Bear Witness

I just found out about the Stay Up Late campaign to advocate for people with intellectual disabilities to have the right to go out in the evening and not have to be in bed by 8pm

I learned about it from this video:

And I found the website for the campaign which is here:

Before I share screenshots of the rest of my tweets, first I’ll explain.

tl;dr: I was raised Catholic, taught that homosexuality was a sin. When I got into college, I joined tumblr and learned more about different sexualities and the lgbt+ community and started shifting my views a bit, i.e. I still believed it was still a sin but started to support lgbt+ people having the right to get married. Soon after, I started watching anime. I got into Free! and the fandom made the cutest art and fics and headcanons of all the m/m ships in the show. That made me start realizing that “these ships are so sweet and loving and normal, why is this wrong or sinful?” It made me seeing things differently. I stopped thinking that being gay was a sin, and after a few years of trying to undo internalized homophobia, I realized that I’m bi.

I’m sorry if I didn’t realize my sexuality in a way that was good or pure enough for the rest of you. Yes it took an anime and m/m fanart to make me realize that being gay was okay, I’m not ashamed to admit that. I live in Texas, I didn’t have many gay people around me in my personal life (actually I did but didn’t know it at the time because most of them were school friends who were also in the closet for the same reasons as me). We all have different upbringings, and mine involved a very religious upbringing where I was constantly told about all these sinful thoughts and actions that could send me to hell. It took a lot to undo all of that.  I’m still not out in real life because I’m terrified my parents will cut me off if they find out, and I’m waiting until I’m more financially independent.

I’d appreciate it if you would reblog this @crestholder (I can’t tag you for some reason but I hope you see this in your notifications). Whether it was your intention or not, you sharing this tweet out of context results in me continually being harassed and it’s very upsetting. I just want people to know the full tweet thread and my thought process before they decide to judge me.

Now here are the rest of my tweets on this.

Like no obviously it wasn’t the only factor, but it was a big one. How could I enjoy this musical about so many queer people and still believe their love was a sin? So I choose, and I choose acceptance, and that led directly to me realizing six months later that I was gay myself.

Rest in peace Nichelle Nichols, December 28th 1932- July 31st 2022

"My grandfather survived -insert a dozen traumatizing things here- I wonder how he'd react if he saw men being sensitive today 😠" Ur grandfather deserved tenderness too & it sucks that u glorify his suffering as a mark of manhood rather than recognize it for the burden it was

Black Widow’s director Cate Shortland on ‘involuntary hysterectomy’ clap-back

“So Eric, who is our writer, had written a joke about women being in bad moods because they have their period, Shortland recalls. And I remember Florence and Scarlett and I reading it and just being like, ‘Oh, my God, this is ridiculous.’

The director says she almost cut the joke entirely, but after discussing with her actors, ultimately decided to “answer it.” She didn’t clarify if that meant improvising on the day of or going back for traditional rewrites, but the outcome was the final digression on involuntary hysterectomies.

Caption: [A stitch with user @/sapphicyuji. The text on screen reads, " "you can't misgender cis people!", you have never had your gender questioned outside of your transness and it shows. sincerely, a trans poc".

I'm actually super glad we're having a conversation about this. The masculinization of black and brown women, because for years I felt like I endured this unique form of trauma until I realized other people went through the same thing too. And if there's one thing that I'd like to add to the conversation, there seems to be this misconception that this is something that starts at puberty. Like boys tell you you look like a man to hurt your feeling when that's so far from the case.

The first time I was purposefully misgendered was in kindergarten. I was constantly referred to by the masculine variant of my name, I was chased out of the women's restroom, and I had grown adults questioning what my biological sex was before I even knew what the difference was. And those behaviors persisted into adulthood because now if I present as anything less than 100% feminine, people will either compare me to men or animals.

Before I figured out I was nonbinary and still identified as female, people would constantly question me for having a mustache. (For context, I'm 100% afab, my dad is just Indian and so I got some of his large amounts of body hair.) Kids in school would tease me, and even when I dressed feminine, people would ask me whether I was a boy or a girl because "girls don't have mustaches."