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llendrinall · 2 years

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Our Flag Means Death

The gay pirates show. I am amazed by the fandom reaction to that tv show and I am surprised by my own joyful reaction to it. I don’t remember when I was last so excited about something. I have been thinking about it for the past few days and I think it’s a combination of factors.

One, the show is good. More later.

Two, the show is complete. Yes, yes, we all want a second season, we need it, we crave it, but the show itself is rounded. We don’t have to pick the good bits around the rotten core, we can take it as a whole and enjoy it whole. More later.

Three, we as the public were tired of very bad fiction from the last few years. Or at least I was very tired. I look back and, really? I had erased from my mind that there ever was a Sherlock Season 4 and I’m sorry to remind you now. And, Marvel? And Fantastic Beasts? Giving fandom even less than what Supernatural was giving. No musical motives, no carefully chosen palette to link two characters, just bland consumer-ready fiction.

We were starved for stories with density, with something to pick apart and analyze. I am compulsively reading analysis of OFMD’s elements (food, clothes, hairstyles, music, touch, skin, everything!). There are so many! Fandom is used to not getting what it wants and having to squint and read between the lines, but I think that lately the fiction products were so plain and formulaic that we didn’t even have that. No more, “look at Bucky’s way of moving compared to the Winter Soldier” or “Fandom likes Loki because he is female-coded and women know how it feels to be the second place in affection despite being better”. It was all sugar coating and no filling.

Of course, this answers to how I curate my experience and what I consume. Maybe I am missing on a lot of good takes. But it’s telling that the hottest idea I have read in fandom in the last two years is this essay: Everybody is beautiful and no one is horny (so good! Go read it) which precisely points out that there is a certain emptiness in the beautiful superheroes bodies we are presented.

Now, about the first two points, the show isn’t good because it has an explicit loving queer relationship (it has three!). It is good because it is complete. As audiences we are used to pick little details and squeeze them until we get an ounce of meaning we can drink. And we love it! We hate the frustration of never getting more than that, but we enjoy those contextual details because they make relationships feel real and organic.

Too often, white heterosexual relationships are built on empty ground. There is a man, there is a woman and by the laws of cheap narrative they must like each other despite not showing any chemistry on screen. It’s only natural that the woman would show instant interest on the hero even though they barely talked through the movie. Do I need to give examples? Come on, just think of any movie and tell me, why were those two together again?

OFMD doesn’t build relationships like that. Making the queer relationships explicit doesn’t mean they can now be lazy and simply push the two characters together. No, we still get the beautiful hints, the slowly built tension, the story written and coded in the empty spaces. This is good writing.

The show is complete (despite the devastating need for a second season) because it can be consumed whole. There is no obvious element missing, nor things we would rather not see and that we swallow because we have to. There is not “if only” hanging in the air. Sure, some say they would have liked to see more women and more of Mary, but I’m very happy with what we saw of her in episode 10, plus considering the things we have had to put up with…

Orange is the New Black was the first show where I saw different bodies (fat bodies, thin bodies, tall, short, young, aging, white, black, brown…). It was so revolutionary to see so many different women! Especially 40+ aged women. But the show is a drama and there is sexual assault and after a couple of seasons it derails badly.

Brooklyn 99 was the first show where I saw “more than one”. More than one Latina woman. More than one black man. Eventually more than one queer character. And it’s a comedy! In which the white male hero actually listens and checks his behavior and apologizes and gives up prizes. But it’s also a cop show and even though they had tackled the topic of racism… Yeah, no.

Galavant is a gorgeous musical comedy in a fantasy setting. Amazing. Very recommendable. It tried new things. There is a different take on masculinity. But the best part are the songs not the story.

These are shows I like, but all of them have a missing piece. I won’t say that OFMD is perfect, but it is rounded and complete where other shows aren’t. It’s balanced. And it’s always giving content. When you aren’t watching the two oblivious idiots fall in love, you are watching POC representation and colonialism and class relations (oh, boy, class relations) and different definitions of what it means to be a man and just a bunch of idiots making each other better, together, by unlearning toxic lessons.

We were licking at the syrup of dummy cakes, looking for crumbs, and finally, finally, we have an actual cake with filling and cream and an orange –not a cherry, no, an actual orange– sliced in two at the top.

#ofmd #our flag means death #meta #analysis #writing

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mazhazalotofthoughts · 2 years

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Sexuality is a deeply personal thing and people go about it differently. Some queer people never ‘come out’, they just exist as queer and it’s whatever. Others make it known every chance they get, embracing their sexuality and gender loudly. There is no right way to be queer. We need to stop holding queer people to a standard that doesn’t exist.

I personally make it my mission to be as queer as possible wherever I go. After years of being ashamed of my gender and queerness, I will not quiet it for anything. But that’s still for me, it’s still mine and I don’t owe anyone an explanation about it. My coworker went 3 years without telling anyone they were queer, and when they did it was because they made offhanded comment they didn’t even think about. That’s just who they are and it’s just as valid as my way of existing as queer.

I’ve just seen so much shit on Twitter about Harry queerbaiting and it’s pissing me off. He’s not. He is queer. He is a person with a public job but a private life and as much as I love to talk about him being queer, it’s none of my business, or anyone else’s except his. It’s his identity, his life, the way he loves and wants to be loved and it’s not ours to pick apart. Like yes, I run this blog and do exactly that, but it’s for other fans and for me to express my thoughts because I enjoy Harry’s music and who he is and as much as it’s not my buisness, it’s not gonna stop my brain from thinking about it and wanting to talk about those thoughts. This blog has given me a safe space to do so but I’d never, I mean never, go up to H and ask him how he identifies, or write gossip articles picking apart his sexuality or god forbid, accuse him of pretending to be gay. There’s a difference between pointing out blatant queer codes and connecting the dots and understanding that H is not straight based on all this, and reducing him to his sexuality.

Like above the fact that I do relate to Harry because of the queer themes in his music and art, and his overall influence of the queer fans in the fandom, I’m here for his music, his quirky personality, the way he’s so kind to everyone and treats every single person he meets with respect and kindest. I’m here for his acting and his career in Hollywood, his sense of style and the fashion choices he makes. I’m here for him as a person and an artist above anything else. And even if I’ve gotten it all wrong, and he is cis/het, I don’t care cause it’s not my business how he identifies or expresses himself.

All this talk has made me think about what I’m doing and whether things like this blog and writing FanFiction is okay. It’s a weird thing to work through because on one hand I really enjoy this space and writing ff, but I don’t want to hurt Harry. I don’t want him to feel violated by us speculating about something he’s said is personal. Like, is me talking about H being queer and all the reasons why I think that too much. Is it crossing the line? Is writing explicit fanfic sexualizing him? Like, so, so many people read and write it, and enjoy doing so, but is it bad? Is it crossing a boundary? I don’t know. I write it because it’s fun and easy and lets me explore my sexuality in a safe way. I don’t want to sleep with H. I don’t want to do anything I write about. And even then the characters im writing are so far removed from the actual person, the only similarity is the name and eye colour. Like, I saw some tweets that made me really uncomfortable because they were sexualizing him on the main. Like, I didn’t like it and I don’t know. But it’s made me think about a lot. Let me know your opinions on this.

#harry styles #harry is gender #harry’s house #larry stuff #harry’s gender #harry’s sexuality #hs identity #harry is queer #hs gender #larry stylinson

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desi-lgbt-fest · 3 years

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i understand the queercoding but as years go by and i grow older and see the younger lot figure out stuff on their own while completely giving up hopes of a proper representation in mainstream media, my heart breaks a little. as someone who grew up with giant movie franchise without any obviously portrayed lgbtq characters (Dumbledore doesn't count because JKR decided inclusivity is important AFTER all the movies came out and even today he's not canonically portrayed as a queer character in the prequels) I desperately want movies and shows revolving around queer characters without the centre plot being homophobia. We're underestimating the influence of bollywood, my family watched Schitts Creek once and now are somewhat more accepting of the community, imagine what a mainstream bollywood movie would do. It takes a bit of a risk ofc, because Aligarh was banned in a lot of places and Fire (Deepa Mehta) also faced backlash but hopefully times have changed a bit.

Yes of course. But you see people queer coding straight character shouldn't take away from them demanding more and better representation from newer media?

It's not like I can only take 100 queer characters and if I use up 90 as queer coded straight, I have space for only 10 actual gay representation.

In fact I would argue that daring to see straight characters in queer lens so publically is one of the signs that the young generation today, at least on internet, is demanding of more queer representation and is safe in doing so.

(cw: homophobic violence) Back in the 90s, the buddy cop movies were trending. Akshay Kumar and Said Ali Khan were a popular pairing. Ashok Row Kavi, the first openly gay man and a queer right activist made a remark that those movies had queer undertones. Saif Ali Khan, Kavi accused, beat him up for implying anything of that kind. For looking at queer coding.

The fact that you and I and others can so openly discuss these things, fact that I can make posts like Sonu and Titu are gay, all the Chak De India ladies are lesbian, is a sign of progress, or rather, Work In Progress. (Also, the fact that I do not have my real life identity attached is also telling. I would never make these posts from my insta account, for example.)

I do genuinely believe that on some level, the fans in the west who spent years creating gay fanfiction, fanart in secret, looking at canonically straight characters and making them gay, grew up and are now making the very queer media we consume. You think supernatural, albeit very homophobically, would've made Castiel queer had not for past 12 years, the fans looked at the 'canonical straight characters' and said 'yeah no, they're gay'?

Your point, as I said in the last response, is valid.

I do hope that one day, we don't have to look for queercoding. That one day, we have good queer representation across the spectrum. That one day, creators feel confident enough that they don't have to plant clues that hopefully, only the queer audience picks up while the straight remain blissfully oblivious. But until that, the act of looking at straight fictional characters and seeing queer characteristics in them, is an act of defiance.

#I'm sorry for the rant anon #this is a bit of a special interest as you can see #But I'm happy you're engaging with me #asks #anonymous #queer coding #queer representation #bollywood #believe it or not I have more thoughts on this #But I'll spare you #long post #cw homophobic violence

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steponmepinkjun · 3 years

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I NEVER FINISHED MY STORY OMG. ok so i left off at being too proud to tell my friend she was right and kpop fucked hard. the difference between u and me is that i’m too good of a liar. too good. i kept up the “i hate kpop it’s cringe” facade for ALMOST TWO WHOLE YEARS, I SHIT YOU NOT. why? bc my dumb ass, extra ass, dramatic ass self thought “ok if i’m gonna have to deal with the embarrassment of admitting i’m wrong, i better do it in such an extra ass way it’ll knock ur socks off so hard that YOULL be the one embarrassed not me.” the original plan was to learn the entire choreography to bts dope, bc it’s the song that she told me to listen to and inevitably the song that got me into them, but later switched to bts fire bc i saw too many of those “choreo matches w any song” videos, and then her birthday party came up. and here’s the real kicker. her birthday is April Motherfuckin Fools. so it would be So Perfect for me to reveal my kpopism as a birthday present And a april fools prank in one. so i was Set on the Reveal being on april 1st, but the day rolls around and god that choreo is so fucking hard and i am Not a dancer. never have been. so i abandon that and go ykno what… i’ll do it Next Year. BC MY BITCHASS WAS LIKE NO THE MOMENT IS TOO PERFECT TO DO IT ON A NORMAL ASS DAY ITS GONNA BE ON APRIL FOOLS ON HER GODDAMN BIRTHDAY OR NOT AT ALL. a year rolls by, i’ve told most of our friends except her and they’re all in on it, i’d made so many subtle kpop references to her without her realising they were fully intentional and had too many scares where she almost figured me out but i lied my way out of it, and i’d given up on showing off with choreography bc i couldn’t make that shit look good. i’m not a dancer. i am, however, a rapper, and a damn good one, so i inhaled the agust d mixtape and decided i’d just rap the eminem of kpop’s anthem at her face. in korean. and change the lyrics at the end (if u haven’t listened to agust d, the bridge repeats “i’m sorry” a lot) to “i’m sorry i kept this from u for so long” and “i’m sorry i actually ult got7 not bts” (this was like the april after skz debuted ok i was holding onto got7 for dear life knowing full well skz we’re going to convert me smh) and the best part? she never saw it coming. her official present was a cd with a bunch of kpop on it but she thought it was just a personalised mixtape for her so i told her to play the first song out loud and she knew the song Instantly. it has a long intro so she was like “i guess u did listen when i recommended u this song!! i knew you’d like it since u like rap so much!!” and then i started rapping and i shit u not. she started SCREAMING. like the initial reaction was her jaw dropping and then instinctively covering her mouth but when i kept going and she realised i wasn’t fucking around she just fucking screamed like a banshee. at the end during the sorry bit i threw off my jacket to reveal a got7 shirt on the inside and she fell off her chair and started rolling around on the floor. needless to say it was every bit as satisfying as i thought it’d be LMAOOOO afterwards her ass was like “I CANT BELIEVE U HID THIS FROM ME FOR OVER A YEAR” and when i tried to explain my ego couldn’t take the “i told u so” she was like “you know i wouldn’t have made fun of you for it right? i would just be glad you’re not hating on my boys anymore” so basically i’m a big dramatic fool and she was always too good for me.

don’t mind the weird spaces here my ipad is being all fucky wucky w me rn. damn sad to hear ur sideblog experience didn’t go so well, i’d have shown u the cool side of the fandom if i knew 😤😤 leading u thru the cursed halls of kpop stan tumblr like a sketchy tour guide that’s actually 3 small raccoons stacked on top of each other like a trench coat, like “over here we have the fanfic writers that honestly need to publish a book, over here we have the gif makers that are responsible for my entire camera roll, if we take a quick swerve past the death threat anons and the twt fanwar screenshots - mind ur feet bub the 14 year olds were tryna make a grab for ur ankles - ah here’s the holy grail of shitposts, you might be here for hours, to the right we have the weird aussie side of the fandom that projects our childhoods onto chanlix but also all the members as we decide what their life in australia would’ve been like, and down there is a secret trapdoor to the blogs w endless random headcanons that will make you laugh, cry or blush depending on if the author woke up and decided to choose violence today. enjoy your Stay!” but then again i’m not so active on tumblr anymore (ngl you’ve become the highlight of my tumblr experience these days, interaction wise,) so maybe all my Local Hotspots are inactive now. i know a bunch of them are, it’s sad. “i don’t fw stan twitter for the same reason i don’t hang out in meth dens” oop. guess i’m a meth addict. no but i get u i rly do, it’s a hellhole out there, but the fact that things get shared and spread a lot easier than on tumblr and how short most things have to be (therefor keeping up w my adhd attention span without having to resort to the mental torture that is tiktok, with the added bonus of not always needing headphones.) that i just. couldn’t leave if i tried. maybe i should try being active on tumblr again but it’s a dying site in comparison.

“their music doesn’t consistently hit for me as much as skz” i’m sorry we can’t be friends anymore. what. what. you don’t dramama ramama ramama hey? you don’t feel a little jealousyyyyyy, naega anin? you don’t shoot out, shoot out, shoot out, or aremdaeun love killa love killa? you can’t be your hero du du du du du du du du du dududu? u disappoint me. literally like everyone i know who likes skz music likes mx music like it’s a rite of Passage. they’re kindred spirits, monsta x music is like skz’s music’s cool but mildly heterosexual older brother. neither of them know what a bad song is it runs in the family. and both their music runs in my VEINS. whenever i describe my music taste they’re always the first two that come to mind, skz being my number 1 bc they are my best boys but mx bc of the Flavour. pls listen to the entire the code album then get back to me 😤🙌 ok but fr ur so right they are 7 of the finest men i ever seen (yes i say 7 bc i’m including wonho cause he deserved better and i’ll die on my ot7 bullshit.) like don’t get me started on them either LOL i LITERALLY downloaded that one insta video of changkyun working out his back n arm muscles w his tattoo showing bc i needed that shit saved for Science. they could do Anything w me like frfr. yes vixx is the bdsm contract group i’m telling ya they wildin. or at least they were. it’s been years since their last comeback idk what they’re doing anymore tbh. and yeah that makes sense, savouring the hyperfixation i feel it, but also i’m so attached to skz that i never let it die. like i hyperfixate on other things and other groups but i will Always go back to skz cause they’re my homeboys. hell, they’re my home. being a predebut stay i’ve spent more time w skz than most of my actual family members at this point. but that’s just me you do u boo xx just know that if ur anything like me ur never letting go once skz it’s been my longest lasting fixation cause they hit like Nothing Else Do. ik i’ve already said that but i cannot stress it enough. they’re really special. i’m gonna stop here before i get all sappy and emotional bc i really love those boys so fucking much and i don’t drop the L bomb often. SIDE NOTE I WOULD LIKE TO SEE UR LIST OF GROUPS RANKED BY THORSt. i need to judge ur Taste. and omg cat&dog is such a guilty pleasure song bc the lyrics make me cringe so much bc while pet play can be fun they be doing it in more of an “i’m an innocent soft dogboy uwu” kinda way that just Does Not Sit Right with me. it comes back to the objectifying of asians that asians themselves don’t help in industries like these and maybe i’m looking too far into it when rly it is just wholesome n cute or maybe they are into some pet play shit idk idc i will bop to the song regardless but i will not acknowledge the lyrics nope.

YOURE RIGHT THO SKZ’S OPENNESS IS IN FACT, A BIG DEAL, i’ll grab them for u if u want but i found these twt threads of skz supporting the lgbt community and i just felt a special kind of happiness man like sure the delusional part of me likes going “haha they’re gay” bc my brain likes to imagine them as my polycule of mlm boyfriends bc sometimes thats what gives me the serotonin to get me thru the day ok don’t judge but also bc it’s nice knowing that yes i’ll never know them personally, but at least i can support them knowing they’d respect my gender identity and my pronouns, they’d respect who i choose to love, and that’s already more than the general public can say so shit, it is special! it’s special that they don’t treat being cishet like the norm - they constantly remove gender from their songs and speech entirely, they don’t assume all stays are female anymore, we don’t talk abt the babygirls incident cause we got babystays in the end outta that ok, and it’s just. so refreshing and important to me bc i can’t get that anywhere else!! like my semi ults are the boyz and while i love them very much and there’s no way all 11 of them are straight i refuse, i do get just a little bit sad whenever they she/her their fandom by default and call them their girlfriends n shit even tho i do still identify as a girl, i’m also genderfluid/nonbinary/transmasc, and i have a very love/hate relationship w my womanhood and rarely use she/her pronouns, cause it’s like, do you not see me? see us? the ones who aren’t cishet women? i mean i know kevin does bc he congratulated a fan who came out as nb but it’s just not the same as the openness we get w skz. like how do i trust cishets i could be supporting them as a queer person when in reality they’d call me a slur. what would i know, behind the screen? so it’s so good that skz go the extra mile to make it a safe space for everyone. this is already long enough i will reply to the second half of that ask in another message… tomorrow cause it’s 1am and i’m tired gn -felix bi anon

I'mma have to start putting these under a readmore so that i don't absolutely make everything who is still following me for some reason go totally fucking insane 😂

NDJDHWJJAHFNAKBSJSBFBHHDBDNAJD YOU HAVE NO IDEA THE FACES I WAS MAKING READING THIS, I WAS FUCKING CACKLING AND GASPING EVERY OTHER SENTENCE SO HARD THAT I SCARED THE CATS NDJWHSHSB the fact that you went "oh you want me to get into kpop? Give me a hot minute, and I'll give you a whole ass private concert for free" biduehsjdbd biiiiiiiiiiitch you're a fucking ICON, I stg I could NEVER 😂 (and not just because I couldn't find a tune if you gave me a printed set of Google maps directions and that I embody the steriotype that white people can't dance, like my sister kept sensing me tiktoks of the whole "dance like a white girl" trend going lmfao look it's you and eventually I was like "sis please this trend has me feeling like being white is a disability and these mothafuckers are being ableist 😭 also I could NEVER be that on beat so yall ain't even doin it right 😭😭😭😭"). Tbh if I told one of my friends (lol what friends, i got jokes) to get into Skz and they showed up at my bday and performed the entirety of I Got It I would simply shower them in money and go "aight everyone else go home, you are no longer needed, you are being laid off, your position has been eliminated, we're downsizing, the company is moving up and you're moving out, you are not qualified for this role any longer, best of luck with future endeavors" 😊

I think part of the reason I can't deal w Twitter is the exact reason I refuse to leave tumblr, in that I've been on tumblr since 2006 and twt since 2008, and tumblr literally has not changed at all, not even a little, whereas going from the early days of twt where there were no corporate sponsorships or ads and you had to manually copy and paste someone's tweet and @ them to retweet it, to how it is now, like 90% ads and showing me shit from the timelines of people I don't even fuckin follow n whatnot, it's just not enjoyable. Idk how anyone finds anything on twt, it confuses and frustrates me because I am old and have not adapted well to technology changing 😂 But arguably, the skz fanbase doesn't want me on skztwt anyways so like it works for both of us lmfaooo. I am old and cringey, and also still think of twt as stream of consciousness whereas tumblr is your teenage bedroom where you can decorate the walls with anything that interests you. I do really love the nonsensical kpoptwt shitposts tho fhshsbdjjss like it is a very specific flavor of mental instability that I enjoy immensely 😂 OH and also I initially misread part of that and thought you were saying you actually irl do meth and I was like 😳 WHAT DO I SAY TO THAT. HOW DO I HANDLE THIS. Like how do I express like "I wasn't being judgy of people who use substances cause I've been there but I was just being insensitive 😳" And then went back and reread it and was like WHEW, IM JUST AN ILLITERATE FOOL 😂😂😂😂 ejeywhdhrhjwbfbdjshdhdhd I spent like an hour bwign like "IS THE REASON WE GET ALONG BECAUSE THEY'RE ON METH???? WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS INFORMATION??????" hrhehshe I am literally a fuckin idiot it's fine

It's not that I don't fw them, it's more like... Okay so like there is no situation in which I am going to skip a skz song if it comes on shuffle. You will not ever catch me NOT in the mood to listen to Sunshine, if God's Menu comes on we are THROWIN the meager amount of booty meat I got hither and thither, I could be in the happiest mood of my life but if Ex comes on I will stop to SOB. And I'm not like that with most music, so mx just falls into the category of "there is a time and place." Idk why but it just doesn't forcibly grab hold of my heart and ass the way skz always does. I really don't WANT my skz fixation to ever end, but I know that eventually it'll stop giving me dopamine bevause my brain is my worst fucking enemy 🙃 like my arcana fixation is to date the longest running hyperfixation I've ever had, going on almost three years, and I used to not be able to spend every single second of every day thinking about Asra, but now... I just feel nothing when I look at arcana stuff. As you can probz tell by the fact that I hardly post arcana anymore 😂 So I know that eventually all my happiness will end, it always does, I can never stay just as obsessed with something as I was for long. I CANT SHARE THE LIST BECAUSE I DONT *HAVE* TASTE YET 😭 I'm basically just compiling a list of any group someone tells me I should look into, ranked by how strong the kitty purred upon googling pics of them 😂 My mom read my ass to FILTH over txt lmfao she was like "they're not that adorable. Maybe your standard for adorableness has gone down with You Know Who still on hiatus 🤔" bfjwhdhd like MOMMAAAAA THE LIBRARY IS CLOSED 😂 she attacks me any time I even hint at stanning other groups, she is a skz purist and stans skz only, unofficial Momma Stay of All Stays keeping me in check lmfao.

I feel like skz really do follow thru on their promise that they're a safe space for stays, it's nice to see that they hold space for anyone and everyone in their fanbase and do it in a really simple and elegant way, I feel. Like they never make it seem like "okay here are the fans and here are the token weirdos that were only recognizing to make a buck off of them" the way a lot of artists make it feel like 😑 like they don't go out of their way to act like it's some revolutionary act to do the bare minimum of not shitting on certain parts of the fandom, if that makes sense. They feel very "yeah, of course we love all our stays, this is a welcoming space for literally anyone, that's how it should be, that should be normal," instead of like "Hi fans we love you 😊 and special shoutout to you ell gee bee tee folk, make sure to buy my rainbow merch after the show!!!" you know? Like, they're the friends who would never make you feel weird or different for some shit, the friends that take the attention off you if something they know ur sensitive about comes up, instead of weirdly snapping at whoever brought the unfomfy thing up which ruins the mood and makes you feel tiwce as bad, yk? They just give off this vibe that they, and the space they create with their music, is just a genuine and chill place to be and hang out and relax and bond. I feel like they'd be the friend group that is so goofy and sweet and silly and accepting and lovely and always makes you feel loved and excited to be alive 🥺 They are all good noodles 🥺🥺🥺

#felix-bi-anon #asksteppie

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queeryourgame · 4 years

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Community Values, Guidelines & Rule Enforcement

Community Values

Queer Your Game is an international multi-game LGBTQIA+ only gayming community. We aim to provide our Gaymers with a protected cross-platform environment where we can all enjoy ourselves, meet new gay™ people from all over the world and gayme together safely. Queer Your Game welcomes all sorts of Gaymers regardless of gender, race, religion, nationality or level of skill.

Our community is live on Discord and you can join us today!

We expect everyone to behave responsibly, kindly and respectfully toward one another across all platforms and games.

The following guidelines are not exhaustive and we reserve the right to change and amend them as our community grows and we learn. We’ll let you know when we do, but we expect all of you to read them, accept them and abide by them.

One last thing, safety is our main concern and to that end, we are offering a moderated space.

You are the heart of this community. The way you behave is the way we all behave and your integrity is our integrity. If you see someone that needs help, if you witness something that’s against our guidelines or just plain wrong, say something. Do something. Tell a mod, alert us on social media, stand up for your fellow Gaymer as you would like your fellow Gaymer to stand up for you and help.

Join Queer Your Game 👉 http://bit.ly/QYGDiscord

Community Guidelines

Queer Your Game is an LGBTQIA+ only community. What does that mean? Well, it means that if you are cisheteroromantic AND cisheterosexual then you can’t be part of this community. We appreciate that you consider yourself one of our cishet allies and we understand that you might have a spouse/partner, family members, friends and acquaintances who are LGBTQIA+ that you care about and support. However, due to the nature of the gaming community at large, we wish to keep QYG open to LGBTQIA+ folks only. PS: If you are cisAromantic and/or cisAssexual and you consider yourself Queer, we welcome you.

Our community guidelines must be respected cross-platforms. You must also abide by the community guidelines and terms of services of the platforms you are using. On Discord, you must respect Discord’s guidelines, on Twitter, you must respect Twitter’s guidelines, on Xbox, you must respect Xbox’s guidelines, etc.

Queer Your Game is not yet a corporation but we will abide by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), the European Union Copyright Law (EUCL), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty (WIPO and WCT) and the World Trade Organization (WCT) on copyright and intellectual property. If the copyright and IP organization of your region isn’t mentioned here, please know that if we are contacted by them regarding copyright and intellectual property transgressions by our users, we will consider their inquiries just as seriously as those from the organizations mentioned above.

While we are on the subject of copyright and intellectual property, it’s important you remember that we consider fanart and derivative work to be fair use. Fair use is a right, don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. Using culture to express yourself and create your own representation is something that we at Queer Your Game actively encourage.

Reposting original art, derivative work, and fanart as your own without crediting the artist or appropriating art, derivative work, and fanart is forbidden. If we find out that you are stealing original art, derivative work, and fanart from the artists in our community—whether from Discord, Tumblr, Twitter, or anywhere else our users are present—for commercial purposes, you will be reported to said platforms, to the relevant authorities, and you will be immediately banned from Queer Your Game. Forever.

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Please don’t use the community Discord and other platforms for your advertisement of any kind, unless you are affiliated with Queer Your Game and/or we have given you permission to do so. Yes, that includes charities and fandom projects. Do not ever ask for money or promote your Ko-fi, your Patreon, your PayPal, your Kickstarter, your IndieGoGo, etc. unless you are affiliated with Queer Your Game and we have given you permission to do so.

Remember when we said that your safety is our main concern at Queer Your Game? That starts with keeping your personal information secret. Do not ever share your personal information in our Discord Server or publically on our other platforms. If you want to share your personal information with a fellow Gaymer, add them as a friend and share what you wish to share via private direct messages.

Nobody at Queer Your Game, Admins or Mods, will ever ask you for your personal information in our Discord server—unless you are in the SOS channel and you are requiring immediate IRL assistance, and we do mean life or death situations.

If you are caught sharing another Gaymer’s personal information, you will be banned. If you obtained that information illegally, we will report you to the authorities in your country of residence.

To become a part of our gayming community you need to follow our application process. We do not allow Gaymers to have multiple accounts—especially if you have been kicked or banned and you’re trying to trick us into adding you again. Don’t do it.

If we catch you impersonating another Gaymer, you will be banned and reported.

By the way, don’t use offensive usernames. By offensive we mean insulting, discriminatory, violent, sexual, etc.. Oh and don’t copy another Gaymer’s username either.

We are running an 18 and older Discord server and we don’t mind you discussing all sorts of topics, including sex. I mean, we’re gay. It’s okay. Just don’t be inappropriate. Don’t link to porn, under 18 content, illegal content, or you know, all the stuff we already mentioned above. Don’t upload under 18 or NSFW content in the chat, don’t use porn/violent/discriminative GIFs, don’t swear like a sailor, don’t spam.

Using our community Discord for sexual acts or intercourse, the promotion of sexual services and the exploitation of children is prohibited.

We will have zero tolerance for Gaymers who bully, harass, verbally abuse or berate other Gaymers in-game, on Discord or any other platforms Queer Your Game is on. Hate speech is not okay. Do not promote violence against anyone, especially other marginalized folks. If we catch you bashing on someone, alone or in a group, you’re done.

If you have a disagreement with someone or you’re getting upset and you feel like lashing out, find a Mod, take a break. If you can’t manage what’s going on in the moment, walk away, send us an email or DM us. Criticism should always be polite and constructive. In fact, one of the mottos we use in every aspect of our work at Queer Your Game is “To be a voice of criticism, be a force of proposition.” It’s good advice; you’re welcome.

Trolling in-game, on Discord and other platforms Queer Your Game is on is unacceptable. Don’t ruin the experience of other people. That goes for spoiling. Whether it’s about a game, a movie, a book, a tv show, just don’t spoil, okay? Now, we know some of you will want to talk about every bit of spoiler and juicy news out there so we made you a channel on Discord.

In-game, we expect you to show fair play, to win with dignity and lose with grace, and to support your fellow Gaymers and teammates. Cheating and hacking are prohibited. Respect in-game rules and codes of conduct. No friendly kills, no awoxing, no spawn killing, no stealing from other Gaymers, no destroying other Gaymers property. Oh and no botting.

Raging is a no-go. Don’t rage quit, don’t yell at your fellow Gaymers, don’t insult people, don’t swear excessively, etc.. If you can’t handle what’s going on in-game, if you know you’re going to lose it, walk away. It’s that simple.

Cooperation and support are promoted within Queer Your Game. We like transparency and we think that champions, raid leaders and more skilled Gaymers should lead and help and teach and theorycraft and strategize and all the good things that can advance their fellow Gaymers, their own teams, parties and guilds of Gaymers. Just don’t go around sharing all of that on social media unless it’s made clear that it’s okay or you’re the person who came up with it.

At Queer Your Game we consider ourselves proponents of social justice and equal rights. We also know what a lot of social media platforms and communities refuse to acknowledge: tech and media are not neutral and no community or person is apolitical. While we encourage conversation and we understand that nobody’s perfect and no content is unproblematic, we want everyone to have the opportunity to enjoy the diversity of our community as they have fun, share, learn, educate themselves and grow. We expect all Gaymers to be on their best behavior. If you witness any of the following behaviors, report it to a Mod.

Racism, anti-blackness, xenophobia, white supremacy, Islamophobia, antisemitism, cultural appropriation, and bigotry will not be tolerated.

If you’re a transphobe or a TERF, don’t apply. We don’t want you. We also expect Gaymers to respect their fellow Gaymers’ pronouns. Misgendering will be sanctioned.

Sexism and misogyny won’t be tolerated. If you’re a white feminist, we don’t like you either. And if you don’t know what that is, we encourage you to check Google.

Ableism, food-shaming, fat-shaming, and all physical discrimination or belittling are rude and forbidden.

Don’t police, gatekeep, etc.. We have Mods and Admins, and we have guidelines. Your judgment of others is not required nor welcome.

Threats, incitation to violence and self-destroying behaviors, and any activity or conversation that could lead to your physical or emotional harm are completely forbidden and will get a Gaymer banned.

Suicide stunts or self-harm for attention-seeking, entertainment, or bad jokes will be sanctioned.

We have created an SOS text chat and voice channel on our Discord. Our intention is to provide a safe space for any Gaymer who would find themselves in a sudden and terrible struggle. If you are in danger, if you are in crisis, if you are experiencing a medical or mental health emergency, etc., anything that would require immediate assistance, you can, if you choose to, go into the SOS text and voice channels.

We want to make it clear that, even though our Moderators are notified that if they are alerted or see a Gaymer in an SOS channel, they should immediately check on them, we cannot shoulder the responsibility of your well being and your safety. We will not offer professional and trained support even if some of our Moderators and Admins could be trained professionals. For now, we can only provide you with a safe space and common sense help if we are able. We will call the police or an ambulance if you need them and we happen to be able to. We will stay with you if you require a presence. We will help provide you with crisis helpline phone numbers if they’re available where you reside so you can seek the appropriate help.

Please don’t abuse the SOS channels. We cannot stress enough that this specific gesture is a way for Queer Your Game to show you in action that we care. We are not in any position to be responsible for your safety and/or your well being and we do not make any promises of trained support or life-altering actions. Therefore Queer Your Game—as private individuals or as a corporation—is not liable for you.

Rule Enforcement

Queer Your Game is a moderated space, on Discord, on Social Media, in forums, and in-game. We have Moderators, Admins, and Super Admins.

As a moderated space and community, Queer Your Game does, in fact, exercise a certain censure as described in our community guidelines. We reserve the right to change them, although we will let you know when that happens.

The appreciation of your violations and of your behaviors remain up to the discretion of our Mods, Admins and Super Admins. You can appeal a sanction, a temporary kick or ban, a definitive ban, etc. by emailing us at [email protected]. The decision to maintain, alter or lift your sanction(s) is also to the discretion of our Mods, Admins and Super Admins.

The offense system is as follows:

You can get warnings of different gravity in-game, in Discord chat or voice channels, in your mentions and in your DMs or PMs depending on the platform you commit your offense on.

If warnings don’t have an immediate impact on your behavior, you can be asked to a private conversation with a Mod, an Admin or a Super Admin on Discord.

A small offense will get you an email, a DM or a PM, possibly a temporary time out or kick, most likely a private scolding and a mark on your account.

A serious offense will get you the same treatment as a small offense, a definite scolding, a kick or ban for the length we deem fit, and you will lose your status in the community. When you come back, you will have to go through a return interview and you will start fresh as a Padawan Gaymer on probation.

A grave offense will mean your immediate kick from our Discord and a ban will be decided by our team of Mods, Admins, and Super Admins. You’ll receive an email informing you of your ban and our definitive decision.

We may ask for your opinions, thoughts, and ideas in polls and voting events.

We at Queer Your Game think strongly about the ethics of our project. We believe in transparency and in taking in different perspectives. To that end, we regularly consult with outside professionals in different fields and we are in the process of recruiting different individuals for our reference and sensitivity group.

Join Queer Your Game 👉 http://bit.ly/QYGDiscord

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incarnateirony · 5 years

Text

Thoughts.

So I finally watched Good Omens. First of all I know some people were waiting for me to like, do breakdowns on the use of lore, sigils and whatnot -- I’m sure I’ll poke at it eventually, but so much of it reads of typicality, alongside strong artistic liberty, that when it comes to actual sigils there’s very few and I’ll need a good screen of them.

But that isn’t about that. This is actually about Good Omens and the audience response to queer content and queer coded content. I’m going to warn you, some of this shit is going to incense the fuck out of woke tumblr. It’s going to be a lot of hard pills to swallow, mostly in regards to parts of the LGBT community -- of which I’m a part -- moving around our own goal posts, inconsistencies in the placements of our goalposts, and the impacts of het culture. If you come into my mentions screaming away at me expect an ignore or a block.

No, this isn’t anti-Azri/Crow. It’s very pro Azri/Crow. And yes, I’m going to drag other fandoms I’m in, into it. But I’m also gonna drag general discussion into it.

First I’m going to source a link to a recent set of tweets someone made that I consider very insightful (x) and then highlight a bulk of it.

“When we call something queerbaiting, we're essentially saying: "source material X doesn't count as real or valid queer representation." Here is a thread on why we need to be cognizant about which real-life queer people & stories we're erasing when we expand our use of that term. First: actual queerbaiting, in which art-creators hint at queer representation in order to attract viewers and then insist their art was 100% hetero all along, sucks a lot. I am not advocating getting rid of the term. Nor am I saying it's not valid to feel jerked around when a show uses the promise of a specific queer relationship on their publicity circuit, and then doesn't follow through on it in the actual source. (Or follows through only to write out a character, a la #TheMagicians) However: when we narrow our definition of "real and valid queer representation" until the ONLY thing that counts as queer rep is on-screen queer *romance* or on-screen queer *sex*, we are telling a significant portion of the real-life queer community that they don't count. When we use the "queerbaiting" label to describe a millennia-long, loving asexual same-gender relationship (aka #GoodOmens) we are telling asexuals in loving life-long relationships that they don't count as queer. We are also telling sexual queers whose primary, life-organizing relationships are queerplatonic (me, this is me) that their queerness is defined only by who they fuck, not by who they choose to build a life with. I want a space where ALL kinds of queer stories get told: romances yes, but also stories of queer friendship; queer mentorship; queer animosity; queer competition and cooperation; queer found family; queer provocation and queer mistakes. None of that happens if we tell everyone whose queer content doesn't fit into the narrow box "Lead A & Lead B kiss and/or fuck onscreen" (even if A&B make a life together; even if A&B kiss & fuck other same-sex people) that their art is exploitative & doesn't count as queer rep. “

Why am I choosing to highlight this while implicatively mentioning my adjacent fandoms? Well, because blogs I follow that either haphazardly dismiss, say, Destiel as valid until (personally met goalpost, generally when arguing with the hetnorm or anti community wanting a kiss) are all on the Azriphale-Crowley bandwagon.

And let me say, I adore the Azriphale-Crowley bandwagon. I’m ON that bandwagon. Holy shit am I on that wagon, but we need to inspect our dialogue for people who are on one but not the other.

We can say, for example, “Well, Neil Gaiman and the actors have been supportive! So THAT’S why it’s fine!” I mean -- aren’t people always banging on about post-affirmation not being enough, or just vague support being enough, or this-or-that not being enough? Like people don’t flame Rowling over that? I mean, even if we handwave away that Neil Gaiman had literally uncontested authorship instead of 203492 hands in the author and ownership pot top-to-bottom which the average show doesn’t have -- which gives the liberty to say whatever the fuck he wants because it is wholly his product and under his contract and design -- do you notice that it’s actually a very, very small audience crowing about that? And rarely if ever the same ones that do about other pairings that could be considered similar? Like we haven’t gotten those moments from authors in other shows (Robbie Thompson “Destiel isn’t canon?” comes to mind) that we yell queerbait at then and decide isn’t enough. Because someone else moved a goalpost out.

Ah-- but they’re... confirmed asexual and agender and immortal! Okay... and... so is, for example, if we’re going to tilt this way, Castiel. And ace people can have queer relationships with bi or yes, even straight people. Mindblowing, I know, but that’s it, that’s reality.

So why on gods green earth am I seeing this disparity between blogs about the same content, banging on at different volumes of what we expect?

It’s something I’ve written about before, the loudest example being my Problem With DreamHunter post. Before any DreamHunter fans pick up the pitchforks, don’t worry. It, also, is in support of DreamHunter, but simply addresses the cultural problem in there not being a problem with DreamHunter. The blend of intersectional issue disparity between MLM and WLW, and also the simple fact that the fandom wasn’t positioned to have antis or rival ships screaming at it: het culture and shipping culture.

I’ve banged on about this before: in our race for representation, we often trample over content that’s perfectly good and valid and great in many ways, because we want to be able to win an argument against an asshole, we want to be able to bludgeon the gay so inarguably into somebody’s brain that they yield to the might of it, or at least, we imagine it reaches that point. Anti-shipping culture can be so loud that even slow burn het pairings that kiss will have antis explaining their way around it (eg, Mulder and Scully, off the top of my head). Anti queer culture will talk down men or women even making out on screen as experimentation. This cycle will continue.

So again, let me state: Good Omens is a masterpiece. I am utterly enthralled by it, but it does leave me sitting flummoxed about the uneven bars we put out there as marker posts based on trying to race to the finish of arguments.

I’m sure some hack job that doesn’t know how to rub brain cells together beyond “it’s straight” and, beneath the surface, “I don’t like it so I’m going to piss and moan about more expansive methods of thought than hard niching the complexity of human relations” is going to roll in here, thinking yelling “Jensen Ackles thinks it’s straight!” in supreme reductionism of things like authorship, be it intent OR death of the author, or whatever else is out there in this medium -- I’m sure they’ll show up, make the same repetitive ass of themselves as always, and roll on, completely missing the point that I’m not obligated to your arbitrary bullshit, and that nobody is.

I don’t HAVE to point out every single time a dickhat on a loop yells that, that Jensen Ackles himself spoke of the intangibility of the deepness of their connection with Castiel as an angel, and that a cishet dude from texas probably doesn’t understand the finest details of LGBT identity complexity despite being an ally while fumbling over talking about the difficulty of putting a label on it. I don’t have to explain that the actor doesn’t actually get to determine that. Viewership or author, take your pick. I don’t have to explain the “it’s never happening and wasn’t intended” never came from the authors every time some bumblefuck says it -- that it came from one account with a blurb that said he doesn’t speak for that writing room whatsoever. I don’t have to review the times that Jensen Ackles has almost verbatim mirrored the Good Omens creatives about the beauty of it being you being able to make your own interpretation even if it wasn’t his, and encouraging that. I don’t fucking have to, you entitled sniveling shits.

And no, it’s by no means about, say, Dean and Cas. It’s just about the dialogues I’m tired of seeing tilt unevenly even between typically well grounded and centered people.

So anyway Azriphale and Crowley are EternityMates and that’s the fucking tea. Call it queerplat or call it queerromantic I can see either, even if I do tilt towards the former. Destiel is queerromantic and you can fight me. Come at me. Except nobody really will over Good Omens, just Supernatural, because like magic, Good Omens isn’t geared for a fuckton of other bloated ships or antis who hate either of them by structure alone. And that, itself, is a point to be made, too.

And before some doodlefuck trolls along, no, there’s no such thing as incestromantic. Spare us the time and block me now if your knee jerk counter-troll is going to be subtextually along those lines, because I promise you’ll just get blocked when you try to roll into town with it. Since the Supernatural fandom seems to house corners of douchebags that don’t know how to control their primitive douchebag impulses and they do come into address in this post.

Moral of the story: Stop listening to homophobes, antis, or people with agendas. Listen to the content and what has actually been said. On all sides.

If you consider, for example,

the Ineffible Husbands canon with no admission of anything beyond friendship, with the hets loudly banging one scene over with “well the others are ace or whatever” as your reason (fair), a few lunches, basic dedication and a few well placed songs, and a few supportive notes from the general creatives,

But the Hunter Husbands not canon with talked-around love yous and need yous, intentional deletion of Castiel’s agender ace aspects, in spite of there being no evident banging or kissing in the show that hasn’t been a highlight of a problem since like season what six?; talk arounds of their meals together, infinite longer and classic romantic crafted dedication, innumerable well placed songs and yes, a few supportive notes from the creatives that are buried by yourself or others beneath intentionally obfuscated arguments and spun context,

You are, whether you want to gullet it or not, part of the moving goalpost problem. Whether it’s you running to meet a phobe or an anti, or just being coded into it by the screaming around you, there is no world in which one is representation and the other is not. It’s just fuckin’ not.

It’s not.

I don’t care what you yell and scream because it’s popular in your circles. It’s fuckin’ not.

It’s not.

Either both are rep or neither are rep. Personally, I adore both of them, and anyone that has a problem with that can eat me.

Good Omens is not a goddamn motherfucking breakthrough in representation. It’s the same very valid very real form of queer coding half this site screams at because someone got loud enough to scream about it early on, generally inspired by antis riding their ass, just it’s the first and second lead instead of second and third lead, and there’s no ‘rival’ in first and second leads as being intentionally dragged into vaguery. It’s. Fucking. Not. It’s literally. The same. Fucking. Level.

Now, I HAVE been banging on that it’s the level our content SHOULD be acceptable at (well, almost; frankly I’d consider Destiel better, as the show’s overall intimacy threshold is far lower while Good Omens has parallel overtness to the coupling in the actual canon, meaning Good Omens’ playing field, for fair treatment, would be indebted to matching volume -- not saying sex since ace but louder admissions and engagements that are just as clear.)

Unpopular? Good, I don’t care. I’m tired of people screaming about completely conflicting crap.

It’s where we SHOULD be taking ownership of our content. So if there’s any breakthrough, it’s the LGBT community themselves having some sort of spark of awareness that they can and should be able to own content at that volume, largely because the fandom isn’t swamped by asshats on the other side all yelling for their own crappy agendas clogging up your heads. There’s a few queerbait shouters. And you laugh them off, by and large, and accept it as canon and rep. Funny how that works without antis up your ass.

Sincerely,

A tired queer and newborn Crowley stan.

#not spn #but kinda spn #definitely good omens #but more lgbt commentary

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amostexcellentblog · 5 years

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Judy Garland: Reflections on an Icon, Gay or Otherwise

Today, June 22, 2019, marks the 50th anniversary of the day we lost one of the world’s greatest entertainers, Judy Garland. In just a few days time we will observe an even more momentous 50th anniversary, that of the Stonewall Uprising which birthed the modern LGBTQ equality movement. If you’re familiar with your queer folk history, you’ll know there are those who claim this close timing is not a coincidence. But we’ll get to that later.

I first encountered Garland the way most people do--my parents showed me The Wizard of Oz when I was little. I don’t remember much of the experience aside from wanting to be a flying monkey for Halloween, and that “Over the Rainbow” made me cry, which was the first time any piece of media had made such an impact on me. It never really occurred to me that the woman who sang that song could have had a career beyond Oz until 12 years ago when I was just finishing Middle School and becoming interested in the Old Hollywood era. She was the first star I formed an emotional connection to, and as I happily made my way through her filmography and read up on her life I first encountered the phrase “gay icon.”

I knew what gay meant, obviously. I was vaguely aware of the LGBTQ and marriage equality movements, but at the time I mostly knew “gay” as the insult hurled at me seemingly everyday of Middle School for a series of things I never gave a second thought to but were apparently tell-tale signs that I was that way, and thus a figure deserving of torment--how I carried my books, how I sat, how I looked. My basic opinion of being gay at that point was that it’s fine for other people, but dear god don’t let this be my future!

So, when I realized that the star I was idolizing was famous for being idolized by gay men, I did what I’d become very adept at doing, I ignored the implications. Denial allowed me to spend high school working my way through her films, youtube videos, documentaries, and a biography without really examining why this woman resonated so much with me. So now, as we approached these two anniversaries, it seemed like a good time to finally try to sort through what she meant to me. What I ended up with instead is an essay that’s part personal reflection and part mediation on the meaning of the term “Gay Icon” in the era of Marriage Equality and Corporate-Sponsored Pride.

The term “Gay Icon” has been used to mean several similar, but different types of people. To clarify, when I talk about Gay Icons in this post, I’m talking specifically about a subset of gay icons related to the so-called “Diva Worship” culture among gay men. Nobody really seems to know why exactly gay men are so drawn to larger-than-life women, I’ve heard too many reasons to go into them all now, but even if not all of us go for the cliches (Cher, Gaga, etc.) pretty much every gay man has a female figure--real or fictional--they connect with in a way their straight male peers don’t.

Looking back, it’s obvious why Garland resonated with me. She was chronically insecure, especially about her looks--as was I. She spent her life wanting desperately to for someone to love her unconditionally and to be able to love them back, only to be denied this simple happiness time after time--well, of course that would resonate with a gay audience, especially in her lifetime. And she was a survivor, repeatedly cast aside by the press and the industry as washed up, she continually had the last laugh. She had a strength to her that I wanted. It was a different kind of strength than the physical/masculine kind offered by the pro-athletes and superheroes my male peers emulated, but which I found unrelatable and unappealing. Hers was a strength that came dressed in sequins and high heels, and I just thought it was fabulous.

Garland though, is more than just a gay icon, in a lot of ways she seems to be the gay icon. The popular code phrase “friend of Dorothy” is generally assumed to be a reference to her character in Oz. She maintained close friendships with gay men throughout her life, with whom she would frequent illegal gay bars on both coasts. Her father was a closeted homosexual, and biographers have speculated this is why so many of the men she was attracted to, both as friends and romantically, turned out to be gay or bi. She was one of the first celebrities to have their gay following acknowledged in the mainstream press. There’s even footage on youtube of her being asked directly about why she attracts so many “homosexuals,” and she is visibly thrown by it.

To understand why Garland would be so flustered over that question, it’s important to understand how being popular with the gay community was perceived in her lifetime. William Goldman’s The Season, his influential book about the 1967–68 season on and off Broadway, includes an account from an unnamed screenwriter friend describing a mid-1960s cocktail party that offers a fascinating glimpse at just that:

I can’t explain her appeal, but I saw it work once in this crazy way. I was at a party in Malibu... There were a lot of actors there, the word on them was that they were queer, but this was a boy-girl party, everyone was paired off, and these beautiful men and gorgeous broads were talking together and drinking together. Anyway, everything’s going along and it’s sunny, I’m getting a little buzzed... when I realized, Garland was in the room.

The guy she’s with, her husband, supports her as she plops down in this chaise, and says what she wants to drink and he goes off to get it. And she’s sitting all alone and for a minute there was nothing, and then this crazy thing started to happen. Every homosexual in the place, every guy you’d heard whispered about, they left the girls they were with and started to mass move towards Garland. She didn’t ask for it, she was just sitting there, while all these beautiful men circled her. They crowded around her and pretty soon she’s disappeared behind this expansive male fence. It may not sound like all that much, but I’m telling you, she magnetized them.

I’ll never forget all those famous secret guys moving across this gorgeous patio without a sound, and her just sitting there, blinking. And then they were on her, and she was gone. (x)

Another passage describing one of her concerts in 1967, from Goldman himself, is even more blunt:

Another flutter of fags, half a dozen this time, and watching it all from a corner--two heterosexual married couples. “These fags” the first man says, “it’s like Auschwitz, some of them died along the way but a lot of them got here anyhow!” He turns to the other husband and shrugs, “Tonight, no one goes to the bathroom.” (x)

Both passages, laced with condescension, homophobia, and misogyny, are nevertheless useful windows into a pre-Stonewall way of looking at how far gay culture has come. Today Lady Gaga can sing “Don’t be a drag just be a queen” on a lead single and still reign as a queen of pop music, back then any association with homosexuality was enough to taint you. Garland’s popularity with gay men opens her up to condescending mockery, while gay men’s mere existence at a public event is enough to terrify the heterosexual attendees.

Still, the most revealing part of that last passage might not be the homophobia, but the opening reference to “another flutter of fags, half a dozen.” The fact that a decent amount of gay men evidently felt comfortable enough to express themselves at least somewhat openly at a mainstream public event is notable. In this pre-Stonewall era such openness was generally reserved for bars and other covert safe spaces.

Which brings us back to the first paragraph. If you know any queer folk history, then you’ve probably heard this one--Judy Garland’s funeral sparked the Stonewall Uprising. That fateful night in June the Stonewall Inn was packed with gay men still emotionally raw from losing their idol, so much so that when the police raided the joint they channeled that anger and loss, and fought back, and the modern LGBTQ movement was born! It’s a story that would solidify Garland’s status as the definitive gay icon, a martyr for the cause, (move over Harvey Milk!) Except, it’s not true. It’s been debunked multiple times. Most recently in this video from the NY Times.

I bring it up though, because even if she wasn’t the cause, she was still connected to that historic night, if only indirectly. Even as the NY Times video debunks the myth of her funeral causing it, two of the uprising’s participants interviewed do admit to being at Garland’s funeral, which really was held just hours before the violence started. Other accounts from people who patronized Stonewall have said that “Judy Garland” was a popular fake name to use on a sign-in book at the entrance. In other words, even if she didn’t cause them, she was still an important figure for some of the people who went on to build the modern equality movement.

As a final thought to wrap this all up, I’ve been thinking about Garland and her status as a gay icon. It’s no secret that as the years have passed by she’s been somewhat supplemented by younger icons for younger generations. There’s been some question over whether Garland even has a place in a gay culture that now has people like Lady Gaga and “Born This Way,” openly acknowledging their gay fans in ways Garland never could.

At the same time, I can’t help but feel the recent debate over Taylor Swift’s gay-themed music video demonstrates why Garland still deserves her Gay Icon status, even if most younger queer people today don’t have the same connection to her that older generations did. Swift’s video, chocked full of every out celebrity who would return her calls and saturated in a rainbow-hue, has faced criticism for being “performative activism.” That after being fairly silent on the issue for so long she’s now trying to cash-in on the movement by branding her single a new gay anthem for Pride Month. The fact that with one exception, which misuses the word “shade,” the lyrics to the song sound more like they’re referring to Swift’s online haters rather than anti-LGBTQ bigots, certainly helps the critics’ case. As does the fact that Swift never seemed to have much interest in building a large gay following before this.

Yet there’s also a sense that this was inevitable. Corporations already roll out rainbow colored logos for Pride, in retrospect it seems obvious that celebrities, and their PR firms, would start deliberately trying to market themselves as a gay icon without first taking the time to build a large following in the LGBTQ community. (Gaga’s established gay fanbase undoubtedly blunted similar criticisms of “Born This Way,” for example.) Garland in this case then serves as a symbol of a time when the Gay Icon title wasn’t anointed by marketing campaigns, but emerged organically from a genuine affection for an individual held by a large number of queer people. A reminder of how important that affection was to members of our community, (and still is to many of us) even if it could only go one-way. And perhaps even a warning, of what we might lose if we let this important part of gay subculture be transformed into just another marketing gimmick.

But I’ll leave all that for another time. For now, I’ll just say, thank you Judy Garland. Thank you for all the joy and comfort you’ve given to generations of gay men. And thank you especially for the companionship you gave me while I was still figuring some things out.

#judy garland

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that-curly-haired-lesbian · 6 years

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Queer Analysis - Sparks Fly

Hi guys! 👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻

So, I sorta took an involuntary hiatus from this blog and Tumblr in general, this was due to a bunch of personal shit that have mostly been sorted out now! I’ve missed you all and did not mean to leave you hanging like this after my rep show, but like I said all hell broke loose in my personal life when I got back from Manchester… I had an amazing time at the concert though and I’m still very much a part of the Gaylor/Kaylor community, I did not stop believing 😂 ❤

I am very glad to be back and hope to be getting into running this blog again from now on! ❤

Today I’m back with yet another analysis for that drunk anon from so long ago, anon, if you’re out there I hope you’re still reading these! ❤❤❤

Today’s song is Sparks Fly and I definitely feel like I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t link you all to the 2007 original version which some claim to be even gayer than the studio version from Speak Now…Here’s the performance and here’s the lyrics to this gayness from 2007, although as will soon become apparent I think the 2010 version is pretty darn gay too! 🌈🌈🌈

As far as I’m concerned this is yet another Taymily song and it has strong connection to my latest analysis (Fearless) so check that out if you haven’t already!

That’s right my dear gays, Theo The Taymily Trash is baaaaaack, let’s gooooo!!

Before we do though, I have to give my usual disclaimers, it might’ve been a while but I’m not letting up on those! Lyrics used in this analysis comes from AZLyrics so all cred for that goes to them. Also I am not Taylor Swift, or anyone else mentioned in this analysis, nor do I personally know Taylor Swift or anyone else I mention here, as such I have no way of knowing who or what Taylor’s songs are about and may very well be completely clueless in the matter. Therefore what follows below is nothing but speculation and as always everyone else is invited to join in the conversation too, I don’t in any way have monopoly on analyzing or interpreting Taylor’s songs 😊

Now, let’s actually gooooo!

The way you move is like a full-on rainstorm

And I'm a house of cards

Okay, say what you will, but to me these opening lines seem very gay.

While it’s certainly not unheard of for people to find the way men walk attractive (For some reason? I’m v gay) I feel like it’s significantly more common to view (and to some degree oversexualize, but that’s a conversation for another time) the way a woman moves as a reason for why people find her attractive. Think of the seductive wiggling of hips that they can’t even resist programming into VIDEO GAMES in order to give female characters that feminine, seductive air…

Wow, objectification of women really is disgusting, huh? Remember however, lesbians/non-straight women can never have the male gaze and therefore they can never be predatory towards women in the same way men can, even when they’re using common tropes and imagery to describe a woman as attractive.

Long story short, I’m just trying to prove the point that Taylor Swift is gay, not accuse her of oversexualizing women because she literally isn’t capable of doing so (at least not to the same degree a straight man is.)

Okay, so I’m only on the opening lines and I’ve already gotten incredibly sidetracked, let’s get back to it…

All I’m saying is that describing the way someone moves as attractive has more feminine connotations and therefore that line is gayyyyyy.

So to summarize, the way the latest object of Taylor’s affections moves has our curly-haired lesbian weak in the knees and at any moment she may simply fall to the ground, blown away by this rainstorm of a woman, like a fragile house of cards would be by a gust of powerful wind.

You're the kind of reckless

That should send me runnin'

But I kinda know that I won't get far

There it is again, that word, “reckless”…It’s been a while since I did an analysis so I’ll remind you that we’ve previously established that “reckless” or “dangerous” or some variant thereof is a word commonly used by Ms. Swift to describe same-sex attraction, or more often, indulging in one’s same-sex attraction.

From a career standpoint it’s reckless and inadvisable, but somehow she never can seem to help herself and even though she knows this woman is exactly the kind to cause her to “slip up”, be reckless and indulge she also knows that it’s useless to try and distance herself from her new love.

She knows she’s bound to give into temptation, because regardless of what you may have heard homosexuality is in no way a choice and no exercise in self-control of any kind will make it go away.

Taylor can try running as she’s been advised to do, but she won’t get far. If she doesn’t fall for this woman there will be another down the line, Taylor can’t outrun her “recklessness”, her attraction to other women and this one in particular.

And you stood there in front of me

Just close enough to touch

Close enough to hope you couldn't see

What I was thinking of

Let’s address the elephant in the room, y’all say Dress or So It Goes or some other song of your choice from Reputation is Taylor’s dirtiest, sexiest song to date, but have you people LISTENED to Sparks Fly? (And Treacherous for that matter) come on, I can’t be the only one getting a strong sex vibe from Sparks Fly!

What I’m trying to say is, this could either be a dirty lyric where Taylor is either in public with her lover and is tempted to touch her (in a way inappropriate for public settings?) and hopes people or (if they’re not dating yet and Taylor isn’t sure her feelings are requited) Emily can’t tell that all Taylor can think when looking at this girl in front of her is dirty thoughts.

Or it could be a sweeter, more innocent, kind of heartbreaking lyric where Taylor hasn’t told Emily how she feels and so isn’t sure if her feelings are requited or even if the other girl is gay.

It’s that kind of heartbreaking thing where you want to touch or kiss somebody who you really like, but you have to hold back because you aren’t sure if that person would be into it. In that case the thing Taylor hopes the crush can’t tell she’s thinking of isn’t necessarily sex or anything dirty, but sweet things (such as holding hands or kissing) she isn’t sure the (possibly straight/not interested) lady would like to do.

The lines could be significantly more queer-coded if we imagine Taylor isn’t just scared of being rejected, but also of Emily not being gay and thus being creeped out or made uncomfortable by Taylor’s advances, a common fear among lesbians, but again, we CANNOT be predatory in the same way men can!!!!!!

Annnnd I’m sidetracked again..............

Alternatively she has the common gay fear of any kind of PDA and thus hopes no one can tell she feels like being gaily affectionate towards her girlfriend in public, she’s not yet fearless.

Drop everything now

Meet me in the pouring rain

Kiss me on the sidewalk

Take away the pain

Kissing in the rain is a motif Taylor often uses to describe a grand romantic gesture or the first move in a relationship. It’s a romantic trope that makes one think of the kind of romantic movies Taylor has admitted to growing up on.

But here there’s also an other relevant lines, the “drop everything now” may imply that her girlfriend is busy and has a lot going on, or is far away Taylor wants her to drop all that and come spend time with her girl.

If we think of the fact that Taylor and Emily started going out while touring it’s easy to understand why they’d have a lot going on and maybe wouldn’t have time for personal affairs such as relationships, but here Taylor wants them to drop all obligations for a second and just spend some romantic time together…

In a Taymily narrative the kissing in the rain brings the thought to Fearless another song I believe to be about them. In that song Taylor describes wanting to “dance” (or be affectionate) in a parking lot, a very public space, here she wants to be kissed on the sidewalk, in other words another very public space.

In Fearless there’s a line suggesting this is Taymily’s first kiss (at least in public) and poor Taylor is so nervous that she’s shaking, but as soon as they actually start kissing the fear goes away, in Sparks Fly Taylor wants the pain taken away by a kiss. In a song that seems largely happy or at least hopeful a line about pain struck me as out of place at first glance, but if we dig deeper and connect this song to Fearless in no longer feel that’s the case.

The pain can either be the aforementioned fear of judgement from the public or from people around them who think the relationship is ill-advised (because it’s gay) that play a large role in Fearless (where they ultimately overcome that fear with the power of their love.) Or the pain can be the struggle of having to keep their relationship secret and of being closeted, that pain matters little when it’s just the two of them spending time together and being in love and/or intimate, then the closeting seems like a small sacrifice to make, even insignificant., because all that matters in that situation is their love for each other and being a couple suddenly become much easier. A simple kiss or touch when alone can take away the burden of that pain. (“When you get me alone, it's so simple”)

'Cause I see sparks fly whenever you smile

Get me with those green eyes, baby, as the lights go down

Give me something that'll haunt me when you're not around

'Cause I see sparks fly whenever you smile

The line about the sparks and the smile is simply Taylor acknowledging that her and this girl have mad chemistry, the kind that produce sparks even from the simplest actions such as a smile. Teenage Taylor was gay for Emily’s smile #confirmed

The other lines? Well, yet again this seems like sexy-times to me, intense, hungry eye contact as you turn off or dim the lights in a room where it seems there’s just the two of you qualifies as soft foreplay to me. The line about that intense stare haunting Taylor, yeah, um, sex flashbacks…

*Stops impulse to adopt mom-voice and start yelling at Taylor about how she’s twelve and this is inappropriate*

If we want to get our minds out of the gutter it could also be the lights dimming on a stage and a last reassuring or loving look between lovers before the start of a show. The haunting could be about how those pre-show looks is one of the things that haunt Taylor when she later tries to get over the relationship, but since we’ve previously established that she had a version of the song including that line in 2007 (when Taymily were still very much dating) I think that’s unlikely tbh…

My mind forgets to remind me

You're a bad idea

Taylor knows she’s being reckless falling for a girl, but as her mind races with all the things they could and should do (both innocent and dirty to a degree that can rival rep-era Tay) she “forgets” why being with Emily is so “inadvisable”.

You touch me once and it's really something,

You find I'm even better than you imagined I would be.

That chemistry strikes again, a simple touch, or a kiss can lead to so much more (both metaphorically and literally) and here it does, they have sex, probably for the first time. I’m not saying this is Taylor losing her virginity (remember that car that had a tendency to get stuck on backroads at night during her high school years?) but the older Emily may have been hesitant to get physical with Taylor, not wanting to pressure her, but when they finally do sleep together Emily realizes Taylor is more experienced (or “better”) than she assumed.

This is actually getting slightly uncomfortable to me now seeing how Taylor was underage at the time and I don’t want to imply or read things into lyrics written by a minor that may not be there, but I think the sexual overtones in this song is pretty clear.

I'm on my guard for the rest of the world

But with you I know it's no good

I think what Taylor is saying here is that she’s usually careful about who she lets into her life and emotionally opens up to (and perhaps also who she sleeps with, just to go with the sex theme)

She’s usually careful who she shows her true colors to so to speak 🌈🌈

But with Emily she just felt this instant connection and knew there was no point in trying to hide her feelings for her as it was clear right away they felt the same way about each other.

And I could wait patiently but I really wish you would...

The mention of patiently waiting honestly just makes me think this entire song is Taylor basically begging Emily to make a move, to kiss (or sleep with) her already! She’s saying “Come on, I want you, I’m ready and done waiting for you to make a move!”

(Chorus)

I'll run my fingers through your hair and watch the lights go wild.

Running your fingers through someone’s hair strikes me as a much more enjoyable activity to engage in if the person in question has long hair, something stereotypically associated with girls, just saying… 🌈 🌈 🌈

Just keep on keeping your eyes on me, it's just wrong enough to make it feel right.

And lead me up the staircase

Won't you whisper soft and slow?

I'm captivated by you, baby, like a firework show.

Before we continue I just have to say, I’ve always thought the line is “it’s just STRONG enough to make it feel right” not “wrong”, as in the effect that person’s gaze is having on Taylor is strong enough that whatever they’re about to do (sex) feels right and good, but that might just be me mishearing the line. 🤔

Moving on though, she’s saying the way her partner looks at her is an aphrodisiac; it’s making Taylor want her.

Then she’s being led up a staircase, in the original 2007 version I think she’s being led onto a dance floor (which make the “wild lights” make more sense), but since dance is often used as a metaphor for sex and/or sexuality (x) (in fact, In 1698, it may as well have been sex) that slight change doesn’t ruin my reading of the song.

In literature reaching the top of a staircase is often read as a new beginning and here it seems to be the beginning of another step in Taylor and Emily’s relationship.

Emily whispers something in Taylor’s ear as they head up the staircase (towards the bedroom? The lyrics from All Too Well seems to imply the bedroom is up the stairs as they head down the stairs in the middle of the night to get to the kitchen, presumably from the bedroom)

Personally I’ve never been able to figure out if Emily whispers the thing about the firework show or if her whisper is something more risque that we don’t get to hear and Taylor’s the one who says the thing about the fireworks?

I’m inclined to believe the latter, so as Emily whispers something not for our ears Taylor tells us she’s mesmerized by this woman, in the same way she gets mesmerized by firework shows, something we know she likes quite a lot.

In the 2007 version the line is “you make it like a firework show” interesting, since fireworks are often used as metaphor for orgasms… 😏

No, but, SERIOUSLY; I’m not insane or overly dirty-minded, am I? I’m not the only one who thinks this one is CLEARLY about sex, right?

(Chorus)

That’s it guys, hope you enjoyed reading and that you didn’t miss me too much while I was gone ❤ Next up on the analysis list is Ours the last on the list of requests from my favorite drunken anon! 😊❤ If you have any ideas for other Taylor songs I should analyze feel free to send me an ask or ten 😊🌈

#gaylor swift #kaylor #taymily #queer analysis #songs

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mild-lunacy · 7 years

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Johnlock and the million-dollar question

The fact is, I hesitate to say anything. That's where I am. I'm not ready to really engage with fandom the way it is now, or possibly ever.

The worst part of the TJLC breaking thing for me is the confusion. Like, I was always invested, obviously, but the main thing is that I felt strongly this subtext and the arc and all that stuff about romance and references to Sherlock's sexuality (like, ASiP, ASiB, TSoT and TAB) were important to the show. Not just there for shits and giggles, or even for representation. I'm not talking about subtext or code: sexuality, romantic attachment and embodiment are actual textual themes in the show. That's the 'rifle on the wall' Ivyblossom references being left in TLD in her recent post, but there's any number of such rifles. Way, way too many for coincidence or anything other than intent. That's the heart of TJLC, to me: that assertion that the show is consistent, that it follows its own continuity. Letting that go is more than letting go of a subtextual gay romance; it's letting go of things in the text *making sense*. My point, however, is that I don't necessarily need to *predict* or to be right about *how* all this works. Am I disappointed there's no kiss, no explicit Johnlock? Obviously. But what I really need is a sense that things *make sense* again. So many tiny plot things led to the 'Redbeard as Victor Trevor' thing, for example, you just *know* Mofftiss are well aware of the queer narrative and take it seriously like all the other aspects of the subtext. So, the million-dollar question: what happened?

Anyway, after Ivy said that about the last conversation in TLD vis-à-vis the situation in TFP.... I had one of my Moments. That special sense of enlightenment, haha. And like, so my *initial* read of the sex reference in TFP was to shrug and dismiss Eurus as being wrong, even though she's set up as not wrong by nature ('cause obviously it's like, not true? who exactly would he have had sex with, and when?), but. Irene's theme and Irene in general is definitely tied in with sex, symbolically, so if Sherlock plays it differently, that's a big deal. So we have that plus the John being 'family' to Sherlock thing, plus John inviting Sherlock to watch the video in the first place.... It adds up. Not to mention the odd, easy and mischievous intimacy of planning that Mycroft caper together after TLD. John pretty much bragged about convincing Sherlock to do it. Like... dude. This is presented very casually, matter-of-factly, but it's no casual thing, y'know? John wasn't speaking to Sherlock not so long ago. And yet... so easy, so suddenly. Hmmm. And, of course, there's Mary making that reference to what they 'could be' together, wrapped up in some spiel about how their private lives and selves don't matter *for the story*, for their public 'legend'. And to all this, they didn't bat an eye. And most viewers apparently assumed this all meant there's nothing else there... never a safe assumption on this show. But regardless, you'd think John, at least, would react somehow, or maybe take the opportunity to bluster or roll his eyes or something, which he always had done before.... Always.

But no. Nothing like that. Ho hum, Mary thinks we're in love and both she and Eurus (and Irene, and Mrs Hudson, etc etc)... possibly everyone we've ever met at this point thinks we could be fucking and probably are already. John reliably reacts to this somehow. Outright denies it sometimes (unless Sherlock is there). Unless it's actually true this time, in which case, you know, it's all fine, isn't it? (Well, obviously? But who cares? It's old news, really.)

Anyway, this placid 'invisibility' of their relationship in TFP happens after their talk in TLD, and we know Gatiss thinks that's the ideal 'married couple'-type relationship for a queer detective.... To me, it definitely adds up, as I said. The narrative works beautifully with that reading. It is consistent! Voila! The test is passed. We have continuity lift-off.

Note that this bare bones approach to character development hasn't been unusual in BBC Sherlock; quite the opposite. They *love* using implicit stuff, hints and hidden corners. ASiB is full of it, and so is TAB and TSoT. Moffat is obsessed, obviously, and he wrote TFP. We know what kind of men they are, don't we? Oh, we do. They barely ever have anything be straightforward, honestly. Would they have Johnlock happen implicitly, almost entirely in the interstitial spaces, depending on the fans to fill in the blanks? Yes. You have to admit they would. Certainly they're both pretentious enough, indifferent enough about people's understanding their intent, and just about big enough trolls for that. And as Ivy also said, they *did*, I think. Essentially, I feel like this level of implicitness is their idea of canon Johnlock, though I'm not without hope we'll get a kiss one day in a Special. After the level of subtext-as-text we see in TAB, I'd say it's definitely possible.

Anyway, Ivyblossom generally sees the surface plus the first few layers of Johnlock subtext, which... is the show. And it struck me that this exact line, that type of reading, *this* is closest to the apparent intent for Mofftiss as of Series 4 (given a full canon and hindsight, since Ivy's overall reading of S3 still works mostly unbroken too). Remember, consistency is important, both in the text and the interpretation. And this is just so like them. To literally have Johnlock happen in the empty space between TLD and TFP is... absolutely like them. It makes sense, *given* you don't assume that the nature of the show would or *could* change dramatically after canon Johnlock, more or less, and given you refuse to believe TSoT and TAB are somehow episodes in an entirely different show.

That vision of BBC Sherlock as an actual romance was always a jump, an assumption made because we, the fans, know that most people are heteronormative and we know they *need* to see 'proof'. But would Mofftiss *care* about heteronormative people and their assumptions, about proving them wrong? No. They've often undermined these assumptions, and they may tease them, they have fun with them, but ultimately I get the feeling they don't care about people who're essentially not smart enough to see what they mean to show them (see their attitude re: TAB). So... it *works*. And you literally see it-- that change, that equilibrium-- in TFP, just like Ivy said. Instead of overt intimacy, John and Sherlock just... click. Hilariously, it's just like all those fanfics had it: no sex during cases, more or less. God, that little twinkle in John's eye, though. There was just that tiniest bit more relaxation; a more confident, mischievous mood, just a bit softer and more open, as appropriate to the circumstances. So subtle. So... John. For example, we know there's increased emotional intimacy between them outside casework 'cause he asked for Sherlock when he found Mary's other CD, but he also supported Sherlock emotionally during the case, reminding him of the need for 'soldier mode' along with a subtle hand on Sherlock's elbow. God. I *thought* that John was back in old-school form in TFP. That was my immediate response! And what would magically bring the old John back...? Two options: bad writing... or renewed and increased emotional intimacy with Sherlock. I vote Sherlock.

God, it's so subtle, so subtle, but they don't *do* casual touching, you know? They never have, really, from the very beginning. They don't touch intentionally but casually, even when they're drunk off their asses in TSoT. Their legs nearly but never quite made contact, remember, and we all thought John's deliberate, not-so-casual famous knee-grope was like a strip tease for them. Both their hugs were a huge deal, and even their handshake was a production. It's certainly not something to do sober, during a case. Remember when Sherlock grasped John by the head and seemed to go a bit fuzzy in TBB? Yeah. Not casual. Oh my God, I'm crying and not falling asleep. I'm seriously, literally crying 'cause that tiny, casual elbow touch is equivalent to canon Johnlock. That's Martin Freeman for you, isn't it? That's Gatiss, too. Wow. Wow. Wow.

My only dangling reservation is about the John characterization in TLD and TST, to a lesser extent. I wasn't as thrown by the violence at the morgue as some, and I accepted his irrational rejection of Sherlock after Mary's death, but it took me awhile to see the importance of their last conversation about Mary and romantic relationships to the two of them. I mean, I could tell not all was as it seemed and we were being heterobaited, but I wasn't clear what was being communicated. I hoped and expected TFP would clarify this, but of course it didn't, really (though honestly, stagnation or regression is actually often the initial, surface appearance of emotional development between Sherlock episodes. I mean, we've had apparent regression between TSoT and HLV, and an empty space within John and Sherlock's relationship between that beginning conversation in TEH and their stable relationship at the start of TSoT). So my initial read of TLD and the conversation was optimistic but confused; it was painful and didn't *obviously* go anywhere. Of course I had hoped for more from The Conversation we all expected in Series 4, though (just like with The Kiss). I had a very hard time actually imagining how it would actually go that was 100% stylistically consistent with what came before, however. Remember, we'd have to go beyond TSoT... and TSoT itself was an aberration stylistically. Anyway, I thought this was my lack of imagination. More likely, my instincts in the past were just saying a conversation that went 'full Monty' or an actual kiss would... break genre or existing show convention, maybe, in some indefinable way. Just instinctual on my part, apparently. So, we get just enough conversation to suggest the 'sort of thing' they'd talk about (romance! Irene! who they really are! hmmm) and the 'sort of thing' they'd do afterwards (cry and hug... Hmmmmm....)

I still hesitate about the extent of John's seeming hatefulness in much of TLD. I wouldn't say his behavior really shocked me personally at any point, but it's hard to entirely cast away other people's understanding of John if I respect their opinion, even when it's significantly fluffier than mine. Most people's interpretation of both John and Sherlock seems to go either a lot more or much less fluffy, in equally extreme measure. Either people seem to believe John (or Sherlock) is an abusive asshole and/or sociopath, or they're harmless babs. It's not like I was ever in danger of thinking John was a harmless bab, but he went pretty far in Series 4, even further than Series 3, and people could barely tolerate *that* much as in-character. So it definitely helped when I saw @thecutteralicia's last response on TLD!John, which brought up his adrenaline-driven violence against Sherlock in ASiB. Obviously, yeah, TLD is much more extreme, 'cause John's at the very end of his rope and convinced Sherlock's literally about to lose it and go rogue drug-abusing vigilante. He's already called Sherlock a monster and yeah, seen him kill a man that he probably shouldn't have. And he really isn't a hero in an absolute sense any more than Sherlock is. The entirety of TLD was about breaking that down narratively, and *then* having Sherlock accept him anyway, the way he finally accepts Sherlock.

So does this mean their relationship is abusive and Sherlock is martyred? I agree with the TLD!John post on that, too. They're both messed up characters, and the show has not been shy about this; it's not subtext, and in fact it's part of the very last few things the show tells us about the two of them (the two junkies solving cases for ulterior purposes, etc). It doesn't go one way only, regardless of the tally of their respective offenses against one another, which character fans are so fond of. Besides that, on a more abstract level, suffering for love is not the same thing is being abused, in the context of romantic angst within its genre. That's how it works. You take it or leave it if it's not your bag, more or less. Anyway... this sort of reasoning always came naturally to me, though as I said, I know too many people who've got a much softer interpretation of John (even John at the end of his rope). It's easy for me to connect the dots now that I've started. It's obvious, really.

I'm happy. As far as I'm concerned, we did get canon Johnlock, suuuuper implicit as it is. For all my gushing about loving the cases this series, I'm all about the boys. Of course I'm happy. Am I *satisfied*? Well... such is not the nature of humanity. People think we're crazy now more than ever before, obviously, so I resent Mofftiss just a bit for that. Partly, it's just being seen as insane and/or brainwashed indefinitely, which you could argue I've grown used to in fandom (... not really; actually, it sure gets old, lemme tell you). Yeah, that really sticks in my craw, no way around it. Aside from that, it's a shame that most fans as well as casual viewers-- and even many TJLCers now!-- simply won't appreciate that this is a beautiful love story. Maybe not even in 20-50 years when heteronormativity seems quaint, if they still watched the show, because people will always prioritize the surface narrative. Granted, of course, some special 10 years from now doesn't settle the matter, finally, when no one cares anymore. That seems like Mofftiss, doesn't it? But I'm still the person who wrote all those posts about how I need John to be declared bisexual, after all. I think I've processed a lot of that with my feelings about the representation of Adam Parrish in The Raven Cycle, another undeclared bisexual. I'm sympathetic to both sides of the debate, but the fact remains that I really love the portrayal of both Ronan and Adam in The Raven Cycle, so this can't help but influence my feelings. It works, it's consistent and I enjoyed it: that seems to frequently be enough for me. Obviously, there's a significant difference in that The Raven Cycle actually has an explicit, canonical relationship and an actual kiss between Adam and Ronan (though plenty of people in the fandom still thought they were robbed compared to the het couple). So... that sucks. If you think that's not acceptable, that's certainly a valid way to feel. As *representation*, BBC Sherlock definitely sucks the big one. There's no way around that. As a *story*, though, it's as frustrating and wonderful but as consistent as ever (which... suggests there's plenty of plot holes and/or dangling threads to go around, surely, but not about the things that really *matter*).

Basically, I understand if it's not enough for others, and there's good reason for that. But this is where I am. Not quite thankful, but definitely relieved. And maybe not hysterically blissful, but certainly happy, just because I know that's how Sherlock and John Watson canonically feel... as of the end of TLD and into their future as partners, with their private life remaining firmly private, it would seem. Partners in detectiving, in romancing, and-- God help me-- parenting, too. A family in every way.

PS: because *this* is the thought literally haunting me at night (and it's almost 6am, man): Jesus Christ, I can't believe they've done the do! OMG. John, you dog you. hehe I really wanna see how it all went down, but. I guess if you wanna see something done right, ya gotta do it yourself. Again and again and again (.... right, John?)

PPS, even later at night: hopefully @ivyblossom will write it before I have to take such extreme measures, particularly before breakfast, ehehehehe.

#sherlock meta #sherlock spoilers #series 4 #the final problem #sherlock feels #johnlock feels #tjlc

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khalilhumam · 4 years

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The state of LGBTQI+ rights in India: An interview with India Supreme Court Advocate Saurabh Kirpal

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/the-state-of-lgbtqi-rights-in-india-an-interview-with-india-supreme-court-advocate-saurabh-kirpal/

The state of LGBTQI+ rights in India: An interview with India Supreme Court Advocate Saurabh Kirpal

“There is, however, a very long way to go”

Image via Pexels by Sachin Bharti. Used under a Pexels License.

On September 6, 2018, India's Supreme Court ruled that consensual homosexual acts would no longer constitute a crime. The historic move reversed Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which was a legacy from British colonial rule. The change was welcome by Indian and global LGBTQI+ communities as a step towards acceptance and equal rights, but almost two years after the passing of this law, what is the state of LGBTQI+ rights in India?

Read More: It is now legal to be gay in India (September, 2018)

Global Voices author Filip Noubel asked Supreme Court advocate Saurabh Kirpal, who was also the lawyer for the petitioners in the case that led to the decriminalization of homosexuality, to share his views. Filip Noubel (FN): Since section 377 was amended on September 6, 2018, to what extent is the new law applied and helpful to members of the LGBTQI+ community? Do you see specific laws protecting people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity?

Portrait of Saurabh Kirpal. Photo by Nicolas Bachmann, used with permission.

Saurabh Kirpal (SK): The Supreme Court in its judgment only held that consensual homosexual sex could not be a crime under the Indian Constitutional scheme. The judgment was therefore limited in its scope. Of course, the signalling by the Court that it was on the side of the queer community had a positive force in the discourse about sexuality in public spaces. The statement of legal principles – that a queer person is entitled to the full protection of the laws without any discrimination by the state – has also helped lay the foundation for future challenges to other discriminatory laws. The greatest positive change has been in bringing the issue of sexuality and queerness into the public space for discussion without any fear of reprisal by the authorities.There is, however, a very long way to go. The Parliament has passed the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 which is very problematic as it does not allow for self-determination of transgender status. The Act also does not offer the reservations in public employment and education as had been directed by an earlier Supreme Court judgment. The Act has been challenged in the Supreme Court and there is an urgent need to remedy its more draconian provisions. India does not have a comprehensive anti-discrimination code. While the Constitution prohibits discrimination, that injunction only applies to the government and its instrumentalities. The private sector thus can discriminate with impunity in matters of employment, housing, health and education among other areas. While there is a discussion about the need for such a law, there appears to be very little political consensus towards the enactment of such a law. Even the courts have not yet woken to this problem which materially affects the lives of the queer community.

FN: Who are the LGBTQI+ allies in India, and what are the vectors of tolerance? Is it cinema, NGOs, literature, other fields?

SK: The LGBT movement in India is quite old, but has unfortunately not got either the traction that it needed nor has it been able to become a cohesive and comprehensive movement. There are many splinter groups which sometimes work at cross purposes – more by accident than by design. There is, nevertheless a growing mass of opinion that the queer community has been discriminated against and that something needs to change. In the world of Bollywood, LGBTQUIA+ themed movies have been released to mass audiences and have been met with acceptance. But that is still a small fraction of the media. Television, which has a very great reach in India, is largely indifferent to the issues faced by the queer community. Interestingly, one very strong ally has been the mainstream electronic media, and in particular the English media. Even TV channels and newspapers which are well known for their conservative views on other social topics have actively campaigned against Section 377. Even after the judgment, there were laudatory telecasts about the judgment. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said about the vernacular media.

FN: Queer discourse in India is very much framed as anti-colonial. Why is that? What about the intersection of the queer movement with other movements and communities such as feminism, the Dalits, the Kashmiri, the environmentalist, the supporters of a secular India?

SK: This is a problem that has been plaguing the queer movement in India for quite some time. Strategically and practically, the battle against Section 377 had to be framed in the form of an attempt to lift the colonial yoke. The provision had, after all, been imposed by the British colonialists. It was easier for us to argue in Court that the law had never been passed by the Indian Parliament and therefore it did not enjoy the presumption of constitutionality that attaches itself to laws passed by parliament. In fact, the earlier round of cases in the Supreme Court, i.e. the Koushal case of 2013 which had re-criminalized the sodomy laws, relied on just such a presumption. However, now that the battle against section 377 has been fought and won, we need to move beyond the anti-colonial rhetoric. We also need to forge alliances with subaltern, feminist and other movements. This is for both teleological as well as ontological reasons. Practically, the numbers of the queer community are not sufficient to make a significant electoral or societal impact. Therefore it is important to forge alliances so that the voices of all marginalized movements can coalesce into something that is greater than each of them individually. It is also important as an end in itself – we have as a duty not merely as members of the queer community but also as citizens to stand up to injustice wherever we see it. Finally, we must also acknowledge that the queer community itself is a heterogeneous community. Ignoring these intersectionalities can leave the most marginalized even further behind. In the long run, this would not merely be unjust, it would seriously undermine the credibility of the queer movement in the eyes of most of its members.

FN: You are about to publish a book about “Sex and the Supreme Court”. Can you tell us more?

SK: The book is an anthology about various cases where the Indian Supreme Court has dealt with issues of sex, sexuality and gender. The last few years have seen a flurry of cases dealing with these issues. Section 377, the rights of transgenders, adultery laws, the right of women to have inter-caste and inter-religious marriages. The common theme in most of these judgments is that the Court has placed the individual at the centre of the constitutional firmament. In the case of a clash between the claim of an individual right and competing for societal claims, the Courts have weighed in favour of individuals rights. The book is an attempt to bring some of the foremost legal voices in India to write on these issues. But no legal story can be appreciated while being divorced from the reality of the lives to which those judgments apply. The book therefore also contains chapters written by members of the LGBT community and women’s rights activists explaining what these judgments mean to them.

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biofunmy · 5 years

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The Joy of Queer Parties: ‘We Breathe, We Dip, We Flex’

On a recent night on the dance floor at Elsewhere Bar in Brooklyn, the air was heavy with sweat, joy and sorrow. I’d seen someone bury their face in their hands, shoulders shaking with silent sobs, and then, in what felt like seconds later, drop to the floor, behind bouncing, hands blurry with the tight micro-choreography of vogue.

In moments like this I think about the last line of the artist Sable Elyse Smith’s 2016 essay titled “Ecstatic Resilience.” It reads: “by taking a breath … by breathing … the club is a sanctuary for queer liberation.”

For many, in big cities and beyond, the club can exist as a rare space where we feel free from the responsibility of representation and the pressures of monetization. In 2019, the optics of gay liberation are paradoxical. Rainbow logos are everywhere: store windows, shopping bags, TV commercials, ride share applications, social media ads and Instagram hashtags.

The onslaught is relentless. Queerness has never been more visible, more trending and more in demand and yet, our lives and our livelihood feel extremely tenuous and fragile. Many queer communities are still struggling for basic rights and recognition.

The party itself is a breath, an essential timeout from the hyper-vigilance and chaos of being black and brown queer bodies who exist beyond the scope of majoritarian and normative expectations. Gay clubs and safe spaces have always offered a place for experiences and road-testing new looks, identity expressions, desires and orientations. And even though landmark and legacy gay bars and clubs are slowly disappearing all over America, the club lives on, in parties, on apps, and through spontaneous encounters.

Right now, there is an abundance of gay parties in New York City — Papi Juice, Yalla, Hot Rabbit, THEMbot, Bubble T, Homotown, Teaze, Femmepremacy, Truuu Party, Hot ’N Spicy and Set it Off — serving every intersection and identity expression. A friend calls it “getting a rinse.” Rinsing off the tragedy and drenching ourselves in a new, invigorating sensation or perspective.

This year is the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, a landmark moment in the gay civil rights movement, and that lends a heightened lens on all that has changed for L.G.B.T.Q.A.I.+. in this country and all that has not.

On June 10, after an exuberant weekend of Pride parties and celebrations across the boroughs, people gathered in the rain to demonstrate for an investigation into the death of Layleen Polanco Xtravaganza, a 27-year-old woman found dead in her cell on Rikers Island earlier this month. She belonged to one of the most iconic communities in the black drag ball scene, the House of Xtravaganza. And tragically, heartbreakingly, her death was not singular. According to Human Rights Campaign, a leading L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. advocacy group, three black trans women have been killed in the United States, this month alone

In “We Are Everywhere: Protest Power and Pride in the History of Queer Liberation,” a new book of gay history, the authors Matthew Reimer and Leighton Brown write that in New York, at least, L.G.B.T.Q.A.I.+. bars have always functioned as “the central institution of queer life, serving as a social center and a crucible for politics” as far back as they can tell.

After the end of Prohibition in the 1930s, that legacy was cemented, as gay bars, social clubs and nightclubs emerged where queer people led gay renaissances around the boroughs.

But those newly forming spaces were, and many of the ones that still exist are, dominated by white-bodied cisgender men and cater to their experiences and comfort levels. Discriminatory dress codes and practices of so-called double carding — asking for two forms of identification — were rampant, as was charging people of color more for entry than white-bodied people in an effort to discourage them.

And if they made it inside, intimidation, harassment and threat of police raids loomed large. Bartenders could refuse service to gay customers, and anyone inside accused of “disorderly” or “immoral” conduct, like same-gender flirting, kissing or dancing, could be arrested. It was illegal for two men to dance together in New York until 1971.

The first season of “Pose,” a show about the ballroom scene — and so much more — set in the late 1980s, included a window into this experience in a heartbreaking scene in which Blanca, played exquisitely by MJ Rodriguez, endures transmisogynistic harassment for trying to integrate a downtown gay bar. That scene was filmed at Julius, a real bar in New York and one of the older sites of gay activism and patronage in the city.

The contemporary black ballroom scene has its origins in white exclusion. In Out Magazine, Mikelle Street traced it back to a camp beauty pageant in 1967, when Crystal Labeija, one of the scene’s most popular drag queens, placed third runner-up.

As she left the stage, she delivered a searing speech about racial discrimination in ballroom scene, an address so iconic that it has reverberated through time, and was recently referred to on an episode of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” After that, Ms. Labeija and a friend began throwing black-only balls, creating an inheritance that is treasured and celebrated to this day.

Gerard H. Gaskin, a Trinidadian photographer who documented the contemporary ballroom scene, captured intimate images of gay gatherings that breathe and perspire on the page.

In an interview with AfroPunk, Mr. Gaskin said these gatherings are not limited to New York. “This happens at night in small halls in cities all over the country,” he said. “These photographs show us different views of these spaces as they are reflected in the eyes of house and ball members who perform what they wish these cities could be.”

At the Lesbian Herstory Archives in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, a hand-drawn map shows where black lesbians met in Harlem, defunct places with promising names like Zambezie Bar, the Zodiac Club, Mahogany and Tubby’s.

Several names are on the map, too, suggesting homes were nexuses for gatherings. Shawn Smith-Cruz, an archivist at Lesbian Herstory Archives, told me that in those days “the very act of attending and being in the space was the penultimate goal.”

The club is not bound to a specific place. It can’t be. Time, gentrification and predatory business practices have kept the club on the move, and not bound to a single venue or neighborhood. Spaces are queered by the bodies that congregate there and the politics that they bring en masse.

The Bklyn Boihood collective hosts events and gatherings that center queer and trans people of color. Despite the popularity and demand for Boihood parties, the ability to erect the club is extremely vulnerable and tenuous: organizers burn out, or a neighborhood gentrifies and spaces are forced to close. The parties that existed 10, five, even a few months ago in New York aren’t happening anymore, according to Ryann Holmes, one of Boihood’s founders.

That is what happened a few years ago with the Starlite Lounge in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, the oldest black-owned gay bar in New York.

Mx. Holmes is also one of the organizers of a monthly summer party called Joy, which they started three years ago with a good friend, Maria Garcia, a D.J. who goes by Rimarkable, as both a memorial and a wake for the people killed at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Fla.

The event was intended to be a one-off. The organizers named the gathering Joy for what they hoped it would provide for people in mourning. They estimated 50 or so people would come. More than 200 showed up.

“People had gone through so much. The energy was through the roof,” Rimarkable recalled. She also felt it was important to hold daytime events, in a nod to the afternoon parties, called tea dances, that have been a staple of gay culture for several decades. And the parties are often intergenerational, with queer youth and elders alike sharing space.

But Joy faces the same threat as its forebears, as the number of black-owned spaces dwindles, and the venues that remain aren’t always eager to host large gatherings of black people on a regular basis. Mx. Holmes is working toward buying a venue to liberate themselves from that problem.

The club can also be a site for shaping cultural change within communities. “We can’t just say this is a safe space,” Mx. Holmes said. “We have to actually make it safe for people to come and enjoy themselves.”

That includes educating security staff on how to interact with nonbinary bodies and what to do when a person’s name may not match what is on government-issued identification. The parties center nonwhite bodies, as the desire for proximity to queerness and blackness has intensified over the last few years, and they both honor the need and desire to protect the sanctimony of spaces. Some party organizers offer cab fare to partygoers who may feel safer avoiding public transportation late at night.

The club also functions as a living archive, from the music that is played to the people who show up to celebrate each other and be celebrated. I saw a recent set by Rimarkable that only included house tracks and classic disco songs — an ode to the black origins of house music, born on the South Side of Chicago, and techno, with roots in Detroit. “This music is also our legacy,” Rimarkable said.

The gay bars that existed when I was a younger adult in New York didn’t feel welcoming to me, and when I went, I was often one of few people of color, and never felt desire or desired. Angela Dimayuga, a chef and rising star on the New York food scene, felt the same way.

“I’ve been here 13 years, and I’ve never gone to gay bars,” Ms. Dimayuga said. “They all felt divey and not for me.”

When Ms. Dimayuga was hired by the Standard Group as its creative director of food and culture in May, she took over the event coordination and hired Candace Williams to work alongside her as the programming and night life director.

The two of them wanted to create a feeling for a space that they felt was lacking in downtown Manhattan, and they transformed the bar in the bottom of the East Village Standard into a gay bar named No Bar.

Most spaces accommodate queer people but aren’t designated that way. They are made queer by the bodies that congregate within them, en masse. With No Bar, Ms. Dimayuga was determined to put her queer community first.

The tension between activism and capitalism has inspired the creation of a Queer March, by a coalition determined to reclaim pride in the spirit of Stonewall with a march that exists beyond the scope of commercial floats and heavy police presence that define the traditional NYC Pride March.

“With more of a presence in society comes more of a need to exert our sociopolitical power,” Raquel Willis, the executive editor of Out magazine, wrote in a recent article. No matter what commercial trends tell us, being out and open is still a privilege and a luxury. And we will always need safe spaces.

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ellenlucasonlinedatingblog · 5 years

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Hey, Hey, it's Chanté, the new curator for Sexuality in Color!

Hey! I'm Chanté Thurmond, and I'm the new curator of the Sexuality in Color blog, as well as Scarleteen's Growth and Advancement Advisor. Before I share a quote that's been in my heart lately, and a shortlist of a few exceptional PoC who consistently add value to the culture and to their respective communities, I want to share a brief backstory about my journey to Scarleteen.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, I had the great fortune of meeting (and befriending) the infamous Heather Corinna, Scarleteen's founder, at an annual Teenwise conference in the Twin Cities. We became instant pals -- the two of us bonded over our shared passion and commitment to working in partnership with young people. We shared a belief that youth and emerging adults have the power to tap into their collective genius (whenever they want) and they, not adults, are the gurus of their own bodies, minds and hearts. And eventually we discovered that despite our superficial differences (like our age, race, ethnicity or zip codes), Heather and I share similar stories of origin -- we are both the firstborn child to young parents. Throughout the years, we've also come to realize that while our stories seem to have run parallel at multiple times, there are points of divergence (like our gender identities, our sexualities, our values or adopted philosophies). Either way, our respective paths have unfolded to complex intersectional identities that we inherited from our diverse, immigrant families and environments.

I think it's super important to recognize that we're all living intersectionally. Whether we name it or not, we each bring some kind of bias, privilege or cultural lens to the conversations and relationships we have -- be it IRL or virtually. So, while Sexuality in Color is curated by me -- a proud person of color (PoC) -- I won't ever claim to speak on behalf of ALL PoC. My experience is simply one of many.

Our histories never unfold in isolation. We cannot truly tell what we consider to be our own histories without knowing the other stories. And often we discover that those other stories are actually our own stories. - Angela Davis

More and more, I'm reminded just how intersectional we all are, even among biological siblings who've lived with the same parents in the same house. For instance, what is offensive to me as a Black Latinx, cisgender millennial woman may not be so for my younger sister, who identifies the exact same way. Whenever we do have differences of opinions, I don't find it productive to debate how or why. I've come to feel it's much more helpful if we simply acknowledge and accept that while we're the same, we're extremely different and it's perfectly okay.

Anyway, here's the shit I really need to talk about: lately, I've been post-traumatically triggered by violent images and language hijacking my social media channels, group chats, radio and television. Most recently, and so sadly, this has come from so many things I've seen on #BlackTwitter. The back and forth banter within our tribe has been going from zero to 100, real quick. It's been everything from: R. Kelly, Michael Jackson, relentless anti-abortion trolls, stonings in Brunei and the pervasive misogyny from Silicon Valley to DC.

The one that really broke my spirit is the tragic murder of Nipsey Hussle. Every time I think about the love and loss his partner, Lauren London, is living through, I experience a profound spiritual heaviness. Maybe it's because I sincerely appreciated their positive display of Black love and excellence. Maybe it's because Nip strongly resembles my partner, or because I know deep down inside this hit way too close to home. Gun violence is a pervasive public health issue within our community that cannot be ignored, one of many on the long list of traumas that we as people of color suffer.

Whenever I find myself feeling sad, lost or disconnected from my culture, I do a little life hack that I want to share. I've created several curated lists of folks who share my values or who are adding something positive to the culture. When Twitter and Instagram feel like much too much, I immediately go to my short list of inclusionary voices.

Here are six gems I want to shout out for being strong, vibrant voices who consistently show-up and add value to the collective community. Thank you in advance for being great examples of how to effectively use your influence and position of power to clap back and reclaim our power as PoC. I see you and I appreciate you.

Short List of Sexuality In Color Badasses You Should Know

Erica Hart - Queer, Poly, Sex Educator who is a proud cancer survivor. Unapologetic Black Activist (on and offline) who calls a spade a spade.

Twitter: @iHartEricka

Website: www.ihartericka.com

Zach Stafford - Young, Black Unicorn on the fast track to owning the LGBTQ media & tech star space! Currently EIC of The Advocate; Previously Chief Content Officer of Grindr.

Twitter: @ZachStafford

Annie Segarra (aka Annie Elainey) - Queer, Disability Advocate and Latinx who is the definition of intersectionality! And don't forget successful YouTube content creator and artist!

Twitter: @annielainey

Blair Imani - Black, Queer and Muslim Activist turned Author. Maybe you've heard of her, maybe you haven't?! If you're looking for a young, inspiring PoC who can make you laugh, cry or march, click here!

Twitter: @BlairImani

C. Riley Snorton - Black, Queer, Transgender Author and Professor (English and Gender and Sexuality Studies) at the University of Chicago

Books: Black On Both Sides (2017) and Nobody is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low (2014)

Twitter: @Crileysnorton

Britteney Black Rose Kapri - Chicago-based Author and teaching artist for Young Chicago Authors. Her bio on her website is probably the best I've seen yet: Pro Black. Pro Queer. Pro Hoe. | I write shit. I talk shit. I teach shit. (I'm jealous af of that copy!!)

Book: Black Queer Hoe (2018)

Twitter: @BlkRseKapri

From my heart to yours; thank you.

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queer-reporter-blog · 7 years

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Lavender Language and the legacy of William Leap

Bill Leap, perhaps the world’s most respected scholar in the field known as lavender linguistics, talks in a Southern drawl and cusses like a trucker’s wife.

“Let me tell you what it is, honey,” he says on a Monday afternoon from his home in Tampa, Fla. “Miss Piggy’s English is so queer.”

Leap, an emeritus professor of anthropology at American University in Washington, D.C., is writing a book, Language Before Stonewall.

“Back in the ’20s and ’30s, there was this massive use in some social sets in gay America of French as the quintessential gay language, and that continues to the ’70s,” he says. “Honest to God, Miss Piggy spoke fluent gay English. The way she slips in these little French things, the use of ‘moi’ and the hand gesture to the bosom, this is so 1930s gay.”

In 1993, Leap created the Lavender Languages and Linguistics Conference, now in its 24th season. The two-day event draws about 150 attendees from all over the world and is the longest-running LGBT-studies conference in the U.S., and the only one dedicated to language issues, according to Leap. In 1993, much like today, the community squabbled over language politics, starting with what to call the field of study — queer language? Gay and lesbian language? Leap went with lavender.

“I thought, Let’s use that ancient term ‘lavender’ and let’s offend everybody,” he says. Lavender, he points out, has been associated with the occult and mysticism, with women’s power in Africa, and with forms of power in the West in the Roman Imperial Court and the Catholic Church.

“It surfaces in the 20th century with a lesbian women’s movement in England, which was marked in public by women who wore lavender-colored rhinoceros pins on their lapel,” he says.

In his current research, Leap is looking at Harlemese, the language of the Harlem Renaissance, where he cites a rich and dynamic queer presence and a manner of speaking that, while being not exclusively queer, has influenced both gay and mainstream language to this day.

“Harlem was the site for internal colonialism. Its sexual value was there for the convenience of white folks. But it had its own identity and formation in spite of the fact that white folks were intruding,” he says.

Words like “hot” and “hunk,” when describing an attractive person, came from the clubs and after-hours parties of Harlem, he says.

Around the same time, in Britain, Polari, what scholars call an anti-language, was at its peak among gay men, but the jargon would be completely unrecognizable to most English speakers today.

“Nada to vada in the larda, what a sharda,” says Paul Baker, the world’s pre-eminent Polari scholar, when asked about his favorite phrase.

Translation: What a shame, he’s got a small penis.

“I like the rhyming,” he says.

In the early 1990s, Baker stumbled upon Polari while looking for a thesis topic and soon found himself in a gay-run hotel in Brighton where the innkeepers recalled some phraseology. He talked to several old-timers in the area who helped him amass a small dictionary of words, numbering around 500 today and available on a new app called Polari, and wrote transcripts of dialogue from two popular British radio characters in the 1960s named Julian and Sandy, who spoke Polari. (Not coincidentally, the two actors playing the roles — Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick — were gay themselves.)

Polari has roots in 1600s England and is a mixture of Molly slang (Regency England men who dressed in drag and coined words like “bitch” and “trade”), thieves cant (the Elizabethan rigmarole of criminals, circus travelers, and other undesirables), East London cockney slang, and Italian brought home by sailors in the Mediterranean.

Other colorful Polari terms include: “pastry cutter” (a man’s oral sex technique), “naff” (meaning either tasteless or heterosexual), “cleaning the cage out” (cunnilingus), “tipping the ivy” (tuchus lingus), “tipping the velvet” (oral sex), “he’s got nanti pots in the cupboard” (he’s got no teeth), your “mother’s a stretcher case” (I’m exhausted), “vogue us up ducky” (light me a cigarette), and Hilda Handcuffs, Betsy Badge, and the orderly daughters (terms for the police).

“It doesn’t always have to do with secrecy and protection,” Baker says. “I think it also has to do with forming an identity as an affected group, as marking yourself as different, or maybe a bit superior in some way, a mind-set of evaluating mainstream society as somehow inferior to the Polari speaker’s point of view.”

Unsurprisingly, Morrissey was versed. The title of his album Bona Drag means “nice outfit.” In his song “Piccadilly Palare,” he sang, “So bona to vada, oh you, your lovely eek and your lovely riah.” (So nice to see you, oh you, your lovely face and your lovely hair.) And in the song “Girl Loves Me,” on his 2016 album Blackstar, David Bowie sang,

Cheena so sound, so titty up this Malchick, say

Party up moodge, nanti vellocet round on Tuesday

Real bad dizzy snatch making all the omies mad, Thursday

Popo blind to the polly in the hole by Friday

Translation:

Women, I trust you, fix up this boy, say

Make your own fun, man, no drugs around on Tuesday

Really naughty airhead, making all the men mad [on] Thursday

Don’t care about the money spent by Friday

Polari was rife with “she-ing,” an academic term that refers to the linguistic practice of feminizing people and things. She-ing appears almost universally and across centuries in gay language, from Peru to the Philippines to South Africa (where gay slang is called Gayle), to Israel (called oxtchit, derived from an Arabic word meaning “my sister”), to Soviet-era Russia. It was initially practical, enabling gay men to talk about sex and lovers in public without fear of arrest or persecution.

“You can she anybody,” Baker says. “You can she your father or the police. It’s inverting mainstream society’s values so that everybody is potentially gay and everybody is potentially feminine.”

In the West, the gay lexicon dried up after Stonewall, relatively speaking. But in Putin’s Russia, where the environment remains extremely hostile for LGBT people, the website Gay.ru, according to a paper by researcher Stephan Nance, lists a course on how to speak present-day Russian gay, a slang called goluboy — from a word related to the bluish color of a dove — presumably to help gay Russians identify one another. The site addresses readers as devachki (“girls”), discusses misgendering, and provides instruction on gay tonal inflections when saying words like “sister” (“sestraaaa!”). Gays in Putin’s Russia have also Russo-fied Western terms such as queer (“kvir”) and coming out (“kaminaut”).

In 1880s St. Petersburg, men cruising for sex with men were called “tëtki,” or “aunties.” (In polite society, they might be said to be getting up to “barskie shalosti,” or “gentlemen’s mischief.”)

Denis Provencher, department head of French and Italian at the University of Arizona, has yet to identify a similar argot as Polari or research into gay-specific slang in French, where discourse, in typical French fashion, operates as more waltz than stride. Recently, however, many of Marcel Proust’s personal correspondences came to auction at Sotheby’s and revealed he used Latin as a secret code when writing to his lovers.

“The closet is really an American social construction based on a narrative of Judeo-Christian ideology — death and resurrection,” Provencher says. “Coming out of the closet is like being reborn. In French, we are talking about living in good faith and in bad faith, being authentic in society.”

The verb assumer is used, he says, and operates beyond talking of one’s sexuality.

“When you say, ‘je m’assume,’ it means, ‘I assume my social role.’ And in France you would never come home and say, ‘Mom and Dad, I’m gay and this is my boyfriend Frank.’ You’d say, ‘This is Frank and we love each other.’ ”

Provencher’s forthcoming book, Queer Maghrebi French, looks at LGBT North Africans living in France and their relationship to language.

In Arab societies, “the harem is this enclosed space that we think of as a feminine space. The harem is also the house of the father. So if you’ve ‘come out of the harem,’ you’ve come out of the patriarchy. Young North African men use the harem as an analogy of the closet. There’s also this analogy of dropping the veil. Women who drop the veil in Western society are seen as sexually progressive,” he says. “You also get these strange narratives where men talk about wandering through the city looking for sex, but they’re also wandering toward Mecca as well.”

While vocabulary might be the most fun part of lavender linguistics for the layperson, scholars are concerned with aspects such as tone, inflection, and gesturing, as well as the political and cultural implications of language — how the press write about LGBT issues, for example, or how queer people communicate with each other privately and at work, or how gay language is learned.

“All this talk about assimilation and acceptance still requires a certain kind of conformity, and, despite your group that’s all in favor of the heteronormative, many same-sex-identified persons are not comfortable with that mold,” Leap says. “And so you’ve got to let off some frustration. You’ve got to let off a certain amount of steam and anger. And talking gay is one way of doing that.”

That raucous gay tongue of yore perseveres most strongly in American drag culture, and, for word lovers today, it might be the only bright spot of innovation. The film Paris Is Burning centers entirely on the lexicon of 1980s drag balls, where terms like “realness,” “house,” “mother,” and “shade” flash on-screen and move the narrative. (Those terms are so mainstream now that, in May, the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign accused the Democratic National Committee of “throwing shade.”)

“[The participants on RuPaul’s Drag Race] have quite a clever use and attitude toward slang. There’s a celebration of language and a joy and a humor which feels like a successor to Polari,” says Baker. “Even though it’s American.”

Online, where most evolution in the lavender lexicon occurs today, one might say there’s a bit less joy.

“It’s more utilitarian and based around hookup culture when you’re typing away on Grindr,” Baker says. “Shorter phrases that have more to do with sexual things. Gay people on the Internet don’t want to come off as funny or showing these rather creative uses of language. They want to show themselves as being as masculine as possible. There’s a sort of performance there.”

That performance, like she-ing before, crosses the East/West divide. On hookup apps in Russia, you’re bound to see users protesting “bez korony.” That means “without a crown,” or, in gayspeak, not a queen.

Interview and arcticle by Out Magazine via: https://www.out.com/out-exclusives/2016/8/17/lavender-linguistics-queer-way-speak

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