At Last...

He and his husband are both in the Navy. He was quoted as saying this has been a "really, really big year for them."

I just found out that Etta James's "At Last" was the first dance song at the wedding reception following Seattle's first day of marriage equality, wherein 138 same-sex couples said their vows, exchanged their rings, and sometimes debated who was taking whose last name, and I am in literal tears.

Filed under things that will never make sense to me

Reblogged from Tudo Bom(b)

*cross-filed under Things I Can't Believe Still Happened in My Lifetime and Things Future Generations will Judge us For 

I have evidently met and even explained Quad-rules beirut to a bisexual soldier who is against the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. I regret having shared such sacred knowledge with him.  

Maybe this helps to explain why I so thoroughly detest the phrase "on the down low"

It is a myth. There is no secret cult of Black men spreading AIDS among the community intentionally because they operate publicly as straight and have loads of random unprotected sex. 

I find it interesting that when talking about non-Black gay men who promote themselves as straight, the language is much more sympathetic. They are ‘in the closet’, ‘closeted’, and it is understood that this is because their lives and livelihoods might be at risk. 

But when talking about Black men, they are villainous, dishonest, spreading fatal diseases while searching for yet another sexual conquest. And this is a secret club of them doing this with hand signs and secret meeting rooms. 

The hypocrisy kills me.

--daughterofassata

(via Choosing Pancakes) 

Not gonna lie; I teared up a little.

LGBT Youth Homelessness Infographic

Marriage equality photoset

(reblogged from Indie. Radiant.)

I finally saw Pariah!

I didn't tell you all about it earlier because I saw it the weekend before my thesis was due and then I kind of forgot all about wanting to write this post until right now.

I really, really liked it. First off, it was kind of amazing to see it on campus with a large group of LGBT and ally-identified students. It created this alternative sort of social space within this quaint little theater right off campus where it was totally normal for me to be snuggled up with and lightly fondling CC throughout the show. It felt "normal" to hold her hand or run my fingers up and down her thigh as we watched (not that heterosexuality is any more "normal" than any other form of human sexuality--it's just more common). I'm not sure I had ever before been in a space where I was surrounded by more non-straight-identified people than straight-identified people, at least consciously, and it made me want to seek out such spaces more often.

I was drawn in to the movie from the beginning. The characters felt refreshingly real. They seemed like actual people I could know in the world, which has happened so rarely for me with "Black movies" recently. Alike was the perfect combination of vulnerable and determined, cautious and exploratory--watching her come into her own sexuality and style and identity reminded me of my own struggles, even though they're not the same in the slightest. I don't think it was hard for viewers to identify with her, above simply sympathizing with her. I saw the relationships as realistic, if painful. I laughed, I cried, I wanted to punch bitches in the face, I wanted to give the characters hugs. 

...But my friend MH compared it to Precious, an independent Black film which I absolutely detest. (More on that here if you're interested.) And this has made me step back and critically examine my interpretation of the film, because the comparison is not unwarranted. From an objective standpoint, this is a film about a specific marginalized Black female experience directed towards a largely outsider audience which conforms to various stereotypes of the African experience (homophobia, strict parenting, domestic violence, infidelity among men) and ends with the main character rejecting normative structures in favor of a brand of radical independence which she may or may not survive. It may not feature as many horrible life experiences or as thorough subjugation on the part of the main character, but the film is structurally quite similar to that of Precious. So how could I interpret them so differently?

Perhaps I need to check my privilege. I'm both closer to and farther removed from the specifics of this story in some interesting ways. Wrestling with my own sexuality, check. Putting all of myself into a first romantic encounter only to be told my supposed partner "isn't ready," check. Little sister coming to sleep in my bed when the parents are screaming at each other in the middle of the night, check. But my heart broke when this teenage girl came out to her very unaccepting parents, and part of that heartbreak was thinking that I will never go through what she's going through in that scene. I'm about 95% sure that my attraction to women is something my parents will never know about, unless I find myself in a serious long-term relationship with a woman, which doesn't seem likely at this point in my life. For right now, at least, that aspect of my life isn't such a large aspect of my life that they need to know about it. In fact, as I didn't come into this aspect of myself until semi-adulthood, I could feasibly never tell them, even if I do get into a relationship with a woman, because they're not overseeing my life like that anymore. They don't get to question/control me like that anymore. 

And then on an entirely other level, the stereotypes in this film aren't stereotypes that people would put on me. In fact, I didn't really even recognize them as stereotypes to begin with. They aligned so well with my interpretation of African cultures and intolerances that I didn't question...and that worries me. So I guess I'm wondering how that in-group received this movie, and whether I should be less quick to love it. Which then makes me wonder if I should be less quick to judge all the people who loved Precious. Also, the juxtaposition of the terms "Precious" and "Pariah," which have basically opposite meanings, to represent these characters with similar lives fascinates me. There's some critical commentary there that someone should unpack...

Maryland officially legalized same-sex marriages today. Meanwhile, the governor of St. Petersburg wants to make it illegal to read, write, or say the word "gay".

A number of my friends are of the opinion that I need to become less US-centered. Thus, I bring these two pieces of news into conversation with one another and urge you to sign this petition to let the governor of St. Petersburg know that potential tourists won't stand for this.

I support LGBTQQI rights and marriage equality to the core of the core of my being.

Call me controversial (please, it would make me happy), but I honestly don't understand how I, as a Black person, could think otherwise. Well, okay, I don't understand how anyone as a human could feel otherwise, but that's beside the point. 

Monday was Martin Luther King Day, and I didn't post anything mainly because it was the day before all final papers were do and I was writing my heart out about Awkward Black Girl, but also because my feelings on him and his day haven't really changed since last year's post.

So, even if it's a few days late, what I want to say is this: our people and our allies in other communities dedicated (and dedicate, present-tense) their lives to ensuring that we would not be classified as "second class citizens," as lesser than anyone else on the basis of something as artificial as race, and that we wouldn't be subjected to the oxymoronic (is that a word?) standard of "separate, but equal." We know that separate is inherently unequal. It's the basis for life as we know it today. 

So how can we have the audacity to have demanded such rights and recognitions for ourselves and to work towards or even wish for the exact same rights and recognitions to be denied to others on the basis of their sexual orientation? Anyone who cries that race is a social construction must also recognize that normative conceptualizations of sexuality are just as socially constructed. 

So if you want to live the words of King and other civil rights leaders this week, next month, and in your daily life, watch this video. Cry like I did. And do. the. right. thing. Support marriage equality. Support non-discriminatory citizenship. Support love and family and justice.



 

I wanted to tweet this, but it's too long,

and editing it in any way would be doing VIOLENCE.

"I'm so SICK of being made invisible by people. Can't be black and queer. Can't be black and female. Can't be black and non-religious. Like, what the fuck? I need some of y'all to have a fucking seat." 

--A commenter on this post

Reblogged from  Quirky Black Girls  

I would like to find the person who wrote this and hug them. Repeatedly. (But only with their consent, of course.) 

I'm going to DC!

Not sure exactly when yet, but I got an email from a woman I had a phone interview with before Christmas for this awesome-sounding Survey Associate position at one of the country's leading policy research centers asking my availability during the month of January to come to DC for an in-person interview! I'm trying to be as conveniently flexible as possible, so I basically gave her every day that I'm on campus in January besides Dean's Date, the day before Dean's Date, and the day before my last take-home is due. And I was sitting at my computer wondering how to get to DC (I'm thinking NJTransit to Trenton, Septa to Philly, Amtrak to DC--they'll reimburse me) when I realized that DC is a major city. So major a city, in fact, that Pariah might be playing there.

So I went to check the website and YES! It opens in exactly one theater in DC this Friday. So I'm basically buying a ticket as soon as my interviewer nails down a date. Maybe I'll even contact a few of my friends who live in DC and make an adventure out of it. 

I'm BEYOND excited for the chance to interview and the opportunity to see Pariah, because it will certainly never open in Mays Landing. I could potentially try to pull all sorts of Princetonian strings (the Women's Center, LGBT Center, Af-Am Studies program, Gender and Sexuality dept, Carl A. Fields Center for Diversity and Multicultural Understanding, etc.) to organize a trip to NYC to still it, but...hmm, actually, no buts. I might still try to do that, haha! 

And for those of you who don't know what I'm referring to, check out the trailer below. It's a feature film based on an independent Black film that won all kinds of awards at Sundance in 2007, about a young Black lesbian coming of age in Brooklyn, and I've been itching to see it since I first starting reading about the short film AGES ago.  These are the stories of Black America that I want to start hearing more and more about. These are the voices that have been silenced.

Trailer:

 

L.O.V.E.

That's what the fight for marriage equality is about. Everything else is just a fringe benefit. The important thing is to recognize and validate love and commitment wherever they come in this world full of false starts and not-so-happy endings.

This ad actually made me tear up a little. 

It's National Coming Out Day

and so I've decided to call your attention to a change I recently made to the description up at the top of this thing that very few (if any) of you probably even noticed: I added the only really extant in certain social circles red-squiggly-underlined term "heteroflexible." 

I think I've mentioned my overall disaffection for labels before, but in case you've forgotten, in my humble opinion, people are incredibly complex and sophisticated individuals, and we simply don't lend ourselves to be put into boxes well. As more and more social barriers start to break down, identity is becoming a much more amorphous structure than it has been in the past, and a lot of us have trouble checking little boxes on forms as a result.

Gender is an easy box for me: I am decidedly female if not always decidedly feminine. I check Black/African-American on race-related boxes, because that's how I identify, but sometimes I wonder if I should check multiracial when that's an option, because it's technically the truth, but only in the way that it's the truth for all people who share my historical background. Household income boxes will probably start to confuse me in the near future, because when do I start counting myself as a household of one rather than a member of my mother's household? (I probably should already, given that she doesn't claim me as a dependent on her taxes. Oops.)

Recently, the hardest box for me to check has been Sexual Orientation. The options are generally Straight/Heterosexual, Gay/Lesbian/Homosexual, and Bisexual, though more progressive forms give lots more options (Pansexual, Asexual, Queer, Questioning, Polyamorous, etc.). I feel sort of homeless when presented with only the main three options--none of those really describe quite how I feel regarding sexuality and who I'd be open to having sexytime with. 

A test I took on OkCupid that most likely has little to no scientific bearing told me I have a "straight preference." An ex from high school, who was bi and was the first person to encourage me to really explore my sexual identity, decided I'm "dickly but not strictly." (I still really like that phrase.) The way I see it, at least at this point of my life when I haven't been exposed to anything else, I am interested almost entirely in relationships with men. I'm just also not at all opposed to relations with women. I'm certainly not going to run away screaming from such a prospect were it to arise. I'm not even gonna front, I'm still pretty upset that my almost-threesome never happened (though the spontaneous consolation prize was quite enjoyable), because I was really anticipating the space to test that part of myself out. I'm...open. And I'd like the chance to act on that openness. But that doesn't sound like bisexuality to me; being bi means being equally attracted to men and women to the point where you want to pursue relationships with persons of either gender. As I get more in touch with myself and what I want, there's a chance that could someday describe me, but it doesn't now. 

Basically, I love me some men, but I'm open to experimentation. I hope that doesn't sound like I'm planning to use anyone. K says it just sounds like I'm greedy--though he wasn't that kind--and maybe that's also true. But hey, I like pleasure. I like giving it and receiving it and there's no real way you can make that sound like a bad thing to me.

So, heteroflexible. On forms that have an other, I write this in. On others, I check both Heterosexual and Questioning when possible. If I only get one choice and Queer is an option, I pick that, though I don't think I'm mature enough for a Queer identity yet--it seems so grown. And on particularly conservative forms where I'm only given the first three options, I begrudgingly pick straight because it seems more appropriate than bi...it just also doesn't seem like it fits. A female friend of mine surprised me by agreeing with these same sentiments in a conversation we were having about how exclusionary the word "straight" feels with a straight male friend and a gay male friend at our eating club the other day. It made me wonder how many other people feel they're at fuzzily defined points on the spectrum. 

Reblogged from Black Youth Project

Love you, love who you love, and don't let the type of human someone else loves affect your love for them. That's the whole point of today/this week/life in general, man.