rrrrrrrrj

WHAT VANCOUVERYou have an accessible trans-inclusive body-positive swim group!!THIS IS ALL I EVER...

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 21:41:57 -0400

WHAT VANCOUVER

You have an accessible trans-inclusive body-positive swim group!!

THIS IS ALL I EVER WANT

kimyadawson: When Panda finished her polar bear presentation she said to her class “Now, if you...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 20:25:46 -0400

When Panda finished her polar bear presentation she said to her class “Now, if you want to, you can line up and hug me.” And they did.

I’m not reading another YA trilogy unless someone guarantees me no queer people die in the second act.

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 17:23:08 -0400

queerbookclub:

This post and its outgoing links probably contain some spoilers for: Divergent/Insurgent, Across the Universe/A Million Suns, Hunger Games/Catching Fire, Legend/Prodigy, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and more. Some of you may have already guessed the theme of this rant!

This post talks a lot about fictional dead queer people. If you’re sensitive to this, you may want to skip. I’m pretty mad and this may not be my best composition.

Remember that time I complained that there were no queers in the dystopian future? And remember that other time I complained that gay characters in fiction for youth are closeted and stoic and self-sacrificing and then die? And the other time I got really mad that Insurgent had the only queer character in its enormous cast thus far come out… on her literal goddamn death bed?

I’m thirty pages from finishing A Million Suns, the second in Beth Revis’ YA trilogy that starts with Across the Universe. A few chapters back, an important secondary character bit the dust, and - you know, I get it. We’re in the dystopian future, or on the ship run on lies, or whatever. Things are bleak, people are dying, that’s a theme.

But the similarities in timing between this death and the one I complained about in Insurgent are EERIE. The character doesn’t come out with her last breath, rather, her sexuality is implied - another woman gives her a tearful goodbye and kisses her corpse. I was complaining about it to my partner about it, and said, “Well, at least this other queer woman got to live.”
And he said, “You’re not finished the book yet, right? I’m just saying - she probably dies too.”

AND GUESS WHAT HAPPENED.

When I sat down to write this post, I googled spoilers for Prodigy on a goddamn hunch, the second in Marie Lu’s Legend series, and guess what it has! A RETCONNED DEAD GAY MAN.

I think I’m going to give up reading YA dystopian and genre trilogies unless someone guarantees me that no queer people die in the second act. Are YA dystopian authors realizing they initially imagined a future without LGBTQ people, and in their second books trying to squeeze them in? Are they killing them off to make their inclusion less controversial, or to make their stories more moving? These are legitimate questions. What the fuck is up with all the dead, secret queer people in YA genre fiction?

This isn’t a problem because queer people don’t or shouldn’t ever die in fiction. This is a problem because it is a pattern. An OLD pattern. An old, shitty, damaging pattern.

This is a problem because queer people don’t just have deaths, they have lives. They have histories, they have relationships, they have desires, they have stories. If the only way you can think to portray a queer character is to kill them off dramatically, or if the only way you can think to make a character death more dramatic is to reveal they were queer, please don’t. Don’t write queer characters! Don’t write queer characters if this is the limit of your imagination or your integrity.

When your queer characters don’t express their desires and histories, don’t enjoy their relationships, don’t have stories, don’t survive because they’re sacrificed for the growth of straight main characters, what the fuck are you showing non-queer people about queers, and queer people about themselves?

For YA genre books and series that don’t fall into this trope, check out Adaptation by Malinda Lo, The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare, and Diverse Energies, a collection of diverse dystopian YA stories edited by Tobias Buckell, which includes a handful of LGB protagonists and a trans secondary character.

Books made me really mad and I wrote this.

queerbookclub: thespiritwas: Donna Ostrowsky reading “The...

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 22:31:45 -0400

queerbookclub:

thespiritwas:

Donna Ostrowsky reading “The Queer Experiment” from Topside Press’ THE COLLECTION at Barnard College.

Today I learned my friend the prolific & brilliant Donna Ostrowsky passed away yesterday. We were going to see each other tomorrow. NYC has lost another brilliant trans woman. Rest in Power Donna.

I’m struggling with words. I only met Donna once, at The Collection release. I can’t make sense of her being gone, because it’s senseless. My heart is breaking for Donna and for her loved ones.

My haircut didn’t go quite how I wanted it to and...

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 23:31:00 -0400

My haircut didn’t go quite how I wanted it to and it’s sort of affecting my whole self image and I’m self-conscious all the time and also my right eye has hurt for hours BUT

I did buy this present for myself from an honest-to-goddess magic shop so that’s cool

johndarnielle: Yahoo’s Mayer: we’re committed to monetizing Tumblr | VentureBeat “Tumblr prides...

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 17:14:29 -0400

johndarnielle:

Yahoo’s Mayer: we’re committed to monetizing Tumblr | VentureBeat

“Tumblr prides itself on being a home for brands, established and emerging, we at Yahoo are all about brands,” Mayer said on the call.

not to be too too too cynical but I know all the people I follow on Tumblr and all the people who follow me are united in one thing and one thing only: their ravenous enthusiasm for brands. “I came for the sense of a new community, one with a keen feel for the visual but with a passion for language, too,” they say, “but it’s the brands that keep me here. Sweet Christ I love brands. Let the mountains collapse into dust and the oceans all boil, but give me brands,” they cry in the night. I personally remember, as a child, pleading with my parents to let me interface with my favorite brands. And interface we did. With the brands. The glorious, glorious brands

itsvondell: im a sleepy adult cat good job vondell

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 16:09:57 -0400

itsvondell:

im a sleepy adult cat

good job vondell

REAL MEN WEAR PINKREAL MEN ARE CATS

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 15:46:24 -0400

REAL MEN WEAR PINK

REAL MEN ARE CATS

topsidepress: The Collection: Short Fiction from the...

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 21:42:39 -0400

topsidepress:

The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard, has won the Lambda Award for Transgender Fiction!

do y’all remember LOL TO ALL?I forgot about it for a few months but Ian and I have been saying...

Thu, 30 May 2013 22:24:00 -0400

do y’all remember LOL TO ALL?

I forgot about it for a few months but Ian and I have been saying it since watching that all-dude Lou Dobbs Fox News “why women making money is terrible and liberals hate science because gender roles” video

LOL TO ALL
LOL TO ALL

queerbookclub: I pretty much always want to draw fanart of...

Wed, 29 May 2013 00:30:44 -0400

queerbookclub:

I pretty much always want to draw fanart of every book I read, but that’s really only conventional for fantasy. But to memory, Topside Press explicitly encouraged people to draw fanart for Nevada? So I did. I’ve been thinking about drawing this - Maria riding her bike in the rain - since I finished the book about a month ago.

I can’t actually remember if Maria wears glasses, and I can’t check because I’ve already loaned out my copy of Nevada, but she didn’t look right without them. Maria wears glasses in my head, I guess. I am probably not doing her cool denim jacket justice. Also, difficult to draw bike not pictured.

Anyway I’m going to go be embarrassed now because there’s definitely no way Imogen won’t see this haha hi nice book you have there friend

I have been insecure about the art lately but I made a thing

Yes this is me fishing for compliments bring them the shit on

jeez my sexy people posts are incredibly tame

Tue, 28 May 2013 12:16:37 -0400

jeez my sexy people posts are incredibly tame

buffyoutfits: dang. Just making a round of #sexy people posts...

Tue, 28 May 2013 12:02:46 -0400

buffyoutfits:

dang.

Just making a round of #sexy people posts in honor of the fact that my tumblr is apparently too titillating for Emma to access it from the Catholic school internet connection she’s got where she’s staying in Toronto

sourcedumal: masteradept: biryani-barbie: dorowhat: lesbianes...

Tue, 28 May 2013 12:00:32 -0400

sourcedumal:

masteradept:

biryani-barbie:

dorowhat:

lesbianese:

kinkyspaceprincess:

Pole dancing lsp

THE HOTTEST ONE

that dress!!!

everything about this cosplay is giving me life

SHUT THE ACTUAL FUCK UP THIS IS PERFECT

Can i have their babies?

Everybody go the fuck home. They win. They win the whole goddamn universe.

kateordie: I was just thinking about Ellen Page today.

Tue, 28 May 2013 11:57:28 -0400

kateordie:

I was just thinking about Ellen Page today.

iconsidermyself: Looking after this fluffy baby for the...

Mon, 27 May 2013 00:10:40 -0400

iconsidermyself:

Looking after this fluffy baby for the weekend.

!! I never saw this because I was away (obviously)! I love seeing pictures of my cat on other people’s blogs. Everyone should have pictures of my cat on their blogs.

diabolicalnerd replied to your post: Boy howdy as a person without Netflix I sure am… ...

Sun, 26 May 2013 14:09:41 -0400

diabolicalnerd replied to your post: Boy howdy as a person without Netflix I sure am…

now seems a good time to get a free trial to watch them all!

I hear you, but I really would prefer to watch them on my own time. I put off watching the first seasons for so long because they were so over-hyped by everyone I knew and I knew they wouldn’t live up to it. Everyone told me “yes they will!” which was not helpful. When I heard the new season was being made I took the old ones out of the library so I wouldn’t be behind the curve.

I watched the first season and 3/4 of the second and never bothered pursuing the rest. It’s an obviously well-crafted show, but I knew half of the jokes from the internet, and some of the humor was too uncomfortable and mean-spirited for me to get excited about watching the next episode.

So I don’t want to sign up for a free trial of a service I don’t want in order to marathon-watch the old episodes AND the new ones before the internet can tamper my enjoyment of them.

Anyway everyone enjoy your show, it’s cool that you thought it was gone and now it’s not, really, I’m just being whiny!

Boy howdy as a person without Netflix I sure am excited for a whole new slew of Arrested Development...

Sun, 26 May 2013 12:27:37 -0400

Boy howdy as a person without Netflix I sure am excited for a whole new slew of Arrested Development jokes to be run into the ground by the time I ever get a chance to watch them

brbnightmares: There are over 800 trans women in this...

Sat, 25 May 2013 20:06:00 -0400

brbnightmares:

There are over 800 trans women in this picture.

But you can’t see them.

They are underneath the active and intentional dialogue.

buxombibliophile: dead-rat-cafe: getouttaqueer: sad-queer: New business idea: cat nightclub. It...

Sat, 25 May 2013 00:42:51 -0400

buxombibliophile:

dead-rat-cafe:

getouttaqueer:

sad-queer:

New business idea: cat nightclub. It is a nightclub with several club cats. The music is not loud, so as not to scare the cats. No one dances. Everyone pets cats.

yes

yes

Somebody get this person some funding.

This is already kind of a thing

Which I say not to harsh your cat joy but to share information critical to bringing this business model to the States