If there is one thing I’ve learned in my research, it is that in the face of systemic inequities, homophobia, sex negativity, harassment, the threat of job loss, death — we find places to be ourselves. We’ll make spaces our own under the worst of circumstances, even if just for a few hours. People risk it because that’s how important it is to us to find one another, to feel human, to feel desire and love and express it openly without shame… I am mindful of the resilience of our communities, the unwillingness to accept the message of the city, that there’s nowhere we belong. History tells us that’s not true. We’ll find each other, no matter what.
When we think about Lesbian Predator storylines, we tend to think about actual violent criminals in dramatic films — Rebecca in The Roommate, Diane in Mullholland Drive, Miss G in Cracks, any lesbian in any film during The Hays Code era — but there’s a different type of lesbian trope that really cut to the bone for me because it’s simply more realistic and often quite comedic: The Pathetic Lesbian. I don’t know a lot of homicidal stalkers, but awkward lesbian teenagers lusting after girls they can’t have? That feels honest. It never felt like me — I’ve never fallen for a straight best friend and am usually only attracted to masculine lesbian-identified women — but back then there was nothing more embarrassing than liking somebody who didn’t like you back, and that seemed to be par for the course when it came for women who liked women. So I never considered the possibility that I was one of them, just like I never considered lots of possibilities that would’ve made me a loser. Gay men seemed cool, but lesbians? Nope. Adolescence, oftentimes, isn’t about finding your true self. It’s about making conscious decisions to be a certain way in order to fit in with everybody else.
Buying sperm and getting pregnant started to seem like a better path for me as a queer black woman. I didn’t need anyone’s approval to get pregnant. As long as I had the money for the sperm the sperm bank would sell it to me.
Asher Jak via Adventures in Baby Making as a Single Black Lesbian
See this report? It found that 100% of women of color in STEM face gender bias on top of tons of racism! ONE HUNDRED PERCENT. That means all of them, in case you didn’t realize.Every last one.
L: The guy at the Meijer station wouldn’t sell me a lighter and I got really mad.
M: Did you throw pasta on his face?
L: No, I told him to fuck off.
M: You could get fired for that.
L: But I don’t have a job.
Want to learn some home repair skills from YouTube handywomen? Yeah you do. Let’s watch together!
Oh, Talia. Relax. You came at just the right time. The best Emily for casual hookups is the slightly unhinged, heartbroken Emily who can open her own goddamn car door and will choke you with an empanada if you won’t just fucking put it on your mouth and eat it.
If we don’t abundantly love each other, we can’t have an abundant relationship with God. I must embrace an interpretation of my faith that requires unconditional love for queer people because any less would be to deny my own humanity and that of my community.
It’s hard to not have your humanity recognized by your own home, by your fellow Idahoans. And really, that’s all we want. We’re asking for so little, just the acknowledgement that we are human beings and that we deserve the same basic rights as everyone else.
Mey, our totally badass Trans Editor, testified before the Idaho House about HB2, which would add the words “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” to the state’s Human Rights Act.
Say their names: Lamia Beard. Ty Underwood. Goddess Edwards. May they rest in power.