Cerbaros

Zenos x Koana, courtesy of Tomodachi Life

here's some recent art i've done:

I haven't written in a while, but the lionhearts do have an FFXIVWrite series from 2024!

It would mean a lot to me this year's Pride, to see acknowledgement and celebration for queers of color of every stripe. Often it feels like BIPOC are an afterthought in Pride celebrations, not only left unacknowledged, but further marginalized by the intersection of their identities. And yet the weight of queer history roars with the resistance of people like Marsha P. Johnson and Silvia Rivera who did not stop fighting for liberation until they passed. The uprising at Stonewall itself is a culmination of years of queer activism.

When it comes to conversations about queer suppression, especially as shown by the attitude inspiring this post, we often see takes that certain people inherently don't "understand" gay coding or any number of nods to queer identity, simply due to the circumstances of our birth. I'd like to bring attention to the fact that many people in the world are still unable to openly call themselves queer of any kind of identity, without being severely punished by their own governments. At the same time, BIPOC in the USA especially Black and Indigenous people, regardless of their queer status, are policed and killed every day for the most frivolous reasons; and queerness amplifies the danger they face on the daily, especially if they are perceived as being gender-nonconforming. I'd like us all to remember what we think of as 'normal' now, like posting about queerness and being queer online, is an incredible, incredible privilege that people lived, fought, and died for. Our elders died dreaming that we, the future generations, have a chance to breathe and love together.

Stereotyping a whole kind of people, or blanketing a nation's attitude onto the people who live there, feels extremely antithetical to the history of the term 'queer' as a community and as a movement of liberation. Personally speaking, I was practically raised by a butch while we were both navigating the complexities and danger of being queer, in a country whose textbooks promote civilians to punish homosexuality by stoning gays or putting lesbians into house arrest, whose laws criminalize private citizens' sex lives. I saw firsthand the discrimination she could not shake for the entirety of her work, how she had to bring her own friends as advocates for her because her coworkers and administration disliked her, the way our organization suffered due to the perception of her as a corrupting influence on the band kids she trained. She shepherded us through the most successful years of marching band our school had ever seen, and her reward was to be kicked out of the school the moment my class graduated. Luckily, no worse outcome happened that I know of, but we all saw it happen. She had no partner that I knew of, and she never spoke of her orientation publicly, but that she was so gender-nonconforming as a butch was enough to mark her for life.

I don't care if that artist sent themselves the anon ask. I don't care who anon actually is. What I want to highlight is just how prevalent their bigoted way of thinking actually is in queer spaces, particularly when it comes to White queers.

The truth, whether we accept it or not, is that White queers — especially but not just cis gay men — still benefit from their Whiteness. And rather than using this position of privilege to uplift Black queers and other queers of color, so many are instead content to maintain the misogynistic lily-white status quo. (You bet your ass White women do this too.)

The wrongful assumption that existing within a marginalized group like the queer community exempts them from being discriminatory. False. Racism can and does manifest in the alphabet community, as can any other -ism.

These are the same people who, when faced with very real criticisms, invoke their queerness like a multipass that absolves them of their own prejudices and bigotry. How can I be racist? I'm gay.

Black and other people of color who exert any sort of pushback may be accused of engaging in the oppression olympics or playing the race card, as if being marginalized were a fucking contest. Hey, losers, you don't get a gold medal for being the most oppressed and attacked minority on the internet.

PSA, if you are called in/out, if you unintentionally hurt someone, if someone expresses they were hurt and that wasn’t your intention, if your words are interpreted in a way you did not intend…. you can literally just apologize.

A grand majority of the time, a simple apology and acknowledgement is enough! You can say you didn’t mean it and try to explain again, but you need to recognize and own that your words hurt someone.

Getting called out/in is an honor. It means someone trusted you. It means they thought that if they brought your behavior to your attention, you would be a smart and kind human and change your behavior.

If someone says something awful and I know there's no changing them, I roll my eyes and keep walking. If someone didn't roll their eyes and keep walking, and instead offered you their soft underbelly to risk saying, "Actually that's kind of fucked up," because they thought you'd value the information and adjust accordingly, you have been honored.

Friendly reminder that your OCs are wonderful, because you are wonderful. Just look at all the lovely work you've created; how it is all uniquely you.