#young dumb and queer

[youngdumbqueer]

Tell Me More!

Last YD&Q episode of the year! It's a cute little minisode that took a surprising amount of time to finish. It's been a while since we've had a proper interaction between Pearl and Faith so I figured we'd stop by on this cute little bonding moment through Pearl's fandom side.

One of the goals I've always had for Young, Dumb & Queer is for the comic to be a comfort for queer people, whether they're still figuring things out or have been out for years. Even as we've made progress throughout the years, our rights are still constantly in jeopardy and our basic humanity is questioned for diverting from the heteronormative structure we've lived under for centuries. This month has been an awful reminder that we can never be truly safe from our oppressors. It's hard not to feel hopeless as we see Donald Trump once again elected as president of the United States, and all the Democratic party can do is shrug their shoulders and shake hands with fascists, on top of being complicit in the genocide occurring in Palestine. These are going to be a difficult and trying four years, but I'm not going to back down from being myself and expressing my queer art. What has kept me living this long has been the communities and solidarity I found with other people who are willing to show up and be there for someone, however they can. Even when things are bleak, we have people to fall back on. They'll fight for us as much as we fight for them. Young, Dumb & Queer is about those people. The ones who encourage us to keep going, even at the worst of times. I hope you do the same for your own communities.

We'll see you next year for more Young, Dumb & Queer. We're not going anywhere.

With love, Al

[skinnylegendphoenixwright]

Mirror

A one-shot episode for Non-Binary Visibility Day! While Pearl has never been a full-on reflection of me as a person, I do end up exploring a lot of my own complicated feelings of my gender identity through them. Clothing in particular has always been an odd spot for me that I have a lot of passion for, but also a lot of discomfort with as fashion is very gendered in ways that I wish it wasn't. Something as simple as wearing a t-shirt and jeans will still get me clocked as a male and if I was born a woman, I’d probably experience the same thing. The important thing about non-binary expression is that there’s no one way to do it. It can take many forms, whether it plays into gender stereotypes or not. But then again, being comfortable with whatever form you choose can be an adjustment in it of itself. 

Anyway, I plan to do more one-shots like these in the future, so I hope you like this style as much as the longer storylines!

[clandestine-poet]

For context, before anything else, I myself am a lesbian.

Alright. So I don't quite know how to explain it, but Hualian really just has lesbian vibes. At least to me.

Being a lesbian is a lot of: "You girls must be such good friends!" "Do your boyfriends know you're here?" "How come I never see you two apart?" "Haha, two girls kissing? They must be best friends."

And look. Listen.

Hualian is constantly having people be like "You two must be such great friends!" from most of the other heavenly officials (until later on).

Xie Lian and San Lang at Puqi Village getting the "where's your wives?" every .5 seconds.

Xie Lian is constantly asked/talked about with "where's YOUR crimson rain sought flower?" or "If you are here, Crimson Rain is not far behind".

THEY KISS SO MUCH AND MOSTLY GET LOUDLY TOLD "there's other ways to exchange spiritual power!"

Also, there's something inherently powerful about a queer couple.

Being queer creates a space outside the norm. That unites us so much.

And it just feels like Hualian are the most lesbian-coded gay man couple I have seen in a long, long time.

[onedayiwillgrowwings]

I want to l_ve

I want to live on a hill overseeing the sea. I want it to be uninhabited. I want to be the only person there. I want everyone to forget about my existence. I want to go somewhere no one knows me and I know no one. I want to live. for once in my life I want to feel the way I used to when I would watch the sun set from the highest cliff in my village. I want to experience the sensation I would get whenever I would find myself sitting on the sand, watching the waves crushing at the sore during the late hours of the night when the moon would shine the brightest and the world would cease to acknowledge my existence and nothing bad could happen to me. I want to feel free. I want to be accompanied only by a small notebook in which I would write about everything and anything.

I want to live at a time that the world is the most miserable it will ever be. I want to be a philosopher during war. i want to be able to write about all the ugly emotions war portrays on the faces of the innocent and non innocent alike. i want to study mankind's most inhumane and ruthless side. I want to be able to feel people's misery in every fiber of my being. I want it to be the bane of my existence. I want to live. and then I want to die, knowing I got to live. I want to live. I want to love. I want to leave.

[cup-on-drugs]

Tumblr notice me 👉👈🥺

[superbellsubways]

ahhhh queer.object head. computer program

[epsilontauri]

hold up you know what i’m mad as hell.

[transfemgeorgecostanza]

You know I could have done without the thrilling saga of „is my favourite German gay cartoonist actually transphobic, or will the current storyline he’s publishing daily on insta have a poignant climax about his generation‘s issue with younger queer people and identities“ bc as implied I will not know until he finishes it

[youngdumbqueer]

"Hate My Ex" (4/4)

Thanks for reading! More YD&Q coming very soon :)

[skinnylegendphoenixwright]

It's Tyler's birthday! Everybody say, "Happy Birthday, Tyler!"

[ratkingsocks]

alright, this is a bit embarrasing but HEY maybe there are like... older gay people on this website that can be helpful

I'm a fat trans guy. I do not have a dick, but.... like I wanna fuck my boyfriend. How do I be NOT BAD at that?

What are good strapon harnesses to get to see if I even like doing the fucking? That will fit a fat guy? Like 55+ inch hips

There's like a cheap-ish $35-40 one I found on a nearby (sorta) shop's website called a "niore strap on" that seems like... good enough to test the waters? But idk, what if falls apart or something? rah

What kind of lube is best used for this scenario? water based lubes tend to dry out/get absorbed super quick (in my experience) and I don't want to just melt my fake dick off with silicone based lubes. That'd be a monumental waste of money LMAO I saw some folks saying they used oil? like coconut oil,, is that like? okay? good enough?

is there just... like a book i can read or something? they did not cover this shit in my abstinence only sex ed. send help elder gays, please and thank you

[cascadianights]

There's something really insidious about the way you become only the most privileged part of your identity the second a leftist disagrees with you. Even with people who know your life and history.

If I disagree with a leftist I am no longer disabled, trans, queer, fat, impoverished, or autistic. The ways those forms of second class citizenry influence my life and opinions no longer matters, even though my ENTIRE life and every interaction I've had has been defined by them. I'm just an entitled white person, so of COURSE I don't know what I'm talking about! If you're POC you just can't know because you're straight, or a man.

It becomes a game where whatever - even singular - access to privilege you have negates ALL other aspects of your experience that are INEXTRICABLY tied to your life and the way others see/perceive/treat you. It becomes an insult repeatedly thrown at you to imply harm both within and without of the conversation, and to imply that the other person (who doesn't experience that specific singular axis of privilege) has infinitely more knowledge and wisdom of said topic (regardless of the topic). It's so pervasive I guarantee some people stopped reading the second I revealed I am indeed white, even tho by calling it bullshit you turn away from how much WORSE this impacts people of color ESPECIALLY AMONG LIBERALS.

It's bullshit. There's calling out specific acts of privilege, or ways people hide behind it. And then there's discrediting 95% of a person's life and experience as a win condition in a fight by saying "you couldn't know anything about this because you're just coming from a place of Such Privilege." It's especially harmful and insidious when they discredit the very danger you're in due to those other aspects of identity - you're white so you can't be scared of cops or the current government! Unless ofc you're queer or trans or disabled, but you're not - you're JUST white for this conversation. You're a man, so you can't be worried about rape and assault, unless you're black or trans or indigenous or - but you're not! You're JUST a man for this conversation. Even though the world will never see you as only that.

There's this pull to act as if having access to one type of privilege overwhelms and floods out every other part of you, as if it's a massive impenetrable shield that defines what you've experienced and can know of. Being white, being a man, being straight will make you somewhat safer in some situations! But it doesn't dilute/drown out/take away from the other aspects of your identity and the danger and real violence they have brought!!! It all intersects! It all still exists at all times! Cops and courts and others around you don't see just one aspect of your identity, they don't see JUST a white person they see a crippled fag presenting a danger to others by resisting arrest (having an autistic meltdown in the fetal position). Crooked courts don't JUST see a straight person they see a predatory trans woman endoctrinating and grooming children (existing and reading books). Strangers in public don't JUST see a man they see a black guy threatening nearby women and staking out the area for theft (walking home humming). THEY see the intersections, especially the aspects of identity they hate the most.

And yet you come to online spaces where other aspects of your self and identity can be seen and embraced as positive... but at the first disagreement they disappear. I've seen so many times people search a list of identity markers to find the One that has privilege, screenshot and highlight that part, and say "look I found why they're wrong and have nothing to contribute to the conversation." Or "a white/straight/masculine person could never understand-" It's the root behind so much of the infighting, because you may not be able to call that other queer straight but at least you can unilaterally decide they have more privilege than you because they're a trans man instead of a trans woman.

It's insidious, it's erasure, it's fucking ridiculous and it plays the exact same game those who want us dead are playing. Disagree with people based on their points and what they're trying to say. Not based on the singular aspect of their identity you've decided erases every other part.

[vamptastic]

It can just be sort of exhausting growing up in a time where everybody's worst projections and stereotypes and misconceptions about transness are constantly shoved in your face by assholes if you're remotely involved in trans communities online. Or hell, they're just in the news headlines themselves. Or being espoused by peers that wouldn't have had transgenderism so much as cross their mind twenty years ago. I'm tired of the evil voice in my head having an endless supply of ammunition.

[lutravurr]

i makes me increasingly irritated seeing a trans seperatist ideology and vile hatred toward transmascs. all queer people suffer from not ’properly’ conforming to patriarchy. a lot of discourse i see is gender essentialism with a girlboss flavour to it which is not progressive as the girls touting it seen to think. i think we can acknowledge transmisogyny and embrace trans women without barring trans men from a community that loves and supports them.

boys will be bugs is a good song about struggling with masculinity you guys just hate when trans men do things

[sp0o0kylights]

You know what I want to see, I want to see more of Steve, Eddie, and Robin being 1980s small town kids from Indiana, by which I mean;

Robin is The Source of Gay Knowledge purely because her parents host Hippie Christmas and she managed to sneak away to find a neat bookstore in Indiana once. 

Her knowledge is not in depth. It's patchy, woven together through rumors, stories she heard or things she picked up from her parents' old pictures. She's got a handful of zines, one book, and some movies she managed to order for Family Video behind Keith's back.

She acts like she's Queen of the Queers because in Hawkins she pretty much is.

(Max and El ask her what a lavender marriage is once, something they overheard snooping around. 

Robin confidentially answers that it's code for when one woman dresses up as a man, fooling officials into wedding two woman.

She does not live this down two years later when they find out what it actually means.) 

Eddie doesn't spend every weekend in Indianapolis. 

Gas is expensive, his busiest days of his "job" is Friday and Saturday, and he has no fucking clue what the hanky code is. 

He's wearing that bandana because Metallica front singer James Hetfield has one on all their tour posters. 

Eddie does make it down to a gay bar though, by accident. Rick needed some back up for a shady deal. Promised Eddie a boatload of free drugs to sell if he agreed to just stand there and look mean. 

He was warned the bar they were meeting in was 'weird' and to not 'freak out' --which Eddie thought was hilarious given his nickname and general appearance, but whatever.

He doesn't understand when they get there, because it's just a bunch of hot men with hanky's in their back pockets everywhere.

Then he sees two women kissing and it clicks. 

He can't out himself in front of Rick, but one of the bartenders playfully dresses him down for his own hanky, letting him know all about the code and teasing him through his embarrassment. 

He's got an offer to come back and learn what color and which pocket his hanky should actually be in, a prospect Eddie was salivating at until Chrissy Cunningham up and died on his ceiling.

(He still wore the hanky, because the feeling of that bartender tugging it out and stuffing it back in might be the closest thing he's ever had to sex and he absolutely wants a repeat. 

He's young and horny, sue him.) 

Steve Harrington may not be academically smart but he's not dumb. 

He figured out a while back that the basketball team as a unit probably crossed the queer line more than once--or at least it did before Hargrove came in. 

( Brad Handly for example, went around slamming kids into lockers and screaming slurs like a fucking movie villain one Monday because the varsity team got dead drunk at Laura's party on Sunday and hey, look, there weren't that many girls there, okay?

They all had fucking hands and mouths. Everybody but Tommy was single and hot to trot. Nothing gay about it.

Its not even like they were kissing or treating each other like chicks. It was just Brad's first time and they got to tease him later for overthinking it. 

Dude graduated soon enough after and given Steve was on the team as a sophomore, he hadn't thought about the guy and why he might be freaking out so bad in years.) 

Robin's entire panic attack at Starcourt, and a few more after had Steve replaying that whole incident. Reframed it a bit, and, yeah.

In retrospect that had been extremely gay, actually. 

It sat with him a lot easier than he'd thought it would. Partially because of Robin, but mostly because that's just who he was.

Stranger things had happened to Steve and this one didn't want to kill, maim or otherwise eat him, so it got filed under 'interesting facts he should never tell his parents if he wanted to keep his trust fund' and then he went about his day. 

(Or he tried too, anyways.

It caught up to him when Eddie and Robin somehow figured out the other was queer and dragged him along to some bar Eddie had a standing invitation at, with demands for Steve to do what he did best.

Babysit.

Their magical trip was utterly destroyed when Brad Handly happened to be the very same bartender who had given Eddie the invite.

 Considering Brad's immediate bark of laughter followed by a hug and introducing himself as "Steve's gay awakening", Steve ended up having to speedrun through Eddie and Robin both having a crisis for him.

It didn't help that Steve had politely, and laughingly, corrected Brad with a casual; 

"Pretty sure that was Tommy man, but if it helps I think that tongue of yours gave Matt Burdon a crisis."

--which ended up with him answering a lot more gay sex questions with Brad than he cared too. 

At least he, through Brad, was able to help Robin connect to some local lesbians and--after a second crisis from Eddie regarding how Steve managed to have more sex than "the resident town freak and guy who actually knew he was gay, Steve!"-- even helped Eddie out by catching the metalheads tongue with his mouth later that evening.

The last one landed him a boyfriend, trust fund be damned.)