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Here’s Why Outing Someone Is Such A Big Deal

Cory Steig, Refinery29

When someone signs up to be on a reality TV show, there’s an assumption that the participants consent to revealing personal aspects of their lives to the world. But on Wednesday night’s episode of Survivor, Zeke Smith was outed as transgender by another Survivor contestant, Jeff Varner, in a bizarre power play that crossed so many lines — even for reality TV.

“There is deception here,” Varner said to the host, Jeff Probst. “Deceptions on levels, Jeff, that these guys don’t even understand.” Then he asked Smith, “Why haven’t you told anyone that you’re transgender?” Smith was out as a gay man, but he hadn’t told anyone that he’s transgender.

On the show, Smith appeared stoic as several cast members came to his defense. Some were crying and and screaming that Varner had no right to out him. The clip is uncomfortable and potentially triggering, and many people were echoing the frustrations of the contestants on Twitter. “Something primal deep inside me screamed: run,” Smith wrote describing the moment in an essay for The Hollywood Reporter. “I lost control of my body, my legs bounced up and down uncontrollably, willing me to flee, but the rest of me sat dead as stone.” On the show, as Varner apologized, Probst sternly said, “You can’t un-ring the bell.”

But in order to understand why Varner’s actions were problematic, it’s important to first establish what outing means. There are degrees of outing someone, but in general, it involves “exposing someone’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender identity to others without their permission,” according to the Human Rights Campaign glossary.

Besides the humiliation someone can experience when they don’t have control of their own narrative, outing a person can have serious repercussions. “Outing someone non-consensually could put them at risk of violence, and is a form of violence itself,” says Eli Erlick, director of Trans Student Educational Resources (TSER). Trans people deserve the opportunity to control their personal information to protect themselves. “A person’s gender history is private information, and it is up to them, and only them, when, how, and to whom they choose to disclose that information,” Smith wrote. “The only people who need to know [about your gender history] are medical professionals and naked fun time friends.”

Also, there’s an important difference between outing someone as LGBQ and outing someone as transgender — both are unacceptable, of course, but trans people often have specific motivations for keeping their gender history private. “After a transgender person has transitioned, they may be less likely to want to tell others about their trans identity,” says Nick Adams, director of GLAAD’s Transgender Media Program. “For lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, coming out is an empowering experience because they are able to be their authentic selves.” But, when a trans person has transitioned, they’re finally living their truth as their authentic self, and there isn’t always a need to tell people. “Unfortunately, it can often feel disempowering for a transgender person to disclose to other people that they are transgender,” reads GLAAD’s tips for allies.

“Coming out about one’s gender identity is a lot less understood and a lot more stigmatized,” Erlick says. “As trans people, assumptions are made about our bodies that aren’t [made] about cisgender, non-straight people, and we’re at a higher risk of violence.”

While many people are open about their gender identity as part of their work to raise awareness, not every transgender person has to speak out about their trans experiences. “Often, we call trans people who aren’t out in their everyday lives ‘stealth,’ although some trans people argue that this term glorifies passing as cisgender and not taking part in community actions,” Erlick says. “Some people need to not be out for their safety, others because they just don’t want to — both reasons are valid.”

When you look at the numbers, trans people face a particularly high risk of violence, and 95% of the trans people killed in 2016 were people of color and 85% were women, according to the Human Rights Campaign. “In 31 states, there are no explicit laws protecting LGBTQ peoplefrom being fired from a job, denied housing, or denied service in a place of public accommodation,” Adams says. “Transgender people are especially vulnerable and experience extraordinarily high levels of poverty, discrimination, and violence.”

As for Varner, there are a lot of troubling layers to what he did: outing a person, insinuating that a trans person who isn’t out is intentionally being misleading, and doing it on national television. “In calling me deceptive, Varner invoked one of the most odious stereotypes of transgender people, a stereotype that is often used as an excuse for violence and even murder,” Smith wrote. “Varner is saying that I’m not really a man and that simply living as my authentic self is a nefarious trick.”

The one silver lining is that the show wasn’t broadcast live, so the producers at CBS had time to work with GLAAD to ensure that Smith had a chance to respond in a safe way before the show aired. But even the most public figures deserve the chance to control how and when they share information about their gender identity and sexual orientation, and allies have a responsibility to respect that. Smith wrote about how he reckoned with what Varner did to him, and whether or not he forgives him: “Forgiveness does not require forgetting or excusing his actions. Forgiveness requires hope. Hope that he understands the injury he caused and does not inflict it upon others.”

“If someone tells you that they’re transgender, the best thing to do is ask them how they would like to be supported,” Erlick says. “Some people need others to advocate for them, and sometimes we want to advocate for ourselves,” she says. Also, it’s best not to probe or ask them personal questions about their life or medical procedures they may have had or plan to have, Adams says. And of course, keep your conversation between the two of you, unless the person specifically instructs you otherwise. Accidents happen, and if you let information about someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity slip, you should be upfront with the people you told and the person who you outed. “Ask them to not share this information and explain how it puts the trans person at risk,” Erlick says.

There’s no right or wrong way to be trans, and the same can be said for coming out (as long as it’s on your own terms). It’s traumatic and unfortunate that Smith had this play out on national TV, but like he said: With education, there’s hope.

the-real-eye-to-see

Kalief Browder was arrested at the age of 16, on charges of robbery (for allegedly stealing a backpack) and imprisoned without conviction for three years.

Unable to post $3,000 bail, Kalief was sent to Rikers Island to await his trial.

After more than 1,000 days at Rikers awainting trial, over 800 of them in solitary confinement, Kalief was released and his case was later dismissed.

In June 2015, Kalief Browder committed suicide by hanging himself. The conditions of his detention were widely seen as having caused his mental condition and five or six prior attempts at suicide while incarcerated.

Kalief was 22 years old when he died.

Venida Browder, 63, the mother of Kalief Browder, died Friday at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx.

She died of a broken heart.

RIP to you both…

darkkkbeautyyy

I been watching the documentary on Spike and it breaks my heart. Mind you, the ones beating, starving and torturing him are other Black men. Smh

msnbc

Portrait of a trans community

(Photos by Benedict Evans)

staff

A few literary suggestions for Black History Month

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Maybe you know Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie from when Beyoncé sampled her TEDx talk, “We should all be feminists,” or maybe you’ve been following her emergence as one of the most prominent voices of African literature over the last two decades. Her latest novel, Americanah, was selected by The New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013.

Edna Lewis

Edna Lewis had a hell of a career. She worked her way up as a seamstress, eventually fashioning a dress for Marilyn Monroe. Then she became the first African-American celebrity chef. Then she broke her leg, so she wrote a cookbook. The Taste of Country Cooking was interspersed with personal stories of growing up in a freed-slave settled town in Virginia, and redefined what many thought of Southern food.

Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay (@roxanegay), famed author of Bad Feminist, is a Tumblr favorite, and not just because you can follow her. She writes about what it means to be a woman of color. She’s the first Black woman to write for Marvel, and she’s writing queer WOC into their storylines. She pulled her unreleased book from publishers Simon & Schuster after their deal with Milo Yiannopoulos was announced. It’s easy to admire her actions as much as her writing.

Follow these too:

Afro Editions (@afroeditions) posts and reblogs all things Black lit, including this bell hooks Valentine’s Day card and these suggestions for Black sci-fi.

The Center for African-American Poetry and Poetics (@caapoetryandpoetics) highlights exactly what you think it will.

Bonus: We highlighted it last year, but Black Children’s Books and Authors (@blackchildrensbooksandauthors) deserves a spotlight on it again.

Don’t miss our upcoming BHM Answer Times. This week and next week, we have:

2/21—Angelica Ross (@missrosscreative), transgender rights advocate.

2/22—Actress Amandla Stenberg (@amandla)

2/23—Comedian and actor Andrew Bachelor, better known as King Bach (@kingbach).

2/24—Washington Post (@washingtonpost) editorial board member and MSNBC contributor Jonathan Capehart.

blackroseberry22

YARA SHAHIDI on Muslim Ban

refinery29

Watch: Trust us that it’s not clickbait when we say this speech about punching Nazis was so fired up that it changed our lives

The theme of the 2017 SAG Awards was unity, unity, and more unity. For one of the final speeches of the night, David Harbour of Stranger Things collected the award for best performance by an ensemble, slinging (or rather, shouting) unity at the audience. The crowd got on its feet. In the audience, Courtney B. Vance, Lea DeLaria, and Viggo Mortensen can be spotted standing at attention.

Gifs: The SAG Awards on TNT

WATCH THE VIDEO

imhere4thedrinks

I watched it and caught the Holy Ghost in my bedroom!

ithelpstodream

reverseracism

wocinsolidarity

Uh, some of these are seriously appalling moments from our history – and some are still happening today.

Even with the complete abolition of slavery, Black people were not given the full benefits of citizenship or personhood in Northern states. Many Northern white abolitionists didn’t advocate for full integration or equity for Black people.

The legacy of slavery continued through segregationist, discriminatory laws that were seeped in anti-Blackness. Even European immigrants, such as the Irish or Italian, actively benefited from anti-Black racism.

Professor Margaret Washington has explained, “So it would seem as though the nation itself had an attitude that African Americans were inferior…. The whole idea of Jim Crow and segregation of the races really originates in the North.”

This isn’t to say that Black-only neighborhood have only grown out of segregationist laws. Many were actively created as safe spaces where communities could thrive and succeed.

However, it’s important to understand the history of how Black neighborhoods had to be created, because of systemic violence, segregationist laws, and discriminatory practices.

And the creations of these neighborhoods weren’t limited to the South. Northern anti-Blackness was just as prominent, if maybe more covert. These attitudes and policies also have continued well into the 21st century.

flyandfamousblackgirls

#Black Trans History: Carlett Angianlee Brown & Jet Magazine

It is the 1950s. Jet Magazine centers on a 26 year old professional female illusionist and shake dancer from Pittsburgh whose birth name was Charles Robert Brown but later changed it to Carlett Angianlee Brown.

Carlett was in a relationship with a 24 year old US Army sergeant stationed in Germany named Eugene Martin. She’d served in the Navy, and during her service time was checked out for an issue with recurring monthly bleeding through her rectal area.

The medical exam revealed that she was intersex and had some feminine plumbing. The surgeons wanted to remove it, but she declined to have that done and opted for SRS instead.

In the process of weighing her SRS options with three surgeons in various countries, she discovered that the laws of those countries at the time didn’t allow foreign nationals to obtain SRS.

Dr. Christian Hamburger, the endocrinologist who supervised Christine Jorgensen’s transition, advised Carlett that if she gave up her US citizenship she could have it done in Denmark. Germany’s then justice minister advised Brown that if became a German resident and took the steps to become a German citizen, she could have it performed there as well.

So Carlett decided to do just that. She applied for her US passport and made arrangements to travel to Bonn, Germany in August 1953 and meet Dr. Hamburger there for her initial checkup before having SRS.

Carlett’s game plan once she completed SRS was to get married to Sgt. Eugene Martin.

“I just want to become a woman as quickly as possible, that’s all. I’ll become a citizen of any country that will allow me the treatment that I need and be operated on,” she said at the time.

Fast forward to June 25 issue. Carlett has now traveled to Boston and signed papers at the Danish consulate renouncing her US citizenship. She’s doing some bookings in the area to help pay for her looming August 2 overseas trip and even hit Filene’s to shop for her wedding dress.

She now has her US passport with her new name of Carlett Angianlee on it and all systems are go to become the ‘First Negro Sex Change’.

Then fate intervened. Crossdressing back in the 50’s could earn you a trip to jail, and the Boston po-po’s promptly arrested and jailed her overnight for doing so as the July 9 issue reported. Carlett was still undeterred and was still planning to leave for Denmark and her date with history.

She then postponed her departure in order to get a feminizing face lift in New York with Dr. George J.B. Weiss, as the August 6 issue reported. It even mentioned that Carlett’s face lift was going to cost $500 dollars.

Then she was hit with the news that she was ordered not to leave the United States until $1200 in back taxes were paid. The October 15th issue reported that she ended up taking a $60 a week cook’s job at Iowa State’s Pi Kappa frat house that a friend helped her get in order to earn the money to pay off those back taxes.

(worded by Monica Roberts)

teenhealthsource-deactivated201

There are still spots available in FLUID, starting Feb 7 (6.30-8.30pm), running 8 weeks to March 28th. Please spread the word!

For young people (14-29) who don’t fit neatly into categories: come and explore gender and sexual fluidity with art, writing, conversation and more!

Facilitated by River Bowen and Clare Nobbs

refinery29

Watch: Serena Williams just masterfully defended herself against a manipulative reporter and gave us all a world class lesson in self love at the same time

There are 101 ways this exchange could’ve gone differently. However, Williams’ concise directive, “You should apologize,” did more than demand kindness. It demanded accountability for rudeness. Well done. This is truly the perfect lesson in “How to respond to respond rude people in 2017.”

Gifs: Australian Open TV

WATCH THE VIDEO

sandandglass

Lewis Black - Black To The Future

thecuckoohaslanded

Funny thing? He almost certainly did it on purpose.

And I don’t mean that as “actually he knows what he’s doing.” I mean it as “he has been committing one of the longest running and most blatant cases of fraud in the history of business and it’s only due to the limitations of our legal system that his entire business history is not classified as a Ponzi Scheme.”

Because he didn’t just bankrupt a casino.

He bought two casinos in Atlantic city, exaggerated the shit out of their profits to lure in investors, and began work on building a third casino. He was overextended in the market in a way that had him competing against his own businesses. He also snubbed contractors, threatened and litigated a ton of small businesses out of their jobs, and raised capital through issuing hundreds of millions of dollars in junk bonds (high risk high reward, they’re below investment grade but some people like to bet on them because the interest rate in the case of a payout is very large).

So what happened? He leveraged his ownership in a way that allowed him to strip out a ton of assets (which he legally owned), while leaving the corporate side totally overloaded with debt financing from the junk bonds, and then he drove all of it into the ground. Hard.

He went to bankruptcy court like 3 separate times over casino projects. While in bankruptcy court, he relentlessly fled from personal liability (his equity stake in the companies was extremely minimal because of the debt financing strategy) and managed to pay back a tiny fraction of his actual debt (this is why he always handles his debt in bankruptcy court; you can get away with paying back pennies on the dollar when you supposedly have no money). He also issued like 300 million more in junk bonds to pay himself and his legal fees, then went back to bankruptcy court and frauded all of THOSE investors.

Now you’ve probably heard the term Ponzi Scheme before, but if you’ve never heard a proper explanation of how one works, here’s a basic breakdown. First, you borrow money from one investor. Then, you borrow money from a second investor, and use that money to pay back the first investor at an impressive interest rate. Then you can start selling the scam to people by showing them how good your investors are doing, and hook more people in. You pay back earlier investors with the influx of cash from the new ones, while raking in the profits for yourself.

Now think about this business model. Use debt financing to start up a business. Litigate, fraud, or drive your contractors out of business so they don’t have enough money to sue you for what you owe them. Leverage the capital structure so you have minimal liability personally invested in the company. Strip out assets before a collapse because hey, you own it. Raise more debt capital to keep the illusion running as long as you can, and when you can’t keep up with what you owe your investors anymore, file for bankruptcy and pay them back scraps. You’ve made a ton of money, frauded a ton of investors, and they can’t come after you for it because you were leveraged behind a corporation and your personal liability was very small. You make more money off a flop than a hit. Rinse and repeat.

BUT YOU CAN’T GET CAUGHT FOR SETTING UP A PYRAMID SCHEME BECAUSE IT DOESN’T LAST LONG ENOUGH. YOU NEVER SET UP THE CYCLE OF INVESTORS AND INSTEAD YOU GET OUT OF PAYING THEM BACK BY ACTING LIKE YOUR BUSINESS WAS AN ORDINARY FAILURE INSTEAD OF BY STEALING MONEY FROM SUBSEQUENT INVESTORS.

That’s what happened in Atlantic City.

Now think about the rest of his business failures. Trump Airlines? That’s an industry that requires huge startup investment (debt financing) and the owner gets to sell off expensive assets when it fails. Trump Steaks? He sold those at THE SHARPER IMAGE, where it was guaranteed to fail because it was completely the wrong market for that kind of business. Trump University? Never even TRIED to be successful with that, he just tricked people into giving him as much money as he could squeeze out of them, and provided no actual service in exchange. He paid a $25 Million settlement on the lawsuit, but MADE $175 Million off the actual scam, so he walked away with $150 million for doing absolutely nothing. A LOT of his businesses, if you look closely, were practically DESIGNED to fail.

Because that’s how he operates.

Donald Trump is not a good businessman. He never even tried to be a businessman. What he is, is a con artist. Everything he ever made was fake.

The only really successful business he owns is the real estate business … which he inherited from his father and has grown at a slower rate than inflation even as he drives contractors out of business and targets undocumented laborers so they have no legal grounds to sue him for fair wages or working conditions.

Donald Trump is the CEO equivalent of The Producers.

Further reading and WILDLY paraphrased (from memory, from last year) source for the above commentary:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html

overpricedvodka

Tina Turner Appreciation Moment

I just felt like posting some pictures of Tina Turner because she’s a boss.

This is a woman from a broken home with a mother who didn’t love her who built a successful music career with a man she didn’t love. She raised his kids from his previous marriage while he beat her for singing a wrong note, escaped the marriage with only her name and the clothes on her back…and a mountain of debt from their tour she canceled in order to divorce him. Tina then reinvented herself well into her 40s to become the Queen of Rock & Roll as a Black woman from the South, moved to Switzerland, learned German, married the love of her life in 2013 and gave up her US citizenship because she was never the star here that she was in Europe anyway. She’s the oldest woman to ever appear on the cover of a Vogue magazine (at 73-years-old) and she’s sold more concert tickets than any solo artist.

So yes, Tina Turner is a boss and I randomly felt like sharing that real quick.

Plus, there would be no Beyonce if Tina Turner hadn’t been the foundation for her entire stage presence. And Tina Turner Always On Beat.

aestudier

How meal planning works: Shopping for your groceries and spending time to make your food might be slightly more time consuming than picking up something ready-made from the store, but I’m here to make this way easier for you !! ʕ •ᴥ•ʔゝ☆

For those students who have a cafeteria at school, you might have noticed that the food isn’t usually the cheapest option and is definitely not well fitted to your taste everyday; meal planning doesn’t have to be hard!!

Tips:

Make time to find recipes Whether it’s creating what suits you, looking on Instagram for inspo, or watching youtube videos, always set aside a time to plan out what you need to buy and how it’s made. This saves up a lot more time in the long run as it’s all planned out! Food Gawker is one of my top favourite recipe sites to use, available for iOS too so you can use it on the go and save anything you come across!

Start a meal calendar Meal calendars are just like normal calendars- except you put what you are going to cook and when. Colour code everything! If your goal is to eat healthier, highlight all the days where you have vegetarian meals; if you see that you have a marathon coming up in the next week or two, colour in days where you bring foods that contain high-energy.

Day themes Monday- pasta? Tuesday- breads? Wednesday- rice? The best thing about prepping your own meals means that you can bend this however you would like. Having days with themes could make your recipe planning much easier, just pick something from the same category according to the day- however if you like tacos you could eat that everyday of the month!!

Have a regular shopping day Some people prefer to meal plan for the entire month or just for a week, but with whichever option you prefer, shopping regularly is very important. If your school days are from Monday to Friday, shop for enough groceries on the weekend to minimalise trips to the store again. Out Of Milk for android users is an app to create shopping lists that categorises the type of food (dairy, veggies, etc)

Set a budget Cannot ! Stress ! This ! Enough ! Give yourself a limit to how much money you’re going to spend on buying the ingredients. Always look in your fridge before going shopping so you know what you have and don’t already need to buy!! One of the easiest ways to keep track on your expenses are to use an app: Monny and Pocket Expense are both great apps to categorise the money you spend and to set a (daily/weekly/monthly) budget on the go. Having an app to record everything seems to be the quickest option for a student (and they’re free!) but if you prefer to write it down by hand then that’s cool too (゜∀゜)!!!

Don’t over plan Finding cool recipes can be super exciting BUT be aware about how long the meals take to make. Don’t go for recipes that take 2 hours prep + 5 hour cook time just for one lunch’s worth of food. Leave out days for improvisation or grab lunch once in a while instead if you have a really busy schedule- don’t guilt yourself just because you can’t make lunch every single day!

Know your level of cooking How well do you cook? If your answer is not very well, thats okay! Culinary skills aren’t required to make your own lunch, however it would make your life much much easier to pick something you can make and would like to eat.

Preparing meals (week prep) For those of you who don’t mind eating the same meal everyday for a week, then preparing and cooking all meals on Sunday night would be ideal. There are two ways you can prepare: - Cook the meal as normal but for 5 portions (Mon-Fri, or however many days you are planning to eat it for) and store each portion in separate containers for each day. - Cutting, chopping, measuring and putting the ingredients into portions (in boxes or bags or however you want to keep it) to cook it every night for the next day. This ensures freshness but still saving all the prep time as you do it in advance! This does require some cooking but it’s definitely more efficient than doing the entire process per day.

Preparing meals (daily prep) You may have to find time each night to prepare if you prefer to eat something different everyday. Although it sounds very time consuming, I suggest to plan out recipes, gather all ingredients needed for all the meals, and sort out the amount of each ingredient needed for each meal on the weekend. Weekdays might be hectic and tiring when you get home afterschool, and finding the time to cut and prepare daily might start to become a chore, resulting in a lack of motivation to stay in plan.

Have fun!!

Here is a list of recipe ideas for school !!!

Hope this helped with your meal planning ~~!! ﾟ･:*｡(ꈍᴗꈍ)ε｀*)~｡*:･ﾟ