Big, Thick, & Hairy Lifters

Some good news, I’ve been talking to two developers now and got them working together, we just had a meeting with the guys behind an existing large (millions of users) site similar to Tumblr, with a vibrant and open-minded community, and more importantly, it has open-minded owners who believe in free speech. They think we can get something done here to rescue the whole community.

I’m not allowed to reveal the site name yet. I can tell you it’s mainstream, open to everyone, open-minded and welcoming. (It’s not WordPress or any site owned by Facebook or Twitter. It’s not Pillowfort, that’s in closed beta. It’s not Ello, that’s mainly for artists. It’s not kinkspace or fetlife, those are too specialist. It’s not jux, that seems to be closed. It’s not Soup, that seems still in development and too small.)

One of the reasons for delaying the announcement for next few days is they don’t want a “land grab” where people take the names of current popular Tumblr users over there (cyber squatting). So they are looking at ways for existing Tumblr users to keep the same names on the new site.

More info over the days to come.

The plan is, broadly:

1. By December 9th, announcement of the new site and how to secure your username there

2. By December 10th, an online tool for bloggers to copy their existing content to the new site automatically, with the same tags and captions.

3. Bloggers will need to copy their content across between December 10th and December 17th if they want to use the automatic tool.

4. My understanding is that after December 17th there will be no public access to any “flagged” posts on Tumblr, but the original poster will still be able to see the flagged post (for a short time at least). Therefore, the original poster may still be able to manually download a post to their own PC or phone, after December 17th, and manually upload it to the other site. But if you have lots of posts that will take a long time, it will be better to use the automatic tool before December 17th.

Please understand that these dates are approximate and may change for technical or other reasons.

There may be a few rough edges or not so perfect looking site design on the transfer tool. Everyone is doing their best. The main goal here is to help as many people as possible preserve access to their content, in the short space of time Tumblr has allowed us, and preserve as much as possible of the Tumblr community spirit somewhere new.

The new site will cater for photo, GIF, text and html posts. It will not offer video and audio posts, due to cost reasons - maybe in future, but for now you will need to preserve video and audio content yourself in some other place.

If your Tumblr blog has a mixture of original content and reblogs, or all reblogs, all of that can be copied over to the new site. Reblogs will become “your” original content if nobody else posted them yet, otherwise they will be shown as reblogs. The devs are looking at ways to preserve attribution of reblogs back to the original Tumblr poster, if that person also moves to the new site.

Important: your Likes cannot be copied from Tumblr to the new site. You will have to go find the same posts again on the new site, and like them afresh.

(Similarly, existing reblog comments, asks, messages and other user interaction on Tumblr cannot be copied to the new site - that’s just too much to do, in the short time available.)

If you want to preserve any of your existing Liked posts on Tumblr, you will need to either: (1) download the post to your own PC, or: (2A) reblog it now to your own Tumblr blog, and then (2B) use the automatic tool, before December 17th, to move your whole Tumblr blog across to the new site.

If you have Liked a lot of posts here on Tumblr, the gridllr.com webapp should be able to help you do steps 1 and 2A quickly, I mean download or reblog.

(Someone complained to me today about the appearance of Gridllr on a phone. It’s best to use Gridllr on a PC, Mac or Tablet with a large screen.)

If you have liked a post here on Tumblr and the original poster decides to delete it, or even to delete their entire blog, some time before December 17th, then that post will be permanently lost. So if you want to be sure to preserve any of your Liked posts, you should best download or reblog as soon as possible. If it’s reblogged to your own blog it is safe from deletion, at least for next few days.

I Don’t Think You Get It.  No, Really.  YOU DON’T.

Both online and in person today, I’ve seen and received so many responses to the outcry that went up from the LGBT community over the election results.  One thing that has been clear in almost every single response: those outside of our community or who lack sufficient connections to it simply do not understand our reaction.

It’s not sour grapes.  It’s not partisan butthurt.  It’s not “our team lost.  Waaaahhh!”  

You don’t get it.  We feel betrayed.  And not some minor betrayal that has some insignificant consequence.  This isn’t “You told me we’d go to the movies and then you flaked and went to get dinner with that guy who doesn’t like me instead.”  No, this is “You promised me safety and equality and then decided to put my life, well-being and civil rights–and that of those I love–in *actual* danger by aligning yourself with someone who can *actually* carry out those things.”

The electorate has installed a man who has repeatedly and publicly promised to–and will get the opportunity to–stack the Supreme Court of the United States with justices with the stated aim of attacking and invalidating my marriage and my family, as well as granting people the right not to let me sit at the lunch counter of their restaurant (among a large number of other things) for no other reason than because I’m gay.

We’ve elected a man who chose as his running mate a guy who has strongly advocated cutting funding for AIDS research–a disease that disproportionately affects my community–and instead putting that money toward electroshock therapy for gay teens to “straighten” them out.  

We’ve elected a man who explicitly and unabashedly uses aggressive bullying tactics at full volume to push his will on others, which does nothing but embolden bullies and blowhards everywhere–many of whom will feel free to target LGBT folks.   This country has betrayed every single step toward equality that has been extended toward the LGBT community by forcing us into the dilemma of either choosing to expose ourselves to the abuses of emboldened bigots or to just shut up and go back to our closets.

And as a relevant side issue that’s not purely germane to the topic–while I normally wouldn’t lump all women in wholesale with the LGBT community, I can imagine that many women in this country feel a very similar sense of betrayal.  

The electorate has signaled to everyone–most horrifying to me, impressionable young girls like my three nieces–that their only value is in their bodies, in their sexual appeal to men.

We’ve elected a man who, in getting a pass and becoming commander-in-chief, has made it perfectly clear that  if someone behaves in a demeaning or harassing way toward a woman because she doesn’t meet some sexual appeal “score,” or calls them names for being strong and powerful, or gropes or assaults them…well, that’s okay because the President does it.  

We’ve elected a man whose political success has effectively shut the mouths of countless victims of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and other forms of gender-based discrimination because we’ve sent them the clear message that nobody is going to do a DAMN thing about it.  

In this election, our country has betrayed nearly every cultural stride it has made in gender equality for the last 30 years. And in those twin betrayals, every woman, every member of the LGBT community, is put into very, very real danger.  The shaking with outrage?  The panic and anxiety attacks?  The weeping and gnashing of teeth?  It’s not some crybaby sore-loser schtick.  It’s because the electorate has just given license to a man whose behavior has paved the way for our abuse and who has promised to reduce us to second-class citizens.  AGAIN.  

We are NOT overreacting.  

I’d also like to take this moment to respond specifically to a few of the most common responses that I’ve seen to the reactions to this betrayal–some of which have even come from within the LGBT community itself.

1. The Trump voters who “love” us.  

No.  No you don’t.  At least not in anything but the most patronizing way that doesn’t acknowledge our right to be your equal under the law.  Oh sure, you might have genuine and heartfelt affection for us, but you don’t have the same kind of respect for us that you demand and expect for yourselves.  You can love your dog, too, but you don’t respect him or think that he deserves equal treatment under the law.

2. The “I don’t need your negativity” crowd.  

Oh, I’m SO sorry that you’ve had your fill with all of the negativity from this past 18 months of election cycle.  And, I’m SO sorry that you’re just so tired of and annoyed with all the fighting and am right there with you while you do and say whatever it takes to just. Make it.  Stop.  Never mind us.  We’ll just pipe back down while we’re subjected to *actual* harm for the next four years (and beyond, given that Supreme Court justices are appointed for LIFE).  I’m sure you’ll feel right as rain soon as we shut up and let you get back to whatever you were doing.

3. The “I guess you liberals aren’t so tolerant after all” jackasses.

No.  "Tolerance" is not an unwavering moral virtue any more than “Peacefulness” is.  Expressing intolerance of intolerant attitudes as a matter of self-preservation is no different than using violence in self-defense against someone who is violently attacking you.  There’s no failure of morals or principles for protecting yourself from the unjust attacks of another.  And if you wanna go all high-and-holy and start spouting about “turning the other cheek” allow me to remind you that if I ask myself “What would Jesus do?” that flipping over tables while chasing people out of a building with a whip in my hand is within the realm of possibilities.  (John 2:15)  So go get stuffed.

4. The silver lining people.

Whether it has been allies trying to cheer and comfort or our own community members trying to grasp at anything positive in such a dismal outcome, either one–while understandable and born of a desire to uplift spirits–is avoidance.  

This election result is ABYSMAL.  It is HORRIFIC.  Its implications are TERRIFYING.  We need to stop trying to shove those facts aside and come to grips with the facts that we are facing.  We need to sit in the discomfort of it to truly appreciate our predicament.  We need to stop and FEEL our outrage and fear and negative reactions instead of distracting ourselves from them and depriving ourselves of the sense of urgency and need that will be required of us going forward to undo what has happened here and stop it from getting any worse.  

Will it suck?  Yes.  But deluding ourselves about how bad it is, and how much worse we are on the edge of, or sidestepping it with a “Well, at least [insert silver lining here]” DOES NOT SERVE US.  We have to focus on the danger as we brave the storm.  Yes, we’re gonna get wet while we’re setting the sail rigging and pulling hard on the tiller, but we have to put up with the discomfort and stay on message or else we’re gonna end up on the rocks.

5. The “Nothing to be done but move along” folks.

I have seen WAY too many of these responses.  On their face, they appear to just be working hard to simply choke down the unpleasant reality of the election results and continue to get out of bed in the morning, or are exhortations from allies to do just that.  But look only a little deeper and most of them are either despair and hands thrown up in the air, or are another impulse to avoid the unpleasantness of it.  

The latter, of course, has all the same problems as the silver-lining avoidance, just with a sad face on it instead of the forced cheer.  They both deprive us of the crucial step of actually FEELING the pain and releasing it, and of the opportunity to channel it into something productive that serves our community.  The despair of the former?  Yeah.  I’ve felt it, too.  But allowing it to crush you instead of spur you to action is wasted suffering.

6.  The “Let’s heal divisions” people.

Some of this is coming out of the same place as the “no more negativity” crowd, complete with its pitfalls of wholly irrelevant exhaustion and annoyance.  Some of it is a reflexive desire to love back at our “misguided” Trump voters who keep reaching out to us, complete with a reciprocal and benignly condescending attitude.  Some of it is coming from a place of avoidance of discomfort like the move-alongs and the silver-liners, whether spirit-lifting or wholesale dodge.

And in plenty of other situations in the past, I would have been in this group–not so much an outgrowth of any of the aforementioned drives, but instead urging forgiveness, understanding, connectivity, diplomacy, reasonableness, and healing all in service of social progress and civility.

But not this time.  

I’m not interested in making peace with bigots who are not only insensible to reason, but who are brazen and proud of their prejudice and mean-spirited discrimination–and who present a very clear, credible and imminent threat to my safety and well-being, and to that of those I love.  

I have no desire to engage with sold-out political shills and talking-point parrots and knowing or careless misinformation-spreaders who have utterly and shamelessly destroyed our ability to conduct rational civic discourse in our country–and to be clear, THAT charge I level at partisans of EVERY stripe, as well as our corporate media.  

I’m not interested in talking to folks who have given over their thinking minds when it comes to politics and have subscribed instead to the Red vs. Blue teamifying of politics, and who willfully–even in light of a shit-show like the one we just witnessed–refuse to use their fucking brains when they choose candidates or policies or positions as much as they use their guts and hearts.

Diplomacy only works if everyone is willing to participate.  Without that, self-preservation is all that remains.

So, no.  No peace with willful ignorance or blind partisanship.  No reconciliation with those who have demolished political discourse and who have no motive for or interest in reviving it.  No healing the gap between me and the intractable and dangerous bigot.