Nerdy Gay Mormon

I live in Florida, work at a university, am a Mormon...oh, and I'm gay

[amethystmoons]

I've written a poem based on my experiences as a queer mormon.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Thank you for reading. I hope this resonates with you.

[gahdamnpunk]

I’m just now finding out Anne Frank was bi??? OMG

[luanna801]

Yeah okay, those edits were made by her dad, a cishet person - and also her dad, a Holocaust survivor, who would have been brutally aware that when the diary was first published in freakin’ 1947, had he included anything which people could use to demonize his daughter or tar her as some kind of “pervert”, it would prevent the message he was trying to send about the horrors of the Holocaust and the heroism of his daughter from being properly understood and accepted the way he hoped.

That isn’t fair. It isn’t just. But it is reality. If Otto Frank had let this be included in the published version, there’s a large chance the homophobic backlash would have prevented the book from reaching the audience it did and spreading the message it needed to. It was NINETEEN. FORTY. SEVEN. The Holocaust had ended TWO YEARS AGO. The acceptance of LGBT identities was basically nonexistent. Otto Frank made a decision based on the time and place he was living in, about what the world at that time was and wasn’t ready to accept. 

Let me say this as bluntly as I can - I am a bisexual Jewish girl and I would have made the same decision Otto Frank did. Making sure Anne Frank was unambiguously seen as sympathic and heroic was more important. Making sure people weren’t sidetracked from the main issue of the Holocaust was more important. He shouldn’t have had to make that decision, without doubt. Anne Frank’s sexuality (however she would have identified in modern terms) shouldn’t be considered relevant to her status as a hero or a sympathetic victim. But in 1947, it undoubtedly would have been.

Otto Frank survived Auschwitz and lost his entire family (a wife and two teenage daughters) to the horrors of the Holocaust. He hoped that publishing his daughter’s diary would spread awareness and sympathy for the victims of the Holocaust. If he had to make sacrifices to do that - well frankly, so fucking be it. I don’t know who alive today has the right to judge him. 

[queenofthefaces]

Let’s also look at this thread from a queer Jewish person who brings up the fact that ANNE FRANK EDITED HER DIARY HERSELF

[fagraklett]

Chinese emperor Ai of Han, fell in love with a minor official, a man named Dong Xian, and bestowed upon him great political power and a magnificent palace. Legend has it that one day while the two men were sleeping in the same bed, the emperor was roused from his sleep by pressing business. Dong Xian had fallen asleep across the emperor’s robe, but rather than awaken his peaceful lover, the Emperor cut his robe free at the sleeve. Thus “the passion of the cut sleeve” became a euphemism for same-sex love in China. — R.G.L.

[jeremyyyallan]

get you a dude who will fuck up his own clothing for you

[nerdygaymormon]

[nerdygaymormon]

[the-uncultured-lesbian]

When Cyanide and Happyness gives the perfect explanation

[thottybrucewayne]

For as much as I love Paris Is Burning (1990) (It was foundational in my getting into ballroom history and learning more about the ballroom scene in my area when I was in my early 20s), I feel like we barely mention its spiritual sequel How Do I Look (2006) even though it gives a much better look into ballroom and how the popularity of Paris Is Burning affected the scene. It also touches on the issues participants of the og Paris Is Burning doc had with the handling of the og doc and the way the mainstream has been trying to exploit the ballroom scene since the second they found out about what it is. While Paris Is Buring is a deeply important part of our history, it should NOT be your first and last stop when learning about ballroom culture.

How Do I Look documentary, 2006

Director Wolfgang Busch is going deep into the Harlem Ballroom scene, connecting history, trends and culture. The “Ball” culture created num

[nerdygaymormon]

[deeplifequotes]

“You did not choose your: 1. birthplace 2. skin color 3. birth parents, family 4. birth gender 5. birth language 6. birth name 7. ethnicity 8. born abilities You can choose to be: 1. kind 2. generous 3. honest 4. grateful 5. respectful 6. optimistic 7. humble 8. teachable 9. faithful 10. happy‏”

— Vala Afshar

[nerdygaymormon]

[nerdygaymormon]

[nerdygaymormon]

[nerdygaymormon]

@jspark3000

[nerdygaymormon]

[nerdygaymormon]

how can you stay in a church which teaches such terrible things about gay people?

I stay for a variety of reasons, but one is that by being here, church members and leaders have to see that queer people exist and confront that what they teach about and require of us is unfair.

I think religions give people a purpose for their life, to feel like their life has meaning. Before science, religion attempted to explain the phenomena observed, but science has taken much of that role.

For thousands of years, people only observed the sun and planets from earth without telescopes or other tools, and it appeared that earth is at the center of the galaxy, everything revolves around it. The Catholic Church came up with a beautiful theology for why earth is the center of God's creations and everything circles around us.

Galileo Galilei improved on the telescope and used it to record evidence that the earth actually orbits the sun. This challenged the theology of the church. Rather than recognize the reality of the evidence, the church declared Galileo a heretic and put tremendous pressure on him to make him recant the sun-centered theory, banned the publishing of his work, and kept him under house arrest the remainder of his life.

It took a hundred years for the Catholic Church to lift the ban on printing his works, it took about another 100 years for the Catholic Church to permit the teaching of heliocentrism, and another 150 years before the church apologized and officially acknowledged Galilei was correct.

I believe this story describes the danger for religions and churches, which is that they love their theological stories so much that they are willing to deny reality and to suppress evidence which contradicts what they've taught.

The LDS Church believed in white superiority and supported this with teachings and restrictions against dark-skinned people of African descent. Science eventually showed that race is not a biological reality but rather a social construct, and that humans actually began in Africa and emigrated from there to the rest of the world, meaning all of us could be said to be of African descent. Still the church clung to its teachings even as society evolved to see that people are similar and deserve to be treated equally with dignity and respect without regard to their race or ethnicity. It was late to do so, but eventually the LDS Church lifted the restrictions and abandoned the teachings because to not do so would harm the church because these were considered obviously racist and wrong. I can't imagine the church would be thriving today if it still held those racist teachings and restrictions.

Similarly, queer people exist. We don't fit the theology of the LDS Church. The church fought hard against gay rights and gay marriage, and currently is taking hard stances against trans people because it values the theology more than the reality of queer people and their lives.

It isn't just the LDS Church. It seems everyday somewhere in the United States a new law is being proposed to make life tougher for queer people, to limit their access to health care, to remove their pathways to create their own families, to roll back legal rights that they use for their protection and to build their lives. These laws are being pushed by Christians who see gays, trans and queer folks as a direct challenge to their beliefs.

I'm old enough to have seen a big softening in the LDS Church towards gay people, and I believe more change will come. I also truly believe the church will soften it's stance regarding trans people. If for no other reason than facts eventually win out.

[nerdygaymormon]

[nerdygaymormon]