laurenyay

radical queer fat pansexual femme. loves dogs, brooklyn, and social justice work. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-24689906-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

[bigfatflea]

The #BigFatFlea is just around the corner and we’re COUNTING DOWN to the release of VIP ticket sales starting Monday, April 7! A VIP ticket will get you into the Flea a whole half hour before general admission shoppers so you have extra time to find your favorite pieces! Lookout for the ticket sales launch and buy your tickets early! A very Happy Birthday to our organizer and model @laurenyay ! 

[bigfatflea]

Flapper dress and shoes on sale at the flea! How cute is this outfit? These will go fast! VIP tickets to get you in the door first: bigfatflea.eventbrite.com http://on.fb.me/17UJ1oq

[speakerforthetrees]

“It is common for koalas to roam back to their home range afterwards and become confused to find nothing there. A worker noticed a koala had been sitting stationary in broad daylight on top of wood piles for over an hour.”

[speakerforthetrees]

One of the saddest photos you will see this week. 

Confused koala discovers his home has been cut down (Photos)

[tierracita]

this just made me cry

[queerasinfuckyou]

newest Tattoo. it reads “we do not owe prettiness to anyone. Prettiness is the not the rent we pay for occupying a space marked female.” done by Joe at Have fun Be Lucky in Baltimore, Md

[pearlconcubine]

Best tattoo!

[lurkingbottle]

THIS IS FUCKING BEAUTIFUL. 

You go. You go and you do. 

[jessiedress]

Emily continues to be most fantastic!

[queerfathungry]

Want to support People Of Color (POC) community and activism at NOLOSE and in the larger fat justice movement? NOLOSE has now opened a POC Travel and Lodging Fund for POC who want to attend the conference. Last year, NOLOSE was able to give out over $10,000 in Scholarships and Financial Aid to more than 60 people, but that pot of money covers registration only. This POC Travel and Lodging Fund will further the important work that was started at NOLOSE within the POC caucus, which has a history of expanding, challenging, and strengthening the fat justice movement in revolutionary ways. So to those who want to strengthen the existing POC voice at NOLOSE, expand our community, and share resources, please consider making a donation of $5, $15, $50, or more to the POC Travel and Lodging Fund! 100% of your donation will go to this fund, and is also tax deductible! You can Paypal [email protected] or make your donation here: http://nolose.org/about/who.php#donate

[ginkgo-bilobas]

Love Story, written by Dean Spade

[perrywinxxx-blog-deactivated201]

reblog every time.

[youarenotyou-deactivated2012022]

transcript

Two anthropomorphized animals (dogs?) in a park talking to each other. 

1: It feels so good to be with you.

2: Yes, I am really enjoying being in love with you. 

1: Let’s never get married.

2: Yes, let’s never.

1: I don’t believe that registering with the state, or spending a lot of money on an event, would make our relationship better.

2: I only want us to stay together as long as it is good for us both.

1: Sometimes I feel worried and scared about our relationship ending.

2: Sometimes I feel like I want to own you.

1: Sometimes I think about how my parents might feel better about me being queer and trans if I got married. Plus I might get some new towels.

2: I am glad we are queer. And we can talk about these feelings instead of just reacting to them. I want to move past competitive, fearful feelings about sex and love that make me miserable. Do you think we should go to the weddings and committment ceremonies that some of our friends are having?

1: I don’t know.

2: I love our friends, and want to be at their parties. But I feel a lot of grief about it.

1: Me too. 

2: Totally.

1: I want a world where romantic relationships are not privileged over other kinds of friendships. Where we don’t make empty promises about forever.

2: Me too.

1: I love having non-marital sex with you.

2: Me too. It feels hard for me to be at events that cost thousand of dollars, when I thought our friends were committed to fighting capitalism and redistributing wealth.

1: Do you think we should go?

2: I love our friends, but I don’t want to go to events that feel painful, silencing, and depressing to me. 

1: It’s not that fun.

2: I hate it when people say that gay marriage will disrupt gender and family roles, because gay people will bring something new to marriage.

1: Oh yeah, I hate that too.

2: It feels like what is happening is the wedding industrial complex has got gay and lesbian people in its clutches and they are all building desires for exploring expensive fantasy.

1: It is so awful that people keep saying this is an issue of equality. There is nothing equal about the state privileging certain relationships over others.

2: If we want equality, we should get rid of marriage, and make it so that no one has to have their immigration status, health care access, or parenthood depend on being married.

1: You are so hot.

2: Let’s dry hump before we go to the beach. Okay?

[secretcirclestuff]

First giveaway! Please follow us here to get more updates as we get more done! 

[apostils]

[laurenyay]

Queers for Economic Justice is shocked and outraged at the police shooting of Yvonne McNeal, 57, a resident of the New Providence Women’s Shelter in midtown Manhattan on Sunday evening, October 1st, 2011. QEJ has been working with residents and staff of New Providence Women’s Shelter since 2003, and Yvonne was someone whom had become a part of QEJ’s extended family.

After an altercation inside the shelter that moved to the sidewalk outside of New Providence where the police shot Yvonne McNeal, killing her. Yvonne’s killing on Sunday underscores the reality that the police cannot be relied on to respond compassionately to low income LGBTQ people when it concerns issues of safety in our communities. At QEJ, we are asking again how many potentially dangerous situations every year have to end up in a police shooting? It cannot be accepted that calling the police can be deadly for low Income LGBTQ New Yorkers.

Even in aggravated situations, the police have a choice to use non-lethal deterrents. A 57 year old woman with a cane that is attempting to re-enter a building, should not be the target of lethal violence. Like Oscar Grant in Oakland, the police had a choice; they chose to kill instead of preserve life. When police targeted largely white Occupy Wall Street protesters, they used pepper spray. When faced with a vulnerable woman of color, they chose to use lethal force as their first option.

“I feel that as homeless people, we don’t have a justice system,” said Gykyira Rodriquez, a member of QEJ’s LGBTQ support group at the New Providence Women’s shelter.

QEJ works at the intersection of sexual orientation and gender identity to do organizing and advocacy around LGBTQ poverty, homelessness and economic survival.

Ms. Rodriguez, who is a QEJ volunteer and support group leader, echoed the sentiments of many shelter residents, including other active members of QEJ’s support group community. QEJ has seen this repeated pattern of racism and disregard for human life when the police are dealing with issues of violence because we are poor, from communities of color and may also be lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender or perceived as such.

A report released last year by Queers for Economic Justice Welfare Warriors Collective in conjunction with the Graduate Center of the City University of New York found that calling or interacting with the police can be dangerous: 19 percent of 171 low income LGBTGNC survey responders in NYC had been physically assaulted in the past two years. Among those who were currently homeless, the number jumps to 24 percent. These numbers reflect broader national research that shows that LGBTQ individuals often find themselves victims of police violence when reaching out to the police for safety (NCAVP, 2008).

One QEJ study participant said, “I feel if you call the cops, the cops are going to think you are the criminal (when) they come.”

At QEJ, our hearts are broken at the senseless loss of Yvonne’s life. We are proud to remember Yvonne as she marched with us in the Gay Pride March this year. Earlier this summer, QEJ launched its Shelter Safety Campaign, directed by organizer Doyin Ola in partnership with Shelter Program Director Jay Toole. The violence inside and outside of the shelters, the threat from law enforcement and the wounding that comes from the prison industrial complex illustrates the absolute need for a project of this nature. The Shelter Safety Campaign will honor Yvonne by working to end the senseless and brutal violence bred by racism, poverty, transphobia and homophobia and aimed at the working poor, those in poverty, people of color, women, immigrants, mental health issues and the LGBTQ community.

For information on the Shelter Safety Campaign or the Shelter Organizing Project contact Doyin Ola, Shelter Safety Campaign Organizer, at [email protected] or Jay Toole, Shelter Program Director, at [email protected].

For information on QEJ and our work, please direct yourself to our webpage: www.q4ej.org.

For questions or comments on this statement, please contact Amber Hollibaugh [email protected] or via telephone at: [phone]

[severelycalm-blog-blog]

We all run from the ugly. And the farther we run from it, the more we stigmatize it and the more power we give beauty. Our communities are obsessed with being beautiful and gorgeous and hot. What would it mean if we were ugly? What would it mean if we didn’t run from our own ugliness or each other’s? How do we take the sting out of “ugly?” What would it mean to acknowledge our ugliness for all it has given us, how it has shaped our brilliance and taught us about how we never want to make anyone else feel? What would it take for us to be able to risk being ugly, in whatever that means for us. What would happen if we stopped apologizing for our ugly, stopped being ashamed of it? What if we let go of being beautiful, stopped chasing “pretty,” stopped sucking in and shrinking and spending enormous amounts of money and time on things that don’t make us magnificent? Where is the Ugly in you? What is it trying to teach you? And I am not saying it is easy to be ugly without apology. It is hard as fuck. It threatens our survival. I recognize the brilliance in our instinct to move toward beauty and desirability. And it takes time and for some of us it may be impossible. I know it is complicated….There is only the illusion of solace in beauty. If age and disability teach us anything, it is that investing in beauty will never set us free. Beauty has always been hurled as a weapon. It has always taken the form of an exclusive club; and supposed protection against violence, isolation and pain, but this is a myth. It is not true, even for those accepted in to the club. I don’t think we can reclaim beauty.

excerpted from

Moving Toward the Ugly: A Politic Beyond Desirability (*Femmes Of Color Symposium Keynote Speech, Oakland, CA (8/21/11)

by Mia Mingus

I highly suggest following this link and reading the whole piece, which is brilliant and moving. 

For a long time, I’ve jokingly told people that I don’t identify as beautiful.  It has nothing to do with self esteem or about my own feelings of attractiveness; it’s about my belief that being physically beautiful is ultimately irrelevant.  I really love this piece and it’s given me a lot to think about.

(via severelycalm)

[laurenyay]

vacation in montreal - see the biodome in the distance?

striped shirt, XL gap; purple skirt L gap; sandals talbots; deer necklace gift from etsy; purse F21; bangle F21

[twentyeight19]

[laurenyay]

twentyeight19:

[earlnimbud]

[laurenyay]

have i ever mentioned i lovelovelove zoidberg?

[laurenyay]

Fat Liberation Manifesto

FAT LIBERATION MANIFESTO

1. WE believe that fat people are fully entitled to human respect and recognition. 2. WE are angry at mistreatment by commercial and sexist interests. These have exploited our bodies as objects of ridicule, thereby creating an immensely profitable market selling the false promise of avoidance of, or relief from, that ridicule. 3. WE see our struggle as allied with the struggles of other oppressed groups against classism, racism, sexism, ageism, financial exploitation, imperialism and the like. 4. WE demand equal rights for fat people in all aspects of life, as promised in the Constitution of the United States. We demand equal access to goods and services in the public domain, and an end to discrimination against us in the areas of employment, education, public facilities and health services. 5. WE single out as our special enemies the so-called "reducing" industries. These include diet clubs, reducing salons, fat farms, diet doctors, diet books, diet foods and food supplements, surgical procedures, appetite suppressants, drugs and gadgetry such as wraps and "reducing machines". WE demand that they take responsibility for their false claims, acknowledge that their products are harmful to the public health, and publish long-term studies proving any statistical efficacy of their products. We make this demand knowing that over 99% of all weight loss programs, when evaluated over a five-year period, fail utterly, and also knowing the extreme proven harmfulness of frequent large changes in weight. 6. WE repudiate the mystified "science" which falsely claims that we are unfit. It has both caused and upheld discrimination against us, in collusion with the financial interests of insurance companies, the fashion and garment industries, reducing industries, the food and drug industries, and the medical and psychiatric establishment. 7. WE refuse to be subjugated to the interests of our enemies. We fully intend to reclaim power over our bodies and our lives. We commit ourselves to pursue these goals together. FAT PEOPLE OF THE WORLD, UNITE! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE ....

By Judy Freespirit and Aldebaran November, 1973

from Largesse, who has documented Fat Underground activism

[laurenyay]

fat hate in law

I'm working on a paper on fat acceptance and just read a Note published in the Yale Law Journal on "weight discrimination." The main argument?  Weight discrimination should be combatted by encouraging doctors to provide stomach amputations, drastic unsafe diets, and to otherwise treat "obesity." Ending fat hate is solved by getting rid of all the fat people!

SO ANGRY. and dismayed that someone could spend so much of their time spewing such hate. and someone could have read Anna Kirkland and Sondra Solovay and still think that this is the answer.

Lucy Wang, Weight Discrimination: One Size Fits All Remedy?, 117 Yale L.J. 1900 (2008)

[laurenyay]

I'm ridiculously standing up in a cab after a few drinks on a Friday night, but you can see most of my outfit! I'm wearing horizontal stripe on a tube top and not giving a fuck about fashion rules or my fat arms.  Also, the tube top/short skirt is a size L and a good example of the fruits that can come from trying on straight sizes.  I'm not always the best at doing that, but it worked out here.

top - forever 21 size L - is it a mini skirt or a tube top? who knows but i've done both.

skirt - old navy size XXL

necklace - gift

bag - forever 21

[shinyandloud]

[laurenyay]

madamethursday:

aprilseye:

  Online Articles:

Indigenous Feminism Without Apology, by Andrea Smith

Jennifer Nez Denetdale on Indigenous Feminisms

An Indigenous Perspective on Feminism, Militarism, and the Environment, by Winona LaDuke

Zapatismo and the Emergence of Indigenous Feminism, by Aida Hernandez Castillo

Academic Journal Publications:

 Wicazo Sa Review “Native Feminisms: Legacies, Interventions, and Indigenous Sovereignties,” guest edited by Mishuana R. Goeman and Jennifer Nez Denetdale

Whiteness Matters: Implications of Talking Up to the White Woman, by Eileen Morton-Robinson

Race, Tribal Nation, and Gender: A Native Feminist Approach to Belonging, by Renya Ramirez

Introduction: Special Issue on Native American Women, Feminism, and Indigenism, by Anne Waters

Patriarchal Colonialism and Indigenism: Implications for Native Feminist Spirituality and Native Womanism, by M. A. Jaimes Guerrero

Dismantling the Master’s Tools with the Master’s House: Native Feminist Liberation Theologies, by Andrea Smith

This may be missing:

Who Is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism by Paula Gunn Allen

http://spot.colorado.edu/~wehr/491R9.TXT

Reblogging for my own reference and for anyone else who might want to read this. Definitely bookmarking it. A lot of good stuff here.

[laurenyay]

My first OOTD of sorts. I tried this on at Re/Dress and wish I had bought it!