out a lot “It’s alright Tyler, you went through a lot so quickly, I’m not angry and you had every right to work on yourself before hand.” Tyler grinned as his burger got placed on the table “Jesus Christ, That’s massive! How are you gonna get through that?!” Tyler shrugged “You know that before I was a hybrid, I played football right Y/N? I’ve always had a big appetite.” “What exactly is the appeal of football? I’ve never understood.” Tyler shot a grin at you “Y/N, tonight I’m gonnna give you a crash course.”
And indeed he did, outlining the rules of the game, his favourite team and some spectacular moments that he had achieved with Mystic Falls during his tenure as a player. Usually you’d scoff at sport talk but Tyler was so engaging in great conversation, that you didn’t mind a second, and as much as you listened to him, he listened to you discuss your likeness of musical theatre with the same enjoyment plastered on his face as you had when he talked. “Y/N, I’m having one of the best date nights ever, Little Miss Blonde over there couldn’t compare” you were about to start laughing when at that exact moment, Elena’s group came over to your table. “Well hello there” Damon said somewhat curtly “Hello Damon, I guess you’re here to intimidate us” you responded, “Now Y/N, me intimidate, never!” Damon mockingly feigned outrage “Well it’s not for the bourbon since there’s none at our table” you quipped back, Elena stepping in. “No we aren’t here to intimidate, we wanted to take a look at the man who stabbed me in the back last week, who sold us all to Klaus, who made me a blood bag, how you had the nerve to show up at our bar and stage some sort of mock date to get under Caroline’s skin”. Whilst Elena was right about trying to get Caroline riled up, she had no business questioning Tyler’s feelings for you, which made you angry, and looking over to where Tyler sat, you noticed he was gripping his fists angrily, trying bot to let an outburst emerge and ruin the night. Looking to your left, you saw Rebekah had heard what was going on and had stepped up from her table, with your own group of friends ready to back you up, you decided that you might as well strike back, wasn’t as if she could do worse “Wow Elena, your ass is jealous at the amount of shit that just came out of your mouth” Seeing Elena’s shit eating grin thinking that she had intimidated you fall was quite possibly the sight of the year, but you weren’t done, not at all “Firstly, Tyler was close to dying, so if I hadn’t said anything, he wouldn’t be here, also when was the last time any of you acknowledged me in your supernatural group of expertise? I didn’t owe you a God damn thing. And this ‘mock date?’ How would you know that Tyler’s feelings are genuine?” “Because I dated him for several months & as an ally I can tell when someone has feelings for men.” Caroline said now stepping forwards next to Elena to survey the scene. You turned to face Caroline, intending to give her the same verbal lashing as Elena “It’s about time someone told you Caroline, but having a group of Gay Friends who help you shop & quoting lines from RuPaul’s Drag Race does not make you an ally, it makes you an insufferable cunt.” A snorting laugh came from your left, and without turning, you knew that Rebekah had enjoyed your comment Now Caroline was looking like she’d been hit over the face with how red she’d turned, embarrassed she’d been called out at her party, good.
“Why would you have even gotten up with Klaus though?” Inquired Bonnie, “Yeah, what did he offer you: Money, Power, Immortality?” Jeremy seconded. “Nothing, what he did do was tell me about his loneliness & I remembered the times I felt pushed out and I thought if others could give me grace after being tossed to the side, the least I could do is return it to others.” “Oh Boo Hoo.” Damon prodded in, “Klaus is making an army without asking any of the wolves if they want in.” “How-” Tyler began angrily and Rebekah’s feet began to stomp towards the table, which Elena & Bonnie had acknowledged by the look of intimidation on their faces, however you stood up very suddenly, determined to stand your ground “How’s Vicki? Did you make sure she wanted to be immortal? You know, after you gave her your blood & snapped her neck.” An uncomfortable silence filled that section of the bar. “Bonnie, how is carrying Anna’s death going? You know the woman your current squeeze was dating? How were all the vampires minding their own business going before you tripped up the device & caused so much disaster, that almost caused Jeremy to die? Wasn’t that because all vampires were the same?, a pity story after your Grams passed, yet you stand with Damon and have the audacity to lunge after me. And you two” Y/N pointed at Elena & Jeremy, “You two are cut from the same cloth. Jeremy you knew about Bonnie tripping up the device, killing Anna & yet you two are dating and Elena you complain about Klaus needing your blood for something so little as turning which is somehow so bad, yet when Katherine didn’t open her legs to welcome Damon, he snapped your brothers neck, yet you forgave him somehow. I’m not saying you can’t forgive him, but if you’re going to let Damon’s miniature things go, then you need to let Klaus’s go. I’m aware that Klaus isn’t the picture perfect idea of humanity you all want, but you keep excusing the darkness in your own supernatural partners, not to mention yourselves, so you have some nerve isolating me like I’m the only one lavishing in it. Stay the fuck away from me.” You grabbed Tyler’s hand and marched out of the Mystic Grill. “Nice work-“ Rebekah began, but in your angry mood, you marched right past her with Tyler in tow. “Rude” she muttered under her breath as she reached for her phone to tip off Klaus that whilst you’d blown her off, you finally grew a backbone.
You walked several streets in a huff before stopping to breathe, at that point, Tyler hugged you. “T-Tyler, are you alright?” You questioned, “Yeah, it’s just that you could see me getting angry and you stood up for me instead. You were so scared of being confronted by them, but you stood your ground to their faces. You may not have faced down a vampire or a wolf, but you Y/N are the bravest out of us all.” You smiled “Thanks Tyler” he leaned in & kissed you. You took a moment to let Tyler endulge before you began to kiss back, running your hands down Tyler’s back before you were slammed into the lamppost. Whilst you wanted Tyler, you didn’t want to be written up for public sex, so you broke the kiss “Let’s get back to Klaus’s and continue this there.” “But what about antagonising Caroline?” Tyler questioned, but you had your answer ready “I think we’ve antagonised her enough, besides she’d probably rub herself to your moans and shit, I don’t want to give her the satisfaction.” Tyler let a cold smirk cross his face, he knew you wanted to be fucked hard, and that’s what he planned to do. Deciding to test out Tyler’s compelling skills on a homeless person, you gave him the room Klaus had booked out & you both made your way back to The Mikaelson Compound. It was empty, so you & Tyler could fuck as loud as you could, so he sped you up to your room and as the door closed, Tyler slammed you up against it, kissing you passionately, the same as he did on the street, however this time, your clothes were removed with vampire speed. Standing there naked, Tyler took in your nude form with a twinkle in his eyes, you blushed slightly which made Tyler smile “You’re cute when you’re flustered Y/N.” Tyler commented and with that he began to undress as well, intending to take time so you could see the goodies under his clothes.
As he removed his shirt, Tyler pulled you in for a kiss, his tongue sliding into your mouth as he deepened it. You began to feel around his shirtlessness, tweaking at his nipples which make the newly turned hybrid moan in your ear, the sound like molten gold to you. Suddenly you were thrown with all of Tyler’s might onto the bed, Tyler made sure you were looking up as he disposed of his pants and underwear in one go, his cock standing proud and hard. He began to walk towards you, cockily flaunting all the while “You want this dick don’t you Y/N?”, you nodded, but that didn’t appease the hybrid who sped towards you and gripped you by the neck, softly yet dominant “Talk to me Y/N, do you want me to fuck you all night?, have you crying my name as I make you cum from my stroke? Answer me.” He spoke the last part cooly as he playfully tightened his grip on your throat, making you feel a bit light headed “Yes Tyler, please fuck me as hard as you can.” You moaned out, making him laugh “As hard as I can? God this is gonna be good.” He laid his hand out, spitting onto it before stroking his hard member, coating it with the makeshift lube all the while looking at you all sprawled out, naked for him, and while he tried to maintain his cockiness, you could see from the ripples of pleasure on his face. Once he had lathered himself up enough, Tyler didn’t waste anymore time and used his newly acquired speed to to thrust deep into your ass, making you cry out at the sting. “Fuck, shit, your tighter than Caroline.” Tyler moaned out, you couldn’t even form words from how big he was and how he was stretching you out so right, all that came out was a mewling cry, which the hybrid smirked at. Rocking his cock deeper inside your tight canal, he began a passionate pace, looking down into your eyes as he fucked you deep so he could see how you crumbled apart for him, how desperate you were to take his dick. He locked you in another kiss again, moaning into it as you trailed your hands down his back, until he slammed in balls deep, colliding head first with your prostate, you cried out & instictively tightened your grip, sinking your fingers into Tyler. “Sink it in pretty boy, scratch down my back till you draw blood while I fuck you the way Vicki & Caroline could never handle, but you can, you fucking slut.”
The rough dirty talk emerged a desire in you to meet Tyler’s challenge head on. You dug in harder as Tyler cried out from the mix of pain and pleasure, all thoughts of Caroline and the confrontation gone, all you both wanted to do was chase down your orgasms. Your fingers began to feel a bit moist and you took them away from Tyler’s back to see you’d got him deep that there was blood dripping “Taste it” Tyler panted in your ear “Taste me Y/N, I know you want to.” With Tyler’s encouragement, you locked eyes with him drew your tongue across your fingers, tasting Tyler’s blood. You moaned out from his taste, knowing it would incense him into fucking you rougher and indeed, Tyler began to rock into you so hard that the bed began to slam into the wall with every thrust. ”God, this is amazing, keep this up and I’ll cum for you Y/N.” “Do it Tyler, cum.” Once again Tyler squeezed your neck “I’m the hybrid here baby, you’re the human, I control you, I won’t cum till you cum apart from my dick.” Tyler’s words were accompanied by a sharp thrust deep inside you, well and truly smashing into your prostate, the driving force combined with his words was what it took for you to reach your peak and crying out Tyler’s name, you came in spurts over yourself. “Fuck, that’s hot, seeing you cum for me. You want to taste me again?” You nodded and began to move your hands to Tyler’s back again, intending to leave new marks, but instead you were met by Tyler’s full force as he slammed your hands to the bed. Groaning and spluttering out of ecstasy, his body also rippling with the same energy, Tyler pulled out and with a few simple strokes let out a loud moan as he came all over you, splattering you with even more hot cum.
As he calmed down, Tyler wiped his hand in his load, covering his fingers with the sticky white substance and held it up to your mouth “Taste it” he said again, reminiscent of when he wanted you to drink his blood, except this time, there was a more erotic tone to his voice, he wanted all of his essence inside you. Never losing eye contact with the Lockwood, you licked across your hand, taking in his salty sweet seed, even sucking it off your fingers while moaning which made Tyler grin “Fuck, if people only knew how perfect you are.” He breathed out “I do” came a distinctive british voice that could only mean... “Klaus!” you both exclaimed as you looked over to see the hybrid standing in the doorway, watching you both with a smirk on his face “I thought you were at the hotel making Caroline sulk.” “No, you should have seen though, Y/N pretty much tore them all a new one” “I don’t doubt that, Rebekah texted me and told me about it. She also told me you’d left without talking to her.” He eyed you closely “I was in an angry mood” you tried to explain, but Klaus held his hand up to silence you and you obeyed his command. “I have to say nice technique Tyler, you wanted Y/N to take his fill you of you and that you did. But now I want you to step back” With the sire bond in affect, Tyler took several steps away from the bed, Klaus grinning at his power as he walked towards you and to your excitement began to strip his clothing off “You’re going to watch as I now fuck Y/N, cause while you know how to fuck, you don’t have a thousand years of experience to you. You can masturbate to us if you want, as long as you cum once we have.” Klaus stopped at the foot of the bed, Tyler nodding as he fisted his hardening length “Good. Now love” he turned his gaze to you “Tyler’s got you ready for me, like a good sweet progeny, ready for another hybrid cock inside you.” He palmed at himself and nodding, you threw yourself back on the bed, spreading your legs. Oh yes, this was the life.
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Until Next Time
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Kakashi Hatake/Baki
970 words
Kiss: Back of the hand Kiss
For: @temarihime
Every nerve in his body screamed in agony, the chakra exhaustion making it difficult to even stand on his own. 
If Gai wasn’t currently holding him up, his students weren’t right in front of him and they didn’t have a three day walk back to Konoha, he would collapse where he was standing.
Then of course that would mean a prolonged stay in Suna while he recovered. A burden he did not want to put on his allies.
He was Konoha’s problem and no one else's. Besides, there was very little chance that if he did say in Suna he would get to see much of Baki. The handsome Suna jonin that he couldn’t help but sneak glances of every chance he got.
Thankfully Sakura and Naruto hadn’t noticed yet. He could only imagine the shit they would give him.
“We’ll see you again soon,” Naruto’s cheerful voice caught his attention, drawing his focus back to the current conversation. “Try not to get into any more trouble while we’re gone.”
Not that he would personally complain if they had to make another rescue trip to Suna. Maybe the next one could be Baki in trouble instead of Gaara. Then he could be the one to play hero.
“Rival,” a gentle nudge against his side forced him to focus on Gai, which probably isn’t that terrible since he is Kakashi’s best friend and the one keeping him from eating dirt at the moment. “I think someone would like to say goodbye to you.”
Gai tilted his head, indicating that Kakashi should turn his attention to whoever was in front of them.
That turned out to be Baki. Person of his fantasies for the last few years and someone he definitely should have realized was standing in front of him.
The chakra exhaustion was really kicking his ass this time. That or it was the fact he felt safe enough with Gai by his side to daydream about Baki and miss what was going on right in front of him.
Probably a bit of both.
“I wanted to thank you again,” Kakashi was unsure how to respond to that. Other than fighting Deidara, he hadn’t really contributed much to Gaara’s rescue outside of planning. “If it weren’t for your team…”
Baki didn’t need to finish his sentence. The words he left unspoken were obvious. 
‘Gaara would be dead’
“I’m just glad that we were able to do something.” Lifting his free hand, he held it out towards Baki for a handshake. “You can always call us if you need anything.”
Examining the hand now hovering between them, Baki seemed to contemplate his next course of action. It felt like an eternity before Baki finally reached out to take his hand.
Except that instead of going for a handshake, Baki turned Kakashi’s hand face down and leaned in to press a kiss right over the metal plate of his uniform glove.
That was not the move Kakashi had been expecting him to make. 
“Rival,” dragging his eyes away from Baki, he turned his attention back towards Gai, unsure of what his friend's reaction to what had just happened could be. “You’re blushing.”
Of course. The only response Gai ever had was to make the situation even more embarrassing.
Hiding his face into Gai’s shoulder seemed the only thing that he could do to cover the blush that Gai was talking about, which was currently crawling its way up his face turning his skin a bright tint of red.
“Gross,” he could practically see the look of disgust on Temari’s face when she spoke “Are old people allowed to flirt?”
“It’s a display of youthful desire!” Lee was only making the situation worse with his energy. “Kakashi-sensei is a handsome man well sought after in Konoha. It makes sense that even Suna shinobi would fall for his charms!”
“Charms? What charms?” Sakura was grounded from missions for a month for that one.
“I think he has lost it. Only the desperate would be charmed by Kakashi-sensei.” Tenten was no longer his favorite.
Why was it only Lee who showed him any support during this whole fiasko?
“I think it’s cute,” turning his head slightly to the side, Kakashi glared up at Gai “Perhaps you’ll have to make another visit to Suna soon. Without a mission to distract you from the handsome man trying to get your attention.”
How was it that Gai could be so right and yet so embarrassing at the same time?
“Well, if you ever get the chance,” Baki spoke up, apparently taking Gai’s offer as confirmation of Kakashi’s interest. “I know the best place to get some Sunagimo.”
Feeling Gai’s shoulder nudging him in the cheek, Kakashi huffed. Apparently this was happening no matter what he thought.
Not that he was really against it.
“I’ll agree to some sunagimo, sounds fun,” he agreed without taking his head off of Gai’s shoulder. And I'll make sure they,” pointing at Naruto and Sakura for emphasis, he smiled. “Are on a mission and can’t bother us.”
“Aww, Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto whined, only to have Sakura cover his mouth with her hand.
“No one needs to see sensei being gross.” She growled at her teammate.
“I’m sure Gaara will find something for his more...nosey, siblings to do,” Baki glared at Temari and Kankuro.
“Well then, it’s a date.” He wasn’t sure what exactly had just happened, but he felt happy. Excited even.
He couldn’t wait for some time off for the first time in years.
The only downfall was that Gai wasn’t going to let him forget about how badly he had blushed when Baki kissed his hand, but that seemed like a fair trade off for a date with the guy he had been thinking of since team seven took their chunin exam.
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green-ball-of-trash · 5 years ago
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Roman in The Closet by Himself!! Part 1
word count: 2202
ship: Prinxiety, Background Logicality, Background Remile, vaguely mention Demus.
part1/part2/part3/part4/?
WARNINGS: self deprecation, depression, repression, non-censored cursing, the word wh*re is used and it not censored, lgbtq+phobia is mentioned in this chapter but not directed at any of the characters.    
summary: Roman has a rough journey with his sexuality, and his crush on a certain little emo~ 
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   Roman had always been enraptured with the concept of love. He could remember watching Disney movies when he was younger, where the prince rescues the princess and they both live happily ever after. 
    Although, he was never really focused on the princess of the story but more so on they heroic prince. He always thought that Prince Phillip was so much more interesting than Arora, but his little child mind couldn’t understand nor explain why that was. 
   Until he was ten years old~
  He had been looking at Disney videos on his ipad, when he discovered a peculiar video with a rainbow flag in the thumbnail. He thought that all the colors on the flag looked pretty, so he decided to click on it. 
   He heard phrases in the video that he had never heard before, such as; gay, trans, homosexaul, bisexual, pansexual, and so many more and he had absolutely no idea what they meant. Even though he had no clue, he watched the entire video. After the video was over, he got out his red notebook with Disney stickers plastered haphazardly all over the front and back cover. 
  He decided to rewatch the video again and write down any words that he didn’t understand, and look them up after he was finished. Logan is gonna be so proud of me, he had said to himself thinking of his quiet nerdy best friend. 
  He spent the entire day learning things like pride, non-bianary, gender fluid, and more. He felt like he had opened his eyes to a completely new world and he was so excited about it. He had no idea there were so many different types of amazing people. He was so… Excited! 
  His parents were busy with work downstairs, and his brother was over at a friends house so he took it upon himself to spend his entire day learning and watching videos on this community of people. It was impossible to learn everything in a day, but he was determined to try. 
  He listened to and read people’s stories on the internet, and he would be lying if he said he didn’t cry. Why were people so mean to them? He had asked himself, why are there so many mean people in the world? They were just being themselves, why couldn’t people just be proud of them? What Roman didn’t know at the time, is that he would have a few stories of his own like that in the future. 
  A few weeks later, he was on the swings with his best friend Logan. Swinging back and forth with the breeze as they talked about anything and everything, non-sense and Disney, jokes and laughter, serious topics and funny stories, until Roman decided to bring up some of the stuff he had learned to his friend. He kicked his legs back and forth carelessly as he spoke, “hey, Lo?” Logan had looked at him, as Logan wasn’t swinging nearly as much as Roman was but more just drifting to and fro with the wind as he talked with his flamboyant best friend, “yeah Ro?”
Roman grinned for a minute before speaking, “have you heard of LGBTQ+?”
Logan had nodded at his question, “yeah, my dads talk about it all the time.” He said in a nonchalant manner. Roman groaned, frustrated “AWWW, I thought I learned about something that you didn’t..” Roman stopped his swinging, skidding his bright red shoes across the ground to stop himself.
 Logan chuckled and pushes up his glasses, “sorry Ro, but I know everything.” 
  Roman stared at Logan throwing his hands about as he spoke, “that's not fair.” he said the last word dragging it out like it was the end of the world. 
  Roman had met Logan’s dads before, yet he never knew what LQBTQ+ meant and he didn’t know that a lot of people thought it was a bad thing. He thought it was awesome that Logan’s dads loved each other, even before he knew that they loved each other if that made any sense. To Roman it made complete sense in his ten year old mind.
  Roman then got an idea, “Hey Logan, there was some things I didn’t understand when I was lookin’ up stuff about it. Do you think you could answer some of my questions?”
Logan looked a little excited to teach Roman, and they spent the rest of the time on the swings not swinging but talking. Talking about something that would be very important to them one day. 
  7 years later~ 
  Roman was seventeen, and he was the most popular kid in his highschool, everyone had taken a liking to his outgoing nature. His best friends Logan, Patton, and Virgil were popular right along with him. There was only one thing that bothered Roman, his sexuality. He was terrified, from the bottom of his heart he was terrified because ne knew that he was not straight in any sense of the term. He was as curved as a rollercoaster and the ride made him feel woozy and nauseous.
     He knew that the vast majority of his school would hate him for being the way he was, so you know what he did? Like the scared little closeted boy he was he ran into the deepest corner of that closet and hid like a little toddler in hide and seek, only he wasn’t a toddler and this wasn’t hide and seek, this was hide for your life. At least that was what it had felt like to him. 
  He knew that his friend would accept him, since Patton had come out to them in freshman year as Pan to him, Logan, and Virgil, it had lead to Logan coming out to them as gay demisexual, and then a year later in there sophmore Virgil coming out to them as gay. They promised to support each other and never ever tell anyone else. It was like their own little pride group, only Roman was an ally… Or so the others had thought.
       Roman knew that they would accept him. Of all people who knew that he could come out to them, and it was okay. But his heart leapt up into his throat and his knees buckled and the mere thought of it. He could just imagine their judgemental glances, thinking he was only saying it because he wanted to feel included, “you’re not really gay.” He would imagine them saying, “are you doing this for attention?” “if you were gay then why have you been telling us about all your straight crushes for years?” He had made up crushes to stay in the closet “you’re so dramatic! Just shut up and we can forget you even tried to pull off this whole charade.” 
   I part of him knew they would never do that, but it was a very small part of him, it was like a tiny ball of light shining in the darkness of self deprecation that he had created within himself. He pretended to be so confident, he was a great actor ‘but that was the only thing he was great at’ He would say to himself like a father scolding a child for doing something wrong, only the child was priding within himself and the father was a cold old man with no joy and wanted his son to live a dry cold life never thinking higher than an inch of himself. 
“Princey? You okay there?...” he hadn’t noticed that he had started to zone out with another one of his spirals into the dark clouded space that was his mind. ‘No’ he said to himself and only himself. Virgil would think he was such an attention seeking whore if he ever told him anything that went on in his head, “I’m fit as a fiddle Hottopic, sorry I zoned out, I was just thinking about Valerie. Her hair looked so pretty today.” He said with a smile that didn’t seem to reach his eyes. Valerie was amazing, she was really fun to hang out with and yes her hair actually did look pretty today but to Roman he felt nothing but platonic love for her. And when he would pretend to have a crush on her, especially to one of his best friends….. He felt as though someone was stabbing a knife into his heart, his weak little heart that throbbed at anything and everything. He was so weak he would tell himself. His heart was a bruised and pin pricked as a baby rabbit that got into a fight with a porcupine, and oh how his heart loved to jump and do summersaults like the little rabbit it was in the presence of the emo sitting next to him.   
  But the thing was it hurt so so much worse when he lied to Virgil. Virgil was so caring, he was kind to all of them, and he loved hanging out with him. Virgil was just so funny, and cute, and smart, and handsome, and- he stopped his thoughts, halting them and pushing them as far back into his mind as they would go. It was getting a lot harder to get rid of them lately. Virgil got a sad sort of look in his eyes but Roman didn’t notice, he was to busy gay panicing. “Thats sweet Roman. You two would be cute together ...” Virgil trailed off, sort of spacing out himself as Roman had just a few moments ago. 
  Roman clapped his hands together and stood up with a plastered smile on his face, startling Virgil almost knocking him off the bench that they had been sitting on. They were at the park, just talking. Roman turned toward Virgil and uttered a quick apology before spilling his idea to his monochromatic friend, “We should go get ice cream!!” Virgil chuckled at Roman’s excitement, and blushed under his porcelain foundation, “sure thing, if you promise to stop yelling” Virgil pulled on his hoodie strings, “people are starting to stare.” he said the last part with breathless sort of panicked whisper only loud enough just for Roman to catch it. 
   They spent the rest of the day just walking around town, laughing and enjoying the company of one another. Roman’s little heart jumped into his throat everytime he heard that beautiful laugh of Virgil’s, it was like looking at the sky and letting the sun hit your face. You can’t open your eyes and look directly at it though, because you might go blind at its unending beauty. Even if Virgil didn’t think so, he was the sun, the moon, the stars, and the clouds all bundled up in one amazing person and oh how he shined. 
     He was always there when you needed him and he was the most hard working person Roman knew, even if Virgil ran into days where he couldn’t even speak because of his anxiety disorder Roman thought he was so strong to have even got out of bed on those days. And he made sure to tell Virgil how strong he was everyday, and if Virgil couldn’t find his voice that day. Roman would speak for him to faceless strangers at school who wanted to speak with Virgil, although Logan and Patton would do that as well, it seemed to have affected Virgil more when Roman did it. It made Virgil feel warm and gooey on the inside, feelings that someone with a hard emo persona like his should never let themselves have but he had them and he loved how they made him feel. But he could never feel that about Roman, because Roman would never feel that way about him and that wasn’t something that he could change and that was just the way the world had to fuck him over.
  The universe had made a little emo gay boy who was obsessed with My Chemical Romance and black eyeshadow, fall in love with his straight best friend. What a painful story trope. Only his best friend wasn’t actually straight, a fact that he was oblivious to, and this wasn’t a cheesy romance story this was their lives. Virgil looked down at hits ice cream, enjoying the treat quietly as he listened to Roman gush and rant about Hamilton or whatever musical he had decided to talk about. 
They had arrived at Virgil’s house and said their goodbyes, with halfwitted insults with no venom in the words. It was their usual routine and they were both content with the way their relationship was. But they were just content, both of them wanted more but they would never admit that to themselves or each other. Roman walked home, with everything swirling around in his head and he laughed with a sort of dark emptiness. What a day.
To be continued~ 
OH MY GOSH THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN TO WRITE!!! Idk how much fun it was to read or how many people will actually read it, but I hope at least a few people enjoy it. this first part was out earlier than I had expected! When I get the next part out then I will link it on this part and tag anyone who wants to know when it comes out. I hope you enjoyed~ my friend that pitched me some ideas: @akane-mukami she is amazing and beautiful please go show her some love!
taglist:
@mostpeopleannoyne 
@www-dot-ohshit-dot-com 
@icequeenoriginal
@espepspes 
@rats-this-username-is-taken
Green~~
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we-are-inevitable · 5 years ago
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love and it’s decisive pain
Prompt: "Could you make a modern spin where javid is established but they are hiding it at first. And David’s parents find them and tease them cause they knew already?" (i had to repost this and can’t remember who sent this ask, but thank you!)
Rating: M (for good measure)
Warnings: Mentions of violence and homophobia (to third party, unnamed characters), vague NSFW concepts, coming out anxiety. feel free to message me if i need to put any other trigger warnings, and i will gladly do so!
Word Count: 2,364
Read on AO3! Fic under the cut.
The decision to never come out was something that David had made peace with long ago.
He had been fourteen when he made the vow. Fourteen and vulnerable. Naive. At first, he had wanted to come out. He had known something was different about him, since the first time he heard Sarah talk about a boy she liked, and realized that what she was describing- what she felt for a guy in her class- was the same way that he felt about guys, too. At the time, he had been twelve, just now starting to realize that liking guys was even an option- and apparently, it was the only option that he saw fit for himself.
At age twelve, David realized he liked men. 
At age thirteen, David realized he liked only men. 
At fourteen, David realized he was in love with his best friend who had just moved to the school.
David had thought about the possibility of bringing it up to his parents, but he had never found the right time, never found the right way to say it. He had even considered trying to tell Sarah first, or maybe even Les, but he figured that Les was too young and Sarah just wouldn’t understand that her baby brother was anything other than straight. Nonetheless, David had made… a plan, per se, of just how he was going to do it. He had written it out and everything- he was going to wait until he left for school one day, maybe kiss his Ma on the forehead and give his Dad a goodbye hug. Then, he was going to walk to the door, yell, “Hey, I’m gay!”, and take off like a shot down the flight of stairs in their apartment building.
It was a plan. He never claimed it was good.
But that was before he saw just what could happen if he did. He saw a news report, of a couple being attacked on the subway for daring to be brave enough to hold hands in public. He remembered seeing the pictures on the TV, seeing the bruises and the bloody noses, and that struck enough fear into his heart that he had resigned himself to being alone. He would lurk in the shadows. Give his unconditional love and support to others. He would be the best damn ally he could be, but after seeing the pain, the heartbreak, the fear in the faces of the men on the TV that night, he knew his choice was the right one. He wouldn’t be able to survive if something like that happened to him.
He had successfully made it three years without anyone knowing the biggest secret of his life. Not even his closest friends knew, even though most of them were in the community themselves. It wasn’t as though he didn’t trust them- no, no, he trusted each of them with his life. Crutchie, Race, Albert, and Elmer, along with many others, had already told him that they would take care of him if anything ever happened. It had been joking, but David didn’t doubt their loyalty for a minute.
But then there was Jack. 
Jack, the guy that David had been crushing on for three years.
Jack, the guy who had the most intense stare, most beautiful smile, most effective puppy dog eyes, most lovely laugh and talent and, God, David could listen to him talk, listen to his accent, for hours on end.
It was Jack that had caused his crisis, who had been the guy behind the story, the guy he wanted to come out for. He remembered the night that Jack told him he was bi, a conversation that had happened at four in the morning one summer night when they were both sixteen. Oh, how Davey longed to tell Jack then. How he longed to lean over, gently cup his cheek and kiss the worries and insecurities out of him. 
Instead, he had just reassured Jack that he didn’t care, that he would always be safe with him, and that he was always there if Jack needed to talk.
They had been in a similar situation about a year later. Another late night, safe on Jack’s fire escape, where they had been for hours watching the sunset and idly talking about the people that passed on the streets below. Jack had kitted it out with everything- some christmas lights wrapped around the railings, two thick blankets laid out on the floor and an old-fashioned radio playing some music behind them. In a way, that fire escape felt more like home than any other place on earth.
It was everything that David had ever dreamed of.
They had gotten pretty silent, but it was a comfortable drop in conversation as they both watched the bustling streets of New York. It was Jack who broke it eventually, taking in a deep breath as he looked down. “‘Ey, Dave?” “Yeah, Jackie?” David asked softly, pushing himself up from his back. He stopped about halfway, kicking his long legs out in front of him, braced on his palms. 
“You… You  know how I told ya, that I’m into dudes?” Jack approached the subject carefully. Davey gulped. His mind immediately went somewhere bad- that Jack had a boyfriend, that Jack had found out that he really only liked women, that Jack had been... hurt. “Well, I-... There’s a guy,” Jack started, and Davey could see him tapping a familiar rhythm onto his knee. Jack did that when he was anxious. “And, well- I like ‘im. A lot. But… But I dunno if he’s into guys, and even if he is, I don’t think I’m the kind’a fella he would like--”
“Are you kidding?”
“Huh?”
“Jack,” David said with a sad grin, furrowing a brow. “Any guy would have to be crazy not to like you back. I mean, have you seen yourself? You’re hot,” David said with a soft laugh, gently nudging Jack’s shoulder with a fist. “Plus, you’re talented. You’re crazy good at art, you can sing and play guitar, you’re wicked smart. Unless a guy just wasn’t into smartasses, I don’t get why anyone wouldn’t be into you,” David joked softly, but every word was the truth. He didn’t understand why Jack was so insecure, why he was so self deprecating, but he knew it had been something he had struggled with for a long time.
“...For sure?” Jack asked, his voice smaller than David had ever heard it. “Jackie, I wouldn’t lie to ya,” He said with a grin. “Everything I said is true, y’know. You’re an amazing man, any guy would be lucky to--”
David was cut off with hands fisting his shirt and dragging him into a kiss.
Time stopped for a moment.
David could feel his eye’s widening, could feel his heart pounding, mind racing a mile a minute. He must have froze, because suddenly, all too suddenly, Jack was pulling away with a flushed face and a look of terror in his eyes. “Fuck, Dave, I’m so sorry, I didn’t--” He cut himself off with a deep breath, immediately turning away from David to face the New York skyline yet again.
David took in a shuddering breath a few moments later. “...Jack, you idiot,” He muttered, and Jack winced, turning to apologize yet again, until Davey pulled him in for another kiss. This time, he was in control. The kiss was soft, hesitant at first, until the both of them got confident enough to take it to the next level.
David had his arms wrapped around Jack’s waist, the angle a bit awkward, until Jack had fixed it by moving to sit in David’s lap. That was when it hit David that this was real. He was kissing Jack Kelly, and Jack Kelly was kissing back.
After that night, they kept things lowkey. David still wasn’t ready to come out to the guys, which Jack understood wholeheartedly. Their relationship may have been a secret, but it didn’t mean tht they didn’t like it. No, sneaking around was fun. Making out in the school bathroom, going on dates disguised as hangouts, even being there for each other on their eighteenth birthdays was something so much more magical than anyone knew. 
They lived in that bubble of safety until they finally told the guys the night after their high school graduation. They had been together for close to a year that night, and it just felt right. All of them were together, hanging out in the park and discussing the crazy graduation parties that had happened the night before. Something must have lit a fire in David, because Jack made eye contact with him as Race was telling a story, and David kissed him in front of everyone else. They had to fess up- after Race finished his agonizingly long story, of course- but David had never felt happier.
That next week, David was riding the high of finally making it. He had a boyfriend, he was officially moving on to college in the fall, and he was finally, finally safe and accepted.
Until that next Friday came along.
David had thought that they had the apartment to themselves. Jack had even climbed through the window for good measure, but David knew that his parents were going on a weekend getaway in Boston, and Les would be at a friend’s house until Sunday, so he didn’t think to lock the door.
It started out as cuddling and watching some old western movie that Jack had fallen in love with, before cuddling turned to kissing, and kissing turned to David pressing Jack down against the bed as he nipped and sucked dark marks onto the tan skin of Jack’s neck. Jack was a blushing mess, murmuring soft pleas as his hands carded through Davey’s dark hair. “Davey, baby, come on, stop teasin’,” Jack muttered pitifully, eyes shutting, before they suddenly flew wide open at the sound of David’s bedroom door opening. “David, we just came back because your father forgot his wallet, and-- Oh, my good Lord!”
The door was shut just as fast as it had opened, and David was so thankful that they were still clothed, until he realized what had just happened. 
He could feel himself visibly paling as he launched away from Jack, hurrying to stand up. “Oh, fuck, oh, fuck--”
“Babe, babe, calm down, it’s--”
Jack didn’t have time to say another word before David was already out the door and down the hall.
“Ma!” David said quickly, chest heaving as he came to a standstill in the living room. He was red faced in shame, and could already feel the tears welling in his eyes. “Ma, it- it’s not what it looks like!” He rushed out, gulping when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned and saw Jack, looking just as scared as he did, as he desperately buttoned his flannel to try to cover the marks. “We-- I didn’t-- I thought- Ma, I’m not--” “David.”
David went silent, staring at the floor with wide eyes, refusing to meet his mother's gaze. He vaguely registered his father coming into the room, who stopped mid sentence when he saw Jack and his son.
David could feel his world crumbling, but then he felt Jack’s hand gently grab his, ever so slightly intertwining their fingers. He glanced over at Jack with wide eyes, who looked at him and gave a gentle nod, taking a deep breath. 
Slowly, David looked back up, gulping. “...Mama, Dad, Jack and I--” “We know, dear.” 
“You-- You know?”
David finally took a good look at them. His father was standing behind his mother, a strong hand on her shoulder, but they didn’t look… angry. Or upset. Instead, they were smiling at him. “David, hunny, we’ve known for years. We… found a note that you had written- something or another, of how you wanted to tell us. At- At first, we were… shocked. We didn’t really know what to do, so we decided to wait it out until you told us yourself, we just didn’t expect it to take four years,” Esther added with a gentle laugh.
“It didn’t shock us to find out you were with Jack, either,” Mayer noted, glancing between the two boys. “Jack, you spend an awful lot of time at our house, more than any of the other boys. As long as you don’t intend on hurting our son, you’re part of this family, too.”
That was David’s breaking point.
He couldn’t hold in the sob that rose up from his chest, and though the Jacobs family had never been the most physically affectionate, David found himself running across the room. He pulled his mother into a tight hug, crying softly into her shoulder, and he took in a deep, shuddering breath as she rubbed his back. He pulled away and wiped his eyes, only to be pulled into another hug by Mayer, which was a shocking moment in itself.
One of them must have gestured to Jack to come closer, too, because when David looked over, Esther had him wrapped into a tight hug. David stepped away, and watched with a fond smile as Jack shook his father's hand.
Things seemed to calm down after that, though David still had watery eyes, but he couldn’t help the immense joy that flooded his chest. He gulped and wrapped an arm around Jack’s waist, who in turn began rubbing his back.
“Like I said,” Mayer spoke firmly, “take good care of our boy. Now, we have a reservation at the hotel to meet by midnight, so we should get going,” He said, looking down at Esther, who nodded. 
They said their last goodbyes, but just as the door closed, it opened again. Esther poked her head in and grinned. “One more thing- use protection!” She said quickly, before the door shut with a final click.
David would have been mortified, if not for the bright laughter that bubbled out from the boy beside him. 
Yeah, this was a happiness he could get used to, he thought as he pulled Jack in for another kiss. 
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dearheart42regenerated · 5 years ago
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hoo boy, okay, this is a baaaaad idea and it’s LONG but I’m doing it anyway because I’m genuinely struggling with this, I don’t have an IRL community to turn to, and I want to hear what other lesbians/wlw think about this beyond my own tiny circle. (for the record I’m not a discourse blog, so pleeeease be gentle and don’t drag me into any super messy debates? the most I want to do is get opinions from different people and learn enough to come to my own private conclusions and move on)
I’m a bby lesbian (and a long-time ace) and the “bi-lesbian” thing upsets me too. but I’ve seen an argument brought up that made me stop and think, and I’m kinda stumped about it. the argument is that we're ALREADY using lesbian as an umbrella term, but only get upset about it when bi women do the same. 
for example...when we see a wlw couple walking down the street or getting married, or two women kissing in a TV show or pictures shown on twitter (much like the cute “sword lesbians” story that’s been circulating), MOST of the time, everyone (including us!) tends to automatically call them “lesbians” or a "lesbian couple” or a “lesbian wedding”, etc...without thinking about what their actual orientations are.
I saw another person bring up an experience where her lesbian gf would joke about them "doing lesbianism babey!" but when she tried to do the same as a bi woman, her gf would get mad at her and say she couldn't do that. the main point of all of this is that there's hypocrisy in play - when lesbians put the "lesbian" label on other women, whether irl or fiction, most people don’t kick up a fuss. but when bi women use the label themselves, suddenly it's bad and lesbophobic/biphobic.
this troubles me because I DO see it happen all the time, both online and in the few irl experiences I’ve had. and I think it's a valid point to make (especially because "sapphic" is barely used irl at all). it feels unfair to use "lesbian" with the same-ish looseness we use "gay", and then draw the line at bi women using it too. (there’s also a very real problem of bi ppl with same-gender partners turning to “Gay And Lesbian” spaces cos they have nowhere else to turn, and getting kicked out for not being a “real gay”. there are tangible real-life layers to this discourse that I don’t want to brush off.)
but at the same time, "lesbian" is the only modern word we have (particularly our only mainstream word) to describe our full, unique experience as women who are exclusively attracted to other women/women-aligned people. bi women already have “bisexual” as their recognizable mainstream term, and they also have “queer”, “wlw”, “sapphic”, etc as further options to fine-tune their identity...so it feels just as unfair to use "lesbian” too, and that’s the main reason why the term “bi-lesbian” personally upsets me right now. 
it’s also upsetting because “bi-lesbian” implies that some lesbians could still be open to men, and we already face so much lesbophobic pressure to create space for men in our identity/attraction because “you never know, you might feel attracted to a man someday! sexuality is always fluid y’know! maybe you’re not really a lesbian!” we get that pressure both from the outside world AND often from the rest of the LGBTQ+ community too. it’s really harmful and painful to deal with, especially for those of us who’ve had to deal with comphet and still do (aka meeeee)
putting the rest under a readmore cos this is getting long lol
I wish "bi lesbians” and their supporters would take that stuff into consideration...and I wish I saw more people caring in general about the lesbians who are hurting from this. 
we’re tired of having the worst assumed of us, of being treated as the “bad guys” by other communities every time we speak up about things that hurt us. statistically, we’re one of the smallest groups in the alphabet soup. we barely even have our own flag, and the creator of our most popular one right now is still facing hate, harassment and being unjustly accused of being a TERF/exclusionist/bigot. 
it feels like morale and pride are so low among us right now. we just want people to care about us, to be mindful of how we feel and what we go through as lesbians, to give us the same support and benefit-of-a-doubt that you so easily give to our other LGBTQ+ siblings. 
aaand now I’m just emotionally venting lol but TL;DR - I want to be fair to both sides of this topic, cos that’s the type of person I am. I want to stick up for my own community, but I also want to be inclusive to questioning/struggling people and a good ally to my bi sisters. so help me figure all this out. how do y’all feel about what I’ve brought up here?
lesbians and bi women: how do you feel about the point that we’re already using “lesbian” as a roughly gay-equivalent umbrella term for the women we see in relationships with other women? why shouldn’t bi women use it that way too? if they shouldn’t, why aren’t we pushing harder for alternatives like “sapphic” to use in those cases and telling each other to stop when one of us uses “lesbian” or “lesbianism” incorrectly for unspecified wlw couples?
pro-bi-lesbian people: asking in genuine confusion here, how is using the term “bi lesbian” any better than using “bihet” or “bi straight”? how is it not feeding into the misconception that bisexuals are just “half-gay half-straight”? and why is it worth holding onto that label when a) “bisexual” is a mainstream term that, by definition, already has room to encompass your experience, b) other more specific words that mean the same/similar thing already exist for you (i.e. “sapphic”), and c) your term of choice hurts lesbians by undermining our definition of ourselves and adding to the cultural pressure we face to make room for hypothetical future men in our sexuality?
also I want to make it very clear that I’m NOT blaming “bi lesbians” for men feeling entitled to seduce/harass us, or insinuating that you contribute to rape culture or anything like that. predatory men will be predatory no matter what words we use, I fully acknowledge that. rather my concern is that anyone can put pressure on us (and all too often do) to make room for men in our orientation, including within the LGBTQ+ community, and “bi lesbian” as a term contributes to that type of lesbophobia.
please be nice, or at least civil, and talk to me. I want to listen and see if your opinions will help me find some clarity in my own. you’re free to message me or reblog this with your takes on these issues, but if you reblog, please focus on talking with me and don’t fight each other. I will delete this if things get ugly or out of hand.
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johns-prince · 5 years ago
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Ok so this is going to be a long post but I need someone to explain something to me. I'm a guy, I'm gay and recently I just started to get obsessed with The Beatles and John especially. Let's say I have a mad crush on the guy. I was pleased to hear thanks to some blogs like yours that he was an lgbtq ally, and there is a chance that the man of my life was also a bisexual ( strongly leaning on the male side if I read some of your blogs including yours ). But my adoration for the man has been ---
shattered since I've read on various Beatles forums that he was very homophobic and shit it hurts me to hear that. I know that he has beat up a guy for implying that he was gay, trashed a movie on homosexuality in front of everyone ( I think the movie was called Victim ), that he would openly mock his gay manager Brian Epstein ( bless him ), has called gay people nasty names during a 70s interview like AKOMP stated, that he made fun of a musician by kissing him then pushing him away and called - him a " faggot " and other incidents I can't think of right now. It just hurts a lot because I adore this man, I'm madly in love with him but I'm starting to believe that all this support for the our community had been nothing but a shtick for the " peace & love " propaganda he and Yoko started in the 70s. He also said in a interview w himself that " bisexuality is trendy " which makes me believe that I'm right. I am lost & disappointed & I'm turning to you guys to clarify all of this to me pls.
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Well first of all, hullo! I totally understand having a mad crush on John, as well as him being The Man of My Life. 
Yes, it’s true! The Beatles in general were very ahead of their time; none of them had any real issue with homosexuals, though perhaps a bit put off at times because of their upbringing and culture and all that, but they were supportive and never understood why these people were treated so poorly. They had a gay manager, it’d be weird for them to be homophobic while treating Brian like a parental figure, loved him and adored him [even if they did tease him a bit behind his back, or even in front of him-- they teased everyone, doesn’t mean they held any ill feelings towards Brian because he was gay] and being part of the music/artsy crowd, they all had gay/bisexual friends, open or not. 
I truly believe John was bisexual, and while he never outright stated it, I believe he would have eventually directly came out if he had not been killed. 
He was moreso testing the waters though, talking about that when he was 15 he thought he’d have to go and marry off some wealthy old woman or man to continue his passion for art/literature; frequented gay bars with Harry Nilsson, and while he claimed he did it to put off the press-- we know that what he did would have the opposite effect, the press would be constantly on watch, being that there was John Lennon going about gay bars! John could be a terrible liar; even during his Hamburg days, John was described as seeming at home in bars featuring drag queens, and was told he found it stupid how the ‘’culture’’ of gay individuals in industries like music or art, the “scenes” were championed, but the people in general were treated like shit; later on John says gay people are beautiful during an interview [in the 70s I believe]; he’s quoted saying that people should be able to love anyone, that it shouldn’t matter who someone loves; back to the Hamburg era, apparently John had been caught in a drag club/transvestite bar, you know, getting frisky with one by I guess the club runner? and he was all embarrassed of course, but the man didn’t judge him; John is described as someone who was always willing to experiment, after agreeing to a threesome with someone, again back in Germany, one female and another male [though the female was between them, not sure if anything happened between John and the other male]; yes I remember reading somewhere that John did kiss another male performer, before shoving him off and responded crudely; Yoko saying how she’d ‘’teasingly’’ call John a Closeted Fag; Yoko claiming John had told her he would have slept with a man, but he hadn’t found a man beautiful and intelligent enough for him to want to bed him [lies]; Yoko claiming that John had thought about having an affair with Paul; there’s rumors about John and David Bowie; that John had let Brian jerk him off and touch him during their trip to Spain [how John claims it wasn’t fully consummated, that is, no intercourse]; John in an interview saying how he hasn’t slept with a man-- but who knows? Life begins at 40!; John saying how Yoko reminded him of a bloke in drag, and how she was basically like a best mate, but it was easier because with her he could fuck her and love her in public; how he was found holding Brian’s hand by George and Pattie and someone else, and made it a note to showcase his holding of Brian’s hand, because being homosexual was still illegal then-- and there was John, trying to show that “yeah it’s okay.”; and there’s probably much more stories about John when it came to his sexual leaning towards men, though most have probably died with close friends and lovers.
Now, I think what happens is that these people forget the context surrounding John’s life; he wasn’t born in today’s world, he was born in the 40s and raised in the 50s-- being homosexual was illegal, and taught as something shameful, wrong, sick. Even though the boys were relatively very open and ahead of their time, they still grew up in all that, and so of course they still had ignorance and “fear” of homosexuality, of being anything but the expected standard of masculinity. 
John wasn’t the only one who mocked or teased Brian about being gay-- the other boys did it too, though moreso behind his back. John only did this when he was in a very sour mood though, as he did with anyone, he’d hone in on what was considered a sore spot, or weakness of theirs, and jab at it. He’d never mean anything by it though, and would often go talk to them afterwards an try to explain that-- his roundabout way of “apologizing,” that he never meant it, he was only joking, and he might hug them. No one was really safe from John’s sharp tongue when he got into those low points, aggressive and biting. John loved Brian, absolutely did, Brian was a very important paternal figure in John’s life as John never had a good one. When Brian died it devastated all of them, especially John, because again he had lost a very close male friend, too soon or too young, they’d always leave him. John loved Brian, and if anyone tries to tell you otherwise, they’re either lying or ignorant themselves. 
Now, I think it was actually pretty important for John to tell that story about beating up Bob Wooler, and be as honest as he could about the whole thing, and owned up to his rather intolerant reaction to someone suggesting John was “a queer,” essentially [this was indeed after going off with Brian to Spain, so really everyone had been making sly comments– but that time around, John was drunk, and Drunk John is not at all sensible or cool]
“Bob had been insinuating that me and Brian had had an affair in Spain. And I must have been frightened of the fag in me to get so angry. I was out of my mind with drink - you know, when you get down to the point where you want to drink out of all the empty glasses; that drunk. And Bob was saying, ‘Come on, John, tell me about you and Brian - we all know.’ You know when you’re twenty-one, you want to be a man - if somebody had said it now I wouldn’t give a shit, but I was beating the shit out of him, hitting him with a big stick, and for the first time I thought, ‘I can kill this guy.’ I just saw it, like on a screen: if I hit him once more, that’;s going to be it. I really got shocked. That’s when I gave up violence, because all my life I’d been like that.”
- John Lennon, 1972 Anthology [x]
I think it says a lot, you know, John claiming he was afraid of the fag in him-- I mean, wouldn’t that mean that John knew a part of him was queer then? I think this was part of John confessing, though again, barely anyone caught onto it around that time. This is where I think John was projecting, and most of the ‘’homophobic’’ behavior he showcased was simply a product of internalized homophobia/biphobia. 
Also apparently John was INCREDIBLY, horribly remorseful and ashamed of what he had done to Bob-- I think he had gone to him and tried to apologize and show how sorry he was, how ashamed. 
I haven’t heard anything about John trashing the movie because of it being homosexual, so I can’t say much about that. 
So yeah, my conclusion is that a lot of what John did or said was a product of not only his upbringing/society and of internalized homophobia/biphobia. 
John grew up as a musician and individual in the “gay” scene, had many gay and bisexual friends from the industry, seemed to adore and love drag queens, was close friends with Elton Jon, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, loved and truly did look up to his manager Brian Epstein, thought it stupid gay people were treated like shite despite their contributions to the culture they all loved, thought Elvis was beautiful and was often caught commenting about it by friends, was always willing to “experiment,” his wife thought he was a bit of a closeted fag, that he would have slept with a man though he had never found one that met his expectations [liar], how his first love was Paul, that he fell for Paul’s looks like everyone else, thought Paul was the prettiest, Yoko claiming John had contemplated having an affair with Paul-- like, the list goes on. 
His support and acceptance of LGBT individuals was there long before Yoko-- so I wouldn’t really put the two in the same area, that being, yeah the whole political-era and “Peace and Love,” was brainwashing and influenced by Yoko, but not his beliefs towards the LGBT. 
Also, bisexual was seen as ‘’trendy’’ as, you see, bisexuality was actually considered a bit of a “new” thing; you were either gay or straight, even if you loved both men and women, you were considered a queer. I think that also messed with John’s already confused and frustrated view of his sexuality. And before that, it was considered a Bohemian Lifestyle-- try everything, sleep with men and women. 
I think if anything, John was possibility irritated with the fact bisexuality was considered a trend. 
I dunno, I try to remember the period and cultural context when talking about John, or anyone really, because it’s not very fair to judge them based on today’s culture and societal acceptance. It’s easy for us to judge them, not to try and understand them.
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king-of-the-issues · 5 years ago
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🏳️‍🌈Happy pride everyone 🏳️‍🌈
I thought I’d make a ‘little’ (sorry, it’s going to be a long one and it’s going to be a bit of a mess) post about my own story and journey within the LGBTQIA+ community. Hopefully it can help educate some, maybe others will be able to relate, or you’ll just find out a little more about me.
I grew up in a fairly liberal family and area - although the area was technically conservative until very recently, I’ve been lucky enough to not have known anyone majorly homophobic or discriminatory (my grandad is a little stuck in his ways though). I’ve always been told that being ‘different’ is good and normal and there’s nothing wrong with liking someone of the same gender. Although we were never really taught anything about same-sex relationships and being the late 00s, sex education was very heteronormative. We were never told that being gay was wrong and we knew of gay teachers in the school and kids with two mums or two dads and it was never really a big thing.
I first started questioning my sexuality in my early teens, I wasn’t very ‘girly’ and I didn’t really have any crushes on boys at school. So I figured I must be gay, or at least bi. Looking back at this I can see that although I thought I was well educated, I was not. And though I may have been right in the long run, my justification and understanding of why it was so was definitely built on a lot of gender stereotypes and I wasn’t fully aware of what it meant to be gay or what my true feelings were. But I still wasn’t sure, so I just assumed that I was straight, I’d never had feelings for a girl, so why would I be gay?
I finally started to better educate myself when I joined tumblr in 2013 as a ‘Wholock’ fan blog. I started following other fan accounts who just happened to be part of the LGBTQ+ community and so would post things about themselves and their community. Through this I definitely learnt a lot more about sexuality. There wasn’t just an L,G and B, but there was a P and an A and a Q and so much more. I started watching more LGBTQ+ you tubers, tv and movies and educating myself further.
At this point I was doing my GCSEs (16 years old), I’d never been in a relationship hetero or otherwise. I hadn’t even had my first kiss and I still hadn’t really had any crushes. A boy hadn’t paid any attention to me in anything other than a platonic way in about 4 years. Some of my friends were in relationships and getting male attention, so I was still thinking, was there something wrong with me? If I’m not gay, do people think I’m gay and that’s why they don’t pay me any attention? So I started dressing more feminine and wearing more makeup in the hope that something would change. It didn’t.
When I started Sixth form in 2014 (17) I saw a film in the cinema that truly opened my eyes and I think I can say that seeing that film was the turning point and the moment I started to educate and question myself further. That film was ‘Pride’, the true story of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners. Something about this film really got me, like many other films and tv shows I fell in live with the movie and it’s characters. Only this time they weren’t just characters, they were real people, who played a huge part in LGBTQ+ history. So I learnt more about these people and their stories. I posted about it a lot on tumblr and found other lovers of the film and they taught me more about their lives. This film was also my first major introduction to pride, London Pride in particular. I had missed the parade that year, but was hoping to attend the next year. This was also the year that same-sex marriage was legalised in England and Wales. There was a lot of things in the news and on tv about the history and struggle of the LGBTQ+ community, including ‘Our Gay Wedding the Musical’. As a lover of musicals, I wasn’t going to miss this, but not only was it an excellent musical, but I learnt so much more about the history and ‘legal side’ of being part of the LGBTQ+ community. It also introduced me to a lot of LGBTQ+ musical artists, personalities and songs.
In both AS and A2 Level art, I completed projects focused on sexuality and gender identity. I explored a range of artists, historical figures and other influential people within the LGBTQ+ community. I was able to better understand the many different identities that existed and the work that has been made to get where we are now as well as questioning my own identity.
For A Levels I had picked Art as one of my subjects. I have always loved art and at this point it was the direction I was planning on taking my life and career. I was still very much continuing to educate myself about the LGBTQ+ community and was discovering LGBTQ+ art and artists. This was also the time that Grayson Perry’s second tv series ‘Who are you?’ was airing, which looked at various aspects that affect a person, including gender and sexuality. With Grayson discussing his own relationship with gender and sexuality. At this point in time, A Levels were all split into ASs (year 12) and A2s (year 13). Which at the end of both would be an exam in all the subjects you took (4 for AS, 3 for A2). In art we were given a selection of titles and had to pick one to work from. From this we would have to create research pieces and supporting work, leading up to a final piece, which we would complete in a 5 hour exam. At this point I had been looking for a way to represent the LGBTQ+ community in my work and when ‘Community’ was given as one of the possible exam titles, I knew what I was doing.
I began with studies of people I had learnt about through general media, Pride and Our Gay Wedding the Musical. On a side note, this was when I developed my love for graphite portraits, my first of which was of Nathan Taylor and Benjamin Till the couple who both created and were married in OGWtM. I continued my general research into artists and styles, when one of my teachers introduced me to the work of Paul Harfleet. Paul created the Pansy Project, where he would plant a pansy (historically a derogative term for a gay man) in a location of homophobic abuse (verbal or physical). He would also edit photos to put Pansy’s into the mouths of famous people who were homophobic or used homophobic language. I used this idea as my inspiration and my final exam piece featured well known people who have used such language or hold such views, with handmade pansies in their mouths, with Oscar Wilde in the middle, who was imprisoned for being gay, holding a bunch of pansies as if he’d put them there. My research for this piece had introduced me further to the political movements, fights and protests, the work that had been made and was still being made to help people just simply live their lives as themselves. When I finished my AS Level, I was hoping to carry this theme onto my work in my A2s.
Because I was hoping to do this I decided that I now had to go to Pride as it would be a great opportunity to take reference photos. I intended to go with some friends, but they all bailed, so I ended up going with my mum. My mum has always been reasonably liberal, but she never really had the knowledge to educate myself and siblings on the different types of relationships, gender and sexuality. By going to Pride, it definitely opened her eyes and she has since become a huge advocate for equal rights for all and as a childcare provider is trying her best to educate the children she looks after and make her environment inclusive. I absolutely loved Pride and collected so many great photos and saw so many inspirational people. Including the cast of the Pride movie and originators of LGSM.
In A2 art, we were required to complete coursework that would feature various pieces and research that would accompany an illustrated essay. In order to continue my focus on the LGBTQ+ community, the title I created was ‘How has art reflected society’s attitudes towards sexuality and gender’. I continued to look at the work of Grayson Perry as well as the story of Lily Elbe. During Pride I had taken a picture of a drag queen dressed as the Queen and used this as a reference for a painting. From this I edited picture of well known people to be the opposite gender. Looking back at this, I do regret doing this, as well as other aspects of my following work. I feel that although my intention was to show gender as fluid and present some ‘what if..’ questions, I feel that the way I went about it could have been insensitive and seen as mocking those with gender dysphoria and identity issues. Continuing from my queen portrait I decided to look specifically at the royal family and at monarchs and members of the family throughout history who are believed to be part of the LGBTQ+ community and how that has been ‘covered up’ or ignored. I also looked at drag artists and how the royal family who, though are typically seen as being very conservative and modest, have in fact historically been very flamboyant in the way they dress and present themselves, with the line between feminine and masculine clothing once being very thin. Again, although my intentions were good and the questions I was presenting were important, I don’t feel I went about it the right way. Although I did try to justify it at the time, I feel I shouldn’t have been presenting these people who may or may not have been LGBTQ+ as so, especially when suggesting that some monarchs who may have cross-dressed, could have in fact been transgender.
Aside from the artistic side my research greater deepened my understanding of the range and fluidity of gender and sexuality. Including gender non-conformation, gender-fluidity, gender-queer, demisexuality, polysexuality and being queer. At this point I was still confused about my own sexuality, but would tell people that I was just a straight ally. I remember being asked by both a classmate and university interviewer whether I identified myself as within the LGBTQ+ community and both times I answered no. Looking back, I wish I had said that I wasn’t sure, that I was confused. Because it is okay to not be sure and be confused, no matter your age.
After leaving school I was starting to look more at asexuality and wonder if I was on the ace spectrum. I didn’t think I was 100% asexual because I do want to be in a relationship, but maybe I just haven’t had the opportunity to explore that yet. I have been subscribed to Evan Edinger for about 5 years now and he has spoken openly about his own experiences and as someone who is on the asexual spectrum, specifically being demisexual. I started to consider that I could maybe be demisexual and watched more of Evan’s videos as well as reading about others who identified as demi. I felt comfortable with this label, it felt like it answered a lot of questions and gave an explanation for why I hadn’t experienced crushes like my friends for many years.
I then began to realise that if I was to imagine myself in a relationships, it could be with a guy or a girl, it didn’t really matter and maybe I was bisexual, or at least biromantic. This was something that I had considered in the past but I was only just accepting as a true part of myself.
I was able to go to my second London Pride in 2019, this time with my mum, sister and a couple of friends. We had a great time and I met and spoke to some incredible people. This further made me consider my sexuality and made me feel even more comfortable.
So, on New Year’s Eve of that year I came out as demi and bi to my friends, who were all very accepting and supportive. I am yet to come out to my family and I don’t really intend to, not because I’m ashamed or I don’t think they’d be supportive, in fact quite the opposite. Since going to pride, my mum has been very vocal in her support of the LGBTQ+ community and I feel that if I were to come out to her, she would make quite a big deal out of it, which as someone with anxiety who likes to live a reasonably quiet life, I don’t really want. I also never really talk to my family about my ‘love life’ and relationships, existent or not, so I don’t really feel the need to tell them this. If I was in a relationship with a girl, then yes we’d probably talk about it, but until them, I don’t intend on telling them.
Although I have come out, I still wouldn’t say that I am 100% sure my exact labels, but I think that’s okay. If I am asked I normally say that I am Queer as I find it sums up that I don’t identify as heterosexual without going into too much detail.
I think the main thing to take from my story is, it’s okay to not be sure about your identity. There is no age that you should have had your first kiss etc by. You do what is right to for you, maybe you’ll have the answer soon, maybe it’ll be a while, but that’s okay.
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star-anise · 6 years ago
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T1J -  How Patience with People Makes the World Better
Summary: “People don't get "woke" overnight. Sometimes we have to be patient and help them get there.“
Transcript below:
Text on screen: Whenever you actually put together something that works, it’s always complicated. It’s always messy… it’s never what the little Twitter crowd is talking about.”  -Van Jones 
Sometimes it's hard to comprehend other people's ideas. We just can't imagine how and why some people believe the things they do. The correct view is so obvious to us and we either assume that people are just lost and will never change their mind or that we can somehow change their mind and convince them to do a complete mental 180. Both of these are possible, but neither really reflect how most people actually are people are. People are usually hesitant to flat-out admit that they were wrong but we can add nuance to someone's view by offering a different perspective. The problem is that we sometimes think people should naturally understand things in the same way that we do so, we're confused when they aren't very receptive to our ideas. If you're trying to teach your old racist grandma who grew up during Jim Crow about racial microaggressions, it's likely that she's not going to be eye to eye with you. (sarcastically:) Get it together grandma! 
It's possible that it's a lost cause, but maybe you can find an alternate route towards getting her to understand. The fact of the matter is sometimes you have to meet people where they are rather than demanding that they catch up to you. 
Hi, I'm T1J.
Speaking very generally, there are at least two types of social justice advocates on the internet. There are people who work with others to discuss effective solutions to the problems that society faces. And on the other hand there are people who don't seem to be really interested in actually solving problems, and just kind of want to express their frustration and call people out. Now in many ways that frustration is valid and justifiable, but in my opinion you shouldn't expect angry confrontation to lead to very much actual progress. But if you're just here to just sort of yell at people then carry on I guess. But this video isn't really for you. This video is for that first group: people that actually want to find solutions to both societal and personal conflicts. 
I think a lot of us have this delusion that we're gonna convince other people to just suddenly wake up, like they're gonna have a light switch flipped in their brain overnight and come to realize that we were right all along, and then they'll join us on the frontline marching for freedom. And then we have this principled stubbornness where it's like, “Well, if they can't understand that they're wrong then fuck ‘em, the people who are right will win in the end anyway, they'll just have to be on the wrong side of history.”­ And it's true that some people have no interest in being informed or expanding their perspective but it's also true that some people just haven't been engaged properly. And I believe that the world seems to slowly get more progressive over time, but I feel like proper advocacy involves doing our best to make our world a little bit better for this generation, not just future ones, and that's got to involve getting out there and touching people's hearts and minds. But everybody is on a different step in their journey towards enlightenment. Some people need just a little nudge in the right direction while others probably need to be tossed a larger bone. 
I'll toss YOU a larger bone. Sorry, I couldn't resist.
So for example a thing that you often hear is you should respect women because that woman is someone's mother or daughter or wife, etc and this is kind of obnoxious because it's like you should respect women because in addition to being wives and daughters and mothers they're also people and they don't deserve to be mistreated. Like, you shouldn't have to invoke familial relationship to a woman in order to understand why you shouldn't be shitty to them. And that is 100% true but if the goal is getting people to appreciate and respect women and an effective context in which we can convince people to do that is reminding them of their relationships with the women in their own family, I feel like you should take the small victory. Not everyone is going to gain a sophisticated insight overnight. Sometimes we have to let people use training wheels until they catch up and if we create this culture where anything less than perfection causes you to be dismissed and dragged regardless of your intentions, that just seems to be a very good way to alienate potential allies. Which, if your goal is progress is not what you want to be doing. 
A couple months ago there was a viral video on Twitter of this guy who was protesting outside of a Roy Moore rally. By the way, shoutout to my home state of Alabama for not electing that creepy douchebag. But anyway this guy was protesting Roy Moore's homophobic remarks in honor of his gay daughter who had committed suicide. In the video he implies that at one point he didn't accept his daughter's homosexuality. (Man in video:) “I was anti-gay myself. I said bad things to my daughter myself, which I regret.” The video is very moving, in my opinion, and I'm kind of even getting emotional thinking about it, and it got a very positive response. But I did see a bunch of comments talking about how shitty it is that a gay person had to die before they were recognized as legitimate, and I mean, that's a fair point, but first of all: this is a grieving father, like back up for a minute. Secondly this guy has probably lived his whole life in a homophobic environment and it took something tragic to get him to reconsider his views. It's terrible that he had to go through that but he's on the verge of a breakthrough. This is not the time to antagonize him. 
He's probably not going to be marching with rainbow flags anytime soon but he can share his story with his community and help bridge the gap. He could tell his friends to chill out when they're using homophobic slurs or making shitty jokes. He could be a friend to closeted people down at the farm in Wicksburg, Alabama. I don't know if he's gonna do any of these things; I'm just saying he's less likely to if we immediately dogpile him for not being woke enough. 
So here's my thing: I understand that a lot of this is just wacky people on social media being mean just for the sake of doing it. One of the biggest lessons that I've learned is that Twitter doesn't necessarily reflect the actual state of our society and our movement in reality. But I do think that there's a notable segment of activists both on and offline who claim to want progress and change, but seem to be more concerned with dismissing people they deemed to be not on their level than they are with actually trying to help people get there. And like I said, if that's what you want to do, I think that's unfortunate but it's not really my place to tell you not to. I just don't think it does anything. In fact, it's probably actively harmful to the movement. 
And again, some people clearly have no intention of engaging ideas in good faith or considering the possibility that they might be wrong about something, and it's actually important for us to develop the ability to identify when that's happening so we don't waste time arguing with brick walls. The willingness to open ourselves to new ideas is a step that we all have to take on our own. No one can force us to do that. But at the same time we can help people find their way to that door if we're a little more patient and take the time to meet them where they are in their path towards understanding.
Das jus me doe. What do you think? 
Thank you for watching my video. I'm currently selling these Das Just Me Doe wristbands to help me raise money to buy a new computer so that I can edit videos without my old computer almost blowing up. If you'd like to check them out head on over to the the1janitor.com/wristband and I thank you for your support.
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hipsofsteel · 5 years ago
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bro you gotta tell me more about chris
Gladly! The dad man is important to me. And so, we meet…
Christopher “Chris” Lewis Joseph, personification of Eastern Oregon/Nyo!Oregon
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Credit to crikadelic, who will not be tagged in this post for reasons.
Physical Description
At 5′10, with dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and a slightly olive skin tone, Chris is a very good looking man. He’s got well trimmed facial hair that can be a bit scruffy and thin, but he maintains it well. He’s well muscled from his work as a cattle rancher, and general farmwork. He is half Nez Perce (Nimiipuu) and half English, born in the area of present day Joseph, Oregon in 1806, and celebrates his birthday on February 14th.
Chris’s face claim is model Julian Schratter. He has no voice claims at the moment.
Personality
Christopher and Beverly were cut from the same cloth in some respects. Controlling either of them is nearly impossible. He’s a force of nature when he wants to be, stubborn and insistent and nearly impossible to be forced to do something he refuses to do. He’s as free-spirited and wild as he wants to be.
At the same time, he shows a remarkable degree of caution and thoughtful behavior that his twin sister tends to lack. If not caught in an urgent situation or in his own whirlwind of passions, he approaches things with well-thought out responses and is a calm and collected and highly intelligent man. He’s a great person to go to for advice.
He’s also very attached to those he forms close relationships with, either as family or friends. He’ll always have his twin sister’s back, and anyone who finds themselves in the position of being “adopted” as his child has just gained an ally and parental figure who will love them and defend them endlessly. Although, dispute it as he does, he does have a favorite child (Adam).
Sexuality and Gender
Behold, the one and only heterosexual cisgender OC I’ve made for my States. Chris is an incredible ally however, who openly supports all his friends and family.
Also, his type of women is as follows, so I promise you can trust him.
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And he means it.
Religion
Chris has a personally styled fusion between Christianity and the indigenous religions he was raised around on the Columbian Plateau. He is not really big on explaining his faith as it’s a deeply personal and conflicting matter even for himself, so I don’t have much more to say than that for him. However, one of his two most irreplaceable objects he owns is a copy of Henry Harmon Spalding’s translation of the Book of Matthew into Nez Perce. Take from that what you will.
Employment
Chris has previously made his living as a farmer and for a brief while as a blacksmith, but nowadays, he owns a cattle range and is a full-time rancher, with a large range area in Central/Eastern Oregon. He also raises horses on the side, both as a secondary income and to continue traditions of horse breeding he was raised in with the Nez Perce.
Pets
I’ll try to keep this brief, but Chris has seven animals he considers close pets/his long lifespan has affected theirs, so I’ll divide it into sections.
Dogs
Zip and Lucky
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Zip is Chris’s working dog, a purebred blue heeler who knows how to move a cow herd as well as he knows that when Chris puts on dark and clean pants, he’s leaving the house for meetings (sadness) and when he puts on less nice “farm” pants, they’re working stock that day (happiness!)
Lucky is based on Rincon, the dog owned by Chris’s faceclaim. Lucky is a beloved pet mutt and gets to come with Chris and Zip to work cattle, although his main job is to sit and stay since he has zero Cow Sense.
Horses
Jackrabbit, Strawberry, Juniper, and Celilo
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Is Chris a dog or cat person? Neither, he’s a horse person (followed by dogs).
Jackrabbit is Chris’s horse he’s had the longest, serving as Chris’s warhorse during his youth. He’s one of the fastest horses any of the western states own, and he’s very selective about who’s allowed to ride him (Christopher, Beverly, Adam, and Helen are the only people who can). He’s a wild tempered buckskin Nez Perce Horse stallion.
Strawberry is a red roan Appaloosa that Chris has had nearly as long as he’s had Jackrabbit. She’s a gentle mare and very good with people.
Juniper is a Kiger Mustang mare, slightly more testy than Strawberry, and more prone to being spooked, but she’s a good horse.
Celilo is a palomino American Quarter Horse gelding, bought to be a reliable pack-horse for Chris. He’s as gentle as Strawberry and loves people.
Jackrabbits
Little Lady or “Lady”
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Once upon a time, Chris and Juniper accidentally spooked a mother jackrabbit into the claws of a hawk, and then nearly immediately found her babies. Chris raised the three kits and released them into the wild shortly afterwards, but Lady stuck around his house. She appears pretty reliably every year, and seems to have been affected by his long lifespan, so he gave her a name and treats her a bit more like a pet than anything else.
He loves to joke that Jackrabbit met an actual jackrabbit, and everyone around him glares at him.
Relationships with other States
Family first
Western Oregon/Oregon
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Credit to crikadelic again.
Sometimes, your twin sister is a lumberjack lesbian (quite literally on both counts) with arms made of steel and one hell of a right hook. Also she’s way more liberal than you, and politically you get dragged along with whatever she wants.
Ironically, once upon a time, Beverly wasn’t the main personification of the Oregon Territory. It wasn’t until American settlement picked up that the power of the state swung to her. Before then, Christopher held most of the power, but this was also when the Oregon Territory including all of Washington, Idaho, parts of Montana and Wyoming, and since Chris was entirely east of the Cascades, well, it made sense that he held the upper hand. Only later as the size of the land they represented shrank did power trade hands.
As independent as Beverly is, and as willing to tell her twin to fuck off, they have a very close relationship. They tell each other off, and sparks fly between them quite often, with Beverly usually being the one to storm off while Chris remains a wall of a human being. But they’ll quietly make up out of sight later, and then be right back to joking around and teasing each other.
And when it comes to advice, Beverly has no closer confidant than her twin, and often shows him the vulnerability that no one else sees. They trust each other implicitly, knowing that despite their differences, they won’t lead the other astray. No one could ask for a better twin sister.
Eastern Washington/Nyo!Washington
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Credit to ME! 
First off, he’s the one on the right, the one on the left is Idaho (we’ll get to him in a bit).
Adam Landes-Bush is the original cause of a radiation of dad energy that seeps from Christopher at pretty much every moment of every day. After retrieving Adam from the Whitman Mission shortly after the Whitman Massacre, Chris basically said “My weird looking white kid now” and ran with it.
He and Adam had to learn to live together fast with help from Helen, as Adam is mute, and Helen taught them both Plains Sign Talk. But Chris adored Adam and taught him how to shoot, hunt, ride, and accepted his limitations when he hit them. He did his best to give Adam a good life, even when it meant sending him away from impending war to live with Martha, who he barely knew then.
They remain close, sharing more culturally with each other and Idaho than they sometimes do with the western halves of their states. Chris was the first person Adam came out to, and the fact that Chris instantly accepted allowed him to embrace his identity as a gay man in a time that it was socially, at best, simply not talked about. Chris would and has killed to protect this boy, and would gladly do so again.
Western Washington/Washington
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Credit to crikadelic
Martha, Adam’s younger sister, views Christopher as a father figure, and so, in turn, he’s a little nicer to her than he is to Beverly sometimes.
Christopher and Martha met at a crossroads in both their lives. Christopher had been involved in the Nez Perce War and come home feeling lost and alone. Beverly had taken off around the same time to run wild in the Southwest, leaving a still very young Martha to fend for herself and Clark, and now Adam. Martha was struggling to handle the load, and Christopher needed to find his place in this unfamiliar world, and fast.
They were able to cooperate quickly, Chris taking on the workload of the farm and helping with Clark, allowing Martha and Adam to start growing and learning the responsibilities they needed to run a state. And in exchange, Martha taught Chris how to read and write English, and helped him improve his skills in speaking the language. 
To this day, they haven’t forgotten this point in their lives, and tend to critique each other much more carefully than they critique the other halves of their states.
End of Family, onto other states
Idaho
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Credit to crikadelic
Ah, Clark Ashley, who exists in the most interesting little place in Chris’s mind. He’s friends with this guy, almost a father figure, hell, helped raise the little twerp. At the same time, he’s made Adam cry before, so he could also wring his neck. 
Clark and Chris have a very good and amiable relationship in general, and enjoy the other’s company. Clark admires Chris a lot, and Chris views him like a much younger version of Beverly, carrying many of her same qualities of extreme stubbornness and rampant emotions, as much as Clark will say he’s nothing like her.
However, the root of Chris’s constant problems with Clark relies mainly on one fact. Clark’s internalized homophobia at himself that affects his and Adam’s relationship, which has swayed from deeply involved romance to barely tolerating being in the same room. When Clark and Adam get into spats with their push me, pull you, almost a relationship, Chris gets caught in the middle, and always takes Adam’s side in the fight. He’s tried to even discourage them from pursuing each other at times to end the constant back and forth, but it’s never worked.
However, as Clark’s started to accept himself in the 21st century, Chris has been the one person who’s been able to reassure him that , yes, for some crazy reason, Adam still likes you, and Chris thinks that this time, for real, Clark is unlearning the toxic culture he absorbed. So, he wishes that crazy kid lots of luck.
Southern California/California
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Credit to crikadelic
To say Roberto and Christopher are antagonistic would be the nicest��way of putting it. Despite pretty much being of equal levels of importance to Beverly in her family, they cannot tolerate each other.
Roberto blamed Christopher for some of the worst of Beverly’s behaviors in the 1870s and 1880s, and Christopher blamed Roberto for stifling Beverly so much that she hadn’t been able to emotionally mature. Both arguments had some validity, and yet, a divide in opinions had begun.
Nowadays, Chris and Roberto are mainly antagonistic on pure principle. Chris represents a part of Oregon that is noticeably more red, and Roberto represents 55 blue electoral college votes. Chris has been considerably affected by Californication (large real estate development projects generally seen as similar to those in California), and Roberto sees him as very set in the past and unable to move forward.
Let’s just say Beverly has to work out the holiday seating arrangements very carefully.
Montana
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Credit to crikadelic
Helen Rankin has been a friend since Chris met her when the Nez Perce went to trade with the Crow. She taught him sign, became an unofficial mother figure to Adam, and, much later on, officially involved with Christopher himself (they dated from 1898 to 1927).
They’re close friends and allies still. Helen’s as strong as a mountain in more ways than one, and one of the few people who can sway Chris when he’s a storm of emotions. She can be just as stubborn as him, and yet he admires her just as she is, and she feels the same about him. She’s saved his ass so many times, and he’s saved hers a few himself. If they needed the other there, they’d be there in a heartbeat.
They also additionally have an “unofficial” daughter to accompany their unofficial son in Adam. I’ve been developing a Missoula, Montana OC (Mariah Welch), and she’s been heavily influenced by Chris over the years, and is about as damn close to him as Adam. 
A quick note
Before I move on to my next section, I have been tinkering with my canon in the last several months, after a friend who had allowed me to entwine my Statetalia canon very heavily with theirs ghosted me, and this has affected this character significantly.
Christopher had been involved with their Nyo!Texas in the modern day, with Helen as his best friend. However, no longer comfortable with using this person’s OCs, I have yet to decide if Chris and Helen have, in the last few years, rekindled their relationship, or if my own Texas OC, who is a woman and in the earliest stages of development, is in a romantic relationship with him. This is going to take a long while to decide for personal reasons, and I’m okay with that.
Other States-Brief Thoughts
Northern California/Nyo!California- Inexplicably, he likes Alejandra way more than Roberto. Probably because of their little side project for the independent state of Jefferson.
Kansas- Nowhere near as antagonistic as Beverly and Evelyn’s relationship. He will agree with Evelyn to a certain point, but then he has to start defending his sister. Anyhow, she’s cute.
Nebraska- Logan’s a decent guy to have a drink with, definitely would have been a good guy for Adam if Adam hadn’t been so focused on Clark. IF he and Helen don’t end up getting back together in canon, he’s lowkey pushing for Helen and Logan to get together.
New York- Literally irrelevant to him, why are you asking for an opinion on that jackass?
Texas- Absolutely one amazing, ass-kicking woman, with the gift of aim from the gods, a smoking hot body, and God, she could step on him frankly. (I reiterate, my Texas OC is in development and this is subject to change).
RANDOM FACTS
-Sniper man! Christopher has served as a sniper for several wars. The Nez Perce were noted marksmen during the Nez Perce War, and one of the US’s most noted snipers was from Eastern Oregon. 
-Additionally, Christopher has always served in the US Marine Corps when he’s been fighting for the US.
-He originally was given the same last name as Beverly, Joseph-Astor. He dropped Astor following the Nez Perce War as an act of protest.
-Chris has two “paired” names from when I created his character. Beverly’s middle name is Columbia, so Christopher and Columbia, after Christopher Columbus (something neither of them is very thrilled about nowadays), and his middle name of Lewis pairs with Idaho’s first name, Clark, in honor of that famous expedition.
-Has a knife that was from Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery as a trading item. It’s his second most irreplaceable object.
-Speaks Nez Perce (Niimi'ipuutímt), Chinook Jargon, Crow, Plains Sign Talk, ASL, Russian, German, Spanish, Basque, and English. 
-Has the most currently established tattoos out of any of my OCs.
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3500things · 5 years ago
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national coming out day 2019
originally posted 10.11.2019 on my personal facebook page
To everyone:
National Coming Out Day is today, Friday October 11, 2019.
And I know this post is late. I realize it is after midnight on the east coast so technically it isn’t National Coming Out Day anymore, but something happened tonight that was monumental- and I didn’t get to finish my initial thought while writing earlier. Keep reading, please:
I am excited to celebrate in my first National Coming Out Day, in 2019, as an officially-out member of the gay community. However, today has been very emotional as it causes me to pause for a moment and reflect on my own journey and how I arrived here. As I am reading articles and newsfeeds on the internet today and seeing people compelled in the acceptance and encouragement of this day, to come out, I must say I have very pointed and mixed emotions.
I have mentioned and identified myself as a gay man in a few blogs that I have written recently (that I am sure nobody reads), however, this is really the first time I have publicly acknowledged it as a whole on Facebook- other than to those who I have directly come out to. I have taken pleasure in promoting myself as an ally for a few years now, but I am tired of hiding behind that identity and am ready to step out into the light and live a full, unfiltered and authentic life.
I have known I was different for a long time. I felt feelings as a young child that I simply did not understand, and those feelings did not go away- they never have and only intensified over time. I was raised in an extremely conservative-Christian household, taught that being gay was an immoral and unnatural thing, I got the hellfire and brimstone speech and I was encouraged and forced to speak hate towards things that were supposedly against God. And I did those things. And I hurt people. And I never wanted to do them. But, I always knew that I was what I was forced to speak out about.
I became extremely depressed and suicidal in my teenage years. I tucked away my true self and I damaged myself mentally and physically with the rhetoric I was forced to digest. I never felt like I could be me, until now. In this moment. But getting to this point hasn’t been easy. It has been countless therapy sessions, panic attacks, many nights crying myself to sleep and length of time to get me to finally accept myself and allow myself to explore with the God-given (yes, God-given) gift that being gay has ultimately brought me.
Let’s talk about God for just a quick moment. Know that I am a spiritual person but there is no religion here. Not a drop.
You can throw Genesis 19, Leviticus 18 & 20, Romans 1:18-32, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:8-10 at me all day. The Bible says what it says, but it does not mean anything to me personally. The Bible was a manuscript that was written for an ancient time, in an ancient time and does not take into consideration the advancements in human thought and condition over the many years since its inception. The Bible should not be a standard to compare, govern nor should it be used as a tool ultimately control how people live nowadays. Without discrediting the text itself, I do believe there are great life-lessons to be learned from the Bible about love and how to conduct yourself in a more upright way. However, I believe that taking the current Christian argument to the case of homosexuality is the wrong thing to do. And I will vehemently disagree with anyone who does this. It is damaging. It is hurtful and it adds no real value to anything.
Contrary to what religious types will argue, being gay is not wrong. It is not ungodly; it is not a sin and gay people will not go to Hell- even if there is such a place. Being gay is way more than a physical thing. It is an emotional intelligence, it is the idea of love, acceptance and tolerance that comes with a huge responsibility. Being gay is not defined by who you love or choose to be intimate with or enter into marriage with. It is not a choice; it is a reality, a truth, a tangible thing. It is also a greater expansion of oneself, ones spirit and your ability to express love and accept love.
Saying that I was a repressed gay man until the age of 34 is the understatement of the year. I wanted so desperately to explore my sexuality in high school, when at age 16 I decided that I had struggled long enough with trying to figure out what being gay meant and finally internally accepted that I was.
However, I didn’t have the freedom to operate in or express my sexuality, as a teen in my household, at the time. I got bullied in school for not dating women, so I did, and I eventually married a woman. Several years in, while trying rather unsuccessfully at keeping the charade going and while being accused almost daily of being a closeted gay man- we divorced. I had to lie to my friends and family, I had to create a scenario where I was the good guy and she was the bad guy and she did all these things that contributed to the breakdown in our marriage. I wanted something that I felt like I couldn’t have at the time and I couldn’t be the partner she needed much less deserved. We are both better people apart than we ever were together and marrying her is the single biggest regret in my life.
As I’ve grown older and started to formulate my own opinions and ideas about things, I decided to distance myself from my faith and seek a journey of my own understanding. Part of that journey was finally resolving in this year to come out to friends and family.
I told everyone by the end of July, except my dad. I know his opinion of gay folks- he has made it clear. Nothing derogatory of course, but the ignorance to it shows through sometimes. I also know where he stands from a religious perspective- he has also made that clear. He has accepted my friends who are gay, he wants to meet my new friends who are RubiGirls, see a drag show and he wants to know things or ask things but is sometimes hesitant to do it.
I’ve been on an exposure-therapy campaign with him over the past several months. I put a pride flag in my bedroom, some drag queen paraphernalia went on display, I went to 2 Pride celebrations this year- one in Dayton and the other in Cincinnati. He knows what I’m doing is out of the ordinary for me because I’ve never done it before but have always wanted to and have been interested in it. I wanted to go to a Pride event for many years, but I just couldn’t do it. So, as I’ve slowly been exposing him to things and being a little more vocal about my standpoints and viewpoints on LGBTQIA+ issues in the news and culture, he has started to gather and form an opinion.
Today, I was reading a page on Facebook that stated it was a moderated safe space for individuals who were not out to talk and share their stories. What I read was heartbreaking; just the sheer ignorance of parents and things they say to their children just for being gay. I wanted to talk to dad about it, and I did. I told him some of the terrible things that happened to people- mostly issues between sons and fathers- and he expressed to me his disgust with families disowning children just for being gay. I understand and fully appreciate his comment of “…well, I don’t understand it totally, but I’d want my kid to be happy and healthy. There are bigger ‘crimes’ than being gay.”
This ultimately led into a 90+ minute conversation where I was able to tell him how I felt and my entire 16-year backstory. There is more to discuss between he and I, but my tone was measured and precise. The main thing I needed to say, in order to heal myself, be true to myself and allow myself to advance in my life were these 4 words: Dad, I am gay.
We talked and talked some more. He is not mad, a little confused (which is a normal response), and more reflective. He expressed to me that he wants me to be happy, healthy and to make wise decisions (typical dad advice). He also said he loves me and supports me, and always will, regardless of any decision I make – good or bad – in my life.
What a relief this is! On my first real National Coming Out Day I was able to finish writing the prologue of my story of becoming the person I always knew I could be. I am starting to write the chapters of my new life around all the garbage that is in the past. It’s a new day and I am ready to face it with the full support and love of my parents by my side. I truly am blessed and lucky to have this experience play out as it did. A lot of people do not get what I have, and I am very fortunate.
For those of you who need support in whatever journey you may be on, reach out to me if you feel comfortable in doing so. I’m a safe person to come out to. If you’re reading this and you have questions, contact me too. I’m an open book- ask away. If you’re reading this, and you have nothing positive or of value to say then move on.
Thanks for allowing me to share my life so unfiltered and express that vulnerability on the internet for all to consume. This goes a long way in my healing and with moving forward in my life. And, thank you to all of those who have supported me in the past several months as I have made declarations to you about my life. Your love and support mean the world to me and I can never thank you enough.
Love, Jacob
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pagodnapagod · 6 years ago
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My straight bestfriend
I know that a lot of straight people still hate gays, or just pretend to be LGBT allies, or straight out shit on the LGBT community for being who they are.
But I wanted to share this with some of you who lives in a homophobic environment like I do.
I'd always known I didn't like to be called a girl or a boy, but people as a child, people always told me that I'd grow out of it.
I was a female born a non-binary person, but I only like girls, some boys from my school tease me for being a lesbian, but I don't like being called a lesbian because that is a word for girls who likes girls, as I said I am a non-binary so I do not like being called either a girl or a boy (I can stand it but it makes me extremely uncomfortable)
A lot of the straight boys from my school sees being part of the LGBT community as a weakness, so they pick on ANYONE who is a part of the community, it doesn't help that some of the teachers here also think that being part of the LGBT community means you're worshipping satan or other worse things, and in some ways my bestfriend was the same.
We met when we were at 4th grade and until now (3rd year highschool) we stick together to the point where people who didn't know our last names would think we were twins.
He was kind of homophobic, he saw being gay as something to be frowned on, and some times, he also joined in on some kids who were teasing a boy who acted a bit feminine (when we were kids I asked him why he thought like this and he told me simply because his parents thought the same, and so he should think so too.) and I discovered I was into girls at 5th grade.
So I shut off a part of myself from him at the ending of 5th to 6th grade, but even as I distanced myself from him, he still made sure to ask me everyday if my day was going great, and if I was sick he'd pat my back and tell me to get better, that I can barell through that sickness like the boss I am, and by 1st year highschool I couldn't avoid him because we had the same classes, same schedule for the whole school year.
So he talked to me and I talked to him, and as time passed by I withdrew from him more and more, until one day he asked me with pain in his voice why I was avoiding him since 5th grade, was he starting to annoy me? Was I tired of his company? Or did I just not want to be seen around him anymore? (Because as I told you, I was born a girl, and as you know, apparently girls and boys can't have a relationship without it becoming some romantic bullshit)
So I told why, I cracked, because this guy was my bestfriend, we never kept anything from eachother, or atleast he never kept anything from me, but I kept a part of me from him, and so I told him how I felt, that I didn't like being called a girl OR a boy, how I liked girls, and how I was scared to tell this to anyone because of the fact that we were in a very homophobic environment. I said all this without looking at him, I busied myself with the pair project we were given, and after a few silent moments, I looked at him.
He had his fist out in front of me, I stared at it and at him again, he didn't hit me, he just raised an eyebrow at me when I stared back at him, and I realized he was waiting for me (Because we had a signature brofist, don't you dare tell me you and your bestfriend didn't have your own 😂) and so I lifted mine too.
After the signature brofist which ended in a bro handshake (google it that's what it's called apparently) he held that handshake in a grip, like the grip that you use when you are gonna promise something to someone? You know that grip?
He told me that I AM his bestfriend, He told me that I AM me, that not wanting to be called either a girl or a boy and liking girls didn't change the fact that I could drag anyone who pissed me off enough through the floor, that if he was the first person who I have ever told this to then he should honor that and keep that secret with me until I'm ready to tell the world.
From then on he stopped calling boys "gay" in a teasing way because I was part of the LGBT community. I asked him about this and told him "I'm neither gay nor lesbian so you don't have to worry about that" in order to test him I guess? And he told me "But you are part of the LGBT Community, it's the "LGBT community" for a reason, I can't and shouldn't just support ONE person, I should support ALL of you guys"
He would let me handle my own problems against the homophobes and the terfs (he'd let me talk them into their places) but you can bet your asses he's gonna be glaring them into their graves.
He gently corrects people who use my middle name (Which is super girly and it makes me uncomfortable) and he'd say "*My preffered name*'s prefferable" he wouldn't use "she" or "her" he finds a way to phrase the sentence without using pronouns, instead replacing them with my gender non conforming nickname so that my non-binaryness wouldn't be too obvious to the homophobes in our class.
He would wingman for me (by wingman I mean he'd help me talk to the girl I like because I'm too chickenshit to do it by myself) and he'd be ready for an excuse if I say something completely stupid 😂
He openly went against his parents's thoughts about homophobia positivity infront of their dinner table and his little brother, he told them that they shouldn't look down on the LGBT community, he told them that a lot of the LGBT people probably did more good that they (straights) did. When he was asked if he was gay, he looked them in the eyes and said "No, but they are humans, and you both said WE shouldn't look down on humans."
He, a straight ass man, defended my non-binary ass, from other asses 😂
So I'm sharing this with you guys, especially to those that lost faith in the straight people (I almost lost faith in them too) as a reminder, not all straight people are shitheads, yes a lot of them are, but not all of them.
If sometimes you would look at a straight person who says "I'm an ally" and you think that they're lying, please try giving them a chance.
Because right now, some straight people who are genuinely our allies are standing beside us without us knowing, and maybe they're being called fakes too just because they're straight. I don't want our straight allies to feel how we felt when our sexuality is "Fake" yes I know it may not be entirely the same, but it is on a level of being judged for sexuality.
Yes there are some idiots who PRETEND to be allies, and trust me you will know them when you see them (Because our radar has evolved to a level where we can tell real allies from fake ones 😂) trust me, you'll know, and trust me, your are also gonna find that one in a million hetero who is gonna stand beside you, an LGBT member without being part of the LGBT Community themselves.
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howlingheartdemigod · 8 years ago
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49
This was written in early July of 2016 and revised recently. It discusses the shooting at Pule nightclub in Orlando Florida and labels. Feel free to share this if you feel connected to it in some way.
In early July of 2016 I had a conversation with a family friend about, among other things, why labels matter.
This is a nice woman. She’s in her 50s, she owns a small business, she has two dogs, that I’ve taken care of when she’s on vacation, she’s very liberal. She’s a textbook suburban-ally. She supports you all she can, and will ask all the questions she can muster, but she won’t always accept the answers, even when they’re coming from a queer person. I’m out, as far as sexuality goes. She knew my words came from a place of experience, not just observation.
The conversation came up when I used the phrase “LGBTQIA community” instead of just saying LGBT or gay community. I saw her face scrunch up, her lip curled in confusion.
There’s a strange entitlement that only seems to exist for white allies. The idea that they are so good just because they treat LGBTQIA+ people like people, that when you use words they don’t know, they become uncomfortable. Especially so in older generations, who think because they’ve lived longer they don’t have to be educated, so long as they are kind. They're better than their parents were, and better than most of their friends still are, so why try for more?
So she asked, what did I say and what does it mean. She knew the first four so start from there.
“Well, LGBTQIA, and Q stands for,” I hesitated. I knew what I was about to say was loaded, but how could I claim to be a good community member if I didn’t claim my own identity. “-queer and questioning.” I finished.
“Hm.” She started, and I knew the script of this conversation better than she. I could have told her her next lines word for word.
“Questioning,” I blurted, stepping on her entrance, “Is for people questioning their sexuality or gender. Queer is an identifier that, my generation especially, is taking back.”
The conversation stalled. She tilted her head back in a way I knew. Something I’d seen in people every time I explain that queer, to us, is not a slur. It’s a war-cry, it’s a prayer. It’s saying “This is something about me that I am not ashamed about. Not anymore. Never again.”
Regardless, I smiled politely and nodded as she explained that was odd to her, that she didn’t like that.
I explained that it was a blanket term. An easier way for someone to say, “I’m a demisexual, panromantic, trans-woman.”
Which, in hindsight, was probably a bad idea. I should have just said, “It’s an easy way for someone who is gay and someone who is bi to have a connection.” Or some other semi-truth that we use.
“See, I don’t get that.” She said “I don’t even know those words, what did you say, Demi…”
I filled her in on the basics as politely as I could, even letting her know my own specific identifiers.
“See, why can’t you just say you’re... “ She trailed off, like she knew she was going to say something wrong, and taking a moment to regroup. “I’d rather just know you as a person. I’d rather know you as Logan. I’d get it much more if you were just like “Oh, I like this gender,” or “Oh I feel like I’m a man.” Instead of…” She waved her hand for the words that weren’t there. A feeling I understood all too well in the moment.
“It has to do with community, it has to do with identity.” I said, trying to make it easier to swallow. “When I say I’m bi or pansexual it’s like saying ‘I’ve found this thing that makes me more me. That explains how I feel and that means other people feel it too because there’s a word for it.”
She still didn’t understand, She thought it made things too complicated.
Too complicated. Those are the words that ring in my ears every time I hear them. Along with the question I never ask; How is it too complicated?
I can define genderfluid and demisexual and MtF and FtM and MtM and FtF and any number of other words. I can recognize that since I don’t identify with them, I don’t get final say. I learned words I don’t identify with. They were new to me, but I did it anyway. It wasn’t too complicated for me. How is it too complicated for you?
It’s entitlement, it’s laziness, and it’s privilege. The privilege of being straight, white, and married in a world where that is valued. It’s not too complicated. I promise It’s not. You just have to listen to the answers of the questions you ask. Instead of asking, hearing a word you don’t know or a phrase you’re uncomfortable with and then writing the answer off as “too complicated.”
She moved on then, to a story about a boy she knew who was her daughter’s age. He was clearly gay, but closeted until high school, at which point he came out and became the sort of ‘fabulous’ gay guy we all know or know of. She said it like it was a bad thing, his flamboyance. I saw that there’s a kind of power in that, a pride in that. It made sense to me that a kid from a small conservative town would identify in a loud and proud way. The story moved on, to him meeting a guy and getting married, and moving to Florida. His husband was a Drag performer and that pulled them into the nightclub scene which pulled them into the drug scene. This wasn’t good for the kid she knew. He ended up in the hospital, and she wasn’t clear on all of the details, but it had something to do with whatever he’d been into. He moved back home shortly after, freshly divorced.
On June 12 2016, he woke up to one hundred and twenty six texts and fifty missed calls. One of the clubs he’d worked at in Florida was Pulse. He’d known some of the victims.
As she was telling this story I found myself sick and sad. Like most people in the community, Orlando was hard for me. I am a queer person, born and raised in the bible belt. I live, not a few states, or a few hours, but 45 minutes away from Westboro baptist Church. World renowned for their bigotry, hatred, and bastardization of Christianity. I live so close, that they frequently protest schools and programs in my immediate area. (I live so close, I have pictures flipping them off when we drove by for a class.) I live every day knowing there are people very close to home who want me dead just for existing.
After Orlando, like so many others, I was hurting. I wrote letters and journal entries, trying to fathom why this happened, but I had the luxury of separation. I had 18hrs and 9 min. I had 1,262 miles. I had space to process and think. I was devastated. People who lived mirror lives to mine had been killed, but with this new revelation, the separation I had was gone. There was a man in my community who had known and been friends with someone who died in the massacre.
In the aftermath of this, I was blown away at how she still didn’t get it. How she didn’t get how these words were important. How they were all there at that club because of the part of themselves she deemed too complicated. How these people were celebrating the way these words were a part of who they were.
How they were killed because of it.
Forty-nine people, who lived parallel lives to me.
Forty-nine queer people.
The youngest of whom was my age. She was 18. She’d graduated from high school a week before the shooting. She had a full basketball scholarship for college. She was, by all accounts, a quiet force. A leader. A young woman who lived a life that mirrored mine, who died because of it.
Forty-nine people.
It’s been a lifetime and some change and the words are still ringing in my ears. Too complicated.
What I don’t think she considered is how the words could hit someone. How the words hit me. I didn’t hear, “These words are new and confusing.” I heard, “What you are is weird and confusing.” I heard that my existence is too complicated. That my desire for understanding is too much for her to surmount.
In every good intention there is a layer of misinformed, ill-taught behavior.
I’m not saying that this woman I know, that we call know, isn’t a good person. I’m not even saying that she’s a bad ally.
I’m saying that 49 people died. I’m saying there’s a set behavior of “I support you but I don’t want to talk about it.” “I support you, but keep it as simple as possible so I don’t have to struggle with something that you deal with.” I’m saying we will never be able to change the narrative if we don’t listen to each other. We won’t be able to change things if you don’t listen to the people who are answering the questions you ask.
 We need to tamp out the idea of “too complicated.” There is no such thing.  When people are dying, “too complicated” will never be a good enough reason.
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suzannebyrne · 8 years ago
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Celebrities Celebrate Pride 2017
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Miley Cyrus performs during the 2017 Capital Pride concert in Washington, D.C., on June 11. (Photo: John Lamparski/WireImage)
While Donald Trump’s White House won’t acknowledge June as LGBT Pride month, the rest of the world does. And on Sunday, there were marches across the U.S. — including the Equality March in Washington, D.C. and Resist March in L.A. — attended by celebrities.
Miley Cyrus headlined the Capital Pride concert, which was streamed on Twitter. The “We Can’t Stop” songstress, who has described herself as pansexual showed off a slew of pix of her colorful outfit, including her rainbow Converse, a special Pride collaboration, and some seriously bedazzled jeans that spelled out “Washington.”
Yaaaaass Washington DC #pride for @hot995 gave me soooo much life! Love Love and more LOVE! @happyhippiefdn @converse
A post shared by Miley Cyrus (@mileycyrus) on Jun 11, 2017 at 11:24pm PDT
“We hold the key to change!” wrote Cyrus, who has been an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights for years and has her Happy Hippie Foundation.
We hold the key to change! @hot995 #Pride @happyhippiefdn @converse !!!! ❤️ if you haven't yet check out #Inspired puhleasssse OUT everywhere!
A post shared by Miley Cyrus (@mileycyrus) on Jun 11, 2017 at 11:30pm PDT
Yassss! I'm teaming up w @converse ! I ❤️ the #Pride collection supporting the LGBTQ community! Thank u for joining the @happyhippiefdn family and helping us continue our fight for equality & justice! #YesToAll ! ❤️
A post shared by Miley Cyrus (@mileycyrus) on Jun 11, 2017 at 7:31pm PDT
I'm going LIVE on twitter at @CapitalPrideDC with @Converse to say #YesToAll!
A post shared by Miley Cyrus (@mileycyrus) on Jun 11, 2017 at 4:44pm PDT
Over on the West Coast, the Resist March went down, attracting loads of celebrities — and contempt for the 45th president. In light of the political climate, the typical march was replaced by a more politically-driven event with politicos like Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, and L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, attending. RuPaul was one of the speakers and emphasized the importance of love.
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RuPaul speaking at the L.A. Pride #ResistMarch in West Hollywood on June 11. (Photo: Chelsea Guglielmino/Getty Images)
“It’s about love and giving love, being able to receive love,” the host of RuPaul’s Drag Race said. “That’s our secret weapon. That’s the one thing they don’t have is our love, our music, and our joy.”
Here are some of the other celebrities showing their Pride on Sunday…
America Ferrera spoke at the L.A. event (watch below) — and made it clear that she stands “with my LGBTQ brothers and sisters today and everyday!”
Me at the #ResistMarch this morning. Watch my 5 min speech and intro of fabulous activist Jose Geuvara ( @rumination_cease ) in its entirety by scrolling through. #lapride #iwillharness #heretostay ✊
A post shared by America Ferrera (@americaferrera) on Jun 11, 2017 at 5:35pm PDT
Adam Lambert was also a speaker in L.A. “My name is Adam Lambert and I am proud to be a human,” he started his speech by saying. “I’m also gay, cisgendered, red-headed, Jewish, and a man, but that’s getting specific. Look, we have moved into an area of intense categorizing, in an effort to declare our identities. We use labels in order to help others understand who we are and how we live. And sometimes we need them to figure ourselves out too, because we want to take pride in our individuality. But do you sometimes feel that we’ve gotten a little carried away with all these labels? Cause at the end of the day we’re all human beings.”
Honored to have spoken at #resistmarch !!!
A post shared by ADAMLAMBERT (@adamlambert) on Jun 11, 2017 at 2:30pm PDT
Matt Bomer, whose family wouldn’t speak to him for at least six months when he came out, showed his true colors.
Shoutout to all those marching today. Be safe. Be proud. Love you all. #resistmarch #resistmarchla #pride #lapride
A post shared by Matt Bomer (@mattbomer) on Jun 11, 2017 at 9:37am PDT
Sophia Bush tried out a new hairstyle. She was a #MyLittlePridePony.
#MyLittlePridePony, a hair story featuring yours truly, created by @chadwoodhair. Happy Pride my loves! ❤️ #PRIDE #LoveIsLoveIsLove #Equality
A post shared by Sophia Bush (@sophiabush) on Jun 11, 2017 at 5:51pm PDT
Tommy Lee performed in L.A.
Let's get @brookecandy @dannylohner
A post shared by TOMMY LEE (@mrtommyland) on Jun 11, 2017 at 4:09pm PDT
Kate Beckinsale celebrated her daughter’s high school graduation and Pride over the weekend.
Happy pride ❤️❤️❤️#itsrainingmen
A post shared by Kate Beckinsale (@katebeckinsale) on Jun 11, 2017 at 8:23pm PDT
Everybody's doing it (everybody's walking the dog ) ❤️
A post shared by Kate Beckinsale (@katebeckinsale) on Jun 11, 2017 at 10:54pm PDT
  Jaime King celebrated with her son.
#happypride From our family to ALL! #jamesknight ✨
A post shared by Jaime King (@jaime_king) on Jun 10, 2017 at 1:33pm PDT
Word #happypride in less happy times. Thus, we will continue to #resist not in hatred but in a loving so full nothing & no one will stop us. Thank you @unklronkcollie for this
A post shared by Jaime King (@jaime_king) on Jun 11, 2017 at 7:58pm PDT
Lisa Rinna also shared a sign from the protest.
#repost @lisa2la This is the Best sign of the Day! #equality ️‍
A post shared by Lisa Rinna (@lisarinna) on Jun 11, 2017 at 8:50pm PDT
Charlie Sheen took it all in.
America, the beautiful… ❤️ ©
A post shared by Charlie Sheen (@charliesheen) on Jun 11, 2017 at 12:20pm PDT
Elton John, who has been married to David Furnish since 2014, gave Pride a shout out.
Deeply moved by today’s #EqualityMarch. The beauty in the diversity of this march – to see such an array of ages, races, religions, abilities, and genders – renews my faith in the future of this world. Let’s continue to raise our voices for the sake of humanity. #insolidarity @ejaforg
A post shared by Elton John (@eltonjohn) on Jun 11, 2017 at 6:50am PDT
So did Kat Dennings.
❤️
A post shared by Kat Dennings (@katdenningsss) on Jun 11, 2017 at 10:39am PDT
Orphan Black‘s Tatiana Maslany marched in L.A. with beau Tom Cullen and a Planned Parenthood sign.
Resist March LA ✊✊✊✊✊#pride
A post shared by Tat Maslany (@tatianamaslany) on Jun 11, 2017 at 8:20am PDT
Busy Philipps shared color from the parade route.
Happy Pride LA to all my LGTBQ friends and family! We love you and support you now and always! ️‍️‍️‍️‍
A post shared by Busy Philipps (@busyphilipps) on Jun 11, 2017 at 1:17pm PDT
Brie Larson used the day to get a dialogue going on her Instagram page.
Happy #pridemonth !!! I'd like to dedicate this space to our friends from the LGBTQ community! Use the comments to speak about how you are feeling and what we can do to be a better ally. I've learned so much from your thoughtful comments before! It is very important to start our activism with listening – what a beautiful Sunday to practice that very thing. I'll be moderating these comments(as usual). Hate will be reported. There's no tolerance for it here #hatefreezone
A post shared by Brie (@brielarson) on Jun 11, 2017 at 12:29pm PDT
Mariah Carey reshared her definition of LGBTQ.
Thursday 10am PST! mariahpride.com #lgbtq #happypride
A post shared by Mariah Carey (@mariahcarey) on Jun 11, 2017 at 3:10pm PDT
Iggy Azalea partied for the cause with friends.
A post shared by Iggy Azalea (@thenewclassic) on Jun 11, 2017 at 5:06pm PDT
And Demi Lovato appeared to be at the same event with her “girls.”
My girls!!! Happy #pride!!!!
A post shared by Demi Lovato (@ddlovato) on Jun 11, 2017 at 7:35pm PDT
Kelly Ripa celebrated pride in New Orleans, so there were rainbows and beads.
Spent #gaypride in #nola with the Grand Marshall himself @jakeshears @rachaeleharris @mrturk @frontierhero and yours truly as the humble court. Congrats on the sickest new album @jakeshears you are a super⭐️⭐️⭐️
A post shared by Kelly Ripa (@kellyripa) on Jun 11, 2017 at 7:06pm PDT
Halle Berry showed off her true colors, writing, “We stand with you.”
We stand with you. #PRIDE
A post shared by Halle Berry (@halleberry) on Jun 11, 2017 at 6:37pm PDT
Ariel Winter sent her good wishes.
Happy Pride to the entire LGBTQ+ community ❤️ #spreadlove #pride
A post shared by ARIEL WINTER (@arielwinter) on Jun 11, 2017 at 4:52pm PDT
The Pride celebrations run through the month and another big parade will be the NYC one on  June 25.
yahoo
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