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Kristen | agender (they•she) | Floridian | Bi | 30 | heart full head empty

[crocanti]

[dogpuppy]

[nickyandmikey]

when two musicians sing into the same microphone and lean in very close to each other… like omg are you guys gonna kiss now to relieve the homoerotic tension?😳

[nickyandmikey]

THIS IS NOT ABOUT ONE DIRECTION I DON’T KNOW WHO THIS “HARRY” PERSON IS GO WATCH BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND CLARENCE CLEMONS KISS ON STAGE RIGHT NOW

[irrelevantlyvalid]

op is the only valid person i’ve ever met. everyone else needs to come to the light

[chokolattejedi]

Okay, but this is really important: Bruce Springsteen occupied this really weird place in music history. His songs were all from this pessimistic, nihilistic view of an America that had let him down:

Just like the anti-Vietnam War protest songs that we associate with the 1960s, or the early nihilism that spawned punk music in the 1970s. But he didn’t *sound* like a punk anarchist; he sounded like a country rock singer. When he released Born in the U.S.A. people completely misinterpreted (or possibly ignored) the lyrics in favor of the tone of the music.

Politicians used his music to promote their ‘Murica Yes! brand, and he had to literally explain that that was not what he was about. He’s over here asking when we’re going to have jobs and heathcare, not stanning the politicians who weren’t helping the people.

It was also kind of a big deal that he had an integrated band, because even as late as the 1980s music was still kind of segregated and MTV was straight up racist. They refused to play and promote black artists and then claimed that were no black artists in the first place. Michael Jackson’s record company had to threaten a boycott of their white artists to get MTV to play his Thriller video.

Plus, the first black/white interracial kiss on TV was in 1968 (OG Star Trek). Also it took us until the 70s to get sympathetic gay characters on screen, and the 90s to get gay characters to kiss onscreen. And all of those firsts were met with outrage.

So keep that in mind when you see Bruce Springsteen not just playing with an interracial band, but engaging in an interracial, gay kiss on stage repeatedly.

Passages from American Popular Music by Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman

[executeness]

I used to think that Bruce and Clarence kissing onstage was exuberance, showmanship, and telling racist homophobes to fuck off. Like, they picked up a certain kind of audience and went “Racist homophobes? Not in our house!” And started the kissing then but then I actually looked it up and

https://www.gq.com/story/this-fucked-me-up-bruce-springsteen-singing-about-clarence-clemons

It was a story where… we remade the city. We remade the city, shaping it into the kind of place where our friendship and our love for one another wouldn’t have been such an exceptional thing. - Bruce Springsteen

It wasn’t about showmanship or rejecting bigots or anything it was just. Damn right that was one of the loves of his life and damn right he was going to kiss him onstage

It gets me a little that Bruce has had a divorce, that he’s been married twice, but he loved Clarence for the rest of Clarence’s life and will presumably love him the rest of his own

Clemons said in one interview. “Bruce and I looked at each other and didn’t say anything, we just knew. We knew we were the missing links in each other’s lives. He was what I’d been searching for.” In another version of the story, Clemons says “He looked at me, and I looked at him, and we fell in love.”

I’m having some emotions about it!

“He was elemental in my life,“ Springsteen adds, “and losing him was like losing the rain.”

Not just! I love you pure and deep and true but! I am going to love you like that in front of the whole damn world!

We have fewer narratives about taking risks and making statements for platonic love rather than romantic and supposedly it would be easier to downplay this onstage than romance and! They refused! They fucking refused! In front of hundreds of thousands of people, over the course of years! In the spotlight, in word and deed, I love you!

God I’m not okay about it

[ramshacklefey]

Now I’m mad that this is not among any of the things I was ever told about this artist.

[jbbartram-illu]

I knew about this in general (& via all those fabulous photos), but this just adds even more beautiful context <3

[eregyrn-falls]

Just to add to the pile: this was the cover of Springsteen’s break-through album Born to Run, in 1975:

I mean, will you LOOK at this:

This was the pic chosen for the album cover from an extensive photoshoot, too. A few others:

There’s a lot more online if you search. They’re all pretty amazing. But the photographer is right, the one chosen for the album cover just pops.

[boomer-mythology-destroyer]

[nicholas-wolfwood]

Check the link for more amazing Trigun art (some nsfw)

Source: [pixiv]

[elierlick]

Thirty-year-old Tamara Rees shows us what trans empowerment looked like in 1954. She fought Nazis, taught parachuting, and traveled the world... but her biggest challenge came when the press learned of her identity.

1950s news coverage of Tamera Rees' transition shows a time before the trans moral panic. Most stories regarded her as brave or heroic for her openness. National newspapers even celebrated her wedding in 1955.

The New York Daily News, which now hosts daily anti-trans editorials, ran a shockingly respectful series on trans people in the 1950s. Tamara Rees's narrative was among the longest and most detailed. She thoughtfully implored the public to respect not only her identity, but also other trans people like her.

Tamara wasn't the first famous trans woman of the 1950s, nor was she the best known. However, she had a unique opportunity to share her own story. You can read Tamara's 1955 autobiography, Reborn: A Factual Life Story of a Transition from Male to Female, at transreads.org/reborn 

[noknowshame]

resurrected dead wife watching her own montage: wow I looked so hot in that

[kreeston]

love getting a scam call from a dude claiming to be from my county's sheriff's office and he butchers the county name so bad it makes me laugh out loud

[chambergambit]

I will cast abominable filth upon you, make you vile, and make you a spectacle.

[ahmnorhein-zkn]

Repost, now do your honors.

[popularsizes]

[homomilitant-deactivated2019071]

if you say anything homophobic in June this truck comes out of nowhere and crushes you like that bus crushed Regina George

[koizik-deleted-deactivated20241]

it’s optimus pride

[valtsv]

i don't even gaf about shipping discourse because i'm a big boy and a bad person for other worse reasons but if i can be real for a moment "proship DNI" in bio means nothing to me. if you want to keep me out you're going to need to line your blog with salt and iron or rat poison or something.

[valtsv]

actually if i were to be less flippant and more brutally honest with you all my disdain for it stems from how much of it is just a thinly veiled excuse for people to fight about their fictional relationship preferences or simply for the sake of arguing without any investment in the reality of what they're claiming to represent and then take pride in their empty, performative activism. i still recommend the rat poison though.

[valtsv]

girl help they are calling me a pedophile sympathiser in the notes for trying to point out that being disgusted by something is not the same as meaningfully working to prevent and safeguard against it by critically engaging with the complex reality of it. can i please just have the rat poison.

[manuciruja]

awww the like button turns into a rainbow when you press it! that's so cute...hey staff what's with all the trans women you keep nuking?

[manuciruja]

i think we should be ridiculing them more for this. you don't get to try and go all "queer website" when your staff likes to go on nuking sprees targeting the trans fem users

[smadsel]

would be remiss not to mention that the rainbow notably straight up just removed the trans flag colors from it. like they’re gone. it’s the progress flag minus the trans flag colors.

[smadsel]

that’s not the whole flag, now is it

[manuciruja]

hey staff what the fuck

[villainessbian]

hey staff don't you think you're being too on-the-nose

[shrodingers-catgirl]

HEY STAFF DONT YOU THINK YOU'RE BEING TOO ON-THE-NOSE

[cheaphalloweencostume]

Patagonia is posting notes app social media half-added apologies over their lawsuit 😭😭😭

[cheaphalloweencostume]

i mean. i’ll always side with the human over the company anyway. but these are markedly different

[cheaphalloweencostume]

guys, she can keep performing, she just has to cow to the brand and give up her identity and redesign all her shit despite the fact that they’re both named after a geographical region! the brand simply MUST have first dibs and then the human can live her little life or whatever!! why are you guys so excited to suck corporate boot? am i going fucking crazy? again?

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

[orcboxer]

voter suppression against black people is reaching Jim Crow era levels in the US so please get registered to vote now, learn who's going to be on your ballot in advance, try to talk some sense into your conservative relatives or coworkers (diplomatically), and, when November rolls around, vote to make Republicans lose as many seats as possible. there are many other things to do, of course, but the midterms will have a massive impact on the future of civil rights.

[djjohnnyt]

The next three elections are incredibly critical to turning back the fascist wave.

2026 - Make the Republicans hurt for all the ways they're trying to strip people of their votes and put a check on Trump. We can flip the House and maybe even the Senate and actually put some of the checks the Constitution intended back in place. SCOTUS is still fucked and not a lot will get passed over Trump's veto, but we can stop the bleeding.

2028 - Get Trump, Vance, and all the fascists out of the Executive Branch. It's also the only way to start on SCOTUS reform and getting back on the right track. This is also the president who will be overseeing the next census that controls which states get how many Congresspeople.

2030 - State legislatures will be the absolute MOST important races this cycle. These legislators are the ones who will be drawing the maps for the next 10 years of elections. Republicans used 2010 to completely rewrite maps across the country; Democrats need to do it in 2030.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

Also look into carpooling for voters, whether you need the ride or you can help drive for people who do. Republicans are making it harder to vote and that means that registration is less accessible, polling places are less accessible, and absentee voting is less accessible. In a lot of cases, especially in underprivileged and rural communities, carpooling is the only way many people are able to register and vote and those programs can only exist if there are enough drivers and enough people who know to ask for a ride.

[tfoutofcontextcomicedition]

THE PRIDE MONTH POST

freedom is the right of ALL sentient beings 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[softwaring]