(The blog formerly known as whotheflickistonks.)
🙄mysterious❤️just another human👤💗i will stab the devil
whenever I finally realize that one of my mutuals is a sideblog and that the random user that’s been liking my posts was my mutual all along I feel like bruce willis at the end of the sixth sense
Do we have a franz kafka diary entry for july 1st, i want to know what he thinks!!!
happy too tired July everyone
the way sesame street, a pbs puppet show for literal babies, is pressing on with pride content despite vitriolic monsters descending on every post to insinuate they're pedophiles or demons while some of the biggest companies on the planet who could swim in olympic swimming pools of money like scrooge mcduck on steroids buckle and cave just emphasizes how completely and utterly pathetic these corporations are. they'd butcher a baby if it meant saving a penny.
ALTwhere Starbucks and Target and Budweiser will be bullied into submission with the slightest push, puppets and people in your neighborhood stand tall
I want everyone to know that there are queers in the hollers of Appalachia, in the bayous and marshland of the Deep South, in Southwestern deserts, through the Ozark mountains and up to the Rockies. There are queers in the Great Plains, there are queers in rural America, in trailer parks of the Osage foothills. In the places you least expect us to live, we are here, carving out community and fighting for liberation with pride despite it all. Stop forgetting about us. Stop overlooking our experiences and our impact just because we don’t live in a Big Gay City. And for the love of God, stop looking at us with pity.
Also, there are ALLIES out here.
I live in a no-stoplight town in the south. There are three tractor stores and two animal supply stores within 25 minutes of my house, and we finally got a grocery store, apparently some time this year. We have no McDonald's or any other kind of chain restaurant.
I saw a redneck at the country store face down a guy whining about the trans menace and tell him to act like he had fuckin' southern manners, or move up north.
And that redneck was a better ally than most people online
queer existence is part of the human condition. queer people exist everywhere, in every community. queer people are part of LGBTQ history. and it's way too easy to overlook the experiences of queer folks who live in regions where, for one reason another, other people think they can't exist or don't belong. i fully think that everyone should read about the lived experiences of people outside of their origins. so. i have (America-focused) memoir and nonfiction recommendations!!!
Memoirs
Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place by Neema Avashia
Honor Girl by Maggie Thrash
Prairie Silence by Melanie Hoffert
Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer by Chely White
Saving Alex: When I Was Fifteen I Told My Mormon Parents I Was Gay, and That's When My Nightmare Began by Alex Cooper
How We Fight for Our Lives by Saaed Jones
Punch Me Up to the Gods by Brian Broome
¡Hola Papi!: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons by John Paul Brammer
Mama's Boy: A Story from Our Americas by Dustin Lance Black
Boys and Oil: Growing up Gay in a Fractured Land by Taylor Brorby
Diary of a Misfit by Casey Parks
General
Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States
Sweeter Voices Still: An LGBTQ Anthology from Middle America
Queering the Redneck Riviera: Sexuality and the Rise of Florida Touri
Men Like That: A Southern Queer History
A Night at the Sweet Gum Head: Drag, Drugs, Disco, and Atlanta's Gay Revolution
I’m actually serious about this, if at all possible, right now is a very good time to request queer books from your local library. Whether they get them or not is not in your control, but it is so important to show that there is a desire for queer books. I will also say getting more queer books in libraries and supporting queer authors are pretty fantastic byproducts of any action.
This isn’t something everyone can do, but please do see if you are one of the people who has the privilege to engage in this form of activism, and if you are, leverage that privilege for all you’re worth.
For anyone who can’t think of a queer book to request, here is a little list of some queer books that I think are underrated and might not be in circulation even at larger libraries:
Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown
Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco
Harvard’s Secret Court: The Savage 1920 Purge of Campus Homosexuals by William Wright
The Perks of Loving a Wallflower by Erica Ridley
God Themselves by Jae Nichelle
IRL by Tommy Pico
The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World’s Queer Frontiers by Mark Gevisser
Passing Strange by Ellen Klages
The New Queer Conscience by Adam Eli
Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir by Kai Cheng Thom
Queering the Tarot by Cassandra Snow
Wash Day Diaries by Jamila Rowser
Queer Magic: Lgbt+ Spirituality and Culture from Around the World by Tomás Prower
Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam
Beyond the Pale by Elana Dykewomon
Hi Honey, I’m Homo! by Matt Baume
The Secret Life of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
Kapaemahu by Dean Hamer, Joe Wilson, Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu
Sacrament of Bodies by Romeo Oriogun
Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt
Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman
Disintegrate/Dissociate by Arielle Twist
Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir by Akwaeke Emezi
Peaches and Honey by Imogen Markwell-Tweed
Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color by Christopher Soto
This year, on the 31 March, we lost Gilbert Baker, gay artist and creator of the gay pride flag. Today we would celebrate his 66th birthday. Let’s remember him as the wonderful person he was.
i just want to add to this post that the last update made to the official pride flag by Glibert Baker before he passed away was THIS:
the new lavender stripe at the very top was added to represent DIVERSITY and as far as i am aware, was added in retaliation against trump’s presidency. i’ve not seen many people use this version, and it deserves to be known.
being so fr when I say that transmisogyny has put feminism back like 50 years
what i thought we had distanced ourselves from was the reduction of women to vaginas and wombs and the ability to bear children. i thought we had progressed past ‘dresses are for women and pants are for men.’ i thought we progressed past the idea that someone is less of a woman if she does not adhere strictly to beauty standards. i thought we progressed past the idea that naturally being comfortable adhering to highly feminine standards is vulgar. but i (sarcastically) guess no one could have predicted that trans-exclusive feminism would be the downfall of all the progress we’ve made
In the midst of that amazing time in my life came the worst, and that was when my friends just started dropping dead. They were sick today and dead tomorrow. And when you would go to the hospital to look for you friend they would be out in the hallway on a gurney pushed up against a wall dying for help, dying for love, dying to be saved. And some of them with that sign on their gurney that said "do not touch". And they suffered, and people wanted to act like they weren't good people, kind people, wonderful people, somebody's son, somebody's daughter, somebody. // SHERYL LEE RALPH receiving the Human Rights Campaign's National Ally for Equality Award 2022. (x)
ID text–
Post by “Mike I Guess” @mike_i_guess:
The lack of boomer LGBTQ+ people isn’t because it’s “more popular now.” Many were murdered by their peers, died from government inaction during the AIDS crisis, committed suicide due to lack of social supports, or have had to live in the closet due to their peers’ cruelty.
“The men in white are the surviving members of the Original San Francisco Gay Men’s Choir. Those in black represent the members lost to AIDs. Remember this when people say the gay community survived the epidemic. We had to start over because we lost a whole generation.” (original post)
also the past was a very different world re: identity and openness
there may be plenty of LGBT boomers (and older people still) who grew up with a “don’t ask; don’t tell” mindset and thus aren’t OutTM to be recognized
Having lost my partner and many friends to this dreaded disease, I carry anger and depression in my heart for the years we were ignored.
Born in the late 40′s. It was dangerous to be anything but what people expected. You never came out. Then starting in the 70′s and 80′s, the devastating disaster of HIV, made slow, painful death and funerals all there was to life. No one cared. We are out here. Not really feeling that the danger has passed.
I’m watching that documentary “Before Stonewall” about gay history pre-1969, and uncovered something which I think is interesting.
The documentary includes a brief clip of a 1954 televised newscast about the rise of homosexuality. The host of the program interviewed psychologists, a police officer, and one “known homosexual”. The “known homosexual” is 22 years old. He identifies himself as Curtis White, which is a pseudonym; his name is actually Dale Olson.
So I tracked down the newscast. According to what I can find, Dale Olson may have been the first gay man to appear openly on television and defend his sexual orientation. He explains that there’s nothing wrong with him mentally and he’s never been arrested. When asked whether he’d take a cure if it existed, he says no. When asked whether his family knows he’s gay, he says that they didn’t up until tonight, but he guesses they’re going to find out, and he’ll probably be fired from his job as well. So of course the host is like …why are you doing this interview then? and Dale Olson, cool as cucumber pie, says “I think that this way I can be a little useful to someone besides myself.”
1954. 22 years old. Balls of pure titanium.
Despite the pseudonym, Dale’s boss did indeed recognize him from the TV program, and he was promptly fired the next day. He wrote into ONE magazine six months later to reassure readers that he had gotten a new job at a higher salary.
Curious about what became of him, I looked into his life a little further. It turns out that he ultimately became a very successful publicity agent. He promoted the Rocky movies and Superman. Not only that, but get this: Dale represented Rock Hudson, and he was the person who convinced him to disclose that he had AIDS! He wrote the statement Rock read. And as we know, Rock Hudson’s disclosure had a very significant effect on the national conversation about AIDS in the U.S.
It appears that no one has made the connection between Dale Olson the publicity agent instrumental in the AIDS debate and Dale Olson the 22-year-old first openly gay man on TV. So I thought I’d make it. For Pride month, an unsung gay hero.
