#overcoming queerphobia

[internetgiraffekid1673]

Convinced my queerphobic brother to be less queerphobic and he has NO IDEA!

Okay, I just had a very genuinely entertaining and somewhat uplifting experience as a half closeted aroace. Now while this was a positive experience for me, general trigger warning for queerphobia.

So, one of my brothers (Sandwich God, not J-Dog), who I love very much, is unfortunately an asshole that I constantly wish was a better person and that I cheer along with every time he's able to overcome one of his bigoted beliefs or unhealthy behaviors. He's AuDHD (not related to being an asshole) and frequently has trouble communicating his emotions and ideas, but therapy has made all of us better about it and so most of the time nowadays, when we have conversations, we're actually able to understand and assimilate the other person's perspective (I am so proud of him for the progress he's made and I also regularly want to deck him for the progress he hasn't made. It's a complicated relationship).

One of the ways he is an asshole is that he is rampantly queerphobic. This is the main reason I am half closeted---I am not ready to sacrifice the good rapport we have because he isn't at an accepting point in his life, and I know that the queerphobia is something he can overcome with time and positive exposure. So I can't be publicly out and proud while we live in the same house if I want to have the kind of productive conversations about queerness with him that I am currently having. It's messed up, but so is queerphobia in any form.

So. He doesn't know that I'm aroace. He is aggressively queerphobic and heteronormative and is going on about how he thinks that everybody has a natural drive to get married and have kids by 30.

I offhandedly comment that I think sex is gross (apothisexual here) and that I never want to do it. And he kind of stares at me. You can see the gears turning in his brain as he tries to assimilate this information. He decides it must be something about how our mother (victim of sexual abuse) raised me that makes me like that. I shut that down very quickly by just telling him "Do you know how many sex talks my mom has had with me and how much LESS grossed out by sex that made me?" Which is true by the way! I didn't understand why anyone would want to do it before those talks, especially with all the associated risks. Now I am 100% confident that I don't want to, but the idea that other people want to and do have sex doesn't gross me out at all, just so long as they're not spewing details in front of me.

And he just stares at me in confusion. And he says "Maybe your brain is just broken." I say, "I am confident that it is a me thing and not a thing about how I was raised. I don't ever want to have sex and if I'm still single at 65, I will.be perfectly happy." I go into a few more details to assure him of this: I've never had so much as a fictional crush. I got to have the fun experience of having teenage girl only sleepovers and listening to every other girl rave about the hot boys they want to kiss and just tell them "That's great! I'm so happy for you! Me? No, I don't want to kiss any boys. Or girls. Or anyone."

Now, I am being incredibly entertained by his expressions this whole time. You can tell that his brain is having a war with his misguided belief of "queer people don't actually exist, they're all just deluded" and his factual understanding of what I'm saying. He trusts me, I have no reason to lie, and this absolutely matches up with what he's observed from my behavior.

And finally, he goes. "Huh. I still think you're broken or something, but if you're fine with it, I guess that's okay."

FELLAS! Do ya'll understand that something magical just happened here?! Before this conversation, my brother was one of those queerphobes that saw it as his job to personally inform every queer he sees that they're wrong and need to stop. And in this one conversation, I triggered a paradigm shift from THAT to "I may think they're wrong, but I guess they're happy and they're not hurting anyone, so I should probably leave it alone."

DO YOU GUYS REALIZE WHAT A VICTORY THIS IS? I may not have used the words asexual or aromantic. I may not have made him realize that diversity in how humans experience love is normal and good actually. But I helped him make a big step from actively hurting people to passively bigoted. And being passively bigoted is still bad, don't get me wrong. But it's still so much better than where he was before this talk. I can only hope that a) it sticks and b) I can keep having conversations with him like this where he's able to internally break down those destructive behaviors.

Today was a victory for me personally and for every queer person he'll meet in the future. He's still an asshole. But he is now less of an asshole than he was before, and that's important.

[etchif]

'They would not fucking say that' but it's 'they would not be this accepting of their own queerness, at least not just yet'

[multi-lefaiye]

kinda idle curiosity thought.

queer artists/writers/oc creators: do you incorporate queerphobia into your original works and stories?

(to be clear: this is a *no judgment zone*. i'm asking about your personal preferences with your own work. also i can't stop non-queer folks from responding but i would genuinely love some other queer folks' perspectives here.)

[but-a-humble-goon]

"You are not normal for dedicating a truly unfathomable amount of your time and mental energy to being extremely angry that a pair of fictional women fell in love."

I see male RWBY fans still can't go five minutes without hiding behind one of the most milqetoast 2013 time capsule sapphic relationships since the Rise of Skywalker lesbians as a shield for their offensively mediocre product. You're more predictable as a brand than Minecraft Youtubers and Google Docs.

What's it like, being a mark for rainbow capitalism stuck balls deep in a parasocial relationship with a show that will never return your love?

Just because you disingenuously drape a tissue thin veil of progressivism over it doesn't make you not someone dedicating a truly unfathomable amount of your time and mental energy to being extremely angry that a pair of fictional women fell in love. I'm not gonna bother arguing the merits of Blake and Yang's relationship with you. It's a gloriously angsty, wholesome slowburn sapphic love story years in the making about two awesome women overcoming abuse & trauma and healing together, it's obviously great and speaks for itself. Neither I nor the show have to justify shit. Instead just ask yourself this question: do you hold all straight ships (which are produced by the same shitty, cynical capitalist system) to this standard? Do you get this angry, if at all, at them for being milquetoast and mediocre? Because if not, if it's just queer media you reserve this rabid contempt for, then the word for what you are doing is queerphobia. Oh and you do not get to play the "male RWBY fan" card. One of us here is siding with the hordes of angry entitled homophobic straight men against a whole bunch of mostly queer women, and it sure as shit ain't me.

[curiositypolling]

This poll is a bit different but I’m curious about it and that’s why I made the blog so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

follow for more occasional dumb polls :)

since I know this might be a viewpoint some people havent seen before, here’s the explanation for the ‘I want queerphobia in my fake worlds’:

I see the first option touted as ‘the ideal queer representation’ a lot, but as a queer fantasy writer I much prefer the culture of societal outcasts that band together, and narratives of people saying ‘fuck society’. Of course I want queerphobia to be completely gone irl, but it’s much easier for me to relate to characters who have gone through it, than to relate to characters who are treated like everyone else. a queer person treated like normal has not remotely been my experience, and so I prefer to have queer characters not treated normally, both so I can relate to them and so you can root for them and say ‘yes! change the system!’

This is fiction, the characters don’t have to live in an ideal world, the irl world sucks in many ways and exploring how it sucks is a huge part of making fake worlds.

all of this of course is with the caveat that it’s done well. A queer or ally writer writing a world with queerphobia as a way to show people defying society can be a good thing, is much different to a bigot writing queerphobia in to show it as ‘how things should be’, or someone doing it because that’s the only way they can envision a new world (as having the same bigotries as this one.)

(also no I will not tag this as ‘the q slur’ or anything similar)

[deramin2]

I don't know how to really express this except to come across as a "kids these days" scold, but so much of the criticism of queerness in Good Omens would simply not be a thing if kids these days watched more 20th century queer media. Or more complex indie queer media in general.

People seem to want a show that's like the straight stories they grew up with but gay. Or the gay fanfiction they grew up with. But that's not really the tradition it's coming from. First off the novel was released in 1990. Queer film classics of the time are Dead Poet's Society (1989) and Torch Song Trilogy (1988). The TV miniseries Tales of the City (1993) wasn't made until 3 years later and it was so far out there it never had a huge audience. Philadelphia (1993) is also 3 years out and was basically the first big studio queer film. The first fluffy queer Hallmark-style romcom wasn't until Big Eden in 2000, a full 10 years after publication.

Queer stories from the time it was written were about complex and often fraught relationships between people who the world was trying to force apart. There is an incredibly strong tradition in queer films of relationships with no guarantees they will work out both in the face of their personal baggage and the weight of the world. Take a film like Torch Song Trilogy that's about the two great loves of Arnold Beckoff's life over 9 years and how homophobia shapes them. Both externally (especially Allen) and internally like Ed struggling with his bisexuality and being terrified of being publicly out. Written and starred in by Harvey Fierstein, who identified as a gay man at the time and only came out as nonbinary last year.

The Boys In The Band (1968 play, filmed 1970 and 2020) was a monumental moment in Broadway history where finally there was a play about gay men in their own words where no one died and very strongly showed that homosexuality doesn't make people miserable but homophobia sure does. But that homophobia also throws their personal lives into constant turmoil and none of them are in happy relationships, although Hank and Larry are devoted to each other in their own fucked up way.

"Relationships are complicated and hard to make work and sometimes a struggle against the odds" is an aesthetic of classic queer film making. Partly it was influenced by the Hays Code (although independent films were not bound to it), partly influenced by the rampant queerphobia in society at the time that was inescapable. But it's also an aesthetic choice to resist the banal and unrealistic relationship depictions of straight media. There are actual stakes to the relationship. Queer people were actively resisting a world that said "Romance is seeing someone across the room and instantly falling in love with each other and little conflicts happen along the way but ultimately they're destined to be together and everything is happily ever after." Recall that "stalking as romance" was a completely inescapable trope in 1980s straight romance films, and every goddamn movie was being turned into a romance film.

So queer people in film and television when they can make what they please have a long tradition of saying instead "People don't always realize the feelings they've developed for a queer partner right away. They may have reasons for denying those feelings that are both a reflection of the cruelty in society and of their own insecurities. People struggle with where they belong and their relationships reflect that. Loving someone doesn't mean they don't also drive you crazy and you might fight with them constantly. But that doesn't negate the love or that feeling that even if things aren't okay, they're better with that person around. But maybe that person can't stay around. The world may be against you. And also maybe you don't just want that one person in your life. Soulmates is a very flawed model. Sometimes the strongest love is a struggle with yourself and the world and your person. You have to overcome yourself first. Happily ever after is a lie. You may be happy for a while, and hopefully for a long while, but everything ends. And you have to be ready to love again. Also your platonic bonds are just as important and life-altering as your romantic ones. Sometimes those platonic bonds include fucking if you want them to. Real life isn't a bunch of platitudes and world-altering moments, it's daily work to better yourself and the world around you. Especially when things just fucking suck. But also remember to have fun and fuck the haters. People who don't support you can eat rocks and you should yell at them more to shut the fuck up."

That is a fundamentally different outlook on what a "good relationship depiction" looks like. Personally, I thought I hated romance movies and then I started watching queer romance movies and discovered I love them and watch them all the time. Because it turns out what I hated was relationships being shown that had nothing at all to do with reality and privileged incredibly toxic ideals. Finally there was complexity, there were stakes, and there were people who had to truly want to be together enough to fight the world for it and not because they happened to be there. There were people actually talking out their problems and looking for resolutions. (And sometimes that resolutions was "I can't fucking deal with this bullshit anymore and I'm out.") For the first time it felt real.

I'm an aroace trans gay man. Nothing about relationships or being in relationships has come easy to me, and the whole paradigm of straight patriarchal romance depictions makes absolutely no sense to me. It's completely alien. Queer romance stories actually feel human.

And that's the tradition Good Omens is coming from, even as it's being retold in 2019-2023 and hopefully beyond. Gaiman's work has always been based in that queer media paradigm. (I've been remiss and daunted and haven't read Pratchett but from what I do know his work also seems to sit more in that world view.) It's a beautiful cinematic tradition and it's baffling to me that people would resist it instead of embracing it for being honest.

And that's when I turn into a crotchety old man complaining about the youth not connecting with the history of their beautiful culture and instead begging for assimilation into a shithole allocishet media landscape that doesn't actually want them except for their money and has nothing at all interesting or valuable to say. But it's very funny (annoying) to me when people claim Good Omens is someone against queer culture when it's so thoroughly bathed in the best of queer media's storytelling traditions and what people are asking for is straight media with the serial numbers filed off. Like, stop being boring please and know literally anything about the culture the adults in the room lived through and were influenced by. The world didn't begin in 2015.

EDIT: I also want to add that in straight media arcs are linear. Traditionally in queer media arcs are cyclical. Queer media very often depicts people going around in circles relearning the same lesson over and over as they inch towards it sinking in. But every time they go through the cycle they gain just a little bit more enlightenment and slowly move towards a better place. From the comments this is an immensely important distinction. People don't actually have cathartic moments where suddenly all their past bad programming is shed and they saunter forward a new person with none of their old baggage. In reality people fall into the same patterns over and over even though they have had every opportunity to learn better. "People magically get better" is a trope of straight media that's an outright and frankly dangerous lie. Again, Good Omens follows the queer tradition not the straight one and it's depicted 6,000 years of that cycle. The world didn't end, and the wheel keeps turning, as it always has and always will. That's so fundamental to queer storytelling traditions I forgot to even mention it.

[shut-up-hope]

i cant stop thinking about how the chains could symbolize the effects of society's queerphobia on queer people and how it figuratively - or literally, in adam and lawrence's case - chains us down and stops us from being able to escape horrible circumstances - be it a queerphobic family/friend group, toxic internet space, believing you will go to hell for being queer, internalized queerphobia, etc.

both adam and lawrence, despite having different backgrounds, wake up chained in the same dirty, old bathroom. they have to overcome several tasks that jigsaw gave them in order to escape. however, only lawrence manages to escape by sawing his foot off; adam is left behind with a promise that lawrence won't be able to fulfill: to be rescued. i will dive into how i interpret this.

adam and lawrence ending up in the same circumstance despite their many differences can symbolize the fact that, despite all queer people coming from different places, we all have one experience in common: having to fight for our lives, to break our chains; but none of us share the same future.

the way i interpret lawrence leaving adam behind is that sometimes the queer people around you will find self acceptance before you will. sometimes you will stay stuck in queerphobic spaces/internalized queerphobia because you either dont have the right tools to break those chains or you dont want to take the risk and put yourself through harm in order to find a safe space, or both.

tl;dr i interpret the adam and lawrence's chains as symbolism for the effects of society's queerphobia. lawrence sawing his own foot off to escape symbolizes queer people who are able to escape queerphobic spaces; adam remaining behind symbolizes the queer people who remain in queerphobic spaces because they do not have the tools to help them escape.

[nerves-nebula]

"incest" and "racism" and "parents that love their kids which triggers you to see because you're insanely jealous" and "queerphobia" aren't even actually real. they were made up by the malevolent enemies what haunt my every step to try to prevent me from prospering. they are figments of the mind which i alone can overcome. and i will. and i'll take you down with me if i have to

[utilitycaster]

To expand that point about queerphobia (also, to an extent, gender equality) from the tags on someone else's post and sort of tying it back to my post yesterday about wanting to see characters work through similar experiences: I think it makes a lot of sense in the case of Exandria and Hale to build a world that does not have queerphobia and to allow people to choose to insert it if that is something their table wishes to explore. It's very much a case of wanting to build a diverse but non-utopian world that is welcoming to a wide variety of players.

I think it's a very understandable urge to want to see characters deal with the same challenges we face, and I think there are TTRPG settings that have done a good job depicting homophobia or transphobia; it's present though not common in Fantasy High, and The Unsleeping City is very close to the modern-day real world and has, well, period-typical attitudes.

The reason I get frustrated when it comes up in discussion of Exandria, and now Hale is that it's almost always used for one of two reasons: explaining why people (either specifically or generally) don't like a character; or even more frequently, explaining hesitancy between two characters in a ship. It's a convenient way to say "this person is oppressed or afraid for reasons that are objectively in no way their fault and which make the people who dislike them objectively bigoted and wrong". The problem is, while that's a valid story to tell it's often really not the story the cast is telling with these characters. Even more frustratingly, it often is used to steamroll other stories that may place those characters in just as innocent a position.

Some good examples in which this has happened in the fandom are Jester and Dorian. Jester lives on the Menagerie Coast, which is referred to a pretty wide variety of materials as being a place that is especially trans friendly (in a world where trans and nb characters already frequently occupy prominent positions and are not depicted as experiencing pushback). Her mother, a courtesan, indicates that she takes clients of varying genders. The biggest influences on her life are her mother and an otherworldly fey entity who famously can shapeshift. There is absolutely no canonical evidence that Jester would be unaware of the broad range of genders and sexualities in the world nor that she would feel obligated to embrace one that she is not; in fact there is quite strong evidence to the contrary. But if you claim that she's experiencing compulsive heterosexuality, it excuses you from having to consider that Jester is genuinely not interested in Beau, or at the very least is genuinely interested in Fjord.

Similarly, it was, at least prior to the reveals of early Campaign 3, common to headcanon that Dorian had run away from his parents because he was trans and they were transphobic. A trans reading of Dorian is still obviously entirely valid, but he left because his parents were suffocating and overbearing and often pit him against his brother. Dorian is still absolutely the victim in this! It's a valuable thing to relate to for people who have experienced parental abuse and impossible expectations. But it does still force you to think about Dorian's parents as complex people who came to this conclusion of childrearing (even if they are still in the wrong) and not just mindless bigots to be disregarded. And I think the former is nearly always a better story than the latter.

What also frustrates me is that this rarely works through the ramifications. The systemic queerphobia that would be required to put compulsory heterosexuality in place still exists once someone overcomes that and comes out; but that never comes into play when people are talking about the ship, because it's only ever used to explain why the ship hasn't happened yet, never as a significant part of the world that would affect the characters throughout their entire lives.

These are only two examples; there are countless others, some particularly egregious (*cough* Essek comes from a society that explicitly believes in reincarnation across bodies of varying genders and the queen for eternal life is in a lesbian relationship, I promise you his fraught relationships with his parents are way more complicated than simple homophobia or transphobia) but all of which seek to incorporate bigotry not as the destructive and deadly phenomenon it is, to be explored in the safe space of fiction, but as an incredibly lazy shortcut to be discarded as a continuity error once it's served its purpose.

[choicesmc]

Let This Be My Punishment

MC: Fiona Lightwood Book: Laws of Attraction Word Count: 730 Summary: Fiona is forever haunted by what he is and cannot be. Banner: The Dying Swan by Tretchikoff Vladimir Prompt: Deity Inspiration List - [Erinyes] Taglist: @choicesmaychallenge24

trigger warnings: queerphobia and homophobia nothing is explicit but as the center of the fic, i wanna cover my bases.

Fiona knew how to ignore ghosts. He knew how to ignore the whispers of rebuke that gripped him as he patted down his skirt. He knew to move past the occasional queasiness when pressed chaste kisses against Gabe’s soft skin. He knew to stifle the nightmares that wrestled him awake in the middle of the night. 

Or, at least, he’d thought he’d known. 

He thought he was past the nightmare stage. It’d been so long since he startled himself awake, replaying that damned day over and over in his mind.

 He never made the same choices. Sometimes he kept his head down, eyes trained on the burning hands of his fiancee on his thigh. Sometimes, he played it off as a joke, becoming ever so slightly hysterical when no one –not his fiance, not his father, and especially not his mother– believed him. 

Sometimes, he left the table yelling and cursing the awful, awful truth. At times, he brought his fiance close, turning to his father and lying through gritted smiles that he’d never, not once, had ever even considered the improbable, unacceptable, impossible idea that he might like the feel of silk dress over the finest pants. Or confessed that men, men!, could be so beautiful as to compel Fiona to his knees in desperate worship. No. He’d bite his tongue like a coward than spit out disgrace. 

Not that the outcome ever really changed. 

This time, he’d gently taken his mother’s hands and placed them around his neck. 

It wasn’t hard. Fiona had always known the virtues of suffering. Always known that the life he now lived required his eternal repentance. It was the only option he’d be given. It was the life he chose. And Fiona was old enough to suffer its consequences.

Uwakwe sat at the table. The first seat to the left of his father. His bride-to-be, his fiancée, Chiamaka sat beside him. Her hand lingered on his thigh, sly and coy, burning against his every instinct. 

His mother, Kachu, pressed against Fiona’s pulse. It throbbed under her touch, vein hammering away with each lingering moment. It begged for her forgiveness. Begged to accept everything he was, even if only through his death. 

“Uwakwe,” his mother spat, placing her son as yet another obstacle to overcome, “This is not enough.”

No, Fiona prayed, It is not. 

 “Uwakwe,” his mother spoke. Her hand gave his pulse another squeeze. It was almost taunting. “This is a dream.” 

It is real, Fiona whispered, Had I given you my neck, you would have squeezed. Had I said nothing you would have done something. This is as real as it is a dream.

Her hands grew cold on his neck. When she spoke again, her voice warbled, swirling with the voice of his father, mingling with Chiamaka’s. She didn’t speak things Fiona knew to understand. 

There was a time I did understand, Fiona wondered, there had been a time when I knew those sounds better than anyone else, hadn’t there?

Instead, he kept perfectly still, allowing his mother to abuse him. Relishing the familiar way she cut at him, the crash of phonemes against his ear, grating and mocking him with each roll of their tongues. 

Fiona let that haunting lullaby move him from his bed. He pushed it behind his brain as he picked up his phone, eyes softly closing at the sound of Gabe’s instructing voice to leave a message at the tone. 

Fiona left a sweet message. A simple ‘Good morning, darling.’, the type that whispered honey and kisses and soft sheets and lingering mornings. The type that hid worried curses and silent tears. The type that Gabe, somehow, always heard anyway. 

Donning his most risqué shirt he could probably get away with, Fiona pretended not to notice as the fabric prickled his fingers, drawing his disgrace to light. Squirming into a tight, bedazzled pencil skirt, he let the criticisms stain him –even pausing to admire his open disobedience in the glimmer of eyeshadow and the gloss of his painted lips. 

Fiona didn’t know to ignore ghosts. He knew how to live with them. He knew how to integrate them so deeply into everything he was that to separate him from his ghosts was to give him a purity he didn’t deserve. Fiona would never be pure. 

The closest he’d ever get to purity was this endless suffering.

Author's Note: for a little more context you might wanna read [this] post. I associate a lot of Christian imagery with Fiona cuz it's how he was raised so, idk, I foolishly thought it would be kinda easy to find something analogous in greek mythos but, spoiler, it was not.

but the erinyes jumped at me because yeah! that's how fiona lives his life! Hoping y'all had fun/enjoyed reading my suffering (<- loving and affectionate) ♥

[altarofanorsepagan]

struggling today because of the election results. i've been praying to freyja that misogyny, racism, and queerphobia is overthrown. i've been praying to artemis to protect all pregnant people who cannot access the care they need. i've been praying to óðinn that people in our country will finally listen to experts and accept much-needed wisdom.

sometimes all you can do, while struggling with the anxieties of the world, is give yourself a break. all i could bring myself to do tonight was light a candle for my gods, pray for peace, and watch a show while sitting next to the candle. it's okay to rest or be upset, but don't let the dread overcome you and don't give up advocating.

may the gods bless you all 💙

[fatiguedcorvid]

the Zoldycks are patriarchy

A lot of ink has been spilled about how queer-coded Killua is, but an aspect of his arc I haven't seen mentioned is that the Zoldycks are an intergenerational project. Implying that as the heir, he’s expected to eventually marry a woman and create baby assassins of his own. The Zoldycks aren’t just an abusive family. They're the cis hetero patriarchy.

They’re a literal patriarchy, with the ageing patriarch and the rising patriarch, Zeno and Silva, the grandfather and father who lead the family. Kikyo is relegated to 2nd in command, relishing in bossing around Kalluto and Gotoh, but not daring to step on Silva's toes. But on top of that they represent the social pressure by society to conform to a hetero amorous normative lifestyle, in line with tradition. Silva’s words about how Killua will return to the family because that’s his nature echo a lot of homophobic rhetoric about how young queer/questioning people are just ‘experimenting’ and they’ll eventually realise they were just confused and enter a hetero relationship.

On top of that, the literal brainwashing by Illumi’s needles are the source of his anxiety and insecurity in his relationship with Gon. In this analogy the needle is the internalised homophobia, literally implanted in his brain by his family. It prevents him from truly embracing his queerness. At one point, when captured by Nobunaga it almost makes him suicidally sacrifice his own life. The way he manages to overcome it eventually is through his love and care for Gon.

The election arc represents the importance of queer solidarity between different identities within the community. Killua’s managed to escape the grasp of his family and carve out a life for himself on the outside, but his trans sister, Alluka, hasn't. He can’t save Gon without her/Nanika’s help, and she can’t escape and build a life outside without his help. The only way they can truly liberate themselves is by working together. When Killua tells Nanika to hide away and never show itself again it shows how the dynamics of queerphobia and heteronormativity can recreate themselves within queer spaces. How respectability politics and trying to sweep the less socially acceptable parts of the community under the rug doesn’t work. Even though Killua tried to protect Alluka by telling Nanika to go into hiding, he still ended up recreating the abusive family dynamic on a new scale. The right thing to do is accept Alluka and Nanika the way they are.

In the end, even though he and Gon parted ways he didn’t come crawling back to the Zoldycks because his journey was about more than just an infatuation with one boy. It was about self-discovery and a fight for liberation.

[despapillon]

I think the reason why people hate on you for your ABSOLUTELY RIGHT take is because they do not understand the concept of "not healthy # toxic"

Mike and Will both have a lot of issues that are decidedly not caused by internalised queerphobia alone and they will not overcome these issues by admitting their love for each other and being accepted by friends and family. Two people can absolutely be head over heels for each other but are unable to make a relationship work (at first) because of their personal problems. That is not to say we will not see happy Byler in the show (especially because it is a show the progression of their relationship may be a bit more unrealistic than it would be in a real life scenario). But people who do not understand that Byler are not automatically healthy just because they love each other just make it very apparent that they have never struggled with a relationship where they had to decide between loving a partner and prioritising their own emotional needs.

Yup. I wouldn’t be rooting for and shipping them if I thought there’s no hope for them. It’s clear that the Duffers are planning on having Mike and Will work on their struggles, they wouldn’t introduce Will calling himself a mistake or Mike and his whole thing, etc. just to abandon that and never touch upon it. Because it’s not rushed, because it’s a very slow burn, Mike and Will can spend season 5 on improving themselves, becoming better. Then when things are right they can finally get together - and become a functional couple.

M*leven is too much of a mess. Unlike Byler, they don’t work together. There’s no romantic love there also. You can’t solve all of their issues in this one season. As there’s a lot. I’d like to see Duffers try. But they wouldn’t accomplish it.

The second they had Mike kiss El just after she asked if he’d be like her brother all while wearing Nancy’s clothing and he couldn’t coherently explain why not, they were irreversibly doomed. And it just got worse from there. Turning Mike finding scared, traumatized El in the woods while searching for his missing friend then suggesting her sent to Pennhurst into a love at first sight story.

What’s keeping them together is El thinking a bf is what she needs that she can insert into her Y/N fic fantasies when she just wants someone to lean on, Mike’s guilt that he may have relied too much on her powers which led to her death and her coming back just as he seemed to be planning to move on and stop calling, heteronormativity and Mike’s internalized homophobia, both thinking the other wants to continue the relationship, and that goddamn painting.

I don’t think Duffers are some incredible writers but I refuse to believe they just… wrote all that only to settle on the most basic, bland endgame. Surprise! It was never that deep! Don’t worry though, didn’t you see Will making eye contact with Random Guy #532 played by Finn Wolfhard at M*leven’s wedding? Streets say his name is Mikhail……..

[kselemini]

Well, it's Pride Month, and I want to wish for queer people in unsafe countries and in queerphobic environments to find a place where you can be safe, where you can be yourself without fear, or to find at least one person who will accept you for who you are and who you can trust.

I hope that you will be able to stop pretending to be someone you are not to avoid negative reactions, that you will overcome your internalized queerphobia, that your mental health will improve, that you will be able to heal from the abuse you have been through, that you will get the love and support you need.

[nerdygaymormon]

Any thoughts about last night's devotional? I've heard some stuff about it but didn't watch it so I was hoping you could provide some insight and opinions (if you saw it).

Elder Oaks encouraged young adults to get married...soon! He lamented that the average age of marriage has gone up significantly since 1970 and that people are having fewer children.

He acknowledged that the cost of education and housing have increased tremendously (and wages haven't kept up), but reminded everyone that pioneers left their homes and possessions and encouraged young adults to forego material comfort and start a family.

Sister Oaks, who didn't get married until she was age 53, chimed in with some better advice. "Prepare yourself for life — by education, experience and planning. Don���t wait for happiness to be thrust upon you. Seek out opportunities for service and learning. Most importantly, trust in the Lord."

As a queer Latter-day Saint, let me point out that he put a lot of emphasis on getting married, he put it as the first thing he chose to speak about. He will later say marriage is only between a man & and a woman, which excludes many queer people. This is a typical example of what queer members of this church experience, having marriage praised but also that it's denied to us. There is a dissonance.

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Honestly, I am tired of commenting on Elder Oaks' queerphobic statements, but he keeps choosing to make them and so I keep responding.

Elder Oaks decided to share a letter he received. He receives thousands of letters a year, and instead of choosing any that express their discomfort at his queerphobia (I guarantee he gets many), Elder Oaks chose one complaining that church members aren't queerphobic enough.

I honestly thought Elder Oaks was going to use this to agree, I mean, why else would he choose THIS letter to share. He didn't agree or disagree (although choosing this letter was quite a choice).

Elder Oaks reiterated that the church only approves of marriage between a man and a woman and encouraged trans people to follow the church's rules.

He used the story of the woman caught in adultery who was brought before Jesus. Jesus refrained from judging the woman. Likewise, we should refrain from judging others and instead should examine ourselves.

Let me point out that adultery betrays the person to whom they've made a commitment and is called out as a sin repeatedly in the scriptures. Gender diversity is not a sin and there's no scripture saying that it is. Therefore, I don't think it's a great use of this scripture story, but I appreciate that Elder Oaks is saying even if we think the other person has done something wrong, we don't condemn them, but treat them with love. Unfortunately he also added we should tell them about God's law and then to "Go, and sin no more."

A few years back, Elder Oaks came up with a novel approach by saying the 1st and 2nd great commandments were in conflict and encouraged us to prioritize love of God by being careful not to love our LGBTQ neighbors too much. But at the 2023 young adult broadcast, he changed this.

Elder Oaks admitted that his tendency is to emphasize keeping the commandments and he gives less attention to loving his neighbor. He finds it easier to judge someone by how well he thinks they keep the commandments.

"I now believe that goal to be better expressed as trying to live both of these commandments in a more complete way. Anyone who does not treat individuals who face gender identity challenges with love and dignity is not aligned with the teachings of the first and second great commandments."

I'm not thrilled that he refers to this as "gender identity challenges" or as "issues of confusion of identity," because that implies challenges can be overcome and identities can become unconfused. However, saying saying that loving your queer neighbor is not in conflict with loving God does seem to be progress. In my opinion, he could have apologized for his past statements and the consequences they had, but he didn't take that opportunity.

Then he followed that up by saying "we need to remember that God has revealed again and again that He created male and female." Elder Oaks just can't help himself. Let me add that God also created the transgender, genderfluid, nonbinary, and intersex people.

Now that he addressed trans people, time to move on to people experiencing same-sex attraction. He warned that we should be careful not to label ourselves (in other words, probably avoid calling yourself gay, lesbian, or bisexual) because these labels won't lead us to eternal life in the Celestial kingdom.

What I find from this broadcast is that mere crumbs are being offered to queer people by Elder Oaks, when Christ would offer us a seat at the feast in the banquet hall.

[queen-mabs-revenge]

they really expect me to suspend my disbelief that Colin can ‘kiss his fella’ in front of millions of people and face not a single bit of backlash or even any kind of reaction? I get that this is a feel good show but?! What!?

like that was literally a point when i was like -- shit is this entire episode a dream sequence? like it was so unhinged from any kind of reality and actually so fucking insulting to any kind of queer truth in the narrative at all?

like is this meant to be real life? is this meant to reflect our world at all? what the fuck is this? what the fuck is the takeaway from that? hey queers! you too can overcome queerphobia embedded in the deeply violent system that you live in if you just live your truth and nut up about it!

i'm so fucking beyond like they could have had the guys nodding to each other across the pitch and coming into what looked to everyone else in the statium like a celebratory dance-y huddle but was actually them creating a little shield so that colin could kiss michael? acknowledge that even if the greater system is still hostile the solidarity of the group can offer a space for someone to love and flourish and be protected? I DON'T KNOW SOMETHING ANYTHING SOMETHING PLEASE WHAT THE FUCK????

this entire episode felt like a disassociative state from everything