LGBTQ+

Sick of Reddit and the stunt they pulled. It may have a bit of a learning curve, but I'm glad to be here. Gay/Trans Rights! 👊🏿💜

Mine was OK. Didn't do much and was pretty depressed for most of it but at least I got a flag. Wasn't able to do much as my area is quite religious

hey beehaw team :) this is partly advice seeking and partly just wanting to share my experience and hopefully hear how others feel about he topic. i’m not sure if this is the right community for this either, but hopefully it is!

i’m a cis woman who’s always been a fair bit interested in both femininity and androgyny for my hair and clothing, but lately i’ve been feeling more of a pull than usual to present in a more masculine/butch leaning way. to the point where i’m even considering trying out binding, which i’ve never really thought about before.

i’m a bit conflicted though about all of this, because i do know i have some internalized misogyny regarding femininity being inferior to masculinity. i’m having difficulty telling if i’d like to present more masc because i think femininity is stupid/not cool, or if it’s something i actually want.

does anyone have any advice/thoughts to share about this? i don’t really have anyone irl i can talk to about this, so any input would be really appreciated <3

to be clear, i am not questioning my gender here. i like and use she/her pronouns and am not interested in any others.

I had posted a draft version of this here last week with a different title; this is the revised and expanded version. Thanks everybody for the feedback, and thanks to We Distribute for pubishing the revised version. Most of all, thanks to all the trans, queer, and nonbinary people who have helped build the #fediverse and are shaping its future. Happy Pride!

Here's a brief excerpt ...

"way back, at the beginning of mastodon’s rise to what it is now, queer activists, be they just a stranger with a keyboard, new to the social media site, weighing in on a topic on the public timeline, or me, someone actively attempting to be the middle between the most vocal voices, and tangible, meaningful change through gargron’s code, and github focused writing and activity, people were queer. they were marginalized, to some extent. people who weren’t comfortable with the status quo, so we changed it.”

-- hoodieaidakitten, Mastodon’s Complicated Relationship with Queer Activism, July 2018

Ever since Mastodon started in 2016, queer, trans and non-binary people have helped build it and the interconnected web of decentralized social networks known as the “fediverse.” Today there are dozens or even hundreds of LGBTQ-focused instances, and even many of the instances that aren’t specifically for the community are welcoming. Which is good!

People telling the Mastodon origin story usually acknowledges the queer influence.... Still, very few people I talk to know realize how extensive queer contributions have been – and how much tension there’s been around them. Mastodon: a partial history has a lot of quotes and links to first-person experiences, but they’re scattered throughout it – and it ends in late 2022. So to celebrate Pride, I figured I’d expand on that and also highlight a few of many areas where the impact continues today.

Basically 2.5 minutes of condensed free association.

This is a bit of a vent because I don't feel comfortable talking about this in literally any other virtual or physical space. I hope that's ok.

I'm a 28 y/o cis woman in a straight relationship.

When I was 14 I once confided to someone that I thought I was bi. A couple of years later she brings it up in a group setting an I was adamant that conversation never happened and that I was 100% straight.

I grew up in an immigrant community and while unspoken it was always clear to me that there would be hell to pay if I was bi. My parents were already abusive and neglectful and it was hard enough to survive in that environment as is... I was always conscious of not wanting to make that even harder.

And because I was also attracted to men I guess it felt easy enough for me to ignore my attraction to women.

Even in uni I would make out with girls and stuff and my mental dissonance was like "oh, all girls are like that."

I'm super happy that kids these days are more comfortable being queer but as that happened around me it became clear to me that... Oh, shit, I'm bi.

And it just upsets me? Like I'm in a loving straight relationship. I want to spend the rest of my life with him. I'm going to marry him in a couple of years. I don't have the opportunity to explore my bisexuality because that boat has sailed.

And I don't feel comfortable "coming out". I have this vague guilt that I've lived my entire life with straight privilege and still do, being in a straight relationship. I feel like if I came out I'd be virtue signalling and taking oxygen from people who are "actually queer". I'm worried people won't believe me, because I spent 15 years not believing myself.

In terms of things in my life that cause me distress this is not the biggest one (I have C-PTSD, MDD, GAD, and am still not sure I'll survive to my 30s).

But I just feel like I'm stuck being a straight woman, and it's just something about myself that I'll never get to be authentic about. And it sucks and it hurts. And I'm ashamed to tell anyone because I'm afraid neither straight nor queer spaces will believe/accept me.

Archive link: archive.org

A sharp majority of Filipinos say they agree that gays and lesbians are trustworthy and contribute to the progress of society, according to a national survey.

The survey, conducted in March by the nonprofit social research group Social Weather Stations and released in June — Pride Month in many nations — shows a substantial rise in supportive views of gays and lesbians in the socially conservative country in the past decade.

My son was driving to the DMV to get his license, and an NPR segment came on about trans kids. This led to him asking about gender identity and what that meant. Then we were talking about asexual folks, because he has an online friend that identifies that way. Then I brought up demi types, and said... I think this is what that means.

I'm QNB, and I'm still a little overwhelmed with all the terminology at times.

Is there a good guide that goes over all of this?

So, I will make no secret that I'm rolling my eyes at all of that marketing stuff that goes up every year. But I've been thinking, it doesn't have to be so superficial and pointless. Maybe there's some rare exception out there that took the opportunity to say or do something meaningful.

Did you come across a company or organisation lately that use the occasion to take some stance beyond feelgood buzzwords or implement a policy internally or in their area of operations that is of at least some importance?

Hi there, I'm a trans man and just separated all winter clothes that are too undeniably feminine for me. They're the large pile on this picture, which should have ten or so sweaters. However I'm fairly petite, I have 161cm and slim shoulders. I wear S size (with some XS or M sprinkled in). I'm not sure transfem shelters would need such small clothing and I've been thinking in giving them to other shelters instead (but not thrift stores). Thoughts?

So I'm a geologist, but this happened a ways back when I was still in school. One of my classes had recently taken a trip to see an outcrop of igneous intrusions in the local hills. I got invited as a plus one to my fiance's cousin and her now-wife's wedding, and as he and I were driving to the venue, I said "oh hey I know this place, there's dikes everywhere around here!"

He looked at me with this shocked expression, and realizing what I just said sounded like, I hastily explained the geologic definition. He made me promise not to speak a word of it at the wedding.

I've seen the two of them at the occasional Thanksgiving in the years since, and though I find humor in it, I've never felt like I could judge if it would be in poor taste to mention the geology beneath their wedding venue.

(Geology fun fact: if you look at the vertical veins of darker rock, notice the gradient spreading out into the lighter rock. That's where the heat of the intrusion literally baked the older rock, and the pink right at the contact is where the silica actually melted into a glassier form.)

Discovered via blog post by Jason Kottke

I found this episode really comforting to listen to, it’s less news-heavy and more of a conversation about this moment, and how people are feeling in it and what they’re doing with that.

Mine was kinda bad. Got a flag and stuff that I keep hidden just was really depressed for the whole month. I've been going through a lot.

At least I made some bi stuff and obtained a pride flag