390 posts tagged with queer.
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"half-remembered and half-created, neither real nor ideal"
Andrew was convinced the writer had been trans. By this point his friends were tired of hearing about it, but he had no one else to tell besides the internet, and he was too smart for that. That would be asking for it. B. Pladek's new short fantasy story "The Spindle of Necessity" (published in the May 20th, 2024 issue of Strange Horizons) is a captivating, closely-observed story of longing, literary connection, insecurity, queer community, and how we make use of the past. I think this will resonate with a lot of readers who wrestle with questions about representation and what used to be called #OwnVoices in fiction, and mixed feelings about art we love. [more inside]
“Are you a gay Republican or a Republican gay?”
Interviews with the author of Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right, Neil J. Young, on the podcast Conspirituality & at the Culture Study newsletter: The handful of lesbian Republicans contended that supporting reproductive freedom was consistent with gay Republicans’ belief in personal autonomy and limited government, “when we say the government should stay out of our wallets and out of our bedrooms, this is what that means!” However, even though a slight majority of Log Cabin members consistently called themselves pro-choice, more didn’t want the organization to take a public position because they thought that abortion wasn’t a “gay issue.” [more inside]
... will shock you
a webcomic by max graves. tumblr softboy cancelled for involvement in "heavenly creatures" style murder. darkly hilarious exploration of internet fame, isolation, transness and trauma. goes deep into various kinds of internet damage. really can't recommend this enough. [more inside]
Have You Eaten?
"The thesis of HAVE YOU EATEN, at the start, was "here's how community actually works," & in the process of making this thing happen, I've felt it in my bones. We show up for each other & frustrate each other & make things together & let each other down & mend each other's hearts. We feed each other." Author Sarah Gailey wrote a 4-part novella at Reactor (fka tordotcom) about queer community in a too-possible future USA. [more inside]
Ghosting
"Ghosting" by Kelly Lagor (2023) is an uncomfortable science fiction novella involving reinvention, memory, betrayal, drugs, sex, and a drier, hotter Southern California. She thought of her trunk, covered in stickers from places she could only confirm she’d been to by looking at entries she had no memory of putting in her diary. But these people were fellow like-minded misfits. They felt like a kind of home. She didn’t want to lie. Author's commentary.
You know that it's the best of Cheapos
Everyone's favorite queer YouTube Marxist media analyst Alexander Avila looks back at the career of recent Grammy winner Miley Cyrus and her alter egos Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana in his video Hannah Montana's Guide to Life Under Capitalism [1h26m] And there's a LOT he will pull out of this series, and I found it all worthwhile. One small note: automated voices of famous people are used to read passages of text, and it can be a bit jarring.
Non-binary Oklahoma student dies after school fight
16-year old Nex Benedict died on February 8th (wiki), a day after being beaten unconscious by 3 other students in their Owasso High School bathroom. [more inside]
Listing was definitely a symptom of patriarchy.
Genevieve Hudson: "I was not feminine enough to have an eating disorder, I told myself."
Content warning for disordered eating and body dysmorphia.
I eat no muffin with my coffee. I drink no milk. I pull a tough hat over short hair. I scribble lines of tough ink over tough skin. I see thin, nonbinary bodies that have sprouted wings.
Content warning for disordered eating and body dysmorphia.
I eat no muffin with my coffee. I drink no milk. I pull a tough hat over short hair. I scribble lines of tough ink over tough skin. I see thin, nonbinary bodies that have sprouted wings.
You Got to Hold On
Since their earliest days playing record store gigs, the Alabama Shakes have been an absolutely holy-shit powerhouse of rock'n'roll soul.
But for all their collective skill, the true genius of the band was always frontwoman Brittany Howard -- a former cashier and postal worker-turned-generational talent whose electrifying voice, lyrical verve, eclectic tastes, and directorial eye drove the band's rapid musical evolution, from the anthemic southern roots rock of 2012's Boys & Girls to the cinematic groove, kaleidoscopic funk and eerie psychedelia (bordering on spiritual experience) that was 2015's Sound & Color.
And beyond: after a hiatus, Howard went solo to work on her debut effort Jaime (2019), a heartbreaking and deeply personal record inspired by her late sister and her own experience growing up as a queer, mixed-race woman in the Deep South.
Now, after brief forays into multiple side projects, jamming with Prince [audio] and Paul McCartney, an immaculate piano duet with Herbie Hancock at the Kennedy Center, and a delightful music video (starring pal Terry Crews, her dad, and a whole swath of her hometown), Howard has surprised fans with a second solo album, starting with the lead single: "What Now." Haven't heard enough about these fantastic albums? Well, bless your heart, there's [more inside]
Let's say gay!
With Hillsborough County Public Schools only allowing excerpts of Shakespeare's plays in Florida classes due to "Don't Say Gay" and other rightwing laws, I thought it was time for us to loudly say gay and check out some 2023 books with LGBTQ+ themes! [more inside]
Disabled Creatives in Comics: Interview with Tee Franklin
Funny, smart and far-ranging interview with the creator of Sun-Spider and #BlackComicsMonth and much more on disability (plus!) visibility in comics. "I’ve always loved comics. Like my villain origin story is me basically blackmailing my older cousin who had his little girlfriend come over, and he was supposed to have been watching me, but since he chose to pay more attention to her, I was like “Give me comics and I won’t snitch.” [laughs], and that’s my introduction into comics." (Podcast available as well, interview by Carolyn Hinds)
“Flowering dogwood trees are bisexual... Like us.”
The “Unhinged Bisexual Woman” Novel is a critical review of the novels Big Swiss and Milk Fed and the hetereo-gaze in certain #sapphicbooks" in the socialist feminist glossy Lux Magazine. Writes Emma Copley Eisenberg: "The queer relationships in these books are plot devices meant not to say anything new about queer love or intimacy but meant rather to pit the bisexual or straight-proximate characters against themselves." Referenced in the article is a more hopeful write-up on the sapphic literature trend in 2022. Eisenberg previously on MeFi.
Straight men do not deserve nice hair.
It's been a long difficult week. Do you need to laugh? Matteo Lane: Hair Plugs & Heartache [47m] is a stand-up set released last month. It's queer comedy with adult ideas and language. It's also, I think, very very funny.
“I just wanted to make food,” Lou said.
"Please be informed, the notification read, that your business, the Sunlight Cafe, has been designated a Moderately Impactful Business. This replaces your current designation as a Negligibly Impactful Business. The Moderately Impactful Business designation comes with increased governance requirements which are listed below. Note that our decision may be appealed and is considered probationary until the appeals process is complete." In the short scifi story "Sunlight" by Shauna Gordon-McKeon, one woman loves that the little café she runs with her wife has become a community space. But her wife doesn't. [Disclaimer: Shauna is a friend.]
“A visionary novelist and a revolutionary chronicler of gay life”
I got to know a man willing to discuss nearly anything but his own literary significance. Openly sharing the most intimate minutiae of his life—finances, hookup apps, Depends—he recoiled with Victorian modesty whenever I asked why he’d written his books or what they meant to his readers. “I write, I don’t speculate about what I’m writing,” he reminded me a bit sharply after an interpretative question. For Delany, decency entails remembering that the author is dead even when he’s sitting across the table.–How Samuel R. Delany Reimagined Sci-Fi, Sex, and the City by Julian Lucas.
Happy Pride! 10 Facts About the History of LGBTQIA+ Pride Month
Mental floss - 10 Facts About the History of LGBTQ Pride Month "This year marks the 52nd anniversary of the first gay Pride march, which was held on the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots. Read on for the history of Pride Month and LGBTQ activism in the United States." - Mental floss [more inside]
The American Boy
Letters exchanged with Mary Renault are the start of an essay looking back on Renault's writing and her 'American boy', Daniel Mendelsohn who traces thoughtfully and tenderly what the gay relationships in her books meant to him as a reader, writer and friend by correspondence.
100+ Years of Yuri
Okazu is the internet's longest-running blog devoted to the study and review of yuri, a genre of manga and anime featuring romances between women and girls. Run by noted yuri expert and historian Erica Friedman, Okazu features loads of reviews ranging from recent series to untranslated classics. There are also essays galore. And if you're new to yuri, you can also find recommendations on where to start.
it's never been easy but societal growth and progress can and does occur
Being a Gay Game Developer [YouTube] “To all of my fellow members of the LGBTQ+ community, happy Pride. Being queer these days is a whirlwind of emotions, some very positive and hopeful, and others not so much. Our history is one of courage and struggle, a struggle that continues today. And in this fight, it’s essential to learn from the experiences of our queer elders, both to learn what has changed, and what work remains. One such elder is legendary game designer Tim Cain, who has recently published a video discussing his many years in the game industry as a gay man, and his journey from closeted life to being out to the world. Perhaps best known as the creator of the original Fallout games in the 1990s, Tim Cain has had a storied career in the games industry. [...] Though he knew from a young age that he was gay, Cain stayed in the closet for many years, only coming out in the 2000s after The Temple of Elemental Evil. In a recent YouTube video, he documented that journey from closeted to visible.” [via: Kotaku]
For many, Link is gay or trans or both, and that’s a powerful thing
Link is a gay icon, and Zelda fans know it [Polygon] “The Legend of Zelda’s beloved and iconic protagonist, Link, is tagged in more than 17,000 pieces of fanfiction on Archive of Our Own. Among those stories, more than 300 are tagged with “Trans Link,” and nearly 2,000 feature Link in a romantic relationship with Prince Sidon (or Ganondorf, for the enemies-to-lovers fans). AO3 may not be the only metric for how many Zelda fans interpret Link as gay and/or transgender, but it’s one of the biggest. This is no surprise, as fans have been speculating on Link’s gender and sexuality since at least 2009, though realistically he’s been on the minds of queer players since The Legend of Zelda was first released in Japan in 1986.” [more inside]
It can't rain all the time
Author Jordan Kurella writes about The Crow: Two movies released when I was eighteen years old. One was The Crow, and the other was Pulp Fiction. One changed my life; the other was by Quentin Tarantino. [more inside]
The natural destination of poor editorial judgment is the court of law.
"We write to you as a collective of New York Times contributors with serious concerns about editorial bias in the newspaper’s reporting on transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people." An open letter to the New York Times.
How to dismantle an everything bagel
In celebration of little indie film Everything Everywhere All At Once receiving 11 Oscar nominations, YouTube queer media analyst and commentator James Somerton takes his usual deep dive into the movie. The Queer Nihilism Of Joy (31m) is a journey through confusion and nihilism and into joy. Queer joy.
It isn’t a universe unto itself where we get to live unencumbered.
¡Hola Papi! (aka J.P. Brammer) offers a meditation on "the gay bar."
But sometimes, after spending too much time outside of one, I get that familiar urge for an overpriced well drink and shitty pop music, for the sharp, judgy, lustful glances of faggots, for the near-darkness and the sticky floors and the people who, while not in perfect accord, have at least resolved to find each other.
Something wicked this way comes: Qatar World Cup
The World Cup is the world’s most-watched sports event, with the last one held in Russia in 2018 attracting 3.6 billion television and online viewers. The next World Cup begins in Qatar on 20 November. As noted by Sky News: Qatar won the bid for the 2022 Men's World Cup over the USA by 14 votes to eight. But given the country's strict Islamic laws, its questionable human rights record, and searing temperatures, there were immediate corruption concerns over the decision. Soon after, FIFA commissioned its own investigation into Qatar's methods, which found "no evidence of any improper activity by the bid team". [more inside]
My Octopus Girlfriend: On erotophobia
Are octopuses floods, or are they reservoirs? Are they two-thirds water, like us, or do they explode the body–environment boundary? To be in the (even virtual) presence of an octopus is closely akin to an acid trip, I feel: a hot flood, a visitation of humility, of xenohospitable love, divine trust, comradely fearlessness. [more inside]
Music video & album releases filled my otherwise empty calendar
K-Pop in the time of Covid, an appreciation zine by comics artist Maia Kobabe (author of Gender Queer). E also drew every outfit e wore to K-pop shows.
Makes all her previous albums look like a pair of khaki shorts
A List of Things Less Gay Than Beyoncé’s Renaissance.
4. The Drag Race All Stars 7 Finale
7. Rainbow Streets and Crosswalks
9. The City of San Francisco as It Exists Today
[more inside]
4. The Drag Race All Stars 7 Finale
7. Rainbow Streets and Crosswalks
9. The City of San Francisco as It Exists Today
[more inside]
Queer YA books are selling in record numbers despite bans targeting them
Salman Toor
Lahore born, NYC based, Salman Toor is quickly becoming one of the most recognizable painters working today. Recently profiled in The New Yorker, Salman Toor is not just having a moment but a long series of them. [more inside]
Radical Desire
On Our Backs magazine launched in San Francisco in 1984 promising, per the tagline on the cover, “entertainment for the adventurous lesbian.”... This exhibition presents original photographs created for On Our Backs during its first decade.
Outlaw Queer Documentaries
Two very contrasting stories of queer persecution around the globe: Invisible Men (2012) [1h6m] looks at the lives of gay Palestinian men living illegally in Israel to avoid persecution from their families. Proud And Unafraid (2021) [28m] has four outspoken queer individuals speaking from Lagos, Nigeria about their experience with the outlawing of any public display of LGBTQ+ existence in public life.
"with this sign for beautiful, there is no objection"
Rogan Shannon is a queer deaf guy who makes YouTube videos about a lot of different topics. This video (turn captions on, it's silent) discusses the creation and evolution of signs for trans people and topics in ASL. It's a few years old and he's updated some of the terms in this video and gone a little more into some of the history of the ASL word for trans (blog post, video). This video by Britton, a non-binary trans person (no captions, read transcript below) talks about the use of the sign for trans within the trans Deaf community. Rogan has also made a video and blog post about queer signs in other countries.
“Jonah told me that he could talk to ghosts.”
Jonah disappeared in the early 2000s. When I say disappeared, I mean vanished: No sightings, no social media, no work history, no criminal record, no glimpses of him in the background of a party photo. His family went to great lengths to find him; they found nothing. I have been searching for the past five years, on and off; what I haven’t tried, they tried first.Rage USA is an essay by Jude Doyle about their high school friend who vanished, and what it’s like to live and grow up queer in the US, and is a part of their Twelve Genders, Full Moon Mixtape series.
Crip ecologies, crip time, crip ingenuity, crip spirit
"Crip ecologies, crip time, crip ingenuity, crip spirit radically aim to question root systems that keep our imaginations limited and starved. How can we channel joy within our own skins before there is the stethoscope, the specialist’s jackhammered interrogation, before all the stigma we battle? I am not asking to look beyond it, because these constraints in our beings are here and ever-present. I am asking, as poets, as curious people who want liberation, how do we revel in the grief and also the growth we experience? In what ways does this unpack how we are taught to perceive place and nature?...I cannot discuss just the maroon autumnal leaves of a forest in a poem. You see, for every invitation of publication, every event, in-person and virtual, every residency in the middle of oak trees, there’s a script I have to bring along with me. I am, by default, an unpaid teacher, training: Yes, Disabled and Sick people exist, do in fact care about poetry, but they can’t access the flyer without a description, can’t get to the building because of all the stairs, can’t witness the poetry because there are no ASL interpreters or captions." Kay Ulanday Barrett on poetry, accesabilty, disability & intersectionality.
Queer Games Bundle 2022
"Purchasing the Queer Games Bundle [Pay what you can edition] is a direct action that you can take right now to support queer people in a life changing way and in exchange you get over 500 amazing, heartfelt, fun, and radical games. " [more inside]
"I cannot believe we are STILL having these conversations."
Can asexuals be part of pride? Who decides? (Single link S. Bear Bergman). Queer identity may sometimes be about who we might be fucking at the moment, or have done in the past, but it is also about our politics, our place of resistance to the forces of compulsory heterosexuality and all the other pieces of the privilege puzzle that come with it. And you, who are doing the thing with vigor professionally and in your spare time, are definitely not the person I think should be quietly excusing yourself from a dry spot under the rainbow umbrella, if you will.
"we stand for Mourner's Kaddish for 11 months after someone has passed"
"This is a love letter to my friends and community. Please stay. You matter." "Mourners' Kaddish" is a song by musician Fureigh (disclaimer: a friend of mine) in the context of suicidality among transgender people. "my friend / I hope you know you’re dear / I’d rather celebrate you while you’re here."
"my piece explored the hilarity potential of wearing contact lenses."
The late comics artist Howard Cruse (previously) was the author of the groundbreaking gay comic strip series Wendel (a sample, "Shopping for Corn Flakes", and more strips). His site has a multipage illustrated autobiography including early sketches and gently self-deprecating humor.
The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories Of The Dirty Computer
Let's get intersectional with the reviews of Janelle Monáe's new book of afrofuturist queer short stories, The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories Of The Dirty Computer. NPR is pretty down the middle (as expected) [article with listen link]. But a work like this, we also have the lens of Ebony, which looks at race and afrofuturism and hope. D.C.'s Metro Weekly has a rainbow prism that brings forward LGBTQ+ themes. And WaPo headlines a half-hour interview with the author herself leading with Race, but there's more going on there.. Also, an article with highlights and transcripts of that interview. If you hurry, you might see her book tour. [more inside]
Trans people talking about state level anti Trans efforts in the US
There are between 238 and 280 anti LGBTQ+ bills filed this year, mostly targeting trans people, particularly trans youth, and this doesn't include measures like the the recent anti trans youth directive from Texas Gov. Greg Abbot. There are between one and three million transgender and non cisgendered people in the US. Here are a three of us, talking about how this unprecedented government onslaught threatens our lives. [more inside]
don't say gay
House bill 1557, aka the Parental Rights in Education bill, otherwise known as the "Don't Say Gay" bill, passed the Florida Senate today. This bill "prohibits classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels [kindergarten through grade 3]" and would allow parents to sue schools or teachers who engage in these topics. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has expressed support for the bill. Students in Florida have participated in walkouts and demonstrations to protest it. Meanwhile, Disney CEO Bob Chapek has not explicitly spoken out against the bill, generating backlash from Disney employees and supporters.
What has been won; what has been lost?
Stone Butch Blues, Leslie Feinberg’s 1993 first novel, is widely considered in and outside the U.S. to be a groundbreaking work about the complexities of gender. Feinberg was the first theorist to advance a Marxist concept of “transgender liberation.” The book is available in its entirety for free as a PDF on Feinberg's website. [Direct PDF link] [more inside]
o p u l e n c e
A languid barely-chat with Octavia St Laurent as Michael Alsando does her hair for Jack Mizrahi's Legends Ball in 2005: Part 1 | Part 2 [more inside]
The Outs
Both seasons of the critically-acclaimed queer web series The Outs are now free to watch. [more inside]
Queer fiction for 2022
Andrea Gibson - The Year of No Grudges
Some sound advice I give myself like twice an hour/“Wear kneepads on the way to your ego, Andrea,”/being right is boring/comforts only the tiniest parts of us/ [...] I love you/because we both showed up to kindness tryouts/with notes from the school nurse that said we were too hurt to participate/but we learned how wrong we were/and weren’t those the best days?/the days we learned how wrong we were/and so got to grow into our own goodness [more inside]
"You’ve got to get out clean when the mission’s over."
"The lieutenant is not stupid; she is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, so I’ll have to be extra careful about how I rewire this security door panel so she doesn’t notice I’ve inserted something that shouldn’t be there, a tiny chip that someone from outside can activate to open the door without triggering any of the ship’s notification systems." "How to Defeat Gravity and Achieve Escape Velocity" by Miyuki Jane Pinckard (published this year) is a short science fiction story involving a crush, sabotage, abandoned asteroid miners, and a heist or two nested within a scheme. [more inside]
A Strange Loop
A gay black man working as an usher on Broadway is writing a musical about a gay black man working as an usher on Broadway who is writing a musical about a gay black man working a an usher on Broadway writing a musical. This recursion forms the basis for A Strange Loop [Wikipedia, trailer, 2m30s], a musical that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama [Pulitzer.org] but only just NOW is headed to Broadway thanks to COVID [NPR, article with listen link]. Here is the Original Cast Album [YouTube playlist]. [more inside]
"None of it was here before, and time is short."
"I load up the interface, drilling straight down to the zygote’s chromosomal level. Hayden’s been a bit careless, like he always is on the rare occasions he actually gets in the wet lab. I get to work, fixing his mistakes." "Best for Baby" by Rivqa Rafael takes us into an unusual workday for a geneticist fixing a mess under time pressure -- and under a pressure she had not expected. [more inside]