This might be a weird question but I’m first Generation Greek diaspora in Canada and I often feel disconnected from my culture. I have found out that I’m non-binary in some way and I want to change my name because it’s a very feminine name. However, it’s also a very Greek name, and I feel like erasing it in place of some WASP or USian name would make me feel even more disconnected from my culture. I’ve been looking online for Greek unisex name lists but they always have names that no Greek actually has or are not unisex. I know that we have a problem with naming people the same thing, I think like 50% of the Greek girls I meet are named Maria or some variant of it, but I have met some cool names people. Still, I want to choose a name that reflects my culture and my identity and I haven’t come out to my family yet so I can’t ask them. Anyways, I was just wondering if you could think of any off the top of your head or if you could recommend a baby name list. Sorry if this is hard I don’t mean to stress you out, I just don’t have many people who I can talk to about Greek culture

Hi! Perhaps you could go with Χάρις which is feminine but also sounds like Χάρης, the masculine name. ;) Or some other modern Greek names that end in -ις. (Which.... tbh I can't think of anything atm 😂) But feel free to check some and come back to ask if you can use them nowadays.

I am not non-binary and I don't have the energy or time to go to queer Greek spaces although I belong there 😅 This is to say that I am not aware of any solution that the Greek ΛΟΑΤΚΙ+ community has found for this. And that anyone who knows what's going on can fill us in.

The explanation/context:

It's true that Greek names are gendered so I cannot find anything from the top of my mind to suggest :/ I was about to suggest some more "powerful" Greek names (like Alexandra) but that would also suggest that there are "masculine" and "feminine" traits that belong only to a certain gender. I don't want to imply that war or physical power is strictly a "masculine" thing ya know, or that a "Maria" is automatically feminine and cannot be assertive or even fire a gun. Traits don't have "feminine" and "masculine" vibes to me, they are just human traits. After all, Greek women are known for their resilience and toughness, the ability to terrify anyone with merely a stare and a slipper/stick, and their fierceness when they make it into military ranks.

Tbh I think Greeks experience being non-binary beyond names. Names can be irrelevant. E.g. you can have a feminine or a masculine name and still be non-binary. English speakers often make a fuss about what names are masculine and feminine but I haven't seen Greeks care much about it. Greeks don't argue about what names are "more feminine". That's not how we see names and that's not how we connect them with gender. No one cares if they call you Melina and you have 100 piercings and ride a motorcycle. So in this society there's no thought to get rid of your name if it doesn't "match" your actions or basic expression.

Ofc you can change your name for whatever reason. I am only speaking on the Greek mindset about names and gender. The Greek non-binary people I've met in Greece go by their gendered baptism names. In online spaces only they go by English names, or just by their initials, as the English trend is.

Sometimes I also suspect that there are differences between what feels non-binary for a Greek and what feels non-binary for a Canadian. I might be completely wrong here, but I am letting this thought out there to see if there are indeed different perspectives. For example, I've felt a difference between local queerness in some cases, like when USians see a Greek woman with "αγορέ" short hair and...average person movements (not feminine or masculine I mean, just a person existing), and immediately switch to "they/them". Meanwhile for Greek society this person naturally falls into the "default woman" category and we wouldn't see any reason to not use she/her. (I'm talking about cases where the person also doesnt say anywhere that they are non-binary or that they use they/them pronouns.)

In aaaaany case, our societal norms, our histories, and presentations are not the same and for this reason I also applaud your decision to choose a name that reflects your culture and identity. As people we are a mix of many things and our characteristics carry a cultural flavour.

Given all this, and driven by practicality, I would say that it would be better to go with a feminine name (because of your physical presentation) but choose whatever feels better for you. Don't think of Greek names for females as "more or less" feminine, since that's not the Greek way of thinking.

More suggestions:

You can choose a name that honours your values, or a characteristic that you want to have or you are proud that you have. You can choose names that express concepts, like "wisdom" (Σοφία), "love" (Αγάπη), "freedom" (Ελευθερία/Ρία), "hope" (Ελπίδα), "salvation" (Σωτηρία), "reign" (Βασιλεία), "happy/beloved" (Ασπασία), grace (Χάρις).

Just because these words are feminine, it doesn't mean that they are feminine traits. They are feminine GRAMMATICALLY. Something that English speakers might not understand is that gendered language doesn't mean that you assign gender to things. Heck, even the chair is a feminine noun in Greek but no one suggests there's any feminine about a chair 😂"Dick" (yes the genitals) can also be a feminine word. (η πούτσα) Like, the feminine pronoun doesn't mean anything.

Sure, the connection between names and sex is strong in Greek, but not in the sense English speakers (or people who speak neutral-gender languages) might think. We can recognise Greek sexism and separatism but at the same time I think it's important to understand that each society sees different traits in the sexes and genders.

You could also choose names like "farmer" (Γιωργία, to suggest that you like to work the earth), or the name of some Greek goddess, or some Greek saint to show that you have their attributes. Or the name of an empress, or the name of an emperor but in its feminine version (e.g. Κωνσταντίνα). Maybe the name of a Muse, if you are a creative.

That's it from me 💙 Sorry to have delayed this answer but I needed to think a lot, and life doesn't let me think or answer to asks a lot these days. I hope I managed to help even a little bit.

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As I said, I am not non-binary, and I don't want to speak over non-binary people. I am answering this because you said that you don't have lots of people to talk about these things, and perhaps it's better to have someone queer say some stuff about it. As always, more opinions are welcome in the comments and reblogs. I don't have all the knowledge in the world.

Being a child of immigrants and/or spending extended amounts of time in countries outside of the one your family immigrated to is so confusing sometimes, especially with shows. Like, I don’t know what other people have seen or not seen. For example: I watched a LOT of Slugterra bc it was on the Teletoons network (Quebec network), but I’ve met like 3 ppl who remember it. Same with the TinTin movie, Astérix and Obelix, In the Night Garden, Detentionaire, Fangbone, Jimmy two shoes, the deep, are you afraid of the dark, Dragon hunters, etc. Also, having watched many of them in French (which I am very bad at, especially when I was a kid which was when I watched these programs), I have a rlly hard time explaining what actually happens and I only remember stills or the name in French instead of English. Anyways this makes it all sound like a fever dream to my USAmerican friends, i.e. “you know that show where it’s all like puppet 2D animation and the guy is running from his zombie school detention?” Or “remember that show where a bunch of people in weird costumes made noises and there were tiny people who marched outside their home?” Or “what do you mean you don’t remember the show about the big guy and the little guy on floating islands slaying dragons, one of which farted to fly?”

Anyways gotta love being second gen

no real cheese will ever live up to the phantom taste i imagined the cartoon cheese from tom and jerry cartoons i watched as a kid tasted like.

this is the pinnacle of the cheese-based foodgroups. i think it was less the visual appeal (almost none, it looks like a dried sponge half the time) and more the fervent desperation with which the mouse pursued it. the permeating lust for this cheese.

the fanatical daydreaming was so evocative that my brain and tongue made up a flavour that will never exist and i am doomed to spend my life unfulfilled

*Ahem*

Welcome to another post of mine! I'm about 2/3 done with the first HOO book. Again, here are my thoughts.

Jason is THaLiA'S SiSTeR and NO ONE TOLD ME?????!!!!!!!!

Piper stole a BMW and a bunch of other stuff and has been having weird dreams bout a giant

Leo has FIYA

Leo is still cuter that Jason

Frank terrorizes Canadians (confirmed by a commenter)

Hazel was alive, then died, then came back to live and I'm the only one that thinks it's weird?

Annabeth: Still depressed :( JUST LIKE MEEEEEE

Percy is missing and from what I've read on tumblr, he's probs on drugs and ran away to Camp Jupiter and yeah

Also Hera went missing or smth

The weirdo cloud nymph is in love with Hedge

(I forgot to mention that Hedge was freed)

IDK what I'm missing but I learned that I need a therapist while reading this

AAAAALLLLLLSSOOOOO Percy jumps into Tartarus after Annabeth does

AAAAALLLLLLSSOOOOO 2.0 Why isn't Nico one of the 7????

(Still ship Solangelo)

The disrespect this show gets on a daily basis, from the production to the network(s) to even the pirates who prefer to rip shows like *checks notes* Big Brother Canada (same group)...

I wouldn't be calling them out if I hadn't done this myself, by the way. People who have never ripped a damn thing can stay in their lane. I have earned my stripes, I'm not someone who wants to talk shit about those who do this, and I understand the process involved. The webrips are a different story, as they are uploaded by Amazon whenever. The HDTV rips should be uploaded on time, shortly after the network airs the show, and it's the same process as it always has been to rip them. Uploading HDTV rips after the webrips has no value whatsoever, unless someone cares that much about the promo, which of course CityTV doesn't care enough to upload themselves, proving once again what a shitty network they are.

Hudson and Rex has an international fanbase, it shouldn't be so difficult to be able to watch it as an international fan in 2024.

Storry (Dina Koutsouflakis)

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Pansexual

DOB: N/A 

Ethnicity: Lebanese, Greek

Nationality: Canadian

Occupation: Singer, songwriter, music producer, director, visual artist

Tim Horton's-Inspired Fruit Explosion Muffins

Nemesis’s sacred animal being a goose is very fitting

queer short cuts week 33: from the river to the sea

queer short cuts is a biweekly newsletter where i share queer & trans short film recommendations; each set of films is themed and comes out to no more than one hour cumulatively.content notes are included at the end of each post.you can also check out the full spreadsheet of films i've recommended.

today marks a month from hamas’s attack on israel, and israel’s genocidal response that has escalated the already-unjust violence israel perpetrates through occupation of palestine. in that month, israel’s occupation and bombardment of palestine has only become more horrific. as of today, over 10,000 palestinians have been killed – over 4,200 of them children – and nearly 26,000 wounded in gaza, and at least 163 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied west bank and jerusalem. and those are only the numbers of confirmed deaths from direct combat violence.

this week will be the last (for now) of films that are palestine-themed in some way – the first film is about a queer palestinian character, and the second two, like last week’s selections, are from the 2021 queer cinema for palestine festival. i would love to continue showing queer palestinian films, but i’ve unfortunately run out of films at the moment that I can find online with english subtitles. i will certainly keep looking, and regardless, i am going to continue using this space to speak out against Israel and for palestine, even if the films in future weeks don’t directly relate.

check out the full film recs here

in past newsletters i’ve given a list of things you can do like donating or learning more about the fight for palestinian liberation. those are still there for you to check out if you need, but folks in palestine have been clear that what they really need right now is for us to fight for political change. donations aren’t getting into gaza, so what we really need to be doing is joining protests and direct actions, and demanding that our local leaders support palestine – not only for a ceasefire and aid supplies, but also an end to arming israel (if your country does so) and to israeli occupation of palestine. samidoun has a calendar of resistance events across the world – please do check it out and do what you can to fight for change.

AUNTIEEE, YOU WERE MENTIONED IN THAT HADES VIDEO :O Timestamp is already included but in the case it didn't add is 1:17:57 CONGRATS, NOW YOU'RE A NICHE CELEBRITY 😎😂😂

It's not because I was mentioned there but hoooly damn, guys watch this video!!! I am a Greek talking about this stuff all the time and yet I was pleasantly surprised with how many things he mentioned and much new info I hadn't thought about - like the Greeks descending from the gods in our cosmology, and why Greek gods are actually ethnically Greek. (One point I used to disagree on, but he convinced me otherwise)

I disagree with him on some stuff he says about god depictions but from what I remember (I saw the whole thing a week ago), I agree with nearly everything else. I think it's a great and extremely detailed video overall, and the first of that popularity discussing how Greeks and Greek culture are absent from the media which is supposed to include them, and it profits greatly from that supposed "inclusion".

He also covers many other subjects regarding the treatment of Greek heritage by the west, and he does it in a way that I could listen to that video for 10 hours straight. Dear LambHoot, I don't know if you will see this, and perhaps we disagree on a few things, but I'd like to say you made a darn good video. Your μεράκι in making it shows, and I am sure every viewer will get something great from it. Bravo!!!

**************

I'd also like to thank @anistrange for bringing this great video and my mention to my attention! It was on my to-watch list but towards the bottom - because I am a kalikantzaros hoarding youtube videos for the rare day I'll have the energy and time, and also because I couldn't imagine it would be that good! You start the video and two hours later you want it to continue!

Just caught myself saying 我 ξέρω. Caught myself, said désolé, only to realize I am in fact speaking to my English speaking friend

love listening to Callum Woodhouse, who has a northern accent, fight for his life to do an RP accent while surrounded by characters who speak with Yorkshire accents

I decided to draw a quick picture of Russell before I go to bed. This was inspired by Disney's Fantasia, Disney's Fantasia, from the sequence, Pastoral Symphony where Artemis (or Diana) uses the cresent moon as a bow to fire an arrow which spreads stars across the sky.

Russell has compared himself to the Greek Goddess, Artemis. He has such a fascination with her, to the point where he sometimes believes that he is actually a reincarnation of Artemis herself, born as a man to experience love, pain, suffering, and happiness.

Here Russell is using the moon as a bow and is about to shoot stars across the sky. Next to him is a deer, the sacred animal of Artemis. And on top of the deer is a Syblot. Remember them? :)

I decided to include the Syblot because they are all attracted to Russell for some reason. So if Russell were the reincarnation of Artemis, they would be his sacred animal on Otacaia if that makes sense.

This was really fun to draw. I am quite pleased with this drawing.

On another note, Russell doesn't really believe in Roman gods like Jupiter or Selene or Vesta, to him they are just copies of Greek Gods that the Romans has "warped". Ah, my little Grecophile.

Otacaia, Russell Firkins © Jafan Adis, 2022-2023. All Rights Reserved.

Fantasia © Walt Disney Studios, 1940-2023 All Rights Reserved.

^this thing is indeed older than "pizza hawaii" its Wikipedia pages does also include a Tab titled "Cancer developement risk" which is neat.

Banana Yoghurt with Maple Chocolate Sauce

As indulgent as it is, this delicious Banana Yoghurt with Maple Chocolate Sauce can be a breakfast as well as a dessert, or a mid-arvo treat! Happy Wednesday!

Ingredients (serves 1):

30 grams/1 ounce good quality dark chocolate

1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 tablespoon pure (Grade A) Canadian Maple Syrup (like Ontario's Pefferlaw's Creek)

1/2 cup thick Greek Yogurt

1 banana

Break dark chocolate in a small bowl, fitted over a saucepan of simmering water, over a medium flame. Add butter, and allow to melt, stirring until smooth. Then, stir in Maple Syrup energetically, until silky and shiny. Keep warm.

Spoon Greek Yoghurt into serving bowl.

Peel and slice banana, and add banana slices to the bowl.

Generously drizzle with Maple Chocolate Sauce.

Enjoy Banana Yoghurt with Maple Chocolate Sauce immediately.

I've watched this before, but I got around to watch it again. I learnt a lot more about Greek culture thanks to this.