lotsa little guys

[cock-holliday]

[I know where I stand: in historic Palestine. So my first words must be in Arabic. Thank you for inviting me here. It is the largest honor in my life. I salute Aswat.]

Why am I here when I remember, every day of my adult life, what happened to the people of Deir Yassin?

Why am I here, when the right of return belongs to those who, for thousands of years, planted the olive trees? Why am I here, since I am one of many Jewish activists in the U.S. who struggle to dismantle the Israeli settler state?

And most precisely, why am I here when I am one of many activists around the world who are working to build and strengthen the divestment campaign and economic and cultural boycott of Israel—​as well as Caterpillar, Starbucks and Estee Lauder—​while we demand at the same time that the U.S.-led economic embargo of the Palestinian Authority end immediately?

I say to you here, to all Palestinian and Arab people of the Middle East and the forced Diaspora and to oppressed peoples everywhere, that I am here for only one reason: I am here because Palestinian Aswat asked me to come.

I have long stated publicly that I would only travel here if the Israeli state had already been dismantled or if I were invited by Palestinians to travel here to support your struggle. What an honor to be able to be side-by-side with you today at your invitation. I thank Aswat for giving me this great honor to be here with you, to celebrate this publication in Arabic about [lesbians and male homosexuals].

Sometimes people say something is an honor, but they don’t mean it. I really do mean it. History has woven our destinies. I was born into a Jewish family of factory workers one year after al-Nakba. I am with Palestinian liberation with every breath in my body; every muscle and every sinew.

...

I respect and defend your right to self-determination. I will fight alongside you for every right—​for full civil rights within the 1948 borders, for transportation between the villages of the triangle, for an immediate end to the economic embargo against the Palestinian people as collective punishment for electing their own government representative, for an end to the siege of the West Bank and Gaza—​at your side.

And I will be with you on the day that we tear down the colonial garrison state of Israel, and Palestine is free from this racist, theocratic, apartheid, imperialist occupation—​the day when all those who planted the olive trees will taste the fruit of freedom.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! Long live Palestinian Aswat!

--Leslie Feinbeg, guest speaker for Aswat, in occupied Palestine 2007

[jojo-the-dogg0]

Equiping an armor tutorial

i'll prob make more bc i love talking ab armors

[gatheringbones]

[“Despite the targeting and subsequent silencing of queer and trans/gender-non-conforming youth in youth prisons and jails across Louisiana, young people have developed creative acts of resistance and mechanisms for self-preservation and survival. By failing to recognize the ways that young people demonstrate their own agency and affirm each other, we risk perpetuating the idea of vulnerable youth with little agency; victims rather than survivors and active resisters of a brutal system.

Perhaps the most resilient of all youth in prison in Louisiana, incarcerated queer and trans youth have documented their grievances, over and over again, keeping impeccable paper trails of abuse and discrimination for their lawyers and advocates. When confronted by the guards who waged wars against them, one self-identified gay youth let it be known, “You messin’ with the wrong punk.”

Although prohibited from even speaking publicly with other queer youth in prison, queer and trans youth have formed community across three youth prisons in the state, whispered through fences, and passed messages through sympathetic staff. They have made matching bracelets and necklaces for one another, gotten each other’s initials tattooed on their bodies, and written letters to each other’s mothers. They have supported each other by alerting advocates when one of them was on lockdown or in trouble and unable to call.

Trans-feminine youth have gone to lockdown instead of cutting their hair and used their bed sheets to design curtains for their cells once they got there. They have smuggled in Kool-Aid to dye their hair, secretly shaved their legs, colored their fingernails with markers, and used crayons for eye shadow. When a lawyer asked her trans-masculine client to dress more “feminine” for court, knowing that the judge was increasingly hostile toward gender-non-conforming youth, her client drew the line at the skirt, fearlessly and proudly demanding that she receive her sentence in baggy pants instead.

Queer and trans/gender-non-conforming youth have made us question the very purpose of the juvenile justice system and holding them behind bars in jails and prisons made for kids. By listening to their voices it becomes apparent that until we dismantle state systems designed to criminalize and police young people and variant expressions of gender and sexuality, none of us will be free.”]

Wesley Ware, from Rounding Up The Homosexuals: The Impact of Juvenile Court on Queer and Trans/Gender-Non-Conforming Youth, from Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex, edited by Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith, AK Press, 2011

[maeril]

Hi everyone! This is an illustrated guide I made as part of my co-admining work at The Middle Eastern Feminist on Facebook! It will be published there shortly.  The technique that is displayed here is a genuine one used in psychology - I forgot the name and couldn’t find it again so if you know about it, feel free to tell me! Some could say: “Yes but you can use that technique for instances of harassment other than Islamophobic attacks!”, and my reply is: Sure! Please do so, it also works for other “types” of harassment of a lone person in a public space!! However I’m focusing on protecting Muslims here, as they have been very specific targets lately, and as a French Middle Eastern woman, I wanted to try and do something to raise awareness on how to help when such things happen before our eyes - that way one cannot say they “didn’t know what to do”!  I’d like to insist on two things: 1) Do not, in any way, interact with the attacker. You must absolutely ignore them and focus entirely on the person being attacked! 2) Please make sure to always respect the wishes of the person you’re helping: whether they want you to leave quickly afterwards, or not! If you’re in a hurry escort them to a place where someone else can take over - call one of their friends, or one of yours, of if they want to, the police. It all depends on how they feel! For my fellow French-speakers: I will translate it in French and post it on my page as soon as I can :) Please don’t hesitate to share this guide as it could push a lot of people to overcome bystander syndrome!! Lots of love and stay safe! PS: I you repost this cartoon of mine on twitter or instagram, please add me in the post so I can see it, with @itsmaeril :)

[cognitiveinequality]

An important reminder today, and every day.

[cucheallaigh]

This is based off of the Non-Complementary technique in psychology - also known as ‘flipping the script’.

It is a legitimate tactic for defusing a situation that could otherwise escalate to become quite nasty.

Kindness as self-defence – the power of ‘non-complementary behaviour’ | Aeon Videos

People instinctively reciprocate anger with anger and kindness with kindness, but what happens when someone breaks this ‘complementary be

[brionysea]

everyone's all about queer subtext until it's aromantic or asexual

[mydonkeyfeet]

I never thought about it this way but YES! I used to read about historic figures things like "She was always writing letters to her best friend and she never married. Clearly she was a lesbian," and it always made me sad because I was always writing letters to MY best friends and never married, but I'm just aroace and really love friendship. Couldn't some of those historic singletons have been like me? But if I mentioned the possibility, usually another queer person would snap at me about how they deserved to find representation where they could. I get that, but if it a historic person's sexuality is completely unknown, can't we share the imagined representation between us? We can both claim Schrödinger's sexuality for that dead person.

[bitchfitch]

yall know that post with all of those absolutely stunning crochet flowers? well i just bought a pattern from the shop those are from and Good Fucking Lord.

I was expecting a like a Chart or two, maybe some written instructions. not Seventy Seven full color pages for One type of rose.

this was like 8 bucks???? obviously i did some redacting but Good Lord. if you are even a little bit into crochet go throw money at this absolute Mad woman its Definitely worth it.

[bitchfitch]

back at it almost an entire year later. and i can now confirm she's this insane in all of her patterns (there's over 84 of them????) (<compliment)

she has also made a website since the first post (link) the patterns are cheaper there and the payment is handled through PayPal (and I'm guessing she gets a Way bigger cut of the money than with her Etsy so maybe check out the site instead) of the Etsy listed above.

also quick faq below the cut bc idk, supporting small businesses ran by WOC is important and this lady is rad. I just genuinely love her products and want more people to know about them.

The patterns are full color and come with charts, full color pictures, and standard written instructions with a key in the back and tutorials for all non standard stitches and techniques.

They aren't actually that difficult. I crochet very rarely (and mostly do amigurumi) bc of wrist issues and still had a really easy time working through them bc like, the techniques aren't basic but if you don't already know them you will know them after doing the pattern. A lot of the difficulty comes from using a very fine thread, but you can also just use normal yarn to have giant beautiful flowers instead of life size ones (i personally prefer a size 10 instead of the recommend size 40 bc it's easier on my wrists) Also here's a link to her shop where she sells the thread. it's an Etsy link bc i don't think she has a non Etsy site for physical products yet.

the patterns are All Really Really Cheap. that rose pattern i called 8$ is only 7usd on her site. the most expensive items i can find are 12$ and they're both bundles. One with 9 mini patterns the other with 16. you are getting a fucking Deal no matter which you buy by my estimate.

she has everything from like a million types of rose and from amaryllises to zinnias and she's making more patterns.

[bitchfitch]

I was window shopping and well. If you were hesitant about trying a patty pattern bc money is Tight for everyone rn. Here's one that just straight up free because she discontinued the pattern collection it was a part of.

also she has a new website and it's just nice :)

[babyspacebatclone]

I knew this would be about Happy Patty Crochet, I adore these designs so so very much.

[captainjonnitkessler]

Sometimes I wish we would start calling out the performative radicalism on this site for the poser bullshit it is. "Remember, it's always morally correct to kill a cop!" "Don't forget to firebomb your local government office!" "Wow, it sure would be a shame if these instructions on how to make a molotov cocktail got spread around!"

Okay. But you're not killing cops or firebombing government offices. You are posting on a dying microblogging website to a carefully-curated echo chamber that has radicalized itself into thinking that taking the absolute most extreme position on any subject is praxis but that anyone discussing the most practical way to effect actual change is your sworn enemy. You do not have the street cred OR the activist cred to be talking about killing cops, babe.

[dragontastical]

Your posts keep making me think of this and I finally got around to mocking it up

[shorthistorian]

[kidzbopdeathgrips]

1,000,000,000 OYSTERS TO FEED COMRADE MAMDANI'S NONBINARY NEW YORK HYPERCOMMUNE

[sua-sponte-deactivated20200331]

I’m watching that documentary “Before Stonewall” about gay history pre-1969, and uncovered something which I think is interesting.

The documentary includes a brief clip of a 1954 televised newscast about the rise of homosexuality. The host of the program interviewed psychologists, a police officer, and one “known homosexual”. The “known homosexual” is 22 years old. He identifies himself as Curtis White, which is a pseudonym; his name is actually Dale Olson.

So I tracked down the newscast. According to what I can find, Dale Olson may have been the first gay man to appear openly on television and defend his sexual orientation. He explains that there’s nothing wrong with him mentally and he’s never been arrested. When asked whether he’d take a cure if it existed, he says no. When asked whether his family knows he’s gay, he says that they didn’t up until tonight, but he guesses they’re going to find out, and he’ll probably be fired from his job as well. So of course the host is like …why are you doing this interview then? and Dale Olson, cool as cucumber pie, says “I think that this way I can be a little useful to someone besides myself.”

1954. 22 years old. Balls of pure titanium.

Despite the pseudonym, Dale’s boss did indeed recognize him from the TV program, and he was promptly fired the next day. He wrote into ONE magazine six months later to reassure readers that he had gotten a new job at a higher salary.

Curious about what became of him, I looked into his life a little further. It turns out that he ultimately became a very successful publicity agent. He promoted the Rocky movies and Superman. Not only that, but get this: Dale represented Rock Hudson, and he was the person who convinced him to disclose that he had AIDS! He wrote the statement Rock read. And as we know, Rock Hudson’s disclosure had a very significant effect on the national conversation about AIDS in the U.S.

It appears that no one has made the connection between Dale Olson the publicity agent instrumental in the AIDS debate and Dale Olson the 22-year-old first openly gay man on TV. So I thought I’d make it. For Pride month, an unsung gay hero.

[is-the-post-reliable]

RATING: RELIABLE

you can listen to the clip of the 1954 interview here and find him on wikipedia here

[toadalled]

She is very lonely

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

yes, India made legal gender change impossible but the doctor down the street who gives me my T shots in a clinic so small that it's just two rooms was excited for me when she said my voice had dropped yes, India made legal gender change impossible but the receptionist who could see that I was a man didn't bat an eyelash when I asked to see the gynecologist and called me sir when he asked how I wanted to pay yes, India made legal gender change impossible but the barber cuts my hair exactly how I want it and never gave me strange looks for being in a men's salon not even back when I didn't pass as one

yes, India made legal gender change impossible but my friends have always gendered me correctly and stick to it even when it confuses other people and my friend's little sibling calls me older brother in Kannada yes, India made legal gender change impossible but my dog learned my new name quicker than the humans and she runs to give me a kiss when she's told to without being confused about who's being referred to

yes, India made legal gender change impossible but I can feel the Adam's apple growing in my throat and my muscles getting stronger, and my smile more real and I'm growing a beard, and I talk more freely

yes, India made legal gender change impossible but I'm here, and I'm alive, and so are you and there are good people, people who care and don't let them make you forget that-- you are not alone.

[neinkub]

Sylvia Riveras powerful speech against the exclusion of transgender people at the Gay Pride Rally NYC, 1973.

[averybellearchive-deactivated20]

Transcript:

Y'all better quiet down! I've been trying to get up here all day for your gay brothers and your gay sisters in jail that write me every motherfucking week and ask for your help! And you all don't do a goddamn thing for them! And they write STAR, not the woman's group! They do not write women, they do not write men, they write to STAR! Because we're trying to do something for them! But you all tell me to go and hide my tail between my legs! I will not put up with this shit! I have been beaten, I have had my nose broken, I have been thrown in jail, I have lost my job, I have lost my apartment for gay liberation, and you all treat me this way?! What the fuck's wrong with you all?! Think about that! I believe in the gay power, I believe in us getting our rights, or else I would not be out there fighting for our rights, that's all I wanted to say to you people. Come and see people at STAR House on Twelfth Street, the people that are trying to do something for all of us, and not men and women that belong to our white middle class club! And that's what you all belong to! Revolution now! Gay power! Know the gay power!

[littlebosslady7]

Thaisha Lloy Lore drop from @quiddie on her instastory.

[joeyclaire]

my mom’s trans allyship is on another level

[joeyclaire]

she once called my friend’s deadname “that stupid thing his mom calls him”

[asideoftrashplease]

I was once talking to my 75 year old Chinese dad in passing about a trans friend of mine not getting along with her family and he asked why and I said err, because she's trans, dad.

He asked: "Oh, was she the only son or something before *waves hand*?" and I was like, warily, no she has two brothers. And he responded with a great deal of confusion: "Then what's their problem?!?!"

Later on: "Anyway, even if she WAS the only son, that's not her problem, that's THEIR problem. They should have had more sons if they were going to be bothered about it."

[jackdaw-kraai]

Knowing what I know about chinese culture there’s something so beautifully simple about his logic of “no son to carry on family name/look after them in old age/all the other stuff? Skill issue! Should’ve had more sons! Should’ve kept the family unit strong yourself! Blaming your daughter for your own failure of family planning is W E A K!” and then he learns there are more sons and it completely breaks his train of logic because if yes to more sons then why issue?? You have two others and you’re mad you don’t have three?? Whack. Greedy.

I can already envision him as an ancient lord of a powerful house looking down his nose at the latest messenger bringing gossip from the house of his offspring’s friend and going “now they have a daughter to marry into another family for powerful alliances and two sons to take over her former duties and somehow they’re still complaining about their good fortune? They shall not survive the winter.” and then sipping his tea with all the grim satisfaction of someone about to watch an unnecessary soap opera of drama unfold from a safe distance or something

[asideoftrashplease]

That's a funny image for sure, though I think if there's a typology of Chinese philosophical mentality, there would likely be a spectrum from "Confucian patriarchal lord" to "Buddhist monk / Taoist hermit" and my dad renounced at 18, was a monk for a time, before coming back to work for his family since they were poor 🤷 it was what 3 years after we gained independence from the British so the economy was probs a mess.

When he found and married my mom, he was nearly 45 and they had so much trouble conceiving that he went to a Guanyin temple supposedly "magical" for praying for children. When I was born (not a son, also an only child until now), my mom said, "when you prayed at the temple did you ask for a son?" He said, "Aiya, everyone is asking for sons, so I said any gender is okay. If I asked for a son, maybe we wouldn't have gotten a child because Guanyin's son quota is already used up. Do you want that to happen?" My mom laughed for days about "son quota" and continues to tell people about it today, but her honest answer was: "Any child is okay."

Jokes on them. They didn't specify a gender, so Guanyin Ma gave them a non-binary child!

More seriously: my dad doesn't care about sons. When I told my parents that I wouldn't marry or have children, I thought he might be disappointed, but he wasn't. Then again, maybe I should have expected that, given he tried to become a monk at 18 🤪 I think he said the thing about sons to poke fun at people who care too much about sons because he frankly thinks it's all a bit ridiculous. In his eyes, a child is a child, so what's the point in caring about gender? If the child "changes" gender, does it make a difference?

When I first spoke to my mom about trans issues, still closeted at the time, she said, "I don't understand why they feel the way they do, but they aren't hurting anyone so don't bother them. They are normal people just minding their own business." I said, "I agree, but on the topic of not understanding: Mom, do you think that when we reincarnate, we are always born into a body of the same gender?" In Buddhist stories, there was a lifetime in which Guanyin was reincarnated as a cow or ox, and in repayment for my birth, my dad does not eat beef till this day. Gender or species isn't constant in the cycle of rebirth. My mom said, "No, you're right. Whatever thing that carries on has no gender. I was probably male, human or animal, in one of my past lives." And she has supported trans rights even more ever since.

[junglejim4322]

Some of the edgiest queers in the world who constantly talk about romanticizing cannibalism and gore is punk or whatever will turn into the literal pope when confronted with anything realistic having to do with sex like im sorry but people fuck in the park at night sometimes always have and always will and you’re going to have to go about your life without advocating for them to be skinned alive in Alcatraz

[hyumjim]

And— dare I point out the obvious— the policing of these public areas historically was and still is a huge element of police brutality and discrimination against gay people. Undercover cops frequently patrol areas that are known cruising spots and initiate with men so they can make an arrest when the guy reciprocates. They will also arrest men who are seen looking at each other over the urinals in these spots. Or for peeing while wearing a rainbow wristband.

Amtrak Police Arrests Surge at Penn Bathroom Cruising Spot

Federal law enforcement turned a person they arrested in the transit hub directly over to ICE.

If you are going to be squeamish about these facts of public life then you should really be aware of how at odds that is with your “punk” “be gay do crime” aesthetics and how your fears are directly implicated in fascist policing of our bodies

[chaumas-deactivated20240115]

frustrating when you are talking about folklore as the narratives a particular culture tells itself about itself and then someone else is talking about folklore as a dnd monster manual

[stellernorth]

haiku of despair