#queer ally cousin

[ravenwraithe]

my cousin doesn't even try anymore he rattles off a random bunch of letters like a otp generator and i just know

why do cishet people say lgbtq like that

[spacephrasing]

hello sorry if this is really long and tmi but besties i need some advice

[crypticblossom]

I'm a fairly private person, esp when it comes to relationships and whatnot. So there are, apparently, many people irl who don't know I'm queer. But I have no interest in coming out over and over, I'm more like if you know you know, or you'll figure it out eventually. But it's always funny when people find out and they think I've kept it secret or that im in the closet, telling me "OMG you need to live your truth!!" Like, I've been living my truth fine for years, your gaydar just fucking sucks my dude. 😂

[alex-the-polykin]

Less then like an hour ago, I was showing my great-grandma a cool fidget worm thing I got when I was on a trip with my partner and their family from a few years ago.

And she was like "Oh, your lover?" When I told her who I went with, INFRONT OF MY STEPGRANDPA, BIO GRANDMA, COUSIN, AND DAD.

And I was just like "yeah, them 😃👍" and continued talking but I was kinda freaking out???

[magentagalaxies]

Jessamine Accidentally Writes An Essay About Two Conversations Ze's Totally Normal About

one of my beloved mutuals (@souplover13) is reblogging a lot of queerpunk posts tonight which just reminded me of two conversations i want to document. yes this story involves paul bellini why wouldn't it (fr tho i was considering not making this a post bc i was like oh god do people really want to hear me ramble about these 63-year-old gay dudes again maybe i should give it a rest but whatever it's my blog and if people don't like it why are they even following me this is all we do here)

anyway the story actually begins with a conversation i had with my parents earlier today. now, i'm lucky enough to have parents that are constantly trying their best to be good allys and are always learning to do better. they're not perfect, but they want to learn. while at lunch today my dad took a picture of me and my mom together since i won't be home again for a few months and he affectionately said "my girls." i've been out to my parents as nonbinary for around a year, but i let it slide since my gender wasn't the most important part of that sentiment, more the fact that it was a nice family moment.

a beat later my mom corrects "girl and person," and while i am grateful for her seeing that i'm not a girl, this type of correction always makes me feel more awkward than being misgendered. like, the point of my dad calling me "his girl" was this tone of familial affection, but the word "person" just feels cold and distant, which is something i struggle with in a lot of gender neutral language. but beyond that, it's just this weird separation. i jokingly correct my mom again, saying "hey, we're both people."

the conversation continues and eventually my mom asks if it bothers me when people call me "girl" like that. and the truth is: i don't know. it bothers me a little, but the forced neutrality bothers me more, and honestly i don't really care what gendered language someone uses for me as long as they mean it in a way that shows me they care. like, i'd rather be called girl affectionately than be called "genderqueer nonbinary person with a strained relationship to androgyny who uses ze/zir pronouns and feels represented by the word transfeminine" in a derogatory way. I respond "it's contextual," but that's not a satisfactory answer. the conversation moves on to a nonbinary person who stops by my mom's work often and how my mom's had to correct some of the older employees to stop calling them a girl, since times are changing.

the second conversation is from a few weeks ago when i first visited canada to help with the mouth congress concert and got to have lunch with paul bellini beforehand. at one point the conversation developed into paul asking me what being "nonbinary" means for me personally. it was clear he wasn't intimately familiar with the concept (though to his credit he did have more experience with it than i expected), and some of his assumptions were inaccurate to my experience, but he listened intently as i described my experience not knowing how to specifically label my gender but just knowing i don't want to be seen as a cis woman while also having no desire to be fully male. he related it to his own experience as a gay man with his own complex relationship to masculinity and femininity, acknowledging it's not the exact same, and by the end of our conversation i truly felt like he respected my unique relationship to gender even if there were certain parts he still needed to process.

but most importantly, it was funny. granted our conversation was a unique case since both individuals were queer comedians from different generations, but approaching the strange concept of gender identity with humor made it so much more comfortable. paul described being a little feminine gay kid and thinking "i'm not a boy or a girl, i'm a god" and i responded that's it exactly. i brought up the mouth congress song she-male: master of the universe, saying the vision of a vengeful genderqueer space goddess is the most represented i've felt by a piece of media, only half joking. but also there were times when i made jokes about failing at gender (e.g. referencing a group of "girls" at my high school who made me realize i'm nonbinary since i always felt weird for being the least feminine person when we hung out, and then the fact that several of them came out as transmasc after graduation meaning now they can be better than me at being trans as well) and while paul acknowledged the joke he also assured me i was exactly where i needed to be in terms of my gender presentation, and honestly i'm kind of tearing up just thinking about it.

paul never asked me for my pronouns, but to be fair i did somewhat volunteer them in the form of a joke: "i use any pronouns, but i will silently judge you based on what you do with that information." that line got a laugh.

I told the same line to my parents after our "girl" conversation today, earning only confusion, and it made me realize something: so much of modern trans allyship centers entirely around language, be it pronouns or recognizing the lack of neutrality in our everyday speech. and while these things are certainly important, that's not understanding. cishet allys so often want to be able to say the right thing, so they approach the subject as learning the rules for how to incorporate this new approach to gender into their lexicon. i think there's something to be said for how this parallels how we're often taught about cis gender roles: these are the rules you follow to be a man or woman. when you find out someone doesn't fit neatly into those boxes, it's natural to ask "okay, what are your rules?" this also leads to some cis people (even gay cis people) complaining about how "you can't say anything these days" since it's portrayed as just another set of rules you need to learn.

but honestly, i don't know what my gender rules should be. my approach to gender lately has been the equivalent of "idk dude i just work here," i don't know where i specifically fit in but i do know how i feel inside. the answer "it's contextual" doesn't give you the cheat codes to gendering me correctly, because even i don't know how to gender myself correctly half the time. however, more importantly imo it gives you a window into how it feels to be me, a nonbinary person with complicated relationships to every facet of gender who's decided to stop expecting language to fully represent me but still has to deal with language being applied to me all the time. my nonbinary gender is confusing as hell, and i'm tired of having to pretend it's not as if that's the only way it's worthy of respect. every gender (including cis genders) is confusing as hell, and it's only when we all accept this fact that we can actually make a meaningful connection.

as my parents and i were driving away from the restaurant my only thought was i wonder how my dad would've referred to that photo if it was my brother and my mom in the picture. would he have said "girl and boy?" or "girl and person?" or would he have simply said "family"

[gayestgazpacho]

my aunt was worried that i would turn my cousin trans

if i could actually turn people trans or gay, i would have already unleashed havoc upon my school football teams, the girls’ drama would be the boys’ drama, i would have twenty nonbinary generals and that would have forty gay soldiers each, the legions of queer would overwhelm the homophobes and we would seize the capital. decked in armour of rainbow varieties, we would find the pansexuals and asexuals to ally ourselves with them to invade sweden and ultimately carry out the gay agenda of world domination. the first thing we do after achieving total control is have the biggest garlic bread eating competition the world has ever seen. since the pans have taken over sweden, ikea would have free blåhajs for the transfemmes . india would provide t for my transmasc buddies and pride month would never end.

[batboyblog]

hey thanks for not being super doomer over these anti-trans bills. i kept on seeing so many people being defeated over them and it messed up my mental health for a while, like nothing could be done. but you did bring up some good points and shed some light onto people who are actively fighting for us so i thank you again

The queer movement, in the US any ways, has always been cyclical, we make big gains and push forward, then there's a super scary backlash. We're right now at the hight of a really scary backlash thats focused on trans people in particular but is anti-queer more generally. It's intense but its important to remember these backlashes don't generally last very long, they are scary, but each time they've happened, the mid to late 1970s, the 1980s, the early 2000s, the tide has gone out and gay rights, LGBT rights, and society's acceptance of LGBT people has been farther along than before they have never ever managed to turn us back in the years since Stonewall.

And as intense and scary as this is in some ways it's better than last time, when I was a gay teenager. in those days... in 2004 and 2008 the Democrats running for President were uniformly against gay marriage (the big issue of that time) they were trying to get us to settle for the not marriage alternative of civil unions. Only a handful of Congresspeople (some of them gay themselves) in DEEP! blue districts dared to support gay marriage outright. Today the Democratic Party is the most pro-LGBT major political party in the world, you had the President and every Democrat of any note making statements for TDOV a few days ago and you're not seeing even red state Democrats back down and agree to be "a little transphobic" for votes. It felt a lot more lonely last time when it was us and a handful of allies fighting the backlash with most of the Democratic Party on the side lines handwringing and saying "well can't you wait?"

any ways this movement is and will always be a struggle, the rights we've won, the acceptance we've received has never just been given, it's been won, through hard work. Everyone has to dedicate themselves to work in their corner of the earth to the best of their abilities and to push themselves past what they think they can do. That means hooking up with LGBT rights groups on the ground to protest, to rally, to try to support and comfort those queer people who are down and out in whatever way right now, it means digging deep and having hard and awkward conversations with the people in your life, if you're gay or trans or whatever and you got that one aunt/uncle/cousin/whoever in your life that loves you to bits but you know still votes Republican and you just don't bring it up because you don't want to hurt the relationship... have the talk keep having the talk as many times as you need to. Tell your grandparents if they don't know, tell your parents (if its safe or if you don't need their money any more) tell co-workers who don't know etc, they vote for us 2 to 1 if they know they know one of us. Finally register to vote, make sure all your friends particularly if you're young are registered and vote, vote in every election. Trust me it's AMAZINGLY easy to find the email of candidates for school board or city council and it's amazingly easy to ask questions. Last election I emailed every school board candidate about Holocaust education, and the state rep candidate about trans rights, she wrote me back a lovely note and mailed be a sticker she'd picked up from a trans rights group. It's amazingly easy to get involved, I volunteered with my local democrats for one election and they offered me the #3 spot in their local party, I have the phone numbers of my state rep and state senator without trying really, you can get in the room with these people, with candidates for governor, congress, I have my picture with 3 US Presidents? its not hard to do, and you can use chances like that to talk to them and show them your humanity and leave an impression that really matters in the long run.

sorry to RAMBLE but it's important that everyone do their part, pick a little something, a project to push this thing forward, people doom scrolling, particularly posting about how its hopeless does not help, posting in general doesn't help much even if its not doomerism, I think in the years after the anti-gay marriage Bush backlash we got very online and we got very "progress just happens" and a lot of people fell out of the habit or came of age without the habit of protest and without a local queer community or local progressive community and its very important in the face of this to find or build those and also understand in some places its gonna be years of work to get where we want to go, but we will and it'll be worth all the work.

[kingdoms-and-empires]

The King's Hound Review

I recently had to go travel and read a few works that I never got around to reading but was interested in.

PLEASE REMEMBER THIS REVIEW IS DONE BY ME AS A READER AND IS MY OWN OPINION.

This means I will review in accordance to my own tastes, how the game caters to me, and what I feel. Do not take my word as gospel, what I may not be interested in or dislike, may be what YOU are interested and love!!!

@the-kingshound

Synopsis:

You are the King’s spouse, his right and left hand, the unstoppable executor of his will. Your name is whispered by enemies and allies with fear and respect alike, some says it’s your arm that bears the weight of the entire kingdom.

They call you the King’s hound. It started as a way to taunt you but it’s not that far away from the truth. Your loyalty is blind, your devotion absolute. The King’s vision is your vision.

Your name will forever mark history alongside theirs.

But for now, you are being shipped to your betrothed, alone and powerless on your way to Camelot.

As the seventh child of the Venegard House, you’ve always had little to look forward to other than an arranged marriage to achieve a political alliance.

That’s exactly why, after your parents lost the rebellion against King Arthur, you were the one sent to him as a sign of newfound peace.

You don’t know what awaits you now, but after you Camelot will never be the same.

Review:

The Good: The project is 18+, and the writing is very well done. It just feels quality. Plus the UI and and dark background are classy. The game is Twine, so you get the save functions of Twine and all that jazz. Anyways, descriptions are well done, the worldbuilding is grounded and helps form the politics in-game. It's thought-out and noticeable. The player customization goes hard and you even get the option to play mute! In The King's Hound, you also find a game that provides the LGBTQ+ demographic and FemMC playing community a welcoming and acknowledging home. The descriptions of the fight scenes and battles (like action set pieces) are good and don't leave you scratching your head. The transitions between paragraphs and pages happen naturally and without breaking pace, which shows the talent of a writer that considers their audience. Also, in regards to the King Arthur mythos and worldbuilding done by the author, i just really appreciate the fact that Camelot is Welsh.

It just gives me an idea of how much the author researched or cares about the mythos to give that respect of origin for the story. I had problems with how King Arthur was being super nice at first, but the author recently stated in a post that Arthur was acting in such a manner because he is deliberately trying to be the opposite of King Uther!

And that in the future, the work will offer more text to reveal that to us, the player.

The Bad: I wouldve liked being able to marry a cousin, niece, sister, or even daughter of King Arthur (or genderbender him) but that is literally my only complaint as a straight dude tryna self insert. The author tells you explicitly that you are marrying the king. If the author decides not to, as is their right and vision, I have no problem whatsoever. I still think the work is well written, and has many elements that i personally fuck with (low fantasy, grounded narrative, adult themes) The fact that i wish the author could change this, is only because i like the work so much. Instead, in this playthrough King Arthur will find that the MC practices

The Ugly: The MAP. But that's only because my history buff mind thinks of the British Isle when hearing these names and when i saw the map it physically gave me whiplash. But youre making your own version of the story, so bully!

The Aftermath: I know this game isnt catered towards me as a straight dude. It is a proud queer game with quality writing, that'd also do really well for the FemMC readers. I would recommend this game to anyone who wants a low fantasy medieval setting, with good writing, and grounded narratives that isn't a straight dude's traditional power fantasy.

Next playthrough, ima be a mute straight girl thatll hoe around King Arthur's court out of sheer spite

^Marci from Dota: Dragon Blood

[waltywhitey]

🌟🌟 How the Breaking Bad crew would react to you coming out as trans 🥰🏳️‍⚧️🌟🌟

Notes: hi!!!! I'm a new writer and I just wanted to start with some breaking bad and better call Saul headcanons! Hope you enjoy!!!

Warnings: none

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

✨ Walter White ✨

🔆 Apprehensive at first since he doesn't really understand gender

🔆 Grew up old fashioned but will eventually come around

🔆 He's a teacher so he has to be understanding and use your correct pronouns

🔆 He further explores LGBTQ+ issues and gender rights and is a proud ally

🔆 He attends Albuquerque's pride festival

✨ Jesse Pinkman ✨

🔆 He's your best friend since moving to Albuquerque

🔆 Once you tell him, he gets really excited about learning this

🔆 He's so happy that he shows you his top scars in solidarity

🔆 Jesse never told anyone that he's trans too -- bonding you both closer together

✨ Saul Goodman ✨

🔆 Doesn't understand pronouns or being gay

🔆 Admits that he was gay for a bit in highschool

🔆 He'll refer to you with your preferred pronouns so he doesn't lose you as a client

🔆 He will protect you against hate crimes

🔆 He will also fight for your right to gender affirming care

🔆 He also wears a trans pin next to his blue ribbon to tell other potential clients that he supports all the queers

✨ Gus Fring ✨

🔆 You are one of his employees and confide in him that another coworker called you a transphobic slur

🔆 Gus does not allow discrimination in the work place and has the coworker fired

🔆 He consoles you in his office and asks what your preferred pronouns are and promises to make sure everyone refers to you as such

🔆 During June, Gus has a special trans meal that comes with a free trans flag and all proceeds go to an LGBTQ+ organization

🔆 Los Pollos Hermanos also has a float in the Albuquerque pride festival

✨ Mike Ehrmantaut ✨

🔆 Silence

✨ Skyler White ✨

🔆 You're best friends with her son, Walt Jr.

🔆 She's seen you grow up so when you come out as trans she's a bit shocked

🔆 At first she'll ask how you know and forbid Flynn from hanging out with you

🔆 Her son bashes her for being transphobic and says that he is going to run away

🔆 Skyler calms down and thinks things through

🔆 Eventually she promises to not be transphobic around you

🔆 At first she'll struggle with your preferred pronouns but she'll get it

🔆 Over time she'll become an ally and be accepting when Walt Jr. comes out as bi

✨Marie Schrader✨

🔆 You come out to Marie and she is very supportive

🔆 Marie stole your goddamn estrogen pills

✨ Hank Schrader ✨

🔆 You're one of Marie's coworkers and best friend

🔆 She invites you over for dinner where you admit to them both that you are trans

🔆 Marie is very supportive but Hank looks at you with a face of confusion and disgust

🔆 He doesn't believe in more than two genders and that you can be a different gender than what you were born as

🔆 He refuses to use your preferred pronouns and tells Marie that he doesn't want you back in his house

🔆 Hank tells his coworkers about you and Gomez gets on to him for being transphobic

🔆 After awhile Hank is indifferent to you at the least and tries to use your preferred pronouns

🏳️‍⚧️💗 BOUNOS 💗🏳️‍⚧️

✨ Kim Wexler ✨

🔆 At first she'll be confused because she thought you were pansexual

🔆 You'll explain to her that gender and sexuality are different and she'll quickly catch on

🔆 Once you tell her your preferred pronouns, she'll immediately start using them

🔆 She'll research all about LGBTQ+ history and current issues and promises to fight against any hate crime related cases for you

🔆 As she furthers he studies of sexuality and gender, she later comes out as non-binary

✨ Lalo Salamanca ✨

🔆 He finds you hotter

✨ Nacho Varga ✨

🔆 You're a cousin of the Salamancas

🔆 You'll befriend him as he seems like the least menacing of Salamanca's men

🔆 After awhile, you'll come out to him and he'll be shocked at first but then happy

🔆 He congratulates you on this big step and that it wasn't easy coming out to a member of the cartel

🔆 He'll ask what your preferred pronouns are and uses them right away

🔆 He eventually asks you to join his polycule

.

✨ Chuck McGill ✨

🔆 Dies

.

✨ Howard Hamlin ✨

🔆 You work for HHM as a paralegal

🔆 Howard spots the paperwork for a name change on your desk and questions you

🔆 You come out as trans and he'll be gladly shocked

🔆 He'll ask what your preferred pronouns are and enforce them with the whole company

🔆 He'll even offer to drive you down to the court for you to finalize the name change

(Tumblr has a 10 images per post limit I'm sorry Nacho and Howard 💔)

[irena-dubrovnaa]

damian and mara/teen titans/demon's fist headcanons because i saw this post and im thinking about them again

this isn't a headcanon this is very canon, they look damn near exactly the same. like could pass for one another with little to no effort

just look at them

they argue literally constantly. it can be THE most benign thing like the exact shade of blue something might be, but it has to be turned into an argument

talia acts like a second parent to mara since it appears her mother isn't in the picture, they were raised like brother and sister

they don't correct people when they're mistaken for twins/siblings

mara's actually pretty fond of damian's friends

damian is still on a first name basis with the demon's fist members and damian and mara make training regimens for both their teams sometimes

the teen titans and demon's fist still can't stand each other but they acknowledge it's good to have each other as occasional allies

nightstorm is the kid of one of the league's top assassins and was trained somewhat alongside damian and mara, the three of them know everything about each other and constantly threaten to expose the stupid ass things they did when they were little

damian and ace do one on one hand-to-hand combat training frequently and one time mara helped damian demonstrate a takedown, that was the first time he realized just how similar they looked and he didn't retain any of the information. he was too busy trying to figure out how their genes were so strong

emiko and mara get along extremely well, she wasn't on the team when the demon's fist was after them but of course being related to damian she knew who she was and decided she was gonna give her a shot at friendship

they're both the queer cousin, damian's bi and mara's a lesbian in my head

mara loves her uncle bruce, she thinks he's ridiculous and kinda stupid but she also thinks he's cool and respects his abilities, as well as how happy he makes her mother figure

mara and emiko "secretly" watch keeping up with the kardashians together. that's already canon on emiko's part

xiomara and mara have some weird gay rivalry going on

[tschulijulesjulie]

I need book recommendations please. I read captive prince and I’m losing my mind.

ooooh gladly!

so first of all, nothing really compares to CaPri, however i do have some - imo - very good recommendations that might have similar vibes.

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley - historical (18th and 19th century) Fantasy. Amnesia and time-travelling, with a veeeery Laurent-coded love interest.

The Scottish Boy by Alex De Campi - historical (14th century) Captive/Prisoner and (reluctant) man who has to hold him captive, secret identity, political schemes, revenge, war

Solomons Crown by Natasha Siegel - historical (12th century), Crown Prince of England (Richard Lionheart) and King of France (Philipp II) falling in love despite their countries being enemies, political schemes, strained family relationship to the point of going to war against family members, allies to enemies to allies again

A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland - not my personal favourite but still good, Fabtasy, outstanding non-european-centric world-building, anxiety rep, queer-normative, Disgraced Prince and his guard(s) having to uncover a political intrigue that could dethrown his sister, the monarch, nightly shenenigans in taverns while hiding their identity, forced proximity, kinda co-dependent relationship

Winters Orbit by Everina Maxwell - SciFy, Prince has to marry the widow of his cousin for diplomatic reasons who then gets accused of having killed his first husband, political intrigue, past abuse

Fence by CS Pacat and Johanna the Mad - graphic novels, sports (fencing), YA?, might be an entirely different setting but the character dynamics are reminiscent of CaPri/ you can tell Pacats writing

The Aeneid by Virgil - the great Roman epic. to this day im convinced Pacat might have drawn some inspiration from this (or possibly the Odyssee and the Iliad)

I hope that helps. Thank you for your ask!

[thatdisasterauthor]

Beta Search

I'm looking for a beta (or a few) for my new book who is willing to read it in chunks as I get them done. The book is heavily based around wildland firefighting, and that's something I know enough about that I don't know what isn't common knowledge anymore, so I'm looking for someone that knows nothing or next to nothing about wildland firefighting and can point out anything that's confusing to the average person. (Other feedback is also welcome! That's just the one main thing I know I need to get checked right off the bat, lol.)

These are three of the major characters. Left to right we've got:

Theo: second in command of his family's private wildland firefighting company, The Torch Crew, which was started in the fifties by his grandfather. Doing his best to keep the company alive despite the mismanagement of his much older second cousin who currently owns and runs it. Definition of "he a little confused but he got the spirit" queer ally.

Maddie: Theo's best friend. Trans woman. Takes no shit and is trying very hard to get Theo to stop taking his second cousin's shit. Very good at cutting down very scary trees and making it look easy. Lives by the mantra of "not my monkeys, not my circus" as much as possible, but when she jumps in she jumps IN.

Andreas: Main character. Asexual. 20 years old. College dropout who only joined the family firefighting company because he didn't know what else to do with himself. Nearly dies on page one and in the process accidentally ends up enmeshed in a bunch of nonsense with several Greek Gods, kicking off the plot.

Said plot, without giving too much away at this point, involves a lot of natural disaster and Andreas trying to navigate what it means to be favored by the gods, especially when at least one of those gods has it out for the existence of all mortals.

Overall themes of sacrifice, what sacrifice means, responsibility for the climate, and power as an individual vs. a collective.

I have about 30k written so far, and I'm thinking it'll end up around 80-100k, and will be a standalone. I'd send it to you in probably 2-3 chapter chunks as I get them done, plus that 30k chunk that's already done. I'd appreciate relatively quick feedback (weeks rather than months).

If you're interested, please DM me! I'd like to do this over Discord if possible, if not, email is fine. And it would be using Word for feedback as I don't use Google Docs.

I'll turn off reblogs when I've found enough people, so if reblogs are on I'm still looking. :)

[knight-of-skyloft]

So convinced that the enlightened Truthwatchers are a metaphor for being religious and queer. Like

"If I'm a blessing, Father, how can we reject the others? How can we condemn the one who made them?" (RoW ch. 54)

And

"She creates in us a faction loved by neither men nor Odium. No home. No allies. She might be destroyed by either. We will need more. Like you and like me. Together." (RoW ch. 54)

And

It was just that... well, Dalinar was so accustomed to being able to do whatever he wanted. He had written a storming book. Renarin held no illusions that would be similarly accepted. He and his father might be of similar rank, from the same family, but Renarin had never been able to navigate society like Dalinar did. True, his father at times "navigated" society like a chull marching through a crowd, but people got out of the way all the same.

Not for Renarin. (RoW ch. 54)

And

You can't spend forever floating between worlds, Cousin, [Jasnah] thought. Eventually you'll need to decide where you want to belong. Life was so much harder, but potentially so much more fulfilling, when you found the courage to choose. (OB ch. 53)

And l'll leave you with this, from Brandon's statement on his site re: his views on queer rights and his faith.

I recognize that this FAQ entry itself might be unpopular with some of you, as it presents someone walking between two worlds, unwilling to condemn either one.

[bairnsidhe]

Hairpins, Safety Pins, and Blue Bracelets.

I know there have been mixed feelings about the recent suggestion from (mostly white women) librals to wear blue friendship bracelets to indicate one did not vote for the Carrot-Color Con-man.

I have heard from those who find it offensive, too little and too late, a form of performative virtue signaling, or an overly political "cosplay of activism". These voices are valid and I respect them. I know many of those blue bracelets will mean nothing but following a trend.

I have also listened to those who really do want some way to tangibly label people who can be resources for at-risk people. Both those who want to offer said service and those who think they may need it. These voices are also valuable, and a visual marker of willingness and ability to lend aid is a good thing. The turban of a Sikh comes to mind as an example.

So how do we balance wanting signals and not wanting to mix them with performative fads?

My friends, I have good news! At-risk subcultures and their allies have been doing similar shit for years. Most of these do not look cutesy or #AestheticGoals, they've been around for ages standing the test of time as the communities that use them weather crisis and catastrophe alike. They're largely non-partisan, having nothing to do with a specific person or administration but instead being about offering safety and acceptance. And they're cheap as shit to get.

Meet the Safety Pin!

During the emergence of punk rock in the late 1970s, safety pins became a big part of the subculture's aesthetic, often for practical reasons (all those ripped jeans gotta stay on somehow!)

Punk as a subculture is very deeply political, with a strong lean towards fighting for the disenfranchised and against oppressors. As a result it is not surprising that at some point, a single safety pin worn conspicuously became a symbol of safety and support for those who need it.

This breached containment into the mainstream in 2016 to combat the rise in racist and xenophobic speech and violence, and at the time got many of the same criticism the bracelets are getting. However, I remember learning as a child in Ye Olden Days to seek a single safety pin on a shirt or strung onto a necklace if I needed help in an alt space. It definitely worked then and could, I believe, work again if we return to the very action oriented definition of safety and support used in the subculture that created it.

Wear the Safety Pin if you can commit yourself to combating threats and providing actionable or tangible support.

Meet the Hairpin!

Not to be confused with their younger cousin the Bobby Pin (diagram above from HumblebeeAndMe.com) the hairpin is a loose U shaped pin that holds hair beautifully, but with little security, and may drop out of your hair if you aren't careful.

A "hairpin drop" on the other hand, is a very very old slang term for giving a subtle hint to a person that you are not straight/cis, to determine if the other person is safe to be out to. Just as a fallen hairpin is small and easily discarded, hairpin drops were easily covered over if the test was failed.

After the Stonewall Riots were dubbed "The hairpin drop heard round the world", some queer activists took on literal hairpins as an emblem. While not as common in the last few decades, it could easily be rivived as a more subtle queer pride, and the large gap in popular use would add a layer of smokescreen for those not invested in Queer history.

Wear or display the Hairpin if you are or actively work to protect LGBT+ people

Again, I am not saying not to wear the blue bracelets if you want to. Widespread symbols have their place. I am merely suggesting these as alternatives that may feel more authentic or safer to wear.

[wheeloffortune-design]

When you're used to hang out with queer people, the concept of trans and non-binary people becomes just that: people. They become human, with things in their lives, that sometimes are tied to transitioning, sometimes not.

It feels strange to talk to people who do not know trans and nb personally, because even when they're supportive, they don't really get it? And I mean this as a cis woman, who had to learn about the issues my friends face to better help them.

This week, one day I talked to an old friend who was a weird ally, like, they're supportive of rights but caught up in acceptability politics, complaining about how drastic the societal changes are (in language, French doesn't make it easy). Their only exposure to trans and nb people is online, and we know the loudest aren't necessarily the smartest. They don't get that, organically, change and revolution needs loud extreme voices just to make the other demands seem reasonable.

Two days later I met a bunch of people where at least three out of seven were trans, and none of us were straight (as in cishet). The conversation went from complaining about body hair to lack thereof, to trouble at work, politics and wildfires, to end up in DND. People things. It only cemented what I tried to tell my other friend by asking "... but do you know any trans people?".

I think that, and I don't want to talk over trans and nb people, but as a queer person, I think that the awkward allies, the ones that defend our rights but complain about our loudness-- I think we need to keep them. It's often annoying and unpleasant, but they're in higher numbers and when it's a matter of life and death, you can't be picky about your allies. They might change with time and exposure to different realities, or maybe they're just going to meet real people and it won't be just a concept for them, but a colleague, a cousin or an old friend.

I wish everyone had good allies in their lives, or at least some "He's a little confused, but he got the spirit".