queerability:

Legal documents in the United States only recognize “male” and “female” as genders, leaving anyone who does not identify as one of these two genders with no option. Australia and New Zealand both allow an X in place of an M or an F on passports for this purpose, and the UK recognizes ‘Mx’ (pronounced “Mix”) as a gender-neutral title.

This petition asks the Obama administration to legally recognize genders outside of the male-female binary, and provide an option for these genders on all legal documents and records.

Please signal boost and sign this.

I used to think I was getting away with something.

“Girls don’t count,” I’d say, running my fingers up her arm at the bar. “Don’t you know that?”

We both had boyfriends. Long-term boyfriends. Mine had introduced me to the concept.

“I wouldn’t feel threatened,” he’d say. “I know they could never compete.”

He meant that a woman, no matter how attached I got, could never “steal” me away from him. He meant that he’d only care about male penetration, about “sex” in the most typical terms. I was young and I didn’t value myself and I hadn’t been taught a lot about feminism or how relationships should work. I said nothing, because I wanted it to be true.

_____

We went on a date, she and I. We saw a movie and then she came over and we drank wine and watched TV and hooked up on the couch and fell asleep. We were drunk and we laughed. I held her.

The next morning, he was angry.

“I thought girls didn’t count,” I said.

“Yeah, but you like, went on a date,” he said.

“We saw a movie,” I replied. “She has a boyfriend.”

“It was a date,” he said. He was irritated.

_____

“How many people have you been with?,” they all ask, adding: “Girls don’t count.”

_____

These girls. I remember them. They happened. They were there with me. They had red hair and bright red lipstick and they wore Boston Red Sox hoodies and they loved Russian literature and they had big, wily pet dogs and they spent the night.

I talked to them at parties or met them in the dorms freshman year or they were friends of friends who stroked my hair and said, “I just think everyone’s a little bit bisexual, don’t you?”

I loved them. They were real and they shared themselves with me and we spent time together at thrift shops and in classes and at bars and at friends’ dinner parties. We held hands while other couples passed around a joint. We buried our faces in each other’s soft necks under the covers. These were relationships. These were people I was with.

“I want us to be monogamous,” men say. “But you know, obviously girls don’t count.”

_____

When did you first have sex?

It depends on what you mean. There was a girl in high school.

No, I mean your virginity. When did you lose it?

Oh.

_____

He is masturbating. I ask, “What do you want?” He says, “Tell me about when you were with your ex-girlfriend.”

Later, I say my ex-boyfriend’s name when telling a story about last year and he tells me, “You know, I could stand to hear less about him.”

_____

“I just think you’ll end up with a man in the end,” he says when we’re walking to a bar.

“That’s presumptuous,” I reply.

“I just feel like you will.”

“Because you’re threatened?”

“What?”

“Because it threatens you to know that I could one day not need a dick. That, god forbid, a woman who could end up with either actually chooses to disregard your precious penis.”

“Hey, take it easy. I was just giving you relationship advice.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

At the bar, our friends wonder why we aren’t speaking. Even he is confused by what happened. He doesn’t know what he did wrong.

_____

For a long time, I said nothing. Because if they thought it wasn’t cheating, who was I to argue? I had freedom. I was getting one over on them. I was winning.

They were real. They were real and they counted. They’re not shadows among the men I saw. But I wanted them to be. I wanted to avoid the consequences, to avoid thinking, to avoid wondering what it meant. These men, they told me what it meant: it meant nothing.

And I told other women this fallacy. I moved in to kiss their necks and ears and said, “Girls don’t count, don’t you know?”

And later, they counted. And later, I knew.

(Source: nananapua)

womenssalon:

Thanks to Pam L for passing this along - an important read!

Most sleeping pills are designed to knock you out for eight hours. When the Food and Drug Administration was evaluating a new short-acting pill for people to take when they wake up in the middle of the night, agency scientists wanted…

Also worth pointing out: many modern medical studies (especially in the US) are on how diseases and drugs affect white people. Though modern medical knowledge has come through the exploitation of the bodies of people of color, the unstated goal has generally been to apply that knowledge to nurturing white bodies. Likewise, how various treatments and ailments affect or present in trans* or genderqueer folks is seriously under-investigated. And because both these groups have been subject to a history of medical abuses, it’s hard to create studies and treatment options that investigate what they really need and want.

girljanitor:

[excerpts; the whole article is awesome]

As a group that is routinely judged, shunned, and fighting for acceptance, we as LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex) people are often pigeon-holed into playing the role of educator to the people that inflict the most pain on us, however inadvertently by our friends and family members (who some, or even most of the time really do mean well).

Given how heavily politicized LGBTI identities are (ie: constantly in the news as an issue for political debate) it’s challenging for our loved ones to get to know us as individual people versus some issue they’re not well-versed on or quite sure when and how to speak about.

Our suffering decreases our emotional capacity to offer straight people the space and time through which they can explore their own feelings, and get their questions answered, a stalemate. But it doesn’t always have to be that way.

[…]

I quickly learned that forcing people to confront the elephant in the room (and there were many — more masculine clothing, a crazy frohawk, new friends, a compulsive habit of pointing out which well-liked celebrities were gay/lesbian/bi) wasn’t going to bridge the divide I felt growing between me and my siblings, or my parents. I couldn’t sacrifice my mental health for their education about who I was; I needed someone or something else to do the job.

Back then (early 2000s), I didn’t have much to work with; most of the LGBTI films on Netflix, including the L Word featured mainly white privileged characters. But then, I discovered Saving Face, a film drama-comedy about two lesbian Chinese-American girls navigating family expectations about career and marriage. That film was the closest I had to reflecting the complexities of my identity as a queer person of color who was also an immigrant — another narrative that is also missing from mainstream media.

There’s something about media that lowers our defenses and makes it easier for us to learn, to accept, to connect. Yet, when we talk about “pushing for change”, we often leave out how much media and pop culture–and the narratives they depict we can relate to–humanize issues, and ultimately influence the people we love (and hope to be loved by).

In a recent study on the effects of fiction (storytelling), researchers assessed the mood and self-identification of readers before and after popular fiction novels, and found that the overall empathy i.e. ability to relate to (and, in fact, see themselves as) one of the characters, significantly increased.

What does this mean for queer people of color? Our friends and our families are more likely to relate to who we are through a novel, a film, a song than they are a blog post titled, “How to Be an LGBT Ally.” It doesn’t mean that non-fiction articles, political campaigns, blog post “call outs”, and legal advocacy, are less important strategies, but I dare say they may not be as relevant around the average holiday dinner table.

In the face of funding cuts for the arts, and the constant (and annoying) trivialization of media as a tool for advocacy by LGBTI activists, it’s easy to dismiss personal storytelling, fiction, film, even music as powerful tools to invoke empathy and not just “social change”, but the stronger, closer interpersonal relationships that bring about this change. Still, we owe it to ourselves to invest in the relationships that matter to us the most by daring to facilitate critical conversations (in plain language!) about who we really are. So why not give your relationships a fighting chance and give the gift of media this holiday season?

Surviving the Holidays as Queer POC (spectra)

sqs-tec:

Thanks Tumblr folks for this list of 50 books by Queer People of Color. The list is well organized and includes Chicago resident Achy Obejas, one of my favorite authors. Check it out!

maishaparadox:

this is important!

(Source: nuestrahermana)