Junk Notebook #2

Our entire world is queer and nonbinary - everything exists on a complex and dynamic spectrum and multiple things can be true simultaneously. It is vital to understand that, and to be a forever teachabe person.

Being in the LGBTQ+ community does not make you incapable of racism, ableism, sexism, fatphobia etc. nor does it mean that you do not benefit from other systems of oppression. When you say "I'm gay so I can't be misogynistic" you sound like an asshole.

Also community is a verb - we are truly at a point in this capitalistic hellscape where we really need to come together in real life. That means making spaces where disabled people are at the centre, and mutial aid is involved. It means being a good neighbour, asking for help, and giving it where you can. There is no enemy but apathy.

I love being a fat femme ❤️❤️❤️ I love my lesbian boyfriend ❤️❤️❤️

The Ugly Laws were all about who could exist in public, who deserved to be killed or institutionalized, and what the "ideal" human form was. Knowing disabled and black history will set you up for truly understanding queerphobia. Dig deeper.

I don't think my gender journey has ever made sense to my family. Something got severed when I came out and they didn't stay curious about me, so every change to my wardrobe and life since then has no context.

Our entire world is queer and nonbinary - everything exists on a complex and dynamic spectrum and multiple things can be true simultaneously. It is vital to understand that, and to be a forever teachabe person.

Being in the LGBTQ+ community does not make you incapable of racism, ableism, sexism, fatphobia etc. nor does it mean that you do not benefit from other systems of oppression. When you say "I'm gay so I can't be misogynistic" you sound like an asshole.

Also community is a verb - we are truly at a point in this capitalistic hellscape where we really need to come together in real life. That means making spaces where disabled people are at the centre, and mutial aid is involved. It means being a good neighbour, asking for help, and giving it where you can. There is no enemy but apathy.

I love being a fat femme ❤️❤️❤️ I love my lesbian boyfriend ❤️❤️❤️

The Ugly Laws were all about who could exist in public, who deserved to be killed or institutionalized, and what the "ideal" human form was. Knowing disabled and black history will set you up for truly understanding queerphobia. Dig deeper.

I don't think my gender journey has ever made sense to my family. Something got severed when I came out and they didn't stay curious about me, so every change to my wardrobe and life since then has no context.

apparently the murder happened in 2023 after doing some research but the murderer has been found not guilty.

apparently the murder happened in 2023 after doing some research but the murderer has been found not guilty.

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.

the most frequent reactions are from people from Not America agreeing that the cultural force of american pride has detracted in some tangible way from their knowledge or recognition of their own history. there’s so many links and references in the notes now, for so many different places. i had a scroll through some of them, that i could find versions of in english. the world has such a rich queer history, and i am inspired by all of the people saying they’re going to go and research more of their own histories. there have been resources shared from all six permanently inhabited continents (none from antartica, yet…), including a lot (relative to the usual zero) from the regions most frequently glossed over in our global queer histories; africa, the middle east, southeast asia, the pacific, and south america. every single person who’s shared a queer historical figure’s name, or a book or other source, or a historical event from their country or culture is doing an important thing by helping to dismantle the US pride hegemony.

the next most frequent reactions are from americans pissing on the poor, and claiming that either it’s not their fault individually because [nebulous reason missing the point] and/or that i’m racist (someone even said fascist lmao?) because the two people i mentioned were Black and latin american… it’s not the fault of those two women nor myself that americans have chosen their faces and names to put at the front of their imperialist pride. cultural imperialism doesn’t have to LOOK racist! you can be unintentionally culturally imperialist and look woke! a lot of the people who do this are queer and liberal or even leftist. the problem is forcing american queer history on the rest of us. shoutout to the Black and latine people in the notes who’ve rightfully pointed out that that’s a bullshit rebuttal. I’ve also noted the autocorrect typo on Marsha’s name, and fixed it, thanks for the heads up.

sort of the point of cultural imperialism is that the people doing it don’t notice it on an individual level. of course you don’t feel like you’re responsible! of course you struggle to see it when the rest of us point it out! that’s by design! if the rest of the world is saying something is a real experience that they’ve had, and you say “well i don’t see it / i’m not responsible for it,” that is blatant denial of a very real issue.

finally, for the love of god, stop using they/them for me, a trans woman who exclusively uses she/her. my pronouns are front and centre on my blog! funny how the people calling me racist and transmisogynistic for Using Examples are also frequently degendering me in the process, huh?