It was a nose-thumbing photo by Whitey Schafer on the ‘Hays Code’, which said what you could and couldn’t show in film.

Looking at it now you’re right, not only could it be an album cover, those are pretty fantastic song titles, too…

(I just like the gorgeous woman standing over a cop 🫦 )

even if bi-erasure is a pretty serious issue.

Yeah I’ve been bi(sexual) since the 90’s when it was, uh, ‘frowned upon’, but I came out as bi-romantic last year. The erasure is absolutely real and brutal. I was talking with a guy (who was gay) and when I said I was bi he sighed aloud and then just walked away. The vast majority of people are much better about it, though I have not had a great experience once I came out as enby. Random women have come up and ‘negged’ my hair/clothing/etc, men on the other hand get annoyed when they mistake me for a woman.

I mostly just care about the intent. Nobody ever means me ill will when they refer to me as gay, so it’s w/e.

I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but you might want to say to them ‘hey so I love being included, and it feels somewhat erasing to be…’. I find that the vast majority of the time that goes over well and people go with it.

I don’t know if you’ve experienced this (or are this age) but my kids are gen-Z, and they use ‘gay’ and ‘queer’ (mostly) interchangeably. One of my kids who is gay constantly refers to me as ‘gay’ because I’m bi. One of their friends who is a lesbian also uses gay, so it’s been quite a learning experience for me.

Years later in programming people were slashing zeroes and I was mighty confused. Some greybeard explained it eventually.

As someone who slashes their zeroes, ouch.

I always think of Metallica’s Saint Anger:

🎶 Medallion noose, I hang myself

Saint Anger 'round my neck

I feel my world shake

Like an earthquake

Hard to see clear

Is it me? Is it fear?

I’m not even angry with you

I’m not even angry with you

I’m not even angry with you

I’m not even angry with you

🎶

Yet the real lyrics are:

I’m madly in anger with you

I’m madly in anger with you

I’m madly in anger with you

I’m madly in anger with you

… sigh…

Absolutely, good call for my fellow anarchistas out there. My assembly has a few, uh, ‘veterans’ from the 70’s and 80’s. There’s no reliance on the post 70’s ‘edits.’

I still have plenty of room to continue broadening my understanding.

I feel like you’re extremely well aware and compassionate towards, well, basically any minority based on how you’ve spoke here. My ex and I had a chat with our kids about what to do if you’re lost, alone, and need help. In my day, we were told to find a firefighter, or usually a cop. Obviously that doesn’t work now, so what we taught them was to ‘find the rainbows’ IE. the Pride flags, pins, etc. One of my kids is deeply into vexillology, so we showed them a wide variety of flags from the ‘queer’ space, and in counter-point, the ‘thin blue line’/punisher/etc flags. Unfortunately, we’ve had to add the Canadian flag as a ‘caution’, as people who are pretending to be patriots camouflage themselves with it.

As ‘the default’, your presence and support creates an outsize effect. So, as to what you can do to show your support:

• Plaster this over all your stuff

• Use pronouns in all your stuff; emails, forum stuff, everywhere you can.

• Go to rallys, protests, strikes, anywhere that queer people are demonstrating.

Now, you’re going to have to gauge your comfort/safety doing each of those things, and if your work means you rely on others for your safety, and they’re bigots, there’s a non-zero chance your ‘pride flag’ means they’re a little slow if you’re hurt, or check your gear a little less. So be careful.

Which leads me to the other stuff you can do, that frankly is far more valuable, effective, and supportive. It also also much more dangerous.

• When you hear people making bigoted comments, even if they’re just passing by, call them out. If they’re friends/acquaintances of yours, this is even more important. Keep in mind there is a very real chance you can be physically harmed here, and as someone who has done this from age 6 to, well, now in my 40’s, I can’t imagine how terrifying it would be to do in the US. I’ve been attacked numerous times for it, yet the vast, vast majority of the time bullies are abject cowards and will talk a big game and run. As I said though, it’s dangerous.

• Help escort people from LGBT clubs/bars/etc to their vehicles/ubers/etc. As with above, there’s a non-zero chance you’ll be assaulted doing this. I know this must sound like 80’s action movie stuff to my cishet friends out there, but even here in polite Canada it’s dangerous. The Vancouver Police Department would grab women coming out of lesbian bars and rape them on one our beaches well into the 1970’s/early '80’s. While that isn’t done systemically (as much) now, it still happens, even to female cops. If you’re protecting these people, as a ‘SJW’, you’re also a target. Again if you’re in the US, this is even more dangerous.

Mostly though, being an open ally (those flag patches/stickers/whatever) is a lot. It’s another body, it’s someone who we can reasonably rely on to back us up.

This was absolutely beautiful, thank you very much.

Even here in Canada the 2nd election of Trump caused the bigots to come out of the woodwork, swinging at any kids they can hit. My own was caught in that, and I’ve done my best to heal and protect and guide them as I can. I came out as non-binary in the middle of last year, and I’m in my 40’s.

It’s strange, in a horror-movie way, to have people walk up to me and casually insult my long (femm-y) hair, or the fact I’m quite thin. The only outward change I made was to add an accessory that is considered ‘femme’ or ‘girly’: dangling earrings, a bow in my hair, one time a pink scrunchy. Those tiny changes and people feel they have not just the ability, but that it’s okay to walk up and pick it apart. I live in Vancouver BC, and we’re considered pretty damn progressive*, so I cannot imagine what it’s like in other places.

So thank you for being an ally, because gods above and below we need them right now. The US just put 30,000 people in concentration camps, and they’re going after our poor poor children who are trans at every level. I’m scared, because I know that the fascists will lose. I know we’ll beat them, that they’ll stab each other in the back and get overthrown.

Yet how many children will we lose? To bullying, suicide, outright violence? I fear a quote from Susan Sontag is hanging over us like the sword of Damocles:

“10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.”

I oft find myself literally holding my breath to see what the, for lack of a better term, cishetero white guys are going to do. Because here in Canada they’ve voting Conservative, over 50% of them, from all age groups.

I’m going to fight, though. Against cops, the military, bigots, whatever I have to. I go to protests, strikes, sit-ins. There’s a creeping realisation in the 2SLGBTQIA+ groups I know, that conflict is coming. Roughly half are dissociating, hiding, pulling away. The other half are mobilizing, reading the Simple Sabotage Field Manual, the anarchists cookbook. What we need though, are bodies, frankly, because it sure feels like we’re outnumbered. Cishetero people in the streets blocking traffic, causing nuisance, forcing politicians to act.

I have a sign-off/goodbye message I say to my kids, and they’ve encouraged me to use it elsewhere so I will here.

You are loved❤️ Stay Queer

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D:

Discoteca, muñeca, la biblioteca

I posted this on another thread here, a week and a half ago it was, and I just wanted to post it here once more. To reiterate though, this is not a ‘praise me’ or ‘look at me being a great parent’ post, this is the bare minimum to be even just an ally. That said I hope it helps some people here, because we are out there, allies, friends, fellow 2SLGBTQIA+. Reach out, ask for help, be brutally honest if you’re having suicidal thoughts or suicidal ideation.

One of my kids came out as gay, and was immediately bullied by both staff and students (they were in trade school). I did the usual furious parent stuff, but also added a piece of flair every day to tell the world I was bi, and wore a bow in my hair. They came to me a few days later and came out as non-binary, and asked for help getting clothes to match who they were.

It wasn’t the threats I made to the teacher, it wasn’t the death stares I gave their classmates, it was seeing someone they trusted showing them not everyone is straight that did it. I am so very proud of them.

I didn’t do anything spectacular, I don’t want praise, I just want to tell everyone I meet that tiny actions like that ripple out.

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Help your fellow workers, protect people from ICE, and always remember you can fight back against Capitalism and/or Fascism with this handy guide.

I blame women.

For not murdering enough. The streets would be safer if men had the same fear.

Delilah Bon agrees.

They painted their nails. Classmates asked “are you a fag?” They replied something like “Guess so.”

They painted their nails to match their overalls. Then when asked, said they were in fact gay.

Was I born this way though?

The original ‘born this way’ movement wasn’t so much to imply people are ‘X’ way and there’s nothing that changes, it was a response to (Christians) claiming that people we being made gay, or that they chose to be gay instead of ‘what they were born as’ which was heteronormative stuff. It was the idea you could ‘anti-gay’ it out of them.

Now though, of course you’re right, there’s no ‘way you are born’ and everyone grows and changes as they age and experience. At the time though we were fighting a post-Reagan society that was hell-bent on turning back as many societal acceptances as possible (sound familiar? :( )

So yes it’s both out of date and not entirely correct, but the spirit is why it’s still used, I think. 2SLGBTQIA+ aren’t a monolith, and I don’t speak for everyone, I just lived through it.

You deserve an award for being an excellent parental figure. This is the kind of support kids around the world need more of.

I’m sorry I don’t mean to be combative here, but I absolutely don’t. This is the bar for being a parent, not a great parent, just a parent. Backing up your kids is quite literally the least you should be doing.

So please, I appreciate what you’re meaning to do here, yet I don’t want that to be how this story reads. I want people to hear that and know that’s what we need to be doing as a bare minimum. Even if you’re not a parent, this is basic community stuff. Kids bullying the poor young girl who’s trying to transition? Shut that shit down. Store owner won’t let certain races in? Shut that shit down. Kids feel like they can’t be themselves because it ‘isn’t normal’? Shut that shit down.