I was walking on eggshells the whole time. Like I couldn’t be who I am — I’m not free to be myself. It feels like you’re cutting off your legs or your arms. It feels like you can’t be a whole person.
Veteran Oregonian politician Kate Brown on hiding her bisexuality when she began her career. Brown just became America’s first (openly) bisexual governor.
For those of us who were or are closeted and missed out the joys of summer camp crushes, school dances and sharing secrets with friends, A-Camp is a priceless, life changing event that should be replicated as much as possible so that more people find their tribe.
Cleo’s Campership changed everything. Get a queer in need to A-Camp 6 by donating one today!
Nobody doubted that Alice had killed Freda — the murder had occurred in broad daylight in public — but her lawyers needed to prove that she was insane in order to get her committed to an asylum rather than sentenced to death or life imprisonment. Their primary argument: any woman who could be in love with another woman was obviously insane for that reason alone.
This 1892 murderess was definitely insane. And by “insane,” we mean “gay.”
You’re discriminating against a baby? It’s just wrong.
Make someone this happy. Make yourself this happy! Donate an A-Camp Campership or apply for one today.
“I still get excited when you come in the door every night. It’s not new; it’s better.”
Heather’s Fosters 216 recap is full of emotional orgasms and feelings.
Gay districts are constructed as havens, as sanctuaries, as places where expression and identity can freely tumble forward in messy, drunken messes. But this glosses over the realities of those of us who are policed for not being gay enough or for being too queer, for dressing wrong, for looking wrong, for being wrong; this doesn’t confront the complexities of police and policing at the intersections of queerphobia, racism, sexism and classism. This picture simply moves on past the interruptions that unruly bodies present, the disruptions to social norms that gave rise to gaybourhoods in the first place. This picture prioritises comfort over challenge, compromising the promise of safety and welcome that these neighbourhoods are supposed to stand for for those of us who aren’t white cis gay men. Who are the ‘gays’ for whom gay districts are built (around)? Who gets to decide?
Forming and finding community can be terrifying, especially for those of us with multiple intersecting identities. There’s a lot at stake — so much to gain but just as much to lose. And so there’s a special feeling for being rejected by people who claim to be a part of you, and you a part of them. In white queer communities, I felt unseen. In this queer community of color, I felt seen but unheard. I felt that community had been discovered, claimed, conquered, owned. A new social hierarchy had arisen, and we called it separatism. A line had been drawn around it, a skyscraping metropolis built in the center, and I was on the outskirts, alone, pressed against the barbed border, not good enough, not brown enough, quiet again. In biological families, we are not bound by blood; in QPOC identities, we are not bound by flesh. Shared identities do not make us one. At best, they make us “other,” together. And that’s where we were then. Was this community? Is this what was missing? I sat in the audience, surrounded by strangers or friends.
It’s time for Episode 2 of the A+ Podcast, and this month we’re talking about pop culture! Tune in to hear us diss Criminal Minds and Once Upon a Time, try to figure out what’s happening in the new Star Wars movie, and invent the perfect board game for Taylor Swift and Lena Dunham’s next feminist sleepover.
Trans women are targeted because we exist at vulnerable intersections of race, gender and class. My sisters are vulnerable because no one movement has ever centered the bodies, lives and experiences of these women, except for the severely underfunded, largely volunteer-staffed work of organizations run by and for our communities…
