#homefromnarnia

[takemehomefromnarnia]

True Colors United | Cyndi Lauper & Friends: Home for the Holidays

December 11th, 2020 | 8PM ET December 13th, 2020 | 8PM ET Any time. ABOUT THE SHOW Home for the Holidays is a 21st century virtual concert experience. Unite with Cyndi Lauper and her friends for a star-studded evening to … Read More

Pop stars unite to give LGBTQ+ young people a home for the holidays. Join Cyndi Lauper on her TikTok, and - if you can - donate towards ending  homelessness of LGBTQ+ young people

[larriemix]

supporting #rainbowdirection with these cuties happilystylinsons teenagelarrie

[gayshrug]

One Direction's Action1D

I just joined One Direction's #Action1D movement by making this video - go get involved and help demand a better world for people & planet! #Action2015

“I’m a transgender and bisexual university student.” ♥

[thisiskatsblog]

I completely agree with your post about nick and Tyler Oakley however Tyler did have a worldwide trend telling him to kill himself. I find this as disgusting as what nick endured. That wasn't a fan tweeting horrible homophobic insults it was collectively the fandom tweeting and retweeting a man to kill himself.

Oh dear - this was information I did not have and I do find it despicable. I believe this would have been an ideal action for Takemehomefromnarnia’s Twitter team to tweet each individual perpetrator and ask them why they did that, trying to engage them in conversation about how homophobic and hurtful to lgbt people that is.

Still, in terms of which celebrity the mod should have targeted first and foremost, given the limited time and resources available at the time, I stick to my guns and say it was Liam - one apology from him would have made most perpetrators from the fandom  see sense. The reason why “the fandom” felt entitled to do that was Liam’s meltdown, after all. When you are short staffed - as we were back then - choices have to be made: what will have the most impact when you only have five minutes to spare to write up an action. And that would be: try to get Liam to apologize via one of our Tumblr “Today’s Action“‘s. That said - given more time and resources a supportive Tweet for Tyler and an educational Twitter action targeting individual transgressors would have been avenues to pursue.

So - in summary: we can only do what we have the time and resources to do, responsibility and impact are deciding factors in those cases. Liam was responsible for this - and an apology from him would have been the most impactful.

Also, please keep in mind that it’s more useful to direct one’s energy to criticize the bad for being bad, rather than the good for not being perfect. We aren’t perfect. Far from it. We learn every day and I, for one, will take what I learned from this to our future actions. But we put our energy and effort into working towards the greater good every day as well and it gets tiring to have to defend ourselves for not doing everything we could possibly do - and it’s not as if we can set up an action in retrospect. We do what we can. If everyone did that the world would be a better place.

[masqueradehfx]

This is what Twitter is like right now: Sad little bastards spastic one direction faggot fans

[takemehomefromnarnia]

Today's action: Australia sends the gay away

Australia is sending all refugees, who arrive by boat, to Papua New Guinea – where gay people can be sent to jail for 14 years.

We have a chance to stop this right now. The Prime Minister just announced the election. A global outcry could force the issue front and centre for every party, and make this issue a decider for who is fit to lead the country.

Australia is one of the few countries in the region that openly accepts lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. It has always been a safe haven for refugees fleeing extreme persecution. Sign the petition to make Australia a safe haven again!

Today's action: sign Allout's petition here: 

CLICK

[takemehomefromnarnia]

Twitter's problem with free speech and homophobia

When a bunch of fans call Louis Tomlinson 'a faggot' in response to his signing with a football team, Twitter considers that free speech. Fair enough. But when you use your right to free speech to call these people out on their homophobia, Twitter considers that ‘unsolicited and egregious abuse' of the reply/mention funtion and suspends your account. Do you think that is fair?

Today’s action: Help us spread the open letter we wrote to Twitter about it's problem with homophobia and free speech

It can be reblogged here Or retweeted here

[takemehomefromnarnia]

Takemehomefromnarnia's Open Letter to Twitter: Let's talk about homophobia and free speech

Dear Twitter,

Our relationship seems to have gotten off on the wrong foot. You see, dear Twitter, several times now you have suspended our accounts (@homefromnarnia, @homefromnarnia2 and @realeyesaction) for what you call unsolicited and egregious abuse of your reply/mention system. We call it using our right to free speech to combat homophobia. So, in the immortal (and paraphrased) words of the Rolling Stones, “Please allow us to introduce ourselves.”

Takemehomefromnarnia is a diverse group of fans who want to make fandom a safe place for everyone. We are spread across the globe, representing many different ages, racial, sexual, and gender identities. As one of our many projects, we have committed to an ongoing campaign to combat homophobia on Twitter. We know we cannot stop it all. Some people are just going to hate no matter what. But there is a very large number of people who use homophobic language every day, quite by accident. They simply don’t know that the words are homophobic. Homophobia is still very systemic in our global culture – much as racism was 50 years ago (and still is in many places). Many people have never heard of the simple test for offensive language: replace the questionable word with Jew – if now you wouldn’t dare say it, then it was already offensive. This aptly applies to the use of words like faggot, dyke, and the always popular “that’s so gay”, which fill Twitter every day. But for the most part, when the offense is called out and a little education is provided, the behaviour changes. This is how free speech works. Ideas are exchanged, discussion happens, and knowledge grows. However, being a technology company, Twitter, you have abdicated much of your self-policing to algorithms that are not programmed to consider the context of the exchange. And the idea of free speech suffers because of it.

 In the 21st Century, Twitter has become an amazing tool in the universal quest for freedom of speech. It has played a part in toppling Dictators in the Arab Spring and mobilizing Occupy protestors. Twitter ensures that crimes against LGBT* citizens in Russia and Uganda do not go unreported and unremembered. Twitter has ensured the rescue of those trapped by disasters both natural and manmade. It has played a major role in the democratization of free speech – no longer is it the rich and powerful who get to speak and be heard; anyone with internet access can take to Twitter and have their cry heard far and wide! In that sense, Twitter has certainly fulfilled the intention of the first part of Article 19 of the General Assembly of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." On Twitter, everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

 However, freedom of speech does have a dark side. Not all Twitter speech is “good”. Some of it is racist, hateful, misogynistic, and, according to the NoHomophobes.com count, homophobic about 25 million times in the last twelve months. Consider that number for a moment. That is more than the population of Australia! How would the world react if everyone in Australia made a homophobic comment all at once? The sound would be deafening, as would the resulting outcry. And yet every year, the equivalent happens on Twitter. There is a statement often attributed to Voltaire: I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it. This is something we in the Takemehomefromnarnia movement take very seriously. Everyone, regardless of their beliefs, has the right to express themselves. However, Article 19 also tempers the right to speak with the right to “seek, receive, and impart information and ideas.” The second word is the important one: We have the right to speak, but others also have the right to speak back to us! And this is where Twitter has been a tragic disappointment to our group.

 At Takemehomefromnarnia, we contact many different people to discuss their use of homophobic language. These are not people who follow our accounts, nor are they people we follow. These are strangers who are active in our little corner of the internet who just happen to be using homophobic language. Over the past few months, we have adopted some best practices, refined our standard introduction messages, and established frequently used links to educational resources. We do not want to bother people. We engage in discussion with those who wish to engage, and those who do not want to talk do not hear from us again. Ours is a mission of education. But Twitter has called it an unsolicited and egregious abuse of their reply/mention system, and repeatedly suspended our accounts. We know not everyone is appreciative of being called out on their free use of homophobic language. We expect to be blocked by some users. We expect some users to fight back with the report button. And the frequency of our “unsolicited” tweets, or the recurring use of our resource links, also trigger your algorithms to automatically suspend our accounts. Thus far, Dear Twitter, you seem to think this is our problem; but really, it is yours!

Twitter cannot take sides when it comes to free speech! You cannot willfully accept homophobic speech in the name of free speech, and then quash any attempt to counter the offensive language. We are not asking for Twitter to do anything other than allow for a level playing field. If the Westboro Baptist Church can tweet “God Hates Fags” on a daily basis, Takemehomefromnarnia should have the same right to counter those statements. If one fan can tweet to another fan that it is disgusting to think a celebrity is a faggot, Takemehomefromnarnia should have the right and ability to intervene and confront the blatant homophobia. But Twitter, you seem to have a problem with direct engagement. While it is fine to shout whatever you believe from the rooftops, responding to the shouts is a violation of your terms of service; at least, if you disagree with the other person.

 Takemehomefromnarnia is more than happy to work with Twitter to find a mutually acceptable solution. Collaboration is the key to fighting homophobia. We do not want to have homophobic speech banned from Twitter – sending it underground does nothing to address the root problem, that being a lack of education. Reporting everyone who uses homophobic language due to a lack of understanding would simply clog your system and does nothing to address the problem. Plus, Freedom of Speech means the freedom to make homophobic remarks.

But you must know that we have every intention to continue to actively engage in our right to freely express our disagreement with homophobia, to call it out when we see it, and engage in a free and open exchange of information and education.  Twitter has the opportunity to take a stand by getting out of the way. By actively interfering in our ability to contact those who use homophobic language, Twitter may be protecting their free speech, but does so by infringing upon ours. The right to free speech of one individual is no more important than the right of any other. Twitter does not have the legal or moral authority to pick and chose. We have the right to speak, and others have the right to speak back to us. So what will it be, Dear Twitter? Will you allow the discussion to happen? Or should we simply be content conversing only with those who agree with us, and clogging your system with reported accounts?

25 million homophobic comments polluted the Twitter feed in the last year. With or without the support of Twitter, we will continue to do what we can to shrink that number. And we encourage you to join us. Let Twitter know that free speech is a two way street, regardless of what their computer algorithm says. Retweet this letter to @twitter, and let them know that @homefromnarnia is ready and willing to work with them on their free speech and homophobia problem.

Takemehomefromnarnia

Twitterers can help us catch Twitter's attention and retweet us here.