“I want to lay claim to the dark power of my monstrous identity without using it as a weapon against others or being wounded by it myself. I will say this as bluntly as I know how: I am a transsexual, and therefore I am a monster,” Stryker wrote. “Just as the words ‘dyke,’ ‘fag,’ ‘queer,’ ‘slut,’ and ‘whore’ have been reclaimed, respectively, by lesbians and gay men, by anti-assimilationist sexual minorities, by women who pursue erotic pleasure, and by sex industry workers, words like ‘creature,’ ‘monster,’ and ‘unnatural’ need to be reclaimed by the transgendered. By embracing and accepting them, even piling one on top of another, we may dispel their ability to harm us.”
When we read queer history we’re not only learning about those who came before us. When we listen to our elders we’re not only gaining wisdom. When we observe our braver peers we’re not only finding inspiration. We’re also faced with the reality that we exist because of these other people. Our experiences of queerness, as difficult as they may be, are easier, because there were others who lived before us.
Les caractéristiques des personnes qui s’identifient comme bisexuelles ne témoignent pas vraiment d’une indifférence au genre des partenaires sexuels ou conjugaux, mais d’un élargissement aux personnes de même sexe d’une sexualité dont les personnes de l’autre sexe sont le centre.
Intéressant ce décalage entre déclarations et pratiques. C'est d'une manière similaire que je vis ma bisexualité : Mes pratiques sont majoritairement lesbiennes et c'est bien le lesbianisme que je porte politiquement et je n'envisage pas la moindre conjugalité (ni sexualité) avec des hommes cis bien que je puisse avoir parfois une forte attirance pour certains d'entre eux.
(Et comment s'inscrivent les personnes non-binaires et les hommes trans là dedans ? J'aurais pas assez d'un shaarlien pour l'expliquer, mais illes n'ont certainement pas un statut social et un vécu d'hommes cis)
We, as queer people, do our best to know as much about our own lived experiences as possible, and sometimes we forget that others are trailing behind, and not necessarily by choice. Societal changes are oftentimes felt much more strongly in metropolises than other areas, so can anyone struggling to keep up with queer liberation actually be blamed for that phenomenon? What happened to giving people the benefit of the doubt?
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We must understand that being unsure isn’t the same as being unsympathetic, and that the true bigots aren't the ones taking the time to ask for our help.
In May, Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez confronted Gilead, the makers of PrEP, about the pill’s astronomical cost. "The list price is almost $2,000 in the United States. Why is it $8 in Australia?" the senator asked Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. “People are dying because of it, and there’s no enforceable reason for it.” (Gilead posted revenue of $3 billion off the once-a-day pill in 2018.)
Butch/femme is a subculture with no strict rulebook, though there are commonalities within the expression of each identity. Butch women often embody what we traditionally regard as masculinity, wearing short hair, loose clothing, trousers and shorts -- think Orange Is The New Black’s Lea DeLaria or Lena Waithe. Femme women tend to embrace femininity; dresses and skirts, make-up and perfume -- more along the lines of Portia de Rossi or, if you’re into Glee, Santana Lopez.
Despite misconceptions, being femme is not about trying to ‘pass’ as straight. In fact it's far from it. In donning femininity at least partially for the gaze of other women, femmes are able to reclaim a kind of womanhood that’s too often automatically equated with heterosexuality. Similarly, the rejection of feminine gender norms by butches is intrinsically radical: it empowers lesbians to renounce patriarchal standards of beauty, giving them relative freedom to present in whichever way they feel most comfortable.
A 2,554-word essay that aims to explore how to survive a patriarchal capitalist system that forces publications run by young(ish) women—even seemingly wildly successful ones, with robust communities that mourn these losses loudly and vocally—to shut down in spite of their popularity, completely ignored three publications that might have, each in their own way, answered a piece of the thesis question. This article was not the first to completely ignore lesbian and queer women's media when pondering women's websites; it was one in a large compilation of disappointments, as yet another feminist writer I admire did not acknowledge the work queer women's websites do.
An entire section of the rules was devoted to censoring depictions of homosexuality. “Intimate activities (holding hands, touching, kissing) between homosexual lovers” were censored, as were “reports of homosexual groups, including news, characters, music, tv show, pictures”. Similarly blocked was content about “protecting rights of homosexuals (parade, slogan, etc.)” and “promotion of homosexuality”.
It’s a survival mechanism, especially as someone with depression and anxiety, to try to ignore and normalize the dehumanizing experiences I have to move through in order to live. If I were to allow myself to be bothered by quotidian microaggressions and invalidations and othering, I’d maybe never leave the house.
She was hurt by this, and seemed unable to understand why I was unwilling to continue a quasi-romantic relationship with someone for whom my feelings, my intimacy, my body, was the equivalent of a day at a theme park, a fun and whimsical distraction from the everyday. I didn’t feel scorned or heartbroken; I felt used and objectified. Beth saw no harm in using me to make herself feel good because, in her mind, my feelings and sexuality were somehow less legitimate than her own—which is, of course, the very essence of heteronormativity and homophobia.
The community that I have spent my entire adult life working and living in sometimes feels even more dangerous and volatile than the mainstream, cis and heteronormative world that I spent my teen years trying to escape. After all, I can at least blame the cruelty of straight, cis society on homophobia and transphobia. But why are queers so mean to queers?
A TSA agent may press the button that corresponds to the sex a passenger was assigned at birth, but the passenger's gender presentation may mean using a chest binder, packer, or breast shaper, which the machine then marks as inconsistent with the expected algorithm for the passenger's sex, thus triggering an "alarm." Alternatively, the agent may press the button corresponding to the passenger's presenting gender rather than the sex they were assigned at birth, which poses its own problems: A "passing" trans woman's penis, for example, will register to the machine as suspicious.
“I live in a small city,” she says. “Big enough to always be meeting new people, but small enough to see at least three people you know on an outing. I think where I live all the lesbians know each other, all the gays know each other, and so forth. I think it can become a bit of a cesspool where dating is concerned. Everyone you know has dated everyone you know.”
I can only review Euphoria as a gay trans woman who desperately wants to see herself on screen, who desperately wants to see her past, her present, and her potential futures. I can only review Euphoria as a gay trans woman who for the first time on television got to watch a cis girl fall in love with a trans girl. I can only review Euphoria as a gay trans woman who for the first time on television got to watch any girl fall in love with a trans girl.
“You should be allowed to say no,” Dr. Lalich said when I asked her how to tell if you’re in a healthy group relationship. “To question anyone in the hierarchy including the dominant. You should be allowed to leave when you want, without any rebuke or shunning. You shouldn’t be made to believe that this is the only way to live. You should be able to untie the bonds!”
Capitalism is fundamentally invested in notions of scarcity, encouraging people to feel that we never have enough so that we will act out of greed and hording and focus on accumulation. Indeed, the romance myth is focused on scarcity: There is only one person out there for you!!! You need to find someone to marry before you get too old!!!! The sexual exclusivity rule is focused on scarcity, too: Each person only has a certain amount of attention or attraction or love or interest, and if any of it goes to someone besides their partner their partner must lose out.
In his correspondence with Collin, he relates that he is sad to hear that Collin had engaged to a woman at the time, since he has strong romantic feelings for him. Anderson related his feelings to being "feminine" in nature, or that he had "womanly" sentiments towards Collin. This is around the same time The Little Mermaid is written.
This June, a comic cast of “allies” has emerged to pay tribute to Pride, many at the site of Stonewall itself. Each is more menacing than the last: famous white woman Taylor Swift, serial hair-sniffer Joe Biden, the NSA, and even ICE. Swift and Biden’s public relations cameos at the Stonewall Inn confused the movement with the place that happened to spark an uprising. These lip service homages smear the significance of Stonewall and other acts of insurgency that continue to serve as pillars of trans and queer liberation.
"While I love the fact that LGBTQ+ nightlife is expanding and becoming more welcoming to all of us within our community, lesbian specific spaces have suffered, I think, from this inclusivity," said Story, who is co-creator of the local award-winning podcast “Strange Fruit” on WFPL public radio, where she discusses politics, pop culture and black gay life.
In 2012, Story met her now-wife Missy Jackson at Purrswaytions, where Jackson was performing as her drag king persona, "King Mystikal."
"All inclusive LGBTQ+ bars and clubs now host straight bachelorette parties, and many straight-identified folks feel right at home within queer spaces in a way that they didn’t before," she said.
These days, headlines about gay penguins or genderqueer lions seem to pop up all the time. These circulate wildly, and are effective clickbait for curious (or outraged) straights and celebratory queers alike. But these headlines are only effective because of the assumption that nature follows the rules of heteronormativity. As it turns out, however, what we call “queerness” is the norm in nature, not the exception. From toads to nematodes, from dolphins to fruit flies, same-sex sexual behaviors are found in every corner of the animal kingdom. Once you look beyond animals to all of life on earth, well, things get even more queer.
This is the kind of reporting you get when LGBTQ writers and reporters are cut out from mainstream media. It turns our everyday experiences into fodder for pundits, cranks, and transphobes. Phony or inconsequential organizations like “Rethink Identity Medicine Ethics” are elevated to legitimacy by publications who think their readers need to hear “both sides” of an issue, even when one side is composed of hatred. Many in mainstream print media have fallen into this sort of lazy both-sides-ism which ends up promoting the junk science and wild conspiracy theories of the anti-trans and larger anti-LGBTQ movements.
Increasingly, we’re seeing more women onscreen dealing with mental illness, often in ways that treat their disorder as just one element in a fully human, complex character. But all of these women are white. Women of color—specifically African American women—are not afforded the same type of humanity onscreen, if they’re even represented at all.
Calls for visibility almost always occur in conjunction with appeals to normalcy. The argument goes something like this: “It’s okay that we are everywhere, because we are just like you, except for our sexual orientation (or some other difference).” The problem is, this strategy only works for LGBTQ+ people who come across as “normal” in most other respects. It most benefits individuals who are white, middle-class, able-bodied, and relatively conventional in their lifestyle and politics.
YouTube’s filters haven’t improved and LGBTQ sex ed content is still being censored. In fact, for some creators like himself, the problem has only gotten worse. “The rate of restriction and demonetization is happening faster and faster nowadays with the way they’ve ‘improved’ their computer learning,” he says. “A few years ago, we’d get dinged every so often, but now, our videos won’t even be finished uploading before they get a little yellow check mark on them indicating they’ll be censored and not properly monetized.”
Women came together over coffee and cake, sharing what they could. These meetings, while less overtly political than later lesbian activism, did something amazing: In an era where being out could lead to serious legal and social consequences, they helped American lesbians realize their collective strength.
[CW mention of abuse and rape]
“Why are you depressed?” my mother asked me when I responded truthfully instead of lying with a simple, “I’m doing fine.” […] And then more men used my body like a glove and they used my kindness as a balm for their own wounds, and they used the home I made for myself to shelter their needs, and then I kept trying and it got harder.
Anne Lister considered herself to be married twice in her life, once to her beloved Mariana, who broke her heart. Anne’s other marriage was to Ann Walker, her main love interest on the HBO series. Their marriage is now considered to be the first gay marriage in the United Kingdom. Both of Anne Lister’s marriages were sealed with communion at the Holy Trinity church in Goodramgate, York. Both engagements were also sealed with the exchange of rings — and Anne Lister’s favorite type of jewelry: a locket with a tuft of her beloved’s pubic hair inside. In fact, she had an ENTIRE COLLECTION of pubic hair lockets.
Lesbians FTW 😈
Cops are the front-line of the state, tasked with defending and reinforcing all illegitimate hierarchies of power. They are the armed enforcers of white supremacy who catch paid vacations for murdering Black children in the streets. They are the knock on the door to evict you from your home. They are the no-knock SWAT Team raid that shoots your dog. They are the corrupt overseers of the ghetto, the barrio, the favela. They are the unmarked cruiser that slows down to harass a sex worker. They are the vicious interrogators of rape survivors. They are the protectors of bulldozers and pipelines. They are the batons, flash bangs and rubber bullets used to break up our demonstrations, and put down our riots. They are the guardians of capital. They are the oppressor. And without exception… they’re all bastards.
Here’s the thing: lesbian sex can, and frequently does, involve cocks. (The TERFs are quaking in their boots right now.) Whether that means a strap-on, a penis, a tongue, a fist, a clit, or whatever else is totally up to the individual dyke. One’s cock, or lack thereof, doesn’t have to be concerned with gender, or it can have everything to do with gender. Butch, femme, andro, boi–anyone and everyone of any gender expression can have a cock.
Lana Wachowski came out as a transgender woman in 2010, and Lilly Wachowski came out in 2016. The Matrix, for all its talk of enforced reality and system-smashing anarchism, was likely never just about power fantasy and combating feelings of insignificance in the daily grind of corporate America. It is a film about transition into a truer, freer version of oneself in a world that resists you doing so, and it is informed by the Wachowski sisters’ experiences as closeted transgender women.
One thing I’ve learned about trans people is that almost all of us end up asking ourselves these questions, in one form or another. As easy as they are for me to answer now, though, these lines of questioning can make you feel hopeless and defeated if you’re trying to work through them on your own. There’s no way to sum up all transfeminine experiences, and everyone eventually has to find their own, unique answers, but if you're a person who was assigned male at birth and is struggling with questions like the ones I had, here are some answers that might help.
When Europeans came to North America, they brought patriarchal societal traditions with them, Finley said. Wrapped up in those gender roles were Europeans’ understandings of land ownership and inheritance, ideas that were crucial to the process of seizing the continent from indigenous people.
Among the measures used to extinguish native customs in the United States was the state-sponsored Native American boarding school program, which forced generations of indigenous children to attend school away from their families to be educated in Christian, European traditions.
Television has never really excelled at representing lesbian culture and/or queer culture. We get lesbian or bisexual characters, generally enmeshed in the linoleum lives of The Straights, but rarely will a lesbian know any other queer women besides her girlfriend and infrequently will anything about the character clock as gay besides their interest in chastely kissing a member of the same sex with her shirt on.
We don’t just need historical documentaries, coming out narratives, or survivor stories—and we certainly don’t need any more devastating endings. We need something else, something that heterosexual people take for granted: romantic vision. We need the bread-and-roses romantic comedies that make our hearts soar to the theater ceiling.
My most recent experiences in the classroom, coupled with my experiences while conducting research within the transgender community, however, have convinced me that our current practice of asking that everyone state their personal pronoun is not a good idea. My position is perhaps best explained by sharing two experiences.
In my gender class, as it has come to be known, I ask that students journal in response to readings, class discussions or a prompt on a controversial issue. Occasionally, those entries get personal. In a recent year, a student revealed in an entry that they thought they might be transgender. The next time I spoke with the student alone, with the best of intentions, I asked what pronoun they wanted me to use. Their eyes filled with tears as they answered, “I don’t know.” At about the same time, I asked someone at a conference what pronoun to use, and she burst into tears. She later explained that she had hoped that she “passed” and that my question made her feel like she did not.
This Sunday, there’s a tall woman a few tables over with this hot outfit (almost entirely denim) and her hair gracefully swept up and back. She’s here with her parents. Do they even know she’s gay? I’m pretty confident that she is, she gave me the nod on the way in. I’m here with a sweetheart, teaching them how to control the object ball with little adjustments. I pocket a shot and catch the woman’s eye, she gives me a look: mutual recognition but definitely flirtation too. I think maybe she would come home with us. She certainly seems to be signaling, the way her eyes ask me to play just before she looks away. A fantasy starts to grow in my mind; I want to take her home with us. What does she enjoy? Would she let me lead the way I like? Am I allowed to be fantasizing about a stranger like this?
Last year I quit my well-paying city job to go back to school and work in retail and my mother still hasn’t gotten over it. To her my decisions seem like symptoms of mental illness that plagued my grandmother and great grandmother. It’s hard to explain why I needed to leave the world of business casual clothing and passive aggressive emails to feel sane again.
We’ve heard a lot about what it is to be a woman who is unsatisfied in herself and her relationships and turns to another woman for those needs; we haven’t heard the stories of the Other Women. Those stories might reframe these affairs away from the question of loneliness, unhappiness, malaise, and need, and towards a question of labor, consumption, and use. It might help us recognize how when straightness is the assumed default, gestures of queer intimacy get muddled, blurred, and erased amidst all that platonic friendships have been stretched to encompass.
There’s little conversation about the bodies of trans women who have not undergone gender confirmation surgery—online, in media, anywhere, really. Where are all the sex guides for trans women who don’t want to have surgery, who aren’t ready, or who haven’t yet had the opportunity?
To create my own, I decided to chronicle my own process, and reach out to trans women friends to ask what’s helped them most. Here's what I learned.
Queer women probably don’t cruise because it is simply too unsafe for us to do so. It’s why Woolf is so careful to close her doors; it’s why Lorde sticks to lesbian bars, spaces created for and by queer women. Queer women’s sexuality is such a threat to patriarchal, heterosexual control that for many centuries its existence was completely denied, or deliberately hidden. The oppression levered against queer women is one of violent control: keeping us trapped, denying our existence, struggling to remake us. And even now, to be a woman in public is to be harassed—catcalled or followed home, leered at or abused. The threat of violence is inseparable from the idea of lesbian cruising.
Around three years ago, I came out by writing about biphobia for Archer, and the article was then picked up the Sydney Morning Herald. Considering the article talked about people treating bisexuality as a phase, I was wracked with guilt about how what I’m about to write might contribute to that.
Earlier this year, after a lot of introspection and a come-to-Jesus talk with a dear friend, I realised that I’m not bi, I’m a lesbian. […]
My realising this doesn’t make bisexuality as an identity invalid, or a phase. The reality is that a lot of gay people, especially lesbians, first acknowledge their same-gender attraction by coming out as bi, but eventually realise that isn’t the label for them. Ultimately, I think my original article was too naïve, and didn’t allow for the nuances of the wide variety of queer experiences.
Black women have the unique experience of being subjected to both misogynistic and anti-Black violence, but are never positioned equally amongst non-Black women or Black non-women. Black women experience all of the pain their counterparts do and yet are somehow regarded as second-class.
This history and its legacy leave me feeling that my anger about the world ascribing femininity to my body without my consent borders on betrayal to Black women. How can I claim to support Black women when there are times I resent the fact that I am perceived as one? Can I do both? The more steps I take to be comfortable in the body my spirit occupies, the more it feels like my transness and my Blackness stand in opposition to one another.
BBW is a euphemism for “fat,” but it also implies that not all “big” women may be “beautiful,” according to societal standards. In other words, the BBW category only includes women who society considers acceptably fat: That often only includes white, cis, straight or commercially plus-sized women, and leaves everyone else out.
She was in the midst of transition and unable to secure safe employment considering her yet-to-be-state-sanctioned womanness. I was still in the process of accumulating my still-accumulating student debt, just 20 years old. We had no familial support; our queerness reviled, my family had little-to-no resources to spare.