Queers & Quakerism

As long as he's not trolling why should we exclude a guy who genuinely feels their attraction to women is queer/sapphic/lesbian/etc? This is how a few trans girls & nonbinary folk I've met realized they were trans, they realized they were a lesbian before coming to terms with the fact they're a woman / not actually a guy. And you know what, that's literally fucking fine. Not to mention, sometimes using the 'wrong' sexuality labels for your gender can be a form of gender nonconformity. Gnc/genderqueer guy finds it validating to identify as a lesbian? Awesome. Cool as hell.

— Thanksgiving 2006, Ocean Vuong, from 'Night Sky with Exit Wounds'

[text ID: Brooklyn's too cold tonight

& all my friends are three years away.

My mother said I could be anything

Happy pride month ❤️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

"We can handle one 10,000-person protest, but ten 1000-person protests throughout the city will overwhelm us."

-LAPD Chief Michel Moore, discussing the 2020 uprising

in aotearoa, june isn’t our pride, it’s theirs. marsha p johnson and sylvia rivera are their historical figures, not ours. the phrase that “you owe your rights to Black trans women” is true there, but here we owe our rights to (mostly) Māori historical figures. i have the freedoms i do because of the legacy of an entirely different set of people operating in an entirely different context at entirely different times.

But because of american cultural imperialism, most queer people in Aotearoa don’t even know our own queer history. Carmen Rupe, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, the Dorian Society, Gillian Laundon, Georgina Beyer, and the Wolfenden Association are some of our queer history. We should know their names! we should know what they did for us! but because of the power of the american imperial machine, we don’t.

our national pride month should be july, the month that the Homosexual Law Reform Act passed in 1989. our two largest cities hold their pride festivals in february and march, respectively. american queer history has very little (or nothing, depending on who you ask) to do with our queer history. anecdotally, from my own queries, queer youth in aotearoa know more about american queer history than our own.

It means that queer people all the around the world - especially those who are not white - whose experiences don't fit neat 'L', 'G', 'B', 'T' identity labels (or any identity label at all) are constantly forced to flatten their understanding of their own lives until it fits into a box that's the US-dominant system can understand.

Do you want to find others online? Social media is English-dominated and there's no word for your experience. So flatten who you are until it fits in the box.

Do you want funding for your organization? The fund uses LGBT labels and concepts. Flatten who you are until it fits in the box.

Do you want to get something published? It needs to be understandable to an audience raised on a diet of American culture. Flatten who you are until it fits in the box.

Do you want transition care? Your doctor uses an American manual on 'genderdysphoria'. Flatten who you are until it fits in the box.

Do you want an LGBT-refugee status? The state uses white American/European concepts of what it means to be queer. Flatten who you are until it fits in the box.

In light of some of the many things happening across the world this year, I thought this Pride Month needed a special illustration.