slumdog mignolet

which is not to say that not knowing this is your fault, or that i don’t understand. i’ll never forget sitting in a classroom with my high school gsa, all five of us, watching a documentary on depictions of gay and bi people in media (off the straight and narrow [pdf transcript] — a worthwhile watch if your school library has it) when the narrator mentioned “the stereotype of the gay psycho killer.” we burst into giggles — how ridiculous! — then turned to our gay faculty advisors and saw their pale, pained faces as they told us “no, really. that was real” and we realized that what we’d been laughing at was the stuff of their lives.

That is what LGBT people were up against not long ago and the remnants of that fantastical-sounding hysteria and fanaticism are not only still here but regaining power again in the U.S. pretty rapidly.

I will harp on this until the day I die. It’s not information that people have nowadays both because it’s not really needed - thank GOD - and it’s been erased - not so cool.

pastors would take payment to perform the ceremony and then not show up. crematoriums would sometimes refuse to handle the bodies; funeral homes were no better, and my dad once walked in on a mortician dumping rubbing alcohol all over himself after he’d BEEN IN THE SAME ROOM as the body of one of my father’s dead friends. the funerals were held in people’s basements, the very very few churches at funeral homes willing, meeting halls, and in the homes of lesbians, who were some of the most steadfast allies during that time period. The few straight allies pitched in where they could – like that one woman who buried a lot of them herself, in her own cemetery, because their families wouldn’t come claim the bodies – but it was awful.

my dad was a reformed catholic but he knew the words and twice he had to perform the funerals to lay these people to rest because he was the most qualified. I stood next to him as he tried not to cry over his dead friends and to let them rest in peace. I watched my mother, at the back of wherever she was, quietly sobbing, and her lesbian friends who had ACTUALLY watched the person in question die, still comforting her. 

I got told by other adults that my entire family was going to hell because we deigned to care for queer people (and my dad especially, as a nurse, deigned to “waste” his knowledge and time and energy on easing suffering).

I was six years old. Freddie Mercury hadn’t even died yet.

recently a friend and I formed a queer social group/activism group and some older gay men came. And they cried, because, and I quote

“This is how it started, back then. we just got together, ten or twelve of us, and decided we were going to do something about it. And we made it out, despite everything, despite AIDS, despite the stigma. And you will too.”

And I had to respond, because I was little, but I was THERE for that, and I grabbed his hands and told him that his history is our history and we need to learn it.

we need to remember. the dead, the living, and their stories.

if you know an older queer person, inquire if they’d be interested in writing down their memoirs. If they’re not writers but want to tell the story, hit me up – I am, and I am absolutely willing to do a living memory.

but you guys gotta know… they are NOT “the only history books we have.” because… we have actual history books. just because they are rarely taught in schools does not mean they don’t exist!

i’ve been keeping a list of all the lgbt books i want to read or reread, which are mostly history, and it is, at this moment, 239 books long. and that’s excluding quite a few that i was less interested in.

obviously, it can’t cover everything; obviously, it is skewed toward white american experiences; obviously, we should always be supplementing it by talking to older people in our community as much as we can. but it does us no favors whatsoever to pretend that all the knowledge in these books is lost to history, existing only in individuals’ minds, when actually so many people have taken great pains to write it down and make it available for us to explore!

so yes, meet older people and talk to them and take them seriously! but also please, i beg of you, read a book.

Here are all the transcripts for the NYC Trans Oral History Project

Here’s the ACT UP oral History Project which has videos and transcripts

Here’s a list of a bunch of known oral history projects

During one visit, Ruth noticed the nurses would draw straws, afraid to go into one room, its door sealed by a big red bag. She asked why and the nurses told her the patient had AIDS.

On a repeat visit, and seeing the big red bag on the door, Ruth decided to disregard the warnings and sneaked into the room.

In the bed was a skeletal young man, who told Ruth he wanted to see his mother before he died. She left the room and told the nurses, who said, “Honey, his mother’s not coming. He’s been here six weeks. Nobody’s coming!”

Ruth called his mother anyway, who refused to come visit her son, who she described as a “sinner” and already dead to her, and that she wouldn’t even claim his body when he died.

“I went back in his room and when I walked in, he said, “Oh, momma. I knew you’d come”, and then he lifted his hand. And what was I going to do? So I took his hand. I said, “I’m here, honey. I’m here”, Ruth later recounted.

Ruth pulled a chair to his bedside, talked to him

and held his hand until he died 13 hours later.

After finally finding a funeral home that would his body, and paying for the cremation out of her own savings, Ruth buried his ashes on her family’s large plot.

After this first encounter, Ruth cared for other patients. She would take them to appointments, obtain medications, apply for assistance, and even kept supplies of AIDS medications on hand, as some pharmacies would not carry them.

Ruth’s work soon became well known in the city and she received financial assistance from gay bars, “They would twirl up a drag show on Saturday night and here’d come the money. That’s how we’d buy medicine, that’s how we’d pay rent. If it hadn’t been for the drag queens, I don’t know what we would have done”, Ruth said.

Over the next 30 years, Ruth cared for over 1,000 people and buried more than 40 on her family’s plot most of whom were gay men whose families would not claim their ashes.

Building the airport in this location will destroy an ancient landscape, one shaped by the Incan people with terraces and routes.

Critics also suggest that planes flying low over the nearby village of Ollantaytambo and its archaeological park filled with ruins and a massive Inca fortress with large stone terraces, would cause incalculable damage to fragile Inca ruins there and destroy the peace and beauty of the area.

The new airport will make access to the site much easier, and thus encourage greater numbers than ever before to visit.

But Machu Picchu is already overwhelmed by almost double the limit of tourists as recommended by UNESCO. [see also India’s Taj Mahal - an incredible site simply reeling under a relentless, ineffectively managed tourist, both domestic and international, onslaught]

Resources and Donations:

https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/

https://www.asianamericanadvocacyfund.org/

http://cpacs.org/

https://www.asianmhc.org/about-us

https://secure.qgiv.com/for/apfund/mobile

https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/support-georgias-asian-american-community/

https://www.napawf.org/donate

https://www.apalanet.org/

for those of you who don't know, music (2021) is a movie being directed by sia about a nonverable autistic girl. not only does it not include any actually autistic people in the movie itself but it also only took advice from autism speaks which is looked at as a hate group by the majority of the autistic community. leaked scenes have also shown the movie glorifying prone restraints which are incredibly dangerous and have resulted in major injuries and even death to disabled people as recently as last year.

autistic people just like me have been incredibly outspoken about how harmful this movie is but the allistic have been mostly silent. we are already seeing reviews calling this movie 'inspiring' and important' and it's absolutely horrific! we need your help calling this out. please stand with us and call out this disgusting display of disrespect to autistic folks.

💛 - your local actually autistic pal

no one touch me

in may, the teenager posted a tiktok video of herself sobbing, her face bruised and swollen, saying she’s been raped. instead of treating her as a victim, authorities jailed her, charging her with “debauchery” for wearing clothes they deemed immoral and with misusing social media. justice remains uneven for women and often hinges on their social class and wealth. an inadequate penal code, few prosecutions of sexual attackers, weak sexual harassment policies and harsh morality laws have worked to silence women.

on july 1, women in egypt took to social media accusing an affluent egyptian student of rapes and sexual assaults. nearly 50 accusers had come forward, and the number eventually exceeded 100. the alleged assaults and harassment began in 2016, according to women on social media. some women, including minors, said they met the young man in person or online when he was studying. others crossed paths with him at the american university in cairo.

after the social media fury, egyptian authorities arrested the man. in a five-page statement, the country’s prosecutor said the man admitted to meeting at least six young women online on different social media platforms. the prosecutor also made allegations that he said the young man denied, including that he threatened to send revealing photos of women to their families if they did not have sex with him or if they left the relationship.

since the man’s arrest, other alleged sexual offenders have been accused. they include mohamed nagy, a well-known activist, who was dismissed by his organization after it said he admitted to sexually harassing women on his facebook page. he apologized to his victims, blaming his actions on his “bad upbringing and the society around him.” he declined to comment when reached by telephone.

another rights group said it suspended an employee for sexual misconduct, and authorities detained a well-known publisher after he was accused of sexual harassment. which he denied in a facebook post. victims have also opened up about being abused at elite schools and in churches.

the social media campaign also prompted the government to amend the country’s criminal law to give judges the authority to protect the identity and personal details of sexual assault victims. the bill, which has been submitted to parliament for approval, raises hopes that more women will come forward to expose abuses. many universities and workplaces have either weak or no sexual harassment policies.

egypt’s penal code is sorely in need of amendments to better protect rape and assault survivors. there still isn’t a law that criminalizes domestic violence, despite years of promises by officials to address this legal gap. existing laws to punish sexual offenders have not always been enforced.

then there are the recent arrests over tiktok videos. authorities have targeted a number of women, accusing them of spreading immorality and debauchery and of violating egyptian family values. their “crime”: dancing and wearing what the authorities deemed were suggestive or revealing clothes. the prosecutor’s office is compelling el-Adham to undergo a “virginity test” to determine whether she has ever had vaginal intercourse. el-Adham refused to consent to the procedure when the prosecutor requested it earlier in the case.

here are two petitions you can sign to help:

you can also listen to this for more information.

nonbinary also is not a 3rd gender, it’s not meant to be there to turn the “binary” into a “trinary”. being nonbinary means a million different things to a million different people because gender is complicated so you can’t just treat it like a 3rd neat category for you to place people into.

French artist Nathalie Lété spent the quarantine painting her whole house.

Look at the doors. She even did the floors.

This is so cheerful, though.

Furniture, too. 

I’m not sure if this is the living room or the studio but I love it.

Painting kitchen tiles.

The upstairs hall. 

I like the painted headboard.

I like the tiles, but not the walls and the gold, so much.

Cute guest room in the attic. Very productive quarantine.