#stonewall construction

[ramnathsons]

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[they-call-me-hippie]

Discord-level arguments in the political board group chat

[killstiles]

Minneapolis Fire Pit Landscape This is an illustration of a sizable, conventional backyard with concrete pavers and a fire pit in the summer.

[artificial-transmutations]

Friday Friendship

Hey there! This one is kind of a spiritual successor to Calling the Plumber - and as such, it is one of the rare gay to straight stories of mine. While I do try to keep it friendly and without any homophobia or hate, feel free not read the story if you don't like g2s!

It was hard to overlook Montgomery and Archibald. Of course, that was always the case. But here, on the dirty construction site of their new home, the expensive silk suits of the couple stood out even more than elsewhere. Yes, the two of them were together - and they made sure everybody knew it. Not only were the two gentlemen standing in a tight hug whenever possible, but their flamboyant and colorful clothing left little doubt about their sexuality.

They were those kind of gays that conservatives were afraid of. Both were old enough to have been alive during the stonewall riots, although only Montgomery was actually there as a teenager. Still, the aged couple embodied everything the gay community prided itself on having achieved during the last decades.

Their house, too, would be a statement. The mansion was the largest construction in the area, and the most expensive one. It was going to be built on a large hill, overlooking the town, and its style was... extravagant. The house was to be built in a modern architectural style, but the two men had insisted that the walls would be entirely covered in rainbow colors, although that was still in the future by now. Surrounding the mansion would be a magnificent garden, a park even.

"My dear, are you satisfied with the construction?" Archibald asked his husband in his lime green suit. Montgomery had dyed his hair in an orange-pink tone today and wore a purple tie to his green suit. It was hardly the first building site he visited, since he had made a fortune in real estate.

Archibald, on the other hand, was a bit more conservatively dressed. His suit was a more subdued shade of beige, although his tie was of a bright sky blue color. He usually didn't dye his hair, and today was no exception: He wore the gray with pride, although he spent a fortune on hair and skin care products. He, too, had a respectable job as a top manager in a logistics company.

"Well, darling, I'm not sure yet." Montgomery replied. "I want it to look great, and the work has been good so far. But frankly, it feels that the workers motivation is somewhat underwhelming."

"I think I know what you mean, my dear." Archibald commented as they walked through the empty shell. "It is barely three in the afternoon on a Friday, and there isn't anyone around anymore. The workers must be out partying already. I can't fault them for that, but it is rather annoying, isn't it?"

"Indeed. It would have been nice if they were a little less lazy, though. The garden is behind schedule, and I believe the electrics are going to be delayed by another month."

"That is quite unfortunate."

Montgomery nodded and they walked a bit in silence. It was true. There was still a lot to do, and it looked like the workers left early for the weekend.

Finally, Archibald sighed.

"I guess I could take a look at the progress the electricians are making. I do know a bit or two about this. Maybe then we can talk to the foreman about their work. It's a pity that we cannot supervise every little thing here, but our jobs demand a lot of our time. If only we had a bit more hands-on control."

"My, what a fabulous idea! I will take a stroll through the garden then, to get a better picture there."

The husbands kissed each other on the lips as they split up and Archibald opened the fuse box. He had indeed done a bit of electrical maintenance in his prime, so he knew that what he saw in the box was nothing less than a mess. He sighed and was about to close the box again, but hesitated. No, he couldn't leave the mess like that. He would just tidy things up a bit, to show those inexperienced workers how it was done.

Carefully, he began to work on the wires, but before long, he felt uncomfortable. The fuse box was located in the bright afternoon sun, and it was just positively hot here. Still, not wanting to leave his work, he slipped out of his jacket and hung it over a nearby wall. He didn't notice that the piece of clothing disappeared once he turned away, nor did he notice that his hands became nimbler as he rearranged the wires.

Montgomery on the other hand found the garden construction even less advanced than he had hoped. Even worse, someone had left a few plants out in the heat. They would surely be dead by the time the construction continued on Monday. Montgomery couldn't let that happen. This garden would be beautiful, and no plant would die under his watch.

He carefully carried the plants to the place they were supposed to be. Of course, he knew - he had planned the park all by himself, so he knew where everything was supposed to go. As he arrived at the shady place, he understood why the plants hadn't been placed yet. The ground was wet and muddy, and there weren't any holes yet. He would need to talk to the foreman about that, but the man was surely already in the weekend as well. There was, however, a shovel nearby. Now, aside from ceremonial groundbreaking, Montgomery had never held a shovel. It wasn't that he didn't understand the concept, but he was just not the type for physical labor.

Well. He looked over his shoulder to his husband, who was apparently still busy looking at the fuse box. It seems like he had some time on his hands, so he might as well. Grimacing, he grabbed the shovel and carefully stepped on the soil, trying not to ruin his expensive shoes or pants. That worked well, for about two steps. But as soon as he tried to break the ground with the shovel, a big clump of wet soil splattered on his lime green silk pants.

Montgomery frowned. Well, that suit was ruined anyway. No reason to stop there. Determined, he pulled the shirt out of his pants and opened his vest. He wasn't going to ruin his custom tailored suit for no reason.

Meanwhile, Archie was getting into his work even more. From time to time, he had to wipe his brow, though, as he was sweating like an animal. His dress shirt was stained with multiple sweat stains already and didn't really *look* like a dress shirt anymore, but more casual. The same could be said for the rest of Archie as well. A certain youth had returned to his face, as he was concentrated on his work. This way, he didn't notice when his hairstyle dissolved into an unkempt mess or when a bit of stubble grew in on his chin. His shirt clung to his body now, drenched in sweat. It had long ceased to be a dress shirt though but had become a plain - although rather filthy - beige t-shirt. His tie was nowhere to be seen.

Due to the wetness, the shirt didn't leave much to imagination regarding his body. Not just his face had rejuvenated, no, his entire body had. He was leaner and his muscles firmer now. Out of the V-neck of his sweaty shirt poked a few golden hairs, and before long, his main hair had turned into a Nordic blonde, as well.

Meanwhile, Monty was digging like crazy. He had to get those plants in the ground, or the foreman would... Wait, what was he thinking?

He stopped for a moment, to scratch his head. Thinking was not his strong point, and Monty knew that. But he had other qualities, that made up for that. When he grabbed the shovel again, to keep digging, he heard a ripping sound that made him stop again. The shoulder of his shirt had ripped. His boss was going to kill him! Although, it appeared somewhat strange to him that he was wearing such a colorful and impractical shirt. Perhaps there weren't any other shirts left?

He looked around and saw only one of the electricians still on the site. He knew the guy, he was friendly enough. He surely wouldn't mind if Monty went shirtless for a bit. With an effort not to damage the clothing even more, he peeled out of the garment. He was only half successful with that, and a few more rips sounded before he had finished taking it off.

Monty looked down at his muscular and hairy torso. The cold air was good, and he wasn't afraid to get dirty.

With every movement of the shovel, his arm muscles tightened, and his frame filled out more. A short beard sprouted on his chin, and his now full earthy brown hair shortened to a more practical cut. It wasn't like he had money for an expensive hairdresser, after all.

Finally, he had the holes ready and wiped his hands on his sturdy pair of work pants. Now, he only had to put the plants in. Despite his impressive physique, Manny was always very careful with the flowers, and he made sure that none of the roots got damaged or that he didn't break the stem.

He looked at his work. Good, that would look great, once the plants grew. Someday, he would have a garden of his own, and a house like that. And a beautiful wife and two, no, three children. But that was still a long way to go, with his poor pay.

Someone behind him cursed and Manny looked back to the electrician.

Chad was still sweating like crazy as he worked the wires. His mates had all gone to the clubs by now and he was stuck here and had to fix the mess he had created. That was only fair, but he wished the foreman wouldn't have noticed until Monday. He had to hurry up, though. He didn't want to spend his Friday night on the site, after all. Perhaps he would even get lucky and find a guy... No, what was he thinking? Working on these fruits' house had made him all confused. No, perhaps he would find a busty bombshell to take home tonight. Chad felt his cock growing hard at the thought, creating an obvious bulge in his work pants. Great, more distraction.

Chad tried to readjust himself, just in time as he sensed the big burly gardener approach. He knew the guy loosely but had forgotten his name already - if he even had known it at all.

"Hey, everything alright with them wires?" the low voice of the brute asked in a friendly tone.

"Yeah, I just need to finish up here... Should be done aaaaany minute now..."

Manny watched Chad connect the last wires. Poor guy. His t-shirt was soaked with sweat, and he looked like he was really hot and stressed out.

"Cool. It's no fun working late, and on a Friday. Hey, do you want to hit a bar after that? I could go for a cold one."

Chad looked over his shoulder at the bear of a man. Was that guy hitting on him? Na, his face only showed dumb innocence.

He shrugged. "Sure, why not, eh..."

"Name's Manny." Manny said.

"Great. Manny." Chad said and closed the now somewhat better looking fuse box before wiping away his sweat once more.

"I'm Chad."

Manny and Chad left the building site together this Friday afternoon. Neither of them knew that they were going to become best friends over this and many more beers. Manny turned out to be a great wingman for Chad, and Chad even ended up as Manny's best man during his wedding and godfather for his first child. Sometimes the closest friendships are forged in the Friday afternoon sun of a construction site.

[spade-riddles]

Anonymous said:

Gosh I have so much to say about this, but first I think it’s instructive to look at the masters heist timeline of 2019:

June 15: Taylor’s surprise Stonewall performance. June 17: Taylor releases the YNTCD video, further increasing speculation about a coming out. June 20: BMR shareholders, including Scott Swift, are told there will be an official shareholders meeting on June 25. June 24: the Joshlie second wedding occurs in Wyoming. Scooter and Yael attend, while Taylor does NOT show up to the party. This fuels continued speculation that she and Karlie are feuding. It’s important to note here that at this point, Scooter Braun already knows he is purchasing Taylor’s masters. June 25: BMR informs its shareholders of the impending sale of the label and its assets to Ithaca holdings. They have 3 days to go over the details and decide their votes. June 28: Karlie posts *sips tea* and Taylor posts “Friday calm,” insinuating that the coming out is still on. On the same day, BMR shareholders vote to confirm the label’s sale to Ithaca Holdings. June 29: Taylor receives a message from Scott Borchetta informing her of the sale of her masters. This happens while she’s flying home to NYC (presumably for pride). June 30: Tay skips pride and chooses violence. (We gather here, we line up weeping in a sunlit room, and if I’m on fire you’ll be made of ashes too —> her team deciding to drop the CO and go to war for her masters) July 3: Ash Avignon (and later Clare Winter) likes a Perez Hilton tweet claiming Taylor and Karlie are feuding is bc Karlie was telling things about Taylor’s life and career to Scooter. (I talk shit with my friends, it’s like I’m wasting your honor) July 22: a blind item is released saying Yael Braun publicly called Taylor a c*nt and a d*ke at a presidential fundraiser (lock broken, slur spoken, wound open, game token, I didn’t know you were keeping count).

During July, Karlie was also making some posts insinuating Kaylor was struggling but still very much in touch (boxing gloves, out of the blue, wearing a cold shoulder top, randomly taking a rare social media break in late July/early Aug).

Looking at this timeline, it makes one wonder if Scott and Scooter planned the masters heist for the specific purpose of keeping Taylor in the closet, believing that her coming out would tank the value of Taylor’s masters. They assumed (rightly) that she’d pivot her plans when her life’s work was threatened.

Re: the Kaylor feud, depending on how you interpret these events and the lyrics Taylor has written about The Great War, you could think one of two diff scenarios happened:

1) Taylor really did think Karlie betrayed her for a time, even though that wasn’t the case (got the *sense* I’d been betrayed // telling me to punish you for things you never did). The reality is, even if Karlie knew nothing about the masters heist, she was partying with Scooter and Yael the very same weekend he already knew he’d made a deal with Scott Borchetta for Taylor’s masters. This increased Taylor’s sense of distrust and perhaps put a temporary rift between them (you knew it still hurts underneath my scars from when they pulled me apart, but what you did was just as dark.) 2) Taylor and Karlie were mostly fine but constructed the feud narrative (tore your banners down, took the battle underground) to keep the public’s eyes off of them while Taylor created a battle plan on the masters.

Either way, we know Ash and Claire were used to push the Kaylor feud narrative. Being non-celebrities, they are often used to sell the “real” story to Swifties. Them liking the Perez tweet was the first time anyone on Team Taylor had confirmed a rift between Kaylor.

We know from Taylor’s lyrics that Karlie never actually betrayed her:

-telling me to punish you for things you never did

-looked up at me with honor and truth

-my hand was the one you reached for all throughout the great war

-it’s like I’m wasting your honor

-your integrity makes me seem small

-put you in jail for something you didn’t do

-hey it’s all me in my head, I’m the one who burned us down

-I wounded the good and I trusted the wicked

-I can’t make it go away by making you the villain

-you would break your back to make me break a smile

-dreams of your hair and your stare and your sense of belief in the good in the world, you once believed in me

-dark side, I search for your dark side

I think we can glean from these lyrics that Taylor perhaps regrets her rash decision to paint Karlie as the bad guy. Yet it also stands that the feud has given them cover to live their life under the radar.

Karlie coming to Eras tour was a really interesting shift in the narrative. But even more notably, Taylor herself has never acknowledged it. We can conclude that leaving it open ended is serving Taylor in some way. Perhaps allowing her to have her cake and eat it too (Karlie being there to support Taylor for the Eras movie filming and the announcement of 1989TV, but Taylor still not acknowledging Karlie publicly).

[mightyflamethrower]

Joe Biden, to the degree he was cognizant, has always reflected the Obama-era utopia dream of a borderless world, and thus millions of poor have illegally entered the United States. On numerous occasions, he offered clear warnings of what he would do if he ever had power over immigration policy.

Do we remember this 2020 Biden boast to let in millions and offer blanket amnesties?

“But I will send to the desk immediately a bill that requires the access to citizenship for 11 million undocumented folks, number one. Number two, in the first 100 days of my administration, no one, no one will be deported at all. From that point on, the only deportations that will take place are commissions of felonies in the United States of America.” In Biden’s world, if no illegal alien is ever to be deported unless a criminal, then there is at last no border.

Earlier Biden had also bragged, “We could afford to take in a heartbeat another two million. The idea that a country of 330 million people cannot absorb people who are in desperate need and who are justifiably fleeing oppression is absolutely bizarre.”

After 2020, we found out what Biden really meant was that a few thousand privileged and rich people in Martha’s Vineyard, Malibu, and Rehoboth, Delaware, certainly could not absorb even a few hundred in “desperate need”—but the millions of poor in inner-city Chicago, in the Rio Grande Valley, and the Central Valley of California most certainly could absorb “another two million” illegal aliens.

Most infamously, in 2019, Biden gave explicit outlines of the very open border that he has now institutionalized: “I would, in fact, make sure that there is, that we immediately surge the border all those people are seeking asylum. They deserve to be heard. That’s who we are. We’re a nation that says if you want to flee, and you’re fleeing oppression, you should come. (emphasis added).”

Again, Biden assumed that “you should come” applied to downtown New York, South Central LA, or El Paso, but under no circumstances to Kalorama, Kailua, or the empty summer dorm rooms of Stanford or Harvard.

All this braggadocio was unfortunately more than the usual empty Biden blather. As president, one of the first things he did really was to “surge the border” by overturning through fiat some 90 Trump executive orders. Despite countless lawsuits, left-wing congressional stonewalling, and internal agency obstruction, these earlier directives had effectively stopped illegal immigration by the fall of 2020.

Upon taking office, Biden, perhaps for the first and only time, made good on his word as he ranted, “There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration.”

Biden not only did his best to ensure an unfenced border, but after the election, he sold off piles of idle wall materials for pennies on the dollar. Thereby, in childish fashion, he reminded the American people (who will needlessly pay additional millions for a new wall, given Biden’s auction and his hyperinflation since 2020) that he hated Donald Trump more than he liked the American people.

Why did Biden destroy the border, allowing in 500,000 violent felons and gang members, over 1 million already served with deportation orders, ten million more unvetted—initially at a time of a government COVID quarantine? Why did he appoint the now-impeached prevaricator Alejandro Mayorkas, who repeatedly and disingenuously claimed that “the border is secure,” even as Americans watched thousands of illegal aliens, drug smugglers, and cartel coyotes crossing the border with impunity?

Was Biden pledged to bend to La Raza pressures?

Did he owe allegiance to a Hispanic activist elite that demanded that millions of new constituents ignore the border, oblivious to the concern of Hispanic border communities? The latter, unlike their elite DEI megaphones, had to deal firsthand with the resulting massive border crossings that overwhelmed social services, drove down wages, bankrupted their schools, and spiked crime in their communities.

Or was Biden simply a nihilist who enjoyed the chaos and the furor it evoked among his supposed “semi-fascist” and “ultra-MAGA” foes?

Was he a hard-left waxen effigy who had no idea that his policies empowered the cartels and their fentanyl pipeline that killed up to 100,000 Americans a year, more than the dead of the Vietnam, Korean, Afghan, and Iraq wars combined?

Certainly, President Obrador of Mexico loved Biden for greenlighting more than $120 billion in remittances that poured into Mexico and Central America, the vast majority of the money subsidized by the American taxpayers whose generous subsidies to illegal aliens freed up their cash to be sent home.

Was the culprit Biden’s legendary innate incompetence fueled by his growing senility? In that regard, it might be best to remember what Obama himself in 2020 said about his former Vice President Biden’s un-Midas touch: “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up,” and his admonition about the non-compos-Biden’s desire to run in 2020, “You don’t have to do this, Joe, you really don’t.”

Whatever his reasons, how does the Trump administration now correct the Biden legacy of an erased border, a new cohort of 12 million illegal aliens atop an existing body of 20 million, half a million dangerous illegal alien felons, 600 neo-Confederate sanctuary city jurisdictions, and the destroyed corpus of federal immigration law?

One, the administration must change the entire current illegal alien dialectic.

Massive illegal immigration is not a humanitarian project. It is a deeply immoral one. It undermines the rule of law. It insults legal immigration applicants by punishing their lawfulness and making them follow hundreds of protocols while exempting and thus rewarding the lawbreaking.

It is a cynical ploy by the governments of Mexico and Central America to provide a Turnerian “safety valve” for their dispossessed to head north rather than to protest at home for reform.

It is a money-making scheme costing the U.S. $120 billion in remittances alone. The arrival of millions of impoverished migrants to the United States involves virtual indentured servants who are sent northward by their home countries in the expectation they will send hundreds of dollars a month back southward to help their families, who in turn are long neglected by supposedly caring Latin American governments.

It is a war on the American poor, whose wages are eroded by millions of the undocumented, and whose social services, from health to housing to education, are swamped by non-citizens in dire need of government support.

It is a long-term effort to import and nurture a new constituency of those in need of more entitlements and bigger government. The aim is to flip more red states to blue, as if Georgia, Arizona, and Texas will follow the demographic metamorphoses of California, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. Two, Trump, within a year, can finish the wall. A permanent steel/concrete fence of some 2,000 miles will help staunch the influx. So will an immediate executive order ending catch-and-release and requiring application for refugee status before entering the U.S. legally. Three, Trump can stop the flow of $120 billion in subsidized U.S.-based remittances to Mexico and Latin America. He can threaten all such cynical recipient nations with tariffs. He can further levy a blanket 20-30 percent tax on all remittances sent to Mexico and Latin America from the United States, regardless of the legal status of the sender. Combined with a wall and new border enforcement, such tariffs and taxes would stop the influx quickly. Four, either passage of new legislation to overturn or winning court reinterpretation of the supposed “anchor baby” clause of the 14th Amendment could end the entire imbroglio of women and couples entering the US solely to obtain infant citizen status (as well as free health care), in order to anchor legality for an entire family. Trump can merely say, “We need to follow the humane policies of the sophisticated postmodern European nations, none of whom allow unrestricted and automatic anchor-baby provisions.” Five, to encourage self-deportation, Trump can seek legislation that would forbid for 20 years any foreign national from receiving a legal visa or green card to enter the United States if, at any time in the past, he had been detained entering the United States illegally. Six, Trump can begin carefully calibrating deportation iterations, starting first with those whose deportations win widespread public support.

The first to go home should be the half million suspected felons and criminals, both those who were arrested here and those who came with criminal records.

They would be followed by 1.5 million aliens already facing deportation orders but who failed to show up for hearings or ignored their prior deportation orders.

The third cohort would include all those who have had no work record, are able-bodied and are currently on local, state, or federal assistance of any nature.

Trump then could issue immediate deportation orders for additional aliens arriving from countries that support terror or are deemed hostile to the United States. That would entail those with known ties to Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, or arriving from Iran, Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, North Korea, Cuba, Russia, Venezuela, and a host of others,

To separate the Biden influx from earlier illegal entrants, Trump could offer not an amnesty or citizenship but a green card to those who have: 1) resided in the US for five years, 2) have not committed a crime, 3) are not on public assistance, and 4) would pay a fine for their prior illegal entry.

After those rounds of deportations, the administration might have sent home 10-12 million with full public support. Only then would the public back the one-time issuances of green cards to some of the remaining 20 million pre-Biden illegal aliens, who are working, crime-free, not on public assistance, and have resided over five years in the United States.

All these measures might halve the number of illegal aliens and stop all future illegal immigration. They would allow Americanized prior illegal aliens to formalize their status with a green card that would not entail amnesty but simply allow those now here legally to work, and in some cases, if they wish, to begin the lengthy legal process of obtaining citizenship.

The time to act is now.

In an odd way, Biden’s influx has finally resulted in the American Hispanic community’s abandonment of their former support for open borders. Why?

The sheer size of the current immigrant wave posed unprecedented costs, social and demographic disruptions, and dangers to the viability of existing social services for citizens.

Worse in some ways are the asymmetrical burdens that elite open-borders activists have placed on the Hispanic middle and poorer classes, whose communities bear the brunt of massive illegal immigration.

But most cynically and importantly, half the new arrivals are not from the Latin American world and thus have smaller, if any, expatriate apologists or activists in the United States. It seems to be one thing for the open borders advocate to demand illegal entry for an uncle in Mexico and quite another to extend that same exemption and costly support to someone from Russia, Syria, or mainland China.

A final note: those who destroyed the border and immigration law with it will be the first to decry the cost and trouble of undoing their damage—on their theory that because it costs much to arrest, detain, and try a criminal suspect, it is, therefore, cheaper and wiser simply to let him continue to commit crimes with impunity.

[gatheringbones]

amanda udis-kessler, from present tense: biphobia as a crisis of meaning, from bi any other name: bisexual people speak out, edited by Lorraine Hutchins and Lani Kaahumanu, 1991

["Before 1869, everyone was heterosexual and no one was heterosexual. By this I mean that all people were believed to be biologically oriented toward people of the opposite sex, there was no need for a word or category "heterosexual" since there was no opposite or conflicting category "homosexual." Certainly there were homosexual acts, homosexual behavior, but no homosexual people and no word "homosexuality." The fact that there could be behavior contrary to what was understood as natural did not cause anyone to rethink their concepts of the natural; rather, they simply labeled same-sex acts unnatural. Biblical injunctions against homosexual behavior must be seen in this light.

In 1869, the word "homosexuality" was coined and the concept— and category— of "the homosexual" came into existence, requiring the "discovery" of the heterosexual as well. I don't mean to suggest that heterosexuality was thought of as anything other than normative, or that homosexuality was taken seriously as a biological entity at that point. Physical and psychological understandings of homosexuality competed, but the constant which is of interest to us here is the depth of the homosexual identity which was brought to light. Sexuality was not simply a matter of acts. It involved an essence which did not change easily if at all. At the end of the nineteenth century, there were two identities to match sexual acts where none had been before, two categories of person: heterosexual and homosexual.

If we jump ahead a century to Stonewall, we notice a dramatic change in the meaning of the homosexual identity. The early gay liberation movement, revolting from decades of assimilationism a la Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, took on an ethnic model of oppression and counterculture. In doing so, it maintained pre-Stonewall essentialism while adding a separatist politics. In this model, lesbians and gay men, drawing on the civil rights movement, defined themselves as an ethnic minority with sexuality rather than skin color the determining factor and with homophobia rather than racism as the oppression.

Lesbian and gay activists had long taken the insight of experiencing sexuality as beyond choice and considering this proof that it was a natural part of their sex drive. Interestingly enough, while this approach would seem to require a straightforward correlation between sexual behavior and core identity, such a correlation was not made. Many lesbians and gay men came out after being heterosexually active, and some of these people had enjoyed their heterosexuality; they simply enjoyed homosexuality more. Lesbian and gay essentialists simply switched the heterosexual assumption of prior ages and claimed that these people were essentially gay, regardless of their sexual behavior. Thus, a woman who came out as forty had really been a lesbian all along but had not been in touch with her true sexuality.

The acceptance of essentialism was not universal, however. Some psychologists and sexologists raised troubling questions about this conception which could invalidate forty years of a woman's life. They asked whether the experience of sexuality as beyond chosenness necessarily meant that it was biologically grounded. They asked why sexual identity appeared in such different forms in different cultures, and whether essentialism didn't carry with it a certain cultural imperialism. These constructions posited that the categories of homosexuality and heterosexuality were constructed rather than discovered a hundred years ago, created because changing social circumstances dictated a need for such categories. Without denying the place of nature in our lives, they pointed out that socialization affects us tremendously, including the extent to which we think nature shapes us.They argued that sexuality is not simply the unfolding of one's natural essence. Rather, sexuality is learned, relational, contingent, and unpredictable; sexuality is as sexuality does. There are sexual scripts within every society and there are variations on those scripts in every society.

As we may imagine, the constructionist view of sexuality, with its fluidity and its connotation of choice, threatened lesbians and gay men as soon as it was proposed. Constructionism challenged the "oppressed ethnic minority" approach by arguing that sexuality could not be compared to skin color as a natural phenomenon. The response of lesbian and gay communities was understandably fierce; as Steven Epstein notes, "people who base their claims to social rights on the basis of a group identity will not appreciate being told identity is just a social construct. Constructionism could not offer a sound political replacement for essentialism. "[O]nce we have deconstructed identity," so the fear went, "we will have nothing.... which is stable and secure upon which to base a politics." The upshot of this thinking was that sexual theorists continued the essentialist versus constructionist debate in academic journals and other settings, but it had little impact upon community members and their separatist culture and politics. This has remained true since the early days of gay liberation, with Steven Epstein noting in 1987 that "while constructionist theorists have been preaching the gospel that the hetero-homosexual distinction is a social fiction, gays and lesbians in everyday life and in political action, have been busy hardening the categories."

What does this have to do with bisexuality? Consider a lesbian who has gone through a traumatic coming-out process with loss of family and friends, but who is finally secure with a lesbian identity in a supportive community. Or consider a gay man who has spent his life being harrassed and hurt for being gay, who knows personally that oppression means having one's choices removed but who has been able to rebuild his sense of having choices and his sense of humor within an urban gay male culture. Sexual essentialists are secure in their assertion that these two people may have had to suffer but that now they are home and able to build and love and fight back. But what if this man or this woman falls in love with someone of the opposite sex? What, then, was their pain and suffering about? Do the experiences which shaped them mean nothing? Was there an easier way? And should they have taken it? What is the connection of their pasts to a new and surprising present? Both of these people have come through tremendous soul-searching to reach their gay and lesbian identities, which provide them with a myth by which to structure their lives, offering social and political meaning to their personal histories. Is the myth that fragile? Is their sexuality that fragile? How are they to be true to themselves and what does being true to themselves mean in this situation?

The larger lesbian and gay community carries a great deal of shared pain; indeed it is built on it. Stonewall would not have happened without a bunch of drag queens and some diesel dykes being so sick and tired of being sick and tired. When lesbians and gay men who are deeply connected to their communities ask the questions above, the whole community feels the effect. If enough people ask them, the collective myth— and the community— are in danger. For both can only remain intact if the pain which built the community was in some way the inevitable product of being oneself in a heterosexist society. This brings us back to the essentialist versus constructionist debate, but with a clearer sense of the urgency behind the response to constructionism. Just as bisexuality would threaten the gay man and lesbian described above, the fluidity and connotation of choice within constructionism would seem to challenge both the history and the future of lesbian and gay communities.

Now we are in a position to see the leap of logic which has accounted for so much lesbian and gay biphobia; it is a leap which connects bisexuality and bisexuals to sexual constructionism and both to a crisis of meaning which may be both personal and communal. Lesbians and gay men, protective of the essentialist view of sexuality, equate the fluidity and apparent choice-making of bisexuality with that of constructionism and feel a tremor in the structure underlying their lives and identities. No matter if, unlike the examples above, they do not experience bisexual feelings themselves, constructionism claims that the potential is always there, and that is enough of a threat.

When bisexuality equals constructionism, bisexuals become walking reminds of the potential crisis of meaning for lesbians and gay men, posing a threat to identity and community far greater than the one posed by heterosexuals. Lesbians and gay men have been able to define themselves as other than heterosexual; bisexuals challenge that definition regardless of our intention to do so. Behind the painful lesbian and gay biphobia which we have experienced is a poignant cry for a self: "you don't exist" means "I do exist." And, too, the rejection of a group ("go form your own communities; you're not welcome in ours") is a way for lesbians and gay men to claim a group identity, to say "we exist, not just as individuals but as a community." This fragility may be hidden beneath flippancy, sarcasm, culture, and camp, but any bisexuality education which does not keep it in mind will not open barriers where it counts: in the heart.

What, then, about heterosexual biphobia? Is there, strictly speaking, such a thing? And if so, from whence does it come? Taking these questions seriously requires looking at some of the sexually problematic messages heterosexuals have internalized without having to challenge them as lesbians and gay men do. These messages basically revolve around the interface of sex negativity and dualistic thinking that permeates our culture."]

[sanguinarysanguinity]

Basic Rights Oregon, which has been working since the 1990s to end discrimination against LGBTQ2SIA+ people, is running a weekly newsletter with an emphasis on counter-actions and reasons to hope. Each issue contains a measured evaluation of how immediate a given threat is, a round-up of what is being done about it, and how we can best protect each other in the meanwhile.

I highly recommend it as an antidote to the panic and anxiety so many of us are feeling right now.

Items are a mix of national and Oregon news. Highlights from this issue on national topics:

Court rulings that have blocked Trump's executive order on gender-affirming care and returned LGBTQ+ information to CDC websites.

Protests supporting queer art at the Kennedy Center

ACLU lawsuit challenging the anti-trans passport policy

A notice about the removal of trans history from the National Park Service's Stonewall materials.

Info about how to support the Trans Youth Emergency Project, which assists trans youth in the 26 states that DON'T protect trans rights.

And about stuff happening in Oregon:

Bills currently before the Oregon legislature, how to support the good ones and the unlikelihood of the bad ones passing.

Local fundraising events, including a trivia night and a movie showing.

In short, if you want to stay informed about queer news but are trying to keep from getting burned out by the news-cycle rollercoaster, this is a good resource. I particularly commend it to people in Oregon who are looking for constructive ways to protect queer rights from this administration.

[mediocretosubpar-soup]

Wild idea: Shen Jiu's qi deviation is a premature ascension necessitated by the sudden power vacuum caused by the fall of Water and Wind Masters.

Shen Jiu who's a genuine asshole with a soft spot for one man and working women seems like a logical shoe-in for Lord Water Master but he takes bubbly, exuberant Shi Qingxuan's position. Shen Jiu isn't enthused about the comparisons being drawn and the unquiet laments of his character. To make matters worse his fucking subordinates keep stonewalling him, and after he makes some disparaging comments about his predecessor, Ling Wen wrinkles her nose at him which all the civil gods take as a cue to refuse to constructively work with him.

Shen Jiu in a fit of rage descends upon the capital. The loser might just be manipulating his efforts via nepotism. Shi Qingxuan is obviously not doing that being busy with such things as surviving destitution and other fun things.

Prior to meeting Shi Qingxuan, Shen Jiu had a clear idea of a fake kind, young master. But it turns out, Shi Qingxuan, if he's anyone resembles Qiu Haitang far more than her horrible brother, so Shen Jiu decides not to enact Qing Jing Peak's flavour of getting rid of unwanted extras. Instead he decides to fuck the gods and the ghosts, he tells his whole story to Shi Qingxuan.

"And I'm just so very worried about my sect and my dear brother Qi-ge. What if this impostor harbors ill intentions? What will beceome of my dearest shixiong?" He sighs heavily. "But even though I'm now the most powerful god whose ever hailed from CQMS, I am bound by heavenly law not to interfere." Another heavy sigh. "What use is all this power, if I can't protect the one I..." A rough hand covers his, Shi Qingxuan meets his eyes solemnly. "Don't throw away your good fate for your brother's sake, I'll head to CQMS right now and check on him. I'll warn him of the impostor and I'll tell him of your good fortune."

And that's how Shi Qingxuan travels to CQMS, where he through some shenanigans ascends as Lord of the Wine peak. (This is possible because due to some very unwise drinking choices the former Lord of Wine peak declared that the position would go to whoever could beat him in combat not in a drinking contest as was tradition and was subsequently trampled to death by an inebriated horny moose shrew. This caused some problems for CQMS as horny moose shrews only lived for up to a decade. It was decided that whoever beat the old Peak lord's drinking record would gain the position.)

[onlymethateverwas]

annihilation is a lovestory, methinks. a lovestory about a woman and her husband. a lovestory about an entity who’s so enamored with the human biological construct that its spending its merry time transforming them into different biological constructs for fun. a lovestory about a woman who’s so balls deep in her mental illness that it took for her husband to die to realize that maybe she could have met him halfway instead of stonewalling him until he left her for a land that wouldn’t let him return. a lovestory about a sentient tower and the lighthouse keeper that won’t leave it. a lovestory about a sadgirl and her dead husband whom she DID love and is now headed towards bc that’s all she can do after going into a land that won’t let either of them return home. but it’s ok. bc home is the love they had.

[ukrfeminism]

A professor of criminology, who was compared with “a racist uncle at the Christmas table” because of her gender critical beliefs, has won an unfair dismissal claim against the Open University.

Prof Jo Phoenix, a lesbian who set up the Gender Critical Research Network (GCRN) at the OU, was also found to have suffered victimisation and harassment, as well as direct discrimination.

She becomes the latest in a series of gender critical feminists, who believe sex is biological, immutable and should be prioritised over gender identity, to win employment tribunals.

In a judgment published on Monday, the tribunal found that Prof Louise Westmarland, head of discipline in social policy and criminology at the OU, made the “racist uncle” comment, which amounted to harassment, because she was unhappy about Phoenix signing a letter in the Sunday Times registering disquiet over a perceived inappropriately close relationship between the LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall and UK universities, and about her expressing her gender critical beliefs at a Women’s Place UK talk.

The tribunal panel, led by Judge Jennifer Young, found that Westmarland “was effectively telling the claimant off for having expressed gender critical beliefs”.

“Prof Westmarland knew that likening the claimant to a racist was upsetting for the claimant. We conclude that its purpose was to violate the claimant’s dignity because inherent in the comment is an insult of being put in the same category as racists”.

The panel found instances of direct discrimination including the prohibition of Phoenix from speaking at departmental meetings about her experiences of being treated in detrimental ways because of her gender critical beliefs or talking about her gender critical research. Additionally there was “silence and lack of praise” motivated by her gender critical beliefs when she obtained a C$1m grant while another colleague was praised just for making a grant application, according to the tribunal.

After Phoenix set up the GCRN, 368 of her colleagues signed an open letter calling for the disaffiliation of the group, which it labelled transphobic, from the OU because of the beliefs of its members. OU did not take action to ask those behind the letter, published in a Google Doc, to take it down and the tribunal said this was harassment, having “a chilling effect on the claimant expressing her gender critical beliefs and carrying out gender critical research”. A statement about the GCRN in a similar vein to the open letter was published on the university’s website by the wellbeing, education and language studies faculty/reproduction, sexualities and sexual health research group. There were also tweets and retweets from colleagues about the GCRN.

Phoenix resigned from the OU in December 2021. The tribunal found that she was constructively unfairly dismissed because the university breached the implied terms of trust and confidence in her employment contract and the duty to provide her with a suitable working environment. Remedies will be determined at a later date.

The judgment said: “We find that the claimant was not provided with effective protection from the effects of the launch of the GCRN. We find that the respondent did not provide the claimant protection particularly in the form of asking staff and students not to launch campaigns to deplatform the GCRN, or make calls to remove support for the claimant’s gender critical research, or use social media to label the claimant transphobic or TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist). The respondent failed to protect the claimant because they did not want to be seen to give any kind of support to academics with gender critical beliefs, including the claimant.”

Prof Tim Blackman, vice-chancellor of the OU, said the university was disappointed by the judgment and would consider whether to appeal. He said: “We acknowledge that we can learn from this judgment and are considering the findings very carefully.

“We are deeply concerned about the wellbeing of everyone involved in the case and acknowledge the significant impact it has had on Prof Phoenix, the witnesses and many other colleagues. Our priority has been to protect freedom of speech while respecting legal rights and protections.”

[vital-information]

“Official, public, out-and-out proud gay identity has no tolerance for shame, solitude, secretiveness, and no patience for those who choose to wallow either in an abject state of emotional isolation or in the compensatory, manic joys of a solitary queer fantasy life.

Nowadays, proud gay men do not ground their identity in their loneliness, lovelessness, hopelessness, isolation, and sentimentality. Quite the opposite. We fashion a gay self (to the extent that we do) by proudly affirming a common, collective gay identity, claiming this gay identity openly, visibly, unashamedly, and communally, constructing on that basis a shared culture and society--full of opportunities for emotional and erotic expression--and thereby attaining to a healthy gay sexuality, defined by our eroticization of other gay men as gay, and ultimately crowned by the successful achievement of a relationship. And, by the way, we don’t want to be reminded that ‘twas not ever thus.

...“No gay man could possibly regret the trade” of pre-Stonewall gay abjection for post-Stonewall gay pride, [scholar D.A. Miller] acknowledges. No gay man “could do anything but be grateful for it--if, that is, it actually were a trade” (26; italics added). The problem, it turns out, is that instead of winding up in triumphant possession of a gay pride and freedom that we can wholeheartedly call our own, we have constructed a gay identity that actively represses both the pathos and the pleasure of those residual queer affects that we prefer to think we have liberated ourselves from and that we claim have simply vanished from our consciousness. Instead of transcending the secret shame and solitary pleasures of our sentimentality, as we would like to think, we have assiduously closeted them.”

David M. Halperin, How to Be Gay

[biblioflyer]

Genosha allegories: constructive reads and hot takes.

Anger is an appropriate response to Genosha, not hopelessness.

This is Part 2 in a 5 part essay on the implicit pessimism of X-Men as a setting.

Part 1 lays out the core assumptions of the setting.

I think X-Men ‘97 is the smartest Marvel offering since Captain America: Civil War brought us the debates over the Sokovia Accords. There are a lot of crappy discussions about the ethics of Magneto’s Blackout and the broader question of whether Xavier is as corrupt, infantile, and naive as he’s accused of both by other characters and the audience. 

However, people really do need to be mindful of the hard wired setting conceits that ensure that the X-Men’s world is one in which there is an unhappy median that wobbles back and forth from slightly better to a lot worse and this itself is not (I hope) the actual message of the setting.

There are some real life parallels that I see that may validate a pessimistic reading, but other metrics like the number and acceptability of interracial, interreligious, and same sex marriages in the United States have improved by staggering degrees. We have not achieved true equality or safety for people who have traditionally struggled for full acceptance, but if we don’t allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good, we can see that positive change is possible.

Whether positive change is truly lasting and able to be expanded upon is a more nebulous question, I’m not one to buy into “end of history” narratives so I would never say that we cannot go backwards, I often worry we’re on the cusp of doing just that, history is often, to borrow a Dan Carlinism, like a stock ticker, but we’ve had a pretty good run of adding more freedoms for more people. 

Although obviously different groups of people are at different places in their struggle to achieve safety, acceptance, and equity and thus their gains are less entrenched and more subject to backsliding. 

Sprinkled in amongst the narrative of progress are setbacks and atrocities: Genosha could stand in for the likes of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street, the Stonewall raid, the anti-Jewish pogroms of the 1880s in the Russian Empire, or the brutal suppression of Arab nationalists by European empires under the mandate system. 

Magneto surely would not want us to forget these things when he says the first priority of Mutants should be to look after their own and trust of Humans should come slowly, but probably never.

There again, I do think it is possible to hold multiple thoughts: that progress is often not uninterrupted or linear but it is possible and, at least in the United States context, significant progress has been made given how bleak conditions were for women, non-Europeans, queer people, and even the wrong kind of European at various points in history. 

Right or wrong, I think this is the history that Xavier is temperamentally oriented towards, but then it is easier for him as a child of privilege and someone who is not visibly a Mutant.

The next part will go into greater detail about the allegories behind X-Men and why the X-Men setting is hardwired for doom by intent.

[lilliaace]

Re: "lesbians can't like men or masculinity 😡"

TLDR?: Please talk to real life queers, outside of online spaces and school clubs because human sexuality is complicated as fuck. Also, please read books written by queer people (ex: Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinburg; Pomosexuals challenging gender and sexuality by Carol Queen; Stonewall Generation by Jane Fleischman)

1. This statement is inherently xenophobic towards global constructs of sex and gender

Two-spirit individuals exist. Hijira exist. The world is so much more complex than "girl vs boy." The world is NOT nonbinary = "girl lite" or "boy lite" like so many people want to pretend.

2. This statement screams gold star lesbian toxicity

MANY lesbians figure out who they are later in life, often after they had serious romantic relationships with men and/or had children. These past relationships DO NOT invalidate themselves as lesbians.

3. Many lesbians enjoy the companionship of men for the purpose of affection, trust, feelings of being protected, etc.

Many women in history who had exclusive OR almost exclusive attraction to women in history (such as Virginia Woolf and Eleanor Roosevelt) ended up attaching to men but when you dig into their personal affects (diaries, letters, etc.) it shows they have little to no genuine attraction to men.

4. "Nonmen loving nonmen" has racist origins.

Look at how American slave owners called their slaves. I'm not giving you a civil war history. Look at it on your own time. I could write a book on this.

5. People are complicated, period.

(this is oversimplified for the sake of easy explanation) If you think of BASIC attraction on scale of 1-5, 1 being "ONLY attracted to different sex" and 5 being "ONLY attracted to same sex", if a person claims they are a 4 or 4.5, it makes absolute sense why they'd feel more comfortable in gay or lesbian spaces as opposed to multisexual spaces. Historically speaking, bisexual girls were always welcome in gay lesbian in spaces (and vise versa), look at commentaries from the 80s and beforehand. Lesbians in this era was sometimes seen as a political movement as well, just to give the metaphorical middle finger to the patriarchy.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Samantha Riedel at Them:

The National Park Service (NPS) removed the word “transgender” from its web page about the Stonewall National Monument this week, and removed the letter “T” from instances of the LGBTQ+ acronym, Them has confirmed. As recently as February 12, the NPS page for the Stonewall National Monument — commemorating the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City, often credited as the catalyst for the U.S. gay liberation movement — informed readers that the riots were a “milestone in the quest for LGBTQ+ civil rights,” and spelled out what each letter stands for, according to archived versions of the page. But on February 13, the page was edited, referring only to the “LGBQ+” movement with no mention of the word “transgender.” Later that same day, the acronym was changed again to remove the “Q+,’ so that it now only reads “LGB.” (The Stonewall Visitors’ Center website, which is operated by the nonprofit organization Pride Inc., was not affected.)

In a statement to Them, representatives for The Stonewall Inn and the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative — the Inn’s official nonprofit organization — said they were “outraged and appalled” by the changes to the National Monument page. The erasure, they said, “not only distorts the truth of our history, but it also dishonors the immense contributions of transgender individuals — especially transgender women of color — who were at the forefront of the Stonewall Riots and the broader fight for LGBTQ+ rights.” “This decision to erase the word ‘transgender’ is a deliberate attempt to erase our history and marginalize the very people who paved the way for many victories we have achieved as a community,” they added, demanding the “immediate restoration” of the page as previously written. “It is a direct attack on transgender people, especially transgender women of color, who continue to face violence, discrimination, and erasure at every turn.”

This purge of the word “transgender” and the letter T — made almost comedically cruel by the central roles trans and gender-nonconforming people played during the uprising — is almost certainly tied to President Donald Trump’s recent slate of anti-trans executive orders, through which he has sought to outlaw any mention of trans people, identities, or history at the federal level.

Following Trump’s first such order, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a directive for all federal agencies to remove usage of terms like “trans” and “gender identity,” and instructed workers to remove pronouns from their email signatures. Web pages belonging to the State Department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were also scrubbed of the word “transgender” earlier this month, with the LGBTQ+ acronym replaced with the shortened “LGB” — a construction usually associated with trans-exclusionary groups like the U.K.-based “LGB Alliance” and far-right organizations that have sought to use anti-trans propaganda to splinter the LGBTQ+ community at large.

Shame on you, National Park Service, for removing “transgender” from the website of Stonewall National Monument and for dropping the “TQ+” part of LGBTQ+!

This is an unjust act of history revisionism as part of the Trump Regime’s war on trans existence, considering that trans people played a major role in the Stonewall Riots.

See Also:

The Guardian: US park service erases references to trans people from Stonewall Inn website

[fatehbaz]

The New York State Urban Development Corporation saw in the piers a sacrificial milieu of impurity and devaluation. Rivera described the event as follows: “It’s called a sweep. Not even a fucking eviction. A sweep, like we’re trash.” [...]

The clearance operation of the piers took place under the New York Slum Clearance Commission and Law and its frothy utopian verbiage of “sanitizing” an environment [...] unsuitable for human life. [...] The demolition of the piers showed the violent clash of two confronting forms of urbanism. [...] [Manhattan’s] working class industrial base was transformed into a corporate and service-based economy and New York State Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, together with city planners, implemented policies to frame Manhattan as a place for work, but not living. [...] The rhetoric used by public and private officials to get rid of the piers was embedded in medical metaphors, [...] "blight" [...]. At the same time, these discussions were imbricated with racial depictions and xenophobic targets: most of the constructions beleaguered in this operation were inhabited or used by black people, Latin Americans, migrants, and displaced communities. [...]

---

The piers thrived with life. [...]

The notion of the piers as insalubrious areas that needed to be wiped out gained traction in the 1980s - during the peak of the HIV/AIDS crisis [...]. This narrative concerning the piers was active in New York City until the early 2000s, until Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor George Pataki opened the Greenwich Village segment of Hudson River Park on May 30, 2003. The highway was finally demolished [...] and a series of gates were erected to keep Pier 45 closed after 1am [...]. The previous residents of these spaces were just routine casualties. The new proposal opted for a unitary, straightforward, apparently open but constantly surveilled set of facilities, where constant circulation (by car, skate, bike, foot) was central, and framed the conception of the piers as a passing point. This contrasted the labyrinthic and fragmented former setting, with multitudes of hidden spaces that provided a sense of privacy and safety [...].

---

The history of the piers runs parallel to the history of the LGBTQIA+ movement in New York. This is where Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson decided to locate the first installment of [...] (STAR) in 1970 [...], a year after the Stonewall riots. [...] [D]uring the 1973 Gay Pride Rally [...], [Rivera] asked the movement to support [racialized, trans, gender non-conforming, homeless, and incarcerated people] [...] instead of just focusing on cis "men and women that belong to a white middle class club" [...] [which entailed] the negation of alternative forms of living [...].

Members of these groups were ostracized and deprived of typical considerations during the outbreak of an epidemic: protocols of announcement, transparency in information, research, and measure-taking. Meanwhile, the communities that congregated around the piers, and the piers themselves, helped spread information about AIDS, made transparent the available data, and offered care among affected communities. Groups and associations like STAR, Gay Men's Health Crisis, and Gran Fury were essential in this effort. [...] This environmental activism, where kin was formed [...], happened in places like the piers. [...] They were an escape from the constant scrutiny of authorities and from homophobic attacks [...].

---

AIDS' first name, GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency), as well as the common “gay plague” and “gay cancer” epithets, strengthened the idea of a specifically gay disease related to a certain environment-specific villain. Journalists, following the views of public health authorities, blamed the epidemic on [...] the places gay people frequented. [...] Physicians thus described a spatial configuration located in downtown Manhattan [...] which [...] posed a threat [...]. This claim had terrible consequences for the activist spaces and urban fabrics that confronted the epidemic [...]. The remnants of Pier 45 were demolished. The activist history of these places was “cleared.” [...]

---

When Sylvia Rivera shouted to the authorities “stay away from my house!” while being evicted, “house” not only referred to the physical construction of her home. She was confronting teleological progress with the project of a[n] [...] assemblage based on [...] mutual caring [...] and defying colonial narratives of race, sex, gender, and nature. The territorialization of epidemics, identities, and citizenship not only shape the built environment, but the built environment shapes them in return. Architecture thereby assumed the form of an expanded spatial practice [...].

When Rivera was trying to save her home from demolition, she said, “there’s so many fucking buildings in this fucking Manhattan.” What New York City was losing with the demolition of Pier 45 was not just a series of dwellings. It was losing a complex ecosystem of coexistence.

---

All text above by: Iván López Munuera. “Lands of Contagion”. e-flux Architecture (Sick Architecture series). November 2020. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]