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Happy 27th birthday Maia! @kalindasharmas 

Here are some 27 year old characters for you, as well as Cristela Hernandez to show you hän achieve your dreams at any age and Maya Lopez (Echo) who is awesome and your namesake.

Thank you for adding so many WOC to this

ANd thank you for adding lawyers to this photoset

I teared up at the Cristela mention because it took me such a while to realize that your dream, and Cristela’s dream (and laurel and ally’s) was also my dream and it took her (and you) a while to reach it too so it’s inspiring to know i can still set my goals. 

I love you always. 

Call me when we see Western Asian people portrayed as anything other than terrorists.

Call me when we see East Asian women playing roles that aren’t Dragon Lady, China Doll and Tiger Mom speaking broken Engrish.

Call me when Asian men are romantic leads PERIOD.

Call me when Latin@ folks aren’t maids, gardeners, thugs or spicy Latin lovers.

Call me when we actually see Black women getting to show the fuck up in science fiction and fantasy as leads as BLACK WOMEN and not painted or cgi aliens.

happy birthday, mari ( @coalitiongirl )!!! ♥

ARIES: an end to police brutality

TAURUS: 4 innoncent lives 2 stop being taken by the cops

GEMINI: black lives 2 matter

CANCER: 4 cops 2 stop getting off w/o nothing for killing unarmed ppl

LEO: to actually feel safe and protected by the police

VIRGO: 4 cops to stop thinking they’re “above the law”

LIBRA: 4 cops 2 stop thinking a black person is being “suspicious” for walking down the street

SCORPIO: no more kids being left w/o a parent because their mom or dad got shot

SAGITTARIUS: 4 black ppl 2 stop being automatically judged as being “dangerous”

CAPRICORN: justice to b served 4 mourning families

AQUARIUS: no more mike browns or eric garners

You could watch a movie and just appreciate it instead of over analyzing every single scene to make sure there’s nothing remotely offensive about it.

You could have a favorite character and just like them and appreciate how great they were written and portrayed, without being told you’re terrible because they’re a villain. Even though they’re FICTIONAL and most likely were deliberately written to be likable. (Even if they were written as an evil character, I still think you have a right to like them, but maybe that’s just me)

You could love and be a fan of the actors without having to go full on FBI agent, looking into their backgrounds to make sure they are 100% perfect and had never made a mistake ever.

You could post about said actor without some busybody little fandom cop, slithering into your inbox to tell you(all too happily) that your fave is “problematic” (god, I fucking hate that word), and you’re disgusting if you still like them.

You know what I also remember?

How one of my friends was always awkwardly quiet after the rest of his friends group laughed at a ‘no homo’ set up joke. How he never laughed along when someone used ‘gay’ to describe something. I remember telling people who didn’t laugh that “it’s a joke, what’s wrong with you?”

I also remember, almost a decade after, crying happily as he married the love of his life who happened to be a man.

I remember laughing at a racist joke in a movie with my cousins, and her one black friend, her best friend, up and leaving because of it. I remember nodding along as she said “ugh, she can never take a joke”.

I remember asking my cousin about her years later and learning they never spoke after that. Ten years of friendship lost that night.

I remember sitting in a room filled with guy friends, making sexist jokes and being told I was so cool for not being as uptight as “other girls”. I remember that slowly losing its shine, and wondering why I felt more and more uncomfortable hearing that.

And then I remember who I was back then, and how I am so glad I am no longer that person.

I remember the first time I apologized to my gay friends for the jokes I used to make. I remember the first time I didn’t try to defend how I “didn’t mean to be racist”. I remember the first time I asked a guy just what is wrong with “other girls”, and how I lost some friends that day who I realized were never really my friends.

You know what changed? I changed. Through listening and understanding and admitting my privileges and faults, I changed. Now even if I try, I can’t just enjoy something that jokes at the expense of others. I cant watch someone who is unapologetically problematic in media.

I can’t enjoy these things because I realize now that their very existence hurts. That the very existence of this type of media perpetuates behaviors and ideologies that can lead to people being abused, harassed, and murdered.

And you know what? That’s a good thing. Because the more people who refuse to ingest this type of media, the less audience it has, and the stronger the message becomes that these things - racism, homophobia, sexism, transphobia, etc. - are not things to be waved off. You’re not edgy or cool for ignoring them. You’re not “uptight” by being upset by them. These are real things with very real social impact.

The reality is, there was never a time when everyone could just enjoy things. To be able to say you had that time is to admit the privilege you had at not having to think about problematic behavior because it didn’t negatively affect your life.

I don’t remember a time where I could “just enjoy things”. What I remember is a time where I was able to enjoy something by throwing everyone who could be hurt by or suffer from it under the bus.

The New Mexico whiptail is a species of lizard with one extraordinary adaptation: every single one of them are female. In a complex process called parthenogenesis, females simulate the act of sex with one another, and lay eggs containing embryos that are exclusively female.

many black women in the lesbian community have stated this but non black people continued to use the term until a lot of people will refuse to admit it is aave, and i do not aappericate people coming into my ask and trying to start a fight over this especially if you are not black.

Listen. To. Black. Lesbian. Women.

when they tell you something aave, black off. It’s a simple as that. Let black women, and the black community have their own terms stop trying to steal their stuff.

 –Samantha C. Tenorio,  Women-Loving Women: Queering Black Urban Space during the Harlem Renaissance

Read more at Lambda Literary’s website. GAY GENERAL FICTION

Mundo Cruel: Stories, Luis Negron; translated by Suzanne Jill Levine, Seven Stories Press

LESBIAN GENERAL FICTION

Happiness, Like Water, Chinelo Okparanta, Mariner Books (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

LGBT DEBUT

Descendants of Hagar, Nik Nicholson, AuthorHouse

BISEXUAL FICTION

My Education, Susan Choi, Penguin Group/Viking

TRANSGENDER FICTION

Wanting in Arabic, Trish Salah, TSAR Publications

LGBT NONFICTION

White Girls, Hilton Als, McSweeney’s Publishing

TRANSGENDER NONFICTION

The End of San Francisco, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, City Lights Publishers

BISEXUAL NONFICTION

The B Word: Bisexuality in Contemporary Film and Television, Maria San Filippo, Indiana University Press

GAY POETRY

Unpeopled Eden, Rigoberto Gonzalez, Four Way Books

LESBIAN POETRY

Rise in the Fall, Ana Bozicevic, Birds, LLC

LGBT GRAPHIC NOVEL

Calling Dr. Laura: A Graphic Memoir, Nicole J. Georges, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

LGBT CHILDREN’S/YA – TIE

If You Could Be Mine, Sara Farizan, Algonquin Books

Two Boys Kissing, David Levithan, Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers

GAY MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY

A Heaven of Words: Last Journals, by Glenway Wescott, Ed. Jerry Rosco, University of Wisconsin Press

LESBIAN MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY

Body Geographic, Barrie Jean Borich, University of Nebraska Press

GAY MYSTERY

The Prisoner of the Riviera: A Francis Bacon Mystery, Janice Law, MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Media

LESBIAN MYSTERY

High Desert, Katherine V. Forrest, Spinsters Ink

GAY ROMANCE

Into This River I Drown, TJ Klune, Dreamspinner Press

LESBIAN ROMANCE

Clean Slate, Andrea Bramhall, Bold Strokes Books

GAY EROTICA

The Padisah’s Son and the Fox: an erotic novella, Alex Jeffers, Lethe Press

LESBIAN EROTICA

Wild Girls, Wild Nights: True Lesbian Sex Stories, Ed. Sacchi Green, Cleis Press

LGBT ANTHOLOGY

FICTION Queer Africa: New and Collected Fiction, Karen Martin and Makhosazana Xaba, MaThoko’s Books

NON-FICTION Who’s Yer Daddy?: Gay Writers Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners, Eds. Jim Elledge and David Groff, The University of Wisconsin Press

LGBT DRAMA

Tom at the Farm, Michel Marc Bouchard, Talonbooks

LGBT SF/F/HORROR

Death by Silver, Melissa Scott & Amy Griswold, Lethe Press

LGBT STUDIES

Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History and the Politics of Violence, Christina B. Hanhardt, Duke University Press

BETTY BERZON EMERGING WRITER AWARD

Imogen Binnie

Charles Rice-González

DR. JAMES DUGGINS OUTSTANDING MID-CAREER NOVELIST AWARD

Michael Thomas Ford

Radclyffe

PIONEER AWARD

Kate Bornstein

TRUSTEE AWARD

“The pay gap does not affect all women the same way.”

Aug. 23 is Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, which marks the additional time it takes for black women to earn what white men earn in a year. To put it simply, it takes 20 months for a black woman to earn the same wages as a white man earns in 12.

According to the Center for American Progress, black women earn about 60% of what white men earn. The percentage is strikingly low in comparison to the 79% wage difference when grouping all women together. 

Fusion contextualized the wage disparities by doing the math for some of the richest and most famous black women, like Beyoncé and Halle Berry. 

@oliviaspencerrivera asked me to tell the story of when Regina realises that she’s in love with Emma in ‘From Crayons to Perfume’. Will make sense without knowledge of that fic.

It starts with nothing, as the rare arguments she has with Emma so often do. ‘Get your grading off my kitchen table’ turns to ‘why are you so anal retentive’ and then to ‘he’s my son and I won’t feel obliged to you for giving him to me’ and then Emma storms out and gets in her car and Regina gives several A-grade papers D’s and an hour later Emma’s back, normally with some weird gift for Henry or to go another round or before she can decide which route to take, she’s yanked inside by Regina, pressed against the coat closet and kissed soundly until all thoughts of forgiveness or fighting are forgotten.